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Syrians in Raqqa tell of ‘insane nights’ of French air strikes

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Activists say abandoned ISIL bases hit in city suburbs with no civilians or fighters as France carries out air strikes.

A man in Raqqa stands where a statue of Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez used to be [Hamid Khatib/Reuters]

A man in Raqqa stands where a statue of Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez used to be [Hamid Khatib/Reuters]

by Diana Al Rifai, Al Jazeera

French defence officials say that, for the second time in less than 24 hours, fighter jets have targeted Raqqa, the de-facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Syria.

Ten Rafale and Mirage 2000 fighters carried out the raid early in the morning, dropping 16 bombs, the defence ministry said on Tuesday, as France hits back at ISIL in retaliation for Friday’s Paris attacks that killed at least 129 people and wounded hundreds more.

“Both targets were hit and destroyed simultaneously,” the ministry said.

“Conducted in coordination with US forces, the raid was aimed at sites identified during reconnaissance missions previously carried out by France.”

On Sunday, the French defence ministry said 30 air strikes destroyed an ISIL training camp and munitions dump in Raqqa.

However, a media activist in Raqqa, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that French air strikes had targeted abandoned ISIL bases in the suburbs of the city where there are no civilians or ISIL fighters.

“It has been two insane nights. Abandoned ISIL posts were targeted at the entrance of the city, along with ISIL checkpoints and several other points. Electricity and water have been cut off as supply lines were hit too.

“We can confirm that there were no civilians killed or injured in the latest French air strikes.

“People are horrified and everyone here lives in fear. We are sure that several ISIL fighters at the checkpoints were killed in the air strikes.”

The Pentagon said that over the past few days it had also bombed ISIL posts in Iraq and Syria.

On Monday, the US-led coalition’s warplanes struck ISIL targets in Raqqa and several posts were destroyed, the US defence department said on its website.

France is part of the coalition, which was launched in September 2014, but conducted its first air strike in Syria only in September 2015.

‘Raqqa is devastated’

The Syrian activist in Raqqa said that in the past few days Russian air strikes had caused the most destruction.

“Last week, Russian air strikes destroyed one of the main bridges in the city in addition to the national hospital. Most hospitals in the city have been destroyed in Raqqa,” he said.

“Russian air strikes have resulted in so much destruction. If these countries wanted to bomb the heartland of ISIL, they could have done so. But they still have not targeted the group’s most important bases.

“This is what we do not understand. The targets bombed by French warplanes were mostly abandoned by ISIL fighters.

“The US, Russia and France are all bombing Syria. How many more countries want to bomb us?

“Raqqa is devastated. Raqqa has endured the unbearable and we live in fear under ISIL’s dictatorship.

“A lot of people fled the the city. In fact, most refugees heading to Europe are from Raqqa. That is how desperate they are to leave here. People are fed up here and just want to live normal lives.

“Our lives are all under threat. ISIL controls every aspect of our lives and we are not allowed to expose the truth.

“Not everyone who lives in Raqqa approves of ISIL. I am a citizen of Raqqa and I refused to leave my hometown just like many others did.

“What the world needs to know is that we live under ISIL control on the ground, and constant air strikes from the sky. We are trapped,” the activist said.

Separately, the anti-ISIL group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered said on Sunday that overnight air strikes hit a stadium, a museum, several clinics, a hospital and a governmental building.

The group told Al Jazeera that no civilians were hurt or injured in any of the latest French air strikes.

“Of course we do not like to see people afraid of air strikes and explosions, but we support any actions that will take ISIL out of Raqqa,” the group said on its Twitter account.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said activists reported hearing explosions in Raqqa resulting from air strikes.

The activists’ network said no civilian death toll has been recorded due to the strikes.

Day of mourning in Lebanon after deadly Beirut bombings

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Twin explosions in the capital kill at least 43 people with ISIL claiming responsibility.

Beirut bombings

by Al Jazeera

Beirut: A national day of mourning was held Friday after two suicide bombers on motorcycles killed at least 43 people and wounded more than 200 others in a predominantly Shia area of southern Beirut.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for one of the worst attacks in years in Lebanon.

“They targeted this place because they don’t have any other way to fight us,” Fouad Khaddam, an eyewitness at the scene, told Al Jazeera. “They have run out of options… They targeted this area because we are Shias. But let me be clear – we won’t be fazed.”

“Soldiers of the Caliphate” were responsible for the attack, according to a statement allegedly posted by ISIL, which was published a few hours after Thursday’s blasts.

