Friday , 10 May, 2024 {HMC} The United States is again warning Israel against expanding its limited operation into an all-out assault on Rafah, this time not only for long-held humanitarian concerns but for strategic calculations.

“Our view is that Rafah operations, certainly any kind of major Rafah ground operation, would actually strengthen Hamas’ hands at the negotiating table, not Israel’s,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Thursday.

Kirby said that Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader believed to be hiding in the network of tunnels in Gaza, would have “less incentive to want to come to the negotiating table” if there were massive new civilian casualties in Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Israeli forces to carry out a “limited operation” in eastern Rafah earlier this week after rejecting a proposed cease-fire deal that Hamas said it had agreed to. The deal would have provided a temporary pause in hostilities paired with the release of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.

On Thursday, cease-fire negotiations in Cairo between Israel and Hamas with intermediaries including Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. were put on hold, according to Egyptian state media.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Thursday that negotiators are still working to make changes to Hamas’ counterproposal, but finalizing the agreement’s text was an “incredibly difficult” process.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said Thursday that his country’s military “will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction.”

His comments came a day after President Joe Biden said the U.S. would not provide offensive weapons to Israel for use in Rafah, while also expressing a commitment to Israel’s defense.

Weapons shipment pause

The U.S. announced Wednesday it is pausing shipment of weapons consisting of 1,800 907-kilogram (2,000-pound) bombs and 1,700 226-kilogram (500-pound) bombs over concerns that Israel could use them in civilian-populated areas of Rafah as they have in other parts of Gaza.

U.S. officials have for weeks expressed opposition to Israel’s plans to carry out an offensive in Rafah, where more than half of the territory’s population has sought refuge from the fighting elsewhere. Israeli officials cited the need to conduct an operation there to defeat Hamas and secure the release of hostages held in Gaza.

Israel has now occupied the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing into Egypt. It’s an effort to send the signal that Hamas no longer has control over the territory, said Aaron David Miller, former U.S. negotiator for the Middle East who is now with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.

“And perhaps to position themselves for a more comprehensive operation,” he told VOA.

Whether the arms transfer pause will change Israel’s calculus on Rafah is “too soon to tell,” Kirby said. Further U.S. action toward Israel is “going to depend on what we see Israel do in Rafah.”

Kirby rejected proposals reportedly floated by Israel that would allow it to continue its operations in Rafah during the proposed cease-fire. The U.S. would only support a cease-fire that would provide “six weeks of calm in all of Gaza,” he said.

“Smashing into Rafah” would not advance the objective of Hamas’ sustainable and enduring defeat, Kirby said. The U.S. is prepared instead to secure the border between Gaza and Egypt to prevent weapons from coming into the Palestinian enclave.

The U.S. can also “help [Israel] target the leaders including Mr. Sinwar, which we are frankly doing with the Israelis on an ongoing basis,” Kirby said.

On further questioning, he would not confirm that the United States is helping Israel to identify specific targets but said the U.S. can help with “setting the conditions” for Israel to go after them.

Miller said an assassination attempt on Hamas leaders is unlikely to compel the militant group to move closer toward cease-fire.

“Sinwar wants to survive,” he said.

The White House has not responded to VOA’s question on whether the administration would support a cease-fire counteroffer from Hamas that allows its leaders to remain alive.

Humanitarian concerns

United Nations officials expressed concerns about humanitarian aid deliveries reaching Gaza, including fuel, amid the Israeli operations in the Rafah area.

Rafah is a key crossing used to bring in aid from Egypt, while a nearby crossing called Kerem Shalom allows for shipments to cross into southern Gaza from Israel.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it has reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing, but the United Nations said no humanitarian aid had yet entered the Palestinian territory as no one was present to receive it after workers left the area because of Israeli attacks near there.

The Kerem Shalom crossing was closed last weekend after a Hamas rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers. Tuesday, an Israeli tank brigade seized the nearby Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, also forcing its closure.

UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian aid agency, closed its doors in East Jerusalem Thursday, the agency said in a statement, after Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeters of its headquarters.

There were no casualties, but armed men outside UNRWA’s compound chanted, “Burn down the United Nations.”

Protests outside the compound have become violent this week, according to the statement, with demonstrators throwing stones at U.N. staff and at buildings.

UNRWA called for the perpetrators of the attacks to be investigated and held responsible.

Around 80,000 people have fled Rafah since Monday when Israel intensified its operations in the southern Gaza city, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said Thursday.

The World Health Organization says about 1.2 million people are sheltering in Rafah, and more than half of them are children. Many have come from other parts of Gaza, fleeing in search of safety and shelter as Israel’s campaign against Hamas left much of the Gaza Strip in ruins.

The Israel-Hamas war was triggered by the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages, according to Israeli officials. About 100 of the hostages were freed in a weeklong truce in late November.

Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 34,900 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters it has killed.

SOURCE VOA

Friday , 10 May, 2024 {HMC} Somalia’s government has requested the termination of a U.N. political mission that has advised it on peace-building, security reforms and democracy for over a decade, according to a letter the foreign minister wrote to the Security Council.

The request for the departure of the 360-member United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOLD) when its mandate expires in October took the mission by surprise, three U.N. officials told Reuters, asking not to be named.

In the face of continuous conflict since 1991, including a two-decade insurgency by al Qaeda-linked militants, Somali authorities have taken steps to restore services and provide a measure of security. But the Horn of Africa nation of 17 million people remains among the world’s most violent and impoverished.

The end of the political mission is separate to a U.N.-mandated African Union safe-keeping mission, currently comprising at least 10,000 soldiers, which is due to withdraw and hand over to the Somali state by the end of this year.

The three U.N. officials confirmed the authenticity of the May 5 letter, which was circulated on social media on Thursday. Somali officials did not respond to requests for comment.

In the letter, Minister of Foreign Affairs Aimed Moa Fiji did not give reasons, saying only that the government believes “it is now appropriate to transition to the next phase of our partnership”.

A Somali presidential adviser confirmed the authenticity of the letter and said Somalia no longer needed support from the U.N. to coordinate with the international community as was the case under UNSOM.

“UNSOM played a critical role, but now it outlived its usefulness,” the adviser said, adding that the mission also had a high annual cost of $100 million.

Matt Bryden, a Somalia analyst and co-founder of the Sahan think tank, noted that the federal government had previously accused UNSOM of interfering in internal affairs.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has been moving to centralise authority through changes to the constitution and other reforms while UNSOM has been trying to strike a balance between the federal government’s agenda and the desire of individual states for more autonomy, Bryden said.

“We should expect more assertive and unilateral FGS (federal government of Somalia) initiatives with respect to constitutional revisions, federalism, and elections,” Bryden said.

In a statement to Reuters, UNSOM said Somalia’s request was “a testament to the work of UNSOM in support of the Somali authorities these past years”.

Other U.N. offices, including humanitarian agencies, would continue to operate in Somalia, said UNSOM, which was created in 2013.

Reporting by Aaron Ross and Giulia Paravicini; Writing by Giulia Paravicini; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne

Friday , 10 May, 2024 {HMC} A Boeing 737-300 aircraft has skidded off a runway in Senegal, injuring at least 10 people, four of them seriously.

The incident occurred as Air Senegal flight HC 301 was taking off for the Malian capital Bamako in the early hours of Thursday, Dakar’s Blaise Diagne airport said in a statement.

The pilot was slightly injured, but most of the 78 passengers on board were not hurt in the incident.

Operations were halted at the airport for a few hours but have now resumed.

Emergency services at the airport were mobilised to evacuate passengers, the airport’s statement said.

An inquiry is under way to determine the causes of the incident, which took place at around 0100 GMT.

Boeing has not commented on the incident, nor has Transair, the private company from which Air Senegal chartered the plane.

