The US pier in Gaza is facing its latest challenge — whether the UN will keep delivering the aid

The US pier in Gaza is facing its latest challenge — whether the UN will keep delivering the aid
This handout satellite image courtesy of Maxar Technologies shows the the US-built Trident Pier on the coast of Gaza on May 26, 2024 (AFP)
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Updated 14 June 2024
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The US pier in Gaza is facing its latest challenge — whether the UN will keep delivering the aid

The US pier in Gaza is facing its latest challenge — whether the UN will keep delivering the aid
  • US and Israel say no part of the pier was used in the raid but an Israeli helicopter used a spot near the pier.
  • UN has paused its work with the pier since June 8

WASHINGTON: The US-built pier to bring food to Gaza is facing one of its most serious challenges yet — its humanitarian partner is deciding if it’s safe to keep delivering supplies arriving by sea to starving Palestinians.
The United Nations, the player with the widest reach delivering aid within Gaza, has paused its work with the pier after a June 8 operation by Israeli security forces that rescued four Israeli hostages and killed more than 270 Palestinians.
Rushing out a mortally wounded Israeli commando after the raid, Israeli rescuers opted against returning the way they came, across a land border, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters. Instead, they sped toward the beach and the site of the US aid hub on Gaza’s coast, he said. An Israeli helicopter touched down near the US-built pier and helped whisk away hostages, according to the US and Israeli militaries.
For the UN and independent humanitarian groups, the event made real one of their main doubts about the US sea route: Whether aid workers could cooperate with the US military-backed, Israeli military-secured project without violating core humanitarian principles of neutrality and independence and without risking aid workers becoming seen as US and Israeli allies — and in turn, targets in their own right.
Israel and the US deny that any aspect of the month-old US pier was used in the Israeli raid.
The UN World Food Program, which works with the US to transfer aid from the $230 million pier to warehouses and local aid teams for distribution within Gaza, suspended cooperation as it conducts a security review. Aid has been piling up on the beach since.
“You can be damn sure we are going to be very careful about what we assess and what we conclude,” UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said.
Griffiths told reporters at an aid conference in Jordan this week that determining whether the Israeli raid improperly used either the beach or roads around the pier “would put at risk any future humanitarian engagement in that operation.”
The UN has to look at the facts as well as what the Palestinian public and militants believe about any US, pier or aid worker involvement in the raid, spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters in New York.
“Humanitarian aid must not be used and must not be perceived as taking any side in a conflict,” Haq said. “The safety of our humanitarian workers depends on all sides and the communities on the ground trusting their impartiality.”
Rumors have swirled on social media, deepening the danger to aid workers, humanitarian groups say.
“Whether or not we’ve seen the pier used for military purposes is almost irrelevant. Because the perception of people in Gaza, civilians and armed groups, is that humanitarian aid has been instrumentalized” by parties in the conflict, said Suze van Meegen, head of operations in Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Oxfam International and some other aid organizations said they are waiting for answers from the US government because it’s responsible for the agreements with the UN and other humanitarian groups on how the pier and aid deliveries would function.
Questions include whether the Israeli helicopters and security forces used what the US had promised aid groups would be a no-go area for the Israeli military around the pier, said Scott Paul, an associate director at Oxfam.
The suspension of deliveries is only one of the problems that have hindered the pier, which President Joe Biden announced in March as an additional way to get aid to Palestinians. The US has said the project was never a solution and have urged Israel to lift restrictions on aid shipments through land crossings as famine looms.
The first aid from the sea route rolled onto shore May 17, and work has been up and down since:
— May 18: Crowds overwhelmed aid trucks coming from the pier, stripping some of the trucks of their cargo. The WFP suspended deliveries from the pier for at least two days while it worked out alternate routes with the US and Israel.
— May 24: A bit more than 1,000 metric tons of aid had been delivered to Gaza from the pier, and the US Agency for International Development later said all of it was distributed within Gaza.
— May 25: High winds and heavy seas damaged the pier and four US Army vessels ran aground, injuring three service members, one critically. Crews towed away part of the floating dock in what became a two-week pause in operations.
— June 8: The US military announced that deliveries resumed off the repaired and reinstalled project. The Israeli military operation unfolded the same day.
— Sunday: World Food Program chief Cindy McCain announced a “pause” in cooperation with the US pier, citing the previous day’s “incident” and the rocketing of two WFP warehouses that injured a staffer.
“The WFP, of course, is taking the security measures that they need to do, and the reviews that they need to do, in order to feel safe and secure and to operate within Gaza,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said this week.
The pier has brought to Gaza more than 2,500 metric tons (about 5.6 million pounds) of aid, Singh said. About 1,000 metric tons of that was brought by ship Tuesday and Wednesday — after the WFP pause — and is being stored on the beach awaiting distribution.
Now, the question is whether the UN will rejoin the effort.
For aid workers who generally work without weapons or armed guards, and for those they serve, “the best guarantee of our security is the acceptance of communities” that aid workers are neutral, said Paul, the Oxfam official.
Palestinians already harbored deep doubts about the pier given the lead role of the US, which sends weapons and other support to its ally Israel, said Yousef Munayyer, a senior fellow at Washington’s Arab Center, an independent organization researching Israeli-Arab issues.
Distrustful Palestinians suffering in the Israel-Hamas war are being asked to take America at its word, and that’s a hard sell, said Munayyer, an American of Palestinian heritage.
“So you know, perception matters a lot,” he said. “And for the people who are literally putting their lives on the line to get humanitarian aid moving around a war zone, perception gets you in danger.”


