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Palestinians killed after alleged Hebron stabbings

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Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank, one in East Jerusalem, after alleged stabbings.

Video footage showed the moment after an Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian man in Hebron [YouTube]

Video footage showed the moment after an Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian man in Hebron [YouTube]

by Al Jazeera

Three Palestinians have been shot dead in separate attacks after they allegedly tried to stab Israelis in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the latest incidents in a wave of violence that has escalated this month.

In Hebron, a Jewish settler killed a Palestinian man early on Saturday after the Palestinian allegedly tried to stab him. Israeli police said the man was shot dead before he could harm the Israeli.

Witnesses disputed the Israeli police version of the event, saying the incident looked more like an attack by the settler on the Palestinian.

Video circulated by Palestinian activists showed a young man wearing a kippa brandishing a pistol as shots rang out before Israeli soldiers moved in to pull him away from a body lying on the ground.

Palestinian security sources identified the Palestinian as 18-year-old Fadel al-Kawatsmi.

In the second attack, a Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli forces after she allegedly attempted to stab a female soldier guarding an illegal Jewish settlement in Hebron.

The soldier suffered minor injuries to her hand, according to an Israeli police spokesperson.

Palestinian media said her assailant was aged 16.

Israeli police sealed off the city by blocking road access after violent clashes broke out between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces following the killings.

In East Jerusalem, a Palestinian allegedly tried to stab a soldier at a checkpoint in East Talpiot but was shot dead by other soldiers.

Police said the boy was a 16-year-old from nearby Jabel Mukaber, the same neighbourhood that was home to three Palestinians who were killed earlier this week after alleged attacks against Israelis.

Amid tit-for-tat attacks between Israelis and Palestinians, the ongoing streak of violence has left dead at least 42 Palestinians – including suspected attackers, as well as unarmed protesters and bystanders – and seven Israelis.

Israeli security forces have deployed massively in Jerusalem and on Wednesday began setting up checkpoints in parts of East Jerusalem, including Jabel Mukaber. But it has failed to stop the violence.

The mounting death toll has prompted speculation about a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising, like those of 1987-93 and 2000-2005, when thousands were killed in near-daily violence.

Palestinian plea rejected

Saturday’s killings came a day after Israel rejected a Palestinian plea to the United Nations for an international force to police the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

Tensions boiled over into violence earlier this month as Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa complex – the third holiest site in Islam – gave way to protests and clashes that have consumed much of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

“An international presence on the Temple Mount [al-Aqsa Mosque compound] would violate the status quo of the last several decades,” Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said on Friday.

“Israel does not think international intervention [in] the Temple Mount would be helpful or contribute to stability,” Danon added.

Israel bans men under 40 entering Al-Aqsa Mosque

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A Palestinian man prays outside the Old City in Jerusalem due to Al-Aqsa restrictions, October 9, 2015. (AFP/File)

A Palestinian man prays outside the Old City in Jerusalem due to Al-Aqsa restrictions, October 9, 2015. (AFP/File)

by Ma’an News Agency

Israeli police have imposed age restrictions at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Friday as a preventative security measure, with only Palestinian men over 40 allowed to enter for prayers.

Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said security measures are in place across Israel and Jerusalem.

There were no reports of restrictions on women.

Meanwhile, around 130 worshipers from Gaza, all over the age of 60, prayed at the holy site early Friday in a coordinated weekly visit.

The flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound has been the site of clashes for weeks, with Israeli forces repeatedly storming the holy site to clear way for Jewish worshipers during a series of Jewish holidays in September.

Palestinians fear Israel is seeking to change rules governing the site, where Jews are allowed to visit, but not pray to avoid provoking tensions.

In early October, Israeli police took the unprecedented measure of banning Palestinians from East Jerusalem’s Old City for 48 hours following two stabbing attacks in which two Israelis were killed.

At least 32 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and 12 in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 1.

Seven Israelis have been killed in the same time period in Palestinian attacks.

Suicide bombers launch deadly attack on Nigerian mosque

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At least 30 killed after bombers struck while people were praying, with witnesses saying the toll could be much higher.

