BBC
India train fire: Gas canister sets off deadly explosion
Sat, August 26, 2023 at 10:47 AM CDT
Carriage parked at Madurai railway station after a fire broke out, 26 August.
Some passengers illegally used a gas stove, officials say
A fire on a train carriage has killed nine people in India, after a gas canister used by passengers to make drinks exploded, officials say.
Nine others were injured in the fire, which occurred in the southern city of Madurai in Tamil Nadu state.
The carriage was carrying more than 50 pilgrims from Uttar Pradesh and was parked at the station when the cylinder blew up early on Saturday.
Survivors had to break doors to flee the burning carriage, eyewitnesses say.
The coach involved in Saturday's incident had arrived from Uttar Pradesh earlier in the day.
It was due to remain parked at Madurai station for two days, local media say.
The gas cylinder was illegally taken inside the carriage, officials are quoted as saying.
India suffered one of its worst-ever rail disasters in June when a collision killed 275 people in Odisha state.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/in ... 16747.html
Some comments:
Similarly A cylinder also burst in Godhra train while the hindu men had locked the train doors to prevent naked hindus sadhus wearing no clothes entering the train where hindu women were cooking and sleeping with children. Initaial enquiries pointed out to this. then the Hindutva gangs created a rumour and muslims were massacred with Modi and hindu police playing a criminal role in Gujarat killings for which Western govts, USA banned Modi for more than ten years. Modi also exposed by BBC.
Tamashai
It’s reminds the godhra incident which was capitalized to win the election. The burning appears exactly same as 30 years ago.
shahid
One of the possibilities of the fire in Godra.
MAN-MADE DISASTERS
Dire Warnings About Libya Dams Went Unheeded
“The state wasn’t interested,” said an engineer who published a paper on why Derna’s dams, after decades of postponed repairs, might fail under the stress of a powerful storm.
Derna, Libya, has been devastated by flooding from storms this week, which washed swaths of the city into the sea.Credit...Muhammad J. Elalwany/Associated Press
It had been clear for years that the dams protecting Derna, on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, were in danger of giving way.
Torrential rains were not new. Decade after decade, they had pounded the area, washing away the soil that helped soak up water as it ran down from the dry hills above town.
Climate change had also changed the land, making it drier, harder and increasingly shorn of vegetation, less able to absorb the water before it pooled up dangerously behind the dams.
Then, there were the decades of neglect by officials — who knew the dams needed repairs — in a country so torn by years of civil war that it still has two opposing governments: one in the west and another in the east, where Derna lies.
Academics had warned that it would not require a storm of biblical proportions to overwhelm the dams.
The residents of Derna are “extremely vulnerable to flood risk,” wrote Abdelwanees Ashoor, a hydraulic engineer at Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Libya, in a paper he published in 2022.
The kind of storms that had hit the area in recent decades — he cited a damaging flood in 1959 — could bring down the dams and inundate Derna, he warned, calling the situation “dangerous.”
This past week, those predictions grimly proved to be true, when enormous flooding from a powerful storm broke through both dams and swept parts of the city into the sea. Thousands are dead and many more missing, according to the authorities. According to the International Organization for Migration, over 34,000 people were displaced by the catastrophe.
Reached by phone, Dr. Ashoor said he had lost several members of his extended family to the flooding this past week, adding that the government had ignored years of warnings — including his own paper.
“We’re living in shock. We can’t absorb what’s happening to us,” Dr. Ashoor said. “The state wasn’t interested in this. Instead, they guzzled money, practiced corruption and fought political squabbles.”
The dams had been built by engineers who had underestimated the amount of rain expected in the region, he argued. Making matters worse, the terrain had undergone a process of desertification, making it less porous and capable of absorbing runoff. Beyond that, local officials say the dams had barely been maintained since their construction in the late 1970s.
Dr. Ashoor said he had sent his paper to academic colleagues in the nation’s capital, Tripoli, and a senior dam expert in the United States said his conclusions appeared to be solid.
ImageA wide-angle view of a flooded, muddy area with piles of debris visible.
Floodwaters overwhelmed Derna on Monday, killing thousands of people.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“He nailed it,” said Michael W. West, a retired principal at the engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner. “His main point is that the hydrologic design of those dams was inadequate, and they couldn’t handle the large-magnitude storms.”
“It’s probably devastating to know you were right, plus the personal tragedy on top of that,” Mr. West added. “I can’t imagine how he’s feeling.”
Libya, an oil-rich nation on the shores of the Mediterranean, has been worn down by years of civil war and government misrule. Climate change only added to the strain, helping to turn the once-fertile terrain arid and desolate.
The two dams that towered over the city had been built with the help of engineers from the former Yugoslavia, according to experts. The larger one, known as Abu Mansour, stood 74 meters high and could hold up to 22.5 million cubic meters of water. The smaller one, al-Bilad, or simply Derna dam, was built on the city’s outskirts.
During the long, autocratic reign of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, floods came and went, but the dams stood. In 1986, a major storm convulsed the region, damaging the dams and shearing soil from the ground. The structures were damaged, Dr. Ashoor said, but again they held.
Despite the stresses, repairs were minimal. In 1998, the Libyan government commissioned a study that revealed cracks and fissures in the dams, said Attorney General Sadiq al-Soor.
Image
A city street damaged by flood, with crushed vehicles and piles of debris. A boy drags a large, mud-stained suitcase.
Thousands of people are estimated to be missing from Derna.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Nearly 10 years later, a Turkish company was finally contracted to repair the dams, the prosecutor added. But the government dragged its feet in paying, and the project got underway only in 2010, Mr. al-Soor told reporters on Friday.
Just four months later, in 2011, Libyans marched against Colonel el-Qaddafi’s 42-year grip on power, inspired by the uprisings that had toppled Arab autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt. When he threatened to annihilate the opposition, NATO intervened and bombed his forces, with the United States a backbone of the operation. Colonel el-Qaddafi was ousted from Tripoli that August.
In the tumult, work on the dam ceased, the prosecutor said.
He pledged that the authorities would take “firm measures” against anyone deemed responsible for failing to properly maintain the two dams. “This is extremely important for protecting the rights of the victims and to determine who was responsible — if there was neglect or dereliction of duty,” said Mr. al-Soor.
He said that the authorities had appointed prosecutors from different parts of Libya to investigate what caused the dams to collapse, inspect houses and determine whether maintenance measures could have prevented the disaster.
More than a decade after Colonel el-Qaddafi’s chaotic ouster, the country remains split between an internationally recognized government in the west and one under Khalifa Hifter, a military commander who controls the east, including Derna.
Derna was a key battleground during the country’s civil war, which saw the city fall under the control of Islamist militias. After a protracted siege, forces loyal to Mr. Hifter declared victory in 2018, although skirmishes continued for several months.
All the while, the neglect of the dams continued.
According to a 2021 report by Libyan state auditors in the west of the country, more than $2.3 million allocated for maintaining the two dams was simply never used. They called it a case of government negligence.
And as recently as last week, less than two days before the dam burst, a Libyan nonprofit, Roya, wrote on Facebook that the dam could fill to bursting during the powerful storm that was sweeping across the Mediterranean.
“We ask the residents of the valley to be very careful,” the group said.
Image
A wide-angle view of a flood-damaged area. There are piles of rubble and a six-story building with one section gouged away.
Residents of Derna said they were issued confusing, sometimes contradictory, orders on whether to evacuate. Many ended up trapped in their apartment buildings as the waters rushed through.Credit...Abdullah Doma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Even as the waters swelled, some officials, far away in Tripoli, said just after midnight on Monday that the dams were in “good condition” and that there was “no cause for concern about collapse.” They added, however, that the storm had affected their ability to contact those charged with monitoring one of the dams.
Very soon after, well before dawn, the rising waters appear to have overwhelmed the dams — first the larger Abu Mansour dam, then the second, smaller one downstream, which was obliterated in a matter of “moments,” Dr. Ashoor said.
The rampaging tide wiped out large chunks of the city, shattering roads and bridges, washing away cars, and smashing apartment buildings, witnesses said
Whole families were killed, officials say, drowned or trapped under rubble. Others were dragged out to sea.
William F. Marcuson III, a former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that these dams — which were made with clay and rock — were common around the world.
“There’s nothing wrong with that approach, if it is done correctly,” he said. But, he added, the dams must be designed for the maximum rainstorms likely, and be constructed under careful inspection, so that no corners are cut.
The dams included concrete spillways that are supposed to function much like an overflow drain in an ordinary bathtub: If the water rises too high, it goes into the spillway, down underground pipes, and is discharged below the dam.
Scenes From a Deluge: Floods Devastate Libya
Powerful rains destroyed two dams, and the death toll is estimated at more than 5,000.
Sept. 12, 2023
But if the spillway is not built to a sufficient size or the pipes are too narrow for the strength of the storm, the water continues to rise.
When it rises over the top of the dam — called “overtopping” — the dam itself begins to erode. As that happens, the embankment, which supports the dam, is gradually eaten away until the entire structure fails and the water flows freely.
If the upstream dam failed first, a wall of water may have wiped out the lower dam frighteningly quickly.
With no more obstacles in its path, the water tore through the countryside, fanning out over dozens of kilometers. The main force of the raging torrent slid into the natural funnel of the Derna river basin, where residents say they were issued confusing, sometimes contradictory, orders on whether to evacuate.
Source: Videos and imagery of the floods, Google Maps imagery from August 2022
In a televised speech on Thursday, Aguila Saleh, the speaker of the Parliament in the nation’s east, sought to bat away accusations that the scale of the devastation was rooted in government mismanagement and neglect.
“Don’t say, ‘If only we’d done this, if only we’d done that,’” Mr. Saleh said. “What took place in our country was an incomparable natural disaster.”
Dr. Ashoor acknowledged that the flood was prompted by a giant storm rarely seen in the country. But he believes the authorities could have done far more to minimize the risk.
“Political strife, two governments, all of the wars we’ve seen since 2011, terrorism, all the problems we’ve faced,” Dr. Ashoor said. “All of this gathered together to lead to this deteriorating disaster, this calamity we’re living through. May God ease this crisis.”
Image
A bulldozer works at the edge of a large field, where a pit in the reddish-brown dirt holds rows of white body bags.
In Derna, hundreds were hastily buried in mass graves outside the city, health officials said.Credit...Ayman Al-Sahili/Reuters
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/16/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Derna, Libya, has been devastated by flooding from storms this week, which washed swaths of the city into the sea.Credit...Muhammad J. Elalwany/Associated Press
It had been clear for years that the dams protecting Derna, on Libya’s Mediterranean coast, were in danger of giving way.
Torrential rains were not new. Decade after decade, they had pounded the area, washing away the soil that helped soak up water as it ran down from the dry hills above town.
Climate change had also changed the land, making it drier, harder and increasingly shorn of vegetation, less able to absorb the water before it pooled up dangerously behind the dams.
Then, there were the decades of neglect by officials — who knew the dams needed repairs — in a country so torn by years of civil war that it still has two opposing governments: one in the west and another in the east, where Derna lies.
Academics had warned that it would not require a storm of biblical proportions to overwhelm the dams.
The residents of Derna are “extremely vulnerable to flood risk,” wrote Abdelwanees Ashoor, a hydraulic engineer at Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Libya, in a paper he published in 2022.
The kind of storms that had hit the area in recent decades — he cited a damaging flood in 1959 — could bring down the dams and inundate Derna, he warned, calling the situation “dangerous.”
This past week, those predictions grimly proved to be true, when enormous flooding from a powerful storm broke through both dams and swept parts of the city into the sea. Thousands are dead and many more missing, according to the authorities. According to the International Organization for Migration, over 34,000 people were displaced by the catastrophe.
Reached by phone, Dr. Ashoor said he had lost several members of his extended family to the flooding this past week, adding that the government had ignored years of warnings — including his own paper.
“We’re living in shock. We can’t absorb what’s happening to us,” Dr. Ashoor said. “The state wasn’t interested in this. Instead, they guzzled money, practiced corruption and fought political squabbles.”
The dams had been built by engineers who had underestimated the amount of rain expected in the region, he argued. Making matters worse, the terrain had undergone a process of desertification, making it less porous and capable of absorbing runoff. Beyond that, local officials say the dams had barely been maintained since their construction in the late 1970s.
Dr. Ashoor said he had sent his paper to academic colleagues in the nation’s capital, Tripoli, and a senior dam expert in the United States said his conclusions appeared to be solid.
ImageA wide-angle view of a flooded, muddy area with piles of debris visible.
Floodwaters overwhelmed Derna on Monday, killing thousands of people.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“He nailed it,” said Michael W. West, a retired principal at the engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner. “His main point is that the hydrologic design of those dams was inadequate, and they couldn’t handle the large-magnitude storms.”
“It’s probably devastating to know you were right, plus the personal tragedy on top of that,” Mr. West added. “I can’t imagine how he’s feeling.”
Libya, an oil-rich nation on the shores of the Mediterranean, has been worn down by years of civil war and government misrule. Climate change only added to the strain, helping to turn the once-fertile terrain arid and desolate.
The two dams that towered over the city had been built with the help of engineers from the former Yugoslavia, according to experts. The larger one, known as Abu Mansour, stood 74 meters high and could hold up to 22.5 million cubic meters of water. The smaller one, al-Bilad, or simply Derna dam, was built on the city’s outskirts.
During the long, autocratic reign of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, floods came and went, but the dams stood. In 1986, a major storm convulsed the region, damaging the dams and shearing soil from the ground. The structures were damaged, Dr. Ashoor said, but again they held.
Despite the stresses, repairs were minimal. In 1998, the Libyan government commissioned a study that revealed cracks and fissures in the dams, said Attorney General Sadiq al-Soor.
Image
A city street damaged by flood, with crushed vehicles and piles of debris. A boy drags a large, mud-stained suitcase.
Thousands of people are estimated to be missing from Derna.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Nearly 10 years later, a Turkish company was finally contracted to repair the dams, the prosecutor added. But the government dragged its feet in paying, and the project got underway only in 2010, Mr. al-Soor told reporters on Friday.
Just four months later, in 2011, Libyans marched against Colonel el-Qaddafi’s 42-year grip on power, inspired by the uprisings that had toppled Arab autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt. When he threatened to annihilate the opposition, NATO intervened and bombed his forces, with the United States a backbone of the operation. Colonel el-Qaddafi was ousted from Tripoli that August.
In the tumult, work on the dam ceased, the prosecutor said.
He pledged that the authorities would take “firm measures” against anyone deemed responsible for failing to properly maintain the two dams. “This is extremely important for protecting the rights of the victims and to determine who was responsible — if there was neglect or dereliction of duty,” said Mr. al-Soor.
He said that the authorities had appointed prosecutors from different parts of Libya to investigate what caused the dams to collapse, inspect houses and determine whether maintenance measures could have prevented the disaster.
More than a decade after Colonel el-Qaddafi’s chaotic ouster, the country remains split between an internationally recognized government in the west and one under Khalifa Hifter, a military commander who controls the east, including Derna.
Derna was a key battleground during the country’s civil war, which saw the city fall under the control of Islamist militias. After a protracted siege, forces loyal to Mr. Hifter declared victory in 2018, although skirmishes continued for several months.
All the while, the neglect of the dams continued.
According to a 2021 report by Libyan state auditors in the west of the country, more than $2.3 million allocated for maintaining the two dams was simply never used. They called it a case of government negligence.
And as recently as last week, less than two days before the dam burst, a Libyan nonprofit, Roya, wrote on Facebook that the dam could fill to bursting during the powerful storm that was sweeping across the Mediterranean.
“We ask the residents of the valley to be very careful,” the group said.
Image
A wide-angle view of a flood-damaged area. There are piles of rubble and a six-story building with one section gouged away.
Residents of Derna said they were issued confusing, sometimes contradictory, orders on whether to evacuate. Many ended up trapped in their apartment buildings as the waters rushed through.Credit...Abdullah Doma/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Even as the waters swelled, some officials, far away in Tripoli, said just after midnight on Monday that the dams were in “good condition” and that there was “no cause for concern about collapse.” They added, however, that the storm had affected their ability to contact those charged with monitoring one of the dams.
Very soon after, well before dawn, the rising waters appear to have overwhelmed the dams — first the larger Abu Mansour dam, then the second, smaller one downstream, which was obliterated in a matter of “moments,” Dr. Ashoor said.
The rampaging tide wiped out large chunks of the city, shattering roads and bridges, washing away cars, and smashing apartment buildings, witnesses said
Whole families were killed, officials say, drowned or trapped under rubble. Others were dragged out to sea.
William F. Marcuson III, a former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that these dams — which were made with clay and rock — were common around the world.
“There’s nothing wrong with that approach, if it is done correctly,” he said. But, he added, the dams must be designed for the maximum rainstorms likely, and be constructed under careful inspection, so that no corners are cut.
The dams included concrete spillways that are supposed to function much like an overflow drain in an ordinary bathtub: If the water rises too high, it goes into the spillway, down underground pipes, and is discharged below the dam.
Scenes From a Deluge: Floods Devastate Libya
Powerful rains destroyed two dams, and the death toll is estimated at more than 5,000.
Sept. 12, 2023
But if the spillway is not built to a sufficient size or the pipes are too narrow for the strength of the storm, the water continues to rise.
When it rises over the top of the dam — called “overtopping” — the dam itself begins to erode. As that happens, the embankment, which supports the dam, is gradually eaten away until the entire structure fails and the water flows freely.
If the upstream dam failed first, a wall of water may have wiped out the lower dam frighteningly quickly.
With no more obstacles in its path, the water tore through the countryside, fanning out over dozens of kilometers. The main force of the raging torrent slid into the natural funnel of the Derna river basin, where residents say they were issued confusing, sometimes contradictory, orders on whether to evacuate.
