KHARTOUM: Hundreds of demonstrators worked to clear away bricks and debris Friday, after military rulers demanded that roadblocks which have paralysed parts of Khartoum be dismantled before talks on a new transitional body can resume.
The ruling military council suspended crucial talks Wednesday with protest leaders for 72 hours, insisting that the security in the capital had deteriorated after demonstrators erected roadblocks on several avenues.
The council's decision came as army generals and protest leaders were due to meet to finalise the make-up of a new body to govern Sudan for a transitional period of three years.
The issue is the thorniest to have come up in ongoing talks on installing civilian rule after the generals took over following the ouster of autocratic president Omar al-Bashir last month.
But for the final talks to happen the military council chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, demanded that protesters dismantle roadblocks, open bridges and railway lines connecting the capital and "stop provoking security forces".
In the early hours of Friday, hundreds of demonstrators chanting revolutionary slogans tore down roadblocks on Nile Street, a key avenue, that had paralysed downtown Khartoum this week.
"We have removed the bricks... but if they do not respond to our demands then we will bring the bricks again," protester Sumeya Abdrahman told AFP while demonstrators cleared the debris.
Later on Friday an AFP correspondent who toured the area saw car traffic resume normally on Nile Street.
Protesters had erected the barricades to pressure the military rulers when talks began on Monday, but the roadblocks triggered clashes between demonstrators and security forces according to witnesses.
The military council said roadblocks are "totally unacceptable", but the generals will allow barricades set up by protesters outside the army headquarters to remain and a sit-in there to continue.
Talks between the two sides achieved significant breakthroughs on Monday, but were marred by violence which left five protesters and an army major dead.
Protesters blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Force, but Burhan said there were "armed elements among demonstrators who were shooting at security forces".
On Friday, Sudanese protesters attended prayers at the sit-in outside the military headquarters, sitting on mats placed in rows on the street.
"We have all the respect for the army and the RSF. They are our partners in the revolution," said the prayer leader as teenagers sprinkled water on worshippers gathered under the scorching sun.
As the prayers ended, worshippers chanted "freedom, peace, justice," the catchcry of the protest movement that brought down Bashir.
Women worshippers, who offered prayers in separate tents chanted: "Peaceful, peaceful! Civilian, Civilian," referring to the protesters' demand for civilian rule.
"I don't care about the heat ... What I care about is to finish this thing (the political impasse)," said protester Mohamed Ismail as he poured cold water on his head to get relieve from the mid-day sun.
The Alliance for Freedom and Change, which is leading the protest movement, said the move to suspend talks was "regrettable".
"It ignores the developments achieved in negotiations so far... and the fact that Wednesday's meeting was to finalise the agreement, which would have stopped the escalations such as roadblocks."
The protest movement vowed to press on with the sit-in, and has urged supporters to converge at the army headquarters where thousands have been camped out for weeks.
Protesters are demanding a civilian-led transition, which the generals have steadfastly resisted since bowing to demonstrators' demands in toppling Bashir.
During the first two days of talks the two sides had agreed on an overall civilian structure, including a three-year period for the full transfer of power to a civilian administration.
They had also agreed that parliament be composed of 300 members for the transition, with around two-thirds from the protest alliance and the rest drawn from other political groups.
But the make-up of the new sovereign council has been the toughest part of the negotiations, with the two sides so far proposing different compositions of the body.
The council is expected to take all key decisions concerning national issues and the generals want it to be military-led, while the protesters insist it have a civilian majority.
The body is expected to form a transitional civilian government, which would then prepare for the first post-Bashir election after changeover period ends.
Sudan protesters tear down roadblocks, want army to resume talks
Sudan protesters tear down roadblocks, want army to resume talks
- On Friday, Sudanese protesters attended prayers at the sit-in outside the military headquarters, sitting on mats placed in rows on the street
- General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan demanded that protesters dismantle roadblocks, open bridges and railway lines connecting the capital
Trucks bringing bodies and detainees into Gaza hold up aid says UNRWA
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- Asked for more details, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said that Israel had sent 225 bodies to Gaza in three containers since December that were then transported by the UN agency to local health authorities for burial, shutting the crossing temporarily
GENEVA: Trucks bringing both bodies and detainees from Israel back to Gaza through the main crossing point of Kerem Shalom regularly hold up aid deliveries, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Tuesday.
A deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza has raised pressure on Israel to boost supplies into the enclave to curb disease among the 1.7 million people displaced by the Israeli-Hamas conflict and relieve hunger amid famine warnings from the United Nations.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told journalists on Tuesday that aid supplies into Gaza had improved in April but listed a series of ongoing difficulties including regular crossing closures “because they (Israel) are dumping released detainees or dumping sometimes bodies taken to Israel and back to the Gaza Strip.”
Asked for more details, UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said that Israel had sent 225 bodies to Gaza in three containers since December that were then transported by the UN agency to local health authorities for burial, shutting the crossing temporarily. She did not have details of the circumstances of their deaths and said it was not UNRWA’s mandate to investigate.
On the detainee transfers, some of which have been previously reported by Reuters, she said that they had been transferred from Israel back to Gaza “dozens of times.”
Israel’s COGAT, a military branch in charge of aid, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for the Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva referred questions on the transfers to Jerusalem.
On aid deliveries, he said: “Mr. Lazzarini is deflecting from UNRWA’s own failures and responsibilities. Again today, there was a backlog of more than 150 trucks screened by Israel in Kerem Shalom not picked up by UN agencies.”
Tensions are high between Israel and UNRWA with the former accusing 19 UNRWA staff of involvement in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks against Israel that killed 1,200 people and prompted the latter’s military campaign in Gaza. Israel’s allegations are being examined by UN investigators although a separate review found Israel has yet to provide evidence for accusations that hundreds of UNRWA staff are members of terrorist groups.
Kerem Shalom is one of just two crossings the UN says is currently open between Gaza and its neighbors Egypt and Israel.
Palestinian authorities have previously said that Israel has returned bodies from the Israeli-Hamas conflict after confirming they were not hostages. They said they were trying to identify them and figure out where they were killed.
Tunisian opposition wants political prisoners freed before taking part in presidential election
- Ennahdha’s headquarters were shut down a year ago, and its leader Rached Ghannouchi – a former parliament speaker – was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges of glorifying terrorism
TUNIS, Tunisia: Tunisia’s main opposition coalition said Tuesday it won’t take part in the North African country’s upcoming presidential election unless President Kais Saied’s political opponents are freed and judicial independence is restored.
More than 20 political opponents have been charged or imprisoned since Saied consolidated power in 2021 by suspending parliament and rewriting the country’s constitution. Voters weary of political and economic turmoil approved his constitutional changes in a 2021 referendum with low turnout.
Saied is widely expected to run in the presidential election, likely to take place in September or October. It is unclear if anyone will challenge him.
The National Salvation Front, a coalition of the main opposition parties including once-powerful Islamist movement Ennahdha, expressed concern that the election wouldn’t be fair, and laid out its conditions for presenting a candidate.
They include freeing imprisoned politicians, allowing Ennahdha’s headquarters to reopen, guaranteeing the neutrality and independence of the electoral commission and restoring the independence of the judicial system, according to National Salvation Front president Ahmed Nejib Chebbi.
Ennahdha’s headquarters were shut down a year ago, and its leader Rached Ghannouchi – a former parliament speaker – was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges of glorifying terrorism. His supporters say the charge is politically driven.
Under the constitutional changes Saied introduced, the president can appoint members of the electoral authority as well as magistrates.
Tunisia’s earlier charter had been seen as a model for democracies in the region.
Tunisia built a widely praised but shaky democracy after unleashing Arab Spring popular uprisings across the region in 2011. Its economic woes have deepened in recent years, and it is now a major jumping off point for migrants from Tunisia and elsewhere in Africa who take dangerous boat journeys toward Europe.
