More than 5,300 feared dead, thousands more missing as eastern Libya devastated by floods

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Updated 13 September 2023
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More than 5,300 feared dead, thousands more missing as eastern Libya devastated by floods

  • “Bodies are lying everywhere — in the sea, in the valleys, under the buildings,” minister says
  • UN aid chief said emergency teams have been mobilized to help on the ground

CAIRO: Emergency workers uncovered more than 1,500 bodies in the wreckage of Libya’s eastern city of Derna on Tuesday, and it was feared the toll could spiral with 10,000 people reported still missing after floodwaters smashed through dams and washed away entire neighborhoods of the city.
The death toll in Derna alone has exceeded 5,300, the state-run news agency quoted Mohammed Abu-Lamousha, a spokesman for the east Libya interior ministry, as saying Tuesday. Derna’s ambulance authority earlier put the toll at 2,300.
The startling death and devastation wreaked by Mediterranean storm Daniel pointed to the storm’s intensity, but also the vulnerability of a nation torn apart by chaos for more than a decade. The country is divided by rival governments, one in the east, the other in the west, and the result has been neglect of infrastructure in many areas.
Outside help was only just starting to reach Derna on Tuesday, more than 36 hours after the disaster struck. The floods damaged or destroyed many access roads to the coastal city of some 89,000.
Footage showed dozens of bodies covered by blankets in the yard of one hospital. Another image showed a mass grave piled with bodies. More than 1,500 corpses were collected, and half of them had been buried as of Tuesday evening, the health minister for eastern Libya said.
But the toll is likely to be higher, in the thousands, said Tamer Ramadan, Libya envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He told a UN briefing in Geneva via videoconference from Tunisia that at least 10,000 people were still missing. He said later Tuesday that more than 40,000 people have been displaced.
The situation in Libya is “as devastating as the situation in Morocco,” Ramadan said, referring to the deadly earthquake that hit near the city of Marrakesh on Friday night.
The destruction came to Derna and other parts of eastern Libya on Sunday night. As the storm pounded the coast, Derna residents said they heard loud explosions and realized that dams outside the city had collapsed. Flash floods were unleashed down Wadi Derna, a river running from the mountains through the city and into the sea.
The wall of water “erased everything in its way,” said one resident, Ahmed Abdalla.
Videos posted online by residents showed large swaths of mud and wreckage where the raging waters had swept away neighborhoods on both banks of the river. Multi-story apartment buildings that once were well back from the river had facades ripped away and concrete floors collapsed. Cars lifted by the flood were left dumped on top of each other.
Libya’s National Meteorological Center said Tuesday it issued early warnings for Storm Daniel, an “extreme weather event,” 72 hours before its occurrence, and notified all governmental authorities by emails and through media ... “urging them to take preventive measures.” It said that Bayda recorded a record 414.1 millimeters (16.3 inches) of rain from Sunday to Monday.
On Tuesday, local emergency responders, including troops, government workers, volunteers and residents dug through rubble looking for the dead. They also used inflatable boats to retrieve bodies from the water.
Many bodies were believed trapped under rubble or had been washed out into the Mediterranean Sea, said eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel.
“We were stunned by the amount of destruction ... the tragedy is very significant, and beyond the capacity of Derna and the government,” Abduljaleel told The Associated Press on the phone from Derna.
Red Crescent teams from other parts of Libya also arrived in Derna on Tuesday morning but extra excavators and other equipment had yet to get there.
Flooding often happens in Libya during rainy season, but rarely with this much destruction. A key question was how the rains were able to burst through two dams outside Derna – whether because of poor maintenance or sheer volume of rain.
Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist and meteorologist at Leipzig University, said in a statement that Daniel dumped 440 millimeters (15.7 inches) of rain on eastern Libya in a short time.
“The infrastructure could probably not cope, leading to the collapse of the dam,” he said, adding that human-induced rises in water surface temperatures likely added to the storm’s intensity.
Local authorities have neglected Derna for years. “Even the maintenance aspect was simply absent. Everything kept being delayed,” said Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow specializing in Libya at the London-based Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.
Factionalism also comes into play. Derna was for several years controlled by Islamic militant groups. Military commander Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of the east Libya government, captured the city in 2019 only after months of tough urban fighting.
The eastern government has been suspicious of the city ever since and has sought to sideline its residents from any decision-making, said Harchaoui. “This mistrust might prove calamitous during the upcoming post-disaster period,” he said.
Haftar’s eastern government based in the city of Benghazi is locked in a bitter rivalry with the western government in the capital of Tripoli. Each is backed by powerful militias and by foreign powers. Haftar is also backed by Egypt, Russia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, while the west Libya administration is backed by Turkiye, Qatar and Italy.
Still, the initial reaction to the disaster brought some crossing of the divide.
The Tripoli-based government of western Libya sent a plane with 14 tons of medical supplies and health workers to Benghazi. It also said it had allocated the equivalent of $412 million for reconstruction in Derna and other eastern towns. Airplanes arrived Tuesday in Benghazi carrying humanitarian aid and rescue teams from Egypt, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates. Egypt’s military chief of staff met with Haftar to coordinate aid. Germany, France and Italy said they also were sending rescue personnel and aid.
It was not clear how quickly the aid could be moved to Derna, 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Benghazi, given conditions on the ground. Ahmed Amdourd, a Derna municipal official, called for a sea corridor to deliver aid and equipment.
President Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday that the United States is sending emergency funds to relief organizations and coordinating with the Libyan authorities and the UN to provide additional support.
“Jill and I send our deepest condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones in the devastating floods in Libya,” he said.
The storm hit other areas in eastern Libya, including the town of Bayda, where about 50 people were reported dead. The Medical Center of Bayda, the main hospital, was flooded and patients had to be evacuated, according to footage shared by the center on Facebook.
Other towns that suffered included Susa, Marj and Shahatt, according to the government. Hundreds of families were displaced and took shelter in schools and other government buildings in Benghazi and elsewhere in eastern Libya.
Northeast Libya is one of the country’s most fertile and green regions. The Jabal Al-Akhdar area — where Bayda, Marj and Shahatt are located — has one of the country’s highest average annual rainfalls, according to the World Bank.
 