Source: Videos and imagery of the floods, Google Maps imagery from August 2022
In a televised speech on Thursday, Aguila Saleh, the speaker of the Parliament in the nation’s east, sought to bat away accusations that the scale of the devastation was rooted in government mismanagement and neglect.
“Don’t say, ‘If only we’d done this, if only we’d done that,’” Mr. Saleh said. “What took place in our country was an incomparable natural disaster.”
Dr. Ashoor acknowledged that the flood was prompted by a giant storm rarely seen in the country. But he believes the authorities could have done far more to minimize the risk.
“Political strife, two governments, all of the wars we’ve seen since 2011, terrorism, all the problems we’ve faced,” Dr. Ashoor said. “All of this gathered together to lead to this deteriorating disaster, this calamity we’re living through. May God ease this crisis.”
Image
A bulldozer works at the edge of a large field, where a pit in the reddish-brown dirt holds rows of white body bags.
In Derna, hundreds were hastily buried in mass graves outside the city, health officials said.Credit...Ayman Al-Sahili/Reuters
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/16/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: MAN-MADE DISASTERS
Many fake news and conspiracy theories are circulating suggesting that the latest events in Morocco and Libya are man made disaster, of course it is fake news.
But the truth is that technology in several countries has reached the point where rain and earthquake can be triggered artificially even now. Amplifying or slowing a natural phenomena can be done. The question today is not about the capability of doing so but will that knowledge be used in future for good or for evil?
But the truth is that technology in several countries has reached the point where rain and earthquake can be triggered artificially even now. Amplifying or slowing a natural phenomena can be done. The question today is not about the capability of doing so but will that knowledge be used in future for good or for evil?
Darfur’s New Generation, Once Full of Promise, Now Suffers ‘Fire of War’
In a region with a history of genocide, weeks of intense fighting between rival military factions in South Darfur have left hundreds dead and sent thousands fleeing.
Refugees fleeing violence in Sudan at a transit camp last month in Renk, South Sudan. Those who left described an increase in robberies and killings by militias.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Tim
The news he had dreaded arrived a few minutes before midnight.
For weeks, Bahaadin Adam had heard nothing from family members stuck in the fighting that convulsed Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state and the second-largest city in Sudan. Mr. Adam, who had fled weeks before to neighboring South Sudan, remained jittery, constantly checking his phone for updates.
Finally, as he was getting ready for bed, he received a message from his brother. Most of the family had managed to escape Nyala, but his two younger sisters — Meethaaq, 24, and Hana, 10 — had been killed by artillery fire.
“I was broken into pieces,” Mr. Adam said in a recent interview in Renk town in South Sudan.
Five months after a devastating war began in Sudan between rival military forces, the western region of Darfur has quickly become one of the hardest hit in the nation. People in Darfur have already suffered genocidal violence over the past two decades that has left as many as 300,000 people dead.
Now Darfur, which had been edging toward relative stability, is being torn apart by a nationwide war between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The Rapid Support Forces and its allies, predominantly Arab militias, have assumed control of large parts of Darfur, while the regular army mostly operates from garrisons in major cities, residents and observers said.
Image
Bahaadin Adam sitting in a tent in Renk, South Sudan.
Bahaadin Adam at a transit camp in Renk after fleeing fighting in Darfur. Most of his family escaped Nyala, the second largest city in Sudan, but two sisters were killed by artillery fire.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
As the two sides battle for supremacy, civilians have increasingly been caught in the crossfire, particularly in recent weeks. More than 40 people were killed late last month as they took cover under a bridge in Nyala, and at least 40 died in air raids in the city this month, activists and medical workers said. The discovery of mass graves, including more than a dozen last week by the United Nations, has raised fears of a resurgence of ethnically motivated attacks in Darfur — and pushed the International Criminal Court to begin a new investigation into accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region.
Frantic and sometimes competing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict — by the United Nations, African countries, Saudi Arabia and the United States — have gone nowhere.
Last week, the U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, resigned months after Sudanese officials declared him unwelcome in the country. In his farewell speech to the U.N. Security Council, Mr. Perthes warned that the conflict “could be morphing into a full-scale civil war.” The head of the army, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is set to address the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York.
Amid the rain of mortar shells, displacement levels are soaring, food prices are skyrocketing and millions of people are now on the verge of famine. More than 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Darfur since mid-April, according to the U.N. refugee agency, the highest of any region in Sudan. Hundreds of thousands more civilians from the region have streamed into transit centers and refugee camps in neighboring nations.
Eight lawyers and at least 10 human rights advocates have been killed and their offices ransacked in Darfur in recent weeks, raising fears they were being targeted for documenting human rights violations or providing legal support to victims, according to Elsadig Ali Hassan, the acting president of the board of the Darfur Bar Association.
In interviews, residents from South Darfur who made it to safety in South Sudan described a rapid increase in robberies and plunder by armed militias allied with the paramilitary forces. With supplies of food and water dwindling, many packed up their meager belongings and left, hungry and weak, for the border.
Image
People sit on carts, one pulled by a donkey, after arriving in Renk, South Sudan.
New arrivals at a processing center in Renk. “It is all just unbearable,” Mamadou Dian Balde, the regional director for the U.N. refugee agency, who recently traveled across parts of Sudan, said in an interview.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
As the number of injuries escalated, medical workers, exhausted, hungry and lacking critical supplies, watched as their patients died or their wounds festered for lack of treatment. Families, afraid of incoming fire, quickly buried their loved ones in shallow or unmarked graves.
“Another generation from Darfur is learning to live with war and atrocities,” said Maha Mohamed, a Sudanese refugee from Nyala who was at the transit center in Renk. “It’s a tragedy.”
The continued hostilities in Darfur risk plunging the country into a prolonged war, observers say, with the potential for spillover into neighboring countries. In recent weeks, the head of the army, General al-Burhan, has traveled abroad and met with leaders of nations including Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and South Sudan in an effort to build his legitimacy and dismiss the Rapid Security Forces as a rebel group.
The paramilitary chief, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, has fired back, accusing General al-Burhan of trying to “impersonate the head of state” and planning to establish a “war government” in the coastal city of Port Sudan.
His comments came as the violence intensified in the locked-down Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where an airstrike last week killed at least 43 people and wounded more than 60, doctors and aid workers said.
“It is all just unbearable,” Mamadou Dian Balde, the regional director for the U.N. refugee agency, who recently traveled across parts of Sudan, said in an interview.
Some of those fleeing the conflict in the states of South and East Darfur are being relocated to several aid camps in South Sudan, a nation encumbered by its own political, economic and social challenges.
Image
A woman carries a child and a jug of water between tents at a refugee camp in Aweil, South Sudan.
The Wedwil settlement in Aweil, South Sudan, has almost 9,000 Sudanese refugees.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
One of those camps, the Wedwil refugee settlement in Aweil town, is home to almost 9,000 Sudanese. Every evening, families there huddle in groups, share sweet tea and coffee, pray together and listen to Sudanese music. Many of them were professionals and successful traders, all now united by a grinding war that has ripped apart everything they worked so hard to build.
“The fire of war has enveloped everything in Darfur,” said Ahmed Abubakar, 35, a teacher, who fled Nyala in South Darfur.
Mr. Abubakar said members of the paramilitary forces raided his home, accused him of being an army officer and threatened to shoot him in front of his wife and three children. But he beseeched them not to, he said, telling them about his job teaching geography and history and his wife’s work as a nursery school teacher. After more than an hour, the armed men agreed to let them go, he said, but not before they took almost everything of value in the house.
The memories of that day and the family’s harrowing journey to safety continue to haunt the children, he said. His daughter Minan, 3, clings to him everywhere he goes. His 5-year-old son, Mustafa, constantly asks when he can go back to school.
“I had ambitions for myself and my children,” Mr. Abubakar said. “But I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel.”
Mr. Adam, who lost both his sisters, shared the same feelings of loss and hopelessness.
Before the war broke out on April 15, he was looking forward to marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, celebrating his sister’s graduation from college and, days later, attending her engagement party. But his sister was gone now, and the entire family was scattered between two countries with limited communications.
“We were once a happy family,” he said on a recent afternoon. “But this war has made everything difficult and everyone sad.”
Image
Ahmed Abubakar at a refugee camp in Aweil, South Sudan.
Ahmed Abubakar at a refugee settlement in Aweil. “I had ambitions for myself and my children,” Mr. Abubakar said. “But I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel.”Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Refugees fleeing violence in Sudan at a transit camp last month in Renk, South Sudan. Those who left described an increase in robberies and killings by militias.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Tim
The news he had dreaded arrived a few minutes before midnight.
For weeks, Bahaadin Adam had heard nothing from family members stuck in the fighting that convulsed Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state and the second-largest city in Sudan. Mr. Adam, who had fled weeks before to neighboring South Sudan, remained jittery, constantly checking his phone for updates.
Finally, as he was getting ready for bed, he received a message from his brother. Most of the family had managed to escape Nyala, but his two younger sisters — Meethaaq, 24, and Hana, 10 — had been killed by artillery fire.
“I was broken into pieces,” Mr. Adam said in a recent interview in Renk town in South Sudan.
Five months after a devastating war began in Sudan between rival military forces, the western region of Darfur has quickly become one of the hardest hit in the nation. People in Darfur have already suffered genocidal violence over the past two decades that has left as many as 300,000 people dead.
Now Darfur, which had been edging toward relative stability, is being torn apart by a nationwide war between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The Rapid Support Forces and its allies, predominantly Arab militias, have assumed control of large parts of Darfur, while the regular army mostly operates from garrisons in major cities, residents and observers said.
Image
Bahaadin Adam sitting in a tent in Renk, South Sudan.
Bahaadin Adam at a transit camp in Renk after fleeing fighting in Darfur. Most of his family escaped Nyala, the second largest city in Sudan, but two sisters were killed by artillery fire.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
As the two sides battle for supremacy, civilians have increasingly been caught in the crossfire, particularly in recent weeks. More than 40 people were killed late last month as they took cover under a bridge in Nyala, and at least 40 died in air raids in the city this month, activists and medical workers said. The discovery of mass graves, including more than a dozen last week by the United Nations, has raised fears of a resurgence of ethnically motivated attacks in Darfur — and pushed the International Criminal Court to begin a new investigation into accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the region.
Frantic and sometimes competing diplomatic efforts to end the conflict — by the United Nations, African countries, Saudi Arabia and the United States — have gone nowhere.
Last week, the U.N. special envoy to Sudan, Volker Perthes, resigned months after Sudanese officials declared him unwelcome in the country. In his farewell speech to the U.N. Security Council, Mr. Perthes warned that the conflict “could be morphing into a full-scale civil war.” The head of the army, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, is set to address the U.N. General Assembly this week in New York.
Amid the rain of mortar shells, displacement levels are soaring, food prices are skyrocketing and millions of people are now on the verge of famine. More than 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Darfur since mid-April, according to the U.N. refugee agency, the highest of any region in Sudan. Hundreds of thousands more civilians from the region have streamed into transit centers and refugee camps in neighboring nations.
Eight lawyers and at least 10 human rights advocates have been killed and their offices ransacked in Darfur in recent weeks, raising fears they were being targeted for documenting human rights violations or providing legal support to victims, according to Elsadig Ali Hassan, the acting president of the board of the Darfur Bar Association.
In interviews, residents from South Darfur who made it to safety in South Sudan described a rapid increase in robberies and plunder by armed militias allied with the paramilitary forces. With supplies of food and water dwindling, many packed up their meager belongings and left, hungry and weak, for the border.
Image
People sit on carts, one pulled by a donkey, after arriving in Renk, South Sudan.
New arrivals at a processing center in Renk. “It is all just unbearable,” Mamadou Dian Balde, the regional director for the U.N. refugee agency, who recently traveled across parts of Sudan, said in an interview.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
As the number of injuries escalated, medical workers, exhausted, hungry and lacking critical supplies, watched as their patients died or their wounds festered for lack of treatment. Families, afraid of incoming fire, quickly buried their loved ones in shallow or unmarked graves.
“Another generation from Darfur is learning to live with war and atrocities,” said Maha Mohamed, a Sudanese refugee from Nyala who was at the transit center in Renk. “It’s a tragedy.”
The continued hostilities in Darfur risk plunging the country into a prolonged war, observers say, with the potential for spillover into neighboring countries. In recent weeks, the head of the army, General al-Burhan, has traveled abroad and met with leaders of nations including Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and South Sudan in an effort to build his legitimacy and dismiss the Rapid Security Forces as a rebel group.
The paramilitary chief, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, has fired back, accusing General al-Burhan of trying to “impersonate the head of state” and planning to establish a “war government” in the coastal city of Port Sudan.
His comments came as the violence intensified in the locked-down Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where an airstrike last week killed at least 43 people and wounded more than 60, doctors and aid workers said.
“It is all just unbearable,” Mamadou Dian Balde, the regional director for the U.N. refugee agency, who recently traveled across parts of Sudan, said in an interview.
Some of those fleeing the conflict in the states of South and East Darfur are being relocated to several aid camps in South Sudan, a nation encumbered by its own political, economic and social challenges.
Image
A woman carries a child and a jug of water between tents at a refugee camp in Aweil, South Sudan.
The Wedwil settlement in Aweil, South Sudan, has almost 9,000 Sudanese refugees.Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
One of those camps, the Wedwil refugee settlement in Aweil town, is home to almost 9,000 Sudanese. Every evening, families there huddle in groups, share sweet tea and coffee, pray together and listen to Sudanese music. Many of them were professionals and successful traders, all now united by a grinding war that has ripped apart everything they worked so hard to build.
“The fire of war has enveloped everything in Darfur,” said Ahmed Abubakar, 35, a teacher, who fled Nyala in South Darfur.
Mr. Abubakar said members of the paramilitary forces raided his home, accused him of being an army officer and threatened to shoot him in front of his wife and three children. But he beseeched them not to, he said, telling them about his job teaching geography and history and his wife’s work as a nursery school teacher. After more than an hour, the armed men agreed to let them go, he said, but not before they took almost everything of value in the house.
The memories of that day and the family’s harrowing journey to safety continue to haunt the children, he said. His daughter Minan, 3, clings to him everywhere he goes. His 5-year-old son, Mustafa, constantly asks when he can go back to school.
“I had ambitions for myself and my children,” Mr. Abubakar said. “But I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel.”
Mr. Adam, who lost both his sisters, shared the same feelings of loss and hopelessness.
Before the war broke out on April 15, he was looking forward to marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, celebrating his sister’s graduation from college and, days later, attending her engagement party. But his sister was gone now, and the entire family was scattered between two countries with limited communications.
“We were once a happy family,” he said on a recent afternoon. “But this war has made everything difficult and everyone sad.”
Image
Ahmed Abubakar at a refugee camp in Aweil, South Sudan.
Ahmed Abubakar at a refugee settlement in Aweil. “I had ambitions for myself and my children,” Mr. Abubakar said. “But I cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel.”Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/worl ... 778d3e6de3
At Least 100 Are Killed in Fire at Wedding Hall in Iraq
The fire spread quickly in part because of highly flammable building materials, state media reported
MOSUL, Iraq — A fire that raced through a hall hosting a Christian wedding in northern Iraq killed at least 100 people and injured 150 others, the authorities said on Wednesday, warning that the death toll could rise.
The fire happened in the Hamdaniya area of Nineveh Province, the authorities said. That is a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 205 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
Television footage showed flames rushing over the wedding hall as the fire took hold. In the blaze’s aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as people walked through the scene, the only light coming from television cameras and onlookers’ mobile phones.
Survivors arrived at local hospitals, receiving oxygen and bandages, as family members milled through hallways and outside.
A Health Ministry spokesman, Saif al-Badr, provided the casualty figures via the state-run Iraqi News Agency. “All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident,” he said.
The health department in Nineveh Province later said that 114 people had died.
Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, ordered an investigation into the fire and asked officials with the interior and health ministries to provide relief, his office said in a statement online.
Najim al-Jubouri, the governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned that there were not yet final casualty figures from the blaze, which suggested that the death toll might rise further.
There was no immediate official word on the cause of the blaze, but initial reports by the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw suggested that fireworks at the venue may have started it.
Civil defense officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding hall’s exterior as being decorated with highly flammable cladding that is illegal in the country.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the authorities had allowed the cladding to be used in the hall, but corruption and mismanagement remain endemic in Iraq two decades after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say the kinds that caught fire at the wedding hall, and have caught fire elsewhere, weren’t designed to meet strict safety standards, and have often been put into buildings without any breaks that would slow or halt a possible blaze. Such cladding was a factor in the 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower in London, which killed 72 people, and in multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.
The fire in Iraq was the latest disaster to strike the country’s shrinking Christian minority, which over the past two decades has been violently targeted by extremists, first from Al Qaeda and later from the Islamic State militant group. Although the Nineveh plains, the historic homeland of Iraqi Christians, were wrested back from the Islamic State six years ago, some towns there are still mostly rubble and lack basic services. Many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the United States.
The number of Christians in Iraq today is estimated at 150,000, compared to 1.5 million in 2003. Iraq’s total population is more than 40 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/worl ... 778d3e6de3
MOSUL, Iraq — A fire that raced through a hall hosting a Christian wedding in northern Iraq killed at least 100 people and injured 150 others, the authorities said on Wednesday, warning that the death toll could rise.
The fire happened in the Hamdaniya area of Nineveh Province, the authorities said. That is a predominantly Christian area just outside of the city of Mosul, some 205 miles northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
Television footage showed flames rushing over the wedding hall as the fire took hold. In the blaze’s aftermath, only charred metal and debris could be seen as people walked through the scene, the only light coming from television cameras and onlookers’ mobile phones.
Survivors arrived at local hospitals, receiving oxygen and bandages, as family members milled through hallways and outside.
