Gaza battles rage as Israel vows to shut out UN agency after war

Workers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) agency talk together in the playground of an UNRWA-run school that has been converted into a shelter for displaced Palestinians in Khan Yunis (AFP)
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Updated 27 January 2024
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Gaza battles rage as Israel vows to shut out UN agency after war

  • UNRWA helps about two thirds of Gaza’s 2.3 million population
  • US, Australia, UK, Canada, Finland, Italy pause funding to agency

GAZA: Intense fighting raged Saturday in the Gaza city of Khan Yunis, the main theater of conflict where the Israeli army is targeting the Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas.
The unabated hostilities came a day after the UN’s International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled Israel must prevent possible acts of genocide in the conflict but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.
Tensions rose between Israel and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees after Israel alleged several UNRWA staff were involved in the Hamas attack of October 7, leading some key donor countries to suspend funding.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Saturday that Israel wants to ensure the UN agency, with tens of thousands of staff in the territory, “will not be a part of the day after” the bloodiest ever Gaza war.

The US, Australia and Canada had already paused funding to the aid agency after the allegations. The agency has opened an investigation into several employees severed ties with them.

Britain, Italy and Finland on Saturday became the latest countries to pause funding for the agency.
Alarm has grown over the plight of civilians in Khan Yunis, the southern hometown of Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, the suspected mastermind of the October 7 attack.
AFPTV images showed thousands of civilians, among them women and children, fleeing the city on foot as an Israeli tank loomed behind them.
“They besieged us, so we fled,” said Tahani Al-Najjar, who left Khan Yunis with her daughter. “We call on the UN to intervene, to stop the war. Enough of fear and terror!“
Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the displaced endured incessant cold rain and warned of the “spread of contagious diseases.”
The Israeli army said its “troops continued to kill numerous armed terrorists from close range” and raided a weapons storage facility in Khan Yunis.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 135 people were killed in Khan Yunis overnight.
The Hamas government said “massive tank bombardment” targeted a refugee camp in the city and its Nasser hospital.
Issuing a highly anticipated ruling on Friday, the UN’s top court said Israel must prevent genocidal acts in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the narrow strip of land which has been under relentless bombardment and siege for almost four months.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the case as “outrageous” while Gaza’s Hamas rulers hailed the ruling, saying it “contributes to isolating Israel and exposing its crimes in Gaza.”
The decision was based on an urgent application brought by South Africa, long a supporter of the Palestinian cause, but a broader judgment on whether genocide has been committed could take years.
“This is the first time the world has told Israel that it is out of line,” said Maha Yasin, a 42-year-old displaced Gaza woman.
“What Israel did to us in Gaza for four months has never happened in history.”
Israel’s military campaign began soon after Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages and Israel says around 132 of them remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 28 dead captives.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas, and Gaza’s health ministry says the Israeli military offensive has killed at least 26,257 people, about 70 percent of them women and children.
The army says at least 220 soldiers have been killed since Israel launched its Gaza ground operations.
With Gaza’s humanitarian crisis growing, the UN says most of the estimated 1.7 million Palestinians displaced by the war are crowded into Rafah on the southern border with Egypt.
At Khan Yunis’s Nasser Hospital, the largest in the besieged city, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said surgical capacity was “virtually non-existent.”
The charity said the hospital’s services had “collapsed” and the few staff who remained “must contend with very low supplies that are insufficient to handle mass casualty events.”
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 350 patients and 5,000 displaced people remained at the hospital as fighting continued nearby.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israeli tanks targeted the Al-Amal hospital, another of the city’s few remaining medical facilities, and that it was “under siege with heavy gunfire.”
“There is no longer a health care system in Gaza,” MSF said.
There were 300 to 500 patients trapped at the Nasser hospital with “war-related injuries such as open wounds, lacerations from explosions, fractures and burns.”
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of operating from tunnels under Gaza hospitals and of using the medical facilities as command centers.
Meirav Eilon Shahar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, accused the WHO this week of collusion with Hamas by ignoring Israeli evidence of Hamas’s “military use” of Gaza hospitals.
Tedros rejected the accusation, saying it could “endanger our staff who are risking their lives to serve the vulnerable.”
Relations between Israel and UNRWA soured further after the UN body said tanks had shelled one of its shelters in Khan Yunis on Wednesday, killing 13 people.
UNRWA said on Friday it had sacked several employees accused by Israel of involvement in the October 7 attack.
The allegations have prompted the United States, Canada, Australia and Italy to suspend funding to the agency.
Israel said it would seek to stop UNRWA from operating in Gaza after the war. Hamas urged the international community to ignore Israel’s “threats,” while the Palestinian Authority said the agency needed “maximum support” from donors.
Diplomatic efforts have sought scaled-up aid deliveries for Gaza and a truce, after a week-long cessation of hostilities in November saw Hamas release dozens of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
CIA chief William Burns is to meet with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts, as well as Qatar’s prime minister, in the coming days in Paris to seek a ceasefire, a security source told AFP.
The UN Security Council will meet to discuss the ICJ’s ruling on Wednesday.

