Who is Fouad Shokor, and Why Did 'Israel' Target Him?

By Al Mayadeen English

31 Jul 2024 11:54

Fouad Shokor, a senior military commander and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's close confidant, was targeted by "Israel" in the Southern Suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday evening,

On Tuesday evening, "Israel" struck a residential building in the Lebanese capital of Beirut's Southern Suburb, attempting to assassinate senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shokor. 

Fouad Shokor, also known by his alias Hajj Mohsen, from the town of Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley, was considered one of the founding members of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon. 

Shokor began his militant activities in the Ouzai area in Lebanon's capital Beirut and quickly became a key figure in resisting the 1982 Israeli invasion. He participated in notable battles such as those in Khalde and the Faculty of Sciences in Beirut, where he emerged as a significant commander and helped establish Resistance groups.

Shokor was considered one of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's closest advisors and has been pursued by the United States for the alleged role he played in a bombing operation that eliminated US and French soldiers deployed in Lebanon during the Civil War, in the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombings. 

Following the operation, the US placed a $5 million bounty for any information on Shokor but failed to find him. He was designated as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" by the United States in 2019 after he was designated by the Department of the Treasury in 2015.

The New York Times, citing an anonymous Israeli military official and other informed sources, said Sayyed Hassan's confidant had assumed some of Martyr Mustafa Badreddine's responsibilities following his martyrdom in Syria.

Throughout his career, Shokor was involved in defending Syria during the war and the liberation of al-Qusayr, and he was regarded as the equivalent of a Chief of Staff. 

He is described as an "experienced veteran" and one of the masterminds behind the development of Hezbollah's precision-guided missile arsenal. 

In 1992, Shokor expanded his influence by handling external affairs, including the Bosnia and Herzegovina portfolio, and mentoring resistant youths who supported their brethren in Bosnia.

After returning to Lebanon, he continued his Resistance activities as a military unit commander until 1995 and was pivotal in founding Hezbollah's naval and air forces.

In 2006, he was responsible for the missile and naval forces, notably targeting the Israeli Sa'ar warship. Shokor was appointed as a central Jihadi assistant by Hezbollah's Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the party's Shura Council.

One of many equals

Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center, affirmed that the senior commander is a "significant figure" for the Lebanese Resistance, according to The New York Times. 

Matthew Levitt, an expert on Hezbollah at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Shokor played a significant role in multiple operations carried out by the Islamic Resistance in the Lebanese South before its liberation in 2000. 

He also was majorly involved in Hezbollah's operations in Syria. In light of his dedication to the Lebanese Resistance, Shokor rapidly evolved to become a top Hezbollah military leader who reports directly to Sayyed Hassan, as part of the Resistance movement's military leadership in a committee of equals. 

Sayyed Al-Houthi Vows Resistance Axis Will Avenge Martyred Leaders

By Al Mayadeen English

Ansar Allah chief declares that victory against "Israel" is inevitable and the regime's demise is a definite outcome.

The leader of the Ansar Allah movement mourned on Wednesday the martyrdom of one of Hezbollah's top military commanders, who was assassinated by "Israel" in an airstrike on a residential building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday.

The Israeli aggression also resulted in the martyrdom of at least three civilians: a woman and two children, a brother and sister, Hassan (10) and Amira (6) Fadlallah.

Lebanese Civil Defense, in a final toll, said that the total number was 7 martyrs and 78 wounded as a result of the occupation's aggression on the southern suburb of Beirut yesterday.

Sayyed Abdul Malik al-Houthi said that martyred leader Sayyed Fouad Shokor (Sayyed Mohsen) devoted his life to al-Quds, extending his condolences to his family, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon and its Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in addition to the Lebanese people, the Resistance Axis and the Islamic Nation.

The Yemeni leader emphasized that no matter the sacrifices, "the inevitable outcome is victory and the demise of the Israeli enemy and its temporary entity."

He also condemned the "crime of targeting the dear brother and great" Resistance leader Ismail Haniyeh," affirming that it will serve as "a greater incentive for resilience, steadfastness, and dedication ... in dealing severe blows to the criminal enemy."

The Ansar Allah chief emphasized that "Israel" will not achieve any of its goals "in breaking the Resistance or extinguishing the spirit and iron will of the ... brothers in Palestine and all support fronts."

"The criminal enemy's involvement in targeting the martyr (Haniyeh) has elevated the battle to a wider scope and greater dimensions, the consequences of which will be dire for the enemy, God willing," he said, assuring that "we will spare no effort, with God's permission and in cooperation with our brothers in the Resistance Axis in avenging the martyr and all the martyrs and the injustice suffered by the Palestinian people."

For his part, the head of the Iraqi National Wisdom Movement in Iraq Ammar Al-Hakim also expressed his condolences, affirming that "Israel's" crimes have "shown the entire world the occupation entity's desire to expand the fires of war in all directions, igniting the region and the world with its flames that threaten the security and stability of nations, without any restraint or deterrent."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani called on the international community to condemn the Israeli assassination of martyr Shokor "in the strongest terms."

In a post on X (Twitter), Kanaani noted that with this new violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and international laws, "Israel" has added another crime to its black record. He pointed out that these crimes will increase the world's hatred for the occupation entity, while the Resistance Axis will grow stronger with the martyrdom of its heroes.

On Wednesday evening, Hezbollah announced the martyrdom of the "great Resistance leader, Sayyed Fouad Shokor, a prominent martyr on the path to al-Quds."

The resistance hailed in a statement the martyr as "a symbol of [the Resistance's] unwavering commitment and steadfast determination to continue the struggle until the liberation of land, sanctities, and humanity from the oppression and brutality of this usurping, criminal, and murderous entity."

The martyred commander was "one of the prominent figures" who contributed to the Resistance's "victories, strength, and power," and one of its "battlefield leaders who remained committed to resisting until [his] last breath."

Shokor began his militant activities in the Ouzai area in Lebanon's capital Beirut and quickly became a key figure in resisting the 1982 Israeli invasion.

He was considered one of Sayyed Nasrallah's closest advisors and has been pursued by the United States for the alleged role he played in a bombing operation that eliminated US and French soldiers deployed in Lebanon during the Civil War, in the 1983 Beirut Barracks Bombings.

Throughout his career, Shokor was involved in defending Syria during the war and the liberation of al-Qusayr, and he was regarded as the equivalent of a Chief of Staff. 

In 2006, he was responsible for the missile and naval forces, notably targeting the Israeli Sa'ar warship. Shokor was appointed as a central Jihadi assistant by Hezbollah's chief and the party's Shura Council.

