CAIRO/BENGHAZI: Militant training camps in Libya are a direct threat to Egypt’s national security, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Monday.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Shoukry said the latest attacks on Egypt’s Christians prove that Libyan militants are able to target Egypt.
Shoukry added that Egypt’s ongoing military operations are in full coordination with the Libyan National Army.
Warplanes launched three airstrikes on the eastern Libyan city of Derna on Monday, a witness said, a continuation of Egyptian raids on the city that began last week after militants ambushed a bus and killed Egyptian Christians.
There was no immediate confirmation of Monday’s strikes from officials in Libya or neighboring Egypt, nor any claim of responsibility for the raid on the city at the eastern end of Libya’s Mediterranean coast.
However, Egypt has previously acknowledged conducting airstrikes on targets in Libya since Friday and said it would launch further raids if necessary. A powerful Libyan force in the east of the country says it has coordinated air raids with Cairo.
The witness said one attack hit the western entrance to Derna and the other two hit Dahr Al-Hamar, an area in the south of the city.
Egyptian jets attacked Derna on Friday, just hours after masked militants boarded vehicles en route to a monastery in the southern Egyptian province of Minya and opened fire at close range, killing 29 and wounding 24.
Daesh claimed responsibility for that attack in Egypt, the latest targeting Christian minority there. Two church bombings also claimed by Daesh killed more than 45 people last month.
According to Yasser Risk, chairman of state newspaper Akhbar Elyoum and former war correspondent with close ties to Egypt’s presidency, 15 targets were hit on the first day of strikes, including in Derna and Jafra, in central Libya, where what he called “terrorism centers” were located.
He said the targets included leadership headquarters as well as training camps and weapons storage facilities and 60 fighter jets were used for the earlier raids. Egypt struck Derna again on Saturday.
Egypt has carried out airstrikes on its neighbor occasionally since Libya descended into factional fighting in the years following the 2011 civil war that ousted Muammar Qaddafi.
Militant groups, including Daesh, have gained ground in the chaos, and Derna, a city of around 150,000 that straddles the coastal highway linking Libya to Egypt, has frequently served as one of their main bases.
Egypt has been backing eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, whose Libyan National Army has been fighting militant groups and other fighters in Benghazi and Derna for more than two years.
Libyan National Army spokesman Col. Ahmad Messmari told reporters in Benghazi late on Sunday that Haftar’s forces were coordinating with Egypt’s military in airstrikes and the weekend raids targeted ammunition stores and operations camps.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said on Friday the air raids targeted militants responsible for plotting the attack, and that Egypt would not hesitate to carry out additional strikes inside and outside the country.
Libyan militant camps direct threat, says Egypt's foreign minister
Libyan militant camps direct threat, says Egypt's foreign minister
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
