DIWANIYAH: Anti-government demonstrators faced off against followers of influential cleric Moqtada Sadr in protest squares across Iraq Tuesday, a day after one demonstrator was killed in a clash between the two sides.
Sadr, an enigmatic militiaman-turned-politician, backed the anti-government rallies when they erupted in October but has split with other demonstrators over the nomination of Mohammad Allawi as prime minister.
The cleric endorsed Allawi while other protesters rejected him, saying he was too close to the ruling elite they had been demonstrating against for four months.
In the southern city of Diwaniyah on Tuesday, the rift escalated into a fistfight between young anti-regime demonstrators and Sadr backers, recognizable by their signature blue head caps, an AFP correspondent said.
Police intervened to separate the two camps but the young protesters broke into chants against Sadr, Iraqi authorities as well as Iran, accused by demonstrators of backing the government's crackdown against them.
Also in Diwaniyah, security forces could be seen outside schools and government offices in an attempt to ensure they reopened fully after sit-ins had forced them to shut.
It came after the interior ministry late Monday said it had ordered reinforcements to schools, and a few students could be seen trickling in the following morning.
Hundreds of students refused to go back to class, however, marching through the main anti-government protest camp with Iraqi flags and a banner that read, “Protest March for Diwaniyah High Schools.”
In Nasiriyah, too, all schools had reopened after police deployed, according to the education directorate's press chief Halim al-Hossayni.
But students took to the streets there as well to insist on keeping up their protests.
“We’re determined to pursue our peaceful movement in Habbubi square, because we want a homeland free of corruption and sectarian people,” said student Hamad Ali.
Tensions have been high in protest squares in recent days between youths furious at Allawi's nomination and Sadrists.
On Monday, a demonstrator was stabbed to death and three others wounded after men in blue caps attacked an anti-regime rally, medics and security sources said.
Allawi, 65, was nominated on February 1 after two months of political stalemate over who would replace ex-premier Adel Abdel Mahdi, who resigned in December.
Iraqi protesters face off against cleric Moqtada Sadr’s followers
https://arab.news/9pc2k
Iraqi protesters face off against cleric Moqtada Sadr’s followers
- The cleric Sadr endorsed new PM Allawi while other protesters rejected him
- In Diwaniyah the rift escalated into a fistfight between anti-regime demonstrators and Sadr backers
Israeli measures in West Bank seek to ‘assassinate Palestinian state’: Saudi UN envoy
- Kingdom ‘strongly condemns decision to convert lands to state property,’ Abdulaziz Alwasil tells Security Council
- ‘There’s no doubt that these violations undermine efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region’
NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia on Wednesday strongly condemned Israel’s “unlawful coercive measures” in the occupied West Bank, telling the UN Security Council that the actions amount to an attempt to “assassinate the Palestinian state” and undermine prospects for peace.
Speaking at a ministerial-level council meeting chaired by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Saudi Arabia’s UN Ambassador Abdulaziz Alwasil said Riyadh rejects Israeli moves to expand settlements, seize land and alter the status of the Occupied Territories.
Israeli authorities “continue to gravely violate the rights of the Palestinian people” in the West Bank, he said.
“We meet today, more than two years after the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, and at a moment where we also witness a new chapter of suffering and violations committed by the Israeli occupation,” Alwasil added.
Recent coercive measures aimed at imposing “Israeli dominance over the West Bank, expanding settlement activity, escalating settlers terrorism, practicing forced displacement against the Palestinian people and seizing their land … reflects Israel’s persistence in its attempt to assassinate the Palestinian state,” he said.
Israel’s adherence to a ceasefire agreement and halting its “illegal policies and seizure of land” have become “urgent matters that can’t be further delayed,” Alwasil added, calling for an end to “ongoing violations associated with annexation of lands belonging to unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank.”
Alwasil said 85 states have denounced the measures, and Saudi Arabia “strongly condemns the decision of the Israeli occupying authorities to convert lands in the West Bank to what it calls state property as part of schemes that aim to impose a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank.”
He added: “There’s no doubt that these violations undermine efforts to achieve peace and stability in the region.”
Alwasil reiterated that “Israel has no sovereignty” over the Occupied Territories, and expressed Riyadh’s “absolute rejection of these illegal measures which constitute a grave violation of international law, particularly Security Council resolution 2334.”
He added that “these actions are an aggression on the inherent right of the brotherly Palestinian people to establish their independent state on the June 4, 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” and that the measures aim to “alter the demographic composition and the character and the status” of the Occupied Territories.
He cited the 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, saying it is “clear and explicit” in affirming that “Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and its continued presence there is considered unlawful.”
He added: “It stressed that Israeli occupation must end and that it is invalid to annex occupied Palestinian territories.”
Alwasil also condemned the seizure and demolition of a compound belonging to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in East Jerusalem and the cutting of electricity to its facilities, including schools and health centers.
“This is an unprecedented violation of international humanitarian law aimed at undermining the status of Palestinian refugees” in the Occupied Territories, he said.
With the advent of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, he called for protecting humanitarian organizations and ensuring that they can carry out their duties “without hindrance.”
He said: “We strongly condemn practices that target humanitarian workers throughout the Palestinian territories. UNRWA isn’t a terrorist organization, and such claims are unacceptable.”
Alwasil added: “The international community must come together to provide protection for UNRWA under international humanitarian law.”
He said that in response to an invitation from US President Donald Trump, Saudi Arabia will “participate constructively and actively” in an inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace scheduled for Thursday in Washington, DC.
“We value the efforts of President Trump and his administration and the attention that they have devoted to ending the war and achieving peace in the Gaza Strip,” Alwasil added.
The Kingdom has signed the instrument of accession to the Board of Peace “in support of its efforts as a transitional body in accordance with a comprehensive plan to end the conflict in Gaza that was adopted by the Security Council by virtue of resolution 2803,” he said.
“This track aims to establish a permanent ceasefire, support the reconstruction of Gaza, and push forth a just and lasting peace based on the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state.”
Alwasil called for opening crossings to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and enabling “Palestinian and international committees to administer” the enclave “with no conditions to ensure the management of the daily affairs” of its population while preserving “the institutional and geographic linkages between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in a manner that would guarantee the unity of Palestinian land.”
Riyadh rejects “any attempt to divide or undermine the integrity of Palestinian lands,” he said. “The only path to achieving a just and comprehensive peace requires establishing a permanent ceasefire, preventing displacement and annexation, ensuring Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and supporting the reconstruction.”
