UN chief calls for end to ‘vicious circle’ of bloodshed and hate as Gaza conflict escalates

UN chief calls for end to ‘vicious circle’ of bloodshed and hate as Gaza conflict escalates
Fire and smoke rise following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City. (AP)
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Updated 10 October 2023
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UN chief calls for end to ‘vicious circle’ of bloodshed and hate as Gaza conflict escalates

UN chief calls for end to ‘vicious circle’ of bloodshed and hate as Gaza conflict escalates
  • Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expresses deep alarm at imposition of ‘complete siege’ on Gaza after Israel vows to block all food and other essential supplies
  • He calls on Israeli authorities to ensure the military response to attacks by Hamas is carried out in strict observance of international humanitarian law

NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called for an end to “this vicious circle of bloodshed, hatred and polarization,” as the conflict between Hamas and Israel continued for a third day.

He repeated his condemnation of “the abhorrent attacks by Hamas and others” on Israeli towns and villages, launched from Gaza, which have left more than 800 Israelis dead and more than 2,500 injured since they began on Saturday.

“I recognize the legitimate grievances of the Palestinian people but nothing can justify these acts of terror and the killing, maiming and abduction of civilians,” Guterres said as he reiterated his call for an immediate halt to the attacks and the release of all hostages.

He acknowledged that the violence does not exist “in a vacuum” but stems from a “long-standing conflict with a 56-year-long occupation and no political end in sight.”

He added that he was “deeply distressed” by the decision of Israeli authorities to respond to the attacks by imposing a total siege on Gaza, which has already been under blockade since 2007.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said earlier on Monday that his country would impose a “complete siege” on the Strip, as a result of which the 2.3 million people living there will receive “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas — it’s all closed.”

Speaking after an extraordinary meeting with UN leaders to discuss the situation in Gaza, Guterres said: “The humanitarian situation in Gaza was extremely dire before these hostilities. Now it will only deteriorate exponentially.”

In addition to the siege, Israeli authorities have responded to the attacks by launching a barrage of airstrikes that have relentlessly pounded Gaza, reportedly killing more than 500 Palestinians, including women and children, and wounding more than 3,000. Guterres expressed his deep concern about these figures, noting that they continue to rise as the Israeli operations continue.

“While I recognize Israel’s legitimate security concerns, I also remind Israel that military operations must be conducted in strict accordance with international humanitarian law,” he said.

He stressed the importance of respecting and protecting civilians at all times, and that civilian sites and infrastructure must not be targeted.

“We already have reports of Israeli missiles striking health facilities inside Gaza as well as multi-story residential towers and a mosque,” Guterres said.

“Two UNRWA schools sheltering displaced families in Gaza were also hit,” he added, referring to the UN agency that provides humanitarian and development assistance for Palestinian refugees.

“Some 137,000 people are currently sheltering in UNRWA facilities, with the number increasing as heavy shelling and airstrikes continue.”

Medical equipment, food, fuel and other humanitarian supplies are desperately needed in Gaza, Guterres said, along with safe access for aid workers. He vowed that efforts by the UN to provide assistance in response to the needs in the impoverished territory will continue, and called on the international community to mobilize immediate humanitarian support for this effort.

He also emphasized the need “even in these worst of times, and perhaps especially in the most trying moments” to look toward the long-term horizon and avoid any irreversible actions that might embolden extremists and jeopardize the prospects for lasting peace.

“Israel must see its legitimate needs for security materialized, and Palestinians must see a clear perspective for the establishment of their own state realized,” Guterres said.

“Only a negotiated peace that fulfills the legitimate national aspirations of Palestinians and Israelis, together with their security alike — the long-held vision of a two-state solution in line with United Nations resolutions, international law and previous agreements — can bring long-term stability to the people of this land and the wider Middle East region.”

He added that both he and Tor Wennesland, the UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, are talking with leaders in the region to express “our concern, our outrage, and to advance efforts to avoid any spillover to the wider Middle East.”


