KHARTOUM: Sudan said Monday it will recall its ambassador to Addis Ababa for “consultations” following accusations that the Ethiopian army executed seven captured Sudanese soldiers and a civilian.
“In an act that contravenes all laws and customs of war and international humanitarian law, the Ethiopian army executed seven Sudanese soldiers and a citizen who were their captives,” the Sudanese armed forces said late Sunday.
The army said “this treacherous act will not pass,” vowing to respond to “this cowardly behavior.”
Tensions have risen in recent years, sparking sporadic armed clashes, over the Al-Fashaqa border strip which is close to Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region.
There was no immediate response from Ethiopia.
A Sudanese military official who requested anonymity told AFP the soldiers were taken into captivity from a border area close to the Al-Fashaqa region.
On Monday, Sudan’s foreign ministry said it “will immediately recall its ambassador to Ethiopia for consultations” and submit a complaint with the UN Security Council.
“The Ethiopian ambassador to Khartoum will also be summoned to inform him of Sudan’s condemnation of this inhumane behavior,” the ministry said.
Relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa have soured over Al-Fashaqa, a fertile strip long cultivated by Ethiopian farmers but claimed by Sudan, sparking sporadic deadly clashes between the Sudanese and Ethiopian sides.
Tensions were heightened further after fighting erupted in Tigray in November 2020, sending tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into Sudan.
Khartoum and Addis Ababa have since been locked in a tense war of words, trading accusations of violence and territorial violations.
The border dispute feeds into wider tensions in the region, including over Ethiopia’s controversial Blue Nile dam.
Sudan and Egypt, both downstream countries, have been opposed to the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and pushed for an agreement over the filling of its reservoir and the operation of the dam.
In February, Khartoum and Cairo slammed Addis Ababa for unilaterally deciding to start power generation at the dam.
Sudan to recall ambassador to Ethiopia after alleged executions
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Sudan to recall ambassador to Ethiopia after alleged executions
Israeli airstrikes kill 20 in Gaza, Palestinian officials say
- In Deir Al-Balah, a town in central Gaza about 14 km (8.6 miles) south of Gaza City, the sounds of explosions mixed with thunder, and rain added to the miseries of displaced families in tent camps
CAIRO: Twenty Palestinians were killed in the early hours of Tuesday in Israeli air strikes on Rafah and central parts of the Gaza Strip, Gaza health officials said.
In the southern Gaza city of Rafah near the Egyptian border, where over 1 million Palestinians have sought shelter, 14 people were killed and dozens others wounded in strikes that hit several houses and apartments, Gaza medical officials said.
Six more people died in another air strike on a house in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, they added.
In Deir Al-Balah, a town in central Gaza about 14 km (8.6 miles) south of Gaza City, the sounds of explosions mixed with thunder, and rain added to the miseries of displaced families in tent camps.
“We are no longer able to distinguish between the sounds of thunder and bombings,” Shaban Abdel-Raouf, a father of five in Deir Al-Balah, said via a chat application.
“We used to await the rain and pray to God if it was late. Today we pray it doesn’t rain. The displaced people have enough miseries,” he added.
The conflict, now in its sixth month, began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies. Since then, Israel’s assault has killed more than 31,000 Gazans, according to Palestinian health officials.
Negotiations for a ceasefire in the war were due to resume on Monday with an Israeli delegation heading to Qatar.
“We are looking forward to the good news from Qatar. Will it happen this time? Will they seal a deal? Over 2 million people in Gaza are praying they do,” said Abdel-Raouf.
UN Security Council calls for immediate halt to Houthi attacks on Red Sea vessels
- Council members reiterated the need for full compliance with all UN resolutions designed to end the violence in Yemen and preserve the peace process
- The Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting international shipping since November and say their assaults will continue until Israel ends its war on Gaza
NEW YORK CITY: The UN Security Council on Monday condemned “in the strongest terms” Houthi strikes against international maritime traffic in the Red Sea and demanded that all such attacks “cease immediately.”
The Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November and say their assaults will continue until Israel ends its war on Gaza.