Though it is not yet known what caused the crash, it comes as the manufacturer faces a deepening crisis over its safety record.

An unused door blew out of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max in January shortly after take-off in the US.

The company is facing a criminal investigation into that incident.

The Senegal crash comes as a former quality inspector at Boeing’s largest supplier told the BBC that plane bodies regularly left the factory with serious defects.

The company, Spirit AeroSystems, said it “strongly disagreed” with the allegations.

Xafiiska Qaramada Midoobay ee Soomaaliya ayaa sheegay, in ay wada hadalo kula jiraan dowladda Federaalka Soomaaliya, ka dib markii Soomaaliya ay dalbatay in meesha laga saaro jiritaanka xafiiska (UNSOM).

Afhayeenka Howlgalka Qaramada Midoobay ee Soomaaliya (UNSOM) Ari Gaitanis, ayaa sheegay in ay diyaar u yihiin inay raacaan tilmaamaha Golaha Ammaanka, wuxuuna xusay inay mar walba ka go’an tahay inay iskaashi la yeeshaan oo ay taageeraan dowladda Soomaaliya.

Ari Gaitanis wuxuu sheegay, in labo sano ka hor uu xafiiska Qaramada Midoobay ee Soomaaliya sameeyay dib u eegis ku talinaysay in la sameeyo marxalad kala guur ah oo laga guurayo UNSOM, loona guurayo kooxda Qaramada Midoobay ee Soomaaliya, wuxuuna sheegay in Golaha Ammaanka ay taageereen natiijada dib u eegistaas.

Afhayeenka UNSOM waxa uu iska fageeyay in xafiiskooda uu faragalin ah ku hayo siyaasadda arrimaha gudaha Soomaaliya, taasoo lid ku ah qaranimada iyo madax bannaanida Soomaaliya.

“Mar walba taageeradeena waxaa weeye, qorshe ay Soomaalidu hoggaan ka tahay. Marka laga hadlayo dhalleecayntana, waxba kama sheegi karo inaan dhaho mooyee, waxaan halkaan u joognaa taageero iyo gacan siin, si kastoo aan u awoodno,” ayuu yiri Ari Gaitanis.

Dowladda Soomaaliya ayaa si rasmi ah uga codsatay Qaramada Midoobay Joojinta Shaqada Xafiiska Qaramada Midoobay ee Kaalmaynta ee Soomaaliya (UNSOM).

Warsaxaafadeed kasoo baxay wasaaradda arrimaha dibadda ee Soomaaliya, ayaa lagu sheegay in Soomaaliya ay horumar ka sameysay dhismaha dowladnimada, gaar ahaan dhinacyada amniga iyo siyaasadda dowladda, waxayna dowladdu sheegtay inay door bideyso madax-bannaanida horumarkeeda mustaqbalka.

Peace talks involving South Sudan’s government and opposition representatives begun in Kenya’s capital Nairobi on Thursday.

The talks are between the government and rebel opposition groups that were not part of an 2018 agreement that ended a five-year civil war.

Some of the goals set in the 2018 deal, including the formation of a unified security force, have not been met.

In an effort to guarantee transparent elections, the main opposition party had called for a fresh round of talks ahead of December’s elections.

Several African presidents attending the talks called for an end to the conflict in South Sudan, which has crippled the country’s economy for many years.

Leaders present include Salva Kiir of South Sudan, Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema, Namibia’s Nangolo Mbumba and Faustin-Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic.

The host, Kenyan President William Ruto, said: “This initiative exemplifies the Pan-African policy of African solutions to African challenges, contributing to the ‘Silencing the Guns in Africa’ initiative and fostering an environment for transformational development in South Sudan, our region, and the entire African continent.”

South Sudan’s president said he was hopeful that the mediation will have positive results ahead of the general elections.

“We hope that the opposition groups have a similar conviction and desire for peace in South Sudan, which, when fully achieved, will bring everlasting stability and economic development in the region,” he said.