BZEIBIZ, Iraq: It was a cold and gusty day in December when the army came to the Bzeibiz camp and told families displaced by the war against the Daesh group that it was time to go home.
The fighting was over, they said, and the camp west of Baghdad was going to be closed.
Some of the families protested that they had no homes to return to. The army said they would be sent to Amariyat Al-Fallujah, a remote camp ringed by chain-link fences and barbed wire.
“They threatened us,” said Khalwa Hamid, 27. “They said, whoever doesn’t leave, we’ll haul them out in our Humvees.”
In the next few days, close to 800 families filed out, according to family interviews and UN data.
A little over a year since the country fought its last battle against the Daesh group, but well before it has gotten a handle on reconstruction, Iraq is closing its camps for the displaced in western Anbar province and casting vulnerable families into a maelstrom of peril.
Many families cannot return home, accused by their tribes of collaborating with Daesh. Others worry there is no work, schooling, or housing to return to. Stragglers are being sent to two tightly-controlled camps deep in the plains of Anbar, where military authorization is required to leave.
“We were displaced once because of IS. Do we have to go through this again because of the government?” said Hamid.
When Daesh militants swept through north Iraq in 2014, they triggered a migration and displacement crisis unprecedented in Iraq’s history. Millions fled their homes in the face of the militants’ rapid advance; others fled as Iraqi forces, backed by the US and Iran, battled back, ultimately reclaiming the last town in late 2017.
Some 1.8 million people out of Iraq’s population of 38 million are still waiting to return to their communities.
Destitute, homeless, and unprotected by the courts, displaced families have borne the brunt of the political and personal score-settling underway in post-war Iraq.
Since liberation, thousands of men have been swept up in arrests for alleged affiliation with Daesh — more than 19,000 in prison as of March 2018 . Many of them have been pushed through cursory trials lasting only a few minutes that often end in convictions and death sentences.
Between June and December 2018, Iraqi security forces closed three of the Anbar’s five displaced persons camps — Bzeibiz, Kilo 18, and Khalidya — which together sheltered more than 12,000 people, according to UN figures. At least 3,000 of them were pushed into the Amariyat Al-Fallujah and Habbaniyah Tourist City camps, already the largest in the province.
Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Khalaf Al-Falahi, commander of the armed forces in Anbar, said the army was doing its utmost to return families to their communities of origin, while consolidating the remaining camps to provide better security and services.
“If these camps stay, then we are going to raise another generation of Daesh,” he said.
At Bzeibiz, families had just days to pack their belongings. Several families said officers collected personal information and fingerprints that, they were told, were for IDs.
“But three or four days later, an officer came and said, everyone get out, because you all gave your fingerprints. We didn’t know about this provision. We signed for badges,” said Naima Abd, 37.
The camp had housed 4,896 people, or 831 families, according to a Dec. 15 UN census. When The Associated Press visited four days later, it was nearly deserted. Empty tents sagged under the winds, and discarded furnishings littered the dirt lanes. Hamid, who worked at a medical charity in Bzeibiz, said only 47 families had remained.
Hundreds were moved to much harsher circumstances in Amariyat Al-Fallujah, fifteen kilometers (9 miles) to the west and host to more than 21,000 people.
Schools are understaffed, and clinics are not equipped to provide the specialized care that many war victims require, such as treatment for chronic pain, nerve damage or blindness.
Guards make sure no one leaves the camp without army permission.
“Some of the people being held in Amariyat Al-Fallujah are, de facto, in detention,” said Belkis Wille, senior Iraq researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Qusay Jasser, 54, said he was selling his food rations to pay for regular appointments to treat his daughter’s eyes at a hospital in Baghdad. But some weeks, the guards do not let them through. They demand a fresh letter from the hospital confirming each appointment.
“There are 100,000 hurdles to leaving,” said Sabah Ahmed, a Bzeibiz resident who wound up in Amariyat Al-Fallujah.
