Turkiye buries activist shot in West Bank

Update Turkiye buries activist shot in West Bank
Turkey’s Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus and main opposition Republican People’s Party leader Ozgur Ozel attend a funeral ceremony of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi in Didim, in the western Aydin province on Sept. 14, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 14 September 2024
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Turkiye buries activist shot in West Bank

Turkiye buries activist shot in West Bank
  • Aysenur Ezgi Eygi’s body, wrapped in the Turkish flag and carried by uniformed officers, arrived at its final resting place in the Aegean town of Didim
  • Eygi was shot while taking part in a demonstration on September 6 in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, near Nablus

DIDIM, Turkiye: Mourners gathered in southwest Turkiye on Saturday for the funeral of a US-Turkish activist, who was shot dead while protesting Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The killing last week of 26-year-old Aysenur Ezgi Eygi has sparked international condemnation and infuriated Turkiye, further escalating tensions over the war in Gaza that began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Eygi’s body, wrapped in the Turkish flag and carried by uniformed officers, arrived at its final resting place in the Aegean town of Didim.
A picture of Eygi was placed near the coffin during the funeral at the local mosque.
A large crowd gathered during the prayers including Eygi’s family, members of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted AKP party, and activists advocating the Palestinian cause.
Protesters chanted slogans near the mosque showing their support for Palestinians.
Eygi was shot while taking part in a demonstration on September 6 in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, near Nablus.
She was a human rights activist and volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement, which calls for resisting the oppression of Palestinians using non-violent methods.
Her family wanted Eygi to be buried in Didim, where her grandfather lives and her grandmother has been laid to rest. She was a frequent visitor to the seaside resort.
Ankara said this week it was probing her death and pressed the United Nations for an independent inquiry.
Turkiye said it was also planning to issue international arrest warrants for those responsible for Eygi’s death, depending on the findings of its investigation.
The Israeli military has said it was likely Eygi was hit “unintentionally” by forces while they were responding to a “violent riot,” and said it is looking into the case.
President Erdogan himself did not show up in Didim but he sent his vice president, foreign, interior and justice ministers.
Opposition CHP party chief Ozgur Ozel attended the funeral.
The United Nations said Eygi had been taking part in a “peaceful anti-settlement protest” in Beita, the scene of weekly demonstrations.
Israeli settlements, where about 490,000 people live in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.
The young woman’s body arrived in Istanbul Friday from Tel Aviv, before being transferred to Turkiye’s third-biggest city Izmir, where an autopsy was carried out.
Initial findings from that autopsy revealed a bullet hit her in the head, and the cause of Eygi’s death was defined as “skull fracture, brain haemorrhage and brain tissue damage,” state-run TRT television reported.
The report overlapped with an initial autopsy carried out by three Palestinian doctors, which concluded that a bullet passed directly through the victim’s skull.
Her mother, Rabia Birden, on Friday urged Turkish officials to pursue justice.
“The only thing I ask of our state is to seek justice for my daughter,” she was quoted as saying by Anadolu news agency.
Her father, Mehmet Suat Eygi, paid tribute to his daughter in Didim, telling AFP that she was a “very special person.”
“She was sensitive to human rights, to nature, to everything,” he said.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for Israel to provide “full accountability” for Eygi’s death.
Erdogan has vowed to ensure “that Aysenur Ezgi’s death does not go unpunished.”
Her death has further inflamed tensions between Turkiye and Israel.
Erdogan has become one of the most strident critics in the Muslim world of Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
He has accused the government of “state terrorism” — branding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the “butcher of Gaza” while suspending all imports and exports to Israel.
 


Israel wants India’s Adani Group to continue investments after US bribery allegations

Israel wants India’s Adani Group to continue investments after US bribery allegations
Updated 11 min 37 sec ago
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Israel wants India’s Adani Group to continue investments after US bribery allegations

Israel wants India’s Adani Group to continue investments after US bribery allegations
  • Adani Group holds a 70 percent stake in Haifa port in northern Israel and is involved in multiple other projects with firms in the country
  • US last week accused Adani Group of being part of scheme to pay bribes of $265 million to secure contracts, misleading US investors 

HYDERABAD, India: Israel wants India’s Adani Group to continue to invest in the country, Israel’s envoy to India said on Thursday, affirming the nation’s support for the ports-to-media conglomerate whose billionaire founder is facing bribery allegations in the United States.

“We wish Adani and all Indian companies continue to invest in Israel,” Ambassador Reuven Azar said in an interview with Reuters, adding that allegations by US authorities were “not something that’s problematic” from Israel’s point of view.

The Adani Group holds a 70% stake in Haifa port in northern Israel and is involved in multiple other projects with firms in the country, including to produce military drones and plans for the manufacture of commercial semiconductors.

