Region

NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces on Thursday demolished the home of a Palestinian accused of killing a soldier in the occupied West Bank, which has been hit by a new outbreak of violence.

This week, at least 18 people have been killed in the territory, in incursions by the Israeli forces, or in attacks by Palestinians or Zionist settlers.

So far this year, more than 200 people have died in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the vast majority of them Palestinians.

Israeli soldiers entered Nablus, the largest Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, during the night and left at dawn after demolishing Kamal Jouri's apartment, witnesses told AFP.

The Israeli forces said it "demolished... the home of Kamal Jouri, the terrorist who carried out a gun attack" in October which "caused the death of soldier Ido Baruch".

Jouri was arrested in February and is in Israeli custody along with Osama Tawil, who is also accused of taking part in the attack and whose home was demolished on June 15, the Israeli army said.

Israeli forces routinely demolish the homes of Palestinians it accuses of deadly attacks on Israelis, arguing that such measures act as a deterrent.

Human rights activists say the policy amounts to collective punishment, as it can render non-combatants, including children, homeless.

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

Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Deadly violence has flared in recent days in the northern West Bank, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups where Israel has stepped up military operations.

Drone strike 

The northern West Bank has seen a spate of attacks on Israelis as well as attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian communities over the past week.

On Monday, an Israeli forces raid in Jenin refugee camp left seven people dead, including an Islamic Jihad fighter and two 15-year-olds.

Israeli anti-settlement organisation Peace Now said Netanyahu’s announcement was intended “to appease fervent and fanatic settlers”.

On Wednesday, Israeli settlers poured into the Palestinian villages of Turmus Ayya and Al Lubban Al Sharqiya, between Ramallah and Nablus, setting fire to houses and vehicles, witnesses and the Israeli forces said.

One Palestinian was killed, either during the attack or in the chaos that followed during clashes with Israeli police.

Settlers, meanwhile, installed mobile homes near the Palestinian villages of Sinjil and Al Lubban Al Sharqiya and the Israeli settlement of Eli, Palestinian officials told AFP on Thursday, fearful of a new settlement taking root.

“If the [settlement] grows, they will control the whole area as well as the main road and this will connect all the settlements in the area,” said Yaqoub Awis, mayor of Al Lubban Al Sharqiya.

Meanwhile, in a new development, the Israeli forces killed three members of a “terrorist cell” in a rare West Bank drone strike on Wednesday evening, it said in a statement.

It said the cell had “carried out a number of shooting attacks toward communities” in the West Bank.

Jenin Deputy Governor Kamal Abu Al Roub said there were “three dismembered bodies inside” the car which he said had been hit by missiles, citing information from firefighters.

The three were fighters from Jenin refugee camp, according to militant group Islamic Jihad.

The strike was the first by Israel inside the occupied Palestinian territory since August 2006, a Palestinian intelligence source told AFP.

The surge in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so far this year has killed at least 174 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian.

The tally compiled from official sources includes combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.

BEIRUT — French special envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday met with key figures in Lebanon on a "consultative" mission as he pushes for a solution to the country's protracted political deadlock.

Mired in a crippling economic crisis since 2019, Lebanon has been governed by a caretaker Cabinet for more than a year and without a president for almost eight months.

No group has a clear majority in parliament and lawmakers, have failed 12 times to elect a new president, amid bitter divisions between the Iran-backed Hizbollah and its opponents.

"This is a consultative mission... to ensure the country moves on from the political impasse," Le Drian told reporters.

He said he was holding "the necessary talks with all players in order to immediately end the political deadlock".

Le Drian met with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and the influential head of the Maronite Church, Beshara Rai, on Thursday, after holding talks with parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a key Hizbollah ally, the day before.

Under Lebanon’s delicate sectarian power-sharing system, the president is conventionally a Maronite Christian, the premier a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shiite.

The last presidential vote, held earlier this month, pitted the Hizbollah-backed Sleiman Frangieh against financial official Jihad Azour, who had mainly been endorsed by Christian and independent legislators.

Le Drian also met with Frangieh, who called the encounter “positive and constructive”.

Lebanese Christian politicians have criticised Paris for having appeared to support Frangieh on condition that the premiership goes to a reformist.

“The solution comes first of all from the Lebanese,” said Le Drian, adding that his country was not “coming with options” for the presidency.

Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman called for a “rapid end to the institutional political vacuum in Lebanon”.

Multiple attempts spearheaded by Lebanon’s former ruler France to extricate the country from its woes have ended in failure.

“The most important thing is to start the negotiation process,” said analyst Michael Young from the Carnegie Middle East Center, noting the importance of both Lebanese and regional players.

He said “a package deal” could involve the nomination of not only a president but also a prime minister, a central bank governor and an army chief later this year.

France has issued an arrest warrant for embattled central bank chief Riad Salameh over accusations including money laundering.

