Region

TUNIS — Hundreds of Tunisians demonstrated on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the country's 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings, and to demand the release of jailed opposition leaders.

They marched down the central thoroughfare of the capital Tunis waving the national flag, commemorating the day when president Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali was ousted, which set off a series of uprisings across the Middle East.

"The spirit of January 14 is still here," said Moncef Araissia, a retiree who was among the several hundred protesters that AFP journalists estimated turned out for the demonstration.

"Our vision is still the same, despite some mistakes we made, and despite the coup that took place," he added, referring to President Kais Saied's sweeping power grab.

Saied was democratically elected in 2019, but two years later he sacked the government and suspended parliament. He later amended the constitution to further centralise power.

A number of his opponents are currently behind bars as the North African country prepares for presidential elections in December this year.

Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, leader of the National Salvation Front (FSN) opposition coalition, said the polls should not be conducted under conditions set by Saied.

"Candidates are in jail or have been threatened to prevent them from running, the election authority is under [Saied's] control... journalists are harassed and prosecuted," he added.

"This is not free competition."

Early last year, authorities arrested a number of Saied's political opponents and others opposed to the government, and they were later jailed over an alleged plot against the state.

Among them were Rached Ghannouchi, the 82-year-old leader of the opposition Ennahdha Party, and Jawhar Ben Mbarek, co-founder of the FSN.

Ghannouchi received a one-year prison sentence on terrorism-related charges in May.

At least 16 Tunisian journalists currently face trial, according to local media.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli troops on Sunday killed four militants who crossed in from Lebanon at a disputed border area, the army said as tensions surge on the 100th day of the Israeli war on Gaza.

Since Israel's war on the Gaza Strip erupted on October 7, the Israel-Lebanon border has seen near-daily exchanges of fire between Iran-backed Hizbollah militants and Israeli forces.

The Israeli forces said that troops patrolling a contested border area "identified a terrorist cell who crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory and fired at the forces".

"The soldiers engaged and responded with live fire, four terrorists were killed," the army said in a statement.

Tensions along the border spiked after the killing earlier this month of Hamas's deputy leader Saleh Al Aruri in a Beirut suburb, in a strike widely attributed to Israel.

Violence on the border since October 7 has killed 190 people, including more than 140 Hizbollah fighters and over 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.

In Israel's north, at least nine soldiers and four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel and Hizbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.

CAIRO — China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on Sunday for the establishment of a Palestinian state and a ceasefire in Gaza, where 100 days of the Hamas-Israel war have killed thousands.

In a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo, the top Chinese diplomat said "It is necessary to insist on the establishment of an independent, fully sovereign state of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital."

A joint statement from the two ministers urged an immediate end "to all acts of violence, killing and targeting of civilians and civilian establishments".

Shoukry and Wang called for "an international summit for peace to find a just, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause by ending the [Israeli] occupation and establishing an independent, contiguous Palestinian state".

The Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, seat of the Palestinian Authority, are separated by Israeli territory. Both were seized by Israel in the June War of 1967.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has previously called for an "international peace conference" to resolve the fighting.

China has historically been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and supportive of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Wang is currently on an African tour that will see him also visit Togo, Tunisia and Ivory Coast.

UNITED NATIONS, United States — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on all sides "not to escalate" the volatile situation in the Red Sea, his spokesman said on Friday after Washington and London launched strikes on Yemen's Huthi rebels.

The barrage of strikes early on Friday against the Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Gaza, follow weeks of disruptive rebel attacks on Red Sea shipping and have stoked fears of the Hamas-Israel war spreading regionwide.

"The secretary-general further calls on all parties involved not to escalate even more the situation in the interest of peace and stability in the Red Sea and the wider region," said Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

Later, Khaled Khiari, assistant secretary-general for the Middle East, told the UN Security Council "we are witnessing the cycle of violence that risks grave political security, economic and humanitarian repercussions in Yemen and the region".

"These developments in the Red Sea and the risk of exacerbating regional tensions are alarming," he said.

Russia's ambassador to the UN called the joint US-UK strikes on Yemen's Houthis "blatant armed aggression against another country".

"These states all carried out a mass strike on Yemeni territory. I'm not talking about an attack on some group within the country but an attack on the people of the country on the whole. Aircraft were used, warships and submarines," Vasily Nebenzya said of the US and British action, supported by allied countries.

