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GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza militants fired rockets Tuesday after the death in Israeli custody of a leading Palestinian figure in the Islamic Jihad group, who had been on hunger strike for nearly three months.
The cross-border fire followed the death of Khader Adnan, who had been on hunger strike since his detention by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in February.
Israel’s prison service announced the death of a detainee affiliated to Islamic Jihad, who was “found early this morning in his cell unconscious.”
The news was swiftly followed by rocket fire toward Israel, an AFP journalist witnessed, with the Israeli military reporting three rockets “fell in open areas.”
Adnan’s death was described as a “deliberate assassination” by Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.
“By rejecting his request for his release, neglecting him medically and keeping him in his cell, despite the seriousness of his health condition,” the premier said in a statement.
Adnan, 45, was the first Palestinian to die as a direct result of a hunger strike, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
Other Palestinian detainees have died “as a result of attempts to force feed them,” the advocacy group’s director, Qaddura Faris, said.
A senior Israeli official described Adnan as “a hunger striker who refused medical attention, risking his life.”
“In recent days, the military appeal court decided against releasing him from detention solely on the merit of his medical condition,” said the official, who requested anonymity.
Adnan was described by the official as an “operative” with Islamic Jihad, who was facing charges related to his activities within the militant group.
Islamic Jihad, which is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States, warned Israel will “pay the price for this crime.”
“The free hero, Khader Adnan, died as a martyr in a crime committed by the enemy in front of the world,” the militant group said in a statement.
Israel’s prison service said Adnan was in jail for the 10th time and his wife, Randa Mousa, previously said her husband had carried out multiple hunger strikes in detention.
“(He is) refusing any support, refusing medical examinations, he is in a cell with very difficult detention conditions,” she said last week.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967 and its forces regularly detain Palestinians, who are subject to Israeli military courts.
In his final message, Adnan said he was “sending you these words as my flesh and fat has melted.”
“I pray that God accept me as a faithful martyr,” he wrote, in a message published Monday by the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
A medic from the group Physicians for Human Rights Israel visited Adnan in prison earlier this week and warned that he “faces imminent death,” while calling for him to be “urgently transferred to a hospital.”
Israeli authorities had refused to move Adnan to hospital, according to the rights group and his wife.
DAMASCUS: Israeli strikes targeted north Syria’s Aleppo province late Monday, killing a solider and wounding seven people including two civilians and putting the area’s international airport out of service, state media reported.
“At around 11:35 p.m. (2035 GMT)… the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack with several missiles… targeting Aleppo international airport and a number of sites in the vicinity of Aleppo,” state news agency SANA said, citing a military source.
“A soldier was killed and seven people were wounded including two civilians,” SANA said, reporting “material losses” and that “Aleppo airport was put out of service.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported “a number of explosions in the area of Aleppo international airport and the Nayrab military airfield in Aleppo province… which led to a fire at a munitions depot.”
The Britain-based war monitor said there was “heavy material damage at both airports.”
It also said “Israeli missiles fell on defense factories in the Safireh area” of Aleppo province, “causing material damage.”
During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.
While Israel rarely comments on the strikes it carries out on Syria, it has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch-foe Iran to extend its footprint in the war-torn country.
Iran-backed militias have a heavy presence in the Aleppo region after providing key ground support to the army in its recapture of rebel-held districts of the city in 2016.
On March 22, an Israeli missile strike destroyed a suspected arms depot used by Iran-backed militias at Aleppo airport, the Observatory said at the time, with authorities saying that raid put the airport out of service.
On March 7, three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the airport that also brought air traffic to a halt.
CAIRO: A project to revive the Holy Family Path, including the restoration of Coptic monasteries and archaeological sites, is one of the most talked about initiatives in Egypt.
In an interview with Arab News, Coptic researcher Robert Al-Fares said: “When discussing the most important cultural and tourism projects in Egypt, coinciding with the launch of the New Republic initiative by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, we must proudly mention the project to revive the Holy Family Path.”
He said the project aimed to promote religious tourism and reiterate Egypt’s message of peace and tolerance to ensure it remains a meeting place for all civilizations and religions.
The Holy Family Path project traces the journey through Egypt of the Virgin Mary, her son Jesus Christ and Joseph the Carpenter.
• Scheme will reiterate country’s message of peace, tolerance, expert says.
