Egypt says to support South Africa ICJ case against Israel

An Israeli tank maneuvers near the Israel-Gaza border in Israel, May 12, 2024. (Reuters)

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Updated 12 May 2024

AFP

May 12, 2024 16:48

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Egypt says to support South Africa ICJ case against Israel

In its most recent appeal to the ICJ on Friday, South Africa again accused Israel of “continuing violations of the Genocide Convention”
Egypt on Sunday said its move to back the case comes “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip”

Updated 12 May 2024

AFP

May 12, 2024 16:48

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CAIRO: Egypt on Sunday announced its intention to formally support South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, alleging genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Pretoria brought its case to the ICJ in December, calling on the UN court to order Israel to suspend its military operations in Gaza.
In its most recent appeal to the ICJ on Friday, South Africa again accused Israel of “continuing violations of the Genocide Convention” and of being “contemptuous” of international law.
Egypt on Sunday said its move to back the case comes “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip,” according to a foreign ministry statement.
It further pointed to Israel’s systematic “targeting of civilians and destruction of infrastructure” and “pushing Palestinians into displacement and expulsion.”
South Africa has called on the world’s top court to order Israel to “immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive” in Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city where about 1.5 million Palestinians had been pushed against the Egyptian border.
Israel on Monday sent ground troops and tanks into eastern Rafah, later seizing and shutting the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that Gaza risked an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and has acted as a key mediator between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, including in the current war.
It also shares the only border with the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel, but has refused to coordinate aid access through the Rafah crossing since Israeli forces seized it.
State-linked television channel Al-Qahera News on Sunday reported a high-level source denying Israeli media reports of “coordination between Israel and Egypt at the Rafah crossing.”
Egypt has also issued repeated warnings against escalation since negotiators from both Israel and Hamas departed Cairo on Thursday after talks again failed to achieve a truce.
In January the ICJ called on Israel to prevent acts of genocide following the original South African request for international action.
The court rejected a second South African application for emergency measures over Israel’s threat to attack Rafah. South Africa made a new request in early March.

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Top US officials in Damascus to meet new Syrian rulers, State Department says

Updated 10 sec ago

December 20, 2024 05:30

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Top US officials in Damascus to meet new Syrian rulers, State Department says

Updated 10 sec ago

December 20, 2024 05:30

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First US officials to visit Damascus since Assad’s overthrow

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Officials will discuss a set of principles with HTS

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Will also engage with members of civil society, activists

WASHINGTON: Top diplomats from the Biden administration are in Damascus on Friday to meet new Syrian authorities led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a State Department spokesperson said, the first in-person and official meeting between Washington and Syria’s de-facto new rulers.
The State Department’s top Middle East diplomat Barbara Leaf, Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and newly appointed Senior Adviser Daniel Rubinstein, who is now tasked with leading the Department’s Syria engagement, are the first US diplomats to travel to Damascus since Syria’s opposition militias overthrew oppressive President Bashar Assad.
The visit comes as Western governments are gradually opening channels to HTS and its leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and start debating whether or not to remove the terrorist designation on the group. The US delegation’s travel follows contacts with France and Britain in recent days.
In their meetings, the US officials will discuss with HTS representatives a set of principles such as inclusivity and respect for the rights of minorities that Washington wants included in Syria’s political transition, the spokesperson said.
The delegation will also work to obtain new information about US journalist Austin Tice, who was taken captive during a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012, and other American citizens who went missing during the Assad regime.
“They will be engaging directly with the Syrian people, including members of civil society, activists, members of different communities, and other Syrian voices about their vision for the future of their country and how the United States can help support them,” the department spokesperson said.
“They also plan to meet with representatives of HTS to discuss transition principles endorsed by the United States and regional partners in Aqaba, Jordan,” the spokesperson said.
The United States cut diplomatic ties with Syria and shut down its embassy in Damascus in 2012.
In a seismic moment for the Middle East, Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war, ending his family’s decades-long rule.
The lightning offensive raised questions over whether the rebels will be able to ensure an orderly transition.
Forces under the command of Al-Sharaa — better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani — replaced the Assad family rule with a three-month transitional government that had been ruling a rebel enclave in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.
Washington in 2013 designated Al-Sharaa a terrorist, saying Al-Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. It said the Nusra Front, the predecessor of HTS, carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.
US President Joe Biden and his top aides described the overthrow of Assad as a historic opportunity for the Syrian people who have for decades lived under his oppressive rule, but also warned the country faced a period of risk and uncertainty.
Washington remains concerned that extremist group Daesh could seize the moment to resurrect and also wants to avoid any clashes in the country’s northeast between Turkiye-backed rebel factions and US-allied Kurdish militia.

