JERUSALEM: Israeli settlers beat up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land” on Monday in the occupied West Bank before he was detained by the Israeli military, according to two of his fellow directors and other witnesses.
The filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was one of three Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya, according to attorney Leah Tsemmel. Police told her they’re being held at a military base for medical treatment and she said she hasn’t been able to speak with them.
Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the detention and said around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform — attacked the village. Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones.
“We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us,” Adra told The Associated Press. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”
The Israeli military said it detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” between Israelis and Palestinians — a claim witnesses interviewed by the AP disputed. The military said it had transferred them to Israeli police for questioning and had evacuated an Israeli citizen from the area to receive medical treatment.
“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra, both from Masafar Yatta, made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened the documentary.
Adra said that settlers entered the village Monday evening shortly after residents broke the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A settler — who according to Adra frequently attacks the village — walked over to Ballal’s home with the military, and soldiers shot in the air. Ballal’s wife heard her husband being beaten outside and scream “I’m dying,” according to Adra.
Adra then saw the soldiers lead Ballal, handcuffed and blindfolded, from his home into a military vehicle. Speaking to the AP by phone, he said Ballal’s blood was still splattered on the ground outside his own front door.
Some of the details of Adra’s account were backed up by another eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
A group of 10-20 masked settlers with stones and sticks also assaulted activists with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, smashing their car windows and slashing tires to make them flee the area, one of the activists at the scene, Josh Kimelman, told the AP.
Video provided by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night. The activists rush back to their car as rocks can be heard thudding against the vehicle.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
During the war in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during wide-scale military operations, and there has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians. There has been a surge in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Palestinian behind Oscar-winning documentary arrested by Israeli army — co-director
https://arab.news/gh4s2
Palestinian behind Oscar-winning documentary arrested by Israeli army — co-director
- Dozens of settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area, destroying property
- They attacked Hamdan Ballal, one of the documentary’s co-directors, leaving his head bleeding, the activists said
UNICEF warns 825,000 children trapped in battle around North Darfur
NEW YORK: At least 825,000 Sudanese children are trapped by fighting around the beleaguered state capital of North Darfur, threatened by violence or starvation, UNICEF has warned.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to this hell on earth,” said Sheldon Yett, the UN children’s agency representative for Sudan, demanding an end to the conflict.
“An estimated 825,000 children are trapped in a growing catastrophe in and around Al-Fasher,” said Yett, adding that more than 70 children have been killed or maimed this year.
“With these numbers reflecting only verified incidents, it is likely the true toll is far higher, with children in a daily struggle to survive,” he said.
In North Darfur, more than 60,000 people have been displaced in the past six weeks, adding to the more than 600,000 displaced — including 300,000 children — since the war started in April 2023.
A few weeks ago, Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, and the UN World Food Programme suspended their work in a vast displaced people’s camp in Zamzam, just south of El-Fasher.
UNICEF, however, continues to operate there and in the city itself, but food supplies are expected to run out within weeks.
“UNICEF delivered ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF and other lifesaving supplies to Al-Fasher three months ago, but these stocks are now depleted,” Yett said.
“Repeated efforts by UNICEF and partners to deliver more supplies have been unsuccessful given threats from armed fighters and criminal gangs.”
Residents of Gaza Strip cautioned against helping Israel with protests
CAIRO: Palestinian groups threatened punishment on Thursday for “collaborators” furthering Israeli goals after the first substantial protests against the war in Gaza and Hamas’ rule.
Hundreds of Palestinians have rallied in recent days in north and central Gaza, some chanting “Hamas out” in a rare show of opposition to the group whose October 2023 raid on Israel triggered a devastating offensive in the enclave.
More demonstrations, which Israel’s government has applauded, were being planned on Thursday.
A statement by the “Factions of the Resistance,” an umbrella group including Hamas, threatened punishment for leaders of the “suspicious movement,” which Palestinians took to mean the street marches.
“They persist in blaming the resistance and absolving the occupation, ignoring that the Israeli extermination machine operates nonstop,” it said.
