RABAT: More than 150 people have appeared in a Moroccan court for alleged incitement of illegal migration, a government spokesman said on Thursday, after a failed mass attempt to reach Spanish territory.
On Sunday, Moroccan police, who fired tear gas, pushed back hundreds of people who headed toward the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, an AFP photographer said, after social media posts encouraged crossing attempts.
“In the framework of the struggle against calls for clandestine immigration, 152 people appeared before a judge,” government spokesman Mustapha Baitas told a press conference.
He said a total of around 3,000 people had tried to illegally enter Ceuta after calls on social media, but all the crossing attempts failed.
A police source previously told AFP that 60 people were arrested between Monday and Wednesday last week for “fabricating and disseminating false information on social media” that encouraged “the organization of collective illegal immigration operations.”
Ceuta and its sister territory of Melilla, wedged on the North African kingdom’s Mediterranean coast, have long been a magnet for irregular migrants, being the only European Union territories on the African continent.
Those heading on Sunday toward the village of Fnideq, which abuts Ceuta, included Moroccans and migrants from other parts of Africa, including some minors, the AFP photographer said.
According to official statistic, one in four Moroccan young people aged 15-24 is neither in the job market, nor in education or training.
The Moroccan interior ministry has said that in August alone, authorities blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla.
In June, 2022, at least 23 people died when around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier at Melilla attempting to cross.
The main route out of Morocco for irregular migrants hoping to reach Spain remains by sea.
More than 22,300 migrant arrivals were registered this year by August 15 in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a 126 percent increase from 2023.
More than 150 in Moroccan court over migration incitement
https://arab.news/2h6sz
More than 150 in Moroccan court over migration incitement
- They were among around 3,000 who people were involved in a recent mass attempt to reach Spanish territory
- In August alone, authorities reportedly blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla
Israel defense minister vows to stay in Gaza, establish outposts
- His remarks, reported across Israeli media, come as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds in Gaza
JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday vowed Israel will remain in Gaza and pledged to establish outposts in the north of the Palestinian territory, according to a video of a speech published by Israeli media.
His remarks, reported across Israeli media, come as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds in Gaza.
Mediators are pressing for the implementation of the next phases of the truce, which would involve an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Speaking at an event in the Israeli settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank, Katz said: “We are deep inside Gaza, and we will never leave Gaza — there will be no such thing.”
“We are there to protect, to prevent what happened (from happening again),” he added, according to a video published by Israeli news site Ynet.
Katz also vowed to establish outposts in the north of Gaza in place of settlements that had been evacuated during Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the territory in 2005.
“When the time comes, God willing, we will establish in northern Gaza, Nahal outposts in place of the communities that were uprooted,” Katz said, referring to military-agricultural settlements set up by Israeli soldiers.
“We will do this in the right way and at the appropriate time.”
Katz’s remarks were slammed by former minister and chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who accused the government of “acting against the broad national consensus, during a critical period for Israel’s national security.”
“While the government votes with one hand in favor of the Trump plan, with the other hand it sells fables about isolated settlement nuclei in the (Gaza) Strip,” he wrote on X, referring to the Gaza peace plan brokered by US President Donald Trump.
The next phases of Trump’s plan would involve an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the establishment of an interim authority to govern the territory in place of Hamas and the deployment of an international stabilization force.
It also envisages the demilitarization of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas, which the group has refused.
On Thursday, several Israelis entered the Gaza Strip in defiance of army orders and held a symbolic flag-raising ceremony to call for the reoccupation and resettlement of the Palestinian territory.
