Voters disillusioned by corruption boycott Iraq parliamentary elections

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Updated 11 October 2021
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Voters disillusioned by corruption boycott Iraq parliamentary elections

  • Polls close across Iraq in early vote after mass protests
  • A total of 3,449 candidates are vying for 329 seats in the parliamentary elections

BAGHDAD/JEDDAH: Turnout plunged to a record low in parliamentary elections in Iraq on Sunday amid a widespread boycott by voters disillusioned by corruption, a crippled economy and failed public services.

Electoral commission officials said the nationwide turnout of eligible voters was 19 percent by midday, compared with 44.5 percent in the last election in 2018.

Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi’s government called the election early in response to protests in October 2019 that toppled the previous administration. 

Protesters’ demands included the removal of a ruling elite most Iraqis view as corrupt. The demonstrations were brutally suppressed and about 600 people were killed.
Although authorities gave in and called the early elections, the death toll and the heavy-handed crackdown — as well as a string of targeted assassinations — prompted many who took part in the protests to later call for a boycott of the polls.

Results are expected within the next 48 hours, according to the independent body that oversees Iraq’s election. Negotiations to choose a prime minister tasked with forming a government are expected to drag on for months.

Voting began early Sunday in a contest that was the sixth held since the fall of Saddam Hussein after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the sectarian-based power-sharing political system it produced.

A total of 3,449 candidates are vying for 329 seats in the parliamentary elections. Apathy is widespread amid deep skepticism that independent candidates stand a chance against established parties and politicians, many of them backed by powerful armed militias.

More than 250,000 security personnel across the country were tasked with protecting the vote. Soldiers, police and anti-terrorism forces fanned out and deployed outside polling stations, some of which were ringed by barbed wire. Voters were patted down and searched.

Iraq’s President Barham Salih and Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi urged Iraqis to vote in large numbers.

“Get out and vote, and change your reality for the sake of Iraq and your future,” said Al-Kadhimi, repeating the phrase, “get out” three times after casting his ballot at a school in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to foreign embassies and government offices.

The 2018 elections saw just 44 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots, a record low, and the results were widely contested. There are concerns of a similar or even lower turnout this time.


Pessimism prevails

Most Iraqis long for change, but few expect it to happen. Some voted in hopes of seeing the corrupt politicians out.

“I don’t want these same faces and same parties to return,” said Amir Fadel, a 22-year-old car dealer, after casting his ballot in Baghdad’s Karradah district.

Abdul Ameer Hassan Al-Saadi, a schoolteacher who lives in the Baghdad district of Karrada, was one of many who boycotted Sunday’s election. “I lost my 17-year-old son Hussain after he was killed by a tear gas canister fired by police during Baghdad protests,” he said.

“I will not vote for killers and corrupt politicians because the wound inside me and his mother after losing our boy is still bleeding.”

In the southern city of Basra, Mohammed Hassan said: “Why won’t I vote? Because I have no faith in people. Those we elected, what have they done? Look at the garbage, the filth ... The previous government’s projects, where are they?”

In a tea shop in Karradah, one of the few open, candidate Reem Abdulhadi walked in to ask whether people had cast their vote.

“I will give my vote to Umm Kalthoum, the singer, she is the only one who deserves it,” the tea vendor replied, referring to the late Egyptian singer beloved by many in the Arab world. He said he will not take part in the election and didn’t believe in the political process.

After a few words, Abdulhadi gave the man, who asked to remain anonymous, a card with her name and number in case he decided to change his mind. He put it in his pocket.

“Thank you, I will keep it as a souvenir,” he said.


Streets deserted

By midday, turnout was still relatively low and streets mostly deserted. In some areas, mosque loudspeakers were used to urge Iraqis to vote. Candidates sent encouraging push notifications and audio messages on Whatsapp groups and Telegram chatrooms.

At that moment, a low-flying, high-speed military aircraft flew overhead making a screeching noise. “Listen to this. This sound is terror. It reminds me of war, not an election,” he added.

In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq’s influential cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr cast his ballot, swarmed by local journalists. He then drove away in a white sedan without commenting. Al-Sadr, a populist who has an immense following among Iraq’s working class Shiites, came out on top in the 2018 elections, winning a majority of seats.

Groups drawn from Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslims dominate the electoral landscape, with a tight race expected between Al-Sadr’s list and the Fatah Alliance, led by paramilitary leader Hadi Al-Ameri, which came in second in the previous election.

