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Tag: Territorial disputes

  • Chinese coast guard seizes rocket debris from Filipino navy

    Chinese coast guard seizes rocket debris from Filipino navy

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    MANILA, Philippines — The Chinese coast guard forcibly seized floating debris the Philippine navy was towing to its island in another confrontation in the disputed South China Sea, a Philippine military commander said Monday. The debris appeared to be from a Chinese rocket launch.

    The Chinese vessel twice blocked the Philippine naval boat before seizing the debris it was towing Sunday off Philippine-occupied Thitu Island, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos said Monday. He said no one was injured in the incident.

    It’s the latest flare-up in long-seething territorial disputes in the strategic waterway, involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

    Chinese coast guard ships have blocked Philippine supply boats delivering supplies to Filipino forces in the disputed waters in the past, but seizing objects in the possession of another nation’s military constituted a more brazen act.

    Carlos said the Filipino sailors, using a long-range camera on Thitu island, spotted the debris drifting in strong waves near a sandbar about 800 yards (540 meters) away. They set out on a boat and retrieved the floating object and started to tow it back to their island using a rope tied to their boat.

    As the Filipino sailors were moving back to their island, “they noticed that China coast guard vessel with bow number 5203 was approaching their location and subsequently blocked their pre-plotted course twice,” Carlos said in a statement.

    The Chinese coast guard vessel then deployed an inflatable boat with personnel who “forcefully retrieved said floating object by cutting the towing line attached to the” Filipino sailors’ rubber boat. The Filipino sailors decided to return to their island, Carlos said, without detailing what happened.

    Maj. Cherryl Tindog, spokesperson of the military’s Western Command, said the floating metal object appeared similar to a number of other pieces of Chinese rocket debris recently found in Philippine waters. She added the Filipino sailors did not fight the seizure.

    “We practice maximum tolerance in such a situation,” Tindog told reporters. “Since it involved an unidentified object and not a matter of life and death, our team just decided to return.”

    Metal debris from Chinese rocket launches, some showing a part of what appears to be Chinese flag, have been found in Philippine waters in at least three other instances. Such discovery of Chinese rocket debris has opened China to criticism.

    Rockets launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on China’s Hainan island in recent months have carried construction materials and supplies for China’s crewed space station.

    The Philippine government has filed a large number of diplomatic protests in recent years against China over such aggressive actions in the South China Sea but it did not immediately say what action it would take following Sunday’s incident. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila would usually wait for an official investigation report before lodging a protest.

    Thitu island, which Filipinos call Pag-asa, hosts a fishing community and Filipino forces and lies near Subi, one of seven disputed reefs in the offshore region that China has turned into missile-protected islands, including three with runways, which U.S. security officials say now resemble military forward bases.

    The Philippines and other smaller claimant nations in the disputed region, backed by the United States and other Western countries, have strongly protested and raised alarm over China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the busy waterway.

    U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is visiting Manila, is scheduled to fly to the western province of Palawan, which faces the South China Sea, on Tuesday to underscore American support to the Philippines and renew U.S. commitment to defend its longtime treaty ally if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.

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  • VP Harris to visit, support Philippine island amid sea feud

    VP Harris to visit, support Philippine island amid sea feud

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    MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Kamala Harris would underscore America’s commitment to defending treaty ally the Philippines with a visit that starts Sunday and involves flying to an island province facing the disputed South China Sea, where Washington has accused China of bullying smaller claimant nations.

    After attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Thailand, Harris will fly to Manila Sunday night to meet President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. the next day for talks aimed at reinforcing Washington’s oldest treaty alliance in Asia and strengthening economic ties, a senior U.S. administration official said in an online briefing ahead of the visit.

    On Tuesday she’ll fly to Palawan province, which lies along the South China Sea, to meet local fishermen, villagers, officials and the coast guard. She is the highest-ranking U.S. leader so far to visit the frontier island at the forefront of the long-seething territorial disputes involving China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

    The Philippine coast guard is expected to welcome Harris onboard one of its biggest patrol ships, the BRP Teresa Magbanua, in Palawan, where she would deliver a speech before coast guard, police, military and government officials, according to coast guard spokesperson Commodore Armand Balilo.

    Harris will underscore “the importance of international law, unimpeded commerce and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea,” the U.S. official said and added, in response to a question, that Washington was not concerned how Beijing would perceive the visit.

    “China can take the message it wants,” the U.S. official said. “The message to the region is that the United States is a member of the Indo-Pacific, we are engaged, we’re committed to the security of our allies in the region.”

    Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez said Harris’s trip to Palawan shows the level of America’s support to an ally and concern over China’s actions in the disputed sea.

    “That’s as obvious as you can get, that the message they’re trying to impart to the Chinese is that ‘we support our allies like the Philippines on these disputed islands,’” Romualdez told The Associated Press. “This visit is a significant step in showing how serious the United States views this situation now.”

    Washington and Beijing have long been on a collision course in the contested waters. While the U.S. lays no claims to the strategic waterway, where an estimated $5 trillion in global trade transits each year, it has said that freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea is in America’s national interest.

    China opposes U.S. Navy and Air Force patrols in the busy waterway, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. It has warned Washington not to meddle in what it says is a purely Asian territorial conflict — which has become a delicate frontline in the U.S.-China rivalry in the region and has long been feared as a potential Asian flashpoint.

    In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on China to comply with a 2016 arbitration ruling that invalidated Beijing’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea and warned that Washington is obligated to defend treaty ally Philippines if its forces, vessels or aircraft come under attack in the disputed waters.

    China has rejected the 2016 decision by an arbitration tribunal set up in The Hague under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea after the Philippine government complained in 2013 about China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed waters. Beijing did not participate in the arbitration, rejected its ruling as a sham and continues to defy it.

    Harris’ visit is the latest sign of the growing rapport between Washington and Manila under Marcos Jr., who took office in June after a landslide electoral victory.

    America’s relations with the Philippines entered a difficult period under Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who threatened to sever ties with Washington and expel visiting American forces, and once attempted to abrogate a major defense pact with the U.S. while nurturing cozy ties with China and Russia.

    When President Joe Biden met Marcos Jr. for the first time in September in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, he stressed the depth by which the U.S. regards its relations with the Philippines despite some headwinds.

    “We’ve had some rocky times, but the fact is it’s a critical, critical relationship, from our perspective. I hope you feel the same way,” Biden said.

    “We continue to look to the United States for that continuing partnership and the maintenance of peace in our region,” Marcos Jr. told Biden. “We are your partners. We are your allies. We are your friends.”

    The rapprochement came at a crucial time when the U.S. needed to build a deterrent presence amid growing security threats in the region, Romualdez said.

    Philippine military chief of staff Lt. Gen. Bartolome Bacarro said last week that the U.S. wanted to construct military facilities in five more areas in the northern Philippines under a 2014 defense cooperation pact, which allows American forces to build warehouses and temporary living quarters within Philippine military camps. The Philippines Constitution prohibits foreign military bases but at least two defense pacts allow temporary visits by American forces with their aircraft and Navy ships for joint military exercises and training.

    The northern Philippines is strategically located across a strait from Taiwan and could serve as a crucial outpost in case tensions worsen between China and the self-governed island.

    While aiming to deepen ties, the Biden administration has to contend with concerns by human rights groups over Marcos Jr. The Philippine leader has steadfastly defended the legacy of his father, a dictator who was ousted in a 1986 pro-democracy uprising amid human rights atrocities and plunder.

