Headline

Israel Sends Dozens Of Tanks Into Southern Gaza

Published

5 months ago

December 4, 2023

Editor

Israel’s army on Monday sent dozens of tanks into southern Gaza as part of expanded action against Hamas despite global concern over mounting civilian deaths, and as communications was cut across the besieged territory.

Weeks after Israel deployed ground forces in the north of the Gaza Strip, the army has been air-dropping leaflets in parts of the south, telling Palestinians to flee to other areas.

Israel has vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the militant group’s unprecedented October 7 attacks that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw around 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli authorities.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says nearly 15,900 people have been killed in the territory, about 70 percent of them women and children, during Israel’s relentless air, artillery and naval bombardments alongside its ground campaign.

The toll has sparked global alarm and mass demonstrations.

The Elders, a group of global leaders, accused Israel of “disproportionate” action and called on governments providing military assistance to Israel to rethink their approach.

The group said in a statement Israel’s retaliation “has reached a level of inhumanity towards Palestinians in Gaza that is intolerable”.

“More killing is not the answer. Negotiation is the way to end this conflict,” they said.

Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers were seen Monday near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, which is packed with internally displaced Palestinians, witnesses told AFP.

At the crowded entrance to the city’s Nasser hospital, ambulances and private cars delivered dazed, bloodied and dust-covered survivors.

Hoping to flee the bombardments, others continued to move further south, their belongings piled onto donkey carts, battered vehicles and even camels, but air strikes have followed them right to the southern border.

“People are pleading for advice on where to find safety,” Thomas White, Gaza director for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, wrote on social media. “We have nothing to tell them.”

Amin Abu Hawli, 59, said Israeli vehicles were two kilometres (1.2 miles) inside Gaza in the village of Al-Qarara, while Moaz Mohammed, 34, said Israeli tanks were moving down the strip’s main north-south highway.

The military was trying to cut the road between Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Yunis, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area,” Mohammed said.

The army said it was taking “aggressive” action against “Hamas and other terrorist organisations” in Khan Yunis, warning that the main road in the north and east of the city “constitutes a battlefield”.

Walaa Abu Libda found shelter at Deir al-Balah’s Al-Aqsa hospital but said her four-year-old daughter remained trapped under rubble.

“I don’t know if she is dead or alive,” said Libda, one of an estimated 1.8 million people displaced in Gaza — roughly three-quarters of the population, according to UN figures.

Three more Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes in the northern Gaza Strip, raising the number of troop deaths there to 75, the army said on Monday.

Full-scale fighting resumed Friday after the collapse of a week-long truce brokered by Qatar with support from the United States and Egypt, during which 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

More than two dozen Thai and other captives were also released from Gaza.

With at least 137 hostages still held in Gaza, according to the Israeli military, Hamas has ruled out more releases until a permanent ceasefire is agreed.

More air strikes also hit northern Gaza where Hamas’s armed wing reported clashes with Israeli tanks.

Rocket salvos were again fired from Gaza towards Israeli territory.

Like an earthquake
In the southern Gazan city of Rafah, resident Abu Jahar al-Hajj said an air strike near his home felt “like an earthquake”.

“Pieces of concrete started falling on us,” he said.

International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric, visiting Gaza, described the suffering as “intolerable”.

Conditions worsened further Monday with all mobile and telephone services across Gaza severed “due to the cut-off of main fibre routes from the Israeli side,” the Paltel company said.

Gazans were already short of food, water and other essentials including fuel.

Israel’s ally the United States has asked Israel to let more fuel in, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Monday.

The US intensified calls for the protection of Gaza’s civilians, and Miller voiced guarded praise for Israeli tactics as its campaign expands in the south.

“We’ve seen a much more targeted request for evacuations” than in the earlier campaign in the north, he said.

“So that is an improvement on what’s happened before.”

Israel said that it was not seeking to force Palestinian civilians to permanently leave their homes.

“We have asked civilians to evacuate the battlefield and we have provided a designated humanitarian zone inside the Gaza Strip,” military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said, referring to a tiny coastal area of the territory named Al-Mawasi.

Any suggestion of Palestinian dispersal is highly contentious in the Arab world as the war that led to Israel’s creation 75 years ago gave rise to the exodus or forced displacement of 760,000 Palestinians.

At the United Nations on Monday, Israel and Palestinian representatives traded accusations of “genocide” over the war, both sides demanding an international response.

With fears of a wider regional conflagration, the Israeli army said it had launched artillery strikes in response to cross-border fire from Lebanon and its fighter jets hit targets linked to Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The Israel-occupied West Bank has also seen a surge in violence, with more than 250 Palestinians killed there since the war began, according to Palestinian authorities.

The Palestinian Authority’s health ministry said Monday two more were shot dead in an Israeli raid on the town of Qalqilya, and a third in Qalandia refugee camp, while two were killed near Hebron.

