Tunisian Man Dead After Self-immolating in Protest Against Police

Tunisian police - File Photo/AFP
Tunisian police - File Photo/AFP
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Tunisian Man Dead After Self-immolating in Protest Against Police

Tunisian police - File Photo/AFP
Tunisian police - File Photo/AFP

A young Tunisian man died after self-immolating in an act of protest against the police in the central region of Kairouan, his family said Friday.

Yassine Selmi, a 22-year-old construction worker, died in a hospital in Tunis, two days after setting himself on fire in front of a police station, his father Mansour Selmi told AFP.

He was attempting to "resolve a fight between two people and police officers near a police station" when the officers threatened to arrest him in Bou Hajla, a small town in Kairouan, said his father.

The young man later came back to the police station with a gasoline container and "set himself on fire in protest" over the police's threats, the father added.

He said he would seek justice for his son's death.

Tunisia has seen large numbers of people set themselves alight since the death of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation in late 2010 sparked the Arab Spring and led to the ousting of former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Many of the cases have been concentrated in non-coastal areas that are the hardest hit by Tunisia's economic crisis.

The North African country's debt currently hovers around 80 percent of its GDP, with a yearly inflation averaging up to 10 percent and an unemployment rate of 40 percent among its youth.

The latest incident came just days after another street vendor in the coastal city of Sfax set herself on fire after a dispute with the police.

Local media said the woman, who was originally from Kairouan, was taken to a hospital with severe burns.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.