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Iran’s strategy of state piracy menaces Middle East oil lanes

1 / 12
When Iranian “armed soldiers” boarded the South Korean-flagged oil tanker Hankuk Chemi on Jan. 4, 2021, they were implementing a longstanding if unstated policy of state piracy in the waters of the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. (AFP/File Photo)
2 / 12
The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow entrance to the Gulf from the Arabian Sea, has emerged as a favorite hunting ground for Iranian IRGC naval units looking to harass oil tankers, of which the Hankuk Chemi, seized on Jan. 4, 2021, is only the latest. (Reuters/WANA)
3 / 12
Two oil tankers were damaged in twin attacks close to the Iranian coast on June 13, 2020, just outside the Strait of Hormuz. The Kokuka Courageous was struck in the Gulf of Oman by a limpet mine resembling Iranian weapons, according to the US military in the Middle East. (AFP)
4 / 12
The Japanese vessel Kokuka Courageous was struck in the Gulf of Oman by a limpet mine resembling Iranian weapons, according to the US military in the Middle East. It was one of two oil tankers damaged in twin attacks close to the Iranian coast on June 13, 2020, just outside the Strait of Hormuz. (AFP/File Photo)
5 / 12
The British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero was seized in July 2019 by IRGC units and held off Bandar Abbas port in southern Iran for more than two months as a tit-for-tat move against the detention of an Iranian vessel suspected of shipping oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions. (AFP file photo)
6 / 12
In July 2019, it was the turn of the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero, which was seized by IRGC units and held off Bandar Abbas port in southern Iran for more than two months as a tit-for-tat move against the detention of an Iranian vessel suspected of shipping oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions. (AFP/File Photo)
7 / 12
Iran-backed Houthi militias have repeatedly rebuffed UN pleas to allow an inspection team to enter the FSO Safer, abandoned off the port of Hodeidah with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board, to conduct repairs. The UN expressed fears on July 15, 2020, of "catastrophe" if the vessel ruptured into the Red Sea. (AFP/File Photo)
8 / 12
The UN expressed fears on July 15, 2020, of "catastrophe" if the FSO Safer, abandoned off Yemen's coast with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board, ruptured into the Red Sea. Iran-backed Houthi militias, who control Hodeidah port, have repeatedly rebuffed UN pleas to allow an inspection team to enter the ship to conduct repairs. (AFP/File Photo)
9 / 12
A group of 15 British Royal Navy personnel celebrated their release in April 2007 after nearly two weeks of captivity in Iran. They had been seized by Iran in northern Gulf waters in an act of gunboat diplomacy that sparked weeks of wrangling between the two countries. (AFP/File Photo)
10 / 12
In April 2007, 15 British Royal Navy personnel celebrated their release after nearly two weeks of captivity in Iran. They were seized by Iran in northern Gulf waters in an act of gunboat diplomacy that sparked weeks of wrangling between the two countries. (AFP/File Photo)
11 / 12
British servicemen were made to march blindfolded on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway where they were detained in June 2004 by Iranian troops. The eight were arrested allegedly for straying into Iranian waters. The Shatt al-Arab straddles the border between Iran and southern Iraq. (AFP/File Photo)
12 / 12
Detained by Iranian troops in June 2004, eight British servicemen were made to march blindfolded on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab waterway after they allegedly strayed into Iranian waters. The Shatt al-Arab straddles the border between Iran and southern Iraq. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 07 January 2021
Robert Edwards
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Iran’s strategy of state piracy menaces Middle East oil lanes

  • Iran’s IRGC naval units and their Houthi proxies thumb their nose at the world by seizing oil tankers plying the Gulf
  • The South Korean-flagged Hankuk Chemi is just the latest in a long line of vessels seized by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz
Updated 07 January 2021
Robert Edwards

LONDON: Iran dialed up tensions in the Gulf this week when its troops stormed a South Korean-flagged tanker as it transited through the strategic Strait of Hormuz — a choke point through which a fifth of world oil output passes. The incident is only the latest in a long line of Iranian acts of “state piracy” in the flashpoint region.

