TUNIS: Tunisia’s parliament was set to vote on a major amendment to the electoral law on Friday, nine days before a presidential election that opposition groups fear will cement President Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule. The bill strips the Administrative Court of its authority to adjudicate electoral disputes. It is likely to pass in an assembly elected in 2022 on an 11 percent turnout after Saied dissolved the previous one and prompted an opposition boycott.
Political opposition and civil society groups called for protests against the bill near parliament.
The Administrative Court is widely seen as the last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022. The court this month ordered the electoral commission to reinstate disqualified presidential candidates, saying the legitimacy of the Oct. 6 election was in question. But the commission defied the court and has allowed only two candidates to run against Saied.
Lawmakers said they had proposed the bill because they believed the Administrative Court was no longer neutral and could annul the election and plunge Tunisia into chaos and a constitutional vacuum.
Critics argue that Saied is using the electoral commission and the judiciary to secure victory by stifling competition and intimidating rivals. He for his part says he is fighting traitors, mercenaries and corruption.
Saied was democratically elected in 2019, but then tightened his grip on power and began ruling by decree in 2021 in a move the opposition has described as a coup. Presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was sentenced last week to 20 months in prison on charges of falsifying popular endorsements, and to a further six months on Wednesday on charges of falsifying documents.
Abir Moussi, leader of the Free Constitutional Party, has been imprisoned since last year on charges of harming public security. Another prominent politician, Lotfi Mraihi, was jailed this year on charges of vote-buying in 2019.
Both had said they would run in October, but were prevented from submitting their applications from jail.
Another court jailed four other potential candidates in August and gave them lifetime bans from running for office.
Tunisia assembly votes on electoral bill nine days before poll, opposition calls protest
https://arab.news/gtz45
Tunisia assembly votes on electoral bill nine days before poll, opposition calls protest
- Bill strips Administrative Court of authority over electoral disputes
- Opposition and civil society groups call for protests near parliament
18 dead in Sudan’s El-Fasher after paramilitary attack on market: medic
The plight of Sudan, and El-Fasher in particular, has been under discussion this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York
PORT SUDAN: A paramilitary attack on a market in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher killed 18 people, a medical source told AFP on Friday, after world leaders appealed for an end to the country’s wartime suffering.
The Rapid Support Forces’ shelling of the market on Thursday evening also injured dozens, activists said separately, as the paramilitaries and regular army vie for control of the North Darfur state capital, 17 months into their war in the northeast African country.
“We received last night at the hospital 18 dead,” some of them burned and others killed with severe shrapnel injuries, a source at El-Fasher Teaching Hospital told AFP, requesting anonymity for their own protection.
The plight of Sudan, and El-Fasher in particular, has been under discussion this week at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“We must compel the warring parties to accept humanitarian pauses in El-Fasher, Khartoum and other highly vulnerable areas,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said on Wednesday.
The Teaching Hospital is one of the last still receiving patients in El-Fasher, where reports of a “full-scale assault” by RSF on the city last weekend led UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to call for an urgent ceasefire.
The paramilitaries have besieged El-Fasher since May, and famine has already been declared in Zamzam refugee camp near the city of two million.
Paramilitary “artillery shelling continued this morning” on residential neighborhoods and the market, the local resistance committee said on Friday.
The committee, which reported the dozens of wounded in Thursday’s market attack, is one of hundreds of pro-democracy volunteer groups across Sudan that provide crucial aid to civilians caught in the crossfire.
Sudan’s war has killed tens of thousands of people. The World Health Organization cited a toll of at least 20,000 but United States envoy Tom Perriello has said some estimates reach 150,000.
US President Joe Biden, who raised particular concern over the assault on El-Fasher, on Tuesday urged all countries to cut off weapons supplies to the country’s rival generals, Sudanese Armed Forces chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
“The world needs to stop arming the generals. Speak with one voice and tell them: ‘Stop tearing your country apart. Stop blocking aid to the Sudanese people. End this war now,’” Biden told the UN General Assembly.
On the sidelines of the UN talks, Guterres met with Burhan, expressing concern about “escalation” and the risk of “a regional spillover,” the UN said.
