RAFAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes on Saturday hit parts of Gaza including Rafah where Israel expanded an evacuation order and the UN warned of “epic” disaster if an outright invasion of the crowded city occurs.
AFP journalists, medics and witnesses reported strikes from the south to the north of the coastal territory, where the UN says aid is blocked after Israeli troops defied international opposition and entered eastern Rafah this week, effectively shutting two crossings.
At least 21 people were killed during strikes in central Gaza and taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah city, a hospital statement said.
Bodies covered in white lay on the ground in a courtyard of the facility. A man in a baseball cap leaned over one body bag, clasping a dust-covered hand that protruded.
The feet of another corpse poked from under a blanket bearing the picture of a large teddy bear.
In Rafah, witnesses reported intense air strikes near the crossing with Egypt, and AFP images showed smoke rising over the city.
Other strikes occurred in north Gaza, they said.
Israeli troops on Tuesday seized and closed the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing — through which all fuel passes into Gaza — after ordering residents of eastern Rafah to evacuate.
Israel’s military said it went into eastern Rafah to pursue Palestinian militants.
Fighting continued on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing, the military reported on Friday, before on Saturday expanding its evacuation order to more areas of Rafah’s east.
Evacuation orders
The new order, posted on social media platform X by military spokesman Avichay Adraee, said the designated areas had “witnessed Hamas terrorist activities in recent days and weeks.”
The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
During their attack, militants also seized hostages. Israel estimates 128 of them remain in Gaza including 36 whom the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
A US State Department report on Friday said Israel likely violated norms on international law in its use of weapons from the United States but it did not find enough evidence to block shipments.
The State Department submitted its report two days after President Joe Biden publicly threatened to withhold certain bombs and artillery shells if Israel goes ahead with an all-out assault on Rafah, where the United Nations said 1.4 million had been sheltering.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to “eliminate” Hamas battalions in Rafah and achieve “total victory,” after the army in January said it had dismantled the Hamas command structure in northern Gaza.
But on Saturday Adraee said Hamas “is trying to rebuild” there, and ordered evacuations from the north’s Jabalia and Beit Lahia areas.
After rising criticism from Washington over the civilian impact of Israel’s war against Hamas, the threat to withhold weapons was the first time Biden raised the ultimate US leverage over Israel — its military aid which totals $3 billion annually.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that Gaza risked an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
While the army said it reopened Kerem Shalom crossing near Rafah on Wednesday, aid agencies cautioned that getting assistance through the militarised area remained extremely difficult.
Aid in limbo
A UN report late Friday cited Martin Griffiths, the UN’s aid chief, as saying closure of the crossings “means no aid.”
Israel has said its Erez crossing into northern Gaza remains open.
The State Department report said it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel has used American weapons in ways inconsistent with standards on humanitarian rights but that the United States could not reach “conclusive findings.”
The report does not affect Biden’s threat to withhold some weapons.
On Friday the White House said it did not yet see a “major ground operation” in Rafah but was watching the situation “with concern.”
Biden’s administration had already paused delivery of 3,500 bombs as Israel appeared ready to attack Rafah.
More than 100,000 people fled the city after the initial evacuation order, the United Nations said on Friday.
Israel on Saturday gave a figure of 300,000, as more Rafah residents piled water tanks, mattresses and other belongings onto vehicles and prepared to flee again.
Malek Al-Zaza, with a trim grey beard, said he has been displaced three times now during the war and found “no food” and “no water” in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp where he has returned.
“We only have God looking out for us,” he said.
Humanitarian crisis
Israel said it had delivered 200,000 liters of fuel to Gaza on Friday through Kerem Shalom — the amount the United Nations says is needed every day to keep aid trucks moving and hospital generators working.
Reiterating his calls for a ceasefire, Guterres said: “We are actively engaged with all involved for the resumption of the entry of life-saving supplies — including desperately needed fuel — through Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings.”
The evacuation order on Saturday told residents to go to the “humanitarian zone” of Al-Mawasi, on the coast northwest of Rafah.
That area has “extremely limited access to clean drinking water, latrines, et cetera,” said Sylvain Groulx, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) emergency coordinator in Gaza.
The army late Friday said rocket fire from Gaza wounded an Israeli civilian in the southern city of Beersheba. It was the first time since December that the city had come under Palestinian rocket attack.