• Project will include major road construction, improvement works.
Al-Fares said the path held historical and religious significance for people around the world and as a result distinguished Egypt from other nations. This distinction has allowed the Egyptian Coptic Church to hold a unique position among Christian churches.
A key point along the Holy Family Path is Wadi El-Natrun in the Buhaira governorate. Various state institutions are collaborating to develop the path in Wadi El-Natrun, including restoring archaeological sites and Coptic monasteries (notably the Anba Bishoy Monastery) and enhancing the roads leading to these sites.
Also, the Al-Hamra Spring area, which is located close to the route, will be used for environmental, therapeutic and spiritual tourism purposes.
Nihal Balbaa, deputy governor of Buhaira, told Arab News that the road development works would cost 44 million Egyptian pounds ($1.4 million).
The infrastructure project would include landscaping works and the improvement of lighting systems along the roads.
ROME: Now in its third week, the fighting that erupted on April 15 between Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan’s Sudanese Armed Forces and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces shows no signs of abating.
The violence, which has engulfed large swathes of the country, has Sudan’s neighbors worried that it will spill across borders, triggering off more violence and chaos in an already fragile region.
The point was underscored on Monday by the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, who told a briefing of member states: “The regional spillover effect of the crisis is a serious concern.”
Sudan borders seven nations — Egypt, South Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, Libya, Ethiopia and Eritrea. Experts and analysts now say there is a high risk of the crisis in Sudan spilling over into highly unstable Chad and South Sudan and even beyond.
“What happens in Sudan will not stay in Sudan,” Alan Boswell of the International Crisis Group said on Twitter.
“None of Sudan’s neighbors can afford a collapsed state in Sudan or a major war that starts to spill out,” he told Arab News. “The risks that we see, if this drags on much longer, is the risk of internal fragmentation in a more complex conflict in Sudan that keeps growing. Unfortunately, we’re already starting to see that now, especially in Khartoum.”
However, Boswell added, there is “this window where it’s mostly still a binary conflict between these two (Al-Burhan and Dagalo). But there’s also a window before we start to see, I think, serious external intervention. The longer it drags on, the more and more likely that is. Once that seal is broken, we’re probably only likely to see more external players get involved.”
Risk of a geopolitical spillover reflects Sudan’s geographic position at the intersection of the Horn of Africa, Indian Ocean, sub-Saharan Africa and the entire Arab world. Moreover, the Nile River as well as oil pipelines run through Sudan, a nation rich in minerals including gold, chromium, salt, gypsum and cement.
What started as clashes between two rival Sudanese groups has already begun to adversely impact the wider region.
The UN has estimated that 100,000 people will flee the Sudan conflict toward Chad, which already hosts over half a million refugees. Tens of thousands of Sudanese nationals have already escaped the recent violence in their homeland, mostly to South Sudan and Chad.
“It’s a potentially catastrophic situation and we risk seeing Sudan become another failed state, because the fighting may not be contained between just these two factions,” Matt Bryden, director of the Nairobi-based Sahan Research, told Arab News. “There’s a risk of the conflict becoming more fragmented and more actors getting involved.”
While the refugee crisis in bordering nations is an immediate impact, Martin Plaut, senior research fellow at the London-based Institute of Commonwealth Studies, told Arab News that the “longer-term impacts are much more serious and could draw in all of the region, which is why everybody is working so incredibly hard to try and halt it.”
He added: “From the Arab League, the African Union, regional organizations, the Americans, the British and the Europeans, everybody is really, really struggling to get this under control.
“The problem is that it could split Sudan right down the middle.”
Al-Burhan, a traditional Sudanese man from a small northern village who rose through the ranks of the army, looks north for support. Dagalo, on the other hand, was born in Darfur and is a member of the Rizigat Arab tribe in the western province who has risen through the ranks to become one of the most powerful and richest men in Sudan.
“Dagalo likes to see himself as representing the periphery and not the Nilotic population, but he was someone who was central to the creation of the Janjaweed in the Darfur conflict,” Plaut said, referencing the militia known locally as “devils on horseback” who were accused of a litany of war crimes during the war in Darfur.
Though Dagalo is hated by many in Sudan, Plaut says he has many international powerful allies that provide him weapons in exchange for Sudanese gold.
