PARIS: The sumptuous Palace of Versailles was forced to evacuate visitors on Thursday for the fourth time in less than a week for a security check after a bomb alert.
Airports and schools around France also fell victim to bomb alerts and forced evacuations after a similar rash of warnings a day earlier. Even a nuclear research institute received a threat on Thursday.
Pranksters or plotters?
No bombs have been found, but authorities can’t take risks with the lives of travelers, students or workers. Still, the government is growing impatient, threatening prison terms and heavy fines for those making fake bomb threats. A rash of false alarms forced the evacuation of 15 airports and cancelation of 130 flights, as well as shutting the doors to the Palace of Versailles repeatedly since last Saturday.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Thursday evening that 18 people had been detained in the last 48 hours — mostly, but not only, minors.
The barrage of alerts “disorganizes our security services and obviously stops society from functioning,” Darmanin said in an interview with BFM-TV. False alerts also “pose an enormous risk in case of a (real) problem.”
The minister said that “enormous means” are being used to identify pranksters with their phone numbers and addresses.
“We tell those listening: We will find everyone,” he said.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti blamed the alerts on “little jokers, little clowns” and warned of the consequences.
Under French law, prank calls can be punished with up to 3 years’ imprisonment and fines of 45,000 euros ($47,000), the minister said. The justice minister said minors’ parents could be made to pay for damages, while the interior minister said that student pranksters won’t get off the hook: their names and phone numbers will be transmitted to the National Education system.
“We don’t need this. We don’t need troublemakers, psychosis, at this moment,” the justice minister said Wednesday.
Police said that at least seven airports received threats on Thursday, mainly by email. Among those targeted were airports at Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes and Toulouse.
France has been on heightened alert since the fatal stabbing of a schoolteacher last week that was blamed on a suspected Islamic extremist who allegedly declared allegiance to the Daesh group.
A funeral service for Dominique Bernard, the French-language teacher killed by a knife wound to the neck, was held Thursday in Arras, the northern town where he taught at the Gambetta-Carnot school. President Emmanuel Macron was in attendance — his plane on the tarmac of nearby Lille airport, among those evacuated during the morning service, according to the local Voix du Nord newspaper.
Among threats received Thursday was one at a nuclear research facility in Grenoble, in the southeast. Two delivery men, aged 23 and 26, were arrested after leaving a package at the Laue Langevin Institute and telling guards as they left, “We did it. We delivered a bomb,” the local Le Dauphine Libere reported.
French Transport Minister Clement Beaune said false threats were made against 17 airports on Wednesday, causing widespread disruption, the evacuation of 15 airports, cancelation of 130 flights and many flight delays.
It is the regional prefects who decide, on a case-by-case basis, whether threats necessitate an evacuation.
“For the moment, we have no miracle solution,” said Nicolas Paulissen, general delegate for the Union of French Airports which is present at all 150 airports around the country. The bomb risk cannot be ignored, but “we can’t stop airports from functioning.”
He noted, however, that airports are capable of adapting to threats and crises.
“Adaptation is in our DNA,” Paulissen said.
Beaune, the transport minister, underscored the government’s firm message about the barrage of bomb alerts.
“These false alerts are not bad jokes. They are crimes,” Beaune posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
French officials suspect pranksters in a rash of fake bomb threats and warn of heavy punishments
https://arab.news/gj6ab
French officials suspect pranksters in a rash of fake bomb threats and warn of heavy punishments
- Airports and schools around France also fell victim to bomb alerts and forced evacuations after a similar rash of warnings a day earlier
- No bombs have been found, but authorities can’t take risks with the lives of travelers, students or workers
After criticism, Spain museum alters name of Palestinian program
The museum, one of Spain’s most visited which is home to Pablo Picasso’s historic Guernica painting about the horrors of war, had controversially called the program “From The River To the Sea” — a rallying cry among Palestinians.
The term refers to the borders of the British Palestine mandate between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea before Israel’s establishment in 1948. Some Jewish groups see it as calling for the destruction of Israel.
In a statement, the museum said it had renamed the program “Critical Thinking Gatherings, International Solidarity With Palestine” since the original name was considered “offensive to certain communities.”
The program includes lectures, conversations and meetings with Palestinian artists as well as two art installations, all aimed at demanding “an end of the war and genocide,” according to the museum’s website.
Spain’s FCJE, an umbrella body representing the Jewish community, had denounced the original title of the program.
“This slogan, considered anti-Semitic by the US House of Representatives, implies the elimination of Israel and its inhabitants... it also appears on maps at various rallies where Israel is erased,” it said in a statement.
Spain has been one of Europe’s most critical voices about Israel’s Gaza offensive and is working to rally other European capitals behind the idea of recognizing a Palestinian state.
The Gaza war began on October 7 when Hamas militants stormed across the border into southern Israel.
The unprecedented attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a blistering retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 35,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.
