Sudanese Opposition Pushes for Constitutional Declaration that Removes Army's Control

Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) during their meeting with the head of UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), Volker Perthes (Twitter Account of Perthes)
Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) during their meeting with the head of UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), Volker Perthes (Twitter Account of Perthes)
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Sudanese Opposition Pushes for Constitutional Declaration that Removes Army's Control

Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) during their meeting with the head of UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), Volker Perthes (Twitter Account of Perthes)
Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) during their meeting with the head of UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), Volker Perthes (Twitter Account of Perthes)

Sudan's opposition Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) stressed the need to exclude the army from any future political arrangements, saying military leaders used the remnants of the former regime against the United Nations initiative to solve the crisis in the country.

The Forces handed its vision to resolve the crisis to the head of the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), Volker Perthes.

Perthes met with the FCC as part of UN-facilitated consultations for a political process for Sudan, which will continue engaging Sudanese stakeholders in the next few days.

The vision is based on ending the military coup, restoring the democratic transition, and defining a clear role for the traditional agencies during the transitional period.

The leader of the Forces, Khaled Omar Youssef, said: "We met with the UN Special Envoy for Sudan, based on his invitation to consult on the political process in the country."

He added that the Forces announced that they will deal positively with the initiative provided that it ends the coup and restores the path of civil and democratic transition in the country.

Youssef pointed out that the insurgents welcomed the initiative, but they aligned with the remnants of the ousted regime and continued to kill the peaceful protesters.

The leader explained that the meeting with the UN mission discussed some of the issues related to a constitutional establishment based on a fully civilian state that will lead the transitional phase.

He pointed out that the coalition's vision is to establish a new constitutional declaration that stipulates an entirely civilian transitional authority.

The new constitutional declaration should explicitly redefine the relationship between the civilian component and the military institution to avoid repeating the previous partnership, said Youssef.

The official believes it is crucial to establish healthy relations between civilians and the army based on the military establishment's disassociation from politics, adding that the army must perform its tasks in a democratic society.

The Forces suggested that the transition period should not exceed two years, ending with free and fair elections.

The Forces also stressed the need to include a roadmap for reforming the security and military agencies in the constitutional declaration, with a unified national army.

The Forces also wanted the revolutionary forces to agree on a prime minister and a cabinet to lead the transitional period, providing that consultations on the formation of the transitional state institutions would begin immediately after the military coup was overthrown.

The declaration wants to ensure justice is established in all the crimes committed in the country and all officials are held accountable for their involvement in the dispersal of the sit-in of the General Command and violence against the protests.

The spokesman of the FCC Central Council, Jaafar Hassan, said the Forces agreed on a clear vision to end the current situation and establish the next transitional phase.

The opposition alliance identified the parties to the political process, including the Forces of Freedom and Change, the Resistance Committees, the armed struggle forces that signed and did not sign the Juba Agreement.

The Forces proposed establishing a high-level mechanism in which international and regional parties would be represented by influential figures from the Troika countries, the European Union, and African and Arab countries.



Israeli Minister Says Army Applying Lessons from Gaza in West Bank Operation

Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
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Israeli Minister Says Army Applying Lessons from Gaza in West Bank Operation

Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)
Israeli soldiers run to take position in Jenin camp during the second day of an Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, 22 January 2025. (EPA)

Israel's defense minister said on Tuesday forces were applying lessons learned in Gaza as a major operation continued in Jenin which the military said was aimed at countering Iranian-backed armed groups in the volatile West Bank city.

A military spokesperson declined to give details but said the operation was "relatively similar" to but in a smaller area than one last August, in which hundreds of Israeli troops backed by drones and helicopters raided Jenin and other flashpoint cities in the occupied West Bank.

It was the third major incursion by the Israeli army in less than two years into Jenin, a longtime major stronghold of armed groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which said its forces were fighting Israeli troops.

At least four Palestinians were wounded on Tuesday, after 10 were killed a day earlier, Palestinian health services said, and residents reported constant gunfire and explosions.

Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said the fighters' increasing use of roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices were a particular focus of the operation, which included armored bulldozers to tear up roads in the refugee camp adjacent to the city.

As the operation continued, many Palestinians left their homes in the camp, a crowded township for descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in the 1948 war of Israel's creation.

"Thank God, we were at home, we went out and asked an ambulance to take us out," said a woman who gave her name as Um Mohammad.

Before the raid, which came two weeks after a shooting attack blamed by Israel on gunmen from Jenin, roadblocks and checkpoints had been thrown up across the West Bank in an effort to slow down movement across the territory.

As the raid began, Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces pulled out after having conducted a weeks-long operation to try to reassert control over the refugee camp, dominated by Palestinian factions that are hostile to the PA, which exercises limited governance in parts of the West Bank.

The operation came just two days after the launch of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, with Israeli troops pulling back from their positions in many areas of the enclave.

LEARNING FROM GAZA

Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Jenin raid marked a shift in the military's security plan in the West Bank and was "the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza".

"We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of (Israeli) settlers (in the West Bank) and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel," he said in a statement.

Israel's campaign in Gaza, following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by bands of Hamas-led gunmen, has left much of the coastal enclave in ruins after 15 months of bombardment. The military has said it has refined its urban warfare tactics in the light of its experience in Gaza, but Shoshani declined to provide details of how such lessons were being applied in Jenin.

Israel considers Palestinian armed groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad that are backed by Iran as part of a multifront war waged by an axis that includes Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

Newly installed US President Donald Trump has appointed a string of senior officials with close ties to the settler movement, and his return to the White House has been welcomed by hardline pro-settler ministers who have pledged to expand settlement building in the West Bank.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war. Most countries deem Israel's settlements on territory taken in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.