Nigerians Are Frustrated by Economic Hardship but Authorities Fear Planned Protests Could Turn Ugly

By CHINEDU ASADU

3:28 PM EDT, July 31, 2024

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Frustrated with growing economic hardships, Nigerians are planning nationwide protests this week against the country’s worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.

And with momentum soaring on social media, authorities fear a replay of the deadly 2020 demonstrations against police brutality in this West African nation — or a wave of violence similar to last month’s protests in Kenya, where a tax hike led to chaos in the capital, Nairobi.

The government of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu says it is determined to prevent such a scenario in a country that has long been a top African oil producer but whose citizens are among the world’s poorest.

On Wednesday, security forces were deployed on major roads in cities, including the capital of Abuja and the country’s largest, Lagos. Authorities touted the positives, appealing to organizers to shelve plans for the protests.

“Is a protest the catalyst for progress we need now? I strongly believe it isn’t. Instead, it could undo the modest gains we’ve made,” Lagos Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu said in a speech.

Nigerian politicians and lawmakers, often accused of corruption, are some of the best-paid in Africa. Even the president’s wife — her office nowhere in the constitution — is entitled to SUVs and other luxuries funded by taxpayers.

Nigeria’s population of over 210 million people — the continent’s largest — is also among the hungriest in the world and its government has struggled to create jobs.

The current economic hardship under Tinubu, who promised “renewed hope” when he was sworn into office in May 2023, is blamed on surging inflation that is at a 28-year high and the government’s economic policies that have pushed the local currency to record low against the dollar.

Local media have reported that organizers of the protests, which are planned for Thursday, rejected a proposal from Nigeria’s police to instead hold rallies in confined spaces — easily controlled by security forces.

“So many people are struggling to stay alive,” Rev. Peter Odogwu said during his Sunday sermon at a church in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.

“There is so much hardship and that is why collectively people want to speak out,” the Catholic priest said. “But there’s so much opposition from the government trying to discourage people from going out.”

The frustration is widespread, though it is worse in northeastern Nigeria, where the world’s longest war on militancy has left 4.8 million people in dire need of food, according to the United Nation’s food agency. Nationwide, at least 32 million Nigerians face acute hunger, which is 10% of the global burden, the World Food Program said.

“The malnutrition rates and the rate of food insecurity in the (three northeastern) states have never been as bad as they are this year, but they’ve never been as bad country-wide either,” said David Stevenson, WFP country director in Nigeria.

Tinubu’s aides have sought to defend his achievements and efforts to ease the hardship, citing convoys of food trucks dispatched to the worst-hit states, cash support to families and businesses and a new law that more than doubled the minimum pay of government workers.

But the new minimum monthly wage of $43 is six times lower than what labor unions said they needed to cover for the loss in the value of the naira, Nigeria’s currency.

The president’s critics also say he has performed below the expectations that catapulted him to power 14 years ago. They point to Nigeria’s deadly security crises in the conflict-battered north and an ailing economy, which was once ranked Africa’s largest but is set to slip to fourth place this year, according to the forecast by the International Monetary Fund.

Tinubu’s economic reforms — including the suspension of decadeslong and costly gas subsidies and measures by the country’s central bank such as currency devaluations to halt the distorted foreign exchange rate — were supposed to save the government money and shore up dwindling foreign investments.

However, their poor implementation has had a knock-on effect on the price of just about everything else, analysts say, pointing especially to the absence of adequate and timely support programs.

The suspension of gas subsidies more than doubled the price of petrol.

In a country where millions have little to no electricity, that meant more money spent on fuel for generators and a growing number of people trekking to work because of rising transport costs.

More people are also having to work multiple jobs.

“The work that you’ve never done before, when Tinubu came, all of us began to do it,” said James Ayuba, a laborer who lives in Abuja.

His family has had to move from the city center to the outskirts, where living is cheaper and costs are lower. He also got a second job but his family still struggles to buy food and other basic needs.

“Everything in Nigeria has turned upside down,” the father of three said.

Sudan’s Military Leader Survives a Drone Strike that Killed 5, Says the Army

FILE - Sudan’s Army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan speaks in Khartoum, Sudan, on Dec. 5, 2022. Sudan’s military said its top commander, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, survived a drone attack on a military graduation ceremony that killed five people in the country’s east. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

By SAMY MAGDY and FATMA KHALED

12:02 PM EDT, July 31, 2024

CAIRO (AP) — Sudan’s military leader, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, survived a drone attack Wednesday on an army graduation ceremony he was attending in the country’s east, the military said. The attack that killed five people was the latest twist in the conflict Sudan has been going through since a popular uprising removed its veteran leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019.

The attack by two drones took place in the town of Gebeit after the ceremony was concluded, the military added. Burhan was not hurt, according to Lt. Col. Hassan Ibrahim, from the military spokesman’s office.

Videos posted by Al Araby TV showed multiple people running along a dusty road at the time of the drone attack, while other footage showed people at the graduation ceremony apparently looking to the sky as the drone strike hit.

Another video posted on Facebook by the Sudanese Armed Forces showed a crowd of people gathering around Burhan following the drone strike, cheering for him as he smiled.

“A spontaneous popular gathering of the people of the Jebait region with the President of the Sovereign Council and Commander-in-Chief following the graduation of a new batch of officers,” the post read.

Sudan has been torn by war for more than a year between the military and a powerful paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces or RSF. With fighting in the capital, Khartoum, the military leadership largely operates out of eastern Sudan near the Red Sea Coast.

The RSF has not commented on the assassination attempt yet, which comes nearly a week after its leader said that he planned to attend cease-fire talks in Switzerland next month arranged by the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the Rapid Support Forces fighting Sudan’s army, emphasized at the time that the talks would become “a major step” toward peace and stability in Sudan and create a new state based on “justice, equality and federal rule.”

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday responded to the U.S. invitation to the talks in Geneva, saying the military-controlled Sudanese government is prepared to take part but said that any negotiation before implementing the Jeddah Declaration “wouldn’t be acceptable to the Sudanese people.”

The Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect Civilians passed last year meant to end the conflict, but neither side committed to its objectives.

Representatives from the Sudanese Army and the RSF, led by Mohamed Hamadan Dagalo, engaged in revived talks brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, focusing on the delivery of humanitarian aid, achieving ceasefires and paving the way toward a permanent cessation of aggression, among other objectives.

In its Tuesday statement, the Sudanese Foreign Ministry accused the RSF of being the only party that attacks cities, villages and civilians. The military-controlled Sudanese government demanded sanctions be imposed on “rebels to stop their continuous aggression, end their siege on cities, and open roads.”