The attacks highlighted by the council included one on March 6 on the Barbados-flagged merchant carrier True Confidence in the Gulf of Aden, which left two Filipino nationals and a Vietnamese citizen dead and several crew members injured. It was the first fatal strike against shipping by the Houthis.
Another was an anti-ballistic missile attack on Feb. 18 that targeted the Belize-flagged, UK-owned cargo ship Rubymar and caused it to sink. The vessel was carrying 21,000 tonnes of fertilizer, raising fears of environmental damage to the Red Sea, including its coral reefs and marine life.
Council members reiterated the importance of the “full implementation of Resolution 2216” and subsequent resolutions that call for an end to the violence in Yemen and to all unilateral actions that threaten the political process in the country.
They emphasized the need for “practical cooperation, including with the government of Yemen, to prevent the Houthis from acquiring the arms and related materiel necessary to carry out further attacks,” and reiterated that all member states must adhere to “their obligations in regards to the targeted arms embargo.”
The council also demanded the immediate release of the Japanese-operated cargo ship Galaxy Leader and the 25 members of its crew, who have been unlawfully detained by the Houthis for more than 100 days.
Members emphasized the importance of Red Sea maritime routes to humanitarian operations in Yemen and beyond, and to the local fishing industry and the Yemeni people whose livelihoods it supports. They reaffirmed that “the exercise of navigational rights and freedoms by merchant and commercial vessels of all states transiting the Red Sea and Baab Al-Mandab, in accordance with international law, must be respected.”
With that in mind, council members warned of the adverse effects of a “March 4 Houthi decision purporting to require ships obtain a permit from their ‘Maritime Affairs Authority’ before entering Yemeni waters, on the freedom of commercial navigation and humanitarian operations, including into Yemen.”
Last week, UN officials expressed concern that parties involved in the conflict in Yemen might engage in “risky military adventurism” that could push the country into a new cycle of war.
“Although we have tried to shield the peace process from regional developments since the war in Gaza, the reality is (that) what happens regionally impacts Yemen, and what happens in Yemen can impact the region,” Hans Grundberg, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen said during a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the latest developments in the country and the Red Sea. “The current trajectory gives cause for serious concern.”
Council members stressed the importance of efforts to enhance regional and international cooperation to counter threats to peace and security in the region, and called for a deescalation of hostilities in the Red Sea to help preserve the peace process in Yemen.
They commended the internationally recognized government of Yemen on its efforts “to preserve the maritime environment,” and called on all UN member states, organizations and agencies to support that work.
The council also emphasized the need to “prevent further regional spillover of the conflict, and its impact on the security and the stability of the region and beyond,” and reiterated “the necessity to address the root causes contributing to regional tensions and to the disruption of maritime security in order to ensure a prompt, efficient and effective response.”
Israeli airstrikes target Damascus countryside, Syria says
- Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar Assad during Syria’s nearly 12-year-old conflict
AMMAN: Israel early on Tuesday launched missiles at several military targets outside the Syrian capital Damascus resulting in some “material damage,” Syria’s defense ministry said.
Syrian air defenses intercepted Israeli “missiles and shot down some of them,” the ministry added in a statement.
Iran has been a major backer of President Bashar Assad during Syria’s nearly 12-year-old conflict. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran’s extraterritorial military power.
Those strikes have ramped up in line with flaring regional tensions since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, with more than half a dozen Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers killed in suspected Israeli strikes on Syria since December.
As a result, the Guards have scaled back deployment of their senior officers in Syria and have planned to rely more on allied Shiite militia to preserve their sway there, Reuters reported in February.
Doubts over Israel plan to move Gaza civilians out of Rafah
- HRW’s Hardman was categorical: Moving “1.5 million people in an area that is already devastated” is “absolutely impossible,” she said
JERUSALEM: Israel has vowed to let Palestinians crammed into southern Gaza leave before its planned invasion of Rafah, but experts have warned it was practically impossible to get those civilians out of harm’s way.
The roughly 1.5 million Gazans in the territory’s southernmost tip have the Mediterranean Sea to their west and sealed borders to the south and east, while Israeli forces are poised to push in from the north.