Salameh, whose mandate ends next month, denies the accusations.

Pro-Hizbollah daily Al Akhbar on Thursday predicted a prolonged presidential vacancy and said there were “no great hopes for Le Drian’s visit”.

NIAMEY — Algeria has forced more than 9,000 African migrants over the border into Niger creating a “critical humanitarian situation”, two United Nations bodies said in a report released on Thursday.

“Since the start of the year, more than 9,000 distressed migrants who were driven across the border by Algeria, found themselves blocked at Assamaka,” a remote town in the Agadez desert region, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Niger regional authorities registered 8,828 men, 161 women, 152 boys and 51 girls arriving since January.

In April, the number of migrants stuck in Assamaka was estimated at about 4,500.

The IOM transit centre in the town has been overwhelmed by the flood of arrivals, AFP reporters saw in April. Most are left without resources to try to make it back home.

To try to ease the crisis, the World Health Organisation has supplied medical equipment, including 2.9 tonnes of medicine kits. The World Food Programme has delivered more than 180 tonnes of food and Doctors without Borders deployed more doctors, nurses and psychologists to the area, OCHA said.

During May, the UN flew 1,446 migrants back to their countries.

Niger President Mohamed Bazoum told Jeune Afrique magazine last month that the waves of migrants forced into Niger was “not acceptable” as they had not entered Algeria from Niger.

Algeria is considered attractive by migrants as well as a transit point for Europe, but the government has sent back tens of thousands of people from west and central Africa since 2014, the UN says.

Some try to survive in Algeria, often as beggars, while others press on in the hope of reaching Europe.

TURMUS'AYYA, Palestinian Territories — A Palestinian man was killed on Wednesday in an occupied West Bank village, as Israelis attacked residents and property in escalating violence.

The reprisals came hours after mourners held a funeral for a teenager killed in a Palestinian shooting targeting Israelis nearby, while Palestinians buried a girl killed in an Israeli raid.

"A martyr arrived at the Palestine Medical Complex from Turmus Ayya after being shot in the chest," a Palestinian health ministry statement said.

Lafi Adeeb, Turmus Ayya mayor, told AFP that 35 houses were damaged, around 50 cars torched and farmland set ablaze.

"We in Turmus Ayya are targeted — after day after day — by the aggressive [settler] outposts that were established here," he told AFP.

He and another resident put the number of Israelis involved in the attack between 200 and 300, while AFP journalists in the village saw scorched homes, buildings and wounded people being evacuated by ambulance.

“Settlers shot at us and when the police and the Israeli army arrived they shot at us with rubber bullets and fired tear gas,” resident Awad Abu Samra told AFP.

The Israeli forces entered Turmus Ayya “to extinguish the fires, prevent clashes and to collect evidence” after “Israeli civilians burned vehicles and possessions belonging to Palestinians”.

Twelve people were wounded in Turmus Ayya, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The violence followed the funeral in the neighbouring Israeli settlement of Shilo of 17-year-old Nahman Mordof.

The teenager was one of four Israelis killed on Tuesday when Palestinian gunmen attacked a petrol station adjacent to Eli settlement before being shot dead.

Schoolgirls carry body 

In Jenin, girls in school uniform carried the body of their classmate killed in an Israeli forces raid on the city on Monday.

Sadil Naghnaghiya, 15, died from gunshot wounds suffered during the hours-long Israeli incursion, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday.

Six other Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy and a fighter , were killed in the raid.

A spokesman for the Palestinian group Hamas, Hazem Qassem, described Tuesday’s attack against Israelis as a “response to the crimes of the [Israeli] occupation” in Jenin and elsewhere.

A statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government would fast-track settlement expansion at Eli in response to the attack.

“Our answer to terrorism is to strike at it forcefully and build up our country,” he said, after repeated calls by the United Nations for Israel to halt settlement construction.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 war. Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

Israeli anti-settlement organisation Peace Now said Netanyahu’s announcement was intended “to appease fervent and fanatic settlers”, while Palestinians “are already suffering the consequences of such decisions, with their villages being subjected to attacks and burnings”.

Other settler reprisals 

The deadly shooting sparked reprisal attacks reported Tuesday in multiple Palestinian towns in the northern West Bank, including Huwara, Al Lubban Al Sharqiya and Beit Furik.

Several dozen people were wounded, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

The latest incident has echoes of the late-February shooting of two Israeli settlers as they drove through Huwara, which led hundreds of settlers to torch Palestinian homes and cars in the town.

An extreme-right member of Netanyahu’s Cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich, later called for Huwara to be “wiped out”, comments he walked back after international condemnation.

Israeli forces arrested three “wanted people” in Orif and went to “map the homes” of the shooters, a precursor to their demolition, a statement said.