“Those taking part in the initiative are the same as the parties who participated in the Jeddah talks, and the topics are identical to what was agreed upon,” the statement read.

The ministry added that the military-led government must be consulted about the planned agenda for any negotiations and parties taking part, with the provisions in the Jeddah Declaration being the basis of future talks.

Cameron Hudson, the former chief of staff to the special envoy to Sudan, said the military government’s response is “far more positive and open” than he had anticipated because it opened the door to preliminary talks with the U.S.

The Rapid Support Forces were formed from Janjaweed fighters created under former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for three decades before being overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and other crimes during the conflict in Darfur in the 2000s.

The conflict has created the world’s largest displacement crisis with more than 10 million people forced to flee their homes since April 2023, according to the U.N. migration agency. They include more than 2.2 million who crossed into neighboring countries, it said.

Mpox Outbreaks Declared in Kenya and Central African Republic

The race is on to contain the spread

FILE - This image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases shows a colorized transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (red) found within an infected cell (blue), cultured in the laboratory that was captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility in Fort Detrick, Md. Kenya and the Central African Republic declared new outbreaks of mpox Wednesday, July 31, 2024, as Africa’s health officials are racing to contain the spread of the disease in a region lacking vaccines. (NIAID via AP, File)

By CHINEDU ASADU

7:21 PM EDT, July 31, 2024

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Kenya and the Central African Republic have declared new outbreaks of mpox as Africa’s health officials race to contain the spread of the disease in a region lacking vaccines.

Nairobi announced the outbreak on Wednesday, after a case was detected in a passenger traveling from Uganda to Rwanda at a border crossing in southern Kenya. The Central African Republic was the first to declare a new outbreak on Monday, saying it extends to its capital of Bangui.

Mpox, previously known as monkeypox, is caused by a virus that originates in wild animals and occasionally jumps to people, who can spread it to others.

“We are very concerned about the cases of monkeypox, which is ravaging region 7 of the country,” the Central African Republic’s public health minister, Pierre Somsé, said Monday.

Mpox became a focus of worldwide concern during an international outbreak in 2022 that saw the disease spread to over 100 countries, and has been endemic in parts of central and west Africa for decades.

The World Health Organization said in November it had confirmed sexual transmission of mpox in Congo for the first time. African scientists warned this could make the disease difficult to contain.

Although the mpox epidemics in the West were contained with the help of vaccines and treatments, barely any have been available in parts of Africa where several countries have reported outbreaks in recent months.

The worst hit on the continent is Congo, which has recorded more than 12,000 cases and at least 470 deaths this year in its biggest outbreak. South Africa, which last recorded an mpox case in 2022, has also reported an outbreak this year.

In the Central African Republic, where the infection is most common in remote areas, authorities called for public support to assist efforts being taken by the government to slow the spread of the disease.

The East African Community regional bloc has also issued a statement alerting member states about the disease in Congo, which borders five countries in the region. One of them, Burundi, has already confirmed three cases.

Andrea Aguer Ariik Malueth, the bloc’s deputy secretary general, on Monday urged the group’s partner states to “provide necessary information about the disease and take preventive measures.”

Georgia Superintendent Says Black Studies Course Breaks Law Against Divisive Racial Teachings

By JEFF AMY

7:25 PM EDT, July 31, 2024

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s state superintendent of schools said Wednesday that he believes a new Advanced Placement course in African American Studies violates the state’s law against teaching divisive racial concepts, explaining that is why he won’t recommend it become an approved state course.

Until now, Richard Woods, the state’s elected Republican superintendent, hadn’t explained why he was blocking approval of the course. Some districts have said they will teach it anyway, but others have canceled their plans.

“After reviewing the content, it was clear that parts of the coursework did violate the law,” Woods said after 10 days of only expressing vague concerns.

Georgia’s 2022 ban on teaching divisive racial concepts in schools, based on a now-repealed executive order from President Donald Trump, prohibits claims that the U.S. is “fundamentally or systematically racist.” It mandates that no student “should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of his or her race.” So far, 18 states have passed such bans.

The Advanced Placement course drew national scrutiny in 2023 when Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would ban the course in his state. In June, South Carolina officials also refused to approve the course. South Carolina said individual districts could still offer it.

The College Board is a nonprofit testing entity that offers Advanced Placement courses across the academic spectrum. Students who score well on an exam can usually earn college credit. Spokesperson Holly Stepp said the African American Studies class is “a dynamic and robust course that is rooted in academic scholarship,” and denied that it seeks to indoctrinate students.

“AP students are expected to analyze different perspectives from their own, and no points on an AP Exam are awarded for agreement with a viewpoint,” Stepp said.

Woods’ claim contradicts a specific exemption in Georgia law for Advanced Placement and other high-level college courses. State Rep. Will Wade, a Dawsonville Republican and former school board member who wrote the law, pointed to the carve-out allowing such concepts to be taught in AP courses in a text message.

More confoundingly, Woods has been saying that districts could teach the AP material and get state money by listing it as an introductory African American studies course approved by the state in 2020. Woods took that position after earlier saying districts would have to teach the course using only local tax money.

But Wednesday, Woods said teaching the AP material using the introductory course could expose a district to legal challenges under Georgia’s law. Thus, Woods may be imperiling districts legally by denying the AP course, while he could protect them legally by approving it.

“It makes no sense,” said state Sen Nikki Merritt, a Democrat from Grayson and critic of Woods.

The superintendent said he was seeking a legal opinion from Attorney General Chris Carr as to whether the carve-out would protect AP courses. “Should the ruling reverse my decision, then I will follow the law,” Woods said in his statement. But Meghan Frick, a spokesperson for Woods, said that doesn’t mean Woods will recommend the course for approval by the state Board of Education if Carr’s office backs it legally.

Woods has faced not only attacks from Democrats, but pointed questions from Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. A spokesperson for Kemp declined comment Wednesday when asked whether the governor believes the course violates state law.

Under the law, if people allege a violation and it isn’t resolved locally, they can appeal to the state Board of Education. The board could order a corrective action plan, and a district could lose exemptions from state rules if it didn’t comply. Districts rely on those exemptions to set policy locally.

Since the law has taken effect, Frick said there haven’t been any appeals to the state board.

Woods, who is white, said he was particularly concerned about how the course presents the concept of intersectionality. That’s a framework for understanding the effects of overlapping systems of discrimination or disadvantage. For example, Black women may face compounding disadvantages because of their race and gender.