US authorities last week accused Gautam Adani, his nephew, and Adani Green’s managing director of being part of a scheme to pay bribes of $265 million to secure Indian power supply contracts and misleading US investors during fund raising efforts there.

Adani Group has denied all the accusations, calling them “baseless.”

Still, shares and bonds of Adani companies were hammered last week and some partners began to review joint projects.

“I am sure Adani Group will resolve its problems,” Azar said on the sidelines of an event in the southern city of Hyderabad.


Lebanon to hold parliament session on Jan. 9 to elect president

Lebanon to hold parliament session on Jan. 9 to elect president
Updated 18 min 13 sec ago
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Lebanon to hold parliament session on Jan. 9 to elect president

Lebanon to hold parliament session on Jan. 9 to elect president
  • State news agency: ‘Speaker Nabih Berri called a parliament session to elect a president of the republic on January 9’

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s parliament will hold a session in January to elect a new president, official media reported on Thursday, a day after an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire began and following more than two years of presidential vacuum.
“Speaker Nabih Berri called a parliament session to elect a president of the republic on January 9,” the official National News Agency reported.


Israeli tank fires at 3 south Lebanese towns

Israeli tank fires at 3 south Lebanese towns
Updated 49 min 5 sec ago
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Israeli tank fires at 3 south Lebanese towns

Israeli tank fires at 3 south Lebanese towns
  • Lebanese security sources and state media report tank fire struck Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba

BEIRUT: Israeli tank fire hit three towns along Lebanon’s southeast border with Israel on Thursday, Lebanese security sources and state media said, a day after a ceasefire barring “offensive military operations” came into force.

Tank fire struck Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba, all of which lie within two kilometers of the Blue Line demarcating the border between Lebanon and Israel. One of the security sources said two people were wounded in Markaba.

A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday under a deal brokered by the US and France, intended to allow people in both countries to start returning to homes in border areas shattered by 14 months of fighting.

But managing the returns have been complicated. Israeli troops remain stationed within Lebanese territory in towns along the border, and on Thursday morning the Israeli military urged residents of towns along the border strip not to return yet for their own safety.

The three towns hit on Thursday morning lie within that strip.

There was no immediate comment on the tank rounds from Hezbollah or Israel, who had been fighting for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war.

The agreement, a rare diplomatic feat in a region racked by conflict, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years. But Israel is still fighting its other arch foe, the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.

Under the ceasefire terms, Israeli forces can take up to 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed the military not to allow residents back to villages near the border.

Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri, the top interlocutor for Lebanon in negotiating the deal, had said on Wednesday that residents could return home.


Syria war monitor says more than 130 dead in army-militant clashes in north

Syria war monitor says more than 130 dead in army-militant clashes in north
Updated 28 November 2024
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Syria war monitor says more than 130 dead in army-militant clashes in north

Syria war monitor says more than 130 dead in army-militant clashes in north
  • Clashes followed “an operation launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
  • The air forces of both Syria and its ally Russia struck the attacking militants

BEIRUT: A monitor of Syria’s war said on Thursday that more than 130 combatants had been killed in clashes between the army and militant groups in the country’s north, as the government also reported fierce fighting.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll in the clashes which began a day earlier after the militants launched an attack “has risen to 132, including 65 fighters” from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, 18 from allied factions “and 49 members of the regime forces.”


Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession

Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
Updated 28 November 2024
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Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession

Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
  • Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday announced who would replace him in an interim period when the post becomes vacant, effectively removing the Islamist movement Hamas from any involvement in a future transition.
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president.
Under current Palestinian law, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) takes over the Palestinian Authority in the event of a power vacuum.
But the PLC, where Hamas had a majority, no longer exists since Abbas officially dissolved it in 2018 after more than a decade of tensions between his secular party, Fatah, and Hamas, which ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
In a decree, Abbas said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant.
“If the position of the president of the national authority becomes vacant in the absence of the legislative council, the Palestinian National Council president shall assume the duties... temporarily,” it said.
The decree added that following the transition period, elections must be held within 90 days. This deadline can be extended in the event of a “force majeure,” it said.
The PNC is the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has over 700 members from the Palestinian territories and abroad.
Hamas, which does not belong to the PLO, has no representation on the council. The PNC deputies are not elected, but appointed.
The decree refers to the “delicate stage in the history of the homeland and the Palestinian cause” as war rages in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, after the latter’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October last year.
There are also persistent divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
The decree comes on the same day that a ceasefire entered into force in Lebanon after an agreement between Israel and Hamas’s ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Palestinian Authority appears weaker than ever, unable to pay its civil servants and threatened by Israeli far-right ministers’ calls to annex all or part of the occupied West Bank, an ambition increasingly less hidden by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.