Whole Families Drown in Libyan City’s Flood 

People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)
People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)
TT

Whole Families Drown in Libyan City’s Flood 

People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)
People look for survivors in Derna, Libya, Wednesday, Sept.13, 2023. (AP)

The wall of water several stories high smashed into apartment buildings, drowning entire families in minutes.

One man, Fadellalah, believes 13 members of his extended family died. He’s yet to hear about the fate of another 20, several days after two dams burst above the Libyan coastal city of Derna, unleashing epic floods that wiped out neighborhoods and sent some of the dead into sea.

Thousands of others like him are frantically trying to find out who survived the rain-swollen rampage.

As a powerful storm bore down on his hometown, Fadellalah, an information technology worker in Libya’s capital of Tripoli, called his family Sunday to urge them to move to higher ground.

“No one expected this,” said Fadelallah, who asked that his surname not be used because he fears reprisal from government officials and armed groups who could view his story as criticism of their efforts.

“Some of them didn’t have cars. They didn’t have a way to get out,” he said Wednesday of his family.

Torrential rainwater that gushed down steep mountainsides and into the city killed thousands. Those who survived recount nightmarish scenes, with bodies piling up quicker than authorities can count them.

Mediterranean storm Daniel caused deadly flooding in many towns of eastern Libya. But Derna, renowned for its white villas and palm trees, was the worst-hit. The city had no evacuation plans, and residents said the only warning was the explosive sound of the dams rupturing.

Location proved the difference between life and death.

Fadelallah said all 13 deceased members of his family lived in a neighborhood near the river valley. Their bodies were recovered and buried by the Red Crescent, their names inked on a list of the deceased sent to him by the medical group.

Mohammed Derna, a teacher and 34-year-old father of two, said he and his family and neighbors rushed upstairs. Outside he saw people, including women and young children, just being carried away. They spent Sunday night on the roof of their apartment block before managing to get out Monday morning.

“They were screaming, help, help,” he said over the phone from a field hospital in Derna. “It was like a Hollywood horror movie.”

Emad al-Falah, an aid worker from Benghazi who arrived in the city on Wednesday, said search and rescue teams have been combing apartment buildings for bodies and retrieving corpses turned back by the sea. A litany of social media videos and images show similar distressing scenes.

“It’s a complete disaster. Bodies are everywhere, inside houses, in the streets, at sea. Wherever you go, you find dead men, women, and children,” al-Falah said.

The startling devastation has underscored Libya’s vulnerability. The oil-rich country has been divided between rival administrations, each backed by competing armed militias, for almost a decade. It has been rocked by conflict since a NATO-backed an uprising toppled longtime ruler Moammar al-Gaddafi in 2011.

Both governments have banded together to help those affected. But progress has been slow. Key bridges, roads and other infrastructure are gone. Derna, which had a population of 90,000, largely was cut off from the world before the first aid convoys arrived late Tuesday.

As of Wednesday, at least 30,000 people were displaced by the flooding in Derna, the UN’s International Organization for Migration said. Many fled to nearby cities and towns less impacted by the storm.

One of them is Ahlam Yassin, a 30-year-old housewife, who left for the eastern city of Tobruk.

“Everything has gone,” said Yassin, who waded barefoot with her family through knee-deep water to leave her neighborhood. “The city itself has gone.”

Mahmoud al-Baseer's cousins lived lived less than kilometer -- roughly 0.6 miles -- from one of the dams. They survived, he said, by quickly escaping to the upper floors of their three-story apartment block and were lucky that the structure held its ground.

Al-Baseer, who lives in the United Kingdom, initially feared they had died. Until he reached them Tuesday evening, he struggled to watch the destruction from afar.

“I could not carry on watching those social media videos,” he said.

Fadelallah said his parents have made it to Benghazi, hoping to reunite with relatives from Derna. And he said he hopes to return soon to give his deceased relatives a proper Islamic funeral.



Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
TT

Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, is attempting to bridge divides within the party over the war in Gaza, emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.

She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the country's most divisive political issues. Some Democrats have been critical of President Joe Biden's steadfast support for Israel despite the increasing death toll among Palestinians, and Harris is trying to unite her party for the election battle with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies," she said. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent."

Harris did not deviate from the administration's approach to the conflict, including grueling negotiations aimed at ending the fighting, releasing hostages held by Hamas and eventually rebuilding Gaza. She also said nothing about military assistance for Israel, which some Democrats want to cut.

Instead, she tried to refocus the conversation around mitigating the calamity in Gaza, and she used language intended to nudge Americans toward an elusive middle ground.

"The war in Gaza is not a binary issue," she said. "But too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but."

In addition, Harris made a more explicit appeal to voters who have been frustrated by the ceaseless bloodshed, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

"To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you," she said.

Harris' meeting with Netanyahu was private, and she described it as "frank and constructive." She also emphasized her longtime support for Israel, which includes raising money to plant trees in the country when she was a young girl.

Jewish Americans traditionally lean Democratic, but Republicans have tried to make inroads. Trump claimed this week that Harris "is totally against the Jewish people" because she didn't attend Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of Congress. The vice president was traveling in Indiana during the speech.

Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, who has played an outspoken role in the administration's efforts to combat antisemitism.

Netanyahu did not speak publicly after his meeting with Harris. His trip was scheduled before Biden dropped his reelection bid, but the meeting with Harris was watched closely for clues to her views on Israel.

"She is in a tricky situation and walking a tightrope where she’s still the vice president and the president really is the one who leads on the foreign policy agenda," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat whose city is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation. "But as the candidate, the presumptive nominee, she has to now create the space to differentiate in order for her to chart a new course."

Protesters gathered outside Union Station on the day of Netanyahu's speech, ripping down American flags and spray painting "Hamas is coming."

Harris sharply criticized those actions, saying there were "despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric. "

"I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation," she said in a statement.

As vice president, Harris has tried to show little daylight between herself and Biden. But David Rothkopf, a foreign policy writer who has met with her, said there's been "a noticeable difference in tone, particularly in regards to concern for the plight of innocent Palestinians."

The difference was on display in Selma, Alabama, in March, when Harris commemorated the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights in 1965.

During her speech, Harris said that "given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire."

The audience broke out in applause. A few sentences later, Harris emphasized that it was up to Hamas to accept the deal that had been offered. But her demand for a ceasefire still resonated in ways that Biden's comments had not.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that about 6 in 10 Democrats disapproved of the way Biden is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Roughly the same number said Israel's military response in Gaza had gone too far.

Israeli analysts said they doubted that Harris would present a dramatic shift in policies toward their country.

Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Harris was from a generation of American politicians who felt they could both support Israel and publicly criticize its policies.

"The question is as president, what would she do?" Freilich said. "I think she would put considerably more pressure on Israel on the Palestinian issue overall."