“If the Advanced Placement course had presented a comparative narrative with opposing views on this and other topics, an argument could be made that the course did not violate Georgia law,” Woods said in a statement.

Stepp said intersectionality is one of 74 required topics in the course.

Mikayla Arciaga, who leads Georgia advocacy efforts for the Intercultural Development Research Association, called for the repeal of the divisive concepts law. “Being Black in America should not be a divisive concept,” she said in a statement.

The Atlanta, DeKalb County and Cobb County school districts have all said they will offer the course in some high schools.

The state’s largest district, Gwinnett County, said Tuesday that it wouldn’t offer the course. That is because students wouldn’t get the credit that an approved AP course brings in deciding whether a student qualifies for the HOPE Scholarship merit program.

83-year-old Alabama Former Legislator Sentenced to 13 Months in Federal Prison for Kickback Scheme

1:22 PM EDT, July 30, 2024

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The longest-serving member of the Alabama House of Representatives was sentenced to 13 months in federal prison Tuesday on charges of federal conspiracy and obstruction of justice, despite an earlier nonbinding plea agreement that gave the 83-year-old a more lenient sentence to be served at home.

John Rogers was also charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, as part of a kickback scheme that diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a fund intended to pay for community projects in Jefferson County.

“What’s important is that we sent a message to future lawmakers,” George Martin, the federal prosecutor, said outside of the courthouse in Birmingham after the decision. “You will get caught and you will go to jail. So just don’t do it.”

Rogers is a Democrat from Birmingham first elected to the Alabama Legislature in 1982.

Between 2018 and 2022 federal prosecutors said that Rogers directed $400,000 to a youth sports organization run by then-Rep. Fred Plump. Federal prosecutors said that Plump then gave approximately $200,000 of that money back to Rogers and his former legislative aid Varrie Johnson Kindall. The kickbacks occurred before Plump took office.

Plump and Kindall were both sentenced to 12 months in prison last week for the kickback scheme. Kindall was also sentenced to an additional two years on separate charges related to stolen retirement funds.

Rogers initially agreed to a non-binding plea agreement in March. Federal prosecutors agreed to recommend a 14 month sentence to be served at home in exchange for Rogers’ resignation from the Alabama House of Representatives and a repayment of $197,950.

But the prosecutors rescinded the offer after Rogers’ attorney filed a document that stated Rogers didn’t remember conversations related to the obstruction charge, undermining the former lawmaker’s admission of guilt, prosecutors argued. On Tuesday, prosecutors recommended 14 months served in a federal prison.

Ultimately the judge said the disagreement over the initial plea agreement didn’t factor into his decision to sentence the 83-year-old to 13 months in prison.

“You’ve done great things, but you also did this, which is bad” U.S. District Judge Scott Coogler said in court, addressing the former legislator. He added that Rogers was “more culpable” than the other people involved in the scheme because he used the money for himself, whereas Plump only helped in the kickback, but did not personally benefit.

Rogers’ attorney’s expressed disagreement with the judge’s decision, repeating concerns about Rogers’ health conditions, which include prostate cancer, diabetes and a prescription for dialysis.

Lawyers said that Rogers “has resigned his office and has accepted the embarrassment and humiliation that comes with his resignation under these circumstances. He let down not only his constituents and the people of Alabama but also the office that he held for more than 40 years.”

Rogers himself gave an emotional and apologetic testimony to the judge ahead of sentencing.

“I’m sorry for the whole escapade, I take full responsibility for it. I regret it,” Rogers said through tears. “It hurts me to no end.”

Rogers’ attorney said he didn’t know whether the sentence would be appealed.

Man Shot to Death Outside Mosque as he Headed to Pray Was a 43-year-old Philadelphia Resident

4:24 PM EDT, July 31, 2024

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A man shot and killed outside the Philadelphia mosque where he was headed for a prayer service was identified by police on Wednesday as a 43-year-old resident of the city.

Police and the district attorney’s office said they had no new information about what motivated a man in dark clothing to run up to Raheem Jefferson late Tuesday afternoon and fire at least 17 rounds from a few feet away.

Police Chief Inspector Scott Small has said Jefferson was shot in the head and torso by a large-caliber, semiautomatic weapon.

The shooting took place in a parking lot near the Al-Aqsa Islamic Society. The Associated Press left voicemail messages seeking comment at the mosque.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that it had no new information about a possible motive.

Jefferson was with another man when he was shot, according to Small, who said surveillance video shows Jefferson collapsing on a sidewalk and the shooter running to a dark-colored sedan that may have had a small replacement tire on its front passenger’s side. Jefferson died a short time later at a hospital.

For These Reasons Israel Assassinated Hamas’ Political Leader, Ismail Haniyeh – Analysis

July 31, 2024

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)

By Ramzy Baroud  

Palestine Chronicle

Considering the criminal extent to which Israel is willing to go, such desperation could eventually lead to the regional war that Israel has been trying to instigate, even before the Gaza war. 

Israel’s assassination of the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, on July 31 is part of Tel Aviv’s overall desperate search for a wider conflict. It is a criminal act that reeks of desperation. 

Almost immediately after the start of the Gaza war on October 7, Israel hoped to use the genocide in the Strip as an opportunity to achieve its long-term goal of a regional war – one that would rope in Washington as well as Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. 

Despite unconditional support for its genocide in Gaza, and various conflicts throughout the region, the United States refrained from entering a direct war against Iran and others. Though defeating Iran is an American strategic objective, the US lacks the will and tools to pursue it now. 

After ten months of a failed war on Gaza and a military stalemate against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel is, once more, accelerating its push for a wider conflict. This time around, however, Israel is engaging in a high-stakes game, the most dangerous of its previous gambles. 

The current gamble involved the targeting of a top Hezbollah leader by bombing a residential building in Beirut on Tuesday, – and, of course, the assassination of Palestine’s most visible, let alone popular political leader. Haniyeh has succeeded in forging and strengthening ties with Russia, China, and other countries beyond the US-western political domain. 

Israel chose the place and timing of killing Haniyeh carefully. The Palestinian leader was killed in the Iranian capital, shortly after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian. 

The Israeli message was a compound one, to Iran’s new administration – that of Israel’s readiness to escalate further – and to Hamas, that Israel has no intentions to end the war or to reach a negotiated ceasefire. 

The latter point is perhaps the most urgent. For months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done everything in his power to impede all diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the war. By killing the top Palestinian negotiator, Israel delivered a final and decisive message that Israel remains invested in violence, and in nothing else. 

