TUNIS: Tunisia’s coast guard has recovered the bodies of 16 migrants off the coast of the towns of Maloulech, Salakta and Chebba, the national guard said on Monday, the latest migrant boat disaster in the Mediterranean.
“The bodies were found at the weekend and on Monday... The victims have not been identified because the bodies had decomposed,” a senior official in the national guard, Houssem Eddine Jebabli, told Reuters.
Last month at least 15 Tunisian people died, including three infants, and 10 others were missing after their boat sank off the Tunisian coast at Djerba as they sought to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
The bodies of 13 sub-Saharan African migrants were also recovered in the same area last month.
Tunisia is grappling with an unprecedented migration crisis and has replaced Libya as the major departure point for both Tunisians and people from elsewhere in Africa seeking a better life in Europe.
Tunisia coastguard recovers bodies of 16 migrants
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Tunisia coastguard recovers bodies of 16 migrants
- Bodies were found on Saturday and Sunday
Over 2m displaced people to return to Khartoum over six months: UN
The returns, he said, would depend on “the security situation and... the availability of services on the ground“
GENEVA: The United Nations said Tuesday that it expected more than two million people displaced in war-ravaged Sudan to return to Khartoum within the next six months, if security conditions allow.
Fighting erupted in Sudan on April 15, 2023 between the army, led by Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, headed by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
As the world marks the two-year anniversary of the devastating conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted around 13 million, the UN’s International Organization for Migration noted the need to prepare for many of the displaced to begin returning home to Khartoum.
The capital city became a battleground almost from the start, but since the army recaptured it last month, the agency said “we are seeing people returning, we are seeing hope coming.”
“Our estimate in IOM is that over the next six months, we will have 2.1 million returning to the Khartoum capital,” Mohamed Refaat, its chief of mission in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Port Sudan.
This calculation, he said, was “based on the numbers we understand that... left the capital when the war started.”
“So we estimate that 31 percent of... IDPs (internally displaced people) in Sudan after the war are actually coming from Khartoum,” he said, adding that the agency expected around half of them to “be returning back to Khartoum.”
The returns, he said, would depend on “the security situation and... the availability of services on the ground.”
Getting the city ready for a mass influx will be a challenge, Refaat acknowledged.
“We see that some spots in the Khartoum itself have been cleaned, but the process I’m sure will take longer,” he said, adding that “the electricity system in the whole Khartoum has been destroyed.”
Refaat also warned that “as we see people are returning, the war is far from stopped,” with thousands still being displaced elsewhere in the country, especially in the Darfur region.
“The conflict has to stop, and we need to put all effort for this conflict to stop,” he said.
But Refaat acknowledged that the funds raised to address Sudan’s towering needs were far from sufficient.
The IOM unveiled a response plan Tuesday asking for nearly $29 million to reach around half a million people in Khartoum, including returnees, he said.
Israeli authorities close Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque during Passover holiday
- Closure prevented Palestinians from accessing the site as Israeli settlers celebrated the Jewish holiday
LONDON: Israeli authorities closed the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, which is in the occupied West Bank, as part of security measures during the Jewish holiday of Passover.
Jamal Abu Aram, the Palestinian director of the Hebron Waqf Department, said that Israeli authorities on Monday evening closed the mosque, with all its corridors and courtyards, for two days.
The closure meant Palestinians were barred from accessing the site as Israeli settlers celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover, the Wafa news agency reported.
Passover is observed from April 12 to April 20, when Jewish communities commemorate the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.
The Ibrahimi Mosque, known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs, has been a site of conflict since 1994. Israeli authorities have imposed strict military and security measures in the old city of Hebron, where the mosque is located, with nearly 1,500 soldiers stationed there to protect the 400 settlers in the area.
Israeli PM Netanyahu’s party steps up pressure for Shin Bet head to go
- Shin Bet has been at the center of a growing political battle pitting Netanyahu’s right-wing government against an array of critics
- Likud said Bar had lost the trust of the government
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party accused the head of the domestic intelligence organization on Tuesday of turning parts of the service into “a private militia of the Deep State” and called for him to go, amid a deepening political crisis around the agency.
The accusation against Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, who is resisting an order for his dismissal, followed the arrest of a Shin Bet official on suspicion of leaking confidential information to journalists and a government minister.