The Fatah Alliance is comprised of parties affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces, an umbrella group of mostly pro-Iran Shiite militias that rose to prominence during the war against the Sunni extremist Daesh group. It includes some of the most hard-line pro-Iran factions, such as the Asaib Ahl Al-Haq militia. Al-Sadr, a black-turbaned nationalist leader, is also close to Iran, but publicly rejects its political influence.

Under Iraq’s laws, the winner of Sunday’s vote gets to choose the country’s next prime minister, but it’s unlikely any of the competing coalitions can secure a clear majority. That will require a lengthy process involving backroom negotiations to select a consensus prime minister and agree on a new coalition government. It took eight months of political wrangling to form a government after the 2018 elections.

The election is the first since the fall of Saddam to proceed without a curfew in place, reflecting the significantly improved security situation in the country following the defeat of IS in 2017. Previous votes were marred by fighting and deadly bomb attacks that have plagued the country for decades.

As a security precaution, Iraq closed its airspace and land border crossings and scrambled its air force from Saturday night until early Monday morning.

In another first, Sunday’s election is taking place under a new election law that divides Iraq into smaller constituencies — another demand of the activists who took part in the 2019 protests — and allows for more independent candidates.

A UN Security Council resolution adopted earlier this year authorized an expanded team to monitor the elections. There will be up to 600 international observers in place, including 150 from the United Nations. More than 24 million of Iraq’s estimated 38 million people are eligible to vote.

Iraq is also for the first time introducing biometric cards for voters. But despite all these measures, claims of vote buying, intimidation and manipulation have persisted.

(With AP)


Turkiye says will evacuate citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday

Updated 7 sec ago
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Turkiye says will evacuate citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday

ISTANBUL:Turkiye is sending ships to evacuate around 2,000 of its citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said.
Two Turkish navy ships will leave a port in southern Turkish province of Mersin for Beirut on Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement.
Turkiye is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon.
Turkish officials said they had drawn up contingency plans to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon because of the deteriorating security situation on the ground.
Last week, the foreign ministry said guidelines for the evacuation of third countries’ citizens via Turkiye have also been determined, adding that necessary preparations were underway in cooperation with nearly 20 countries that have requested support.

Sudan’s warring sides target local aid volunteers fighting famine

Updated 8 min 38 sec ago
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Sudan’s warring sides target local aid volunteers fighting famine

  • Arrests and looting hinder Sudan’s community kitchens
  • Some have stopped serving meals for weeks in areas at risk of famine
  • Donors have ramped up support, but volunteers say this is making them a target for troops

KHARTOUM: Local volunteers who have helped to feed Sudan’s most destitute during 17 months of war say attacks against them by the opposing sides are making it difficult to provide life-saving aid amid the world’s biggest hunger crisis.
Many volunteers have fled under threat of arrest or violence, and communal kitchens they set up in a country where hundreds are estimated to be dying of starvation and hunger-related diseases each day have stopped serving meals for weeks at a time.
Reuters spoke with 24 volunteers who manage kitchens in Sudan’s central state of Khartoum, the western region of Darfur and parts of the east where millions of people have been driven from their homes since fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
International humanitarian agencies, which have been unable to get food aid to parts of Sudan at risk of famine, have ramped up support for such groups. But that has made them more of a target for RSF looters, 10 of the volunteers told Reuters by phone.
“We were safe when the RSF didn’t know about the funding,” said Gihad Salaheldin, a volunteer who left Khartoum city last year and spoke from Cairo. “They see our kitchens as a source of food.”
Both sides have also attacked or detained volunteers on suspicion of collaborating with their opponents, a dozen volunteers said.
Most of the volunteers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
One volunteer in Bahri, a city that together with Khartoum and Omdurman makes up Sudan’s greater capital, said troops in RSF uniforms stole the phone he used to receive donations via a mobile banking app along with 3 million Sudanese pounds ($1,200) in cash intended for food in June.
It was one of five incidents this year in which he says he was attacked or harassed by paramilitary troops who control neighborhoods where he oversees 21 kitchens serving around 10,000 people.
Later that month, troops burst into a home housing one of the kitchens in the middle of the night and stole sacks of sorghum and beans. The volunteer, who had been sleeping there, said he was bound, gagged and whipped for hours by troops who wanted to know who was funding the group.
Reuters could not independently verify his account, but three other volunteers said that he reported the events to the rest of the group at the time.
The frequency of such incidents increased as international funding for communal kitchens picked up heading into the summer, according to eight volunteers from Khartoum state, which is mostly controlled by the RSF.
Many kitchens do not keep data on attacks, while others declined to provide details for fear of drawing more unwanted attention. However, volunteers described to Reuters 25 incidents targeting their kitchens or volunteers in the state since July alone, including more thefts and beatings and the detention of at least 52 people.
Groups that run kitchens there have announced the deaths of at least three volunteers in armed attacks, including one they said was shot and killed by RSF troops in Khartoum’s SHajjarah neighborhood in September. The identities of the other assailants were not immediately clear, and Reuters could not verify the accounts.
“Community kitchens in Sudan are a lifeline for people who are trapped in areas with ongoing conflict,” said Eddie Rowe, the UN World Food Programme’s country director in Sudan.
“By supporting them, WFP is able to get food into the hands of hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, even in the face of severe access constraints,” he told Reuters, saying the safety of aid workers must be guaranteed.
The RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces did not respond to questions for this article. However, the RSF has previously denied targeting aid workers and said any rogue elements who did so would be brought to justice.
The military has also said it does not target aid workers, but anyone who collaborates with the “rebellious” RSF is subject to arrest.