The scale of the Israeli provocations, however, poses a great challenge to the pro-Palestinian camp in the Middle East, namely, how to respond with equally strong messages without granting Israel its wish of embroiling the whole region in a destructive war. 

Considering the military capabilities of what is known as the ‘Axis of Resistance’, Iran, Hezbollah and others are certainly capable of managing this challenge despite the risk factors involved. 

Equally important regarding timing: the Israeli dramatic escalation in the region, followed a visit by Netanyahu to Washington, which, aside from many standing ovations at the US Congress, didn’t fundamentally alter the US position, predicated on the unconditional support for Israel without direct US involvement in a regional war. 

Additionally, Israel’s recent clashes involving the army, military police, and the supporters of the far right suggest that an actual coup in Israel might be a real possibility. In the words of Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid: Israel is not nearing the abyss, Israel is already in the abyss. 

It is, therefore, clear to Netanyahu and his far-right circle that they are operating within an increasingly limited time and margins. 

By killing Haniyeh, a political leader who has essentially served the role of a diplomat, Israel demonstrated the extent of its desperation and the limits of its military failure. 

Considering the criminal extent to which Israel is willing to go, such desperation could eventually lead to the regional war that Israel has been trying to instigate, even before the Gaza war. 

Keeping in mind Washington’s weakness and indecision in the face of Israel’s intransigence, Tel Aviv might achieve its wish of a regional war after all.

Ismail Haniyeh Assassinated in Tehran After Israel Bombs Beirut

Maureen Clare Murphy 

Rights and Accountability 

31 July 2024

Ismail Haniyeh during a video statement marking the 34th anniversary of the founding of the Hamas movement, December 2021. (Hamas Chief Office)

Hamas announced early Wednesday that Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Palestinian faction’s political wing, was assassinated in Tehran, where he was present for the inauguration of the new Iranian president.

The assassination, in Iran no less, marks a major escalation that will likely have regional ramifications and came hours after Israel bombed Lebanon on Tuesday evening, killing three civilians, according to Lebanese state media. Israel claimed that it killed a senior Hizballah figure in the strike, but the Lebanese resistance group had not issued a statement on the matter at the time of publication.

Israel killed multiple members representing multiple generations of Haniyeh’s family in Gaza since October. Several leaders of Hamas have been assassinated by Israel before Haniyeh, only to be replaced and for the organization’s capabilities to grow.

In January, Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas’ politburo, was killed in a strike in Beirut along with several other cadres and commanders with the group.

Two weeks ago, Israel claimed to have killed Muhammad Deif, the secretive head of Hamas’ armed wing, in a strike in Gaza that killed at least 90 Palestinians in an area it had unilaterally declared as a humanitarian zone.

Israel continued to wage attacks across Gaza by air, land and sea amid heavy fighting and ground incursions on Tuesday.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said on Tuesday that 37 people had been killed in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 39,400 since early October.

The actual number of fatalities is likely much higher, with thousands of people missing under the rubble or their bodies not yet recovered from Gaza’s streets.

The Israeli military withdrew from eastern Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, on Tuesday following an incursion lasting eight days and forcing another wave of mass displacement from the area.

Palestinians returned to Khan Younis to find evidence of what the government media office in Gaza described as “horrific massacres” for which it demanded international accountability.

“Palestinian rescue workers and civilians collected dead bodies from the streets of the abandoned battle zone, bringing corpses wrapped in rugs to morgues in cars and donkey carts,” Reuters reported.

The government media office said that the bodies of 255 people had been recovered and more than 30 others were missing.

During the incursion, the Israeli military fired on 31 homes with their residents inside, as well as more than 300 other homes and residential buildings.

The military also razed the cemetery in Bani Suheila and its surroundings on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis.

Nearly all of Gaza under evacuation orders

Israel meanwhile issued new forced displacement orders in al-Bureij, central Gaza, “launching strikes there in apparent preparation for a new raid,” according to Reuters.

“Medics said an Israeli air strike in nearby al-Nuseirat killed 10 Palestinians as they fled from Bureij on Tuesday, and another strike killed four other Palestinians inside Bureij,” the news agency added.

More than 85 percent of the territory of Gaza is under an Israeli so-called evacuation order, the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday.

But there is no safe place for people to go, and no assurance of protection for civilians who choose to stay or are unable to evacuate from designated areas.

Repeated displacement is also making it increasingly difficult for organizations, already contending with Israel’s near-total blockade, to provide aid and services to those who were forced to leave their homes with next to nothing.

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said that it was no longer able to restore the functionality of the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis after an Israeli evacuation order was issued on 27 July.

The Palestinian Civil Defense warned that overcrowding among displaced people in Gaza, who have insufficient access to water and sanitation, was leading to the proliferation of diseases, including conditions affecting children’s skin.

By early July, the World Health Organization had recorded nearly a million cases of acute respiratory infection, while other illnesses such as diarrhea, acute jaundice and cases of suspected mumps and meningitis, as well as scabies and lice, skin rashes and chicken pox are spreading among the population.

The UN health agency said on Tuesday that it was very likely that polio has infected Palestinians in Gaza after the health ministry in the territory declared a polio epidemic across the coastal enclave on Monday.

Detection of the virus in sewage samples collected in Gaza represents “a setback” against efforts to completely eradicate the disease worldwide, Christian Lindmeier, a World Health Organization official, said on Tuesday.

Al Mezan, a Palestinian human rights group based in Gaza, warned that more than one million children in the territory “are at risk of dying if not vaccinated” for the highly infectious virus.

“To prevent thousands of deaths, the international community must ensure Israel immediately ends its genocide, including the weaponization of water and sanitation facilities,” the rights group added.

According to WHO, the disease mainly affects children under the age of 5 and one in 200 infections “leads to irreversible paralysis.” Five to 10 percent of those paralyzed die “when their breathing muscles become immobilized.”

Collapse of essential systems

With the collapse of Gaza’s solid waste management system, conditions are ripe for the disastrous spread of diseases transmitted through contamination such as polio and hepatitis A – there have been 40,000 diagnosed cases of the latter since October.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has seen a drop in polio vaccination rates in Gaza from 99 percent to 89 percent, according to a UNICEF spokesperson. The director of the World Health Organization announced that it was sending more than a million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered to children “in the coming weeks,” UN News reported.

The virus, “transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route,” according to WHO, is less frequently transmitted through contaminated water or food.

The “can emerge in areas where poor vaccination coverage allows the weakened form of the orally taken vaccine virus strain to mutate into a stronger version,” UN News added.

The vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 “had been identified at six locations in sewage samples collected last month from Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah – two Gaza cities left in ruins by nearly 10 months of intense Israeli bombardment.”

The spread of disease and epidemics is a predictable result of Israel’s genocidal military campaign, if not the intention.

In yet another case of Israeli soldiers destroying civilian infrastructure for no military purpose, soldiers recently recorded themselves detonating Canada well, the main water facility in Rafah, southern Gaza.

The Tel Aviv daily Haaretz reported on Monday that the facility “was destroyed last week with the approval of the commander of the soldiers … but without the approval of senior officers.”

But blaming lower-ranking soldiers may be an attempt to deter international courts scrutiny of more senior military personnel, while the pattern of behavior on the ground indicates that troops are ordered to destroy essential civilian infrastructure for no military purpose – a war crime.

Younis Tirawi, writing for Dropsite News, recounted that Giora Eiland, an adviser to Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant, described in October a strategy to destroy the ability of Palestinians in Gaza to pump and purify water within Gaza.

Monther Shoblak, the head of the water utility in Gaza, told Tirawi that the Canada well facility had remained functional until Israel’s ground invasion of Rafah in early May, as solar panels allowed it to operate despite Israel cutting off the supply of electricity to the territory in October.

Israel destroyed 30 water wells in the south this month alone, and displaced people have been forced to shelter in overcrowded conditions without suitable hygiene infrastructure or access to sufficient clean water, fuel, food and medicine.

The international charity Oxfam said earlier this month that “Israel damaged or destroyed five water and sanitation sites every three days since the start of this war,” reducing the amount of water available in Gaza by 94 percent to a mere 4.74 liters per person – “less than a single toilet flush.”

Israel attacks Beirut

Israel bombed southern Beirut on Tuesday, with its military claiming that it targeted Fuad Shukr, a senior Hizballah commander. Israel said that Shukr was killed but Arabic-language media said his fate remained unknown late Tuesday.

The area around Hizballah’s Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of the Lebanese capital was also hit, that country’s state news agency reported.

Lebanon’s health ministry said that a woman and two children were killed, though “the search for more missing persons under the rubble continues.”

The Beirut strike took down a whole residential building, and the scale of destruction may have been intended to reinforce the threats made by Israeli leaders to inflict the same genocidal violence in Lebanon that it has in Gaza.

The strike in Beirut on Tuesday was an anticipated “retaliation” from Tel Aviv after a projectile killed 12 children at a sports field in Majdal Shams, a city in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights on Saturday. Israel blamed Hizballah but the Lebanese resistance group denied having any connection to the deadly blast.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, accused Hizballah of crossing a red line, though it is highly unlikely that the Lebanese resistance group would have deliberately targeted Majdal Shams.

Amal Saad, an expert on Hizballah, said that since 8 October, the group “has refrained from targeting Israeli civilians, much less Syrian Druze.”

“The strong support for the resistance movement among this community, which lives under Israeli occupation, makes it illogical for Hizballah to risk striking in this vicinity,” she added.

Targeting civilians, whether Syrian or Israeli, “wouldn’t be strategically beneficial for Hizballah when it would inevitably lead to all out war – a war which Hizballah has been very keen to avoid as demonstrated by its sub-threshold responses to Israeli strikes on Beirut and on civilians” in Lebanon, according to Saad.

She added the group has been careful to “avoid giving Israel any pretext for waging war” but “it’s entirely expected” that Israel would exploit the tragedy “in order to deflect attention away from its daily massacres of Palestinian children” in Gaza.

Not “a single drop of blood”

Majdal Shams residents chanted “murderer, murderer” at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he attempted to visit the site of the deadly strike on Monday.

Syrians reeling from the unprecedented mass casualty event in Majdal Shams issued a statement rejecting “that a single drop of blood be shed under the name of revenge for our children.”

After the deaths in Majdal Shams, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu canceled the exit of around 150 children from Gaza for medical treatment in the United Arab Emirates “for fear of public backlash,” the human rights group Gisha said.

In response to a petition from human rights groups, Israel’s high court on Sunday ordered the government “to inform it of its progress toward implementing a permanent mechanism for the medical evacuation of sick and injured Gazans,” The Times of Israel [reported]((https://www.timesofisrael.com/high-court-gives-government-7-days-to-come…).

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, announced that “85 sick and severely injured people,” including 35 children, were evacuated from Gaza to Abu Dhabi for specialized care on Tuesday.

“It is the largest medical evacuation since October 2023,” he said, adding that “63 family members and caregivers accompanied the patients.”

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said on Sunday that the ongoing closure of Gaza’s crossings, preventing “the travel of urgent and lifesaving cases,” makes clear “Israel’s commission of genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip.”

“Those who have not been killed by Israel’s war machine are not spared by the complete Israeli siege and closure on Gaza,” the rights group added, “leaving thousands of wounded and sick doomed to certain death.”

Death is all but guaranteed due to Israel’s “deliberate destruction and collapse of the healthcare system and the weakening of its remaining lifesaving resources,” according to PCHR.

Around 14,000 sick and injured patients, most of them children and older people, require care that is not available in Gaza.

PCHR estimates that hundreds of ill people have already died due to lack of access to medical treatment but there are “no statistics available in this regard due to disruptions in official medical monitoring and documentation systems.”

Everything You Need To Know About the Upcoming #EndBadGovernanceinNigeria Protest

Government officials and security forces have warned against the planned protest.

Written By Adeyinka Odutuyo

July 30, 2024

What’s happening?

Five months after Nigerians in Ibadan protested economic hardships under the Tinubu administration, youths in the country plan to embark on a nationwide protest starting on August 1. 

The protest, tagged “End Bad Governance in Nigeria,” aims to express frustration with the worsening cost-of-living crisis since President Tinubu took office.

Several groups, including Concerned Nigerians, Revolution Now, Human Rights Co Advocacy Group, Nigerians Against Corruption Initiative, Timely Intervention, Youths Against Tyranny, Students for Change, and Active Citizens Group, have announced peaceful demonstrations across the country, starting Thursday, August 1.

Former presidential candidate and Revolution Now convener Omoyele Sowore shared a list of participating states on X and encouraged others to attend the rallies.

How’s the government reacting?

Since the announcement, government officials and security forces have urged the public to avoid the protests, referencing the #ENDSARS protest of 2020. 

Vice President Kashim Shettima, in a post shared on his personal account, said protest has never been a solution for nations to solve their challenges.