The MT Hankuk Chemi was en route from Saudi Arabia’s Jubail to the UAE’s Fujairah on Monday when members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy boarded the vessel and brought it to the port of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran, placing its multinational crew of 20 under arrest.

Iranian authorities alleged the tanker, carrying 7,200 tons of ethanol, was seized for infringing maritime environmental laws — claims the vessel’s owner denies.

Observers suspect the ship was in fact taken hostage as part of an ongoing row with Seoul over $7 billion in revenue from oil sales that remain frozen in South Korean banks under US sanctions imposed against Iran by the Trump administration.

Although the MT Hankuk Chemi is the first major vessel to be seized by Iran in more than a year, incidents of this kind have become all too common in the Strait of Hormuz and nearby shipping lanes. Several vessels have been boarded or mysteriously attacked since President Donald Trump ramped up his “maximum pressure” campaign, with Iran named as the likely culprit.

The IRGC navy has long used its fleet of speedboats to harass commercial shipping and military vessels in the region, seizing at least six ships in 2019 over alleged fuel smuggling. Iran has also repeatedly threatened to blockade the strait if it is attacked.

Several incidents pre-date the current tensions. In January 2016, the IRGC seized two US Navy riverine command boats after they entered Iranian territorial waters near Iran’s Farsi Island. After a flurry of phone calls between then-US secretary of state John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the sailors were released unharmed 15 hours later.




Iran's ambassador to South Korea Saeed Badamchi Shabestari arrives at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul on January 5, 2021, after he was summoned over a South Korean oil tanker being seized by Iran. (AFP/YONHAP)

In March 2007, the IRGC detained 15 British navy personnel from HMS Cornwall as they were searching a merchant vessel off the Iran-Iraq coast. They were released 13 days later. A similar incident occurred in 2004 when six Royal Marines and two Royal Navy sailors were captured by the IRGC in the Shatt al-Arab waterway. They were released three days later.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has also launched repeated attacks on ports and ships in recent years, routinely planting marine mines in the southern Red Sea and in the Bab Al-Mandab Strait in the path of commercial shipping.

The militia has repeatedly rebuffed UN pleas to allow an inspection team to enter the FSO Safer, a 45-year-old oil tanker abandoned off the port of Hodeidah with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board, to conduct urgent repairs. In an extraordinary session, the UN expressed fears on July 15, 2020, of "catastrophe" if the vessel ruptured into the Red Sea.




This CCTV image provided by South Korea's Taikun Shipping Co. shows the moment a South Korean tanker was captured by an Armed Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboat, right, on the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz Monday, Jan. 4, 2021. (AFP/File Photo)

In May 2019, Washington deployed the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and four B-52 bombers to the Middle East, citing unspecified Iranian threats. A matter of days later, on May 12, four commercial ships, including two Saudi Aramco oil tankers, were damaged near the port of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman in what the UAE called a “sabotage attack.”

On June 13, the oil tankers Front Altair and Kokuka Courageous were also both rocked by explosions, thought to have been caused by limpet mines or flying objects. Days later, on June 20, Iran shot down an American RQ-4A surveillance drone flying over the Strait of Hormuz, raising tensions further.

At the time, US President Donald Trump said Iranian boats harassing the US navy “will be shot out of the water.”

INNUMBERS

Iranian Piracy

 

* 20 - Civilian sailors aboard South Korean-flagged Hankuk Chemi.

* $7bn - Amount claimed by Iran to be in a South Korean bank.

The following month, the IRGC held the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero for two months for allegedly ramming a fishing boat. The move was widely seen as an act of retaliation after British Royal Marines detained an Iranian tanker, the Grace 1, in the Strait of Gibraltar on suspicion of violating EU sanctions on Syria.

In the wake of the incident, US Central Command established Operation Sentinel, invited nations to coordinate on surveillance and provide escorts to their flagged commercial vessels in the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Oman.

After European powers voiced qualms about the possibility of being dragged into a war with Iran, the US rebranded Operation Sentinel as the “International Maritime Security Construct” in Sept. 2019, headquartered in Bahrain.

