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Five Palestinians killed by Israeli troops during dawn raid in Jericho

Isreali soldiers inspect a car at a checkpoint at the entrance of Jericho city in the occupied West Bank, on February 4, 2023, following an Israeli morning raid at the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp. (File/AFP)
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Updated 06 February 2023
Mohammed Najib

Five Palestinians killed by Israeli troops during dawn raid in Jericho

  • The deaths, during a military operation at the Aqbat Jaber camp, sparked anger and condemnation across the West Bank
  • Palestinian PM Mohammed Shtayyeh said ‘occupation soldiers continue to commit massacres against our defenseless people’
Updated 06 February 2023
Mohammed Najib

RAMALLAH: Israeli forces assassinated five Palestinians during a raid on a refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Jericho on Monday, according to Palestinian officials.

The office of President Mahmoud Abbas described the killings as a crime, and urged the US to put pressure on Israeli authorities to restrict incursions by their forces.

“The new Israeli government is continuing its series of crimes against our Palestinian people,” it said.

Israeli forces also injured three people, one of them seriously, and arrested eight in the early-morning raid, the Palestinian sources said.

Jihad Abu Al-Assal, the governor of Jericho and the Jordan Valley, said the military had so far refused to release the bodies of the dead.

The violence on Monday came days after an Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp during which 10 Palestinians were killed. Most were militants but a 61-year-old woman was also among the dead.

In Monday’s raid, a large number of troops stormed the Aqbat Jaber camp at dawn. The five people killed in the confrontations that followed were named as: Raafat Wael Awadat, 21; Malik Awni Lafi, 22; Adham Majdi Awadat, 22; Ibrahim Wael Awaidat, 27 and Thaer Awadat, 28.

The Israeli army alleged that all of the dead were affiliated with Hamas. It released photos of rifles seized during the raid, which had the name of the military wing of Hamas written on them.

Israeli forces continued their siege of the city of Jericho and the Aqabat Jaber camp for a 10th day in a row on Monday. Main and secondary entrances to the city remained blocked by military checkpoints, restricting the movement of vehicles.

The killing of the five Palestinians sparked anger across the West Bank. Strikes took place in Jericho, Ramallah, and some other cities to mourn the dead. A protest march took place in the center of Ramallah, accompanied by chants condemning the Israeli occupation.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh called on the UN to protect “our people and not to allow the perpetrators to escape punishment.”

He added: “With a sense of the ability to escape punishment, and motivated by the desire to practice killing according to a doctrine that shapes the thought and behavior of the perpetrators, the occupation soldiers continue to commit massacres against our defenseless people, in a scene that brings to mind the heinous crimes committed by the Zionist gangs against our people in cities and villages.”

The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned the killings, the siege on Jericho, injuries inflicted on Palestinian citizens, premeditated killings, the continuing Israeli settlements policy, the demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and the displacement of its residents.

The organization called on the international community to urgently intervene to help put an end to the attacks and daily crimes against Palestinians. It stressed the need to hold the perpetrators accountable and for the world to provide protection for the Palestinian people.

The Israel Defense Forces were put on alert following the killings in Jericho amid fears that Hamas would respond by firing rockets from Gaza at Israeli targets.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned Hamas not to launch any rockets from the Gaza Strip in retaliation. He said the response to any such aggression should be integrated and that for every missile fired from Gaza “we must respond with 50 missiles.”

He added: “This is my vision and I hope the government will implement it. I am optimistic and believe that this will happen.”

Palestinian political analyst Ghassan Al-Khatib told Arab News that he would expect any response by Hamas or its supporters to the killings in Jericho to originate in the West Bank and not the Gaza Strip.

“There is a great exaggeration and harshness in the Israeli oppression against the Palestinians, more than ever before, which will bring violent reactions against the Israeli occupation,” he added.

He said that the killing and abuse of Palestinians by Israeli authorities weakens the status and prestige of the Palestinian Authority.

In a joint statement, the Israeli military and the internal security service Shin Bet said that they had conducted counterterrorism activity in the Aqabat Jabr Camp to apprehend a Hamas terrorist squad responsible for shooting at a restaurant in the community of Vered Yeriho on Jan. 28. It added that several armed assailants had been killed after they fired at IDF soldiers.

The Fatah movement said that what it described as the bloody massacre committed by the Israeli army during its aggression against the Aqabat Jaber camp reflected the fascist ideology of successive occupation governments.

