ALGIERS: Algeria said Thursday it was imposing visa requirements on Moroccans, accusing its passport holders of criminal activity, including “Zionist espionage,” in a new downturn in fraught relations with its neighbor.
A statement carried by Algeria’s official APS news agency charged that Morocco had “engaged in various actions that threaten Algeria’s stability.”
It accused Morocco of having “deployed Zionist espionage agents holding Moroccan passports to freely enter the national territory.”
It also said Morocco had been conducting “multiple networks of organized crime, drug and human trafficking, not to mention smuggling and illegal immigration” within its borders.
Earlier this month, authorities in the Algerian city of Tlemcen said they had arrested seven people, including four Moroccans, accused of belonging to a spy ring.
Algiers broke diplomatic ties with Rabat in August 2021, citing “hostile acts” by its neighbor, months after the kingdom normalized relations with Israel.
In 2020, then US president Donald Trump recognized Morocco’s annexation of the disputed Western Sahara in return for Rabat normalizing relations with Israel.
The border between Algeria and Morocco has been closed for 30 years.
But travelers from Morocco did not need a visa to enter Algerian territory — despite the lack of direct flights — and neither do Algerians to enter Morocco.
There was no immediate response from Rabat to Thursday’s move by Algiers.
Algeria said it was “committed to preserving ties” with the “brotherly” Moroccan people, and blamed the Rabat authorities for recent diplomatic rifts.
“The Moroccan regime alone bears responsibility for the current deterioration of bilateral relations due to its hostile and aggressive actions against Algeria,” it said.
The two countries remain at odds over the Western Sahara and alleged Moroccan support for the Berber separatist movement MAK in Algeria.
The Polisario Front, which is backed by Algiers, has campaigned for the independence of Western Sahara since its colonial ruler Spain pulled out in 1975 but the territory is largely controlled by Morocco.
The United Nations, which has had a peacekeeping mission in Western Sahara since 1991, regards it as a “non-self-governing territory.”
After French President Emmanuel Macron said in July that “the only solution” was a Moroccan plan to grant the territory autonomy within the kingdom without the option of independence, Algeria recalled its ambassador.
Algiers also accuses Rabat of backing the MAK movement, which seeks independence for the Berber Kabylie region east of the capital.
Morocco described the 2021 decision to break off diplomatic relations as “completely unjustified.”
Algeria slaps visa requirements on Moroccans, citing ‘Zionist espionage’
https://arab.news/5695j
Algeria slaps visa requirements on Moroccans, citing ‘Zionist espionage’
- A statement carried by Algeria’s official APS news agency charged that Morocco had “engaged in various actions that threaten Algeria’s stability“
- Algiers broke diplomatic ties with Rabat in August 2021, citing “hostile acts” by its neighbor
Israel plans large camp for Palestinians in southern Gaza, retired general says
- Avivi said the camp would be used to house Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza and cross into Egypt as well as those who wish to stay
JERUSALEM, Jan 27 : Israel has cleared land in southern Gaza for the construction of a camp for Palestinians potentially equipped with surveillance and facial recognition technology at its entrance, a retired Israeli general who advises the military said on Tuesday.
Retired reservist Brig.-General Amir Avivi told Reuters in an interview that the camp would be built in an area of Rafah cleared of tunnels built by Hamas, with entry and exit tracked by Israeli personnel.
Avivi is founder of the influential Israel Defense and Security Forum, a group representing thousands of Israeli military reservists. He does not speak on behalf of Israel’s military, which declined to comment. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately provide comment on any plans to build a camp in Rafah.
Avivi said the camp would be used to house Palestinians who wish to leave Gaza and cross into Egypt as well as those who wish to stay.
His comments come as Israel prepares for a “limited reopening” of Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt, a key requirement under US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war.
Sources told Reuters this month that Israel wants to ensure more Palestinians leave Gaza than are allowed in. Israeli officials have spoken in the past about encouraging Gazans to emigrate, though they deny intending to transfer the population out by force — a highly sensitive issue for Palestinians.
“There are no Gazans, almost at all, in Rafah,” Avivi said. The area fell under complete Israeli military control following an October Israel-Hamas ceasefire, and most Palestinians fled for areas held by Hamas.
“You need to build infrastructure in Rafah that can host them, and then they can choose if they want to go or not,” Avivi said. He said the structure would likely be “a big, organized camp” capable of hosting hundreds of thousands of people that could enforce ID checks including facial recognition.
In July, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz told Israeli media that he had ordered troops to prepare a camp in Rafah to house Gaza’s population. Officials have not spoken publicly about such plans since then.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, told Reuters in a statement that the idea amounted to cover for “forced displacement.”
POTENTIAL RETURN TO WAR
Palestinians in Gaza, shattered by two years of Israeli attacks in the enclave, have long faced restrictions on their movement and monitoring of their online activity and phone calls by Israeli surveillance agencies.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2 million people have been forced into a narrow coastal strip from which Israeli forces withdrew under the ceasefire and where Hamas has retained control.
Trump’s plan for Gaza, now in its second phase, calls for Gaza’s reconstruction to start in Rafah and for Hamas to lay down its arms in exchange for further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory.
Avivi said Israel’s military was preparing for a new offensive against Hamas if it refuses to give up its weapons. This could include relaunching attacks on Gaza City, the enclave’s largest.
The camp in Gaza could be used to house Palestinians fleeing a renewed Israeli assault, Avivi said.
“Plans are set. The army is ready to get the command from the government, from the cabinet to renew its maneuvers in Gaza,” Avivi said.
Israel’s military says it has continued to carry out operations in Gaza since the ceasefire to thwart what it describes as planned attacks by militants and destroy Hamas’ tunnel network under Gaza.
Israeli attacks since the ceasefire have killed more than 480 Palestinians in Gaza, health authorities there say, while the military says four soldiers have been killed in militant attacks.
Avi Dichter, a minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and former head of Israel’s domestic intelligence service, said disputes over disarmament could lead Israel back into war in Gaza.
“We have to get prepared for the war in Gaza,” Dichter told Reuters, adding that the disarmament issue “will have to be solved by Israeli troops, the hard way.”
DEMILITARIZATION GOAL
Hamas has publicly refused to lay down its weapons. Two Hamas officials told Reuters this week that neither Washington nor the mediators had presented the group with any detailed or concrete disarmament proposal.
According to a document shared by the White House last week, the Trump administration wants to see heavy weapons decommissioned immediately, with “personal arms registered and decommissioned by sector” as the police under an interim technocratic administration in Gaza “become capable of guaranteeing personal security.”
Trump has repeatedly warned Hamas that it would have “hell to pay” if it does not lay down its weapons.
A US official said on Tuesday that disarmament could come along with some sort of amnesty for Hamas members.
Speaking to Israel’s parliament on Monday night, Netanyahu said the next phase of the ceasefire would not include reconstruction of Gaza.
“The next phase is demilitarization of the Strip and disarming Hamas,” Netanyahu said.