In New York, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to grant the Palestinians additional rights in the global body and backed their drive for full membership.
Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the vote was historic, but Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the move told Hamas that “violence pays off.”
Israel strikes Gaza as more Rafah evacuations ordered
https://arab.news/58wmk
Israel strikes Gaza as more Rafah evacuations ordered
- Fighting is escalating across the enclave with heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hamas
- Israel’s move into Rafah has so far been short of the full-scale invasion that it has planned
King Abdullah, Bulgarian president co-chair Aqaba Process meetings in Sofia
- Initiative aims to bolster cooperation on security, counterterrorism issues
- King held separate talks with several regional leaders on sidelines of event
LONDON: King Abdullah II of Jordan and Bulgarian President Rumen Radev co-chaired the third round of the Aqaba Process meetings in Sofia on Friday, bringing together international leaders to address pressing security challenges in the Balkans and beyond, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The Aqaba Process Balkans III forum, jointly organized by Jordan and Bulgaria, tackled issues such as regional security, counterterrorism efforts, online radicalization and illegal migration. The participants also explored opportunities for greater international cooperation, including intelligence sharing and strategic partnerships in combating extremism.
Attending the event were heads of state, government officials and security representatives from Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Spain, Greece, Italy, France, the UK, US and Japan.
Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, King Abdullah’s personal envoy and chief adviser on religious and cultural affairs, was among the attendees, while several international organizations, including the EU, Interpol, Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, were also represented.
On the sidelines of the forum, King Abdullah held meetings with several regional leaders, including Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar, Albanian President Bajram Begaj, Kosovan President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu, North Macedonian President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova, Montenegrin President Jakov Milatovic and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
Launched by the king in 2015, the Aqaba Process is designed to enhance coordination between regional and international actors in the fight against terrorism and extremism. It fosters military, security and intelligence cooperation, focusing on counterterrorism strategies and the exchange of expertise.
Previous meetings have been hosted by Jordan, Albania, Brazil, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Rwanda, Singapore, Spain, the US and the UN General Assembly.
Discussions have covered diverse regions such as East Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, West Africa and the Sahel.
In Tunisia, snails inch toward replacing red meat as people turn to cheaper protein
- Snails have been consumed in Tunisia for more than seven millenia
- Low in fat and high in iron, calcium and magnesium, snails offer both nutritional value and economic relief
AKOUDA, Tunisia: In fields outside their hometown in central Tunisia, an increasing number of unemployed young men are seeking a new way to make a living, picking snails off of rocks and leaves and collecting them in large plastic bags to take to the local market to be sold.
More and more people, they say, are buying the shelled wanderers as the price of market staples remains high and out of reach for many families.
“They’re profitable, beneficial and quite in demand,” said Karim, a 29-year-old snail seller from the village of Akouda said.
Snails have been consumed in Tunisia for more than seven millenia, according to research published last year in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. In today’s world considered mostly a bistro delicacy, they’re again gaining traction in Tunisia as a practical alternative to red meat — a protein-rich substitute that pairs perfectly with salt, spices, and bold seasonings.
The snails are a lifeline for some in Tunisia, where youth unemployment now hovers above 40 percent and inflation remains high, three years after spiking to its highest levels in decades. A lack of opportunity has fueled social discontent throughout the country and, increasingly, migration to Europe.
Low in fat and high in iron, calcium and magnesium, snails offer both nutritional value and economic relief. In a country where unemployment runs high and median wages remain low, they cost about half as much as beef per kilogram and often less when sold by the bowl.
“Snails are better for cooking than lamb. If lamb meat costs 60 dinars ($19.30), a bowl of snails is five dinars ($1.60),” a man named Mohammed said at the Akouda market.
As the price of meat and poultry continues to rise, more Tunisians are turning to affordable, alternative sources of protein. Beyond their economic appeal, these substitutes are also drawing interest for their environmental benefits. Scientists say they offer a more sustainable solution, producing far fewer carbon emissions and avoiding the deforestation linked to traditional livestock farming.
