Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman brushed off demands Wednesday from at home and abroad for an investigation into the deaths of two Palestinian youths killed by Israeli forces last week.

The pressure came after video footage emerged appearing to show the two Palestinians being shot unprovoked, prompting calls from Washington and the United Nations for a full investigation.

“I reject any demand” for an international investigation, Lieberman told reporters on a tour of the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

“Such an incident will be investigated regardless of any demand,” he remarked, denouncing world criticism of the incident as “hypocrisy”.

Closed-circuit video footage released Wednesday by Defence For Children International and B’Tselem appeared to show separate incidents in which the two youths were shot as they walked down the same street near Ramallah as Palestinians marked the 66th anniversary of the Nakbeh or “catastrophe” of Israel’s creation.

Although clashes were taking place in the area on that day, May 15, there is no visible evidence of ongoing unrest in the footage.

But the Israeli army immediately dismissed the footage as having been “edited”, and said it was investigating the incident.

An Israeli commentator criticised official attempts to downplay the incident, joining the calls for an investigation.

“We live in a world that is tainted by hypocrisy, double standards, changing values and a flexible code of behaviour... that is the situation,” wrote Ben Caspit of Israel’s daily Maariv newspaper on Thursday.

“The correct Israeli response is to comply with the American call issued yesterday, and to launch an immediate, in-depth, true and quick investigation. And most importantly, transparent. We must not have any secrets.”

On Wednesday, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington expected Israel “to conduct a prompt and transparent investigation to determine the facts surrounding this incident”.

And Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, called for an “independent and transparent” probe.

It was “of serious concern that initial information appears to indicate that the two Palestinians killed were both unarmed and appeared to pose no direct threat,” he said.

The European Union also condemned the incident.

“It is important that any such incidents are investigated thoroughly... we reiterate the need for security forces, whether Israeli or Palestinian, to refrain from the use of lethal force, except in cases where there is a real and imminent threat to life,” a statement said Thursday.

The Palestinian leadership accused Israel of the “deliberate execution” of Musaab Nuwarah, 20, and Mohammed Udeh, 17.

The Palestinians say the youths were unarmed and posed no threat, accusing Israel of using “excessive and indiscriminate violence”.

Israel has said border police were operating in the area at the time to try to quell a violent demonstration by about 150 Palestinians, and denies using live bullets.

Meanwhile, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees published figures Wednesday showing “a sharp increase” in the number of Palestinian refugees killed and injured by Israeli forces since the beginning of 2013.

According to UNRWA, the numbers of those wounded by live ammunition so far this year has risen to 43 from 10 in the same period in 2013.

TEHRAN — Police in Iran have arrested six young people for posting a video online of them dancing to Pharrell Williams’ hit song “Happy”, showing them on state television as a public warning to youth in the Islamic republic.

The song has sparked similar videos all over the world, with people dancing down streets and smiling in choreographed crowds. But in Iran, some see the trend as promoting the spread of Western culture, as laws in the Islamic republic ban women from dancing in public or appearing outside without the hijab. The government also bans some Internet websites.

In the Tehran video, three young men and three young women dance on a secluded rooftop, a stairwell, a walled-off driveway and a chic apartment, wearing sunglasses and silly clothes while laughing and smiling. The women wear no hijabs.

Tehran police chief Hossein Sajedinia confirmed on state television late Tuesday that the six people were detained over the video. State television also aired blurred pictures of the video and then showed the six with their backs turned towards the camera.

Sajedinia said the video clip “hurt public chastity” and prompted police to launch a swift investigation.

“They were identified and arrested within six hours,” Sajedinia said. The online video includes the participants’ first names in a credit roll with outtakes.

Those arrested said on the TV broadcast that they were deceived and that the video was not meant to be posted online.

“They had told us that this video won’t be released anywhere and that it was for our own joy,” one of the women said. Another detainee said: “They invited us to appear on the video to practice acting.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if the six arrested faced criminal or civil charges or had lawyers.

Sajedinia warned Iranian young people on the broadcast that police will confront those who challenge Islamic and social norms.

“The youth should try not to be deceived by these people under pretexts such as acting or singing,” he said.

On Twitter, Williams posted a link to a story about the arrests and wrote late Tuesday: “It’s beyond sad these kids were arrested for trying to spread happiness.”

The arrest of the six young people come as hardliners increasingly challenge moderate President Hassan Rouhani as the country negotiates a nuclear deal with world powers. Rouhani campaigned for greater cultural and social freedoms during the presidential election last year and spoke Saturday about the Internet as well.

