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Boueiz: Rift with Gaddafi, Saddam due to Provocative Message, Assassination Plot

Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)
Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)
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Boueiz: Rift with Gaddafi, Saddam due to Provocative Message, Assassination Plot

Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)
Colonel Gaddafi alongside Arab leaders, including President Hosni Mubarak, President Chadli Bendjedid and King Hassan II, during the inauguration of a reservoir for the waters of the Great Man-made River in Suluq, south of Benghazi in 1991. (Getty Images)

When President Elias Hrawi assumed office, Lebanon was facing severe challenges, with a fragmented state and crumbling institutions. Despite the circumstances, then Foreign Minister Fares Boueiz rejected the approach to deal with Lebanon as a weak country and a quasi-state.

He restored the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the glow it had when it was in the custody of a brilliant minister, Fouad Boutros, who is highly admired by Boueiz.

The minister rejected the language of dictations imposed Lebanon, and refused to devote the country as an arena for settling scores. What further strengthened his role was his direct relationship with President Hafez al-Assad.

I asked Boueiz about the diplomatic incident that led to the severing of relations with Libya.

He said: “One day, the Libyan ambassador comes to me to convey a message from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The letter was a green cardboard book inlaid with gold or gold ink and weighed about 10 or even 12 kilograms. He gave me the book as if it were a fateful international treaty, so I opened it and read a line that talks about “the conspiracy of the Jews and Christians against the Arab nation...” I read these words, closed the book and threw it into the arms of the ambassador, saying: Tell Colonel Gaddafi that this book is totally unacceptable. Tell him: We are the real Arabs. The Christians of Lebanon restored the Arab renaissance after 450 years of Turkification and the disappearance of this language. They preserved the Arabic language in their monasteries and through its printing presses and monks. Tell Colonel Gaddafi: These are the ones who created the Arab political thought...”

Boueiz added that he asked the ambassador for an immediate letter of apology, or consider himself “persona non grata”. He gave him and the Libyan embassy staff 48 hours to leave the country.

“Indeed, the delegation left Lebanon and I went to the Council of Ministers. The authority to expel an ambassador falls within the powers of the foreign minister; but the power to sever relations requires a cabinet decision. So I asked the Council of Ministers to cut the relations, and this is what happened,” the former minister recounted.

- Rules and principles

Boueiz said that his decision was not based on a sectarian stance, but rather an attempt to recall the rules and principles.

“Days passed, and whenever I would go to a conference abroad, the Lebanese ambassador would come to me to tell me that the Libyan ambassador had called him and that the Libyan foreign minister wanted to meet with me. My answer was always the same: I will not meet him unless he is provided with a letter of apology.”

The minister told Asharq Al-Awsat that he faced pressure in Lebanon over this issue.

“It’s the Lebanese commercial mind. Lebanon exports apples to Libya. I am from an area where apples are grown. But I used to answer that our national dignity is more important than apples...”

The rift lasted for at least two years, Boueiz said, until the Lebanese ambassador to Cairo told him that the Libyan foreign minister wanted to meet him and convey a letter of apology.

The ambassador informed Boueiz of the content of the letter, which he described as “acceptable”. Relations with Libya were consequently restored.

_ Al-Sadr Case

Boueiz said that during his tenure at the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, he did not receive any information on the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr, except for undocumented and unconfirmed reports.

He recounted: “The story that we have received, which is not confirmed, states that during the war, Colonel Gaddafi had asked Imam Musa al-Sadr that the Shiites in Lebanon engage in a war against the Christians... But Imam Musa al-Sadr used the money (which Libya provided for this purpose) for social and charitable reasons. He built schools and hospitals there... It seems that Palestinian and Lebanese parties complained to Gaddafi when he asked them: How did you not win over these Christians? Gaddafi summoned Imam al-Sadr and told him: What did you do with all this aid... Al-Sadr gave him a list of social and other institutions...Then, Abdullah Al-Senussi, the intelligence chief, entered and kidnapped Imam Al-Sadr, and it is said that they hid him somewhere in the desert. Later, they sent a delegation to Rome with a sheikh wearing a turban to prove that Sadr went to Italy after Libya.”

-Saddam Hussein and the assassination of Taleb al-Suhail

There is an expressive story that happened with Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Boueiz said: “There was a senior Iraqi tribal leader in Lebanon named Taleb Al-Suhail, who was an opponent of Saddam’s regime and resided in the Raouche area of Beirut. Three people came to his house... shot and killed him and then fled. The police chased them until they reached the Iraqi embassy, where they sought refuge, and the police could not enter it due to diplomatic immunity.”

The former minister told Asharq Al-Awsat that he immediately summoned the Iraqi ambassador, asking him to hand over the culprits, otherwise he would consider him “persona non grata”.

He said he was sure that the Iraqi diplomat would not hand them over, and that they were intelligence men coming from Baghdad.

“The next day, I received a call from Beirut Airport at eight in the morning. It was the Public Prosecutor of the Cassation Court, Judge Mounif Oweidat. He told me: Your Excellency, the entire staff of the Iraqi embassy has been arrested while trying to flee.”

Boueiz asked for the names of the arrested people to find out that three of them were not diplomats. He then requested the immediate release of the ambassador and all the diplomats, while the wanted persons were referred to the judiciary and sentenced with imprisonment. One of them died in jail from cancer, he noted.

- A letter of apology

Similar to what happened with Libya, at every conference Boueiz went to, he would be approached by his Iraqi counterpart, who would ask him for a meeting.

“I can only accept a letter of apology,” the Lebanese minister used to reply.

“I knew that Saddam would not apologize for the matter (the assassination of Al-Suhail). One day, our ambassador in Jordan called me to tell me that the Iraqi ambassador conveyed a letter from Saddam Hussein... Indeed, I found the content of the letter acceptable.”

Boueiz noted that Hussein did not use the apology word, but described what happened as a mistake and whoever did it “will bear responsibility.” He also denied any role for the Iraqi state in the crime. The bilateral relations were then mended.

-Yasser Arafat and the complex relationship with Hafez al-Assad

According to Boueiz, Arafat’s relationship with Syria was complicated. There was a kind of hatred towards the Palestinian leader.

“In Syria, if President Hafez al-Assad hates a person, it means that the entire regime hates him. They had some kind of picture of Arafat. They accuse him of being dishonest, and that he will not spare any opportunity for... an unacceptable political settlement.”

- Ding Xiaoping

I asked Minister Boueiz about his meeting with Deng Xiaoping, who laid the foundation for the Chinese renaissance.

He replied: “I was greatly touched by what he said to me during one of my visits to China in the early nineties. I was amazed at the way China emerged from Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism, and the growth of the Chinese economy.”

The former foreign minister quoted the Chinese leader as saying: “We realized that Marxism is an economic doctrine that is no longer viable, and that it has fallen. We saw that Leninism is a dictatorial political doctrine that has outlived its time. We also realized that Stalinism is a police security doctrine that is also outdated. But we cannot get out of the three doctrines without the country collapsing into chaos. We have seen before us the example of Russia; when Gorbachev abolished these three beliefs together, and Russia collapsed as a whole. So, we decided to gradually eradicate these beliefs, starting with Marxism, to make way for economic renaissance and people’s development, and the trend towards more freedoms and democracy will gradually follow.”

