CAIRO: Sudan’s paramilitary unleashed drones on the Red Sea city of Port Sudan early Tuesday, hitting key targets there, including the airport, the port and a hotel, military officials said. The barrage was the second such attack this week on a city that had been a hub for people fleeing Sudan’s two-year war.
There was no immediate word on any casualties or the extent of the damage. Local media reported loud sound of explosions and fires at the port and the airport. Footage circulating online showed thick smoke rising over the area.
The attack on Port Sudan, which also serves as an interim seat for Sudan’s military-allied government, underscores that after two years of fighting, the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are still capable of threatening each other’s territory.
The RSF drones struck early in the morning, said two Sudanese military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Abdel-Rahman Al-Nour, a Port Sudan resident, said he woke up to strong explosions, and saw fires and plumes of black smoke rising over the port. Msha’ashir Ahmed, a local journalist living in Port Sudan, said fires were still burning late Tuesday morning in the southern vicinity of the maritime port.
The attack apparently disrupted air traffic at the airport, with Cairo airport data in neighboring Egypt showing that three Port Sudan-bound flights were canceled on Tuesday.
The RSF did not release any statements on the attack. On Sunday, the paramilitary force struck Port Sudan for the first time in the war, disrupting air traffic in the city’s airport, which has been the main entry point for the county in the last two years.
A military ammunition warehouse in the Othman Daqna air base in the city was also hit, setting off a fire that burned for two days.
When the fighting in Sudan broke out, the focus of the battles initially was the country’s capital, Khartoum, which turned into a war zone. Withing weeks, Port Sudan, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the east of Khartoum, turned into a safe haven for the displaced and those fleeing the war. Many aid missions and UN agencies moved their offices there.
The attacks on Port Sudan are also seen as retaliation after the Sudanese military earlier this month struck the Nyala airport in South Darfur, which the paramilitary RSF has turned into a base and where it gets shipments of arms, including drones.
Sudan plunged into chaos in April 2023, when simmering tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open warfare in Khartoum. From there, the fighting spread to other parts of the country.
Since then, at least 24,000 people have been killed, though the number is likely far higher. The war has driven about 13 million people from their homes, including four million crossed into neighboring countries. It also pushed parts of the country into famine.
The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western Darfur region, according to the United Natios. and international rights groups.
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Sudan’s paramilitary unleashes drones on key targets in Port Sudan
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Sudan’s paramilitary unleashes drones on key targets in Port Sudan
- The barrage was the second such attack this week on a city that had been a hub for people fleeing Sudan’s two-year war
- Local media reported loud sound of explosions and fires at the port and the airport
Palestinian citizens in Israel demand more security from violence
- Protests and strikes are sweeping Israel over record levels of violence targeting the country’s Palestinian citizens
- At least 26 people were killed in January alone, adding to a record-breaking toll of more than 250 last year
KAFR YASIF, Israel: Nabil Safiya had taken a break from studying for a biology exam to meet a cousin at a pizza parlor when a gunman on a motorcycle rode past and fired, killing the 15-year-old as he sat in a black Renault.
The shooting — which police later said was a case of mistaken identity — stunned his hometown of Kafr Yasif, long besieged, like many Palestinian towns in Israel, by a wave of gang violence and family feuds.
“There is no set time for the gunfire anymore,” said Nabil’s father, Ashraf Safiya. “They can kill you in school, they can kill you in the street, they can kill you in the football stadium.”
The violence plaguing Israel’s Arab minority has become an inescapable part of daily life. Activists have long accused authorities of failing to address the issue and say that sense has deepened under Israel’s current far-right government.
One out of every five citizens in Israel is Palestinian. The rate of crime-related killings among them is more than 22 times higher than that for Jewish Israelis, while arrest and indictment rates for those crimes are far lower. Critics cite the disparities as evidence of entrenched discrimination and neglect.
A growing number of demonstrations are sweeping Israel. Thousands marched in Tel Aviv late Saturday to demand action, while Arab communities have gone on strike, closing shops and schools.
In November, after Nabil was gunned down, residents marched through the streets, students boycotted their classes and the Safiya family turned their home into a shrine with pictures and posters of Nabil.
The outrage had as much to do with what happened as with how often it keeps happening.
“There’s a law for the Jewish society and a different law for Palestinian society,” Ghassan Munayyer, a political activist from Lod, a mixed city with a large Palestinian population, said at a recent protest.