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The warm Turkish welcome for refugees is ending and Syrians are worried

Updated 15 min 21 sec ago

AP

December 20, 2024 05:09

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The warm Turkish welcome for refugees is ending and Syrians are worried

Syrian president’s ouster this month has led many in Turkiye to argue that the refugees have no reason to stay
Some Syrians are panicking about returning to a devastated nation

Updated 15 min 21 sec ago

AP

December 20, 2024 05:09

GAZIANTEP, Turkiye: Turkiye gained renown as a haven for refugees by welcoming more than 3 million Syrians fleeing violence between forces from Bashar Assad ‘s government and a patchwork of rebel groups.
But the Syrian president’s ouster this month has led many in Turkiye to argue that the refugees have no reason to stay, part of the global backlash against migration. Some Syrians are panicking about returning to a devastated nation.
“There’s no work, electricity, or water. There is no leader. Who will it be? I have no idea,” said Mahmut Cabuli, who fled airstrikes by Syrian government forces and violence by rebel groups in his hometown Aleppo a decade ago. “I’m scared and don’t know what the authorities will do.”
‘My children were born here’
Cabuli spent several years in a refugee camp before he found a job at a textile factory in Gaziantep, a southern Turkish city near the Syrian border. After he met another Syrian refugee, they married and had two children.
“My children were born here,” he said. “I am working, thank God. I am happy here. I don’t want to go back now.”
Many Turks baselessly accuse Syrians of taking their jobs and straining health care and other public services. Riots have damaged Syrian-owned shops, homes or cars, including one in July in the central city of Kayseri following allegations that a Syrian refugee sexually assaulted a child. The riots sparked counterprotests in northern Syria.
Turkish authorities said that the alleged perpetrator was arrested and the victim placed under state protection.
“A spark between Syrians and Turkish citizens can immediately cause a big fire, a big flame,” said Umit Yılmaz, the mayor of Sehitkamil, which hosts 450,000 Syrians.
“The Syrians need to be reunited with their homeland immediately,” he said. “I have come to a point where I am even willing to get in my own car and take them away if necessary.”
Was staying in Turkiye temporary or for good?
In 2014, Turkish authorities gave Syrians universal access to health care, education and the right to work by granting them a legal status known as temporary protection.
As a result, Turkiye has taken in more Syrian refugees than any other nation — more than 3.8 million at its peak in 2022, or roughly 60 percent of all the Syrians logged by UN refugee agency UNHCR.
But more recently, anti-refugee sentiment has surged as Turkiye has grappled with problems including persistent inflation — particularly in food and housing — and with high youth unemployment.
“This prolonged stay under temporary protection must end,” said Azmi Mahmutoglu, spokesman for the Victory Party, a right-wing party that has opposed the presence of Syrians in Turkiye and called for their repatriation.
Hundreds of Syrians have gathered at border gates along Turkiye’s 911-kilometer (566 mile) frontier with Syria since Assad’s fall and the returns are expected to accelerate if Syria becomes stable.
Metin Corabatir, director of the Ankara-based Research Center on Asylum and Migration, said most of the departures so far appear to be Syrians checking the situation back in Syria before deciding whether to move their families back.
Muhammed Nur Cuneyt, a 24-year-old Syrian who arrived in 2011 from the northern town of Azaz, was eagerly waiting at one gate on Dec. 10, saying he was grateful to Turkiye for granting refuge but resented hearing anti-Syrian sentiment as his people fought Assad.
“Some were saying ‘Why are the Syrians here? Why don’t you go back and fight with your nation?’” he said.
Are they voluntary returns?
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought ways to encourage the refugees’ voluntary returns — including building housing in Syria close to the Turkish border after Syrian migration helped weaken support for his Justice and Development party.
Erdogan has four more years in office but the main opposition party has a slight lead in polls.
One refugee who returned to Syria said that he had signed a document ending his protected refugee status under Turkish law.
“Would they be allowed to come back to Turkiye? Corabatir said. “Our hope is that it will continue.”
This week, UNHCR said it does not believe that conditions to end Syrian’s refugee status have been met and it still thinks they need protection.
But for Huseyin Basut, the Turkish owner of a pet shop in Gaziantep, Turkiye has done all that it can for the Syrians.
“We did all we could as a country and as citizens,” said Bayut, 52. “Since the war is over, they should return to their homes, build their homes or whatever they need to do and may God help them.”

