Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say
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A picture taken from southern Israel bordering the Gaza Strip on Dec. 22, 2023, shows Israeli soldiers waiting at the entrance of the border amid ongoing battles with Hamas. (AFP)
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say
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A picture taken from southern Israel bordering the Gaza Strip on Dec. 22, 2023, shows smoke billowing following Israeli bombardment in the Palestinian territory amid ongoing battles with Hamas. (AFP)
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say
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A picture taken from southern Israel bordering the Gaza Strip on Dec. 22, 2023, shows an Israeli army tank rolling past debris of buildings in the Gaza Strip amid ongoing battles with Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 22 December 2023
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Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say
  • With the Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpassing 20,000, the international community is calling for a ceasefire
  • The Biden administration has quietly continued to supply arms to Israel

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, now sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history.
In just over two months, the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II.
It has killed more civilians than the US-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Daesh group.
The Israeli military has said little about what kinds of bombs and artillery it is using in Gaza. But from blast fragments found on-site and analyzes of strike footage, experts are confident that the vast majority of bombs dropped on the besieged enclave are US-made. They say the weapons include 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) “bunker-busters” that have killed hundreds in densely populated areas.
With the Palestinian death toll in Gaza surpassing 20,000, the international community is calling for a ceasefire. Israel vows to press ahead, saying it wants to destroy Hamas’ military capabilities following the militant group’s Oct. 7 cross-border rampage that triggered the war, in which it killed 1,200 people and took 240 others hostage.
The Biden administration has quietly continued to supply arms to Israel. Last week, however, President Joe Biden publicly acknowledged that Israel was losing international legitimacy for what he called its “indiscriminate bombing.”
Here’s a look at what is known so far about Israel’s campaign on Gaza.
HOW MUCH DESTRUCTION IS THERE IN GAZA?
Israel’s offensive has destroyed over two-thirds of all structures in northern Gaza and a quarter of buildings in the southern area of Khan Younis, according to an analysis of Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite data by Corey Scher of the CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, experts in mapping damage during wartime.
The percentage of damaged buildings in the Khan Younis area nearly doubled in just the first two weeks of Israel’s southern offensive, they said.
That includes tens of thousands of homes as well as schools, hospitals, mosques and stores. UN monitors have said that about 70 percent of school buildings across Gaza have been damaged. At least 56 damaged schools served as shelters for displaced civilians. Israeli strikes damaged 110 mosques and three churches, the monitors said.
Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian deaths by embedding militants in civilian infrastructure. Those sites also shelter multitudes of Palestinians who have fled under Israeli evacuation orders.
“Gaza is now a different color from space. It’s a different texture,” said Scher, who has worked with Van Den Hoek to map destruction across several war zones, from Aleppo to Mariupol.
HOW DOES THE DESTRUCTION STACK UP HISTORICALLY?
By some measures, destruction in Gaza has outpaced Allied bombings of Germany during World War II.
Between 1942 and 1945, the allies attacked 51 major German cities and towns, destroying about 40-50 percent of their urban areas, said Robert Pape, a US military historian. Pape said this amounted to 10 percent of buildings across Germany, compared to over 33 percent across Gaza, a densely populated territory of just 140 square miles (360 square kilometers).
“Gaza is one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history,” said Pape. “It now sits comfortably in the top quartile of the most devastating bombing campaigns ever.”
The US-led coalition’s 2017 assault to expel the Daesh group from the Iraqi city of Mosul was considered one of the most intense attacks on a city in generations. That nine-month battle killed around 10,000 civilians, a third of them from coalition bombardment, according an Associated Press investigation at the time.
During the 2014-2017 campaign to defeat Daesh in Iraq, the coalition carried out nearly 15,000 strikes across the country, according to Airwars, a London-based independent group that tracks recent conflicts. By comparison, the Israeli military said last week it has conducted 22,000 strikes in Gaza.
WHAT TYPES OF BOMBS ARE BEING USED?
The Israeli military has not specified what it is using. It says every strike is cleared by legal advisers to make sure it complies with international law.
“We choose the right munition for each target — so it doesn’t cause unnecessary damage,” said the army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
Weapons experts have been able to draw conclusions by analyzing blast fragments found on-site, satellite images and videos circulated on social media. They say the findings offer only a peek into the full scope of the air war.
So far, fragments of American-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) bombs and smaller diameter bombs have been found in Gaza, according to Brian Castner, a weapons investigator with Amnesty International.
The JDAM bombs include precision-guided 1,000- and 2,000-pound (450-kilogram and 900-kilogram) “bunker-busters.”
“It turns earth to liquid,” said Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon defense official and a war crimes investigator for the UN “It pancakes entire buildings.”
He said the explosion of a 2,000-pound bomb in the open means “instant death” for anyone within about 30 meters (100 feet). Lethal fragmentation can extend for up to 365 meters (1,200 feet).
In an Oct. 31 strike on the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya, experts say a 2,000-pound bomb killed over 100 civilians.
Experts have also identified fragments of SPICE (Smart, Precize Impact, Cost-Effective) 2000-pound bombs, which are fitted with a GPS guidance system to make targeting more precise. Castner said the bombs are produced by the Israeli defense giant Rafael, but a recent State Department release first obtained by The New York Times showed some of the technology had been produced in the United States.
The Israeli military is also dropping unguided “dumb” bombs. Several experts pointed to two photos posted to social media by the Israeli Air Force at the start of the war showing fighter jets stocked with unguided bombs.
IS THE STRATEGY WORKING?
Israel says it has two goals: destroy Hamas and rescue the 129 hostages still held by militants.
Eleven weeks into the war, Israel says it has destroyed many Hamas sites and hundreds of tunnel shafts and has killed 7,000 Hamas fighters out of an estimated 30,000-40,000. Israeli leaders say intense military pressure is the only way to free more hostages.
But some families of hostages worry that the bombing endangers their loved ones. Hostages released during a weeklong ceasefire last month recounted that their captors moved them from place to place to avoid Israeli bombardment. Hamas has claimed that several hostages died from Israeli bombs, though the claims could not be verified.
The level of destruction is so high because “Hamas is very entrenched within the civilian population,” said Efraim Inbar, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, a think tank. He also said intense bombardment of Hamas’ tunnels is needed to protect advancing Israeli ground forces from attacks.


Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’

Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’
Updated 8 sec ago
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Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’

Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’
  • “Supporters of the occupying regime, especially the United States, have been complicit in the crimes of this regime” against Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis, it said

TEHRAN: Iran praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as a decisive moment for Palestinians on Monday as it marked the first anniversary of the deadliest attack on Israeli soil.
“The operation on October 7, 2023... was a turning point in the history of the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and oppression of the Zionist regime,” Iran’s foreign ministry said.
It described the attack as a release of “the Palestinian people’s pent-up historic anger against eight decades of occupation, murder and genocide.”
The statement also accused Israel’s allies of supporting these actions.
“Supporters of the occupying regime, especially the United States, have been complicit in the crimes of this regime” against Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis, it said.
It added that they “must be held accountable for supplying weapons and supporting the Zionist regime.”
 

 


Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight

Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight
Updated 4 min 36 sec ago
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Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight

Israel’s Netanyahu, on October 7 anniversary, vows to press Hamas fight
  • Benjamin Netanyahu: ‘As long as the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country, we will continue to fight’

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at an official memorial marking the anniversary of October 7 attack Monday, vowed to press on fighting until achieving the “sacred mission” of the war against Hamas.
“As long as the enemy threatens our existence and the peace of our country, we will continue to fight. As long as our hostages are still in Gaza, we will continue to fight,” Netanyahu said in a pre-recorded television address, vowing not to give up on the “sacred mission.”


Why the Middle East finds itself on the edge of apocalypse

Why the Middle East finds itself on the edge of apocalypse
Updated 12 min 33 sec ago
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Why the Middle East finds itself on the edge of apocalypse

Why the Middle East finds itself on the edge of apocalypse
  • As region awaits Israel’s response to Iran’s missile attack, many wonder how much further the conflict might escalate
  • Protracted standoff has raised the specter of a Third World War, which has been looming since end of the second

LONDON: On Oct. 6, 2023, it was grim business as usual in the central West Bank town of Hawara, where clashes between the Palestinian residents and armed gangs from nearby Israeli settlements are depressingly common.

One night in February last year, as part of an ongoing ad hoc campaign of intimidation, and the endless cycle of tit-for-tat killings, hundreds of settlers had attacked the town, setting fire to dozens of buildings, killing one resident and injuring 100 more as Israeli soldiers looked on.

On Oct. 6, it was 19-year-old Labib Dumaidi’s turn to die, shot in the heart during another invasion of the town by a mob of armed settlers who, in a typical act of extreme provocation, had entered the town in force to set up a temporary prayer hut.

One more victim had been added to the steady toll of lives lost in the ongoing, low-level war of attrition between occupying Israeli security forces and Palestinians in the West Bank.

And then, the following morning, the drama of everyday life and death in the West Bank was suddenly forgotten.

