JERUSALEM: Jerusalem church leaders on Monday expressed their “grave concern” about Britain potentially moving their embassy in Israel to the contested and sacred city.
British Prime Minister Liz Truss last month told her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid “about her review of the current location of the British embassy in Israel,” according to her office.
The announcement raised the prospect of London following in Washington’s steps under former president Donald Trump, who in 2018 relocated the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The move broke with decades of international consensus, as governments have refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of either an Israeli or Palestinian state before a lasting peace accord is reached.
On Monday, Jerusalem church heads warned moving the British embassy “would severely undermine this key principle... and the political negotiations that it seeks to advance.”
The Council of the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem represents all denominations in the city, which is home to the holiest site in Christianity.
The Old City, in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, also hosts the most sacred site in Judaism and the third-holiest site in Islam.
“The religious Status Quo in Jerusalem is essential for preserving the harmony of our Holy City and good relations between religious communities around the globe,” said the church heads.
Britain’s review, they added, implied that there was no need for peace talks, and that “the continuing military occupation of those territories and the unilateral annexation of east Jerusalem are both acceptable.”
Israel has occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank — the site of numerous biblical tales including the birth of Jesus — since the 1967 Six-Day War.
Noting that Christians have lived in the territory “under many different empires and governments” for some 2,000 years, they pressed the British government to “redouble their diplomatic efforts” toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Their intervention from Jerusalem follows similar statements by church leaders in Britain.
A spokesperson for the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the senior bishop of the Anglican Church, last week told the UK website Jewish News he was “concerned about the potential impact of moving the British embassy” to Jerusalem.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the country’s most senior Catholic cleric, said on Thursday that relocating the embassy would “be seriously damaging to any possibility of lasting peace in the region.”
Jerusalem churches raise concern over UK embassy talks
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Jerusalem churches raise concern over UK embassy talks
- British PM Liz Truss has told her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid ‘about her review of the current location of the British embassy in Israel’
- UK PM’s comment raises the prospect of London following Washington’s lead and relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
Turkiye says it is closely monitoring PKK disbandment to secure peace
- “We are closely following attempts to sabotage the process and we will not allow anyone to test our state’s determination in this regard,” Altun said
- Officials have not disclose details about the process that will follow the PKK’s decision
ANKARA: Türkiye is closely monitoring any attempts to undermine its peace initiative with the PKK, a senior official said Tuesday, following the militant Kurdish group’s announcement that it is dissolving and ending its decades-long armed conflict with the Turkish state.
The PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by several, announced the historic decision on Monday months after its imprisoned leader called for the group to formally disband and disarm — a move that could bring an end to one of the Middle East’s longest-running insurgencies.
In making the call, the PKK leader stressed the need for securing Kurdish rights through negotiation rather than armed struggle.
Previous peace efforts with the group have failed, most recently in 2015. Given the past failures, a close aide to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed determination to uphold the current initiative and prevent any disruptions.
“We are closely following attempts to sabotage the process and we will not allow anyone to test our state’s determination in this regard,” Fahrettin Altun, the head of the Turkish presidential communications office said.
The PKK initially launched its struggle with the goal of establishing an independent Kurdish state. Over time, it moderated its objectives toward autonomy and greater Kurdish rights within Türkiye. The conflict, which has spilled into neighboring Iraq and Syria, has claimed tens of thousands of lives since it began in the 1980s.
The latest peace effort, which the government has labeled “Terror-Free Turkiye” was launched in October, after a key ally of President Recep Tayyip suggested parole for PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan if the PKK renounces violence and disbands.
Officials have not disclose details about the process that will follow the PKK’s decision.
Media close to the government have reported that the PKK’s disarmament process is expected to take three to four months, with weapons being collected at designated locations in northern Iraq under official supervision.
According to Hurriyet newspaper, the disarmament could be overseen jointly by Türkiye and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq or through a commission involving Türkiye, the United States, European Union nations and Iraq.
The newspaper also suggested that high-ranking PKK members may be relocated to third countries, while lower-ranking militants without arrest warrants could return to Türkiye once a legal framework is established to facilitate their reintegration.
Turkish officials have not responded to requests for comment on the report.
Analysts expect Ocalan to see improved prison conditions following the PKK’s disbandment.
Erdogan said Monday the PKK’s declaration should apply to all PKK-affiliated groups, including Kurdish groups in Syria.
The Kurdish fighters in Syria have ties to the PKK and have been involved in intense fighting with Turkish-backed forces there. The leader of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces previously said Ocalan’s call for a dissolution does not apply to his group in Syria.
The group then reached an agreement with the central government in Damascus for a nationwide ceasefire and its merger into the Syrian army. Despite the deal, Kurdish officials in Syria later declared their desire for a federal state, sparking tensions with the Syrian government.
Some believe the main aim of the reconciliation effort is for Erdogan’s government to garner Kurdish support for a new constitution that would allow him to remain in power beyond 2028, when his term ends.
