Protests, shouting as Israel court hears petitions against security chief sacking

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Updated 08 April 2025
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Protests, shouting as Israel court hears petitions against security chief sacking

Protests, shouting as Israel court hears petitions against security chief sacking
  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month that his government had unanimously approved a motion to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency
  • Bar has pushed back against the government’s move to sack him, dismissing Netanyahu’s arguments as “general, unsubstantiated accusations”

JERUSALEM: Israel’s top court began a hearing on Tuesday on the hotly contested decision to sack domestic security chief Ronen Bar, with protests from government supporters and critics briefly interrupting the proceedings.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last month that his government had unanimously approved a motion to dismiss the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, citing “lack of trust” and requiring Bar to leave his post by April 10.
The hearing on Tuesday follows petitions filed by opposition parties and non-profit groups, challenging the legality of the government’s move which the Supreme Court had already frozen until a ruling was made.
Protests were held outside the Jerusalem courtroom, and inside, shouts and interruptions forced the judges to halt proceedings after only 30 minutes.
“No court in the world is run this way,” said Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit after warning government supporters and critics who interrupted the hearing, which is broadcast live.
Amit called for a recess, during which scuffles between the sides continued outside the courtroom.
The hearing resumed about an hour later, with no audience, “to allow the right to argue without fear for all parties involved,” according to the judges.
Attorney Zion Amir, representing the government, said that “this is purely a political petition.”
The judges will likely issue a decision later in the week, according to media reports.
Bar has pushed back against the government’s move to sack him, dismissing Netanyahu’s arguments as “general, unsubstantiated accusations” motivated by “personal interest.”
Bar said the decision was meant to “prevent investigations into the events leading up to October 7 and other serious matters” being looked at by the Shin Bet, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who is due to address the court, has also cautioned that ousting Bar was “tainted by a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister due to the criminal investigations involving his associates.”
Baharav-Miara was referring to a case dubbed by media as “Qatargate” involving Netanyahu’s close advisers under investigation for allegedly receiving money from Qatar.
Tomer Naor, from the Movement for Quality Government in Israel which submitted one of the petitions, told AFP that “Netanyahu is under a severe conflict of interest.”
He said the group had petitioned the court to “remind that Ronen Bar is the head of the Shin Bet (and) is in charge of the investigation into ‘Qatargate’.”
Dov Halbertal, a lawyer who came to watch the hearing, said that “Netanyahu is the ruler, he can fire whoever he wants, especially this Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet that is responsible for the massacre” of October 7, 2023.
The fact that the court was hearing the petitions was “anti-democracy,” he said.
Baharav-Miara, who has often clashed with the Netanyahu administration over the independence of the judiciary, said that firing Bar could lead to the politicization of the powerful position.
Appointed Shin Bet chief in October 2021 by the previous government, led by opponents of Netanyahu, Bar has clashed with the long-serving incumbent since his return to power in late 2022.
Bar was critical of a government proposal to reform the judiciary, which drew hundreds of thousands of Israelis onto the streets in protest and was temporarily shelved when the Gaza war began with Hamas’s attack.
Bar, who was only meant to end his tenure next year, had suggested he would consider stepping down early due to his part in failing to prevent the October 7 attack, but only once the war is over and the hostages held in Gaza are freed.


A leading medical group warns of a rise in cholera cases and new outbreak in Sudan

Updated 5 min 20 sec ago
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A leading medical group warns of a rise in cholera cases and new outbreak in Sudan

A leading medical group warns of a rise in cholera cases and new outbreak in Sudan
CAIRO: A leading medical group warned on Tuesday of a rising number of cholera cases in war-torn Sudan as a new outbreak of the waterborne disease grips the country, and said its teams have treated hundreds of patients in the region of the capital, Khartoum.
Joyce Bakker, the Sudan coordinator for Doctors Without Borders — also known as Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF — said that the alarming spike began in mid-May, with Khartoum’s twin city, Omdurman, as the epicenter.
She said MSF treated almost 2,000 suspected cholera cases in the past week alone. There were no immediate official figures of fatalities from cholera in this latest outbreak, though an aid worker said he was told on Monday of 12 people dying of cholera.
In March, MSF said that 92 people had died of cholera in Sudan’s White Nile State, where 2,700 people had contracted the disease since late February.
Sudan plunged into war more than two years ago, when tensions between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces group, or RSF, exploded with battles in Khartoum and across the country.
Since then, at least 20,000 people have been tallied as being killed, though the number is likely far higher, and the African nation has been engulfed by what the United Nations says is the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
More than 14 million people have been displaced and forced from their homes and disease outbreaks, famine and atrocities have mounted as the country entered its third year of war.
Sudan’s Health Minister Haitham Ibrahim said on Saturday that the recent increase in cholera cases is estimated to average 600 to 700 per week, over the past four weeks.
He attributed the surge to the return of many Sudanese to the Khartoum region — people who had fled their homes to escape the fighting and who are now coming back. Their returns have strained the city’s dwindling water resources, he said.
Last week, the Sudanese military said it had regained control of the Greater Khartoum area from the paramilitary forces.
On Monday, Mohanad Elbalal, co-founder of the Khartoum Aid Kitchen, said he was told that 12 people had died of cholera in Omdurman, including a relative of one of his kitchen staff.
Bakker, the MSF coordinator, said Tuesday that the group’s treatment centers in Omdurman are overwhelmed and that the “scenes are disturbing.”
“Many patients are arriving too late to be saved,” she said. “We don’t know the true scale of the outbreak, and our teams can only see a fraction of the full picture.”
She called for a united response, including water, sanitation and hygiene programs and more treatment facilities.

