CAIRO: Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty has stressed the seriousness of Sudan’s ongoing civil war, which is now in its second year.
His remarks came as Cairo hosted a major conference on Saturday involving Sudan’s political and civil factions to find ways to end the conflict.
The gathering underscores Egypt’s dedication to assisting Sudan in overcoming its crisis and mitigating the severe impacts on its populace and regional stability, particularly affecting Sudan’s neighbors.
During his opening address, the minister emphasized the “catastrophic consequences that necessitate an immediate and lasting cessation of military activities to protect Sudanese national assets and facilitate a coordinated international humanitarian response.”
The goal is a comprehensive political resolution that aligns with the aspirations of the Sudanese people, he added.
Abdel Atty praised the substantial efforts and stances of neighboring countries that have welcomed millions of Sudanese refugees, sharing their limited resources amid harsh economic conditions.
He said Egypt had received thousands of Sudanese, adding that nearly 5 million had been residing there for many years.
The Egyptian government has extended urgent relief, including food, necessities, and medical supplies, to those affected by the conflict within Sudan.
This is alongside continuous development projects like the electric power linkage and the upgrade of the Wadi Halfa port.
The minister reaffirmed Egypt’s commitment to working with all parties to halt the “shedding of Sudanese blood, safeguard the achievements of the Sudanese people, aid in realizing their aspirations, and facilitate the smooth passage of international humanitarian aid through Egyptian territories.”
He insisted that any authentic political solution must originate from a purely Sudanese vision, free from external impositions, facilitated by international and regional bodies like the African Union, the Arab League, the UN, the EU, and other concerned nations.
Naila Hajjar, senior adviser to the UN secretary-general’s envoy to Sudan, expressed gratitude for Egypt’s diligent efforts to stop the conflict in Sudan.
She said she believes a solution could be achieved through an all-encompassing Sudanese dialogue crucial for establishing a firm peace foundation.
Subsiosa Wandira, deputy chairperson of the African Union Commission on Sudan, stressed the urgency of immediately ceasing hostilities.
She said the meeting in Cairo, driven by the desires of Sudan’s neighbors and friends, aims to bridge differences among Sudanese factions through dialogue.
EU Ambassador to Sudan Aidan O’Hara said he looked forward to collective action to resolve the crisis, stressing the necessity of a ceasefire and preventing further famine and strife.
Commenting on the conference, Ahmed Al-Taib, an expert on African affairs, noted the significance of the Cairo meeting.
He highlighted the readiness of the civil and political factions to participate, showing their recognition of the dire situation in their country and their trust in Cairo’s ability to pressure for consensus toward a political pathway for rebuilding Sudan on new foundations.
According to Sudan News, notable attendees at the conference included Abdullah Hamdok, leader of the Forces of Freedom and Change, Fadlallah Burma Nasser, head of the Umma Party, and representatives from various political parties, professional groups, civil society, and resistance committees.
Various sources, however, confirmed that the Rapid Support Forces did not participate in the conference.
Cairo conference urges immediate end to Sudan war
https://arab.news/vbfyn
Cairo conference urges immediate end to Sudan war
- Egyptian foreign minister calls for political resolution to ongoing crisis
- The goal is a comprehensive political resolution that aligns with the aspirations of the Sudanese people
US moves in Middle East are defensive, aimed at reducing tensions -White House
- US says move is not a prediction, it is prudent planning
WASHINGTON: The United States is telling its citizens to leave Lebanon and is deploying more military might in the Middle East as preventative and defensive measures, Jonathan Finer, White House National Security Council deputy adviser, said on Sunday.
“Our goal is de-escalation, our goal is deterrence, our goal is defense of Israel,” Finer said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Regional tensions have soared following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ top leader, in Tehran on Wednesday, a day after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a senior military commander from the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran.
Suspected missile attack by Yemen’s Houthis hits container ship in first attack in 2 weeks
- The Houthis have offered no explanation for the two-week pause in their attacks on shipping through the Red Sea corridor
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: A suspected missile attack by Yemen’s Houthi struck a container ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden, authorities said Sunday, likely the first assault by the group since Israeli airstrikes targeted them.
The Houthis have offered no explanation for the two-week pause in their attacks on shipping through the Red Sea corridor, which have seen similar slowdowns since the assaults began in November over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
But the resumption comes after the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, the Houthis’ main benefactor, amid renewed concerns over the war breaking out into a regional conflict.
The attack on Saturday happened some 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Aden in a stretch of the Gulf of Aden that has seen numerous Houthi attacks previously.
A security official on the vessel said a missile struck the vessel, but “no fires, water ingress or oil leaks have been observed,” according to a statement from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, a clearinghouse for information on attacks in the Mideast. The UKMTO did not immediately identify the vessel hit.
