JERUSALEM: Thousands of Jewish ultra-Orthodox men clashed with Israeli police in central Jerusalem on Sunday during a protest against a Supreme Court order for them to begin enlisting for military service.
The landmark decision last week ordering the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition as Israel wages war in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of men rallied in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood to protest the order. But after nightfall, the crowd made its way toward central Jerusalem and turned violent.
Israeli police said protesters threw rocks and attacked the car of an ultra-Orthodox Cabinet minister, pelting it with stones. Water cannons filled with skunk-scented water and police mounted on horses were used to disperse the crowd. But the demonstration was still not under control late Sunday.
Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel. But politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties have won exemptions for their followers to skip military service and instead study in religious seminaries.
The long-standing arrangement has bred resentment among the broader public, a sentiment that has grown stronger during the eight-month war against Hamas. Over 600 soldiers have been killed in fighting, and tens of thousands of reservists have been activated, upending careers, businesses and lives.
Ultra-Orthodox parties and their followers say forcing their men to serve in the army will destroy their generations-old way of life. Earlier Sunday, thousands of men crowded a square and joined in mass prayers. Many held signs criticizing the government, with one saying “not even one male” should be drafted.
The ultra-Orthodox parties are key members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition and could potentially force new elections if they decide to leave the government in protest.
Party leaders have not said whether they will leave the government. Doing so could be risky, with Netanyahu’s coalition’s popularity lagging since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that sparked the war.
Ultra-Orthodox protest against order to enlist in Israeli military turns violent in Jerusalem
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Ultra-Orthodox protest against order to enlist in Israeli military turns violent in Jerusalem
- Tens of thousands of men rallied in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood to protest the order
- Israeli police said protesters threw rocks and attacked the car of an ultra-Orthodox Cabinet minister, pelting it with stones
Seven protesters killed in north Syria clashes with Turkish forces
- Protests in the Turkish-controlled border strip followed a rampage a day earlier against Syrian businesses and properties in central Turkiye
- Hundreds of Syrians demonstrated throughout the Ankara-controlled area, with some armed protesters attacking Turkish trucks and military posts
AZAZ, Syria: Clashes between armed protesters and guards of Turkish positions in Syria’s north killed seven people, a medical source and a war monitor said Tuesday in a revised toll.
The protests Monday in the Turkish-controlled border strip followed a rampage a day earlier against Syrian businesses and properties in central Turkiye, where a Syrian man had been accused of harassing a child.
“Seven protesters have been killed... during exchanges of fire with people guarding Turkish positions,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Six were killed in the city of Afrin and one in Jarablus, said the British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
It did not specify whether the protesters killed were armed or not.
A medical source in northern Syria also told AFP seven people had been killed in the violence.
Calm prevailed on Tuesday morning, AFP correspondents in the area said.
On Monday, hundreds of Syrians demonstrated throughout the Ankara-controlled area, with some armed protesters attacking Turkish trucks and military posts, and taking down Turkish flags.
Some even attempted to storm crossing points, clashing with Turkish border guards.
According to the Syrian Observatory, four border crossings with Turkiye have been shut in the wake of the violence.
The protests also extended to the rebel-held Idlib region, near the Turkish-controlled area, an AFP correspondent and the Observatory said.
Earlier Tuesday, Turkish authorities said they detained 474 people after the anti-Syrian riots.
Since 2016, Turkiye has carried out successive ground operations to expel Kurdish forces from border areas of northern Syria.
Pro-Turkish forces in Syria now control two vast strips of territory along the border.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan supported early rebel efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad at the start of the war in 2011.
But he has reversed course in recent years, with top officials from both countries meeting in Russian-mediated talks.
On Friday, Erdogan had pointed to a possible meeting with Assad, saying it was “not impossible.”
Turkiye, which hosts some 3.2 million Syrian refugees, has been shaken several times by bouts of xenophobic violence in recent years, often triggered by rumors spreading on social media and instant messaging applications.
