ALGIERS: Algeria’s Constitutional Council has confirmed Abdelkader Tebboune as the new president of Africa’s largest country for the next five years — despite mass protests challenging his election last week.
Tebboune won the vote in the first round with 58% of the vote, the head of the Constitutional Council announced on state television Monday. The other four candidates didn’t contest the result.
The constitutional body said the vote was carried out in a “good climate” — and didn’t mention the protests that have filled the streets of Algiers and other cities every Friday since February.
The peaceful pro-democracy movement pushed out Tebboune’s ailing predecessor, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, after 20 years in charge of this oil-rich country struggling with corruption. The protesters reject Tebboune because he served as prime minister in the old regime, and because the vote was organized by a power structure they want thrown out.
Tebboune vowed after his victory was announced Friday to reach out to the protesters and fight corruption.
The inauguration date has not been set but is expected before the end of the year.
Algeria confirms Tebboune as new president, despite protests
Algeria confirms Tebboune as new president, despite protests
- Tebboune won the vote in the first round with 58% of the vote
- The constitutional body said the vote was carried out in a “good climate”
Freed Israeli hostage says dog was ‘moral support’ in Hamas captivityA
- “We gave her our leftovers to eat,” Leimberg said of her and Bella’s time in captivity. “She tried to walk all over where we were kept, and we had to make sure she wouldn’t explore too much”
JERUSALEM: Freed Israeli hostage Mia Leimberg credited her pet dog Bella with providing “moral support” during the weeks she spent in captivity in the hands of Gaza militants.
Leimberg, her mother Gabriela and her aunt Clara Marman were among the Israeli hostages released by Hamas and its allies under a temporary truce deal before it fell apart on Friday.
Images of the 17-year-old’s release — flanked by fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, with Bella in her arms — were beamed around the world last week, finally solving the mystery of what had become of the fluffy, white family pet.
“Overall, she was a huge help to me, she kept me busy,” Leimberg said in an interview with Israeli public broadcaster Kan released on Wednesday.
“She was moral support, even though she didn’t want to be.”
Her father, Moshe, had looked for Bella in the aftermath of the assault — in which around 240 hostages were taken, Israeli officials say — hoping she would be a comfort to his daughter when she finally returned, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported.
But the fate of the animal was not known until Leimberg’s release.
“We gave her our leftovers to eat,” Leimberg said of her and Bella’s time in captivity. “She tried to walk all over where we were kept, and we had to make sure she wouldn’t explore too much.”
The seven-day pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas, which began in late November, saw 105 hostages released from Gaza, including 80 Israelis who were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Five hostages were freed before the truce, including one rescued in an Israeli operation.
Israel says 138 hostages taken by militants on October 7 remain in captivity.
The country declared war on Hamas after the attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
The latest toll from the Hamas government’s media office said 16,248 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, had been killed.
In dramatic invocation of Article 99 of UN Charter, Guterres calls on Security Council to declare ceasefire in Gaza
- Humanitarian catastrophe could have ‘potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region’
- WFP: Resumption of hostilities ‘will only intensify the catastrophic hunger crisis that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian population’
NEW YORK: In a dramatic constitutional move, the UN secretary-general has invoked one of the few powers that the Charter gives him, to call on the Security Council to declare a ceasefire to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza that could have “potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”
He cautioned that such an outcome should be avoided “at all cost.” In a letter to the Security Council seen by Arab News, Guterres invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, which says the secretary-general “may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion, may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said this was the first time Guterres had felt compelled to invoke the article since taking office in 2017.
In his letter, Guterres said the more than eight weeks of fighting had “created appalling human suffering, physical destruction and collective trauma across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
He added: “Since the start of Israel’s military operation, more than 15,000 people have reportedly been killed, over 40 per cent of whom were children. Thousands of others have been injured. More than half of all homes have been destroyed.”
He said: “Some 80 per cent of the population of 2.2 million has been forcibly displaced, into increasingly smaller areas. More than 1.1 million people have sought refuge in UNRWA facilities across Gaza, creating overcrowded, undignified and unhygienic conditions. Others have nowhere to shelter and find themselves on the streets.”
Guterres also said “the health care system in Gaza is collapsing. Hospitals have turned into battlegrounds. Nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
He warned that amid the constant bombardment across the enclave “and without shelter or the essentials to survive, I expect public order to completely break down soon.”
Guterres reiterated his plea for a “humanitarian ceasefire to be declared,” adding: “This is urgent. The civilian population must be spared from greater harm.”
Dujarric called it a “very powerful move” on behalf of the secretary-general, and expressed hope that the 15-member Security Council “will be moved to push and put in place a humanitarian ceasefire.”
