Fighting resumes in Sudan’s capital as three-day cease-fire expires
Fighting reported in all three of the cities that make up the wider capital around the confluence of the Nile: Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman
Updated 10 sec ago
Reuters
DUBAI: Clashes broke out in several parts of Sudan’s capital on Wednesday as a 72-hour cease-fire — which saw several reports of violations — between rival military factions expired, witnesses said.
Shortly before the truce ended at 6 a.m. fighting was reported in all three of the cities that make up the wider capital around the confluence of the Nile: Khartoum, Bahri and Omdurman.
Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been battling each other for more than two months, wreaking destruction on the capital, triggering widespread violence in the western region of Darfur, and causing more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes.
Witnesses said army aircraft could be heard early on Wednesday over Omdurman, as could anti-aircraft fire from the RSF, artillery fire from a base in north Omdurman, and ground fighting in southern Khartoum.
The cease-fire was the latest of several truce deals brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States at talks in Jeddah.
As with previous cease-fires, there were reports of violations by both sides.
Late on Monday, both factions blamed the other for a large fire at the intelligence headquarters, which is housed in a defense compound in central Khartoum that has been fought over since the fighting erupted on April 15.
Saudi Arabia and the US said that if the warring factions failed to observe the ceasefire they would consider adjourning the Jeddah talks, which critics have questioned as ineffective.
The conflict in Sudan erupted amid disputes over internationally backed plans for a transition away from military rule following a coup in 2021 and four years after long-ruling autocrat Omar Al-Bashir was ousted during a popular uprising.
DUBAI: A train crash in Tunisia has left two people dead and 30 others injured, state radio reported on Wednesday.
The crash took place late on Tuesday, when a train on the route between Tunisia’s coastal city of Sfax and its capital Tunis derailed, killing the driver and his assistant, Radio Tunisienne said, citing a hospital official.
UN Palestinian refugee agency warns of cash shortage
UNRWA provides services such as health, sanitation, education and social assistance to nearly six million Palestinians
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said his agency is seeking $300 million “to keep our operations running between now and the end of the year”
Updated 7 min 47 sec ago
AFP
BEIRUT: The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees warned Tuesday that a funding squeeze could jeopardize access to basic services for millions.
UNRWA provides services such as health, sanitation, education and social assistance to nearly six million Palestinians registered in the Palestinian territories, including Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
It is the latest in a series of warnings from UNRWA on possible deep cuts if the international community fails to provide more support.
In January, it appealed for $1.6 billion in funding for 2023, but donors have only pledged around half of that amount.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Tuesday his agency was seeking $300 million “to keep our operations running between now and the end of the year”.
“If we have no more commitment from member states, we will hit the wall” from autumn, he told a press conference in Beirut.
The agency needs $200 million for “core activities” including education and social safety nets, $75 million for food aid in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, and around $20 million in cash assistance to refugees in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, he said.
There is a “risk of a vacuum in the absence of any proper alternative” to UNRWA’s “state-like” services, he said.
“Once we reach an inflection point it will be very difficult to reverse it.”
UNRWA has long faced chronic budget shortfalls, with the agency “in crisis-mode for about 10 years”, according to Lazzarini.
He said refugees in Lebanon, crippled by a three-year-long economic collapse, have been hit particularly hard.
The agency advertised 14 jobs for garbage collectors and “received 37,000 applications”, including many candidates with university degrees, Lazzarini said.
UNRWA has previously warned that its needs have been skyrocketing as global crises, inflation and disruptions in global supply chains contributed to surging poverty and unemployment levels among Palestinians.
“We fear to reach a point where the agency cannot cover salaries anymore for 30,000 employees in the region,” Lazzarini added.
“Sooner or later our ability to deliver services will come to an end,” he warned.
Planned Israeli settlement threatens West Bank UNESCO site ecosystem
Residents fear their ancient way of life could soon be in danger as Israel’s far-right government moves ahead with a settlement project on a nearby hilltop
Updated 19 min 29 sec ago
AP
BATTIR, West Bank: Generations of Palestinians have worked the terraced hillsides of this West Bank farming village southwest of Jerusalem, growing olives, fruits, beans and exquisite eggplants renowned across the region in a valley linked to the biblical King David.
But residents fear their ancient way of life could soon be in danger as Israel’s far-right government moves ahead with a settlement project on a nearby hilltop. Environmental groups say the construction could devastate already strained water sources supplying the agricultural terraces and cause extensive damage to an already precarious ecosystem.
Battir’s plight shines a light on how the trappings of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — settlements, land disputes and military activity — can take a toll on the region’s environment, natural resources and cultural heritage.
The proposed construction “will grab a great amount of land, and you don’t know where it will end,” said Rashid Owinah, 58, whose family has farmed in Battir for generations. “This will affect the community mentally, economically and socially.”
Two environmental groups, EcoPeace and the Society for the Protection of Nature, have petitioned Israeli authorities to halt the plan, citing its potential impact on the lush terrace gardens below.
