PORT SUDAN: A drone attack on one of the last functioning hospitals in El-Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region has killed 67 people and injured dozens, local activists and a medical source said Saturday, updating an earlier toll.
“Thirty-seven of those injured in the drone strike yesterday died today, bringing the number of victims up to 67,” the source told AFP, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation.
He added that a number of those injured were still being treated, but could not give an exact figure.
The bombing of the Saudi Hospital late Friday had “led to the destruction” of the hospital’s emergency building, the source said.
AFP could not independently verify which of Sudan’s warring sides had launched the attack.
Since April 2023, the Sudanese army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have seized nearly the entire vast western region of Darfur.
Since May they have besieged El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, but have not managed to claim the city where army-aligned militias have repeatedly pushed them back.
Last week, the RSF issued an ultimatum demanding army forces and allies leave the city by Wednesday afternoon in advance of an expected offensive.
Local activists have reported intermittent fighting since, including repeated artillery fire from the RSF on the famine-hit Abu Shouk displacement camp.
On Friday morning alone, heavy shelling killed eight people in the camp, according to civil society group the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.
The United Nations has voiced alarm, calling on both parties to ensure the protection of the city’s civilian population — some two million people.
“The people of El-Fasher have suffered so much already,” Seif Magango, spokesman of the UN rights office, said Wednesday.
67 killed in drone attack on hospital in Sudan’s Darfur
https://arab.news/mpju7
67 killed in drone attack on hospital in Sudan’s Darfur
- Bombing of the Saudi Hospital on Friday evening “led to the destruction” of the hospital’s emergency building
Israel gives legal status to 19 West Bank settlements
- Construction of settlements — including some built without official Israeli authorization — has increased under Israel’s far-right governing coalition, fragmenting the West Bank and cutting off Palestinian towns and cities from each other
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Cabinet has decided to give legal status to 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank, including two that were vacated 20 years ago under a pullout aimed at boosting the country’s security and the economy, Israeli media reported.
The Palestinian Authority on Friday condemned the move, announced late on Thursday.
Some of the settlements are newly established, while others are older, Israeli media said.
The move to legalize the settlements in the West Bank — territory Palestinians seek for a future state — was proposed by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Most world powers deem Israel’s settlements, on land it captured in a 1967 war, illegal. Numerous UN Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.
Construction of settlements — including some built without official Israeli authorization — has increased under Israel’s far-right governing coalition, fragmenting the West Bank and cutting off Palestinian towns and cities from each other.
The 19 settlements include two that Israel withdrew from in 2005, evacuated under a disengagement plan overseen by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that focused mainly on Gaza.
Under the plan, which was opposed by the settler movement at the time, all 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza were ordered to be evacuated. Most settlements in the West Bank were unaffected.
In a statement on Friday, Palestinian Authority Minister Mu’ayyad Sha’ban called the announcement another step to erase Palestinian geography.
Sha’ban, of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said the decision raised serious alarms over the future of the West Bank.
Home to 2.7 million Palestinians, the Israeli-occupied West Bank has long been at the heart of plans for a future Palestinian nation existing alongside Israel.
Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians reached their highest recorded levels in October with settlers carrying out at least 264 attacks, according to the UN.
