Month: July 2024

The vote against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is the latest step in an Israeli push against the agency, which Israeli leaders have accused of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza.

The bill was approved in a first reading and will be returned to the foreign affairs and defence committee for further deliberation, the Knesset information service said.

The bill’s sponsor, Yulia Malinovsky, was quoted as describing UNRWA as a “fifth column within Israel”.

Shelling kills 70 Palestinians in Khan Yunis; PM Shehbaz says Tel Aviv pursuing ‘genocidal agenda’

The agency provides education, health and aid to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It has long had tense relations with Israel, but relations have deteriorated sharply since October and Israel has called repeatedly for UNRWA to be disbanded.

“It’s another attempt in a wider campaign to dismantle the agency,” UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma said. “Such steps are unheard of in the history of the United Nations.”

Israel has alleged hundreds of UNRWA staff are members of “terrorist groups”, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but has yet to provide evidence to a UN-appointed review.

Several donor countries halted funding to UNRWA following the Israeli accusations, but many have since reversed the decision, including Britain which said last week it would resume funding.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli vote, and Hussein Al Sheikh, an ally of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, called on the international community to resist attempts to dissolve the agency.

 

Seventy Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded by Israeli fire on the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, the health ministry said on Monday.

It said some of the wounded were in a “dangerous condition”.

Thousands of Gazans fled an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone on Monday after the army ordered them to leave and warned of an imminent operation in response to rocket attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on his way to Washington to deliver a crucial speech at what he said was a time of “great political uncertainty”, following US President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek re-election.

Netanyahu will meet Biden, who has pushed him to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas, more than nine months into the Gaza war.

Fighting raged in Gaza as the Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate part of a humanitarian zone, just two months after directing them there for their own safety.

The military said it issued the order to leave the eastern Khan Yunis sector of the Al Mawasi humanitarian zone as it was “about to forcefully operate” to curb rocket fire.

Facing yet another displacement, Palestinians filled the dusty streets of Khan Yunis with cars, motorbikes, donkey-drawn carts, and on foot, carrying what belongings they could.

 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has condemned Israel for its attack on Khan Yunis and for ordering Palestinian refugees to evacuate a humanitarian zone, describing it as a mockery of humanity.

In a statement issued by the PM Office, the prime minister said it had become clear that Israeli forces were pursuing a genocidal agenda against Palestinians, noting that unarmed people had been denied an opportunity to evacuate.

Calling upon the United Nations to fulfil its responsibility in addressing the issue of Palestine, Shehbaz Sharif emphasised that the Pakistani nation stands in solidarity with its Palestinian brothers and sisters.

Courts have handed down hundreds of death and life imprisonment sentences in recent years to Iraqis convicted of “terrorism”, in trials rights groups have denounced as hasty.

Under Iraqi law, terrorism and murder offences are punishable by death, and execution decrees must be signed by the president. A health official said 10 Iraqis “convicted of terrorism crimes and of being members of the militant Islamic State group were executed by hanging” at Al-Hut prison in the southern city of Nasiriyah.

A security source confirmed the executions. They were hanged under Article 4 of the anti-terrorism law and the health department had received their bodies, the health official said.

Al-Hut is a notorious prison in Nasiriyah whose Arabic name means “the whale”, because Iraqis believe those jailed there never walk out alive. Iraq has been criticised for the trials, with the “terrorism” offence carrying the death penalty regardless of whether the defendant had been an active fighter.

On May 31, Iraq executed eight people convicted of “terrorism”. Eleven people were hanged on April 22 and another such group was executed on May 6, security and health sources said.

In June, UN experts said they were “alarmed by the high number of executions publicly reported since 2016, nearly 400, including 30 this year. “When arbitrary executions are on a widespread and systematic basis, they may amount to crimes against humanity,” said the special rapporteurs including the expert on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution.

They added that according to official records there are 8,000 prisoners on death row in Iraq.

‘Halt executions’

The experts urged Iraqi authorities to “halt all executions”. They also said they were “horrified” by the high number of reported deaths in Nasiriyah prison due to “torture and deplorable conditions”.

The experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, do not speak on behalf of the United Nations. Rights groups have also denounced the proceedings as rushed, warning confessions were sometimes believed to have been obtained under torture.

“Iraq’s continuous implementation of the death penalty — despite national and international outcry — means we could be hurdling toward a human catastrophe unfolding on its death row,” said Amnesty International’s Iraq researcher, Razaw Salihy.

She said Iraqi authorities “must halt executions immediately in order to address the gross injustices that landed thousands on death row and the horrendous conditions they languish in”.

The IS overran large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014, proclaiming its “caliphate” and launching a reign of terror.

It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led military coalition, and in 2019 lost the last territory it held in Syria to US-backed Kurdish forces.

But its remnants continue to carry out deadly hit-and-run attacks and ambushes, particularly from remote areas and desert hideouts.

WASHINGTON: US Vice President Kamala Harris moved swiftly on Monday to try to lock up the Democratic presidential nomination, the day after President Joe Biden abandoned his re-election bid in the face of growing opposition by his own party.

Campaign officials and allies have already made hundreds of calls on her behalf, urging delegates to next month’s Democratic Party convention to join in nominating her for president in the Nov 5 election against Republican Donald Trump.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, seen as a possible rival for the Democratic nomination after Biden’s exit, endorsed Harris on Monday in a post on X, saying the vice president had her full support. Several other potential Democratic challengers, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, have backed Kamala Harris’s bid.