In the valley where the Bible says David battled the Philistines, which in spots seem undisturbed by modernity, the farmers channel water from a 2,000-year-old Roman-era pool to grow crops on terraces that cascade down the mountainsides.
On a recent day, water burbled out of a rock face and trickled down an aqueduct beneath a fruiting mulberry tree toward the disused Ottoman train tracks below that once brought the terraces’ produce to Jerusalem.
A Palestinian vendor sells produce made by farmers in the West Bank village of Battir Sunday, June 4, 2023. (AP)
While the expansion of the Har Gilo settlement has long been on the books, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new ultranationalist and religious government has made such projects a top priority. Local settler leaders are pushing hard to make the plan a reality.
The United Nations’ cultural heritage body, UNESCO, recognized the millennia-old terraces in the serpentine valleys around Battir as a world heritage site in 2014.
“The complex irrigation system of this water supply has led to the creation of dry walls terraces which may have been exploited since antiquity,” according to documentation filed with UNESCO. “The integrity of this traditional water system is guaranteed by the families of Battir, who depend on it.”
Between the terraces and a surrounding buffer zone meant to protect them, the UNESCO cultural landscape makes up around 10 square kilometers (3.8 square miles) of hills and wadis. Plastic litter left by picnickers is strewn along paths crisscrossing the valley.
The terraces, which for generations served as the market garden of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, are irrigated by intricate aqueducts and channels that the village’s farmers share. Around 40 percent of Battir’s 5,000 residents depend on agriculture for a living, according to former mayor Akram Bader.
“Here, we refuse to use the new machines,” he said. “We want to keep the traditional way of agriculture.”
Environmentalists say those springs would be endangered by Israel’s planned settlement construction in the buffer zone abutting the terraces.
“If you build an extensive town at the top, it destroys this landscape,” said Nadav Tal, a hydrologist who serves as the Middle East Water Officer for EcoPeace, a joint Israeli-Palestinian group.
The springs dotting the valley at the base of Battir are fed by groundwater that is recharged by rainfall percolating into the limestone hills above. “If you build on top of these rocks, you can block the water from reaching the springs,” he said.
Access to water is already a challenge for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, with many suffering from chronic supply shortages.
Israel effectively controls most of the water supply in the territory and limits the amount of water the Palestinians can extract from the mountain aquifer, the main water supply in the territory. Modern construction elsewhere has caused springs Palestinian farmers depend on to dry up.
On top of that, human-driven climate change is projected to raise global temperatures and cause more frequent droughts in the Levant. Burgeoning Israeli and Palestinian populations are expected to further strain limited water resources.
A Palestinian collects water from a spring in the West Bank village of Battir Sunday, June 4, 2023. (AP)
The future settlement plan, known as Har Gilo West, is slated to develop a craggy hilltop less than a mile (1.5 km) across the valley north of Battir. The project, which would effectively double the size of the existing Har Gilo settlement, is set to begin with 560 new housing units atop a ridge overlooking the terraces.
Shlomo Ne’eman, head of the Gush Etzion settlement council, said there is a dire housing shortage in the area, and Har Gilo in particular. He said all urban development comes at the expense of the environment, but in the case of Har Gilo West he argues that it is atop “a rocky hill that has no natural value.”
“There are no springs, there are no forests, there is no rare flora,” Ne’eman said, accusing environmental groups of selective, political activism.
He insisted that the Har Gilo West plans “aren’t close to the terraces, don’t approach them, don’t harm and don’t touch them.”
In its petition, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel said the plan “doesn’t meet any environmental criterion” and lacked standard environmental assessment documentation.
A summertime survey it conducted on the site found at least 195 plant species, 25 butterfly species, numerous bird species, including at least three listed as endangered, and said it was a habitat for the endangered mountain gazelle and threatened striped hyena.
COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for civilian affairs in the occupied West Bank, said the existing plans are aimed at “minimizing damage to the landscape, and (pay) attention to other environmental issues.” It said the planning would examine objections filed by environmental groups but gave no indication of when that would happen.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state.
Most of the international community considers Israeli settlements an impediment to the creation of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel. More than 700,000 Jewish settlers now live in dozens of settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Previous plans to build a section of Israel’s West Bank separation barrier adjacent to the terraces were scrapped after vocal opposition over its potential impact on wildlife and the ecosystem.
Yonathan Mizrachi of the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now said the Har Gilo West plans have already passed several steps in the byzantine settlement approval process.
Although the the plan still awaits final authorization before bulldozers move in, he said the approval of a highway expansion for Har Gilo last September indicates Israel’s intention of moving forward.
Spat at UN rights council over open-ended Israel probe
The COI, which is the highest-level investigation that can be ordered by the Human Rights Council, was set up in May 2021 following a surge in deadly violence between Israelis and Palestinians earlier that month
Updated 21 June 2023
AFP
GENEVA: The United States, on behalf of 27 countries, condemned Tuesday the open-ended nature of the UN investigation into alleged human rights violations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the “disproportionate” attention on Israel.