US sanctions Lebanese network over alleged oil, LPG smuggling for Hezbollah

US sanctions Lebanese network over alleged oil, LPG smuggling for Hezbollah
Updated 5 sec ago
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US sanctions Lebanese network over alleged oil, LPG smuggling for Hezbollah

US sanctions Lebanese network over alleged oil, LPG smuggling for Hezbollah
  • The sanctions target three people, five companies and two vessels
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration on Wednesday issued sanctions on a Lebanese network it accused of smuggling oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to help fund the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
The sanctions target three people, five companies and two vessels that the US Treasury Department said were overseen by a senior leader of Hezbollah’s finance team and used profits from illicit LPG shipments to Syria to aid generate revenue for the group.
Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley Smith, in a statement, said Hezbollah “continues to launch rockets into Israel and fuel regional instability, choosing to prioritize funding violence over taking care of the people it claims to care about, including the tens of thousands displaced in southern Lebanon.”

Algeria election results are being questioned by the opposition candidates and the president himself

Algeria election results are being questioned by the opposition candidates and the president himself
Updated 12 September 2024
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Algeria election results are being questioned by the opposition candidates and the president himself

Algeria election results are being questioned by the opposition candidates and the president himself
  • Algeria is Africa’s largest country by area. With almost 45 million people, it’s the continent’s second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024

Algerians expected an uneventful election that would bestow President Abdelmadjid Tebboune a second term. Instead, they got the president himself calling into question the vote count and legal challenges from his opponents alleging fraud.
Such a surprising turn of events marks a departure for Algeria, where elections have historically been carefully choreographed by the ruling elite and military apparatus that backs it.
The country’s constitutional court has until next week to rule on the appeals from Tebboune’s two opponents. But it’s anyone’s guess how questions about the election will be resolved, whether tallies will be re-tabulated and what it means for Tebboune’s efforts to project an image of legitimacy and popular support.
WHAT’S THE CONFUSION?
Algeria’s National Independent Election Authority, or ANIE, published figures throughout election day showing a low turnout. By 5 p.m. on Saturday, the reported turnout in Algeria was 26.5 percent — far fewer than had voted by that time in the election five years ago. After unexplained delays, it said “provisional average turnout” by 8 p.m. had spiked to 48 percent.
But the next day, it reported that only 5.6 million out of nearly 24 million voters had cast ballots — nowhere near 48 percent.
It said 94.7 percent voted to re-elect Tebboune. His two challengers — Abdelali Hassani Cherif of the Movement of Society for Peace and Youcef Aouchiche of the Socialist Forces Front — won a dismal 3.2 percent and 2.2 percent of the vote, respectively.
Cherif, Aouchiche and their campaigns subsequently questioned how results were reported and alleged foul play including pressure placed on poll workers and proxy voting.
None of that surprised observers.
But later, Tebboune’s campaign joined with his opponents in releasing a shared statement rebuking ANIE for “inaccuracies, contradictions, ambiguities and inconsistencies,” legitimizing questions about the president’s win and aligning him with popular anger that his challengers had drummed up.
Cherif and Aouchiche filed appeals at Algeria’s constitutional court on Tuesday after their campaigns further rebuked the election as “a masquerade.”
WHY IS VOTER TURNOUT CLOSELY WATCHED IN ALGERIA’S ELECTION?
Turnout is notoriously low in Algeria, where activists consider voting tantamount to endorsing a corrupt, military-led system rather than something that can usher in meaningful change.
Urging Algerians to participate in the election was a campaign theme for Tebboune as well as his challengers. That’s largely due to the legacy of the pro-democracy “Hirak” protests that led to the ouster of Tebboune’s predecessor.
After an interim government that year hurriedly scheduled elections in December 2019, protesters boycotted them, calling them rigged and saying they were a way for the ruling elite to handpick a leader and avoid the deeper changes demanded.
Tebboune, seen as the military’s preferred candidate, won with 58 percent of the vote. But more than 60 percent of the country’s 24 million voters abstained and his victory was greeted with fresh rounds of protests.
His supporters had hoped for a high turnout victory this year would project Tebboune’s popular support and put distance between Algeria and the political crisis that toppled his predecessor. It appears that gambit failed after only 5.6 million out of 24 million voters participated.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HIRAK PROTESTS?
In 2019, millions of Algerians flooded the streets for pro-democracy protests that became known as the “Hirak” (which means movement in Arabic).
Protesters were outraged after 81-year-old President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced plans to run for a fifth term. He had rarely been seen since a 2013 stroke left him paralyzed. The Hirak was jubilant but unsatisfied when Bouteflika resigned and top businessmen were charged with corruption. Protesters never coalesced around leaders or a new vision for Algeria, but called for deeper reforms to foster genuine democracy and remove from power members of what Algerians simply call “the power” — the elites from business, politics and the military thought to run the country.
Hirak protesters rejectedTebboune as a member of the old guard and interpreted most of his earlyovertures as empty gestures meant to placate them.
Before, during and after Tebboune’s election, protests continued. Then, COVID-19 hit and they were outlawed. Authorities continued to repress freedom of expression and imprison journalists and activists made famous by the pro-democracy movement, though protests restarted in 2021.
Figures from the Hirak denounced the 2024 election as a rubber stamp exercise to entrench Algeria’s status quo and called for another round of boycotts to express a deep lacking of faith in the system. Many said the high abstention rate in Saturday’s election proved Algerians were still aligned with their criticisms of the system.
“Algerians don’t give a damn about this bogus election,” said former Hirak leader Hakim Addad, who was banned from participating in politics three years ago. “The political crisis will persist as long as the regime remains in place. The Hirak has spoken.”
WHAT DOES TEBBOUNE QUESTIONING THE RESULTS MEAN?
Nobody knows. Few believe the challenges could lead to Tebboune’s victory being overturned.
Op-ed columnists and political analysts in Algeria have condemned ANIE, the independent election authority established in 2019, and its president Mohamed Charfi, for bungling elections that the government hoped would project its own legitimacy in the face of its detractors.
Hasni Abidi, an Algeria analyst at the Geneva-based Center for Studies and Research on the Arab World and Mediterranean, called it “a mess within the regime and the elite” and said it dealt a blow to both the credibility of institutions in Algeria and Tebboune’s victory.
Some argue his willingness to join opponents and criticize an election that he won suggest infighting among the elite thought to control Algeria.
“The reality is that this remains a more fragmented, less coherent political system than it ever has been or than people have ever assumed,” said Riccardo Fabiani, International Crisis Group’s North Africa director.
WHAT ARE THE STAKES?
Though Tebboune will likely emerge the winner, the election will reflect the depth of support for his political and economic policies five years after the pro-democracy movement toppled his predecessor.
Algeria is Africa’s largest country by area. With almost 45 million people, it’s the continent’s second most populous after South Africa to hold presidential elections in 2024 — a year in which more than 50 elections are being held worldwide, encompassing more than half the world’s population.
Thanks to oil and gas revenue, the country is relatively wealthy compared to its neighbors, yet large segments of the population have in recent years decried increases in the cost of living and routine shortages of staples including cooking oil and, in some regions, water.
The country is a linchpin to regional stability, often acting as a power broker and counterterrorism ally to western nations as neighboring countries — including Libya, Niger and Mali — are convulsed by violence, coups and revolution.
It’s a major energy supplier, especially to European countries trying to wean themselves off Russian gas and maintains deep, albeit contentious, ties with France, the colonial power that ruled it for more than a century until 1962.
The country spends twice as much on defense as any other in Africa and is the world’s third largest importer of Russian weapons after India and China, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Arms Transfers Database.