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Topics: Fall of Assad Syria Turkiye Bashar Assad

Lawsuit alleges US failed to evacuate Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza

Updated 20 December 2024

Reuters

December 20, 2024 03:04

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Lawsuit alleges US failed to evacuate Palestinian Americans trapped in Gaza

US government says rescue of Americans is top priority
Separate suit was filed earlier this week over US support for Israel

Updated 20 December 2024

Reuters

December 20, 2024 03:04

WASHINGTON: Nine Palestinian Americans sued the US government on Thursday, alleging that it had failed to rescue them or members of their families who were trapped in Gaza where Israel’s war has killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.
The lawsuit accuses the State Department of discriminating against Americans of Palestinian origin by abandoning them in a war zone and not making the same effort that it would to promptly evacuate and protect Americans of different origins in similar situations.
It was the second case against the US government this week after Palestinian families sued the US State Department on Tuesday over Washington’s support for Israel’s military.
A US State Department spokesperson said the department does not comment on pending litigation, while adding the safety and security of American citizens around the world is a “top priority.”
Thursday’s lawsuit was announced by advocacy group Council on American Islamic Relations and attorney Maria Kari, and filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The suit alleges the plaintiffs’ right to equal protection under the US Constitution has been violated by depriving them “of the normal and typical evacuation efforts the federal government extends to Americans who are not Palestinians.”
It mentions comparable instances of the US government evacuating its citizens from conflict zones such as in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Sudan and names President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as defendants.
The State Department spokesperson said the US has evacuated Americans from unsafe areas around the world, including Gaza.
Israel’s war has killed over 45,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry while also sparking accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies. The military assault has displaced nearly Gaza’s entire 2.3 million population and caused a hunger crisis.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

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Topics: War on Gaza United States of America (USA)

In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find

Updated 20 December 2024

AFP

December 20, 2024 01:45

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In wartime Bethlehem, Christmas joy hard to find

Updated 20 December 2024

AFP

December 20, 2024 01:45

BETHLEHEM: On Bethlehem’s Manger Square, Christmas decorations and pilgrims are notably absent for a second wartime festive season in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city.
The Church of the Nativity that dominates the square is as empty as the plaza outside. Only the chants of Armenian monks echo from the crypt where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born.
“Normally on this day you would find 3,000 or 4,000 people inside the church,” said Mohammed Sabeh, a security guard for the church.
Violence across the Israeli-occupied West Bank has surged since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7 last year, but Bethlehem has remained largely quiet, even though the fighting has taken a toll on the now predominantly Muslim city.
Foreign tourists, on whom Bethlehem’s economy almost entirely relies, stopped coming due to the war. An increase in restrictions on movement, in the form of Israeli checkpoints, is also keeping many Palestinians from visiting.
“Christians in Ramallah can’t come because there are checkpoints,” Sabeh said, complaining that Israeli soldiers “treat us badly,” leading to long traffic queues for those trying to visit from the West Bank city 22 kilometers (14 miles) away, on the other side of nearby Jerusalem.
Anton Salman, Bethlehem’s mayor, told AFP that on top of pre-existing checkpoints, the Israeli army had set up new roadblocks around Bethlehem, creating “an obstacle” for those wanting to visit.
“Maybe part of them will succeed to come, and part of them, they are going to face the gates and the checkpoints that Israel is putting around,” Salman said.

The somber atmosphere created by the Gaza war, which began with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, would make showy celebrations an insensitive display, said Salman.
“We want to show the world that Bethlehem is not having Christmas as usual,” he said.
Prayers will go on, and the Catholic Church’s Latin Patriarch will make the trip from Jerusalem as usual, but the festivities will be of a more strictly religious nature than the festive celebrations the city once held.
There will be no float parade, no scout march and no large gatherings on the streets this year.
“Bethlehem is special at Christmas. It is so special in the Holy Land. Jesus was born here,” said Souad Handal, a 55-year-old tour guide from Bethlehem.
“It’s so bad (now) because the economy of Bethlehem, it depends on tourism.”
Joseph Giacaman, owner of one of Bethlehem’s best-located shops right on Manger Square, said he now only opens once or twice a week “to clean up,” for lack of customers.
“A lot of families lost their business because, you know, there are no tourists,” said Aboud, another souvenir shopkeeper, who didn’t give his last name.
Similarly, in Jerusalem’s Old City, just eight kilometers (five miles) away but on the other side of the separation wall built by Israel, the Christian quarter has eschewed traditional Christmas decorations.
The municipality has forgone its traditional Christmas tree at the main entrance to the neighborhood, New Gate, and nativity scenes have been restricted to private properties.
The tightening of security around Bethlehem since the start of the war, combined with economic difficulties, has led many local residents to leave.
“When you can’t offer your son his needs, I don’t think that you are going to stop just thinking how to offer it,” said Salman, the mayor.
Because of that, “a lot of people, during the last year, left the city,” he said, estimating that roughly 470 Christian families had moved out of the greater Bethlehem area.
However, the phenomenon is by no means restricted to Christians, who represented around 11 percent of the district’s about 215,000 inhabitants in 2017.
Father Frederic Masson, the Syrian Catholic priest for the Bethlehem parish, said that Christians and non-Christians alike had been leaving Bethlehem for a long time, but that “recent events have accelerated and amplified the process.”
In particular, “young people who can’t project themselves into the future” are joining the exodus, Masson said.
“When your future is confiscated by the political power in place... it kills hope,” he said.
Echoing Father Masson, Fayrouz Aboud, director of Bethlehem’s Alliance Francaise, a cultural institute that provides language courses, said that in current times “hope has become more painful than despair.”
With Israeli politicians increasingly talking of annexing the West Bank, she said many young people come to her to learn French and build skills that would allow them to live abroad.
Even her own 30-year-old son has raised the idea, telling her: “Come, let’s leave this place, (the Israelis) will come. They will kill us.”