Lagos Governor Sanwo-Olu advised caution, while Kano Governor Uba Sani warned residents against participating, referencing a deadly protest in 2000. Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun also discouraged protests, stating they often result in losses of lives and property.

Governors of Abia, Akwa Ibom, Benue, and Imo, among others, have also condemned the protest. 

Meanwhile, the presidency disowned a fake statement attributed to President Tinubu, falsely claiming he pleaded with protesters and announced reforms, including a 50% salary cut for top officials. 

Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Ajuri Ngelale clarified that the statement did not come from the presidency.

What about Nigeria’s security forces?

The Department of State Services (DSS) warned that criminal elements might hijack the protest and cause unrest. According to the DSS spokesperson, Peter Afunanya, the planned protest is politically motivated.

Police and military in Lagos, Abia, Borno, Enugu, and Kwara states have similarly cautioned residents, suggesting that miscreants might exploit the peaceful protests.

How are Nigerians reacting?

Reactions to the planned protest are mixed. Many young Nigerians on social media encourage peaceful participation in pressing their demands. 

Everything You Need To Know About the Upcoming #EndBadGovernanceinNigeria Protest

However, on Sunday, July 28, photos and videos emerged of a counter-rally tagged “Say No to Protest” in Lagos, where participants expressed support for President Tinubu’s administration. The individuals called on other youths in the country to shun the protest.

Everything You Need To Know About the Upcoming #EndBadGovernanceinNigeria Protest

Planned sabotage ahead of protest?

There are allegations that the government is collaborating with telcos to restrict access following MTN’s unexpected barring of customer lines. 

However, on Monday, July 29, the Nigerian Communications Commission directed telcos to restore disconnected lines.

Protest begins early in Niger state

The protest against bad governance and the cost-of-living crisis began three days earlier than planned.

On Monday, July 29, youths in Niger State took to the streets to voice their frustration over the hardships Nigerians are currently facing.

The young protesters held placards with messages like “Enough is Enough,” “Hardship is Unbearable,” and “We Are Not Slaves in Our Country.”

However, the Niger State police spokesperson, Abiodun Wasiu, confirmed that law enforcement agents dispersed the protesters.

NYSC warns corps members ahead of planned protest

The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has warned corps members against participating in the planned protest, stating that it goes against its policies.

In a circular sent to state coordinators, local government inspectors, and zonal inspectors, the NYSC also instructed corps members to refrain from wearing their uniforms for now. Additionally, all CDS and biometric capturing activities have been suspended until further notice.

Haiti Gangs Back to Violent Tactics as Kenyan Police Guard Installations

Tuesday July 30 2024

By AGGREY MUTAMBO

The Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) in Haiti led by Kenyan police has been reporting partial successes in the past month since they arrived in the Caribbean country.

But there has been little time to celebrate. 

On Monday, for instance, Haitian Prime Minister (PM) Garry Conille came under fire as he left the General Hospital, also known as the Hospital of the State University of Haiti.

Mr Conille, who came to power in April as a transitional prime minister, had walked into the Hospital with a CNN crew led by Larry Madowo and was accompanied by Haitian National Police (HNP) Director-General Normil Rameau and the General Commander of MSS Godfrey Otunge “to do an assessment,” according to a dispatch.

“Towards the end of his interview, two shots were heard from the nearby neighbourhood. After the PM had successfully completed the interview, he left the hospital with his security detail but at one of the corners at the Hospital, some security officers fired some shots to provide cover for the PM’s exit,” a joint statement by the HNP and the MSS said on Monday.

The PM left the scene unscathed, but the police said they later “pacified the area,” with no injuries or fatalities on their side.

The hospital had been taken over by the HNP and MSS on July 8, after nearly four months of gang control and non-medical activity, which human rights groups said worsened the humanitarian crisis. But it is still not yet operational because of the damage on its facilities, and those of other 30 medical facilities in the city.

When the gangs upped their tempo of violence, hospitals were burned, prisons emptied, and police stations looted. At one point, the main airport in Porto-Au-Prince was under gang control, and so was the main port, which have been recaptured. 

The MSS, now composed of 400 Kenyan police officers and is expected to receive troops from Jamaica soon.

“As part of the team’s effort to provide security for critical infrastructural sites and transit locations, the MSS has made significant strides in patrolling and clearing road blockades that had been,” the Mission said.

Those who have observed gang violence in Haiti, however, say the MSS should expect on-off violent scenes throughout the mission’s stay in Haiti. When they touched down in June, for instance, gang leaders announced that they had withdrawn to the outskirts of the city. 

On Saturday last week, the MSS was confronted with a new battle in Ganthier, just days after they had retaken the Port from gangs. The town east of the capital Porto-Au-Prince lies on a main road connecting Haiti with the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Gangs have reportedly used it to bring in supplies or smuggle drugs.

Otunge told the Nation his troops conquered the main police station in the town, which had been used by the Mawozo gang control their business. The police know the gangs might try to retake the station in future.

Himmler Rebu, a former Haitian colonel argued, said the gangs tend to engage in violence as a show of power and withdraw if instructed by their political minders.

“The criminal gangs operating in Haiti are not autonomous entities. Their visible activities, which are very harmful to the people, are only the tip of the iceberg. Their real leaders are hidden at the heart of the political-financial complex of the state, associated with foreign entities,” Rebu told the Nation recently.

His argument is that while local politicians fan the incitement, gangs earn money and weapons from abroad, often through illicit trade and backing from foreigners.

Haitian gangs can be brutal. Last year, they doubled the country’s homicide rate to 41 deaths in every 100,000 inhabitants, according to UN figures. 

A report by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime said in March that the gangs are neither fully autonomous nor homogenous.

“Criminal groups in Haiti remain proxies and political tools,” said the report, ‘Violence in Haiti: A continuation of politics by other means?’ 

Violent brokers, it said, have sustained operations of gangs and their relations with politicians. They up violence when they deem fit and retract their claws when other means are suitable.

“The gangs seem to be pursuing a strategy of maximum pressure, consisting of attacks interspersed with lulls. Rather than a decision taken solely by the gang leaders, our research suggests this may be the result of the relationships that still bind them to their political bosses, who could be setting (fluid) red lines without renouncing the use of violence for political ends.”

When the MSS arrived, Haitian gangs had announced unity under the Viv Ansamn coalition. But, while that coalition had escalated their control on parts of the city by targeting strategic installations, they also offered political fig leaf of peace. 

In June, gang leader Jimmy Chérizier recorded a video asking the Prime Minister to consolidate the country’s peace and stability, seeing him as an untainted politician. He, however, warned MSS of a confrontation.

