Region

CAIRO — Rival Palestinian political leaders meeting in Egypt decided on Sunday to form a committee on intra-Palestinian reconciliation, a move that one analyst doubted would end their 17-year rift.

President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh met for rare face-to-face talks in the coastal city of El Alamein along with representatives of most Palestinian political factions.

The latest attempt at reconciliation aims to bridge the gap between the parallel governments of Hamas in the blockaded Gaza Strip and of the Palestinian Authority — controlled by Abbas' secularist Fateh movement — which administers Palestinian-run areas of the occupied West Bank.

Abbas and Haniyeh were joined by the heads of other factions, except for the powerful Islamic Jihad and two other minor groups.

Islamic Jihad had made the release of prisoners held by PA security forces a condition for sending representatives to El Alamein.

Haniyeh earlier Sunday called on Abbas to end “security collaboration” with Israel and “political arrests”, according to participants at the meeting.

The Hamas leader also said “a new, inclusive parliament must be formed on the basis of free democratic elections”.

Hamas, which won the Palestinians’ last legislative polls held in 2006, has repeatedly called for general elections.

Abbas said Sunday “the coup d’etat and the division that befell us after... must end”, referring to clashes between Hamas and Fateh that followed the 2006 vote.

“We must return to a single state, a single system, a single law and a single legitimate army,” Abbas added.

‘Kill’ unity 

To work towards this, the 87-year-old president announced “the formation of a committee to continue the dialogue... end divisions and achieve Palestinian national unity”.

A later statement from Abbas said he “hopes for an upcoming meeting soon in Egypt to announce to our people the end” of the 17-year split “and the return to Palestinian national unity”.

Palestinian political scientist Moukhaimer Abu Saada told AFP that the formation of the committee was no cause for celebration.

“The best way to kill something is to form a committee for it,” he said, speaking from Gaza.

He said he doubted the move would produce any progress towards “ending the division or setting a date for Palestinian elections”.

Echoing a sense of despair among Palestinians, one Facebook user wrote that the talks in El Alamein — which means “two flags” in Arabic — showed the impassable distance between Hamas and Fateh who “fly completely different flags”.

On Sunday, Haniyeh called for “the restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organisation”, the umbrella institution promoting Palestinian statehood. The PLO includes most Palestinian political factions, but not Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The PLO is “the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, Abbas said.

He called for “peaceful popular resistance”, while Haniyeh touted “comprehensive resistance”.

Uptick in violence 

Khaled Al Batsh, an Islamic Jihad leader, said the group had “hoped for a response from Mahmud Abbas to grievances and calls for the release” of its members detained in the West Bank.

“We have been surprised by an unprecedented security incursion against resistance fighters,” he said.

Sunday’s meeting came amid a resurgence of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in the West Bank which Israel has occupied since the 1967.

Violence linked to the conflict this year has killed at least 203 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.

The spike has coincided with the tenure of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right administration, which took office late last year and includes members with a history of anti-Palestinian rhetoric.

In the Gaza Strip on Sunday, hundreds of people demonstrated to demand an “end to division”, said AFP correspondents in the coastal enclave.

In Lebanon’s largest refugee camp for Palestinians, Ain Al Helweh in the southern port city of Sidon, fighting overnight and on Sunday killed five Fateh members and an Islamist fighter.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called the fighting “suspicious in the current regional and international context”, but Palestinian representatives in El Alamein did not comment on the clashes.

BAGHDAD — Iraq and Kuwait will work towards reaching a definitive agreement on demarcating their borders, including a contested maritime area of the Gulf, their foreign ministers said on Sunday.

The de facto land and maritime borders between the neighbouring states were established by the United Nations in 1993, three years after Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

While Iraqi officials have previously expressed a readiness to recognize Kuwait's land border, the maritime border remains a point of contention.

Baghdad insists that the delineation should provide it unhindered access to Gulf waters, a lifeline for its economy and oil exports.

Because of the long-standing dispute, Kuwaiti coastguards regularly detain Iraqi fishermen and seize their vessels for entering Kuwaiti territorial waters "illegally".

After meeting his Kuwaiti counterpart Salem Al Sabah in Baghdad on Sunday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said that during their talks "the emphasis was placed on resolving the border issues".

He told reporters the border talks would "continue through various technical committees".

Baghdad will host a meeting of a legal committee relating to the talks on August 14.

Sabah said there was “complete consensus” between Kuwait and Iraq to “resolve outstanding problems between the two countries, particularly the demarcation of maritime boundaries”.

Iraq’s government under Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al Sudani, who was appointed by pro-Iran parties, is seeking closer ties with Arab Gulf monarchies, aiming to strengthen regional economic cooperation and counter the flow of narcotics.

In 2021, Baghdad made the final payment of war reparations totalling more than $52 billion to its neighbour.

