BEIRUT: A Lebanese submarine has found the remains of at least 10 migrants who drowned when their boat sank earlier this year off the coast of Lebanon with about 30 people on board, the navy announced Friday.
The boat, carrying dozens of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians trying to migrate by sea to Italy, went down more than 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the port of Tripoli, following a confrontation with the Lebanese navy.
Ten bodies were recovered that night, including one of a child, while 48 survivors were pulled from the Mediterranean Sea. According to navy estimates, 30 people were believed to have gone down with the boat.
Since Monday, the small, 3-person underwater craft — a Pisces VI submarine — has been searching for the remains. The wreck was located on Wednesday, at a depth of some 450 meters (about 1,470 feet).
The circumstances of the vessel's sinking are disputed to this day. Survivors say their vessel was rammed by the Lebanese navy, while the military claims the migrants’ boat collided with a navy vessel while trying to get away.
Capt. Scott Waters, who operated the craft, told reporters at a press conference in Tripoli Friday that the first body they found was outside the wreck but much of it had decayed since the sinking, with mostly bits of clothing and some bones remaining intact. He said the second body was found coming up from the wreckage.
Waters said the crew identified four more bodies inside the wreckage and a substantial amount of debris around the vessel. At least four other bodies were found away from the wreck.
Some of the people who tried to escape the boat, he assumed, got “tangled in that debris.”
“One of the very last footage and images we took," he added, was of the remains of a person, an arm around another. “They died holding each other.”
Tom Zreika, a Lebanese-Australian and the chairman of Australian charity AusRelief that helped bring the submarine to Lebanon, said the boat was a “fair degree under silt,” making it difficult to retrieve it.
Zreika said what’s next is for Lebanon to bring the sunken boat out but that remains a difficult task.
Lebanon's navy chief, Col. Haitham Dinnawi, said all the video footage from Waters' crew will be handed over to the judiciary as it investigates the sinking.
Tripoli lawmaker Ashraf Rifi helped lease the submarine for cash-strapped Lebanon through Zreika and his own brother, Jamal Rifi, who lives in Sydney. Rifi and Zreika told The Sydney Morning Herald last month that an anonymous donor had given just over $295,000 to lease the submarine.
The April sinking was the greatest migrant tragedy for Lebanon in recent years and put the government further on the defensive at a time when the country is in economic free fall and public trust in the state and its institutions is rapidly crumbling.
With a population of about 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, Lebanon has been mired since 2019 in an economic meltdown that has plunged three quarters of the population into poverty.
Once a country that received refugees, Lebanon has become a launching pad for dangerous migration by sea to Europe. As the crisis deepened, more Lebanese, as well as Syrian and Palestinian refugees have set off to sea, with security agencies reporting foiled migration attempts almost weekly.
Lebanese submarine finds 10 bodies on sunken migrant ship
https://arab.news/y9vyr
Lebanese submarine finds 10 bodies on sunken migrant ship
- The boat went down more than 5 kilometers from the port of Tripoli, following a confrontation with the Lebanese navy
- According to navy estimates, 30 people were believed to have gone down with the boat
Houthis claim attack on Greek merchant vessel off Yemen
- Houthis had targeted MV Cyclades with three anti-ship ballistic missiles and three drone strikes
- Earlier, the UKMTO reported explosions near a commercial ship sailing off the Yemeni coast northwest of Mokha
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for attacks on Monday along the Red Sea shipping route, including on a Greek commercial vessel, according to a British maritime agency and the US military.
The US Central Command, or CENTCOM, said the Houthis had targeted MV Cyclades, a Greek commercial vessel flying the Maltese flag, with three anti-ship ballistic missiles and three drone strikes.
“Initial reports indicate there were no injuries and the vessel continued on its way,” CENCOM posted on X, formerly Twitter.
Earlier, the UK Maritime Safety Agency (UKMTO) reported explosions “in close proximity” to a commercial ship sailing off the Yemeni coast northwest of Mokha.
“Vessel and crew are reported safe,” the agency, run by the Royal Navy, added.
Maritime security firm Ambrey said the Malta-flagged container ship was en route from Djibouti to Jeddah and was likely targeted “due to its listed operator’s ongoing trade with Israel.”
Houthi militia claimed responsibility for firing at the Cyclades, MSC Orion and two US vessels.
The Iran-backed group, which controls the Yemeni capital Sanaa and much of the country’s Red Sea coast, has launched a flurry of attacks against ships since November.
It says their campaign is in solidarity with Palestinians amid the Gaza war.
CENTCOM also said that US forces shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over the Red Sea on Monday morning as it was headed on a flight path “toward USS Philippine Sea and USS Laboon.”