    Harris also plans to meet Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of Marcos’ predecessor, who oversaw a deadly anti-drugs crackdown that left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead and sparked an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity. The vice president has defended her father’s presidency.

    Given the Biden administration’s high-profile advocacy for democracy and human rights, its officials have said human rights were at the top of the agenda in each of their engagements with Marcos Jr. and his officials.

    After her meeting Monday with Marcos Jr., Harris plans to meet civil society activists to demonstrate “our commitment and continued support for human rights and democratic resilience,” the U.S. official said.

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  • China, US officials to attend Southeast Asia defense meeting

    China, US officials to attend Southeast Asia defense meeting

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    BEIJING — The defense chiefs of rival powers China and the U.S. will both attend next week’s expanded meeting of Southeast Asian security ministers in Cambodia, though it’s unclear whether they would meet face to face.

    China’s Defense Ministry said Gen. Wei Fenghe will attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus from Sunday to Thursday.

    The Department of Defense said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III will also attend following stops in Canada and Indonesia.

    Both officials plan to meet with participants on the margins of the main gathering of ministers from the 10-nation organization known as ASEAN.

    Their two countries are chief rivals for influence in the region, where China is seeking to smooth over disputes surrounding its determination to assert its claim to the South China Sea, including through the construction of artifical islands equipped with airstrips and other infrastructure.

    The two countries are also at odds over Russia, which China has refused to condemn or sanction over its invasion of Ukraine, and the status of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory and threatens to attack.

    China’s Defense Ministry said Wei would address the assembly and meet with heads of other delegations to discuss “bilateral cooperation and issues of regional and international concern.”

    It said he would also hold talks with civilian and military leaders of close Chinese ally Cambodia, with whom it is working on expanding a port facility that could give it a presence on the Gulf of Thailand.

    China and four ASEAN members share overlapping claims to territory in the South China Sea, home to vital shipping lanes, along with plentiful fish stocks and undersea mineral resources. China and ASEAN have made little headway on finalizing a code of conduct to avoid conflicts in the area.

    While China’s capacities are growing rapidly, the U.S. remains the region’s dominant military power and, while it doesn’t officially take a stand on sovereignty issues, it has refused to acknowledge China’s blanket claims. The U.S. Navy regularly sails past Chinese-held islands in what it calls freedom of navigation operations, prompting a furious response from Beijing.

    The U.S. also has a security alliance with the Philippines and strong relations with other ASEAN members, with the exception of Myanmar, where the military has launched a brutal crackdown since taking power last year.

    The U.S. Defense Department said that Austin would hold an “informal multilateral engagement” with his ASEAN counterparts and meet with officials from Cambodia and partner nations “to bring greater stability, transparency, and openness to the Indo-Pacific region.”

    At a previous defense forum attended by both U.S. and Chinese ministers in June in Singapore, Austin delivered a speech saying China’s “steady increase in provocative and destabilizing military activity near Taiwan” threatens to undermine the region’s security and prosperity.

    Wei said at the same conference that the U.S. is trying to turn Southeast Asian countries against Beijing and is seeking to advance its own interests “under the guise of multilateralism.”

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  • Biden, Xi seek to ‘manage our differences’ in meeting

    Biden, Xi seek to ‘manage our differences’ in meeting

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    NUSA DUA, Indonesia — President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping opened their first in-person meeting Monday since the U.S. president took office nearly two years ago, aiming to “manage” differences between the superpowers as they compete for global influence amid increasing economic and security tensions.

    Xi and Biden greeted each other with a handshake at a luxury resort hotel in Indonesia, where they are attending the Group of 20 summit of large economies, before they sat down for what was expected to be a conversation lasting several hours.

    “As the leaders of our two nations, we share responsibility, in my view, to show that China and the United States can manage our differences, prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict, and to find ways to work together on urgent global issues that require our mutual cooperation,” Biden said to open the meeting.

    Xi said he hoped they would “chart the right course for the China-US relationship” and that he was prepared for a “candid and in-depth exchange of views” with Biden.

    Both men entered the highly anticipated meeting with bolstered political standing at home. Democrats triumphantly held onto control of the U.S. Senate, with a chance to boost their ranks by one in a runoff election in Georgia next month, while Xi was awarded a third five-year term in October by the Communist Party’s national congress, a break with tradition.

    “We have very little misunderstanding,” Biden told reporters in Cambodia on Sunday, where he participated in a gathering of southeast Asian nations before leaving for Indonesia. “We just got to figure out where the red lines are and … what are the most important things to each of us going into the next two years.”

    Biden added: “His circumstance has changed, to state the obvious, at home.” The president said of his own situation: “I know I’m coming in stronger.”

    White House aides have repeatedly sought to play down any notion of conflict between the two nations and have emphasized that they believe the countries can work in tandem on shared challenges such as climate change and health security.

    But relations have grown more strained under successive American administrations, as economic, trade, human rights and security differences have come to the fore.

    As president, Biden has repeatedly taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities, crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, military provocations against self-ruled Taiwan and differences over Russia’s prosecution of its war against Ukraine. Chinese officials have largely refrained from public criticism of Russia’s war, although Beijing has avoided direct support, such as supplying arms.

    Taiwan has emerged as one of the most contentious issues between Washington and Beijing. Multiple times in his presidency, Biden has said the U.S. would defend the island — which China has eyed for eventual unification — in case of a Beijing-led invasion. But administration officials have stressed each time that the U.S.’s “One China” policy has not changed. That policy recognizes the government in Beijing while allowing for informal relations and defense ties with Taipei, and its posture of “strategic ambiguity” over whether it would respond militarily if the island were attacked.

    Tensions flared even higher when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited Taiwan in August, prompting China to retaliate with military drills and the firing of ballistic missiles into nearby waters.

    The Biden administration also blocked exports of advanced computer chips to China last month — a national security move that bolsters U.S. competition against Beijing. Chinese officials quickly condemned the restrictions.

    And though the two men have held five phone or video calls during Biden’s presidency, White House officials say those encounters are no substitute for Biden being able to meet Xi in person. That task is all the more important after Xi strengthened his grip on power through the party congress, as lower-level Chinese officials have been unable or unwilling to speak for their leader.

    Before the meeting, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning had said China was committed to peaceful coexistence but would firmly defend its sovereignty, security and development interests.

    “It is important that the U.S. work together with China to properly manage differences, advance mutually beneficial cooperation, avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation, and bring China-U.S. relations back to the right track of sound and steady development,” she said at a daily briefing in Beijing.

    Xi has stayed close to home throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic, where he has enforced a “zero-COVID” policy with mass lockdowns that have roiled global supply chains.

    He made his first trip outside China since start of the pandemic in September with a stop in Kazakhstan and then onto Uzbekistan to participate in the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization with Putin and other leaders of the Central Asian security group.

    White House officials and their Chinese counterparts have spent weeks negotiating details of the meeting, which was held at Xi’s hotel with translators providing simultaneous interpretation through headsets.

    U.S. officials were eager to see how Xi approaches the Biden sit-down after consolidating his position as the unquestioned leader of the state, saying they would wait to assess whether that made him more or less likely to seek out areas of cooperation with the U.S.

    Biden and Xi each brought small delegations into the discussion. U.S. officials expected Xi would bring newly elevated government officials and expressed hope that it could lead to more substantive engagements down the line.

    Before meeting with Xi, Biden held talks with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the G-20 host, to announce a range of new development initiatives for the archipelago nation, including investments in climate, security, and education.

