KIRKUK, Iraq: Iraqi special forces deployed Thursday in Kirkuk after the raising of the Kurdish flag over a political party headquarters revived tensions more than a year after Baghdad seized the disputed northern city.
Iraq’s counter-terrorism chief gave President Barham Saleh’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) until noon on Friday to lower the red, white, green and yellow flag of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Under Iraq’s constitution, multi-ethnic Kirkuk province is controlled by the central government in Baghdad.
Kirkuk is one of several regions that Kurdish peshmerga fighters took over in 2014 as jihadists from the Daesh group swept through much of northern and western Iraq.
Angered by an independence referendum held in the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan as well as in disputed border areas including Kirkuk, Baghdad deployed federal forces to retake the oil-rich province in 2017.
The vote saw more than 92 percent of Kurds back secession, but the federal government rejected the poll as “illegal,” imposed economic penalties and seized the disputed Kirkuk oil fields, halting exports.
In December Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan announced a deal to resume oil exports from Kirkuk.
Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, seen as a consensual figure who has settled disputes between Kurdistan and Baghdad in the past, appealed to Saleh after the flag was raised on Tuesday evening.
Abdel Mahdi spoke by telephone to the president, who was on a visit to Qatar, the premier’s office said.
Abdel Mahdi complained that flying the flag above party headquarters in Kirkuk is “a violation of the constitution.”
He suggested the matter be referred to the Supreme Court, which had ruled the independence referendum was illegal.
Iraq deploys special forces in Kirkuk amid Kurdish flag dispute
Iraq deploys special forces in Kirkuk amid Kurdish flag dispute
- In December Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan announced a deal to resume oil exports from Kirkuk
‘Our supplies will not last,’ warns doctor at trauma center
JERUSALEM: At a field hospital that has become one of Gaza’s leading trauma centers, a doctor who has worked in a dozen war zones described the situation as the most “catastrophic” he had ever seen.
“It is devastating,” said Javed Ali, the head of International Medical Corps’ emergency response in Gaza.
Speaking this week from a field hospital northwest of the areas of Rafah ordered evacuated by Israel, he said the situation around the far southern city was “dire.”
The hospital, in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, which Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone,” has swelled in a matter of months into a more than 150-bed facility made up of numerous white tents and shipping containers.
Since the first evacuation orders for Rafah were issued on May 6, ahead of a long-feared ground invasion of the southernmost part of Gaza, nearly half of the 1.4 million people who had been sheltering there have left, according to UN agencies.
“There has been a massive population movement,” Ali said, adding that most had avoided Al-Mawasi, which was already dramatically overcrowded, heading instead for the war-scarred city of Khan Younis, a battleground until last month.
Those arriving were “exhausted, they are scared, they don’t have resources,” Ali said, adding that many patients were asking for “money, support ... so they can move their families to safety.”
Gaza’s bloodiest war began with Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry.
While the number of people sheltering in Al-Mawasi’s sea of tents may not have grown much in recent weeks, the pressure on the field hospital there certainly has.
With access to hospitals in Rafah largely cut off, the facility has seen the number of daily visits to its emergency department balloon from around 110 to close to 300, Ali said, describing “polytrauma cases with broken bones in every part of the body.”
The situation has been exacerbated by last week’s temporary closure of two major aid crossings into Rafah, which disrupted the supply of medicines and fuel for hospital generators.
Ali said the field hospital “saw this coming” and prepared surplus stocks but had not predicted the surging number
of patients.
“It’s getting totally out of hand,” he said. “Our supplies will not last.”
He said the field hospital already saw shortages of “very critical items.”
It had, for instance, run out of “all pediatric formulations of antibiotics and painkillers” at a time when around 20 children were recovering from surgery.
Ali said the biggest worry was “space,” with major surgeries doubling from the previous average of around 25 a day.
There has also been a dramatic rise in the workload of the maternity ward, which has gone from around 10 deliveries a day to about 25, along with up to eight C-sections.
With expectant mothers unable to access the specialist maternity hospital in Rafah, there has also been a “massive increase in the number of complicated pregnancies,” he said.
Ali, who during a 15-year career has worked in war zones from Afghanistan and Sudan to Nigeria and Ukraine, said the situation in Gaza was “far more catastrophic.”
“The immense number of trauma cases, the lack of resources, the interrupted supply chain ... It’s something that I’ve never seen.”
