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JENIN, Palestinian Territories — Four Palestinians were killed on Monday in confrontations with Israeli forces at Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

Deadly confrontations  have been frequent in Jenin and the flashpoint West Bank town of Beita since May, when dozens of Israeli families arrived and began constructing the wildcat settlement of Eviatar.

The latest lives lost were four Palestinians killed by "Israeli gunfire", according to the Palestinian health ministry.

It identified them as Raed Abu Seif, 21, and Saleh Ammar, 19, as well as Amjad Husseiniyah and Nureddin Jarrar.

The bodies of Abu Seif and Ammar were seen at the Jenin hospital morgue, while the Palestinian health ministry said Israeli forces had also taken the bodies of two other Palestinians.

The Israeli side confirmed it was holding the bodies of two Palestinians.

Late morning, a crowd was gathered for the funerals of Abu Seif and Ammar, whose remains were draped in Palestinian flags and carried through the Jenin camp on makeshift stretchers, AFP journalists reported.

'Heinous crime' 

The Palestinian presidency condemned a "heinous crime" and held Israel "responsible for the escalation and its repercussions".

"The continuation of the Israeli policy will lead to an explosion of the situation, increased tensions and instability," presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina warned in a statement.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said two of the Palestinians killed had been living in Jenin refugee camp, a hot spot during the two Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, against Israel in 1987-1993 and 2000-2005.

The two others, Abu Seif and Jarrar, were originally from the city of Jenin.

In recent weeks there have been numerous clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in Jenin and Beita.

The inhabitants of Beita have held a number of demonstrations in recent weeks against the Israeli occupation and the settlement expansion, triggering violent confrontations.

The clashes with the Israeli security forces have claimed the lives of several Palestinians and left hundreds more injured.

Beita residents have been demonstrating since May against the Eviatar settlement set up nearby without official permission from Israeli authorities.

The settlement was evacuated in early July but Israeli army troops remain stationed there while authorities deliberate on its fate.

If the settlement is approved, its founders will be allowed to take up residence there more permanently.

Beita's residents have vowed to continue their campaign until the army also leaves the outpost.

Meanwhile, militants in the Gaza Strip fired a rocket into Israel on Monday, the army said, the first since a fragile ceasefire in May ended deadly fighting between Israel and Hamas.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The rocket was fired after the four Palestinians were killed earlier Monday at Jenin refugee camp.

An army spokeswoman confirmed to AFP that it was the first rocket fire since a ceasefire on May 21 ended 11 days of Israeli aggression against Gaza.

Israeli strikes killed 260 Palestinians in Gaza, including fighters.

Since then, Israel has launched several strikes on Gaza in response to incendiary balloons sent across the border, which sometimes started fires in Israel.

Israel has enforced a blockade on the Gaza Strip for nearly 15 years.

Last week it eased some trade restrictions on Gaza, including allowing 1,350 vaccinated merchants and businesspeople into Israel for the first time since the pandemic began more than a year ago.

BEIRUT — Lebanon reeled Monday from a deadly explosion that burned alive people desperate to fill plastic containers with fuel in a country sinking ever deeper into darkness and chaos.

At least 28 people were killed when the fuel tank, which was swarmed by residents clamouring to fill their vehicles amid crippling shortages, blew up early on Sunday in the northern region of Akkar.

The latest tragedy to befall Lebanon comes as the country grapples with an economic crisis described by the World Bank as one of the world's worst since the 1850s.

Nearly 80 people were also injured in the blast, many of them with burns that further overwhelmed hospitals struggling to function without electricity, medics said.

On Monday, foreign countries and UN agencies were scrambling emergency aid to help exhausted health workers cope with the new influx of serious injuries and run DNA tests on the charred remains of the dead.

A health ministry official told AFP that authorities were still sorting through bagfuls of remains to determine a final death count.

Shortages of key commodities have accelerated in recent days, leaving much of Lebanon struggling to source fuel, gas and even bread, with buying power pummelled by the currency losing more than 90 per cent of its value on the black market.

The country's 6 million inhabitants now fear the internet and drinking water will be next to disappear.

The blast in Akkar, one of the most impoverished parts of the country, was a deadly direct consequence of a vicious cycle fast turning Lebanon, once a regional beacon of modernity, into a failed state.

The scenes of horror piled trauma on a country still coming to terms with last year’s cataclysmic Beirut Port explosion that killed more than 200 people and disfigured the city.