Israeli airstrikes intensify in Lebanon amid rumors of imminent ceasefire agreement

Israeli airstrikes intensify in Lebanon amid rumors of imminent ceasefire agreement
Updated 11 sec ago
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Israeli airstrikes intensify in Lebanon amid rumors of imminent ceasefire agreement

Israeli airstrikes intensify in Lebanon amid rumors of imminent ceasefire agreement
  • Latest attacks cause further destruction in areas stretching from border region to distant areas as far north as Bekaa and beyond
  • Israel escalates attacks to put pressure on Lebanese authorities whenever peace talks advance, says deputy speaker of Lebanese parliament

BEIRUT: Israeli attacks on targets in Lebanon intensified on Monday, as rumors circulated in Tel Aviv and Beirut about the possibility of a ceasefire agreement within two days.

US envoy Amos Hochstein has been leading complex negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese authorities with the aim of ending the conflict, which began on Sep. 23 with Israeli airstrikes, followed by ground incursions into border areas on Oct. 1.

Since then, Israel has assassinated senior Hezbollah leaders, and the confirmed death toll from the fighting stands at about 3,800. This figure does not include Hezbollah members killed on the battlefield, the numbers of which are difficult to ascertain because of intense shelling in southern areas.

The escalating war has also resulted in the destruction of thousands of residential and commercial buildings in areas stretching from the south of the country to the southern suburbs of Beirut and northern Bekaa. Tensions continue to run high as the population lives in fear of the intense airstrikes, with ambulances and fire trucks remaining on standby in all regions.

MP Elias Bou Saab, the deputy speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, said: “We are optimistic about a ceasefire and there is hope. But nothing can be confirmed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What might put pressure on him is the battlefield.”

Israeli aggression intensifies whenever peace negotiations move closer to an agreement, he added, in an attempt to put pressure on Lebanese authorities.

“We insist on our position regarding the inclusion of France in the committee overseeing the ceasefire implementation,” said Bou Saab.

“We did not hear anything about Israel’s freedom of movement in Lebanon, and we still speak only about UN Resolution 1701, with no additions and with an implementation mechanism.”

Resolution 1701 was adopted by the Security Council in 2006 with the aim of resolving the conflict that year between Israel and Hezbollah. It calls for an end to hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, the withdrawal of Hezbollah and other forces from parts of the country south of the Litani River, and the disarmament of Hezbollah and other armed groups.