Security forces have been attempting to drive Boko Haram from areas the group claims in Borno [AP]

Security forces have been attempting to drive Boko Haram from areas the group claims in Borno [AP]

by Al Jazeera

At least 30 people have been killed and dozens have been injured in twin suicide bomb attacks on a mosque in the Mulai area of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, health officials tell Al Jazeera.

Sources said the force of the blast destroyed the mosque as worshippers were praying.

One bomb exploded inside the mosque, while another exploded outside, sources said.

“Sucide bombers targeted large crowds to cause maximum damage,” Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Maiduguri, said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but among the suspects will be the Boko Haram armed group, which has launched a large number of suicide attacks in region over the past few months.

On Wednesday, three blasts in Borno’s capital Maiduguri killed at least five civilians and three suspected suicide bombers after the attackers were challenged by locals.

On October 1, at least 10 people were killed and 39 injured when four suicide bombers blew themselves up in a wave of attacks in Ajilari Cross, which is near Maiduguri airport and a military base.

On September 20, at least 117 were killed in the city when attackers hit a mosque and killed football fans watching a televised match, as well as bystanders.

Al Jazeera’s Idris said that the Nigerian army has had some success in pushing Boko Haram from territory it had claimed in its bid to carve out an Islamic state in the country’s northeast.

But he said that security forces have been unable to prevent the group from carrying out suicide bomb attacks, which have increased in frequency.

A new low: Israeli police officer puts pork chop on dying Palestinian man’s face

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A pork chop was placed on the dying man's face while the paramedics were awaiting an ambulance near Hebron. Photo: Facebook

A pork chop was placed on the dying man’s face while the paramedics were awaiting an ambulance near Hebron. Photo: Facebook

by Sam Matthew, Daily Mail

This is the moment it was claimed a pork chop was placed on the face of a dying Palestinian man.

He had been gunned down after allegedly stabbing an Israeli police officer in the settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron.

In 12 days of bloodshed four Israelis and 26 Palestinians have been killed in Jerusalem, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Gaza and in Israeli cities. The death toll is said to include eight children.

The violence has been stirred in part by Muslim anger over increasing Jewish visits to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.

Footage, which is now circulating on social media, shows a man, said to be an Israeli settler, approaching paramedics claiming to be clutching pork meat.

He then places the substance on the wounded man’s face and body.

It has not been confirmed that the meat was pork and in the short clip posted on YouTube it appears to look more like raw chicken.

But both Muslims and Jewish people are forbidden to eat pork, which is considered to be unclean.

Paramedics were lifting the wounded man into the waiting ambulance when he was targetted.

They do not stop to remove the flesh, as a crowd gathers around the man, who was said to have later died in hospital of his injuries.

The clip has been viewed more than 24,500 times on YouTube.

The act was later praised by right-wing activists, according to the International Business Times.

‘If this could prevent terror attacks, then we are definitely talking about the idea of the year,’ they reported that Itamar Ben Gvir said.

Iraq: ISIL leader Baghdadi’s convoy hit in air strike

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Military says Baghdadi’s convoy was struck near border with Syria, adding that his health situation was unknown.

ISIL, led by Baghdadi, last year proclaimed a caliphate straddling Iraqi and Syria [AP]

ISIL, led by Baghdadi, last year proclaimed a caliphate straddling Iraqi and Syria [AP]

by Al Jazeera

Iraqi security forces say they have struck the convoy of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, in an air strike near the country’s border with Syria.

“The Iraqi air force carried out a heroic operation targeting the convoy of the criminal terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” Iraq’s security forces said in a statement on Sunday.

“His health status is unknown,” it said.

Pentagon officials told Al Jazeera that they could not “corroborate or confirm the Iraqi government claim of striking or killing Baghdadi at this point”.

Iraqi security sources have previously claimed several times that Baghdadi had been injured or killed in strikes, but the claims were either never verified or later denied.

The army statement said Iraqi aircraft struck Baghdadi’s convoy as it was “moving towards Karabla to attend a meeting of the Daesh terrorist leaders”.

Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the ISIL group, which last year proclaimed a caliphate straddling Iraqi and Syria.

Karabla is located on the Euphrates river barely five kilometres from the border with Syria. The statement did not make clear when the strike was carried out.

Coordinated air strike

The statement said the operation was conducted in coordination with Iraq’s interior ministry intelligence services and the joint operation command centre that includes military advisers from the US-led coalition.

