Israel hits landmark residential tower in Rafah as Gaza truce talks stall
Israeli forces have struck one of the largest residential towers in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, residents said, stepping up pressure on the last area of the enclave it has not yet invaded and where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. The 12-floor Burj al-Masri building, located some 500 metres (1,640 feet) from the border with Egypt, was damaged in the air raid early on Saturday morning. Dozens of families were made homeless though no casualties were reported, according to residents. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the incident. One of the tower’s 300 residents told the Reuters news agency that Israel gave them a 30-minute warning to flee the building at night. “People were startled, running down the stairs, some fell, it was chaos. People left their belongings and money,” said Mohammad al-Nabrees, adding that among those who tripped down the stairs during the panicked evacuation was a friend’s pregnant wife. A Rafah-based official with the Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority that has limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, said he feared that hitting the Rafah tower was a sign of an imminent Israeli invasion. Five months into Israel’s unrelenting air and ground assault on Gaza, health authorities say nearly 31,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 72,500 wounded and thousands more are likely under rubble. The offensive has plunged the Palestinian territory, already reeling from a 17-year Israel-led blockade, into a humanitarian catastrophe. Much of it has been reduced to rubble and most of the 2.3 million population have been displaced, with the United Nations warning of disease and starvation. Adblock test (Why?)
Asif Ali Zardari elected Pakistan’s president for second time
Pakistani lawmakers vote for return of widower of Benazir Bhutto after elections marred by rigging claims. Pakistan Peoples Party’s co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari has won a second term as Pakistan’s president, supported by the ruling coalition in a vote by parliament and regional assemblies. Zardari secured 411 votes, while his opponent, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, who is backed by the party of imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan, received 181 votes, the Election Commission of Pakistan announced on Saturday after tallying the votes by national MPs, provincial MPs and senators. The widower of Pakistan’s assassinated first female leader, Benazir Bhutto, Zardari was voted into the largely ceremonial post by the PPP, which formed an alliance with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) party after Pakistan’s February 8 elections that were marred with rigging claims. Zardari is expected to be sworn in at a ceremony on Sunday. Under the terms of the coalition pact, which also includes a number of smaller parties, PMLN’s Shehbaz Sharif was sworn-in as prime minister earlier this week on Monday. Khan was jailed and prohibited from contesting in the election, with his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party targeted by arrests and censorship, and its members forced to stand as independents. The PTI said a mobile internet blackout on election day and a delay in results were used to cover up nationwide rigging preventing their victory. The elections were also marred with allegations of vote tampering. The PTI won more seats than any other party last month, but fell far short of the majority needed to govern, which cleared the way for the alliance between PMLN and PPP. PTI chairman, barrister Gohar Ali Khan, said that Zardari’s election was “unconstitutional”. The party is now fighting a case for the allocation of seats reserved for women and minorities in the assembly. Zardari, 68, previously took the presidential office post in 2008 after a sympathy vote following the gun and bomb assassination of Benazir Bhutto when she was campaigning for re-election. While president, a role which he held until 2013, he rolled back the powers of the presidency. Pakistan’s presidency was once powerful, but was reduced to that of a figurehead in 2010 after Zardari made a constitutional amendment. During his tenure, he faced challenges ranging from threats from the Taliban, to tense relations with the military after the United States special forces’ operation in Pakistan to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Zardari has faced corruption allegations and spent more than 11 years in jail, but has bounced back from his various scandals. Back in 2009, the New York Times said he had a knack for “artful dodging” – “manoeuvring himself out of the tight spots he gets himself into”. Adblock test (Why?)
Lok Sabha Polls 2024: DMK seals seat-sharing pact with Congress, allots…
The Dravidian party gave Congress nine seats in Tamil Nadu, besides the lone Puducherry segment.