Al-Falahi, the Anbar commander, said all humanitarian cases were allowed through checkpoint at the camp entrance. But he said the Army has an obligation to secure the camps against militants circulating among displaced families, an assertion that could not be verified because of restrictions placed on the media.
“Those who want to work should go back to their areas,” he said. “Those who want their freedom of movement should go back to their areas.”
Conditions were similarly severe at the Habbaniyah Tourist City camp, with a population of 11,706. A military detail followed the AP around the camp and photographed reporters interviewing residents.
Residents said food rations were inadequate and families were huddling together in unheated tents to stay warm in near freezing temperatures.
Camp residents may leave to work, but there are no settlements for miles around, except for the nearby resort which lends the camp its name. It’s only open in the summer.
On Dec. 5, the army moved 190 families to Habbaniyah after closing Kilo 18 in much the same way it closed Bzeibiz approximately two weeks later.
Kilo 18 suffered from winter floods, but it had a free clinic, a delivery room, a psych center, and a center for victims of gender-based violence — facilities not available at Habbaniyah.
Hassan Jalal, 80, from Kilo 18, said he did not choose to move to Habbaniyah; he wanted to return home. He produced military documents showing that he had been checked by six security agencies and against 10 witnesses to confirm he had no links to Daesh. But two of his sons, now deceased, had been members of the jihadi group, and his village’s mayor barred him from returning with his family.
“I hope day after day to return home. Even if I have to eat dirt, it’s better than living in this humiliation,” said Jalal.
Even families that make it home are finding conditions trying beyond their imagination.
Hadi, a father of five who asked for his details to be withheld to avoid friction with the authorities, removed his children from school in Bzeibiz to return to his village near Al-Qaim, one of the last cities liberated from Daesh in 2017.
But when they arrived they found that their home was damaged and the local school was shuttered. The children are now sitting at home with their parents. The nearest school is miles away.
“We don’t have a car, and I can’t find any work,” said Hadi.
Iraq closes camps for displaced, pushes families into peril
Iraq closes camps for displaced, pushes families into peril
- When Daesh militants swept through north Iraq in 2014, they triggered a migration and displacement crisis
- Some 1.8 million people out of Iraq’s population of 38 million are still waiting to return to their communities
Why the Oslo Accords failed to put Palestinians on the path to statehood
- A memento being offered for sale was apparently torn from White House program for the Sept. 13, 1993, signing ceremony
- Timing of sale amid Gaza war ironic in that the document is reminder of a conflict that has raged unresolved since 1948
LONDON: Monday, Sept. 13, 1993, was a sunny day in Washington and, for those gathered on the lawn of the White House, it seemed that a bright new era had dawned in the fraught relationship between Israel and the Palestinians.
The occasion was the formal signing of the Oslo Accords, a declaration of principles on interim Palestinian self-government that had been agreed in the Norwegian capital the previous month by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
It was a historic moment, and it produced a remarkable photograph that claimed its rightful place on the front pages of newspapers around the world: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat smiling and shaking hands in front of a beaming US President Bill Clinton.
With ironic timing, given the current tragedy unfolding in Gaza 30 years later, a unique memento of that day is being offered for sale by the Raab Collection, a US company that specializes in the buying and selling of important historical documents and autographs.
The single piece of paper, embossed with the golden seal of the President of the United States, and apparently torn from the White House program for the signing ceremony, is signed by all the key players on that hopeful day.
According to Raab, which declines to reveal who put the document up for sale, it was “acquired from the archives of one of the important participants at the event.”
Each of the seven signatures has great value for any student of politics and history — here are the hands of Arafat, Rabin, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli President Shimon Peres, US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, whose country had co-sponsored the 1991 Madrid Conference that set the stage for the Oslo Accords.
Taken together, they offer a bittersweet reminder of a moment when, in the words that day of an ebullient Clinton, “we dare to pledge what for so long seemed difficult even to imagine: That the security of the Israeli people will be reconciled with the hopes of the Palestinian people and there will be more security and more hope for all.”
