Tunisia’s Chahed Will Reportedly Replace Mechichi

FILE - Former Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed addresses the parliament on the country's anti-corruption fight on July 20, 2017, in Tunis. AFP
FILE - Former Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed addresses the parliament on the country's anti-corruption fight on July 20, 2017, in Tunis. AFP
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Tunisia’s Chahed Will Reportedly Replace Mechichi

FILE - Former Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed addresses the parliament on the country's anti-corruption fight on July 20, 2017, in Tunis. AFP
FILE - Former Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed addresses the parliament on the country's anti-corruption fight on July 20, 2017, in Tunis. AFP

Former Tunisian Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, head of the Long Live Tunisia movement, is a candidate to replace PM Hichem Mechichi, according to leaks made by some opposition parties.

Chahed will likely be named prime minister after the Islamist Ennahda Movement pressured Mechichi to implement a cabinet reshuffle, which President Kais Saeid strongly opposes.

Political sources agree that Chahed is supported by the President, and Ennahda does not mind naming him as PM, especially that it supported him in 2017 and 2018 following demands to oust him.

Political parties are considering several possible scenarios to solve the current crisis between the president, prime minister, and speaker.

Some are suggesting removing Mechichi from office, a demand supported by Saeid as a condition to launch political dialogue.

Leading Ennahda member Rafik Abdel Salam accused the president on Tuesday of willingly fabricating the political and constitutional crisis.

Abdel Salam warned that some people want to use the president as a tool to fight their battles by proxy and eliminate their opponents through coups and military trials.

Chahed has urged political parties to commit to a truce, especially since the government is not politically supported, and the parliament is ravaged by crises, noting that it will lead to solving the constitutional and political crisis.

In a related development, MP of the Democratic Bloc Hichem al-Ajbouni accused Ennahda of escalating the crisis with the President by supporting the prime minister, under the pretext of preserving government stability.

During a radio interview, Ajbouni said the PM yielded to the blackmail of Ennahda and its allies through recent appointments in the Ministry of Interior.



Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Israel’s new defense minister said Friday that he would stop issuing warrants to arrest West Bank settlers or hold them without charge or trial — a largely symbolic move that rights groups said risks emboldening settler violence in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Israel Katz called the arrest warrants “severe” and said issuing them was “inappropriate” as Palestinian militant attacks on settlers in the territory grow more frequent. He said settlers could be “brought to justice” in other ways.

The move protects Israeli settlers from being held in “administrative detention,” a shadowy form of incarceration where people are held without charge or trial.

Settlers are rarely arrested in the West Bank, where settler violence against Palestinians has spiraled since the outbreak of the war Oct. 7.

Katz’s decision was celebrated by far-right coalition allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Minister and settler firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir applauded Katz and called the move a “correction of many years of mistreatment” and “justice for those who love the land.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, violence toward Palestinians by Israeli settlers has soared to new heights, displacing at least 19 entire Palestinian communities, according to Israeli rights group Peace Now. In that time, attacks by Palestinian militants on settlers and within Israel have also grown more common.

An increasing number of Palestinians have been placed in administrative detention. Israel holds 3,443 administrative detainees in prison, according to data from the Israeli Prison Service, reported by rights group Hamoked. That figure stood around 1,200 just before the start of the war. The vast majority of them are Palestinian, with only a handful at any given time Israeli Jews, said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked.

“All of these detentions without charge or trial are illegitimate, but to declare that this measure will only be used against Palestinians...is to explicitly entrench another form of ethnic discrimination,” said Montell.