The health ministry and the Lebanese army said the body of a third suicide bomber was found at the scene of the attack.

The explosions took place in the Burj el-Barajneh area, located off a main highway leading to Beirut’s airport. Burj el-Barajneh, a well-known commercial and residential spot, suffered extensive damage from the two blasts.

The bombings came at a busy time in the evening when the streets were full of families gathering after work.

Lebanon’s prime minister held an emergency meeting with ministers and military chiefs on Friday as his country mourned.

One of the suicide bombers blew himself up at the gates of a school, according to the Lebanese minister of education, Elias Bou Saab.

Witnesses said there were only minutes between the two blasts.

“I was standing outside my store with my friend when the first explosion happened,” one resident, who was wounded in the explosion, told Al Jazeera.

“He was martyred in the explosion. As I was trying to move him, the second explosion happened.”

Much of southern Beirut is a Hezbollah stronghold and witnessed a string of deadly suicide explosions in 2014 claimed by al-Qaeda affiliates.

“What happened here is a crime… This battle against terrorists will continue and it is a long war between us,” Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil said from the site of the explosions.

The attack came as Hezbollah steps up its involvement in the Syrian civil war, now in its fifth year.

“Personally, I was against Hezbollah’s decision to get involved in Syria, but right now I am convinced they were right. They are taking proactive action, they are not waiting for ISIL to come,” said area resident Mohammed Alabaman.

Kamel Wazne, a Lebanese political analyst, told Al Jazeera the bombings came at a time when major offensives [backed by Hezbollah] were taking place in Syria against ISIL and the armed group al-Nusra.

“This is probably just to remind Hezbollah there are other [groups] who can take revenge… It might be again the beginning of a circle of violence for Beirut.”

Additional reporting by Nour Samaha

US air strike targets ISIL fighter ‘Jihadi John’

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Pentagon says it carried out an attack in Syria to kill the fighter made infamous by gruesome hostage-beheading videos.

'Jihadi John' is the ISIL fighter in the videos showing the beheadings of hostages [Associated Press]

‘Jihadi John’ is the ISIL fighter in the videos showing the beheadings of hostages [Associated Press]

by Al Jazeera

The US military launched an air strike in Syria targeting ISIL fighter Mohammed Emwazi – better known as “Jihadi John” – who participated in the beheading videos of two American journalists and the killing of several other captives.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the air strike carried out on Thursday in Raqqa targeted Emwazi, a British citizen.

Cook said it was unclear whether Jihadi John was killed.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press a drone targeted a vehicle believed to be carrying Emwazi.

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday called the attack “self-defence”, saying Emwazi was a “barbaric murderer”.

“We cannot yet be certain if the strike was successful,” Cameron said. “It was the right thing to do… Britain and our allies will not rest
until we have defeated this evil terrorist death cult.”

Jihadi John is in the ISIL videos showing the killings of journalists Steven Sotloff andJames Foley, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages.

Emwazi, a computer programmer from London, was born in Kuwait to a stateless family of Iraqi origin. His parents moved to Britain in 1993 after their hopes of obtaining Kuwaiti citizenship were quashed.

Saudi-led coalition ‘deliberately’ targeting hospitals in Yemen: ICRC

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With a stockpile of Western arms, the Saudi siege of Yemen has hit nearly 100 healthcare facilities in war-torn country since March

Al-Thawra hospital in southern Yemen was bombed on Sunday. (Photo: AP)

Al-Thawra hospital in southern Yemen was bombed on Sunday. (Photo: AP)

by Nadia Prupis, Common Dreams

The Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen has repeatedly targeted and attacked hospitals and clinics, an appalling trend that “disrespects the neutrality of health facilities” in war, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Tuesday.

The U.S.-backed coalition has bombed nearly 100 hospitals throughout Yemen since March, with the most recent airstrike hitting a clinic on Sunday in the southern city of Taiz—one the country’s most populous regions, which has been under heavy fire for months. The shelling of Al-Thawra hospital in the south came just weeks after a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) clinic was hit in Haydan, in the north.

“Al-Thawra hospital, one of the main health care facilities in Taiz which is providing treatment for about 50 injured people every day was reportedly shelled several times on Sunday. The shelling endangered the lives of patients and staff on site,” Kedir Awol Omar, the deputy head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen, said on Tuesday. “The neutrality of healthcare facilities and staff is not being respected. Health facilities are deliberately attacked and surgical and medical supplies are also being blocked from reaching hospitals in areas under siege.”

