BERLIN: Nihan Sen’s grandmother came to Germany in the 1960s but still speaks no German. By contrast, Nihan herself is a star of German youth culture, with 783,000 followers for her YouTube channel. Yet she acknowledges: “I really do like a bit of Turkish television.”
She is not alone. Turkish broadcasters have an 84 percent market share among Germany’s 3 million people of Turkish background, and 40 percent of them watch no German television at all, according to market researcher Data4U.
As a captive audience of television broadcast from Ankara, Germany’s Turkish citizens are caught in a tug-of-war for their loyalty ahead of a German national election on Sept. 24.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has called on German voters of Turkish background to reject Germany’s mainstream political parties, saying they are “unfriendly to Turkey.”
The parties worry that Erdogan has more access to Turkish-speaking German voters than they do.
Green Party co-leader Cem Ozdemir, the most prominent German politician of Turkish descent, has called for Germany’s public media to start broadcasting a Turkish channel for the benefit of Turks, both in Germany and in Turkey.
“We need a German-Turkish broadcaster,” he told the Rheinische Post newspaper in March. “For years we’ve neglected to help people from Turkey find a new political homeland, also politically, and now we’re seeing the fruits of that.”
Traditionally, Turks in Germany have voted mainly for the Social Democrats or the Greens, the main center-left parties, which are known for being friendly to immigrants. But Erdogan has repeatedly urged them instead to reject both those parties, as well as Merkel’s ruling conservatives.
“The majority, because they only watch Turkish TV, are informed very one-sidedly,” said Joachim Schulte, head of Data 4U, which specializes in polling Germany’s Turks. Schulte believes Erdogan’s call could sway 300,000 votes — a quarter of the Germans of Turkish descent who are eligible to vote.
For now, voters of Turkish descent who turn away from the Social Democrats and Greens have few other choices. Schulte said those who become disaffected are more likely to stay home than back rival parties. But that could still affect the outcome in an election that is likely to be hard fought for every vote.
A change in Germany’s citizenship law in 2000 means the number of ethnic Turks with the right to vote has nearly doubled over the past decade, increasing their importance as a bloc. Polls show most Turks in Germany backed Erdogan when voting as expatriates in Turkish elections.
For Erdogan, having influence over voters in Germany provides a chance to settle scores with German politicians he sees as enemies, while burnishing his credentials at home as a defender of Turks everywhere.
Germany’s mainstream parties have been outspoken critics of Turkey’s crackdown since a failed coup last year, in which thousands of Turks have been jailed, including around a dozen who hold German citizenship. Turkey also demands that Germany hand over asylum seekers it accuses of involvement in the coup.
For the Social Democrats and Greens, losing the Turkish vote poses a real risk: even a small swing could weaken them in potential talks with the conservatives about setting up a government after the vote.
In recent weeks, a new party, the Alliance of German Democrats, led by ethnic Turks, has campaigned with a poster of Erdogan. “Friends of Turkey,” it reads. “Stand with them!“
So far the new party is polling below one percent nationally and fielding candidates only in North Rhine-Westphalia, the big Western state home to more than a fifth of Germany’s population. The national prospects for a minority ethnic party may be limited in a country with a 5 percent threshold to win seats, but a party appealing directly to Turks could undermine the bigger parties.
“Our poster was a quote from Erdogan: He was criticizing German politics and saying we should vote for parties that are our friends,” said party spokesman Ertan Toker. “Unlike the other German parties that are always negative about Erdogan, we are not. We saw this as him encouraging us to vote.”
Among the causes the new party has taken up: Making it easier for ethnic Turks in Germany, most of whom still don’t have the right to vote, to gain it. That struck a chord for Rascha, a 17-year-old Turkish girl in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia.
“I was born here and I still don’t have a German passport,” she said. “The process for getting one is long and bureaucratic. There’s a new party that wants to give all permanent residents voting rights.”
Turkish community leaders from the big political parties say Erdogan’s interventions into German politics are undoing decades of work on promoting integration.
“The political climate is poisoned by this,” said Cansel Kiziltepe, Social Democrat parliamentary candidate in Berlin’s multi-ethnic Kreuzberg district, where the Social Democrats, Greens and conservatives are all fielding candidates with Turkish roots. “President Erdogan has torn down what we have built up over decades.”
