Middle East
Taliban surge in north Afghanistan sends thousands fleeing
Sakina, who is 11, maybe 12, walked with her family for 10 days after the Taliban seized her village in northern Afghanistan and burned down the local school.
They are now among around 50 families living in a makeshift camp on a rocky patch of land on the edge of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. They roast in plastic tents under scorching heat that reaches 44 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) at midday. There are no trees, and the only bathroom for the entire camp is a tattered tent pitched over a foul-smelling hole.
As the Taliban surge through northern Afghanistan — a traditional stronghold of U.S.-allied warlords and an area dominated by the country’s ethnic minorities — thousands of families like Sakina’s are fleeing their homes, fearful of living under the insurgents’ rule.
In the last 15 days, Taliban advances have driven more than 5,600 families from their homes, most of them in the northern reaches of the country, according to the government’s Refugee and Repatriations Ministry.
Read: US left Afghan airfield at night, didn’t tell new commander
In Camp Istiqlal, family after family, all from the Hazara ethnic minority, told of Taliban commanders using heavy-handed tactics as they overran their towns and villages — raising doubts among many over their persistent promises amid negotiations that they will not repeat their harsh rule of the past.
Sakina said it was the middle of the night when her parents packed up their belongings and fled their village of Abdulgan in Balkh province, but not before the invading Taliban set fire to her school. Sakina said she doesn’t understand why her school was burned.
In Camp Istiqlal, there’s not a single light, and sometimes she hears noises in the pitch blackness of night. “I think maybe it’s the Taliban and they have come here. I am afraid,” said the girl, who hopes one day to be an engineer.
Yaqub Maradi fled his village of Sang Shanda, not far from Abdulgan, when the Taliban arrived. He said they tried to intimidate villagers into staying. Maradi’s brother and several members of his family were arrested, “held hostage to stop them from leaving,” he said.
“Maybe he is released today, but he cannot leave,” Maradi said from inside his small sweltering plastic tent pitched over a sunbaked mud floor, with mattresses folded in one corner.
A howling, brutally hot wind ripped through the tent as Mohammad Rahimi, the self-appointed camp leader, who also fled from Abdulgan, recalled how a poorly equipped militia force in his Zari district tried to defend against a larger Taliban force. Rahimi named a handful of militia fighters he said died defending their district.
In areas they control, the Taliban have imposed their own fees and taxes. Ashor Ali, a truck driver, told The Associated Press he pays the Taliban a 12,000 Afghani ($147) toll for every load of coal he brings from a Taliban-controlled part of neighboring Samangan province to Mazar-e-Sharif. That amounts to more than half of what he makes on each haul.
The Taliban are attending international conferences, even sending their ex-ministers on missions to Afghanistan from Qatar, where they have a political office, to assure Afghans they have nothing to fear from them, especially minorities. The group still espouses Islamic rule but says its methods and tenets are less severe.
But if it’s a gentler face they are seeking to portray, fleeing residents say it seems many Taliban commanders in the field either haven’t gotten the message or aren’t listening.
Read:US vacates key Afghan base; pullout target now 'late August'
A February 2020 agreement the Taliban signed with the United States reportedly prevents the insurgents from capturing provincial capitals. Yet two — Kandahar in the south and Badghis in the north — are under siege. In the capital of Kabul, where many fear an eventual Taliban assault, a rocket defense system has been installed, the Ministry of Interior said over the weekend. The statement offered no detail about its origin or cost.
The U.S., Russia, China and even Afghanistan’s neighbor Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership council is headquartered, have all warned the Taliban against trying for a military victory, warning they will be international pariahs. Taliban leaders have vowed they are not doing so, even as they boast of their gains in recent meetings in Iran and in Russia,
The Taliban blame the Afghan government for foiling efforts to jumpstart stalled talks that would elevate discussions to include leaders on both sides of the conflict.
Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s political spokesman and a member of its negotiation team, told the AP that on three different occasions his side waited for a high-level delegation from Kabul to come to Doha for talks. They never came, he said.
The Kabul delegation was to include former President Hamid Karzai, as well as Abdullah Abdullah, the head of the National Reconciliation Council, and senior warlords like Ata Mohammad Noor, one of the most powerful northern commanders.
Afghan officials familiar with the planned meetings confirmed their intent to travel to Doha and participate, but said President Ashraf Ghani has been reluctant, often obstructing efforts. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations with reporters.
Last week, President Joe Biden urged Afghanistan’s leaders to find unity and said it was up to Afghans to bring an end to decades of war. With 90% of the final U.S. and NATO withdrawal completed and its top commander Gen. Scott Miller having relinquished his command, Washington is nearing the end of its “forever war.”
Maradi, whose brother was refused permission to leave, said he doesn’t trust the Taliban promises.