Dean Phillips defends Gold Star dad Steve Nikoui after heckling Biden at SOTU address
Former Democratic Presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., came to the defense of the father of a Marine who was arrested after Thursday’s State of the Union during which he shouted at President Joe Biden. “As a Gold Star Son myself, I can only imagine the pain he has felt since losing his son in Afghanistan,” Phillips wrote on X, formerly Twitter, Friday evening “No one should interrupt a State of the Union Address, but if Marjorie Taylor Greene wasn’t arrested for her outbursts, why should he?” Steve Nikoui, 51, is the father of a U.S. Marine who was killed during the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Nikoui was escorted out of the House Galleries during Biden’s speech Thursday after he stood up and began yelling “Abbey Gate” repeatedly. GOLD STAR DAD STEVE NIKOUI ARRESTED AFTER HECKLING BIDEN AT SOTU ADDRESS The heckling was a reference to an attack at the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan that occurred during the military’s withdrawal from the country. The surprise attack killed 13 U.S. service members and injured at least 170 civilians — including Nikoui’s son, Marine Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui. Capitol Police said he was arrested on charges for crowding, obstructing or incommoding. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, recently called for the charges against Nikoui to be dropped. LAKEN RILEY’S MOTHER BLASTS BIDEN AS ‘PATHETIC’ FOR GETTING DAUGHTER’S NAME WRONG DURING SOTU Nikoui was in attendance as a guest of Rep. Brian Mast’s, R-Fla. The representative reacted to Nikoui’s arrest shortly after it happened, writing on X, “The Sergeant at Arms is holding my State of the Union guest for yelling at @POTUS in protest because his son was killed in action at the Abbey Gate due to Biden’s incompetence. So much for the right to petition our government for the redress of grievances.” Mast is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Accountability and Oversight. Phillips also name-dropped Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., in his post on X. MCCAUL CALLS FOR DROPPING CHARGES AGAINST GOLD STAR DAD WHO PROTESTED STATE OF THE UNION Greene, who donned a red “Make America Great Again” hat, shouted at Biden “Say her name!” while he was discussing the border crisis. Greene was referencing Laken Riley, the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student, who was allegedly killed by a Venezuelan migrant in the country illegally last month. Greene had also given Biden a pin that read, “Say her name Laken Riley.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Fox News’ Timothy Nerozzi and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
Trump meets with Hungarian PM Orbán in Florida, Biden claims ‘he’s looking for dictatorship’
Former President Donald Trump met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and received his endorsement, sparking outrage from President Biden. Orbán traveled to Florida to visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Friday. The duo discussed “a wide range of issues affecting Hungary and the United States, including the paramount importance of strong and secure borders to protect the sovereignty of each nation,” according to the Trump campaign. HUNGARY’S ORBAN TO MEET WITH TRUMP, NOT BIDEN, ON VISIT TO US COURTING FOREIGN POLICY “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orban. He’s fantastic,” Trump said. “He’s a noncontroversial figure because he said ‘This is the way it’s gonna be,’ and that’s the end of it. He’s the boss.” The Hungarian leader endorsed Trump following the meeting, claiming the former president is one of the few world leaders who can bring peace. “It was a pleasure to visit President [Donald Trump] today. We need leaders in the world who are respected and can bring peace,” Orbán said on social media. “He is one of them! Come back and bring us peace, Mr. President!” HUNGARY PM RIPS WESTERN EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION POLICIES, SAYS HE DOESN’T WANT ‘MINI GAZAS IN BUDAPEST’ Orbán, who has been in office since 2010, has promoted what he calls “illiberal democracy” and has been criticized by international human rights observers, including the U.S. State Department. He has received intense scrutiny for leading an increasingly autocratic system in Hungary, including allegations that he has rolled back minority rights, seized control of the judiciary and media and manipulated the country’s election system to remain in power, according to The Associated Press. Biden decried the meeting during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania — characterizing the pair as enemies to democracy. “You know who he’s meeting with today down in Mar-a-Lago? Orbán of Hungary, who’s stated flatly that he doesn’t thinks democracy works, he’s looking for dictatorship,” Biden claimed. He added, “I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it.” Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