The spokesman said: “I think we’re getting to a point of near paralysis of our humanitarian operations where 15,000 people have reportedly already died, where 130 of our (UNRWA) colleagues have died. (The secretary-general) doesn’t use the word catastrophe lightly.”
Asked by Arab News what took Guterres so long to invoke Article 99 given that “catastrophe” was used from the first week to describe Gaza’s plight, Dujarric said the secretary-general has been “extremely clear, has been involved. Everything is done, in a sense, in a methodical way.
“One doesn’t invoke this article lightly … Given the situation on the ground and the risk of complete collapse not only of our humanitarian operations but of civil order, it’s something that he felt needed to be done now.”
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme sounded the alarm that “the resumption of hostilities in Gaza will only intensify the catastrophic hunger crisis that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian population.”
In a statement, the UN agency said: “The renewed fighting makes the distribution of aid almost impossible and endangers the lives of humanitarian workers.”
The UAE and Russia have called for a Security Council meeting on Friday “in the light of the deteriorating situation on the ground and given today’s appeal of the secretary-general for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire.”
The two council members have said they want the talks to focus on “the resumption of hostilities in Gaza and the inconsistency of the plans announced by Israel to its obligations under International Humanitarian Law.”
‘Utter, deepening horror’: Rights chief warns of heightened risk of ‘atrocity crimes’ in Gaza
- ‘Measures need to be taken urgently, both by the parties concerned and by all states, to prevent any such crimes’
GENEVA, ISTANBUL: UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned on Wednesday there was a heightened risk of “atrocity crimes” in Gaza, urging parties involved to refrain from committing such violations.
According to the UN, the term “atrocity crimes” refers to the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined by international treaties.
“My humanitarian colleagues have described the situation as apocalyptic. In these circumstances, there is a heightened risk of atrocity crimes,” Turk said in Geneva.
“Measures need to be taken urgently, both by the parties concerned and by all states, particularly those with influence, to prevent any such crimes,” he said.
HIGHLIGHT
Civilians in Gaza continue to be relentlessly bombarded by Israel and collectively punished — suffering death, siege, destruction and deprivation of the most essential human needs such as food, water, lifesaving medical supplies and other essentials on a massive scale.
“Civilians in Gaza continue to be relentlessly bombarded by Israel and collectively punished — suffering death, siege, destruction and deprivation of the most essential human needs such as food, water, lifesaving medical supplies and other essentials on a massive scale,” he told a press conference.
“Palestinians in Gaza are living in utter, deepening horror.”
He said 1.9 million of the Palestinian enclave’s 2.2 million people had been displaced and were being pushed into “ever-diminishing and extremely overcrowded places in southern Gaza, in unsanitary and unhealthy conditions.
“Humanitarian aid is again virtually cut off as fears of widespread disease and hunger spread.”
Israeli troops and Hamas militants were locked in fierce ground combat in Gaza on Wednesday after the Israelis reached the southern city of Khan Younis.
Turk said that the only way to end the conflict was to end the Israeli occupation and opt for a two-state solution. “I think one thing is very clear: It cannot go back to what it was,” he said.
Turk’s office requested access to Israel to collect information on the Oct. 7 attacks, including acts of sexual violence, but had not received a response from Israel.
Hamas denies its fighters committed such abuses.
Turk also noted what he called “dehumanizing and inciteful statements” made by high-level Israeli officials and figures from Hamas, which he said could potentially be viewed as incitement to committing atrocity crimes.
“History has shown us where this kind of language can lead,” he said. “This is not just unacceptable, but a competent court may view such statements in the circumstances in which they are made as incitement to atrocity crimes.”
Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group’s Oct. 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities, and saw around 240 hostages taken into Gaza.
“As an immediate step, I call for an urgent cessation of hostilities and the release of all hostages,” Turk said, adding: “you need to come back to your senses.”
Meanwhile, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkiye rejects plans to establish a post-war buffer zone in Gaza because it would be disrespectful to Palestinians. Reuters reported last week that Israel had conveyed plans for the buffer zone to several Arab states and Turkiye.
Speaking to reporters on a flight from Doha, Erdogan said Gaza’s governance and future after the war would be decided by Palestinians alone.
“I consider even the debating of this (buffer-zone) plan as disrespectful to my Palestinian siblings. For us, this is not a plan that can be debated, considered, or discussed,” Erdogan’s office quoted him as saying.
Calling for Israel to hand back territories it occupies and end settlements in those territories, he said: “Israel must remove the terrorists — which it markets to the world as settlers — from those houses and those lands, and think about how it can build a peaceful future with Palestinians.”
