More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

Newly-arrived migrants line up inside a municipal hall in the town of Agyia, on the island of Crete, Greece, July 13, 2025. (REUTERS)
Newly-arrived migrants line up inside a municipal hall in the town of Agyia, on the island of Crete, Greece, July 13, 2025. (REUTERS)
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Updated 15 July 2025
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More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say

More than 100 migrants freed in Libya after being held captive by gang, officials say
  • As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May

BENGHAZI: More than 100 migrants, including five women, have been freed from captivity after being held for ransom by a gang in eastern Libya, the country’s attorney general said on Monday.

“A criminal group involved in organizing the smuggling of migrants, depriving them of their freedom, trafficking them, and torturing them to force their families to pay ransoms for their release,” a statement from the attorney general said.

Libya has become a transit route for migrants fleeing conflict and poverty to Europe via the dangerous route across the desert and over the Mediterranean following the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

Many migrants desperate to make the crossing have fallen into the hands of traffickers. The freed migrants had been held in Ajdabiya, some 160 km (100 miles) from Libya’s second city Benghazi.

Five suspected traffickers from Libya, Sudan and Egypt, have been arrested, officials said.

The attorney general and Ajdabiya security directorate posted pictures of the migrants on their Facebook pages which they said had been retrieved from the suspects’ mobile phones.

They showed migrants with hands and legs cuffed with signs that they had been beaten.

In February, at least 28 bodies were recovered from a mass grave in the desert north of Kufra city. Officials said a gang had subjected the migrants to torture and inhumane treatment.

That followed another 19 bodies being found in a mass grave in the Jikharra area, also in southeastern Libya, a security directorate said, blaming a known smuggling network.

As of December 2024, around 825,000 migrants from 47 countries were recorded in Libya, according to UN data released in May.

Last week, the EU migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece met with the internationally recognized prime minister of the national unity government, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, and discussed the migration crisis. 

 


Gaza civil defense says Israeli attacks kill 26

Gaza civil defense says Israeli attacks kill 26
Updated 13 sec ago
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Gaza civil defense says Israeli attacks kill 26

Gaza civil defense says Israeli attacks kill 26
GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said 26 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Tuesday, including 14 who were waiting near an aid distribution site inside the Palestinian territory.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that eight people were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for aid near the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis.
Six more people were killed and 21 injured by Israeli fire in central Gaza while waiting for food near a distribution center, according to Bassal.
The Israeli army told AFP it was looking into the incidents.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.
Thousands of Gazans gather daily near food distribution points across Gaza, including four belonging to the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Its operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on those waiting to collect rations.
Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza since the start of the war nearly 22 months ago have led to shortages of food and essential goods, including medicine, medical supplies and fuel, which hospitals rely on to power their generators.
Bassal said that five people were killed by a nightly air strike on a tent in Al-Mawasi in south Gaza, an area Israeli authorities designated as a safe zone early on in the war.
“It’s said to be a green zone and it’s safe, but it’s not. They also say that the aid (distribution) is safe, but people die while obtaining aid,” said Adham Younes, who lost a relative in the strike.
“There’s no safety within the Gaza Strip, everyone is exposed to death, everyone is subject to injury,” the 30-year-old told AFP.
Mahmud Younes, another Gazan who said he witnessed the strike, said: ““We found women screaming — they were covered in blood. The entire family has been injured.”
Bassal of the civil defense agency said that six more people were killed in a strike near Gaza City, and one in a strike near the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing and the largest armed force in Gaza, said in a statement Tuesday that they had bombarded an Israeli command-and-control center in south Gaza’s Morag Axis, an Israeli-controlled corridor.

Lebanon’s cabinet meets to discuss Hezbollah’s arms after US pressure

Lebanon’s cabinet meets to discuss Hezbollah’s arms after US pressure
Updated 48 min 1 sec ago
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Lebanon’s cabinet meets to discuss Hezbollah’s arms after US pressure

Lebanon’s cabinet meets to discuss Hezbollah’s arms after US pressure
  • The session scheduled for 3:00 p.m. at Lebanon’s presidential palace is the first time that cabinet will discuss the fate of Hezbollah’s weapons
  • Pressure from the US and Hezbollah’s domestic rivals for the group to relinquish its arms has spiked following last year’s war with Israel

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s cabinet will meet on Tuesday to discuss Hezbollah’s arsenal, after Washington ramped up pressure on ministers to publicly commit to disarming the Iran-backed group and amid fears Israel could intensify strikes if they fail to do so.

The session scheduled for 3:00 p.m. (1200 GMT) at Lebanon’s presidential palace is the first time that cabinet will discuss the fate of Hezbollah’s weapons — unimaginable when the group was at the zenith of its power just two years ago.

Pressure from the US and Hezbollah’s domestic rivals for the group to relinquish its arms has spiked following last year’s war with Israel, which killed Hezbollah’s top leaders and thousands of fighters and destroyed much of its rocket arsenal.

In June, US envoy Thomas Barrack proposed a roadmap to Lebanese officials to fully disarm Hezbollah, in exchange for Israel halting its strikes on Lebanon and withdrawing its troops from five points they still occupy in southern Lebanon.

That proposal included a condition that Lebanon’s government pass a cabinet decision clearly pledging to disarm Hezbollah.

After Barrack made several trips to Lebanon to urge progress on the plan, Washington’s patience began wearing thin, Reuters reported last week. It pressured Lebanon’s ministers to swiftly make the public pledge so that talks could continue.

