THE HAGUE: South Africa will ask the top UN court on Thursday to order a halt to the Rafah offensive as part of its case in The Hague accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip.
The hearings at the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, come after South Africa last week asked for additional emergency measures to protect Rafah, a southern Gaza city where more than a million Palestinians have been sheltering.
It also asked the court to order Israel to allow unimpeded access to Gaza for UN officials, organizations providing humanitarian aid, and journalists and investigators. It added that Israel has so far ignored and violated earlier court orders.
On Thursday, South Africa will present its latest intervention seeking emergency measures starting at 3 p.m.(1300 GMT).
Israel, which has denounced South Africa’s claim that it is violating the 1949 Genocide Convention as baseless, will respond on Friday. In previous filings it stressed it had stepped up efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza as the ICJ had ordered.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations told Army Radio on Wednesday the short notice the court gave for the hearings did not allow sufficient legal preparation, adding that was “a telling sign.”
The Israel-Hamas war has killed nearly 35,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities there. About 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 253 taken hostage on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched the attack that started the war, according Israeli tallies.
South Africa accuses Israel of acts of genocide against Palestinians. In January, the court ordered Israel to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza, allow in more humanitarian aid and preserve any evidence of violations.
The hearings on May 16 and 17 will only focus on issuing emergency measures, to keep the dispute from escalating. It will likely take years before the court can rule on the merits of the case.
The ICJ’s rulings and orders are binding and without appeal. While the court has no way to enforce them, an order against a country could hurt its international reputation and set legal precedent.
South Africa seeks halt to Israel’s Rafah offensive at World Court
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South Africa seeks halt to Israel’s Rafah offensive at World Court
- The hearings on May 16 and 17 will only focus on issuing emergency measures, to keep the dispute from escalating
Massive fire breaks out in 4-story apartment building near downtown Miami
Firefighters and police officers arrived at the building just west of Interstate 95 near downtown Miami after receiving calls about a fire around 8:15 a.m., and began rescuing residents from the building’s balconies, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said during a news conference.
Suarez said arriving first responders also found a man with gunshot wounds at the scene. He was taken to a hospital, where he was in critical condition. Officials said the shooting is part of an active investigation. They offered few other details.
The mayor said two firefighters were taken to a hospital due to heat exhaustion, and both were in stable condition.
Miami police officials said this was “an isolated incident,” meaning there is no gunman at large.
News helicopters showed flames rising from the building along with large plumes of smoke several hours after the fire started. At least two ladder trucks were pouring water and foam onto the building.
The Temple Court apartment complex is made up of one-bedroom and studio units near the Miami River.
Residents from the building, many of them elderly, were taken to a staging area where they were offered food and any medications they needed, Suarez said.
Smoke from the fire was also drifting over Interstate 95, and much of downtown Miami.
It was not immediately known whether anyone was injured in the fire.
India’s Odisha state records 8 deaths in 72 hours as heat wave persists
- A total of 159 suspected sun stroke deaths have been reported in Odisha this summer
- India, several parts of Asia have experienced an unusually hot summer in recent weeks
BHUBANESWAR: At least eight people have died of suspected sun stroke in India’s eastern state of Odisha in the last three days, the government said on Monday, with the national weather department predicting more hot weather in parts of the state this week.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) declares a heat wave when the temperature of a region is 4.5 degrees Celsius (40.1°F) to 6.4 C higher than normal. Odisha’s capital city of Bhubaneswar recorded a maximum temperature of 39 C on Monday.
A total of 159 suspected sun stroke deaths have been reported in Odisha this summer, the state emergency operation center said on Monday, adding that sun stroke was confirmed as the cause of death in 41 cases.
“Seventy-three cases (of suspected sun stroke) are under inquiry at district level,” the center’s statement said.
India and several other parts of Asia have experienced an unusually hot summer — a trend scientists say has been worsened by human-driven climate change — and the weather department has forecast heat wave conditions will continue in parts of north and east India in the coming days.
The country saw nearly 25,000 cases and 56 fatalities from suspected heat stroke from March to May, local media reported last week.
The capital Delhi recorded its highest ever temperature at 49.9 C in some places earlier this month, and it has been grappling with a water shortage as maximum temperatures continue to hover around 44 C.
The country held national elections from April to June amid the heat, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi securing a third term with a diminished majority, making his BJP dependent on other parties to form a government.
The early arrival of monsoon rains, which hit southern Kerala state on May 30 and have advanced into the western state of Maharashtra after covering southern India, however, may bring some relief by the end of the month, the weather department has said.
Macron urges French to make ‘right choice’ in election gamble
- Le Monde: By playing with fire, the head of state could end up by burning himself and dragging the entire country into the fire
- Macron appeared unfazed as he visited the southwestern French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, site of a massacre by Nazi soldiers during World War II, together with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier
PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said that he was confident French voters would make the “right choice” in snap elections he called after the far right crushed his centrist alliance in Sunday’s EU ballot.
His surprise move came after mainstream centrist parties kept an overall majority in the European Parliament in Sunday’s elections, but the far right notched up a string of high-profile victories in Italy, Austria and France.