A Health Ministry spokesman, Saif al-Badr, provided the casualty figures via the state-run Iraqi News Agency. “All efforts are being made to provide relief to those affected by the unfortunate accident,” he said.
The health department in Nineveh Province later said that 114 people had died.
Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, ordered an investigation into the fire and asked officials with the interior and health ministries to provide relief, his office said in a statement online.
Najim al-Jubouri, the governor of Nineveh, said some of the injured had been transferred to regional hospitals. He cautioned that there were not yet final casualty figures from the blaze, which suggested that the death toll might rise further.
There was no immediate official word on the cause of the blaze, but initial reports by the Kurdish television news channel Rudaw suggested that fireworks at the venue may have started it.
Civil defense officials quoted by the Iraqi News Agency described the wedding hall’s exterior as being decorated with highly flammable cladding that is illegal in the country.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the authorities had allowed the cladding to be used in the hall, but corruption and mismanagement remain endemic in Iraq two decades after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
While some types of cladding can be made with fire-resistant material, experts say the kinds that caught fire at the wedding hall, and have caught fire elsewhere, weren’t designed to meet strict safety standards, and have often been put into buildings without any breaks that would slow or halt a possible blaze. Such cladding was a factor in the 2017 fire at Grenfell Tower in London, which killed 72 people, and in multiple high-rise fires in the United Arab Emirates.
The fire in Iraq was the latest disaster to strike the country’s shrinking Christian minority, which over the past two decades has been violently targeted by extremists, first from Al Qaeda and later from the Islamic State militant group. Although the Nineveh plains, the historic homeland of Iraqi Christians, were wrested back from the Islamic State six years ago, some towns there are still mostly rubble and lack basic services. Many Christians have left for Europe, Australia or the United States.
The number of Christians in Iraq today is estimated at 150,000, compared to 1.5 million in 2003. Iraq’s total population is more than 40 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/worl ... 778d3e6de3
As Hundreds Were Celebrating a Wedding, It Turned Into an Inferno
As the bride and groom danced, witnesses said, flares were set off at the venue in northern Iraq, starting a fire that spread with astonishing speed and killed more than 100 people.
The bride and groom had just swept onto the dance floor — her dress billowing around her — for the traditional “slow dance” while people lit flares to add excitement to the romantic moment. But the flames shot upward, igniting the decorations draped over the chandeliers and hung from the ceiling, turning a night of celebration into a time of mourning.
Fragments of the flaming decorations dropped onto tables and wedding guests. By the time the fire was out, about 100 people were dead and 150 others were injured, suffering from severe burns or smoke inhalation. Early counts estimated that almost a quarter of the guests were either dead or hurt.
The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the Al Haithem wedding hall near the village of Qaraqosh, in Hamdaniya, about 20 miles southeast of Mosul. Christians have lived in the area, known as the Nineveh Plain, for nearly 2,000 years, but many fled the Islamic State in 2014. Only in the last several years have they begun to return and raise families again in these small villages, local officials said.
The toll of those killed and injured was so high, witnesses suggested, because at the moment the blaze began, the lights went out. The guests were unable to see, and stumbled and fell as they rushed toward the main entrance of the wedding hall, said Nabil Ibrahim, a guest.
When the decorations, which he described as “feather-like things,” burst into flames, he said, “it was like gas being poured on the fire.”
The decorations “started falling on people like a volcano, and shortly after the power went off,” he said.
ImageThe ruins of a wedding hall after a fire.
The charred interior of the wedding hall on Wednesday.Credit...Zaid Al-Obeidi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Some people fell under the chairs, and they couldn’t get out,” he said. “The only way out was the front door, which is a small door — like one meter and half across — and nobody knows about the door of the kitchen.”
That was the door he escaped through, helping others out as well, he said. He knew about the kitchen exit only because his son had been married in the same wedding hall.
Another guest, Gorges Yohana, said the fire had moved with astonishing speed. The roof caught fire within seconds, he said.
“I helped, like, seven or eight people, but I couldn’t help more because I was choking from the smoke and my eyes were stinging and streaming,” he said.
At some point during the smoke and confusion, the bride and groom were able to escape, relatives said.
Weddings in Iraq are often large and expensive celebrations even for those of modest means, and regardless of whether the families are Muslim or Christian. This wedding was no exception.
As the fire intensified, a bulldozer was used to knock openings in the wall in an attempt to allow people to escape, witnesses said. But the ensuing influx of oxygen may have fed the flames, which then seemed to engulf the entire building and sent smoke billowing into the air, as numerous photos and videos on social media indicated.
Firefighters rushed to the scene, but some onlookers said their hoses had not seemed to work immediately.
The district’s mayor, Issam Behnam, said scores of people from Hamdaniya alone had died, including some of his own relatives.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of Iraq on Wednesday called for an investigation into the cause of the fire, and, among other steps, ordered the civil defense force to undertake “intensified periodic inspections” of malls, restaurants, event halls and hotels.
On Wednesday evening, the Kurdish regional government detained the wedding hall’s owner, identified by the Kurdistan Region Security Council as Samir Sulaiman, of Erbil, the Kurdish capital. The government handed him over to the Interior Ministry based on findings by the Investigation Court in Mosul, after an inquiry at the scene. The court found that the fire started at 11:30 on Tuesday night, and that while it was started by the flares, the blaze was exacerbated by and raced through the hall because of the “highly flammable fabrics, which caused the ceiling to catch fire.”
The Nineveh Governorate’s civil defense force noted, in its own report released Wednesday evening, that “the wedding hall was covered with highly flammable Ecobond panels in violation of safety instructions,” and lacked a sprinkler system.
Image
A large crowd, photographed from above.
A funeral for victims of the fire in Hamdaniya, Iraq, on Wednesday.Credit...Abdullah Rashid/Reuters
The fire hit especially hard in the small Christian communities that dot northern Iraq, said several Christian priests who were attending funerals or performing them in the aftermath of the tragedy. Their communities, some of the most ancient in the Christian world — Syriac Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Chaldean and Assyrian Church of the East, among others — have been decimated over the 20 years since the American invasion, shrinking to fewer than 400,000 Christians today from some 1.5 million.
Many Christians left after attacks by Al Qaeda and by Shiite extremists, but the Christian villages of the Nineveh Plain hung on — until the invasion by the Islamic State in 2014, said Father Charbel Isso, a Syriac Catholic priest in Qaraqosh, where the fire took place.
The Islamic State forced out almost all the Christians. They began to return only after 2017, when the Islamic State was driven out of Mosul. Christians returned slowly in part because Muslims who had fought the Islamic State had taken up residence, sometimes moving into Christian homes, and many no longer felt safe or welcome. The visit by Pope Francis in 2021 boosted their confidence, especially in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain.
“All of us were refugees in Kurdistan, and when we returned, we found all of our things and properties either looted or burned,” Father Isso said.
“Even during ISIS,” he said, “we didn’t lose victims as we did” in this fire.
He spoke as he was helping to prepare the bodies of the burned for burial. Two cousins on his father’s side died in the fire, he said. He planned to attend and deliver prayers at the funerals of 50 of his friends and neighbors on Thursday morning.
Image
Ruins in an Iraqi city.
The Old City district of Mosul was largely destroyed during the fighting to oust the Islamic State in 2017.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
On Wednesday morning, as people picked through burned mobile phones, stray high-heeled shoes and charred furniture, there was a sense of disbelief and both the longing and fear of finding a memento of a loved one — a piece of jewelry or a half-burned identification document.
Father Isso seemed to be searching for an explanation for the losses, but said he could not get the faces of those he knew out of his mind.
“The features of a burned person are changed, they become like sand or ash,” he said, adding, “This is the kind of disaster one finds it difficult to accept.”
Falih Hassan contributed reporting from Baghdad; Sangar Khaleel from Qaraqosh, Iraq; and Ala Mahsoob from Hamdaniya, Iraq.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/worl ... 778d3e6de3
The bride and groom had just swept onto the dance floor — her dress billowing around her — for the traditional “slow dance” while people lit flares to add excitement to the romantic moment. But the flames shot upward, igniting the decorations draped over the chandeliers and hung from the ceiling, turning a night of celebration into a time of mourning.
Fragments of the flaming decorations dropped onto tables and wedding guests. By the time the fire was out, about 100 people were dead and 150 others were injured, suffering from severe burns or smoke inhalation. Early counts estimated that almost a quarter of the guests were either dead or hurt.
The fire broke out on Tuesday night in the Al Haithem wedding hall near the village of Qaraqosh, in Hamdaniya, about 20 miles southeast of Mosul. Christians have lived in the area, known as the Nineveh Plain, for nearly 2,000 years, but many fled the Islamic State in 2014. Only in the last several years have they begun to return and raise families again in these small villages, local officials said.
The toll of those killed and injured was so high, witnesses suggested, because at the moment the blaze began, the lights went out. The guests were unable to see, and stumbled and fell as they rushed toward the main entrance of the wedding hall, said Nabil Ibrahim, a guest.
When the decorations, which he described as “feather-like things,” burst into flames, he said, “it was like gas being poured on the fire.”
The decorations “started falling on people like a volcano, and shortly after the power went off,” he said.
ImageThe ruins of a wedding hall after a fire.
The charred interior of the wedding hall on Wednesday.Credit...Zaid Al-Obeidi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“Some people fell under the chairs, and they couldn’t get out,” he said. “The only way out was the front door, which is a small door — like one meter and half across — and nobody knows about the door of the kitchen.”
That was the door he escaped through, helping others out as well, he said. He knew about the kitchen exit only because his son had been married in the same wedding hall.
Another guest, Gorges Yohana, said the fire had moved with astonishing speed. The roof caught fire within seconds, he said.
“I helped, like, seven or eight people, but I couldn’t help more because I was choking from the smoke and my eyes were stinging and streaming,” he said.
At some point during the smoke and confusion, the bride and groom were able to escape, relatives said.
Weddings in Iraq are often large and expensive celebrations even for those of modest means, and regardless of whether the families are Muslim or Christian. This wedding was no exception.
As the fire intensified, a bulldozer was used to knock openings in the wall in an attempt to allow people to escape, witnesses said. But the ensuing influx of oxygen may have fed the flames, which then seemed to engulf the entire building and sent smoke billowing into the air, as numerous photos and videos on social media indicated.
Firefighters rushed to the scene, but some onlookers said their hoses had not seemed to work immediately.
The district’s mayor, Issam Behnam, said scores of people from Hamdaniya alone had died, including some of his own relatives.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of Iraq on Wednesday called for an investigation into the cause of the fire, and, among other steps, ordered the civil defense force to undertake “intensified periodic inspections” of malls, restaurants, event halls and hotels.
On Wednesday evening, the Kurdish regional government detained the wedding hall’s owner, identified by the Kurdistan Region Security Council as Samir Sulaiman, of Erbil, the Kurdish capital. The government handed him over to the Interior Ministry based on findings by the Investigation Court in Mosul, after an inquiry at the scene. The court found that the fire started at 11:30 on Tuesday night, and that while it was started by the flares, the blaze was exacerbated by and raced through the hall because of the “highly flammable fabrics, which caused the ceiling to catch fire.”
The Nineveh Governorate’s civil defense force noted, in its own report released Wednesday evening, that “the wedding hall was covered with highly flammable Ecobond panels in violation of safety instructions,” and lacked a sprinkler system.
Image
A large crowd, photographed from above.
A funeral for victims of the fire in Hamdaniya, Iraq, on Wednesday.Credit...Abdullah Rashid/Reuters
The fire hit especially hard in the small Christian communities that dot northern Iraq, said several Christian priests who were attending funerals or performing them in the aftermath of the tragedy. Their communities, some of the most ancient in the Christian world — Syriac Catholic, Syrian Orthodox, Chaldean and Assyrian Church of the East, among others — have been decimated over the 20 years since the American invasion, shrinking to fewer than 400,000 Christians today from some 1.5 million.
Many Christians left after attacks by Al Qaeda and by Shiite extremists, but the Christian villages of the Nineveh Plain hung on — until the invasion by the Islamic State in 2014, said Father Charbel Isso, a Syriac Catholic priest in Qaraqosh, where the fire took place.
The Islamic State forced out almost all the Christians. They began to return only after 2017, when the Islamic State was driven out of Mosul. Christians returned slowly in part because Muslims who had fought the Islamic State had taken up residence, sometimes moving into Christian homes, and many no longer felt safe or welcome. The visit by Pope Francis in 2021 boosted their confidence, especially in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain.
“All of us were refugees in Kurdistan, and when we returned, we found all of our things and properties either looted or burned,” Father Isso said.
“Even during ISIS,” he said, “we didn’t lose victims as we did” in this fire.
He spoke as he was helping to prepare the bodies of the burned for burial. Two cousins on his father’s side died in the fire, he said. He planned to attend and deliver prayers at the funerals of 50 of his friends and neighbors on Thursday morning.
Image
Ruins in an Iraqi city.
The Old City district of Mosul was largely destroyed during the fighting to oust the Islamic State in 2017.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
On Wednesday morning, as people picked through burned mobile phones, stray high-heeled shoes and charred furniture, there was a sense of disbelief and both the longing and fear of finding a memento of a loved one — a piece of jewelry or a half-burned identification document.
Father Isso seemed to be searching for an explanation for the losses, but said he could not get the faces of those he knew out of his mind.
“The features of a burned person are changed, they become like sand or ash,” he said, adding, “This is the kind of disaster one finds it difficult to accept.”
Falih Hassan contributed reporting from Baghdad; Sangar Khaleel from Qaraqosh, Iraq; and Ala Mahsoob from Hamdaniya, Iraq.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/27/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Blast Kills at Least 52 at a Religious Gathering in Pakistan
The bombing, which officials believe was a suicide attack, was the latest sign of the country’s deteriorating security situation.
Watch video at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/worl ... mbing.html
More than 50 people were killed in a suicide attack in Mastung, a district in southwestern Pakistan.CreditCredit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At least 52 people were killed on Friday in what officials said they believed was a suicide attack at a religious gathering in southwestern Pakistan, the latest sign of the country’s deteriorating security situation.
The blast occurred around midday in Mastung, a district in Balochistan Province. It targeted a procession of hundreds of people who had gathered for Eid Milad un-Nabi, a holiday celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.
The death toll was confirmed by Abdul Rasheed Shahi, Mastung’s district health officer. He said at least 50 more people had been wounded.
“Due to the power of the explosion, several people gathered there died instantly, and many others suffered injuries,” said Javed Lehri, a local police officer.
“We are investigating, but it seems it was a suicide attack,” he added.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, officials said. Among the victims was a police officer.
The blast was the latest attack to unnerve Pakistan, where militant groups have become more active over the past two years after finding a haven in neighboring Afghanistan under the Taliban administration.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, attacks by extremist groups in Pakistan have become more frequent and more deadly, analysts say, rattling a country that is also battling dual economic and political crises.
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The attack in Mastung was among the most brazen spectacles of militant violence this year. In July, a suicide bombing at a political rally killed 54 people in northwestern Pakistan. In February, attackers carried out an hourslong assault on the police headquarters in Karachi, a major port city. In January, a mosque bombing killed more than 100 people in Peshawar.
Each attack sent a heart-wrenching reminder to Pakistanis across the country: A new wave of militant violence has arrived.
“Today’s incident in Mastung constitutes a major security failure,” said Abdul Basit, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies who covers extremism and militancy in South Asia.
It is “a clear manifestation of how Pakistan’s internal security has become intertwined with developments in Afghanistan,” he added.
The attack began after hundreds of people from across the district gathered for the religious celebration on Friday, which was declared a public holiday in Pakistan, as it is in several other Muslim countries.
An initial investigation of the attack found that a suicide bomber had tried to force his way to the front of the religious procession, according to Jan Achakzai, the provincial information minister of Baluchistan. When a police official intervened and tried to stop him, the bomber detonated his explosives.
ImageA group of people examining a field of debris with an ambulance also on the scene.
Security officials examined the site of the explosion on Friday that targeted a procession marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“After the powerful explosion, I was numbed for a few seconds,” said Shafi Muhammad, a Mastung resident who was part of the procession. “I had never seen such carnage before in my life,” he added.
Videos circulating on social media after the blast showed hundreds of people gathered around bodies splayed across pools of blood. One video showed two men navigating through a pile of bodies until they found someone who was wounded, streaks of red splashed across his blue salwar kameez — the traditional tunic and loosefitting pants. As they picked him up by the arms and carried him away, more bodies became visible beneath him.
Officials declared a state of emergency in all regional hospitals, they said, as rescue teams tried to recover people who were hurt and get them medical attention. Critically injured people were being transferred to the provincial capital, Quetta, about 20 miles away, according to Mr. Achakzai.
The devastating blast in Mastung was one of multiple reminders on Friday alone of the return of militant violence to Pakistan.
Around 500 miles away, in a northwestern stretch of the country, a separate attack killed at least five people and injured about a dozen more, officials said. The attack — in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province that borders Afghanistan — began when a man in an explosive-laden car approached the gate of a police station and was killed by an officer, according to Nisar Ahmed, the district police officer.
Moments later nearby, a second blast ripped through a mosque where about 40 people had gathered for Friday Prayer. The mosque’s roof collapsed, trapping dozens of people inside, Mr. Ahmed added. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
Around the same time, the Pakistani military announced that it had thwarted an attempt by militants to infiltrate Pakistani territory near the Afghan border in Balochistan. Three militants and four Pakistani soldiers were killed in the clash, according to a statement by Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces.
The blasts and clash added to the growing unease about the recent surge in militant violence, much of which has been carried out by the Pakistani Taliban — a militant group with close ties to the Afghan Taliban that opposes the Pakistani government — and by the Islamic State affiliate in the region.