“Therefore, these suspicious individuals are as responsible as the occupation for the bloodshed of our people and will be treated accordingly.”
Hamas officials have said people have the right to protest, but rallies should not be exploited for political ends or to exempt Israel from blame for decades of occupation, conflict, and displacement in Palestinian territories.
Some protesters said they took to the streets to voice rejection of continued war, adding that they were exhausted and lacked basics like food and water.
“We are not against the resistance. We are against war. Enough wars, we are tired,” said a resident of Gaza City’s Shejaia neighborhood, which saw protests on Wednesday.
“You can’t call people collaborators for speaking up against wars, for wanting to live without bombardment and hunger,” he added via a chat app.
Videos on Wednesday, whose authenticity Reuters could not verify, showed protests in Shejaia in the north where the rallies began and in the central Gaza areas of Deir Al-Balah, indicating the protests were spreading.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the rallies showed Israelis’ decision to renew the military offensive in Gaza after a ceasefire was working.
Hamas police, the group’s enforcers, are again off the streets.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz urged Gaza residents to keep expressing their discontent.
“Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia,” he wrote on X, referring to the first protest. “Just as they did, demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages — this is the only way to stop the war.”
A Palestinian official with a militant group said protests were allowed — but not cooperation with Israel.
“Those suspicious figures try to exploit legitimate protests to demand an end to the resistance, which is the same goal as Israel’s,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
US Senator Sanders to force Senate votes on blocking arms for Israel
- "Netanyahu has clearly violated US and international law in this brutal war, and we must end our complicity in the carnage,” Sanders said in a statement announcing his plan
WASHINGTON: US Senator Bernie Sanders said on Thursday he would force votes next week on resolutions that would block $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel, citing the human rights crisis faced by Palestinians in Gaza after Israel’s bombardment of the enclave and its suspension of aid deliveries.
“(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu has clearly violated US and international law in this brutal war, and we must end our complicity in the carnage,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement announcing his plan.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli campaign in Gaza, Palestinian officials say. It was launched after thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in tents or bombed-out buildings.
A decades-long tradition of strong bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress means resolutions to stop weapons sales are unlikely to pass, but backers hope that raising the issue will encourage Israel’s government and US administrations to do more to protect civilians.
“No humanitarian aid has entered Gaza in more than three and a half weeks since Israeli authorities announced a complete blockade – that’s no food, water, medicine, or fuel since the start of March,” Sanders said in a statement.
Last month, the UN Human Rights Chief accused Israel on Wednesday of showing an unprecedented disregard for human rights in its military actions in Gaza and said Hamas had violated international law.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly in November to block three resolutions introduced by Sanders that would have halted transfers of weapons approved by the administration of then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat whom progressives criticized as doing too little to help Palestinians as conditions in Gaza worsened.
President Donald Trump, who began a second term on Jan. 20 and is a fierce advocate for Israel, has reversed Biden’s efforts to place some limits on what arms are sent to Netanyahu’s government.
Last month, Trump sidestepped the congressional review process to approve billions of dollars in military sales to Israel.
US law gives Congress the right to stop major foreign weapons sales by passing resolutions of disapproval. Although no such resolution has both passed Congress and survived a presidential veto, the law requires the Senate to vote if a resolution is filed. Such resolutions have at times led to angry debates embarrassing to past presidents.
Sudan paramilitaries vow ‘no surrender’ after Khartoum setback
- Rapid Support Forces said it would 'deliver crushing defeats to the enemy on all fronts'
- War has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million in Sudan, according to UN figures
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces vowed on Thursday there would be “no retreat and no surrender” after rival troops of the regular army retook nearly all of central Khartoum.
From inside the recaptured presidential palace, Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, at war with his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo since April 2023, had on Wednesday declared the capital “free” from the RSF.
But in its first direct comment since the army retook what remains of the capital’s state institutions this week, the RSF said: “Our forces have not lost any battle, but have repositioned.
“Our forces will continue to defend the homeland’s soil and secure a decisive victory. There will be no retreat or surrender,” it said.