Rather like a rare stamp, the value of which is increased by a printing anomaly, the document includes a curious discrepancy. It was signed on Sept. 13, the day of the White House ceremony, but only two of the signatories added the date to their signature. While Abbas wrote the correct date, the 13th, Arafat dated his signature the 14th.
The document is offered for sale at $35,000, but in political terms, with the hope expressed that day by Clinton that it was the gateway to “a continuing process in which the parties transform the very way they see and understand each other,” it is worthless.
INNUMBERS
• 10 Israeli prime ministers since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.
• 4 Palestinian prime ministers since creation of the post in 2013.
As a reminder of the seemingly intractable nature of a conflict that has raged unresolved since 1948, the 30-year-old document is priceless.
One of the witnesses on the White House lawn that September day in 1993 was philosopher Jerome M. Segal, a peace activist who in the spring of 1987 had been part of the first American-Jewish delegation to meet with the PLO leadership.
The following year Segal played a key role in negotiations that led to the opening of a dialogue between the US and the PLO, and a series of essays he published is credited with having informed the PLO’s decision to issue a Declaration of Independence and launch a unilateral peace initiative in 1988.
In 1993, as he watched Arafat and Rabin shaking hands, Segal, the founder of the Jewish Peace Lobby, had good reason to think that the elusive prize of peace might actually be within grasp.
Four days before the signing, Arafat and Rabin had exchanged letters, the former renouncing violence and acknowledging Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, and the latter recognizing the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and committing to peace negotiations.
It was agreed that a new Palestinian National Authority would be formed, and would assume governing responsibilities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
After five years, “permanent status” talks would be held to forge agreement on key issues to pave the way for the creation of a future Palestinian state, including borders, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and the status of Jerusalem.
But Segal, and everyone else imbued with optimism on that bright September day, was to be disappointed.
Many reasons have been proposed for the withering of the olive branch of Oslo, but according to Israeli-British historian Avi Shlaim, writing in 2005, “the fundamental cause behind the loss of trust and the loss of momentum was the Israeli policy of expanding settlements on the West Bank, which carried on under Labour as well as Likud.”
This policy — which continues to blight relations between Israel and the Palestinians to this day — “precluded the emergence of a viable Palestinian state, without which there can be no end to the conflict.”
In a terrible pre-echo of the provocative visits to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound carried out recently by some of the right-wing members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, Ariel Sharon, while campaigning to become Israel’s prime minister in September 2000, made a similarly controversial visit to the site.
The result was an outbreak of violent protests by outraged Palestinians. The Second Intifada would last almost five years and claim thousands of lives.
For Segal, director of the International Peace Consultancy, the failure of Oslo owes less to the supposed intransigence of the PLO over the years than to the internal dynamics of Israeli politics.
“The thing to realize about Oslo is that since 1993, the Palestinians have had only two leaders, Arafat and Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas, the second and current president of Palestine),” he told Arab News.
“Their positions on final status were almost identical, so there has been a consistency on the Palestinian side of a willingness to end the conflict and recognize the State of Israel — even through the Second Intifada, that never changed, and it’s still there today.
“But on the Israeli side, we’ve had enormous flip-flops, from Rabin, to Peres, to Netanyahu, to Ehud Barak, to Ariel Sharon, to Ehud Olmert, and back again to Netanyahu.”
The precarious nature of peace talks for Israeli politicians was underlined in November 1995 when, just two years after shaking Arafat’s hand, Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli extremist opposed to the Oslo Accords.
“After Rabin’s death we have only had two Israeli prime ministers, Barak and Olmert, who have gone into serious final-status negotiations with the Palestinians,” said Segal.
Barak, who beat Netanyahu in the polls by a wide margin to become prime minister in 1999, “did it in a terrible context — the Second Intifada had already started.”