Many are still haunted by memories of the tit-for-tat massacres that had characterized the Taliban rule in areas dominated by Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities in the late 1990s.
Read:Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias
Mazar-e-Sharif was the scene of horrific bloodletting. In 1997, Uzbek and Hazara fighters killed some 2,000 ethnic Pashtun Taliban, who were captured in the city after a truce deal fell through. In some case, they forced the captives to jump into pits on the plains north of the city, then threw in grenades and sprayed them with automatic weapons. The next year, the Taliban rampaged through Mazar-e-Sharif, killing thousands of Hazaras and driving tens of thousands more out fleeing to Kabul.
At Camp Istiqlal life is brutal. There’s little water to wash, most meals are bread and tea brought to the camp by Rahimi, the leader. Fatima, who cradled her sickly 2-month-old daughter Kobra, said she hadn’t had much food or drink since arriving about one week ago and was unable to produce enough milk to feed her infant. Another mother showed blisters covering the arms and legs of her 2-year-old son, Mohammad Nabi. In the nighttime blackness he knocked over scalding water. They said they have no money for a doctor.
The camp residents say no one has come to help them.
At the edge of the camp, Habibullah Amanullah cried, his 7-year old daughter hiding behind his arm. “She asks me for something to eat. What can I tell her? We have nothing.”
Search in Florida collapse to take weeks; deaths reach 90
Authorities searching for victims of a deadly collapse in Florida said Sunday they hope to conclude their painstaking work in the coming weeks as a team of first responders from Israel departed the site.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said 90 deaths have now been confirmed in last month’s collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South in Surfside, up from 86 a day before. Among them are 71 bodies that have been identified, and their families have been notified, she said. Some 31 people remain listed as missing.
The Miami-Dade Police Department said three young children were among those recently identified.
Crews continued to search the remaining pile of rubble, peeling layer after layer of debris in search of bodies. The unrelenting search has resulted in the recovery of over 14 million pounds (about 6.4 million kilograms) of concrete and debris, Levine Cava said.
Read:Death toll in Florida condo collapse now 78
Miami-Dade Fire Chief Alan Cominsky said it was uncertain when recovery operations would be completed because it remains hard to know when the final body would be found.
When the recovery phase began Wednesday, officials were hoping it could be done within three weeks. In an interview Sunday morning near the site, Cominsky said it might now be as few as two weeks, based on the current pace of work.
“We were looking at a 14-day to 21-day timeframe,” he said, adding that the timeline remained “a sliding scale.”
Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett stressed the care that rescue workers are taking in peeling back layers of rubble in hopes of recovering not only bodies but also possessions of the victims. He said the work is so delicate that crews have found unbroken wine bottles amid the rubble.
Read:8 more dead pulled from rubble of collapsed Florida condo
“It doesn’t get any less difficult and finding victims, that experience doesn’t change for our search and rescue folks,” he said. “It takes a toll, but you’ve got to love the heart that they’re putting into this and we’re very grateful.”
On Saturday night, members of the community walked along Collins Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare, to celebrate the crews that have come from across the country — and as far as Israel and Mexico — to help in the rescue, and now recovery, effort. The Israeli search and rescue team arrived in South Florida shortly after the building collapsed on June 24 and was heading home Sunday.
Members of the crews that have been searching the site 24 hours a day since the collapse lined both sides of the street, shaking hands and bidding farewell to the Israeli team.
The Israeli team joined other task forces from around the United States to assist first responders from Miami and Miami-Dade County, working in 12-hour shifts. They have searched through South Florida’s intense summer heat, and in pouring rain, pausing only when lightning was spotted nearby. They also paused operations as officials made plans to implode the still-standing portion of the condo tower on July 4.
Read:Recovery workers vow not to let up in Florida condo collapse
The Israeli team used blueprints of the building to create detailed 3D images of the disaster site to aid in the search. They also gathered information from families of the missing, many of who were Jewish, to build a room-by-room model laying out where people would have been sleeping during the pre-dawn collapse.
Levina Cava said the memorial walk on Saturday night was “a beautiful moment.” She gave the keys to the county to the Israeli commander and colonel — her first two handed out as mayor.
Four teams from Florida, Indiana and Pennsylvania are still dedicated to the recovery effort, Cominsky said. Teams from Virginia, New Jersey and Ohio are preparing to leave.
“To give you an answer when we feel we’ll recover everyone, I can’t give you an exact date,” the fire chief said. “We’re doing everything that we can — everything possible — until we feel that we’ve delayered every floor.”
Mired in crises, Lebanon hopes summer arrivals bring relief
In a village in Lebanon’s scenic Chouf Mountains, 69-year-old Chafik Mershad pulls out a massive rectangular guestbook and reads out despairingly the date when he hosted his last visitor: Nov. 16, 2019.