Boueiz said that he conveyed this opinion to Hafez al-Assad during one of the meetings, saying that Syria, too, may be in a situation similar to China, which means that if it begins with economic renaissance and freedom, it will gradually get out of these situations.

“I think that this matter greatly touched President Assad, although he was very far from giving priority to the economic issue, but it impacted him as an idea. This prompted him request my help for Syria to join the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreement, on the grounds that this partnership would open the door to economic development and help Syria grow and develop, and preventing it from descending into chaos,” the former Lebanese minister stated.

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Features

Fighting Closes in amid 'Constant Terror' in Key Darfur City

Sudanese refugees gather to fill cans with water from a water point in the Farchana refugee camp, on April 8, 2024. (Photo by Joris Bolomey / AFP)
Sudanese refugees gather to fill cans with water from a water point in the Farchana refugee camp, on April 8, 2024. (Photo by Joris Bolomey / AFP)
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Fighting Closes in amid 'Constant Terror' in Key Darfur City

Sudanese refugees gather to fill cans with water from a water point in the Farchana refugee camp, on April 8, 2024. (Photo by Joris Bolomey / AFP)
Sudanese refugees gather to fill cans with water from a water point in the Farchana refugee camp, on April 8, 2024. (Photo by Joris Bolomey / AFP)

Sudanese shop owner Ishaq Mohammed has been trapped in his home for a month, sheltering from violence in El-Fasher, the last major city in the country's vast Darfur region not under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

For more than a year, Sudan has suffered a war between the army, headed by the country's de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Experts have warned the northeast African country is at risk of breaking apart, Agence France Presse reported.

According to the United Nations, Sudan "is experiencing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions", with famine threatening and more than 8.7 million people uprooted -- more than anywhere else in the world.

Among the war's many horrors, Darfur has already seen some of the worst. Now, experts and residents are bracing for more.

"We're living in constant terror," Mohammed told AFP by telephone, as the UN, world leaders and aid groups voice fears of carnage in the North Darfur state capital of 1.5 million people.

"We can't move for the bombardments," Mohammed said.

The RSF has seized four out of five state capitals in Darfur, a region about the size of France and home to around one quarter of Sudan's 48 million people.

"We're under a total siege," another resident, Ahmed Adam, told AFP in a text message that got through despite a near-total communications blackout in Darfur.

"There's no way in or out of the city that's not controlled by the RSF," he said.

For months, El-Fasher was protected by a fragile peace.

But unrest has soared since last month when the city's two most powerful armed groups -- which had helped to keep the peace there -- pledged to fight alongside the army.

Since then, El-Fasher and the surrounding countryside have seen "systematic burning of entire villages in rural areas, escalating air bombardments... and a tightening siege", according to Toby Harward, the UN's deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan.

- 'Large-scale massacre' warning -

At least 23 communities in North Darfur have been burned in apparent arson, Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab found in a report last week.

The war's overall death toll, however, remains unclear, a factor "that captures just how invisible and horrific this war is", Tom Perriello, US special envoy for Sudan, told a congressional committee on May 1.

While figures of 15,000-30,000 have been mentioned, "some think it's at 150,000", Perriello said.

UN experts reported up to 15,000 people killed in the West Darfur capital El-Geneina alone.

Members of the non-Arab Massalit ethnic group in El-Geneina last year were targeted for killing and other abuses by the RSF and allied groups, forcing an exodus to neighboring Chad, which the UN says is hosting more than 745,000 people from Sudan.

The International Criminal Court, currently investigating ethnic-based killings primarily by the RSF in Darfur, says it has "grounds to believe" both sides are committing atrocities in the war.

As El-Fasher is home to both Arab and African communities, an all-out battle for control of the city causing massive civilian bloodshed "would lead to revenge attacks across the five Darfur states and beyond Darfur's borders", said Harward.

In late April, United States ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield warned that El-Fasher "is on the precipice of a large-scale massacre".

Eyewitnesses report fighting "is now inside" the nearby Abu Shouk camp, established 20 years ago for people displaced by ethnic violence committed by the Janjaweed militia, which led to ICC war crimes charges.

The Janjaweed later evolved into the RSF.

"Everyone who hasn't managed to leave is trapped at home," camp resident Issa Abdelrahman told AFP.

"People are running out of food, and no one can get to them."

- Eating grass -

According to UN experts, the RSF has repeatedly besieged and set fire to villages and displacement camps in Darfur.

Their siege of El-Fasher has halted aid convoys and commercial trade, Harward said.

Shortages have also hit the El-Fasher Southern Hospital -- the city's only remaining medical facility, where personnel are "completely exhausted", a medical source told AFP.

Requesting anonymity for fear of both sides' well-documented targeting of medics, the source said "some doctors haven't left the hospital in over a month", tirelessly treating gunshot wounds, bombardment injuries and child malnutrition.

The Darfur region was already facing widespread hunger, but now "people are resorting to consuming grass and peanut shells", according to Michael Dunford, the World Food Programme's regional director for Eastern Africa.

Yet it is difficult for them to flee.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said encirclement of El-Fasher by armed groups and restrictions on movement along key roads "are limiting families from leaving".

Early this year the RSF declared victories across Sudan, but the army has since mounted defenses in key locations.

The RSF has for months threatened an attack on El-Fasher but has held off, in large part due to the locally brokered truce.

They also seem to have been deterred by "heightened international demands and warnings," according to Amjad Farid, a Sudanese political analyst and former aide to ex-civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok.

But these warnings are "falling on deaf ears", Harward says.

With the US having announced an imminent resumption of peace talks in Saudi Arabia, Farid said the RSF has focused anew on El-Fasher.

These are negotiations the RSF cannot enter from a position of weakness, Farid told AFP.

Features

Why the US is Stopping Some Bomb Shipments to Israel

A Palestinian woman walks down the stairs of a house hit in an Israeli strike, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 9, 2024. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
A Palestinian woman walks down the stairs of a house hit in an Israeli strike, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 9, 2024. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
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Why the US is Stopping Some Bomb Shipments to Israel

A Palestinian woman walks down the stairs of a house hit in an Israeli strike, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 9, 2024. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
A Palestinian woman walks down the stairs of a house hit in an Israeli strike, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 9, 2024. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

The United States has suspended a shipment of weapons to Israel, including heavy bombs the US ally used in its campaign against Hamas in Gaza which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians.

The suspension comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues a military assault on the Palestinian city of Rafah, over the objections of US President Joe Biden. Here's what we know so far:

WHAT BOMBS WERE BLOCKED?

Washington paused one shipment consisting of 1,800 2,000-pound (907-kg) bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, Reuters quoted US officials as saying.
Four sources said the shipments, which have been delayed for at least two weeks, involved Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which convert dumb bombs into precision-guided ones, as well as Small Diameter Bombs (SDB-1). The SDB-1 is a precision guided glide bomb that packs 250 pounds of explosive. They were part of an earlier approved shipment to Israel, not the recent $95 billion supplemental aid package the US Congress passed in April.

WHY IS THE US BLOCKING THESE BOMBS?

The US is reviewing "near term security assistance," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Senate hearing on Wednesday "in the context of unfolding events in Rafah."
"We've been very clear...from the very beginning that Israel shouldn't launch a major attack into Rafah without accounting for and protecting the civilians that are in that battlespace," Austin said.

