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.
UN seeks help for tens of thousands of Sudan refugees fleeing to Libya, Uganda
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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
‘Unprecedented’ number of journalists arrested in Palestine since Oct. 7
- Number of Palestinian journalists in Israeli prisons likely higher due to the increasing difficulty of verifying data
- Fifty-one arrests took place in Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem since Oct. 7 by Israeli and Palestinian authorities
LONDON: An “unprecedented” total of 51 arrests of journalists in Palestine have been documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists since the start of Israel’s onslaught on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, the press rights NGO said on Wednesday.
CPJ said that the arrests took place in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with 48 journalists detained by Israel and three by the Palestinian authorities.
Fifteen of the journalists, including those held by the Palestinian authorities, have been released, while 36 remain in Israel’s custody.
Moreover, 15 of those arrested by Israel are being held under administrative detention without charges. This form of detention can last from six months to years.
However, the number of Palestinian journalists in Israeli prisons is likely higher than what CPJ has documented due to the increasing difficulty of acquiring and verifying data during wartime.
“Since October 7, Israel has been arresting Palestinian journalists in record numbers and using administrative detention to keep them behind bars, thus depriving the region not only of much-needed information, but also of Palestinian voices on the conflict,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York.
“If Israel wants to live up to its self-styled reputation of being the only democracy in the Middle East, it needs to release detained Palestinian journalists and stop using military courts to hold them without evidence.”
Currently imprisoned journalists include Rasha Hirzallah, a reporter for the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA; Mahmoud Fatafta, a columnist and political commentator; Bilal Hamid Al-Taweel, who contributes to multiple outlets such as Al-Jazeera; Mahmoud Adel Ma’atan Barakat, a radio producer for the Wattan Media Network; and freelance journalist Rula Hassanein.
Released journalists include Khalil Dweeb, a freelance camera operator; Ahmed Al-Bitawi, a reporter for Sanad News Agency; Maher Haroun, a freelance journalist and media student at Al-Quds Open University; and Ismail Al-Ghoul, an Al-Jazeera correspondent.
Neither Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet nor the Palestinian General Intelligence Service have replied to CPJ’s requests for comment about those arrested.
CPJ documented in 2023 the imprisonment of 17 Palestinian journalists by Israeli authorities, saying that it was the highest number of media arrests in Israel and the Palestinian territories since CPJ began tracking jailed journalists in 1992.
Tunisian police arrest candidate for presidential election
- Lotfi Mraihi faces charges of money laundering and opening bank accounts abroad without a license from the central bank
- Mraihi’s arrest comes as opposition parties accused Saied’s government of exerting pressure on the judiciary to track down Saied’s rivals in the 2024 elections
TUNIS: The head of a Tunisian opposition party, Lotfi Mraihi, who has announced his intention to run in a presidential election set for October, has been arrested by police on suspicion of money laundering.
Mraihi, the leader of Republican Union Party, and one of the most prominent critics of President Kais Saied, was arrested late on Wednesday, politicians and local media said.
Tunis court spokesman said earlier this week that Mraihi faces charges of money laundering and opening bank accounts abroad without a license from the central bank.
Mraihi’s arrest comes as opposition parties, many of whose leaders are in prison, accused Saied’s government of exerting pressure on the judiciary to track down Saied’s rivals in the 2024 elections and pave the way for him to win a second term.
Elected president in 2019, Saied has not officially announced his candidacy for the election expected in Oct.6, but is widely expected to seek a second term. He said last year he will not hand power to what he called non-patriots.
Abir Moussi, the leader of the Free Constitutional Party and a prominent candidate, has been in prison since last year on charges of harming public security.
Moussi’s party says she was imprisoned in an effort to remove her from the election race and avoid a strong candidate. The authorities deny this.
Other candidates including Safi Saeed, Nizar Chaari and Abd Ellatif Mekki are facing prosecution for alleged crimes such as fraud and money laundering.
Mondher Znaidi, a prominent potential candidate who is living in France, is also facing prosecution on suspicion of financial corruption.
The opposition says fair and credible elections cannot be held unless imprisoned politicians are released and the media is allowed to do its job without pressure from the government.
Saied seized almost all powers in 2021, dissolved parliament, and began ruling by decree in a move that the opposition described as a coup. Saied said his steps were legal and necessary to end years of rampant corruption among the political elite.
Prominent opponents of the president have been detained since last year on charges of conspiring against state security, in a crackdown that included businessmen, media figures and politicians.