A month earlier, anti-government protests had exploded across the country over taxes and a deteriorating currency crisis. Amid such uncertainty, few people visited his guesthouse. Then came the coronavirus and subsequent government-imposed lockdowns. The guesthouse officially closed its doors in February 2020. A year and a half later, he still has no plans to reopen amid the country’s current financial meltdown.
“Corona really affected us, but the biggest thing was the currency crisis,” Mershad said, speaking at his home above the guesthouse. “We used to offer meals for guests with Nescafe, tea, whatever they wanted for a cheap price. Now, one hamburger patty costs that much.”
Read:Taliban gains drive Afghan government to recruit militias
The dual shocks of the pandemic and a devastating financial crisis have gutted the hospitality sector of this Mediterranean nation, known for its beaches, mountain resorts and good food. Hundreds of businesses, including guesthouses like the Mershad Guesthouse, have been forced to close.
But as pandemic restrictions are being eased, the businesses that survived hope the dollars spent by visiting Lebanese expats and an increase in domestic tourism can get the wheels of the economy moving again.
Currently, most hotel reservations are from Lebanese expats and some foreigners from neighboring Iraq, Egypt and Jordan. Airport arrivals are picking up: Every day for the past several weeks, the Beirut Airport has had four flights coming from Iraq, with more than 700 passengers in total, according to Jean Abboud, president of the Travel and Tourist Agents Union. Chaotic scenes have been reported at the arrivals lounge as people crowd for the obligatory PCR test.
Many Lebanese who traditionally vacationed abroad over the summer are now turning to domestic tourism. It’s the more practical option because of travel restrictions, dollars trapped in banks and a lack of functioning credit cards.
“In the past two years, the country has radically changed. It is no longer a destination for nightlife, for city tourism and for the things that people knew. There’s ... more interest from the Lebanese to travel inside their country,” said Joumana Brihi, board member of the Lebanese Mountain Trail Association. The association maintains a 290-mile (470-kilometer) hiking trail spanning the country from north to south.
Many in the industry say the number of domestic tourists has increased significantly since the country’s lockdown eased in April. They expect to see expats piling in and spending this summer despite the instability, partly because of the devalued Lebanese pound.
That will save a lot of places from shutting down or “at least prolong the life of some businesses,” said Maya Noun, general secretary of the syndicate of restaurant owners.
Since October 2019, Lebanon’s currency has lost more than 90% of its value, trading at around 17,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar on the black market. The official exchange rate remains at 1,507 pounds to the dollar.
Read:Palestinians, settlers clash in tense Jerusalem neighborhood
Last year, Member of Parliament Michel Daher was chastised on social media for saying on TV that “Lebanon is really cheap, in every sense,” because of the crumbling currency.
“People were laughing at me then,” Daher told The Associated Press. “Now, there are lots of Lebanese expats coming because of the prices, but we also want foreigners.”
Still, the scene on the ground is no picturesque vacation destination. Electricity cuts last much of the day and privately run generators have had to be turned off for several hours to ration fuel. The country suffers from a shortage of vital products, including medicine, medical products and gasoline.
For weeks, frustrated citizens have been lining up to fill up at gas stations, with occasional fistfights and shootings amid frayed nerves. More than half the population has been plunged into poverty, and with sectarian tensions on the rise, Lebanon feels ready to erupt.
Lebanon’s currency crash has created a jarring schism between the comfortable minority whose income is in so-called fresh dollars that can be withdrawn from banks, and those being pushed farther into poverty, including former members of a vanishing middle class whose purchasing power has disappeared.
Resorts in the coastal cities of Batroun and Byblos are regularly packed and forecast to do well this summer after being closed last year because of the pandemic. Restaurants, pubs and rooftop bars are buzzing again and some mountain guesthouses and boutique hotels are fully booked.
Yet the idea that expats will help the economy is partially misleading, said Mike Azar, a Beirut-based financial adviser. “Foreign dollars coming from tourists is always going to be a positive thing, but does it make the lira (pound) appreciate or depreciate at a slower pace? It is not really something you can say.”
Many expats seem to be wavering on whether to visit Lebanon. Some yearn to reconnect with family after long separations caused by the pandemic. Others are not willing to risk it.
Joe Rizk, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student at UMass Lowell in the U.S. from the coastal village of Damour, said his family persuaded him to return for the month of August. He said he would bring medicines that are in short supply, like Advil, for family and friends.
Read: 'No Sweets': For Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a tough Ramadan
“I will not spend more than $300 or $400 this whole month even if I was going every night to a bar, or club or restaurant,” he said, adding he would be using the family house and car while in Lebanon.
But Hala al-Hachem, a 37-year-old assistant bank manager in Massachusetts, said she was too worried to visit Lebanon with two children, aged 8 and 6. Originally from south Lebanon, she used to return with her family every summer.
