NASIRIYA: Four people were shot dead and dozens wounded in Iraq's south on Friday, medics said, in clashes between anti-government protesters and supporters of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.
The violence erupted as tens of thousands of Sadr supporters hit the streets of Baghdad and the southern city of Nasiriyah in a show of force as preparations ramp up for June parliamentary elections.
Their turnout overshadowed the rival youth-dominated movement that had erupted in October 2019 but had petered out in recent months due to geopolitical tensions and the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi has called for early polls to take place in June 2021 - nearly a year ahead of schedule - to fulfil a key demand of last year's protest movement, which also included Sadrists.
On Friday, followers of the cleric attacked a tent camp of anti-government protesters in Nasiriyah's Habboubi Square, said Mohammad Al-Khayyat, a leader of the anti-government movement.
"Sadrists armed with guns and pistols came to try to clear our tents. We fear that more violence could take place," Khayyat told AFP.
Medical sources told AFP that the violence had left four people dead and wounded 51 others, nine of them by gunfire.
An AFP reporter saw the torched remnants of the anti-government camp in Habboubi, where chaos reigned.
"The security forces clearly failed to prevent armed gangs from storming Habboubi Square," wrote Asaad Al-Naseri, an ex-Sadrist based Nasiriyah.
In the evening, clashes continued with an AFP correspondent reporting that many of the demonstrators' tents had been set on fire.
Nasiriyah was a major hub for the anti-government protest movement that erupted in October 2019.
It was also the site of one of the bloodiest incidents of the uprising nearly one year ago on November 28, when more than three dozen died in protest-related violence.
The deaths sparked outrage across Iraq, including by the country's top Shiite authority Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, and prompted the resignation of then prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi.
Kadhimi's plan to hold early elections is seen as an effort to reach out to protesters.
The polls will take place under a new electoral law agreed by parliament that will see district sizes reduced and votes for individual candidates replacing list-based ballots.
Most observers expect a delay of at least a few months while political parties prepare their campaigns, but experts say the new system is likely to benefit Sadr and his candidates.
Sadrists had already won big in the May 2018 vote with 54 of parliament's 329 seats, granting him the biggest single bloc.
In a tweet this week, Sadr said he expected major wins in the new elections and would push for the next prime minister to be a member of his movement for the first time.
He also called for a protest on Friday, prompting tens of thousands to turn out in Baghdad, and in other Iraqi cities including Al-Hillah and Basra in the south.
Despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, they gathered shoulder-to-shoulder for noon Muslim prayers in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, spilling out into the surrounding streets.
In a sermon read out by the cleric's representative, the firebrand leader called for a "Sadrist majority" in parliament.
Sadr is very rarely seen in public and did not attend the rally.
"This is a protest against the corrupt, the oppressors, who have driven Iraq to brink of bankruptcy, to the brink of the abyss," said Talal Al-Saadi, a cleric who was among those protesting on Friday.
Iraq is facing its most dire fiscal crisis in decades following a collapse in oil prices earlier this year and the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the government unable to pay public sector salaries on time.
On Friday, Sadr supporters carried Iraq's national tricolour and posters of the cleric, including some that evoked his past as a militia leader and showed him in camouflage.
Volunteers dressed in light blue - the movement's colour - sprayed the crowd with disinfectant.
"Obeying Sadr's call, we're making a stand that the whole world will see - we don't want criminals or corrupt people in Iraq," said protester Ahmad Rahim, with an Iraqi flag draped around his shoulders.
"We call the shots," he added.
Four dead as rival protesters clash in southern Iraq
https://arab.news/85g7y
Four dead as rival protesters clash in southern Iraq
- The violence erupted as tens of thousands of Sadr supporters hit the streets of Baghdad and Nasiriyah
- Their turnout overshadowed the rival youth-dominated movement that had erupted in October 2019
Lebanon says one dead in Israeli strike in south
- Israel has continued to strike Lebanon since the November 27 ceasefire
- At least 71 civilians have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire came into effect
“The drone strike launched by the Israeli enemy on a vehicle in Wadi Al-Hujair killed one person,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to an area around 12 kilometers (seven miles) from the border.
The ministry also said a 17-year-old wounded in an Israeli strike in south Lebanon’s Aitaroun a day earlier had died, bringing the toll in that raid to two dead.
The Israeli military had said the strike killed a Hezbollah operative.
Israel has continued to strike Lebanon since the November 27 ceasefire that largely halted more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, including two months of all-out war.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said on Tuesday that “at least 71 civilians have been killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since the ceasefire came into effect.”
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said last week that 186 people had been killed since the truce, without saying how many had been members of the group.
The health ministry has not responded to AFP requests for updated figures.
The truce accord was based on a UN Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and United Nations peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
Under the truce, Hezbollah was to withdraw fighters from south of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure there.
Israel was to pull out all its forces from south Lebanon, although it continues to hold five positions that it deems “strategic.”
Lebanon’s army has been deploying in the south near the border as Israeli forces have withdrawn.
A source close to Hezbollah said on Saturday that the group had ceded to the Lebanese army around 190 of its 265 military positions identified south of the Litani.