In a statement released Friday afternoon, the Pakistani Taliban denied any involvement in the suicide blasts. Officials and analysts suspect the attack in Mastung might have been orchestrated by the Islamic State affiliate, which has been behind previous attacks in the district — an area rife with violence involving militant groups that have aligned with the Islamic State in recent years.
“These groups have been responsible for a series of attacks, targeting Hazara Shia pilgrims en route to Iran for religious pilgrimages as well as political rallies,” said Muhammad Amir Rana, a security analyst based in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.
For many observers, the possibility of another Islamic State-linked attack in Mastung highlighted how entrenched the group had become in Balochistan, a stretch of mountain and desert that is blessed with natural resources but remains one of the country’s poorest provinces.
While the area has long struggled with violence from local Baluch separatist groups that have fought against political centralization, it has only recently become a nascent stronghold for Islamic State fighters, analysts said.
The attack also called attention to how the Taliban’s brutal campaign cracking down on the Islamic State in Afghanistan has pushed some fighters into Pakistan, further eroding the country’s security as it inches toward elections that are expected to happen early next year, according to Mr. Basit, of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“To stay relevant and to dispel the impression of the group’s weakness, it is hitting soft targets like politicians and religious gatherings,” he said. “As a result, unfortunately violence is likely to increase and conflict is expected to expand further in the coming weeks and months.”
Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/worl ... mbing.html
Watch video at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/worl ... mbing.html
More than 50 people were killed in a suicide attack in Mastung, a district in southwestern Pakistan.CreditCredit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At least 52 people were killed on Friday in what officials said they believed was a suicide attack at a religious gathering in southwestern Pakistan, the latest sign of the country’s deteriorating security situation.
The blast occurred around midday in Mastung, a district in Balochistan Province. It targeted a procession of hundreds of people who had gathered for Eid Milad un-Nabi, a holiday celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.
The death toll was confirmed by Abdul Rasheed Shahi, Mastung’s district health officer. He said at least 50 more people had been wounded.
“Due to the power of the explosion, several people gathered there died instantly, and many others suffered injuries,” said Javed Lehri, a local police officer.
“We are investigating, but it seems it was a suicide attack,” he added.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast, officials said. Among the victims was a police officer.
The blast was the latest attack to unnerve Pakistan, where militant groups have become more active over the past two years after finding a haven in neighboring Afghanistan under the Taliban administration.
Since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, attacks by extremist groups in Pakistan have become more frequent and more deadly, analysts say, rattling a country that is also battling dual economic and political crises.
//More on Afghanistan
//Fighting for Afghanistan’s Girls: Khalida Popal helped evacuate Afghan female soccer players on the national team after the Taliban takeover. Now she //is demanding that world soccer officials let the women represent their country on the field again.
//Seeking New Battles: As a generation of fighters raised in war now finds itself stuck in a country at peace, young Taliban soldiers are crossing into //Pakistan to continue waging jihad.
//Inside the Resistance Movement: The Taliban takeover in 2021 was so sudden and shocking, these men could not accept defeat. So they embarked on //a mission that they knew was probably impossible: to overthrow the Taliban.
//Beauty Salons: Afghanistan shut down all beauty salons across the country after the Taliban administration declared that the women-only spaces were //forbidden under Shariah law.
The attack in Mastung was among the most brazen spectacles of militant violence this year. In July, a suicide bombing at a political rally killed 54 people in northwestern Pakistan. In February, attackers carried out an hourslong assault on the police headquarters in Karachi, a major port city. In January, a mosque bombing killed more than 100 people in Peshawar.
Each attack sent a heart-wrenching reminder to Pakistanis across the country: A new wave of militant violence has arrived.
“Today’s incident in Mastung constitutes a major security failure,” said Abdul Basit, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies who covers extremism and militancy in South Asia.
It is “a clear manifestation of how Pakistan’s internal security has become intertwined with developments in Afghanistan,” he added.
The attack began after hundreds of people from across the district gathered for the religious celebration on Friday, which was declared a public holiday in Pakistan, as it is in several other Muslim countries.
An initial investigation of the attack found that a suicide bomber had tried to force his way to the front of the religious procession, according to Jan Achakzai, the provincial information minister of Baluchistan. When a police official intervened and tried to stop him, the bomber detonated his explosives.
ImageA group of people examining a field of debris with an ambulance also on the scene.
Security officials examined the site of the explosion on Friday that targeted a procession marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“After the powerful explosion, I was numbed for a few seconds,” said Shafi Muhammad, a Mastung resident who was part of the procession. “I had never seen such carnage before in my life,” he added.
Videos circulating on social media after the blast showed hundreds of people gathered around bodies splayed across pools of blood. One video showed two men navigating through a pile of bodies until they found someone who was wounded, streaks of red splashed across his blue salwar kameez — the traditional tunic and loosefitting pants. As they picked him up by the arms and carried him away, more bodies became visible beneath him.
Officials declared a state of emergency in all regional hospitals, they said, as rescue teams tried to recover people who were hurt and get them medical attention. Critically injured people were being transferred to the provincial capital, Quetta, about 20 miles away, according to Mr. Achakzai.
The devastating blast in Mastung was one of multiple reminders on Friday alone of the return of militant violence to Pakistan.
Around 500 miles away, in a northwestern stretch of the country, a separate attack killed at least five people and injured about a dozen more, officials said. The attack — in the Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province that borders Afghanistan — began when a man in an explosive-laden car approached the gate of a police station and was killed by an officer, according to Nisar Ahmed, the district police officer.
Moments later nearby, a second blast ripped through a mosque where about 40 people had gathered for Friday Prayer. The mosque’s roof collapsed, trapping dozens of people inside, Mr. Ahmed added. No group immediately claimed responsibility.
Around the same time, the Pakistani military announced that it had thwarted an attempt by militants to infiltrate Pakistani territory near the Afghan border in Balochistan. Three militants and four Pakistani soldiers were killed in the clash, according to a statement by Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces.
The blasts and clash added to the growing unease about the recent surge in militant violence, much of which has been carried out by the Pakistani Taliban — a militant group with close ties to the Afghan Taliban that opposes the Pakistani government — and by the Islamic State affiliate in the region.
In a statement released Friday afternoon, the Pakistani Taliban denied any involvement in the suicide blasts. Officials and analysts suspect the attack in Mastung might have been orchestrated by the Islamic State affiliate, which has been behind previous attacks in the district — an area rife with violence involving militant groups that have aligned with the Islamic State in recent years.
“These groups have been responsible for a series of attacks, targeting Hazara Shia pilgrims en route to Iran for religious pilgrimages as well as political rallies,” said Muhammad Amir Rana, a security analyst based in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.
For many observers, the possibility of another Islamic State-linked attack in Mastung highlighted how entrenched the group had become in Balochistan, a stretch of mountain and desert that is blessed with natural resources but remains one of the country’s poorest provinces.
While the area has long struggled with violence from local Baluch separatist groups that have fought against political centralization, it has only recently become a nascent stronghold for Islamic State fighters, analysts said.
The attack also called attention to how the Taliban’s brutal campaign cracking down on the Islamic State in Afghanistan has pushed some fighters into Pakistan, further eroding the country’s security as it inches toward elections that are expected to happen early next year, according to Mr. Basit, of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“To stay relevant and to dispel the impression of the group’s weakness, it is hitting soft targets like politicians and religious gatherings,” he said. “As a result, unfortunately violence is likely to increase and conflict is expected to expand further in the coming weeks and months.”
Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/worl ... mbing.html
Gaza Death Toll Has Hit 10,000, Its Health Ministry Says
The figures could not be independently verified, but a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged on Monday that “we know the numbers are in the thousands.”
Civil defense crews on Monday removing a child from the remains of a house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.Credit...Yousef Masoud for The New York Times
In just under a month, Israeli strikes have killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza and injured more than 25,000 others, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday.
The soaring death toll from Israel’s bombardment includes more than 4,100 children, according to the ministry, which operates under the political arm of Hamas. The ministry’s figures could not be independently verified, but a Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, acknowledged on Monday that “we know the numbers are in the thousands.”
Last month, President Biden cast doubt on death toll numbers coming from the Health Ministry, without offering an explanation. However, its statistics were considered credible enough for the U.S. State Department to cite them in a report released this year that covered previous conflicts.
After Mr. Biden’s remarks, the Health Ministry released a list with the names, ages, genders and ID numbers of all those it counted in its death toll, except for 281 whose remains were unidentifiable. The list included multiple members of numerous families, including 88 from one extended family.
Even before the latest hostilities, more than two million people in Gaza, about half of them children, were trapped by a 16-year Israeli blockade of the territory. After Hamas launched terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 in which, Israeli officials say, more than 1,400 people were killed and more than 240 abducted, Israel began a military campaign it said was aimed at destroying the group.
The grim update on civilian deaths came as Gaza was emerging from a third communications blackout, which coincided with heavy Israeli attacks.
On Monday, the head of the United Nations again urged an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, painting a dire picture. “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children,” Secretary General António Guterres told reporters.
“Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day,” Mr. Guterres said. “More journalists have reportedly been killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades. More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in every comparable period in the history of our organization.”
In the first days of its strikes, the Israeli Air Force said it had dropped more than 6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip, which covers an area roughly half the size of New York City.
On Monday, Mr. Guterres said the bombardment had struck “civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches, and U.N. facilities, including shelters.”
Israeli officials have so far resisted calls from the United Nations, international aid groups and protesters in Israel and around the world for a humanitarian pause. But the need for a cease-fire is becoming more urgent by the hour, said the secretary general, pointing to what he said were “clear violations” of international law in the conflict.
“No one is safe,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Civil defense crews on Monday removing a child from the remains of a house in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.Credit...Yousef Masoud for The New York Times
In just under a month, Israeli strikes have killed more than 10,000 people in Gaza and injured more than 25,000 others, the Gaza Health Ministry said on Monday.
The soaring death toll from Israel’s bombardment includes more than 4,100 children, according to the ministry, which operates under the political arm of Hamas. The ministry’s figures could not be independently verified, but a Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, acknowledged on Monday that “we know the numbers are in the thousands.”
Last month, President Biden cast doubt on death toll numbers coming from the Health Ministry, without offering an explanation. However, its statistics were considered credible enough for the U.S. State Department to cite them in a report released this year that covered previous conflicts.
After Mr. Biden’s remarks, the Health Ministry released a list with the names, ages, genders and ID numbers of all those it counted in its death toll, except for 281 whose remains were unidentifiable. The list included multiple members of numerous families, including 88 from one extended family.
Even before the latest hostilities, more than two million people in Gaza, about half of them children, were trapped by a 16-year Israeli blockade of the territory. After Hamas launched terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 in which, Israeli officials say, more than 1,400 people were killed and more than 240 abducted, Israel began a military campaign it said was aimed at destroying the group.
The grim update on civilian deaths came as Gaza was emerging from a third communications blackout, which coincided with heavy Israeli attacks.
On Monday, the head of the United Nations again urged an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, painting a dire picture. “Gaza is becoming a graveyard for children,” Secretary General António Guterres told reporters.
“Hundreds of girls and boys are reportedly being killed or injured every day,” Mr. Guterres said. “More journalists have reportedly been killed over a four-week period than in any conflict in at least three decades. More United Nations aid workers have been killed than in every comparable period in the history of our organization.”
In the first days of its strikes, the Israeli Air Force said it had dropped more than 6,000 bombs on the Gaza Strip, which covers an area roughly half the size of New York City.
On Monday, Mr. Guterres said the bombardment had struck “civilians, hospitals, refugee camps, mosques, churches, and U.N. facilities, including shelters.”
Israeli officials have so far resisted calls from the United Nations, international aid groups and protesters in Israel and around the world for a humanitarian pause. But the need for a cease-fire is becoming more urgent by the hour, said the secretary general, pointing to what he said were “clear violations” of international law in the conflict.
“No one is safe,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: MAN-MADE DISASTERS
Reuters
Over 1,000 USAID officials call for Gaza ceasefire in letter
Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis
Updated Fri, November 10, 2023 at 1:23 PM CST·
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -More than 1,000 officials in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have signed an open letter urging the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
The letter is latest sign of unease within the U.S. government over President Joe Biden's unwavering support for Israel in its response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants that killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians.
Washington has rebuffed calls from Arab and Palestinian leaders and others to call for Israel to halt its assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip which has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, including over 4,500 children, according to Gaza's health ministry.
"(W)e are alarmed and disheartened at the numerous violations of international law; laws which aim to protect civilians, medical and media personnel, as well as schools, hospitals, and places of worship," the letter reads.
"We believe that further catastrophic loss of human life can only be avoided if the United States Government calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza."
The letter, published on Nov. 2, had now garnered 1,029 signatures from staff of the U.S. aid agency. Signatories' names are hidden but the letter shows it was signed by officials in many of the agency's bureaus in Washington as well as officials posted around the world.
"We appreciate the ongoing dialogue we have with our dedicated staff and partners, and continue to welcome our team to share their opinions with leadership," USAID Spokesperson Jessica Jennings said in an emailed response.
It comes amid protests in the United States and elsewhere calling for a ceasefire, and widespread concern among officials over the U.S. response to the Middle East crisis, which has included the public resignation of one State Department official who said he opposed continued lethal assistance to Israel.
More than 500 people who worked on Biden's 2020 election campaign on Thursday published a letter, seen by Reuters, calling for the president to support an immediate ceasefire, and a group of congressional staffers held a vigil on Wednesday at the Capitol demanding a ceasefire, images on social media showed.
A source familiar with the matter said there has been "deep frustration" among officials in the aftermath of Oct. 7 and how the administration has given what the sources see as a "carte-blanche" to Israel, allowing it conduct a military offensive in Gaza.
The source said they were aware of at least four cables that have been drafted for the State Department's internal "dissent channel," which allows diplomats to raise concerns about policy anonymously with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The State Department does not confirm the existence of dissent cables.
The department has held a number of listening sessions in the past month, including in U.S. missions in the Middle East, two sources who attended the sessions said.
Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Thursday it has been important for Blinken and other leaders to "engage directly with the workforce," a reference to listening sessions held with concerned staff.
"We also recognize that this has been a trying time for our workforce," Patel said.
"We have ensured that our missions around the world, particularly those that might be more heightened attention right now to what’s happening in the Middle East have access to those resources and are able to interface with department leaders about not just what’s happening in the region, but the ways that this department can continue to serve them."
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Diane Craft)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ov ... 44743.html
Over 1,000 USAID officials call for Gaza ceasefire in letter
Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis
Updated Fri, November 10, 2023 at 1:23 PM CST·
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -More than 1,000 officials in the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have signed an open letter urging the Biden administration to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
The letter is latest sign of unease within the U.S. government over President Joe Biden's unwavering support for Israel in its response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Palestinian Hamas militants that killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians.
Washington has rebuffed calls from Arab and Palestinian leaders and others to call for Israel to halt its assault on the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip which has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, including over 4,500 children, according to Gaza's health ministry.
"(W)e are alarmed and disheartened at the numerous violations of international law; laws which aim to protect civilians, medical and media personnel, as well as schools, hospitals, and places of worship," the letter reads.
"We believe that further catastrophic loss of human life can only be avoided if the United States Government calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza."
The letter, published on Nov. 2, had now garnered 1,029 signatures from staff of the U.S. aid agency. Signatories' names are hidden but the letter shows it was signed by officials in many of the agency's bureaus in Washington as well as officials posted around the world.
"We appreciate the ongoing dialogue we have with our dedicated staff and partners, and continue to welcome our team to share their opinions with leadership," USAID Spokesperson Jessica Jennings said in an emailed response.
It comes amid protests in the United States and elsewhere calling for a ceasefire, and widespread concern among officials over the U.S. response to the Middle East crisis, which has included the public resignation of one State Department official who said he opposed continued lethal assistance to Israel.
More than 500 people who worked on Biden's 2020 election campaign on Thursday published a letter, seen by Reuters, calling for the president to support an immediate ceasefire, and a group of congressional staffers held a vigil on Wednesday at the Capitol demanding a ceasefire, images on social media showed.
A source familiar with the matter said there has been "deep frustration" among officials in the aftermath of Oct. 7 and how the administration has given what the sources see as a "carte-blanche" to Israel, allowing it conduct a military offensive in Gaza.
The source said they were aware of at least four cables that have been drafted for the State Department's internal "dissent channel," which allows diplomats to raise concerns about policy anonymously with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The State Department does not confirm the existence of dissent cables.
The department has held a number of listening sessions in the past month, including in U.S. missions in the Middle East, two sources who attended the sessions said.
Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Thursday it has been important for Blinken and other leaders to "engage directly with the workforce," a reference to listening sessions held with concerned staff.
"We also recognize that this has been a trying time for our workforce," Patel said.
"We have ensured that our missions around the world, particularly those that might be more heightened attention right now to what’s happening in the Middle East have access to those resources and are able to interface with department leaders about not just what’s happening in the region, but the ways that this department can continue to serve them."
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis, Editing by Angus MacSwan and Diane Craft)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ov ... 44743.html
“People are dying like insects.”
Seizing Darfur Region, Paramilitary Forces Are Accused of Atrocities
Seven months into Sudan’s civil war, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allies are ransacking and capturing the Darfur region. An aid worker said, “People are dying like insects.”
A Sudanese woman mourning a relative she said was killed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. She had fled from El Geneina in the Darfur region in July, across the border into Chad.Credit...Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
Bodies littered the road out of El Geneina, a town in western Sudan, as Dr. Rodwan Mustafa and his family sped down a bumpy road that led to the border with Chad and, they hoped, safety.
A day earlier, rampaging Arab militiamen had grabbed Dr. Mustafa by the neck, accusing him of giving medical care to enemy fighters. That was his signal to run.