Israeli ground operation in Rafah would be ‘tragedy beyond words’: UN
- “The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon,” said Griffiths
UNITED NATIONS, United States: A ground operation by Israeli troops in the southern Gaza city of Rafah would be a “tragedy beyond words,” the UN’s humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words. No humanitarian plan can counter that,” Griffiths said, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to launch an offensive on Rafah, which has become a refuge to some 1.5 million Palestinians.
With Hamas weighing a truce plan proposed in Cairo talks with the US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators, Netanyahu vowed to launch the assault on Rafah “with or without a deal.”
Washington has joined calls on Israel from other countries and humanitarian organizations to spare the city for fear an army incursion would lead to massive civilian casualties.
“The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon,” said Griffiths.
“For the hundreds of thousands of people who have fled to Gaza’s southernmost point to escape disease, famine, mass graves and direct fighting, a ground invasion would spell even more trauma and death.
“For agencies struggling to provide humanitarian aid despite the active hostilities, impassable roads, unexploded ordnance, fuel shortages, delays at checkpoints, and Israeli restrictions, a ground invasion would strike a disastrous blow.
“We are in a race to stave off hunger and death, and we are losing.”
The war in Gaza started after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,535 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
Palestinian militants also took some 250 hostages on October 7. Israel estimates 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 believed to be dead.
Why Israel is so determined to launch an offensive in Rafah. And why so many oppose it
- Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- Palestinians live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing UN shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled
JERUSALEM: Israel is determined to launch a ground offensive against Hamas in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, a plan that has raised global alarm because of the potential for harm to more than a million Palestinian civilians sheltering there.
Even as the US, Egypt and Qatar pushed for a ceasefire deal they hope would avert an assault on Rafah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Tuesday that the military would move on the town “with or without a deal” to achieve its goal of destroying the Hamas militant group.
“We will enter Rafah because we have no other choice. We will destroy the Hamas battalions there, we will complete all the objectives of the war, including the return of all our hostages,” he said.
Israel has approved military plans for its offensive and has moved troops and tanks to southern Israel in apparent preparation — though it’s still unknown when or if it will happen.
About 1.4 million Palestinians — more than half of Gaza’s population — are jammed into the town and its surroundings. Most of them fled their homes elsewhere in the territory to escape Israel’s onslaught and now face another wrenching move, or the danger of facing the brunt of a new assault. They live in densely packed tent camps, overflowing UN shelters or crowded apartments, and are dependent on international aid for food, with sanitation systems and medical facilities infrastructure crippled.
WHY RAFAH IS SO CRITICAL
Since Israel declared war in response to Hamas’ deadly cross-border attack on Oct. 7, Netanyahu has said a central goal is to destroy its military capabilities.
Israel says Rafah is Hamas’ last major stronghold in the Gaza Strip, after operations elsewhere dismantled 18 out of the militant group’s 24 battalions, according to the military. But even in northern Gaza, the first target of the offensive, Hamas has regrouped in some areas and continued to launch attacks.
Israel says Hamas has four battalions in Rafah and that it must send in ground forces to topple them. Some senior militants could also be hiding in the city.
WHY THERE IS SO MUCH OPPOSITION TO ISRAEL’S PLAN
The US has urged Israel not to carry out the operation without a “credible” plan to evacuate civilians. Egypt, a strategic partner of Israel, has said that an Israeli military seizure of the Gaza-Egypt border — which is supposed to be demilitarized — or any move to push Palestinians into Egypt would threaten its four-decade-old peace agreement with Israel.
Israel’s previous ground assaults, backed by devastating bombardment since October, leveled huge parts of northern Gaza and the southern city of Khan Younis and caused widespread civilian deaths, even after evacuation orders were given for those areas.
Israel’s military says it plans to direct the civilians in Rafah to “humanitarian islands” in central Gaza before the planned offensive. It says it has ordered thousands of tents to shelter people. But it hasn’t given details on its plan. It’s unclear if it’s logistically possible to move such a large population all at once without widespread suffering among a population already exhausted by multiple moves and months of bombardment.