Airstrikes on medical clinics are “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” ICRC said.

MSF also said on Tuesday that it has been unable to deliver essential medical aid to two hospitals stationed in a particular volatile corner of Taiz, where almost half of health facilities face an influx of wounded patients along with a scarcity in supplies.

“A large part of the population of Taiz is displaced within the city,” said Karline Kleijer, MSF’s emergency manager for Yemen. “They are battling for their survival on a daily basis, and fighting to get hold of sufficient food and water, due to the steep cost of basic necessities and the prevailing insecurity.”

“The situation in Taiz is dramatic and will only get worse in the coming weeks if no efforts are made to spare civilians from the violence and allow them to access basic services, including health facilities,” Kleijer said.

Saudi officials have not responded to the most recent bombing, but they denied being aware that the October airstrikes in Haydan had targeted a clinic.

“Saudi authorities are denying the evident truth of having destroyed a hospital,” said Laurent Sury, head of MSF emergency operations. “This is an alarming sign for the Yemeni people and for those trying to assist them. How are we to draw lessons from what happened when all we face are denials? How can we continue to work without any form of commitment that civilian structures will be spared?”

Amnesty International in October demanded an independent investigation of the bombing in Haydan, which it said could amount to a war crime. Further, the humanitarian aid group noted that while the planes that dropped the shells were Saudi, the bombs themselves were American.

“The USA and other states exporting weapons to any of the parties to the Yemen conflict have a responsibility to ensure that the arms transfers they authorize are not facilitating serious violations of international humanitarian law,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty’s senior crisis response adviser. “Lack of accountability has contributed to the worsening crisis and unless perpetrators believe they will be brought to justice for their crimes, civilians will continue to suffer the consequences.”

“The world’s indifference to the suffering of Yemeni civilians in this conflict is shocking,” Rovera said.

Meanwhile, MSF’s Kleijer on Sunday published testimony from her most recent visit to Taiz, describing the devastating impacts of the siege by warring factions and the unrelenting intervention of military forces.

“A lot of airstrikes happen at night,” Kleijer wrote. “Lying in your bed, you hear the planes circling above the city, then you hear the whistle of a bomb falling, and then you brace yourself for the impact. You hope it’s not your building that going to be hit. And then it hits another building, not your house, so as well as being frightened, you’re also relieved.”

“The noise of the airstrikes is so loud and intense that you can actually feel it in your bones,” Kleijer wrote. “This is what people have been going through every night, for months on end…everything is touched by the war: the children have a game called ‘One two three airstrike’ in which they all fling themselves to the ground.”

Afghans protest decapitations of ethnic Hazara by ISIL

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Thousands demonstrate for security after seven people beheaded – including women and children – allegedly by ISIL.

The seven Hazara victims included three women and two children [Reuters]

The seven Hazara victims included three women and two children [Reuters]

by Shereena Qazi

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Afghanistan’s capital on Wednesday with coffins carrying the bodies of seven ethnic Hazara demanding justice after their beheadings.

The protests included women and men from Afghanistan’s different ethnic groups – Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara – as they marched on the Presidential Palace to urge the government to take action against rising violence against Afghan civilians.

According to Afghan officials, the Hazara hostages were captured by ISIL fighters more than a month ago and held in Arghandab district of Zabul province.

Three women, two children, and two men had been beheaded with razor wire, officials said. Their bodies were discovered by the Taliban who handed them over to tribal elders on Saturday in Ghazni province, from where they were abducted.

“We will continue to fight for the safety of our family,” civil rights activist Shahzaman Hashemi told Al Jazeera. “This is our right to feel safe. Whatever happened to those women and children can happen to us as well.”

The Afghan government announced a national day of mourning on Wednesday over the killings.

‘Had enough’

Maryam Jamal, who also took part in the march, said it was important to pressure the government to halt the escalating violence in the country. “They’ve now started killing women and children,” she said.

“It can be me tomorrow, can be my children. This protest is historic and we are adamant to not back off until something is done about this. We’ve had enough.”

Kabul Police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told Al Jazeera security officers had taken control of the protest area and were making sure no one gets hurt during the demonstrations.

“There are thousands of people here and the number is expected to increase. People from far off places have come to Kabul to take part in the protest today,” Rahimi said. “We are making sure the protest doesn’t get violent. So far people are protesting peacefully.”