Having said that, Plaut believes the conflict is an African and an Arab issue to resolve. “It is not an international issue except for the international community if they get their troops in and their personnel and citizens out,” he said.
The government of South Sudan is one neighbor that has already expressed deep concern over the fighting, which they fear could leak over the border and spoil the country’s fragile peace process.
The war-weary country, one of the world’s poorest, is not equipped to handle any more Sudanese refugees. Around 12 million people live in South Sudan, of which 2.3 million are internally displaced. Three-quarters of the population rely on humanitarian assistance, according to the UNHCR.
As Robert Bociaga wrote in a recent report in Arab News: “Sudan exports crude oil produced by South Sudan. Any disruption to this trade arrangement could lead to economic instability for the young republic, which has already suffered the knock-on effects of recent tribal uprisings in eastern Sudan.”
One direct result of the conflict is the price of Sudan’s oil exports, which fell on Friday from $100 per barrel to $70.
Ethiopia, still recovering from the humanitarian crisis of the war in Tigray, shares a long border with Sudan. As of April 23, civilians from 23 nations have fled strife-torn Sudan to Ethiopia, according to the country’s Amahara Regionals Communications office.
“There’s no indication that Ethiopia or Eritrea is supporting either side, but they will be alarmed by the involvement of other actors,” Aaron Maasho, an Ethiopian Horn of Africa expert, told Arab News. “Ethiopia, which still has yet to resolve its issues, has publicly called on both parties to the conflict in Sudan to launch a dialogue to resolve things peacefully.”
A resolution of the crisis in Libya, to Sudan’s northeast, is likely to be further delayed by events in Sudan, with the added possibility of greater political divisions and security risks. The country still relies on Sudan for commercial trade and to facilitate the return of Sudanese mercenaries from Libyan territory.
According to UN estimates, the result of a peaceful transition and reconstruction in Libya has the potential to enhance economic performance in Sudan by $22.7 billion over the course of 2021 to 2025. But now the Sudan conflict is leading to increased border insecurity in southern Libya, particularly owing to the cross-border movements of displaced citizens and fighters.
Egypt, a country suffering from inflation and a debt crisis, also has a history of conflict over sharing water with Sudan, as both rely on the Nile River which flows down from Ethiopia.
Closer to home, Darfur, in western Sudan, faces renewed threat of destabilization. Boswell worries that the country’s deepening political divides could lead to fresh tribal conflicts there.
“In some ways this is a conflict that started in Darfur and is now in Khartoum,” he told Arab News. “However, Darfur is never a two-sided conflict; you have many armed groups in Darfur. As we have already seen, what happens in Darfur doesn’t stay in Darfur because the countries bordering Darfur have many ethnic links and are not able to stop cross-border flows.”
He continued: “While there has been a lot of focus on Khartoum, the conflict is already happening in Darfur and it’s easy to imagine the scenarios where Darfur ends up being the theater where this drags on the longest.”
In addition to sowing chaos and sparking a humanitarian crisis in an already volatile region, the fighting in Sudan is also wreaking economic havoc on East and Central Africa and beyond.
According to Moody’s, if the clashes lead to a prolonged civil war in Sudan, a spillover into neighboring countries would weaken the region’s security environment, triggering asset quality concerns for multilateral development banks loans in South Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and Egypt.
The only hope for an end to the Sudanese nightmare is a ceasefire, said Boswell.
As of now, Washington and Riyadh are both pushing for a ceasefire. However, as the chaos continues to consume not only Sudan’s capital but other parts of the country, most analysts and residents alike fear the worst in a region were “conflicts have ravaged daily life.”
NEW YORK CITY: Millions of people in Sudan are facing a humanitarian disaster as the armed conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces becomes a “full-blown catastrophe,” UN and Sudanese officials warned on Monday.
During a briefing at the UN headquarters in Geneva on the latest developments, officials from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 16 million people in Sudan, a third of the population, are in need of assistance, and 3.7 million, mainly from Darfur province, have been displaced from their homes as a result of the violence that began on April 15.
Hassan Hamid Hassan, the Sudan’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, said the Rapid Support Forces launched unprovoked attacks against the army and its installations just hours before a scheduled meeting between the leaders of both forces.
Fighting erupted in the capital, Khartoum, more than two weeks ago between troops loyal to Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s regular army, and his former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces, a heavily armed militia previously aligned with the army.
