PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute Wednesday to victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Israel in a national ceremony and denounced what he described as the “largest antisemitic massacre of our century.”
Forty-two French citizens died in the attack, and three hostages are still believed to be held by Hamas and other militants in Gaza. Three empty chairs symbolized their absence.
The ceremony comes after new Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné made his first trip to the Middle East, including Israel and the Palestinian territories, where he pushed for the release of the hostages.
Four other French hostages have been released. A total of about 250 people were abducted in the Hamas attack and about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
Honor guards held photographs of each victim in front of a giant screen showing their first name in the Invalides’ monumental courtyard in Paris.
Many of those killed “will never turn 30,” Macron said. “Their voices still resonate in Hebrew and French.”
The French president strongly denounced barbarity “which feeds on antisemitism and propagates it.” He said “nothing can justify or excuse this terrorism. Nothing.”
A sharp rise in antisemitic acts in France has been reported in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. Data from the Interior Ministry and the Jewish Community Protection Service watchdog showed that 1,676 antisemitic acts were reported in 2023, compared to 436 the previous year.
The Republican Guard’s orchestra played “Kaddish” by French composer Maurice Ravel, written in 1914 based on a traditional Hebrew melody.
Yashay Dan, a relative of French Israeli hostage Ofer Kalderon, said ahead of the ceremony that he hoped it “can resonate all around the world, not only in France.”
Ayla Yahalomi Luzon, sister of French Israeli hostage Ohad Yahalomi, said: “We don’t need people to hope for us. I have hope. We need help. Ohad is a French citizen, and I ask France to make all efforts to release him and everyone.”
The families of Israeli hostages have worked for months to keep the captives’ plight in the global spotlight.
Macron said France will keep “working tirelessly to meet the aspirations for peace and security of all in the Middle East” and stressed that Israeli lives “are not the only ones that continue to be torn apart.”
France is pressing for an immediate ceasefire and a massive influx of humanitarian aid in Gaza. Séjourné described the death and destruction in the Palestinian territory as a “tragedy.”
A French team of health workers who spent two weeks in Gaza in coordination with the PalMed group returned to Paris on Tuesday after working at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, the territory’s second largest city.
“Bombing is constant, and in the past days it was getting closer to the hospital,” emergency doctor Raphael Pitti told AP. “Shrapnel touched the hospital.”
Pitti said the situation on the ground appeared “totally hopeless,” with some patients returning weeks later with infected wounds as medical supplies run short.
France denounces ‘largest antisemitic massacre of our century’ in tribute to victims of Hamas attack
https://arab.news/8yfvw
France denounces ‘largest antisemitic massacre of our century’ in tribute to victims of Hamas attack
- Honor guards held photographs of each victim in front of a giant screen showing their first name
- Many of those killed “will never turn 30,” Macron said
Heavy rains set off flash floods in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 60 people
ISLAMABAD: Flash floods from seasonal rains in Baghlan province in northern Afghanistan killed at least 60 people on Friday, officials said.
The floods also caused losses to homes and property in several districts, according to Edayatullah Hamdard, the provincial director of Natural Disaster Management in Baghlan. He said that the death toll was preliminary and that it “might rise as many people are missing.”
The flash floods also hit the capital, Kabul, said Abdullah Janan Saiq, the Taliban’s spokesman for the State Ministry for Natural Disaster Management. He said that rescue teams bringing food and other aid have been dispatched to the affected areas.
Saiq said that the rescue operation is the main focus of authorities at the moment, and that he later might be able to provide more precise figures on casualties and damage.
Emergency personnel were “searching for any possible victims under the mud and rubble, with the help of security forces from the national army and police,” Hamdard said earlier.
Dozens of tents, blankets and food were provided to those who lost their homes, he added.
Video footage seen on social media showed huge torrents of muddy water swamping roads and bodies shrouded in white and black cloth.
In one video clip, children are heard crying and a group of men are looking at floodwaters, in which bits of broken wood and debris from homes can be seen.
Since mid-April, flash flooding and other floods have left about 100 people dead in 10 of Afghanistan’s provinces, with no region entirely spared, according to authorities.
Farmland has been swamped in a country where 80 percent of the more than 40 million people depend on agriculture to survive.
Rains on Friday also caused heavy damages in northeastern Badakhshan province and central Ghor province, officials said.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said authorities would provide support to those impacted by the flooding across the country.
