Sudan peace talks moving forward, says US envoy

US envoy to Sudan Tom Perriello speaks during a press briefing ahead of Sudan ceasefire talks, on August 12, 2024 in Geneva. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 12 August 2024
Follow

Sudan peace talks moving forward, says US envoy

  • Country is experiencing a state of collapse due to the current war, RSF leader says

DUBAI: Talks to end Sudan’s 16-month war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) will move forward this week, the US’s special envoy said, despite little sign from either party that they seek a peaceful resolution.
The Sudanese army has all but rejected the invitation, while the RSF has continued its costly offensives in parts of the country, despite welcoming the US and Saudi initiative.
Failure of efforts to bring the war to an end would exacerbate a conflict that has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, pushing 10 million people out of their homes and creating famine-like conditions across the country.
“We will move forward with this event this week. That has been made clear to the parties,” Tom Perriello, the US special envoy to Sudan, said in Geneva, where talks are set to begin on Wednesday.
In a taped speech on Monday, RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo reiterated his force’s participation in the talks, while also announcing a new force to protect civilians.
“The country is experiencing a state of collapse due to the current war, causing significant security instability and chaos,” he said, saying his forces were exhausted fighting “rogue criminals.”
Eyewitnesses told Reuters the RSF has struggled to control unruly fighters it has recruited for its advance through the center of the country, putting its ability to comply with a ceasefire in question.
The RSF has also in recent days continued its assault in Omdurman, near the capital, killing children in a designated “safe space,” according to UNICEF, and attacking a maternity hospital, according to the government.
It also killed or injured at least 40 people during morning prayers in Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur where fighting has intensified over the past week, according to local activists, as it seeks to solidify its hold over the west of the country.
“How serious (the RSF) are about negotiating a deal and compliance is a question we and the Sudanese people want to have an answer to,” Perriello said on Monday.

EXISTENTIAL FIGHT
The talks are the latest in several international efforts to bring an end to the war, and aim to agree on a cessation of violence, broader humanitarian access, and a mechanism to monitor and ensure implementation.
Army chief Abdelfattah Al-Burhan has said the RSF’s actions, particularly its occupation of civilian areas despite agreements made last year, are why the army has reservations on meeting in Switzerland.
After a meeting with Perriello in Saudi Arabia over the weekend, the Sudanese delegation recommended not participating, citing also the invitation of the army as opposed to the Sudanese government, and the participation of the UAE, which the army and others say is supporting the RSF with weapons and diplomatically. The UAE denies this.
But several military and political sources close to the army say its position also aims to maintain its unity internally and with former rebel groups who are leading the defense of Al-Fashir.
Some factions see the war as an existential fight and seek an outright victory, while others want to at least see the army take the upper hand before negotiations, the sources said. Loyalists of former President Omar Al-Bashir within and outside the army have successfully pushed against any talks that exclude them from the negotiating table.
Perriello said on Monday that even if mediated talks between the army and the RSF are not possible, talks will move ahead with technical experts and observers, including the African Union, the UAE, and Egypt, on formulating a plan of action to present to the parties.
“The trajectory of delay would not have benefited the Sudanese people and frankly would not benefit (the army) either, but I’ll leave that to their judgment,” he said.


Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Updated 08 October 2024
Follow

Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

  • Iran-backed Hezbollah says it targeted Israeli military base south of Haifa, launched another strike on Tiberias
  • Isael says air force is carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon as conflict rages on

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.

Smoke rises from destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike hit in Choueifat, southeast of Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 7, 2024. (AP)

Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.


Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Updated 08 October 2024
Follow

Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

  • Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks
  • Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday
  • The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.

 

 


Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

Updated 08 October 2024
Follow

Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

  • When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response”
  • Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave

UNITED NATIONS: Israel hosted an event at the United Nations on Monday to mark one year since a deadly Hamas attack, vowing to fight until all hostages held in Gaza by the Palestinian militants are freed and assailing the world body for failing to condemn the massacre.
“The UN has failed in its most basic mandate to protect the innocent and condemn evil. The resolutions that the UN did pass were about the situation in Gaza,” said Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon, referring to action taken by the 15-member Security Council and the 193-member General Assembly.
During the shock Hamas rampage a year ago some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. More than 100 hostages remain held in Gaza by Hamas.
Israel’s ally the United States vetoed a draft Security Council resolution on Oct. 18, 2023, that would have condemned Hamas and urged Gaza aid access. The US had argued it needed more time to broker humanitarian access and was disappointed the text did not mention Israel’s right to self-defense.
“There are those in the Security Council, and outside, who fail to condemn Hamas’ atrocities or even say the word Hamas,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Oct. 7 commemorative event on Monday.
“There are those in the region who have sought to build on Hamas’ actions and are now pushing the Middle East to the precipice of a broader war — terrorist groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah,” she said, also accusing Iran of seeking to take advantage of the situation to advance a “destructive agenda.”
The Hamas attack triggered Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave where authorities say more than 41,000 people have been killed. The conflict has raised fears of all-out regional war, pitting Israel against Iran and the militant groups that it backs.
In recent weeks Israel killed the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and began a ground assault against the Iran-backed militant group. Iran then attacked Israel in a missile strike.
When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response.”
Amid animosity between Israel’s government and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres — who was barred last week by Israel’s foreign minister from entering the country — UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said he did not believe any UN officials had been invited to Israel’s event at UN headquarters.
In a video released over the weekend to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, Guterres said: “This is a day for the global community to repeat in the loudest voice our utter condemnation of the abhorrent acts of Hamas, including the taking of hostages.”