Erdogan said Israel had become “the West’s spoiled child,” and blamed Western support for Israel for the situation in the region.
Asked about reports that Israeli officials want to hunt down Hamas members in other countries, Erdogan said carrying out such a operation in Turkiye would have “very serious” consequences.
“In the event they carry out such a mistake, they should know that they will pay the price for this very, very heavily,” he said.
Erdogan said Turkiye and Qatar wanted to rebuild Gaza and that Turkiye was ready to act as a guarantor or host a peace conference.
Ankara has sharply criticized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and hosts some members of Hamas. Unlike most of its NATO allies, it does not view Hamas as a terrorist group.
Houthi court sentences Yemeni women’s rights activist to death
- Fatema Saleh Mohammed Al-Arwali, an activist and head of the Yemeni branch of the Arab League’s Arab Women Leadership Council, sentenced to death for gathering military intelligence
- Yemeni officials, as well as local and international rights organizations and activists, severely denounced the death sentence and urged the militia to release Al-Arwali
AL-MUKALLA: A court in Houthi-held Sanaa on Tuesday condemned a women’s rights rights activist to death for spying, sparking an uproar in Yemen and abroad against the Iran-backed militia.
Abdul Majeed Sabra, a Yemeni lawyer, told Arab News that the Specialized Criminal Court of First Instance in Sanaa sentenced Fatema Saleh Mohammed Al-Arwali, an activist and head of the Yemeni branch of the Arab League’s Arab Women Leadership Council, to death for gathering military intelligence and sending key Houthi locations to the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen to be bombed.
The militia had kidnapped Al-Arwali while she was traveling to the southern city of Aden from Houthi-controlled Taiz. She was abducted and family requests to know her whereabouts were ignored.
The Houthis put Al-Arwali on trial early this year, but barred her from receiving legal representation.
Yemeni officials, as well as local and international rights organizations and activists, severely denounced the death sentence and urged the militia to release Al-Arwali and end its harassment of activists.
Dozens of Yemeni activists, lawyers and academics signed an online petition demanding that the Houthis release the activist, adding that her lawyer was barred from the courtroom during the first trial session and Al-Arwali was condemned to a lightless underground detention facility for almost a year.
“We urge that the death sentence imposed on her be overturned. We urge human rights and civil society groups to unite in opposition to this unfair sentencing that undermines justice,” the Yemeni activists said in the petition.
Amnesty International and the Geneva-based SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties also released separate statements criticizing the death sentence and urging the Houthis to free Al-Arwali.
“Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases, without exception, and calls on the Houthis to immediately quash Al-Arwali’s death sentence and ensure she promptly receives a fair trial in line with international standards or is immediately released,” the organization said on X.
Israel, Hamas must ‘de-escalate, allow humanitarians to operate,’ ICRC DG Robert Mardini tells Arab News
- Senior official of International Committee of the Red Cross doubles down on calls to warring sides to respect Geneva Conventions
- Expresses gratitude for strong Saudi support in Gaza and Sudan, wants humanitarian partnership to climb new heights
RIYADH: Despite the daily efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross to “step up, to scale up, to send more people on the ground in Gaza,” humanitarians “can only do so much,” according to Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s director general.
He made the comment in the course of an interview on Tuesday with Arab News in Riyadh, where he held a meeting with officials from the Saudi aid agency KSrelief.
“We cannot cope with this magnitude of needs and we want the parties in the conflict, the Israeli side and the Hamas side, to de-escalate and to create the conditions for humanitarians to be able to operate at the level that is required,” Mardini said.
He added that the current level and intensity of fighting in Gaza makes humanitarians’ ability to operate at the levels required “impossible.”
He said: “No meaningful humanitarian response is possible under the current circumstances. This is why we have to, in parallel to doing everything we can to step up the humanitarian response, double down on repeating and reiterating our calls to the parties in the conflict to respect their obligations under the rules of war, the Geneva Conventions.”
Mardini made it clear that as humanitarians, the ICRC will continue to push the limits of the possible to “make a difference for the people in Gaza.”
But while efforts will continue, Mardini said the ICRC can only do so much, “and the responsibility lies within the parties in the conflict.”
He added: “They have the obligations under the Geneva Conventions to protect civilians, to do everything they can to protect civilians, and to de-escalate the conflict; to ensure that there are regular humanitarian pauses to allow humanitarian supplies to get into the Gaza Strip; and to allow humanitarian workers to be able to deliver much-needed humanitarian support to the people in Gaza, and also to give respite to the civilian population, who are living in disastrous conditions, in constant fear of violent death.”