More than one million Palestinian civilians have sought shelter in Rafah, many previously displaced from other parts of Gaza following Israel's orders to evacuate from there.

The US decision was taken due to concerns about the "end-use of the 2,000-pound bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza," said a US official speaking on condition of anonymity. The US had carefully reviewed the delivery of weapons that might be used in Rafah, the official said.

WHEN WAS THE DECISION MADE? WAS BIDEN INVOLVED?
The decision was made last week, US officials said. Biden was directly involved. Biden confirmed the pause personally in a CNN interview Wednesday.

"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers," he said when asked about 2,000-pound bombs sent to Israel.

WHAT KIND OF DAMAGE CAN 2,000-POUND BOMBS CAUSE?

Large bombs like 2,000-pound bombs have an impact over a wide area. According to the United Nations, "The pressure from the explosion can rupture lungs, burst sinus cavities and tear off limbs hundreds of meters from the blast site."

The International Commission for the Red Cross in reports the use of wide area explosives in a densely populated area "is very likely to have indiscriminate effects or violate the principle of proportionality."

WHAT WAS ISRAEL'S RESPONSE?

Israel denies targeting Palestinian civilians, saying its sole interest is to annihilate Hamas and that it takes all precautions to avoid unnecessary death.
After the news broke Tuesday in Washington, a senior Israeli official declined to confirm the report. "If we have to fight with our fingernails, then we'll do what we have to do," the source said. A military spokesperson said any disagreements were resolved in private.

WERE THESE BOMBS LEGAL FOR ISRAEL TO USE IN GAZA?
That is a matter of heated debate.
International humanitarian law does not explicitly ban aerial bombing in densely populated areas, however civilians cannot be targets and a specific military aim must be proportionate to possible civilian casualties or damage.

WHAT DOES THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT SAY?

The statute of the International Criminal Court, which is investigating the Israel-Gaza war, lists as a war crime intentionally launching an attack when it is known that civilian death or damage will be "clearly excessive" compared to any direct military advantage.

HAS THE US WITHHELD MILITARY AID FROM ISRAEL BEFORE?
Yes, in 1982. President Ronald Reagan imposed a six-year ban on cluster weapons sales to Israel after a Congressional investigation found that Israel had used them in populated areas during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Israel's use of US-made cluster bombs was reviewed under President George W. Bush, over concerns they were used during a 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Features

‘A Blessing’: Rains Refill Iraq’s Drought-Hit Reservoirs

A picture taken on May 5, 2024 shows the Darbandikhan Dam in northeastern Iraq. Iraq has suffered four consecutive years of drought, with irregular rainfall badly affecting water resources, forcing many farmers to abandon their land. (AFP)
A picture taken on May 5, 2024 shows the Darbandikhan Dam in northeastern Iraq. Iraq has suffered four consecutive years of drought, with irregular rainfall badly affecting water resources, forcing many farmers to abandon their land. (AFP)
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‘A Blessing’: Rains Refill Iraq’s Drought-Hit Reservoirs

A picture taken on May 5, 2024 shows the Darbandikhan Dam in northeastern Iraq. Iraq has suffered four consecutive years of drought, with irregular rainfall badly affecting water resources, forcing many farmers to abandon their land. (AFP)
A picture taken on May 5, 2024 shows the Darbandikhan Dam in northeastern Iraq. Iraq has suffered four consecutive years of drought, with irregular rainfall badly affecting water resources, forcing many farmers to abandon their land. (AFP)

The reservoir behind the massive Darbandikhan dam, tucked between the rolling mountains of northeastern Iraq, is almost full again after four successive years of drought and severe water shortages.

Iraqi officials say recent rainfall has refilled some of the water-scarce country's main reservoirs, taking levels to a record since 2019.

"The dam's storage capacity is three million cubic meters (106 million cubic feet). Today, with the available reserves, the dam is only missing 25 centimeters (10 inches) of water to be considered full," Saman Ismail, director of the Darbandikhan facility, told AFP on Sunday.

Built on the River Sirwan, the dam is located south of the city of Sulaimaniyah in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region.

"In the coming days, we will be able to say that it's full," said Ismail, with the water just a few meters below the road running along the edge of the basin.

The last time Darbandikhan was full was in 2019, and since then "we've only had years of drought and shortages," said Ismail.

He cited "climate change in the region" as a reason, "but also dam construction beyond Kurdistan's borders".

The central government in Baghdad says upstream dams built in neighboring Iran and Turkiye have heavily reduced water flow in Iraq's rivers, on top of rising temperatures and irregular rainfall.

This winter, however, bountiful rains have helped to ease shortages in Iraq, considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.

In Iraq, rich in oil but where infrastructure is often run-down, torrential rains have also flooded the streets of Kurdistan's regional capital Erbil.

Four hikers died last week in floods in Kurdistan, and in Diyala, a rural province in central Iraq, houses were destroyed.

- 'Positive effects' -

Ali Radi Thamer, director of the dam authority at Iraq's water resources ministry, said that most of the country's six biggest dams have experienced a rise in water levels.

At the Mosul dam, the largest reservoir with a capacity of about 11 billion cubic meters, "the storage level is very good, we have benefitted from the rains and the floods," said Thamer.

Last summer, he added, Iraq's "water reserves... reached a historic low".

"The reserves available today will have positive effects for all sectors", Thamer said, including agriculture and treatment plants that produce potable water, as well as watering southern Iraq's fabled marshes that have dried up in recent years.

He cautioned that while 2019 saw "a sharp increase in water reserves", it was followed by "four successive dry seasons".

Water has been a major issue in Iraq, a country of 43 million people that faces a serious environmental crisis from worsening climate change, with temperatures frequently hitting 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer.

"Sure, today we have rain and floods, water reserves that have relatively improved, but this does not mean the end of drought," Thamer said.

About five kilometers (three miles) south of Darbandikhan, terraces near a small riverside tourist establishment are submerged in water.

But owner Aland Salah prefers to see the glass half full.

"The water of the Sirwan river is a blessing," he told AFP.

"When the flow increases, the area grows in beauty.

"We have some damage, but we will keep working."

Features

Netanyahu Weighs Risks of Rafah Assault as Hostage Dilemma Divides Israelis

Families of Israeli soldiers who were killed in the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, demonstrate outside the US embassy branch in Tel Aviv calling for the war to continue and for the Israeli army to keep on fighting inside Rafah in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory on May 7, 2024. (AFP)
Families of Israeli soldiers who were killed in the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, demonstrate outside the US embassy branch in Tel Aviv calling for the war to continue and for the Israeli army to keep on fighting inside Rafah in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory on May 7, 2024. (AFP)
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Netanyahu Weighs Risks of Rafah Assault as Hostage Dilemma Divides Israelis

Families of Israeli soldiers who were killed in the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, demonstrate outside the US embassy branch in Tel Aviv calling for the war to continue and for the Israeli army to keep on fighting inside Rafah in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory on May 7, 2024. (AFP)
Families of Israeli soldiers who were killed in the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, demonstrate outside the US embassy branch in Tel Aviv calling for the war to continue and for the Israeli army to keep on fighting inside Rafah in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory on May 7, 2024. (AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces competing pressures at home and abroad when he weighs how far to push the operation to defeat Hamas in Rafah that complicates hopes of bringing Israeli hostages home.