ISIL supporters said on Twitter on Sunday that even if Baghdadi has been killed, his self-proclaimed caliphate will survive.

“Does the entire world not know that even if, hypothetically, our Sheikh al-Baghdadi, God save and protect him from all evils and dangers, was martyred, do you think the State of the Caliphate would end? Do you think we would leave?” said a tweet from a supporter.

An ISIL fighter told the Reuters news agency on the phone that he could not confirm whether Baghdadi had been in the convoy that was struck, but he said the group would fight on whatever his fate: “Even if he was martyred then it will not affect the Islamic State. We will lose a leader, but there are a thousand Baghdadis.

“Every minute a leader is born in the Islamic State.”

Evidence mounts of Russian cluster-bomb use in Syria

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Rights group backs activists’ accusation of Russia dropping munitions from jets or giving them to Assad government.

Activists say Russian warplanes dropped cluster bombs in the suburbs of Idlib and Hama [Reuters]

Activists say Russian warplanes dropped cluster bombs in the suburbs of Idlib and Hama [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Human Rights Watch has echoed accusations by Syrian activists that Russia was behind the use of new advanced cluster munitions in Syria, by dropping them from its warplanes or supplying them to the Assad government.

The New York-based group said that photographs it obtained showed that the cluster munitions were dropped on Kafr Halab, a village southwest of Syria’s second city of Aleppo, on October 4.

“It’s disturbing that yet another type of cluster munition is being used in Syria given the harm they cause to civilians for years to come,” said Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Middle East director.

“Neither Russia nor Syria should use cluster munitions, and both should join the international ban without delay.”

Russia launched an aerial bombing campaign against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad on September 30.

Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of bomblets and are fired in rockets or dropped from the air.

Widely banned, they spread explosives over large areas and are indiscriminate in nature, often continuing to maim and kill long after the initial attack when previously unexploded bomblets detonate.

Their use in Kafr Halab coincides with the emergence of evidence that they have been used in the provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Idlib since Russia launched its intervention.

Activists’ accounts

Human Rights Watch said it “cannot conclusively determine whether Russian or Syrian forces were responsible for the attack” on October 4.

It noted that neither country had banned their use.

A video posted on October 7 by activists that was reportedly taken in the town of Kafr Zeita, northwest of Hama, shows smoke trails of ground-fired rockets launched from the direction of Jabal Zayn al-Abidin and multiple subsequent explosions of submunitions in the town.

Photographs and a video posted online by local activists in October, with title text that says they were taken at Masaran village in Idlib, shows at least one unexploded AO-2.5RT submunition and the remnants of an RBK-500 canister, which can contain up to 108 submunitions.

Reuters published a photograph taken in Masaran that shows a first responder handling unexploded AO-2.5RT submunitions that local activists told the news agency were used in an attack by the Russian air force on October 7.

Human Rights Watch has documented the use of cluster munitions before in the Syrian conflict, with government forces dropping them from the air since 2012, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group firing them from rockets since late 2014.

According to RT television network, Russia is using in Syria “time-proven bombs and missiles equipped with state-of-the-art system guidance. Precision weapons are used from high altitudes to exclude encounters with portable air-defence systems”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told local media that Russia has the will to use these advanced weapons “if it meets the national interests of our state and the Russian people”.

The Syrian conflict, which began as an uprising against Assad’s government in 2011, has killed up to 250,000 people and forced millions to flee the country.

Syria: 300 anti-Assad fighters killed in 24 hours

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Russia killed militants in 60 separate attacks in 24 hours. Image used for illustrative purposes. (Al Bawaba/File)

Russia killed militants in 60 separate attacks in 24 hours. Image used for illustrative purposes. (Al Bawaba/File)

by Andolu Ajansi

Russian airstrikes killed 300 suspected militants in 60 separate attacks in northern Syria within the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed Friday.

According to state-owned Russia Today, Russia’s Deputy Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Igor Makushev addressed a briefing in Moscow during which he revealed that Russian air forces carried out 67 sorties that also killed two suspected senior Daesh field commanders.

“A precision hit destroyed the headquarters of Liwa al-Haqq, an Islamist group, which has been fighting the government of Bashar Assad since 2012. Russia said that a radio intercept confirmed the deaths of 200 fighters, and two commanders, who Makushev said belonged to Islamic State [Daesh],” Russia Today said.

