Israel FM calls to ‘swiftly eliminate’ new Hamas chief Sinwar
The appointment of arch-terrorist Sinwar, is yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him, said Katz
Updated 06 August 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israel’s foreign minister called on Tuesday to “swiftly eliminate” Yahya Sinwar, who was appointed by Hamas as the group’s new political leader replacing Ismail Haniyeh who was killed in Tehran last week.
The appointment of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him and wipe this vile organization off the face of the earth.
“The appointment of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar as the new leader of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is yet another compelling reason to swiftly eliminate him and wipe this vile organization off the face of the Earth,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement on social media site X.
Edward B. Johnson, the second CIA officer in Iran for the ‘Argo’ rescue mission, dies at age 81
Both Johnson and Mendez received the CIA’s Intelligence Star, its second-highest award for valor, for the operation
Updated 9 sec ago
AP
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Edward B. Johnson, who as a Central Intelligence Agency officer traveled into Iran with a colleague to rescue six American diplomats who fled the 1979 US Embassy takeover in Tehran, has died, the CIA confirmed on Monday. He was 81.
Johnson’s identity for decades had been hidden from the public, with him known only by the pseudonym “Julio” after fellow CIA officer Antonio “Tony” Mendez published a book recounting the operation. The 2012 Academy Award-winning film “Argo,” directed by and starring Ben Affleck, didn’t include the second man on the team.
Yet a painting at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, offered a faceless acknowledgment of Johnson’s existence. And in 2023, the CIA itself revealed Johnson’s identity in a podcast highlighting the agency’s work to free the diplomats hiding at the Canadian ambassador’s residence in Tehran.
“Working with the six — these are rookies,” Johnson recounted in an interview aired by the podcast. “They were people who were not trained to lie to authorities. They weren’t trained to be clandestine, elusive.”
Johnson died Aug. 27 in his sleep in Virginia after suffering from pneumonia, the CIA told The Associated Press on Monday.
“Ed’s legacy will continue to inspire those who walk the halls of Langley for generations to come,” the agency said in a public statement.
His family in a statement honored him as having “a name that whispered through the corridors of intelligence” through his work.
“He was, at once, the ordinary man next door — husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle and friend — and an extraordinary agent of the state,” they said.
Many specifics about Johnson’s professional life as a spy remain vague, as much of what is known about him publicly comes from the CIA podcast first identifying him, called “The Langley Files.” Johnson, who went by Ed, described coming to the CIA after serving as an infantryman in the US Army. He studied French in university, picked up Spanish from growing up with Cuban and Puerto Rican friends and later learned Arabic after teaching English in Saudi Arabia.
He traveled through Egypt and Jordan and studied at the Sorbonne university before being hired by the CIA. He met his wife, Aileen, while in Paris, his family said.
“It was after after having gotten the on-the-ground experience in the Middle East and the educational experience and the language into play ... that I was considered to be a good candidate,” Johnson said.
Johnson served in the CIA’s Office of Technical Service overseas at the time of the hostage crisis. It began when Islamist students came over the fence at the sprawling US Embassy compound in downtown Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979. While initially planned to be a sit-in like a previous storming, it soon became a 444-day hostage crisis.
Six US Embassy employees, however, had slipped away amid the chaos. They ended up in the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor. Several plans came and went before US President Jimmy Carter agreed to what became known as the “Canadian Caper” — posing the officials as part of a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a fake, knock-off “Star Wars” film called “Argo.”
Armed with Canadian passports, Mendez pretended to be a Canadian while Johnson was “an associate producer representing our production company’s ostensible South American backers,” Mendez later recounted in an internal CIA document. He described Johnson as having “considerable exfiltration experience” during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, without elaborating.
Landing in Tehran on Jan. 25, 1980, the men end up using a local map to try and find the Canadian Embassy. They ended up at the Swedish Embassy — just across the street from the American Embassy, patrolled by armed students. A local embassy guard didn’t understand them, as neither man spoke Iran’s Farsi language — a conscious decision made the CIA not to raise suspicions as their Farsi-language experts might be recognized.
Then one of the student revolutionaries walked over. As a conversation progressed, the men realized the student spoke German after studying abroad for a year. Johnson ended up getting written directions from the student, who even hailed a taxi for them and refused a tip.
“I have to thank the Iranians for being the beacon who got us to the right place,” Johnson said.
