11 bodies retrieved from Mediterranean off Libya: NGO/node/2526036/middle-east
11 bodies retrieved from Mediterranean off Libya: NGO
Handout image shows Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) teams sailing on the boat with dead bodies of migrants in body bags retrived from the Mediterranean sea June 7, 2024. (MSF via Reuters)
11 bodies retrieved from Mediterranean off Libya: NGO
Updated 08 June 2024
AFP
ROME: The bodies of 11 people, believed to be migrants, were retrieved off the Libyan coast on Friday, the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) NGO said on X.
“Sadly, after a search operation that lasted over nine hours, GeoBarents team retrieved the bodies of 11 people who unfortunately lost their lives,” MSF said.
MSF had been alerted to the corpses by German NGO Sea-Watch, which said earlier on Friday it had spotted the 11 bodies in the water.
“During today’s flight with our Seabird, the crew spotted 11 bodies,” said Sea-Watch, which also rescues migrants in the Mediterranean.
“It is unclear whether the bodies discovered off the Libyan coast were victims of a previously unknown shipwreck.”
While out searching for the bodies, MSF sighted a boat and rescued the 20 people aboard, it said.
Both NGOs accused European countries of complicity in the deaths due to their migration policies.
Sea-Watch said Libyan authorities had chosen to leave the bodies at sea.
“The so-called Libyan coast guard — financed by the EU — ignored our call demanding that the bodies be recovered,” said Sea-Watch, which has in the past clashed with Libyan authorities, who they claim once threatened to shoot down their aeroplane with a missile.
Libya is a major jumping-off point for migrants trying to head from Africa to Europe, with the Italian island of Lampedusa the nearest European destination.
According to Italy’s interior ministry, the number of migrant arrivals in the country has dropped considerably in 2024 to just under 21,800 since the beginning of the year, compared to close to 53,300 in the same period last year.
The journey can be dangerous with more than 3,000 migrants reported to have gone missing in 2023 while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.
A displaced family’s year of fleeing across the devastated Gaza Strip
Israel’s war on Gaza has displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza — 1.9 million of its 2.3 million Palestinians
Updated 17 sec ago
AP
DEIR AL-BALAH: Ne’man Abu Jarad sat on a tarp on the ground. Around him, canvas sheets hung from cords, forming the walls of his tent. For the past year, Ne’man; his wife, Majida; and their six daughters have trekked the length of the Gaza Strip, trying to survive as Israeli forceswreaked destruction around them. It’s a far cry from their house in northern Gaza — a place of comforting routine, of love, affection and safety. A place where loved ones gathered around the kitchen table or on the roof on summer evenings amid the scent of roses and jasmine flowers. “Your house is your homeland. Everything good in our life was the home,” Ne’man said. “Everything in it, whether physical or intangible — family, neighbors, my siblings who were all around me. “We are missing all that.” The Abu Jarad family lost that stability when Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. They did exactly as the Israelis ordered in the devastating weeks and months of war that followed. They obeyed evacuation calls. They moved where the military told them to move. Seven times they fled, and each time, their lives became more unrecognizable to them, crowding with strangers in a school classroom, searching for water in a vast tent camp or sleeping on the street. The Associated Press traced the family’s journey as they were driven from their home. Israel’s campaign has displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza — 1.9 million of its 2.3 million Palestinians — and killed more than 41,600 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Like the Abu Jarads, most families have been uprooted multiple times. For this family, the journey has taken them from a comfortable middle-class life to ruin. Before the war: A cozy life Living at the northernmost end of Gaza, most days before the war in Beit Hanoun were simple. Ne’man headed out each morning to work as a taxi driver. Majida got their daughters off to school. Their youngest, Lana, had started first grade. Hoda, the 18-year-old, was in her first year at university. The eldest, Balsam, just had her first baby. Majida spent much of her day doing housework — her face lights up when she talks about her kitchen, the center of family life. Ne’man had planted the garden with a grapevine and covered the roof with potted flowers. Watering them in the evenings was a soothing ritual. Then, the family and neighbors would sit on the front stoop or the roof to chat. “The area would always smell nice,” he said. “People would say we have perfume because of how beautiful the flowers are.” Oct. 7: The attack On the morning of Oct. 7, the family heard Hamas rockets firing and news of the militants’ attack into southern Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped. The Abu Jarads knew that the Israeli response would be swift and that their house, only about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the border fence with Israel, would be on the front line. By 9 a.m., Ne’man and Majida, their six daughters, and Ne’man’s sister packed up what they could and fled, as the Israeli military issued one of its first evacuation orders. “It makes no sense to be stubborn and stay,” Majida said. “It is