    Many of Biden’s conversations and engagements during a three-country tour — which took him to Egypt and Cambodia before he landed on the island of Bali on Sunday — were, by design, preparing him for the meeting with Xi and sending a signal that the U.S. would compete in areas where Xi has also worked to expand his country’s influence.

    The two men have a history that dates to their service as their country’s vice president. The U.S. president has emphasized that he knows Xi well and wants to use the meeting to better understand where they stand.

    Biden has tucked references to his conversations with Xi into his remarks as he traveled around the U.S. before the Nov. 8 elections, using the Chinese leader’s preference for autocratic governance to make his own case to voters for why democracy should prevail.

    The president’s view was somewhat validated on the global stage, as White House aides said several world leaders approached Biden during his time in Cambodia — where he was meeting with Asian allies to reassure them of the U.S. commitment to the region in the face of China’s assertive actions — to tell him they watched the outcome of the midterm elections closely and that the results were a triumph for democracy.

    —-

    Associated Press writers Josh Boak in Baltimore and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

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  • Biden-Xi summit: What Biden wants, what Xi wants

    Biden-Xi summit: What Biden wants, what Xi wants

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    PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — There won’t be concessions from the U.S. side. No real deliverables, which is government-speak for specific achievements. Don’t expect a cheery joint statement, either.

    During President Joe Biden’s highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, the leaders will be circling each other to game out how to manage a relationship that the U.S. has determined poses the biggest economic and military threat.

    At the same time, U.S. officials have repeatedly stressed that they see the two countries’ interactions as one of competition — and that they want to avoid conflict.

    Here’s a look at what each side is hoping to achieve out of the leaders’ first in-person encounter as presidents, to be held on the island of Bali in Indonesia:

    FOR THE UNITED STATES

    Essentially, Biden and other U.S. officials are trying to understand where Xi really stands.

    In a news conference shortly before leaving Washington, Biden said he wanted to “lay out … what each of our red lines are, understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, what I know to be the critical interests of the United States.”

    That mission has become all the more imperative since the conclusion of the Community Party congress in Beijing, during which Xi secured a norm-breaking third term as leader, empowering him even further.

    It’s a goal that will be much more readily achieved in person, White House officials say, despite Biden and Xi’s five video or phone calls during the U.S. president’s term.

    Biden told reporters on Sunday that he’s “always had straightforward discussions” with Xi, and that has prevented either of them from “miscalculations” of their intentions.

    “I know him well, he knows me,” Biden said. “We’ve just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us, going into the next two years.”

    The U.S. president will want to send a message to Xi on White House concerns about China’s economic practices. Taiwan is sure to come up, and Biden will want to emphasize to Xi that the U.S. will stand ready to defend the self-governing island should it come under attack by China. Biden also will seek to make clear his concerns about Beijing’s human rights practices, as he has in their previous interactions.

    Biden will also use the meeting to press for a more aggressive posture from Xi on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese leader has largely refrained from public criticism of Vladimir Putin’s actions while declining to actively aid Moscow by supplying arms.

    “We believe that, of course, every country in the world should do more to prevail upon Russia, especially those who have relationships with Russia, to end this war and leave Ukraine,” said U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

    Finally, U.S. officials say they’re eager to see where the two superpowers could actually collaborate. Though there are numerous areas in which Biden and Xi won’t see eye to eye, the White House has listed several issues where they conceivably could, including health, counternarcotics and climate change.

    FOR CHINA

    Xi has yet to give a wish list for talks with Biden, but Beijing wants U.S. action on trade and Taiwan.

    Perhaps most importantly, the Group of 20 gathering in Bali and the meeting with Biden give China’s most powerful leader in decades a stage to promote his country’s image as a global player and himself as a history-making figure who is restoring its rightful role as an economic and political force.

    China pursues “increasingly assertive foreign and security policies aimed at changing the international status quo,” Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who is president of the Asia Society, wrote in Foreign Affairs. That has strained relations with Washington, Europe and China’s Asian neighbors, but Xi is unfazed and looks set to be more ambitious abroad.

    The meeting is “an important event of China’s head-of-state diplomacy toward the Asia Pacific,” said a foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian. He said Xi will “deliver an important speech” on economic growth.

    Zhao called on the Biden administration to “stop politicizing” trade and embrace Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, the self-ruled island democracy that split with the mainland in 1949 and never has been part of the People’s Republic of China.

    Beijing wants Washington to lift tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump in 2019 and to pull back on increasing restrictions on Chinese access to processor chips and other U.S. technology. Biden has left most of those in place and added curbs on access to technology that American officials say can be used in weapons development.

    “The United States needs to stop politicizing, weaponizing and ideologizing trade issues,” Zhao said.

    Xi’s government has stepped up efforts to intimidate the elected government of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen by flying fighter planes near the island and firing missiles into the sea.

    Beijing broke off talks with Washington on security, climate cooperation and other issues after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August in a show of support for its government.

    “The United States needs to stop obscuring, hollowing out and distorting the ‘one-China principle,’” said Zhao, referring to Beijing’s stance that Taiwan is obligated to join the mainland under Communist Party leadership.

    Another goal for Xi: Don’t get COVID-19.

    The G-20 will be only Xi’s second foreign trip in 2 1/2 years while his government enforces a severe “Zero COVID” strategy that shut down cities and kept most visitors out of China.

    Xi broke that moratorium by attending a September summit with Putin and Central Asian leaders. But he skipped a dinner and photo session where Putin and others wore no masks.

    ———

    McDonald reported from Beijing.

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  • Palestinians join huge Fatah rally in Gaza Strip amid rift

    Palestinians join huge Fatah rally in Gaza Strip amid rift

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    GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Turning a huge park in Gaza City into a sea of yellow flags, tens of thousands of Palestinians on Thursday commemorated the anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat — a rare public show of support for the Fatah faction in the heartland of its Islamist rival Hamas.

    The rally passed without incident, though Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers have in the past blocked and violently dispersed demonstrations in solidarity with President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party. The Palestinian parties have been bitterly divided between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip for 15 years.

    Crowds marched to Gaza City’s Katiba park, waving the yellow flags of Fatah, which Arafat founded in the 1960s. They also raised photos of Abbas, Arafat’s successor.

    Arafat died in 2004 at a hospital in France after two years of an Israeli siege on his West Bank headquarters. Palestinians accuse Israel of poisoning him but have offered no proof, adding to the mystery surrounding the death.

    For Fatah, the ability to mobilize the masses serves as a referendum on its popularity in Hamas-run Gaza. In 2007, Hamas routed pro-Abbas forces and seized the territory after a bloody week of street fighting.

    The reputation of Hamas, which administers Gaza under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade and the threat of repeated destructive conflicts with Israel, has suffered among Palestinians in recent years. The group has hiked taxes on residents but struggled to provide even basic services. Four wars with Israel and the 15-year blockade have devastated Gaza’s economy.

    In a recorded message played at the rally, Abbas called for Palestinian unity to ease the blockade. Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from stockpiling arms. Critics view it as a form of collective punishment, confining the territory’s 2 million people to what Palestinians often refer to as the world’s largest open-air prison.

    “We feel the suffering of our people under the oppressive siege,” Abbas said. “This pain and agony will not end unless the division, which took our cause backward, ends.”

    Hamas does not easily grant permits for such Fatah demonstrations in its territory. In 2007, a few months after taking over Gaza, Hamas attacked Arafat’s anniversary rally and killed six Palestinians. In 2014, authorities prevented Fatah from holding another gathering.