“The neo-fascist government, which is trying, through this systematic terrorism, to export its internal crises and to practice the most brutal methods of bloody terror against the Palestinians through the policies of killing, execution, abuse, arrest and incursions into the Palestinian lands,” it added.

Fatah said attempts by the occupation to erase the Palestinian existence were doomed to failure. It also condemned the international silence about the Israeli actions and what it described as the US bias in favor of the occupation and its terrorist regime, which its said provides the occupation and its army with a guarantee that it can commit massacres and other crimes without being held accountable.

Hamas vowed to respond to the killing of five of its members. It said it would not tolerate the spilling of Palestinian blood by Israeli army bullets, and that it was ready to respond to the occupation with full force.

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of Hamas, said its battalions will continue their operations “until the occupation is defeated.”

Topics: Palestine Israel Jericho

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Iraq changes electoral law, sparking opposition anger

Updated 32 sec ago
AFP

Iraq changes electoral law, sparking opposition anger

Updated 32 sec ago
AFP
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s parliament voted Monday to restore electoral laws that were scrapped after 2019 anti-government demonstrations, sparking anger from independent lawmakers who see it benefiting larger parties.
The law, which parliament said in a statement was “adopted” without detailing the votes, revives the electoral law of 2018 and sweeps away one of the gains of the mass protest movement which shook Iraq.
After the protests, a new system favored the emergence of independent candidates, with some 70 independents winning seats in the 329-member parliament in the last legislative elections in 2021.
Parliament is dominated by the Coordination Framework, an alliance of powerful pro-Iran Shiite factions, from whose ranks Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani emerged.
The new law removes 83 electoral districts and creates 18 seats, one for each of Iraq’s provinces.
This “makes it easier for top party politicians to win seats,” analyst Sajad Jiyad said on Twitter.
Conversely, it will make it “harder for candidates in smaller parties and independents to compete” because they will be running at a provincial rather than a local level, he added.
During the debate, which ran from Sunday into the early hours of Monday, several angry independent lawmakers were expelled from the debating chamber, according to videos they filmed themselves.
The law also replaces a first past the post system with proportional representation.
Overall, the changes will benefit the larger parties and make it possible “for their candidates who didn’t get enough votes initially to win seats,” Jiyad added.
“Independent candidates will no longer have any hope of obtaining representation in parliament,” said Alaa Al-Rikabi, an independent lawmaker. “They will be crushed.”
But Coordination Framework lawmaker Bahaa Al-Dine Nouri welcomed the change, arguing that it will “distribute the seats according to the size of the parties.”
Nouri said this will “lead to the formation of a government within the time limits set by the constitution” to avoid the endless standoffs that followed the 2021 election.
The new law will apply to the next legislative elections, the date of which has not yet been set.
It will also apply to provincial elections slated for November 6, to be held in 15 of the 18 Iraqi provinces, excluding the three provinces in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, regional elections will take place on November 18 under a separate electoral system.

Israeli government in chaos as judicial reform plans draw mass protests

Updated 11 min 34 sec ago
Reuters

Israeli government in chaos as judicial reform plans draw mass protests

  • Reports of Benjamin Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition risked breaking apart
  • Head of Israel’s top trade union calls for an immediate ‘general strike’
Updated 11 min 34 sec ago
Reuters

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition plunged into chaos on Monday, after mass overnight protests over the sacking of his defense chief piled pressure on the government to halt its bitterly contested plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Netanyahu had been expected to make a televised statement on Monday morning announcing the plans had been suspended. But, amid reports that his nationalist-religious coalition risked breaking apart, Israeli TV stations said the statement was postponed.

Earlier, a source in his Likud party and another source closely involved in the legislation said Netanyahu would suspend the overhaul, which has ignited some of Israel’s biggest-ever demonstrations and drew an intervention by the head of state.

“For the sake of the unity of the people of Israel, for the sake of responsibility, I call on you to stop the legislative process immediately,” President Isaac Herzog said on Twitter.

The warning by Herzog, who is supposed to stand above politics and whose function is largely ceremonial, underlined the alarm that the divisions triggered by the proposals have caused.

It followed a dramatic night of protests in cities across Israel, with tens of thousands flooding streets following Netanyahu’s announcement that he had dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

A day earlier, Gallant had made a televised appeal for the government to halt its flagship overhaul of the judicial system, warning that the deep split it had opened up in Israeli society was affecting the military and threatening national security.