The private security firm Ambrey also reported the attack. Details reported by the two organizations suggested the vessel targeted was the Liberian-flagged container ship Groton, which had left Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates bound for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The Groton’s Greek managers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack Saturday. However, it can take the militia hours or even days before they acknowledge an assault.
The militia have targeted more than 70 vessels by firing missiles and drones in their campaign that have killed four sailors. They have seized one vessel and sunk two in the time since. Other missiles and drones have been either intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or splashed down before reaching their targets.
The Houthis maintain that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain as part of the militia’s campaign they say seeks to force an end to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the war — including some bound for Iran.
The Houthis also have launched drones and missiles toward Israel, including an attack July 19 that killed one person and wounded 10 others in Tel Aviv. Israel responded the next day with airstrikes on the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida that hit fuel depots and electrical stations, killing and wounding a number of people, the Houthis say.
In the time since, there has not been a reported attack on shipping through the Red Sea corridor, which links Asia and the Middle East onto Europe through the Suez Canal. Since November, Houthi attacks have disrupted the $1 trillion flow of goods passing through the region annually while also sparking the most-intense combat the US Navy has seen since World War II.
The killing of Haniyeh in Tehran has sparked concerns of a new escalation in the Israel-Hamas war. Already, the US military says it will move a fighter jet squadron to the Middle East and keep an aircraft carrier in the region.
The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group will enter the Middle East to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which is in the Gulf of Oman. Other ships are in the Mediterranean Sea with a Marine detachment if regional evacuations become necessary.
Meanwhile Saturday, the US military’s Central Command said its forces destroyed a Houthi missile and launcher in Yemen.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage, sparked the war. In the time since, Israel has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and 590 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials say.
Foreign nationals told to leave Lebanon
- France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to issue calls for their citizens to leave Lebanon
- Several Western airlines have suspended flights to the region
BEIRUT: Urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday with France warning of “a highly volatile” situation as Iran and its allies ready their response to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war broke out in October, announced its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel’s north overnight.
The Israeli military said 30 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, with most of them intercepted.
With Israel on high alert anticipating major military action from Tehran-aligned armed groups including Hezbollah and Hamas, medics and police said two people were killed on Sunday in a stabbing attack in a Tel Aviv suburb.
The assailant, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, was “neutralized” by police and taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Israeli forces meanwhile kept bombarding the Gaza Strip, witnesses and officials in the besieged Hamas-ruled territory said, with no end in sight to the nearly 10-month Israeli agression on Gaza.
France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to issue calls for their citizens to leave Lebanon.
“In a highly volatile security context,” French nationals were “urgently asked” to avoid traveling to Lebanon, and those already in the country “to make their arrangements now to leave... as soon as possible,” the foreign ministry in Paris said.
The United States and Britain have issued similar warnings.
Several Western airlines have suspended flights to the region.
On Sunday Qatar Airways said that “in light of recent developments in Lebanon,” the Doha-Beirut route “will operate exclusively during daylight hours” at least until Monday.
The killing Wednesday of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, hours after the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah’s military chief in Beirut, has triggered vows of vengeance from Iran and the so-called “axis of resistance” of Tehran-backed armed groups.
Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack that killed Haniyeh, has not directly commented on it.
Israel’s agression on the Gaza strip has killed at least 39,550 people, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief, was the group’s lead negotiator in efforts to end the war.
His killing raised questions about the continued viability of efforts by Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators to broker a truce and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
On the ground in Gaza, fighting continued on Sunday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said eight bodies had been recovered from a residential building in north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp after an Israeli air strike.
Medics at central Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said at least five people were killed and 16 wounded in an Israeli drone strike on tents housing displaced Palestinians at the medical complex, with a separate attack on a house nearby in the same area killing three.
On Saturday, an Israeli strike on a school turned displacement shelter killed at least 17 people, the civil defense agency said. Israel claims the facility was used by militants.
An AFP correspondent reported Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling early Sunday in and around Gaza City, while witnesses said there was more shelling, gunfire and at least two air strikes on the territory’s south.
The Israeli military said its air forces had struck “approximately 50 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in the past 24 hours.
Israeli ally the United States said it would move warships and fighter jets to the region to protect US personnel and defend Israel.
Analysts have told AFP that a joint but measured action from Iran and its allies was likely, while Tehran said it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.
US President Joe Biden, asked by reporters if he thought Iran would stand down, said: “I hope so. I don’t know.”
On Sunday, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi will visit Tehran to meet his Iranian counterpart, his ministry said.
Haniyeh’s killing “has brought the Middle East to its moment of greatest peril in years,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a report issued on Saturday.
“The risk of a spiralling conflagration is high,” with the potential for a miscalculation that would trigger a war “without constraints... likely greater now than it was in April,” it added.
On April 13, Iran launched its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles — most of which were intercepted — after a strike killed Revolutionary Guards at Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
The ICG said that securing “a long overdue ceasefire” in Gaza was “the best way of meaningfully reducing tensions in the region.”
