GAZA CITY: The Gaza Strip’s only functioning power plant was out of action Sunday after running out of fuel, the head of the territory’s electricity provider told AFP.
Samir Metir said that all the plant’s fuel, purchased with funding from Qatar and Turkey, had been used up.
He said it was not clear when the Palestinian territory would receive more, owing to a “dispute” between the electricity authority in Gaza and Palestinian authorities in the West Bank.
The Hamas movement seized power in Gaza in 2007 from the Ramallah-based Fatah organization of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas.
A mooted power-sharing agreement in the Strip has failed to materialize, and Gaza residents have been subjected to a decade-long Israeli blockade severely limiting supplies.
Fuel supply for the Strip’s two million inhabitants has been a long-running source of dispute, with most homes in Gaza receiving two eight-hour periods of electricity a day even when the plant is operating normally.
Protests broke out in January over the power shortages, which the Gaza Health Ministry warned could have “dangerous consequences” for patients.
As things stand, residents can expect two six-hour periods of electricity, Metir said, “including electricity bought from Israel and Egypt.”
Gaza’s sole power plant runs out of fuel
Gaza’s sole power plant runs out of fuel
Tanks reach Rafah’s center as Israel presses assault despite global scrutiny
- Israeli forces pounded Rafah with airstrikes and tank fire overnight, residents say
- Israel presses offensive despite an international outcry over an attack on Sunday that killed at least 45 Palestinians
The tanks were spotted near Al-Awda mosque, a central Rafah landmark, the witnesses told Reuters. The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the Rafah area without commenting on reported advancements into the city center.
Overnight, its forces pounded the city with airstrikes and tank fire, residents said, pressing its offensive despite an international outcry over an attack on Sunday that sparked a blaze in a tent camp, killing at least 45 Palestinians, more than half of them children, women and the elderly.
Since that strike, at least 26 more people have been killed by Israeli fire in Rafah, officials in the enclave run by Hamas militants said.
Israeli tanks pushed toward western neighborhoods and took positions on the Zurub hilltop in western Rafah in one of the worst nights of bombardment reported by residents. On Tuesday, witnesses reported gunbattles between Israeli troops and Hamas-led fighters in the Zurub area.
Witnesses in Rafah said the Israeli military appeared to have brought in remote-operated armored vehicles and there was no immediate sign of personnel in or around them. An Israeli military spokesperson had no immediate response.
Since Israel launched its incursion by taking control of the border crossing with Egypt three weeks ago, tanks had probed around the edges of Rafah and entered some of its eastern districts but had not yet entered the city in full force.
Reacting to Sunday night’s attack in a camp where families displaced from assaults elsewhere in Gaza had sought shelter, global leaders urged the implementation of a World Court order to halt Israel’s assault.
Residents said the Tel Al-Sultan area, the scene of Sunday’s deadly strike, was still being heavily bombarded.
“Tank shells are falling everywhere in Tel Al-Sultan. Many families have fled their houses in western Rafah under fire throughout the night,” one resident told Reuters over a chat app.
Around one million people have fled the Israeli offensive in Rafah since early May, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reported on Tuesday.
Israel has kept up attacks despite a ruling by the top UN court on Friday ordering it to stop, arguing that the court’s ruling grants it some scope for military action there.
Spain, Ireland and Norway will officially recognize a Palestinian state on Tuesday, despite an angry reaction from Israel, which has found itself increasingly isolated after more than seven months of conflict in Gaza.
The three nations have painted their decision as a way to speed efforts to secure a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s health ministry says. Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area.
Israeli forces press Rafah offensive despite global outcry
- At least 16 Palestinians were killed in strikes overnight on Tuesday
- Global leaders urged the implementation of a World Court order to halt Israel’s assault
CAIRO: Israel pounded Rafah with airstrikes and tank fire on Tuesday, pressing its offensive in Gaza’s southern city despite international condemnation of an attack that sparked a blaze in a tent camp for the displaced, killing at least 45 people.
At least 16 Palestinians were killed in strikes overnight on Tuesday, officials in the enclave run by Hamas militants said. Israeli tanks pushed toward western neighborhoods in one of the worst nights of bombardment reported by residents.