Turkiye detained hundreds after anti-Syrian riots: minister
- A group of men targeted Syrian businesses and properties in Kayseri on Sunday, with videos on social media showing a grocery store being set on fire
Istanbul: Turkish authorities said Tuesday they had detained over 470 people after anti-Syrian riots in several cities sparked by accusations that a Syrian man had harassed a child.
“474 people were detained after the provocative actions” carried out against Syrians in Turkiye, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X.
Tensions escalated from Sunday following violence in a central Anatolian city after a Syrian man was accused of harassing a child.
A group of men targeted Syrian businesses and properties in Kayseri on Sunday, with videos on social media showing a grocery store being set on fire.
In one of the videos a Turkish man was heard shouting: “We don’t want any more Syrians! We don’t want any more foreigners.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused the opposition of stoking tensions while condemning the latest bout of violence against the Syrians as “unacceptable.”
But the violence spread to several other cities late on Monday including Istanbul and authorities have often called for calm.
Turkish police boosted security around the Syrian consulate in Istanbul, deploying an armored truck and patrolling the vicinity, according to an AFP journalist.
250,000 in southern Gaza hit by Israel’s new evacuation order: UN
- Israeli army Monday issued a new evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah in southern Gaza
- The fighting since then has again uprooted many Palestinians and led to the closure of a key aid crossing
Geneva: The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees estimated Tuesday that a quarter of a million people had been impacted since Israel’s army issued a new evacuation order for parts of southern Gaza a day earlier.
“We’ve seen people moving, families moving, people starting to pack up their belongings and try to leave this area,” UNRWA spokeswoman Louise Wateridge told reporters in Geneva via video-link from Gaza.
The agency “estimates that around 250,000 people have been impacted by these orders,” she said, adding: “We expect these numbers to grow.”
Her comments came after the Israeli army Monday issued a new evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis and Rafah in southern Gaza.
The 250,000 number was UNRWA’s estimate for the people in the area of new evacuation orders in eastern Khan Yunis, Wateridge told AFP.
“We expect that almost all of these people will move from this area,” she said, adding that the agency hoped to get a better idea later Tuesday of the numbers who have physically left.
Monday’s evacuation order followed mass displacement from large parts of Rafah that began with a similar order nearly two months ago, which signalled the start of a long-feared Israeli ground offensive.
The fighting since then has again uprooted many Palestinians and led to the closure of a key aid crossing.
“This is another devastating blow to the humanitarian response here,” Wateridge said.
“It’s another devastating blow for the people and the families on the ground. It seems that they are forcibly being displaced again, and again.”
She pointed out that following the start of the Rafah incursion in May, people had flooded back into the largely destroyed Khan Yunis area.
“And now already, because of the orders last night, the same families are having to move again,” she said.
“There is absolutely no safe place in the Gaza Strip.”
Gaza’s deadliest war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive aimed at eradicating the Palestinians militants in Gaza has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
UN seeks help for tens of thousands of Sudan refugees fleeing to Libya, Uganda
- At least 20,000 Sudanese refugees had arrived in Libya since last year, with arrivals accelerating in recent months
GENEVA: The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday it is expanding its Sudan aid plan to two new countries, Libya and Uganda, as arrivals surge.
Sudan is already the world’s worst displacement crisis with some 12 million forced to flee by the civil war and over 2 million being displaced across borders. The latest expansion of the UN response plan brings to seven the total number of African countries taking in large numbers of Sudanese refugees.
The Libya arrivals raise the prospect that the refugees may continue their journey to Europe — a scenario which UNHCR’s chief has already warned about if aid is not provided.
A UNHCR planning document published on Tuesday showed that the agency expects to receive 149,000 in Libya before year-end. It projects 55,000 for Uganda which does not share a direct border with Sudan. “It just speaks to the desperate situation and desperate decisions that people are making, that they end up in a place like Libya which is of course extremely, extremely difficult for refugees right now,” the UNHCR’s Ewan Watson told reporters in Geneva.
Already at least 20,000 refugees had arrived in Libya since last year, with arrivals accelerating in recent months and many thousands more unregistered, Watson added. At least 39,000 Sudanese refugees had arrived in Uganda since the war began, he said.
