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BEIRUT: A Lebanese clergyman has expressed his support for a woman candidate for the presidency.
Beirut’s Metropolitan Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elias Aoude asked during his Sunday sermon: “What would the situation be like if a female candidate was chosen for the presidency?”
He added: “Since the establishment of the Lebanese state, we’ve been having only male presidents, who were powerful sometimes and impotent other times.”
Aoude considered that “electing a female president will expose the weakness of men who consider their positions as properties, while women — in their capacity as housewives, mothers, employees, or any other role — are always restless.
“So, why not let women take charge of the country’s affairs, just like many other countries that have become pioneers thanks to their female presidents?”
Lebanese political forces have been struggling to name a successor to former President Michel Aoun since last year, to put an end to the vacuum that is paralyzing state institutions.
With male party leaders holding the keys to the country’s political decisions for decades, Lebanese women are still excluded from the main decision-making positions in the country — including the presidency, premiership and parliamentary speaker — despite their wide presence in other areas.
Randa Al-Yasir, an expert on women’s affairs, told Arab News that “the main pretexts used against the political participation of women stem from the societal culture and traditions, which have always allowed the male mentality to be the final arbiter in naming female candidates,” adding that clerics’ opinions played a big role in influencing people.
She added: “Archbishop Elias Aoude’s stance in his sermon was remarkable, as he broke the stereotype against women in positions of power.
“He clearly encouraged the assumption of power by patriotically equal men or women to rule the country.
“This recognition by clergymen will contribute to changing that culture, which has deprived women from accessing higher national positions.”
Two women from outside the traditional political system have announced their candidacy for the presidency — a position allocated for a Maronite personality — in succession to Aoun.
The first candidate is Tracy Chamoun, who is Lebanon’s former ambassador to Jordan and the granddaughter of Camille Chamoun, the second post-independence president.
The second candidate is May Rihani, who is an author, and an expert on girls’ education and women’s empowerment.
The names of Chamoun and Rihani were absent during the 11 parliamentary sessions held for the presidential elections.
The female candidates were not elected by any of the current deputies, including reformist and independent MPs, due to the ongoing political tensions.
Although Lebanese women won the right to vote in 1952, and despite the presence of an active feminist movement, women’s representation in political affairs remains below expectations.
Eight women won parliamentary seats in the 2022 elections, some of whom were active protesters during demonstrations in 2019.
The feminist movement in Lebanon, in cooperation with international bodies, is currently working on increasing female representation in municipal councils and helping more women assume the position of mayor.
It is undecided whether municipal elections will be held next May, or if the terms of the current councils will be extended amid the presidential vacuum.
Meanwhile, during a seminar organized by the UN Development Program, the head of the Seeds for Legal Initiatives organization said that laws that are unfair to women have turned them into “second-class citizens who always depend on male guardians.”
She reaffirmed that “women’s engagement in politics is not a privilege, but an inherent and obvious right in the face of the aggravation of political forces stigmatized by blatant masculinity resulting from the accumulation of public impotence and corruption.”
Joelle Abou Farhat, president of the Fiftyfifty nongovernmental organization in Lebanon, expressed her fear of “the limited political representation of women in parliament, and the presence of only 600 women in municipal councils out of 12,000 municipal positions.”
She added that “women do not need guidance, but empowerment.”
Hezbollah is against women’s participation in politics, and none of the electoral lists supported by the party included a female candidate.
QALANDIYA CHECKPOINT, West Bank: For many Palestinians, the journey to one of Islam’s most sacred sites on the holiest night of Ramadan begins in a dust-choked, garbage-strewn maelstrom.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian worshippers from across the occupied West Bank on Monday crammed through a military checkpoint leading to Jerusalem to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque for Laylat Al-Qadr, or the “Night of Destiny,” when Muslims believe that the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad centuries ago.
The noisy, sweaty crowds at Qalandiya checkpoint seem chaotic — but there was a system: women to the right; men to the left. Jerusalem residents here, disabled people there. And the grim-looking men stranded at the corner had endured the long wait only to be turned back altogether.
“I’m not political, I’m just devout, so I thought maybe tonight, because of Laylat Al-Qadr, they’d let me in,” said Deia Jamil, a 40-year-old Arabic teacher from the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“But no. ‘Forbidden,’” he said, sinking onto his knees to pray in the dirt lot.