UN Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school

UN Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school
Updated 13 min 15 sec ago
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UN Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school

UN Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school
  • “Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people,” UNRWA said on X

Gaza: An Israeli air strike hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, with the Hamas-run territory’s civil defense agency reporting that 18 people were killed, including UN staffers, and the military saying it had targeted militants.
The Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, already hit several times during the war, was struck again on Wednesday, killing 18 people, including two members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said Gaza’s civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
UNRWA gave the higher figure of six staffers killed at the Nuseirat school-turned-shelter, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.
“This school has been hit five times since the war began. It is home to around 12,000 displaced people, mainly women and children,” the UN agency separately posted on X. “No one is safe in Gaza.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres deplored the killings, which he also said included six UNRWA colleagues.
“What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” he wrote on social media platform X.
“These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least 18 other people were wounded in the school bombing.
AFP could not independently verify the toll, which the agency said included several women and children.
Israel’s military said its air force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control center” on the grounds of Al-Jawni, without elaborating on the outcome or the identities of those targeted.
“Most of the people took refuge in schools and the schools were bombed,” said Basil Amarneh from Gaza’s Al-Aqsa hospital, where children were arriving in the arms of medics.
“Where will people go?“
The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking safety in schools.
Israeli forces have struck several such schools in recent months, saying Palestinian militants were operating there and hiding among displaced civilians — charges denied by Hamas.
In July, at least 16 people were killed in an air strike on the Al-Jawni facility that Israel said had targeted “terrorists.”
Israel’s military offensive since the war began on October 7 has killed at least 41,084 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which also includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s military meanwhile reported the deaths of two soldiers late Tuesday when an army helicopter crashed in the area of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
The military announced on Wednesday that the helicopter had crashed while landing and that another eight soldiers were injured.
The aircraft had been on a “life-saving operation” to evacuate a wounded soldier when it crashed, Major General Tomer Bar said in a statement.
“An investigative committee has been appointed to investigate the details of the crash,” he said, and called it an “operational accident.”
The latest deaths bring the Israeli military’s losses in the Gaza campaign to 344 since its ground offensive began on October 27.