The government “expresses its deep sympathy with the families of dead and wounded, and instructs the ministry of natural disaster management, ministries of defense and interior, and provincial authorities to spare no resource in rescue efforts,” he said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.
Mohammad Akram Akbari, the provincial director of natural disaster management in Badakhshan, said the mountainous province had seen “heavy financial losses in several areas... due to floods.”
He added that casualties were feared in Tishkan district, where flooding had blocked a road and cut off access to an area where some 20,000 people lived.
Afghanistan — which had a relatively dry winter, making it more difficult for the soil to absorb rainfall — is highly vulnerable to climate change.
In April, at least 70 people died from heavy rains and flash flooding in the country. About 2,000 homes, three mosques, and four schools were damaged last month. Thousands of people require humanitarian assistance. The flooding also damaged agriculture land and 2,500 animals died in the deluges, according to Saiq.
The nation, ravaged by four decades of war, is one of the poorest in the world and, according to scientists, one of the worst prepared to face the consequences of global warming.
Afghanistan, which is responsible for only 0.06 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, ranks sixth on the list of countries most at risk from climate change, experts say.
Half of Afghanistan’s population lives under the poverty line, and 15 million people are experiencing food insecurity, according to the World Bank.
Police arrest dozens as they break up pro-Palestinian protests at several US universities
- Israel has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry
- Nearly 2,900 people have been arrested at 57 colleges and universities
NEW YORK: Police made dozens of arrests as pro-Palestinian protest encampments were dismantled Friday at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, hours after police tear-gassed demonstrators and took down a similar camp at the University of Arizona.
Philadelphia and campus police at Penn took action around daybreak to remove protesters from an encampment in place for more than two weeks. School officials said protesters were given warnings and the chance to leave without being detained. About 33 people, including faculty members and seven students, were among those arrested and charged with trespass, the school said.
Protest camps have sprung up across the US and in Europe in recent weeks as students demand their universities stop doing business with Israel or companies that support its war efforts. Organizers seek to amplify calls to end Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which they describe as a genocide against the Palestinians. The top United Nations court has concluded there is a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza — a charge Israel strongly denies.
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, police in riot gear arrived at MIT around 4 a.m., encircled the camp and gave protesters about 15 minutes to leave. Ten students who remained were arrested, the university’s president said. A crowd outside the camp began chanting pro-Palestinian slogans but was quickly dispersed.
At the University of Arizona in Tucson, campus police in riot gear fired tear gas at protesters late Thursday — the day before the school’s main commencement ceremony — before tearing down an encampment that included wood and plastic barriers. The school said police vehicles were spiked, and rocks and water bottles were thrown at officers and university staff. Two people were arrested, a university spokesperson said. Friday night’s commencement will go forward, university President Robert Robbins said.
And at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, police arrested 13 people Thursday night after they refused to leave a damaged and vandalized building. The charges ranged from misdemeanor trespass to felonies including battery on a peace officer, school spokesperson Amanda Bradford said. The building, Hadley Hall, was cleared and open Friday.
Protesters at the University of Wisconsin-Madison agreed Friday to permanently dismantle their 2-week-old encampment and not disrupt graduation ceremonies this weekend, in return for the opportunity to connect with “decision-makers” who control university investments by July 1. The university agreed to increase support for scholars and students affected by wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Graduates from Pomona College in Southern California will have to travel 40 miles (65 km) for their commencement ceremony Sunday, as administrators seek to avoid a current encampment. The college said it will provide transportation to the venue, a historic theater in Los Angeles. In April, protesters entered an administration building and police arrested 20 people.
The protest movement began nearly three weeks ago at Columbia University in New York City. Some colleges nationwide cracked down immediately, while others tolerated the demonstrations. Some recently started calling in the police, citing concerns about disruptions to campus life and safety.
The Associated Press has recorded at least 75 instances since April 18 in which arrests were made at US campus protests. Nearly 2,900 people have been arrested at 57 colleges and universities. The figures are based on AP reporting and statements from schools and law enforcement agencies.
Arizona State University on Friday confirmed that it had placed its campus police chief on paid administrative leave pending a review of “complaints filed related to his actions” two weeks ago when an encampment was removed and police made more than 70 arrests during a pro-Palestine rally on the campus in Tempe.