Street demonstrations against the government by families and supporters of some of the more than 130 hostages still held in Gaza have become a constant fixture, with protestors demanding a ceasefire deal with Hamas to get them back.

Others are demanding the government and the Israeli Defense Forces press ahead with the Rafah operation against the remaining Hamas formations holding out around the city which began this week with air strikes and battles on the outskirts.

"We applaud the Israeli government and the IDF for going into Rafah," said Mirit Hoffman, a spokesperson for Mothers of IDF Soldiers, a group representing families of serving military personnel, which wants an uncompromising line to pressure Hamas into surrender.

"We think that this is how negotiations are done in the Middle East."

The opposing pressures mirror divisions in Netanyahu's cabinet between centrist ministers concerned at alienating Washington, Israel's most vital ally and supplier of arms, and religious nationalist hardliners determined to clear Hamas out of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas handed Netanyahu a dilemma this week when it declared it had accepted a ceasefire proposal brokered by Egypt for a halt to fighting in return for an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli officials rejected the offer, accusing Hamas of altering the terms of the deal. But it did not break off negotiations and shuttle diplomacy continues, with CIA chief Bill Burns in Israel on Wednesday to meet Netanyahu.

Internationally, protests have spread against Israel's campaign in Gaza, which has so far killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, and spread malnutrition and disease in the enclave.

Seven months into the war, surveys show opinion in Israel has become increasingly divided since Netanyahu first vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, took more than 250 hostage, and triggered the campaign in Gaza.

"I understand that it's necessary to defeat Hamas but I think that can wait, and the hostages cannot wait," said Elisheva Leibler, 52, from Jerusalem. "Every second they're there poses immediate danger to their lives."

For the moment, Netanyahu has kept the cabinet together, rejecting the latest Hamas proposal for a ceasefire but keeping the negotiations alive by dispatching mid-ranking officials to Cairo, where Egyptian mediators are overseeing the process.

But the risks he faces by holding out against a deal, as his hard-right partners wish, were highlighted on Tuesday when Washington paused a shipment of weapons to signal its opposition to the long-promised Rafah assault.

DIVIDED OPINION

Despite his image as a security hawk, Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister, has struggled with a widespread perception that he was to blame for the security failures that allowed Hamas to overwhelm Israel's defenses around Gaza.

That has fed a mood of distrust among many Israelis who otherwise support strong action against Hamas.

A survey published on Wednesday for Channel 13 suggested that 56% of Israelis thought Netanyahu's chief consideration was his own political survival against only 30% who thought it was freeing the hostages.

A survey by the Israel Democracy Institute found just over half the population believed a deal to rescue the hostages should be the top government priority, over the aim of destroying the remaining Hamas formations.

But a separate poll by the Jewish People's Policy Institute (JPPI) found 61% thought the military must operate in Rafah no matter what. The Channel 13 poll found 41% in favor of accepting the deal and 44% opposed.

"I don't trust Hamas at all," said 81-year-old David Taub, from Jerusalem. "The only solution is to conquer Rafah, and then maybe, we hope, we pray, the hostages will come back to us."

For the moment, Netanyahu depends on the two hardliners from the nationalist religious bloc, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, both of whom reject any suggestion of compromise.

Both have clashed repeatedly with Benny Gantz, the centrist former army general who joined the emergency wartime cabinet in the wake of Oct 7, and who is the leading contender to replace Netanyahu after new elections.

Gantz and his ally Gadi Eisenkot, another former army chief, are both sworn enemies of Hamas, but both have been alarmed at the deterioration in relations with the United States.

For the increasingly desperate hostage families, a mood of deepening exhaustion at the endless uncertainty has settled in, with hopes of a safe return overcoming any other consideration.

Niva Wenkert, mother of 22-year-old hostage Omer Wenkert, said she had no choice but to trust Israeli leaders but that not enough had been done.

"The hostages are still in Gaza, the military actions almost stopped and the feelings are very, very bad. I want Omer back."

Features

Pro-Palestinian Student Protests Spread Across Europe. Some Are Allowed. Some Are Stopped 

Students wave Palestinian flags as they march towards the Old School buildings to hand letters with their demands to the College Secretary during a protest in support of Palestinian people at Cambridge University, in Cambridge, eastern England on May 7, 2024. (AFP)
Students wave Palestinian flags as they march towards the Old School buildings to hand letters with their demands to the College Secretary during a protest in support of Palestinian people at Cambridge University, in Cambridge, eastern England on May 7, 2024. (AFP)
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Pro-Palestinian Student Protests Spread Across Europe. Some Are Allowed. Some Are Stopped 

Students wave Palestinian flags as they march towards the Old School buildings to hand letters with their demands to the College Secretary during a protest in support of Palestinian people at Cambridge University, in Cambridge, eastern England on May 7, 2024. (AFP)
Students wave Palestinian flags as they march towards the Old School buildings to hand letters with their demands to the College Secretary during a protest in support of Palestinian people at Cambridge University, in Cambridge, eastern England on May 7, 2024. (AFP)

Campus protests by pro-Palestinian activists spread across Europe on Tuesday as some called for a break in academic ties with Israel over the war in Gaza, while schools increasingly faced the question under debate in the US: Allow or intervene?

German police broke up a protest by several hundred pro-Palestinian activists who had occupied a courtyard at Berlin’s Free University. Protesters occupied a university building in Amsterdam hours after police detained 169 people at a different campus location. Two remained in custody on suspicion of committing public violence.

Elsewhere in Europe, some student camps have been allowed to stay in places like the lawns of Cambridge. In recent days, students have held protests or set up encampments in Finland, Denmark, Italy, Spain, France and Britain.

In Berlin, protesters put up about 20 tents and formed a human chain around them. Most covered their faces with medical masks and draped keffiyeh scarves around their heads, shouting slogans such as “Viva, viva Palestina.”

Organizers said the protests were made up of students from various Berlin universities and other individuals.

Police were seen carrying some people away and using pepper spray as scuffles erupted between officers and protesters. The school's administrators said in a statement they had called the police after protesters had rejected any kind of dialogue and some had attempted to occupy lecture halls.

“An occupation is not acceptable on the FU Berlin campus,” university president Guenter Ziegler said. “We are available for academic dialogue — but not in this way.”

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner hailed the school's decision to call police before things escalated.

In the eastern German city of Leipzig, about 50 pro-Palestinian protesters set up tents at Leipzig University and occupied a lecture hall, the dpa news agency reported. It said the main student association in the state of Saxony, where Leipzig is located, called on the university to break up the occupation over concerns about the safety of Jewish and Israeli students.

In the Netherlands, police broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam, beating some of the protesters and pulling down tents. Police said on the social media platform X that the action was “necessary to restore order” after protests turned violent.

Police used a mechanical digger to push aside barricades and officers with batons and shields moved in. Protesters had formed barricades from wooden pallets and bicycles, national broadcaster NOS reported.

A crowd that swelled to some 3,000 demonstrators, including students and staff, some wearing keffiyeh scarves, gathered near the location of the dismantled camp, chanting slogans including, “Palestine will be free!” and “Cops off campus!”