Elon Musk hits back at press for ‘anti-immigrant’ label: ‘Nothing could be further from the truth’
Billionaire Elon Musk attempted to correct the record on his immigration views after he claimed the press had wrongly labeled him as “anti-immigrant.” “Because I am raising concerns about the flood of unvetted illegal immigrants overwhelming American cities, the press will often characterize me as ‘anti-immigrant,’” Musk wrote on X Thursday. “As an immigrant myself, nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “I am very much in favor of increased and expedited legal immigration for anyone who is talented, hard-working and honest,” Musk continued. ELON MUSK EXPLAINS WHY HE’S RINGING THE ‘ALARM BELL’ ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: ‘CRUSHING THE COUNTRY’ “It is bizarrely difficult and agonizingly slow to immigrate to the USA legally, but trivial and fast to enter illegally! This obviously makes no sense.” Nearly 7.3 million migrants have illegally crossed the southwest border under President Biden’s watch, a number greater than the individual population of 36 states, a Fox News analysis found. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report for fiscal 2023 shows that the number of illegal immigrants on the non-detained docket has soared from 3.7 million in FY 2021 to nearly 4.8 million in FY 2022 to nearly 6.2 million in FY 2023. Musk, who legally immigrated to the U.S. from South Africa, has ramped up his scorching criticism of Biden’s border policies in recent months. He visited the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas, in September, when he declared the “situation is beyond insane and growing fast.” ELON MUSK SLAMS TANKED BORDER BILL, SAYS PEOPLE WHO RELY ON LEGACY MEDIA ‘LIVE IN A FAKE ALTERNATE REALITY’ When a bipartisan group of senators introduced compromise border security legislation last month, Musk was among the bill’s critics who argued it would have normalized high levels of illegal immigration. Last week, he called the legislation “diabolical” and argued the failed bill “deserved to die,” while mocking legacy media coverage of the issue. Musk responded to an X post from the Biden-Harris re-election campaign, which shared a clip from ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that discussed the bill. The ABC News reporter said the tanked bipartisan deal included some of the “toughest reforms in decades” but “Trump pressured Republicans to kill that bill to deny President Biden a political win.” Musk disagreed and ripped how the ABC News story framed the issue. SENATE TANKS IMMIGRATION, FOREIGN AID SPENDING PACKAGE AFTER GOP BACKLASH AGAINST BORDER PROVISIONS “People who get their news from legacy TV live in a fake alternate reality. Those so-called ‘toughest reforms’ would have made invasion-level migration permanent. That diabolical ‘Border Bill’ deserved to die and shame on those who supported it,” Musk posted on X. The bipartisan border bill included an “emergency border authority” to mandate Title 42-style expulsions of migrants when migration levels exceed 5,000 a day over a seven-day rolling average. It also would have narrowed asylum eligibility while expediting the process from years to months, provide immediate work permits for asylum seekers and fund a massive increase in staffing at the border and more immigration judges. In addition, it included increased numbers of green cards, extra funding for NGOs and cities receiving migrants, $650 million for border wall funding and $450 million for countries to take back and re-settle illegal immigrants. While Biden endorsed the deal as a tough but fair way to give him the authority to solve the border crisis, Republicans in the House immediately declared it a non-starter and conservative opposition in the Senate quickly stacked up. Musk has unambiguously sided with conservatives on the migrant crisis and accused Democrats of permitting high levels of illegal immigration so that they will vote blue in the future. He has also said Democrats are reluctant to deport illegal aliens who commit crimes since it would be akin to losing potential voters. “Dems won’t deport, because every illegal is a highly likely vote at some point,” Musk posted on Feb. 26. “That simple incentive explains what seems to be insane behavior.” Fox News Digital’s Brian Flood, Michael Dorgan and Eric Revell contributed to this report.