Not this time.
“Do I want to go there and not be able to put gas in my car and travel around? Do I want to go there and risk one of them getting sick and going to a hospital where they don’t have the medicine needed to treat them? Do I want my sons to wonder at night why there is no electricity?” she asked.
Palestinians, settlers clash in tense Jerusalem neighborhood
Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled stones, chairs and fireworks at each other overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said Tuesday.
The threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last month’s 11-day Gaza war and pose a test for Israel’s new governing coalition, which includes three pro-settler parties but is hoping to sideline the Palestinian issue to avoid internal divisions.
Read:Israel to send 1M doses to Palestinians in vaccine exchange
Israeli police and border officials said they arrested four suspects in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It was unclear who started the brawl. One woman was reportedly injured when she was hit in the back by a stone, police said.
The Red Crescent emergency service said its crews treated 20 Palestinians, including 16 suffering from pepper spray and tear gas and others wounded by rubber-coated bullets. Two other people were wounded, including an elderly man who was hit in the head, it said.
The Red Crescent said settlers threw stones at one of its ambulances and Israeli forces sprayed skunk water on a second ambulance belonging to the service.
The eruption of violence is the latest friction in Sheikh Jarrah, where weeks of unrest captured international attention ahead of the 11-day Israel-Hamas war last month. The cease-fire took effect on May 21, but the long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families continues.
Read:Israel strikes Gaza after Hamas fires incendiary balloons
And so the cycle of tension endures, in a stark early test for Israel’s new coalition government, which is just over a week old.
At the helm under a rotation agreement is Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party. In two years, he’ll be replaced by Yair Lapid, leader of centrist Yesh Atid. And leading the opposition is Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted from the premiership after holding the post for 12 years.
An intervention by Israel’s attorney general at the height of the unrest has put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed.
The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem.
Read:Israel braces for unrest ahead of right-wing Jerusalem march
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The settlers say the homes are built on land that was owned by Jews prior to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim such property, a right denied to Palestinians who lost lands and homes in the same conflict.
Who is Naftali Bennett, Israel’s new leader?
Naftali Bennett, who was sworn in Sunday as Israel’s new prime minister, embodies many of the contradictions that define the 73-year-old nation.
He’s a religious Jew who made millions in the mostly secular hi-tech sector; a champion of the settlement movement who lives in a Tel Aviv suburb; a former ally of Benjamin Netanyahu who has partnered with centrist and left-wing parties to end his 12-year rule.
His ultranationalist Yamina party won just seven seats in the 120-member Knesset in March elections — the fourth such vote in two years. But by refusing to commit to Netanyahu or his opponents, Bennett positioned himself as kingmaker. Even after one member of his religious nationalist party abandoned him to protest the new coalition deal, he ended up with the crown.
Read: Israel swears in new coalition, ending Netanyahu’s long rule
Here’s a look at Israel’s next leader:
AN ULTRANATIONALIST WITH A MODERATE COALITION
Bennett has long positioned himself to the right of Netanyahu. But he will be severely constrained by his unwieldy coalition, which has only a narrow majority in parliament and includes parties from the right, left and center.
He is opposed to Palestinian independence and strongly supports Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians and much of the international community see as a major obstacle to peace.
Bennett fiercely criticized Netanyahu after the prime minister agreed to slow settlement construction under pressure from President Barack Obama, who tried and failed to revive the peace process early in his first term.
He briefly served as head of the West Bank settler’s council, Yesha, before entering the Knesset in 2013. Bennett later served as cabinet minister of diaspora affairs, education and defense in various Netanyahu-led governments.
“He’s a right-wing leader, a security hard-liner, but at the same time very pragmatic,” said Yohanan Plesner, head of the Israel Democracy Institute, who has known Bennett for decades and served with him in the military.
Read: Israel to swear in government, ending Netanyahu’s long rule
He expects Bennett to engage with other factions to find a “common denominator” as he seeks support and legitimacy as a national leader.
RIVALRY WITH NETANYAHU
The 49-year-old father of four shares Netanyahu’s hawkish approach to the Middle East conflict, but the two have had tense relations over the years.
Bennett served as Netanyahu’s chief of staff for two years, but they parted ways after a mysterious falling out that Israeli media linked to Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, who wields great influence over her husband’s inner circle.
Bennett campaigned as a right-wing stalwart ahead of the March elections and signed a pledge on national TV saying he would never allow Yair Lapid, a centrist and Netanyahu’s main rival, to become prime minister.
But when it became clear Netanyahu was unable to form a ruling coalition, that’s exactly what Bennett did, agreeing to serve as prime minister for two years before handing power to Lapid, the architect of the new coalition.