“We should see the cyberworld as an opportunity,” said Rouhani, according to the official IRNA news agency. “Why are we so shaky? Why don’t we trust our youth? “

Hardliners accuse Rouhani of failing to take the necessary actions to stop the spread of the “decadent” Western culture in Iran. Last week, hardliners marched over women not wearing hijabs and dressing provocatively.

GENEVA — The Red Cross said on Wednesday it begun a major distribution of emergency rations on both sides of the battle lines around the divided northern Syrian city of Aleppo, its first since October.

Syria’s government finally gave approval this week for the plan, submitted in January, to feed 60,000 displaced people in rural areas, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Peter Maurer said.

“We have a major food distribution ongoing in Aleppo. It is the first time in months on that scale,” Maurer told Reuters in Geneva. “It is on both sides of the front line.”

Six thousand family food parcels were being distributed in rebel-held eastern areas of rural Aleppo, and nearly the same number in government-held areas to the south, he said.

In all, 60,000 people will benefit, ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said.

The operation, which was not previously announced, began on Tuesday and will continue for a few days, the spokesman said. Goods are being delivered by a three-truck convoy accompanied by ICRC officials and Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers.

“Distribution started on both sides, targeting IDPs [internally displaced people] from the barrel bombing campaign,” Maurer said, referring to civilians who have fled bombs dropped by government planes on Syria’s former commercial hub.

The ICRC delivery in Aleppo, which follows one in the besieged town of Barzeh near Damascus in February, should help to build confidence among the warring parties that its operation is “humanitarian and not politically tainted”, Maurer said.

Maurer said that he had first presented the Aleppo plan to Syrian government officials in Damascus in January. “It is four months overdue,” he added.

The Syrian relief operation is currently the ICRC’s largest and aims to reach 1 million people each month in the second half of this year.

The agency appealed this month for greater access to civilians in rebel-held and besieged areas where the humanitarian situation was “catastrophic”, especially in Aleppo and in suburbs of Damascus.

BEIRUT — Syria’s army has launched a fierce assault on rebel fighters in a bid to break their yearlong siege on Aleppo’s central prison, a monitor, state media and activists reported Wednesday.

The rebels and their allies from the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front have been trying to overrun the jail, which remains in government control, to release political prisoners reportedly held in very poor conditions.

“The army, the [pro-regime] National Defence Forces militia, Arab fighters and Lebanon’s Hizbollah are in fierce combat against jihadists from Al Nusra Front and Islamist rebels in the Sheikh Najjar industrial area, one kilometre from Aleppo’s central prison,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Troops loyal to President Bashar Assad had broken through on the road leading to the prison, said Observatory Director Rami Abdel Rahman, adding that ending the siege “would constitute a strategic victory for the regime”.

State news agency SANA said, meanwhile, that “the army has taken over the village of Hilan, and is advancing towards other areas that surround Aleppo prison”.

An activist in Aleppo, Mohammad Wissam, gave AFP a similar account.

“The regime wants to reach the prison. [Troops] have not managed to do so yet, but if they do... they can then reach the Castelo road, which links Aleppo’s liberated [rebel-held] areas to the northern countryside,” he said.

Rebels in Aleppo city, once Syria’s commercial capital, rely on supply routes leading to the countryside as a rear base.

The northern countryside of Aleppo borders Turkey, a key supporter of Syria’s revolt and home to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the country’s violence.

On Wednesday, near Aleppo prison, rebels blew up the Al Kindi Hospital, which the loyalist army had used as a position before its takeover by the opposition.

“The building is very big, and it could be used by regime troops [should they reclaim it] to monitor supply routes used by the revolutionaries,” Wissam told AFP via the Internet.

“Everyone is afraid the regime might besiege [rebel areas of] Aleppo,” he added.

Elsewhere in Syria, four Kurdish fighters and seven pro-regime militiamen were killed in fighting in the majority Kurdish province of Hasakeh, said the observatory.

And in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, four Islamist fighters were killed in an overnight battle against the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Activists and the observatory say ISIL has recently launched a fresh bid to set up an Islamic state under its control along the Syrian border with Iraq.

BEIRUT — The widowed Syrian mechanic had a new lease on life after he married his second wife: He enrolled in a high school, graduating at 60. The couple had five children, living in an impoverished quarter of a town in northern Syria.

They all died after a missile smashed into their building overnight in the town of Marea, in all killing 13 people, most of them children, Syrian opposition activists said Tuesday.