A man standing atop a heavily damaged building views other destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 7, 2024. (AFP)

One year on, in the wake of the Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel’s response — which so far has claimed more than 40,000 lives in Gaza and has now bled over into Lebanon — it is possible to look back almost nostalgically to the days before Oct. 7, 2023.

Now, however, with Israeli troops operating in increasing numbers in Lebanon, Hezbollah members and leaders being targeted with seeming disregard for the lives of innocent bystanders, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling Iranians their freedom would “come a lot sooner than people think,” almost anything seems possible.

Anything, that is, but peace and an end to the bloodshed in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank — where, with the world’s attention diverted elsewhere, Israeli military-backed settler violence against Palestinians has been stepped up to a new level.

The big question now is how much further the conflict might escalate.

Israeli army vehicles drive in a street during an army raid in Jenin in the occupied West Bank on September 25, 2024. (AFP)

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, professor in global thought and comparative philosophies at SOAS University of London and author of the book “What is Iran?”, believes that “the strategic aim of this Israeli administration has been to drag the United States into a wider regional conflict, as Israel itself does not have the capability to conduct a war with Iran.”

And, “given the centrality of the United States to this plan, it can only be the US government that can facilitate peace, by restraining Benjamin Netanyahu with active steps, not token gestures.”

But with dangerously bad timing, the US is less than a month away from an election that will see either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump enter office in January as the next president.

Both the election and the subsequent transition of administrations, of whichever stripe, can only hamper US diplomatic investment in the current crisis. Nevertheless, according to Adib-Moghaddam, “if the current conflagration of conflicts is not mitigated, we will be embroiled in a war with global repercussions, certainly in terms of the economic consequences.

“My recommendation would be to engage the reformist Iranian administration around (recently elected) President Masoud Pezeshkian, as a part of a wider strategy to subdue the right-wing factions on all sides.”

The prospect of a Third World War has been looming ever since the end of the second, and in the current crisis, the specter has been raised once again.

An illustration of how relatively minor regional conflicts can escalate out of control can be found in the origins of the First World War, which saw more than 30 nations declare war and, between 1914 and 1918, cost up to 20 million lives.

Then came the flu epidemic of 1918-1919, which remains an object lesson in the dangers of unforeseen circumstances. Believed by some epidemiologists to have been triggered by the arrival on the western front in Europe of infected US soldiers, the epidemic killed even more people than the war itself.

“I think it was George W. Bush who once said, ‘It is difficult to predict — especially the future’,” said Ahron Bregman, former Israeli soldier, author, and senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, specializing in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East peace process.

“But looking into my crystal ball, I believe that it will neither be back to business as usual nor World War III. Both Israelis and Iranians do not want to have a big war.

“Of course, war has its own dynamic, and war could impose itself on them, but I want to believe that they will try to contain it. I might be wrong.”

Elsewhere, on Israel’s doorstep, Bregman said, “The situation between Israel and the ‘rest,’ so to speak, is one of attrition. Attrition wars are often long and bloody, therefore returning to ‘business as usual’ (after the events of the past year) would be difficult.”

Now, “the center of gravity has shifted to Lebanon, and there we will witness weeks, months and, perhaps, if Israel gets stuck there, even years of friction.”

Israel’s history of engagement with its northern neighbor Lebanon offers sobering evidence of the truth of this prognosis.

Israel’s first major intervention in Lebanon was in March 1978. In response to a terrorist attack that killed 28 Israelis, 7,000 Israeli troops crossed the border in a bid to evict the Palestine Liberation Organization from southern Lebanon. They advanced about 25 km into the country, to the southern bank of the Litani River, killing up to 500 fighters and three times as many civilians, and internally displacing more than 100,000 people.

Israeli soldiers entering a village during the first invasion of southern Lebanon on 15 March 1978. (AFP) 

This invasion triggered a fierce response from the PLO and, ultimately, led to the 1982 Lebanon War. This time the Israelis seized half the country, laid siege to Beirut and, in an act that remains notorious to this day, stood by as an estimated 3,000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were massacred by a Christian militia in the Sabra neighborhood of Beirut and the nearby Shatila refugee camp.

By 1985, Israeli forces had withdrawn to a so-called Security Zone, occupying some 800 sq. km of Lebanon on the Israeli border. It was this, ironically, that saw the emergence of Hezbollah, the organization with which Israel is once again locked in mortal combat in Lebanon.

FASTFACT

  • Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani has not been heard from since large-scale Israeli strikes on Beirut late last week.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi, an associate professor of history at California State University San Marcos, said that since Oct. 7, 2023, “the US has entered another ‘forever war’,” and the events of the past year are “a perfect example of how Washington succumbs to mission creep.”