Libya’s factions progress in central bank crisis talks, says UN Libya mission

Libya’s factions progress in central bank crisis talks, says UN Libya mission
Updated 12 September 2024
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Libya’s factions progress in central bank crisis talks, says UN Libya mission

Libya’s factions progress in central bank crisis talks, says UN Libya mission

CAIRO: Libya’s rival factions made progress on talks over the central bank crisis and will continue discussions on Thursday to reach a final agreement, the UN Libya mission said on Wednesday, in a bid to defuse a crisis that has slashed oil output and exports.
“The participants of the two (legislative) chambers made progress in agreeing on the general principles governing the interim period leading to the appointment of a new governor and board of directors for the Central Bank,” the United Nations Libya mission (UNSMIL) said in a statement.
The meeting hosted by UNSMIL featured representatives from the Benghazi-based House of Representatives, the High Council of State and the Presidential Council, which are both based in Tripoli.
The standoff began last month when western Libyan factions moved to oust a veteran central bank governor, prompting eastern factions to declare a shutdown to all oil output.
Although Libya’s two legislative bodies said last week they agreed to jointly appoint a central bank governor within 30 days, the situation remains fluid and uncertain.
Libyan oil exports fell around 81 percent
last week, Kpler data showed on Wednesday, as the National Oil Corporation canceled cargoes amid a crisis over control of Libya’s central bank and oil revenue.


Turkish-American activist’s family awaits body for burial

Turkish-American activist’s family awaits body for burial
Updated 12 September 2024
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Turkish-American activist’s family awaits body for burial

Turkish-American activist’s family awaits body for burial
  • Her family is still waiting for Eygi’s body to arrive and is hoping to bury her in the southwestern town of Didim on Friday

DIDIM, Turkiye: The family of a Turkish-American activist killed during a protest in the occupied West Bank is expecting to bury her in Turkiye, her uncle told AFP on Wednesday.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was shot dead last week while demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank town of Beita.
The United Nations rights office has accused Israeli forces of having shot Eygi, 26, in the head.
The Israeli army has acknowledged opening fire in the area and said it was looking into the case.
Her family is still waiting for Eygi’s body to arrive and is hoping to bury her in the southwestern town of Didim on Friday.
“It’s sad but it’s also a source of pride for Didim,” Eygi’s uncle Ali Tikkim, 67, told AFP.
“It’s important that a young girl, martyred and sensitive to the world is buried here.”
Eygi was a frequent visitor to the Aegean seaside resort.
“It’s likely that the funeral will take place on Friday but nothing is certain,” said Tikkim, who said he believed her body was still in Israel.
“Israel asked for an autopsy” but Eygi’s parents refused and have “hired a lawyer” to inform Israeli authorities, Tikkim said.
The US embassy in Turkiye’s capital Ankara said it was “following the case” but refused to comment.
Tikkim said that Eygi’s mother, who lives in Seattle on the US west coast, arrived in Didim on Wednesday and that her father was on his way.
The family wanted Eygi to be buried in Didim, where her grandfather lives and her grandmother has been laid to rest, said Tikkim.
“Aysenur was here about two weeks ago. She came here twice a year when she could, to swim and visit her family,” he said.
“Then she told us she was going to Jordan. She went to Palestine for humanitarian reasons.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to ensure “that Aysenur Ezgi’s death does not go unpunished.”
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for Israel to provide “full accountability” for Eygi’s death.