The world’s eyes are once again on Iran as it uses the capture of the Hankuk Chemi to win concessions from South Korea. Seoul has confirmed it is in talks with Tehran and Washington to use the frozen Iranian money to purchase coronavirus vaccines for the country.




This undated picture taken in an unknown location and released on January 5, 2021 by Yonhap news agency in Seoul shows South Korean Navy's destroyer ROKS Choi Young. South Korea will send a government delegation to Iran "at the earliest possible date" to negotiate the release of a seized oil tanker and its crew, Seoul's foreign ministry said on January 5. (AFP/File Photo)

At the same time, South Korea’s foreign ministry said it is launching legal action to demand the ship’s release. Its defense ministry has also deployed its 300-strong Cheonghae anti-piracy unit to the Strait of Hormuz aboard the destroyer Choi Young to “ensure the safety” of South Korean nationals.

Shin Beom-chul, chief researcher at the Korea Research Institute for Economy and Society, told Arab News that the Iranian move is a desperate bid to get recognition from the incoming Biden administration in the US, which is expected to take a relatively softer stance vis-a-vis Iran.

“Tehran is sending a clear message that it can ratchet up aggression in the region any time, while the issue of frozen money in South Korea is just part of the Trump administration’s financial sanctions,” Shin said.

Iran is reeling from sanctions reintroduced after the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, in May 2018. Iran’s economic woes have been compounded by one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the region.




This handout photo provided by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official website via SEPAH News on November 19, 2020, shows a military drone parked on a warship named after slain Naval commander Abdollah Roudaki, sailing through the waters in the Gulf during it's inauguration. (AFP/File Photo)

European powers, meanwhile, are scrambling to salvage the JCPOA, just as Iran announced on Monday it has stepped up its uranium enrichment to 20 percent purity — far beyond the limits set by the deal.

Tehran’s successive breaches of the nuclear deal are widely interpreted as a means of pressuring European signatories to provide sanctions relief — a move that Washington has branded “nuclear extortion.”

Also fresh in Tehran’s mind this week is the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds Force commander, who was eliminated with a US drone strike near Baghdad airport one year ago.

Struggling with sanctions and COVID-19, and bruised by strategic setbacks, Iran appeared to rein in its extra-legal naval activities in 2020. But now the IRGC seems to be reasserting itself in the waning days of the Trump administration.

With little sign of de-escalation in the Gulf, the Hankuk Chemi may not be the last commercial ship to be targeted by Iran in 2021.

-------------------

Twitter: @RobertPEdwards

 

Soleimani’s shadow
Qassem Soleimani left a trail of death and destruction in his wake as head of Iran’s Quds Force … until his assassination on Jan. 3, 2020. Yet still, his legacy of murderous interference continues to haunt the region

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Topics: Middle East Iran South Korea piracy Strait of Hormuz Editor’s Choice

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Pro-Turkiye Syria mercenaries head to Niger to earn cash

Updated 5 sec ago
AFP
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Pro-Turkiye Syria mercenaries head to Niger to earn cash

  • At least 1,000 fighters have been sent to Niger in recent months “to protect Turkish projects and interests,” says Syrian war monitor SOHR
  • Niger borders oil-rich Libya, and in 2020, Washington accused Turkiye-linked SADAT of sending Syrian fighters to Libya
Updated 5 sec ago
AFP

BEIRUT: Like hundreds of other pro-Turkish fighters, Omar left northern Syria for mineral-rich Niger last year, joining Syrian mercenaries sent to the West African nation by a private Turkish military company.