    But at the height of Egyptian efforts to reconcile the Palestinian factions and end the enduring political and geographical schism in 2017, Hamas allowed Fatah to hold an Arafat celebration.

    Last month, officials from Hamas and Fatah held a new round of reconciliation talks in Algeria and signed an outline for an agreement that would pave the way for elections. But few are optimistic the factions can overcome their differences, as they have failed to implement past deals.

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  • 4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes

    4 Palestinians killed in flare-up as Israel counts votes

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in separate incidents on Thursday, including one who had stabbed a police officer in east Jerusalem and three others in Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank.

    The violence flared as Israel tallied the final votes in national elections held this week, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expected to lead a comfortable majority backed by far-right allies.

    Israeli troops operating in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, a militant stronghold, killed at least two Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

    The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad said one of those killed was a local commander. Residents said he was killed while at the butcher, where he was preparing meat ahead of his wedding this weekend.

    The army said the militant, Farouk Salameh, was wanted in a number of shooting attacks on Israeli security forces, including the killing of a police officer last May. It said Salameh was killed after opening fire at soldiers, fleeing the scene and pulling out a gun.

    Earlier Thursday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank. Israeli police said it happened during a raid in the territory and alleged the man threw a firebomb at the forces.

    Late Thursday, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched a rocket into southern Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in the area. The army said the rocket appeared to have been intercepted. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but in the past, Islamic Jihad has fired rockets in response to the killings of its members.

    In a separate incident Thursday, a Palestinian stabbed a police officer in Jerusalem’s Old City, police said, and officers opened fire on the attacker, killing him. The officer was lightly wounded.

    The violence came as a political shift is underway in Israel after national elections, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set to return to power in a coalition government made up of far-right allies, including the extremist lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in response to the incidents said Israel would soon take a tougher approach to attackers.

    “The time has come to restore security to the streets,” he tweeted. “The time has come for a terrorist who goes out to carry out an attack to be taken out!”

    The violence was the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem that has killed more than 130 Palestinians this year, making 2022 the deadliest since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005.

    The violence intensified in the spring, after a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 people, prompting Israel to launch a months-long operation in the West Bank it says is meant to dismantle militant networks. The raids have been met in recent weeks by a rise in attacks against Israelis, killing at least three.

    Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But youths protesting the incursions and people uninvolved in the fighting have also been killed.

    Also on Thursday, Israel said it was removing checkpoints in and out of the city of Nablus. Israel had imposed the restrictions weeks ago, clamping down on the city in response to a new militant group known as the Lions’ Den. The military has conducted repeated operations in the city in recent weeks, killing or arresting the group’s top commanders.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, and has since maintained a military occupation over the territory and settled more than 500,000 people there. The Palestinians want the territory, along with the West Bank and east Jerusalem, for their hoped-for independent state.

    ———

    Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel.

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  • Leaders meet in Algeria for final day of Arab League summit

    Leaders meet in Algeria for final day of Arab League summit

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    ALGIERS, Algeria — Arab leaders convened on Wednesday in Algeria for the second day of the 31st summit of the largest annual Arab conference, seeking common ground on several divisive issues in the region. The meeting comes against the backdrop of rising inflation, food and energy shortages, drought and soaring cost of living across the Middle East and Africa.

    The kings, emirs, presidents and prime ministers are discussing thorny issues such as the establishment of diplomatic ties between Israel and four Arab countries as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies appears to be heading to an election victory.

    The summit’s discussions are also focused on the food and energy crises aggravated by Russia’s war in Ukraine that has had devastating consequences for Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia, among other Arab countries, struggling to import enough wheat and fuel to satisfy their populations.

    Deepening the crisis is the worst drought in several decades that has ravaged swaths of Somalia, one of the Arab League’s newer members, bringing some areas of the country to the brink of famine.

    Russia’s reinforcement of its blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on Sunday threatens to further escalate the crisis, with many Arab countries near solely dependent on Ukrainian and Russian wheat exports and fertilizers.

    The event provides an opportunity for Algeria — Africa’s largest country by territory — to showcase its leadership in the Arab world. Algeria is a major oil and gas producer and is perceived by European nations as a key supplier amid the global energy crisis that stems from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

    Algeria, along with other Arab countries, remains fiercely opposed to the series of normalization agreements the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco signed with Israel over the past three years have divided the region into two camps. Sudan has also agreed to establish ties with Israel.

    Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune vowed in his opening speech Tuesday to put forth considerable efforts at the summit to try to reaffirm support for the Palestinians in their conflict with Israel as the Arab and international communities’ attention shifts to other conflicts and crises.

    “Our main and first cause, the mother of all causes, the Palestinian issue, will be at the heart of our concerns and our main priority,” Tebboune said. He blasted Israel for its “continued occupation” of Palestinian territories and “expanding its illegal settlements.”

    Last month, Algeria hosted talks in a bid to end the Palestinian political divide and reconcile the Fatah party, whose Palestinian Authority rules parts of the occupied West Bank, and the militant Hamas group, which has control of the Gaza Strip.

    The Arab summit comes at the time of heightened tensions in the West Bank, where the Israeli military has conducted nightly arrest raids in searches for Palestinian militants. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in recent months, including armed gunmen, stone-throwing teenagers and people uninvolved in violence.

    The 22-member Arab League last held its summit in 2019, before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. A final declaration from the gathering in Algeria’s capital, Algiers, is expected later on Wednesday.

    ——-

    Surk reported from Nice, France.

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  • UN urges revival of negotiations on disputed Western Sahara

    UN urges revival of negotiations on disputed Western Sahara

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    UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council called for a revival of U.N-led negotiations on the disputed Western Sahara in a resolution adopted Thursday that expressed “deep concern” at the breakdown of the 1991 cease-fire between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front whose decades-old dispute shows no sign of ending.

    The vote was 13-0 with Russia and Kenya abstaining.

    Morocco annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony believed to have considerable offshore oil deposits and mineral resources, in 1975, sparking a conflict with the Polisario Front. The United Nations brokered the 1991 cease-fire and established a peacekeeping mission to monitor the truce and help prepare a referendum on the territory’s future that has never taken place because of disagreements on who is eligible to vote.

    Morocco has proposed wide-ranging autonomy for Western Sahara. But the Polisario Front insists the local population, which it estimates at 350,000 to 500,000, has the right to a referendum.

    The U.S.-drafted resolution extended the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping mission charged with carrying out the referendum, known as MINURSO, until Oct. 31, 2023.

    The resolution calls on the parties to resume U.N.-led negotiations without preconditions, “taking into account the efforts made since 2006 and subsequent developments with a view to achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.”

    It says this should be done “in the context of arrangements consistent with the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and noting the role and the responsibilities of the parties in this respect.”

    Kenya’s U.N. Ambassador Martin Kimani said his government voted for the resolution last year in hopes that the U.N. mission would return “to its core objective of implementing a referendum for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara.

    But he said progress has been limited and the resolution adopted Thursday “continues a gradual but noticeable shift away from the mandate and will not assist the parties to achieve a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution as originally intended.”

    U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis welcomed the council’s support, saying the Biden administration continues “to view Morocco’s autonomy plan as serious, credible, and realistic.”

    He called a political solution “vital to promoting a peaceful and prosperous future for the people of Western Sahara and the region.”

    But the Polisario Front ended the cease-fire in November 2020 and resumed its armed struggle following a border confrontation with Morocco which continues today, and in comments after the vote the two sides remained at odds about the future.