‘Need to leave’ 

In Tripoli’s Al Salam hospital, which received the bulk of patients burned by the Akkar blast, 23-year-old Iqaz Saqr could not hold back tears.

Her husband and a brother, a 20-year-old livestock farmer named Abdul Rahman, were both caught in the explosion.

Abdul Rahman was left battling for his life.

“My brother was out of gasoline. He just needed a small amount so he could go and get boxes of feed for his sheep,” Iqaz told AFP.

“My husband too just wanted gasoline so he could ... provide for me and our daughter.”

Across the country, with no more than two hours a day of mains electricity supply, many shops and restaurants remain closed, unable to source fuel for their generators.

Many private and public sector employees have been told to stay home and most of the rest have often been doing the same for lack of transport options.

Stuck in an endless queue of cars at a Beirut petrol station, Mohammed, who did not want to give his full name, said he could see no light at the end of the tunnel.

“We need to leave Lebanon. We all need to get out,” said the 30-year-old engineer. “God help those who stay.”

The state has declared a national day of mourning over the Akkar blast, a move unlikely to offer much solace to a population that blamed those very authorities for the tragedy.

‘I’m scared’ 

Angry protesters on Sunday torched the home of the landowner on whose plot the tragedy unfolded, accusing him of involvement in a hoarding and smuggling scheme allegedly covered up by top officials.

Gas station owners have been accused of hoarding fuel ahead of an expected price hike, causing crippling shortages and spawning a ruthless black market that is enriching a small cartel and choking the rest of the country.

A few dozen people protested on Sunday in front of the Beirut home of Najib Mikati, who was recently appointed prime minister-designate.

The country’s richest man is the third person to attempt to form a government since the aftermath of the Beirut Port blast last August since when ministers have served only in a caretaker capacity.

After meeting President Michel Aoun on Monday, Mikati said efforts were still underway to form a new government.

The lack of a government is freezing international assistance that could help dig Lebanon out of the abyss.

As every aspect of daily life unravels, sometimes deadly scuffles have broken out at petrol stations and residents across the country fear for their safety.

“I feel like crying about everything,” said Farah, a 21-year living in the mountainous Chouf region.

“I’m scared we’ll get to the point where we can’t leave this country, even from the airport... We only have the sea left. I feel we’ll drown trying to get out,” she said.

ALGIERS — Most of the deadly forest fires that have hit northern Algeria in the past week are “under control” and no longer endanger residents, the country’s emergency services said.

Firefighters were still struggling on Sunday to put out 19 blazes, after over 90 people, including 33 soldiers, were killed in wildfires since August 9.

“Most of these fires have been brought under control and don’t represent a danger to residents,” said Col. Farouk Achour, a spokesman for the civil protection authority.

The authority’s efforts focus currently on the “protection of inhabited areas, notably El Tarf, Bejaia, Jijel and Tizi Ouzou, Achour said.

More than 74 fires had been extinguished in the past 24 hours, he added.

The government has blamed arsonists and a blistering heatwave for the dozens of blazes, but experts have also criticised authorities for failing to prepare for the annual phenomenon.

Algerian police said on Sunday they had arrested 36 people including three women after the lynching of a man suspected of having started one of the deadly fires.

“A preliminary enquiry... into the homicide, lynching, immolation and mutilation... of Djamel Ben Ismail... led to the arrest of 36 suspects including three women,” police chief Mohamed Chakour told reporters.

Ben Ismail, 38, had “turned himself in of his own accord” at a police station in the hard-hit Tizi Ouzou region after hearing he was suspected of involvement, he said.

Algeria is Africa’s biggest country by surface area, and although much of the interior is desert, the north has over 4 million hectares  of forest, which is hit every summer by fires.

Last year some 44,000 hectares went up in flames.

In neighbouring Morocco, firefighters worked through the night on Sunday and into Monday to bring fires under control amid unfavourable winds.

The fires have destroyed 200 hectares of forest, according to a forestry official, but no victims have been reported.

By Didier Lauras  and Adam Plowright
Agence France-Presse

PARIS — The Taliban will offer support to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan more discreetly than during their first period in power when they openly embraced the terror network, analysts say.

After conquering Kabul for the first time in 1996, the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime provided Al Qaeda with a safe haven to operate training camps, even describing its leader Osama Bin Laden as a “guest” of the country.