Both sides have been repeatedly accused of war crimes.
The RSF, descended from Darfur’s Janjaweed militia, have specifically been accused of ethnic cleansing.
Dagalo released a video Thursday evening addressing the UN gathering, hours after Burhan took the stage in New York wearing a formal suit instead of his military fatigues.
Rejecting Burhan’s participation, Dagalo said the RSF had “formed a force to protect civilians” and was “open to all initiatives” aimed at peace.
Also on Thursday, air strikes and shelling rocked the capital Khartoum as the army attacked paramilitary positions across the Sudanese capital, witnesses and a military source said.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, warned on Thursday that, “if El-Fasher falls, there is a high risk of ethnically-targeted violations and abuses, including summary executions and sexual violence, by the RSF and allied militia.”
Darfur is home to more than five million displaced people, or around half of the country’s current internal displacement, which the UN said is the world’s worst.
“Sudan is now also the world’s largest hunger crisis,” the UN said in a statement on Wednesday.
Lebanon facing deadliest period ‘in a generation’: UN
- “The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said Imran Riza, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon
- “We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning“
GENEVA: The UN said Friday that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its deadliest period in years, with its hospitals overwhelmed by casualties.
“The recent escalations in Lebanon are nothing short of catastrophic,” said Imran Riza, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon.
Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the Iran-backed group’s Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7.
Nearly a year into the war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel has shifted its focus to its northern front with Lebanon.
Since Monday, Israeli warplanes have bombarded Hezbollah strongholds around the country, killing more than 700 people and injuring nearly 6,000, according to the health ministry.
Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies detonated across Lebanon last week also killed at least 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000 in an attack widely blamed on Israel, which has refused to comment.
“We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,” Riza told reporters in Geneva via video link from Beirut.
He pointed out that on Monday alone, the death toll was equal to around half of the 1,200 killed during 34 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
“The level of displacement, the level of trauma, the level of panic, has been huge,” he said.
At the same time, Riza warned that Lebanon’s “health sector is completely overrun.”
“The events of last week, including the explosions of communication devices, have nearly depleted health supplies,” he said.
“With the recent escalations and hospitals reaching capacity, the system is struggling with limited resources to meet the growing demands.”
The hospitals in Lebanon “are overwhelmed,” agreed Margaret Harris, spokeswoman for the World Health Organization.
She pointed out that the pager and walkie-talkie blasts had caused large numbers of serious injuries, especially to eyes and hands, which require specialized treatment.
A full 777 injured remain in hospitals after those blasts, “and 152 of those are critical cases,” Harris said.
“That means they’re not leaving the hospital for quite some time, and so every day of bombing and blasts fills up beds that can’t be unfilled.”
At the same time, she said, 37 health facilities had been closed across Lebanon due to events.
Harris stressed that aid agencies had done a lot to prepare for possible mass-casualty events in Lebanon in case the past year of cross-border fire were to escalate.
The WHO had helped “train most of the health workers in most of the hospitals for mass casualty,” she said. But “in our planning scenarios, we didn’t have anything like the numbers that have actually been affected.”
“It was way beyond anything that normal planning, even for a horrific event like this, would have expected.”
Yemen’s Houthis say they attacked Israel’s Tel Aviv and Ashkelon
- The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day
DUBAI: Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israel’s cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon.
The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.
The Houthi’s military spokesperson said their operations won’t halt in the coming days until Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop.
“We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon,” Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza.
With nearly 700 killed in a week, Lebanon fears Gaza-level violence
- The United States, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire.
- Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time
Nearly 700 people have been killed in Lebanon this week, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Israel has dramatically escalated strikes, saying it is targeting Hezbollah’s military capacities and senior Hezbollah commanders.
Top Israeli officials have threatened to repeat the destruction of Gaza in Lebanon if the Hezbollah fire continues, raising fears that Israel’s actions in Gaza since Oct. 7 would be repeated in Lebanon.
The International Organization for Migration estimated Thursday that more than 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas after it stormed into Israel, sparking the Israel-Hamas war. Lebanon says a total of 1,540 people have been killed within its borders in that time.