Turkiye is closely monitoring any attempts to undermine its peace initiative with the PKK, a senior official said Tuesday. (AP/File)
Israeli strike on Gaza hospital kills wounded journalist, Hamas says
- Hamas said the strike killed a journalist and wounded a number of civilians
- The CPJ says at least 178 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said it struck a Gaza hospital housing Hamas militants in a raid Tuesday that, according to the Palestinian group, killed a journalist wounded in an Israeli attack last month.
The strike, which Hamas said happened at dawn, ended a brief pause in fighting to allow the release of a US-Israeli hostage.
The military said in a Telegram post that “significant Hamas terrorists” had been “operating from within a command and control center” at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city.
“The compound was used by the terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF (army) troops,” it said.
In a statement, Hamas said the strike killed a journalist and wounded a number of civilians.
“The Israeli army bombed the surgeries building at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis at dawn on Tuesday, killing journalist Hassan Aslih,” said Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
Aslih, head of the Alam24 news outlet, had been at the hospital for treatment after being wounded in a strike on April 7, he told AFP.
Two other journalists, Ahmed Mansur and Hilmi Al-Faqaawi, were killed in that bombing, according to reports at the time.The Israeli military said the April strike had targeted Aslih, alleging he operated for Hamas “under the guise of a journalist.”
It said Aslih had “infiltrated Israeli territory and participated in the murderous massacre carried out by the Hamas terrorist organization” on October 7, 2023.
The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the strike.It said Aslih had worked for international media outlets until 2023, when the pro-Israeli watchdog HonestReporting published a photo of him being kissed by then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The CPJ says at least 178 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since the start of the war.
Israel had paused military operations in Gaza to allow for the release of Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old US-Israeli soldier who had been held hostage since October 2023.
Alexander, believed to be the last surviving hostage with US citizenship, was released Monday ahead of a Middle East visit by US President Donald Trump.
Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce in its war against Hamas, which was triggered by the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack.
The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday at least 2,749 people have been killed since Israel resumed its campaign, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,862.
‘Barefoot with nothing’: War-displaced Sudanese go hungry in refuge town
TAWILA: Crouching over a small wood-scrap fire in Sudan’s war-battered Darfur region, Aziza Ismail Idris stirs a pot of watery porridge — the only food her family have had for days.
“No organization has come. No water, no food — not even a biscuit for the children,” Idris told AFP, her voice brittle with fatigue.
Having fled a brutal paramilitary attack last month on Zamzam, once one of Sudan’s largest displacement camps, she and her five children are among the estimated 300,000 people who have since arrived in the small farming town of Tawila, according to the United Nations.
“We arrived here barefoot with nothing,” she said, recalling her escape from Zamzam camp, about a 60-kilometer (37-mile) desert trek away, also in the vast western region of Darfur.
The few aid organizations on the ground lack the means to meet the urgent needs of so many displaced people.
“Humanitarian organizations were simply not prepared to receive this scale of displacement,” said Thibault Fendler, who works with medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Tawila.
Since war broke out in April 2023 between Sudan’s army and rival paramilitaries, the town has received waves of displaced people fleeing violence elsewhere.
“We are working to scale up our capacities, but the needs are simply enormous,” Fendler told AFP.
Tawila, nestled between mountains and seasonal farmland, was once a quiet rural outpost.
But the two-year war pitting the army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has buffeted the already-scarred Darfur region.
Entire displacement camps have been besieged and razed, while the armed group that controls the area around Tawila — a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Abdelwahid Al-Nur — has vowed to protect those fleeing the violence.
The town’s schools, mosques and markets are crammed with people sleeping side by side, on concrete floors, under trees or in huts of straw and plastic, exposed to temperatures that can reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
Beyond the town center, a patchwork of makeshift shelters fans out across the horizon.
Inside, families keep what little they managed to bring with them: worn bags, cooking pots or clothes folded carefully on mats laid over dry earth.
Some weary children play silently in the dirt — many malnourished, some dressed in oversized hand-me-downs, others in the clothes they had fled in.
Nearby, dozens of women line up with empty jerrycans, waiting by a lone water tank.
More queues snake around soup kitchens, with women carrying pots in hand and children on their hips, hoping to get a meal before they run out.
“When we arrived, the thirst had nearly killed us, we had nothing,” said Hawaa Hassan Mohamed, a mother who fled from North Darfur’s besieged state capital of El-Fasher.
“People shared what little they had,” she told AFP.
The war has created the world’s largest hunger crisis, with famine already declared in several parts of North Darfur state where the UN estimates that more than a million people are on the brink of starvation.
The RSF and the army continue to battle for control of territory, particularly in and around El-Fasher — the last army stronghold in Darfur — crippling humanitarian access.
“It takes a long time to get aid here. The roads are full of checkpoints. Some are completely cut off,” Noah Taylor, head of operations for the Norwegian Refugee Council, told AFP from Tawila.
“There are so many gaps in every sector, from food to shelter to sanitation. The financial and in-kind resources we have are simply not sufficient,” he said.
Organizations are scrambling to get food, clean water and health assistance to desperate families, but Taylor said these efforts are just scratching the surface.
“We are not there yet in terms of what people need,” he said.
“We’re doing what we can, but the global response has not kept pace with the scale of this disaster.”