In 2000, Barak took part with Arafat in the Camp David Summit, which ended without agreement. As the violence continued in 2001, Barak stood for reelection as prime minister, losing to Ariel Sharon, one of the founders of Israel’s right-wing Likud party.
In 2006, Sharon was succeeded by Ehud Olmert, leader of the more liberal Kadima party. By 2009 he too would be gone, enmeshed in a series of corruption allegations and succeeded by Netanyahu.
“So, in the entire period since 1993, we’ve actually had only two Israeli prime ministers, and for a combined total of not more than three years, under whom there was a serious effort to pursue the final negotiations envisioned by Oslo,” Segal said.
That, he added, “leads to a very interesting question: Why, with the promise of ending the conflict, does the Israeli public regularly elect prime ministers who aren’t interested, like Netanyahu — why, as I heard Avi Gill (a former director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs) put it, do Israelis poll left, but vote right?”
The answer, Segal believes, “is because they don’t believe they are losing anything by doing so.”
Ironically, given the unwillingness of every Israeli leader since Olmert to compromise in the interest of peace, “even though they would support the two-state solution, they don’t believe there’s a Palestinian partner who will. In their mind they’re not losing a conflict-ending agreement they might get if they had a left-wing leader, so they end up going for Mr. Security.”
This, believes Segal, is a crucial factor in the ongoing failure to find the peace that seemed so close in 1993.
“You have to deal with this, what I call ‘no-partnerism,’ the dogma that there is not, and has never been, a Palestinian partner for peace, because this is not just a Netanyahu thesis. It’s one that’s deep in the belief structure of the majority of Israelis.
On Oct. 6, the eve of the Hamas-led attack on Israel, Segal was optimistic that a breakthrough was close.
In his book “The Olive Branch from Palestine,” published in 2022, he had urged “a Palestinian return to unilateral peacemaking, with the Palestinians taking the lead in establishing ... a UN commission through which the Palestinians would advance, in full detail, without any ambiguity, the end-of-conflict, end-of-claims agreement that they are prepared to sign.”
This he dubbed UNSCOP-2, an allusion to the UN committee formed in 1947, which proposed the original partition plan for Palestine.
“On Oct. 6, I believed that we could get major changes through the UNSCOP-2 process. I believed that a committee could be created in a matter of months, that all I had to do was to get Abu Mazen across the line, to get him to go from calling on the secretary general of the UN to do something to doing something himself in the General Assembly, and we could move very rapidly.
“We talked to many countries at the UN. We even talked to Iran, and nobody was opposed. I believed that we could then put in front of the Israeli public something that in decades of conflict they have never had, which is a Palestinian ‘Yes’.”
By training a philosopher, Segal remains philosophical, despite the disastrous events of the past seven months.
“On Oct. 6, I was optimistic for the short term. Now I see the timeframe is very different, but I do have proposals. Our approach after Oct. 7 is what you could call ‘Gaza-first’.”
This is the reawakening of a plan first proposed by Segal in 1995 at the request of Israeli Prime Minister Peres — the idea that while granting Palestinians sovereignty over the West Bank might be an initial step too far for most Israelis, an experiment in Palestinian statehood limited at first to Gaza might win their confidence and, ultimately, lead to an Arab state that includes the West Bank.
In 1995, it was Arafat who rejected the plan, fearing not unreasonably that “Gaza first” would come to be “Gaza last,” with the PLO confined to the coastal strip in perpetuity, even though “I presented a 20-point proposal designed to give the PLO confidence that they wouldn’t get stuck in Gaza.”
The reason, Segal believes, is because Oslo was still alive, and it made sense for the PLO to hold out for what would prove to be the illusory promise of final-status talks.
Now his view is that “Gaza first” offers the only realistic hope of progress.
As he wrote in a column for Foreign Policy on Feb. 6, in the wake of Oct. 7 “no Israeli government will ever agree to a Palestinian state in the West Bank unless there is substantial confidence that it will not be a threat to Israel.”