“We get threats, e-mails as ethnic Turkish lawmakers saying we aren’t sufficiently loyal as ‘Turks’,” Kiziltepe said. “But I am a German politician and I do politics for Germany and for all people who live here.”
Timur Husein of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union was categorical about his loyalties: “I am German, only German,” said the son of a Turkish father and a Croatian mother.
For YouTube personality Nihan, who confessed her passion for Turkish TV during an interview with Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz, the worry was that some Turks would end up alienated from wider German society.
“What can we do to stop parallel societies from emerging?” she asked Schulz.
Schulz was reassuring. “It’s not bad, or even hard, to have two identities. Why should you deny your roots?”
German parties fret about Turkish voters
German parties fret about Turkish voters
For the children of Gaza, war means no school
DEIR AL-BALAH: Atef Al-Buhaisi, 6, once dreamed of a career building houses. Now, all he craves is to return to school.
In Israel’s war with Hamas, Atef’s home has been bombed, his teacher killed, and his school in Nuseirat turned into a refuge for displaced people.
He lives in a cramped tent with his family in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza. He sleeps clinging to his grandmother and fears walking alone, even during the day.
Since the war erupted on Oct. 7, all Gaza’s schools have closed — leaving hundreds of thousands of students like Atef without formal schooling or a safe place to spend their days. Aid groups are scrambling to keep children off the streets, and their minds are focused on something other than the war as heavy fighting continues across the enclave and has expanded into the southern city of Rafah and intensified in the north.
“What we’ve lost most is our children’s future and their education,” said Irada Ismael, Atef’s grandmother.
“Houses and walls are rebuilt, money can be earned again ... but how do I compensate for (his) education?”
Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis, with the head of the UN’s World Food Programme determining a “full-blown famine” is already underway in the north.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
About 80 percent of Gaza’s population has been driven from homes.
Much of Gaza is damaged or destroyed, including nearly 90 percent of school buildings, according to aid group estimates.
Children are among the most severely affected, with the UN estimating some 19,000 children have been orphaned and nearly a third under the age of 2 face acute malnutrition.
Education experts say that in emergencies, education takes a back seat to safety, health, and sanitation, but the consequences are lasting.
“The immediate focus during conflict isn’t on education, but the disruption has an incredibly long-term effect,” said Sonia Ben Jaafar of the Abdulla Al Ghurair Foundation, a philanthropic organization focused on education in the Arab world.
“The cost at this point is immeasurable.”
According to the UN, Gaza had a highly literate population that included more than 625,000 students and some 20,000 teachers before the war.
In other conflicts, aid groups can create safe spaces for children in neighboring countries — for example, Poland for shelter and schooling during the war in Ukraine.
That’s impossible in Gaza, a densely populated enclave between the sea, Israel, and Egypt. Since Oct 7, Palestinians from Gaza haven’t been allowed to cross into Israel. Egypt has let a small number of Palestinians leave.
“They’re unable to flee, and they remain in an area that continues to be battered,” said Tess Ingram of UNICEF.
“It’s very hard to provide them with certain services, such as mental health and psychosocial support or consistent education and learning.”
Aid groups hope classes will resume by September. But even if a ceasefire is brokered, much of Gaza must be cleared of mines, and rebuilding schools could take years.
In the interim, aid groups are providing recreational activities — games, drawing, drama, art — not for a curriculum-based education but to keep children engaged and in a routine in an effort for normalcy. Even then, advocates say, attention often turns to the war — Atef’s grandmother sees him draw pictures only of tents, planes, and missiles.
Finding free space is among the biggest challenges.
Some volunteers use the outdoors, make do inside tents where people live, or find a room in still-standing homes.
It took volunteer teachers over two months to clear one room in a school in Deir Al-Balah to give ad hoc classes to children. Getting simple supplies such as soccer balls and stationery into Gaza can also take months, groups report.
“Having safe spaces for children to gather to play and learn is an important step,” Ingram said, but “ultimately, the children of Gaza must be able to return to learning curriculum from teachers in classrooms, with education materials and all the other support schooling provides.”
This month, UNICEF had planned to erect at least 50 tents in Rafah for play-based numbers and literacy learning for some 6,000 children from preschool to grade 12. But UNICEF says Israel’s operation there could disrupt those plans.
