Inside Sudan’s Presidential Palace in Khartoum…Fresh Blood and Destruction

A Sudanese soldier on the bloodstained steps of the presidential palace in Khartoum, two days after the military recaptured it (The New York Times)
A Sudanese soldier on the bloodstained steps of the presidential palace in Khartoum, two days after the military recaptured it (The New York Times)
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Inside Sudan’s Presidential Palace in Khartoum…Fresh Blood and Destruction

A Sudanese soldier on the bloodstained steps of the presidential palace in Khartoum, two days after the military recaptured it (The New York Times)
A Sudanese soldier on the bloodstained steps of the presidential palace in Khartoum, two days after the military recaptured it (The New York Times)

At the battle-scarred presidential palace in the heart of Sudan’s shattered capital, soldiers gathered under a chandelier on Sunday afternoon, rifles and rocket launchers slung over their shoulders, listening to their orders.
Then they trooped out, down a red carpet that once welcomed foreign dignitaries, and into the deserted center of the city on a mission to flush out the last pockets of resistance from the paramilitary fighters with whom they have been clashing for two years.
Since Sudan’s military captured the presidential palace on Friday, in a fierce battle that left hundreds dead, it has taken control of most of central Khartoum, marking a momentous change of fortunes that is likely to change the course of Sudan’s ruinous civil war.
By Sunday, the military had seized the Central Bank, the headquarters of the national intelligence service and the towering Corinthia Hotel along the Nile.
Journalists from The New York Times were the first from a Western outlet to cross the Nile, into central Khartoum, or to visit the palace, since the war erupted in April 2023. “What we saw there made clear how decisively the events of recent days have shifted the direction of the war, but offered little hope that it will end soon,” they said.
Mohamed Ibrahim, a special forces officer, said “We will never leave our country to the mercenaries,” referring to the RSF — the paramilitary force.
As our vehicle raced down a deserted street along the Nile that until a few days ago had been controlled by the RSF, the scale of the damage in one of Africa’s biggest cities was starkly evident.
Trees lining the road had been stripped bare by explosions. A mosque was peppered with gunfire. Towering ministries and office blocks, some built with money from Sudan’s vast reserves of oil and gold, were burned to a shell.
The military headquarters, where a group of senior generals were trapped for the first 18 months of the war, had been shredded by bombs.
Khartoum University, once a hub of political debate, had been looted.
And an area where tens of thousands of young Sudanese mounted a popular uprising in 2019 that ousted the country’s leader, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, was deserted.
All that remained of those hopeful times was a handful of faded, bullet-pocked murals.
Instead, some of those pro-democracy protesters have picked up guns to fight in the war; they were assembled in the ruins of the presidential palace on Sunday.
The Chinese-built presidential palace, only a few years ago shared by the country’s warring military leaders, had been reduced to a battered husk. Dust and debris covered ministerial suites and state rooms. Ceilings had collapsed. Gaping holes looked out over the Nile.
On the grounds of an older palace next door, erected a century ago by British colonists, soldiers napped under the charred arches of a bombed-out building.
Piles of bloodstained rubble on the palace steps testified to the ferocity of the battle on Friday.
On the steps of the palace, a fresh bloodstain marked the spot where an RSF drone-fired missile had killed four employees from Sudanese state TV and two military officers on Friday morning.
As the military closed in, the RSF leader, Lt. Gen. Mohammed Hamdan, issued a video message imploring his troops to stand their ground. When the final assault began, at least 500 paramilitary fighters were still inside, several officers said.
But when they tried to flee, they ran into deadly ambushes. A video filmed half a mile from the palace, and verified by The Times, showed dozens of bodies scattered along a street, beside incinerated or bullet-pocked vehicles.
“This is the season for hunting mice,” declared the officer who took the video, dating it to Saturday.
RSF fighters stationed on Tuti Island, at the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile Rivers, tried to flee on boats, soldiers said. It was unclear how many escaped.
Without offering details, a Sudanese military spokesman said that “hundreds” of paramilitary fighters had been killed. But dozens of the military’s forces also died, soldiers said privately, in RSF drone attacks and in other fighting.
Alan Boswell, director of the Horn of Africa project at the International Crisis Group, said it was “just a matter of time” before Sudan’s military took the entire city, forcing the RSF to retreat to its stronghold in the western region of Darfur.
“Quite a fall from where they were for the first year and a half of the war, when they held most of Khartoum,” Boswell said.
Few believe the war is nearing an end, though. Both the RSF and the Sudanese military are backed by powerful foreign powers that have poured weapons into Sudan over the past two years. Sudan’s deputy leader, Malik Agar, recently estimated that there are now 36 million small arms in the country, which had a prewar population of 48 million.

