CAIRO: Egypt on Sunday announced its intention to formally support South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, alleging genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Pretoria brought its case to the ICJ in December, calling on the UN court to order Israel to suspend its military operations in Gaza.
In its most recent appeal to the ICJ on Friday, South Africa again accused Israel of “continuing violations of the Genocide Convention” and of being “contemptuous” of international law.
Egypt on Sunday said its move to back the case comes “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip,” according to a foreign ministry statement.
It further pointed to Israel’s systematic “targeting of civilians and destruction of infrastructure” and “pushing Palestinians into displacement and expulsion.”
South Africa has called on the world’s top court to order Israel to “immediately withdraw and cease its military offensive” in Rafah, the southernmost Gaza city where about 1.5 million Palestinians had been pushed against the Egyptian border.
Israel on Monday sent ground troops and tanks into eastern Rafah, later seizing and shutting the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that Gaza risked an “epic humanitarian disaster” if Israel launched a full-scale ground operation in Rafah.
Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and has acted as a key mediator between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, including in the current war.
It also shares the only border with the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel, but has refused to coordinate aid access through the Rafah crossing since Israeli forces seized it.
State-linked television channel Al-Qahera News on Sunday reported a high-level source denying Israeli media reports of “coordination between Israel and Egypt at the Rafah crossing.”
Egypt has also issued repeated warnings against escalation since negotiators from both Israel and Hamas departed Cairo on Thursday after talks again failed to achieve a truce.
In January the ICJ called on Israel to prevent acts of genocide following the original South African request for international action.
The court rejected a second South African application for emergency measures over Israel’s threat to attack Rafah. South Africa made a new request in early March.
Egypt says to support South Africa ICJ case against Israel
https://arab.news/yp6sn
Egypt says to support South Africa ICJ case against Israel
- In its most recent appeal to the ICJ on Friday, South Africa again accused Israel of “continuing violations of the Genocide Convention”
- Egypt on Sunday said its move to back the case comes “in light of the worsening severity and scope of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip”
France tries Syrian Islamist rebel ex-spokesman on war crime charges
- French authorities arrested Majdi Nema in the southern city of Marseille in 2020
- He was spokesman for a Syrian Islamist rebel group called Jaish Al-Islam
French authorities arrested Majdi Nema, now 36, in the southern city of Marseille in 2020, after he traveled to the country on a student exchange program.
He was detained and charged under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to prosecute suspects accused of serious crimes regardless of where they were committed.
This is the first time that crimes committed in Syria’s civil war have been tried in France under the universal jurisdiction.
Nema – better known by his nom-de-guerre of Islam Alloush – has been charged with complicity in war crimes between 2013 and 2016, when he was spokesman for a Syrian Islamist rebel group called Jaish Al-Islam.
However, Nema has said he only had a “limited role” in the armed opposition group that held sway in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus during that period.
Jaish Al-Islam was one of the main opposition groups fighting Bashar Assad’s government before Islamist-led fighters toppled him in December but it has also been accused of terrorizing civilians in areas it controlled.
Nema, who faces up to 20 years in jail if found guilty, has in particular been accused of helping recruit children and teenagers to fight for the group.
His arrest came after rights groups, including the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), filed a criminal complaint in France in 2019 against members of Jaish Al-Islam for their alleged crimes.
It was the FIDH that discovered Nema was in France during research into Jaish Al-Islam’s hierarchy and informed the French authorities.
Marc Bailly, a lawyer for the FIDH and some civil parties in the trial that runs to May 27, said the case would be “the opportunity to shed light on all the complexity of the Syrian conflict, which did not just involve regime crimes.”
Born in 1988, Nema was a captain in the Syrian armed forces before defecting in 2012 and joining the group that would in 2013 become known as Jaish Al-Islam.
He told investigators that he left Eastern Ghouta in May 2013 and crossed the border to Turkiye, where he worked as the group’s spokesman, before leaving the group in 2016.
He has cited his presence in Turkiye as part of his defense.
Nema traveled to France in November 2019 under a university exchange program and was arrested in January 2020.
The defendant was initially indicted for complicity in the enforced disappearances of four activists in Eastern Ghouta in late 2013 – including prominent rights defender Razan Zaitouneh – but those charges have since been dropped on procedural grounds.
Jaish Al-Islam has been accused of involvement in the abduction, though it has denied this.
France has since 2010 been able to try cases under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which argues some crimes are so serious that all states have the obligation to prosecute offenders.
The country’s highest court upheld this principle in 2023, allowing for the investigation into Nema to continue.
