KHARTOUM: Sudanese police used tear gas to disperse soccer fans who tried to stage a protest as soon as they exited a match in the capital Khartoum on Monday, the sixth day of anti-government protests in which at least 12 people have been killed.
Security in the capital had been fortified ahead of the planned protest. Car and pedestrian traffic in the city were reduced on Monday.
President Omar Al-Bashir warned citizens against responding to “attempts to instil frustration,” his first public comments since the protests began on Wednesday last week.
The demonstrations are the biggest in several years against Bashir’s 29-year rule, with protesters enraged over price rises, shortages of basic goods and a cash crisis. Protests on Sunday also followed a football match.
The official Sudan News Agency (SUNA) said Bashir had met security aides on Monday. It quoted him as saying the state was “continuing with economic reforms that provide citizens with a decent life.”
Demonstrators have repeatedly targeted the offices of Bashir’s party and called for him to step down.
Government officials have blamed the unrest on “infiltrators.” Officials and witnesses have recorded at least 12 deaths, though exact casualty figures are hard to ascertain.
Monday saw mostly smaller protests, including two in Jazeera state, where Bashir was due to visit on Tuesday for a trip shortened from three days to one.
He will travel to the state’s north to open a hospital, avoiding a visit to its capital Madani which was one of the central locations of unrest during a wave of similar protests in September 2013, when scores of people were killed in the city.
Security forces in Sudan’s Sennar state arrested 25 people who were part of two cells, SUNA said on Monday. It said they were “working to incite sabotage” and “were planning to burn the Sennar municipal building and a number of governmental and private institutions.”
Police reports were also filed against suspects for “crimes of sabotage” in Al-Qadarif state, private TV channel Sudania 24 said on Monday. Officials told the same channel on Friday that six people died there, without giving details on how they were killed. Authorities had arrested 14 leaders of an opposition coalition on Saturday.
Eight unofficial unions of professionals planned a protest on Tuesday in central Khartoum less than 1 km from the presidential palace. Organizers said they plan to march to the palace and hand the presidency a memo calling for Bashir to step down immediately.
One of Sudan’s top opposition parties, Umma, backed the plans. Its leader Sadiq Al-Mahdi, Sudan’s last democratically elected prime minister until he was overthrown by Bashir in a coup in 1989, returned to Sudan on Wednesday and addressed thousands of supporters, calling for a democratic transition.
Since the demonstrations started spreading on Wednesday, police have dispersed protesters with tear gas as well as using live ammunition in some cases, residents say. Authorities have shuttered schools and declared states of emergency and curfews in several states.
Sudan police disperse protesters with tear gas on sixth day of unrest
Sudan police disperse protesters with tear gas on sixth day of unrest
- Security forces in Sudan’s Sennar state arrested 25 people who were part of two cells, SUNA said on Monday
Iran calls for joint action by Islamic nations to stop Gaza war
- Israel’s military offensive on Gaza has killed at least 37,337 people so far
TEHRAN: Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani has called for joint action on the part of Islamic countries to pressure Israel into ending its brutal military activities in Gaza, which have devastated most of the enclave and killed thousands of Palestinians there.
Israel’s military offensive on Gaza has killed at least 37,337 people, mostly civilian women and children, since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.
Humanitarian supplies for millions of Palestinians displaced by the conflict have been squeezed despite the Israeli military declaring it would “pause” fighting daily around a southern route to facilitate aid flows.
The Iranian official also spoke with his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaqi via telephone on Sunday, with the two discussing bilateral relations as well as the situation in war-ravaged Gaza.
Kani reiterated Iran’s readiness to help Kabul resolve its challenges and achieve growth, Iran’s news agency IRNA reported.
Kuwaiti citizen detained for alleged involvement in extremist group
KUWAIT CITY: The Public Prosecution in Kuwait has ordered the detention of a citizen on charges of joining a group aimed at illegally undermining the country’s basic systems, state news agency KUNA reported on Sunday.
The individual is also accused of receiving training in making explosives and preparing poisons for illicit purposes, as well as planning to leave the country to fight with the group, though he was unable to do so.
The Public Prosecution interrogated the accused and presented him with the charges, according to a statement released on its official account on X. Investigation procedures are ongoing.
Yemen’s Houthis announce new maritime operations in support of Gaza
- The Houthis declared that attacks on Israel-linked shipping will persist until Israel ends its war on Gaza and lifts the siege on Palestinian territories
SANAA: The Houthi militia’s army spokesman, Yahya Saree, announced on Sunday that an American destroyer and two Israel-linked ships were targeted in recent operations in the Red and Arabian seas.
Saree said that the US destroyer was hit by ballistic missiles in the Red Sea, while the two ships — Captain Paris and Happy Condor — were targeted in the Arabian Sea using naval missiles and drones, respectively.
He stated that these ships were targeted because they were en route to ports in Israeli-occupied territories.
Saree reaffirmed Yemen’s stance, declaring that attacks on Israel-linked shipping will persist until Israel ends its war on Gaza and lifts the siege on Palestinian territories.