Leni Kinzli, head of communications at the World Food Programme, said that a one-time delivery of “1,600 metric tons of food and nutrition supplies” for 335,000 people had reached Tawila last month.
But it took two weeks to reach the town, navigating multiple checkpoints and unsafe roads, she told AFP.
Aid workers warn that without urgent funding and secure access, these deliveries will even be harder, especially with the rainy season approaching.
Libya armed group leader among dead in Tripoli clashes: media
- Six bodies have been retrieved from the sites of clashes around Abu Salim in Tripoli
- Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui said on social media that Kikli was likely ambushed at the base
TRIPOLI: Overnight clashes in Libya’s capital killed at least six people, an emergency medical service said Tuesday, with local media reporting that an armed group leader was among the dead.
Heavy arms fire and explosions were heard in several areas of Tripoli from 9:00 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Monday as violent clashes between rival armed groups rocked the capital.
“Six bodies have been retrieved from the sites of clashes around Abu Salim” in Tripoli, the Emergency Medicine and Support Center said.
Reports said Abdelghani Al-Kikli, leader of the Support and Stability Apparatus (SSA) which controls the southern district of Abu Salim, was killed, with unverified images of his body circulating on social media.
The reports said he was shot at a base of the rival 444 Brigade while attending a meeting for mediation.
Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui said on social media that Kikli was likely ambushed at the base, citing a relative of the SSA leader.
Harchaoui described Kikli as among Tripoli’s “most successful armed group leaders,” with an “ability to outmaneuver Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.”
The 444 Brigade, which controls other parts of southern Tripoli, is aligned with Dbeibah.
Libya is struggling to recover from years of unrest following the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The North African country is currently divided between a UN-recognized government in Tripoli led by Dbeibah and a rival administration in the east, controlled by the Haftar family.
Local media said clashes also broke out in the southern suburbs between armed groups from Tripoli and rivals from Misrata, a major port city 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of the capital.
Authorities had urged residents to stay indoors before saying several hours later that the fighting had been brought under control.
The Tripoli-based government on Tuesday said a “military operation” to restore “security and stability” in the capital had been successful.
Dbeibah, in a post on social media platform X, thanked government forces “for restoring security and asserting the state’s authority in the capital.”
“What was accomplished today shows that official institutions are capable of protecting the homeland and preserving the dignity of its citizens,” Dbeibah said.
He hailed the security forces’ actions as “a decisive step” in the fight against “irregular” armed factions.
Despite relative calm in recent years, clashes periodically break out between armed groups vying for territory.
In August 2023, fighting between two powerful armed groups in Tripoli left 55 dead.
Authorities in several parts of the capital said schools would be closed on Tuesday until further notice.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya called for calm.
“UNSMIL is alarmed by the unfolding security situation in Tripoli, with intense fighting with heavy weaponry in densely populated civilian areas,” it said on X.
It urged “all parties to immediately cease fighting,” warning that “attacks on civilians and civilian objects may amount to war crimes.”
“UNSMIL fully supports the efforts of elders and community leaders to de-escalate the situation.”
Israel’s West Bank land registration is a tool for annexation, NGO says
RAMALLAH: An Israeli rights group has denounced a government decision to launch extensive land registration for parts of the occupied West Bank, saying it could help advance annexation of the Palestinian territory.
“It is a tool for annexation,” said Yonatan Mizrachi of the Settlement Watch project at Israeli nongovernmental organization Peace Now.
The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has no comprehensive land registry, with some areas unregistered or residents holding deeds from before the Israeli occupation.
The Israeli security Cabinet on Sunday decided to initiate a land registration process in the West Bank’s Area C, which covers more than 60 percent of the territory and is under full Israeli control.
Though the process would likely take “years” according to Mizrachi, he said that Palestinians in Area C could lose land if Israeli authorities do not accept their claim to it.
This might lead to “a massive land theft,” Peace Now said, adding that the process could result “in the transfer of ownership of the vast majority of Area C to the (Israeli) state.”
“The Palestinians will have no practical way to realize their ownership rights,” the anti-settlement group said.
Some Israeli ministers have advocated the annexation of the West Bank, home to around 3 million Palestinians as well as some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who lives in a settlement, has said that 2025 would be the year Israel extends its sovereignty over parts of the West Bank.
To Mizrachi, the government’s decision was primarily “about ... the places where they want to expand settlements,” including in areas considered state land.
He mentioned remarks by Defense Minister Israel Katz, who praised the move in the official statement announcing it.
Katz said that launching land registration “is a revolutionary decision that brings justice to Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name that the Israeli government uses to refer to the West Bank.
The process will lead to the “strengthening, establishment and expansion” of settlements, Katz was quoted as saying.
He also said it would block “attempts to seize land” by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank but not Area C.
Mohammed Abu Al-Rob, director of the Palestinian Authority’s communication center, said that the decision was “a dangerous escalation of Israel’s illegal policies aimed at entrenching its occupation and advancing de facto annexation.”
Area C is “an inseparable part” of the rest of the Palestinian territories, he said.
Abu Al-Rob called on the international community to “reject this unlawful decision and to take immediate, concrete action to thwart its implementation.”