A previous trial in May of Syrians charged over their actions in the war took place because French nationals were the victims, rather than under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
A Paris court in that trial ordered life sentences for three top Syrian security officials linked to the former Assad government for their role in the torture and disappearance of a French-Syrian father and son in Syria in 2013.
They were tried in absentia.
Syria’s conflict has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more from their homes since it erupted in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.
Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘live-streamed genocide’ against Gaza Palestinians
- Rights group charges that Israel acted with ‘specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide’
- Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip has left at least 52,243 dead
PARIS: Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.
In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide.”
Israel has rejected accusations of “genocide” from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.
The conflict erupted after the Palestinian militant group Hamas’s deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.
“Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.
“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools,” she added.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons’ tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.
The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.
The lack of fuel “threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers,” it said in a statement.
Amnesty’s report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza “displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water.”
Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had “documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.”
It said Israel’s actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza’s population, and “deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”
Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, “the world’s governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of “apartheid.”
“Israel’s system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians,” it said.
Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced “the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year” as well as “the world’s complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it.”
Tragedy as another refugee boat sinks in the Mediterranean
- Tunisia’s coast guard recovers bodies of eight African victims from sea, 29 survive
TUNIS: Tunisia’s coast guard on Monday recovered the bodies of eight African refugees who drowned after their boat sank off the country’s coast as it tried to cross the Mediterranean toward Europe. a security official told Reuters, adding that 29 other people were rescued.
The vessel sank in waters off the city of Abwabed near Sfax, a departure point often used by African migrants. Search operations were underway for survivors and 29 had been found alive, national guard officer Houssem Eddine Jebabli said. The refugees were “all foreigners,” including some from sub-Saharan Africa and others of different nationalities, he said.
Tunisia is grappling with an unprecedented migration crisis and has replaced Libya as a major departure point for both Tunisians and others in Africa seeking a better life in Europe. It is a key transit country for thousands of sub-Saharan refugees seeking to reach Europe by sea each year, with Italy’s island of Lampedusa only 150 kilometers away.
This month authorities began dismantling informal camps near Sfax holding thousands of migrants, mainly from Sub-Saharan African countries. With the EU’s mounting efforts to curb migrant arrivals, many refugees feel stranded in Tunisia.
Tunisia signed a $290 million deal with the EU In 2023, nearly half of it earmarked for tackling irregular migration. The deal, strongly supported by Italy’s hard-right government, aimed to bolster Tunisia's capacity to prevent boats leaving its shore.
Frontex, the EU's border agency, has said that irregular border crossings were down 64 percent last year until September for the central Mediterranean route.
Internet disrupted in Morocco after Spain power outage
- Spain said it was working to determine the cause of the blackout, with Portugal saying the entire Iberian peninsula was affected
RABAT: A major power outage in Spain and Portugal on Monday disrupted Orange Maroc Internet services in Morocco, the subsidiary of the French telecoms giant announced.
In a statement, the company said “the disruption to our Internet network is due to a widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal.”
It said the blackout had “impacted international connections.”
Other Internet providers such as Maroc Telecom and Inwi have not issued any statements regarding potential disruptions.
Moroccan authorities have also not reported any impacts on the North African country resulting from the blackout.
At 12:30 p.m. (1030 GMT), power went out across Spain and Portugal, causing widespread disruptions to mobile networks, Internet service and railroad operations.
With stoplights knocked out, road traffic was also halted.
Spain said it was working to determine the cause of the blackout, with Portugal saying the entire Iberian peninsula was affected. Southwest France also briefly saw cuts, its high-voltage grid operator said.
Orange Maroc’s statement came hours later, around 1520 GMT.
In neighboring Algeria, the Ministry of Telecommunications also warned of potential Internet service interruptions due to the outage.
At 1330 GMT, it said disruptions could occur “in the upcoming hours,” but none have been reported yet.
Algeria seizes 1.65 million ecstasy pills in major drug bust
- Authorities in the North African country did not specify whether those arrested were foreign nationals
ALGIERS: Algerian authorities said Monday they had seized 1.65 million ecstasy pills and arrested nine suspects involved in an international “criminal network operating between Morocco and France.”
Police said in a statement that the shipment was concealed in a truck arriving aboard a ship from the French port of Marseille.
The statement, carried by state television, said the drug haul was valued at around 4 billion dinars (nearly $30 million), describing it as “the largest quantity of such drugs ever seized in Africa.”
Several vehicles and large sums of cash believed to be “proceeds from criminal activities” were also seized, the police said.
Authorities in the North African country did not specify whether those arrested were foreign nationals.
The suspects were referred to prosecutors on charges including “international drug trafficking within an cross-border criminal group” and “money laundering,” according to the police statement.