not about one person. I am part of a family and have girls.” Oct. 7-13: Staying with Majida’s parents Like many, the family tried, at first, to stay close to home. They went to stay with Majida’s parents, in Beit Lahiya about a kilometer (.6 miles) away. “The place was very comfortable, to be honest. I felt like I was at home,” Majida said. “But we were living in fear and terror.” Already, Beit Lahiya was being heavily bombarded. Over the six days they were there, at least nine Israeli strikes hit the town, killing dozens, according to the conflict monitor Airwars. Entire families were killed or wounded under the rubble of their homes. As the explosions got closer, shrapnel pierced water tanks at Majida’s parents’ home. Windows shattered as the family huddled inside. It was time to move again. Oct. 13-15: Refuge at a hospital When they arrived at Al-Quds hospital, the family saw for the first time the scale of displacement. The building and its grounds were packed with thousands of people. All around northern Gaza, families took refuge in hospitals, hoping they’d be safe. The family found a small space on the floor, barely enough room to spread their blanket amid the frantic medical staff struggling with the wounded. It was a black night and there were strikes, Majida remembers. “The martyrs and wounded were strewn on the floor,” she said. The day after they arrived, a strike smashed into a house a few hundred meters away, killing a prominent doctor and some two dozen members of his family, many of them children. The Israeli military ordered all civilians to leave northern Gaza, setting in motion a wave of hundreds of thousands of people heading south across Wadi Gaza, the stream and wetlands that divide the north from the rest of the strip. The family joined the exodus. Oct. 15-Dec. 26: A cramped school The family walked 10 kilometers (6 miles) until they reached the UN-run Girls’ Preparatory School in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Every classroom and corridor was packed with families from the north. Majida, the daughters and Ne’man’s sister found a tiny space in a classroom already housing more than 100 women and children. For privacy in the cramped conditions, Ne’man moved in with the men in tents outside, in the schoolyard. This was their home for more than 10 weeks. Majida and the girls slept curled up on the floor, without enough space even to extend their legs. As winter set in, there weren’t enough blankets. The bathrooms were the worst part, Majida said. Only a few toilets served thousands of people. Getting a shower was a miracle, she said. People went weeks unable to bathe. Skin diseases ran rampant. Every day, the daughters went at dawn to wait in line at the few bakeries still working and came back in the afternoon, sometimes with only one flatbread. One day, Ne’man and his daughters walked 5 kilometers (3 miles) to the town of Deir Al-Balah, looking for drinkable water. “If it wasn’t for the kind people in Deir Al-Balah who took pity on us and gave us half a gallon, we could have returned with nothing,” Ne’man said. As strikes continued, the family decided to go as far as possible, trekking 20 kilometers (12 miles) to Rafah, at Gaza’s southernmost end. Dec. 26-May 14: Life in a tent The Abu Jarads weren’t the only ones: As Israeli evacuation orders ate away at more and more of Gaza, nearly half of the population crammed into Rafah. Here, the family had their first taste of living in a tent. They set up amid the massive sprawl of tens of thousands of tents on Rafah’s outskirts, near UN aid warehouses known as “the barracks.” “In the winter, it was hell, water drenched us,” Majida said. “We slept on the ground, nothing under us, and no covers.” They had no money to buy food in the markets, where prices soared. The youngest girls got sick with colds and diarrhea, and there was no nearby pharmacy to buy medicine. The family survived completely off UN handouts of flour and other basics. “To buy one tomato or cucumber and find it in the tent was like a dream,” Ne’man said. Like so many others, they’d believed Rafah was the last safe place in Gaza. It was not. In the first week of May, Israel ordered the evacuation of all of Rafah. Then its troops pushed into the city. Bombardment intensified. Ne’man and Majida tried to stay as long as possible. But an airstrike hit nearby, he said, killing four of Ne’man’s cousins and a young girl. May 16-Aug. 16: “Humanitarian zone” Palestinians who’d packed into Rafah — more than 1 million — all streamed out again, fleeing the Israeli offensive. They scattered across southern and central Gaza. New tent cities filled beaches, fields, empty lots, schoolyards, cemeteries, even dumpsites – any open space. The Abu Jarads moved by foot and donkey cart until they reached a former amusement park known as Asdaa City. Now its Ferris wheel stood above a landscape of tents stretching as far as the eye could see. Here, in Muwasi, a barren area of dunes and fields along the coast, Israel had declared a “humanitarian zone” – though there was little aid, food or water. Every amenity once taken for granted was a distant memory. Now the kitchen was a pile of sticks for kindling and two rocks for setting a pot over the fire. No shower, only the occasional bucket of water. Soap was too expensive. Only a draped sheet separated them from their neighbors. Everything was filthy and sandy. Large spiders, cockroaches and other insects crept into the tent. Aug. 16-26: Fleeing to the sea Even the “humanitarian zone” was unsafe. A raid by Israeli troops less than a kilometer (half-mile) away forced