The school said it was reviewing actions surrounding the establishment and removal of the encampment. Local news outlets reported earlier that ASU Police Chief Michael Thompson had been placed on leave after he had been seen out of uniform cutting and removing tents during the protest. The school told ABC15 Arizona earlier he had left a meeting to respond to the rally.
Although their encampment was cleared after two weeks, demonstrators at George Washington University vowed Friday to keep up their protest campaign.
Police arrested 33 people on Wednesday while ousting the initial encampment. The next night, a crowd of chanting demonstrators returned to the university about five blocks from the White House, setting up tents while a large Metropolitan Police Department force assembled. After multiple warnings to disperse, protests leaders ended the demonstration around midnight. One person was arrested for throwing water at a police officer.
The move at MIT came several days after police first attempted to clear the camp, only to see protesters storm past barriers and restore the encampment, which includes about a dozen tents in the heart of the campus in Cambridge.
Before removing the encampment, MIT earlier in the week started suspending dozens of students, meaning they’re barred from academic activities or commencement.
Protesters insist they will keep demanding MIT cut all ties to the Israeli military. The encampment was up for weeks and especially angered Jewish students, who held counterprotests nearby.
“This is only going to make us stronger. They can’t arrest the movement,” said Quinn Perian, an undergraduate student and organizer for MIT Jews for Ceasefire. “MIT would rather arrest and suspend some students than they would end their complicity with the genocide going in Gaza.”
MIT President Sally Kornbluth, in a letter confirming Friday’s arrests, wrote that her responsibility is “to make sure that the campus is physically safe and functioning for everyone ... and that everyone feels free to express their views.” The encampment, she wrote, “increasingly made it impossible to meet all these obligations.”
South Africa again requests emergency measures from world court to restrain Israel’s actions in Gaza
South Africa again requests emergency measures from world court to restrain Israel’s actions in Gaza
- The North African country joins Nicaragua and Colombia, which have filed their own requests to take part in the proceedings
- Israel has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
THE HAGUE, Netherlands: South Africa urged the United Nations’ top court Friday to issue more emergency measures to restrain Israel, saying its military incursion in Rafah threatens the “very survival of Palestinians in Gaza.”
The request marks the fourth for additional measures by South Africa, which filed a genocide case against Israel late last year at the International Court of Justice. According to the latest request, the previous preliminary orders by The Hague-based court were not sufficient to address “a brutal military attack on the sole remaining refuge for the people of Gaza.”
At hearings in January, lawyers for Israel argued that its war in Gaza was a legitimate defense of its people and that it was Hamas militants who were guilty of genocide.
South Africa has asked the court to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah; to take measures to ensure unimpeded access to UN officials, humanitarian organizations and journalists to the Gaza Strip; and to report back within one week as to how it is meeting these demands.
Earlier this week, Israel issued a warning to evacuate an area of eastern Rafah where approximately 100,000 Palestinians have been sheltering. Israeli military forces have now seized the nearby border crossing with Egypt, leaving all entries and exits from the beleaguered enclave under Israeli control.
South Africa also accused Israel of violating the previous provisional measures imposed by the court. In January, judges ordered Israel to do all it could to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza. Two months later, the court issued a second set of measures, telling Israel to improve the humanitarian situation, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies.
The court also announced on Friday that Libya had asked to join the case and intervene in support of South Africa. The North African country joins Nicaragua and Colombia, which have filed their own requests to take part in the proceedings.
Separately, Nicaragua brought a complaint against Germany, arguing the European country is enabling genocide by sending arms and other support to Israel. Earlier this month, the court rejected a request for emergency measures against Berlin, but the case will continue on merits.
The war began with a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which Palestinian militants killed around 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. The attack sparked an Israeli invasion the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people.
Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. Much of Gaza has been destroyed and some 80 percent of Gaza’s population has been driven from their homes.
The UN says northern Gaza is already in a state of “full-blown famine.”
Strong solar storm hits Earth, could disrupt communications and produce northern lights in US
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: An unusually strong solar storm hitting Earth could produce northern lights in the US this weekend and potentially disrupt power and communications.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a rare severe geomagnetic storm warning when a solar outburst reached Earth on Friday afternoon, hours sooner than anticipated. The effects were due to last through the weekend and possibly into next week.
NOAA alerted operators of power plants and spacecraft in orbit to take precautions, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenburgh, a scientist with NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.
The storm could produce northern lights as far south in the US as Alabama and Northern California, according to NOAA. But it was hard to predict and experts stressed it would not be the dramatic curtains of color normally associated with the northern lights, but more like splashes of greenish hues.