“The UAV presented an imminent threat to US, coalition, and merchant vessels in the region,” it wrote on X, adding that there had been no injuries or damage reported by US forces or nearby commercial ships.
Since January, the United States and Britain have launched repeated strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the ship attacks.
Hamas prepares response to Gaza truce offer
- Returning to Qatar after the latest talks in Cairo, the Hamas delegation said it would “discuss the ideas and the proposal”
JERUSALEM: Hamas was studying Tuesday Israel’s offer of a 40-day truce in the war in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of scores of hostages held since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attacks.
Returning to Qatar after the latest talks in Cairo, the Hamas delegation said it would “discuss the ideas and the proposal... we are keen to respond as quickly as possible,” a Hamas source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Egyptian sources told Al-Qahera News, a site linked to Egyptian intelligence services, that the Hamas delegation would “return with a written response.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the truce terms as “extraordinarily generous,” while the White House asked fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to increase pressure on Hamas to accept the latest push to halt the nearly seven-month-old war.
According to Monday night call readouts, US President Joe Biden urged the Egyptian and Qatari leaders “to exert all efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas,” calling this “the only obstacle” to securing relief for civilians in the besieged strip.
For months, Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been trying to secure a new agreement between the combatants. A one-week truce in November saw 80 Israeli hostages exchanged for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
Relentless Israeli bombardment has meanwhile devastated Hamas-run Gaza, flattening much of the territory and bringing its people to the brink of famine, while threatening to unfurl into a wider regional conflict.
In the far southern city of Rafah, Palestinians despaired over the war while searching for victims of the latest strike.
“Civilian individuals with no ties to Hamas or any other group were struck by a rocket, torn apart,” Um Louay Masri said at a destroyed building where children were being pulled out from underneath the rubble. “Why did this occur?“
To global alarm, Israel has vowed to go after Hamas battalions in Rafah, where the majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have sought refuge.
But Foreign Minister Israel Katz said over the weekend the government may “suspend” that operation if a truce is reached.
Blinken’s Mideast tour
Speaking in Riyadh on his seventh visit to the region since the start of the war in Gaza, top US diplomat Blinken underscored the need for Hamas to “decide quickly” on the truce.
He told a World Economic Forum special meeting that he was “hopeful that they will make the right decision.”
At the WEF meeting, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said “the proposal has taken into account the positions of both sides.”
“We are hopeful,” he added.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Hamas has been offered a “sustained 40 days’ ceasefire, the release of potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners, in return for the release of these hostages.”
On the sidelines of the WEF, US, European and Arab representatives met to discuss how to advance a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told the gathering that tangible and irreversible steps toward establishing a Palestinian state would be an essential component of any durable ceasefire deal.
To incentivise Israel to support a Palestinian state, Washington has pushed the prospect of normalized Israel-Saudi relations, with Blinken suggesting Monday that some progress was being made in that arena.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a long-standing opponent of Palestinian statehood however, and Israel has previously rejected a permanent ceasefire.
A Hamas source has told AFP the group is keen for a deal that “guarantees a permanent ceasefire, the free return of displaced people, an acceptable deal for (a prisoner-hostage) exchange and an end to the siege” in Gaza.
Mounting pressure
Netanyahu is under tremendous pressure from the families of hostages taken by Hamas in the October 7 attack to secure their release.
On Monday, the families of two Israeli captives seen alive in a video released by Hamas last weekend called for their release.
“I demand the leaders of the free world to help us bring our people home,” said Aviva Siegel, who was freed in the November truce and is the wife of captive Keith Siegel.
Israel estimates 129 hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 believed to be dead.
Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,488 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
That tally includes at least 34 deaths in a 24-hour window, the ministry said Monday, down from a peak this month of at least 153 deaths on April 9.
At Rafah’s Al-Najjar hospital, a crowd of grief-stricken relatives jostled over the dead, shrouded in white.
“We demand the entire world to call for a lasting truce,” Abu Taha said at the hospital.
Access of aid
After an Israeli drone strike in early April killed seven workers from a US-based charity, Biden suggested to Netanyahu, for the first time, that continued US support could be conditional on protection and aid for civilians.
On Sunday, the White House said Israel was letting more aid trucks into Gaza in line with “commitments” Biden asked it to meet.
The UN has, however, continued to cite “access constraints” that significantly hinder delivery.
The US military is building a pier to help boost humanitarian supplies — an effort that the Pentagon on Monday said would cost Washington at least $320 million.
The UN has warned a heatwave and the proliferation of insects are increasing the risk for diseases at the swelling tent cities in Gaza.