Hezbollah fires over 200 rockets into Israel after killing of senior commander
- Hezbollah’s attack was one of the largest in the monthslong conflict along the Lebanon-Israel border
- Israel strikes south Lebanon after Hezbollah rockets
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and explosive drones Thursday at Israeli military positions as tensions have soared amid the almost nine-months-old Gaza war.
The Iran-backed militant group said its latest attack, which followed the launch of over 100 rockets the previous day, was in response to Israel’s killing of a senior Hezbollah commander.
Israel did not report any deaths in its northern border area, where most communities have been evacuated, but quickly said it had responded with air strikes on targets in southern Lebanon.
Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, stoking fears that the clashes could escalate into a new all-out war.
The Israeli military said its forces were “striking launch posts in southern Lebanon” after “numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” most of which were intercepted.
It said “fires broke out in a number of areas in northern Israel” following the attacks.
Israel on Wednesday killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Mohammed Naameh Nasser, near the Lebanese coastal town of Tyre.
A source close to the group described Nasser as the “Hezbollah commander responsible for one of three sectors in south Lebanon.”
Hezbollah said that “as part of the response to the... assassination carried out by the enemy” it had fired “more than 200 rockets of various types” and “a squadron of explosive drones” at Israeli bases including in the annexed Golan Heights.
Air raid sires blared across northern Israel in the morning, and an AFP correspondent witnessed rockets crossing the frontier that were intercepted by Israeli air defenses.
War on Gaza
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel 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 has killed at least 37,953 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, have exchanged near daily cross-border fire since the Gaza war erupted, stoking fears of an escalation.
The border clashes have killed at least 496 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israeli authorities say at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday that “we’re very worried about the escalation of the exchange of fire.”
He warned of the potential risks to the region “as a whole if we were to find ourselves in a full fledged conflict.”
The Gaza war has raged on, and gunbattles, air strikes and artillery shelling rocked Gaza City for an eight day as thousands of Palestinians joined an exodus of far-southern areas near Egypt after an army evacuation order.
Long-stalled efforts toward a Gaza truce and hostage release deal regained some momentum after Hamas said late Wednesday it had sent new “ideas” to mediators and Israel confirmed it was “evaluating” them.
The Israeli military said its troops are fighting militants in the streets of Gaza City and destroying their infrastructure, tunnel shafts and weapons depots.
Troops over the past day “destroyed tunnel routes in the area and eliminated dozens of terrorists in close-quarters combat with tank fire, and in aerial strikes,” said the military.
Fears of renewed heavy fighting have also surged in Gaza’s southern areas near the cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah after the military on Monday issued a sweeping evacuation order that the UN said impacted 250,000 people.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the army will destroy Hamas and bring home the remaining hostages.
The United Nations has long urged a ceasefire, and its humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, this week again called for an end to the “maelstrom of human misery.”
Israel weighs Hamas response to Gaza ceasefire proposal
- Israeli security cabinet to meet on Gaza ceasefire proposal
- PM Netanyahu, officials to discuss Hamas response
GAZA: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his security cabinet on Thursday evening to discuss new Hamas positions on a ceasefire deal in Gaza, a source in Netanyahu’s office said, as fighting in the enclave raged.
Before the cabinet meets, Netanyahu will have consultations with his ceasefire negotiations team, the source also said.
Israel received Hamas’ response on Wednesday to a proposal made public at the end of May by US President Joe Biden that would include the release of about 120 hostages held in Gaza and a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.
A Palestinian official close to the mediation effort told Reuters that Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, has shown flexibility over some clauses, that would allow a framework agreement to be reached should Israel approve.
Two Hamas officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Hamas has said any deal must end the nearly nine-month war and bring a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel maintains it will accept only temporary pauses in the fighting until Hamas is eradicated.
The plan entails the gradual release of Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza and the pullback of Israeli forces over the first two phases, as well as the freeing of Palestinian prisoners. The third phase involves the reconstruction of the war-shattered territory and the return of the remains of deceased hostages.
Palestinians cautiously hopeful
In Gaza, Palestinians reacted cautiously. “We hope that this is the end of the war, we are exhausted and we can’t stand more setbacks and disappointments,” said Youssef, a father of two, now displaced in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave.
“Every more hour into this war, more people die, and more houses get destroyed, so enough is enough. I say this to my leaders, to Israel and the world,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
Tanks shelled several areas on the eastern side of Khan Younis on Thursday after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders on Tuesday, but there has been no movement by the tanks into those areas, residents said.
On Thursday, many Palestinians were still seeking shelter following the evacuation order, which also included the border city of Rafah and which the United Nations said was the largest such edict since 1.1 million people were told to leave the north of the enclave in October.
Khan Younis residents said many families slept on the road because they could not find tents.