“The main reason I left is because life is hard in Syria,” fighter Omar, 24, told AFP on message app WhatsApp from Niger.
In northern Syria “there are no job opportunities besides joining an armed faction and earning no more than 1,500 Turkish lira ($46) a month,” Omar said, requesting like others AFP interviewed to be identified by a pseudonym for security reasons.
Analysts say Ankara has strong ties with the new military regime in Niamey, in power since a July 2023 coup.
And in recent months, at least 1,000 fighters have been sent to Niger “to protect Turkish projects and interests,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
For the past decade, Turkiye has been increasing its footprint in Niger, mostly through “humanitarian aid, development and commerce,” said Gabriella Korling, a researcher focusing on the Sahel at the Swedish Defense Research Agency.
“The defense component of the relation between Niger and Turkiye has become more important over time with the signing of a military cooperation agreement in 2020 and the sale of armed drones,” Korling said.
Niamey often refers to Turkiye, Russia and China as “partners that are respectful of Niger’s sovereignty,” she added.
Omar, who supports his mother and three siblings, said since leaving his home in August he receives a “very good” monthly salary of $1,500 for his work in the West African nation.
He hopes his earnings will help him start a small business and quit the battlefield, after years working as a fighter for a pro-Ankara faction.
Tens of thousands of young men have joined the ranks of jihadist factions and others loyal to Ankara in Syria’s north and northwest, where four million people, half of them displaced, live in desperate conditions.

Omar said he was among a first batch of more than 200 fighters who left Syria’s Turkish-controlled north in August for Niger.
He is now readying to return home after his six-month contract, renewed once, ended.
He and two other pro-Ankara Syrian fighters who spoke to AFP in recent weeks said they had enlisted for work in Niger with the Sultan Murad faction, one of Turkiye’s most loyal proxies in northern Syria.
They said they had signed six-month contracts at the faction’s headquarters with private firm SADAT International Defense Consultancy.
“SADAT officers came into the room and we signed the contract with them,” said fighter Ahmed.
“They handle everything,” from travel to accommodation, added the 30-year-old, who was readying to travel from northern Syria to Niger.
The company is widely seen as Ankara’s secret weapon in wars across North Africa and the Middle East, although its chief denied the allegation in a 2021 interview with AFP.
Niger borders oil-rich Libya, and in 2020, Washington accused SADAT of sending Syrian fighters to Libya.
Turkiye has sent thousands of Syrian fighters to Libya to buttress the Tripoli government, which it backs against rival Russian-backed authorities in the east according to the Observatory and the Syria Justice and Accountability Center.
The Center said SADAT was “responsible for the international air transport of mercenaries once they crossed into Turkish territory” to go to Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkiye has also sent Syrian fighters to bolster Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh, but its efforts to send mercenaries to Niger have been shrouded in secrecy.
Turkiye’s defense ministry told AFP: “All these allegations are false and have no truth.”
Omar said his journey took him to Gaziantep in Turkiye, then to Istanbul, where he boarded a military plane to Burkina Faso before being driven under escort to camps in neighboring Niger.
After two weeks of military training, he was tasked with guarding a site near a mine, whose name he said he didn’t know.
He said he and other Syrians worked alongside Nigeriens in military fatigues, but was unable to say if they were soldiers.
“They divided us into several groups of guards and fighters,” he said.
Another group “was sent to fight Boko Haram (jihadists) and another was sent to Lome” in neighboring Togo, he said, without providing details about their mission.
His family collects his monthly salary, minus a $350 fee for his faction.


Ahmed, who has been a fighter for 10 years, said he had been told his mission would consist of “protecting military positions” after undergoing training.
He said “there could be battles” at some point, but did not know who he would be fighting.
The father of three said he spent six months in Libya in 2020 earning more than $2,000 a month.
In July 2023, the army seized power in Niger, ending security and defense agreements with Western countries including France, which has withdrawn forces who were fighting jihadists.
“The coup in 2023 did not disrupt diplomatic relations between Turkiye and Niger,” researcher Korling added, pointing to the appointment of the first Turkish defense attache to Niger earlier this year.
Last year, Turkish state television opened a French-language channel covering Africa, and Ankara operates daily flights to Niamey.
“Turkiye, given its religious proximity and lack of political and historical baggage, is looked upon quite favorably in Niger especially in comparison to” Western countries, said Korling.


Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Turkiye was “exploiting” impoverished men in areas under its control “to recruit them as mercenaries in military operations” serving Ankara’s foreign interests.
The war monitor and other human rights groups said promises of lucrative payments to mercenaries sent abroad are not always kept.
Mohammad Al-Abdallah of the Syria Justice and Accountability Center said his organization had for example documented “false promises of granting Turkish citizenship” to those sent to Azerbaijan or Libya.
Abdul Rahman noted reports that about 50 Syrian fighters had been killed in Niger, mostly after they were attacked by jihadists, but he said his organization had only verified nine deaths, with four bodies having been repatriated.
A source within a faction whose members have been dispatched to Niger said about 50 bodies were expected to return in the coming days.
For Abed, a 30-year-old Syrian who has been displaced with his family for more than a decade, death is a risk he has decided to take.
The father of four and sole breadwinner told AFP: “I’m scared of dying... but maybe I could die here” too.
The difference, he said, is that in Syria “I would die for 1,000 Turkish liras ($30), and (in Niger) I would die for $1,500.”
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Topics: Niger Syrian Observatory for Human Rights SADAT International Defense Consultancy

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Tunisian bar association accuses policemen of torturing a lawyer during detention

Updated 50 min 9 sec ago
Reuters
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Tunisian bar association accuses policemen of torturing a lawyer during detention

  • Lawyer Souad Boker said Zagrouba appeared on Wednesday before the investigating judge in a exhausted state
  • Lawyer Mahdi Zagrouba was arrested after he criticized the president for detaining Sonia Dahmani, another lawyer, during the weekend
Updated 50 min 9 sec ago
Reuters

TUNIS: Tunisian lawyer Mahdi Zagrouba was tortured by police officers after being arrested on Monday, lawyers and a human rights organization said on Wednesday after he collapsed in court and was taken to a hospital.

The Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Lawyer Souad Boker said Zagrouba appeared on Wednesday before the investigating judge in a exhausted state, adding that “he mentioned the names of the policemen who tortured him before he suffered a collapse and coma.”
Witnesses and lawyers said that Zagrouba was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
TAP state news agency quoted Zarouba’s attorney, Boubaker Ben Thabet, as saying Zagrouba had been subjected to “systematic torture” during his detention.
Toumi Ben Farhat, another lawyer representing Zagrouba, said his colleague “was subjected to extremely severe torture.”
Tunisian police stormed the bar association’s headquarters on Monday for the second time in two days and arrested Zagrouba, who has criticized the president, after detaining Sonia Dahmani, another lawyer, during the weekend.
Bassam Trifi, the head of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, said that “Zagrouba was subjected to brutal torture, and I personally witnessed the torture on his body.”
Without referring to the allegations, President Kais Saied said in a statement after a meeting with Minister of Justice Laila Jafel that the state is responsible for guaranteeing every prisoner the right to treatment that preserves his dignity.
The Bar Association said in a statement late on Wednesday that torture deserves criminal prosecution, and that it held the Ministry of Interior officers responsible. It said a strike was planned for Thursday.
Saied took office after free elections in 2019, but two years later he shut down the elected parliament and has ruled by decree.

The European Union said on Tuesday it was concerned about the wave of imprisonment of many civil society figures, journalists and political activists, and demanded clarifications from Tunisia.

Topics: Tunisia Mahdi Zagrouba

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Sudan facing ‘inferno’ of violence, crushing aid holdups: UN

Updated 16 May 2024
AFP
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Sudan facing ‘inferno’ of violence, crushing aid holdups: UN

  • The grim situation is only expected to worsen
Updated 16 May 2024
AFP

United Nations, US: Residents of conflict-hit Sudan are “trapped in an inferno of brutal violence” and increasingly at risk of famine due to the rainy season and blocked aid, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for the country warned Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of people have died and millions have been displaced since war broke out in April 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“Famine is closing in. Diseases are closing in. The fighting is closing in and there’s no end in sight,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami told a press conference.
The grim situation is only expected to worsen, with “just six weeks before the lean season sets in, when food becomes less available, and more expensive.”
Noting that more than four million people are facing potential famine, Nkweta-Salami added that the onset of the country’s rainy season means that “reaching people in need becomes even more difficult.”
The area’s planting season also “could fail if we aren’t able to procure and deliver seeds for farmers,” she said.
And “after more than a year of conflict, the people of Sudan are trapped in an inferno of brutal violence.”
“In short, the people of Sudan are in the path of a perfect storm that is growing more lethal by the day,” Nkweta-Salami warned, adding that the humanitarian community needs “unfettered access to reach people in need, wherever they are.”
The United Nations has expressed growing concern in recent days over reports of heavy fighting in densely populated areas as the RSF seeks control of El-Fasher, the last major city in the western Darfur region not under its control.
“Right now the humanitarian assistance they rely on can’t get through,” Nkweta-Salami said.
More than a dozen UN trucks loaded with medical equipment and food, which left Port Sudan on April 3, have still not reached El Fasher, she said, “due to insecurity and delays in getting clearances at checkpoints.”

