ANKARA: Attacks on Lebanon this week showed that the Israeli government planned to spread the war to the region, Turkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday, calling on Western countries to take “deterrent steps” against Israel’s actions.
Erdogan told a press conference that Israel’s war in Gaza will top the agenda of his speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.
“In order for our region not to be dragged into a great disaster, the pressure on Israel must be increased even more,” Erdogan told a press conference in Istanbul.
He was commenting on attacks in Lebanon this week, including the explosion of Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies that killed 39 people.
The attacks on communications devices were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
“It is time for all countries with the mission of protecting world peace to come up with solutions that will stop Israel,” Erdogan said.
“In order to end this oppression that has been going on for almost a year, to establish a permanent ceasefire and to ensure the unhindered flow of humanitarian aid, all of us, the whole world and especially the UN, have important duties,” he said.
Turkiye has denounced Israel’s actions in Gaza which came in retaliation to Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct.7.
Israel says about 1,200 people were killed and over 250 people were taken hostage in the assault. Israel’s subsequent military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
Ankara has also halted all trade with Israel and submitted a request to join South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. Israel has repeatedly dismissed the case’s accusations of genocide as baseless.
Turkiye calls on West to take ‘deterrent steps’ against Israeli action
https://arab.news/n7n88
Turkiye calls on West to take ‘deterrent steps’ against Israeli action
- Erdogan told a press conference that Israel’s war in Gaza will top the agenda of his speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