* With AFP and Reuters


Singapore’s long-ruling party on track for landslide win

Updated 03 May 2025
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Singapore’s long-ruling party on track for landslide win

  • Supporters of the PAP, which had ruled Singapore since 1959, gathered at a stadium waving flags and cheering in an early celebration

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party is on track to win another landslide in Saturday’s general elections, according to a sample count of votes released by the Election Department.
The sample count showed the PAP in strong leads in 82 out of 97 seats, which gives it a total 87 seats in an enlarged parliament.
The opposition Workers Party maintained 10 seats. The sample count was not conclusive, but has mirrored final results in the past.
It marked an improvement for the PAP, which secured 83 seats in 2020 polls. It also will bolster Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in his first electoral test since taking office a year ago. A final result was expected in the early hours of Sunday.
Supporters of the PAP, which had ruled Singapore since 1959, gathered at a stadium waving flags and cheering in an early celebration.

 


Gabon swears in ex-junta chief Oligui as president

Updated 03 May 2025
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Gabon swears in ex-junta chief Oligui as president

  • The main concerns are an aging electricity network, which suffers frequent power cuts, youth unemployment that hovers at 40 percent, poor or lacking roads, and a ballooning public debt, forecast to hit 80 percent of GDP this year

AKANDA, Gabon: Gabon began swearing in on Saturday President-elect Brice Oligui Nguema, who led a coup ending decades of Bongo family rule and swept polls last month with nearly 95 percent of the vote.
The general and former junta leader, who toppled Ali Bongo in August 2023, ending 55 years of dynastic rule by the Bongo family, officially takes the presidential reins after leading a 19-month transition government.
Some 20 African heads of state arrived for the inauguration ceremony at a stadium north of the capital, Libreville, while supporters decked out in T-shirts and flags bearing Oligui’s likeness packed out the 40,000-capacity venue.

BACKGROUND

Some 20 African heads of state arrived for the inauguration ceremony at a stadium north of the capital, Libreville.

Leaders in attendance include Gambia’s Adama Barrow, Senegal’s Bassirou Diomaye Faye, Djibouti’s Ismail Omar Guelleh, and Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo from Equatorial Guinea.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, likewise entered around midday.
Tickets were free to attend the investiture at the Angondje stadium, built to honor the friendship between Gabon and China.
It marks the country’s first swearing-in ceremony for such a large audience.
From the morning, the roads of the capital, Libreville, and around the Angondje stadium were clogged with traffic, AFP journalists saw.
On the program for the ceremony was a series of artistic performances and a military parade, according to state media, which will be followed by a “victory concert” on the Libreville waterfront in the evening.
In the lead-up, hundreds of workers have been painstakingly cleaning and repainting areas around the main roads leading to the stadium.
Authorities and official media have called for people to be public-spirited because of the influx of foreign guests.
“All citizens of Greater Libreville are asked to extend a warm welcome to these distinguished guests,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
It called on residents near the stadium to “take part in cleaning and beautifying” the area.
Oligui, 50, faces serious challenges in leading the oil-rich country, which needs to revamp crucial infrastructure and diversify its economy, but is heavily indebted.
The main concerns are an aging electricity network, which suffers frequent power cuts, youth unemployment that hovers at 40 percent, poor or lacking roads, and a ballooning public debt, forecast to hit 80 percent of GDP this year.
During the transition, Oligui portrayed himself as a “builder,” launching numerous construction projects, while vowing to “crack down” on corruption to get the country back on track.

 


Over 45,000 affected by Somalia flash floods

Flash floods have forced thousands to flee to makeshift camps. (Supplied)
Updated 03 May 2025
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Over 45,000 affected by Somalia flash floods

  • “The flooding swept away homes and inundated crops, disrupting livelihoods in one of Somalia’s most agriculturally vital regions,” OCHA noted

NAIROBI: More than 45,000 people have been affected by flash floods in Somalia since mid-April, the UN said, with at least four people killed in the rapidly rising waters.
The Horn of Africa is one of the regions most vulnerable to climate change, and extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent and intense. “Since 15 April, flash floods due to heavy to moderate rains in Somalia have affected over 45,000 people and swept away four people, including two children and a woman,” said UN humanitarian agency OCHA, in a report published on April 30.
It warned the flooding came at a time when NGOs — often the frontline responders — are “facing crippling funding reductions that have severely limited their ability to respond to emerging needs.”
It detailed that roughly 6,000 people were displaced in the Middle Shabelle region after the Shabelle River burst its banks on April 29.
It said families have sought refuge in makeshift camps on higher ground but are “facing acute shortages of food, clean water, and health care.”
“The flooding swept away homes and inundated crops, disrupting livelihoods in one of Somalia’s most agriculturally vital regions,” OCHA noted.
The day before, some 9,500 people were also displaced in central Galmudug State after light to moderate rains caused flash floods, it said. The floods come as the international humanitarian community grapples with the US decision to dismantle much of USAID, the country’s main foreign development arm.
“Currently, many humanitarian organizations in areas where the flash flooding is occurring have been forced to pause, scale back, or even close their critical programs,” OCHA noted.
Intense floods hit Somalia in 2023. More than 100 people were killed and over a million were displaced after severe flooding caused by torrential rains linked to the El Nino weather pattern.