Racing toward the border with his family in a car, he saw chickens clucking over the bloodied corpses of those who hadn’t fled in time. A camp for displaced people stood empty, burned to the ground. He spotted a dismembered hand on the roadside.
“The smell of death was everywhere,” said Dr. Mustafa, who made it to a refugee camp in Chad and spoke by phone from there.
Seven months into Sudan’s disastrous civil war, new horrors have accompanied the latest fighting in Darfur, a sprawling region in the west of the country where a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, has scored a succession of sweeping victories over Sudan’s regular military in recent weeks.
After capturing three of Darfur’s five state capitals, including El Geneina on Nov. 4, the paramilitary group is on the verge of seizing the entire region, according to residents, analysts and United Nations officials interviewed in recent days.
Although that tilts the war in favor of the paramilitary group’s commander, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, neither side looks capable of outright victory, according to African and western officials — a stalemate that has deepened civilian suffering. The R.S.F.’s recent victories have also come at the cost of ethnic violence that recalls the genocidal massacres that brought global attention to Darfur just over two decades ago.
Earlier this month, more than 800 people were killed as R.S.F. and allied Arab fighters overran the army garrison in El Geneina, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Homes were razed and United Nations supplies looted, the agency said. Routed Sudanese soldiers fled across the border into Chad, carrying stores of ammunition.
Image
Burned vehicles and clay pots stand on scorched earth near trees and small one-story cream buildings.
Destruction in a market area in El Fasher, capital of Sudan’s North Darfur State, in September.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Aid workers and witnesses also reported sexual violence, torture and killings of members of the Masalit, an ethnic African group with a long history of conflict with ethnic Arabs.
“They came to massacre us,” said Ahmed Sharif, a schoolteacher who fled El Geneina on Nov. 5 and walked 13 hours to reach Chad.
//Violence in Sudan
//Fighting between two military factions has thrown Sudan into chaos, with plans for a transition to a civilian-led democracy now in shambles.
What to Know: Two generals have been vying for power in the African country in a conflict that began in April. Millions of Sudanese people have fled, but many are stuck in war zones struggling to survive.
//Darfur: The discovery of a mass graves and the killing of a powerful governor have heightened worries that fighting between the country’s warring military factions is pushing a region blighted by genocide two decades ago into a new ethnic civil war.
//Leaving Everything Behind: Thanasis Pagoulatos led his family business, Khartoum’s oldest inn, through decades of tumult. Sudan’s latest breakdown proved too much.
//A Generation’s Catastrophe: With an estimated 19 million children out of school for months because of war, U.N. officials warned that Sudan is on the verge of becoming “the worst education crisis in the world.”
Filippo Grandi, the head of the United Nations refugee agency, said: “Twenty years ago, the world was shocked by the terrible atrocities in Darfur. We fear a similar dynamic might be developing.”
The dire situation is not yet a full repeat of the early 2000s, when the scorched-earth tactics of Arab militiamen caused the International Criminal Court to file charges of genocide against Sudanese leaders, including the former president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was deposed in 2019.
This time, diplomats and analysts say, the ethnic violence is more a byproduct of the national battle between forces loyal to the army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and General Hamdan, rather than a coordinated campaign of slaughter.
The R.S.F. wants to present itself as a responsible group that could one day govern Sudan. In an emailed response to questions, it blamed Sudan’s army for the recent deaths in El Geneina, accusing it of shelling civilian neighborhoods. A formal investigation of possible abuses is underway, the group said.
But promises of transparency from a paramilitary group that grew out of the feared militias known as the Janjaweed that terrorized Darfur in the 2000s are viewed with wide skepticism. In private, R.S.F. officials conceded that undisciplined fighters have carried out abuses, diplomats say. And in July, the International Criminal Court opened a new investigation into possible war crimes in Darfur.
Image
Mohamed Hamdan, wearing a military uniform, speaks into a microphone while standing in a crowd of fighters holding long guns and wearing head scarves.
A video posted on social media by the Rapid Support Forces in July purporting to show Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the forces’ commander, addressing fighters at an undisclosed location.Credit...via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Still, the dynamic could quickly change if other armed groups in Darfur, currently sitting on the fence, decide to join the fray.
After months of grinding battle in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, where fighting first erupted in April, the Rapid Support Forces have turned their focus back to Darfur, the region where most of the group’s fighters are originally from. It captured in quick succession Nyala, Sudan’s second-largest city, Zalingei in Central Darfur and El Geneina.
Now, battle rages in El Fasher, the last stronghold of the army in Darfur. If that falls, experts say, most of Sudan west of the Nile will be in R.S.F. hands.
“El Fasher is the last big domino yet to fall,” said Alan Boswell, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The battle’s outcome depends in part on decisions taken by Minni Minnawi, the regional governor of Darfur, whose armed forces are concentrated around El Fasher. So far, they have avoided taking sides in the war. And although Mr. Minnawi is a longtime R.S.F. rival, many doubt that his fighters have the strength to confront the paramilitary group now.
“Fighting looks like a bad proposition for them,” Mr. Boswell said.
Image
Fighters sit atop small military vehicles traveling down a road near electrical poles and a white truck parked on the other side.
A military convoy accompanying the regional governor of Darfur, Minni Minawi, in August on the way to Port Sudan, which is held by the Sudanese military and is now the center of government.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The changes highlight how much ground Sudan’s military, long seen as the backbone of the state, has lost in this war. Unable to dislodge the R.S.F. from Khartoum, the military has been forced to shift most government functions to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, in the country’s far east. Aid groups and U.N. missions are also working from there.
International efforts to broker a cease-fire, led by the United States and Saudi Arabia, have failed to find compromise. The latest talks last week in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, produced little. And the humanitarian cost is soaring.
So far, at least 10,400 people have died, mostly in Khartoum and Darfur, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, although Sudanese health workers say the real toll is most likely much higher.
Nearly five million people — about one-tenth of Sudan’s population — have been internally displaced, and an additional 1.2 million have fled into neighboring countries, mostly Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.
Half of Sudan’s 46 million people need aid to survive, the United Nations says.
Image
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan walking on an airport tarmac with other military figures, and a mostly white plane is behind them.
Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan arriving with officials and guards at the military airport in Port Sudan in August.Credit...Ibrahim Mohammed Ishak/Reuters
A handful of aid groups have trickled back into West Darfur in recent months after reaching agreements with the R.S.F. and Arab militias. Their employees describe massacres of civilians, dozens of reported rapes, orphaned children and refugee-filled schools.
Will Carter, the Sudan director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, blamed the world for turning its back on Sudan. “The sheer number of deaths, the scale of the devastation in Darfur and the lack of attention show how the international system is failing right in front of our eyes,” he said.
Ali Salam, an aid coordinator with the Sudanese American Physicians Association, said he had seen “unbelievable” things during a recent visit to refugee camps in Chad near the Sudanese border. One woman arrived at a camp with a dead child strapped to her back, unaware that the child had died along the way, he said.
“People are dying like insects in Darfur,” he said.
As events in the Middle East preoccupy the United States, for years a major influence in Sudan, there is even less scrutiny of foreign powers accused of fueling Sudan’s war, like the United Arab Emirates. An investigation showed the Emiratis are smuggling arms to General Hamdan from a base in Chad, or Egypt, which backs Sudan’s military.
Two decades ago, the cause of peace in Sudan was embraced by Western celebrities and activists who held marches in Washington under the “Save Darfur” banner. This time, many in Sudan feel that the world has turned its back on them.
“How many more lives will it take for the world to step in, for people to care?” said Omnia Mustafa, a 21-year-old Sudanese woman (not related to Dr. Mustafa) who appealed on TikTok this week for outsiders to take notice of her country’s plight.
“I’m sick and tired of our suffering falling into deaf ears,” she said. “We are also people, like everyone else.”
Image
Women and children in a large hangar-type building with yellow walls and bedding laid out on the floor.
A camp for the internally displaced in al-Suwar, Sudan, in June.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Seven months into Sudan’s civil war, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allies are ransacking and capturing the Darfur region. An aid worker said, “People are dying like insects.”
A Sudanese woman mourning a relative she said was killed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. She had fled from El Geneina in the Darfur region in July, across the border into Chad.Credit...Zohra Bensemra/Reuters
Bodies littered the road out of El Geneina, a town in western Sudan, as Dr. Rodwan Mustafa and his family sped down a bumpy road that led to the border with Chad and, they hoped, safety.
A day earlier, rampaging Arab militiamen had grabbed Dr. Mustafa by the neck, accusing him of giving medical care to enemy fighters. That was his signal to run.
Racing toward the border with his family in a car, he saw chickens clucking over the bloodied corpses of those who hadn’t fled in time. A camp for displaced people stood empty, burned to the ground. He spotted a dismembered hand on the roadside.
“The smell of death was everywhere,” said Dr. Mustafa, who made it to a refugee camp in Chad and spoke by phone from there.
Seven months into Sudan’s disastrous civil war, new horrors have accompanied the latest fighting in Darfur, a sprawling region in the west of the country where a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, has scored a succession of sweeping victories over Sudan’s regular military in recent weeks.
After capturing three of Darfur’s five state capitals, including El Geneina on Nov. 4, the paramilitary group is on the verge of seizing the entire region, according to residents, analysts and United Nations officials interviewed in recent days.
Although that tilts the war in favor of the paramilitary group’s commander, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, neither side looks capable of outright victory, according to African and western officials — a stalemate that has deepened civilian suffering. The R.S.F.’s recent victories have also come at the cost of ethnic violence that recalls the genocidal massacres that brought global attention to Darfur just over two decades ago.
Earlier this month, more than 800 people were killed as R.S.F. and allied Arab fighters overran the army garrison in El Geneina, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Homes were razed and United Nations supplies looted, the agency said. Routed Sudanese soldiers fled across the border into Chad, carrying stores of ammunition.
Image
Burned vehicles and clay pots stand on scorched earth near trees and small one-story cream buildings.
Destruction in a market area in El Fasher, capital of Sudan’s North Darfur State, in September.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Aid workers and witnesses also reported sexual violence, torture and killings of members of the Masalit, an ethnic African group with a long history of conflict with ethnic Arabs.
“They came to massacre us,” said Ahmed Sharif, a schoolteacher who fled El Geneina on Nov. 5 and walked 13 hours to reach Chad.
//Violence in Sudan
//Fighting between two military factions has thrown Sudan into chaos, with plans for a transition to a civilian-led democracy now in shambles.
What to Know: Two generals have been vying for power in the African country in a conflict that began in April. Millions of Sudanese people have fled, but many are stuck in war zones struggling to survive.
//Darfur: The discovery of a mass graves and the killing of a powerful governor have heightened worries that fighting between the country’s warring military factions is pushing a region blighted by genocide two decades ago into a new ethnic civil war.
//Leaving Everything Behind: Thanasis Pagoulatos led his family business, Khartoum’s oldest inn, through decades of tumult. Sudan’s latest breakdown proved too much.
//A Generation’s Catastrophe: With an estimated 19 million children out of school for months because of war, U.N. officials warned that Sudan is on the verge of becoming “the worst education crisis in the world.”
Filippo Grandi, the head of the United Nations refugee agency, said: “Twenty years ago, the world was shocked by the terrible atrocities in Darfur. We fear a similar dynamic might be developing.”
The dire situation is not yet a full repeat of the early 2000s, when the scorched-earth tactics of Arab militiamen caused the International Criminal Court to file charges of genocide against Sudanese leaders, including the former president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was deposed in 2019.
This time, diplomats and analysts say, the ethnic violence is more a byproduct of the national battle between forces loyal to the army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and General Hamdan, rather than a coordinated campaign of slaughter.
The R.S.F. wants to present itself as a responsible group that could one day govern Sudan. In an emailed response to questions, it blamed Sudan’s army for the recent deaths in El Geneina, accusing it of shelling civilian neighborhoods. A formal investigation of possible abuses is underway, the group said.
But promises of transparency from a paramilitary group that grew out of the feared militias known as the Janjaweed that terrorized Darfur in the 2000s are viewed with wide skepticism. In private, R.S.F. officials conceded that undisciplined fighters have carried out abuses, diplomats say. And in July, the International Criminal Court opened a new investigation into possible war crimes in Darfur.
Image
Mohamed Hamdan, wearing a military uniform, speaks into a microphone while standing in a crowd of fighters holding long guns and wearing head scarves.
A video posted on social media by the Rapid Support Forces in July purporting to show Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the forces’ commander, addressing fighters at an undisclosed location.Credit...via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Still, the dynamic could quickly change if other armed groups in Darfur, currently sitting on the fence, decide to join the fray.
After months of grinding battle in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, where fighting first erupted in April, the Rapid Support Forces have turned their focus back to Darfur, the region where most of the group’s fighters are originally from. It captured in quick succession Nyala, Sudan’s second-largest city, Zalingei in Central Darfur and El Geneina.
Now, battle rages in El Fasher, the last stronghold of the army in Darfur. If that falls, experts say, most of Sudan west of the Nile will be in R.S.F. hands.
“El Fasher is the last big domino yet to fall,” said Alan Boswell, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The battle’s outcome depends in part on decisions taken by Minni Minnawi, the regional governor of Darfur, whose armed forces are concentrated around El Fasher. So far, they have avoided taking sides in the war. And although Mr. Minnawi is a longtime R.S.F. rival, many doubt that his fighters have the strength to confront the paramilitary group now.
“Fighting looks like a bad proposition for them,” Mr. Boswell said.
Image
Fighters sit atop small military vehicles traveling down a road near electrical poles and a white truck parked on the other side.
A military convoy accompanying the regional governor of Darfur, Minni Minawi, in August on the way to Port Sudan, which is held by the Sudanese military and is now the center of government.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The changes highlight how much ground Sudan’s military, long seen as the backbone of the state, has lost in this war. Unable to dislodge the R.S.F. from Khartoum, the military has been forced to shift most government functions to Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, in the country’s far east. Aid groups and U.N. missions are also working from there.
International efforts to broker a cease-fire, led by the United States and Saudi Arabia, have failed to find compromise. The latest talks last week in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, produced little. And the humanitarian cost is soaring.
So far, at least 10,400 people have died, mostly in Khartoum and Darfur, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, although Sudanese health workers say the real toll is most likely much higher.
Nearly five million people — about one-tenth of Sudan’s population — have been internally displaced, and an additional 1.2 million have fled into neighboring countries, mostly Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.
Half of Sudan’s 46 million people need aid to survive, the United Nations says.
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Abdel Fattah al-Burhan walking on an airport tarmac with other military figures, and a mostly white plane is behind them.
Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan arriving with officials and guards at the military airport in Port Sudan in August.Credit...Ibrahim Mohammed Ishak/Reuters
A handful of aid groups have trickled back into West Darfur in recent months after reaching agreements with the R.S.F. and Arab militias. Their employees describe massacres of civilians, dozens of reported rapes, orphaned children and refugee-filled schools.
Will Carter, the Sudan director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, blamed the world for turning its back on Sudan. “The sheer number of deaths, the scale of the devastation in Darfur and the lack of attention show how the international system is failing right in front of our eyes,” he said.
Ali Salam, an aid coordinator with the Sudanese American Physicians Association, said he had seen “unbelievable” things during a recent visit to refugee camps in Chad near the Sudanese border. One woman arrived at a camp with a dead child strapped to her back, unaware that the child had died along the way, he said.
“People are dying like insects in Darfur,” he said.
As events in the Middle East preoccupy the United States, for years a major influence in Sudan, there is even less scrutiny of foreign powers accused of fueling Sudan’s war, like the United Arab Emirates. An investigation showed the Emiratis are smuggling arms to General Hamdan from a base in Chad, or Egypt, which backs Sudan’s military.
Two decades ago, the cause of peace in Sudan was embraced by Western celebrities and activists who held marches in Washington under the “Save Darfur” banner. This time, many in Sudan feel that the world has turned its back on them.
“How many more lives will it take for the world to step in, for people to care?” said Omnia Mustafa, a 21-year-old Sudanese woman (not related to Dr. Mustafa) who appealed on TikTok this week for outsiders to take notice of her country’s plight.
“I’m sick and tired of our suffering falling into deaf ears,” she said. “We are also people, like everyone else.”
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Women and children in a large hangar-type building with yellow walls and bedding laid out on the floor.
A camp for the internally displaced in al-Suwar, Sudan, in June.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/worl ... 778d3e6de3
U.S. Vetoes Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire Resolution at U.N. Security Council
The veto came amid a warning that “civil order is breaking down” in Gaza, and a day after the Biden administration warned that Israel’s military had not done enough to reduce harm to civilians.
Displaced Palestinians set up a makeshift camp in the Al-Muwasi area of the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday.Credit...Fatima Shbair/Associated Press
The United States on Friday vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has launched hundreds of strikes, relief efforts were faltering and people were growing so desperate for basic necessities that some were stoning and raiding aid convoys.
The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, and most members of the Security Council had backed the measure, saying that the humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal enclave where 2.2 million Palestinians live could threaten world stability.
But the United States, which is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, blocked the resolution, arguing that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas attacks. The vote was 13 to 1, with Britain abstaining and some U.S. allies like France voting for a cease-fire.
Robert A. Wood, who was representing the United States on the Council, said after the veto that the resolution for an unconditional and immediate cease-fire “was not only unrealistic, but dangerous — it would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7.”
The failed resolution came as the United Nations reported that it was struggling to deliver essential goods like food, medicine and cooking gas to desperate civilians who have packed into shelters and tent cities after two months of war.
“Civil order is breaking down,” Thomas White, the Gaza director of the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, wrote Friday on social media. He added: “Some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned. Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse.”
Mr. White spoke a day after the Biden administration warned that the Israeli military had not done enough to reduce harm to civilians in Gaza.