That attack was followed hours later by a missile fired at a building in the nearby town of Azaz that killed another 10 people.

The strikes were reported on Tuesday by local activists, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the activist collective, the Aleppo Media Centre. 

They are the latest victims of Syria’s civil war and the government’s relentless bombing campaign against opposition-held territories in northern Syria.

The story of Mohammed Jafar Saleh, 70, is a human sketch of one of the 162,000 people killed in Syria’s civil war, now entering its fourth year.

Saleh’s first wife died over 15 years ago, said an activist from Marea who identified himself as Abu Al Hassan.

The man remarried soon after, to a young woman, Mufida Rasoul. She was 40 when she died overnight. Their five children ranged from Abir, 14, to Rahaf, 4, both girls.

Abu Al Hassan said the marriage seemed to revive the man, who had a shop fixing broken car radiators. He enrolled in a school for older students, earning a high school diploma after 10 years instruction, the activist said.

“He wanted to go to university but his grades weren’t very good,” according to Abu Al Hassan, who said he used to attend annual exams with the man.

Nothing was left of the family.

The severed legs and waist of a boy pulled from the rubble, shown in footage uploaded to social networks by activists, may have belonged to one of the Saleh children. The footage appeared genuine and corresponded with Associated Press reporting of the event.

The 13 dead were mostly children, according a list of their names and ages, distributed by another activist in Marea.

Another two of the slain children, Mohammed, 7, and Usama, 9, were the sons of a schoolteacher named Hussein Hajj Ali, said Abu Al Hassan.

Video footage showed the schoolteacher, wild eyed, swaying and moaning as he was bought into a clinic, his arm bandaged. He was weeping for his son Mohammed as medics rushed a blanket-wrapped body past him.

As the medics treated him, he chanted a poem that speaks of the grief of losing a child.

“Death has chosen my middle child. For God’s sake how could he choose the best stone of the necklace,” Hajj Ali wept, quoting the lines of the poet Ibn Al Roumi, who lived in ninth century Baghdad.

At the time, the teacher did not know he had lost both sons — his middle son and his youngest — said Abu Al Hassan, who said he spoke later to medics.

The teacher had avoided politics, fearing the Syrian government would cut his meager salary if he expressed any support for the uprising against President Bashar Assad, the activist said.

Abu Al Hassan said he wasn’t aware of any fighting in the area, known as Haret Beit Faraj, which lies near an outdoor market. He said the nearest front was 25 kilometres in the area of Bureij.

Rights groups and local activists say Syrian military forces often indiscriminately strike rebel-held areas with projectiles that can’t be targeted properly, overwhelmingly killing civilians.

But usually such attacks happen when government forces are trying to clear out a rebel-held area.

Also Tuesday, the joint mission of the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed the destruction of the entire declared Syrian stockpile of a chemical called Isopropanol.

Under a destruction plan approved by the OPCW in November, Syria also was required to destroy its stocks — estimated at around 100 tonnes — of isopropanol, which can be used as an ingredient of sarin.

In a statement, the mission said 7.2 per cent of Syria’s chemical weapons material remains in country and awaits swift removal for onward destruction. “The Joint Mission urges the Syrian authorities to undertake this task as soon as possible,” it said.

Following a deadly chemical attack outside Damascus in August, the Syrian government averted US air strikes by agreeing to dismantle its chemical program. The UN-OPCW mission overseeing the removal of Assad’s chemical arsenal said last week that 92 per cent of Syria’s stockpile has been transported to Danish and Norwegian ships for destruction at sea. The entire stockpile is to be purged by the end of June.

In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted as telling news agency Interfax that Russia would veto any UN Security Council resolution aimed at sending material about Syrian war crimes to the International Criminal Court.

“The draft submitted to the UN security council is unacceptable and we will not support it. If it is put to a vote, we will veto it,” Gatilov said Tuesday. “We have said from the very beginning that we are against such an approach in the Security Council because we consider it to be counterproductive in the current situation.”

Gatilov’s comments came a day after nearly 60 countries urged the UN Security Council to refer the war in Syria to the International Criminal Court for investigation of possible crimes against humanity and war crimes.

TRIPOLI — Libya’s rival armed groups took position Tuesday for or against a renegade general’s campaign to rid the country of jihadists as Islamist leaders in parliament vowed not to cede power.

The Muslim Brotherhood, which forms the largest bloc in the 194-strong General National Congress (GNC) along with radical Islamists, rejected government calls for MPs to go into recess.

The GNC, Libya’s top political authority, has accused Khalifa Haftar, who led a deadly assault on Islamist militia in Benghazi last week, of attempting a coup.