This, he believes, locks in the certainty of an extended regional conflict.

Charred cars at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)

“Over the past year, the fighting has expanded to combat the Yemeni Houthi militia in the Red Sea, and the (Arabian) Gulf to counter Iran’s influence there,” he said.

“Regardless of who wins the next presidential election in November, American forces deployed to these theaters are likely to stay at their current levels or even increase.”

On Friday morning, US aircraft and warships attacked more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen, in apparent retaliation for the shooting down last week of the third US MQ-9 Reaper drone lost over the country in a month.

During the Iranian drone and missile attacks on Israel, on April 13 and Oct. 1, “Israel had to rely on American aircraft and naval vessels to intercept all the projectiles,” said Al-Marashi, and since October 2023, “the US has become a party to an undeclared war with Iran, making American forces vulnerable to retaliation.”

A destroyed building is pictured in Hod HaSharon in the aftermath of an Iranian missile attack on Israel, on October 2, 2024. (AFP)

Meanwhile, the deployment of the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, currently the flagship of a carrier strike group in the Gulf of Oman off the coast of Iran, has just been extended.

“This force is currently serving as a force to deter Iran, a critical mission, given that Iran was the first and only Middle Eastern state in the 21st century to strike Israel directly, with a massive salvo of ballistic missiles from its territory, not once, but twice, just in a single year.”

The current situation, believes Al-Marashi, has all the ingredients necessary for a long-term conflict.

“Even though Iran did not inflict major damage, it can claim a symbolic victory,” he said.

“Israelis now know that Iran has the ability to reach their country, and, in the future, some missiles could get through. That bestows on Iran a form of power that it will not give up.

“US naval forces in the Gulf of Oman and the (Arabian) Gulf are Israel’s only deterrent, so Iran calculates the American response if it were to launch a third salvo – and missions to establish deterrence do not have an end date.”

As with Iran, “the Houthis are not going to give up their attacks because they generate symbolic victories. Attacking Israel has broadened the Houthi appeal in Yemen beyond their Zaydi Shiite base, and the US and Israel make the Houthis only more popular by goading both states to attack them, creating a vicious cycle.”

He added: “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were the forever wars of the 2000s. It seems the wars since October 2023 have the potential to serve as those conflicts of the 2020s.”

Kelly Petillo, program manager for Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations, fears the war is “broadening in dangerous ways.

Palestinian women react upon identifying the bodies of victims of an Israeli strike that targeted a mosque-turned-shelter in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on October 6, 2024. (AFP)

“This creates multiple fronts and acute dangers for the region, threatening to break current alliances and destroy cooperation among key states, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia,” she said.

“Moreover, it adds layers to the Gaza war and erases any possibility for diplomacy there, making a ceasefire even more elusive than it already was.”

She added that Israel “is clearly not going to stop until its Western allies tell it to and create costs for its actions.”

According to Petillo, there is “already talk within Israel to go to Iran next and we are looking at a worst-case scenario of a regional war involving Iran.”

This is not inevitable, “mainly because Iran itself wants to avoid this. Unfortunately, there are different camps in Iran, and some do want to fight Israel.

“But I still think there is a general acknowledgment that Iran wouldn’t win in a war against Israel due to the latter’s military superiority, and which the US and potentially the UK and others too might get dragged into.”

Part of a rocket, launched during Iran’s strike against Israel, in the West Bank city of Jericho, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP)

To avoid this worst-case scenario, “diplomacy needs to be stepped up. There is a role to be played by the US, for sure, but also by the UK and Europe, for them to talk to Israel, Iran and different actors and pass messages to de-escalate.

“It is in all parties’ interest to avoid the nightmare scenario of a regional war.

“But it all comes down first and foremost to communicating to Israel that it needs to stop the escalation and engage in ceasefire talks, while still showing general support toward its security.”