Lack of schooling can take a psychological toll — it disrupts daily life and, compounded with conflict, makes children more prone to anxiety and nervousness, said Jesus Miguel Perez Cazorla, a mental health expert with the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Children in conflicts are also at increased risk of forced labor, sexual violence, trafficking, and recruitment by gangs and armed groups, experts warn.
“Not only are children vulnerable to recruitment by Hamas and other militant groups, but living amid ongoing violence and constantly losing family members makes children psychologically primed to want to take action against the groups they consider responsible,” said Samantha Nutt of War Child USA, which supports children and families in war zones.
Palestinians say they have seen more children take to Gaza’s streets since the war, trying to earn money for their families.
“The streets are full of children selling very simple things, such as chocolate and canned goods,” said Lama Nidal Alzaanin, 18, who was in her last year of high school and looking forward to university when the war broke out. There is nothing for them to do.”
Some parents try to find small ways to teach their children, scrounging for notebooks and pens and insisting they learn something as small as a new word each day. But many find the kids are too distracted with the world at war.
Sabreen Al-Khatib, a mother whose family was displaced to Deir Al-Balah from Gaza City, said it’s particularly hard for the many who’ve seen relatives die.
“When you speak in front of children,” Al-Khatib said, “what do you think he is thinking? Will he think about education? Or about himself, how will he die?”
On Oct. 7, 14-year-old Layan Nidal Alzaanin — Lama’s younger sister — was on her way to her middle school in Beit Hanoun when missiles flew overhead, she said. She fled with her family to Rafah, where they lived crowded in a tent.
Since Israel ordered evacuations there, she fled to Deir Al-Balah.
“It is a disaster,” she said.
“My dreams have been shattered. There is no future for me without school.”
Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Security Council announces arrest of top aide of former Daesh leader
- Khalil made bombs for the Daesh and was entrusted by Al-Baghdadi with various major operations
BAGHDAD: The Kurdish Regional Security Council announced in a statement on Friday that it captured a senior Daesh figure, Socrates Khalil.
Khalil was known to be a confidant of the late Daesh leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
“After spending five years in Turkiye, Khalil returned to Kurdistan with a forged passport and was swiftly apprehended,” the statement said.
Khalil made bombs for the Daesh and was entrusted by Al-Baghdadi with various major operations, the statement added, saying that he was instrumental in the 2014 Daesh takeover of Mosul, and participated in many battles against Iraqi forces and the Peshmerga forces.
UN has got only 12 percent of funds sought for war-wracked Sudan
- “It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told reporters
- “In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in“
GENEVA: The United Nations warned on Friday that it had only received 12 percent of the $2.7 billion being sought for war-wracked Sudan, adding that “famine is closing in.”
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced in Sudan since war broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The United Nations says more than 1.4 million people have fled the country.
“It is a catastrophically underfunded appeal,” Jens Laerke, spokesman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters.
“Without more resources coming in fast, humanitarian organizations won’t be able to scale up in time to stave off famine and prevent further deprivation,” he said.
“In Sudan, half of the population, 25 million people, need humanitarian aid. Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in on civilians, especially in Darfur.”
The United Nations has expressed growing concern in recent days over reports of heavy fighting in densely populated areas as the RSF seeks control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the western Darfur region not under its control.
“Now is the time for donors to make good on pledges made, step up and help us help Sudan and be part of changing the current trajectory that’s leading toward the cliff’s edge. Don’t be missing in action,” he said.
Shible Sahbani, the UN’s World Health Organization representative in Sudan, said: “Thirteen months of war in Sudan, nine million people displaced which represent around 17 percent of the population and the largest internal displacement crisis in the world today.
“This conflict has... nearly destroyed the health system which is almost collapsed now. Close to 16,000 people have died due to this war, 33,000 have been injured,” she said, speaking from Port Sudan.
Sahbani said the real toll was “probably much higher.”
The RSF and Sudan’s armed forces are seen as both wanting to secure a battleground victory and each side has received support from outside players.
The UN human rights chief Volker Turk this week separately spoke to Lt. General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, president of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Commander of the Rapid Support Forces.
“He urged them both to act immediately — and publicly — to de-escalate the situation,” UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.