 


Zelensky says won’t play Putin ‘games’ with short truce

Updated 03 May 2025
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Zelensky says won’t play Putin ‘games’ with short truce

  • “This is more of a theatrical performance on his part. Because in two or three days, it is impossible to develop a plan for the next steps to end the war,” Zelensky said
  • He said Ukraine would not be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May“

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed a three-day truce ordered by Russian leader Vladimir Putin as theatrics, but said Kyiv was ready for a full ceasefire.
Moscow said the truce, set to coincide with its World War II commemorations on May 9, was aimed at testing Kyiv’s “readiness” for long-term peace, accusing Zelensky of making a “direct threat” to events on the holiday.
The Kremlin rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposed by Kyiv and Washington in March, and Putin has since offered little to end the three-year Russia invasion.
“This is more of a theatrical performance on his part. Because in two or three days, it is impossible to develop a plan for the next steps to end the war,” Zelensky said.
He was speaking Friday to a small group of journalists including AFP in remarks embargoed until Saturday.
Some in Ukraine have criticized the truce as an attempt to prevent Kyiv from disrupting the World War II anniversary celebrations, with foreign leaders due in Moscow to watch a military parade on Red Square and an address by Putin.
Zelensky said Ukraine would not be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters the ceasefire was aimed at testing “Kyiv’s readiness to seek ways to achieve long-term sustainable peace.”
Russian shelling killed two people in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Saturday, while a drone strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson left one other person dead, regional officials said.
Russian authorities meanwhile accused Ukraine of an overnight attack on the southern port city of Novorossiysk, damaging apartment buildings and injuring five people.
Leaders of around 20 countries, including China’s Xi Jinping, have accepted invitations to join the May 9 celebration, according to the Kremlin.
Zelensky said some countries had approached Kyiv to warn they were traveling to Russia and had requested safety.
“Our position is very simple toward all countries that have traveled or are traveling to Russia on May 9 — we cannot take responsibility for what is happening on the territory of the Russian Federation,” he said.
“They are ensuring your safety,” Zelensky said, adding that Russia “may take various steps on its part, such as arson, explosions, and so on and then blame us.”
Zelensky did not say what Ukraine would do during the truce, but Russia jumped on the comments, accusing Kyiv of making a “direct threat” to the commemorations.
“He is threatening the physical safety of veterans who will come to parades and celebrations on the holy day,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram. “His statement... is, of course, a direct threat.”
Russian officials have promised grand celebrations for the occasion, during which Putin will seek to rally support for his troops fighting in Ukraine.
Russian troops have been making gruelling gains on several parts of the front, as both Moscow and Kyiv have stepped up their aerial attacks.
The United States has warned it could abandon efforts to broker a ceasefire if it does not see progress.
Washington is seeking “a complete, durable ceasefire and an end to the conflict,” rather than a “three-day moment so you can celebrate something else,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said this week.
Bruce said it would ultimately be up to Trump to decide whether to move ahead with diplomatic efforts.
Trump has overhauled US policy toward Russia since taking office, initiating a rapprochement with the Kremlin.
This culminated in an on-camera clash between Trump and Zelensky at the White House on February 28, where both leaders had been set to sign a mineral deal granting US access to Ukrainian resources in exchange for some protection.
Ukraine has since renegotiated the deal, which would see Washington and Kyiv jointly develop and invest in Ukraine’s critical mineral resources.
Zelensky on Friday said the deal was beneficial to both sides and protected Ukraine’s interests, even though the accord offers no concrete security guarantees for Kyiv.
That followed a meeting between Trump and Zelensky at the end of April before Pope Francis’s funeral at the Vatican, the first encounter since their public clash.
“We had the best conversation out of all those that preceded it,” Zelensky said Friday.
“I am confident that after our meeting in the Vatican, President Trump began to look at things a little differently.”


Serbia’s President Vucic cuts short US visit and returns home after falling ill

Updated 03 May 2025
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Serbia’s President Vucic cuts short US visit and returns home after falling ill

  • Vucic suddenly fell ill during a meeting in the US
  • He was admitted to the Belgrade Military Hospital upon arrival

BELGRADE: Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has cut short a visit to the United States and returned to Serbia over an unspecified health emergency, state RTS television reported on Saturday.
Vucic suddenly fell ill during a meeting in the US and decided to return home after consulting doctors, the report said. He was admitted to the Belgrade Military Hospital upon arrival, it added.
Vucic was previously in Miami, Florida, where he had met with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. Vucic had said he also was hoping to meet with US President Donald Trump.
Richard Grenell, US presidential envoy for special missions, expressed hope that Vucic would recover. “Sorry to miss you but hope all is ok,” Grenell wrote on X.
It was not immediately clear what happened and Vucic’s office said they will inform the public later. Vucic, 55, is known to have high blood pressure.
Serbia’s populist leader also has said he would travel to Russia later this month to attend a Victory Day parade in Moscow, despite warnings from European Union officials that this could affect Serbia’s bid to join the bloc.