Region

NABLUS — Israel on Wednesday detained three alleged members of the Lions' Den group in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces said, including the brother of a key Palestinian fighter.

The arrest of Muhammad Al Nabulsi and two others in Nablus comes a day after five Palestinians were killed during an Israeli military operation in the city.

"Muhammad Al Nabulsi was suspected of possessing weapons, manufacturing explosive devices and involvement in the 'Lions' Den' terrorist group," the Israeli forces said in a statement.

His brother Ibrahim Al Nabulsi, nicknamed "The Lion of Nablus", was shot dead by Israeli forces in August and has since become a folk hero among Palestinian youth.

The Lions' Den has emerged in recent months alongside a sharp rise in raids by Israeli forces in the northern West Bank.

The three arrests on Wednesday follow the killing on Tuesday of Wadih Al Houh, described by Israel as the head of the Lions' Den, and four other Palestinians in Nablus.

A further 20 Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli operation, the Palestinian health ministry said.

In addition to regular raids, the Israeli forces have imposed additional checkpoints around Nablus over the past two weeks which have severely impeded daily life.

The closures follow the killing of an Israeli soldier in the area on October 11, three days after a military policewoman was shot dead in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

So far this month 25 Palestinians have been killed in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territories occupied by Israel since the 1967 June War.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden was to host Israel’s President Isaac Herzog at the White House on Wednesday for a meeting expected to focus on Mideast tensions and Ukraine shortly before US and Israeli elections.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the meeting in the Oval Office will “underscore the enduring partnership and friendship between the United States and Israel”.

The visit comes amid tension over the future of Iran’s nuclear activities, with the Biden administration trying to salvage a deal that would reinstate international control over the civilian programme in exchange for sanctions relief. Israel opposes the push.

In addition to tensions over Iran and the grinding violence between Israel and the Palestinians, the two leaders are expected to discuss a recent diplomatic success in the US-brokered deal to establish an agreed sea boundary between Israel and Lebanon, Jean-Pierre said.

Ukraine, where the United States is leading an international effort to help the pro-Western country fight back against Russia’s invasion, could also feature.

Israel has been reluctant to get involved. However, on Tuesday Herzog met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and announced he was sharing intelligence to prove that Iran has been supplying military drones to Russian forces in Ukraine.

“Iranian weapons play a key role in destabilising our world, and the international community must learn its lessons, now and in the future,” Herzog said.

Blinken, meanwhile, weighed in on violence in the occupied West Bank, where major Israeli raids on Tuesday targeting a militant group killed six Palestinians, bringing thousands of mourners into the streets.

The top US diplomat said he would speak to Herzog about “the real concern that we have about violence that we’re seeing on the West Bank”.

Herzog’s visit comes days ahead of Israel’s fifth election in less than four years in which hawkish ex-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had tense relations with Democratic US administrations, is seeking a comeback.

It also comes less than two weeks before Americans vote in the midterm elections that are predicted to strip Biden’s Democrats of their control of Congress.

KHARTOUM — Sudan on Monday named a new military commander for troubled Blue Nile state, where recent bitter ethnic clashes over land have left at least 200 people dead and sparked angry demonstrations.

The new chief comes a day after eyewitnesses reported that crowds of thousands protested in front of army headquarters in the state capital Damazin, accusing the government of failing to protect them, with the local university suspending work.

Army spokesman Nabil Abdallah, announcing Monday a new commander for the southern Blue Nile state, said the military had ordered a committee to "evaluate the security situation".

Blue Nile, which borders South Sudan and Ethiopia, is awash with guns and is still struggling to rebuild after decades of civil war, with over 300 people killed in recent months.

Sudan has been grappling with deepening political unrest and a spiralling economic crisis since last year's military coup led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan.

A surge in ethnic violence in recent months has highlighted the security breakdown since the coup.

On Sunday, thousands of protesters demanded the resignation of state governor Ahmed Al Omda Badi, with eyewitnesses reporting the crowd "tried to enter the army headquarters" before "setting fire to the state government building."

Badi declared a state of emergency on Friday to quell some of the worst fighting in recent months.

On Monday, Blue Nile University in Damazin announced “the suspension of classes and exams” due to “the unfortunate events”.

At least two hundred people were killed in two days of fighting last week, official media said on Saturday, after clashes broke out over reported land disputes between members of the Hausa people and rival groups.

The violence follows clashes earlier this year between the same groups in Blue Nile, leaving at least 149 people killed and 65,000 displaced from July to early October, according to the United Nations.

The Hausa have mobilised across Sudan, claiming they were discriminated from owning land in Blue Nile because they were the last group to arrive there.

Access to land is highly sensitive in the impoverished country, where agriculture and livestock account for 43 per cent of employment and 30 per cent of GDP, according to UN and World Bank statistics.

Nearly 600 people have been killed and at least 211,000 forced to flee their homes in inter-communal conflicts across the country since January, according to the UN.

NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — A Palestinian was killed on Sunday in an explosion in the occupied West Bank, police said, with Israel staying silent on allegations from fighters that it was behind his assassination.

Tamer Al Kilani was killed overnight in the Old City of Nablus in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

A Palestinian police inspector told AFP that Kilani was killed in an explosion in Nablus, where the Lions’ Den group has emerged in recent months.

The group described Kilani as one of its “fiercest fighters” and blamed Israel for his death overnight.

“The treacherous occupation [Israel] put a sticky TNT device as the way to assassinate” Kilani, the group wrote on Telegram.

Palestinians gathered on Sunday around the charred remains of a motorbike that was allegedly laden with explosives.

At Nablus’s Rafidia Hospital, Kilani’s mother and sister stood over his body.

The Israeli forces refused to confirm its involvement in the killing when contacted by AFP.