“It is imperative — it remains imperative — that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters in Washington on Thursday. “And there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
Image
A crowd of men carry a man laying on a stretcher; he is rubbing his eyes with blackened fingers.
Rescuers pulled a wounded person from the rubble of a destroyed house in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Friday.Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
Fighting has been raging in southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, and in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have focused on the Shajaiye neighborhood of Gaza City, and Jabaliya, a densely populated neighborhood north of the city, where they say Hamas operatives continue to hide.
An Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, said that Israel had been taking steps to keep civilians safe “despite attempts by their own leaders to deliberately sacrifice them as human shields.”
“That’s why we published a very detailed map to help civilians evacuate; it’s why we surrendered the element of surprise by urging the evacuation of areas before moving in,” Mr. Levy said. He added, “We believe we are setting the highest possible standard for the minimization of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations in urban areas.”
Image
A military vehicle plows through a pile of dirt in a field. A helmeted soldier’s head is poking out the top.
An Israeli military vehicle near the Israel-Gaza border on Friday. The military said it had struck hundreds of targets over the previous 24 hours and had pushed deeper into Gaza. Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters
Image
A large camp with many buses and taxis visible on a street. In the distance, a plume of smoke rises into the sky.
Palestinians who fled the Gazan city of Khan Younis set up camp in Rafah.Credit...Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But Israel has been facing pressure from the United Nations to stop the fighting. On Wednesday, for the first time in his seven-year tenure at the helm of the U.N., Mr. Guterres invoked Article 99, a rarely used rule that allows the secretary general to bring to the Security Council’s attention any matter that “may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
//Israel-Hamas War: Live Updates
//Updated
//Dec. 9, 2023, 7:24 a.m. ET2 hours ago
//2 hours ago
//Israel strikes targets across the Gaza Strip.
//The Palestinian Authority’s leader assails the U.S. veto of a U.N. cease-fire resolution.
Israeli forces made a failed attempt to rescue hostages in Gaza, Israel and Hamas say.
Mr. Guterres argued that it was necessary because of the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza and because related conflicts were flaring in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
In an earlier address to the Council, he said: “There is a high risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which would have devastating consequences. I fear the consequences could be devastating for the security of the entire region.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told the Council that approving the resolution — which was submitted by the United Arab Emirates — would only allow Hamas to regroup and plan more attacks on the Jewish state. He said Israel would “continue with its mission, the elimination of Hamas’s terror capability and the return of all of the hostages.”
Mohamed Abushahab, the U.A.E.’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said after the vote, “Regrettably, and in the face of untold misery, this Council is unable to demand a humanitarian cease-fire.” He added, “Against the backdrop of the secretary general’s grave warnings, the appeals by humanitarian actors, the world’s public opinion — this Council grows isolated. It appears untethered from its own founding document.”
Before the veto, Mr. Wood said the United States had tried to negotiate changes to the agreement, but “nearly all of our recommendations were ignored,” including adding a condemnation of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and an endorsement of Israel’s right to self-defense.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel in October, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials. Since then, more than 15,000 people in Gaza have been killed, according to health officials in the territory.
The Israeli military said on Friday that it had struck hundreds of targets over the previous 24 hours and had pushed deeper into Gaza. The military said the air force had attacked “numerous terrorists” in a two-hour round of strikes in Khan Younis, which has become a focus of the fighting over the last week.
In a video statement, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus, who is commanding Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis, said that troops were “moving from tunnel to tunnel, house to house.”
“The enemy is jumping out at us from the orchards, from tunnels,” General Goldfus said, as gunfire crackled in the background.
Israel has asked the U.S. State Department to approve an order for 45,000 rounds of ammunition for the types of tanks operating in Gaza, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the request. The value of the order is more than $500 million, they said.
Some U.S. lawmakers are likely to raise sharp questions about the order once the State Department submits it to Congress for review. But one official said the department was considering invoking an emergency provision in an arms export act to bypass congressional review.
An Israeli military roundup of hundreds of Palestinian men in Gaza has set off outrage after photos and video of men tied up outdoors and stripped to their underwear spread widely on social media on Thursday. Israeli officials said the men had been detained in Jabaliya and Shajaiye and stripped to ensure they were not carrying explosives.
“We’re talking about military-age men who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago,” Mr. Levy said. “Those individuals will be questioned, and we will work out who indeed was a Hamas terrorist and who is not.”
Critics said that the mass detentions and humiliating treatment could violate the laws of war.
Brian Finucane, an analyst at the International Crisis Group and a former legal adviser to the State Department, said that international law set “a very high bar” for an occupying power to detain noncombatants and that “the base line is going to be humane treatment.”
“That prohibits outrages on personal dignity and humiliating and degrading treatment,” he said.
Image
A woman with her face covered in dust is escorted by a man and a woman with distraught expressions on their faces, in a hallway.
A wounded Palestinian arriving at a hospital in Khan Younis on Friday.Credit...Mohammed Dahman/Associated Press
In southern Gaza, where some limited relief supplies have been delivered through a border crossing with Egypt, more than eight out of 10 households have taken extreme measures to cope with food shortages, the World Food Program said this week. In northern Gaza, 97 percent of households were doing the same, the survey found.
Israel said on Thursday it would allow a “minimal” supply of additional fuel into Gaza “to prevent a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics,” and would open a second border crossing for aid deliveries.
Reporting was contributed by Sarah Hurtes, Liam Stack, Edward Wong, Yara Bayoumy, Raja Abdulrahim, Arijeta Lajka, Christiaan Triebert and Chevaz Clarke.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/worl ... a-aid.html
Displaced Palestinians set up a makeshift camp in the Al-Muwasi area of the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday.Credit...Fatima Shbair/Associated Press
The United States on Friday vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has launched hundreds of strikes, relief efforts were faltering and people were growing so desperate for basic necessities that some were stoning and raiding aid convoys.
The U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, and most members of the Security Council had backed the measure, saying that the humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal enclave where 2.2 million Palestinians live could threaten world stability.
But the United States, which is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, blocked the resolution, arguing that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas attacks. The vote was 13 to 1, with Britain abstaining and some U.S. allies like France voting for a cease-fire.
Robert A. Wood, who was representing the United States on the Council, said after the veto that the resolution for an unconditional and immediate cease-fire “was not only unrealistic, but dangerous — it would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on Oct. 7.”
The failed resolution came as the United Nations reported that it was struggling to deliver essential goods like food, medicine and cooking gas to desperate civilians who have packed into shelters and tent cities after two months of war.
“Civil order is breaking down,” Thomas White, the Gaza director of the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, wrote Friday on social media. He added: “Some aid convoys are being looted and UN vehicles stoned. Society is on the brink of full-blown collapse.”
Mr. White spoke a day after the Biden administration warned that the Israeli military had not done enough to reduce harm to civilians in Gaza.
“It is imperative — it remains imperative — that Israel put a premium on civilian protection,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters in Washington on Thursday. “And there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground.”
Image
A crowd of men carry a man laying on a stretcher; he is rubbing his eyes with blackened fingers.
Rescuers pulled a wounded person from the rubble of a destroyed house in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on Friday.Credit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
Fighting has been raging in southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, and in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops have focused on the Shajaiye neighborhood of Gaza City, and Jabaliya, a densely populated neighborhood north of the city, where they say Hamas operatives continue to hide.
An Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, said that Israel had been taking steps to keep civilians safe “despite attempts by their own leaders to deliberately sacrifice them as human shields.”
“That’s why we published a very detailed map to help civilians evacuate; it’s why we surrendered the element of surprise by urging the evacuation of areas before moving in,” Mr. Levy said. He added, “We believe we are setting the highest possible standard for the minimization of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations in urban areas.”
Image
A military vehicle plows through a pile of dirt in a field. A helmeted soldier’s head is poking out the top.
An Israeli military vehicle near the Israel-Gaza border on Friday. The military said it had struck hundreds of targets over the previous 24 hours and had pushed deeper into Gaza. Credit...Amir Cohen/Reuters
Image
A large camp with many buses and taxis visible on a street. In the distance, a plume of smoke rises into the sky.
Palestinians who fled the Gazan city of Khan Younis set up camp in Rafah.Credit...Mahmud Hams/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
But Israel has been facing pressure from the United Nations to stop the fighting. On Wednesday, for the first time in his seven-year tenure at the helm of the U.N., Mr. Guterres invoked Article 99, a rarely used rule that allows the secretary general to bring to the Security Council’s attention any matter that “may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
//Israel-Hamas War: Live Updates
//Updated
//Dec. 9, 2023, 7:24 a.m. ET2 hours ago
//2 hours ago
//Israel strikes targets across the Gaza Strip.
//The Palestinian Authority’s leader assails the U.S. veto of a U.N. cease-fire resolution.
Israeli forces made a failed attempt to rescue hostages in Gaza, Israel and Hamas say.
Mr. Guterres argued that it was necessary because of the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza and because related conflicts were flaring in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
In an earlier address to the Council, he said: “There is a high risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza, which would have devastating consequences. I fear the consequences could be devastating for the security of the entire region.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told the Council that approving the resolution — which was submitted by the United Arab Emirates — would only allow Hamas to regroup and plan more attacks on the Jewish state. He said Israel would “continue with its mission, the elimination of Hamas’s terror capability and the return of all of the hostages.”
Mohamed Abushahab, the U.A.E.’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, said after the vote, “Regrettably, and in the face of untold misery, this Council is unable to demand a humanitarian cease-fire.” He added, “Against the backdrop of the secretary general’s grave warnings, the appeals by humanitarian actors, the world’s public opinion — this Council grows isolated. It appears untethered from its own founding document.”
Before the veto, Mr. Wood said the United States had tried to negotiate changes to the agreement, but “nearly all of our recommendations were ignored,” including adding a condemnation of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and an endorsement of Israel’s right to self-defense.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas led an attack on southern Israel in October, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials. Since then, more than 15,000 people in Gaza have been killed, according to health officials in the territory.
The Israeli military said on Friday that it had struck hundreds of targets over the previous 24 hours and had pushed deeper into Gaza. The military said the air force had attacked “numerous terrorists” in a two-hour round of strikes in Khan Younis, which has become a focus of the fighting over the last week.
In a video statement, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus, who is commanding Israeli soldiers in Khan Younis, said that troops were “moving from tunnel to tunnel, house to house.”
“The enemy is jumping out at us from the orchards, from tunnels,” General Goldfus said, as gunfire crackled in the background.
Israel has asked the U.S. State Department to approve an order for 45,000 rounds of ammunition for the types of tanks operating in Gaza, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the request. The value of the order is more than $500 million, they said.
Some U.S. lawmakers are likely to raise sharp questions about the order once the State Department submits it to Congress for review. But one official said the department was considering invoking an emergency provision in an arms export act to bypass congressional review.
An Israeli military roundup of hundreds of Palestinian men in Gaza has set off outrage after photos and video of men tied up outdoors and stripped to their underwear spread widely on social media on Thursday. Israeli officials said the men had been detained in Jabaliya and Shajaiye and stripped to ensure they were not carrying explosives.
“We’re talking about military-age men who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago,” Mr. Levy said. “Those individuals will be questioned, and we will work out who indeed was a Hamas terrorist and who is not.”
Critics said that the mass detentions and humiliating treatment could violate the laws of war.
Brian Finucane, an analyst at the International Crisis Group and a former legal adviser to the State Department, said that international law set “a very high bar” for an occupying power to detain noncombatants and that “the base line is going to be humane treatment.”
“That prohibits outrages on personal dignity and humiliating and degrading treatment,” he said.
Image
A woman with her face covered in dust is escorted by a man and a woman with distraught expressions on their faces, in a hallway.
A wounded Palestinian arriving at a hospital in Khan Younis on Friday.Credit...Mohammed Dahman/Associated Press
In southern Gaza, where some limited relief supplies have been delivered through a border crossing with Egypt, more than eight out of 10 households have taken extreme measures to cope with food shortages, the World Food Program said this week. In northern Gaza, 97 percent of households were doing the same, the survey found.
Israel said on Thursday it would allow a “minimal” supply of additional fuel into Gaza “to prevent a humanitarian collapse and the outbreak of epidemics,” and would open a second border crossing for aid deliveries.
Reporting was contributed by Sarah Hurtes, Liam Stack, Edward Wong, Yara Bayoumy, Raja Abdulrahim, Arijeta Lajka, Christiaan Triebert and Chevaz Clarke.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/worl ... a-aid.html
Atrocities Mount in Sudan as War Spirals, U.N. Says
Rape, killing, torture: A stark report offers new evidence of horrific abuses carried out by Sudan’s military and its enemy, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Refugees from the fighting in Sudan line up to board a barge in Renk, South Sudan. A United Nations report documents horrors by both warring sides. Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
Bombs that struck houses, markets and bus stations across Sudan, often killing dozens of civilians at once. Ethnic rampages, accompanied by rape and looting, that killed thousands in the western region of Darfur.
And a video clip, verified by United Nations officials, that shows Sudanese soldiers parading through the streets of a major city, triumphantly brandishing the decapitated heads of students who were killed on the basis of their ethnicity.
The horrors of Sudan’s spiraling civil war are laid out in graphic detail in a new United Nations report that draws on satellite imagery, photos, videos and interviews with over 300 victims and witnesses, to present the stark human toll from 10 months of fighting.
Many probable war crimes have occurred as part of the grinding battle for control of Sudan, one of the largest countries in Africa, which started with clashes between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, the report by the U.N.’s human rights body found.
The fight started as a power struggle between the leaders of the military, which dominated Sudan for decades, and the R.S.F., which comes mainly from Darfur. But it quickly escalated into a nationwide conflict with catastrophic consequences for Sudan’s 46 million people.
Both sides have committed indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Women and children have been raped or gang raped. Recruitment of child soldiers is common.
Foreign powers, including the United Arab Emirates and Iran, have stepped in to back one side or the other, sending sophisticated weapons, including armed drones, to the battlefield, which accelerated the tempo of fighting and increased the already high risks to civilians. American- and Saudi-led diplomatic efforts to broker even a modest cease-fire have come to nothing.
And the brutality has become more open. The students who were decapitated in the city of El-Obeid, in central Sudan, were apparently butchered on the assumption that they backed the Rapid Support Forces, a Nairobi-based spokesman for the U. N. human rights office, Seif Manango, told reporters.
Sudan’s military said that it was investigating the video, denouncing its content as “shocking,” and promising to bring any perpetrators to account.
Despite the growing evidence of atrocities — and warnings from aid groups that parts of Sudan are heading toward famine — the international focus on conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine has largely eclipsed the crisis in Sudan.
Image
A man measures the thin upper arm of a small child with a tape measure.
A health worker measures the circumference of a Sudanese child’s arm at the clinic of a Transit Centre for refugees in Renk, South Sudan, in February.Credit...Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A United Nations appeal for $2.7 billion in humanitarian funding for Sudan has yielded less than 4 percent of those funds — $97 million — forcing the U.N. to dig into its emergency reserve to meet the most urgent food and shelter needs.
Sudan’s war has forced eight million people from their homes, creating one of the world’s largest displacement crises. Nearly 1.5 million refugees have fled into neighboring countries, especially South Sudan, Chad and Egypt. About 80 percent of hospitals in conflict-affected areas have closed, the World Health Organization said.
Yet even as the weak die of starvation, attacks on aid convoys have obstructed aid deliveries, and impunity reigns. Despite accounts of “death, suffering and despair” since the war in Sudan began, there is “no end in sight” to the abuses of civilians, the U.N. human rights chief, Volker Turk, said in a statement.
The U.N. report found that both sides have detained civilians, including women and children, often torturing those they suspected of collaborating with their enemies. But it said the great majority of sexual assaults appeared to have been carried out by the Rapid Support Forces and affiliated militias, and cited one incident in which a victim was detained and gang raped over 35 days by R.S.F. forces.
The report said that other victims were killed trying to prevent the fighters from assaulting their family members, and that members of ethnic African groups were especially targeted by R.S.F.-linked fighters from ethnic Arab backgrounds.
At least 14,600 people have been killed in the conflict, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a nonprofit that collects data about conflicts, although the actual toll is almost certainly much higher because of the difficulty of collecting data in a war zone. In a report submitted to the U.N. Security Council last month, obtained by The Times, U.N. investigators estimated that as many as 15,000 people were killed during just one assault by the R.S.F. and allied forces on the Darfuri city of Geneina in November.
In response to the R.S.F. advance, the Sudanese military has dropped crude barrel bombs on homes and camps in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, frequently killing dozens of civilians at once.
The evidence of widespread atrocities comes as the course of the war has taken several dramatic turns in recent months, amid growing evidence of foreign interference.
Image
Refugees who have fled the war in Sudan carry their belongings as they board a boat.
Refugees from the war in Sudan carry their belongings while boarding a boat in Renk, South Sudan. Both sides have committed indiscriminate attacks on civilians, a United Nations report found. Credit...Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Emirates have been covertly supplying the Rapid Support Forces with armed drones, surface-to-air missiles and other sophisticated weapons since last summer, according to United Nations investigators and diplomats, helping the Sudanese group capture a string of major cities in Darfur, as well as the key city of Wad Madani, south of Khartoum, in December.
Shock at the fall of Wad Madani prompted the Sudanese military to go back on the offensive, launching a major drive to recapture from the R.S.F. parts of Omdurman, a city across the Nile from Khartoum.
In that battle, the army has reclaimed some territory, one of its first major victories since the war started, although it has had to turn to Iran to obtain armed drones to boost its campaign — a potential source of tension with the military’s other backer, Egypt, whose military support appears to have waned in recent months.
The army effort in Omdurman was also boosted by the arrival of Darfuri rebel groups that once fought Sudan’s army but now are allied with the force in fighting against the R.S.F., their mutual enemy.