Marauding troops
UN officials say more than half of Sudan’s population – 25.6 million people – are experiencing acute hunger and need urgent assistance. In the worst-hit areas, residents displaced by fighting or under siege in their homes have resorted to eating dirt and leaves.
Local volunteers founded hundreds of kitchens early in the war that served hot meals — typically a meagre porridge of sorghum, lentils or beans — once or twice a day. But as food prices soared and private donations dwindled, some had to close or reduce services to as little as five times a month.
In North Darfur state, a group that runs kitchens in a camp housing half a million people displaced by ethnically driven violence has repeatedly had to stop serving meals due to insufficient funds, a volunteer there said. A global authority on hunger crises said in August that the conflict and restrictions on aid deliveries have caused famine in the Zamzam camp.
Many communal kitchens are operated by a loose network of community groups known as emergency response rooms, which have tried to sustain basic services, such as water and power, and distribute food and medical supplies.
Both the army and RSF distrust these groups, in part because they include people who were members of grassroots “resistance committees” that led pro-democracy protests during the uprising that toppled former autocrat Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. The volunteers who spoke to Reuters said the objectives of the emergency response rooms are purely humanitarian.
The army joined forces with the RSF to derail the political transition that followed Bashir’s ouster by staging a military coup two years later, but rivalries between them erupted into open warfare in April 2023.
In the worst-hit areas, local volunteers said they were now being targeted weekly or every few days by marauding troops, compared to roughly once a month earlier in the year. Some have started hiding food supplies at different locations to avoid being cleaned out by a single raid.
Reuters spoke to nine volunteers who fled various parts of the country after being targeted by the warring sides.
“These attacks are having a huge negative impact on our work,” Salaheldin said from Cairo. “We are losing our volunteers who are serving their communities.”
In areas where the army retains control, six volunteers described arrests and surveillance that they said drove away people who had helped run kitchens, reducing their capacity to operate.
A UN fact-finding mission discovered that, of 65 cases tried by army-convened courts against alleged “commanders and employees” of the RSF as of June, 63 targeted activists and humanitarian workers. They included members of emergency response rooms, the mission said in its report.
Both sides have deployed siege-like tactics to prevent food and other supplies reaching their opponents, according to relief workers. The RSF and allied militias have also looted aid hubs and plundered harvests, they say.
The warring parties have traded blame for delays in the delivery of food relief, while the RSF has denied looting aid.
Military chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo both said in September that they were committed to facilitating the flow of aid.