An epidemic of violence
Some Palestinian citizens have reached the highest echelons of business and politics in Israel. Yet many feel forsaken by authorities, with their communities marked by underinvestment and high unemployment that fuels frustration and distrust toward the state.
Nabil was one of a record 252 Palestinian citizens to be killed in Israel last year, according to data from Abraham Initiatives, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that promotes coexistence and safer communities. The toll continues to climb, with at least 26 additional crime-related killings in January.
Walid Haddad, a criminologist who teaches at Ono Academic College and who previously worked in Israel’s national security ministry, said that organized crime thrives off weapons trafficking and loan‑sharking in places where people lack access to credit. Gangs also extort residents and business owners for “protection,” he said.
Based on interviews with gang members in prisons and courts, he said they can earn anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on whether the job is torching cars, shooting at buildings or assassinating rival leaders.
“If they fire at homes or people once or twice a month, they can buy cars, go on trips. It’s easy money,” Haddad said, noting a widespread sense of impunity.
The violence has stifled the rhythm of life in many Palestinian communities. In Kafr Yasif, a northern Israel town of 10,000, streets empty by nightfall, and it’s not uncommon for those trying to sleep to hear gunshots ringing through their neighborhoods.
Prosecutions lag
Last year, only 8 percent of killings of Palestinian citizens led to charges filed against suspects, compared with 55 percent in Jewish communities, according to Abraham Initiatives.
Lama Yassin, the Abraham Initiatives’ director of shared cities and regions, said strained relations with police long discouraged Palestinian citizens from calling for new police stations or more police officers in their communities.
Not anymore.
“In recent years, because people are so depressed and feel like they’re not able to practice day-to-day life ... Arabs are saying, ‘Do whatever it takes, even if it means more police in our towns,’” Yassin said.
The killings have become a rallying cry for Palestinian-led political parties after successive governments pledged to curb the bloodshed with little results. Politicians and activists see the spate of violence as a reflection of selective enforcement and police apathy.
“We’ve been talking about this for 10 years,” said Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman.
She labeled policing in Palestinian communities “collective punishment,” noting that when Jews are victims of violence, police often set up roadblocks in neighboring Palestinian towns, flood areas with officers and arrest suspects en masse.
“The only side that can be able to smash a mafia is the state and the state is doing nothing except letting (organized crime) understand that they are free to do whatever they want,” Touma-Suleiman said.
Many communities feel impunity has gotten worse, she added, under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who with authority over the police has launched aggressive and visible campaigns against other crimes, targeting protests and pushing for tougher operations in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli police reject allegations of skewed priorities, saying that killings in these communities are a top priority. Police also have said investigations are challenging because witnesses don’t always cooperate.
“Investigative decisions are guided by evidence, operational considerations, and due process, not by indifference or lack of prioritization,” police said in a statement.
Unanswered demands
In Kafr Yasif, Ashraf Safiya vowed his son wouldn’t become just another statistic.
He had just gotten home from his work as a dentist and off the phone with Nabil when he learned about the shooting. He raced to the scene to find the car window shattered as Nabil was being rushed to the hospital. Doctors there pronounced him dead.
“The idea was that the blood of this boy would not be wasted,” Safiya said of protests he helped organize. “If people stop caring about these cases, we’re going to just have another case and another case.”
Authorities said last month they were preparing to file an indictment against a 23-year-old arrested in a neighboring town in connection with the shooting. They said the intended target was a relative, referring to the cousin with Nabil that night.
And they described Nabil as a victim of what they called “blood feuds within Arab society.”
At a late January demonstration in Kafr Yasif, marchers carried portraits of Nabil and Nidal Mosaedah, another local boy killed in the violence. Police broke up the protest, saying it lasted longer than authorized, and arrested its leaders, including the former head of the town council.
The show of force, residents said, may have quashed one protest, but did nothing to halt the killings.
The shooting — which police later said was a case of mistaken identity — stunned his hometown of Kafr Yasif, long besieged, like many Palestinian towns in Israel, by a wave of gang violence and family feuds.
“There is no set time for the gunfire anymore,” said Nabil’s father, Ashraf Safiya. “They can kill you in school, they can kill you in the street, they can kill you in the football stadium.”
The violence plaguing Israel’s Arab minority has become an inescapable part of daily life. Activists have long accused authorities of failing to address the issue and say that sense has deepened under Israel’s current far-right government.
One out of every five citizens in Israel is Palestinian. The rate of crime-related killings among them is more than 22 times higher than that for Jewish Israelis, while arrest and indictment rates for those crimes are far lower. Critics cite the disparities as evidence of entrenched discrimination and neglect.