News channel CNN quoted a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister as saying talks were moving toward a ceasefire. Another regional source told the network: “The agreement is closer than ever. However, it has not been fully finalized yet.”

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, said an agreement “could happen in a few days” but “there are still some sticking points that need to be resolved.”

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority quoted the country’s education minister as saying that Hochstein has the green light to proceed with an agreement. It added that a deal with Lebanon had been finalized and Netanyahu was considering “how to explain it to the public.”

Also on Monday, diplomat Dan Shapiro from the US Department of Defense held meetings with senior Israeli officials that focused on the members of a proposed committee to monitor the ceasefire, most notably the participation of France, and the details of a monitoring mechanism to be led by the US.

One report suggested Washington had agreed to provide Israel with a guarantee it would support any military action in response to threats from Lebanon and to disrupt any Hezbollah presence along the border.

According to news website Axios, the draft agreement for a ceasefire includes a 60-day transitional period during which the Israeli army would withdraw from southern Lebanon, to be replaced by the Lebanese army in areas close to the border, and Hezbollah would move its heavy weapons from the border region to areas north of the Litani Line.

Against this backdrop of peace negotiations, the continual Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut intensified on Monday, following 10 strikes the previous evening. The attacks targeted Haret Hreik, Hadath, Ghobeiry, Bir Al-Abed and Sfeir.

Hundreds of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, and as Arab News visited targeted areas, residents said “there have never been any Hezbollah offices in these structures, neither now nor in the past, and the buildings are mainly for residential purposes.”

A lawyer called Imad said the apartment building in the Hadath area in which he lived collapsed when it was hit by an airstrike.

“It is unbelievable that they use Hezbollah as a pretext to destroy our homes, which we purchased through financial loans to provide shelter for our families. They intend to annihilate us all,” he said.

The Israeli army said on Monday that an airstrike that hit the Basta area of central Beirut early on Saturday had “targeted a command center affiliated with Hezbollah.”

Efforts to help the injured and recover the bodies of the dead continued at the scene of the attack until Sunday evening. The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 29 people were killed and 67 wounded.

The Israeli army also carried out numerous airstrikes in southern Lebanon, mainly targeting the cities of Tyre and Nabatieh. Ten people were killed, including a woman and a member of the Lebanese army, and 17 injured in three airstrikes on Tyre.

Also in Tyre, an Israeli drone killed a motorcycle rider in a parking lot near the Central Bank of Lebanon. And three civilians were killed by an airstrike in the town of Ghazieh, south of Sidon.

From the southern border to the northern banks of the Litani River, no area has been spared from Israeli airstrikes, which have extended as far north as the city of Baalbek, and the town of Hermel close to the border with Syria.

In the east, back-and-forth operations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah continued as the former attempted to gain control over the town of Khiam. Its forces advanced, supported by Merkava tanks, from the southern outskirts under the cover of airstrikes and artillery bombardment, moving into the center of the town and toward Ebel Al-Saqi and Jdidet Marjeyoun.

The Israeli army also deployed tanks between olive groves in the town of Deir Mimas after an incursion into the town last week. It began advancing toward the Tal Nahas-Kfar Kila-Qlayaa triangle. Elsewhere, Hezbollah and Israeli forces clashed in the western sector of the Maroun Al-Ras-Ainata-Bint Jbeil triangle.

Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli army positions on the outskirts of the towns of Shamaa and Biyada. Israeli forces carried out house-demolition operations in Shamaa.

Hezbollah also continued to launch attacks against northern Israel. The group said its rockets “reached the Shraga base, north of the city of Acre, and targeted an Israeli army gathering in the settlement of Meron.”

Israeli medical services said one person was injured in Nahariya by falling fragments from a rocket.


Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235
Updated 26 November 2024
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Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235
  • Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry

GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 44,235 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,638 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
 

 


Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog

Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
  • The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry

THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.


Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
Updated 26 November 2024
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Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon

Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
  • The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries

DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.

 

 


Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case
Updated 26 November 2024
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Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case

Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case
  • A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.