 


’Year of suffering’: Gazans tired on October 7 anniversary

Updated 08 October 2024
Follow

’Year of suffering’: Gazans tired on October 7 anniversary

  • A year on, Israel has yet to achieve one of its main objectives: securing the return of all those taken hostage on October 7, 2023
  • Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have endured hardship, with no signs of relief, even after Israel reassigned divisions to the north of the country where troops are fighting Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: One year after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel unleashed war in Gaza, the Palestinian territory is unrecognizable and its residents are exhausted by displacement and shortages, with no end in sight.
“It felt like the first day of the war all over again,” said Khaled Al-Hawajri, 46, as the Israeli forces bombarded his Gaza neighborhood on Monday, even as Israel marked the anniversary of Hamas attack.
“Last night we were terrorized by the bombardments from quadcopters and tank shells,” said Hawajri, who has been displaced 10 times with his family of seven in the past year.
“We have endured a whole year in the north under bombardment, terror, and fear in the hearts of my children,” he said, adding he had staying in Gaza’s devastated north because “there is no safe place in the entire Strip.”
On Monday, Gaza City was barely recognizable, ravaged by relentless air strikes and fighting.
Residents walked along sand-covered streets stripped of pavements, with buildings either destroyed or left without facades, while piles of rubble littered the roads.
With fuel in short supply and expensive, car traffic was almost nonexistent. Most people walked, cycled or used donkey carts.
“There is no electricity or petroleum products. Even firewood is not available. Food is almost non-existent,” said 64-year-old Hussam Mansour, speaking from a street in Gaza City, surrounded by piles of rubble and sand.
The United Nations says 92 percent of Gaza’s roads and more than 84 percent of its health facilities have been damaged or destroyed in the war.

Mansour and his sons have all been displaced, and his apartment building was destroyed in an air strike.
“Now when I walk the streets, I do not recognize them anymore,” he said.
Like Hawajri and Mansour, Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants have endured hardship, with no signs of relief, even after Israel reassigned divisions to the north of the country where troops are fighting Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
About 90 percent of the population has been displaced at least once, the United Nations says.
“Last night was one of the hardest nights of the war, as if the war had just begun!” said 46-year-old Muhammad Al-Muqayyid, displaced from the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
“I never imagined the war would last this long,” he said.
“A year has gone and we have seen every kind of suffering — disease, hunger, danger and loss.”
The Israeli military has been fighting Hamas in Gaza since the unprecedented attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,909 people, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The UN acknowledges the figures to be reliable.
A year on, Israel has yet to achieve one of its main objectives: securing the return of all those taken hostage on October 7, 2023.
Of the 251 captured that day, 97 are still held captive in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
The Israeli military is still carrying out operations in Gaza to free the hostages and crush Hamas, in power since 2007.
“There was a sudden ground invasion by tanks, and people were rushing out of their homes without taking anything with them, just carrying their children and running through the streets with fire and shells raining down on them,” Muqayyid said, referring to an Israeli military operation in northern Gaza on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Hamas keeps fighting. Its armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said it launched a barrage of rockets at Tel Aviv on Monday.
Samah Ali, a 32-year-old woman displaced in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah, said rocket launches were predictable on this day.
“Suddenly, we heard the sound of rockets launching, and everyone in the camp came out to see where they had been fired from,” she said, adding some people fled fearing retaliatory Israeli strikes.
“It’s certain that the occupation army will return and strike.”
 

 


Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’

Updated 07 October 2024
Follow

Iran hails October 7 as ‘turning point in history’

  • “Supporters of the occupying regime, especially the United States, have been complicit in the crimes of this regime” against Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis, it said

TEHRAN: Iran praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel as a decisive moment for Palestinians on Monday as it marked the first anniversary of the deadliest attack on Israeli soil.
“The operation on October 7, 2023... was a turning point in the history of the legitimate struggle of the Palestinian people against the occupation and oppression of the Zionist regime,” Iran’s foreign ministry said.
It described the attack as a release of “the Palestinian people’s pent-up historic anger against eight decades of occupation, murder and genocide.”
The statement also accused Israel’s allies of supporting these actions.
“Supporters of the occupying regime, especially the United States, have been complicit in the crimes of this regime” against Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Yemenis, it said.
It added that they “must be held accountable for supplying weapons and supporting the Zionist regime.”