He also emphasized that the Yemeni army would continue to defend its territory against US-UK “aggression,” referring to joint airstrikes by the two Western nations, which the latter claim were launched to protect international shipping.
The Houthis have rejected these claims, asserting that their military operations in international waters, ongoing since mid-November, only target Israeli ships or vessels heading to Israeli-occupied ports.
Lull in Gaza fighting as Biden urges truce in Eid message
- In a holiday message late Sunday, US President Joe Biden called for the implementation of a ceasefire plan he outlined last month
GAZA: Israel struck Gaza on Monday and witnesses reported blasts in the besieged territory’s south, but fighting has largely subsided after a day of relative calm and as Muslims marked Eid Al-Adha.
In a holiday message late Sunday, US President Joe Biden called for the implementation of a ceasefire plan he outlined last month, saying it was “the best way to end the violence in Gaza” and to help civilians suffering “the horrors of the war between Hamas and Israel.”
A daytime “pause” for aid deliveries announced at the weekend by Israel’s military around a southern Gaza route appeared to be holding, while elsewhere in the Palestinian territory an AFP correspondent said strikes and shelling have decreased.
In Gaza City, medics at Al-Ahli hospital said at least five people were killed in two separate air strikes, and witnesses reported tank shelling in the southern neighborhood of Zeitun.
At least one strike hit Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, residents said.
Palestinian officials in the far-southern city of Rafah reported tank shelling early on Monday, before the start of the daily “local, tactical pause of military activity” announced by the army.
It said the pause “for humanitarian purposes will take place from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) until 7:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) every day until further notice along the road that leads from the Kerem Shalom crossing to the Salah Al-Din road and then northwards.”
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP “there was no change” in the military’s policy and stressed fighting “continues as planned.”
An army spokeperson told AFP the pause was in effect on Monday, and the military in a statement said troops were still operating in Rafah and central Gaza, reporting “close-quarters combat” that killed several militants.
Witnesses told AFP they could hear blasts in Rafah’s city center and west on Monday morning.
A map released by the army showed the declared humanitarian route extending up to Rafah’s European Hospital, about 10 kilometers (six miles) from Kerem Shalom.
Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the civil defense agency in the Hamas-ruled territory, said that apart from the deadly Gaza City strikes overnight, “the other areas of the Gaza Strip are somewhat calm.”
He reported military movements and gunfire in parts of Rafah as well as Bureij camp in central Gaza.
On Sunday, the first day of Eid Al-Adha, or the feast of the sacrifice, the spokesman said “calm has prevailed across all of Gaza.”
The United Nations has welcomed the Israeli announcement of the pause, although “this has yet to translate into more aid reaching people in need,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.
He called for “further concrete measures by Israel to address longstanding issues” on humanitarian needs.
Gazans “urgently need food, water, sanitation, shelter, and health care, with many living near piles of solid waste, heightening health risks,” Laerke said.
Dire shortages of food and other essentials in the Gaza Strip have been exacerbated by overland access restrictions and the closure of the key Rafah crossing with Egypt since Israeli forces seized its Palestinian side in early May.
The military said the pause was in effect as part of efforts to “increase the volumes of humanitarian aid” following discussions with the United Nations and other organizations.
It was announced a day after eight Israeli soldiers were killed in a blast near Rafah and three more troops died elsewhere, in one of the heaviest losses for the army in more than eight months of war against Hamas militants.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages. Of these, 116 remain in Gaza, although the army says 41 are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive aimed at wiping out Hamas has killed at least 37,337 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators have been pushing for a new Gaza truce, so far without success.
Washington has been pressing Israel and Hamas to formally accept Biden’s truce plan, which would allow an initial six-week pause to fighting.
“I strongly believe that the three-phase ceasefire proposal Israel has made to Hamas and that the UN Security Council has endorsed is the best way to end the violence in Gaza and ultimately end the war,” the US president said.
The only previous truce lasted one week in November and saw many hostages released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, while increased aid flowed into Gaza.
Hamas has insisted on the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and a permanent ceasefire — demands Israel has repeatedly rejected.
Netanyahu disbands his inner war cabinet, Israeli official says
- The prime minister had faced demands from the nationalist-religious partners in his coalition
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the six-member war cabinet, an Israeli official said on Monday, in a widely expected move that came after the departure from government of the centrist former general Benny Gantz.
Netanyahu is now expected to hold consultations about the Gaza war with a small group of ministers, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer who had been in the war cabinet.
The prime minister had faced demands from the nationalist-religious partners in his coalition, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, to be included in the war cabinet, a move which would have intensified strains with international partners including the United States.
The forum was formed after Gantz joined Netanyahu in a national unity government at the start of the war in October and also included Gantz’s partner Gadi Eisenkot and Aryeh Deri, head of the religious party Shas, as observers.
Gantz and Eisenkot both left the government last week, over what they said was Netanyahu’s failure to form a strategy for the Gaza war.