The men ended up with the six Americans, providing them scripts, props, fake histories and training on how to pretend to be a film crew. Johnson and Mendez worked on final preparations on the passports and exit slips, the scene represented in the painting at CIA headquarters.
“The biggest thing I think we did was to was to convince them that you can, you can do it — as simple as that,” Johnson remembered.
On Jan. 28, 1980, the CIA officers and the six Americans flew safely out of Tehran on a Swissair flight. Both Johnson and Mendez received the CIA’s Intelligence Star, its second-highest award for valor, for the operation. He retired from the CIA in 1995 and worked as a contractor while exploring a passion in photography, his family said.
“Even as the world celebrated his heroism, he remained a ghost, a figure shrouded in anonymity,” his family said. “For decades, his identity was a closely guarded secret. It was only in the twilight of his life that he finally emerged from the shadows, a legend in his own right.”
Johnson was born July 29, 1943, in Brooklyn. He is survived by his wife, five children, nine grandchildren, other family and friends, his loved ones said.
In the decades since the “Argo” rescue, there’s been a broader reckoning over the CIA’s actions in Iran, particularly the 1953 CIA-led coup that overthrew the country’s prime minister to cement the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. That action lit the fuse for the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the more than four decades of enmity between Tehran and Washington that followed.
The two-part podcast revealing Johnson’s identity acknowledged that, with a CIA historian calling the 1953 coup “one of the exceptions” to the agency’s efforts to bolster democracy worldwide.
Poll monitors accuse Tunisia’s election authorities of bias
Under President Kais Saied, NGOs have increasingly been targeted for their work, which spans from aid for migrants to human rights to local development efforts
Tensions rose last week after the electoral authority published a final list of candidates that included Saied and only two challengers, dismissing a court order requiring that it reinstate three others it had previously barred from running
Updated 9 min 38 sec ago
AP
TUNIS, Tunisa: Election officials in Tunisia doubled down Monday on their decision to deny accreditation to some election observer groups, who said the move shows that the October presidential contest in the North African country won’t be free and fair.
The Independent High Authority for Elections, or ISIE, said in a statement that several civil society groups that had applied for accreditation had received a “huge amount” of foreign funding of a “suspicious origin” and therefore had to be denied accreditation to observe the election.
Though ISIE did not explicitly name the groups, one of its commission members said last weekend that it sent formal allegations against two specific groups to Tunisia’s public prosecutor, making similar claims that they took funding from abroad.
The two organizations, I-Watch and Mourakiboun (which means “Observers” in Arabic) are not the first civil society groups to be pursued by authorities in Tunisia. Under President Kais Saied, NGOs have increasingly been targeted for their work, which spans from aid for migrants to human rights to local development efforts.
Saied has throughout his tenure accused civil society groups of having nefarious motives and being puppets of foreign countries critical of his style of governance. He has alleged that NGOs that receive funding from abroad intend to disrupt the North African nation’s social fabric and domestic politics.
Some of the groups targeted have increasingly criticized authorities’ decisions to arrest potential candidates and bar others from running over the past several months. Other groups, including I-Watch and Mourakiboun, have applied for accreditation to act as independent election observers for the October 6 vote.
In a statement, I-Watch blasted ISIE’s efforts to call its funding into question and called it “a desperate attempt to distract public opinion by hiding the violations it committed and its failure to implement law.”
Siwar Gmati, a member of the watchdog group, told The Associated Press that any foreign funding that I-Watch received for specific projects in the past was provided in accordance with Tunisian law and disclosed transparently.
“We haven’t asked donors for funding relating to this electoral monitoring mission” she said, denying ISIE’s claims.
Financial disclosures published on I-Watch’s website show some of its past programs have been bankrolled by groups such as Transparency International and Deutsche Welle Akademie (DW) as well as the European Union and the US Embassy.
Gmati said I-Watch no longer accepts US funding and is currently engaged in two projects with the EU it received funding for last year.
The quarrel with prospective election observers is the latest in a string of controversies that have plagued ISIE in recent months, during which critics have accused it of lacking independence and acting on behalf of the president. Last week, dozens of Tunisians critical of the commission’s role protested outside its headquarters.
Tensions rose last week after the electoral authority published a final list of candidates that included Saied and only two challengers, dismissing a court order requiring that it reinstate three others it had previously barred from running.