Jamil Fiorino-Habib, a lecturer at the university’s media studies department, told the gathering that “the only path forward is a total academic boycott of Israel.”

In a statement, the University of Amsterdam said: “We share the anger and bewilderment over the war, and we understand that there are protests over it. We stress that within the university, dialogue about it is the only answer."

In the early evening, a group of protesting students occupied a building on another campus of the school in the historic heart of Amsterdam, an AP video journalist at the scene said.

Students gather for a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (AP)

In Austria, protesters camped out in about 20 tents in the main courtyard of the University of Vienna for a second day. As police watched, protesters cordoned off the encampment, which is near a memorial for Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust.

The University of Vienna and the main Austrian Union of Students distanced themselves from the protest. The union said “antisemitic groups were among the protest's organizers,” which the protesters denied.

Pro-Palestine protest camps have sprung up at about a dozen universities in Britain, including at Oxford and Cambridge, urging the institutions to fully disclose investments, cut academic ties with Israel and divest from businesses linked to the country.

“Oxbridge’s profits cannot continue to climb at the expense of Palestinian lives, and their reputations must no longer be built on the whitewashing of Israeli crimes,” said a joint statement from protesters at the two universities.

Over 200 Oxford academics signed an open letter supporting the protests.

In Finland, dozens of protesters from the Students for Palestine solidarity group set up camp outside the main building at the University of Helsinki, saying they would stay there until the university, Finland’s largest academic institution, cuts academic ties with Israeli universities.

In Denmark, students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Copenhagen. The university said students can protest but called on them to respect the rules on campus grounds.

In Italy, students at the University of Bologna, one of the world’s oldest universities, set up a tent encampment over the weekend to demand an end to the war in Gaza. Groups of students organized similar and largely peaceful protests in Rome and Naples.

In Spain, dozens of students have spent over a week at a pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Valencia campus. Similar camps were set up Monday at the University of Barcelona and the University of the Basque Country. A group representing students at Madrid’s public universities announced it would step up protests in the coming days.

In Paris, student groups called for gatherings in solidarity with Palestinians later Tuesday. Students at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, known as Sciences Po, were seen entering the campus to take exams as police stood at entrances.

Features

‘Unlike Anything We Have Studied’: Gaza’s Destruction in Numbers

Internally displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings, set up tents on the ruins of their homes after the Israeli army asked them to evacuate from the city of Rafah, in Khan Younis camp, southern Gaza Strip, 07 May 2024. (EPA)
Internally displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings, set up tents on the ruins of their homes after the Israeli army asked them to evacuate from the city of Rafah, in Khan Younis camp, southern Gaza Strip, 07 May 2024. (EPA)
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‘Unlike Anything We Have Studied’: Gaza’s Destruction in Numbers

Internally displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings, set up tents on the ruins of their homes after the Israeli army asked them to evacuate from the city of Rafah, in Khan Younis camp, southern Gaza Strip, 07 May 2024. (EPA)
Internally displaced Palestinians, carrying their belongings, set up tents on the ruins of their homes after the Israeli army asked them to evacuate from the city of Rafah, in Khan Younis camp, southern Gaza Strip, 07 May 2024. (EPA)

As well as killing more than 34,000 people and causing catastrophic levels of hunger and injury, the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas has also caused massive material destruction in Gaza.

"The rate of damage being registered is unlike anything we have studied before. It is much faster and more extensive than anything we have mapped," said Corey Scher, a PhD candidate at the City University of New York, who has been researching satellite imagery of Gaza.

As Israel launches an offensive on Rafah, the last population center in Gaza yet to be entered by its ground troops, AFP looks at the territory's shattered landscape seven months into the war sparked by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack.

Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, 07 May 2024. (EPA)

- Three-quarters of Gaza City destroyed -

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, where before the war 2.3 million people had been living on a 365-square-kilometer (140-square-mile) strip of land.

According to satellite analyses by Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek, an associate professor of geography at Oregon State University, 56.9 percent of Gaza buildings were damaged or destroyed as of April 21, making a total of 160,000.

"The fastest rates of destruction were in the first two to three months of the bombardment", Scher told AFP.

In Gaza City, home to some 600,000 people before the war, the situation is dire: almost three-quarters (74.3 percent) of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

- Five hospitals now rubble -

During the war, Gaza's hospitals have been repeatedly attacked by Israel, which accuses Hamas of using them for military purposes, a charge the group denies.

In the first six weeks of the war sparked by the Hamas attack, which killed more than 1,170 people according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, "60 percent of healthcare facilities... were indicated as damaged or destroyed", Scher said.

The territory's largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City, was targeted in two offensives by the Israeli army, the first in November, the second in March.

The World Health Organization said the second operation reduced the hospital to an "empty shell" strewn with human remains.

Five hospitals have been completely destroyed, according to figures compiled by AFP from the OpenStreetMap project, the Hamas health ministry and the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT). Fewer than one in three hospitals -- 28 percent -- are partially functioning, according to the UN.

- Over 70% of schools damaged -

The territory's largely UN-run schools, where many civilians have sought refuge from the fighting, have also paid a heavy price.

As of April 25, UNICEF counted 408 schools damaged, representing at least 72.5 percent of its count of 563 facilities.

Of those, 53 school buildings have been completely destroyed and 274 others have been damaged by direct fire.

The UN estimates that two-thirds of the schools will need total or major reconstruction to be functional again.

Regarding places of worship, combined data from UNOSAT and OpenStreetMap show 61.5 percent of mosques have been damaged or destroyed.

Israeli artillery fire at an undisclosed location near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, 07 May 2024. (EPA)

- More bombed-out than Dresden -

The level of destruction in northern Gaza has surpassed that of the German city of Dresden, which was firebombed by Allied forces in 1945 in one of the most controversial Allied acts of World War II.

According to a US military study from 1954, quoted by the Financial Times, the bombing campaign at the end of World War II damaged 59 percent of Dresden's buildings.

In late April, the head of the UN mine clearance program in the Palestinian territories, Mungo Birch, said there was more rubble to clear in Gaza than in Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia more than two years ago.

The UN estimated that as of the start of May, the post-war reconstruction of Gaza would cost between 30 billion and 40 billion dollars.

Features

War on Gaza Strains Relations between Iran, Syria

Rubble is removed from the site of the Iranian consulate in Damascus after it was destroyed by an Israeli strike in April. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Rubble is removed from the site of the Iranian consulate in Damascus after it was destroyed by an Israeli strike in April. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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War on Gaza Strains Relations between Iran, Syria

Rubble is removed from the site of the Iranian consulate in Damascus after it was destroyed by an Israeli strike in April. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Rubble is removed from the site of the Iranian consulate in Damascus after it was destroyed by an Israeli strike in April. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

It appears that the war on Gaza has impacted Iran’s military deployment in Syria. Local sources said Tehran has started to put in place plans for the relocation of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) headquarters from the Damascus countryside to regions close to the border with Lebanon after the killing of several of its prominent members in Israeli strikes in recent months.

Syria has notably taken “neutral” and even “cold” stances towards Iran in wake of these developments, amid Iranian suspicions that Syrian security agencies could have leaked information about its officers who were later targeted by Israel.

Iran also appears to be alarmed by Damascus’ openness to overtures to return to the Arab fold, which could be interpreted as distancing itself from Tehran.