In most wars, men account for the majority of gunshot and shrapnel wounds, but in Gaza the number of women and children injured “is very, very high,” Ali said, describing young children “with shattered limbs.”
With only a third of Gaza’s 36 pre-war hospitals even partially functional, according to the UN, and with displaced people often stuck far from health facilities “access has become extremely compromised.”
Ali said the field hospital in Al-Mawasi has grown to be the “main trauma referral center” in southern Gaza, “and we are working in a tent.”
US destroys 4 Houthi drones in Yemen
- CENTCOM: These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US, coalition, and merchant vessels
- Prime minister accuses militia of trying to bankrupt the government by attacking oil terminals
AL-MUKALLA: The US Central Command said on Thursday morning, Yemen time, that its forces had destroyed four drones in an area controlled by the Houthi militia, thwarting a strike on ships in international commercial waterways.
“These actions are taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for US, coalition, and merchant vessels,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
This is the latest round of US military operations against sites in Yemen under Houthi control to pre-emptively destroy drones and missiles before they can be used against commercial and navy ships in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden.
The CENTCOM announcement came as Houthi officials reaffirmed their warnings to expand their assaults on ships if Israel did not halt its war in the Gaza Strip.
Mahdi Al-Mashat, leader of the militia’s Supreme Political Council, said that they will launch attacks on ships during the fourth phase of their campaign in support of Palestine, which involves targeting ships in the Mediterranean until Israel ends the war and the blockade of Gaza.
“We have decisive, bold, and difficult choices if the aggression against our people in Gaza continues,” Al-Mashat said, according to the Houthi-run Saba news agency.
The militia’s leader, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, said on Thursday that his forces had fired 211 missiles at Israel and carried out more than 100 attacks on US warships in the Red Sea since the start of their campaign in November.
He urged Iraqis to join them in their operations to support the Palestinian people.
“Companies that transport goods to the Israeli enemy will have their ships attacked anywhere within reach of the Yemeni army's capabilities,” Al-Houthi said.
Since November, the Houthis have destroyed one commercial ship, captured another, and launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at commercial ships and warships along international shipping lanes near Yemen, mostly in the Red Sea.
The Houthis say the attacks are intended to compel Israel to halt its blockade of Gaza, and have targeted US and UK ships because both countries attacked Yemen.
Yemeni government officials accuse the Houthis of leveraging Yemen’s widespread anger over Israel’s war in Gaza to shore up their dwindling popular support, recruit new fighters, and justify continuing military operations throughout Yemen.
Speaking to leaders at the Arab summit in Bahrain on Thursday, Rashad Al-Alimi, head of Yemen’s internationally recognized Presidential Leadership Council, branded the Houthis as a “rogue” force that poses a significant danger to regional and international security.
He accused the Houthis of killing more than 500,000 Yemenis, displacing four million more, torching hundreds of homes and mosques, besieging towns, seizing Yemeni property, and generating the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophe.
“The Yemen war, which was instigated a decade ago by Iran-backed militia, will continue to be one of the biggest challenges to Arab nations and their people’s interests,” Al-Alimi said.
At the same time, Yemen’s Prime Minister Ahmed Awadh bin Mubarak accused the Houthis of attempting to bankrupt his government by attacking oil terminals in the government-controlled provinces of Hadramout and Shabwa, preventing traders from importing goods through Aden ports, while banning the import of gas from the central city of Marib.
He said that the Houthis’ efforts, which he described as an economic war, had cost the Yemeni government 3.3 trillion Yemeni riyals ($13.2 billion) in lost income since October 2022.
“The Houthis are using all of their cards, including the economic war, to accomplish political goals,” bin Mubarak said in an interview with the national TV on Wednesday.
Israel army says two Thai hostages held in Gaza are dead
- There are now six Thai hostages being held in Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Thursday that two Thai hostages earlier believed to be alive in Gaza were killed in the October 7 attack and their bodies are being held in the Palestinian territory.
“We informed the families of two kidnapped Thai citizens, who worked in agriculture in the plantations near Kibbutz Beeri, that they were murdered in the terrorist attack on October 7 and their bodies are being held by Hamas,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari.