Demonstrators chanted “death to Islamic State” on Tuesday in Ghazni province as a van carried the coffins covered by Afghan flags. Ghazni police blamed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Afghanistan for the grisly killings.

“We want justice not just for them but for the thousands of other innocent people who are brutally killed this way, almost every day,” protester Ismail Khanjar told Al Jazeera.

“We don’t care if they were Shia Muslims or not. For us they are human and they were killed in the most brutal way. What was their fault?”

The bodies were then transported from Ghazni city to Kabul, 130km away, for Wednesday’s demonstration.

 

The Hazara have long suffered oppression and persecution in Afghanistan. During the 1990s, thousands were killed by al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Sayed Zafar Hashemi, deputy spokesman for President Ashraf Ghani, told Al Jazeera security threats affect the entire nation, and not just specific communities.

“We are doing everything we can to help protect our people,” he said.

Afghanistan has several ethnic groups including Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmen – mainly in the north and west – as well as Pashtun, located primarily in the south and east.

ISIL emerged in Afghanistan last year.

A Taliban splinter group calling itself the High Council of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate announced last week it had elected its own leader, defying new Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.

Insecurity continues to grip Afghanistan after the withdrawal of international forces in recent years. Violent clashes between two armed groups in southern Afghanistan erupted on Sunday, resulting in the death of at least 50 fighters from both sides.

Thirty Shia Muslims kidnapped in Afghanistan

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Men from minority Hazara group were travelling by bus through central Afghanistan when masked gunmen took them away.

Afghanistan Hazara

by Al Jazeera

Masked gunmen have abducted 30 Shia Muslim men who were travelling by bus through central Afghanistan, according to local authorities.

The men, members of the minority Hazara ethnic group, were taken on Monday evening in Zabul province, on the road between the western city of Herat and Kabul.

Hazara Shia Muslims are often the target of sectarian violence at the hands of Sunni Muslim groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Our driver saw a group of masked men in Afghan army uniform signalling him and he thought they were soldiers so he stopped,” said Nasir Ahmad, an official with the Ghazni Paima bus company, told AFP news agency.

“The gunmen took 30 Hazaras away with them.”

Ahmad said the kidnappers took only the men on the two buses and released the women and children travelling with them.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the abductions, but kidnappings for ransom by bandits, local militias and the Taliban are common in Afghanistan.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said the police were “doing everything to ensure their safe release”.

‘Gasoline on the fire’: Obama orders ground troops To Syria

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Expanded military footprint will include Special Ops forces inside Syria and expanded ground operations in Iraq

"We should know by now that the first law of military conflicts is escalation," said Jon Rainwater of Peace Action. "That’s why sending these troops into battle should trouble all Americans. With the 'no boots on the ground' promise broken there’s no telling how many U.S. troops will ultimately be sent to Iraq and Syria." (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

“We should know by now that the first law of military conflicts is escalation,” said Jon Rainwater of Peace Action. “That’s why sending these troops into battle should trouble all Americans. With the ‘no boots on the ground’ promise broken there’s no telling how many U.S. troops will ultimately be sent to Iraq and Syria.” (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

In a move that critics says fulfills long-held warnings of “mission creep” and amount to throwing “gasoline on a fire,” the Obama administration on Friday announced that U.S. ground troops will now be deployed inside Syria.

In strategic leaks to various media outlets, the Pentagon made clear the president’s plan to send approximately 50 Special Operations soldiers inside the war-torn country. Reports also note that expanded ground operations will also be taking place in neighboring Iraq.

Unnamed U.S. officials reportedly “stressed” to Reuters that the new boots-on-the-ground in Syria were “not meant to engage in front-line combat but rather to advise and assist moderate rebels.” One official told Reuters the key role of the troops would be “logistical” and designed, the news agency reported, to “ensure that weapons and other supplies are delivered to the moderate forces whom the United States supports.”

The news was described as “predictable as it is disappointing” by the U.S. antiwar group Peace Action.

“We should know by now that the first law of military conflicts is escalation,” said Jon Rainwater, a spokesperson for the group. “That’s why sending these troops into battle should trouble all Americans.  With the ‘no boots on the ground’ promise broken there’s no telling how many U.S. troops will ultimately be sent to Iraq and Syria.”

An official announcement from the White House or the Pentagon is expected later on Friday.

According to CNN:

The deployment of U.S. Special Operations forces is the most significant escalation of the American military campaign against ISIS to date.

The U.S. Special Operations forces will first be deployed to northern Syria to help coordinate local ground forces and U.S.-led coalition efforts to fight ISIS, the senior administration official said.