Saddam’s forces entered oil-rich Kuwait in August 1990 and annexed it before being driven out seven months later by an international coalition led by the United States.

DJANET, Algeria — In a riot of colour, music and dance, thousands of Tuareg have flocked to the Sebeiba festival that marks the end of an ancient tribal feud and which once a year transforms an oasis town deep in the Al gerian Sahara.

The Tuareg are a semi-nomadic people of Berber descent who practice Islam and whose traditional desert homeland stretches across parts of Algeria, Libya, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

The annual Sebeiba festival, held in Djanet, 1,500 kilometres southeast of Algiers, dates back over 3,000 years and is held to coincide with the Shiite Muslim Ashura commemoration.

During the 10-day event, male dancers, dressed as warriors and wielding swords, perform to the singing and drumbeat of women who are adorned with glittering jewellery and henna tattoos.

The men parade their weapons and “then stand in a ritual circle rattling their swords continuously as the women sing traditional songs to the rhythm of the tambourine”, says the UN cultural organisation.

The festival marks the time, three millennia ago, when two Tuareg tribes, El Mihane and Zelouaz, put an end to a war between them.

Oral tradition says their conflict ended when both sides learned of the death of the Egyptian pharaoh who — as in the biblical story — perished in the Red Sea while pursuing Moses and the fleeing Israelites.

“Our ancestors kept the date of the day the pharaoh drowned in the sea and celebrated the death of the pharaoh,” said local elder Elias Ali, 73.

In Djanet, a town of some 15,000 people, locals had been busy preparing long before the festival kicked off.

One participant, 64-year-old Hassan Echeikh, said that “during rehearsals, children learn to dance, and everyone can let off steam”.

UNESCO in 2014 added the Sebeiba ritual and ceremonies to its List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

It also noted the role of local craftspeople who make the uniforms, weapons, jewellery and musical instruments for the ceremonies.

Sebeiba is “an important marker of cultural identity for Tuareg people living in the Algerian Sahara”, said the UNESCO listing.

CAIRO — Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas arrived in El Alamein in Egypt on Saturday, the news agency Wafa said, ahead of unity talks between Palestinian factions boycotted by Islamic Jihad.

The Palestinian news agency said that as well as chairing Sunday's meeting of the heads of Palestinian factions Abbas "is scheduled to meet with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah Al Sisi".

Last week, Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad Al Nakhalah made his group's participation in the talks conditional on the release of its members and those of other factions detained by Palestinian security forces in the West Bank.

In a statement to AFP Saturday, Islamic Jihad official Mohammad Al Hindi again denounced "continued political detention and prosecution of the resistance".

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is also boycotting the talks.

Sunday's meeting will include the heads of other political factions, including Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Both Abbas and Haniyeh met in Ankara on Wednesday in the run-up to Sunday’s crucial meeting. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has good relations with both, hosted the talks and said his government will do its best to push for intra-Palestinian reconciliation.

A Palestinian official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, said the talks aim to “end the divisions [between factions] in preparation for a unified Palestinian government and presidential and general elections”.

Haniyeh’s spokesman Taher Al Nunu told AFP that Hamas sought to “unify the Palestinian position” under a strategic plan to “confront the Israeli occupation in light of the aggression of its extremist government”.

Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the Islamist movement has been at loggerheads with Abbas’s secular Fateh which administers Palestinian-run areas of the West Bank, which Israel has occupied in the 1967 June War.

Attempts to end the more than 15-year Fateh-Hamas rift saw leading figures from both movements sign a reconciliation deal in Algiers last year, promising long-delayed Palestinian elections in 2023.

Egypt’s meeting comes amid a resurgence of violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which this year has killed at least 203 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — Four "fighters" from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been killed by a drone strike in northern Iraq, officials in the autonomous Kurdistan region said, blaming the Turkish military.

The strike on Friday near Iraqi Kurdistan's second city Sulaimaniyah came as Kurdish authorities in neighbouring Syria said a drone attack also by Turkey had killed four members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Ankara and its Western allies classify the PKK as a "terrorist" organisation. Turkey also considers the main component of the SDF, the People's Protection Units (YPG), to be a "terrorist" offshoot of the PKK.

The Turkish army rarely comments on its strikes in Iraq, but routinely targets PKK rear bases in the mountains of the Kurdistan region.

On Friday around 8:00 pm (17:00 GMT), "four PKK fighters were killed and another wounded when a Turkish army drone targeted their vehicle near the village of Rangina" north of Sulaimaniyah, according to a statement from Iraqi Kurdistan's anti-terrorism services.

Since 1984 the PKK has waged an insurgency in Turkey that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, and Ankara has long maintained military positions inside northern Iraq where it regularly launches operations against them.

Two raids a week apart in May in Iraqi Kurdistan's Sinjar district killed six Yazidi fighters affiliated with the PKK, in strikes local security officials blamed on Ankara.