Space for peace talks appears to be shrinking. American- and Saudi-led efforts to broker even a modest cease-fire through talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah proved futile.
The American ambassador to Sudan, John Godfrey, who helped lead those talks, said on Friday that he was stepping down. No replacement has been announced amid reports that the State Department will soon name a special envoy for Sudan.
On Friday, a State Department spokesman condemned a decision by the Sudanese military to prohibit relief aid from crossing into R.S.F.-controlled territory from Chad, as well as the R.S.F. looting of aid deliveries and harassment of humanitarian workers.
The leader of the R.S.F., Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, appeared to be taking a victory lap in late December and early January, when he toured six African nations aboard an Emirati jet, shaking hands with powerful leaders, including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Kenya’s President William Ruto.
In recent weeks, representatives from the warring parties have held back-channel talks in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain, with support from the Emirates and Egypt, according to diplomats and news reports. But those talks have yielded little so far.
In February a senior Sudanese general, Shams al-Din Kabbashi, suggested that peace efforts had reached an impasse.
While Sudan’s military “carries an olive branch next to the gun,” it would not engage in political talks until “the military file is closed,” he said in a speech. “We will fight, we will fight, we will fight.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Refugees from the fighting in Sudan line up to board a barge in Renk, South Sudan. A United Nations report documents horrors by both warring sides. Credit...Joao Silva/The New York Times
Bombs that struck houses, markets and bus stations across Sudan, often killing dozens of civilians at once. Ethnic rampages, accompanied by rape and looting, that killed thousands in the western region of Darfur.
And a video clip, verified by United Nations officials, that shows Sudanese soldiers parading through the streets of a major city, triumphantly brandishing the decapitated heads of students who were killed on the basis of their ethnicity.
The horrors of Sudan’s spiraling civil war are laid out in graphic detail in a new United Nations report that draws on satellite imagery, photos, videos and interviews with over 300 victims and witnesses, to present the stark human toll from 10 months of fighting.
Many probable war crimes have occurred as part of the grinding battle for control of Sudan, one of the largest countries in Africa, which started with clashes between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, the report by the U.N.’s human rights body found.
The fight started as a power struggle between the leaders of the military, which dominated Sudan for decades, and the R.S.F., which comes mainly from Darfur. But it quickly escalated into a nationwide conflict with catastrophic consequences for Sudan’s 46 million people.
Both sides have committed indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Women and children have been raped or gang raped. Recruitment of child soldiers is common.
Foreign powers, including the United Arab Emirates and Iran, have stepped in to back one side or the other, sending sophisticated weapons, including armed drones, to the battlefield, which accelerated the tempo of fighting and increased the already high risks to civilians. American- and Saudi-led diplomatic efforts to broker even a modest cease-fire have come to nothing.
And the brutality has become more open. The students who were decapitated in the city of El-Obeid, in central Sudan, were apparently butchered on the assumption that they backed the Rapid Support Forces, a Nairobi-based spokesman for the U. N. human rights office, Seif Manango, told reporters.
Sudan’s military said that it was investigating the video, denouncing its content as “shocking,” and promising to bring any perpetrators to account.
Despite the growing evidence of atrocities — and warnings from aid groups that parts of Sudan are heading toward famine — the international focus on conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine has largely eclipsed the crisis in Sudan.
Image
A man measures the thin upper arm of a small child with a tape measure.
A health worker measures the circumference of a Sudanese child’s arm at the clinic of a Transit Centre for refugees in Renk, South Sudan, in February.Credit...Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A United Nations appeal for $2.7 billion in humanitarian funding for Sudan has yielded less than 4 percent of those funds — $97 million — forcing the U.N. to dig into its emergency reserve to meet the most urgent food and shelter needs.
Sudan’s war has forced eight million people from their homes, creating one of the world’s largest displacement crises. Nearly 1.5 million refugees have fled into neighboring countries, especially South Sudan, Chad and Egypt. About 80 percent of hospitals in conflict-affected areas have closed, the World Health Organization said.
Yet even as the weak die of starvation, attacks on aid convoys have obstructed aid deliveries, and impunity reigns. Despite accounts of “death, suffering and despair” since the war in Sudan began, there is “no end in sight” to the abuses of civilians, the U.N. human rights chief, Volker Turk, said in a statement.
The U.N. report found that both sides have detained civilians, including women and children, often torturing those they suspected of collaborating with their enemies. But it said the great majority of sexual assaults appeared to have been carried out by the Rapid Support Forces and affiliated militias, and cited one incident in which a victim was detained and gang raped over 35 days by R.S.F. forces.
The report said that other victims were killed trying to prevent the fighters from assaulting their family members, and that members of ethnic African groups were especially targeted by R.S.F.-linked fighters from ethnic Arab backgrounds.
At least 14,600 people have been killed in the conflict, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a nonprofit that collects data about conflicts, although the actual toll is almost certainly much higher because of the difficulty of collecting data in a war zone. In a report submitted to the U.N. Security Council last month, obtained by The Times, U.N. investigators estimated that as many as 15,000 people were killed during just one assault by the R.S.F. and allied forces on the Darfuri city of Geneina in November.
In response to the R.S.F. advance, the Sudanese military has dropped crude barrel bombs on homes and camps in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, frequently killing dozens of civilians at once.
The evidence of widespread atrocities comes as the course of the war has taken several dramatic turns in recent months, amid growing evidence of foreign interference.
Image
Refugees who have fled the war in Sudan carry their belongings as they board a boat.
Refugees from the war in Sudan carry their belongings while boarding a boat in Renk, South Sudan. Both sides have committed indiscriminate attacks on civilians, a United Nations report found. Credit...Luis Tato/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The Emirates have been covertly supplying the Rapid Support Forces with armed drones, surface-to-air missiles and other sophisticated weapons since last summer, according to United Nations investigators and diplomats, helping the Sudanese group capture a string of major cities in Darfur, as well as the key city of Wad Madani, south of Khartoum, in December.
Shock at the fall of Wad Madani prompted the Sudanese military to go back on the offensive, launching a major drive to recapture from the R.S.F. parts of Omdurman, a city across the Nile from Khartoum.
In that battle, the army has reclaimed some territory, one of its first major victories since the war started, although it has had to turn to Iran to obtain armed drones to boost its campaign — a potential source of tension with the military’s other backer, Egypt, whose military support appears to have waned in recent months.
The army effort in Omdurman was also boosted by the arrival of Darfuri rebel groups that once fought Sudan’s army but now are allied with the force in fighting against the R.S.F., their mutual enemy.
Space for peace talks appears to be shrinking. American- and Saudi-led efforts to broker even a modest cease-fire through talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah proved futile.
The American ambassador to Sudan, John Godfrey, who helped lead those talks, said on Friday that he was stepping down. No replacement has been announced amid reports that the State Department will soon name a special envoy for Sudan.
On Friday, a State Department spokesman condemned a decision by the Sudanese military to prohibit relief aid from crossing into R.S.F.-controlled territory from Chad, as well as the R.S.F. looting of aid deliveries and harassment of humanitarian workers.
The leader of the R.S.F., Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, appeared to be taking a victory lap in late December and early January, when he toured six African nations aboard an Emirati jet, shaking hands with powerful leaders, including South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Kenya’s President William Ruto.
In recent weeks, representatives from the warring parties have held back-channel talks in the Persian Gulf state of Bahrain, with support from the Emirates and Egypt, according to diplomats and news reports. But those talks have yielded little so far.
In February a senior Sudanese general, Shams al-Din Kabbashi, suggested that peace efforts had reached an impasse.
While Sudan’s military “carries an olive branch next to the gun,” it would not engage in political talks until “the military file is closed,” he said in a speech. “We will fight, we will fight, we will fight.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/24/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: MAN-MADE DISASTERS
Lives Ended in Gaza
Since the war started, more than 30,000 people have been killed during Israel’s bombardment and invasion. Here are some of their stories.
THEY SERVED CAPPUCCINOS, repaired cars and acted onstage. They raised children and took care of older parents. They treated wounds, made pizza and put too much sugar in their tea. They loved living in Gaza or sought to leave it behind.
They represent a fraction of the more than 30,000 people the local authorities say have been killed in Gaza in four and a half months of war. Their stories offer a snapshot of the vast human loss — one in every 73 of Gaza’s 2.2 million people.
More than two-thirds of the total deaths were women and children, the local authorities say. Often, they were killed with their families in Israeli airstrikes. Many thousands were fighters for Hamas, according to Israel, which says it is trying to eliminate the group that led the Oct. 7 attacks while limiting civilian casualties.
Hamas ruled Gaza and ran a covert military organization, the identity of its fighters unclear, even to other Gazans. Some residents supported it, some opposed it, everyone had to live with it. After decades of conflict, hatred of Israel was common, and many Gazans, including some of those below, cheered the fighters who attacked Israel.
Here are some of the people who have been killed in Gaza, as recalled by friends and relatives and documented in social media posts, news articles and other sources.
GAZA IS a youthful place, with nearly half of the population under 18, according to UNICEF. Gaza’s health authorities say that more than 13,000 children have been killed in the war.
She and her twin sister had names that rhymed. She loved to adorn her outfits with colorful accessories and relished the attention she and her sister received from neighbors. She was killed in a strike on her family’s building. Her sister, Marah, survived, as did their father and mother, who gave birth to a third daughter a few weeks later. They named her Farah.
Farah Alkhatib, 12
The older sister loved Kinder chocolate, Pringles and strawberry juice. The younger loved to play with a plastic jeep embellished with a duck.
Siwar and Selena al-Raiss, 3 years and 21 months
Her father bought her a violin, and she loved it, taking lessons at a Palestinian music school. She dreamed of becoming a star.
Lubna Elian, 14
He was close with his father and tagged along with his mother to the gym where she worked as a trainer. She called him “medallion,” because he was always hanging on his parents. He wanted to be a doctor, like his father.
Yousef Abu Moussa, 6
She was a top student who liked to draw nature scenes, rollerblade and jump on her trampoline. During the war, she played teacher to her siblings and cousins to distract them. She was killed in a strike that destroyed her family’s home. Her sister, Leen, 8, died four days later, trapped in the rubble.
Nada Abdulhadi, 10
She was the center of attention. Her mother, Maram, loved to dress her up for pictures. She was killed in October. Her mother was killed in a separate strike 11 days later.
Youmna Shaqalih, 4 months
GAZA’S ISOLATION and its school system gave it an uncommon mix: an educated population with high poverty and unemployment rates. Many Gazans with strong credentials struggled to find suitable employment.
He studied engineering in Gaza and Spain before trying unsuccessfully to settle in Norway, where he worked in an Italian restaurant. Back in Gaza, with engineering jobs scarce, he opened an eatery, Italiano, that served pizza, calzones, salads and shawarma. It was so successful that in 2021 it moved into a shiny new location, with dozens of employees, three floors and rooms for private events. He was killed with his parents and two brothers in a strike on the building. His wife and two children, 3 and 6, survived.
Abdulrahman Abuamara, 39
In the two years before the war, she earned a university degree in software engineering, got married and became pregnant with her first child. She was killed alongside her husband before the baby was born.
Ghadeer Mohammed Mansour, 24
The twins did not find work related to their university degrees in English literature, so they started a business importing clothes, shoes and accessories to resell from their family’s apartment, often delivering orders themselves. They pumped iron at Oxygen Gym and posted their workouts on Instagram.
Salah and Khaled Jadallah, 27
The twins’ sister, killed in the same strike as her brothers and her father, worked as a medical laboratory analyst at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza and at a private lab, which featured her smile in its advertisements to encourage patients to come in for tests. She cherished her financial independence and dreamed of earning a master’s degree.
Doaa Jadallah, 29
He did translation for a human rights group and worked for a think tank focused on improving Palestinians’ lives. Shortly before the war, he received a scholarship for a master’s degree in international relations in Australia. He hoped to become a diplomat. He was killed alongside 20 family members in a strike that destroyed his family’s home.
Mahmoud Alnaouq, 25
She worked in graphic design to help support her family while studying multimedia at a Gaza university. She hoped to teach there one day.
Jannat Iyad Abu Zbeada, 21
He had a degree in business administration but took construction jobs he hated and helped his family fish off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. He loved soccer and supported F.C. Barcelona. His life’s longest trip took about an hour, a drive to a friend’s wedding elsewhere in Gaza.
Rami Abu Reyaleh, 32
He tried to start a new life outside Gaza, spending time in Egypt, Turkey, Bolivia and Argentina and crossing the dangerous Darién Gap in Panama to reach the U.S.-Mexico border. He claimed political asylum, telling the U.S. authorities that he had been a member of Hamas’s military wing for a few years before fleeing Gaza to escape the group. He was denied asylum and returned to Gaza before the war. He chipped in at his family’s furniture business and considered getting married. “I wanted to get out, I swear to God, because I don’t bet on Gaza,” he wrote on Facebook as the war raged. “But unfortunately I couldn’t get out and it was my shitty fate that I am living through a third war on this cursed land.”
Motaz Alhelou, 31
GAZA HAS BEEN under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt since Hamas seized control in 2007. The blockade has shaped nearly every aspect of life, limiting the movement of goods in and out of the territory and making it difficult, if not impossible, for many Gazans to leave. In that period, there have also been several wars and deadly clashes with Israel.
She raised five children — four boys and a girl — who gave her 15 grandchildren. She was set to leave Gaza for the first time, to visit Turkey with her husband to see two of their adult sons and their families. She had packed several suitcases with traditional Palestinian foods: olive oil, a spice mix called za’atar and local greens used to make stew. But the war broke out three days before the trip. She never left.
Faida AlKrunz, 60
His parents were displaced to Gaza from what became Israel in 1948. He never finished high school but worked to support his 12 siblings. His experience gave him an enduring faith in education for his five children, to make sure they had better lives. Later, he mediated family conflicts, often siding with his sons’ wives over his sons. He was killed in October alongside his wife, Faida (above), and nine of their children and grandchildren.
Saud AlKrunz, 61
He was a car mechanic who loved to tinker, including making the gate to his family’s home automatic. He left Gaza only once, for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where his brother lived. He didn’t know how to scan his passport at the airport. It was his first time on an airplane. “Everything was new to him,” his brother said.
Ahmed Abu Shaeera, 39
An Islamic scholar, he preached at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a holy site cherished by Palestinians. He later served as the minister of religious affairs for the Palestinian Authority and remained committed to Jerusalem. “Palestine has no value without Jerusalem, which is the pearl of Palestine, and Jerusalem has no value without Al Aqsa,” he said.
Youssef Salama, 69
She focused on mental health, a rare but much-needed specialty in Gaza, at the Palestine Red Crescent Society. She worked with people who had been wounded and displaced by Israeli attacks on Gaza as well as with first responders.
Hedaya Hamad, 43
Enchanted by online videos of parkour enthusiasts doing stunts in urban spaces around the world, he tried it himself on Gaza’s beaches. After the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict, he practiced on the rubble, leaping, landing and rolling on buildings brought down by Israeli airstrikes. “When Salah played, he felt free,” recalled a friend from the Free Gaza Circus Center, where he taught circus arts to children.
Salah Abo Harbed, 23
Born into a refugee family and a member of Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Christian minority, he lived through several wars but still believed that all humans, including the Israelis who occupied and imposed a blockade on Gaza, were created in God’s image. He fondly recalled working as a bank accountant in Israel decades ago and thought it was still possible for the peoples of the Holy Land to live together. He died from an undiagnosed health crisis after clashes prevented him from reaching a hospital.
Jeries Sayegh, 67
MANY RESIDENTS had differing views about what Gaza could be.
She broke barriers in Gaza’s socially conservative society as an actor, playwright and artist. She performed in plays in Gaza and elsewhere and starred in films, including “Sara” in 2014, which addressed the taboo topic of femicide. She taught theater and arts in Gaza and at the ASHTAR theater in Jerusalem. She moved to Egypt after the 2014 Gaza war but returned a few months before the current war. She was killed in her home with three of her five children.
Inas Al-Saqqa, 53
While studying law, he hosted planning meetings and designed banners for protests under the slogan “We Want to Live,” which criticized Hamas’s governance of Gaza and called for better living conditions. But reflecting the complex views many Gazans hold toward Hamas, he lauded “the men of the resistance” on Oct. 7. “Officially, today is the greatest day in our generation’s entire life.”
Sayel Al-Hinnawi, 22
He founded a media production company and worked as a filmmaker and photographer. He served as a camera assistant on Ai Weiwei’s 2017 documentary “Human Flow” and liked to show Gaza in a positive light, especially with drone footage shot near the sea. He was on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia with his wife and baby daughter when the war broke out, and returned home to document the conflict, posting a video that called the Oct. 7 attackers “Palestinian freedom fighters.”
Roshdi al-Sarraj, 31
She made paintings in bold colors about Palestinian themes, showing mosques and churches side by side and the Old City of Jerusalem, which she was never able to visit. She had four sons, supported her family as an art teacher and was trying to put on her first exhibition.
Heba Zagout, 38
For a decade and a half, he served coffee at Mazaj, an upscale cafe in downtown Gaza City, helping it reopen swiftly after each conflict. “So we meet again,” he told returning customers. “We are all alive.”
Ali al-Sharawi, 45
GAZA is a small place, about six times the size of Manhattan, with a higher population density than Chicago. People forged close ties with large, extended families and their neighbors, often depending on one another.
She was a jokester who took care of her siblings and mother, a widow, with whom she ran a business doing traditional Palestinian embroidery. She had recently completed a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Amneh al-Hana, 38
He was a fitness enthusiast who taught physical education at the American International School in Gaza and volunteered as the coach of the Palestine Athletics Federation. He kept his athletes going despite poor facilities, often buying them training shoes with his own money. He called Oct. 7 “a bright morning for the Palestinians and the resounding fall of Israel” in a post on Facebook.