Asharq Al-Awsat was in Syria where it witnessed how the deployment of gunmen at the Sayyeda Zainab region has become limited to Lebanese Hezbollah members when Iran’s presence used to be felt in the past. The area is a destination for Shiite visitors from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Local sources in the town of Hujeirah north of Sayyeda Zainab told Asharq Al-Awsat: “This is the headquarters of Iranian religious and military leaders. Ever since Israel intensified its strikes on the region, we have started to see very little of them. We have hardly seen them as of late. They have disappeared.”

Israel struck in April the Iranian consulate in Damascus, leaving seven people dead, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. The development was a blow to Iran who after a decade of conflict in Syria, had sent tens of thousands of Iraqi, Afghan and Pakistani militia members to back the Damascus regime.

Fears and evacuation plans

A source close to a high-ranking Iranian “adviser” in Syria spoke of the deep fear over his life the latter is experiencing in wake of the repeated Israeli strikes. He quoted the adviser as saying that he was being forced to “sleep in the open over fears for his life”.

Sources from pro-Iran militias in the Damascus countryside said Tehran has come up with plans to evacuate IRGC members from Syria given “the mounting Israeli pressure.” They are expected to leave through Damascus International Airport and across the border with Iraq.

The IRGC had already evacuated its known headquarters in the Damascus countryside and relocated to areas to close to the Lebanese border, said local sources that observed their movement.

Israel had intensified its strikes against Iranian targets in Syria since the eruption of the war on Gaza on October 7.

Sayyeda Zainab

Sayyed Zainab is viewed as the main headquarters of the Iranian forces in Syria. Now, it has become devoid of Iranians or militias loyal to them. The forces quit the area in wake of an Israeli strike that killed Reza Mousavi, a top commander, in December.

Asharq Al-Awsat toured the area and noted that gunmen deployed in the area are limited to Hezbollah members.

In spite of the situation on the ground, Iranian Ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari stressed that his country will not withdraw militarily from the country.

Commenting to Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper on reports that the Iranian advisers were leaving, he said: “We are present in Syria, and we will never withdraw from it.”

Iran was Syria’s top backer from the early days of the Syrian conflict that broke out in 2011. It has supported it on the political, military and economic levels. Around 3,000 IRGC members are deployed in the country, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Influence

Hezbollah is the most powerful Shiite militia in Syria and it comes only second to the IRGC in terms of influence, a source close to the party told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The party is focusing on managing communication with regular Syrians, it added. The party leaders are “very keen on avoiding provoking Syria’s Sunni majority.” They have forged good relations with society figures in areas where they are deployed, such as al-Qusayr in Homs and al-Qalamoun in the western Damascus countryside.

In many instances, they have protected locals against the practices of the Syrian security forces, said the source.

For the Syrian authorities, the discipline of Hezbollah members and leaderships is seen in a positive light, contrasted with the Iraqi militias that are undisciplined, said another source.

On relations between Damascus and Hezbollah, a source close to the Syrian authorities told Asharq Al-Awsat that Hezbollah leaderships “always intervene to ease tensions that may arise with Iranian or Iraqi militias.”

“We enjoy a long history of cooperation with them. They understand our way of thinking,” he added.

Moreover, he said Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has long used his personal influence with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to “resolve several disputes”. He recently played a role in easing tensions between Syria and Iran, leading him to defend during a recent televised address Syria’s decision to not become involved in the war on Gaza.

Syria distances itself

Contrary to Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, the authorities in Syria chose to remain on the sidelines in the war. For example, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has seen little unrest.

Sources in Damascus said: “The Iranians fail to understand Syria’s neutral position on Gaza and its refusal to open the Golan front.”

The Iranians believe their country “has paid dearly in defending the Syrian regime, which in turn, is luring dialogue offers from the West that are seen as a reward for its decision to distance itself” from the war. “This is something the Iranians will not accept,” they added.

They explained: “Some Syrian officials believe that any Iranian regional gain will inevitably come at Damascus’ expense as evidenced by how terrified the regime was at the beginning of the war on Gaza of Iran and the United States possibly striking a deal.”

As tensions between Damascus and Tehran continue, Iranian advisers in Syria have said they no longer hold the same respect among the people.

“We have no value here in Syria. No one cares about us. Back home, I was in charge of an entire province and the people were grateful to me. Here, no one even respects us,” a source quoted an Iranian general in Syria as saying.

Jaramana: The Iraqi ‘capital’

The situation is viewed differently by the leaders of various Iraqi militias. They believe they know the Syrians better than the Iranians and Lebanese militants.

“Hezbollah officials believe we must cater to the Syrian officials. The Iranians share the same view, but our experience has shown that the Syrians may openly adopt a hard line, while in fact they are actually much weaker than they appear,” a source quoted a medium-ranked Iraqi militia member as saying.

Damascus officials have criticized Iraqis for their excessive involvement with the Syrians, most notably in Jaramana city in the eastern Damascus countryside. The city has become known as the Iraqi “capital” given the heavy presence of the militias there.

The source said the fighters spend their time at the nightclubs in the city, “which poses high security risks.” He also spoke of doubts harbored by the Iranians that the militias may have leaked information about the Iranians and Hezbollah in Syria.

Hezbollah has been informed of several leaks that can be traced back to its own members.

Relations turn cold

Syrian security agencies have also been suspected of leaking sensitive information about the Iranians to Israel that led to the killings of Iranian officials, “who died in defense of the Syrian regime.”

President Assad has also referred to retirement several security and military officials who were in charge when Iran was deepening its influence during the war and so understand all it has offered the country, further straining relations between Tehran and Damascus.

Sources following the course of Syrian-Iranian relations told Asharq Al-Awsat that the developments took place as Iran is secretly alarmed by the Arab openness towards Damascus and the regime turning towards the Arab fold.

The shift is seen as a response by Damascus to agreements reached between Iran and the US that did not sit well with the regime. One such deal was the 2022 agreement reached between Lebanon and Israel over their joint maritime border, said the sources.

The tensions continue. Iran has been exerting more pressure on the Damascus government to pay debts owed to it, in a bid by Tehran to impose more restrictions and extract more commitments from it so as to limit is ability to maneuver in the region.

In August 2023, a classified Iranian government document was leaked to the media. It spoke of how Tehran spent 50 billion dollars on the war in Syria in ten years. The sum is viewed as a debt it wants Damascus to pay in the form of Iranian investments in phosphates, oil and other resources in Syria.

The Syrians at the time approached the Iranians for a denial of the document, but they refused, saying they do not comment on media claims. This was interpreted as an Iranian move to lead Syria and Arab countries to believe that Damascus was shackled by Iranian debts, informed sourced told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The sources following the Syrian-Iranian ties quoted a Syrian official as saying: “We went along with the Iranians, but we realized that they have not fulfilled several of their commitments. We are now trying to get out of this situation. This is our chance and we must explore it for the sake of the future of our country.”

Gaza rift

The war on Gaza has revealed a rift between Tehran and Damascus. The informed sources said Damascus sensed there was a possibility to normalize relations with the West because it refused to become involved in the war.