    The resolution calls on the parties to “to demonstrate political will and work in an atmosphere propitious for dialogue in order to advance negotiations.” It expresses “strong support” for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ personal envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, and “strongly encourages” Morocco, the Polisario Front and neighboring countries Algeria and Mauritania to engage with him.

    Two round-table meetings of the four parties in December 2018 and March 2019 failed to make any headway on the key issue of how to provide for self-determination.

    But Morocco’s U.N. Ambassador Omar Hilale said after Thursday’s vote that they were “very fruitful and positive and substantial” because “we had very deep discussion on autonomy, on the guarantees, on the need for Polisario to design and to accept autonomy, and also on the elections.”

    He expressed hope that de Mistura “will succeed in calling for another round-table,” lamenting that a year has been lost because Algeria, which backs the Polisario, has said it will not attend.

    “Let’s hope that the wisdom will prevail in Algeria, and we can come back to the round-table because there will be no solution without discussion all together and having compromise” on Morocco’s autonomy proposal, Hilale said.

    He claimed that the resolution adopted Thursday “irreversibly consecrates, like the resolutions of the council since 2007, the pre-eminence, credibility and seriousness of the Moroccan autonomy initiative as the sole and only solution to this regional dispute.”

    The Polisario Front’s U.N. representative, Sidi Omar, strongly disagreed.

    He said the Security Council resolution refers to the referendum but again fails to empower MINURSO with “practical and concrete measures” to implement its mandate and carry out a referendum.

    The Saharwi people “will continue using all legitimate means, including the armed struggle, to defend our inalienable and individual rights to self-determination, independence, and to restore the sovereignty over the entire territory of the Saharwi, our democratic republic,” Omar said.

    He said the Polisario Front will only participate in direct negotiations with Morocco under the auspices of the U.N. and the African Union to enable the Saharwi people to exercise their free and democratic right to self-determination.

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  • US, allies warn decisive response if North Korea tests nuke

    US, allies warn decisive response if North Korea tests nuke

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    TOKYO — Officials from the United States and its Asian allies Japan and South Korea suspect North Korea is preparing for a nuclear test, and vice foreign ministers from the three countries said Wednesday their joint response would be “decisive.”

    Cho Hyundong, South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister, said the trio is bolstering their defense cooperation to deter the growing possibility of North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons since the adoption in September of legislation spelling out scenarios where it would use nukes, including preemptively.

    North Korea’s new nuclear policy is “creating a serious tension on the Korean Peninsula,” Cho told a joint news conference after talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori.

    “South Korea and the U.S. will step up their extended deterrence by utilizing all the elements of the national power and show an overwhelming, decisive response to any use of a nuclear weapon by North Korea,” Cho said.

    In 2022 alone, North Korea has launched more than 20 ballistic missiles at unprecedented pace, including one that overflew northern Japan in early October. It has also fired a barrage of artilleries toward the south in response to South Korea’s joint military exercises with the United States, which Pyongyang views as a practice to invade the country.

    Sherman, during her meeting with Cho on Tuesday ahead of the three-way talks, criticized North Korea’s military actions as “irresponsible, dangerous and destabilizing” and said the United States will fully use its military capabilities, including nuclear, as she warned North Korea against escalating its provocations.

    Sherman stressed again Wednesday that the cooperation among the three countries are “ironclad,” citing signs of Japan and South Korea improving their troubled ties over historical wartime-related disputes.

    “There is so much we can achieve and are achieving when our countries work together,” Sherman said.

    It was the second in-person meeting of the three officials since conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol took office in May, signaling an improvement in difficult ties between Tokyo and Seoul. A year ago in Washington, Japanese and South Korean vice ministers declined to participate in a joint news conference after their talks, leaving Sherman to make a solo media appearance.

    The three officials also condemned Russia’s nuclear threat, as well as any other escalation of threats, and its unsubstantiated allegation that Ukraine was preparing to launch a so-called dirty bomb — which uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste — as unacceptable.

    Mori said the three officials also agreed to closely watch China’s maritime activity in the East and South China Seas and the situation in the Taiwan Strait under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s third term.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the Asia-Pacific region at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • Taiwan’s Tsai says no backing down to Chinese aggression

    Taiwan’s Tsai says no backing down to Chinese aggression

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan won’t back down in the face of “aggressive threats” from China, the president of the self-governing island democracy Tsai Ing-wen said Tuesday, comparing growing pressure from Beijing to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Tsai’s comments follow the conclusion of the twice-a-decade congress of China’s Communist Party at which it upped its long-standing threat to annex the island it considers its own territory by force if necessary.

    The party added a line into its constitution on “resolutely opposing and deterring” Taiwan’s independence “resolutely implementing the policy of ‘one country, two systems,’” the formula by which it plans to govern the island in future.

    The blueprint has already been put in place in the former British colony of Hong Kong, which has seen its democratic system, civil liberties and judicial independence decimated.

    Speaking to an international gathering of pro-democracy activists in Taipei, Tsai said democracies and liberal societies were facing the greatest host of challenges since the Cold War.

    “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a prime example. It shows an authoritarian regime will do whatever it takes to achieve expansionism,” Tsai said.

    “The people of Taiwan are all too familiar with such aggression. In recent years, Taiwan has been confronted by increasingly aggressive threats from China,” she said, listing military intimidation, cyber attacks and economic coercion among them.

    The rising Chinese threat has spurred calls on Taiwan for additional defense investments and a lengthening of the term of national service required of all Taiwanese men.

    “However, even under constant threats, the people of Taiwan have never shied away from the challenges” and have fought to work against authoritarian forces looking to undermine their democratic way of life, Tsai said.

    Tsai was speaking at the opening ceremony of the World Movement for Democracy’s Steering Committee, which is chaired by 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa.

    Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949 and Taipei enjoys strong U.S. military and political support, despite the lack of formal military ties.

    Despite having just 14 official diplomatic allies, Taiwan has drawn increasing backing from major nations, including Japan, Australia, the U.S., Canada and across Europe.

    A recent visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi enraged Beijing, which responded with military exercises seen as a rehearsal of a blockade of the island.

    On Monday, Tsai met with a German parliamentary delegation focusing on human rights, who expressed concern about how Taiwan would handle threats from China.

    “Taiwan is really facing military threats,” delegation head Peter Heidt said. “From Germany’s point of view, changes to the cross-strait status quo, if any, must be based on peaceful means. Also, these changes must be made after both sides have reached a consensus.”

    Also on Tuesday, Taiwanese Premier You Si-kun was meeting with Ukrainian lawmaker Kira Rudik and Lithuanian politician Zygimantas Pavilionis. Taiwan has strongly condemned the Russian invasion and at least one Taiwanese citizen is reportedly fighting with Ukrainian forces.

    The Ukrainian conflict has focused new attention on if and when China might launch military action against Taiwan, given that a solid majority of Taiwanese reject Beijing’s calls for “peaceful reunification.”

    A full-scale invasion across the 160-kilometer (100-mile) -wide Taiwan Strait remains a daunting prospect for China despite its recent massive military expansion, especially in its naval and missile forces.

    However, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s securing of another five-year term in office has some observers speculating he may be looking to move up the schedule for bringing Taiwan under China’s control.

    Among personnel changes at China’s congress that concluded Saturday, Gen. He Weidong was elevated to second vice chairman of the Central Military Commission. He was formerly head of the Eastern Theater Command, which would be primarily responsible for operations against Taiwan should hostilities break out.