Donor reticence
As hunger spreads, emergency response rooms have set up 419 kitchens that aim to serve over 1 million people daily in Khartoum state alone, said Abdallah Gamar, a state organizer. But volunteers have struggled to secure the $1,175,000 needed every month. In September, they received around $614,000, Gamar told Reuters.
In the beginning, most of their support came from the Sudanese diaspora, but the resources of these donors have been depleted, Gamar said.
Aid workers said many foreign donors hesitated to fund kitchens because the groups running them are not registered with the government and often use personal bank accounts.
“There’s a lot of risk aversion when it comes to supporting unregistered platforms,” said Mathilde Vu, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s advocacy manager for Sudan.
Her organization began supporting local responders in Sudan last year, she said. “Now we have seen that a lot of NGOs, UN agencies and donors are starting to realize that we cannot do any humanitarian response — we can’t save lives — without them.”
Some donors are now working through registered intermediaries to get funding to communal kitchens. The WFP, for example, began partnering with local aid groups in July to help some 200 kitchens provide hot meals to up to 175,000 people daily in greater Khartoum, spending more than $2 million to date, said spokesperson Leni Kinzli.
Volunteers welcomed the support but said it can take weeks for money to filter down to kitchens through intermediaries. Cumbersome reporting requirements add to the delays, they said.
“The kitchens work in a sporadic way — there’s no consistent funding,” said Mohamed Abdallah, spokesperson for an emergency response room south of Khartoum. He said his group sometimes has only enough money to provide meals once a week, including in neighborhoods at risk of famine.
Justin Brady, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, said donors need safeguards to ensure funds are used for their intended purpose but have taken steps to simplify the process.
Meanwhile, needs continue to grow.
The arrival of the rainy season over the summer brought flash floods and a heightened risk of deadly diseases such as cholera and malaria, stretching resources even thinner, volunteers said.
Sudan’s currency has fallen around 300 percent against the dollar on the parallel market during the war, and food prices have risen by almost as much, according to WFP surveys.
“In neighborhoods where we had one kitchen, we now need three more,” said Hind Altayif, spokesperson for volunteers in Sharq Al-Nil, a district adjacent to Bahri where she said several people were dying of hunger each month. “As the war goes on, we’ll see more people reaching rock bottom.”
In one Bahri neighborhood, people line up twice a day with bowls and buckets to collect ladles of gruel prepared over a fire in the courtyard of a volunteer’s home. Standing among them are teachers, traders and others cut off from livelihoods.
“We don’t have any food at home because we don’t have the money,” said a 50-year-old housewife, who like others interviewed requested anonymity for safety. “We rely on the community kitchen ... We don’t have an alternative.”


Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Updated 08 October 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

  • Iran-backed Hezbollah says it targeted Israeli military base south of Haifa, launched another strike on Tiberias
  • Isael says air force is carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon as conflict rages on

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.

Smoke rises from destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike hit in Choueifat, southeast of Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 7, 2024. (AP)

Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.


Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Updated 08 October 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

  • Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks
  • Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday
  • The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.

 

 


Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

Updated 08 October 2024
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Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

  • When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response”
  • Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave

UNITED NATIONS: Israel hosted an event at the United Nations on Monday to mark one year since a deadly Hamas attack, vowing to fight until all hostages held in Gaza by the Palestinian militants are freed and assailing the world body for failing to condemn the massacre.
“The UN has failed in its most basic mandate to protect the innocent and condemn evil. The resolutions that the UN did pass were about the situation in Gaza,” said Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon, referring to action taken by the 15-member Security Council and the 193-member General Assembly.
During the shock Hamas rampage a year ago some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. More than 100 hostages remain held in Gaza by Hamas.
Israel’s ally the United States vetoed a draft Security Council resolution on Oct. 18, 2023, that would have condemned Hamas and urged Gaza aid access. The US had argued it needed more time to broker humanitarian access and was disappointed the text did not mention Israel’s right to self-defense.
“There are those in the Security Council, and outside, who fail to condemn Hamas’ atrocities or even say the word Hamas,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Oct. 7 commemorative event on Monday.
“There are those in the region who have sought to build on Hamas’ actions and are now pushing the Middle East to the precipice of a broader war — terrorist groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah,” she said, also accusing Iran of seeking to take advantage of the situation to advance a “destructive agenda.”
The Hamas attack triggered Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave where authorities say more than 41,000 people have been killed. The conflict has raised fears of all-out regional war, pitting Israel against Iran and the militant groups that it backs.
In recent weeks Israel killed the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and began a ground assault against the Iran-backed militant group. Iran then attacked Israel in a missile strike.
When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response.”
Amid animosity between Israel’s government and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres — who was barred last week by Israel’s foreign minister from entering the country — UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said he did not believe any UN officials had been invited to Israel’s event at UN headquarters.
In a video released over the weekend to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, Guterres said: “This is a day for the global community to repeat in the loudest voice our utter condemnation of the abhorrent acts of Hamas, including the taking of hostages.”