Reacting to Sunday night’s strike and fire in a camp where thousands of families displaced from assaults elsewhere in the Gaza Strip had sought shelter, global leaders urged the implementation of a World Court order to halt Israel’s assault.
Before the latest advancement, Israeli tanks had probed around the edges of Rafah, near the crossing point from Gaza into Egypt, and entered some of its eastern districts, residents said, but have not yet entered the city in full force.
Residents said Israeli tanks were stationed on and around the Zurub hilltop, a high ground overlooking western Rafah, having advanced from the area near the Egyptian border crossing where Israeli forces launched an incursion three weeks ago.
They said the Tel Al-Sultan area, the scene of Sunday’s deadly strike, was still being heavily bombarded.
“Tank shells are falling everywhere in Tel Al-Sultan. Many families have fled their houses in western Rafah under fire throughout the night,” one resident told Reuters over a chat app.
Around one million people have fled the Israeli offensive in Rafah since early May, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reported on Tuesday.
Israel has kept up attacks despite a ruling by the top UN court on Friday ordering it to stop, arguing that the court’s ruling grants it some scope for military action there.
Spain, Ireland and Norway will officially recognize a Palestinian state on Tuesday, despite an angry reaction from Israel, which has found itself increasingly isolated after more than seven months of conflict in Gaza.
The three nations have painted their decision as a way to speed efforts to secure a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive, Gaza’s health ministry says. Israel launched the operation after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israeli communities on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel says it wants to root out Hamas fighters holed up in Rafah and rescue hostages it says are being held in the area.
In Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, one of the largest of the enclave’s eight historic refugee camps, Israeli forces have been engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters, residents said.
On Tuesday, medics said an Israeli air strike killed and wounded several Palestinians in a house in the Falouja neighborhood. Civil emergency teams said they believed many bodies were under the rubble of buildings where they can’t be reached.
Hard-liner Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf re-elected as speaker of Iran’s parliament
- Of 287 lawmakers voting, 198 backed Qalibaf to retain the position he first took in 2021
TEHRAN: Iran’s parliament re-elected hard-liner Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf on Tuesday as its speaker, reaffirming its hard-right makeup in the wake of a helicopter crash that killed the country’s president and foreign minister.
Of 287 lawmakers voting, 198 backed Qalibaf to retain the position he first took in 2021. He initially became speaker following a string of failed presidential bids and 12 years as the leader of Iran’s capital city, in which he built onto Tehran’s subway and supported the construction of modern high-rises.
Many, however, know Qalibaf for his support as a Revolutionary Guard general for a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999. He also reportedly ordered live gunfire be used against Iranian students in 2003 while serving as the country’s police chief.
In Tuesday’s vote, challenger Mojtaba Zonnouri, a hard-line Shiite cleric who once led parliament’s national security commission, won 60 votes. A former foreign minister to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manouchehr Mottaki, received five votes.
Qalibaf offered no immediate remarks after the vote. The March parliament election saw the country’s lowest turnout since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Of those elected to the 290-seat body, hard-liners hold over 230 seats, according to an Associated Press survey.
A trained pilot, Qalibaf served in the paramilitary Guard during the country’s bloody 1980s war with Iraq. After the conflict, he served as the head of the Guard’s construction arm, Khatam Al-Anbia, for several years leading efforts to rebuild.
Qalibaf then served as the head of the Guard’s air force, when in 1999 he co-signed a letter to reformist President Mohammad Khatami amid student protests in Tehran over the government closing a reformist newspaper and a subsequent security force crackdown. The letter warned Khatami the Guard would take action unilaterally unless he agreed to putting down the demonstrations.
Violence around the protests saw several killed, hundreds wounded and thousands arrested.
Qalibaf then served as the head of Iran’s police, modernizing the force and implementing the country’s 110 emergency phone number. However, a leaked recording of a later meeting between Qalibaf and members of the Guard’s volunteer Basij force, included him claiming that he ordered gunfire be used against demonstrators in 2003, as well as praising the violence used in Iran’s 2009 Green Movement protests.