Signs have emerged that Syrian-Iranian relations have grown cold. No Iranian officials were invited to the Quds Day commemoration that was held south of Damascus in April. Posters of the Iranian president, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah’s Nasrallah were noticeably absent at the event in contrast to previous years.

Meanwhile, a fuel shortage in Syria appears to have deepened, another sign of strains with Iran, which is the country’s main supplier.

And on the advent of the holy fasting month of Ramadan earlier this year, Assad exchanged cables of congratulations with several Arab leaders. His exchange with Iranian officials was notably not covered by the media. Congratulations on the Eid al-Fitr holiday with Iran were also left out of the coverage.

Features

Guns and Sheep: Settlers Use Shepherding Outposts to Seize West Bank Land

Israeli settlers 'have effectively blocked access to vast stretches of land around Deir Jarir', says Palestinian resident. (AFP)
Israeli settlers 'have effectively blocked access to vast stretches of land around Deir Jarir', says Palestinian resident. (AFP)
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Guns and Sheep: Settlers Use Shepherding Outposts to Seize West Bank Land

Israeli settlers 'have effectively blocked access to vast stretches of land around Deir Jarir', says Palestinian resident. (AFP)
Israeli settlers 'have effectively blocked access to vast stretches of land around Deir Jarir', says Palestinian resident. (AFP)

Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank say armed Jewish settlers are increasingly seizing their lands by bringing livestock to so-called shepherding outposts and refusing to leave.
One settler arrived recently near sunset on a hilltop near the village of Deir Jarir, wearing a black shirt and a green headscarf, like many Palestinian farmers, they said.
"The settlers imitate us in every way," said Abdullah Abu Rahme, a member of a Palestinian anti-settler group, who said the hardliners also employ violence and "throw stones at us and block roads".
One local man, Haidar Abu Makho, 50, looked sadly across to a hill where settlers' sheep were now grazing, in the rural area near Ramallah.
The land, where settlers' bungalows and cars could be seen ringed by a wire fence, he said, "rightfully belongs to my grandfather and father and is meant to be passed down through the generations".
But now, he said, "this shepherd, who is a settler... has obstructed my access to my land".
Israel has occupied the West Bank, home to three million Palestinians, since 1967. Around 490,000 Israeli settlers live there in communities considered illegal under international law.
Violence has often flared, but the bloodshed has intensified since the October 7 attack by Gaza's rulers Hamas sparked the devastating war in the Palestinian coastal territory.
- 'Aggressive' confiscations -
Human rights groups have blamed the hardline religious-nationalist settler movement for an upsurge in attacks and land grabs since the start of the Gaza war.
Among the most radical are the so-called "hilltop youth", often teenage school dropouts who dream of settling all of the biblical land of Israel, and who sometimes also clash with Israeli security forces.
Israeli analyst Elhanan Miller said the hilltop shepherds are "far-right extremists who settle Palestinian land illegally", mostly in the southern West Bank and Jordan Valley.
Miller told AFP that many of them are "marginalized" youths who left school early and use shepherding of sheep and goats as a cover to seize land and natural resources.
Rights groups say settlers in shepherding outposts carry guns and have used attack dogs to threaten and attack Palestinians, sometimes killing their livestock and destroying their property.
The groups have been especially active around Deir Jarir, a village of about 5,000 people, said the local man, Abu Makho.
"The settlers have effectively blocked access to vast stretches of land around Deir Jarir, preventing both agricultural use and grazing for the people across tens of kilometers," he said.
"By situating a shepherd with a flock of sheep atop a hill, a substantial portion of land is seized... denying Palestinians access to it."
He said settlers had "aggressively confiscated" local houses and tractors as well as horses and donkeys, all "symbols of the Palestinian traditional farming life".
- 'Defenceless' -
Israeli rights group B'Tselem said in a report in March that attacks had surged, including incidents where settlers in vehicles were "speeding erratically directly into Palestinian flocks and herds".
B'Tselem also charged that settler groups have enjoyed backing by Israeli security forces.
"Through cooperation and collaboration among the military, police, settlers... Israel has reduced grazing areas available to Palestinians, blocked regular water supply and took measures to isolate the Jordan Valley from the rest of the West Bank," it said.
The Israeli army did not respond to an AFP request for comment on the Deir Jarir case.
Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now said that so far this year, as world attention has focussed on Gaza, Israel has seized more than 1,000 hectares of West Bank land.
In March, Israeli authorities declared as state land 800 hectares next to a farmer's home near the Jordan Valley village of Jiftlik, a move that often leads to restrictions on Palestinians' access.
In areas near Deir Jarir, other residents also said they had been impacted, at great cost to their livelihoods.
Suleiman Khouriyeh, the mayor of the nearby village of Taybeh, population 1,800, said the "entire eastern region has been encroached upon by numerous hilltop shepherds".
"We are unable to access the olive groves that we rightfully own" during harvest season, he said, adding that the community's losses amounted to thousands of dollars.
Khouriyeh said that locals don't have "the power or strength to confront the heavily armed" settlers.
"We are defenseless against them and their weapons."

Features

Send Us Patriots: Ukraine’s Battered Energy Plants Seek Air Defenses against Russian Attacks

A handout picture made available by the Odesa Regional State Administration Oleh Kiper Telegram channel shows the storage site of the "Nova Poshta" postal service following a missile strike in Odesa, Ukraine, 29 April 2024. (EPA/Odesa Regional State Administration handout)
A handout picture made available by the Odesa Regional State Administration Oleh Kiper Telegram channel shows the storage site of the "Nova Poshta" postal service following a missile strike in Odesa, Ukraine, 29 April 2024. (EPA/Odesa Regional State Administration handout)
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Send Us Patriots: Ukraine’s Battered Energy Plants Seek Air Defenses against Russian Attacks

A handout picture made available by the Odesa Regional State Administration Oleh Kiper Telegram channel shows the storage site of the "Nova Poshta" postal service following a missile strike in Odesa, Ukraine, 29 April 2024. (EPA/Odesa Regional State Administration handout)
A handout picture made available by the Odesa Regional State Administration Oleh Kiper Telegram channel shows the storage site of the "Nova Poshta" postal service following a missile strike in Odesa, Ukraine, 29 April 2024. (EPA/Odesa Regional State Administration handout)

At a Ukrainian power plant repeatedly hit by Russian aerial attacks, equipment department chief Oleh has a one-word answer when asked what Ukraine’s battered energy industry needs most: “Patriot.”

Ukrainian energy workers are struggling to repair the damage from intensifying airstrikes aimed at pulverizing Ukraine’s energy grid, hobbling the economy and sapping the public’s morale. Staff worry they will lose the race to prepare for winter unless allies come up with air-defense systems like the US-made Patriots to stop Russian attacks inflicting more destruction on already damaged plants.

“Rockets hit fast. Fixing takes long,” Oleh said in limited but forceful English.

The US has sent Ukraine some Patriot missile systems, and said last week it would give more after entreaties from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The Associated Press on Thursday visited a plant owned by DTEK, the country’s biggest private energy supplier, days after a cruise-missile attack left parts of it a mess of smashed glass, shattered bricks and twisted metal. The coal-fired plant is one of four DTEK power stations struck on the same day last week.

The AP was given access on the condition that the location of the facility, technical details of the damage and workers’ full names are not published due to security concerns.