President Biden’s departure was the latest shock to a White House race that included the near-assassination of former president Trump by a gunman during a campaign stop and the nomination of Trump’s fellow hardliner, Senator James David Vance, as his running mate.

“My intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party and unite our nation to defeat Donald Trump.”

Harris, who is black and Asian-American, would fashion an entirely new dynamic with Trump, 78, offering a vivid generational and cultural split-screen.

The Trump campaign has been preparing for her possible rise for weeks, sources said, and planned to try to tie her closely to Biden’s policies on immigration and the economy.

Biden, the oldest person ever to have occupied the Oval Office, said he would remain in the presidency until his term ends on Jan 20, while endorsing Harris to run in his place.

Biden’s shaky June 27 debate performance against Trump led the president’s fellow Democrats to urge him to end his run, but senior Republicans have demanded he resign from office as well, arguing that if he is not fit to campaign, he is not fit to govern.

Harris spent Sunday working the phones, dressed in a Howard University sweatshirt and eating pizza with anchovies as she spoke with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a potential vice presidential running mate, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Congressional black caucus chair Repre­sentative Steven Horsford, according to sources.

Biden’s withdrawal leaves less than four months to wage a campaign.

Trump claims that his 2020 loss to Biden was the result of fraud inspired the Jan 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol. But on Monday he questioned Democrats’ right to change candidates.

“They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries,” Trump said on his Truth Social site.

Despite the early show of support for Harris, talk of an open convention when Democrats gather in Chicago on Aug 19-22 was not totally silenced.

Former president Barack Obama did not announce endorsements, although he praised Biden.

With Democrats wading into uncharted territory, Demo­cratic national committee Chair Jaime Harrison said the party would soon announce the next steps in its nomination process.

 

Kamala Harris has been outspoken on abortion rights, an issue that resonates with younger voters and more liberal Democrats.

She is expected to stick largely to Biden’s foreign policy playbook on such issues as China, Iran and Ukraine, but could strike a tougher tone with Israel over the Gaza crisis if she tops the Democratic ticket and wins the Nov 5 election.

Proponents argue she would energise those voters, consolidate black support and bring sharp debating skills to prosecute the political case against the former president.

But some Democrats were concerned about a Harris candidacy, in part because of the weight of a long history of racial and gender discrimination in the United States, which has not elected a woman president in its nearly 250-year history.

Polls show that Harris performs no better statistically than Biden had done against Trump.

In a head-to-head match-up, Harris and Trump were tied with 44 per cent support each in a July 15-16 Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted immediately after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.

DHAKA: Bangladesh appeared calm on Monday amid a curfew, but widespread disruption of telecoms prevailed a day after the Supreme Court scrapped some quotas for government jobs that sparked protests this month that killed scores.

Clashes between protesters and security forces killed at least 139 people across the South Asian nation after the high court last month reinstated job reservations removed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in 2018.

On Sunday, however, the Supreme Court ordered that 93% of government jobs should be allocated on the basis of merit, against earlier quotas of 56% for groups such as families of freedom fighters, women, and people from underdeveloped areas.

There were no reports of violence or protests on Monday morning and media said curfew would be relaxed for three hours in the afternoon, extended from two hours the previous day, so that people could buy essentials.

Student protesters have said they plan to continue demonstrations, however, until the release of detained protest leaders, and have demanded the government lift the curfew and re-open universities shut since Wednesday.

They have set a 48-hour deadline for the government to act on the demands.

Last week’s protests saw thousands injured as security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and sound grenades to scatter the demonstrators.

Experts have blamed the unrest on stagnant job growth in the private sector and high rates of youth unemployment that have made government jobs, with their regular wage hikes and other privileges, more attractive.

Hasina, who was sworn in for a fourth consecutive term this year, has been accused of authoritarianism, human rights violations, and crackdowns on free speech and dissent in the past — charges her government denies.

Many victims are still under rubble and on roads, with civil defence crews not able to reach them, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, which says at least 38,983 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 89,727 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023.

In recent days, Israeli strikes have been focused on the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp.

“We hear the sounds of explosions in Nuseirat and we see the smoke rising from here in Deir Al-Balah, the last refuge you can say and we are being terrorised by the feeling tanks may roll here,” said Tamer Aburakan, a resident of Gaza City, now displaced in the central area of Deir Al-Balah.

At least 105 Palestinians injured, many still under rubble, on roads

“Where should we go next? The entire Gaza Strip is under fire and we are being hunted like deer in a forest. When is enough? When the war will ever end?” he said via a chat app.

Israeli forces continued attacking the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Sunday, striking areas in the centre of the coastal enclave where thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes have been seeking shelter.

Residents in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, said Israeli tanks advanced in the centre and western areas. The Israeli military said its soldiers had killed those moving towards them, and destroyed “ammunition, tunnel shafts” and infrastructure in Tel al-Sultan, in the eastern part of the city.

A ceasefire effort led by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States has so far failed because of disagreements between Israel and Hamas, who blame each other for the impasse.

Tensions are high in the region, with concerns remaining over a possible spillover of war, as the Israeli forces have carried out several attacks inside Lebanon, Yemen and Syria.