 


Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 29

Updated 8 sec ago
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Gaza rescuers say Israeli strikes kill at least 29

  • Thursday’s toll included eight people killed in an Israeli air strike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Yunis refugee
  • Four people were killed in an air strike east of Shaaf in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighborhood

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Thursday Israeli bombardment killed at least 29 people since midnight in the war-ravaged territory, which has been under Israeli aid blockade for nearly two months.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile said that while the military’s mission was to bring home all the hostages from Gaza, its “supreme goal” was to achieve victory against Hamas.
Israel resumed its campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after a two-month truce collapsed over disagreements between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas whose 2023 attack triggered the conflict.
Civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir said Thursday’s toll included eight people killed in an air strike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza.
Four people were killed in an air strike east of Shaaf in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighborhood, he told AFP.
At least 17 more were killed in other attacks across the Palestinian territory, including one that hit a tent sheltering displaced people near the central city of Deir el-Balah, the agency said.
“We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and children, women and young people all bombed to pieces,” said Ahmed Abu Zarqa after a deadly strike in Khan Yunis.
“This is no way to live. Enough, we’re tired, enough!
“We don’t know what to do with our lives any more. We’d rather die than live this kind of life.”
At Nasser Hospital
AFP images showed residents digging through rubble in search of bodies, which were carried away on stretchers under blankets.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, rescuers rushed a screaming wounded child out of an ambulance, as a group of women mourned.
“What have the children done wrong? What have we done wrong? Enough is enough. Just drop a nuclear bomb on us,” said Ghada Abu Sahlul as she mourned the death of a relative.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2,326 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still being held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.