The U.S. will also boost its military footprint in confronting ISIS in Syria by deploying A-10 and F-15 fighter jets to an airbase in Turkey. And the U.S. is also eying the establishment of a Special Forces task force in Iraq to boost U.S. efforts to target ISIS and its leaders. President Barack Obama has also authorized enhancing military aid to Jordan and Lebanon to help counter ISIS.

The U.S. has bombed targets in Syria since September 2014 without stopping ISIS, and it has largely failed in a mission to recruit and train moderate rebels in Syria to take on the terror group. In recent months, the U.S. has also bolstered its aid to local forces, air-dropping weapons, ammunition and other supplies to rebel forces inside Syria.

The announcement for military escalation comes as Russia, the U.S., and other regional powers, including Iran, met in Vienna, Austria to initiate a new round of diplomatic efforts aimed at ending Syria’s civil war and countering the rise of the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria.

Writing for The Intercept, journalist Nick Turse writes that while the deployment is being “portrayed by the administration as an intensification of the current strategy and enhancing ‘efforts that are already working,'” the order is a “clear escalation of the conflict for the president who has previously said, ‘I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.'”

Since Obama first announced the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria in 2014, critics have warned that such tactics would likely lead to “mission creep” in the two countries. As the number of troops in Iraq has steadily grown over the last year and a half, this will be the first acknowledged presence of U.S. soldiers in Syria—a country against which the U.S. has not officially declared war.

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill was among the immediate critics, offering this sarcastic tweet following Friday’s announcement:

“Over a year into the U.S.-led bombing campaign what have we accomplished?” asked Rainwater. “The United States has spent over $4.75 billion on over 6,059 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.  Watching the tragic refugee crisis spreading, we know that more bombing isn’t making the Syrian people any safer.  And as the United States drops thousands of bombs, angering thousands of people in two Middle Eastern nations, it’s not making the American people any safer either.  On the contrary, a U.S.-led attack in Syria, with the inevitable civilian casualties, strengthens recruitment for ISIS.  Adding U.S. ground troops is just throwing gasoline on the fire.  Instead, we need sustained diplomacy to end the Syrian civil war and we need to significantly increase humanitarian aid for the victims of the conflict.”

Meanwhile, Peter Van Buren, a retired 24-year veteran of State Department and sharp critic of U.S. foreign policy in the region, said on Friday that President Obama has much to answer for now that he has betrayed earlier and repeated vows not to expand military operations in Syria and Iraq.

“In August 2014,” writes Van Buren, Obama told the nation we needed to re-intervene in Iraq “on a humanitarian mission to save the Yazidis. No boots on the ground, a simple act of humanness that only the United States could conduct, and then leave. We believed. It was a lie.”

Now, Van Buren continues, we are “being told by that same president that Americans will again fight on the ground in Iraq, and Syria, and that Americans have and will die. He says that this is necessary to protect us, because if we do not defeat Islamic State over there, they will come here, to what we now call without shame or irony The Homeland.”

But serious questions remain, he says, and the U.S. public deserves answers and a sensible explanation. “We want to believe, Mr. President. We want to know it is not a lie. So please address us, explain why what you are doing in [Iraq and Syria]. Tell us why we should believe you — this time — because history says you lie.”

Israeli forces kill three Palestinians including a baby

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Eight-month-old child suffocates from tear gas inhalation, bringing death toll of Palestinians to 69 in one month.

Palestinians decry Israel's heightened security measures which have led to several killings [Al Jazeera/Ezz Zanoun]

Palestinians decry Israel’s heightened security measures which have led to several killings [Al Jazeera/Ezz Zanoun]

by Al Jazeera

Three Palestinians – including an eight-month-old baby – have died from Israeli fire and another is critically wounded, while many others were injured in West Bank and Gaza protests.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed on Friday the death of Ramadan Mohammed Faisal Thawabta, the baby who suffocated from tear gas inhalation in a village near Bethlehem.

He died in Beit Fajjar in clashes as the Israeli army sprayed tear gas at Palestinians.

The ministry also confirmed the first incident, citing the death of Qasem Sabaana, 20, and the injury of a 17-year-old, as yet unnamed, at a checkpoint south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.

An Al Jazeera journalist who witnessed the incident said police fired at least seven shots at the Palestinian now fighting for his life in hospital.

Israeli police claimed that the two Palestinians had approached the checkpoint on a motorbike carrying knives.