Children among dead as Israeli forces widen attacks on Hezbollah
- Southern Lebanon faces ‘escalating violence,’ army veteran tells Arab News
- US Embassy joins calls for a new Lebanese president to ‘unite the nation’
BEIRUT: Two children from a Syrian refugee family and a Hezbollah fighter were killed when Israeli airstrikes on Friday hit an area of southern Lebanon more than 30 km inside the border.
Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh, adjacent villages south of the coastal city of Sidon, killing the children and a Hezbollah fighter driving a pickup truck.
Hezbollah responded to the raids by firing dozens of rockets toward the upper Galilee, western Galilee, the Galilee panhandle, and the Golan.
Israeli media claimed that 140 rockets were fired toward the north of the country.
BACKGROUND
Hezbollah has traded cross-border fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.
Israeli forces and Hezbollah have expanded their hostilities, with both launching drone attacks deep into Lebanese territory and northern Israel.
Retired Brig. Gen. Khaled Hamadeh of the Lebanese Army said that the situation in southern Lebanon is “escalating toward more violent attacks.”
Hezbollah insists on linking a ceasefire in southern Lebanon to an end to hostilities in Gaza.
Hamadeh said that no efforts were being made to stop the clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, unlike the situation in Gaza.
In a statement, Hezbollah said it targeted Israel’s Tsnobar logistics base in the Golan with 50 Katyusha rockets in response to the strike on Najjarieh.
According to Israeli media, rocket salvos were aimed at military bases in Katzrin and areas north of Lake Tiberias.
Two people were injured in rocket blasts in Karam bin Zamra in the upper Galilee, media added.
CCTV cameras installed outside homes in Najjarieh showed an Israeli drone following the pickup truck as the driver, named as Hussein Khodor Mehdi, attempted to flee.
The first missile launched by the drone missed its target, but a second that struck the truck, setting it on fire and killing the driver. Three onlookers were also injured.
Hezbollah said that Mehdi, 62, was “martyred on the road to Jerusalem.”
Israeli Army Radio said the victim was a senior commander in the Hezbollah air force.
It claimed that the army planes shelled Hezbollah’s infrastructure in Najjarieh.
The second airstrike targeted a congregation hall and a cement factory, wounding several members of a Syrian refugee family. Two children, Osama and Hani Al-Khaled, later died from their injuries.
Hezbollah said it targeted the Al-Raheb military site with artillery and Israeli positions in Al-Zaoura with a salvo of Katyusha rockets.
According to a security source, Hezbollah’s latest targets included surveillance balloons near Tiberias and Adamit in the Galilee.
Early on Friday, Hezbollah attacked the newly established headquarters of the 411th Artillery Battalion in Kibbutz Jaatoun, east of Nahariyya, with drones in response to the Israeli killing of two Hezbollah fighters, Ali Fawzi Ayoub, 26, and Mohammed Hassan Ali Fares, 34, the previous day.
In his Friday sermon, Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, head of Hezbollah’s Shariah Council, said the group was “waging its fierce war on the north of Palestine, pursuing the enemy, blinding its espionage, and breaking what were once red lines, as well pursuing its soldiers in their hideouts until the war on Gaza stops.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon issued a warning over the conflict on the southern border and the presidential vacuum in the country.
Electing a president was crucial to ensuring Lebanon’s participation in regional discussions and future diplomatic agreements concerning its southern border, the embassy said.
Lebanon “needs and deserves a president who unites the nation, prioritizes the well-being of its citizens, and forms a broad and inclusive coalition to restore political stability and implement necessary economic reforms,” the statement added.
The ambassadors of Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the US to Lebanon issued a statement this week warning of “the critical situation facing the Lebanese people and the difficult-to-manage repercussions on Lebanon’s economy and social stability due to the delay of necessary reforms.”
Israeli military finds bodies of 3 hostages in Gaza, including Shani Louk, killed at music festival
- A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world
- The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter
JERUSALEM: Israeli military says its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages taken by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.
A photo of the 22-year-old Shani’s twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants’ attack on communities in southern Israel.
The military identified the other two bodies found as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a56-year-old man, Itzhak Gelerenter. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said all three were killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival, an outdoor dance party near the Gaza border, and their bodies taken into the Palestinian territory.
The military did not give immediate details on where their bodies were found.
Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted around 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. Around half of those have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong ceasefire in November.
Israel says around 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more. Israel’s campaign in Gaza since the attack has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