But after being overthrown in 2001 in retaliation for the September 11 attacks in the United States, which were planned from Afghanistan, the incoming Taliban authorities in Kabul are expected to take a new approach this time.

“If the Taliban of 2021 are different from those of 2001, it’s not because they have moderated their religious obscurantism, but because they don’t want to make the same strategic error, which was their blind support for Al Qaeda which cost them power,” said Jean-Pierre Filiu, a jihadism specialist at Sciences Po university in Paris.

Filiu told AFP that he expected the Taliban to again offer safety to bin Laden’s successor Ayman Al Zawahiri and others, citing personal links between the two organisations.

The fathers of Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Yaqoob, both senior leaders in the modern-day Taliban, had past links to Bin Laden, for instance.

When the Taliban’s leader Haibatullah Akhundzada was appointed in 2016 Zawahiri showered him with praise, calling him “the emir of the faithful”.

‘Under protection’ 

Under a US deal brokered with the Taliban last year under former president Donald Trump, the Taliban promised to prevent terrorist groups from using the country as a base.

Then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo claimed the group had “made the break” from Al Qaeda in an interview in March 2020.

But Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and analyst at the American Enterprise Institute think tank, said, “The Taliban were never sincere about cutting ties with Al Qaeda, nor should we have expected them to be”.

“After all, this isn’t a matter of two political or military groups cutting ties, but rather brother cutting ties with brother and cousin with cousin,” he told AFP.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, the head of a UN mission to monitor the Daesh terror group, Al Qaeda and Taliban, came to the same conclusion.

“We believe that the top leadership of Al Qaeda is still under Taliban protection,” he told US news network NBC in February this year.

Covert, not overt 

Aymenn Jawad Al Tamimi, a security expert and fellow at George Washington University, predicted that the links between the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be different this time round.

“It will be more covert. It won’t be such an open presence. I don’t think they will allow them to open training camps that could be detected from the outside and could face bombing attacks,” Tamini told AFP.

“The Taliban might try to do something similar to Iran’s policy, where they keep some AQ leaders under house arrest while giving them some leeway for example to communicate with affiliates.”

Iran denies any links to Al Qaeda or harbouring its operatives, although US media outlets reported in 2020 that the network’s number two had been assassinated in Tehran by Israeli agents.

Rubin said the lightning Taliban takeover was a major intelligence failure that could augur badly for the West’s ability to counter the new threat emanating from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

“Consider what the CIA missed: The Taliban had started political negotiations with local officials throughout the country in order to win their defections, and the CIA had missed the fact that the Taliban had deployed its forces throughout the country to preposition them for assaults on every provincial capital,” he said.

Another possible consequence of the Taliban takeover could be a battle against a local offshoot of the Daesh group which was formed in 2014 by defectors from the Taliban.

Filiu from Sciences Po university said the Taliban “would never pardon such a betrayal and will fight to the end to crush this terror group”.

“The Taliban will no doubt play up their repression of the Daesh to improve their image in the eyes of the West,” he added.

BEIRUT — A fuel tank blast in Lebanon early on Sunday killed 28 people and injured nearly 80, authorities and medics said, burning a crowd clamouring for petrol in the crisis-hit country.

The tragedy in the remote north overwhelmed medical facilities and heaped new misery on a nation already beset by an economic crisis and severe fuel shortages that have crippled hospitals and caused long power cuts.

It revived bitter memories of an enormous explosion at Beirut port last August that killed more than 200 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.

An adviser to the health ministry said the death toll from the blast in Al Tleil village in the Akkar region had climbed to 28. The Lebanese Red Cross said 79 others were injured.

The military said a fuel tank that “had been confiscated by the army to distribute to citizens” exploded just before 2:00am (23:00 GMT). Soldiers were among the victims.

The army began raiding petrol stations Saturday to curb hoarding by suppliers following a central bank decision to scrap fuel subsidies.

The official National News Agency (NNA) said the blast followed scuffles between “residents that gathered around the container to fill up gasoline” overnight.

Hospitals in Akkar, one of Lebanon’s poorest regions near the border with Syria, and in the northern port city of Tripoli said they had to turn away many injured because they were ill-equipped to treat severe burns.

“The corpses are so charred that we can’t identify them,” said Yassine Metlej, an employee at an Akkar hospital.

“Some have lost their faces, others their arms,” Metlej told AFP.