“We will deliver crushing defeats to the enemy on all fronts.”
AFP could not independently confirm the RSF’s remaining positions in the capital.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million, according to UN figures.
It has also split Africa’s third-largest country in two, with the army holding the north and east while the RSF controls parts of the south and nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur, which borders Chad.
On Wednesday, the army cleared Khartoum airport of RSF fighters and encircled their last major stronghold in the Khartoum area, just south of the city center.
An army source told AFP that RSF fighters were fleeing across the Jebel Awliya bridge, their only way out of greater Khartoum.
A successful withdrawal could link the RSF’s Jebel Awliya troops to its positions west of the city and then to its strongholds in Darfur hundreds of kilometers (miles) away.
On Wednesday, hours after Burhan arrived in the presidential palace for the first time in two years, the RSF announced a “military alliance” with a rebel group, which controls much of South Kordofan state and parts of Blue Nile bordering Ethiopia.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, had clashed with both sides, before signing a political charter with the RSF last month to establish a rival government.
On Thursday evening, witnesses in the Blue Nile state capital Damazin reported that both its airport and the nearby Roseires Dam came under drone attack by the paramilitaries and their allies for the first time in the war.
Fighters in retreat across the capital
Following a year and a half of defeats at the hands of the RSF, the army began pushing through central Sudan toward Khartoum late last year.
Analysts have blamed the RSF’s losses on strategic blunders, internal divisions and dwindling supplies.
Since the army recaptured the presidential palace on Friday, witnesses and activists have reported RSF fighters in retreat across the capital.
The army’s gains have been met with celebrations in its wartime headquarters in the Red Sea coastal city of Port Sudan, where displaced Sudanese rejoiced at the prospect of finally returning to Khartoum.
“God willing, we’re going home, we’ll finally celebrate Eid in our own homes,” Khartoum native Motaz Essam told AFP, ululations and fireworks echoing around him.
Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader since he ousted civilian politicians from power in a 2021 coup, said on Wednesday the army was looking to form a technocratic government and had “no desire to engage in political work.”
“The armed forces are working to create the conditions for an elected civilian government,” Burhan said in a meeting with Germany’s envoy to the Horn of Africa, Heiko Nitzschke, according to a statement from Burhan’s office.
The RSF has its origins in the Janjaweed militia unleashed by then strongman Omar Al-Bashir more than two decades ago in Darfur.
Like the army, the RSF has sought to position itself as the guardian of Sudan’s democratic uprising which ousted Bashir in 2019.
The United States has imposed sanctions on both sides. It accused the army of attacks on civilians and said the RSF had “committed genocide.”
Burhan and Dagalo, in the fragile political transition that followed Bashir’s overthrow, forged an alliance which saw both rise to prominence. Then a bitter power struggle over the potential integration of the RSF into the regular army erupted into all-out war.
5 Syrian siblings suffocate in house fire in Tripoli
- Electricity generator in basement believed to be source of blaze
- Flames spread to bags of plastic, cardboard collected by children’s father
BEIRUT: Five children from the same Syrian family were killed in a fire at a residential building in Tripoli on Thursday afternoon.
The three brothers and two sisters are thought to have suffocated in their home after an electricity generator caught fire in the basement of the building in the Al Mina area of the city, according to media reports.
The children’s father, who was not named, works as concierge at the building. He also collects recyclable materials, such as plastic and cardboard, which he stored in nylon sacks at the family home.
It is thought these items fueled the blaze.
Rescuers from the Lebanese Civil Defense and the Lebanese Red Cross paramedic teams rushed to the scene to tackle the fire and treat the victims.
The five siblings were identified as Mohammed, Mahmoud, Houssam, Amani and Alaa. Their bodies were taken to three hospitals in the city.
Three other people received medical treatment at the scene, the reports said.
A source from the Lebanese Internal Security Forces told Arab News that an investigation had been launched to determine the cause of the fire.
The children’s mother had been out shopping for Eid clothes for the siblings when the fire broke out. Video footage shared on social media showed her collapsing at the entrance to the building after discovering the tragedy on her return.