If there is an answer, Segal concluded, “it will require abandoning the defunct Oslo paradigm, which sees Palestinian statehood emerging as a result of successful end-of-conflict negotiations.
“The alternative is a sovereignty-in-Gaza-first approach, to test Palestinian statehood in Gaza first and, only if it is successful over an agreed period, to then move to negotiations on extending Palestinian sovereignty to the West Bank.”
Right now, Segal’s dogged commitment to the peace process is as admirable as it is remarkable.
But, in the face of a general lack of alternative proposals, it perhaps also offers the best hope of achieving Clinton’s wish, expressed on the White House lawn over 30 years ago, that “two peoples who have both known the bitterness of exile” might “put old sorrows and antagonisms behind them ... to work for a shared future shaped by the values of the Torah, the Qur’an, and the Bible.”
Israeli official says Hamas demand for end to war ‘thwarting’ truce efforts
- The official rejected reports that Israel had agreed to end the war as part of a deal to free the hostages held by Gaza militants
- The official said suggestions Israel was prepared to allow mediators to provide Hamas with guarantees of an end to the war were also “not accurate“
JERUSALEM: A top Israeli official said Saturday that Hamas’s continued demand for a lasting ceasefire in the war in Gaza was stymying prospects of reaching a truce.
“So far, Hamas has not given up its demand to end the war, thus thwarting the possibility of reaching an agreement,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The official rejected reports that Israel had agreed to end the war as part of a deal to free the hostages held by Gaza militants.
The official said suggestions Israel was prepared to allow mediators to provide Hamas with guarantees of an end to the war were also “not accurate.”
The official’s comments came after Hamas negotiators returned to Egypt on Saturday to give their response to a proposed pause in the nearly seven-month war.
Mediators from Egypt, Qatar and the United States have been waiting for Hamas to respond to a proposal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, according to details released by Britain.
Despite months of shuttle diplomacy between the warring parties, the mediators have been unable to broker a new truce like the week-long ceasefire that saw 105 hostages released last November, the Israelis among them in exchange for Palestinians held by Israel.
Thousands of Israelis rallied in Tel Aviv late Saturday demanding a deal to free the remaining hostages. They waved Israeli flags and placards calling on the government to “Bring them Home!“
Israel says 128 hostages remain in Gaza. The army says 35 of them are presumed dead.
On Saturday, shortly before 9 p.m. (1800 GMT), a senior Hamas source close to the negotiations in Cairo told AFP there had been “no developments” and the day’s talks “have ended.”
“Tomorrow, a new round will begin,” the source said.
Earlier, the Israeli official had said Israel would not send a negotiating team to Cairo until it saw “positive movement” on the framework for a hostage deal.
“What we are looking at is an agreement over a framework for a possible hostage deal,” the official said.
“Tough and long negotiations are expected for an actual deal.”
Hamas has said the main stumbling block is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on sending ground troops into Rafah, the south Gaza city that is packed with displaced civilians.
Washington has said repeatedly that it opposes any military operation in Rafah that endangers the 1.2 million civilians sheltering there.
Relative calm in southern Lebanon amid talks on French peace plan and Israeli-US coordination
- Lebanese officials receive amended proposal that summarizes meetings held by Stephane Sejourne, France’s foreign minister, in Lebanon and Israel
- On Friday and Saturday there was a noticeable decline, generally, in hostilities between the two sides in southern Lebanon, though there were exceptions
BEIRUT: Discussions continued on Saturday about a French proposal designed to ease tensions and halt clashes between the Israeli army and Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border.
Lebanese officials received an amended version of the proposal on Friday, which summarized meetings held by Stephane Sejourne, France’s foreign minister, in Lebanon and Israel.
The proposal also aims to ensure the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which was adopted in 2006 with the aim of resolving the war that year between Israel and Hezbollah.
One political observer said Lebanese officials had prepared a response to the French document and were awaiting Israel’s response.