Despite the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial, suspended along with some court activity when the war began, resumed Monday.

He is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which he denies.
PUNCH

Headline

B-I-Z-A-R-R-E! Man Missing For 26 Years Found Alive In Neighbour’s House

Published

12 hours ago

May 17, 2024

Editor

An Algerian man, Omar Bin Omran, who went missing at the age of 17, 26 years ago following an alleged kidnapping, has been found alive in his neighbour’s house.

According to Daily Mail on Wednesday, Omar was discovered in a hole in the ground within a sheep pen, concealed under stacks of hay.

Omar, one of nine children, disappeared in the city of Djelfa, Algeria, 26 years ago. His family believed he had been killed during the civil war that ravaged the nation in the 1990s and early 2000s.

According to reports, Omar was found less than 200 meters from his family’s home. A 61-year-old neighbour is now in police custody after Omar, now 45, was rescued on May 12.

Footage was shared on social media and broadcast on Algerian television networks of the moment that he was found in what appeared to be a hole in the ground, described by authorities as a sheep pen, within the home of his alleged captor.

The blurry video shows torchlights shining into a pit surrounded by hay as Omar furtively looks up, seemingly in shock at the search party surrounding him, with stray pieces of straw in his hair.

Other images have since been circulated of the bearded man emerging from the hole, thought to be a sheep pen, and of him as a teenager, sitting with a dog and with young children before he disappeared.

According to the Algerian newspaper El Khabar, his dog recognized his scent and stayed near where Omar was held. It was alleged that the captor poisoned the dog to ward the family off.

Omar went missing in 1998 while heading to a vocational school. He was found after the captor’s brother aired grievances on social media, reportedly over an inheritance dispute.

This led Omar’s family to search the neighbour’s house, where they found him. The captor attempted to flee but was restrained and arrested.

Tragically, Omar’s mother died in 2013 without knowing the fate of her son. Reports suggest Omar was informed of his mother’s death while in captivity.

A relative said on Facebook: ‘Thank god my cousin was found. Bin Imran Omar is in good health after 26 years of disappearance. Awaiting details of the case and investigations.’

Public prosecutors in Djelfa, a mountain city of around 500,000 people around 140 miles south of coastal capital Algiers, say Omar will receive psychological care after being rescued as they vowed to get him justice.

‘The Djelfa Attorney General’s Office informs the public that on May 12 at 8 pm local time, it found victim Omar B, aged 45, in the case of his neighbour, B.A., aged 61,’ they said in a statement.

A court official in Djelfa was quoted as saying: “Two days ago, on 12 May 2024, the Public Prosecutor’s Office received, through the regional department of the National Gendarmerie in El Jadid, a complaint against an anonymous person claiming that the complainant’s brother, Omar bin Omran, who has been missing for about 30 years, is in the house of one of his neighbours, inside a sheepfold.”

Following this report, the General Prosecutor of the Court of Idrisiya in the province of Djelfa ordered the National Gendarmerie to open an in-depth investigation and officers went to the house in question.

He added: “The Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered that the victim receive medical and psychological treatment, and the suspect will be presented to the Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately after the completion of the investigation.”

Officials have promised the ‘perpetrator of this heinous crime’ will be tried with ‘severity.’

The suspect, a civil servant, lived alone but was often seen buying enough food for two people. A neighbour recounted to Algerian TV station Bilad that Omar’s mother died without knowing her son was so close by.

Questions have arisen about why Omar did not call for help during his captivity. Some reports claim Omar said he was unable to call out because of a spell cast by his captor, while others suggest his psychological state may have prevented him from seeking help.

The case may be among the world’s longest-running kidnapping cases. Eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was kidnapped in Meyers, California in 1991 and remained missing for over 18 years after she was captured by Phillip and Nancy Garrido.

Dugard was kept in depraved conditions and was subjected to extreme sexual abuse, having two children by Phillip Garrido, and later said she adapted to sympathising with her captors to survive.

Headline

FG, States, LGs Share N1.2tn In May

Published

13 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Editor

The Federation Allocation Allocation Committee has disclosed that during the May 2024 meeting of the FAAC held in Abuja, N1.2tn from the April 2024 Federation Account Revenue was shared by the federal, states, and local governments.

The Director of Press and Public Relations, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Bawa Mokwa, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday.

The document revealed that N1.2tn total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N284.71bn, distributable Value Added Tax revenue of N466.45bn, Electronic Money Transfer Levy revenue of N18.02bn, and Exchange Difference Revenue of N438.88bn.

Total revenue of N2.19tn was available in April 2024.

The total deduction for the cost of collection was N80.51bn; the total transfers, interventions, and refunds were N903.47bn.

Gross statutory revenue of N1.23tn was received for April 2024.

This was higher than the sum of N1.01bn received in March 2024 by N216.28bn.

The gross revenue available from the value-added tax in April 2024 was N500.92bn. This was lower than the N549.69bn available in March 2024 by N48.77bn.