US ambassador Michele Taylor told the United Nations’ Human Rights Council that the group of countries was “deeply concerned” about the Commission of Inquiry (COI), with its “open-ended mandate with no sunset clause” or closing date.
The countries, including Austria, Britain, Canada and Italy, demanded an end to the “long-standing disproportionate attention given to Israel in the council.”
The COI, which is the highest-level investigation that can be ordered by the Human Rights Council, was set up in May 2021 following a surge in deadly violence between Israelis and Palestinians earlier that month.
The council established an ongoing independent, international COI to investigate “all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law” in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.
It is also charged with looking into “all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict.”
The first-ever open-ended COI is being conducted by UN rights chief Navi Pillay of South Africa, along with India’s Miloon Kothari and Chris Sidoti of Australia.
At a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday, Kothari referenced the calls for a sunset clause.
“We would like to see a sunset of the Israeli occupation... but until that time, an open-ended mandate is more than justified,” he said.
Israel is refusing to cooperate with the investigation.
“Isn’t it a spurious, very silly reason not to talk to the commissioners because they have an open mandate?” Pillay told the press conference.
In their second report published earlier this month, the investigators found that authorities both in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories were violating Palestinian civil society rights through harassment, threats, arrests, interrogations, detention and torture.
Israel’s authorities were responsible for the majority of the violations, the report said.
“Our report found that Israeli authorities have used a variety of punitive methods intended to deter and interfere with the activities of Palestinian civil society members,” Pillay told the Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
After the report was published, Israel slammed the findings, saying the country had a “robust and independent civil society... that can operate freely.”
Israel, the United States and other Western countries regularly criticize the amount of attention devoted to Israel by the Human Rights Council.
As Israel is not cooperating with the investigation, its representative did not take part in Tuesday’s discussion of the report in the council.
Palestinian ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi condemned the US-led joint statement, calling it “disgraceful.”
Venezuela, speaking on behalf of several countries including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Syria, gave its full support to the commission’s mandate.
“We express grave concern over attempts to undermine the... COI,” said Venezuelan ambassador Hector Constant Rosales.
The European Union’s representative noted that some EU member states had not supported setting up the commission “because of concerns about its broad mandate” and permanent nature.
Tunisians struggle to buy sheep for Eid as economic crisis bites
Still, as he compared the 900 dinars ($290) asking price for a sheep to the 750 dinars he had paid for a similarly sized animal last year, he worried about the impact on his finances
Updated 21 June 2023
Reuters
TUNIS: Tunisians hoping to buy a sheep to slaughter for Islam’s Eid Al-Adha festival next week are facing much higher prices because of a drought, adding to public anxiety at an economic crisis that looks set to worsen.
Small flocks of sheep are a common sight in Tunisian cities and towns in the run-up to the annual festival, feeding on highway verges and in empty lots as farmers bring in their animals from the countryside for sale.
But the bleating that echoes across city neighborhoods as families fatten animals on rooftops or in gardens may be heard less frequently this year as prices have risen by around a quarter at a time when many Tunisians are already struggling.
“The economic situation is very bad. Everything has doubled in price and my salary can’t get me through the month,” said Ridha Bouzid, for whom buying his family a sheep for Eid was so important he was considering taking out a loan to afford one.
Still, as he compared the 900 dinars ($290) asking price for a sheep to the 750 dinars he had paid for a similarly sized animal last year, he worried about the impact on his finances.
“My salary is just 950 dinars a month. What will be left of it?” he said.
Nearby in Borj El Amri market, Khaled Frekhi was inspecting sheep with his young daughter hoisted up on his shoulder and had decided to forgo the expense this year. “We can’t afford these prices,” he said.
DROUGHT
Tunisia’s economy was in bad shape even before the COVID pandemic caused further damage in 2020 and with state finances on the brink of collapse, the government cannot help counter global inflation.
For farmers, a disastrous harvest because of failed rains has made the economic problems far worse. Unable to cope with higher costs, many dairy farmers sold their cows last year, causing a shortage of milk for months.
In Borj El Amri, farmer Nabil Rhimi, 38, said the drought had entirely destroyed his crop of wheat and barley and left him needing to buy animal feed for his sheep — but barely able to afford an increase in fodder costs.
He has already decided to sell 200 of his 350 sheep because he cannot afford to feed them. “If the situation gets worse I’ll sell them all,” he said.
Rhimi is not alone. Farmers Union official Khaled Ayari said Tunisia had produced 1.2 million sheep for Eid in 2022 but only about 850,000 this year. The union has rejected imports of sheep to protect farmers, he said.
Haithem Jouini, a young farmer who inherited his flock when his father died, said he constantly thought about migrating. “I can’t live like this ... my heart is broken. Why can’t the government help us? People are suffering.”