The United States, France and other allies jointly called for a 21-day ceasefire. Lebanon’s foreign minister said the country welcomed the ceasefire efforts, and decried Israel’s “systematic destruction of Lebanese border villages.”
Israeli military vehicles were seen transporting tanks and armored vehicles toward the country’s northern border with Lebanon, and commanders have issued a call-up of reservists. Netanyahu says Israel is striking Hezbollah “with full force” and won’t stop until its goals are achieved.
UN: More than 30,000 people crossed from Lebanon into Syria in 3 days
The UN refugee agency says “well over 30,000” people have crossed from Lebanon into neighboring Syria over the last 72 hours in the wake of fighting between the militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces in Lebanon.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, the representative for refugee agency UNHCR in Syria, said roughly half of the people who have fled were children and adolescents.
He said about 80 percent were Syrians returning to their home country and the rest were Lebanese.
“Now these, of course, are people who are fleeing bombs and who are crossing into a country that has been suffering from its own crisis and violence for 13 years now,” he told reporters in Geneva by video from the Lebanon-Syria border. Syria is facing “economic collapse,” he said.
“I think that this just illustrates the kind of extremely difficult choices both Syrians and Lebanese are having to make,” he said.
Israeli military reports more strikes from Lebanon
Incoming fire from Lebanon into Israel continued Friday, with one man suffering wounds from shrapnel.
The Israeli military said four drones came across the border Friday, all of which were intercepted. Earlier Friday, the Israeli military said another 10 projectiles came into Israel from Lebanon, with some intercepted and others falling into open fields. It said it later targeted launchers in Lebanon behind the missile attacks.
Hezbollah claimed it had targeted the Israeli city of Tiberias with missiles.
Israeli strike in Syria kills 5 soldiers
An overnight Israeli airstrike on a military site in the area of Kfar Yabous in Syria near the border with Lebanon killed five Syrian army soldiers and injured another, Syrian state news agency SANA reported Friday, citing an unidentified military official.
Israel’s military did not immediately acknowledge the strike. Israel regularly targets military sites in Syria and facilities linked to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah but rarely acknowledges them.
Those strikes have become more frequent as Hezbollah has exchanged fire with Israeli forces for the past 11 months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hamas — a Hezbollah ally — in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese and Syrians have fled across the border from Lebanon into Syria since the beginning of the week under intense Israeli bombardment that Israel says is targeting Hezbollah militants and weapons. The week’s strikes have killed an estimated 700 people, including at least 150 women and children.
Beirut soup kitchen struggles to keep up as Israeli strikes intensify
- Beirut soup kitchen struggles with demand from displaced people
- Nation Station kitchen working at maximum capacity, founder says
BEIRUT: Chains of volunteers spoon rice and vegetables into meal containers while others stir huge pots of boiling rice, as a soup kitchen in Beirut struggles to keep up with demand from displaced people escaping Israeli strikes.
Josephine Abu Abdo, a chef and one of the founders of Nation Station, said the kitchen is serving 700 meals a day and is at maximum capacity, but she then hears 1,000 meals are needed.
“The challenge is that we can’t keep up. We feel like we are just a drop in the ocean,” Abu Abdo said, while a team of volunteers of different ages from all over Lebanon hurriedly packaged up food.
Nation Station was founded to help victims of the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion, growing from a team of five to a hundred over time. It serves some traditional Lebanese dishes, such as zucchini stuffed with rice and meat, bulgur and tomato, vegetable soup and cabbage salad.
When the Israeli strikes across Lebanon intensified on Monday, forcing around 40,000 into shelters within days, the volunteers cooked more food without any funding, distributing it as an emergency response to the centers housing the displaced.
“We worked from the small savings that we had for the first three days. Then, many people started donating,” Abu Abdo said.
“The donation that we receive will cover us for two or three days. We will see, one day at a time and we will make a decision,” she added.
Israeli attacks have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel for almost a year in support of its ally Hamas, which is fighting Israel in Gaza.
Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have fled their homes and Israel has declared the safe return of its residents as one of its war aims.
“We are all trying our hardest to make a little bit of a difference and to help out. It’s like the least we can do and unfortunately we are used to this,” May Ayash, a professional chef who volunteers at the kitchen said.