The electoral commission argued that it didn’t receive the court’s ruling by the legal deadline. Critics called the dismissal politically motivated and a court spokesperson told local radio that ignoring a court order in such a way was unprecedented in Tunisia.
ISIE denied I-Watch’s application to observe the election in July and the NGO appealed and requested for clarifications in August. Despite ISIE’s public statements, Gmati said that it had not yet responded directly to I-Watch’s requests.
I-Watch called ISIE’s public statements a “flimsy pretext” to exclude election monitors from observing the Oct. 6 presidential vote.
“It has clearly become involved in the presidency’s program and has become a tool of the dictatorship,” the watchdog group said of the election authority.
The conflict between Tunisia and election observation groups is the latest matter to stain this year’s election season in Tunisia, where presidential candidates have been arrested, barred from participation or denied a place on the ballot. It marks a departure from elections the country has held since it became a bastion for democracy after toppling its longtime dictator in the 2011 Arab Spring. Observers have previously praised Tunisia for holding free and fair elections.
Since Saied took power, however, things have changed for Tunisia’s once-vibrant NGO scene. In 2022, he targeted civil society groups that accept foreign funding, and has said that nobody has the right to interfere in Tunisia’s politics and choices.
Flooding kills more than 20 people in Morocco and Algeria
Meteorologists had predicted that a rare deluge could strike North Africa’s Sahara Desert, where many areas receive less than an inch of rain a year
Updated 20 min 20 sec ago
AP
RABAT, Morocco: Torrential downpours hit North Africa’s normally arid mountains and deserts over the weekend, causing flooding that killed nearly two dozen people in Morocco and Algeria and destroyed homes and critical infrastructure.
In Morocco, officials said the two days of storms surpassed historic averages, in some cases exceeding the annual average rainfall. The downpours affected some of the regions that experienced a deadly earthquake one year ago.
Meteorologists had predicted that a rare deluge could strike North Africa’s Sahara Desert, where many areas receive less than an inch of rain a year.
Officials in Morocco said 18 people were killed in rural areas where infrastructure has historically been lacking, and 56 homes collapsed. Nine people were missing. Drinking water and electrical infrastructure were damaged, along with major roads.
Among the dead in the region, where many tourists go to enjoy desert landscapes, were foreigners from Canada and Peru.
Rachid El Khalfi, Morocco’s Interior Ministry spokesperson, said in a statement on Monday that the government was working to restore communication and access to flooded regions in the “exceptional situation” and urged people to use caution.
In neighboring Algeria, which held a presidential election over the weekend, authorities said at least five died in the country’s desert provinces. Interior Minister Brahim Merad called the situation “catastrophic” on state-owned television.
Algeria’s state-run news service APS said the government had sent thousands of civil protection and military officers to help with emergency response efforts and rescue families stuck in their homes. The floods also damaged bridges and trains.
Palestinians’ UN proposal demands Israel leave Gaza and the West Bank in 6 months
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told The Associated Press on Monday that International Court of Justice rulings “should be accepted and should be implemented”
Updated 50 min 35 sec ago
AP
UNITED NATIONS: The Palestinians have circulated a draft UN resolution demanding that Israel end its “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the West Bank within six months.
The proposed General Assembly resolution, which was obtained by The Associated Press, follows a ruling by the top United Nations court in July that said Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end.
In the sweeping condemnation of Israel’s rule over the lands it captured 57 years ago, the International Court of Justice said Israel had no right to sovereignty over the territories and was violating international laws against acquiring the lands by force. It also said Israeli settlement building must stop.
Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon denounced the resolution and described it as a “reward for terrorism.” He called for the resolution to be rejected.
“Let it be clear: Nothing will stop Israel or deter it from its mission to bring home the hostages and eliminate Hamas,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told The Associated Press on Monday that International Court of Justice rulings “should be accepted and should be implemented.” As for the General Assembly resolution, he said, it’s up to the 193 UN member nations to make a decision.
The draft UN resolution comes as Israel’s military assault on Gaza enters the 11th month after being triggered by the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 and as violence in the West Bank reaches new highs.
The proposal, if adopted by the 193-member General Assembly, would not be legally binding but the extent of its support would reflect world opinion. There are no vetoes in the assembly, unlike in the 15-member Security Council.
