Jerusalem: Israel’s army said Friday it had killed Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad’s top commander for the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
The military said Mohammad Abdullah was “eliminated” on Thursday after Israeli aircraft struck the camp in Tulkarem.
An additional “terrorist” was killed in the operation, which recovered M-16 rifles and vests, it added.
Abdullah was the successor of Muhammad Jabber, also known as Abu Shujaa, who was killed in an Israeli strike in late August.
Islamic Jihad is an ally of Hamas, with both groups battling Israeli forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Violence has soared in the West Bank since Hamas launched its unprecedented attack on Israel in October last year.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 705 Palestinians in the West Bank since, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Israeli officials say at least 24 Israelis, civilians or members of the security forces, have been killed in attacks carried out by Palestinian militants or in Israeli military operations over the same period in the West Bank.
Israel army says top Islamic Jihad commander killed in West Bank
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Israel army says top Islamic Jihad commander killed in West Bank
- The military said Mohammad Abdullah was “eliminated” on Thursday after Israeli aircraft struck the camp in Tulkarem
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.