Israel routinely demolishes the residences of Palestinians it blames for deadly attacks on Israelis, arguing that such measures act as a deterrent.

Human rights activists say the policy amounts to collective punishment, as it can render non-combatants, including children, homeless.

The surge in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so far this year has killed at least 171 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian.

The tally compiled from official sources includes combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.

MOGADISHU — A military base in Somalia came under attack by Al Shabaab militants on Wednesday, police and witnesses said, just as the African Union(AU) announced it was beginning a drawdown of troops in the violence-wracked nation.

Almost simultaneous suicide bomb blasts targeted the base in the southern city of Baardhere, which hosts both Ethiopian and Somali troops, triggering heavy gunfire, the sources said.

There was no immediate information about any casualties from the attack, which was claimed by Al Shabaab, an Al Qaeda affiliate that has been waging a bloody insurgency against the fragile central government for more than 15 years.

"The first explosion which is presumed to have been carried by a suicide bomber targeted the entrance of the ADC military base in Baardhere where Ethiopian forces are stationed and train Somali troops," local police officer Abdi Bare said.

"The second blast occurred in the same area within a few minutes after the first one, there are some casualties but we don't have the details so far," he said, adding that the situation in the area was "now normal".

Local resident Bare Hassan reported “heavy gunfire” after the first blast at the base in Baardhere, which lies in Jubaland state about 450 kilometres from the capital Mogadishu.

Al Shabaab has continued to wage deadly attacks in Somalia in the face of a major offensive by pro-government forces backed by the AU force known as ATMIS against the extremist group.

Less than four weeks ago, 54 Ugandan peacekeepers were killed when Al Shabaab fighters stormed an AU base located southwest of Mogadishu in one of the deadliest attacks since the offensive was launched last year.

And earlier this month, six civilians were killed in a six-hour siege at a beachside hotel in Mogadishu.

Army chief sacked 

Earlier on Wednesday, the African Union Transition Mission announced it had started to reduce troop numbers in Somalia in line with UN resolutions which mandate a drawdown of 2,000 soldiers by the end of June 2023.

It said it handed over a base operated by Burundian forces in Hirshabelle state in south-central Somalia to the Somali National Army.

Somalia’s army and police are set to assume full security by the end of 2024, 17 years after the AU force was created by the UN Security Council to help in the fight against Al Shabaab.

The UN Security Council is due to confer on Somalia on Thursday.

ATMIS in April last year replaced the previous mission known as AMISOM, which had a force of about 20,000 drawn from several nations including Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

Kenya has suffered a string of retaliatory assaults over its involvement in Somalia, and there have been several deadly bomb blasts in the remote northeast of the country near the border.

In the latest incident suspected to be the work of Al Shabaab, two policemen and a civilian were killed when their vehicle ran over an IED in the county of Mandera on Tuesday, local officials said.

Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in May last year and pledged “all-out” war against the extremists who were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 but remain entrenched in areas of south and central Somalia.

Earlier this week Mohamud — who is on a trip to the United States — sacked the head of the army, Odowaa Yusuf Rageh, and named Ibrahim Sheikh Muhidin as his successor.

The Horn of Africa nation of about 17 million people is struggling to emerge from decades of conflict and natural disasters including drought and flooding.

One of the poorest countries on the planet, Somalia has been mired in chaos since the fall of dictator Siad Barre’s military regime in 1991.

In a key step last month, the government announced plans for the country’s first nationwide one-person one-vote elections to be held next year, replacing a complex clan-based indirect system.

KAFR NURAN,  Syria — Artillery strikes by the Syrian army killed three civilians including a child on Wednesday in the last major rebel-held bastion in the country’s northwest, a war monitor said.

Shelling lasted all day at several locations in the region, an AFP correspondent there said, adding that the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) militant group targeted government positions in retaliation.

“Three civilians including a child were killed in heavy artillery fire in the town of Kafr Nuran in Aleppo’s western countryside,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Two others were injured, added the observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources on the ground in Syria.

The shelling damaged a house in the town of Kafr Nuran, an AFP correspondent said.

Residents in the town told AFP that the artillery fire hit a neighbourhood where some people had gathered to buy watermelons.

Earlier Wednesday, HTS rocket fire had killed a Syrian soldier in regime-held areas of Idlib province, the observatory said.

Nearly half of Idlib province, including the provincial capital of the same name, as well as parts of the adjacent provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia, make up the last of Syria’s rebel-held areas.

HTS, the former Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, is the dominant group in the area, but other rebel groups are also active.

Despite periodic clashes, a ceasefire deal brokered by regime ally Moscow, as well as Ankara — which supports rebel groups in Syria — has largely held in the northwest since March 2020.

The Idlib region is home to about 3 million people, around half of them displaced.

Syria’s war has killed more than half-a-million people and displaced millions since erupting in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on anti-government protests.