A council diplomat said the Palestinians are aiming for a vote before world leaders of the General Assembly start their annual high-level meetings on Sept. 22. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions on the draft resolution have been private.
The proposal demands that Israel comply with international law, including by immediately withdrawing all military forces from the Palestinian territories.
The draft resolution not only demands an end to all new settlement activity but the evacuation of all settlers and the dismantling of the separation barrier Israel constructed in the West Bank.
And it calls for all Palestinians displaced during Israel’s occupation to be allowed “to return to their original place of residence” and that Israel make reparations “for the damage caused” to all people in the territories.
Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed, the future of which should be decided in negotiations, while it has moved people there in settlements to solidify its hold. It has annexed east Jerusalem in a move that isn’t internationally recognized. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005 but maintained a blockade of the territory after Hamas took power in 2007.
Since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, Gaza’s Health Ministry says over 40,900 Palestinians have been killed there. It does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count. The war has caused vast destruction and displaced around 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.
Meanwhile, settler violence in West Bank has reached new highs, and Israeli military raids on West Bank cities and towns have grown more devastating, killing 692 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis within the territory also have increased.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for an independent state. The international community generally considers all three areas to be occupied territory.
Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the Security Council last month that he planned to introduce a General Assembly resolution in September to enshrine the ICJ ruling. “We are sick and tired of waiting,” he said. “The time for waiting is over.”
The proposed resolution includes other demands, including for Israel to be held accountable for any violations of international law, sanctions against those responsible for maintaining Israel’s presence in the territories, and for countries to halt arms exports to Israel if they’re suspected of being used in the territories.
Successful ‘polio pause’ prompts renewed calls for permanent Gaza ceasefire
Destruction of water and sanitation services caused the highly infectious virus to re-emerge
With most primary roads destroyed, families and aid agencies faced perilous journeys to vaccination sites
Updated 09 September 2024
ANAN TELLO
LONDON: The UN’s polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has been deemed a success, even though it was conducted in “the most dangerous and difficult (place) on the planet.” However, Palestinian civilians remain at significant risk of injury, illness and death amid the ongoing conflict.
A pause in the fighting between the Israeli military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in and around the vaccination sites has been critical for the immunization campaign. However, elsewhere in the war-torn territory, the fighting continued.
On Sept. 7, just as medical teams were wrapping up the second phase of the vaccination campaign, Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip killed scores of people — including children.
A man inspects the damage following an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in Gaza City on September 7, 2024. (AFP)
The vaccination campaign was launched in Gaza after an 11-month-old baby was diagnosed with the viral disease in August, marking the first case in the Strip for 25 years, raising fears it could spread to neighboring countries.
Adele Khodr, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at UNICEF, described the three-phase campaign as one of “the most dangerous and difficult vaccination campaigns on the planet.”
“Even with a polio pause, the vaccination campaign faces grave danger and immeasurable obstacles, including damaged roads and health infrastructure, displaced populations, looting and disrupted supply routes,” she said in a statement on Sept. 4.
“Children have suffered enough,” she added, warning that the reemergence of the virus is now “threatening other children in the region.”
A child has their finger marked after receiving a vaccination for polio at a makeshift camp in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024. (AFP)
Polio, which spreads through contact with the feces, saliva or nasal mucus of an infected individual, attacks nerves in the spinal cord and the brain stem, leading to partial or total paralysis within hours.
It can also immobilize chest muscles, causing trouble breathing, even leading to death.
Wild poliovirus cases have fallen by more than 99 percent since 1988, from an estimated 350,000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries, to six reported cases in 2021.
Of the three strains of wild poliovirus, Type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and Type 3 was eradicated in 2020. As of 2022, endemic Type 1 remained in just two countries — Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Children stand next to raw sewage at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on August 19, 2024. (AFP)
In Gaza, overcrowding, a lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of Type 2 in the water supply.
According to UNICEF, the first phase of the polio vaccination program, which ran from Sept. 1 to 3 in central Gaza, reached more than 189,000 children under the age of 10.
The second phase was carried out in southern Gaza, particularly in Khan Younis and Rafah, from Sept. 5 to 8, targeting approximately 340,000 children under 10.
The third phase, which was launched on Sept. 9, is scheduled to run until Sept. 11, targeting some 150,000 children in the north.
IN NUMBERS
680K Children in Gaza targeted under the UN’s polio vaccination campaign.