Wahiba Dridi, who serves snails at her restaurant in Tunis, cooks them in a traditional fashion with peppers and spices. She said they were popular throughout this year’s Ramadan, which ended last week. Though Tunisian Muslims traditionally eat red meat at the meals during which they break their daily fasts, a kilogram of snails costs less than 28 Tunisian dinars ($9) compared to beef, which costs 55 dinars per kilogram ($18).
“If people knew the value of snails they would eat them all year long,” Dridi said.
US sending Israel 20,000 assault rifles that Biden had delayed, say sources
- The rifle sale is a small transaction next to the billions of dollars worth of weapons that Washington supplies to Israel
- The March 6 congressional notification said the US government had taken into account “political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations“
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration moved forward with the sale of more than 20,000 US-made assault rifles to Israel last month, according to a document seen by Reuters and a source familiar with the matter, pushing ahead with a sale that the administration of former president Joe Biden had delayed over concerns they could be used by extremist Israeli settlers.
The State Department sent a notification to Congress on March 6 for the $24 million sale, saying the end user would be the Israeli National Police, according to the document.
The rifle sale is a small transaction next to the billions of dollars worth of weapons that Washington supplies to Israel. But it drew attention when the Biden administration delayed the sale over concerns that the weapons could end up in the hands of Israeli settlers, some of whom have carried out attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on individuals and entities accused of committing violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has seen a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians.
On his first day in office on January 20, Trump issued an executive order rescinding US sanctions on Israeli settlers in a reversal of US policy. Since then, his administration has approved the sale of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel.
The March 6 congressional notification said the US government had taken into account “political, military, economic, human rights, and arms control considerations.”
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment when asked if the administration sought assurances from Israel on the use of the weapons.
CLOSE TIES
Since a 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state, and has built settlements that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.
Settler violence had been on the rise prior to the eruption of the Gaza war, and has worsened since the conflict began over a year ago.
Trump has forged close ties to Netanyahu, pledging to back Israel in its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. His administration has in some cases pushed ahead with Israel arms sales despite requests from Democratic lawmakers that the sales be paused until they received more information.
The US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly rejected a bid to block $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel over human rights concerns, voting 82-15 and 83-15 to reject two resolutions of disapproval over sales of massive bombs and other offensive military equipment.
The resolutions were offered by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
The rifle sale had been put on hold after Democratic lawmakers objected and sought information on how Israel was going to use them. The congressional committees eventually cleared the sale but the Biden administration kept the hold in place.
The latest episode in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict began with a Hamas attack on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023 with gunmen killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s campaign has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, Gaza health authorities say.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, oversees the Israeli police force. The Times of Israel newspaper in November 2023 reported that his ministry has put “a heavy emphasis on arming civilian security squads” in the aftermath of October 7 attacks.
Medecins Sans Frontieres ‘appalled’ by second staff member killed in Gaza within weeks
- Hussam Al Loulou died in the strike on Apr. 1 in central Gaza
GENEVA: Global medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said on Friday it was appalled and saddened by the killing of one of its staff by an air strike in Gaza, the second within two weeks.
Hussam Al Loulou died in the strike on Apr. 1 in central Gaza, alongside his wife and 28-year-old daughter, the organization said.
Uganda president holds talks with South Sudanese leaders to try to avoid civil war
- Goc said that the country’s leadership had assured Museveni of its commitment to implement the peace agreement
- Uganda last month deployed troops to South Sudan to support the government
NAIROBI: Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni was expected to meet South Sudanese officials on the second day of his trip to the capital, Juba, as the UN has expressed concern of a renewed civil war after the main opposition leader was put under house arrest.
Museveni, who is among the guarantors of a 2018 peace agreement that ended a five-year civil war, held closed-door discussions with President Salva Kiir on Thursday.
South Sudan’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdallah Goc said that the country’s leadership had assured Museveni of its commitment to implement the peace agreement.
South Sudan’s political landscape remains fragile and recent violence between government troops and armed groups allied to the opposition have escalated tension.
Uganda last month deployed troops to South Sudan to support the government, but it was criticized by South Sudan’s main opposition party SPLM-IO, whose leader Riek Machar is under house arrest on charges of incitement.
In early March, the armed group loyal to Machar attacked a UN helicopter that was on a mission to evacuate government troops from the restive northern Upper Nile State.
Western countries including Germany and Norway have temporarily closed their embassies in Juba while the USand the UK have reduced embassy staff.