Moroccan asylum-seeker gets life sentence for killing UK retiree in attack motivated by war in Gaza
- Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb sentenced Alid to life with no chance of parole for 45 years
- “The murder of Terence Carney was a terrorist act in which you hoped to influence the British government,” she said
LONDON: A Moroccan asylum-seeker who stabbed a British retiree to death in revenge for Israel’s war against Hamas was sentenced Friday to at least 45 years in prison for what the judge termed a terrorist act.
Ahmed Alid told police after his arrest that he’d killed 70-year-old Terence Carney in the northeast England town of Hartlepool because “Israel had killed innocent children.”
“They killed children and I killed an old man,” he said during questioning.
Prosecutors said that on Oct. 15 — eight days after the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza — Alid attacked his housemate, Iranian asylum-seeker Javed Nouri, with a knife as he slept. Nouri survived. Alid then ran outside, encountered Carney having a morning walk and stabbed him six times.
Prosecution lawyer Jonathan Sandiford said Alid had told police that “if he had had a machine gun and more weapons, he would have killed more victims.”
Alid, 45, had denied the charges against him. Although he acknowledged stabbing the men, he said he had no intent to kill or cause serious harm.
A jury at Teesside Crown Court last month found Alid guilty of one count of murder, one count of attempted murder and two counts of assaulting police officers during his post-arrest interview.
Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb sentenced Alid to life with no chance of parole for 45 years, saying he had shown “no genuine remorse or pity” for his victims.
“The murder of Terence Carney was a terrorist act in which you hoped to influence the British government,” she said. “You hoped to frighten the British people and undermine the freedoms they enjoy.”
In a victim impact statement, the victim’s wife Patricia Carney said she could no longer go into town because it was “too painful” to be near the spot where her husband was murdered.
Nouri, a convert to Christianity, said the attack had destroyed his sense of safety.
“I would expect to be arrested and killed in my home country for converting to Christianity but I did not expect to be attacked in my sleep here,” his statement said. “How is it possible for someone to destroy someone’s life because of his religion?”
Slovak PM has new surgery, condition ‘still very serious’
- The Banska Bystrica hospital director said Fico remained “conscious” despite being in a “serious” condition
- “This is a lone wolf whose actions were accelerated after the presidential election since he was dissatisfied with its outcome,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said
BRATISLAVA: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s condition was on Friday “still very serious” two days after an attempted assassination, his deputy and close ally said, as police raided the suspect’s home.
Fico was hospitalized after the shooting on Wednesday, which happened as the 59-year-old leader was speaking to members of the public after a meeting in the central town of Handlova.
“He was operated on again, he had an almost two-hour-long operation,” deputy prime minister Robert Kalinak told reporters outside the hospital in Banska Bystrica.
Fico had previously undergone a five-hour-long surgery, shortly after being airlifted from the scene of the attack on Wednesday.
“His state is still very serious. I think it would take a couple of days to see the course of the development of his state,” Kalinak added on Friday.
The Banska Bystrica hospital director said Fico remained “conscious” despite being in a “serious” condition.
Earlier on Friday, local media reported that Slovak police had searched the home of the man charged with the shooting.
Officers brought along the alleged gunman, who was wearing a bulletproof vest and helmet, to the apartment he shared with his wife in the western town of Levice, Markiza TV footage showed.
“Police stayed in the apartment for several hours... They took the computer and documents out of the apartment,” the private broadcaster said.
Police, who told AFP they would not comment on an ongoing investigation, have not named the suspect but media have identified him as 71-year-old writer Juraj Cintula.
He was charged on Thursday with attempted murder with premeditation in what the authorities have called a politically motivated attack.
“This is a lone wolf whose actions were accelerated after the presidential election since he was dissatisfied with its outcome,” Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said.
The attack has stoked fears of further violence and instability in the politically polarized nation, just weeks before European Parliament elections.
Officials drew a link to the political situation in the country, with its political scene marred by disinformation and attacks on social media during recent election campaigns.
Slovak president-elect Peter Pellegrini, who won an election in April, on Wednesday urged the political parties to suspend or reduce campaigning before the EU vote.
The biggest opposition party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, and others announced that they had done so.
Fico, a four-time premier and political veteran, returned to office in October.
Since then, he has made a string of remarks that have soured ties between Slovakia and neighboring Ukraine after he questioned the country’s sovereignty.
After he was elected, Slovakia stopped sending weapons to Ukraine, invaded by Russia in 2022.
Ukraine braces for ‘heavy battles’ as Putin says Russia carving out Kharkiv buffer zone
- Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi said the attack had expanded the area of hostilities by around 70km
- “We understand there will be heavy battles and that the enemy is preparing for that,” the head of the Ukrainian armed forces wrote on Telegram
KYIV: Ukraine’s top commander warned on Friday of “heavy battles” looming on the war’s new front in the northeastern Kharkiv region as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was carving out a “buffer zone” in the area.