92% Primary roads damaged or destroyed, obstructing vaccine distribution.
70% Water and sanitation plants damaged or destroyed, contributing to outbreak.
(Source: UN, World Bank)
Coinciding with the vaccine’s rollout on Sept. 1, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on the social media platform X that “ultimately, the best vaccine for these children is peace.”
However, the area-specific truces that allowed the rollout to take place have done little to provide the children of Gaza with hope of a lasting end to the violence.
While vaccination sites have not been targeted, Gazan families, wearied by 11 months of war and worsening humanitarian conditions, had to make the perilous journey with their children to these locations amid the ongoing bombardment.
Lack of clean water and hygiene materials, a deteriorating health system, and the destruction of sanitation plants have all contributed to the reemergence of polio in Gaza. (AFP)
Khodr praised the families for turning out “in high numbers” at vaccination sites, “despite relentless attacks on schools and sites sheltering uprooted children, exhausting displacement orders forcing families to relocate time and again, and widespread hunger levels that have at points pushed parts of Gaza to the brink of famine.”
Not only has the journey to vaccination units been long and exhausting for Gazan families, but also for humanitarian teams delivering and administering the vaccines.
With 92 percent of Gaza’s primary roads damaged or destroyed, according to the World Bank, civilians and medical workers were all forced to use a single route — Al-Bahar Street.
“Unfortunately, only one road in Gaza remains operational, and it’s Al-Bahar Street,” Fady Abed, the Gaza communications officer for the medical NGO MedGlobal, told Arab News.
“This is the sole road servicing about 1.9 million displaced people in Al-Mawasi, western Khan Younis, Rafah and Deir Al-Balah.”
Palestinian residents walk along a road now dirt, past destroyed and razed buildings east of Gaza City on July 11, 2024. (AFP)
An April report by the World Bank and the UN highlighted that severe damage to road networks and the communications infrastructure has hampered the delivery of much-needed basic humanitarian aid to people across Gaza.
When he spoke with Arab News on Sept. 5, Abed of MedGlobal had just returned to Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza from working in Khan Younis.
Describing the logistical challenges his team has been facing, he said the journey between Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, normally no more than 15 minutes, now takes over an hour.
Abed also said transportation has been a major challenge due to fuel shortages. “There is no fuel for cars,” he said. “Drivers have resorted to mixing vegetable oil with diesel to keep vehicles running, which results in harmful smoke emissions.
“To vaccinate your child, you risk them suffocating from vehicle fumes.”
MedGlobal’s team delivering polio vaccines in Khan Younis on Sep. 5. (Supplied)
And since the vaccine must be kept cold at all times, MedGlobal could only carry as many doses as they expected to administer. Abed said his team “avoided carrying large quantities of the vaccine to prevent it from spoiling after being kept outside coolers for too long.
“At one point, the number of children arriving at the vaccination unit exceeded the available doses. Members of our team had to make the long, arduous journey back and forth to replenish the supply while families waited.
“This was frustrating for both our team and the families, who were exhausted yet eager to have their children vaccinated.”
Israel mounted its Gaza operation in retaliation for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which saw 1,200 killed and 250 taken hostage. At least 40,900 Palestinians have been killed and more than 94,450 injured since the conflict began, according to Gaza’s health authority.
Palestinian children receive malnourishment treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on May 30, 2024. (AFP)
Around 90 percent of the population has been displaced at least once, fleeing from one Israeli-designated “safe zone” to another.
The Israeli bombardment has devastated much of Gaza’s infrastructure, bringing the health sector and sanitation services to their knees and causing the resurgence and spread of multiple infectious diseases.
According to UN figures, the conflict has damaged or destroyed 70 percent of Gaza’s water and sanitation plants.
Palestinian children queue at a water distribution point in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza Strip on August 25, 2024. (AFP)
In late July, Gaza’s health authority declared the enclave a “polio epidemic zone,” attributing the resurgence of the virus to the damage caused by Israel’s bombing campaign.
UNICEF’s Khodr called on the warring parties to continue to respect the polio pauses. Achieving at least 90 percent vaccination coverage in Gaza would stop the virus from spreading, she said.
“Preparing for this ambitious campaign and securing these pauses was not easy but it demonstrates that it is possible to allow supplies into the Strip, silence the strikes and protect civilians.”