Majida and Ne’man to uproot their family once more. They headed toward the Mediterranean coast, not knowing where they’d stay. Fortunately, they said, they found some acquaintances. “God bless them, they opened their tent for us and let us live with them for 10 days,” Ne’man said. Late August: Moving again, no end in sight When they returned to Muwasi, the Abu Jarads found their tent had been robbed – their food and clothes, all gone. Since then, the weeks blur together. The family finds survival itself loses meaning in a conflict that seems to have no end. Food has become even harder to find as supplies entering Gaza drop to their lowest levels of the war. Israeli drones buzz overhead constantly. The mental strain wears on everyone. One day, Ne’man said, his youngest daughter, Lana, told him, “You stopped loving me. Because now when I come near you, you say you are fed up and tell me to stay away.” He kept telling her, “No, darling, I love you. I just can’t bear it all.” They all dream of home. Ne’man said he learned that his brother’s house next door was destroyed in a strike, and his own home was damaged. He wonders about his flowers. He hopes they survived — even if the house is gone. The difference between then and now, Majida said, is “the difference between heaven and earth.” Far from the warmth and affection of home, the Abu Jarads feel themselves surrendering to despair. “We are jealous,” Majida said. “Jealous of who? Of the people who were killed. Because they found relief while we are still suffering, living horrors, torture and heartbreak.”
Thousands around the world protest Middle East war as Oct 7 anniversary nears
40,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched in London
Protesters oppose Israel’s Gaza actions, worry about spreading conflict
Updated 34 min 32 sec ago
Reuters
PARIS/WASHINGTON: Thousands of protesters took to the streets in major cities around the world on Saturday demanding an end to bloodshed in Gaza and the wider Middle East as the start of Israel’s war in the Palestinian enclave approaches its first anniversary.
About 40,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through central London while thousands gathered in Paris, Rome, Manila, Cape Town and New York City. Demonstrations were also held near the White House in Washington, protesting US support for its ally Israel in military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.
Protesters at Times Square in New York City wore the black-and-white keffiyeh scarf and chanted slogans like: “Gaza, Lebanon you will rise, the people are by your side.” They held banners demanding an arms embargo against Israel.
The latest bloodshed in the decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
“Unfortunately, in spite of all our good will, the Israeli government does not take any notice, and they just go ahead and continue their atrocities in Gaza, now also in Lebanon and in Yemen, and also probably in Iran,” said protester Agnes Kory in London.
“And our government, our British government, unfortunately is just paying lip service and carries on supplying weapons to Israel,” she added.
In Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, at least 1,000 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Sunday morning near the US embassy demanding that Washington stop supplying weapons to Israel.
In London, counter-demonstrators waved Israeli flags as pro-Palestinian marchers walked by. There were 15 arrests on the sidelines of the protests, according to police, who did not specify whether those detained were from either group.
In Rome, police fired tear gas and water cannons after clashes broke out. Around 6,000 protesters defied a ban to march in the city center ahead of the Oct. 7 anniversary of Hamas’ attack.
In Berlin, a protest drew about 1,000 demonstrators with Palestinian flags, who chanted: “One Year of Genocide.”
German demonstrators also criticized what they called police violence against pro-Palestinian protesters. Israel supporters in Berlin protested against rising antisemitism. Scuffles broke out between police and pro-Palestinian protesters.
Over the past year, the scale of the killing and destruction in Gaza has drawn some of the biggest global protests in years, including in the US, that saw weeks of pro-Palestinian college campus encampments.
Advocates have raised concerns over alarming antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric in some protests and counter-protests related to the conflict. Rights advocates have warned about rising threats against Muslims and Jews around the world.
Israel’s supporters have expressed offense over some slogans that they say question Israel’s right to exist as a nation. Pro-Palestinian protesters point to violence such as an incident in which a mob in California attacked an encampment of demonstrators in April.
The war in Gaza has spread through the region, drawing in Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq. Israel has sharply escalated a campaign in recent weeks in Lebanon that has killed hundreds, wounded thousands and displaced over a million. Israel says it is attempting to dismantle Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles against Israel this week to which Israel has not yet responded. Israeli operations have also escalated in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
In Paris, Lebanese-French protester Houssam Houssein said: “We fear a regional war, because there are tensions with Iran at the moment, and perhaps with Iraq and Yemen.” Houssein added: “We really need to stop the war because it’s now become unbearable.”
