TUNIS: The death toll from several migrant shipwrecks off the Tunisian coast has risen to 17 people, a judicial official said on Sunday.
On Saturday the Tunisian coast guard said four boats carrying 120 African migrants headed for Italy had sunk off the coast near the city of Sfax.
Another 5 bodies were recovered on Sunday, adding to 12 found by the coast guard overnight, said Mourad Turki, spokesperson for Sfax Courts. The coast guard said 98 people had been rescued.
The coastline of Sfax has become a major departure point for people fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and seeking a better life in Europe.
In recent months, dozens of people have drowned off the Tunisian coast, with an increase in the frequency of attempted crossings from Tunisia and Libya toward Italy.
Hundreds of thousands of people have made the perilous Mediterranean crossing in recent years.
Death toll from migrant shipwrecks off Tunisia rises to 17
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Death toll from migrant shipwrecks off Tunisia rises to 17
Gaza fighting rages after Israel vows to intensify Rafah offensive
With Gazans facing hunger, the US military said “trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore via a temporary pier” it set up to aid Palestinians in the besieged territory.
Witnesses reported fierce battles overnight in and around the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Israeli helicopters carried out heavy strikes around Jabalia while army artillery hit homes near Kamal Adwan hospital in the camp, they said.
The bodies of six people were retrieved and several wounded people were evacuated after an air strike targeted a house in Jabalia, Gaza’s Civil Defense agency said.
Rescue teams were trying to recover people from under the rubble of the Shaaban family home on Al-Faluja Street in the camp, it added.
Witnesses said Israeli warships launched strikes on Rafah, on the border with Egypt, where more than 1.4 million Palestinian civilians have been sheltering.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that it “targeted enemy forces stationed inside the Rafah border crossing... with mortar shells.”
The war broke out after the October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Out of 252 people taken hostage that day, 128 are still being held inside Gaza, including 38 who the army says are dead.
Israel vowed in response to crush Hamas and launched a military offensive on Gaza, where at least 35,303 people have been killed since the war erupted, according to data provided by the health ministry of Hamas-run territory.
Intensified ground operations
Israel has vowed to “intensify” its ground offensive in Rafah, in defiance of global warnings over the fate of Palestinians sheltering there.
Israel’s top ally the United States has joined other major powers in appealing for it to hold back from a full ground offensive in Rafah.
But Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday said “additional forces will enter” the Rafah area and “this activity will intensify.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Thursday that the ground assault on Rafah was a “critical” part of the army’s mission to destroy Hamas and prevent any repetition of the October 7 attack.
“The battle in Rafah is critical... It’s not just the rest of their battalions, it’s also like an oxygen line for them for escape and resupply,” he said.
The Israeli siege of Gaza has brought dire shortages of food as well as safe water, medicines and fuel for its 2.4 million people.
The arrival of occasional aid convoys has slowed to a trickle since Israeli forces took control last week of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.
UN denounces 'intimidation and harassment' of lawyers in Tunisia
GENEVA: The United Nations on Friday denounced recent arrests of lawyers in Tunisia, saying the detentions, which have also included journalists and political commentators, undermined the rule of law in the North Africa country.
"Reported raids in the past week on the Tunisia Bar Association undermine the rule of law and violate international standards on the protection of the independence and function of lawyers," Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva.
"Such actions constitute forms of intimidation and harassment."
Lebanon state media reports fresh Israeli strikes in south
- Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh
- The NNA reported “victims” without elaborating
BEIRUT: Israeli air strikes hit on Friday an area of southern Lebanon far from the border, Lebanese official media said, following days of escalating clashes between Israel and armed group Hezbollah.
The Iran-backed group, a Hamas ally, has traded cross-border fire with Israeli forces almost daily since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, now in its eighth month.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said “Israeli strikes targeted Najjariyeh and Addousiyeh,” two adjacent villages about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Israeli border just south of the coastal city of Sidon.
The NNA reported “victims” without elaborating, and an AFP photographer saw ambulances heading to the targeted sites.
The strikes hit a pickup truck in Najjariyeh and an orchard, the photographer said.
Hezbollah — which has intensified its cross-border attacks in recent days, prompting Israeli strikes deeper into Lebanese territory — announced Friday it had launched “attack drones” on Israeli military positions.
It came a day after the powerful Lebanese group said it had attacked an army position in Metula, a border town in northern Israel, wounding three soldiers.
Hezbollah said the attack was carried out with an “attack drone carrying two S5 rockets,” which are normally launched from jets.
Also on Thursday the group announced the deaths of two of its fighters in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon. The NNA said they were killed when their car was targeted.