Sudanese paramilitary group says its forming a rival government
- The move came as the RSF suffered multiple battlefield setbacks, losing the capital, Khartoum and other urban cities in recent months
- It raises concerns that Sudan is heading toward partition, or a prolonged conflict like that one in neighboring Libya where two rival administrations have been fighting for power for over a decade
CAIRO: A notorious paramilitary group fighting against the Sudanese military announced that it was forming a rival government, which will rule parts of the country controlled by the group including the western Darfur region where the United Nations says recent attacks by the group have killed over 400 people.
Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support Forces, announced the move in a speech on Tuesday as the northeastern African nation marked two years of civil war.
“On this anniversary, we proudly declare the establishment of the Government of Peace and Unity,” Dagalo said in a recorded speech, adding that other groups have joined the RSF-led administration, including a faction of the Sudan’s Liberation Movement, which controls parts of Kordofan region.
Dagalo, who is sanctioned by the US over accusations that his forces committed genocide in Darfur, said that he and his allies were also establishing “a 15-member Presidential Council” representing all of Sudan’s regions.
The move came as the RSF suffered multiple battlefield setbacks, losing the capital, Khartoum and other urban cities in recent months. The paramilitary group has since regrouped in its stronghold in the sprawling region of Darfur.
It raises concerns that Sudan is heading toward partition, or a prolonged conflict like that one in neighboring Libya where two rival administrations have been fighting for power for over a decade. The nation of South Sudan won independence from Sudan in a 2011 referendum that followed a war in which Janjaweed militias, a predecessor to the RSF, fought on behalf of the government.
The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities.
Many countries, including the US, have rejected the RSF efforts to establish an administration in areas they control.
“Attempts to establish a parallel government are unhelpful for peace & security for the country, and risk further instability & de facto partition of the country,” the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs posted on X in March when the RSF and its allies signed what they called “transitional constitution” in a Kenya-hosted conference.
Sudan was plunged into chaos on April 15, 2023 when simmering tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open warfare across 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 4 million who have crossed into neighboring countries, and 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 Darfur, according to the UN and international rights groups.
Dagalo’s announcement has come a few days after his forces and allied militias rampaged through two famine-hit camps, which shelter some 700,000 Sudanese who fled their homes, in North Darfur province.
The multi-day attack on the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps killed more than 400 people, including 12 aid workers and dozens of children, the UN humanitarian office said, citing local sources.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday the attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp in recent days.
He said the camp has become inaccessible after the RSF and its allied militias took control of it, “restricting the movement of those remaining, especially young people.”
Israeli defense minister: Troops will remain in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely
- Israeli forces have taken over large areas of Gaza in recent weeks in a renewed campaign
- Israel defense minister says no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister said Wednesday that troops will remain in so-called security zones in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely.
“Unlike in the past, the (Israeli military) is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Israel Katz said in a statement. The military “will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and (Israeli) communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza — as in Lebanon and Syria.”
Katz said also said the country would continue to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
“Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” Katz said in a statement, days after the UN warned the territory was facing its most severe humanitarian crisis since the war began in October 2023. Israel has blocked aid from entering since March 2.
Israeli forces have taken over large areas of Gaza in recent weeks in a renewed campaign to pressure Hamas to release hostages after Israel ended their ceasefire last month. Israel has also refused to withdraw from some areas in Lebanon following a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group last year, and it seized a buffer zone in southern Syria after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.
Gaza hospital chief held in ‘inhumane’ conditions by Israel: lawyer
- Abu Safiya was subjected to interrogations involving beatings, mistreatment and torture.
- In January, rights group Amnesty International demanded Abu Safiya’s release, citing witness testimonies describing “the horrifying reality” in Israeli prisons.
NAZARETH: The director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital who was detained by Israeli forces in December is being held in “inhumane” conditions by Israel and subjected to “physical and psychological intimidation,” his lawyer told AFP.
Hussam Abu Safiya, a 52-year-old paediatrician, rose to prominence last year by posting about the dire conditions in his besieged hospital in Beit Lahia during a major Israeli offensive.
On December 27, Israeli forces began an assault on the facility which they labelled a Hamas “terrorist center,” and arrested dozens of medical staff including Abu Safiya.
The military accused him of being a “Hamas operative.”
Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Gheed Qassem, was able to visit the doctor on March 19 in Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank.
“He is suffering greatly, he is exhausted from the torture, the pressure and the humiliation he has endured to force him to confess to acts he did not commit,” said Qassem who met an AFP correspondent in Nazareth.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from AFP about the conditions in which Abu Safiya is being held.
After initially spending two weeks in the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel’s Negev desert, Abu Safiya was transferred to Ofer, where Israel keeps hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
In Sde Teiman, Abu Safiya was subjected to interrogations “involving beatings, mistreatment and torture,” Qassem said, before he was transferred to a cramped cell in Ofer for 25 days, where he was also subjected to questioning.
The Israeli authorities have designated the medic an “illegal combatant” for an “unlimited period of time,” Qassem said, and his case has been designated confidential by the military, meaning Abu Safiya’s defense cannot access the files.
She denounced what she said were restrictions imposed on legal visits, which have prevented lawyers from informing detainees about “the war, the date, the time or their geographic location.”