But the former general has won widening support for his campaign, not only from militia groups but also from special forces of the regular army in Benghazi.

Islamist militia in both Benghazi and Tripoli vowed to resist any move against them by Haftar’s forces, whose militia allies stormed parliament at the weekend, forcing the venue for Tuesday’s meeting to move to a Tripoli hotel.

The Operations Cell of Libyan Revolutionaries — a powerful Islamist militia — pledged to defend the parliament by force if necessary.

In Benghazi, jihadist group Ansar Al Sharia, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Washington, vowed to resist any renewed assault by Haftar’s men on its positions in the eastern city.

The group charged that Haftar, who spent more than two decades in exile in the United States, was leading “a war against... Islam orchestrated by the United States and its Arab allies”.

Haftar’s forces pulled out of Benghazi after Friday’s clashes which killed at least 79 people.

But he said he will re-enter the city to cleanse it of “terrorists” and has won the support of special forces there who have suffered mounting losses to suspected jihadist attacks.

“A confrontation is now inevitable to defend our city and our land. We will act with force against anyone who enters the city or attacks it,” Ansar Al Sharia said.

The group, which denies accusations it was behind a September 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, was put on the US terror blacklist in January.

Showdown in parliament 

The GNC had been due to convene at 1100 GMT Tuesday to debate the budget and a motion of confidence in Prime Minister Ahmed Miitig’s government, lawmakers said.

But several hours later it had failed to reach the necessary quorum of 120 to meet, amid bickering by lawmakers.

A previous vote of confidence was marred by accusations of irregularities. The government has called on the GNC to repeat that vote, and then go into recess until a new legislature can be elected.

But Islamists who dominate parliament refuse to go into recess and the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, the Party for Justice and Construction, called on the premier to disown the plan.

Successive governments have complained that the GNC’s claim to executive power, as well as legislative authority, has tied their hands in bringing to heel the former rebel militias that have carved out fiefdoms since the NATO-backed uprising ousted and killed long-time dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

The interim parliament sparked widespread public outrage earlier this year when it extended its own mandate until December.

Both sides in the stand-off have heavily armed militia allies positioned around Tripoli, raising fears of a rapid degeneration into armed conflict.

Saudi Arabia followed Algeria in closing its embassy although Washington has said the US mission continues to operate normally.

There was also an exodus of foreign staff from Libya’s vital oil sector, with Algeria confirming it had repatriated some 50 employees of its state-run energy giant Sonatrach.

World oil prices rose on Tuesday on concerns about the impact on Libyan exports.

The US benchmark, West Texas Intermediate for delivery in June, climbed 15 cents to $102.76 a barrel.

“Further unrest in Libya is the main factor in the oil market at the moment,” David Lennox, resource analyst at Fat Prophets, told AFP.

CAIRO — Gunmen travelling in a car opened fire on Tuesday on a group of Egyptian policemen outside Cairo’s Al Azhar university, killing three and wounding nine others, the interior ministry said.

The attack comes just days ahead of a presidential election on May 26-27, which former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi is expected to win.

The number of attacks targeting policemen has risen since Sisi ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year.

The latest came as some students of Cairo’s Al Azhar university, a prestigious seat of Sunni Islamic teaching, were protesting in favour of Morsi, the ministry said in a statement.

The wounded included an officer, the ministry added.

The attack also came a day after two policemen, riding on a motorbike, were shot dead by gunmen in the central city of Minya.

In April, a court in Minya triggered an international outcry after sentencing to death around 700 Morsi supporters after a speedy mass trial, accusing them of murder and attempted murder of policemen in August last year in Minya.

In a separate attack, militants blew up a gas pipeline late Monday near Al Arish airport in northern Sinai, security officials said.

The targeted pipeline transports gas to an industrial area in central Sinai, they added.

Militants have regularly targeted pipelines in Sinai since the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, repeatedly forcing a halt in gas supplies to Israel and Jordan.

The army has poured troops into the mountainous and underdeveloped region of Sinai Peninsula to combat a growing militancy.

Officials say about 500 people, mostly members of security forces, have been killed in militant attacks across the country since the ouster of Morsi.

Militant groups Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) and a little-known Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt) have claimed several deadly attacks against security forces.

They say the attacks were in retaliation to a brutal police crackdown on supporters of Morsi.

Amnesty International says more than 1,400 people have been killed in the police crackdown since July when Morsi was ousted.