During the visit, State Emergency Service workers in hard hats and harnesses clambered atop the twisted roof of a vast building, assessing the damage and occasionally dislodging chunks of debris with a thunderous clang.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Foreign Policy magazine that half of the country’s energy system has been damaged by Russian attacks.

DTEK says it has lost 80% of its electricity-generating capacity in almost 180 aerial attacks since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It estimates that repairing all the damaged plants would take between six months and two years — even if there are no more strikes.

Shift supervisor Ruslan was on duty in the operations room when the air alarm sounded. He sent his crew to a basement shelter but remained at his post when the blast struck only meters (yards) away.

He rushed out to darkness, dust and fire. He said he wasn’t scared because “I knew what I needed to do” – make sure his team was OK and then try to help put out the flames.

Russia pummeled Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to devastating effect during the “blackout winter” of 2022-23. In March it launched a new wave of attacks, one of which completely destroyed the Trypilska power plant near Kyiv, one of the country’s biggest.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Oleh said the Russians are “learning all the time” and adapting their tactics. Initially they targeted transformers that distribute power; now they aim for the power-generating equipment itself, with increasing accuracy. The Russians also are sending growing numbers of missiles and exploding drones to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses, and striking the same targets repeatedly.

DTEK executive director Dmytro Sakharuk said in March that out of 10 units the company had repaired after earlier strikes, two-thirds had been hit again.

More Russian missiles have been getting through in recent months as Ukraine awaited new supplies from allies, including a $61 billion package from the US that was held up for months by wrangling in Congress. It was finally approved in April, but it could be weeks or months before all the new weapons and ammunition arrives.

Ukraine’s energy firms have all but exhausted their finances, equipment and spare parts fixing the damage Russia has already wrought. The country’s power plants urgently need specialist equipment that Ukraine can no longer make at sufficient speed and scale.

Some 51 DTEK employees have been wounded in attacks since 2022, and three have been killed. Staff say they keep working despite the danger because they know how crucial their work is.

Machine operator Dmytro, who was on shift during the recent attack and took shelter in the basement, said that when he emerged, “my soul was bleeding when I saw the scale of the destruction.”

He thought of the many people who had poured heart and soul into building the mammoth power plant.

“This was destroyed in a few seconds, in an instant,” he said.

Dmytro, who worked at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant before it was seized by Russia, said he would continue to show up for work every day, “as long as I’m able.”

“It’s our duty towards the country,” he said

Features

Bakeries Bring Bread to North Gaza but Hunger Persists

Palestinian woman Asmaa Al-Belbasi, making her way back to her shelter after buying bread from recently reopened Al-Sharq bakery, walks past the ruins of a house destroyed during Israel's military offensive, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City April 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian woman Asmaa Al-Belbasi, making her way back to her shelter after buying bread from recently reopened Al-Sharq bakery, walks past the ruins of a house destroyed during Israel's military offensive, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City April 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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Bakeries Bring Bread to North Gaza but Hunger Persists

Palestinian woman Asmaa Al-Belbasi, making her way back to her shelter after buying bread from recently reopened Al-Sharq bakery, walks past the ruins of a house destroyed during Israel's military offensive, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City April 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinian woman Asmaa Al-Belbasi, making her way back to her shelter after buying bread from recently reopened Al-Sharq bakery, walks past the ruins of a house destroyed during Israel's military offensive, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City April 24, 2024. (Reuters)

Asmaa al-Belbasi walks an hour to her nearest bakery each day to fetch bread for her children and other relatives in the north Gaza districts where aid agencies say famine still looms despite rising supplies.

The route can be dangerous, along streets strewn with rubble from blown-up buildings that are impassable to cars and with fighting between Hamas militants and Israeli forces still sporadically raging. Her journey shows how desperately Gazans need bread to stave off deadly hunger.

"Before they opened up the bakeries we would get corn flour, which you couldn't knead. It was like a log and would come out like a biscuit. After a day or two it'd be difficult to eat," she said, talking about the flour people in Gaza made from animal feed and baked on open fires.

When the first bakery opened using flour and fuel provided by the World Food Program, unruly queues of hundreds of people crammed into nearby streets between the ruins of houses. The bakers had to employ dozens of stewards to maintain order.

A few more bakeries have now opened, some of them operating 24 hours a day, but while the queues are now smaller, Belbasi still waits at least 20 minutes each day for the two bags of flat pitta bread she needs for her large family, she says.

Restoring Gaza's bakeries and ensuring a regular supply of flour, water and fuel will be crucial to stopping famine spreading across the tiny, crowded enclave nearly seven months into the conflict.

Israel's ground and air campaign was triggered when Hamas stormed border defenses on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 253 more as hostages according to Israeli tallies.

The offensive has left Gaza in ruins, killing more than 34,500 people, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave, and leaving nearly all the survivors homeless and destitute.

Bread has always been the main staple for people in Gaza, though before the war plenty of other food was available too, from locally grown vegetables, chickens and sheep, fresh fish from the sea and imported tinned and packaged food.

At the start of the war Israel announced a total blockade. Though it then started to let in some food, aid agencies including those run by the United Nations said it was not doing enough to facilitate supplies and their distribution.

Israel says it puts no limit on humanitarian supplies for civilians in Gaza and has blamed the United Nations for slow deliveries, saying its operations are inefficient.

But with pockets of famine emerging in Gaza, with some children dying from malnutrition and dehydration, and with people across the enclave hungry, even Israel's closest allies have increased pressure on it to do more to let in food.

Aid started to flow in higher volumes into northern Gaza this month after Israel opened a new crossing point, and the WFP has been supplying bakeries as part of the wider effort.

But aid agencies warn it is still nowhere near enough to end a humanitarian disaster there and the WFP said last week that northern Gaza is still heading towards famine.

AID SUPPLY

The first big bakery in northern Gaza that reopened, on April 13, was one of five run by Kamel Ajour Bakeries, which now makes pitta bread and puffy sandwich loaves to sell at a subsidized rate.

"We suffered heavy damage. We have five branches and there are other selling locations and most of them were either partially or completely damaged. Thank God we were able to re-operate this place so we can make bread for people again," said Karam Ajour, a quality control administrator at the bakery.

To reopen, the bakery workers had to salvage machinery from different branches that had been destroyed or damaged by Israel's military campaign, moving them to the single branch they decided to reopen with WFP support.

They knead the bread into balls and flatten it into pockets that puff up as they pass through the oven to be put into large bags for collection. They are sold through windows with grills to the crowd pressing outside.

As demand for bread among the hundreds of thousands of people still living in northern Gaza was so high the Ajour owners decided to run a 24-hour operation, installing a third production line there alongside the existing two.

A steady supply of both wheat flour and fuel to operate the bakery oven are vital. Aid deliveries into northern Gaza have been far more complex than those to southern parts of the enclave nearer the crossings with Egypt.

In March, more than 100 people were killed during a botched aid delivery in the north. Earlier this month an Israeli strike killed foreign aid workers in a convoy carrying food aid into northern Gaza. Some aid convoys have been mobbed by desperate, hungry people.

Karam Ajour bakeries has employed people to handle the WFP aid deliveries into two Gaza City roundabouts and bring them safely to the bakery.

When asked how he felt about the bakery reopening, Ajour said: "I'm part of the people and I share their feelings and their need for food."