Iraq sues Kurdistan region over US gas contracts: official

Iraq sues Kurdistan region over US gas contracts: official
Updated 14 min 35 sec ago
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Iraq sues Kurdistan region over US gas contracts: official

Iraq sues Kurdistan region over US gas contracts: official
  • Iraq’s oil ministry slammed the agreements between the KRG and Washington, saying it constitutes a “clear breach of Iraqi law”

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s federal authorities have filed a complaint against the autonomous Kurdistan region for signing gas contracts with two US companies, two officials told AFP on Tuesday.
Oil exports have been a major point of tension between Baghdad and Irbil, with a major pipeline through Turkiye shut since 2023 over legal disputes and technical issues.
Regional prime minister Masrour Barzani announced the signing of two major energy deals valued at “tens of billions of US dollars” during a visit to Washington in May.
Iraq’s oil ministry immediately slammed the agreements, saying it constitutes a “clear breach of Iraqi law” and that all oil and gas development must go through the federal government.
An Iraqi government official, who requested anonymity to speak on the matter, told AFP that a lawsuit had been filed before Baghdad’s Al-Karkh commercial court.
A Kurdish official confirmed the complaint, saying it called for “the cancelation of the contracts.”
The agreement with WesternZagros involves the development of the Topkhana block, which together with the neighboring Kurdamir block is estimated to contain up to 5 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas and 900 million barrels of crude oil.
According to a press release, this could generate an estimated $70 billion in revenue over the lifetime of the project.
The deal with HKN Energy covers the Miran gas field, which may hold up to 8 trillion standard cubic feet of natural gas, with a projected long-term value of $40 billion.
Oil exports were previously independently sold by the Kurdistan region, without the approval or oversight of the central administration in Baghdad, through the port of Ceyhan in Turkiye.
But the region’s oil exports have been at a standstill since March 2023 when the arbitration tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris ruled that oil exports by the regional government were illegal.


Israel military says intercepted two projectiles fired from Yemen

Israel military says intercepted two projectiles fired from Yemen
Updated 27 May 2025
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Israel military says intercepted two projectiles fired from Yemen

Israel military says intercepted two projectiles fired from Yemen
  • The Houthis have repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Tuesday it intercepted a missile and another projectile fired from Yemen, where the Houthis have regularly launched attacks they say are in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted,” the Israeli military wrote on Telegram.

It said in a separate statement that a projectile was intercepted by the air force, without sirens being activated.

The Houthis have repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel.

The Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month Gaza ceasefire that ended in March, but resumed them after Israel restarted its campaign in the territory.

While most of the projectiles have been intercepted, a missile fired by the group in early May hit the perimeter of Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv for the first time.

Israel has carried out several strikes in Yemen in recent months in retaliation for the attacks, including on ports and the airport in Sanaa.

Israel said it downed a missile fired from Yemen on Sunday and two others on Thursday.

The Houthis claimed attacks on both days targeting Ben Gurion airport.