Israel’s ‘anti-Zionists’ brave police beatings, smears to demand end to war
Tel Aviv/West Jerusalem – In 2015, Maya, a Jewish Israeli, travelled to Greece to help Syrian refugees. At the time, she was an exchange student in Germany and she had been deeply moved by the pictures she saw of desperate people arriving there in small boats. That was where she met Palestinians who had been born in Syria after their parents and grandparents fled there during the founding of her own country in 1948. They told her about the Nakba – or “catastrophe” – in which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes to make way for the newly established Israel. Maya, 33, who had been taught that her country was born through “an independence war” against hostile Arab neighbours, decided that she needed to “unlearn” what she had learned. “I never heard about the right of return, or Palestinian refugees,” she told Al Jazeera. “I had to get out of Israel to start learning about Israel. It was the only way I could puncture holes in what I was taught.” Maya, who asked that her full name not be used for fear of reprisals, is one of a small number of Israeli Jewish activists who identify as “anti-Zionists” or “non-Zionists”. According to the Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israeli group with a stated mission of fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in the United States, Zionism means supporting a Jewish state established for the protection of Jews worldwide. However, many anti-Zionists like Maya and the people she works with view Zionism as a Jewish supremacist movement which has ethnically cleansed most of historic Palestine and systematically discriminates against the Palestinians who remain, either as citizens of Israel or residents of the occupied territories. But since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and nearly 250 taken captive, Israeli anti-Zionists have been accused of treason for speaking about Palestinian human rights. Many have called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to stop what they view as collective punishment and genocide of the Palestinian people. “I think [anti-Zionists] always claim that Jewish supremacy is not the answer and it is not the answer to the [October 7] killings,” Maya said. “Israelis don’t understand how the Palestinian story is all about the Nakba, refugees and the right of return. If we are not able to deal with that then we are not going anywhere.” Perceived as ‘traitors’ Since October 7, Israeli anti-Zionists have described living in a hostile political and social environment. Many say the police have violently cracked down on anti-war protests, while others have received threats from far-right-wing Israelis. Roee, who, like Maya, did not give his last name for fear of reprisals from Israeli society or authorities, is also a Jewish Israeli activist. In October last year, he attended a small demonstration of a couple of dozen people a few days after Israel began bombing Gaza. The demonstrators were calling on Hamas to free all Israeli captives and on Israel to stop the war. “The police pushed all of us [out] violently in just two minutes,” Roee, 28, told Al Jazeera at a cafe in West Jerusalem. Weeks later, Roee and his friend, Noa, who also did not want her full name to be revealed, attended another silent demonstration outside a police station in Nazareth, a mostly Palestinian city in Israel. They put tape over their mouths to denounce the sweeping arrests of Palestinian figures who had also called for an end to the war on Gaza. But again, police chased down the Israeli protesters and beat them with batons. “I think it is very clear that the police recognise us. It doesn’t matter the signs we hold. They know us. They know we are leftists and that we are ‘traitors’ or whatever they call us,” Noa told Al Jazeera. Many Israeli antiwar activists have also been smeared or “doxxed” – a term given to people whose identities and addresses are made known on social media by those hoping to intimidate them into silence. Maya said that a right-wing activist had accused her romantic partner of cooperating with Hamas by informing them of the whereabouts of Israeli positions in Gaza. The activist published photos of her partner on Instagram with captions detailing the fabricated accusations. “We were afraid that our address would be exposed, but luckily it wasn’t. Even before October 7, [these groups of extreme right-wing people] tried to obtain addresses of people to ‘dox’ them and taunt them. Some of our friends had to leave their apartments. That was our main worry,” Maya said. Conscientious objectors While most Israelis are required to enlist in the army after high school, antiwar activists have refused to take part in their country’s continuing occupation of the West Bank, where raids and arrests have been intensified since October, or in the war on Gaza. Two young Israelis who publicly refused to join the army are now serving short sentences in military prison. Einat Gerlitz, a “non-Zionist” and a member of Mesarvot, a non-profit organisation providing social and legal support to Israeli conscientious objectors, said that more people have refused military service since the war on Gaza began. “The army does not release the numbers … because the army’s interest is to make sure [refusing service] is not a topic spoken about in the public sphere. The government and army work really hard to glorify army service, so they want minimal attention on conscientious objectors,” the 20-year-old said. While she, herself, is happy to be public about her views – she spent 87 days in prison in 2022 for refusing to serve in the Israeli army (IDF) – she added that many others do not go public for fear of social backlash or reprisals. Einat Gerlitz is a 20-year-old peace activist and a conscientious objector. She spoke about her peace activism in a cafe in Tel Aviv [Al Jazeera/Mat Nashed] Gerlitz added that the October 7 attack did not make her
Iran condemns UN experts’ report on protest crackdown as ‘false’, ‘biased’
