Tunisian FM Discusses With US Counterpart Strategic Partnership

Jhinaoui during talks with his US counterpart Pompeo in Washington on Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Jhinaoui during talks with his US counterpart Pompeo in Washington on Wednesday, July 17, 2019
TT

Tunisian FM Discusses With US Counterpart Strategic Partnership

Jhinaoui during talks with his US counterpart Pompeo in Washington on Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Jhinaoui during talks with his US counterpart Pompeo in Washington on Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui’s media office revealed Wednesday that a high-level Tunisian delegation has traveled to Washington to discuss the strategic partnership between Tunisia, the US and Libya's neighboring countries along with UN envoy to Libya Ghassan Salameh.

These meetings aim to increase security coordination and end the war in Libya and areas adjacent to the Tunisian-Libyan border since forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar have stormed Tripoli in early April.

Jhinaoui said his talks with his US counterpart Mike Pompeo and his aides included war on terrorism, the latest developments in Libya's issue and the ceasefire efforts in the framework of the third session of the three-day “strategic dialogue” between Tunisia and US, which started on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Tunisian and Algerian authorities have increased their security and political coordination on combating terrorism and the Libyan issue.

Tunisian authorities played down the credibility of a new video attributed to ISIS-affiliated Tunisian elements, who threatened on Tuesday evening the country and its tourist season and vowed to carry out new terrorist attacks.

The Tunisian Interior Ministry had earlier announced the elimination of a terrorist belonging to the Libyan group, which launched on June 27 two terrorist attacks on security targets in central Tunis, killing two people, including a security personnel.

The attacks coincided with a third attack on a TV station on the Algerian-Tunisian borders and with the announcement of a serious deterioration of the Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi’s health condition.

News said Essebsi was taken to the military hospital, which increased fears of the political class of the impact and repercussions of these successive developments on the economic situation as well as on the political and electoral stages the country is heading to.

The video, shared on ISIS social media channels on Tuesday night, showed armed men in balaclavas who pledge allegiance to ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.



Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
TT

Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The warning came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel said Friday it had killed two commanders involved in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Gaza medics said an overnight Israeli raid on the cities of Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza's field hospitals, told reporters all hospitals in the Palestinian territory "will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation's (Israel's) obstruction of fuel entry".

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including 8 in the intensive care unit" at Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Kamal Adwan director Hossam Abu Safia told AFP it was "deliberately hit by Israeli shelling for the second day" Friday and that "one doctor and some patients were injured".

Late Thursday, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."

He said that for more than six weeks, Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has hit aid convoys.

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe they bore "criminal responsibility" for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over "the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies".

At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza's health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.