‘Victims of a careless state’ 

A security source told AFP DNA testing would start “soon” to identify victims.

Health Minister Hamad Hassan said he was in contact with countries including Turkey, Kuwait and Jordan to evacuate serious cases abroad.

Ismail Al Sheikh, 23, burned on his arms and legs, was driven by his sister Marwa to Beirut’s Geitawi hospital, some 80 kilometres away.

“We were informed that the army was distributing gasoline... so people flocked to fill it in plastic containers... straight from the tank,” Marwa told AFP.

Some said a lighter sparked the blast, she said; other witnesses claimed shots were fired.

The explosion was widely seen as a direct consequence of official negligence that had pushed the country deeper into free fall.

“The dead are victims of a careless state,” Marwa told AFP.

Sawsan Abdullah burst into tears at Geitawi Hospital when a doctor told her that her son, a soldier, was in a critical condition.

He had only been looking for petrol so he could go to his job in the army, she told AFP.

“He’s my only son!” Abdullah yelled, falling to the floor.

Lebanon, hit by a financial crisis the World Bank says is probably one of the planet’s worst since the 1850s, has been grappling with soaring poverty, a plummeting currency and dire fuel shortages.

The central bank this week said it could not afford to fund fuel subsidies because of dwindling foreign reserves, and accused importers of hoarding fuel to sell at higher prices on the black market or in Syria.

Fuel shortages have left many with just two hours of electricity a day.

The American University of Beirut Medical Centre, Lebanon’s top private hospital, said it would close by Monday morning if it did not secure diesel to power generators, risking hundreds of lives.

Search for missing 

President Michel Aoun ordered a probe into the blast and chaired an emergency meeting of the defence council, his office said.

The meeting agreed to provide hospitals with the diesel they desperately need to power generators, said a statement.

The council also called on the government to task security forces with monitoring the storage and distribution of fuel to prevent further incidents.

Angry Akkar residents raided and torched a vacant house believed to belong to the owner of the plot where Sunday’s explosion took place, the NNA reported.

The blast comes less than two weeks after Lebanon marked the first anniversary of the Beirut Port explosion.

Despite the economic crisis, political wrangling has delayed the formation of a new government after the last Cabinet resigned in the wake of that blast.

Vital international aid pledges remain contingent on a new government being formed to spearhead reforms, and on talks restarting with the International Monetary Fund.

Russia called for a “thorough investigation” into the blast and Jordan urged a “comprehensive plan” that would usher Lebanon into safety.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel is to authorise the entry of Palestinian traders and goods from Gaza for the first time in more than a year following an improvement in the security situation, officials said Friday.

"In light of the preservation of security stability" in the area, "1,000 merchants and 350 senior Gazan businesspeople" will be allowed into Israel from Sunday, said the Israeli military body responsible for civil affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories, COGAT.

Also, "exports from the Gaza Strip into Israel will recommence through the Kerem Shalom crossing, and imports from Israel into the Gaza Strip will be expanded — including components belonging to the transport and communications sector", COGAT said in statement.

"Equipment and goods will be allowed in for the Gaza Strip's humanitarian infrastructure, such as water and sewage," it said.

COGAT cautioned that the relaxation was "conditional on the continued preservation of the region's security".

Entry permits will be issued “only to those vaccinated against or recovered from COVID-19”, it said.

A COGAT spokeswoman told AFP this would be the first time Israel was allowing Gaza traders in since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic over a year ago.

In late July, Israel expanded the fishing zone off Gaza and resumed imports into the territory for international aid projects.

A fragile truce has largely held following 11 days of deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas in May, although sporadic incendiary balloon launches from Gaza have triggered Israeli retaliatory fire.

BEIRUT — Lebanon's army on Saturday raided gas stations and seized petrol to curb hoarding as the central bank chief stood firm on his decision to halt fuel subsidies.

Lebanon is gripped by one of the world's worst economic crises since the 1850's, according to the World Bank, and is struggling with fuel, bread and medicine shortages.

On Wednesday central bank chief Riad Salameh said he would halt state subsidies on fuel imports to ease pressure on the bank's dwindling foreign reserves, sparking panic across the country.

Saturday Salameh insisted he would not back down from his decision without a parliamentary vote, saying foreign reserves had fallen to $14 billion.