Also in Jerusalem on Friday, another Palestinian succumbed to wounds inflicted earlier in the morning.

Train security officers shot the alleged attacker on the light rail in occupied East Jerusalem with live ammunition after he allegedly attacked an Israeli settler, the police said.

Israeli forces regularly fire live ammunition at protesters who gather to demonstrate against the Israeli occupation [Ezz Zanoun/Al Jazeera]

Since October 1, Israeli forces or settlers have killed 69 Palestinians – including unarmed protesters, bystanders and alleged attackers – across Israel, the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Nine Israelis have died in stabbing or shooting incidents in the same period.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker in Jerusalem said the city is heavily policed and Palestinians are monitored closely.

“Israeli security forces have clamped down on occupied East Jerusalem; it’s completely surrounded. People have to walk one by one, Palestinians often have to lift their shirts to show they are not carrying a weapon,” she said.

Clashes erupt

Outrage over the killings sparked Palestinian-led protests outside the Israeli settlement of Beit El, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

Around 500 Palestinians protested and clashed with Israeli forces, according to witnesses.

Israeli troops shot at least one protester in the chest with live ammunition, said Mohannad Darabee, a photographer at the clashes.

At least 69 Palestinians have been killed in the month of October as Israeli-Palestinian tensions rise [Ezz Zanoun/Al Jazeera]

“Medics told us he is in critical condition,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that an Israeli Jeep ran over another protester.

Orient Radio, a local media outlet, captured the soldiers running the protester over on video.

“When medics tried to help him and journalists approached the area, the soldiers attacked all of them with pepper spray and [tear] gas. Then they arrested the man [who was run over].

“People are angry about the martyr killed in Nablus. They [Israeli forces] are firing a lot of live ammunition and rubber-coated steel bullets – they are shooting indiscriminately,” Darabee said.

Human rights groups have warned of a risk of vigilantism as many citizens have carried out attacks on Palestinians [Ezz Zanoun/Al Jazeera]

Ezz Zanoun, a Gaza-based photographer, said that clashes are also taking place in areas across Gaza’s border with Israel.

“Two journalists have been hit with rubber-coated steel bullets” near the Nahal Oz Israeli military outpost, he told Al Jazeera, referring to an area near eastern Gaza City.

At least 2,000 people participated in the demonstrations, Zanoun added.

“The Israelis are using rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas,” he said. “Participation in the protests here in Gaza is growing.”

Israeli soldiers cursed at the protesters in Hebrew and Arabic, and waved an Israeli flag at them, witnesses said.

“The soldiers did not wait long to open fire,” said Zanoun. “The feeling among Palestinians is that this has become something routine for them, to fire quickly.”

‘Unlawful measures’

Tension has surged amid resentment over Israeli settlements and the incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site for Muslims.

Rights groups have slammed Israel for its harsh measures as it continues to crack down on Palestinians.

This week, Amnesty International warned Israeli forces to end its “pattern of unlawful killings”.

“In some cases, Israeli forces appear to have ripped up the rulebook and resorted to extreme and unlawful measures,” the group said.

“They seem increasingly prone to using lethal force against anyone they perceive as posing a threat, without ensuring that the threat is real.”

Demonstrations are being led by young Palestinians who are growing increasingly anxious over lethal force being used as collective punishment [Ezz Zanoun/Al Jazeera]

Imran Khan, Reham divorce with mutual consent

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Imran Khan Reham

by Sammar Abbas, Dawn

Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan and TV journalist Reham Khan have divorced with mutual consent after 10 months of marriage, PTI spokesperson Naeemul Haq said Friday.

‘Divorce is painful’

In a series of tweets, Imran Khan wrote that the divorce is painful for him, Reham and their respective families and requested everyone to respect their privacy.

He categorically denied the rumours about any financial settlement between them adding that he has great respect for Reham’s moral character and her passion to help and work for the underprivileged people of society.

Six months in, rumours that the marriage was falling apart began to circulate. While the couple was seen together on occasion, Imran last month tweeted an apparent refutation of the rumours: “I am shocked at a TV channel making slanderous statement about my marriage. I strongly urge the media to desist from such baseless statements.”

Earlier, Haq had also told DawnNews that Imran Khan had requested the media to avoid speculation and respect the sensitivity of the situation.

‘Just not getting along’

A source close to the PTI chairman, who asked not to be named, said the two were “just not getting along.”

“She wanted to get involved with politics and that is not what Khan wanted at all. She just did not want to sit at home,” he told Dawn.com.