Lebanon says Israeli GPS jamming confounding ground, air traffic
- For months, whacky location data on apps have caused confusion in Lebanon
- Israel has taken measures to disrupt Global Positioning System functionality for Hamas and other opponents
BEIRUT: Uber driver Hussein Khalil was battling traffic in Beirut when he found himself in the Gaza Strip — according to his online map, anyway — as location jamming blamed on Israel disrupts life in Lebanon.
“We’ve been dealing with this problem a lot for around five months,” said Khalil, 36.
“Sometimes we can’t work at all,” the disgruntled driver said on Beirut’s chaotic, car-choked streets.
“Of course, we are losing money.”
For months, whacky location data on apps have caused confusion in Lebanon, where the Hezbollah militant group has been engaged in cross-border clashes with Israel.
The near-daily exchanges started after Hamas, Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally, launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.
In March, Beirut lodged a complaint with the United Nations about “attacks by Israel on Lebanese sovereignty in the form of jamming the airspace around” the Beirut airport.
Khalil showed screenshots of apps displaying his locations not only in the Gazan city of Rafah — around 300 kilometers away — but also in east Lebanon near the Syrian border, when he was actually in Beirut.
With online maps loopy, Khalil said “one passenger phoned me and asked, ‘Are you in Baalbek?’” referring to a city in east Lebanon.
“I told her: ‘No, I’ll be at your location (in Beirut) in two minutes’.”
Numerous residents have reported their online map location as appearing at Beirut airport while they were actually elsewhere in the capital.
Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israel has taken measures to disrupt Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality for the group and other opponents.
The Israeli army said in October that it disrupted GPS “in a proactive manner for various operational needs.”
It warned of “various and temporary effects on location-based applications.”
Specialist site gpsjam.org, which compiles geolocation signal disruption data based on aircraft data reports, reported a low level of disruption around Gaza on October 7.
But the next day, disturbances increased around the Palestinian territory and also along the border between Israel and Lebanon.
On June 28, the level of interference showing on the site was high above Lebanon and parts of Syria, Jordan and Israel.
An AFP journalist in Jerusalem said her location appeared as if she was in Cairo, Egypt’s capital about 400 kilometers away.
The interference has at times extended to European Union member Cyprus, some 200 kilometers from Lebanon, where AFP journalists have reported their GPS location appearing at Beirut airport instead of on the island.
“Israel is using GPS jamming to disrupt or interfere with Hezbollah’s communications,” said Freddy Khoueiry, global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at risk intelligence company RANE.
It is “also using GPS spoofing... to send false GPS signals, aimed at disrupting and hindering drones’ and precision-guided missiles’ abilities to function or hit their targets,” he added.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah has “a large arsenal” of such GPS-assisted weapons, he noted.
The cross-border exchanges have killed more than 490 people in Lebanon — mostly fighters — according to an AFP tally, with 26 people killed in northern Israel, according to authorities there.
Fears have grown of all-out conflict between the foes that last went to war in 2006.
Asked about GPS jamming in northern Israel, where Hezbollah has concentrated its attacks, a spokesperson for Israel’s defense ministry said’s Jerusalem office that “currently, we are unable to discuss operational matters.”
Lebanon’s civil aviation chief Fadi El-Hassan said that since March, the body has asked pilots flying in or out of Beirut to “rely on ground navigation equipment and not on GPS signals due to the ongoing interference in the region.”
Ground navigation equipment is typically used as a back-up system.
Hassan expressed frustration that “in this technological age, a pilot who wants to land at our airport cannot use GPS due to Israeli enemy interference.”
Lebanon is ensuring “the maintenance of ground navigation equipment at all times in order to provide the necessary signals for pilots to land safely,” he said.
Avedis Seropian, a licensed pilot, said he had stopped using GPS in recent months.
“We got used to the situation. I don’t rely on (GPS) at all... I fly relying on a compass and paper map,” he said.
But he said not having GPS, even as a fallback, was disconcerting.
When geolocation data is wrong and visibility is poor, “you can suddenly find yourself in a state of panic,” he said.
“That could lead to an accident or a disaster.”