In late February and early March, strikes which the anti-terrorism service attributed to Turkey, again killed fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units. The movement took up arms against the Islamic State group in 2014 following the extremist’s massacre of thousands of Yazidi men and their abduction of thousands of women for use as sex slaves.

Both the Iraqi federal authorities and the Kurdistan regional government have been accused of tolerating Turkey’s military activities to preserve their close economic ties.

On Tuesday the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani referred to an “upcoming visit” by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but did not provide a specific date.

The meeting would likely focus on economic activity as well as the sensitive issue of water.

Baghdad says upstream dams built by Turkey on major rivers it shares with drought-hit Iraq have contributed to severe water shortages in recent years.

KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait put to death five people on Thursday, including a man convicted of involvement in a 2015 Daesh suicide bombing that killed 26 people, the Public Prosecution said.

The multiple executions in the Gulf emirate — relatively rare compared to neighbouring Saudi Arabia — are the first since seven people were put to death in November last year ending a five-year moratorium.

In a statement, the Public Prosecution said it oversaw the "implementation of the death sentence in Kuwait's Central Prison" against five people, most of them convicted of murder.

They included Abdulrahman Sabah Saud — the main convict in the 2015 bombing that struck a Shiite mosque in the capital during Friday prayers. It was the bloodiest attack in Kuwait's history.

Saud, a stateless Arab, was convicted of driving the bomber to the mosque and bringing the explosives belt he used from near the Saudi border.

At his initial trial, Saud pleaded guilty to most charges but, in the appeals and supreme courts, he denied them all.

The other men executed on Thursday included a Kuwaiti, an Egyptian and a member of Kuwait's stateless Bidoon minority, all of whom had been convicted of murder.

A Sri Lankan was put to death on drug charges.

The Public Prosecution said all five were executed by hanging.

Amnesty International said the move was “another example of the disturbing rise in use of the death penalty” in Kuwait.

“When it is used against non-violent offenders such as the Sri Lankan killed today, it is incompatible with international law,” Amnesty’s Kuwait researcher, Devin Kenney, told AFP.

Kuwait had initially charged 29 defendants, including seven women, with helping the Saudi mosque bomber.

In 2016, it upheld jail terms of between two and 15 years for eight people, including four women, and acquitted more than a dozen others.

Those convicted include alleged Daesh leader in Kuwait, Fahad Farraj Muhareb, whose death sentence was commuted to 15 years in prison.

Although Kuwait has executed dozens of people since it introduced the death penalty in the mid-1960s, the punishment is relatively rare.

Most of those condemned have been convicted of murder or drug trafficking.

In April 2013, Kuwaiti authorities hanged three men convicted of murder. Two months later, two Egyptians, convicted of kidnap and murder, were executed.

In 2017, the emirate carried out a mass execution of seven prisoners, including a ruling family member.

NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said, as the army confirmed it had conducted a "counterterrorism" operation in a Nablus refugee camp.

"A young man died of his wounds as the occupation forces stormed the city of Nablus at noon [09:00 GMT]," the ministry said, referring to the Israeli forces.

"The martyr, Mohammed Abd Al Hakim Nada, was shot in the chest."

An Israeli forces spokesman told AFP that the forces had conducted a "counterterrorism activity in Al Ain camp" in Nablus.

In a separate statement, the army said that during the raid "suspects fired and hurled rocks and paint bottles at the soldiers, who responded with live fire.

"An armed assailant fired at the soldiers who responded with live fire, a hit was identified."

Eyewitnesses told AFP that Israeli forces had stormed the neighbourhood of Al Muhayim and surrounded a house before arresting one Palestinian.

Israeli forces "apprehended one wanted individual suspected of involvement in terrorist activity", the army added.

Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades said its fighters had "ambushed a unit of special forces in the alleys of Al Ain camp ... and managed to inflict casualties".

In a statement on its Telegram channel, the group, which is linked to Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’s Fateh movement, did not specify whether the dead man was one its fighters.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls the coastal enclave of Gaza, condemned what it said was a “Zionist crime in Nablus”.

The group called on all “Palestinian factions to confront the terrorist settlers’ government”.

Wednesday’s death came a day after Israeli troops killed three Palestinians in an exchange of fire in Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Hamas said the three were members of its armed wing.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the June War of 1967.

Since early last year, the territory has seen a string of attacks by Palestinians on Israeli targets, as well as violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities.

Earlier this month, Israeli forces conducted a two-day raid on Jenin refugee camp razing large swathes of the area, and killing 12 Palestinians, including militants and children.

One Israeli soldier was also killed.

The raid on Jenin was one of the biggest operations carried out by the Israeli forces in the West Bank in years.

So far this year, violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed at least 202 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.

Excluding Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank is home to nearly 3 million Palestinians, as well as around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.