More than 15,000 have also been jailed, while hundreds have been sentenced to death after often speedy trial. Morsi himself is facing three trials.

Sisi, meanwhile, is expected to trounce his only rival, leftist leader Hamdeen Sabbahi, in the presidential election next week.

The retired field marshal is lauded by millions for overthrowing the divisive Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader.

Morsi was ousted after just one year in office after millions of Egyptians protested against his rule.

UNITED NATIONS — A top UN official called on Tuesday for an investigation into the deaths of two Palestinian teens fatally shot last week by Israeli forces in the West Bank.

The youths were shot dead as Israeli forces responded to demonstrations marking the 66th anniversary of the Nakbeh — or “catastrophe” — of Israel’s creation.

Assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, called for an “independent and transparent” probe into the circumstances surrounding the boys’ deaths.

“It is of serious concern that initial information appears to indicate that the two Palestinians killed were both unarmed and appeared to pose no direct threat,” said Fernandez-Taranco.

“The UN calls for an independent and transparent investigation by the Israeli authorities into the two deaths, and urges Israel to ensure that its security forces strictly adhere to the basic principles on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials,” he said at a briefing of the UN Security Council.

Israel has said the border police had tried to quell a violent demonstration by about 150 Palestinians.

But Palestinian leaders have said the slain boys were unarmed and posed no threat, accusing Israel of using “excessive and indiscriminate violence”.

The group Defence for Children InternationAl Palestine released what it said was closed circuit television footage showing the deaths of the two youths without provocation. Israel rejects the footage however, saying it had been doctored.

Amnesty International has also denounced the Israeli army’s “excessive” use of force in the incident.

DUBAI — Bahrain’s parliament on Tuesday sacked a Sunni MP who had criticised conditions at a detention centre where inmates are mostly Shiites held over roles in anti-regime protests.

Parliament Speaker Khalifa Al Dhahrani said 31 MPs out of the 40-member chamber voted to eject Osama Mehanna, in a statement published by BNA state news agency.

Dhahrani did not disclose the reason behind his removal.

But political sources pointed out that Mehanna had a fierce argument with fellow MPs on April 29 after he criticised the situation at Jaw Prison, in southeastern Bahrain.

Mehanna was elected in October 2011 in partial polls held to replace 18 MPs of the Shiite Al Wefaq opposition group who resigned in protest at violence used to quell a month of pro-reform protests.

Scores of Shiites were rounded up following the mid-March 2011 crackdown on protesters, and many have been put on trial and jailed.

The Sunni-ruled kingdom has been widely criticised by rights groups over its crackdown on the protests led by the Shiite majority, and for the alleged mistreatment of detainees.

Amnesty International on Monday voiced concerns over the “continuing detention of prisoners of conscience and the harsh sentences handed by Bahraini courts in connection with rioting, including against children”.

The watchdog said, however, that it “found encouraging government openness during discussions on human rights”, as an Amnesty delegation was allowed to visit the country for the first time since January 2013.

The delegates met “prisoners of conscience” at Jaw Prison and women held in the Issa Town Detention Centre for Women, it said in a statement.

TEHRAN — Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah will travel to Iran on May 31 amid a recent thaw in Tehran’s relations with Gulf states, the Iranian foreign ministry said Tuesday.

Relations between Iran and the Gulf states have been frosty for years, with disagreements over the unrest in Bahrain and the conflict in Syria, before Hassan Rouhani was elected president of the Islamic republic last June.

“The visit [of the emir], which is upon the invitation of President Hassan Rouhani, will open a new chapter in relations of both countries,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told reporters at a news briefing.

Afkham said “several agreements were expected to be signed”, without giving details.

In December last year, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif started a tour of Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar. But it ended without Zarif travelling to Iran’s main rival, Saudi Arabia.

Afkham said a visit to Saudi Arabia was on Zarif’s agenda.

“We have received the verbal invitation and measures are being taken to organise this trip,” she said.

“Iran and Saudi Arabia are two important countries in the region and their interaction is influential in the regional scope,” she added.

Last week, Riyadh’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal said he had invited his Iranian counterpart to visit the kingdom.

Tehran welcomed the plan and stressed the need to boost relations after years of strained ties.

The two countries have been at odds over Syria’s civil war and the fallout from unrest in Bahrain.

In the Syrian conflict, majority Shiite Muslim Iran has backed the government of President Bashar Assad while Sunni Saudi Arabia has been a leading supporter of rebel forces.

Rouhani said after his election win last June he wanted to reach out to Gulf Arab governments as part of efforts to end his country’s international isolation.