Algeria, Russia Discuss Military Cooperation

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Algiers (Reuters)
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Algiers (Reuters)
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Algeria, Russia Discuss Military Cooperation

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Algiers (Reuters)
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Algiers (Reuters)

Algeria and Russia are considering developing their military cooperation and the joint military exercises scheduled for next November in the Algerian desert.

Chairman of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security Viktor Bondarev began a three-day visit to Algeria, where he met with Speaker of the Council Salah Goudjil and members of the Defense Committee.

The National Assembly confirmed that the visit falls within the framework of activating the bilateral parliamentary cooperation protocol signed with the Russian Federal Council in 2014 and the memorandum of understanding concluded in 2010.

The statement indicated that Bondarev's agenda includes meeting with the People's National Assembly Speaker, Ibrahim Boughali, and other senior state officials.

Bondarev visited Algeria in the fall of 2018 when he was the commander of the Russian military operation in Syria.

Algerian sources reported that the officials meeting with Bondarev are interested in discussing the developments of the war in Ukraine, including efforts by Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

Moscow has threatened to deploy its forces on its borders with Finland if it joined NATO.

The sources stated that Bondarev's meetings would also address the bilateral military cooperation.

They said it is likely that the Russian official will meet with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who returned Tuesday from a visit to Turkey.

On Sunday, Bondarev said on his Telegram channel that Finland's desire to join NATO is worrisome, not from a military point of view but a geopolitical point of view.

He said the United States "pressured" Helsinki and Stockholm to push them to join NATO.

Algeria and Russia have had strong relations in the defense and military industry since the Soviet Union.

The Algerian army is mainly equipped with Russian military weapons, and most of Algiers' arms deals were with Moscow.

A week before Bondarev's visit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held several meetings in Algeria with senior officials.

Lavrov said in a press conference that he informed Tebboune and Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra of the latest military developments in Donbas.

They also discussed various international issues and the gas issue, noting that Russia agrees with Algeria on fulfilling gas supply contracts.

Many European countries became interested in Algeria after its supply of Russian gas was interrupted at the beginning of the war.

Algeria and Italy agreed earlier this month to increase the amount of gas exported to the Euro-Mediterranean partner.

Lavrov thanked Algeria for its position and understanding of the Ukrainian crisis, describing the Arab position on the war as balanced and objective.

Algeria says that it adheres to the "principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries," military non-alignment, and prioritizing dialogue over war.

The Russian-Algerian joint exercises will be held next November and include drills against terrorism at the Bashar military base, in southwest Algeria.

The TASS news agency quoted Russian officials as saying that the "maneuvers will consist of tactical moves to search for, detect, and destroy illegal armed groups."

About 80 soldiers from the southern military region are expected to participate in the exercises.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".