“I have sick children who cannot tolerate the heat,” said Alaa Al-Saleh, a Palestinian displaced to an encampment in Rafah. “We are cramped inside the tent, rarely going outside.”
Suspected Al-Qaeda explosion kills 6 troops loyal to secessionist group in Yemen
- AQAP is seen as one of the more dangerous branches of the terror group still operating more than a decade after the killing of founder Osama bin Laden
SANAA, Yemen: An explosive device detonated and killed six troops loyal to a United Arab Emirates-backed secessionist group Monday in southern Yemen, a military spokesman said, the latest attack blamed on Al-Qaeda militants in the impoverished Arab country.
The explosion hit a military vehicle as it passed in a mountainous area in the Modiyah district of southern Abyan province, said Mohamed Al-Naqib, a spokesman for the Southern Armed Forces, the military arm of the secessionist Southern Transitional Council.
Eleven other troops were wounded, he added.
It is at odds with the internationally recognized government, although they are allies in Yemen’s years long war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who control the north and the capital Sanaa.
Al-Naqib blamed Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, for the attack.
AQAP is seen as one of the more dangerous branches of the terror group still operating more than a decade after the killing of founder Osama bin Laden.
It is active in several regions in Yemen, exploiting the country’s civil war to cement its presence in the nation at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
Yemen’s ruinous civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the internationally recognized government into exile.
US says five Israeli military units committed abuses in West Bank
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- Press reports have identified a battalion called the Netzah Yehuda, composed mainly of ultra-Orthodox Jews, as being accused of abuses. It is about 1,000-strong and since 2022 has been stationed in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967
WASHINGTON: The United States has concluded that five Israeli security force units committed serious human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank before the Hamas attack in October, the State Department said Monday.
Israel has taken remedial measures with four of these units, making US sanctions less likely. Consultations are under way with Israel over the fifth unit, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
He declined to identify the units, give details of the abuse, or say what measures the Israeli government had taken against them.
A US official speaking on condition of anonymity said the fifth unit is part of the army.
Press reports have identified a battalion called the Netzah Yehuda, composed mainly of ultra-Orthodox Jews, as being accused of abuses.
It is about 1,000-strong and since 2022 has been stationed in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
“After a careful process, we found five Israeli units responsible for individual incidents of gross violations of human rights,” Patel said.
All the incidents took place before the October 7 Hamas attack and were not in Gaza, he added.
“Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do, and is consistent with what we expect all countries whom we have a secure relationship with,” said Patel.
Israel has provided “additional information” about the fifth unit, he added.
US law bars the government from funding or arming foreign security forces against which there are credible allegations of human rights abuses.
The United States provides military aid to allies around the world, including Israel.
The Israeli army has been fighting the militant Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip for almost seven months and is trading fire almost every day with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon. Both groups are backed by Iran.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily to recent news reports that the United States might slap sanctions against a unit of the Israeli military because of human rights abuses, saying the army should not be punished with the country at war.
Patel said the United States is continuing its evaluation of the fifth army unit and has not decided whether to deny it US military assistance.
This case comes with the administration of President Joe Biden under pressure to demand accountability from Israel over how it is waging war against Hamas, with such a high civilian death toll.
In an election year, more people are calling for the United States to make its billions of dollars in annual military aid to Israel contingent on more concern for Palestinian civilians. Pro-Palestinian protests are also sweeping US college campuses.
Hamas’ October attack in Israel resulted in the deaths of about 1,170 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,488 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
US warns of ‘large-scale massacre’ in Sudan city
- Millions have been displaced in the country since fighting began last year between the SAF forces of General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF paramilitaries under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo
UNITED NATIONS, United States: The US ambassador to the United Nations on Monday warned of an impending “large-scale massacre” in the Sudanese city of El-Fasher, a humanitarian hub in the Darfur region.
The city had until recently been relatively unaffected by fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), but bombardment and clashes have been reported both there and in surrounding villages since mid-April.
El-Fasher “is on the precipice of a large-scale massacre. This is not conjecture. This is the grim reality facing millions of people,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield told journalists following a UN Security Council meeting on Sudan.
“There are already credible reports that the RSF and its allied militias have razed multiple villages west of El-Fasher, and as we speak, the RSF is planning an imminent attack on El-Fasher,” which “would be a disaster on top of a disaster,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
Millions have been displaced in the country since fighting began last year between the SAF forces of General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF paramilitaries under General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
El-Fasher functions as the main humanitarian hub in the vast western region of Darfur, home to around a quarter of Sudan’s 48 million people.