    ———

    Follow AP’s coverage of the Asia-Pacific region at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

    Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

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    CAIRO — Two days of tribal fighting in Sudan’s south killed at least 220 people, a senior health official said Sunday, marking one the deadliest bouts of tribal violence in recent years. The unrest added to the woes of an African nation mired in civil conflict and political chaos.

    Fighting in Blue Nile province, which borders Ethiopia and South Sudan, reignited earlier this month over a land dispute. It pits the Hausa tribe, with origins across West Africa, against the Berta people.

    The tensions escalated Wednesday and Thursday in the town of Wad el-Mahi on the border with Ethiopia, according to Fath Arrahman Bakheit, the director general of the Health Ministry in Blue Nile.

    He told The Associated Press that officials counted at least 220 dead as of Saturday night, adding the tally could be much higher since medical teams were not able to reach the epicenter of the fighting.

    Bakheit said the first humanitarian and medical convoy managed to reach Was el-Mahi late Saturday to try to assess the situation, including counting “this huge number of bodies,” and the dozens of injured.

    “In such clashes, everyone loses,” he said. “We hope it ends soon and never happens again. But we need strong political, security and civil interventions to achieve that goal.”

    Footage from the scene, which corresponded to the AP’s reporting, showed burned houses and charred bodies. Others showed women and children fleeing on foot.

    Many houses were burned down in the fighting, which displaced some 7,000 people to the city of Rusyaris. Others fled to neighboring provinces, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Overall, about 211,000 people have been displaced by tribal violence and other attacks across the country this year, it said.

    Authorities ordered a nighttime curfew in Wad el-Mahi and deployed troops to the area. They also established a fact-finding committee to investigate the clashes, according to the state-run SUNA news agency.

    The fighting between the two groups first erupted in mid-July, killing at least 149 people as of earlier October. It triggered violent protests and stoked tensions between the two tribes in Blue Nile and other provinces.

    The latest fighting comes at a critical time for Sudan, just a few days before the first anniversary of a military coup that further plunged the country into turmoil. The coup derailed the country’s short-lived transition to democracy after nearly three decades of the repressive rule of Omar al-Bashir, who was removed in April 2019 by a popular uprising.

    In recent weeks the military and the pro-democracy movement have engaged in talks to find a way out of the ongoing situation. The generals agreed to allow civilians to appoint a prime minister to lead the country through elections within 24 months, the pro-democracy movement said last week.

    However, the violence in Blue Nile is likely to slow down such efforts. Protest groups, who reject the deal with the ruling generals, have been preparing for mass anti-military demonstrations called for Tuesday, the anniversary of the coup.

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  • Sudan officials: Tribal clashes kill 170 in country’s south

    Sudan officials: Tribal clashes kill 170 in country’s south

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    CAIRO — Tribal clashes in Sudan’s southern province of Blue Nile have killed at least 170 people over the past two days, two Sudanese officials said Thursday, the latest in inter-communal violence across the country’s neglected south.

    The officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the clashes erupted on Wednesday and that sporadic fighting continues. Government troops were deployed to the area to try to de-escalate the conflict. The dead include women and children, the two officials said.

    Blue Nile has been shaken by ethnic violence over the past months. Tribal clashes that erupted in July killed 149 people by early October, and last week, renewed clashes killed another 13 people, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA.

    The July fighting involved the Hausa, a tribe with origins across West Africa, and the Berta people, following a land dispute. On Thursday, a group representing the Hausa said they have been under attack by individuals armed with heavy weapons over the past two days, but did not blame any specific tribe or group for the attack.

    A Hausa group issued a statement calling for de-escalation and a stop to ”the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Hausa.” The tribe has long been marginalized within Sudanese society, with July’s violence sparking a string of Hausa protests across the country. The Blue Nile is home to dozens of different ethnic groups, with hate speech and racism often inflaming decades-long tribal tensions.

    OCHA had no confirmation of the latest surge in casualties but said the violence has displaced at least 1,200 people since last week. According to the U.N. agency, the villages surrounding the city of Ar Rusyaris have been at the epicenter of the violence.

    Earlier in the day, OCHA said that tribal clashes in nearby West Kordofan province, which broke out last week, killed 19 people and wounded dozens. A gunfight there between the Misseriya and Nuba ethnic groups erupted amid a land dispute near the town of Al Lagowa, the agency said.

    The West Kordofan state governor visited the town on Tuesday to talk to local residents in a bid to de-escalate the conflict before coming under artillery fire from a nearby mountainous area, OCHA said. There were no reports of casualties from the artillery fire.

    “Fighting in West Kordofan and the Blue Nile states risks further displacements and human suffering,″ OCHA said. ”There is also a risk of an escalation and spread of the fighting with additional humanitarian consequences,” it said

    On Wednesday, the Sudanese army accused the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, a rebel group active in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan, of being behind the attack on Al Lagowa. The rebel group has not responded to the accusation.

    The violence in West Kordofan prompted around 36,500 people to flee Al Lagowa while many who remained sought shelter in the town’s army base, OCHA added. The area is currently inaccessible to humanitarian aid, the agency said.

    Eisa El Dakar, a local journalist from West Kordofan, told The AP last week that the conflict there is partly rooted in the two ethnic groups’ conflicting claims to local land, with the Misseriya being predominately a herding community and the Nuba mostly farmers.

    Much of Kordofan and other areas in southern Sudan have been rocked by chaos and conflict over the past decade.

    Sudan has been plugged into turmoil since a coup last October that upended the country’s brief democratic transition after three decades of autocratic rule by Omar al-Bashir. He was toppled in an April 2019 popular uprising, paving the way for a civilian-military power-sharing government.

    Many analysts consider the rising violence a product of the power vacuum in the region, caused by the military coup last October. The violence has also further threatened Sudan’s already struggling economy, compounded by fuel shortages caused, in part, by the war in Ukraine.

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  • Jewish settlers pepper spray Israeli soldiers in West Bank

    Jewish settlers pepper spray Israeli soldiers in West Bank

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    JERUSALEM — Jewish West Bank settlers stormed through a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said Thursday, throwing stones at Palestinian cars and using pepper spray on Israeli troops who were trying to disperse the settlers.

    The settler rampage late Wednesday comes days after a similar incident in the same area and as Israeli-Palestinian tensions are surging over Israeli raids in the West Bank and an uptick in shooting attacks by Palestinians.

    The rampage took place near Huwara, a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank near the city of Nablus, where a group of disaffected youth has taken up arms against Israel and in frustration with the Palestinian leadership’s close security ties to it.

    Palestinian militants in the area have carried out several roadside shootings in recent weeks. The area is home to a number of hardline settlements, whose residents often intimidate Palestinians and vandalize their property.

    Critics accuse Israel of turning a blind eye to settler violence against Palestinians and treating them with impunity, while being heavy-handed with Palestinian assailants or protesters. Settler violence has in the past also led to confrontations with soldiers which often sparks condemnations from politicians but rarely leads to a solution to the problem.

    The military said dozens of settlers ran through the town, throwing rocks at Palestinian cars. The settlers used pepper spray on the battalion commander as well as another soldier. The settlers sprayed another two soldiers at a nearby checkpoint, the military said.

    It was not immediately clear why the settlers were allowed to continue to another location after the initial incident.

    In a statement, the military’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kohavi, condemned the violence.

    “This is a very serious incident that embodies shameful and disgraceful criminal behavior that demands strict and swift justice,” he said.

    The violence comes as tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have surged in recent months.

    More than 120 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, making 2022 the deadliest year since 2015.