Israeli planes and tanks bombed several areas in the northern Gaza areas of Shejaia, Sabra, Daraj, and Tuffah, killing several Palestinians, including children, and wounding others, health officials said.
The Israeli military said that its troops and aircraft killed dozens of militants in those areas and in Rafah, in southern Gaza, which Israel has described as Hamas’ last stronghold.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas gunmen burst into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killed 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages back into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The offensive launched by Israel in retaliation has killed nearly 38,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the heavily built-up coastal enclave in ruins.
Iraqi armed groups say ready to fight Israel if Lebanon war breaks out
- The bloodiest-ever Gaza war broke out when Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7
- The conflict quickly widened to involve several pro-Iran armed groups in the so-called “Axis of Resistance”
BAGHDAD: As war rages in Gaza and threatens to spread to Lebanon, Iraqi militant groups warn they are ready to enter the fray against Israel and the United States.
A field commander of the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq said there would be “escalation for escalation” in the event of a full-scale war in Lebanon.
The commander, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the Iran-backed group had already sent “experts and advisers” to Lebanon.
Iraqi political scientist Ali Al-Baidar agreed that a major war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, if it happens, “will not be limited to Lebanese territory.”
“In Iraq and in the region armed groups will enter into the confrontation,” he said, adding that they would want to show “their abilities, but also their loyalty” to their allies.
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war broke out when Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7.
The conflict quickly widened to involve several pro-Iran armed groups in the so-called “Axis of Resistance” expressing solidarity with the Palestinians and demanding an end of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
The alliance includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have attacked Israel and Israeli-linked shipping, but also armed groups in Syria and Iraq.
In recent weeks, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for drone strikes against targets in Israel, labelling many of them “joint operations” with the Houthis.
The Israeli army, without naming an attacker, has confirmed several aerial attacks from the east since April, but has said they were all intercepted before entering its airspace.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has previously shown its willingness to launch attacks.
Last winter, it carried out more than 175 rocket and drone strikes against US troops based in Iraq and Syria as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.
On Sunday, the so-called Coordination of the Iraqi Resistance issued further threats against Israel and Israel’s top ally the United States.
Citing the threat of “total war against Lebanon,” it warned that “if the Zionists (Israelis) carry out their threats, the pace and scale of operations targeting them will intensify.”
It added that “the interests of the American enemy” in Iraq and around the region would also be “legitimate targets.”
The group includes the Hezbollah Brigades, Al-Nujaba and the Sayyed Al-Shuhada Brigades, all of whom are under US sanctions.
Al-Baidar noted the past experience of “operations and attacks against American forces and diplomatic missions” in Iraq.
“It is possible these attacks will repeat themselves with greater intensity,” he said.
In late January, a drone strike launched by Iraqi armed groups killed three US soldiers in a base just across the border in Jordan and provoked an armed response.
The US military — which has some 2,500 troops deployed in Iraq and 900 in Syria with the international coalition — responded with deadly strikes against pro-Iran factions and has vowed to retaliate if attacked again.
“We will not hesitate to take all appropriate actions to protect our personnel,” a State Department spokesperson told AFP, requesting anonymity.
“Iran-aligned militia groups in Iraq undermine Iraq’s sovereignty by conducting unauthorized attacks against third countries, potentially making Iraq a party to a larger regional conflict.”
Many of the Iraqi factions have fighters who are veterans of Iraq’s recent wars or have been deployed in the civil war in Syria, which is separated from Israel by the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Militants are based south of the capital Damascus, and “elite troops” are stationed in the Golan region near the Israeli-occupied sector, says the group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Iraq specialist Tamer Badawi said the importance of Iraqi groups’ “coordinated attacks” carried out with the Houthis “lies in their symbolism.”
He said they aim to highlight “the idea that groups separated by significant geographic distances are capable of synchronizing their armed action against a common adversary.”
Badawi, a doctoral student at Kent University, said any Iraqi intervention in Lebanon — whether by sending “fighters en masse” or just “advisers” — would “depend on Hezbollah’s warfare needs.”
The scale of mobilization would respond to the need of “projecting the optics of transnational solidarity,” Badawi said.
“Symbolism matters for those groups across the region and is part of their branding as members of one league, as much as actual involvement in armed action.”
Many analysts suggest Israel, Hezbollah and Iran do not want a costly full-scale war in Lebanon but caution about the potential for miscalculations that could escalate tensions dangerously.
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah recently tempered the zeal of his allies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen on the subject of sending their fighters to Lebanon.
Regarding “human resources,” Nasrallah said, “the resistance in Lebanon has numbers exceeding its needs and the imperatives of the front, even in the worst fighting conditions.”