An army spokeswoman said Kilani was involved in attacks targeting Israelis and had previously been jailed by Israel.

The Fateh movement described the killing as a “cowardly assassination” in a statement published by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Dozens of Palestinian have been killed this year amid an uptick in Israeli military raids, most targeting the northern West Bank.

The army spokeswoman said Israeli forces “will continue to operate at all times and in all places from which terror attacks against Israelis emanate”.

Nineteen Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed so far this month, according to an AFP toll.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel’s supreme court on Sunday paved the way for the signing of a maritime border deal with Lebanon, after it rejected appeals that the pact requires parliamentary approval.

The signing is expected later this week.

Israel and Lebanon, who are technically at war, agreed to terms earlier this month on a US-brokered deal to demarcate their disputed maritime border, a step likely to unlock production at Mediterranean gas fields.

Four right-wing Israeli groups mounted legal challenges against the deal, claiming that centrist Prime Minister Yair Lapid was giving away “sovereign” Israeli territory, which requires parliamentary approval.

Israel holds elections on November 1, and the petitions additionally argued that agreements to cede territory should not be concluded during an election period.

Opponents of the deal also sought to force the government to hold a referendum on the terms.

But a three-judge panel at Israel’s top court threw out all arguments against the deal in a decision on Sunday, with the full arguments to be released later.

The ruling means Lapid’s Cabinet, which has also endorsed the terms of the agreement, can give final, binding approval.

Israeli and Lebanese reports say the signing will happen this week, with officials from the two countries inking the deal in separate locations.

It will go into force as soon as the United States sends notice confirming it has received from Lebanon and Israel their separate approvals.

The two nations will then deposit maritime border coordinates with the United Nations.

Under the deal, Israel has full rights over the Karish gas field, which is expected to start gas production within weeks.

Lebanon will have full rights to operate and explore the so-called Qana or Sidon reservoir, parts of which fall in Israel’s territorial waters, with Israel receiving some revenues.

Right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who could return as premier following Israel’s vote, has warned he will not be bound by the terms of a deal with Lebanon.

PARIS — Shopkeepers and factory workers went on strike in Iran on Saturday as women-led nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini entered a sixth week, activists said.

The death of 22-year-old Amini, after her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran's strict dress code for women, has fuelled the biggest protests seen in the Islamic republic for years.

Young women have led the charge, removing their headscarves, chanting anti-government slogans and confronting the security forces, despite a crackdown that human rights groups say has killed at least 122 people.

Activists issued a call for fresh demonstrations as the Iranian working week got underway on Saturday, but it was difficult to gauge the turnout due to curbs on internet access.

"On Saturday... We will be together for freedom," activist Atena Daemi said in a Twitter post that bore an image of a bare-headed woman raising her fist.

The 1500tasvir social media channel told AFP there were "strikes in a couple of cities including Sanandaj, Bukan and Saqez", while adding it was difficult to see evidence of them online as "the internet connection is too slow".

Saqez, in the western province of Kurdistan, is Amini's home town, where anger flared at her burial last month, helping trigger the protest movement.

Elsewhere, “students protested in Yazd Faculty of Arts and Architecture, University of Tehran, Allameh University, Razi University in Kermanshah, Hamedan, Ahvaz and Yasuj universities,” 1500tasvir said.

‘Operatives, oligarchs, lobbyists’ 

Dozens of workers were seen gathering outside the Aidin chocolate factory in the north-western city of Tabriz in footage shared by 1500tasvir. AFP was unable to immediately verify the videos.

Iran accused its arch enemy the United States of seeking to use the protests to gain concessions in talks aimed at restoring the 2015 nuclear agreement.

“The Americans continue to exchange messages with us, but they are trying to fan the flames of what has been going on inside Iran in recent days,” said Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

The organisers of a massive rally held in Berlin in solidarity with the Iranian protesters called on “democratic governments... to STOP negotiating with the criminal state called the Islamic republic”.

In a statement, the Iranians for Justice and Human Rights group also called for the expulsion of the Islamic republic’s ambassadors.

“We are not asking you to interfere in Iran, wage war or sanction Iran’s people,” it said.

“We want you to impose targeted sanctions on the leaders, operatives, oligarchs and lobbyists of the Islamic republic.”

The Berlin rally, which drew thousands of people, is one of a number of demonstrations being held around the world, including in Australia and Japan.

A teachers’ union in Iran has called for a nationwide strike on Sunday and Monday over the crackdown that Amnesty International says has cost the lives of at least 23 children.

The Co-ordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates said the “sit-in” would be in response to “systematic oppression” by the security forces at schools.

‘Detaining, 

maiming, killing’ 

Activists have also accused the authorities of a campaign of mass arrests and travel bans to quell the protests, with athletes, celebrities and journalists caught up in the dragnet.

Overnight an Iranian climber, who was reportedly placed under house arrest for competing abroad last weekend without a headscarf, thanked her supporters on Instagram.

Elnaz Rekabi, 33, wore only a headband in an event at the Asian Championships in Seoul, in what many saw as gesture of solidarity with the Amini protests.

“I sincerely thank all those who came to the airport for welcoming me, I love you,” Rekabi said in her first social media comments since returning to Iran on Wednesday to a hero’s welcome.

The BBC and London-based Iran International television said on Friday that Rekabi had been placed under house arrest. Her phone had reportedly been seized from her before she flew home.

On Friday, a New York-based human rights group called on the International Federation of Sport Climbing to do more to protect her.

IFSC “should engage with rights organisations to protect pro climber #ElnazRekabi and all Iranian athletes”, the Centre for Human Rights in Iran tweeted.

“Don’t take the government in Iran’s word at face value — it has a documented history of detaining, maiming and killing those who oppose it,” the CHRI added.