Israel has faced wide international condemnation over its actions in Gaza, and now over its bombarding of Lebanon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government is acting to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas and Washington says it supports Israel’s right to self-defense.
US government agencies warned on Friday that the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks may motivate individuals to engage in violence. Officials in some states, including New York, raised security measures out of caution.
In Manila, activists clashed with anti-riot police after they were blocked from holding a demonstration in front of the US embassy in the Philippine capital against Washington’s support for Israel.
International diplomacy backed by the US has so far failed to clinch a ceasefire deal in Gaza. Hamas wants an agreement that ends the war while Israel says fighting can end only when Hamas is eradicated.
Three years after a sweeping power grab by Saied, the election is seen as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy
After rising to power in a landslide in 2019, Saied, now 66, led a sweeping power grab that saw him rewrite the constitution
Updated 06 October 2024
AFP
TUNIS: Tunisia holds a presidential election Sunday with no real opposition to incumbent Kais Saied, widely tipped to win as his most prominent critics, including a key contender, are behind bars.
Three years after a sweeping power grab by Saied, the election is seen as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.
The North African country had prided itself for more than a decade for being the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings against dictatorship.
Polling stations open at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and close at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT). Preliminary results should come no later than Wednesday but may be known earlier, according to ISIE, the electoral board.
In the lead-up to polling day, there have been no campaign rallies or public debates — and nearly all of the campaign posters in city streets have been of Saied.
With little hope for change in a country mired in economic crisis, the mood among much of the electorate has been one of resignation.
“We have nothing to do with politics,” Mohamed, a 22-year-old who gave only his first name for fear of retribution, told AFP in Tunis.
Neither he nor his friends planned to vote, he said, because they believed it was “useless.”
After rising to power in a landslide in 2019, Saied, now 66, led a sweeping power grab that saw him rewrite the constitution.
A burgeoning crackdown on dissent ensued, and a number of Saied’s critics across the political spectrum were jailed, sparking criticism both at home and abroad.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that more than “170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights.”
Jailed opposition 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 that was ousted in 2011.
ISIE said about 9.7 million people are expected to turn out, but the near certainty of a Saied win and the country’s mounting hardships have inspired little to no eagerness to vote.
The International Crisis Group think tank said on Friday that “the president’s nationalist discourse and economic hardship” have “corroded any enthusiasm ordinary citizens might have felt about the election.”
“Many fear that a new mandate for Saied will only deepen the country’s socio-economic woes, as well as hasten the regime’s authoritarian drift,” it said.
Voters are being presented with almost no alternative after ISIE barred 14 hopefuls from standing in the race, citing insufficient endorsements among other technicalities.
Hundreds of people protested in the capital on Friday, marching along a heavily policed Habib Bourguiba Avenue as some demonstrators bore signs denouncing Saied as a “Pharaoh manipulating the law.”
Standing against him Sunday are former lawmaker Zouhair Maghzaoui, a supporter of the power grab Saied staged in 2021, and Ayachi Zammel, a little-known businessman who has been in jail since his bid was approved by ISIE last month.
Zammel currently faces more than 14 years in prison on accusations of having forged endorsement signatures to enable him to stand in the election.
In a speech on Thursday, Saied called for a “massive turnout to vote” and 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” under his tenure.
The International Crisis Group 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.”
At least 18 killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza mosque
Israeli military says the target once served as the ‘Shuhada Al-Aqsa’ Mosque but was being as Hamas command and control center
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people
Updated 06 October 2024
Reuters
GAZA/CAIRO: At least 18 people were killed and dozens of others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a Gaza mosque early on Sunday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The strike on the mosque, near the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, came as the war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian enclave approaches its first anniversary.
Eyewitnesses said the number of casualties could rise as the mosque was being used to house displaced people.
The Israeli military said in a statement it “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center embedded in a structure that previously served as the ‘Shuhada Al-Aqsa’ Mosque in the area of Deir al Balah.”
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Hezbollah says repelled ‘attempted’ Israeli infiltration at border village
Updated 06 October 2024
AFP
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Hezbollah said its fighters pushed away Israeli troops that attempted to storm into a Lebanese border village early Sunday, in the latest clashes after Israel announced ground operations earlier this week.
The fighters launched “artillery shells” at “Israeli enemy soldiers who attempted to infiltrate from... Blida... forcing (them) to retreat,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.