A family digs through trash for bits of food, showing Gaza’s growing desperation

A family digs through trash for bits of food, showing Gaza’s growing desperation
Updated 27 May 2025
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A family digs through trash for bits of food, showing Gaza’s growing desperation

A family digs through trash for bits of food, showing Gaza’s growing desperation
  • Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory the past three months has resulted in disastrous consequences with widespread starvation and famine in Gaza

DEIR AL BALAH: With flies buzzing all around them, the woman and her daughter picked through the pile of garbage bags for scraps of food at the foot of a destroyed building in Gaza City. She found a small pile of cooked rice, a few scraps of bread, a box with some smears of white cheese still inside.
Islam Abu Taeima picked soggy bits from a piece of bread and put the dry part in her sack. She will take what she found back to the school where she and hundreds of other families live, boil it and serve it to her five children, she said.
“We’re dying of hunger,” she said. “If we don’t eat, we’ll die.”
Her rummaging for food is a new sign of the depths of desperation being reached in Gaza, where the population of some 2.3 million has been pushed toward famine by Israel’s nearly three-month blockade. The entry of a small amount of aid in the past week has done almost nothing to ease the situation.
Before the war, it was rare to see anyone searching through garbage for anything, despite the widespread poverty in the Gaza Strip.
Since Israel launched its military campaign decimating the strip after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, it has been common to see children searching through growing, stinking piles of uncollected garbage for wood or plastic to burn in their family’s cooking fire or for anything worth selling — but not for food. For food, they might search through the rubble of damaged buildings, hoping for abandoned canned goods.
But Abu Taeima says she has no options left. She and her 9-year-old daughter Waed wander around Gaza City, looking for leftovers discarded in the trash.
“This is our life day to day,” she said. “If we don’t gather anything, then we don’t eat.”
It’s still not common, but now people picking food from trash are occasionally seen. Some come out after dark because of the shame.
“I feel sorry for myself because I’m educated and despite that I’m eating from the trash,” said Abu Taeima, who has a bachelor’s degree in English from Al-Quds Open University in Gaza.
Her family struggled to get by even before the war, she said. Abu Taeima has worked for a short time in the past as a secretary for UNRWA, the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees and the biggest employer in Gaza. She also worked as a reader for blind people. Her husband worked briefly as a security guard for UNRWA. He was wounded in the 2021 war between Hamas and Israel and has been unable to work since.
Israel cut off all food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza on March 2. It said the blockade and its subsequent resumption of the war aimed to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds. But warnings of famine have stoked international criticism of Israel.
It allowed several hundred trucks into Gaza last week. But much of it hasn’t reached the population, either aid trucks were looted or because of Israeli military restrictions on aid workers’ movements, especially in northern Gaza, according to the UN Aid groups say the amount of supplies allowed in is nowhere near enough to meet mounting needs.
Abu Taeima and her family fled their home in the Shati refugee camp on the northern side of Gaza City in November 2023. At the time she and one of her children were wounded in a tank shelling, she said.
They first headed to the strip’s southernmost city of Rafah where they sheltered in a tent for five months. They then moved to the central town of Deir Al-Balah a year ago when Israel first invaded Rafah.
During a two-month ceasefire that began in January, they went back to Shati, but their landlord refused to let them back into their apartment because they couldn’t pay rent, she said.
Several schools-turned-shelters in Gaza City at first refused to receive them because they were designated for people who fled towns in northern Gaza. Only when she threatened to set herself and her family on fire did one school give them a space, she said.
Abu Taeima said her family can’t afford anything in the market, where prices have skyrocketed for the little food that remains on sale. She said she has tried going to charity kitchens, but every time they run out of food before she gets any. Such kitchens, producing free meals, have become the last source of food for many in Gaza, and giant crowds flood them every day, pushing and shoving to get a meal.
“People are struggling, and no one is going to be generous with you,” she said. “So collecting from the trash is better.”
The risk of catching disease isn’t at the top of her list of worries.
“Starvation is the biggest disease,” she said.


Daesh cell ‘planning attacks’ in Damascus

Daesh cell ‘planning attacks’ in Damascus
Updated 27 May 2025
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Daesh cell ‘planning attacks’ in Damascus

Daesh cell ‘planning attacks’ in Damascus
  • Once in control of swaths of Syria and Iraq, Daesh were territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 largely due to the efforts of Kurdish-led forces supported by an international coalition

DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces arrested armed members of a Daesh cell near Damascus on Monday accused of preparing attacks against the country.
The gang were carrying “light, medium and heavy weaponry” and “explosive devices and suicide vests they were planning to use to destabilize security and stability,” the Interior Ministry said.
The operation follows a similar incident this month in the northern city of Aleppo in which a security forces officer and three Daesh members were killed.
Once in control of swaths of Syria and Iraq, Daesh were territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 largely due to the efforts of Kurdish-led forces supported by an international coalition. But the group have continued to carry out attacks, particularly against Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria.
During his meeting with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa in Riyadh this month, US President Donald Trump called on him to “help the US to prevent to resurgence” of Daesh, the White House said.
Meanwhie, Syria’s Kurds will insist on decentralized government in forthcoming talks with the new authorities in Damascus, Kurdish official Badran Ciya Kurd said. The Kurdish-led administration signed an agreement in March to integrate into Syria’s state institutions.