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Egypt Mediating to End War on Gaza

Smoke billows from an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on August 6, 2022. (AFP)
Smoke billows from an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on August 6, 2022. (AFP)
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Egypt Mediating to End War on Gaza

Smoke billows from an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on August 6, 2022. (AFP)
Smoke billows from an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on August 6, 2022. (AFP)

Egypt is mediating to end the latest Israeli war on the Palestinian Gaza Strip that erupted on Friday when Tel Aviv killed a senior “Islamic Jihad” commander in an air strike on the coastal enclave.

A brief Egyptian foreign ministry statement said on Friday that Cairo was holding intense contacts around the clock to contain the situation.

It added that it was working in restoring calm and preserving lives.

At least ten people have been killed in the assault.

Israel said it carried out the strike after receiving information that the Islamic Jihad was preparing to launch rocket attacks on Israeli towns.

Israel has since sent messages to the Hamas group in Gaza and the Hezbollah party in Lebanon against joining the war.

Israeli military officials have predicted that the Gaza operation will take up to three to four days should Hamas refrain from joining the fight.

Israeli sources revealed that Hamas informed the Egyptian mediator that it was not keen on joining the war.

Israel appears however, to be provoking the movement, saying it has a wide list of targets in Gaza and will not hesitate in expanding it should Hamas join the fight.

Observers believe that Hamas now controls whether the war will escalate or not.

Israel has so far only targeted Islamic Jihad positions in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minster Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz will seek to exploit the operation to the fullest in the buildup to elections, despite their assertions that they are not keen on war.

They have been faced by criticism from former PM and current opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu that they are not fit to lead Israel during conflict, so they are out to prove him wrong.

Israeli experts have warned however, that the war could escalate at any moment and backfire against Lapid and Gantz’s electoral aspirations should Palestinian rocket fire reach Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, should Israel incur casualties or should Hamas and Hezbollah join the fray.

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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File

The world's only research center on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan's two-year war, its director and another expert say.

Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.

It is often characterized by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands, AFP said.

"The center and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan," Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Centre (MRC), told AFP.

"We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years," said Fahal, whose center had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.

"It's difficult to bear."

Since April 15, 2023, Sudan's army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.

The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.

Sudan's health care system has been left at the "breaking point", according to the World Health Organization.

Among the conflict's casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.

A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.

AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC's current condition.

The center had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.

Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.

The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan's neighbors, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.

For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labor to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.

Drawing on the MRC's expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan's government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.

"Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards," said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi's head of mycetoma.