During furious scenes in the Knesset early on Monday, opposition members of parliament attacked Simcha Rothman, the committee chairman who has shepherded the bill, with cries of “Shame! Shame!” and accusations comparing the bill to militant groups that want the destruction of Israel.

“This is a hostile takeover of the State of Israel. No need for Hamas, no need for Hezbollah,” one lawmaker was heard saying to Rothman as the constitution committee approved a key bill to go forward for ratification.

“The law is balanced and good for Israel,” Rothman said.

Three months after it took power, Gallant’s removal has plunged Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition into crisis as it also faces a deepening security emergency in the occupied West Bank.

In a sign of the tensions within the coalition, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who heads one of the hard-line pro-settler parties in the coalition, called for the overhaul to go ahead.

“We must not stop the judiciary reform and must not surrender to anarchy,” he tweeted.

The shekel, which has seen big swings over recent weeks as the political turbulence has played out, fell 0.7 percent in early trading before recovering some ground as expectations grew the legislation would be halted.

As opposition spread, the head of the Histadrut labor union, Arnon Bar-David, called for a general strike if the proposals were not halted.

“Bring back the country’s sanity. If you don’t announce in a news conference today that you changed your mind, we will go on strike.”

Israeli media reported that takeoffs from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport have been suspended.

The judicial overhaul, which would give the executive more control over appointing judges to the Supreme Court and allow the government to override court rulings on the basis of a simple parliamentary majority, has drawn mass protests for weeks.

While the government says the overhaul is needed to rein in activist judges and set a proper balance between the elected government and the judiciary, opponents see it as an undermining of legal checks and balances and a threat to Israel’s democracy.

Netanyahu, on trial on corruption charges that he denies, has so far vowed to continue with the project and a central part of the overhaul package, a bill that would tighten political control over judicial appointments, is due to be voted on in parliament this week.

As well as drawing opposition from the business establishment, the project has caused alarm among Israel’s allies. The United States said it was deeply concerned by Sunday’s events and saw an urgent need for compromise, while repeating calls to safeguard democratic values.

Topics: Israel Isaac Herzog

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Rushed daylight-saving decision puts Lebanon in two time zones

Updated 27 March 2023
AP

Rushed daylight-saving decision puts Lebanon in two time zones

  • Government issued last-minute decision to delay the start of daylight saving time by a month
  • Some institutions implemented the change while others refused, causing confusion
Updated 27 March 2023
AP

BEIRUT: The Lebanese government’s last-minute decision to delay the start of daylight saving time by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan resulted in mass confusion Sunday.
With some institutions implementing the change while others refused, many Lebanese have found themselves in the position of juggling work and school schedules in different time zones — in a country that is just 88 kilometers (55 miles) at its widest point.
In some cases, the debate took on a sectarian nature, with many Christian politicians and institutions, including the small nation’s largest church, the Maronite Church, rejecting the move.
The small Mediterranean country normally sets its clocks forward an hour on the last Sunday in March, which aligns with most European countries.
However, on Thursday, the government announced a decision by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to push the start of daylight saving to April 21.
No reason was given for the decision, but a video of a meeting between Mikati and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri leaked to local media showed Berri asking Mikati to postpone the implementation of daylight saving time to allow Muslims to break their Ramadan fast an hour earlier.
Mikati responds that he had made a similar proposal but goes on to say that implementing the change would be difficult as it would cause problems in airline flight schedules, to which Berri interjects, “What flights?”
After the postponement of daylight saving was announced, Lebanon’s state airline, Middle East Airlines, said the departure times of all flights scheduled to leave from the Beirut airport between Sunday and April 21 would be advanced by an hour.
The country’s two cellular telephone networks messaged people asking them to change the settings of their clocks to manual instead of automatic so the time would not change at midnight, although in many cases the time advanced anyway.
While public institutions, in theory, are bound by the government’s decision, many private institutions, including TV stations, schools and businesses, announced that they would ignore the decision and move to daylight saving on Sunday as previously scheduled.
Even some public agencies refused to comply. Education Minister Abbas Halabi said in a statement Sunday evening that the decision was not legally valid because it had not been taken in a meeting of the Cabinet. If the government meets and approves the decision, he wrote, “we will be the first to implement it” but until then, “daylight saving time remains approved and applied in the educational sector.”
Soha Yazbek, a professor at the American University of Beirut, is among many parents who have found themselves and their children now bound to different schedules.
“So now I drop my kids to school at 8 am but arrive to my work 42 km away at 7:30 am and then I leave work at 5 p.m. but I arrive home an hour later at 7 pm!!” Yazbek wrote on Twitter, adding for the benefit of her non-Lebanese friends, “I have not gone mad, I just live in Wonderland.”
Haruka Naito, a Japanese non-governmental organization worker living in Beirut, discovered she has to be in two places at the same time on Monday morning.
“I had an 8 a.m. appointment and a 9 a.m. class, which will now happen at the same time,” she said. The 8 a.m. appointment for her residency paperwork is with a government agency following the official time, while her 9 a.m. Arabic class is with an institute that is expected to make the switch to daylight saving.
The schism has led to jokes about “Muslim time” and “Christian time,” while different Internet search engines came up with different results early Sunday morning when queried about the current time in Lebanon.
While in many cases, the schism broke down along sectarian lines, some Muslims also objected to the change and pointed out that fasting is supposed to begin at dawn and end at sunset regardless of time zone.
Many saw the issue as a distraction from the country’s larger economic and political problems.
Lebanon is in the midst of the worst financial crisis in its modern history. Three quarters of the population lives in poverty and IMF officials recently warned the country could be headed for hyperinflation if no action is taken. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of President Michel Aoun ended in late October as the parliament has failed to elect a replacement since.