Mardini has no doubt about the immediate requirements: A de-escalation of the conflict, regular humanitarian pauses, and better conditions for civilians.
He said all people in Gaza today were traumatized by what is happening.
When asked about what needs to take place to alleviate the suffering of people in Gaza, he said that humanitarian goods were critical.
“Even before the conflict started on Oct. 7, on average 400 to 500 or 600 trucks a day were getting into the Gaza Strip at the time where it was more or less normal life,” Mardini said.
Now, after nearly two months of fighting, “people (are) being torn apart with thousands killed, tens of thousands severely injured,” and the needs of the region are much greater.
He added: “So, definitely, 200 trucks, which was the maximum reach during the seven-day truce, is only a small fragment, and it’s a drop in an ocean of needs. Trucks alone will not save the people of Gaza.
“What the people of Gaza need now is going back to a normal life, is more respite, is the de-escalation of the conflict. And it’s a political solution that is needed to avoid additional loss of life, and desperation and despair.”
Mardini stressed that although the ICRC is currently trying to receive reasonable security guarantees, “it’s very tough because today, really nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
He said: “Our own teams were in the line of fire. The teams of the Palestine Red Crescent Society were also caught in the line of fire. Many other humanitarians from UNWRA, MSF, also lost their lives in the line of duty.”
Mardini underlined the gravity of the humanitarian situation, adding that the ICRC has a full surgical team working in the European Hospital of Gaza with Palestinian doctors and nurses.
He said: “The testimonies they are giving us are terrifying and horrifying, you know. The sheer number of mass casualties is totally unprecedented.”
According to the Hamas-run government media office in Gaza, fighting has claimed more than 16,000 lives since the start of the war. While a humanitarian pause was reached on Nov. 24, it ended on Dec. 1, with Israeli forces resuming combat operations.
Mardini said: “The resumption of the fighting in the Gaza Strip is taking its toll on the civilian population, which has been through impossible hardship over the past almost two months.”
Mardini described the testimonies he has heard from ICRC colleagues on the ground in the Gaza Strip operating in a hospital and supporting the Palestine Red Crescent Society volunteers as “horrendous.”
He added: “People are living in difficult circumstances. The families have been separated. Thousands are getting into hospitals.”
He said that hospitals were so overcrowded with the sick, injured, and those seeking shelter that treatment had become difficult. He added that such overcrowding, complicated by shortages of water and medicine, may lead to the spread of disease.
“Doctors are facing impossible choices of who to save, who will make it, who won’t be able to make it, because of the very limited medical supplies, the lack of fuel,” he said.
He added that civilians were in areas, “the so-called safe zones,” adding that “(they) are not really safe, because there are no safe places in the Gaza Strip today.”
Commenting on his meeting with Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, KSrelief’s supervisor general, during which they discussed the situation in Gaza, he said: “The King Salman Center is a very solid partner of ICRC.
“We have discussed ways and means to step up the humanitarian response. I expressed also our gratitude at ICRC for the very strong support of the King Salman Center, which has recently contributed through funding for our humanitarian endeavors in the Gaza Strip, as it did several months ago to our work in Sudan.”
When asked about the application of the law of armed conflict, which was put in place to set the conduct of military operations and provide protection for the victims of conflict, Mardini asserted that “the law of armed conflict actually works.”
He said: “We have a demonstration of this every day. Every day, an ICRC surgeon is able to save a life.
“Every day, a Palestine Red Crescent volunteer is able to evacuate the severely injured from our hospital to the other. Every day. And we have seen this over the past seven days. The ICRC managed to facilitate the release of hostages in Gaza and Palestinian detainees in Israel to their families in Ramallah.
“These are the laws of war in action. These are the laws of war working.”
Elaborating on the point, he said that when the law of armed conflict works, it “prevents harm from happening in the first place … The laws of war are the ultimate safety net to uphold dignity in war. They should be supported; they should be respected by parties in the conflict.”
Discussing the role of the ICRC in aiding hostage situations, he described the agency as a “neutral intermediary.”
He said: “The ICRC has a dialogue with all sides of the conflict. And when the hostages were taken, we did three things. We first called for their immediate release, because civilian hostages should not be taken in armed conflict.”
He went on to add that the ICRC checked the health status of hostages and ensured they were able to communicate with their families.
He said: “I have to hope that the two parties will continue to negotiate for further releases of hostages and Palestinian detainees. And we are certainly ready to renew these types of operations, of course, provided the conditions are acceptable for the safety of hostages and detainees, and our own staff.”
He added: “We need to keep hope alive. I think it’s important civilians, on both sides of this front line, still have hope. And they deserve better conditions than they have today.”
