Sudan army in Wad Madani is a ‘joyous victory’ for the people
“We’ll celebrate today. But we know that the war [in Sudan] is far from over.”
Civil society activist Dallia Abdelmoniem explains why the recent victory of the Sudanese army over the Rapid Support Forces in Wad Madani is significant and a ‘joyous victory’ for the Sudanese people.
Published On 26 Jan 202526 Jan 2025
Source: Apps Support
Ethnic cleansing feared as Trump asks Jordan, Egypt to take Gaza residents
United States President Donald Trump says he would like to “just clean out” Gaza, urging Egypt and Jordan to take in more Palestinians from the coastal enclave.
Speaking with reporters on board Air Force One on Saturday, Trump said he had a call earlier in the day with King Abdullah II of Jordan and would speak with Egypt President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi later on Sunday.
“I would like Egypt to take people,” Trump said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.””
Trump said he complimented Jordan for having successfully accepted Palestinian refugees and that he told the king, “I would love for you to take on more, ‘cause I am looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess.”
Israel’s genocide in Gaza displaced almost the entire 2.3 million people in Gaza, some of them multiple times. Trump said Gaza’s inhabitants could be moved “temporarily or could be long term”.
“It is literally a demolition site right now, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there,” he said.
“So, I would rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) condemned the US president’s suggestion, calling it an encouragement of “war crimes”.
Describing Trump’s idea as “deplorable”, the group, which has fought a war with Israel alongside Hamas until last week’s ceasefire, said his “proposal falls within the framework of encouraging war crimes and crimes against humanity by forcing our people to leave their land”.
It also said Trump’s statement was “in line with the worst of the agenda of the extreme Zionist right and a continuation of the policy of denying the existence of the Palestinian people, their will and their rights” and called on Egypt and Jordan to reject his plan.
Abdullah Al-Arian, associate professor of history at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US president’s remarks “should be taken seriously in part because we have seen this specific demand being made for over the last year and a half”.
He said the Israeli officials had indicated “very early on in the course of the war” to “ethnically cleanse” as much of the Palestinian territory as possible.
“That plan failed for multiple reasons, one of which is that Arab leaders who were approached at that point in time simply declined to take on an additional Palestinian refugee population, in part because it was politically unviable in Egypt in particular, which was mooted as a possible destination for a mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza,” he said.
Al-Arian said Palestinians themselves would not be interested in such a proposal by Trump. “They know all too well what it means to leave their home and what the status of Palestinian refugees has looked like for the past 70 years,” he said.
Meanwhile, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed Trump’s idea to relocate Gaza’s residents to Egypt and Jordan.
“The idea of helping them find other places to start a better life is a great idea. After years of glorifying terrorism, they will be able to establish new and good lives in other places,” Smotrich said in a statement.
“Only out-of-the-box thinking with new solutions will bring a solution of peace and security,” he said.
“I will, with God’s help, work with the prime minister and the cabinet to ensure there is an operational plan to implement this as soon as possible,” Smotrich said.
For Palestinians, any attempt to move them from Gaza would evoke dark memories of what they call the “Nakba” or catastrophe – the mass displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Egypt has previously warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, which el-Sisi said could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.
Jordan is already home to around 2.3 million registered Palestinian refugees, according to the United Nations.
Sending 2,000-pound bombs
Israel’s 15-month war on the Palestinian enclave killed more than 47,000 people, though residents and activists say the actual toll could be much higher. The relentless bombing has also left much of the territory in ruins, with the United Nations estimating the reconstruction will take many years.
However, Trump also said he has ended his predecessor’s hold on sending 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs to Israel. “We released them today,” Trump said of the bombs. “They’ve been waiting for them for a long time.”
Asked why he lifted the ban on those bombs, Trump responded, “Because they bought them.”
Then-President Joe Biden had put a hold on the delivery of those bombs due to concerns over the effect they could have on the civilian population.
A 2,000-pound bomb has a destruction radius of 35 metres (115 feet), according to the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA).
The US has historically supplied substantial foreign aid to Israel; a total of $297bn (adjusted for inflation) between 1946 and 2023, $216bn of which was in military aid and $81bn in economic aid, according to data from the US Agency for International Aid (USAID).
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US aid since its founding.
A ceasefire in Gaza went into effect a week ago and has led to the release of some Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Source: Al Jazeera
Israel kills 3, wounds dozens in south Lebanon in breach of ceasefire deal
Israel has killed at least three people and injured 31 in south Lebanon on the day Israeli forces were due to withdraw under a ceasefire deal.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health on Sunday said Israeli forces opened fire in at least two border towns on “citizens who were trying to return to their villages”.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee issued a message earlier on Sunday to residents of more than 60 villages in south Lebanon, telling them not to return.
The Israeli killings violate a ceasefire agreement reached in November, under which its forces were supposed to withdraw from Lebanon at 02:00 GMT on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Lebanon for the delay, saying Hezbollah has not pulled back sufficiently from the border region. Lebanon denies the claim and has urged Israel to respect the deadline.
Al Jazeera correspondent Zeina Khodr, reporting from Borj al-Mlouk in southern Lebanon, said the Israeli military claims it needs to stay longer because the Lebanese army is not doing its job to ensure Hezbollah is disarmed and its military infrastructure dismantled.
“The Israelis are saying there are not enough Lebanese troops on the ground and allege Hezbollah is still here. There is no independent confirmation concerning those claims,” she said.
“People here have been displaced from their homes for more than a year. They believe the Israeli military should have withdrawn in line with the ceasefire agreement. The 60-day deadline has passed.”
Under the terms of the truce, the Lebanese army was to deploy alongside the United Nations peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdrew from the area over the 60-day period.
Hezbollah agreed to pull back its forces north of the Litani River, about 30km (19 miles) from the border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
The deal, brokered by the United States and France in November, ended more than a year of fighting triggered by Israel’s war on Gaza.
Source: Al Jazeera
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events – day 1,067
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday said allies should work towards determining a format for potential peace talks with Russia, reiterating that only talks involving Kyiv could bring about sustainable peace.
Zelenskyy said US military assistance to Kyiv has not been affected by the State Department’s foreign aid freeze. According to him, the suspended aid concerns humanitarian support. “I am focused on military aid. It has not been stopped,” he said.
Source: Al Jazeera