There are now six Thai hostages being held in Gaza, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Thailand has about 30,000 citizens in Israel, most of whom work in the agricultural sector.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s military retaliation has killed at least 35,272 people, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian converted to Judaism, killed by an Israeli soldier who saw him as a threat
- His unusual journey had taken him across some of the deepest fault lines in the Middle East and led to some unlikely friendships
- In his final moments, he was once again viewed as a Palestinian who was in the wrong place, at a time of widespread anger and suspicion
JERUSALEM: At first, it seemed like the kind of shooting that has become all too common in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. A Palestinian aroused suspicions and an Israeli soldier killed him.
But then the deceased was identified as David Ben-Avraham, a Palestinian who had made the almost unheard-of decision to convert from Islam to Judaism years earlier.
His unusual journey had taken him across some of the deepest fault lines in the Middle East and led to some unlikely friendships. Most Palestinians saw him as an eccentric outcast, while many Israelis treated him as an unwelcome convert to a religion that doesn’t proselytize.
But in his final moments, he was once again viewed as a Palestinian who was in the wrong place, at a time of widespread anger and suspicion.
A DIVIDED CITY
He was born Sameh Zeitoun in Hebron, home to some 200,000 Palestinians as well as hundreds of Jewish settlers who live in enclaves guarded by Israeli troops. Tensions have run high for decades, often spilling over into violence.
Rights groups have long accused Hebron’s settlers of harassing Palestinian residents, and Palestinians have committed a number of stabbing and shooting attacks against Israelis over the years.
At its most extreme, the bitter neighbors live just a few meters apart. In some narrow alleys of Hebron’s Old City, metal netting protects Palestinian shoppers from objects thrown by settlers living on the upper floors.
Zeitoun first made contact with Jewish settlers over a decade ago, asking for help converting to Judaism, according to Noam Arnon, a Jewish settler in Hebron who went on to befriend him.
He said Zeitoun was inspired by family stories about his grandfather protecting Jews when riots erupted in 1929, when the Holy Land was under British colonial rule. Palestinians killed dozens of Jewish residents in the city.
“He went further, not only to live as a good neighbor but to join the Jewish community,” Arnon recounted.
A RARE CONVERSION
Conversion to other faiths is deeply frowned upon in Islam. In much of the Muslim world, those who do so are cast out of their communities, sometimes violently. Judaism, unlike Islam and Christianity, has no tradition of proselytization.
Such a conversion is even more fraught in Israel and the Palestinian territories, where religion and nationality usually overlap in a decades-old conflict. Judaism is the faith of most of the soldiers who patrol the territory and the settlers whom Palestinians see as hostile colonizers.
Arnon said most of the settlers from Hebron’s tight-knit community refused to accept Ben-Avraham. Only Arnon and a few others interacted with him, helping with his conversion application papers.
Religious conversions are rare but legal in areas administered by the semi-autonomous Palestinian Authority. Most are undertaken by Palestinian Christians converting to Islam for marriage.
In Israel, converting to Judaism requires an application to the government-run Conversion Authority. Ben-Avraham submitted two requests in 2018 but did not meet the requirements, according to a government official who was not authorized to speak with media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
With that pathway closed, Ben Avraham turned to Israel’s insular ultra-Orthodox community and eventually made his conversion official in 2020, according to documents published online.
AN ARREST
In the year before his conversion, Ben-Avraham was detained by the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence unit in Hebron, according to Arnon and a local Palestinian activist, Issa Amro.
The reason for his arrest was never publicly disclosed, but they believe his conversion and open connections with Israelis attracted unwanted attention.
Palestinians can face arrest or even death if they’re seen as collaborating with Israeli authorities. But few would have suspected Ben-Avraham of being an informant because his story was widely known.
Ben-Avraham told the Israeli news site Times of Israel that he was held for two months in solitary confinement and beaten before being released. Around that time, a video emerged showing him holding what appears to be a Qur’an and pledging his Muslim faith.
Arnon and Amro said his statement was likely made under duress during detention. The PA’s prosecution office said it had no information about his case.
After his release, Ben-Avraham moved in with Haim Parag, a Jewish friend who lived in Jerusalem. He returned to Hebron infrequently because of safety concerns and continued his Jewish studies. Parag said the pair regularly prayed together at a nearby synagogue.
“He was like a son to me,” he said.
Parag also said he met Ben-Avraham’s wife and some of his children, and that several close family members maintained a relationship with him even after his conversion.