A growing number of demonstrations are sweeping Israel. Thousands marched in Tel Aviv late Saturday to demand action, while Arab communities have gone on strike, closing shops and schools.
In November, after Nabil was gunned down, residents marched through the streets, students boycotted their classes and the Safiya family turned their home into a shrine with pictures and posters of Nabil.
The outrage had as much to do with what happened as with how often it keeps happening.
“There’s a law for the Jewish society and a different law for Palestinian society,” Ghassan Munayyer, a political activist from Lod, a mixed city with a large Palestinian population, said at a recent protest.
An epidemic of violence
Some Palestinian citizens have reached the highest echelons of business and politics in Israel. Yet many feel forsaken by authorities, with their communities marked by underinvestment and high unemployment that fuels frustration and distrust toward the state.
Nabil was one of a record 252 Palestinian citizens to be killed in Israel last year, according to data from Abraham Initiatives, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that promotes coexistence and safer communities. The toll continues to climb, with at least 26 additional crime-related killings in January.
Walid Haddad, a criminologist who teaches at Ono Academic College and who previously worked in Israel’s national security ministry, said that organized crime thrives off weapons trafficking and loan‑sharking in places where people lack access to credit. Gangs also extort residents and business owners for “protection,” he said.
Based on interviews with gang members in prisons and courts, he said they can earn anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on whether the job is torching cars, shooting at buildings or assassinating rival leaders.
“If they fire at homes or people once or twice a month, they can buy cars, go on trips. It’s easy money,” Haddad said, noting a widespread sense of impunity.
The violence has stifled the rhythm of life in many Palestinian communities. In Kafr Yasif, a northern Israel town of 10,000, streets empty by nightfall, and it’s not uncommon for those trying to sleep to hear gunshots ringing through their neighborhoods.
Prosecutions lag
Last year, only 8 percent of killings of Palestinian citizens led to charges filed against suspects, compared with 55 percent in Jewish communities, according to Abraham Initiatives.
Lama Yassin, the Abraham Initiatives’ director of shared cities and regions, said strained relations with police long discouraged Palestinian citizens from calling for new police stations or more police officers in their communities.
Not anymore.
“In recent years, because people are so depressed and feel like they’re not able to practice day-to-day life ... Arabs are saying, ‘Do whatever it takes, even if it means more police in our towns,’” Yassin said.
The killings have become a rallying cry for Palestinian-led political parties after successive governments pledged to curb the bloodshed with little results. Politicians and activists see the spate of violence as a reflection of selective enforcement and police apathy.
“We’ve been talking about this for 10 years,” said Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman.
She labeled policing in Palestinian communities “collective punishment,” noting that when Jews are victims of violence, police often set up roadblocks in neighboring Palestinian towns, flood areas with officers and arrest suspects en masse.
“The only side that can be able to smash a mafia is the state and the state is doing nothing except letting (organized crime) understand that they are free to do whatever they want,” Touma-Suleiman said.
Many communities feel impunity has gotten worse, she added, under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who with authority over the police has launched aggressive and visible campaigns against other crimes, targeting protests and pushing for tougher operations in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli police reject allegations of skewed priorities, saying that killings in these communities are a top priority. Police also have said investigations are challenging because witnesses don’t always cooperate.
“Investigative decisions are guided by evidence, operational considerations, and due process, not by indifference or lack of prioritization,” police said in a statement.
Unanswered demands
In Kafr Yasif, Ashraf Safiya vowed his son wouldn’t become just another statistic.
He had just gotten home from his work as a dentist and off the phone with Nabil when he learned about the shooting. He raced to the scene to find the car window shattered as Nabil was being rushed to the hospital. Doctors there pronounced him dead.
“The idea was that the blood of this boy would not be wasted,” Safiya said of protests he helped organize. “If people stop caring about these cases, we’re going to just have another case and another case.”
Authorities said last month they were preparing to file an indictment against a 23-year-old arrested in a neighboring town in connection with the shooting. They said the intended target was a relative, referring to the cousin with Nabil that night.
And they described Nabil as a victim of what they called “blood feuds within Arab society.”
At a late January demonstration in Kafr Yasif, marchers carried portraits of Nabil and Nidal Mosaedah, another local boy killed in the violence. Police broke up the protest, saying it lasted longer than authorized, and arrested its leaders, including the former head of the town council.
The show of force, residents said, may have quashed one protest, but did nothing to halt the killings.
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