Shin Bet, which handles counter terrorism investigations, has been at the center of a growing political battle pitting Netanyahu’s right-wing government against an array of critics ranging from members of the security establishment to families of hostages in Gaza.
A government bid to sack Bar, during an investigation by the agency into aides close to Netanyahu, has been temporarily frozen by the Supreme Court, which held a hearing into petitions against the dismissal last week.
Likud said Bar had lost the trust of the government and “must stop entrenching himself in his position and vacate his position immediately.”
The case, which has fueled demonstrations by thousands of protesters who accuse Netanyahu of undermining Israeli democracy, has exposed deep rifts between the government and one of the country’s key security organizations.
Part of the dispute centers around blame over the failures that allowed Hamas gunmen to rampage through communities in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage in Israel’s worst-ever security disaster.
Netanyahu said last month he had lost confidence in Bar over Shin Bet’s failure to forestall the October 7 attack. But critics have accused the prime minister of using the case as a pretext to stop a police and Shin Bet investigation into alleged financial ties between Qatar and a number of Netanyahu aides.
Bar has acknowledged his agency’s failures ahead of October 7 and said he would resign before the end of his term. But he has accused Netanyahu, who has not acknowledged any responsibility and rejected calls for a national inquiry into October 7, of a major conflict of interest.
A Justice Ministry statement lifted a censorship order banning reporting on the case, but said the identity of the official who had been detained could not be revealed.
Netanyahu tells Macron: Palestinian state ‘huge reward for terrorism’
- Netanyahu expressed to the French president his “strong opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, stating that it would be a huge reward for terrorism“
- The French president said he told Netanyahu that “the ordeal the civilian populations of Gaza are going through must end“
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday that the establishment of a Palestinian state would be a “huge reward for terrorism.”
Macron, meanwhile, posted on X that he had told Netanyahu the suffering of civilians in Gaza “must end” and only a ceasefire in the war with Hamas would free the remaining Israeli hostages in the territory.
A statement released by Netanyahu’s office said the two leaders spoke by phone and the Israeli prime minister expressed to the French president his “strong opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, stating that it would be a huge reward for terrorism.”
“The prime minister told the French president that a Palestinian state established just minutes away from Israeli cities would become a stronghold of Iranian terrorism, and that a vast majority of the Israeli public firmly opposes this — and this has been his consistent and long-standing policy.”
For his part, the French president said he told Netanyahu that “the ordeal the civilian populations of Gaza are going through must end,” and called for “the opening of all humanitarian aid crossings” into the besieged Palestinian territory.
Israel has cut off all aid to the Gaza Strip since March 2 to pressure Hamas.
The call came after Macron’s comments last week that Paris could recognize a Palestinian state within months sparked a wave of criticism in Israel, including from Netanyahu and his son, as well as right-wing groups in France.
On Monday, he said he hoped French recognition would encourage others to follow and that countries which did not recognize Israel should also do so.
The day before the call, Macron told the president of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas, that he would support a plan for the PA to govern post-war Gaza, if it underwent reform.
“It is essential to set a framework for the day after: disarm and sideline Hamas, define credible governance and reform the Palestinian Authority,” Macron told Abbas in a phone call, according to a post on X.
“This should allow progress toward a two-state political solution, with a view to the peace conference in June, in the service of peace and security for all,” wrote Macron.
Israel has been battling Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip since the latter attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Jordanian intelligence thwarts plots threatening national security
- Department arrests 16, says Jordan News Agency
AMMAN: Officials at Jordan’s General Intelligence Department said on Tuesday they had foiled a series of plots targeting the country’s national security, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The GID arrested 16 individuals suspected of “planning acts of chaos and sabotage,” according to the agency.
Authorities said the department had been monitoring the group’s activities since 2021.
The foiled plans reportedly involved the manufacture of missiles using both locally sourced materials and imported components. Explosives and firearms were also found.
Investigators additionally uncovered a missile that had been concealed and prepared for deployment.
In addition to the weapons cache, the suspects were allegedly engaged in efforts to develop drones, recruit and train individuals within the country, and send others abroad for further training.
All the individuals arrested have been referred to the State Security Court for legal proceedings, the GID confirmed.