"I will not review the removal of subsidies on fuel unless the use of compulsory reserves is legalised" by a parliamentary vote, he told a local radio.

The Lebanese pound has lost more than 90 per cent of its value on the black market, and 78 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line.

Crippling shortages of fuel and power cuts lasting more than 22 hours per day have left many businesses and homes without the diesel needed to power private generators, plunging the country into darkness.

They have also caused giant queues at petrol stations that are rationing gasoline supply, allegedly because of low stock.

Fuel importers blame the crisis on a delay by the central bank in opening credit lines to fund imports.

Salameh denied those charges on Saturday, accusing importers and distributors of holding back fuel to sell it higher prices in the black market, or across the border in Syria.

“The importers are to blame,” Salameh said, accusing them of squandering $820 million the lender had fronted for three months of imports.

Army deploys 

To stem hoarding, the army on Saturday said it was raiding closed gas stations to seize gasoline and distribute it “free of charge” to the people.

It shared pictures and video footage on its social media pages showing soldiers working pumps at gas stations and filling up car tanks.

An AFP correspondent saw soldiers deployed at several gas stations north of Beirut, where hundreds of vehicles had been queueing for long hours to fill up on petrol.

Video footage posted online showed motorists cheering as the army raided gas stations.

But some Lebanese remained bitter.

“The army’s decision is too late,” said one motorist who had been waiting for hours in the simmering heat.

After the army’s deployment, many petrol stations across the country reopened after closing for several days.

The police also announced on Saturday they would dispatch patrols to gas stations believed to be hoarding fuel and confiscate it.

Political crisis 

The central bank’s funding of fuel and other basic commodity imports has contributed to foreign reserves falling by more than 50 per cent from their pre-crisis level of more than $30 billion.

Salameh blamed Lebanon’s ruling class for the crisis.

“Everybody was aware... they were aware in government, parliament and the president’s office” that reserves were critically low, Salameh said, accusing them of inaction.

Salameh has headed the central bank since 1993 and is suspected by many Lebanese of helping facilitate large transfers of money abroad by the political elite during mass protests that began in October 2019.

He is under judicial investigation in Lebanon, Switzerland and France over several cases, including the diversion of public funds and illicit enrichment.

At home, many blame him for capital controls in place since 2019 that have trapped dollar savings and denied even the poorest segment of the population free access to their deposits.

But Salameh has pinned the blame on politicians who have failed to agree on a new government more than one year since caretaker premier Hassan Diab resigned in the wake of a monster explosion at the Beirut port.

International donors who have pledged millions in humanitarian aid to Lebanon have conditioned assistance on the formation of a new government that can spearhead reforms and resume negotiations with the International Monetary Fund.

ALGIERS — Algeria was mourning at least 90 dead on Friday as firefighters, soldiers and volunteers battled to put out the last deadly forest fires in the North African country.

The government has blamed arsonists and a blistering heatwave for dozens of blazes that have raged across the country’s north since Monday, but experts have also criticised authorities for failing to prepare for the annual phenomenon.

Algiers has not released an overall death toll for Saturday but reports from local authorities indicated the fires had left 90 dead, up from the previous day’s official toll of 71.

They include 33 soldiers, some of whom were honoured by the defence ministry in a ceremony at a military hospital attended by army chief Said Chenegriha.

“These heroes sacrificed their souls for the nation and to save their fellow citizens from criminal fires across the country,” the ministry’s communications director, Gen. Boualem Madi, said in a speech.

The fire service said its teams were still fighting 29 fires across 13 provinces, mostly in coastal regions east of the capital Algiers, with aircraft carrying out hundreds of missions to drop water on the fires.

Almost 7,500 firefighters, backed by planes from France and Spain as well Russian helicopters operated by the army, have managed to put out over 40 blazes in 24 hours.

Specialist website Menadefense reported that the army was planning to buy up to eight Russian Beriev Be-200 firefighting planes, to begin arriving in Algeria on Saturday.

Weather experts have forecast temperatures of up to 48ºC in the coming days, in a country already sorely lacking water.

Algeria is Africa’s biggest country by surface area, and although much of the interior is desert, the country’s north has over 4 million hectares of forest, which is hit every summer by fires.

Last year some 44,000 hectares went up in flames.

The death toll from this year’s fires in Algeria — far higher than all other Mediterranean countries combined — has sparked growing criticism of successive governments’ failure to invest in fire prevention and control.