In Germany, where the three governing coalition parties also performed dismally, center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesman ruled out a snap vote.
Analysts say Macron has taken the risky gamble of dissolving the national parliament in a bid to keep the far-right National Rally (RN) out of power when his second term ends in 2027.
“I am confident in the capacity of the French people to make the right choice for themselves and for future generations,” Macron wrote on X on Monday.
His announcement of elections for a new National Assembly on June 30, with a second round on July 7, has sparked widespread alarm, even from within the ranks of his party.
“By playing with fire, the head of state could end up by burning himself and dragging the entire country into the fire,” Le Monde wrote in an editorial.
Despite the storm of criticism, Macron appeared unfazed on Monday as he visited the southwestern French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, site of a massacre by Nazi soldiers during World War II, together with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Steinmeier said: “Let us never forget the damage done in Europe by nationalism and hate.”
Back in Paris, even some Macron allies expressed dissent over his latest announcement.
Lower-house speaker Yael Braun-Pivet, a senior figure within Macron’s party, indicated that forming a coalition with other parties could have been a better “path.”
“The president believed that this path did not exist,” she told television channel France 2.
Meanwhile, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist, described the prospect of elections just weeks before the start of the Paris Olympics as “extremely unsettling.”
But International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach played down any direct impact on the event.
Uncertainty around the election also sapped market confidence, with Paris’s CAC 40 index closing 1.35 percent lower and the interest rate on French government debt gaining 10 basis points, to 3.22 percent.
In a televised address late on Sunday, Macron warned of the danger of “the rise of nationalists and demagogues” for France and its place in Europe.
He noted that, including the RN, far-right parties in France had managed to take almost 40 percent of the EU Parliament vote.
Macron is hoping to win back the majority he lost in France’s lower house in 2022 legislative elections after winning a second term.
But some fear the anti-immigration RN could instead win, forcing Macron to work in an uncomfortable coalition with a far-right prime minister.
RN vice president Sebastien Chenu said the party’s 28-year-old leader Jordan Bardella would be its contender for the post.
Bardella’s mentor Marine Le Pen, who was runner-up in the last two presidential elections, has remained party leader in parliament and is largely expected to tilt for the top job again in 2027.
The far right came out on top in France, Italy and Austria, and second in Germany and the Netherlands.
The Kremlin, which hopes the far right would take a softer line on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, said it was “attentively observing” the gains.
The RN came in first with more than 31 percent of votes in France — its score was more than double that of Macron’s list with 14 percent.
The Socialists and hard-left France Unbowed trailed behind with 13 and nine percent each.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire warned that the election results would have “consequences of unprecedented seriousness for our nation.”
The team of Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne, who is also secretary-general of Macron’s Renaissance party, told RTL radio he would be “fully engaged” in the battle for parliament seats as well as his job as minister.
Socialist party chief Olivier Faure called for setting up “a popular front against the far right.”
On the far right, Marion Marechal, deputy head of the Reconquest party founded by pundit Eric Zemmour and seen as even further to the right of the RN, was meeting Marine Le Pen — who is her aunt — and Bardella at the RN headquarters.
Bardella said he had also “stretched out his hand” to the mainstream conservative Republicans party and had spoken with senior members.
Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, said Macron appeared to believe he could defy the polls by confronting France with a choice between the pro-European status quo and a far right that has “a history of admiration for — and funding by — Vladimir Putin.”
Polish border no-go zone will stop tourists as well as migrants, locals fear
- Hoteliers and tour operators said they were particularly worried about the impact on the summer season from the zone
BIALOWIEZA, Poland: Poland’s move to set up a no-go zone to control the number of migrants coming over its borders could also stop thousands of tourists visiting the forested frontier with Belarus, local business owners fear.
Hoteliers and tour operators said they were particularly worried about the impact on the summer season from the zone — which would bar everyone apart from security services from a strip of eastern territory cutting into popular sites.
Parts of the zone cross into Bialowieza forest, potentially stopping visitors entering parts of one of Europe’s last ancient woodlands, traditionally a center of hiking, cycling and nature-watching.
The zone is due to come into force on Thursday. But the alarming talk of security controls is already having an impact, Slawomir Dron, a restaurant owner from Bialowieza, said.
“People cancel their reservations. My friends who run private lodgings here, they already received cancelations. Everyone is asking if it’s safe in here.”
The government says it is having to act after a rise in confrontations between migrants and authorities on the border that has already led to the death of one soldier.
Poland and other European countries have accused Belarus, a Russian ally, of engineering a migration crisis by flying in people from the Middle East and pushing them to cross into the European Union illegally.
In all, Poland plans to spend 10 billion zlotys ($2.5 billion) on strengthening defenses at the border.
Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said local businesses will get a boost from all the army, police and border guards using accommodation.
The presence of security services will also make visitors feel safer, and some businesses may be able to get compensation, he added.
But locals are not convinced.
Tourism took a hit when the crisis on the Belarus border first broke out in 2021 and the previous nationalist government introduced a buffer zone, then stoked people’s fears about security further by erecting a 5-meter high metal barrier.