Topics: Lebanon

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Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

Updated 26 March 2023
Reuters

Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

  • The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions
Updated 26 March 2023
Reuters

SULAIMANIYA: Elections will be held in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on Nov. 18, the regional government spokesman said on Sunday.
Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani issued a decree on Sunday and approved the date, KRG spokesman Dilshad Shahab told a news conference.
The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions which have gained self-rule in 1991.

Topics: Kurdistan region

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Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

Updated 26 March 2023
AFP

Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

  • Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people
Updated 26 March 2023
AFP

TUNIS: Tunisia’s coast guard said Sunday the bodies of 29 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries had been recovered after three vessels capsized, the latest in a string of such tragedies.
A series of shipwrecks has left dozens of migrants dead and others missing in the country that serves as a key conduit for migrants seeking to reach nearby European shores.
It comes after President Kais Saied made an incendiary speech last month, accusing sub-Saharan Africans of representing a demographic threat and causing a crime wave in Tunisia.
The coast guard said in a statement Sunday that it had “rescued 11 illegal migrants of various African nationalities after their boats sank” off the central eastern coast, citing three separate sinkings.
In one, a Tunisian fishing trawler recovered 19 bodies 58 kilometers (36 miles) off the coast after their boat capsized.
A coast guard patrol off the coastal city of Mahdiya also recovered eight bodies and “rescued” 11 other migrants after their boat sank as it headed toward Italy.
Fishing trawlers in Sfax meanwhile recovered two other bodies.
Black migrants in the country have faced a spike in violence since Saied’s speech and hundreds have been living in the streets for weeks in increasingly desperate conditions.
People fleeing poverty and violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, West Africa and other parts of the continent have for years used Tunisia as a springboard for often perilous attempts to reach safety and better lives in Europe.


The Italian island of Lampedusa is just 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the Tunisian coast, part of the Central Mediterranean route described by the United Nations as the most deadly in the world.
Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people, and has helped beef up the coast guard, which rights groups accuse of violence.
Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned Friday that Tunisia’s “serious financial problems” risked sparking a “migratory wave” toward Europe.
She also confirmed plans for a mission to the North African country involving the Italian and French foreign ministers.
Meloni echoed comments earlier in the week by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who warned Tunisia risks economic collapse that could trigger a new flow of migrants to Europe — fears Tunis has since dismissed.
Since Saied’s speech, hundreds of migrants have been repatriated in flights organized by their embassies, but many say they fear going home and have called on the UN to organize evacuation flights to safe third countries.
Tunisia is in the throes of a long-running socio-economic crisis, with spiralling inflation and persistently high joblessness, and Tunisians themselves make up a large proportion of the migrants traveling to Italian shores.
The heavily indebted North African country is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a $2-billion bailout package, but the talks have been stalled for months and there is no sign a deal is any closer.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Wednesday that unless they reach an agreement, “the economy risks falling off the deep end.”

Topics: Tunisia Migrant crisis

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