Read:Israel’s Netanyahu lashes out as end of his era draws near
Netanyahu’s supporters have branded Bennett a traitor, saying he defrauded voters. Bennett has defended his decision as a pragmatic move aimed at unifying the country and avoiding a fifth round of elections.
A GENERATIONAL SHIFT
Bennett, a father of four and a modern Orthodox Jew, will be Israel’s first prime minister who regularly wears a kippa, the skullcap worn by observant Jews. He lives in the upscale Tel Aviv suburb of Raanana, rather than the settlements he champions.
Bennett began life with his American-born parents in Haifa, then bounced with his family between North America and Israel, military service, law school and the private sector. Throughout, he’s curated a persona that’s at once modern, religious and nationalist.
After serving in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, Bennett went to law school at Hebrew University. In 1999, he co-founded Cyota, an anti-fraud software company that was sold in 2005 to U.S.-based RSA Security for $145 million.
Bennett has said the bitter experience of Israel’s 2006 war against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah drove him to politics. The monthlong war ended inconclusively, and Israel’s military and political leadership at the time was widely criticized as bungling the campaign.
Read: Israel suspends ultranationalists' march in east Jerusalem
Bennett represents a third generation of Israeli leaders, after the founders of the state and Netanyahu’s generation, which came of age during the country’s tense early years marked by repeated wars with Arab states.
“He’s Israel 3.0,” Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist for Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, wrote in a recent profile of Bennett.
“A Jewish nationalist but not really dogmatic. A bit religious, but certainly not devout. A military man who prefers the comforts of civilian urban life and a high-tech entrepreneur who isn’t looking to make any more millions. A supporter of the Greater Land of Israel but not a settler. And he may well not be a lifelong politician either.”
13 killed in hospital attack in opposition-held Syria town
Missiles hit a hospital in a northern Syrian town controlled by Turkey-backed fighters on Saturday, killing at least 13 people, including two medical staff, and putting the facility out of service, activists and an aid group said.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the shelling, which came from areas where government troops and Kurdish-led fighters are deployed.
Read:In Syria camp, forgotten children are molded by IS ideology
The governor of Turkey’s Hatay’s province, across the border from Afrin, also said the attack killed 13 civilians and injured 27, adding that it involved rocket and artillery shelling of the hospital. The governor’s office blamed the attack on Syrian Kurdish groups.
A war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, put the death toll at 18. The discrepancy could not be immediately reconciled.
The Syrian American Medical Society, or SAMS, an aid group that assists health centers in opposition areas, said al-Shifaa Hospital in the town of Afrin was targeted by two missiles. The attack destroyed the polyclinic department, the emergency and the delivery rooms, the group said.
Read: Israel says it strikes targets in Syria after missile attack
Two of the 13 people killed were hospital staff and two were ambulance drivers, said SAMS, which supports the hospital. Eleven of its staff were injured. The hospital has been put out of service and patients were evacuated, the group said.
SAMS called for an investigation into the attack on the hospital, one of the largest facilities in northern Syria that offered thousands of medical services each month, including surgeries and maternity wards. The coordinates for the hospital, which is financed by USAID as well as UN funds, were shared as part of the U.N.-led deconfliction mechanism, the group said.
Turkey and allied Syrian fighters took control of Afrin in 2018 in a military operation that expelled local Kurdish fighters and displaced thousands of Kurdish residents. Ankara considers the Kurdish fighters who were in control of Afrin terrorists. Since then, there has been a series of attacks on Turkish targets in the area.
Read:'No Sweets': For Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a tough Ramadan
The governor’s office of Turkey’s Hatay province blamed the attack on the Kurdish group.
The head of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abadi, denied his forces were behind the attack. In a tweet, he said, the U.S-backed SDF condemned the attack that targeted innocent lives, calling it a violation of international law.
Palestinian mom fights to stave off punitive home demolition
Sanaa Shalaby says she had no idea what her estranged husband was up to until Israeli soldiers raided her home in the occupied West Bank last month.
Now she’s waging a legal battle to prevent Israel from demolishing the two-story villa where she lives with her three youngest children. It’s drawing attention to Israel’s policy of punitive home demolitions, which rights groups view as collective punishment.
Israeli security forces arrested her husband, Muntasser Shalaby, and accuse him of carrying out a May 2 drive-by shooting that killed an Israeli and wounded two others in the occupied West Bank. Israel says demolishing family homes is one of the only ways to deter attackers, who expect to be arrested or killed and who are often glorified by Palestinian factions.
The U.S. State Department has criticized such demolitions, and an internal Israeli military review in the 2000s raised questions about their effectiveness. The case of the Shalabys — who all have U.S. citizenship — could reignite the debate. Israel’s Supreme Court is expected to issue a final ruling on the demolition next week.