Hamas officials but also some analysts as well as protesters in Israel have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war to safeguard his ruling hard-right coalition.
On Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet he was “making every effort” to return the hostages and was prepared “to go a long way” to do so.
Jordan’s foreign minister to hold talks in Iran amid regional tensions
- Safadi will also deliver a message to Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian on regional developments and bilateral relations
- Safadi would be the first senior Jordanian official to pay an official visit to Iran in over 20 years
AMMAN: Jordan’s foreign minister Ayman Safadi is set to make a rare visit to Iran on Sunday for talks with his Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri-Kani on regional developments, state news agency Petra reported.
Safadi will also deliver a message on behalf of King Abdullah II to Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian regarding the situation in the region and bilateral relations.
Earlier the official news agency in Iran, IRNA, said that Safadi would “exchange views with Iranian officials on regional and international issues” during his visit to Tehran.
The royal court in Amman also said that King Abdullah had received a phone call from French President Emmanuel Macron “which covered the dangerous situation in the region.”
The king appealed “further international efforts to reach comprehensive calm and prevent a regional expansion of the conflict,” a statement said.
Regional tensions have spiked following the assassination of Haniyeh on Wednesday, which came a day after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a senior military commander from the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Hamas and Iran have both accused Israel of carrying out the assassination of Haniyeh and have pledged to retaliate. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the death nor denied it.
Safadi would be the first senior Jordanian official to pay an official visit to Iran in over 20 years.
The last time a senior Jordanian official traveled to Iran on an official visit was in 2004 when then-Prime Minister Faisal Al-Fayez went to Tehran.
Iran has held talks with multiple Arab countries including Jordan, Egypt, Oman and Qatar among others since Haniyeh’s killing.
Tehran repeatedly reaffirmed its “inherent right” to take action against Israel.
Strikes on Gaza kill 18 and stabbing in Israel kills 2 as war fears surge
- A woman in her 70s and an 80-year-old man were killed in the stabbing attack
- Palestinian militant “neutralized” and a search underway for other suspects
TEL AVIV: Israeli strikes early Sunday killed 18 people in Gaza, including four who were sheltering in a tent camp for displaced Palestinians inside a hospital complex, while a stabbing attack carried out by a Palestinian killed two people in a Tel Aviv suburb.
Tensions have soared following nearly 10 months of war in Gaza and the killing of two senior militants in separate strikes in Lebanon and Iran last week. Those killings brought threats of revenge from Iran and its allies and raised fears of an even more destructive regional war.
A woman in her 70s and an 80-year-old man were killed in the stabbing attack, according to Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service and a nearby hospital, and two other men were wounded. The police said the attack was carried out by a Palestinian militant, who was “neutralized.”
The rescuers said the wounded were found in three different locations, each about 500 meters (yards) apart. Police initially said they were searching for other suspects but later ruled out the possibility of there having been more than one assailant.
Israel has been bracing for retaliation after the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike in Lebanon and Hamas’ top political leader in an attack in Iran’s capital last week. Both targeted killings were linked to the ongoing war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel.
In Gaza, an Israeli strike earlier on Sunday hit a tent camp housing displaced Palestinians in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, killing four people, including one woman, and injuring others, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
An Associated Press journalist filmed men rushing to the scene to help the wounded and retrieve bodies, while trying to extinguish the fire.
The Israeli military said it targeted a Palestinian militant in the strike, which it said caused secondary explosions, “indicating the presence of weaponry in the area.”
The hospital in Deir Al-Balah is the main medical facility operating in central Gaza, and thousands of people have taken shelter there after fleeing their homes in the war-ravaged territory. A separate strike on a home near Deir Al-Balah killed a girl and her parents, according to the hospital.
Another strike flattened a house in northern Gaza, killing at least eight people, including three children, their parents and their grandmother, according to the ministry. Another three people were killed in a strike on a vehicle in Gaza City, according to the Civil Defense — first responders who operate under the Hamas-run government.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired at least five projectiles at Israeli communities near the border on Sunday, without causing casualties or damage, the military said.
An Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City on Saturday killed at least 16 people and wounded another 21, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which announced the toll on Sunday. Israel’s military, which regularly accuses Palestinian militants of sheltering in civilian areas, said it struck a Hamas command center.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians, but the military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. Gaza’s Health Ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in its tallies.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 people hostage in their surprise attack into southern Israel last October.
Israel’s massive offensive launched in Gaza has killed at least 39,550 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were militants. Heavy airstrikes and ground operations have caused widespread destruction and displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Hezbollah has regularly traded fire with Israel along the Lebanon border since the start of the war, in what the militant group says is aimed at relieving pressure on its fellow Iran-backed ally, Hamas. The continuous strikes and counterstrikes have grown in severity in recent months, raising fears of an even more destructive regional war.
Over 590 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have been killed during Israeli raids and violent protests. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