Another 100 suspected militants were killed in an airstrike near Aleppo, it added.

The targets were mainly hit in Syrian provinces of Raqqa, Latakia, Hama, Idlib and Aleppo.

Russia began its air campaign in Syria on Sept. 30.

Nobel Peace Prize for Tunisian democracy group

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National Dialogue Quartet made “decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia”, jury says.

Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet

by Al Jazeera

The Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet – a democracy group – has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for “its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced.

The group of four organisations established “an alternative, peaceful political process at a time when the country was on the brink of civil war,” the Committee said on Friday, referring to the period following Tunisia’s 2011 revolution.

The National Dialogue Quartet is made up of four key organisations in Tunisian civil society: the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers.

The jury cited the group for “its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011”.

“The Nobel Peace Prize for 2015 is awarded to this Quartet, not to the four individual organisations as such,” the committee said.

The laureates will receive their prizes at a ceremony in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of prize creator Alfred Nobel, a Swedish philanthropist and scientist.

Reaction

A Tunisian union leader who played a key role in democracy-building that won the Nobel Peace Prize says he was “overwhelmed” by the gesture.

Houcine Abassi, secretary general of the UGTT union, told the AP news agency on Friday: “It’s a prize that crowns more than two years of efforts deployed by the quartet when the country was in danger on all fronts.”

“I am happy,” he said, adding that the quartet members were not expecting the prize.

He described how the UGTT, a human rights group, a trade group and a lawyers group joined together to try to “bring the country out of crisis.”

Al Jazeera’s Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Tunisia, said: “[It’s] very symbolic for many Tunisians who see this as really a symbol of hope for the country which is going through another crisis.”

Tunisia’s young and still shaky democracy suffered two attacks this year that killed 60 people and devastated the tourism industry.

“More than anything, the prize is intended as an encouragement to the Tunisian people, who despite major challenges have laid the groundwork for a national fraternity which the committee hopes will serve as an example to be followed by other countries,” the committee said.

The committee said the prize was also intended as an encouragement to other countries to follow in Tunisia’s footsteps.

“The Norwegian Nobel Committee hopes that this year’s prize will contribute towards safeguarding democracy in Tunisia and be an inspiration to all those who seek to promote peace and democracy in the Middle East, North Africa and the rest of the world,” it said.

Tunisian Tourism Minister:

High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy:

The United Nations:

Deadly explosions hit Ankara peace rally

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Twin blasts in the centre of the Turkish capital kill at least 30, injure more than 120, interior ministry says.

An online video showed the moment one of the blasts at the peace rally in Ankara [Via @dokuz8haber]

An online video showed the moment one of the blasts at the peace rally in Ankara [Via @dokuz8haber]

by Al Jazeera

Two explosions have rocked a road junction in the centre of the Turkish capital Ankara, killing at least 30 people and injuring dozens of others, the interior ministry said.

The blasts took place several minutes apart, with the first going off at around 10:00am (0700 GMT), local media reported.

A video on social media showed the moment of one explosion: young people were dancing and waving banners as a massive fireball erupts.

The explosions occurred near a train station where people were gathering for a peace march to protest against the conflict between the state and Kurdish fighters in southeast Turkey.

Video footage on social media showed several bodies lying on the ground, as survivors tried to attend to the wounded.

Emergency crews were at the scene, responding to the injuries, with ambulances rushing off to several local hospitals. There were reports of shortages of blood and calls for donations.

‘Barbaric attack’

“We heard one huge blast and then one smaller explosion and then there was a a great movement and panic. Then we saw corpses around the station,” said Ahmet Onen, 52.

“A demonstration that was to promote peace has turned into a massacre, I don’t understand this,” he said, in floods of tears.

Demonstrators angered by the attack on their fellow activists shouted “police murderers!” at the scene of the blasts but were then dispersed as the security forces intervened.

The rally was organised by several leftist groups, including the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

“We are faced with a huge massacre. A barbaric attack has been committed,” said the HDP’s leader Selahattin Demirtas.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan strongly denounced the attack.

“I strongly condemn this heinous attack on our unity and our country’s peace,” Erdogan said in a statement posted on the presidency’s website.