 


Hamas armed wing vows ‘long war of attrition’ against Israel

Hamas armed wing vows ‘long war of attrition’ against Israel
Updated 24 min 16 sec ago
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Hamas armed wing vows ‘long war of attrition’ against Israel

Hamas armed wing vows ‘long war of attrition’ against Israel
  • Israel has killed more than 41,900 Palestinians while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide accusations that Israel denies

DOHA, Qatar: Hamas’s armed wing vowed on Monday, the anniversary of the militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel, to keep fighting what it described as a “long war of attrition.”
“We choose to keep up the fight in a long war of attrition, one that is painful and costly for the enemy,” said Abu Obeida, spokesman of the militant group’s armed wing.
He also warned that scores of people taken hostage into Gaza on October 7 last year were enduring a “very difficult” situation.
He said the “psychological and health condition of the remaining hostages has become very difficult.”
His statement, broadcast on Al Jazeera, came as Israel marked the anniversary of the worst attack in its history.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants took 251 people hostage into Gaza, and 97 are still being held in there, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
 

 


Saied re-elected Tunisia president with 90.7 percent of the vote

Saied re-elected Tunisia president with 90.7 percent of the vote
Updated 22 min 23 sec ago
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Saied re-elected Tunisia president with 90.7 percent of the vote

Saied re-elected Tunisia president with 90.7 percent of the vote
  • Saied, 66, won Sunday’s vote by a landslide with 2.4 million votes
  • Imprisoned rival Ayachi Zammel received just 7.3 percent

TUNIS: Kais Saied has been re-elected president of Tunisia with 90.69 percent of votes cast, electoral authority ISIE said Monday, although low turnout reflected widespread discontent in the cradle of the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings.
Three years after Saied made a sweeping power grab, rights groups fear his re-election will entrench his grip on the only democracy to emerge from the 2011 protests.
Saied, 66, won Sunday’s vote by a landslide with 2.4 million votes — but with turnout at only 28.8 percent of nearly 10 million eligible voters.
His imprisoned rival Ayachi Zammel received just 7.3 percent, and third candidate Zouhair Maghzaoui only 1.9 percent, ISIE head Farouk Bouasker said on national television.
Critics said the low turnout reflected widespread disillusionment with the election.
On Sunday, the ISIE said just six percent of voters were aged 18-35, a category constituting a third of the initially eligible electorate.
After longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted in 2011, Tunisia prided itself on being the birthplace of the regional revolts against authoritarianism that became known as the Arab Spring.
But the North African country’s path changed dramatically after Saied was elected in 2019 with 73 percent of the vote.
Two years later, he dissolved parliament, and later rewrote the constitution.
Sunday’s turnout was the lowest recorded in a Tunisian presidential after Ben Ali’s ouster. In 2019, 58 percent turned out to vote for Saied as president.
“I didn’t vote yesterday, simply because I no longer have confidence and I am desperate,” said Houcine, 63, giving only one name for fear of retribution.
Political commentator Hatem Nafti, author of a forthcoming book on Saied’s authoritarian rule, said: “The vote’s legitimacy is undoubtedly tainted with candidates who could have overshadowed (Saied) being systematically sidelined.”
On Monday, the European Union said it had “taken note” of criticisms from rights groups “concerning the integrity of the electoral process” and “various measures deemed detrimental to the democratic requirements of credibility” of the vote.
Late Sunday, hundreds of Saied supporters took to the streets of Tunis in celebration after exit polls announced his potential win with 89 percent.
“I voted yesterday, and the results are excellent, everything is going very well, the atmosphere is great,” said Mounir, 65.
“What we need now is a drop in prices. We want better education, health and above all safety.”
Saied had been widely expected to win after the ISIE barred 14 candidates from standing, leaving just Zammel and Maghzaoui as challengers.
Zammel, a little-known liberal businessman, has been behind bars since his bid was approved by the ISIE in September. He faces more than 14 years in prison for allegedly forging endorsements.
Maghzaoui had backed Saied’s power grab, and was seen as no threat.
Rights groups have condemned a democratic backslide in Tunisia in recent years.
According to New York-based Human Rights Watch, more than “170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights.”
Other jailed figures include Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist-inspired opposition party Ennahdha, which dominated political life after the revolution.
Also detained is Abir Moussi, head of the Free Destourian Party, which critics accuse of wanting to bring back the regime ousted in 2011.
Saied had called on Tunisians to “vote massively” to usher in what he called an era of “reconstruction.”
He cited “a long war against conspiratorial forces linked to foreign circles,” accusing them of “infiltrating many public services and disrupting hundreds of projects.”
Ben Ali and other Arab leaders often cited foreign conspiracies to justify crackdowns on dissent.
The International Crisis Group think tank has said that while Saied “enjoys significant support among the working classes, he has been criticized for failing to resolve the country’s deep economic crisis.”
Celebrating the exit polls late Sunday, Saied again warned of “foreign interference,” pledging to rid Tunisia “of the corrupt and conspirators.”
Nafti said Saied will use his re-election as carte blanche for further crackdowns.
“He has promised to get rid of traitors and enemies of Tunisia,” Nafti said. “He will harden his rule.”