For Palestinian worshippers, praying at the third-holiest site in Islam is a centerpiece of Ramadan. But hundreds of thousands are barred from legally crossing into Jerusalem, with most men under 55 turned away at checkpoints due to Israeli security restrictions. They often resort to perilous means to get to the holy compound during the fasting month of Ramadan.
This year, as in the past, Israel has eased some restrictions, allowing women and young children from the West Bank to enter Jerusalem without a permit. Those between the ages of 45 and 55 who have a valid permit can pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound — one of the most bitterly disputed holy sites on Earth.
Jews revere it as the Temple Mount, home to the biblical Temples, and consider it the holiest site in Judaism. The competing claims are at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and often spill over into violence.
Israel says it is committed to protecting freedom of worship for all faiths and describes the controls on Palestinian worshippers as an essential security measure that keeps attackers out of Israel. Last month, a Palestinian who crossed into Israel from the West Bank village of Nilin opened fire on a crowded street in Tel Aviv, killing one Israeli and wounding two others.
But for Palestinians, the restrictions take a toll.
“I feel completely lost,” said 53-year-old Noureddine Odeh, his backpack sagging off one shoulder. His wife and teenage daughters made it through the checkpoint, leaving him behind. This year — a period of surging violence in the occupied West Bank — Israel raised the age limit for male worshippers and he was no longer eligible. “You’re tugged around, like they’re playing God.”
Israeli authorities did not answer questions about how many Palestinian applications they’d rejected from the West Bank and Gaza. But they said that so far this month, some 289,000 Palestinians — the majority from the West Bank and a few hundred from the Gaza Strip — had visited Jerusalem for prayers.
Earlier this month, Israel announced the start of special Ramadan flights for West Bank Palestinians from the Ramon Airport in southern Israel. In normal times, Palestinians would have to fly from neighboring Jordan. But Monday, days before the end of Ramadan, the Israeli defense agency that handles Palestinian civilian affairs said only that Palestinians “will soon have the option.”
The crowds squeezing through Qalandiya during Laylat Al-Qadr — one of the most important nights of the year, when Muslims seek to have their prayers answered — were so overwhelming that Israeli forces repeatedly shut the barrier. The sudden closures created bottlenecks of people, most of whom had abstained from food and water all day. Medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said at least 30 people collapse at the checkpoint on a busy Ramadan day.
Their elbows pressed into strangers’ torsos and heads squeezed under armpits, five women studying to be midwives who had never before left the West Bank entertained themselves with fantasies of Jerusalem. “We’ll buy meat and sweets,” squealed 20-year-old Sondos Warasna. “And picnic in the Al-Aqsa courtyard.”
The limestone courtyard, which teems with Palestinian families breaking fast each night after sunset, became roiled by violence earlier this month, when Ramadan overlapped with the Jewish holiday of Passover. Israeli police raided the compound, firing stun grenades and arresting hundreds of Palestinian worshippers who had barricaded themselves inside the mosque with fireworks and stones. The raid, which Israel said was necessary to prevent further violence, outraged Muslims across the world and prompted militants in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip to fire rockets at Israel.
Anger over access to the contested compound was undimmed at Qalandiya. Throngs of Palestinian girls and older men ostensibly permitted to pass were turned back and told they had security bans they never knew about that barred them from Jerusalem. The secretive system — which Palestinians consider a key tool in Israel’s 55-year-old military occupation — left them reeling, struggling to understand why.
A 16-year-old girl from the northern city of Jenin frantically called her parents who had entered Jerusalem without her. A 19-year-old from Ramallah changed her coat and put on sunglasses and lipstick before trying again.
Others found riskier ways to get to the holy compound — scrambling over Israel’s hulking separation barrier or sliding under razor wire.
Abdallah, a young medical student from the southern city of Hebron, clambered up a rickety ladder with six of his friends in the pre-dawn darkness Monday — then slid down a rope on the wall’s other side — so he could make it to Al-Aqsa for Laylat Al-Qadr. They paid a smuggler some $70 each to help them scale the barrier.
“My heart was beating so loud. I was sure soldiers would hear it,” Abdallah said, giving only his first name for fear of reprisals.
The Israeli military has picked up hundreds of Palestinians who sneaked through holes in the separation barrier during Ramadan, it said, adding that forces would “continue to act against the security risk arising from the destruction of the security fence and illegal entry.”
Abdallah said the experience of Jerusalem’s Old City brought him great joy. But soon anxiety set in. Israeli police were everywhere — occasionally stopping young men and asking to see their IDs. He tried to blend in, wearing counterfeit athleisure like many Jerusalemites and smiling to look relaxed.