Read:Israel arrests Jerusalem activists in contested neighborhood
Sanaa and her husband had been estranged for nearly a decade. He lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he ran a profitable smoke shop and married three other women in private Muslim ceremonies not recognized by U.S. authorities.
“It’s allowed in our religion,” Sanaa said. “I didn’t agree to it.”
He came back to the West Bank in April for what she says was one of his yearly visits to see the children. He had also sought treatment for paranoia after having been institutionalized in the U.S. in recent years, according to a deposition he gave to her lawyer.
Sanaa said she knew nothing about the attack and had no indication he was planning anything.
“People commit crimes far worse than this in America and they don’t demolish their homes,” she said. “Whoever committed the crime should be punished, but it’s not the family’s fault.”
When the soldiers showed up after the attack they ransacked the home and briefly detained her 17-year-old son. She said they had a large dog that terrified her and her two younger children, a 12-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl. The soldiers came back weeks later to map out the house for demolition.
Now Sanaa says her children spend all day in bed and refuse to go to school. “I know my children and they were never like this,” she said. “My son, Ahmed, has to take his final exams and he can’t study. He opens his book, reads a couple pages and then he walks off.”
An Israeli official said the security agencies believe home demolitions are an effective deterrent. The official declined to comment on the Shalaby case, but said everyone is notified in advance and given the right to contest demolitions in court. Someone in Sanaa’s situation would have a “good legal case” if her account is independently verified, the official said.
“There are clear checks and balances,” the official said. “We are using it only when we feel that it is necessary, and only because we understand that this is an effective deterrent.”
Read:Jerusalem evictions that fueled Gaza war could still happen
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss security procedures.
HaMoked, an Israeli rights group that has represented dozens of families seeking to halt punitive demolitions and is currently representing Sanaa, says such petitions rarely succeed. Of 83 cases brought since 2014, only 10 demolitions were prevented, it said. In the remaining cases, homes were partially or completely demolished, or apartments in multi-story buildings were permanently sealed off.
Jessica Montell, the group’s executive director, says that from a legal perspective the question of whether it serves as a deterrent is irrelevant.
“You don’t collectively punish innocent people just because they’re related to a criminal in the hope that that will deter future criminals. It’s an illegal and immoral policy regardless of the effectiveness,” she said.
The Israeli military prepared a report on punitive home demolitions in 2004 that led to a moratorium on the practice the following year, according to HaMoked, which received a Power Point presentation of the classified report in 2008 through a court petition.
The presentation raises concerns about the legality of such demolitions and international criticism of them. It also questions their effectiveness, saying the demolitions might even motivate more attacks. Such demolitions were mostly halted until 2014, when three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the occupied West Bank.
A campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in east Jerusalem was one of the main causes of last month’s 11-day Gaza war, in which Israeli airstrikes demolished hundreds of homes in the militant-ruled territory.
Both forms of displacement summon bitter memories of what the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” when some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
Shalaby said she has been in continual contact with the U.S. Embassy but was told it couldn’t do anything about the demolition.
Read:Gaza’s bereaved civilians fear justice will never come
The State Department declined to comment on the case, citing privacy concerns. But it said it was opposed to the punitive demolition of Palestinian homes. “The home of an entire family should not be demolished for the actions of one individual,” it said in a statement.
The Israeli Supreme Court will hear Sanaa’s case on June 17.
She hopes she will be able to remain in the house that she and her husband built in 2006. She said she had sold her bridal jewelry to help finance the construction. She raised her youngest children in the house, and an older daughter had her wedding there last year during a pandemic lockdown.
“My daughter got married here during the time of the coronavirus,” she said, pointing to the front courtyard and smiling at the memory. “It was better than any wedding hall.”
Israel arrests Jerusalem activists in contested neighborhood
Israeli police burst into the home of a prominent family in the contested Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem on Sunday, the family said, arresting a 23-year-old woman who has led protests against attempts by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from their homes in the area. The young woman was later released, but her twin brother turned himself in and remained in custody.
The arrests came a day after Israeli police detained a well-known Al Jazeera reporter covering a demonstration in the neighborhood. The reporter, Givara Budeiri, was held for four hours before she was released and sent to a hospital to treat a broken hand. It was not clear how her hand was broken, but her boss blamed police mistreatment.
Earlier this year, heavy-handed police actions in Sheikh Jarrah and other parts of east Jerusalem fueled weeks of unrest that helped spark an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.
Those tensions are simmering again this week — and could flare anew if Israeli ultranationalists follow through on plans to march Thursday through the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. Israeli police were expected to hold consultations on whether the parade, which was originally set to take place when the war erupted on May 10, would be allowed to proceed.
Read:Jerusalem evictions that fueled Gaza war could still happen
Renewed violence could complicate the task of embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents, who formed a fragile and disparate coalition last week, of passing a parliamentary vote of confidence needed for them to replace him and take office. A close ally of Netanyahu oversees the police.