“No matter what its origin, aim or name, we are against any form of terrorist act or terrorist organisation. We are obliged to be against it together,” Erdogan said.

The attack came with Turkey on edge ahead of November 1 polls and a wave of unrest over the past few months.

An attack in the predominantly Kurdish town of Suruc on July 20 targeting pro-HDP activists and blamed on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters killed 32 people and wounded a hundred others.

The armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) accused Ankara of collaborating with ISIL and resumed attacks on the Turkish security forces after observing a two-year ceasefire.

Over 140 members of the security forces have since been killed while Ankara claims to have killed over 1,700 Kurdish fighters in weeks of bombardments of PKK targets in southeast Turkey and northern Iraq.

PPK ceasefire

Hours after the blasts in Ankara, the PKK called for a unilateral ceasefire in its fight against the Turkish state “unless they or the Kurdish people are attacked”, according to a statement carried by Kurdish news agencies.

The statement was released by the Group of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) and did not reference Saturday’s attack in Ankara.

The move was widely expected as analysts said the PKK hoped it would boost the HDP’s score in the upcoming election.

The HDP performed strongly in the last vote on June 7, winning 80 seats to deprive President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of an outright majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002.

The AKP then failed to form a coalition in months of talks, prompting Erdogan – who had been hoping for a large majority to push through reforms to boost his powers – to call another election on November 1.

Initial reports on Saturday’s blasts spoke of a single explosion but Turkish media said later there had been two separate blasts in short sequence.

The authorities were exploring the possibility that the blasts could have been caused by a suicide bomber, the official Anatolia news agency said.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had been briefed over the blast by Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu, Anatolia said.

“We are investigating the explosion and will share our findings with the public as soon as possible,” a Turkish official said, without giving further details.

Deadly air strike reported on Yemen wedding party

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Arab coalition yet to respond to charge it carried out attack in Sanban in second such incident in just over a week.

un-us-yemen-drones

by Al Jazeera

A suspected air strike has killed at least 13 people at a wedding party in a town in Yemen, witnesses say, even as UN peace efforts make headway.

Medical sources said 38 people were wounded, besides the dead, in Wednesday’s incident in Dhamar province.

There was no immediate comment from the Arab coalition, which has been conducting a bombing campaign against the Iran-allied Shia Houthi fighters and their allies in Yemen since March.

The alleged raid hit a house where dozens of people were celebrating the wedding in Sanban, 100km south of the capital Sanaa, residents said.

The incident is the second alleged coalition strike on a wedding party in the Arabian Peninsula country in just over a week.

“Coalition warplanes launched the attack. The house was completely destroyed,” Taha al-Zuba, a witness and local resident, said.

“Warplanes were heard in the area ahead of the attack.”

The Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah television said on Twitter that the wedding was hit by “aggression warplanes”, referring to the coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia.

In September, a suspected coalition strike killed at least 131 civilians at a wedding near the Red Sea city of al-Mokha, which the UN said may have been the deadliest hit since March.

The coalition denied involvement.

Peace efforts

The air strike in Sanban comes as the UN announced that the Houthis, who control Sanaa and much of central and northern Yemen, had accepted a Security Council resolution calling for an end to the conflict.

The Houthis’ refusal to agree to abide by the resolution passed in April – demanding their withdrawal from all the territory they have seized since they overran Sanaa in September last year – had blocked previous peace efforts.

Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled into exile in neighbouring Saudi Arabia in March but whose forces have since recaptured much of the south with the support of coalition ground troops, had refused to join UN-brokered peace talks until the Houthis signed up.

But Stephane Dujarric, UN spokesman, announced in New York late on Wednesday that both the Houthis and their allies had confirmed they were willing to enter talks based on the UN resolution.

“This is an important step,” he said.

The Houthi fighters, whose heartland is in the mountains of the far north, were only able to capture so much of the country because of the support of renegade troops still loyal to Hadi’s deposed predecessor, Ali Abullah Saleh.

Saleh’s General People’s Congress party too announced on Wednesday that it had accepted the UN peace plan following secret talks with Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the UN envoy for Yemen.

Ould Cheikh Ahmed “believes that the government of Yemen, the Houthis and their allies should accept the invitation to join peace talks on this basis”, Dujarric said on Wednesday.

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