Russian forces attacked the Kharkiv region’s north last Friday, making inroads of up to 10 kilometers (6 miles) and unbalancing Kyiv’s outnumbered troops who are trying to hold the line over a sprawling front nearly 27 months since the full-scale invasion.
Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi said the attack had expanded the area of hostilities by around 70km and that Russia had launched its incursion ahead of schedule when “it noticed the deployment of our forces.”
“We understand there will be heavy battles and that the enemy is preparing for that,” the head of the Ukrainian armed forces wrote in a statement on the Telegram app.
Speaking during a state visit to China, Putin said Moscow’s forces were creating a “buffer zone” to protect Russian border regions, but that capturing the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest, was not part of the current plan.
The Russian leader told a news conference the assault was a response to Kyiv’s shelling of Russian border regions such as Belgorod.
“Civilians are dying there. It’s obvious. They are shooting directly at the city center, at residential areas. And I said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a security zone, a buffer zone. That is what we are doing,” Putin said.
Russian forces were able to advance 10 kilometers in one place, but Ukrainian forces have “stabilized” the front, President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainian media outlets in comments published on Friday.
HEAVIEST ASSAULTS IN EAST
Moscow’s forces are mounting their heaviest assaults in the eastern Donetsk region, according to data compiled by the Ukrainian General Staff, which said the eastern Pokrovsk front had faced the most regular assaults in recent days.
In his comments, Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces were preparing their defensive lines for a possible new Russian assault on the Sumy region, which would mark another front more than a hundred kilometers to the north of Kharkiv.
Kyiv has warned that Russia has small units of forces near the Sumy region.
Volodymyr Artiukh, head of the Sumy region’s military administration, said Russian military activity along the northern Ukrainian region was at a high level.
“We note that the actions (of Russian forces) are systematic. Shelling continues, in fact, along the entire border, with an intensity of 200-400 explosions per day... The intensity of enemy sabotage groups has increased,” he said.
Indian UN peacekeeper killed by Israeli forces in Gaza repatriated for burial
- Col. Waibhav Anil Kale was hit by Israeli fire while in UN-marked vehicle
- Indian veterans condemn Israel for indiscriminate killing, ‘barbaric’ use of force
NEW DELHI: Indian veterans joined in condemning Israel’s killing of a former army officer and UN staffer Col. Waibhav Anil Kale, whose body was returned to India for burial on Friday.
Kale was on duty with the UN Department of Safety and Security when he was targeted in his UN-marked vehicle in southern Gaza on Monday.
A former peacekeeper, he was hit by what the UN said it had no doubt was Israeli tank fire.
The Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv shared a photo on Friday morning showing UN officials paying their last respects to Kale, before his remains were flown to Delhi.
While the Indian Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying it was “deeply saddened by the death,” civil society has urged the government to hold Israel accountable. Former servicemen also joined the call.
“Israel must be held accountable. Killing a veteran officer engaged in the UN is a serious issue,” said Indian Army Maj. Gen. (retd.) Yashpal Mor.
A former UN staffer himself, Mor told Arab News that Kale had a “brilliant career” and was known in the army circles.
“When you work with the UN, you are in an international environment, but you have the ethos and ethics of the Indian army. It was very sad and very shocking. He actually died in the line of duty,” he said.
“Israelis have been doing this since the beginning. They are not worried about anyone. They are going berserk.”
Israel’s deadly siege and bombardment of Gaza has since October killed over 35,300 people, wounded 70,000, and left most of the enclave’s population starving and with no access to food, water, and medical supplies.
“Israelis will lose sympathy by doing this indiscriminate firing,” Col. Anil Bhat (retd.), former spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense, said. “In the Indian army, we are so attentive to civilian casualties that we lose more men by not doing indiscriminate firing … Indiscriminate killing is not good. Israelis will lose sympathy.”
The UN estimates that more than 190 of its staff members have also been killed in the ongoing onslaught. Kale was the first international UN employee to be killed.
New Delhi had always been sensitive to assaults on UN personnel given that it is one of the largest contributors of the organization’s peacekeepers.
But the government’s statement did not contain condemnation of Kale’s killing, unlike in July 2022, when two Indian peacekeepers were killed in an attack on a UN Organization Stabilization Mission base in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
At that time, India’s foreign minister said the perpetrators “must be held accountable and brought to justice” and convened a special meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the attack.
“India has good bilateral relations with Israel, but that shouldn’t prevent it from strongly condemning the latter,” said Air Marshal (retd.) Kapil Kak of the Indian Air Force.
“One is deeply pained and distressed at Israel’s barbaric force in Gaza, which has led to the death and maiming of thousands of children and monumental human suffering. This is in sharp contrast to past India-Pakistan wars. I took part in two of these, which were far more civilized in character and caused no collateral damage, despite the absence of precision-guided munition.”