From the N1.2tn in total distributable revenue, the Federal Government received a total sum of N390.41bn, the state governments received N403.40bn, and the local government councils received N293.81bn.

A total sum of N120.450bn (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared with the benefiting states as derivation revenue.

On the N284.716bn distributable statutory revenue, the communiqué stated that the Federal Government received N112.14bn, the state governments received N56.88bn, and the local governments received N43.855bn. The sum of N71.83bn (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared with the benefiting states as derivation revenue.

The Federal Government received N69.96bn, the state governments received N233.22bn, and the local governments received N163.26bn from the N466.45bn distributable value-added tax revenue.

A total sum of N2.704bn was received by the FG from the N18.024bn Electronic Money Transfer Levy. The state governments received N9.012bn, and the local governments received N6.30bn.

The Federal Government received N205.59bn from the N438.88bn Exchange Difference revenue. The state governments received N104.27bn, and the local governments received N80.39bn. The sum of N48.62bn (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared with the benefiting states as derivation revenue.

According to the communiqué, in April 2024, oil and gas royalties, company income tax, excise duty, petroleum profit tax, electronic money transfer levies, and CET levies increased significantly, while import duty and value-added tax recorded considerable decreases.

The FAAC noted that the balance in the Excess Crude Account remained at $473,754.57.

Headline

Harry & Meghan: Outrage As UK Journalist Says Nigerians Are Nazis

Published

14 hours ago

May 16, 2024

Editor

A British journalist, Christopher Wilson, sparked outrage among many Nigerians with a now-deleted tweet.

In the tweet, Wilson compared Nigerians to Nazis for welcoming the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, to Nigeria, igniting widespread condemnation.

The three-day visit of Prince Harry and Meghan to Nigeria attracted significant attention and reactions worldwide.

“Desperate to show his wife they were still ‘royal’ in the eyes of the world, the Duke of Windsor took Wallis on a tour of Germany in 1937. Nigeria’s human rights record is not far short of Nazi Germany’s,” Wilson posted on Tuesday.

Wilson, author of ‘A Greater Love: Charles and Camilla,’ was referring to Wallis Simpson, an American socialite who became the wife of King Edward VIII.

Edward VIII, Queen Elizabeth II’s uncle, abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry Simpson.

The monarch’s decision to marry Simpson, a divorcée, triggered a constitutional crisis, leading to Edward’s abdication from the throne in December 1936.

After their marriage, they became known as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The couple travelled extensively, and notably, they visited Adolf Hitler at his Berghof retreat in Bavaria, Nazi Germany, in October 1937.

Markle, an American divorcee, married Prince Harry in 2018.

However, the couple announced their decision to step back from their royal duties in 2020 and relocated to California, United States. Despite their move, they retained their titles as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.

When confronted for comparing Nigeria to Nazi Germany, Wilson referenced a 2023 report from the United States Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour.

The report he cited highlights human rights abuses in Nigeria, including extrajudicial killings, torture, harsh prison conditions and arbitrary arrests, among others.

The post sparked criticism and backlash from Nigerians and netizens.

On X.com, @wukster2, who tweets anonymously, wrote, “How did we become Nazis @TheWislon? You are so triggered by Harry and Meghan that you have resorted to comparing Nigeria to Nazi Germany. Meghan Markle’s power over mediocre white men and women needs to be studied. We need a global conference.”

A tweep, Faith Harvest, who identifies as @harvest_fa77000 on X, wrote, “Desperate? Nah, there is no comparison. Try as they may to liken Meghan to Wallis Simpson, Meghan is no Wallis and Harry is certainly not an abdicated king with sympathies to Hitler, and as far as human rights records, Christopher Wilson needs to read up on his own history!”

On Arise TV’s The Morning Show, journalist, Rufai Oseni, also voiced his criticism.

“These people are racist. This is the height of racism. He’s just so jealous because Harry and Megan came to Nigeria and they got relevance and it’s in your face it’s going to hurt you to the very end. I hope that this racism eats your bile up and it continues to eat you because we can’t continue this way. How would you relate them to what happened in Nazi Germany?

“The scenarios are different very different. These people came for a worthy cause in Nigeria which is the Invictus game, to be able to support veterans. Harry has built a brand with this Invictus game that goes around the world and has supported a lot of veterans and that’s something worth celebrating but because of the hatred and the bile that you have against this guy just let him be,” Oseni said.

Glow Lee, who tweets as @GlowanneLee, said, “Christopher Wilson is a royalist journalist critical of Meghan from the beginning and has just compared Nigeria to Nazi Germany. This is the mentality of the hard-core royalist. If they can say these things on Twitter, what would they say off it?”

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived in the capital city of Abuja last Friday and were pictured at a range of engagements over the weekend.

The official purpose of the trip was to celebrate the Invictus Games, Harry’s tournament for wounded soldiers in Nigeria.