Qalibaf ran failed presidential campaigns in 2005, 2013 and 2017, the last of which saw him withdraw in support of the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi. Raisi later became president and died in the May 19 helicopter crash that also killed Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others.
Iran’s parliament plays a secondary role in governing the country, though it can intensify pressure on a presidential administration when deciding on the annual budget and other important bills. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, has the final say in all important state matters.
Iran will hold presidential elections on June 28 to replace Raisi. On Thursday, a five-day registration period for candidates will open.
UNRWA says around 1 million people have fled Rafah in past 3 weeks
- Many Palestinians have complained they are vulnerable to Israeli attacks wherever they go
DUBAI: Around one million people have fled the Gazan city of Rafah in the past three weeks, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.
The small city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip had been sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled Israeli assaults on other parts of the enclave.
Since early May, Israel’s military has been carrying out what it says is a limited operation in Rafah to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which runs Gaza. It has told civilians to go to an “expanded humanitarian zone” some 20 kilometers away.
Many Palestinians have complained they are vulnerable to Israeli attacks wherever they go and have been moving up and down the Gaza Strip in the past few months.
UNRWA said the flight from Rafah “happened with nowhere safe to go and amidst bombardments, lack of food and water, piles of waste and unsuitable living conditions.”
Providing assistance and protection is becoming nearly “impossible,” the agency said.
International donors pledge $5.4 billion for Syrian refugees
- Jordan’s foreign minister said the international community was abandoning Syrian refugees as funding to support them in host countries dwindles
BRUSSELS: International donors led by the EU on Monday pledged $5.4 billion (five billion euros) for Syrian refugees, as Brussels insisted they should not be “pushed back” to their war-torn homeland.
An annual gathering hosted by the EU and chaired by its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell saw the European Union commit 2.12 billion euros for 2024 and 2025.
That figure included 560 million euros already promised this year for Syrians displaced inside the country and in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, and the same amount for 2025.
The bloc also pledged one billion euros for Syrian refugees in neighboring Turkiye.
“The situation in Syria is more dire today than one year ago. In fact, it has never been so dire and humanitarian needs are at all time high,” Borrell said.
“Today 16.7 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance, the highest level since the start of the crisis over 13 years ago.”
EU humanitarian chief Janez Lenarcic said that on top of the five billion euros in grants, a further 2.5 billion euros was promised by donors in loans.
He said the EU and its member states overall accounted for three quarters of the grants pledged.
The United States said it had also pledged nearly 545 million euros ($593 million) in humanitarian assistance for Syria. Washington “remains committed to assisting the Syrian people and encourages other donors to continue their support for Syrians,” a State Department statement added.
The donor drive came after the United Nations refugee agency warned its operations to support displaced Syrians remained “significantly underfunded at 15 percent almost six months into 2024.”
“While we welcome the pledges made today, the discussion remains far removed from the harsh realities Syrians face,” Oxfam’s Syria director, Moutaz Adham, said.
“Funding still fails to match the scale of needs and year after year, the number of people relying on aid grows.”
In the face of the shortfalls, regional countries hosting millions of refugees from Syria have been increasingly pushing for “voluntary” returns to the country.
But Borrell cautioned about any efforts to make people move back to Syria.
“We make a warning about the so-called voluntary returns of Syrian refugees to Syria,” he said.
“Voluntary returns mean voluntary. The refugees should not be pushed back to Syria.”
Borrell insisted that the international community should not “incentivise this by any means.”
“We consider that there is not the safe, voluntary, informed and dignified returns of refugees to Syria for the time being,” the EU’s top diplomat said.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more since it erupted in 2011 after Damascus cracked down on anti-government protests.
More than a quarter of Syrians live in extreme poverty, the World Bank said Saturday, 13 years into a devastating civil war that has battered the economy and impoverished millions.
Borrell said that efforts to find a political solution to the conflict remained at an “impasse.”
“The Assad regime has shown no intention of engaging in any meaningful political process,” he said.
“We request everyone, including partners in the region, to use their political leverage to encourage a renewed impetus on the political process.”