In Sheikh Jarrah, Jewish settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods just outside the walls of the Old City. The area is one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem, which is home to sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims and which Israel captured in 1967 and annexed in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Settler groups and Israeli officials say the Sheikh Jarrah dispute is merely about real estate. But Palestinians say they are victims of a discriminatory system. The settlers are using a 1970 law that allows Jews to reclaim formerly Jewish properties lost during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, a right denied to Palestinians who lost property in the same conflict.
The al-Kurd family in Sheikh Jarrah has been at the forefront of months of protests against the planned evictions.
Early Sunday, police took Muna al-Kurd, 23, from her home.
Her father, Nabil al-Kurd, said police “stormed the house in large numbers and in a barbaric manner.”
“I was sleeping, and I found them in my bedroom,” he said. Police then searched the house and arrested his daughter. Video posted on social media showed her being taken away in handcuffs.
Read:Netanyahu opponents reach coalition deal to oust Israeli PM
“The reason for the arrest is that we say that we will not leave our homes, and they do not want anyone to express his opinion, they do not want anyone to tell the truth,” he said. “They want to silence us.”
Police also searched for her brother, Muhammad al-Kurd, but he was not there. Later, he turned himself in to Jerusalem police.
The siblings’ lawyer, Nasser Odeh, told journalists outside the police station that his clients were accused of “disturbing public security and participation in nationalistic riots.”
Late Sunday, Muna al-Kurd was released. But before she was freed, police briefly clashed with a crowd outside the station, throwing stun grenades. Her brother remained in custody.
The arrests came a day after Al Jazeera’s Budeiri, wearing a protective vest marked “press,” was dragged away by police at a protest in Sheikh Jarrah.
According to witnesses, police asked Budeiri for identification. Colleagues said police did not allow her to return to her car to retrieve her government-issued press card. Instead, they said she was surrounded by police, handcuffed and dragged into a vehicle with darkened windows.
In video footage posted online, Budeiri can be seen in handcuffs, while clutching her notebook and shouting, “Don’t touch, enough, enough.”
Read:Gaza’s bereaved civilians fear justice will never come
Israeli police said entrance to the neighborhood is limited due to the tense situation, and only accredited journalists are allowed in. They said that when Budeiri was unable to provide her press pass, police “removed her.” They added that Budeiri was arrested after becoming hostile and pushing an officer.
“The Israel Police will allow the freedom of press coverage, provided that these are done in accordance (with) the law while maintaining public order,” according to a statement. The statement did not reference her broken hand.
Budeiri was held for four hours before she was released and sent to the hospital, said Walid Omary, the Jerusalem bureau chief for Al Jazeera. In addition to the broken hand, Omary said Budeiri also suffered bruises on her body. He said her cameraman’s video camera was also heavily damaged by police.
As part of her release, Budeiri is banned from returning to the neighborhood for 15 days, Omary said.
“They are attacking the journalists in east Jerusalem because they don’t want them to continue covering what’s happening inside Sheikh Jarrah,” he said.
The Foreign Press Association, which represents hundreds of journalists working for international news organizations, said the treatment of Budeiri was “the latest in a long line of heavy-handed tactics by Israeli police” against the media in recent weeks. It said journalists have been hit by stun grenades, tear gas, sponge-tipped bullets and putrid-smelling water.
“We call on police to punish the officers who needlessly injured an experienced journalist and broke professional equipment. And once again, we urge police to uphold Israel’s pledges to respect freedom of the press and to allow journalists to do their jobs freely and without fear of injury and intimidation,” the FPA said.
Read:Netanyahu could lose PM job as rivals attempt to join forces
Last month’s war was triggered by weeks of clashes in Jerusalem between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, a flashpoint holy site.
The war erupted on May 10 when Hamas, calling itself the defender of the holy city, launched a barrage of rockets at Jerusalem. Some 254 people were killed in Gaza and 13 in Israel before a cease-fire took effect on May 21.
Al Jazeera’s acting director general, Mostefa Souag, noted that Budeiri’s detention came after Israel’s May 15 war-time destruction of a Gaza high-rise that housed the local office of Al Jazeera. The tower also housed The Associated Press’ office.
Israel has alleged that Hamas military intelligence was operating from the building. The AP has said it has no indication of a purported Hamas presence and has called for an independent investigation.
OPEC to boost oil output as economies recover, prices rise
The OPEC oil cartel and allied producing countries plan to restore 2.1 million barrels per day of crude production, balancing fears that COVID-19 outbreaks in some countries will sap demand against surging energy needs in recovering economies.
Energy ministers made the decision during an online meeting Tuesday.