Topics: Sudan

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Israel PM says no humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands flee Rafah

Updated 16 May 2024
AFP
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Israel PM says no humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands flee Rafah

Updated 16 May 2024
AFP

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday insisted there was no “humanitarian catastrophe” in Rafah, even as hundreds of thousands fled the south Gaza city amid intense fighting.
Hamas meanwhile insisted it would take part in any decision on the post-war government of Gaza as Palestinians marked the 76th anniversary of the “Nakba,” when around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during the 1948 creation of Israel.
Israeli forces have bombed Hamas militants around Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah, but clashes have also flared again in northern and central areas which Israeli troops first entered months ago.
The upsurge in urban combat has fueled US warnings that Israel, which launched its war after the October 7 Hamas attacks, risks being bogged down in years of counterinsurgency.
But despite previous threats by US President Joe Biden to withhold some arms deliveries over Netanyahu’s insistence on attacking Rafah, his administration informed Congress on Tuesday of a new $1 billion weapons package for Israel, official sources told AFP.
The European Union urged Israel to end its military operation in Rafah “immediately,” warning failure to do so would “inevitably put a heavy strain” on ties with the bloc.
But even as he announced that hundreds of thousands had been “evacuated,” Netanyahu insisted there was no humanitarian crisis in Rafah.

Displaced Palestinians pack their belongings after dismantling their tents before leaving an unsafe area in Rafah on May 15, 2024, as Israeli forces continued to battle and bomb Hamas militants around the southern Gaza Strip city. (AFP)

“Our responsible efforts are bearing fruit. So far, in Rafah, close to half a million people have been evacuated from the combat zones. The humanitarian catastrophe that was spoken about did not materialize, nor will it,” he said.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, meanwhile said “600K people have fled Rafah since military operations intensified.”

Nakba Day

The sight of desperate families carrying scant belongings through the ruins of war-scarred Gaza cities has evoked for many the events of the 1948 Nakba which translates from Arabic as “catastrophe.”
Hamas declared in a Nakba Day statement that “the ongoing suffering of millions of refugees inside Palestine and in the diaspora is directly attributed to the Zionist occupation.”
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh insisted meanwhile that the militant movement will be involved in deciding post-war rule in Gaza along with other Palestinian factions.
“We say that the Hamas movement is here to stay ... and it will be the movement and all national (Palestinian) factions who will decide the post-war rule in Gaza,” Haniyeh said in a televised address for Nakba.
He also said the fate of truce talks was uncertain because of Israel’s “insistence on occupying the Rafah crossing and on its expansion of the aggression” in the Palestinian territory.
“Any agreement must ensure a permanent ceasefire, comprehensive withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from all sectors of the Gaza Strip, a real deal for exchange of prisoners, the return of displaced persons, reconstruction and lifting the siege” of Gaza, Haniyeh said.
Thousands marched to mark the day in cities across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, waving Palestinian flags, wearing keffiyeh scarves and holding up symbolic keys as reminders of long-lost family homes.
Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring home hostages still held in Gaza.

“Our responsible efforts are bearing fruit. So far, in Rafah, close to half a million people have been evacuated from the combat zones. The humanitarian catastrophe that was spoken about did not materialize, nor will it,” he said.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNWRA, meanwhile said “600K people have fled Rafah since military operations intensified.”