    The fighting has surged since a series of Palestinian attacks in the spring killed 19 people in Israel and more in recent violence. The Israeli military says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories the Palestinian seek for their future state.

    Israel has since settled some 500,000 settlers in the West Bank in some 130 settlements.

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  • Russia’s Iranian drones complicate Israel’s balancing act

    Russia’s Iranian drones complicate Israel’s balancing act

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    JERUSALEM — The Iranian-made drones that Russia sent slamming into central Kyiv this week have complicated Israel’s balancing act between Russia and the West.

    Israel has stayed largely on the sidelines since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February so as not to damage its strategic relationship with the Kremlin. Although Israel has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine, it has refused Kyiv’s frequent requests to send air defense systems and other military equipment and refrained from enforcing strict economic sanctions on Russia and the many Russian-Jewish oligarchs who have second homes in Israel.

    But with news of Moscow’s deepening ties with Tehran, Israel’s sworn foe, pressure is growing on Israel to back Ukraine in the grinding war. Israel has long fought a shadowy war with Iran across the Middle East by land, sea and air.

    Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a military spokesman, said the suicide drone attack in Ukraine had raised new concerns in Israel.

    “We’re looking at it closely and thinking about how these can be used by the Iranians toward Israeli population centers,” he said.

    The debate burst into the open on Monday, as an Israeli Cabinet minister called on the government to take Ukraine’s side. Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen have threatened Israel with the same delta-shaped, low-flying Shahed drones now exploding in Kyiv.

    The Iranian government has denied providing Moscow with the drones, but American officials say it has been doing so since August.

    “There is no longer any doubt where Israel should stand in this bloody conflict,” Nachman Shai, Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, wrote on Twitter. “The time has come for Ukraine to receive military aid as well, just as the USA and NATO countries provide.”

    His comments set off a storm in Russia. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Telegram that providing military aid to Ukraine would be “a very reckless move” by Israel.

    “It will destroy all interstate relations between our countries,” he wrote.

    But Shai doubled down on Tuesday, while stressing his view did not reflect the government’s official stance.

    “We in Israel have a lot of experience in protecting our civilian population over 30 years. We’ve been attacked by missiles from Iraq and rockets from Lebanon and Gaza,” Shai, a former military spokesman, told The Associated Press. “I’m speaking about defense equipment to protect Ukraine’s civilian population.”

    The Israeli prime minister’s office and Defense Ministry both declined to comment.

    For years, Russia and Israel have enjoyed good working relations and closely coordinated to avoid run-ins in the skies over Syria, Israel’s northeastern neighbor, where Russian air power has propped up embattled President Bashar Assad. Russia has let Israeli jets bomb Iran-linked targets said to be weapons caches destined for Israel’s enemies.

    Israel has also been keen to stay neutral in the war over concern for the safety of the large Jewish community in Russia. Israel frets about renewed antisemitic attacks in the country, with its long history of anti-Jewish pogroms under Russian czars and purges in the Soviet era. Over 1 million of Israel’s 9.2 million citizens have roots in the former Soviet Union.

    Israel’s former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett maintained strict neutrality after the invasion, refraining from condemning Russia’s actions and even trying to position himself as a mediator in the conflict. As the U.S. and European Union piled sanctions on Russia, Bennett became the only Western leader to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

    But in recent months, Israel’s cautious stance has grown more fraught.

    Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who took over as caretaker leader over the summer, has been more vocal than his predecessor. As foreign minister, he described reports of atrocities in Bucha, Ukraine as possible war crimes. After Russia bombarded Kyiv last week, he “strongly” condemned the attacks and sent “heartfelt condolences to the victims’ families and the Ukrainian people,” sparking backlash from Moscow.

    Tensions rose further when a Russian court in July ordered that the Jewish Agency, a major nonprofit that promotes Jewish immigration to Israel, close its offices in the country. Israel was rattled. A hearing to decide the future of the agency’s operations in Russia is set for Wednesday. “Anything could happen,” said Yigal Palmor, the agency’s spokesman.

    Now, Israeli alarm about the Iranian drones buzzing over Kyiv has heightened the debate.

    “I think Israel can help even more,” said Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence. He described Israel’s “knowledge on how to handle aerial attacks,” its “intelligence about Iranian weapons” and “ability to jam them” as potentially crucial to Ukraine.

    Iran is battle testing weapons that could be used against Israel’s northern and southern borders, argued Geoffrey Corn, an expert on the law of war at South Texas College of Law in Houston.

    Iran backs Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and Hamas in the Gaza Strip — both of which have fought lengthy wars against Israel.

    If the drones prove effective in Ukraine, Iran will “double down on their development,” Corn said. If they are shot down, Iran will have an “opportunity to figure out how to bypass those countermeasures.”

    Israel’s air defense system, the Iron Dome, has boasted a 90% interception rate against incoming rocket fire from Gaza. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has hit out at Israel for not providing Kyiv with the anti-rocket system.

    Former Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, a onetime Soviet dissident, criticized his country’s reluctance to help Ukraine in an interview with the Haaretz daily on Tuesday, deriding Israel as “the last country in the free world which is still afraid to irritate Putin.”

    Still, some insist that Israel must not enter the fray precisely because it differs from its Western allies.

    “We are not Germany or France,” said Uzi Rubin, a former head of Israel’s missile defense program. “We are a country at war.”

    ———

    Associated Press writers Eleanor Reich and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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  • UN says renewed tribal clashes kill 13 in southern Sudan

    UN says renewed tribal clashes kill 13 in southern Sudan

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    CAIRO — Renewed tribal clashes in a southern province in Sudan killed at least 13 people and injured more than two dozen others since late last week in the latest violence to hit the chaotic nation in recent months, the U.N. said Monday.

    Clashes between the Hausa and Birta ethnic groups began Thursday over a land dispute in the Wad al-Mahi District in the Blue Nile province, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

    The fighting, which lasted for four days before subsiding Sunday, displaced at least 1,200 people who were taking refuge in schools there, it said.

    Government offices and the town’s market were closed, making it difficult for its residents to get their daily needs, it said. Authorities also imposed restrictions on people’s movements in the area amid fears of revenge attacks, it said.

    The U.N. migration agency said the Jabalaween tribe, which is on the side of the Brita group, expelled its rivals, the Hausa, from the area, which has been inaccessible to humanitarian agencies.

    The fighting between the two tribes originally began in mid-July. A total of 149 people were killed and 124 others wounded as of Oct. 6, according to OCHA.

    The fighting in the Blue Nile province triggered violent protests in other provinces where thousands, mostly Hausa, took to the streets to protest the government’s lack of response to the clashes.

    It was the latest tribal violence to hit Sudan, which is home to several long-running ethnic conflicts. The country was already in turmoil since the military took over the government in a coup last year.

    The military’s takeover removed a civilian-led Western backed government, upending the country’s short-lived transition to democracy after nearly three decades of repressive rule by autocrat Omar al-Bashir. A popular uprising forced the removal of al-Bashir and his government in April 2019.

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  • Assailants fatally shoot Hindu man in Kashmir

    Assailants fatally shoot Hindu man in Kashmir

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    SRINAGAR, India — Assailants on Saturday fatally shot a Kashmiri Hindu man in violence police blamed on militants fighting against Indian rule in the disputed region.

    Police said militants fired at Puran Krishan Bhat, who is from the minority community of Kashmiri Hindus, at his home in southern Shopian district. He was taken to a hospital where he died, police said in a statement.

    Police and soldiers cordoned off the area and launched a search for the attackers.