Her meeting with Abu Safiya, which took place under tight surveillance, lasted for only 17 minutes, she said.
Adopted in 2002, Israel’s law concerning “illegal combatants” permits the detention of suspected members of “hostile forces” outside of normal legal frameworks.
In January, rights group Amnesty International demanded Abu Safiya’s release, citing witness testimonies describing “the horrifying reality” in Israeli prisons, where Palestinian detainees are subjected to “systematic acts of torture and other mistreatment.”
A social media campaign using the hashtag #FreeDrHussamAbuSafiya has brought together health care organizations, celebrities and UN leaders.
That includes the director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who demanded Abu Safiya’s release in a post on X.
Qassem warned that her client’s health was “very worrying.”
“He is suffering from arterial tension, cardiac arrhythmia and vision problems,” she said, adding “he has lost 20 kilos in two months and fractured four ribs during interrogations, without receiving proper medical care.”
The doctor remains calm, she said, but “wonders what crime he has committed” to be subjected to “such inhumane conditions.”
According to the lawyer, Abu Safiya’s jailers are demanding that he confess to having operated on members of Hamas or Israeli hostages held in Gaza, but he has refused to do so and denies the accusations.
The doctor insists that he is just a paediatrician, “and everything he did was out of a moral, professional and human duty toward the patients and the wounded,” Qassem said.
Since October 7, 2023, around 5,000 Gazans have been arrested by Israel, and some were subsequently released in exchange for hostages held in Gaza.
In general, they are accused of “belonging to a terrorist organization” or of posing “a threat to Israel’s security,” the lawyer said.
Qassem said that a number of detainees are being held without charge or trial and that their lawyers often did not know where their clients were during the first months of the war.
Istanbul's Hagia Sophia prepares for next big quake
- Hagia Sophia a World Heritage Site and Turkiye’s most visited landmark
Istanbul: The Hagia Sophia of Istanbul is no stranger to change — through the centuries the city’s architectural jewel has gone from church to mosque to museum, back to mosque again.
But the latest renovation aims not only to restore the wonders of the 1,488-year gem, but to ensure it survives the next earthquake to hit the ancient city.
From afar, its dome, shimmering rock and delicate minarets appear to watch over Istanbul, as they have for centuries.
As visitors get closer however, they see scaffolding covering its eastern facade and one of the minarets.
While “the renovation of course breaks a little bit the atmosphere of the appearance from the outside” and the “scaffolding takes away the aesthetic of the monument... renovation is a must,” said Abdullah Yilmaz, a guide.
Hagia Sophia, a World Heritage Site and Turkiye’s most visited landmark, “constantly has problems,” Hasan Firat Diker, an architecture professor working on the restoration, told AFP.
That is why it has undergone numerous piecemeal reconstructions over the centuries, he added.
'Global’ makeover'
The current makeover is the first time the site will undergo a “global restoration,” including the dome, walls and minarets, he said.
When it was first completed in AD 537, on the same spot where previous churches had stood, the Hagia Sophia became known as a shining example of the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, which ruled the city known as Constantinople at the time.
It served as a church until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453, when it became a mosque.
In 1935, Mustafa Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye who forcibly remade the country into a secular one, turned the building into a museum.
It remained as such until 2020, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a practicing Muslim who came to power at the head of an Islamist-rooted party, turned it back into a mosque.
Next big quake
Like the residents of this historic city, the Hagia Sophia has not only had to contend with the whims of its rulers — it faces the constant danger from earthquakes that have regularly struck the metropolis, the last major one in 1999.
Like many buildings in the city of 16 million, which lies just kilometers from an active seismic fault line, Hagia Sophia does not meet building earthquake standards.
Its dome collapsed in an earthquake in 558 and the building has been damaged in other quakes that have hit the city since.
So the main goal of the restoration under way is to “reinforce the building against the next big earthquake” so that the ancient structure “survives the event with the least damage possible,” said Ahmet Gulec, a member of the scientific committee supervising the works.
For the moment specialists are studying the dome to determine how best to both reinforce and restore it, Diker said.
The interior is for now free of any scaffolding. But eventually four huge pillars will be erected inside to support a platform from where specialists will restore the dome’s paintings and mosaics.
“Once you’re inside... it’s perfect,” marvelled Ana Delgado, a 49-year-old tourist from Mexico as the hum of laughter, conversation and movement filled the building following afternoon prayers.
“It’s magic,” chimed in her friend, Elias Erduran, from the Dominican Republic.
Millions of visitors
Hagia Sophia saw 7.7 million visitors stream through its spacious interior last year.
Around 2.1 million of them are foreign tourists, many of whom pay 25 euros for an entry ticket, generating millions of euros annually.
Officials hope the inside pillars will not deter visitors from coming during the works, which are expected to last for several years. Officials have not said how much the renovation is expected to cost.
“The objective is that the visits and prayers continue” during the works, Gulec said.
And even if some visitors are disappointed not to have witnessed the building in all its glory, the important thing “is that one day my children will also be able to admire Saint Sophia,” said Yana Galitskaya, a 35-year-old visitor from Russia.