The two generals seized power from a joint military-civilian transitional authority in a 2021 coup, two years after the country embarked on a shift to democracy following the overthrow of authoritarian President Omar Al-Bashir after months of public protests.
Hassan said at least 30 hospitals and other medical facilities in Sudan can no longer be used as a result of the continuing fighting. Meanwhile tens of thousands of people have been displaced and are at serious risk because of the lack of medical assistance and food shortages, he added.
“The situation in Sudan is worrisome,” said Hassan, adding that at least 512 people have been killed and 4,200 wounded since the fighting began, according to the country’s Health Ministry.
Abdou Dieng, the UN’s acting resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said millions of Sudanese are in need of immediate assistance and millions more are confined to their homes, unable to access basic necessities.
Speaking from the city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, he said that according to the World Health Organization, one in four of the lives lost so far as a result of the conflict could have been saved had their been better access to medical help.
Many health facilities have been forced to close while those that are still operating face challenges, including shortages of medical supplies and blood stocks, he added.
Dieng blamed both sides in the conflict for the breakdown of order and the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country.
“In internal parts of Sudan, mainly in Khartoum and Darfur, we have seen a complete lack of respect by the warring parties for their obligations under international humanitarian law and the protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian personnel and assets,” he said.
His office and its staff have relocated to Port Sudan and will remain there to lead the efforts to help Sudanese civilians, he added.
Raouf Mazou, a UN assistant secretary-general and assistant high commissioner for operations at UNHCR, the UN’s Refugee Agency, said an estimated 73,000 people have arrived in neighboring countries, including Chad (30,000), South Sudan (20,000) and Egypt, since the conflict began, and the UN is helping host countries to register and provide immediate help to refugees.
He added: “In consultation with all concerned governments and partners, we have arrived at a planning figure of 815,000 people that may flee into the seven neighboring countries.”
Of those, 580,000 are expected to be Sudanese nationals, and 235,000 South Sudanese citizens who might return to their country in what the UN describes as “adverse conditions.”
Anthony Neal, coordinator of the Sudan INGO Forum, which facilitates communication and action between international humanitarian and development agencies operating in Sudan, said the country was already facing a difficult and complex humanitarian crisis before the current conflict began.
He said the current situation is even more complicated and presents many challenges to nongovernmental organizations, given that many of their staff have had to relocate because of the fighting, and the effects the conflict is having on the banking sector, which is limiting the ability of organizations to pay workers and support their operations.
TUNIS: Tunisia’s largest union has attacked the government’s handling of negotiations with the IMF on a loan to bail out the North African country as it slides deeper into debt.
Tunisia is seeking a bailout package worth nearly $2 billion from the International Monetary Fund, which conditions any aid on a series of reforms.
As Noureddine Taboubi of the Tunisian General Labor Union or UGTT was giving his May Day speech in the capital Tunis, protesters in the country’s second city Sfax denounced “an IMF government,” saying “No to colonization.”
“We back the position of the president,” Kais Saied, who last month rejected what he called IMF “diktats” for Tunisia to be granted the loan, Taboubi said.
Despite an agreement in principle on the loan, agreed in October, talks with the IMF have been stalled for months over Saied not committing to restructure public bodies and lift subsidies on basic goods.
The IMF has called for legislation to restructure more than 100 state-owned firms, which hold monopolies over many parts of the economy and in many cases are heavily indebted.
Taboubi on Monday said the president had “aligned himself” with the UGTT which opposes the sale of public companies and the lifting of subsidies.
“This makes us wonder whether there is any value in the government negotiating with the IMF,” he said.
Taboubi said the IMF’s conditions for granting the bailout would “impoverish the Tunisian people even more” in a country where inflation is already more than 10 percent and unemployment is higher than 15 percent.
Late last month the UGTT said there were major differences between Saied and the government led by Prime Minister Najla Gouden which, the union claimed, was engaged in “secret negotiation” with the world lending body.
In a statement, it attacked “the global lending funds that seize such opportunities to dictate the conditions and dominate the economies of countries experiencing crises such as ours.”
On Monday, Taboubi also demanded the release of trade unionists arrested in recent weeks, including one detained on Friday for posts on social media deemed to be anti-Saied.