Read:Ex-premier’s graft case a test of justice in oil-rich Kuwait
Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said recent market developments proved the agreement to gradually increase production, made in April and reconfirmed Tuesday, was “the right decision.” There are still “clouds on the horizon” regarding the recovery and demand for energy, he said.
The cartel decided to stay the course decided at earlier meetings to raise production by 2.1 million barrels per day from May to July. The group plans to add back 350,000 barrels per day in June and 440,000 barrels per day in July. Saudi Arabia is also gradually adding back 1 million barrels in voluntary cuts it made above and beyond its group commitment.
The combined OPEC Plus grouping of members led by Saudi Arabia and non-members, chief among them Russia, is facing concerns renewed COVID-19 outbreaks in countries such as India, a major oil consumer, will hurt global demand and weigh on prices. Oil producing countries made drastic cuts to support prices during the worst of the pandemic slowdown in 2020 and must now judge how much additional oil the market needs as producers slowly add more production.
Read: OPEC daily basket price stood at $65.60 a barrel Wednesday
But prices have recovered, closing at multi-year highs on Tuesday, and the recoveries in the US, Europe and Asia are expected to drive energy demand higher in the second half of the year as people travel more and use more fuel. The U.S. driving season began over Memorial Day weekend and increasing numbers of Americans have been vaccinated, leaving people feeling freer to travel and take longer trips by car.
On Tuesday the price of benchmark U.S. crude rose 2% to $67.72 per barrel after jumping nearly 4%. Brent crude, the European standard, traded 2.7% higher at $71.17 but closed at $70.25 per barrel. The prices were the highest in two years for Brent crude and in nearly three years for U.S. crude.
On Wednesday, oil prices rose modestly, with benchmark U.S. crude up 16 cents to $67.88 per barrel. Brent crude picked up 18 cents to $70.43 per barrel.
An additional factor complicating market estimates is the possible return to the market of more Iranian oil, depending on the outcome of talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Paul Sheldon, chief geopolitical risk analyst at S&P Global Platts, said he expects a framework nuclear deal will be reached before Iran’s June 18 election, allowing Iranian supply to rise by 1.05 million barrels per day between May levels and December.
Read:OPEC, oil nations agree to nearly 10M barrel cut amid virus
Bin Salman said that the prospect of more Iranian oil coming to market was not discussed at the brief meeting, which he said lasted less than half an hour.
Oil prices have risen more than 30% since the start of the year. That has meant higher costs for motorists in the U.S., where crude makes up about half the price of a gallon of gasoline. Holiday travelers paid the highest gas prices since 2014 at a national average of $3.03 per gallon, $1.12 more than last year. Prices in the western states were even higher; Californians paid $4.20 per gallon.
Iran’s largest navy ship catches fire, sinks in Gulf of Oman
The largest ship in the Iranian navy caught fire and later sank Wednesday in the Gulf of Oman under unclear circumstances, semiofficial news agencies reported.
The Fars and Tasnim news agencies said efforts failed to save the support ship Kharg, named after the island that serves as the main oil terminal for Iran.
Read: Iran successfully tests domestic coronavirus vaccine on humans
The blaze began around 2:25 a.m. and firefighters tried to contain it, Fars said. The vessel sank near the Iranian port of Jask, some 1,270 kilometers (790 miles) southeast of Tehran on the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Photos circulated on Iranian social media of sailors wearing life jackets evacuating the vessel as a fire burned behind them. State TV and semiofficial news agencies referred to the Kharg as a “training ship.” Fars published video of thick, black smoke rising from the ship early Wednesday morning.
Satellite photos from Planet Labs Inc. analyzed by The Associated Press showed the Kharg off to the west of Jask on Tuesday. Satellites from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that track fires from space detected a blaze at the site of the Jask that started just before the time of the fire reported by Fars.
Read: Iran a key topic as US envoy Blinken meets UK counterpart
The Kharg serves as one of a few vessels in the Iranian navy capable of providing replenishment at sea for its other ships. It also can lift heavy cargo and serve as a launch point for helicopters. The ship, built in Britain and launched in 1977, entered the Iranian navy in 1984 after lengthy negotiations that followed Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian officials offered no cause for the fire aboard the Kharg. However, it comes after a series of mysterious explosions that began in 2019 targeting ships in the Gulf of Oman. The U.S. Navy later accused Iran of targeting the ships with limpet mines, timed explosives typically attached by divers to a vessel’s hull.
Read: US Navy fires warning shots in new tense encounter with Iran
Iran denied targeting the vessels, though U.S. Navy footage showed members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard removing one unexploded limpet mine from a vessel. The incidents came amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
The sinking of the Kharg marks the latest naval disaster for Iran. In 2020 during an Iranian military training exercise, a missile mistakenly struck a naval vessel near the port of Jask, killing19 sailors and wounding 15. Also in 2018, an Iranian navy destroyer sank in the Caspian Sea.