Belal Abu Samaan, 38
He performed complicated operations on Gaza’s war wounded while running Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah until his retirement. His wife, also a doctor, died of cancer, and he dealt with loneliness by hosting large meals to bring people into his home.
Dr. Abdallah Shehada, 69
A member of Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Christian minority, he studied aviation engineering in Egypt and worked for airlines in Libya and Uganda before returning to Gaza and managing an aid program for the United Nations. He lived near the sea and swam often when the weather was warm. He sheltered with other Christians in a church during the war and died after clashes prevented him from reaching a hospital after his gallbladder ruptured.
Farajallah Tarazi, 80
She was a physical therapist who was working toward certification to teach yoga to other women. She dreamed of visiting Ireland.
Heba Jourany, 29 (center)
He opened his first marble workshop in his garage and expanded his business to produce marble and granite countertops, sinks and stairs at a factory in Gaza City. He raised pigeons and goats.
Osama Al-Haddad, 50
He worked in factories and on construction sites in Israel before the Gaza blockade and spoke fondly of that time, saying he wished the situation would improve so that he could go back. In the meantime, he loved to sit in the sun, smoke cigarettes and drink tea with so much sugar that it became a family joke.
Riyad Alkhatib, 58
The father of the child violinist, he worked for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, coordinating rare treatment outside Gaza for patients with serious illnesses. He told a friend, “There is something beautiful in Gaza despite everything that happens.”
Mahmoud Elian, 47
Photos, memories, documents, photos and information about the dead were provided in interviews with relatives, friends and other associates. Those sources include Mohamed Shamiya (friend of Abdulrahman Abuamara), Khaled Abu Shaeera (brother of Ahmed Abu Shaeera), Asmaa Alkaisi (friend of Ali al-Sharawi and Mahmoud Elian), Beirut Hana (cousin of Amneh al-Hana), Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (relative of Farah Alkhatib, nephew of Riyad Alkhatib and nephew of Dr. Abdallah Shehada), Ali Jadallah (brother of Doaa, Salah and Khaled Jadallah), Khalid Balata (cousin of Dua, Salah and Khaled Jadallah), Tarek Masoud (friend of Salah and Khaled Jadallah), Mahmoud AlKrunz (son of Faida and Saud AlKrunz), Ruba Tarazi (daughter of Farajallah Tarazi), Ola Salama (friend of Ghadeer Mohammed Mansour and niece of Youssef Salama), Amal Khayal (teacher of Heba Jourany), Maysaa Ghazi (sister of Heba Zagout), Osama Al-Kahlout (colleague of Hedaya Hamad), Farah Sedo (daughter of Inas Al-Saqqa), Rawaa Iyad (sister of Jannat Iyad Abu Zbeada), Khalil Sayegh (son of Jeries Sayegh), Khitam Attaallah (aunt of Lubna Elian), Ahmed Alnaouq (brother of Mahmoud Alnaouq), Maha Hussaini (work supervisor of Mahmoud Alnaouq), Mahmoud Alhelou (brother of Motaz Alhelou), Ramsey Judah (lawyer of Motaz Alhelou), Said Shoaib (uncle of Nada Abdulhadi), Mohammed Al-Haddad (son of Osama Al-Haddad), Yazan Ahmed (friend of Rami Abu Reyaleh), Shrouq Aila (wife of Roshdi al-Sarraj), Mahmod al-Sarraj (brother of Roshdi al-Sarraj), Mohammad Khader (Gaza Circus member with Salah Abo Harbed), Mohammed Altooli (friend of Sayel Al-Hinnawi), Mohammad al-Raiss (father of Siwar and Selena al-Raiss), Madlian Shaqalih (aunt of Youmna Shaqalih) and Mohammed Abu Moussa (father of Yousef Abu Moussa).
Additional photo source: Reuters (photo of Youssef Salama)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3
Since the war started, more than 30,000 people have been killed during Israel’s bombardment and invasion. Here are some of their stories.
THEY SERVED CAPPUCCINOS, repaired cars and acted onstage. They raised children and took care of older parents. They treated wounds, made pizza and put too much sugar in their tea. They loved living in Gaza or sought to leave it behind.
They represent a fraction of the more than 30,000 people the local authorities say have been killed in Gaza in four and a half months of war. Their stories offer a snapshot of the vast human loss — one in every 73 of Gaza’s 2.2 million people.
More than two-thirds of the total deaths were women and children, the local authorities say. Often, they were killed with their families in Israeli airstrikes. Many thousands were fighters for Hamas, according to Israel, which says it is trying to eliminate the group that led the Oct. 7 attacks while limiting civilian casualties.
Hamas ruled Gaza and ran a covert military organization, the identity of its fighters unclear, even to other Gazans. Some residents supported it, some opposed it, everyone had to live with it. After decades of conflict, hatred of Israel was common, and many Gazans, including some of those below, cheered the fighters who attacked Israel.
Here are some of the people who have been killed in Gaza, as recalled by friends and relatives and documented in social media posts, news articles and other sources.
GAZA IS a youthful place, with nearly half of the population under 18, according to UNICEF. Gaza’s health authorities say that more than 13,000 children have been killed in the war.
She and her twin sister had names that rhymed. She loved to adorn her outfits with colorful accessories and relished the attention she and her sister received from neighbors. She was killed in a strike on her family’s building. Her sister, Marah, survived, as did their father and mother, who gave birth to a third daughter a few weeks later. They named her Farah.
Farah Alkhatib, 12
The older sister loved Kinder chocolate, Pringles and strawberry juice. The younger loved to play with a plastic jeep embellished with a duck.
Siwar and Selena al-Raiss, 3 years and 21 months
Her father bought her a violin, and she loved it, taking lessons at a Palestinian music school. She dreamed of becoming a star.
Lubna Elian, 14
He was close with his father and tagged along with his mother to the gym where she worked as a trainer. She called him “medallion,” because he was always hanging on his parents. He wanted to be a doctor, like his father.
Yousef Abu Moussa, 6
She was a top student who liked to draw nature scenes, rollerblade and jump on her trampoline. During the war, she played teacher to her siblings and cousins to distract them. She was killed in a strike that destroyed her family’s home. Her sister, Leen, 8, died four days later, trapped in the rubble.
Nada Abdulhadi, 10
She was the center of attention. Her mother, Maram, loved to dress her up for pictures. She was killed in October. Her mother was killed in a separate strike 11 days later.
Youmna Shaqalih, 4 months
GAZA’S ISOLATION and its school system gave it an uncommon mix: an educated population with high poverty and unemployment rates. Many Gazans with strong credentials struggled to find suitable employment.
He studied engineering in Gaza and Spain before trying unsuccessfully to settle in Norway, where he worked in an Italian restaurant. Back in Gaza, with engineering jobs scarce, he opened an eatery, Italiano, that served pizza, calzones, salads and shawarma. It was so successful that in 2021 it moved into a shiny new location, with dozens of employees, three floors and rooms for private events. He was killed with his parents and two brothers in a strike on the building. His wife and two children, 3 and 6, survived.
Abdulrahman Abuamara, 39
In the two years before the war, she earned a university degree in software engineering, got married and became pregnant with her first child. She was killed alongside her husband before the baby was born.
Ghadeer Mohammed Mansour, 24
The twins did not find work related to their university degrees in English literature, so they started a business importing clothes, shoes and accessories to resell from their family’s apartment, often delivering orders themselves. They pumped iron at Oxygen Gym and posted their workouts on Instagram.
Salah and Khaled Jadallah, 27
The twins’ sister, killed in the same strike as her brothers and her father, worked as a medical laboratory analyst at Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza and at a private lab, which featured her smile in its advertisements to encourage patients to come in for tests. She cherished her financial independence and dreamed of earning a master’s degree.
Doaa Jadallah, 29
He did translation for a human rights group and worked for a think tank focused on improving Palestinians’ lives. Shortly before the war, he received a scholarship for a master’s degree in international relations in Australia. He hoped to become a diplomat. He was killed alongside 20 family members in a strike that destroyed his family’s home.
Mahmoud Alnaouq, 25
She worked in graphic design to help support her family while studying multimedia at a Gaza university. She hoped to teach there one day.
Jannat Iyad Abu Zbeada, 21
He had a degree in business administration but took construction jobs he hated and helped his family fish off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast. He loved soccer and supported F.C. Barcelona. His life’s longest trip took about an hour, a drive to a friend’s wedding elsewhere in Gaza.
Rami Abu Reyaleh, 32
He tried to start a new life outside Gaza, spending time in Egypt, Turkey, Bolivia and Argentina and crossing the dangerous Darién Gap in Panama to reach the U.S.-Mexico border. He claimed political asylum, telling the U.S. authorities that he had been a member of Hamas’s military wing for a few years before fleeing Gaza to escape the group. He was denied asylum and returned to Gaza before the war. He chipped in at his family’s furniture business and considered getting married. “I wanted to get out, I swear to God, because I don’t bet on Gaza,” he wrote on Facebook as the war raged. “But unfortunately I couldn’t get out and it was my shitty fate that I am living through a third war on this cursed land.”
Motaz Alhelou, 31
GAZA HAS BEEN under a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt since Hamas seized control in 2007. The blockade has shaped nearly every aspect of life, limiting the movement of goods in and out of the territory and making it difficult, if not impossible, for many Gazans to leave. In that period, there have also been several wars and deadly clashes with Israel.
She raised five children — four boys and a girl — who gave her 15 grandchildren. She was set to leave Gaza for the first time, to visit Turkey with her husband to see two of their adult sons and their families. She had packed several suitcases with traditional Palestinian foods: olive oil, a spice mix called za’atar and local greens used to make stew. But the war broke out three days before the trip. She never left.
Faida AlKrunz, 60
His parents were displaced to Gaza from what became Israel in 1948. He never finished high school but worked to support his 12 siblings. His experience gave him an enduring faith in education for his five children, to make sure they had better lives. Later, he mediated family conflicts, often siding with his sons’ wives over his sons. He was killed in October alongside his wife, Faida (above), and nine of their children and grandchildren.
Saud AlKrunz, 61
He was a car mechanic who loved to tinker, including making the gate to his family’s home automatic. He left Gaza only once, for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where his brother lived. He didn’t know how to scan his passport at the airport. It was his first time on an airplane. “Everything was new to him,” his brother said.
Ahmed Abu Shaeera, 39
An Islamic scholar, he preached at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a holy site cherished by Palestinians. He later served as the minister of religious affairs for the Palestinian Authority and remained committed to Jerusalem. “Palestine has no value without Jerusalem, which is the pearl of Palestine, and Jerusalem has no value without Al Aqsa,” he said.
Youssef Salama, 69
She focused on mental health, a rare but much-needed specialty in Gaza, at the Palestine Red Crescent Society. She worked with people who had been wounded and displaced by Israeli attacks on Gaza as well as with first responders.
Hedaya Hamad, 43
Enchanted by online videos of parkour enthusiasts doing stunts in urban spaces around the world, he tried it himself on Gaza’s beaches. After the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict, he practiced on the rubble, leaping, landing and rolling on buildings brought down by Israeli airstrikes. “When Salah played, he felt free,” recalled a friend from the Free Gaza Circus Center, where he taught circus arts to children.
Salah Abo Harbed, 23
Born into a refugee family and a member of Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Christian minority, he lived through several wars but still believed that all humans, including the Israelis who occupied and imposed a blockade on Gaza, were created in God’s image. He fondly recalled working as a bank accountant in Israel decades ago and thought it was still possible for the peoples of the Holy Land to live together. He died from an undiagnosed health crisis after clashes prevented him from reaching a hospital.
Jeries Sayegh, 67
MANY RESIDENTS had differing views about what Gaza could be.
She broke barriers in Gaza’s socially conservative society as an actor, playwright and artist. She performed in plays in Gaza and elsewhere and starred in films, including “Sara” in 2014, which addressed the taboo topic of femicide. She taught theater and arts in Gaza and at the ASHTAR theater in Jerusalem. She moved to Egypt after the 2014 Gaza war but returned a few months before the current war. She was killed in her home with three of her five children.
Inas Al-Saqqa, 53
While studying law, he hosted planning meetings and designed banners for protests under the slogan “We Want to Live,” which criticized Hamas’s governance of Gaza and called for better living conditions. But reflecting the complex views many Gazans hold toward Hamas, he lauded “the men of the resistance” on Oct. 7. “Officially, today is the greatest day in our generation’s entire life.”
Sayel Al-Hinnawi, 22
He founded a media production company and worked as a filmmaker and photographer. He served as a camera assistant on Ai Weiwei’s 2017 documentary “Human Flow” and liked to show Gaza in a positive light, especially with drone footage shot near the sea. He was on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia with his wife and baby daughter when the war broke out, and returned home to document the conflict, posting a video that called the Oct. 7 attackers “Palestinian freedom fighters.”
Roshdi al-Sarraj, 31
She made paintings in bold colors about Palestinian themes, showing mosques and churches side by side and the Old City of Jerusalem, which she was never able to visit. She had four sons, supported her family as an art teacher and was trying to put on her first exhibition.
Heba Zagout, 38
For a decade and a half, he served coffee at Mazaj, an upscale cafe in downtown Gaza City, helping it reopen swiftly after each conflict. “So we meet again,” he told returning customers. “We are all alive.”
Ali al-Sharawi, 45
GAZA is a small place, about six times the size of Manhattan, with a higher population density than Chicago. People forged close ties with large, extended families and their neighbors, often depending on one another.
She was a jokester who took care of her siblings and mother, a widow, with whom she ran a business doing traditional Palestinian embroidery. She had recently completed a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Amneh al-Hana, 38
He was a fitness enthusiast who taught physical education at the American International School in Gaza and volunteered as the coach of the Palestine Athletics Federation. He kept his athletes going despite poor facilities, often buying them training shoes with his own money. He called Oct. 7 “a bright morning for the Palestinians and the resounding fall of Israel” in a post on Facebook.
Belal Abu Samaan, 38
He performed complicated operations on Gaza’s war wounded while running Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah until his retirement. His wife, also a doctor, died of cancer, and he dealt with loneliness by hosting large meals to bring people into his home.
Dr. Abdallah Shehada, 69
A member of Gaza’s Greek Orthodox Christian minority, he studied aviation engineering in Egypt and worked for airlines in Libya and Uganda before returning to Gaza and managing an aid program for the United Nations. He lived near the sea and swam often when the weather was warm. He sheltered with other Christians in a church during the war and died after clashes prevented him from reaching a hospital after his gallbladder ruptured.
Farajallah Tarazi, 80
She was a physical therapist who was working toward certification to teach yoga to other women. She dreamed of visiting Ireland.
Heba Jourany, 29 (center)
He opened his first marble workshop in his garage and expanded his business to produce marble and granite countertops, sinks and stairs at a factory in Gaza City. He raised pigeons and goats.
Osama Al-Haddad, 50
He worked in factories and on construction sites in Israel before the Gaza blockade and spoke fondly of that time, saying he wished the situation would improve so that he could go back. In the meantime, he loved to sit in the sun, smoke cigarettes and drink tea with so much sugar that it became a family joke.
Riyad Alkhatib, 58
The father of the child violinist, he worked for the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, coordinating rare treatment outside Gaza for patients with serious illnesses. He told a friend, “There is something beautiful in Gaza despite everything that happens.”
Mahmoud Elian, 47
Photos, memories, documents, photos and information about the dead were provided in interviews with relatives, friends and other associates. Those sources include Mohamed Shamiya (friend of Abdulrahman Abuamara), Khaled Abu Shaeera (brother of Ahmed Abu Shaeera), Asmaa Alkaisi (friend of Ali al-Sharawi and Mahmoud Elian), Beirut Hana (cousin of Amneh al-Hana), Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib (relative of Farah Alkhatib, nephew of Riyad Alkhatib and nephew of Dr. Abdallah Shehada), Ali Jadallah (brother of Doaa, Salah and Khaled Jadallah), Khalid Balata (cousin of Dua, Salah and Khaled Jadallah), Tarek Masoud (friend of Salah and Khaled Jadallah), Mahmoud AlKrunz (son of Faida and Saud AlKrunz), Ruba Tarazi (daughter of Farajallah Tarazi), Ola Salama (friend of Ghadeer Mohammed Mansour and niece of Youssef Salama), Amal Khayal (teacher of Heba Jourany), Maysaa Ghazi (sister of Heba Zagout), Osama Al-Kahlout (colleague of Hedaya Hamad), Farah Sedo (daughter of Inas Al-Saqqa), Rawaa Iyad (sister of Jannat Iyad Abu Zbeada), Khalil Sayegh (son of Jeries Sayegh), Khitam Attaallah (aunt of Lubna Elian), Ahmed Alnaouq (brother of Mahmoud Alnaouq), Maha Hussaini (work supervisor of Mahmoud Alnaouq), Mahmoud Alhelou (brother of Motaz Alhelou), Ramsey Judah (lawyer of Motaz Alhelou), Said Shoaib (uncle of Nada Abdulhadi), Mohammed Al-Haddad (son of Osama Al-Haddad), Yazan Ahmed (friend of Rami Abu Reyaleh), Shrouq Aila (wife of Roshdi al-Sarraj), Mahmod al-Sarraj (brother of Roshdi al-Sarraj), Mohammad Khader (Gaza Circus member with Salah Abo Harbed), Mohammed Altooli (friend of Sayel Al-Hinnawi), Mohammad al-Raiss (father of Siwar and Selena al-Raiss), Madlian Shaqalih (aunt of Youmna Shaqalih) and Mohammed Abu Moussa (father of Yousef Abu Moussa).
Additional photo source: Reuters (photo of Youssef Salama)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... 778d3e6de3