Report by UN fact-finding mission says Iran’s brutal suppression of 2022 protests amounted to crimes against humanity. Iran has condemned a report by United Nations experts who concluded the Islamic republic’s violent crackdown in 2022 on peaceful protests and the specific targeting of women and girls were serious rights violations, with many amounting to crimes against humanity. The report was built on “baseless claims” and “false and biased information, without a legal basis”, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Saturday. Demonstrations swept across Iran following the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who was arrested for allegedly violating the strict Islamic dress code for women. Iranian authorities refused to take part in the experts’ investigation that was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council in November 2022. “Not only did the expert committee not establish the truth, but it also deliberately distorted the facts,” Kanaani said. In its first report, the independent international fact-finding mission said on Friday that many of the violations uncovered “amount to crimes against humanity – specifically those of murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts”. This was part of “a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population in Iran, namely against women, girls, boys and men who have demanded freedom, equality, dignity and accountability,” said Sara Hossain, who chairs the three-member mission. The report called on the authorities to “provide justice, truth and reparations to victims of human rights violations in connection with the protests”. Kanaani claimed the report “was prepared by the Zionist regime [Israel], the United States, and some Western countries”, who were “continuing a project of Iranophobia and defamation of Iran”. These countries were “angry at the failure of their interventions during the riots”, Kanaani said, referring to the protests. A special committee tasked by Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi to investigate the protests had “recently sent its final report to the president”, he added, but didn’t provide details on its findings. The UN experts said “no [fewer] than 551” protesters were killed by security forces, who “used unnecessary and disproportionate force”. Dozens of people were blinded, they said, adding that they also found evidence of extrajudicial killings. Rather than conducting a proper investigation into Amini’s death, Tehran “actively obfuscated the truth”, they said. People “who merely danced” or honked car horns were arrested in the crackdown, while hundreds of children, some as young as 10, were also detained. The report will be presented to the council on March 15. This week, Amnesty International reported that Iranian authorities have launched a mass campaign to enforce the compulsory hijab laws “through widespread surveillance of women and girls in public spaces and mass police checks targeting women drivers”. Adblock test (Why?)
Sweden resumes aid to UN agency for Palestinians
First payment of $20m to be disbursed after Sweden gets assurances of the UNRWA’s checks on spending and personnel. Sweden has said it is resuming aid to the cash-strapped United Nations agency for Palestinians with an initial disbursement of $20m after receiving assurances of extra checks on its spending and personnel. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the main humanitarian agency in Gaza, faced an unprecedented funding crisis after its major international donors led by the United States cut its funding over “terror” allegations. Like several other countries, Sweden suspended aid to the UNRWA after Israel accused about a dozen of its employees of involvement in the October 7 Hamas-led attack before the conflict in Gaza. Sweden said on Saturday that “the government has allocated 400 million kronor to UNRWA for the year 2024. Today’s decision concerns a first payment of 200 million kronor ($19.4)”. To unblock the aid, the UNRWA had agreed to “allow controls, independent audits, to strengthen internal supervision and extra controls of personnel”, the government said. The Swedish move came after the European Commission earlier this month said it would release 50 million euros ($54.7m) in UNRWA funding. On Friday, Canada announced it was lifting a freeze on funding for the UNRWA, after it joined the US, the United Kingdom and other countries in cutting aid in late January. The UNRWA has been at the centre of efforts to providing humanitarian relief in Gaza, where the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported last month that at least half a million – or one in four people – face famine. Israel has severely restricted the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza by land, prompting the US and other countries to resort to stopgap measures such as airdropping meals into the enclave. Such steps by the US, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have been criticised by aid agencies as a costly and ineffective way of delivering food and medical supplies. The UNRWA has said that Israeli authorities have not allowed it to deliver supplies to the north of the Strip since January 23. Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that in northern Gaza “we are seeing children dying in this enforced starvation and dehydration due to the famine spreading”. He said on Saturday that three more children died at al-Shifa Hospital, as a result of starvation and dehydration, increasing the number of such deaths to 23. At least 30,960 Palestinians have been killed and 72,524 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attacks stands at 1,139, and dozens continue to be held captive. Adblock test (Why?)
Rameshwaram cafe blast: NIA releases fresh CCTV footage of suspect, seeks help from public in…
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), the premier anti-terror probe agency in the country, on Saturday released two videos and pictures of the suspect in Rameshwaram cafe blast case, seeking the cooperation of citizens to identify him.