But Washington's ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned that no countries' vessels were immune to the threat posed by Houthi rebels to shipping in the Red Sea.

“Whether your ship flies an American flag, or the flag of another nation... all of our ships are vulnerable,” she said.

“Without Iranian support, in violation of their obligations... the Houthis would struggle to effectively track and strike commercial vessels, navigating shipping lanes through the Red Sea.”

Britain’s ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward said London “took limited, necessary and proportionate action in self defence.”

“This operation took particular care to minimise risks to civilians,” she said.

AL JAZIRA STATE, Sudan — Sudan's army-aligned government on Saturday spurned an invitation to an east African summit and rebuked the United Nations for engaging with the commander of rival paramilitary forces.

Nine months after war broke out between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the army has been losing territory while paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo has been touring African capitals in a boost to his diplomatic standing.

Rejecting the invitation from east African bloc IGAD to a summit in Uganda on January 18 that is also to be attended by Daglo, Sudan's transitional sovereign council, headed by army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, insisted: "The events in Sudan are an internal matter."

The bloc has repeatedly attempted to mediate between Sudan's warring generals, but its efforts have been cold-shouldered by Burhan's government.

In contrast, Daglo, fresh from a tour of six African capitals, said on X, formerly Twitter, that he had accepted the invitation from IGAD and would be attending the summit in Uganda.

Analysts say the army chief is growing more and more isolated diplomatically, as his troops fail to halt RSF advances.

Burhan has reacted angrily to Daglo's growing diplomatic status, accusing African leaders who hosted him on his recent tour of complicity in atrocities against Sudanese civilians.

The war has killed more than 13,000 people, according to a conservative estimate by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project. Some 7.5 million civilians have fled the fighting, according to UN figures.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes, including the indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, torture and arbitrary detention of civilians.

The RSF has also specifically been accused of ethnically-motivated mass killings and rampant looting.

In the eastern city of Port Sudan, which is now home to Burhan’s government, acting Foreign Minister Ali Al Sadiq told newly arrived UN envoy Ramtane Lamamra that Sudan “rejects” a recent contact between UN chief Antonio Guterres and Daglo, according to a statement carried by official news agency SUNA.

Sadiq said he informed Lamamra that the UN chief’s phone call on Thursday served to “legitimise” Daglo, “the leader of a movement that has committed horrific violations that have been condemned by some UN institutions as well as the majority of the international community”.

Lamamra was named Guterres’s envoy for Sudan, after the termination of the UN mission to the country last month at the request of Burhan’s government.

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories — Surrounded by family and friends, clapping and cheering, Gaza woman Afnan Jibril beams a brilliant smile on her wedding day, determined to celebrate even as war rages.

“We are a people that love life, despite death, murders and destruction,” said her father, Mohamed Jibril.

Relatives were gathered on Friday for the wartime wedding in a tiny room at an abandoned school building in the besieged Gaza Strip’s southern city of Rafah, near the frontier with Egypt.

The city has suffered daily Israeli bombardment, and the families of both bride and groom are among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have fled the fighting further north.

“The usual preparations for marriage are not possible, and traditional ceremonies are not feasible,” said the bride’s father. “However, clothes are available, although they are scarce and expensive.”

Afnan, 17, donning a crown of flowers and pristine white dress with stark red embroidery, and her partner Mustafa Shamlakh, 26, want to make the most of their rare chance to celebrate.

They dance and laugh as guests spray white mousse around the room.

But eventually they have to face reality.

Israel’s relentless military campaign, triggered by attacks by Palestinian militants, has killed at least 23,843 people, mostly women and children, in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The newlyweds make up part of another grim tally — those displaced by the violence, which UN estimates put at 1.9 million Palestinians out of a total population in Gaza of 2.4 million.

“The house where the groom was supposed to live was destroyed,” Ayman Shamlakh, the groom’s uncle, told AFP.

As the war went on, both families felt there was nothing to be gained from waiting and they agreed to the marriage.

After the school celebration, the couple head for a ceremony set to take place in a tent.

As they dive into a waiting black SUV, surrounded by a massive crowd of well-wishers, it almost looks like any other wedding day.

“We are all living through the same tragedy,” said Ayman Shamlakh. “However, we must continue to live, and life should go on.”