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First Israeli Commercial Flight Through Sudan’s Airspace

First Israeli Commercial Flight Through Sudan’s Airspace
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First Israeli Commercial Flight Through Sudan’s Airspace

First Israeli Commercial Flight Through Sudan’s Airspace

El Al Israel Airlines announced on Friday operating its first commercial flight through the Sudanese airspace.

The flight will depart on Sunday from Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport to Uganda’s Entebbe Airport, for the first time since the Israeli-Sudanese normalization agreement.

The plane will depart empty but will return the same day with 153 Ugandan citizens on board to study means of modern agriculture in Israel, as part of a special project in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A police spokesman said the trip, which usually takes five hours, will only take 30 minutes thanks to passing through Sudanese airspace.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has said the “Abraham Accords” represent a conceptual shift in the Arab region.

During his meeting with EU ambassadors in Israel, Gantz urged Palestinians to join these accords and reach an agreement on the presence of “Israeli and Palestinian entities” but without Israel’s withdrawal from June 1967 borders.

These accords represent actual change in the chance to achieve peace, as well as in economic and security opportunities.

He called on Palestinians no to waste this chance to avoid lagging behind.

The fact that the PA has been seeking to obtain loans from Europe instead of receiving its tax funds affects all Palestinians, he stressed.

It is noteworthy that the US-brokered Abraham Accords is the normalization agreement signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Sep. 15, 2020.

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Sudan’s Ruling Council Reshuffles Cabinet amid Brutal Conflict

A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)
A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)
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Sudan’s Ruling Council Reshuffles Cabinet amid Brutal Conflict

A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)
A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)

Sudan's army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, at war with paramilitaries, has announced a cabinet reshuffle that replaces four ministers including those for foreign affairs and the media.

The late Sunday announcement comes with the northeast African country gripped by the world's worst displacement crisis, threatened by famine and desperate for aid, according to the UN.

In a post on its official Facebook page, Sudan's ruling sovereignty council said Burhan had approved replacement of the ministers of foreign affairs, the media, religious affairs and trade.

The civil war that began in April 2023 pits Burhan's military against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries under the command of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Since then, the army-aligned Sudanese government has been operating from the eastern city of Port Sudan, which has largely remained shielded from the violence.

But the Sudanese state "is completely absent from the scene" in all sectors, economist Haitham Fathy told AFP earlier this year.

The council did not disclose reasons behind the reshuffle but it coincides with rising violence in al-Gezira, south of the capital Khartoum, and North Darfur in Sudan's far west bordering Chad.

On Friday the spokesman for United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said he condemned attacks by the RSF on Gezira, after the United States made a similar call over the violence against civilians.

Among the key government changes, Ambassador Ali Youssef al-Sharif, a retired diplomat who previously served as Sudan's ambassador to China and South Africa, was appointed foreign minister.

He replaces Hussein Awad Ali who had held the role for seven months.

Journalist and TV presenter Khalid Ali Aleisir, based in London, was named minister of culture and media.

The reshuffle also saw Omar Banfir assigned to the trade ministry and Omar Bakhit appointed to the ministry of religious affairs.

Over the past two weeks, the RSF increased attacks on civilians in Gezira following the army's announcement that an RSF commander had defected.

According to an AFP tally based on medical and activist sources, at least 200 people were killed in Gezira last month alone. The UN reports that the violence has forced around 120,000 people from their homes.

In total, Sudan hosts more than 11 million displaced people, while another 3.1 million are now sheltering beyond its borders, according to the International Organization for Migration.