“It’s a mixed feeling. At any moment I know I could be arrested,” he said from the entrance to the sacred compound. “But our mosque, it makes me feel free.”
TOKYO: A US diplomatic convoy came under fire on Monday in Sudan in an apparent attack by fighters associated with Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday, in an incident he described as “reckless” and “irresponsible.”
The incident prompted a direct warning from Blinken, who separately telephoned RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, and Sudan’s army chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, to tell them that any danger posed to American diplomats was unacceptable.
“We have deep concerns about the overall security environment,” Blinken said at a press conference in Japan where he attended a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers.
Fighting in Sudan has killed at least 185 people and injured more than 1,800 others as both sides claimed gains in a conflict that has seen the use of air strikes and artillery.
Clashes have continued despite numerous calls from the United States and other countries for a halt to fighting as well as efforts by Egypt and the United Emirates to get the rivals to agree to a cease-fire.
JERUSALEM: A suspected Palestinian gunman wounded two men near a Jewish site in annexed east Jerusalem on Tuesday, Israeli authorities said, with security forces conducting a manhunt for the perpetrator.
The shooting came days before the end of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, which has seen deadly attacks and clashes in Israel, annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli police announced a suspected “shooting terror attack” in the Sheikh Jarrah sector of east Jerusalem targeting two motorists, who according to medics were rushed to hospital.
“Police and Border Police officers are at the scene conducting searches for the suspect who fled the scene,” the police said in a statement.
Israeli security forces closed off streets in the neighborhood, where an AFP journalist saw officers entering a Palestinian home, with a drone and helicopter as well as police dogs aiding the search.
Officers enforcing the shutdown prevented cars and people from moving in the center of the neighborhood, as heavily armed forces combed the area.
Police announced they had found the perpetrator’s gun near the scene of the attack, which took place near the tomb of Simeon the Just — Shimon Hatzadik in Hebrew — a site frequented by religious Jews.
The weapon was identified as a Carlo makeshift submachine gun, which Palestinians manufacture in the West Bank.
Hadassah hospital said they received a 48-year-old gunshot victim in moderate condition, and Shaare Zedek medical center said it was treating a man in his 50s, also moderately wounded.
Sheikh Jarrah was the focal point of protests against the eviction of Palestinian residents by Israeli settler organizations in the build up to and during the May 2021 war between Israel and Gaza militants.
The attack took place a day after a Palestinian woman stabbed and moderately wounded an Israeli man at the Gush Etzion junction in the southern occupied West Bank.
The woman was shot by security forces and taken to hospital in moderate condition.
The conflict has this year claimed the lives of at least 96 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP count based on Israeli and Palestinian official sources.
These figures include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
KHARTOUM, Sudan: As explosions and gunfire thundered outside, Sudanese in the capital Khartoum and other cities huddled in their homes, while the army and a powerful rival force battled in the streets for control of the country.
At least 185 people have been killed and over 1,800 wounded since the fighting erupted, UN envoy Volker Perthes told reporters. The two sides are using tanks, artillery and other heavy weapons in densely populated areas. Fighter jets swooped overhead and anti-aircraft fire lit up the skies as darkness fell.
The toll could be much higher because there are many bodies in the streets around central Khartoum that no one can reach because of the clashes. There has been no official word on how many civilians or combatants have been killed. The doctors’ syndicate earlier put the number of civilian deaths at 97.
The sudden outbreak of violence over the weekend between the nation’s two top generals, each backed by tens of thousands of heavily armed fighters, trapped millions of people in their homes or wherever they could find shelter, with supplies running low and several hospitals forced to shut down.
Top diplomats on four continents scrambled to broker a truce, and the UN Security Council was set to discuss the crisis.
Japan foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said G7 countries, whose ministers are meeting in Karuizawa, agreed that the violence in Sudan must stop immediately.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “grave concern” about Sudanese civilian deaths and injuries in separate calls with the heads of Sudan’s armed forces and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Force, a State Department official said on Tuesday.
Blinken stressed the responsibility of both generals, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo to ensure the safety of non-combatants, including diplomatic personal and humanitarian workers, the official said.
“Gunfire and shelling are everywhere,” Awadeya Mahmoud Koko, head of a union for thousands of tea vendors and other food workers, said from her home in a southern district of Khartoum.
She said a shell stuck a neighbor’s house Sunday, killing at least three people. “We couldn’t take them to a hospital or bury them.”