On Friday and Saturday there was a noticeable decline, generally, in hostilities between the two sides in southern Lebanon, though there were exceptions. One of them was the targeting of the “Israeli Meron Airbase in the Safed area on Friday from Lebanese territories,” Israeli authorities said. Hezbollah did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack. However, the group did say it shelled the Israeli site of Bayad Blida at dawn on Saturday while Israeli soldiers were there.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army opened fire in the vicinity of a shepherd in Wazzani but he was unharmed. Israeli artillery targeted Aita Al-Shaab, Jabal Blat and the outskirts of the towns of Naqoura and Alma Al-Shaab.
Extreme caution seemed to prevail in many border areas as Israeli reconnaissance warplanes continued to operate over Hasbaya and the occupied Shebaa Farms, reaching Western Bekaa and Iqlim Al-Tuffah.
In addition to the diplomatic processes related to the French peace plan, Lebanese authorities were also awaiting the outcome of negotiations in Cairo for a possible agreement between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire in Gaza. Hezbollah previously linked any end to hostilities in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Channel 12 news in Israel reported on Saturday that the security establishment in Tel Aviv believed Israeli authorities were close to an agreement with Hezbollah and Lebanon, similar to the provisions of UN Resolution 1701. It said the Israeli security establishment was working with US officials on the process, including American envoy Amos Hochstein, who oversaw indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel to demarcate their maritime borders in 2022.
Regarding the French peace plan, Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, said he had received a copy of the document from the French Embassy in Lebanon and will respond.
“It included acceptable points and others that are unacceptable and must be amended, subject to discussion and review,” he added.
The revised proposal refers to a previous ceasefire agreement signed by Israel and Lebanon on April 26, 1996. It also highlights the steps that can be “taken to stop the escalation and ensure the effective implementation of UN Resolution 1701.”
Media leaks suggested its recommendations included “creating a monitoring group with the US, France, Lebanon and Israel. This group would oversee implementation and address any complaints from the involved parties in stages.”
The first stage would require Lebanese armed groups to halt their military operations inside Israel and disputed border regions, refrain from attacking personnel or facilities belonging to the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, and guarantee unrestricted freedom of movement for UNIFIL forces, including patrols in all areas south of the Litani River.
It calls on Israel to “halt military operations inside Lebanon, including airstrikes on Lebanese territory, refrain from any actions that may put UNIFIL personnel or facilities at risk, and ensure UNIFIL’s freedom of movement, including stopping the locking of aircraft radars on UNIFIL naval forces ships.”
Regarding UNIFIL’s mission in the first phase, the French initiative said the force will be “monitoring the cessation of hostilities on the ground and increasing the number of patrols and redeployments along the Blue Line to ensure effective respect for the cessation of hostilities and subsequent commitments by the parties.”
The Blue Line is a demarcation line dividing Lebanon from Israel that was set by the UN in June 2000 to determine whether Israeli forces had fully withdrawn from Lebanon.
The second phase of the French initiative, to be implemented within three days, would involve “dismantling all installations, facilities and centers near the Blue Line, including containers, small towers and tents, and the withdrawal of combat forces, including the Radwan militia, and military capabilities, including shooting capabilities in depth and anti-tank systems, for a distance of not less than 10 kilometers north of the Blue Line.”
It would also require Israel to “stop flying over Lebanese airspace.” It urges Lebanon to resume meetings of the tripartite mechanism, involving UNIFIL and the Israeli and Lebanese militaries, and deploy about 15,000 Lebanese soldiers along the Blue Line south of the Litani River, with UNIFIL and other international partners supporting this deployment.
During a 10-day third phase, Lebanon and Israel, with UNIFIL support, would be expected to resume talks about their land borders. These are intended build on negotiations that took place in 2017, and focus on areas already discussed in 2018 within the framework of the UNIFIL tripartite mechanism, with the aim of establishing an area between the Blue Line and the Litani River free of armed groups and weapons other than those related to the Lebanese government and UNIFIL.