“Where will we go if they enter Rafah, and where will we get a tent, mattress and blankets?” said Sabah Al-Astal, 50, already displaced inside Gaza by the Israel-Hamas war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted on sending troops into Rafah to root out Hamas in the area that borders Egypt and Israel.
But Netanyahu has also pledged to enable Gazans to leave, saying Sunday that his troops would not move in “while keeping the population locked in place.”
Israel, though, remains vague regarding how or when this massive evacuation would take place, a challenge that aid experts consider impossible in the devastated territory.
“People don’t know where to go. There’s nowhere safe in Gaza,” said Nadia Hardman, an expert on refugees at Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
Israel has carried out a relentless bombing campaign and ground offensive that Gaza’s health ministry says has killed at least 31,726 people, most of them women and children.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz remained evasive Monday, telling Kan public radio that “before any massive operation, we will evacuate citizens.”
“Not to the north, but to the west. There are Arab countries that can help by setting up tents, or something else” in the tiny area between Rafah and the Mediterranean, he added.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, told the press last week about the establishment of “humanitarian islands.”
Such tent cities on Gaza’s territory would be spared the fighting and created with the international community, Hagari said.
But UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Jamie McGoldrick, said: “I honestly don’t know where they are supposedly being established.”
“How will they move people from wherever they are now? Will they be pushed, forced, encouraged?” he asked.
“That’s not something the UN will participate in because we’re not a part of any forced displacement.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on a visit to Israel on Sunday, voiced concern over the planned Israeli offensive.
“The military logic is one consideration, but there is a humanitarian logic as well,” he said.
“How should more than 1.5 million people be protected? Where should they go?“
Netanyahu has agreed to US President Joe Biden’s request to send a delegation of senior Israeli officials to Washington to discuss Israel’s Rafah plans and a possible “alternative approach,” the White House said Monday.
HRW’s Hardman was categorical: Moving “1.5 million people in an area that is already devastated” is “absolutely impossible,” she said.
Israel has declared certain areas protected humanitarian spaces, notably in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area in the south of the territory between south Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
But hundreds of thousands of people are already sheltering in tents there, and the area has been bombed several times since the war began more than five months ago.
Netanyahu has doubled down on plans for a Rafah offensive, announced more than a month ago, despite growing international pressure.
However, according to David Khalfa, Middle East specialist at the Jean-Jaures Foundation, the threat also involves psychological warfare.
“The Israelis maintain a strategic vagueness around their plans because they do not want to devalue their cards in order to keep Hamas in uncertainty,” he said.
Khalfa called the threat of a major offensive in Rafah “a card in a game of liar’s poker” with Hamas, a means to force the militants to soften their positions in ongoing truce negotiations.
Israel ‘deliberately’ blocking aid to Gaza: Oxfam
LONDON: Anti-poverty charity Oxfam on Monday accused Israel of intentionally preventing the delivery of aid into Gaza during its war with Hamas, in violation of international humanitarian law.
The nongovernmental organization said in a report that Israel continued to “systematically and deliberately block and undermine any meaningful international humanitarian response” in the Palestinian territory.
It alleged that Israel was defying an order by the International Court of Justice in January to boost aid in Gaza, and was failing its legal responsibility to protect people in land it occupies.
“The ICJ order should have shocked Israeli leaders to change course, but since then conditions in Gaza have actually worsened,” said Oxfam Middle East and North Africa director Sally Abi Khalil.
“Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it. We believe that Israel is failing to take all measures within its power to prevent genocide.”
Oxfam said that “unjustifiably inefficient” inspection rules were causing aid trucks trying to get into Gaza to be stuck in queues for 20 days on average.
It said that Israeli authorities arbitrarily reject “dual-use” items — civilian goods that also have potential military use such as backup generators and torches.
“The list of rejected items is overwhelming and ever changing,” Oxfam said.
It recalled that water bags and water testing kits in an Oxfam shipment were rejected with no reason provided, before later being permitted entry.
The group also denounced “attacks on aid workers, humanitarian facilities and aid convoys” and “access restrictions” for relief staff, particularly to northern Gaza.