In central Khartoum, sustained gunfire erupted and white smoke rose near the main military headquarters, a major battle front. Nearby, at least 88 students and staffers have been trapped in the engineering college library at Khartoum University since the start of fighting, one of the students said in a video posted online Monday. One student was killed during clashes outside and another wounded, he said. They do not have food or water, he said, showing a room full of people sleeping on the floor.
Even in a country with a long history of military coups, the scenes of fighting in the capital and its adjoining city Omdurman across the Nile River were unprecedented. The turmoil comes just days before Sudanese were to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
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The power struggle pits Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the armed forces, against Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group. The former allies jointly orchestrated an October 2021 military coup. The violence has raised the specter of civil war just as Sudanese were trying to revive the drive for a democratic, civilian government after decades of military rule.
Under international pressure, Burhan and Dagalo had recently agreed to a framework agreement with political parties and pro-democracy groups, but the signing was repeatedly delayed as tensions rose over the integration of the RSF into the armed forces and the future chain of command.
Sudan’s paramilitary force the RSF said on Tuesday it was fighting a battle to restore “the rights of our people.”
“The new revolution … is still continuing to achieve its noble goals, foremost of which is the formation of a civil government that will lead us toward a real democratic transition,” the RSF added in a statement.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said late Monday that Cairo was in “constant contact” with both the army and the RSF, urging them to halt the fighting and return to negotiations.
But both generals have thus far dug in, demanding the other’s surrender.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell tweeted that the EU ambassador to Sudan “was assaulted in his own residency,” without providing further details. EU officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dagalo, whose forces grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias in Sudan’s Darfur region, has portrayed himself as a defender of democracy and branded Burhan as the aggressor and a “radical Islamist.” Both generals have a long history of human rights abuses and their forces have cracked down on pro-democracy activists.
Heavy gunbattles raged in multiple parts of the capital and Omdurman, where the two sides have brought in tens of thousands of troops, positioning them in nearly every neighborhood.
Twelve hospitals in the capital area have been “forcefully evacuated” and are “out of service” because of attacks or power outages, the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate said, out of a total of around 20 hospitals. Four other hospitals outside the capital have also shut down, it added in a statement late Monday.
Hadia Saeed said she and her three children were sheltering in one room on the ground floor of their home for fear of the shelling as gunfire rattled across their Bahri district in north Khartoum. They have food for a few more days, but “after that we don’t know what to do,” she said.
Residents said fierce fighting with artillery and other heavy weapons raged Monday afternoon in the Gabra neighborhood southwest of Khartoum. People were trapped and screaming inside their homes, said Asmaa Al-Toum, a physician living in the area.
Fighting has been particularly fierce around each side’s main bases and at strategic government buildings — all of which are in residential areas.
The military on Monday claimed to have secured the main television building in Omdurman, fending off the RSF after days of fighting. State-run Sudan TV resumed broadcasting.
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On Sunday, the RSF said it abandoned its main barracks and base, in Omdurman, which the armed forces had pounded with airstrikes. Online videos Monday purported to show the bodies of dozens of men said to be RSF fighters at the base, strewn over beds, the floor of a clinic and outside in a yard. The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed independently.
The military and RSF were also fighting in most major centers around the country, including in the western Darfur region and parts of the north and the east, by the borders with Egypt and Ethiopia. Battles raged Monday around a strategic air base in Merowe, some 350 kilometers (215 miles) northwest of the capital, with both sides claiming control of the facility.
Only four years ago, Sudan inspired hope after a popular uprising helped depose long-time autocratic leader Omar Al-Bashir.
But the turmoil since, especially the 2021 coup, has frustrated the democracy drive and wrecked the economy. A third of the population — around 16 million people — now depends on humanitarian assistance in the resource-rich nation, Africa’s third largest.
Save the Children, an international charity, said it has temporarily suspended most of its operations across Sudan. It said looters raided its offices in Darfur, stealing medical supplies, laptops, vehicles and a refrigerator. The World Food Program suspended operations over the weekend after three employees were killed in Darfur, and the International Rescue Committee has also halted most operations.
With the US, European Union, African and Arab nations all calling for an end to fighting, the UN Security Council was to discuss the developments in Sudan. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was consulting with the Arab League, African Union and leaders in the region, urging anyone with influence to press for peace.
At a meeting of the Group of Seven wealthy nations in Japan on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Sudanese “want the military back in the barracks. They want democracy. They want the civilian-led government, Sudan needs to return to that path.”