Moreover, UN officials say an attack on Rafah will collapse the aid operation that is keeping the population across the Gaza Strip alive,. and potentially push Palestinians into greater starvation and mass death.
Some entry points have been opened in the north, and the US has promised that a port to bring in supplies by sea will be ready in weeks. But the majority of food, medicine and other material enters Gaza from Egypt through Rafah or the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing — traffic that is likely to be impossible during an invasion.
The US has said that Israel should use pinpoint operations against Hamas inside Rafah without a major ground assault.
After Netanyahu’s latest comments, US National Security spokesperson John Kirby said, “We don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah. Certainly, we don’t want to see operations that haven’t factored in the safety, security of” those taking refuge in the town.
POLITICAL CALCULATIONS
The question of attacking Rafah has heavy political repercussions for Netanyahu. His government could be threatened with collapse if he doesn’t go through with it. Some of his ultranationalist and conservative religious governing partners could pull out of the coalition, if he signs onto a ceasefire deal that prevents an assault.
Critics of Netanyahu say that he’s more concerned with keeping his government intact and staying in power than national interest, an accusation he denies.
One of his coalition members, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said Tuesday that accepting a ceasefire deal and not carrying out a Rafah operation would amount to Israel “raising a white flag” and giving victory to Hamas.
On the other hand, Netanyahu risks increasing Israel’s international isolation — and alienating its top ally, the United States — if it does attack Rafah. His vocal refusals to be swayed by world pressure and his promises to launch the operation could be aimed at placating his political allies even as he considers a deal.
Or he could bet that international anger will remain largely rhetorical if he goes ahead with the attack. The Biden administration has used progressively tougher language to express concerns over Netanyahu’s conduct of the war, but it has also continued to provide weapons to Israel’s military and diplomatic support.
Libyan parliament approves 2024 budget of $18.5 bln to its installed government
- The budget is for the Benghazi-based government of Osama Hamad, who came to power in March 2023 and is allied with the military commander Khalifa Haftar, who controls the east and large parts of the southern region of Libya
BENGHAZI: Libya’s eastern-based parliament on Tuesday unanimously approved the 2024 budget for the government it installed of 90 billion Libyan dinars ($18.5 billion), excluding an item for development projects, three MPs told Reuters.
The budget is for the Benghazi-based government of Osama Hamad, who came to power in March 2023 and is allied with the military commander Khalifa Haftar, who controls the east and large parts of the southern region of Libya.
Libya’s separate Tripoli-based Government of National Unity is headed by interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah, who was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021.
House of Representatives (HoR) member Aisha Tublqi said the item for development projects was excluded from the budget because “the government demanded 30 billion LYD for three years but the parliament wants more details for the projects for approval.”
It is unclear if the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya (CBL) governor, Sadiq Kabir, will hand over the money to the government of Hamad.
CBL is the only internationally recognized depository for Libyan oil revenues, the country’s vital economic income.
“We accepted and approved the budget with taking into account some notes,” said HoR member Abdulmenam Alorafi.
In February, Kabir called for a new unified government and a national budget in an apparent challenge to his former ally Dbeibah over government spending, urging for an end to what he described as parallel spending “from unknown sources.”
Dbeibah, who is no longer recognized by HoR, has vowed not to cede power to a new government without national elections.
A political process to resolve more than a decade of conflict in Libya has been stalled since an election scheduled for December 2021 collapsed amid disputes over the eligibility of the main candidates and disputes over elections laws.
The dispute over control of government and state revenue, and over a political solution to resolve years of violent chaos, threatens to launch Libya back into administrative partition and war.
In his briefing to the Security Council this month, UN special envoy Abdullah Bathily urged Libyan authorities “to promptly agree on a national budget and decisively address significant deficiencies.”
Bathily, who had tendered his resignation to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said, “The economic situation in Libya is becoming severely strained, amidst warnings from the Central Bank of Libya of an impending liquidity crisis.”