“That’s really the gift from space weather — the aurora,” said Steenburgh. He and his colleagues said the best aurora views may come from phone cameras, which are better at capturing light than the naked eye.
Snap a picture of the sky and “there might be actually a nice little treat there for you,” said Mike Bettwy, operations chief for the prediction center.
The most intense solar storm in recorded history, in 1859, prompted auroras in central America and possibly even Hawaii. “We are not anticipating that” but it could come close, said NOAA space weather forecaster Shawn Dahl.
This storm — ranked 4 on a scale of 1 to 5 — poses a risk for high-voltage transmission lines for power grids, not the electrical lines ordinarily found in people’s homes, Dahl told reporters. Satellites also could be affected, which in turn could disrupt navigation and communication services here on Earth.
An extreme geomagnetic storm in 2003, for example, took out power in Sweden and damaged power transformers in South Africa.
Even when the storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost, according to NOAA. But there are so many navigation satellites that any outages should not last long, Steenburgh noted.
The sun has produced strong solar flares since Wednesday, resulting in at least seven outbursts of plasma. Each eruption — known as a coronal mass ejection — can contain billions of tons of plasma and magnetic field from the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona.
The flares seem to be associated with a sunspot that’s 16 times the diameter of Earth, according to NOAA. It’s all part of the solar activity that’s ramping up as the sun approaches the peak of its 11-year cycle.
NASA said the storm posed no serious threat to the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station. The biggest concern is the increased radiation levels, and the crew could move to a better shielded part of the station if necessary, according to Steenburgh.
Increased radiation also could threaten some of NASA’s science satellites. Extremely sensitive instruments will be turned off, if necessary, to avoid damage, said Antti Pulkkinen, director of the space agency’s heliophysics science division.
Several sun-focused spacecraft are monitoring all the action.
“This is exactly the kinds of things we want to observe,” Pulkkinen said.
US announces a new $400 million package of weapons for Ukraine to try to hold off Russian advances
WASHINGTON: The US announced a new $400 million package of military aid for Ukraine on Friday, as Kyiv struggles to hold off advances by Russian troops in the northeast Kharkiv region.
This is the third tranche of aid for Ukraine since Congress passed supplemental funding in late April after months of gridlock. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned Thursday that his country was facing “a really difficult situation” in the east, but said a new supply of US weapons was coming and “we will be able to stop them.”
The package includes High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and rockets for them, as well as munitions for Patriot and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, artillery, anti-aircraft and anti-tank munitions, and an array of armored vehicles, such as Bradley and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.
It will also provide a number of coastal and riverine patrol boats, trailers, demolition munitions, high-speed anti-radiation missiles, protective gear, spare parts and other weapons and equipment. The weapons are being sent through presidential drawdown authority, which pulls systems and munitions from existing US stockpiles so they can go quickly to the war front.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that the latest military aid was intended, in part, to help Ukraine fend off the surging Russian effort to capture Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
Kirby noted that Russia has already launched initial incursions into areas around the towns of Vovchansk and Lyptsi, near Kharkiv.
“It is possible that Russia will make further advances in the coming weeks, but we do not anticipate any major breakthroughs,” Kirby said. “And over time, the influx of US assistance will enable Ukraine to withstand these attacks over the course of 2024.”
The US has now provided about $50.6 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Almost immediately after President Joe Biden signed the $95 billion foreign aid package, the Pentagon announced it was sending $1 billion in weapons through that drawdown authority,. And just days later the Biden administration announced a $6 billion package funded through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which pays for longer-term contracts with the defense industry and means that the weapons could take many months or years to arrive.
Russia has sought to exploit Ukraine’s shortages of ammunition and manpower as the flow of Western supplies since the outbreak of the war petered out while Congress struggled to pass the bill. Moscow has assembled large troop concentrations in the east as well as in the north and has been gaining an edge on the battlefield, Zelensky said.
Officials did not say if the latest package includes more of the long-range ballistic missiles — known as the Army Tactical Missile System — that Ukraine has repeatedly requested. The US secretly sent a number of the missiles to Ukraine for the first time this spring and the White House has said it would send more. In one case, Ukraine used them to bomb a Russian military airfield in Crimea.
The new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) — than it had with the mid-range version of the weapon that it received from the US in October.