These talks would take place in parallel with international efforts in the form of a support group to assist in the deployment of Lebanese forces in the southern region, and the social and economic development of the region.
Israeli forces kill five Palestinians in overnight raid near West Bank’s Tulkarm
- The health ministry said it had identified four of the five who died during the raid in Deir Al-Ghusun
- The Israeli military said an officer from a special police unit was wounded in the operation and hospitalized
TULKARM, West Bank: Israeli forces killed five Palestinians in an overnight raid in a village near the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry and the Israeli military said on Saturday.
The health ministry said it had identified four of the five who died during the raid in Deir Al-Ghusun. Israeli forces took some of the dead bodies, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa and a Reuters reporter at the scene.
The Israeli military said an officer from a special police unit was wounded in the operation and hospitalized. It said its forces retaliated using live ammunition and shoulder-fired missiles after they were fired on.
Saturday’s operation near the flashpoint city of Tulkarm was the latest in a series of clashes in the occupied West Bank between Israeli forces and Palestinians that has been escalating for more than two years but which has picked up in intensity since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last October.
According to Palestinian Health Ministry records, 492 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or Jewish settlers in the West Bank or East Jerusalem since Oct. 7. Many have been armed fighters but stone-throwing youths and uninvolved civilians have also been killed.
Palestinians want the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as the core of an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
US-backed talks to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians have been stalled for the past decade but the Gaza war has raised pressure for a revival of efforts to reach a two-state solution.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s seven-month-old assault on the Gaza Strip, say health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave. The war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and abducting 252 others, of whom 132 are believed to remain in captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Tunisian protesters demand eviction of migrant encampment
- The demonstration in the small town in central Tunisia follows recent crackdowns by authorities on similar encampments in the capital Tunis and other areas
- In El Amra, protesters called for the “departure” of migrants and the “quick” eviction of the thousands estimated to be staying there
EL AMRA, Tunisia: Hundreds of Tunisians rallied Saturday in the town of El Amra to protest makeshift camps for migrants primarily from sub-Saharan African countries, an AFP correspondent said.
The demonstration in the small town in central Tunisia follows recent crackdowns by authorities on similar encampments in the capital Tunis and other areas, often after complaints from local residents.
In El Amra, protesters called for the “departure” of migrants and the “quick” eviction of the thousands estimated to be staying there, the correspondent said.
Lawmaker Tarek Mahdi said that the “immediate solution” should be to get migrants to “leave urban areas and cities.”
The situation has become “unacceptable” and “the authorities must find a solution,” said Mahdi, who represents El Amra in parliament.
He added that other countries should help Tunisia to deal with a “very significant flow” of migrants.
The town is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Sfax, a key departure point for Europe-bound sea journeys from where migrants had been forcibly removed late last year.
Many migrants have fled to towns like El Amra, setting up encampments before they can make the perilous Mediterranean crossing, as Tunisian authorities and the European Union have ramped up efforts to curb irregular migration.
A surge of anti-migrant violence last year, following remarks by President Kais Saied who painted “illegal” foreigners as a demographic threat, has also pushed many out of main cities and into smaller towns.
Migrants attempting the sea crossing in search of a better life in Europe often aim to reach Italy, whose Lampedusa island lies some 150 kilometers away from Sfax, Tunisia’s second city.
In recent weeks, authorities raided several encampments, tearing down tents and expelling migrants.
The non-governmental Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights said that authorities in Tunis on Friday cleared encampments and expelled hundreds of asylum seekers, migrants and refugees, sending them in buses to a western area near the Algerian border.
In a statement, the interior ministry said “security measures” had been taken to “deal with attacks on public and private property.”
Last month, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Tunisia for a fourth time in less than a year to sign deals aiming to curb migration.
A day before her visit, Saied said that Tunisia must not become “a country of transit or settlement” for the tens of thousands of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe every year.