 



Israel Will Keep Gaza Buffer Zone, Minister Says, as Ceasefire Efforts Stall 

15 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Smoke billows after an Israeli air strike seen from Jabalia camp. (dpa) 
15 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Smoke billows after an Israeli air strike seen from Jabalia camp. (dpa) 
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Israel Will Keep Gaza Buffer Zone, Minister Says, as Ceasefire Efforts Stall 

15 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Smoke billows after an Israeli air strike seen from Jabalia camp. (dpa) 
15 April 2025, Palestinian Territories, Gaza: Smoke billows after an Israeli air strike seen from Jabalia camp. (dpa) 

Israeli troops will remain in the buffer zones they have created in Gaza even after any settlement to end the war, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday, as efforts to revive a ceasefire agreement faltered. 

Since resuming their operation last month, Israeli forces have carved out a broad "security zone" extending deep into Gaza and squeezing more than 2 million Palestinians into ever smaller areas in the south and along the coastline. 

"Unlike in the past, the Israeli army is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized," Katz said in a statement following a meeting with military commanders, adding that "tens of percent" of Gaza had been added to the zone. 

"The army will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and the communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza - as in Lebanon and Syria." 

In southern Gaza alone, Israeli forces have seized about 20% of the enclave's territory, taking control of the border city of Rafah and pushing inland up to the so-called "Morag corridor" that runs from the eastern edge of Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea between Rafah and the city of Khan Younis. 

It already held a wide corridor across the central Netzarim area and has extended a buffer zone all around the border hundreds of meters inland, including the Shejaia area just to the east of Gaza City in the north. 

Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Hamas fighters, including many senior commanders of the Palestinian group, but the operation has alarmed the United Nations and European countries. 

More than 400,000 Palestinians have been displaced since hostilities resumed on March 18 after two months of relative calm, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Israeli air strikes and bombardments have killed at least 1,630 people. 

Medical charity MSF said Gaza had become a "mass grave" with humanitarian groups struggling to provide aid. "We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza," Amande Bazerolle, MSF's emergency coordinator in Gaza said in a statement. 

Katz said Israel, which has blocked the delivery of aid supplies into the territory, was creating infrastructure to allow distribution through civilian companies at a later date. But he said the blockade on aid would remain in place. 

He said Israel would push forward with a plan to allow Gazans who wished to leave the enclave to do so, although it remains unclear which countries would be willing to accept large numbers of Palestinians. 

RED LINES 

The comments from Katz, repeating Israel's demand on Hamas to disarm, underscore how far away the two sides remain from any ceasefire agreement, despite efforts by Egyptian mediators to revive efforts to reach a deal. 

Hamas has repeatedly described calls to disarm as a red line it will not cross and has said Israeli troops must withdraw from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire. 

"Any truce lacking real guarantees for halting the war, achieving full withdrawal, lifting the blockade, and beginning reconstruction will be a political trap," Hamas said in a statement on Wednesday. 

Two Israeli officials said this week that there had been no progress in the talks despite media reports of a possible truce to allow the exchange of some of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners. 

Israeli officials have said the increased military pressure will force Hamas to release the hostages but the government has faced large demonstrations by Israeli protesters demanding a deal to stop the fighting and get them back. 

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in response to the October 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. 

The offensive has killed at least 51,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, and devastated the coastal enclave, forcing most of the population to move multiple times and reducing broad areas to rubble. 

On Wednesday, Palestinian medical authorities said an airstrike killed 10 people, including Fatema Hassouna, a well-known writer and photographer who had documented the war. A strike on another house further north killed three, they said. 

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said Israel's suspension of the entry of fuel, medical, and food supplies since early March had begun to obstruct the work of the few remaining working hospitals, with medical supplies drying up. 

"Hundreds of patients and wounded individuals are deprived of essential medications, and their suffering is worsening due to the closure of border crossings," the ministry said.