The Zeitoun family declined to speak with The Associated Press, fearing reprisal. In the end, Ben-Avraham left little public record of what drove his personal convictions.
A DEADLY SHOOTING
Ben-Avraham was waiting outside a West Bank settlement for an Israeli bus to take him to Parag’s apartment March 19 when he got into an argument in Hebrew with an Israeli soldier.
Across the West Bank, Jewish settlers live apart from Palestinians in guarded settlements where they’re subject to different laws. Palestinians are generally barred from entering settlements unless they have work permits.
“Are you Jewish?” the soldier shouts in a video that circulated online and appears to have been shot by his body camera.
“Of course,” Ben Avraham answers.
“What’s your name?” the soldier says.
“David.” he replies.
“David?” the soldier says.
“Ben-Avraham, stupid.”
The soldier then orders Ben-Avraham to step away from his bag on the ground and raise his hands in the air, before saying sarcastically, “Jewish.”
A second video, apparently taken from a nearby security camera, appears to show two soldiers shooting Ben-Avraham from a close distance as he keels over backward onto the sidewalk.
The army said a small knife was found in Ben Avraham’s bag after the shooting. Parag said he gave him the knife for self-defense.
The Israeli army said it’s investigating the shooting, but rights groups say soldiers are rarely held accountable in such situations.
Israeli forces have been on high alert as the West Bank has seen a surge of violence linked to the war in Gaza. Nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the war’s start, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Many have been shot dead in armed clashes during military raids, others for throwing stones at troops, and some who were posing no apparent threat.
Palestinians have also carried out several stabbing and other attacks against Israelis.
Arnon said the shooting was a tragic misunderstanding. Parag, Ben-Avraham’s friend in Jerusalem, accused the soldiers of racial profiling, saying they saw Ben-Avraham for his background and not his unexpected beliefs.
A FUNERAL
Even in death, Ben-Avraham’s identity was contested.
Parag and another Israeli friend asked an Israeli court for the body to buried him at a Jewish cemetery, filing a petition against members of the Zeitoun family who wanted a Muslim funeral. Bezalel Hochman, a lawyer representing the two Israelis, said the Tel Aviv family court ruled in their favor.
After his death caused a public outcry, the Interior Ministry granted him Israeli residency, saying it wanted “to fulfill the will and desire of the deceased to be part of the nation of Israel.”
Ben Avraham was buried in April in a Jewish cemetery on the foothills of Mount Gerizim, near the Palestinian city of Nablus, Parag said. The hilltop is sacred for Samaritans — a small, ancient religious minority that straddles the Palestinian-Israeli divide, just like Ben-Avraham.
No one from the Zeitoun family attended the funeral, said Parag, who’s designing his friend’s gravestone.
He said it will read: “David Ben-Avraham Zeitoun Parag. The Holy Jew.”
Hamas authorities say over 100 academics killed in Gaza war
- Among those on the list of 104 names is Sufyan Tayeh, who was the president of the Islamic University and a leading researcher in physics and applied mathematics
- Top surgeon and professor of medicine Adnan Al-Barsh was also listed
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza authorities released a list on Thursday of more than 100 academics and researchers they say have been killed by Israeli forces since war broke out over seven months ago.
“We strongly condemn the occupation’s assassination of scientists, academics, university professors and researchers, who are a distinguished group in the Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip,” the Hamas government’s media office said in a statement.
“This sends a clear message that they aim to completely eliminate scientists and researchers in the educational sector,” it added.
Among those on the list of 104 names is Sufyan Tayeh, who was the president of the Islamic University and a leading researcher in physics and applied mathematics.
Top surgeon and professor of medicine Adnan Al-Barsh was also listed.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, Barsh, 50, died in Israeli custody on April 19 after being detained with other doctors at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza last December.
Asked at the time about his reported death in custody, the Israeli army said it was “currently not aware of such (an) incident.”
The Hamas government called on the “free countries of the world and all organizations related to education and higher education worldwide to condemn this historical crime and to pressure the occupation to stop the genocidal war.”
Its statement came against the backdrop of student protests against Israel’s conduct of the war on campuses across the United States and beyond.
Many of the demonstrators have called on their universities to divest from companies that allegedly contribute to human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The bloodiest ever war in Gaza broke out when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas has killed at least 35,272 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.