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Topics: War in Gaza

In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

Updated 20 December 2024

AFP

December 20, 2024 01:34

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In post-Assad Damascus, hundreds protest for democracy, women’s rights

Despite HTS’s reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life

Updated 20 December 2024

AFP

December 20, 2024 01:34

DAMASCUS: In Damascus’s Ummayad Square, hundreds gathered Thursday, demanding a democratic state that includes women in public life, marking the first such demonstration since Islamist-led rebels toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
Women and men, young and old, chanted slogans including “No to religious rule,” “God is for religion and the homeland is for all,” and “We want a democracy, not a religious state.”
“We are here in peaceful action to safeguard the gains of the revolution that has let us stand here today in complete freedom,” said Ayham Hamsho, 48, a prosthetic limb maker in the country torn by more than 13 years of war.
“For more than 50 years, we have been under tyrannical rule that has blocked party and political activity in the country,” he told AFP.
“Today we are trying to organize our affairs” in order to achieve “a secular, civil, democratic state” that is decided at the ballot box, he added.
For days, Syrians celebrated in Ummayad Square after rebels led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham took the capital on December 8 and toppled Assad after a lightning offensive.
Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a “terrorist” organization by several Western governments, HTS has sought to moderate its rhetoric by assuring protection for the country’s many religious and ethnic minorities.
It has appointed a transitional leadership to run the country until March 1.
Despite the reassurances, many Syrians fear the new administration will move toward religious rule that marginalizes minority communities and excludes women from public life.
On Thursday, some protesters held signs reading simply the word “secular,” while one man held a sign with the scales of justice hanging equally and the words “men” and “women” written below.
People also chanted “the Syrian people are one,” rejecting divisions among the multi-confessional and multi-ethnic country.
A few armed HTS fighters, some of them masked, roamed around at the demonstration.
One told the crowd, “the great Syrian revolution was victorious through armed force,” before protesters cut him off, chanting, “Down with military rule.”
One young man wearing keffiyeh scarf and dark glasses held a hand-written sign saying, “No free nation without free women,” while another demonstrator’s placard read “Equality between women and men is a legitimate Islamic and international right.”
Actress Raghda Khateb, standing with friends among the crowd, said “Syrian women have been a constant partner on the streets, in protecting protesters, in tending to the wounded, and in prisons and detention centers.”
She said the demonstration was part of “preventive” action to block any attempts to establish strict conservative rule in the country.
“The people who took to the streets against the murderous regime are ready to come out again and to rule,” she added.
The demand for women’s right to participate in political life came days after Obaida Arnaout, spokesman for the new political administration, said “female representation in ministries or parliament... is premature,” citing “biological” and other considerations.
The remarks sparked criticism and anger among some Syrians, including protester Majida Mudarres, 50, a retired civil servant.
“Women have a big role in political life... We will be observing any position against women and will not accept it. The time in which we were silent is over,” she told AFP.
Assad’s family crushed dissent, ruling Syria with an iron fist for decades.
Fatima Hashem, 29, who writes television series, said Syrian women “must not be just partners but must lead the work of building a new Syria.”
Women must be “a major voice in the new society,” added Hashem, who was wearing a white hijab.
Under Assad’s anti-Islamist rule, women were involved in Syria’s political, social and economic life, with parliamentary and ministerial representation sometimes ranging between 20 percent and 30 percent.
Researcher Widad Kreidi said she was worried by some statements from HTS, which until just weeks ago ruled a conservative rebel bastion in Syria’s northwest.
“While men were fighting, women were keeping up the economy, feeding their children and taking care of their families,” Kreidi said.
“Nobody has the right to come to Damascus and attack women in any way,” she added.

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Topics: Fall of Assad Syria

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Egypt says to support South Africa ICJ case against Israel

Egypt says to support South Africa ICJ case against Israel

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