Israel vows ‘significant force’ if Syria govt fails to protect Druze

Sheikh Laith al-Balous, centre, a Druze leader in the southern Sweida province, speaks with Sweida governor Mustafa al-Bakour.
Updated 34 min 59 sec ago
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Israel vows ‘significant force’ if Syria govt fails to protect Druze

  • At least 101 people have been killed in two days of sectarian clashes near Syria’s capital, most of them Druze fighters, a war monitor said

JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Thursday that Israel will respond forcefully if Syria’s government fails to protect the Druze minority, after two days of deadly sectarian clashes near Damascus.
“Should the attacks on the Druze resume and the Syrian regime fail to prevent them, Israel will respond with significant force,” Katz said in a statement.
Israel has ramped up its support for Syria’s Druze in recent days, with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Thursday urging the international community to “fulfil its role in protecting the minorities in Syria — especially the Druze — from the regime and its gangs of terror.”
At least 101 people have been killed in two days of sectarian clashes near Syria’s capital, most of them Druze fighters, a war monitor said in an updated toll on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Israel carried out a strike against what it called an “extremist group” preparing to attack members of the Druze community near Damascus.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the strike on the town of Sahnaya sent a “stern message” to Syria’s new government.
Israel’s armed forces chief later ordered the military to prepare to strike Syrian government targets if the Druze community faced more violence.
Israel’s military said two injured Druze Syrians were evacuated from Syria on Thursday for treatment in Israel, after announcing Wednesday that three had been evacuated.
It did not specify how or where they had been injured.
In its statement on Thursday, it said they were taken for treatment to the town of Safed in northern Israel “after sustaining injuries in Syrian territory.”
“The IDF (military) is deployed in southern Syria and is prepared to prevent the entry of hostile forces into the area of Druze villages,” it added.


Weekend round of nuclear talks between US and Iran postponed

Updated 50 min 29 sec ago
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Weekend round of nuclear talks between US and Iran postponed

  • Message online from Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi made the announcement in a post on the social platform X

DUBAI: Planned negotiations between Iran and the United States this weekend over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program have been postponed, Oman announced Thursday.
A message online from Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi made the announcement in a post on the social platform X.
“For logistical reasons we are rescheduling the US Iran meeting provisionally planned for Saturday May 3rd,” he wrote. “New dates will be announced when mutually agreed.”
Al-Busaidi, who has mediated the talks through three rounds so far, did not elaborate.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei issued a statement describing the talks as being “postponed at the request of Oman’s foreign minister.” He said Iran remain committed to reaching ”a fair and lasting agreement.”
Meanwhile, a person familiar with the US negotiators said that America “had never confirmed its participation” in a fourth round of talks in Rome. However, the person said the US expected the talks to occur “in the near future.” The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.
Rome soon will see the Vatican begin the conclave on Wednesday to pick a new pope after the death of Pope Francis. Two other rounds of talks have been held in Muscat, the capital of Oman.
The talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions the US has imposed on the Islamic Republic closing in on a half-century of enmity. The negotiations have been led by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers did limit Tehran’s program. However, Trump unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018, setting in motion years of attacks and tensions. The wider Middle East also remains on edge over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the US continues an airstrike campaign, called “Operation Rough Rider,” that has been targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who long have been backed by Iran. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth early Thursday warned Iran over the rebels.
“Message to IRAN: We see your LETHAL support to The Houthis. We know exactly what you are doing,” he wrote. “You know very well what the US Military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing.”
Last Saturday’s round of talks, which included experts drilling down into the details of a possible deal, also took place as an explosion rocked an Iranian port, killing at least 70 people and injuring more than 1,000 others.


Israeli settlers perform ‘epic prostration’ after storming Al-Aqsa Mosque

Updated 01 May 2025
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Israeli settlers perform ‘epic prostration’ after storming Al-Aqsa Mosque

  • Israeli settlers regularly tour Al-Aqsa under the protection of Israeli police
  • 13,064 settlers entered the site in the first quarter of 2025

LONDON: Dozens of Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Thursday, conducting a provocative tour in front of Palestinian worshippers.