Hezbollah earlier on Thursday said it had launched dozens of Katyusha rockets at Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights.
Israel retaliated with overnight air raids on Lebanon’s eastern Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold near the Syrian border.
Earlier this week Hezbollah said it had targeted an Israeli base near Tiberias, about 30 kilometers from the Lebanese border — one of the group’s deepest attacks into Israeli territory since clashes began on October 8.
The Wednesday strike came a day after the death of a Hezbollah member, which Israel said was a field commander, in an attack on southern Lebanon.
The cross-border fighting has killed at least 415 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including 80 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 10 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
UN rights chief warns Sudan commanders of catastrophe in Al-Fashir
- Violence escalated near Sudan’s Al-Fashir this week
GENEVA: The UN human rights chief said on Friday he was “horrified” by escalating violence near Sudan’s Al-Fashir and held discussions this week with commanders from both sides of the conflict, warning of a humanitarian disaster if the city is attacked.
“The High Commissioner (Volker Turk) warned both commanders that fighting in (al-Fashir), where more than 1.8 million residents and internally displaced people are currently encircled and at imminent risk of famine, would have a catastrophic impact on civilians, and would deepen intercommunal conflict with disastrous humanitarian consequences,” said Ravina Shamdasani, Turk’s spokesperson, at a Geneva press briefing.
Israel to top UN court: Gaza war ‘tragic’ but ‘no genocide’
- Israel lashed at South Africa’s case before the UN’s top court, describing it as “totally divorced” from reality
- Pretoria has urged the ICJ to order a stop to the Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah
THE HAGUE: A top lawyer for Israel told the highest United Nations court on Friday that the war in Gaza was tragic but denied there was a case of genocide to answer.
“There is a tragic war going on but there is no genocide,” Gilad Noam told the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Israel lashed out Friday at South Africa’s case before the UN’s top court, describing it as “totally divorced” from reality, as Pretoria urges judges to order a ceasefire in Gaza.
A top lawyer for Israel painted the South Africa case as a “mockery” of the UN Genocide Convention that it is accused of breaching.
“South Africa presents the court for the fourth time with a picture that is completely divorced from the facts and circumstances,” Gilad Noam told the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Pretoria has urged the ICJ to order a stop to the Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah, which Israel says is key to eliminating Hamas militants.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Thursday that the ground assault on Rafah was a “critical” part of the army’s mission to destroy Hamas and prevent any repetition of the October 7 attack.
“The battle in Rafah is critical... It’s not just the rest of their battalions, it’s also like an oxygen line for them for escape and resupply,” he said.
Netanyahu ordered the Rafah offensive in defiance of US warnings that more than a million civilians sheltering there could be caught in the crossfire.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday that the operation in Rafah “will continue as additional forces will enter” the area.
Friday in the Hague, Noam told the court that “Israel is acutely aware of the large number of civilians concentrated in Rafah. It is also acutely aware of Hamas efforts to use these civilians as a shield.”
Noam said there had been no “large-scale” assault on Rafah but “specific and localized operations prefaced with evacuation efforts and support for humanitarian activities.”
Israel denies South Africa’s allegations
On Thursday, judges heard a litany of allegations against Israel from lawyers representing Pretoria, including mass graves, torture and deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.
“South Africa had hoped, when we last appeared before this court, to halt this genocidal process to preserve Palestine and its people,” said top lawyer Vusimuzi Madonsela.
“Instead, Israel’s genocide has continued apace and has just reached a new and horrific stage,” added Madonsela.
But Noam said that South Africa’s accusations made a “mockery of the heinous charge of genocide.”
“Calling something a genocide again and again does not make it genocide. Repeating a lie does not make it true,” he said.
Court hearings
In a ruling that made headlines around the world, the ICJ in January ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts and enable humanitarian aid to Gaza.
But the court stopped short of ordering a ceasefire and South Africa’s argument is that the situation on the ground — notably the operation in the crowded city of Rafah — requires fresh ICJ action.
The orders of the ICJ, which rules in disputes between states, are legally binding but it has little means to enforce them.
It has ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine, to no avail.
South Africa wants the ICJ to issue three emergency orders — “provisional measures” in court jargon — while it rules on the wider accusation that Israel is breaking the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
It wants the court to order Israel to “immediately” cease all military operations in Gaza, including in Rafah, enable humanitarian access and report back on its progress on achieving these orders.
The arrival of occasional aid convoys has slowed to a trickle since Israeli forces took control last week of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.
Israel’s military operations in Gaza were launched in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
Israel’s military has conducted a relentless bombardment from the air and a ground offensive inside Gaza that has killed at least 35,303 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