But Lebanese officials and diplomats say such an explicit vow could spark communal tensions in Lebanon, where Hezbollah and its arsenal retain significant support among the country’s Shiite Muslim community.

PROPOSED WORDING

On Monday evening, a group of dozens of motorcycles set out from a neighborhood in Beirut’s suburbs where Hezbollah has strong support, carrying the party’s flags.

Hezbollah’s main ally, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, has been in talks with President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam ahead of Tuesday’s session to agree on a general phrase to include in a cabinet decision to appease the US and buy Lebanon more time, two Lebanese officials said.

Berri’s proposed wording would commit Lebanon to forming a national defense strategy and maintaining a ceasefire with Israel, but would avoid an explicit pledge to disarm Hezbollah across Lebanon, the officials said.

But other Lebanese ministers plan to propose a formulation that commits Lebanon to a deadline to disarm Hezbollah, said Kamal Shehadi, a minister affiliated with the anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Forces party.

“There’s frankly no need to kick the can down the road and postpone a decision. We have to put Lebanon’s interest first and take a decision today,” Shehadi told Reuters.

Lebanese officials and foreign envoys say Lebanese leaders fear that a failure to issue a clear decision on Tuesday could prompt Israel to escalate its strikes, including on Beirut.

A US-brokered ceasefire last November ended the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, though Israel has continued to carry out strikes on what it says are Hezbollah arms depots and fighters, mostly in southern Lebanon.


Thousands in besieged Sudan city at ‘risk of starvation’: WFP

Thousands in besieged Sudan city at ‘risk of starvation’: WFP
Updated 59 min 6 sec ago
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Thousands in besieged Sudan city at ‘risk of starvation’: WFP

Thousands in besieged Sudan city at ‘risk of starvation’: WFP
  • “Everyone in El-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” said Perdison of WFP
  • “Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost“

PORT SUDAN: Thousands of families trapped in a besieged city in war-torn Sudan’s west are at “risk of starvation,” the World Food Programme warned on Tuesday.

Since May last year, El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, has been under siege by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been at war with the army since April 2023.

The RSF has encircled the city, blocking all major roads and trapping hundreds of thousands of civilians with dwindling food supplies and limited humanitarian access.

“Everyone in El-Fasher is facing a daily struggle to survive,” said Eric Perdison, the WFP’s regional director for eastern and southern Africa.

“People’s coping mechanisms have been completely exhausted by over two years of war. Without immediate and sustained access, lives will be lost.”

El-Fasher is the last major city in Darfur still held by the army, and has come under renewed attack by RSF fighters this year since the paramilitaries withdrew from Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

A major RSF assault on the Zamzam displacement camp near El-Fasher in April forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee, with many seeking shelter in the city.

According to the WFP, prices for staple foods like sorghum and wheat — used to make traditional flatbreads and porridge — are as much as 460 percent higher in El-Fasher than in other parts of Sudan.

Markets and clinics have been attacked, while community kitchens that once fed displaced families have largely shut down due to a lack of supplies, the UN agency added.

Desperate families are reportedly surviving on animal fodder and food waste, while acute malnutrition is soaring, especially among children.

According to the UN, nearly 40 percent of children under five in El-Fasher are now acutely malnourished, with 11 percent suffering from severe acute malnutrition.

The rainy season, which peaks in August, is further hampering efforts to reach the city, with roads rapidly deteriorating.

Last year, famine was first declared in Zamzam, later spreading to two other nearby camps — Al-Salam and Abu Shouk — and some parts of Sudan’s south, according to the UN.

The war, now in its third year, has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.

The country is effectively split in two, with the army controlling the north, east and center of Sudan and the RSF dominating nearly all of Darfur and parts of the south.


Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages

Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages
Updated 05 August 2025
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Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages

Netanyahu says Israel must complete defeat of Hamas to free hostages
  • “It is necessary to complete the defeat of the enemy in Gaza,” Netanyahu said

Jerusalem: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday Israel must “complete” the defeat of Hamas to free hostages held in Gaza, a day after Israeli media reported the army could occupy the entire territory.

“It is necessary to complete the defeat of the enemy in Gaza, to free all our hostages and to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said during a visit to an army training facility.


US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit

US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit
Updated 05 August 2025
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US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit

US house speaker condemned over West Bank visit
  • Mike Johnson tells Israeli settlers their country is ‘rightful owner’ of Palestinian territory
  • Palestinian Foreign Ministry: Trip ‘undermines Arab and American efforts to stop cycle of violence’

LONDON: US House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republican officials visited the occupied West Bank on Monday in support of Israeli settlements, The Guardian reported.

Johnson met Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar before his visit to the Palestinian territory.

The last high-profile American visit to the West Bank was in 2020, when then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Psagot, an Israeli settlement near the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

Johnson’s private trip was hosted by a pro-Israel organization and was not part of an official delegation from Congress, Axios reported.

He was joined by Republicans Michael McCaul, Nathaniel Moran and Michael Cloud of Texas, as well as Claudia Tenney of New York.

Johnson told settlers that their country is the “rightful owner” of the Palestinian territory, which “must remain an integral part” of Israel. “Even if the world thinks otherwise, we stand with you.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned Johnson’s visit, and said Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is a “blatant violation of international law.”

The trip “undermines Arab and American efforts to stop the war and cycle of violence, while flagrantly contradicting the declared US position on settlements and settler violence,” it added.

Johnson also appealed to religious sensibilities in the US, saying his country should use its 250th independence anniversary next year “to remind the American people of its Judeo-Christian foundations that were formed here in the land of Israel.”

He is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before returning to the US on Sunday.