“There were teething problems as well over other issues which were being resolved but this was a major issue — she wanted to get into politics and was not ready to back down.”

Another confidante of Imran Khan told Dawn.com that there was “a lot of pressure on Khan” from his family to divorce Reham, an apparent reference to Imran’s sister Aleema Khan who had made no secret of her displeasure over the marriage.

Despite several attempts, Reham could not be reached for a comment, but posted an announcement of the divorce on Twitter:

Sources said Reham has left Pakistan for London and is expected to address a conference there.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also asked party leaders to refrain from commenting on Imran Khan’s personal life.

The announcement today stirred a fiery debate on social media, with fans and naysayers of both Khan and Reham posting their two cents and taking sides.

In August this year the PTI chief had announced that Reham Khan, will not be playing an active role in party affairs, following “attacks” on his then wife in the aftermath of the party’s defeat in the NA-19 (Haripur) by-polls.

Loved by millions across the cricket-obsessed nation for winning Pakistan its only World Cup in 1992, Khan’s sporting prowess and rugged good looks brought him international celebrity.

He was considered his country’s most eligible man until he suddenly announced his plans to marry shortly after calling off a movement to topple the government in December after a Taliban attack on a school that killed 150 people.

The PTI chairman and television journalist Reham Khan had tied the knot in a simple nikkah ceremony which took place in January this year at Khan’s Bani Gala residence.

The nikkah, which was a low-key affair, was conducted by Mufti Saeed and was followed by a photo session. The wedding had captivated the entire country, with television channels going all out to cover the event and furnishing their audience with details of wedding sherwani and chappals.

In its early days, the marriage was marked by public appearances of the newlyweds who were seen smiling and happy at various events. Reham on several occasions had candidly expressed her feelings for Imran, saying he is “no longer alone”. In an early interview, she had said: “I didn’t know Mr Khan was Mr Right, you wait your whole life for Mr Right and then you find Mr Most Right.”

Reham had recently also sparked controversy after it emerged that she had not actually attended a college where she claimed to be a student on her website.

Born in 1952 in Lahore into a comfortable family with origins in the Pashtun northwest, Imran Khan was educated at Aitchison College and then Oxford University.

He became one of the world’s greatest ever all-rounders — a fearsome fast bowler and dangerous batsman — whose finest hour came at the 1992 World Cup, where at the age of 39 he led an inexperienced team to the title.

Off the pitch, he had a string of socialite girlfriends and frequented exclusive nightclubs in London until he married Jemima Goldsmith, the daughter of the French-British tycoon James, in 1995

Hi marriage with the Jemima lasted for nine years and ended amicably in 2004 with Goldsmith stating that she was unable to adapt to life in Pakistan.

Imran Khan has two sons from his previous marriage to Jemima.

Reham Khan was previously married to psychologist Ijaz Rehman, with whom she had three children.

Israeli rightists push for takeover of Al-Aqsa compound

by

Right-wing Jewish organisations are advocating for an increased Israeli presence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Protests across occupied Palestinian territories have been triggered by increased Israeli incursions Al-Aqsa Mosque compound [Ammar Awad/Reuters]

Protests across occupied Palestinian territories have been triggered by increased Israeli incursions Al-Aqsa Mosque compound [Ammar Awad/Reuters]

by Patrick Strickland, Al Jazeera

Right-wing political leaders and groups have called for Israel to exercise control over the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as the Israeli government takes harsh measures to quell ongoing Palestinian unrest.

Returning to the Mount, a hardline right-wing Zionist organisation, announced this week that it would pay 2,000 shekels ($516) to Jewish-Israelis detained while praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site for Muslims.

Jewish groups refer to the site as the Temple Mount and their increased incursions into the mosque compound have triggered Palestinian protests across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

Although formally banned from praying there, Israeli activists enjoy police escort when they venture into the compound.

Speaking to Israel’s Channel 2 on Tuesday, Raphael Morris, head of Returning to the Mount, accused the Israeli government of imposing “ruthless restrictions” on Jewish Israelis.

“We are not prepared [to let] the situation deteriorate.”

“We must act not only to end the slide, but moreover for the addition of rights for Jews on the mount, the first of which is prayer,” Morris said, as reported by the Times of Israel website.

The group’s Facebook is full of posts calling for Israel to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque and raise a Jewish temple in its place.

These fever-pitch calls come at a time when Palestinian protests against Israel’s ongoing occupation and harsh policies are growing in frequency in Palestinian communities in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza.