Settlers regularly tour the site under the protection of Israeli police and are often accompanied by government officials and far-right ministers.

On Thursday, they performed Talmudic rituals in front of the Dome of the Rock Mosque, chanting loudly in the presence of Palestinian worshippers, eyewitnesses told the Wafa news agency.

Some settlers performed the Talmudic ritual known as “epic prostration,” in which the worshipper bows low to the ground in a display of humility and reverence, while others raised Israeli flags.

In April, thousands of Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa compound to mark the Jewish holiday of Passover. In the same month, several Arab countries condemned a video generated by artificial intelligence that depicted the destruction of Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock mosques, which was attributed to Israeli settlers.

The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem governorate reported that 13,064 settlers visited the site in the first quarter of 2025.


Devastated father wonders why an Israeli strike killed his 4-year-old daughter

Updated 01 May 2025
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Devastated father wonders why an Israeli strike killed his 4-year-old daughter

  • That afternoon, an Israeli strike hit a tent on the side of the road, killing Massa and some of the other children
  • “She had a ball on her lap with a doll in her hand. Will she fight them with her football or doll?” her father said

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Massa Abed, 4, brought a rubber ball and her doll to play with friends on the street near her family’s home on Sunday. It was a mundane day in Zawaida, the central Gaza town where the Abeds returned weeks ago, with calm largely restored in the area.
But that afternoon, an Israeli strike hit a tent on the side of the road, killing Massa and some of the other children.
Her older brother, 16, grabbed Massa’s little body and rushed to the hospital on a donkey cart. When she was pronounced dead, he wailed, holding her.
Days later, Massa’s father, Samy Abed, turned the green ball in his hand, describing the incident to The Associated Press.
“She had a ball on her lap with a doll in her hand. Will she fight them with her football or doll?” he said. “She’s 4 years old. What can she do? She can’t even carry a rock.”
The Israeli army did not respond to requests for comment on the strike, and it remains unclear why the area — near the city of Deir Al-Balah — was struck or who was targeted. Israeli officials have often blamed Hamas for civilian casualties, saying the Palestinian militant group regularly operates from residential areas and hospitals and accusing it using civilians as human shields.
Since Israel resumed attacksmore than a month ago, at least 809 children have been killed, said Zaher Al-Wahidi, a spokesperson with Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Overall, the ministry says, more than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, in October 2023. Ministry officials do not differentiate between civilians and militant deaths but say that more than half the dead have been women and children. Israel says it has killed over 20,000 militants, without providing details on those deaths.
On March 18, a surprise Israeli bombardment shattered a six-week ceasefire mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt; hundreds of Palestinians were killed. Mediation efforts to restore the ceasefire have faltered, and Israel has vowed more devastation if Hamas doesn’t release the remaining hostages kidnapped in its rampage on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
That Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people and abducted 250 others. Israel says 59 hostages remain in captivity, at least 35 of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza, not allowing food, medicine, or assistance to enter the strip. The United Nations World Food Program said its stockpiles that it used to feed over 600,000 people daily are empty. Israel says the blockade’s aim is to increase pressure on Hamas to release the rest of the hostages and to disarm.
At the hospital where Massa’s brother brought her, bodies of her young playmates lay nearby — a reminder, relatives said, of children in danger as attacks continue.
Massa had the confidence and bubbly personality of a teenager, socializing and conversing with everyone, her father said as he scrolled through photos and videos where she played and posed for the cameras.
He soon turned to photos of her body at the hospital.
“We see her when we’re asleep. When we wake up, we remember her,” he said.
Majdi Abed, Massa’s uncle, says he has regular visions of her. “I was sitting right here at 7 a.m., and I felt the girl coming toward me,” he said, describing how he frequently bursts into tears upon realizing it’s not really Massa.
The family still expects her to show up at their breakfast table.
But, her father said, “her spot is empty.”