At least the last government only imposed restrictions outside the tourist season, guide Lukasz Synowiecki told Reuters. But this time authorities will be bringing in restrictions just when visitor numbers usually peak.
“I will probably have to go somewhere else to find seasonal work this summer,” he said. “And I will keep my fingers crossed this ends one day.”
Third-party US presidential candidate Jill Stein calls for suspension of military aid to Israel
- Stein, a member of the Green Party, says she would stop ‘police oppression’ of students protesting against the war in Gaza, and preserve the rights of Arab and Muslim Americans
- She approached Lebanese American Abdullah Hammoud, mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, to be her running mate but he is 3 months too young to meet Constitutional age requirements
CHICAGO: Jill Stein, who is campaigning to stand as a third-party candidate in the US presidential election in November, said that if elected she would immediately halt military support for Israel’s “apartheid government,” and push Israelis and Palestinians to embrace a “genuine peace.”
In an exclusive interview with Arab News, she said American policy on the Israel-Palestine conflict is driven by lobbyists, and that anyone who challenges the Israeli government over its responsibility for ethnic cleansing in Palestine is denied their constitutional rights.
Stein is a candidate for the Green Party, which advocates on a range of issues, including environmental action and the constitutional rights “of all Americans.” She said she would halt the “police oppression” of students who stage campus protests demanding an end to what many consider a genocide in Gaza, stop the flow of weapons to Israel’s government, and preserve the rights of Arab and Muslim Americans who “continue to be the victims of racism, violence and Islamophobia.”
She added: “Arab and Muslims have been taken for granted in America. They are victims of racial profiling, Islamophobia and the violence against Arabs in this country.
“There is an absolute violation of our constitutional rights, by the government, to shut down our dialogue. People are trying to grapple with this genocide we are seeing in live and real time on our iPhones and on our computer screens.
“We need to talk about it but both the Democrats and the Republicans want to label this discussion as insurrection, as a betrayal and to try to criminalize it,” Stein, a Jewish American physician who grew up during the Vietnam War, said in reference to the police response to the wave of protests by students on hundreds of campuses around the country against the war in Gaza.
“They send in the riot police and bash the heads of protesters who are simply saying what the highest courts in the land are saying, the international Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court: this is a genocide that is taking place in Gaza, this is against the law and it must be stopped.
“It is even against US law to send weapons to Israel, which is violating humanitarian rights, which is interfering in the delivery of humanitarian aid. On all counts, it is actually illegal to provide Israel with military support and weapons right now. The people who are standing up to assert our legal values and our human values are being criminalized and being charged with crimes.”
Stein approached 34-year-old Lebanese American Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn in Michigan, to be her vice presidential running mate, before it was pointed out that candidates must be at least 35 years old when they take office, and he would be three months short of meeting this Constitutional requirement.
“The Arab American community is being dealt an incredible injustice,” Stein said, adding that she believes they deserve a stronger political voice and protections from abuse.
“We need to stand up as Americans on behalf of all of us to assert our rights to a foreign policy that reflects our values. In fact, we need a foreign policy based on international law, human rights and diplomacy. That is what Americans are calling for.
“But we have a system led by political and economic elites who are used to, basically, fighting their way into domination. We have a foreign policy based on the exercise of raw military power.”
Stein said she also opposes the actions of authorities in more than than 28 states that have passed “anti-BDS laws” that target campaigners who criticize Israeli government policies and call for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.
“It is a violation of our basic civil liberties, our freedom of speech, our freedom of political association, our freedom to protest for redress of grievances. This is what democracy depends on,” Stein said.
“In terms of BDS, our government should be leading the charge on BDS. How do we get Israel to comply when Israel has nuclear weapons? We are not going to send in the troops but we can absolutely deny Israel weapons. We can deny Israel funding. We can deny Israel the rockets it depends on. We have the power here.”
In support of her argument, Stein cited the actions of former presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, who forced Israeli authorities to back down during military conflicts in the Sinai in 1956 and Lebanon in the 1980s, respectively.
Stein denounced the attacks by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7 last year but said that criticism of the Israeli state and its actions “is not antisemitism” and the world cannot close its eyes to the violence against Palestinians that has been taking place since the founding of the Jewish State in 1948.
“Israel needs to pull back,” she said. “That violence is mostly committed by Israel. No civilian lives should ever be targeted or lost. But that is not just, ‘Stop killing people’ — you have to stop the occupation, you have to stop the ethnic cleansing, you have to stop destroying people’s homes and seizing their homes, you have to stop destroying the farmlands and their olive trees, you have to stop this all-out war against the Palestinian people.
“This has been a longstanding ethnic cleansing that has eventually accelerated into the genocide that exists now. We must take the side of international law. The United States has the power to do this with a simple phone call. Congress has the power to stop the transfer of weapons to Israel while they are violating human rights.”
Stein was in Illinois and Indiana last weekend to organize volunteers who are collecting the signatures she needs to be included on presidential ballots in those states.
To be included on the ballot in a state, a candidate must collect a minimum number of signatures from residents of that state supporting their candidacy, the number of which varies from state to state. If they meet this target, after any challenges that might remove names from their lists, they can appear on the ballot in that state.