    In August, a local Hindu man was killed and his brother injured in Shopian in a shooting that police also blamed on insurgents.

    Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both in its entirety.

    Rebels in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Most Muslim Kashmiris support the rebel goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

    India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and most Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

    Kashmir has witnessed a spate of targeted killings since October last year. Several Hindus, including immigrant workers from Indian states, have been killed. Police say the killings — including that of Muslim village councilors, police officers and civilians — have been carried out by anti-India rebels.

    The spate of killings come as Indian troops have continued their counterinsurgency operations across the region amid a clampdown on dissent and press freedom, which critics have likened to a militaristic policy.

    Kashmir’s minority Hindus, who are locally known as Pandits, have long fretted over their place in the region. Most of an estimated 200,000 of them fled Kashmir in the 1990s, when an armed rebellion against Indian rule began. Some 4,000 returned after 2010 as part of a government resettlement plan that provided them with jobs and housing.

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  • Palestinian, 12, dies of gunshot wound from Israel army raid

    Palestinian, 12, dies of gunshot wound from Israel army raid

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    RAMALLAH, West Bank — A 12-year-old Palestinian boy died Monday after being shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers during a September army raid in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

    Mahmoud Samoudi was shot in the abdomen on Sept. 28 during an army raid in Jenin, a refugee camp and stronghold of armed Palestinians.

    On Monday, the ministry mistakenly reported the boy was wounded during the weekend, but the Israeli military said the incident happened in September and the ministry has since corrected its initial reporting.

    During the raid, soldiers entered the camp and surrounded a house. In videos circulated on social media, exchanges of fire could be heard. At the time, Palestinian health officials said two teens, ages 16 and 18, were killed and that 11 people were wounded.

    The Israeli army said it was “aware of an allegation regarding injuries to a minor who participated in the violent riots and hurled stones at the security forces.” It said the circumstances surrounding the event are being examined.

    Israel has been carrying out nightly arrest raids across the West Bank since a spate of attacks against Israelis in the spring killed 19 people. The army said it had traced some of the perpetrators of those attacks back to Jenin.

    Israeli fire has killed more than 100 Palestinians during that time, making it the deadliest year in the occupied territory since 2015.

    The Israeli military says the vast majority of those killed were militants or stone-throwers who endangered the soldiers. But several civilians have also been killed during Israel’s months-long operation, including a veteran journalist and a lawyer who apparently drove unwittingly into a battle zone. Local youths who took to the streets in response to the invasion of their neighborhoods have also been killed.

    Israel says the arrest raids are meant to dismantle militant networks. The Palestinians say the operations are aimed at strengthening Israel’s 55-year military occupation of territories they want for an independent state.

    Also on Monday, Israeli soldiers entered the Shuafat refugee camp and searched homes and shops for a Palestinian suspected in the killing of an Israeli soldier over the weekend. Dozens of camp residents threw stones at the soldiers who fired tear gas.

    Saturday night’s shooting happened at a checkpoint near the camp in east Jerusalem. Police said at the time that the assailant got out of a car and opened fire, seriously wounding the female soldier and a security guard before running into the camp. The army announced early Sunday that the woman, who was 19, had died.

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  • Palestinians: 2 killed in Israeli military raid in West Bank

    Palestinians: 2 killed in Israeli military raid in West Bank

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    JERUSALEM — Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians on Saturday in an exchange of fire that erupted during a military raid in the West Bank, according to Israeli and Palestinian accounts, in the latest confrontation that has made 2022 the deadliest year of violence in the occupied territory since 2015.

    The raid occurred in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, the site of repeated clashes between Israeli forces and local gunmen and residents. The camp is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants and the army often operates there.

    Palestinian officials said soldiers entered the camp early Saturday and surrounded a house. In videos circulated on social media, exchanges of fire could be heard. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported two dead and 11 wounded, three of them critically. The official Wafa news agency said both of the dead were 17-year-old boys.

    The Israeli military said it had arrested a 25-year-old operative from the Islamic Jihad militant group who has previously been imprisoned by Israel. It said the man had recently been involved in shooting attacks on Israeli soldiers.

    It said soldiers opened fire during the raid when dozens of Palestinians hurled explosives and opened fire. “Hits were identified,” the statement said, giving no further details.

    Just before noontime, the Israeli forces appeared to withdraw from the area.

    The killing occurred a day after two Palestinian teenagers, ages 14 and 17, were killed by Israeli fire in separate incidents elsewhere in the occupied West Bank. Rights groups accuse Israeli forces of using excessive force in their dealings with the Palestinians, without being held accountable. The Israeli military says it opens fire only in life-threatening situations.

    Israel has been operating throughout the territory, especially in the northern West Bank, since a spate of deadly attacks in Israel last spring. Some of the attacks were carried out by Palestinian assailants from the area.

    Israel says it is forced to take action because Palestinian security forces, who coordinate with the military in a tense alliance against Islamic militants, is unable or unwilling to crack down. Palestinian security forces say the military raids have undermined their credibility and public support, especially in the absence of any political process. The last round of substantive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks ended in 2009.

    Most of those killed are said by Israel to have been militants. But local youths protesting the incursions as well as some civilians have also been killed in the violence. Hundreds have been rounded up, with many placed in so-called administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold them without trial or charge. Over 100 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting this year.

    The violence is also fueled by deepening disillusionment and anger among young Palestinians over the tight security coordination between Israel and the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which work together to apprehend militants.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in some 130 settlements and other outposts among nearly 3 million Palestinians. The Palestinians want that territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, for their future state.

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  • Palestinians: Israel military kills 2 during West Bank raid

    Palestinians: Israel military kills 2 during West Bank raid

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    TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli military shot and killed two Palestinians during a raid in the occupied West Bank early Monday, Palestinian officials said.

    The military alleged that the men tried to ram their car into soldiers, a claim that could not be independently verified. Palestinians and rights group often accuse Israeli troops of using excessive force against Palestinians, who live under a 55-year military occupation with no end in sight. Israel says it follows strict rules of engagement and opens fire in life-threatening situations.

    The military said soldiers were attempting to arrest a suspect in the Jalazone refugee camp near the city of Ramallah when the two Palestinians allegedly attempted to run over soldiers with their car. The soldiers opened fire on the car, the military said.

    The Palestinian Civil Affairs Authority, which coordinates on civilian issues with Israel, said the military shot and killed the two men. Their identities were not immediately known.

    Israel has been carrying out nightly arrest raids in the West Bank since the spring, when a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 people. Israel says its operations are aimed at dismantling militant infrastructure and preventing future attacks. The Palestinians see the nightly incursions into their cities, villages and towns as Israel’s way of deepening its occupation of lands they want for their hoped-for state.

    The Israeli raids have killed some 100 Palestinians, making this year the deadliest since 2016. Most of those killed are said by Israel to have been militants but local youths protesting the incursions as well as some civilians have also been killed in the violence. Hundreds have been rounded up, with many placed in so-called administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold them without trial or charge.

    The raids have driven up tensions in the West Bank, with an uptick in Palestinian shooting attacks against Israelis. They have also drawn into focus the growing disillusionment amongst young Palestinians over the tight security coordination between Israeli and the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority, who work together to apprehend militants.

    Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and 500,000 Jewish settlers now live in some 130 settlements and other outposts among nearly 3 Palestinians. The Palestinians want that territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, for their future state.

    ———

    Associated Press reporter Jalal Bwaitel contributed to this report from Ramallah, West Bank.

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