In a Wednesday interview with CNBC, Netanyahu addressed the tensions with Biden over the offensive, saying: “Yes, we do have a disagreement on Gaza. Rather, on Rafah. But we have to do what we have to do.”
Washington has also repeatedly urged Israel to work on a post-war plan for Gaza and supports the goal of a two-state solution, which Netanyahu and his far-right allies strongly oppose.
US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said without a political plan, Palestinian militants “will keep coming back” trapping all sides in “this continued cycle of violence.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday said he would “not agree to the establishment of an Israeli military administration in Gaza, Israel must not have civilian control over the Gaza Strip.”
The war broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Activists of the Palestine Foundation Balochistan burn an effigy of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an anti-Israel protest in Quetta on May 15, 2024. (AFP)

The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
Israel’s military retaliation has killed at least 35,233 people, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, and an Israeli siege has brought dire food shortages and the threat of famine.

Clashes continue
The Israeli military said Wednesday its aircraft had “struck and eliminated approximately 80 terror targets” including military compounds, missile launchers and weapons depots.
It also reported battles in eastern Rafah and in Jabalia in northern Gaza, where it said it had killed militants, adding troops were also fighting in the Zeitun area.

An Israeli Air Force attack helicopter fires a missile while flying over the Palestinian territory on May 15, 2024. (AFP)

Hamas’s armed wing also reported its fighters were clashing with troops in the Jabalia area, much of which has been reduced to rubble.
At least five people were killed, including a woman and her child, in two Israeli air strikes on Gaza City overnight, Gaza’s civil defense agency said.
At the city’s Al-Ahli hospital, a wounded man, his bare chest smeared with blood, lay on a cot while outside several men placed a shrouded corpse in the shade of a tree.
Sporadic aid deliveries into Gaza by truck have slowed to a trickle since Israeli forces took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt last week.
A UK delivery of 100 tons of temporary shelter kits left Cyprus Wednesday on its way to a US-built pier in Gaza, Britain said.
Another convoy carrying humanitarian relief goods was ransacked by Israeli right-wing activists on Monday after it had crossed from Jordan through the West Bank.

Topics: War on Gaza rafah Hamas Nakba UNRWA

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Palestinians: Our ‘Nakba’ in 2023 is worst ever

Updated 15 May 2024
AFP
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Palestinians: Our ‘Nakba’ in 2023 is worst ever

  • Thousands protest in West Bank, waving Palestinian flags, wearing keffiyeh scarves and holding up symbolic keys as reminders of long-lost family homes
Updated 15 May 2024
AFP

GAZA: As the Gaza war raged on, Palestinians on Wednesday marked the anniversary of the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” of mass displacement during the creation of the state of Israel 76 years ago.

Thousands marched in cities across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, waving Palestinian flags, wearing keffiyeh scarves and holding up symbolic keys as reminders of long-lost family homes.

Inside the besieged Gaza Strip, where the Israel-Hamas war has ground on for more than seven months, scores more died in the fighting sparked by the Hamas attack of Oct. 7.

“Our ‘Nakba’ in 2023 is the worst ever,” said one displaced Gaza man, Mohammed Al-Farra, whose family fled their home in Khan Younis for the coastal area of Al-Mawasi. 

“It is much harder than the Nakba of 1948.”

Palestinians everywhere have long mourned the events of that year when, during the war that led to the establishment of Israel, around 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes.

But 42-year-old Farra, whose family was then displaced from Jaffa near Tel Aviv, said the current war is even harder.

“When your child is accustomed to all the comforts and luxuries, and suddenly, overnight, everything is taken away from him ... it is a big shock.”

Thousands marched in the West Bank city of Ramallah, as well as in Nablus, Hebron and elsewhere, carrying banners denouncing the occupation and protesting the war in Gaza.

“There’s pain for us, but of course more pain for Gazans,” said one protester, Manal Sarhan, 53, who has relatives in Israeli jails that have not been heard from since Oct. 7. “We’re living the Nakba a second time.” 

Commemorations and marches — held a day after Israel’s Independence Day — come as the Gaza war has brought a massive death toll and the forced displaced of most of the territory’s 2.4 million people.

A devastating humanitarian crisis has plagued the territory, with the UN warning of looming famine in the north.

Topics: War on Gaza Nakba Palestinians

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