Triggered by Israeli incursions into the mosque last month, protests have met Israeli force, including the use of live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.

Since October 1, Israeli forces or settlers have killed 66 Palestinians, including unarmed protesters, bystanders and alleged attackers.

More than 1,000 Palestinians, among them children, have been arrested this month, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

During that same period, nine Israelis were killed by Palestinians in stabbing or shooting attacks.

Also on Tuesday, Israeli Deputy Minister Tzipi Hotovely – a member of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-nationalist Likud party – referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound as “the centre of Israeli sovereignty, the capital of Israel”.

“It is my dream to see the Israeli flag flying” over Al-Aqsa, she told Knesset TV, the Israeli parliament’s television channel in an interview.

In response, Netanyahu’s office later that night put out a statement saying that “non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount [Al-Aqsa compound]” but are not permitted to pray there.

Biblical claims

Hotovely was criticised back in May when she cited religious texts as justification for Israeli settlement expansion. Citing medieval Jewish scholar Rabbi Shlomo Ben Yitzhaki, she said that “the creator of the world” took the land from Palestinians “and gave it to us”.

More than 530,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements – considered illegal by international law – across the West Bank, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

Last month, the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement, a hardline Israeli organisation that advocates removing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, organised a march as tensions soared.

The group published a statement calling on Jews to protect the Temple Mount, which is “in the hands of Israel’s enemies”.

“We will stop the Islamisation of the Temple Mount and the construction of more mosques,” it read, adding that Israeli police forces will provide the marchers with protection.

According to Al-Shabaka Policy Network, a Palestinian research group, Israeli leaders intentionally attempt to portray the ongoing unrest as a religious conflict in order to justify using force against anti-occupation protests and to deflect criticism of harsh policies.

“Israel’s framing of the conflict along religious lines is an attempt to decontextualise the clashes that have been happening between Palestinians and Israeli settlers,” Nur Arafeh, a policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, told Al Jazeera.

Arafeh said that Palestinian “resistance to a settler-colonial and apartheid” are time and again “distortedly linked to religious fervor”.

“While Netanyahu claims that he has no intention to change the status quo, Israeli settlers have strong and deepening ties with Israeli authorities that have been providing them with financial, political, and legal assistance and coverage.”

Several senior officials of the Israeli government and high-ranking members of Netanyahu’s Likud party are committed supporters of Temple Mount movements and have attempted to advance their program in the Knesset, according to a December 2014 report by the Jerusalem based group Ir Amim.

The report found that Netanyahu has “refrained from confronting them publicly or from commenting on the destructive impact of their actions”.

Between May 2013 and October 2014, the Knesset Interior Committee held 14 discussions about Jewish access to the mosque compound, as compared to four meetings in the decade prior.

Ir Amim describes these discussions “as a central stage for backing extreme right Temple movement activists” and “a platform for right-wing Knesset members to level criticism at authorities responsible for security” at the holy site.

Some 27 right-wing Jewish movements advocate for an expansion of Israel’s presence at the compound, according to the United Temple Mount Movement, an umbrella group that represents the organisations.

While many only publicly focus on increasing Jewish prayer at the site, they all maintain the messianic view that the mosque will be replaced with a Jewish temple, according to another Ir Amim report published in October 2014.

‘Intense incitement’

In recent months, however, security forces have imposed tighter entry restrictions to the Al-Aqsa area on Palestinians, often placing arbitrary age restrictions on male worshippers.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu banned all Knesset members from visiting the holy site, including Palestinian legislators in the Israeli parliament.

While Netanyahu has been mostly quiet about right-wing Jewish groups pushing for an Israeli takeover of the holy site, he has lashed out at Palestinian legislators who defy his order.

Most recently, Bassel Ghattas, a legislator in the Knesset and member of the Balad political party, defied the ban and visited the mosque to show solidarity with worshippers on Wednesday.

Emphasising that Ghattas is a Christian, Netanyahu accused him of attempting to “provoke” an escalation and “inflame the situation”.

Yousef Jabareen, a Knesset member from the Arab-majority Joint List electoral coalition, said that Netanyahu and his political allies “are the ones who have been inciting”.

“We have been witnessing intense incitement by Netanyahu and his allies against Palestinian Knesset members,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The idea is to delegitimise our role in Israeli politics,” he said. “I believe that this incitement serves Netanyahu to go ahead with his discriminatory policies” against Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories.

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