EAC Issues Alert on Spread of Monkeypox

Tuesday July 30 2024

Medical staff enter a quarantine area in Lobaya, Central African Republic, on October 18, 2018, following an outbreak of the monkeypox virus.

By XINHUA

The East African Community (EAC) on Monday called on its eight member states to educate their citizens on how to protect themselves and prevent the spread of mpox (monkeypox), an infectious disease caused by the mpox virus.

The alert follows reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) that Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), both members of the EAC, are experiencing an outbreak of the viral disease mpox, the EAC said in a statement issued from its headquarters in Arusha. The statement said Burundi had confirmed three cases of mpox in the western region of the country, verified by national laboratories and the WHO. Since 2022, the DRC has reported more than 21,000 cases of mpox and more than 1,000 deaths, according to the WHO.

Burundi borders the DRC, Rwanda and Tanzania, while the DRC borders five EAC member states – Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan. Kenya and Somalia are also members of the EAC.

Andrea Aguer Ariik Malueth, the EAC deputy secretary-general in charge of infrastructure, productive, social and political sectors, said it was crucial to take preventive measures to minimise the spread of the disease. "EAC member states must provide the necessary information on the disease and take preventive measures," he said.

The mpox virus spreads from animals to humans and is spread between people through close contact, contaminated objects and respiratory droplets. Symptoms of mpox include skin rash or lesions, fever, severe headache, muscle aches, back pain, general body weakness and swollen lymph nodes, typically lasting two to four weeks.

Uganda: Police Crackdown on Anti-corruption Protest, Youth Activists Defy Govt’s Threats

North Africa Post

July 24, 2024 10:30 am

Ugandan police forcefully detained dozens of protesters at an anti-corruption rally in the capital city of Kampala on Tuesday (23 July), as people rallied against the government’s corruption, ignoring warnings by police and President Yoweri Museveni.

Organizers and participants of a planned march against corruption on Tuesday defied a ban on anti-government protests — inspired by weeks-long Gen Z protests in neighboring Kenya — saying they won’t be deterred by Museveni’s threats that they are “playing with fire.” “We’re not intimidated! We stand firm for our rights 2 #March2Parliament to assert our freedom & demand accountability!”, said journalist and activist Makana Kennedy Ndyamuhaki in a post on the social media platform X. “Young people have … decided to take to the streets leading to parliament to complain about this corruption,” added influencer Uwera Lyndah.

Security personnel detained at least 45 people who took part in banned youth-led anti-corruption protests in Kampala, according to Chapter Four Uganda, a rights group, as the capital city has been put in lockdown amid the government’s fears that the demonstrations would continue.

Ugandan military and police were seen deployed in various parts of Kampala where small groups of protesters had gathered on Tuesday. Human Rights Watch Uganda researcher Oryem Nyeko condemned the arrests, and said they were “a reflection of where Uganda is at the moment as far as respect for those rights is concerned”. Museveni has long been accused of failing to prosecute corrupt senior officials who are politically loyal or related to him, an accusation the president has denied.

In This Uganda Region, Most Women Report Domestic Violence

A non-profit group in rural Uganda says domestic violence is so widespread that it’s hard to find a woman who isn’t affected. Ourganda, which is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, recently staged a performance to highlight the crisis in Bundibugyo district, 400 kilometres (248 miles) from the capital of Kampala. Villagers looked on as a man pretended to be a drunken husband. They watched him kick a pot off a fireplace, demand his dinner and then reach for a piece of firewood to strike his wife in rage. (AP video shot by Patrick Onen)

By  RODNEY MUHUMUZA

1:20 AM EDT, July 25, 2024

BUNDIBUGYO, Uganda (AP) — The drunken man kicked the saucepan off the fireplace, demanding to know why dinner was not ready. Then he struck his wife with a piece of firewood, triggering a fight. They grappled before being separated.

The skit about domestic violence had been staged for the benefit of villagers in western Uganda. Some looked puzzled. Some were amused. But others watched in horror as drama mirrored reality.

Here, in a remote farming community near the border with Congo, domestic violence mostly targets women. Those acting out the skit are not immune.

Eva Bulimpikya, who played a woman who fought back, said her real husband had attacked her the previous night after coming home late.

“He was drunk. From nowhere, he said, ‘Can you come and open?’ Because I was almost asleep, when I delayed to open he started complaining … Then he slapped me,” she said.

Years ago, she said, she was slapped so hard that her hearing was impaired. She still gets headaches.

A local nonprofit group that staged the skit says domestic violence is so widespread in this part of Uganda that it’s hard to find a woman who hasn’t been affected. The mountainous district of Bundibugyo is about 400 kilometers (248 miles) from the capital, Kampala.

Representatives of the group, Ourganda, affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said they were compelled to act in 2022 when they encountered a woman and her child who had been attacked by her drunken partner. The child’s head had swollen, and his mother worried he might die.

Ourganda led efforts to prosecute the offender, who was jailed for six months and is now on peaceful terms with his wife. The rare prosecution energized locals and launched the group’s campaign to fight what it saw as the normalization of domestic violence. At the time, 47 of 50 women it surveyed in Bundibugyo said they had experienced violence in the previous week.

The group, working in 10 villages, focuses on instilling fear in offenders as much as educating them. An accused perpetrator is asked to sign a “reconciliation form” in which they pledge never to commit the same offense.

Signing the form prevents an escalation that might lead to police involvement, but the form is also kept as evidence for possible prosecution if the agreement is breached, said Vincent Tibesigwa Isimbwa, Ourganda’s leader in Bundibugyo. Only five of about 100 people have violated the agreement so far, he said.

An expert on gender-based violence in Uganda, Angella Akoth of ActionAid Uganda, said such work targeting perpetrators is recommended, calling it “male engagement strategy.”

The men who separated the fighting couple in the skit were members of a real-life “Mankind Club,” one of many set up by Ourganda to respond as quickly as possible to outbreaks of violence. Thomas Balikigamba, a local man who was jailed for six months over domestic abuse, said he warns others of the harshness of incarceration. “In our drinking points, I always tell members of our group that it is very bad to fight at home,” he said.

The women who sat around the couple were described as “Soul Sisters,” with the role of counseling women or offering them shelter and clothing when they are kicked out of their homes.

Men who are “bleeding internally” — a euphemism for women-on-men violence — are also encouraged to seek support, Isimbwa said: “Any form of violence, we should not tolerate it.”

Domestic violence is a global curse. World Health Organization figures from 2021 show that one in three women worldwide has been subjected to some form of it. In Uganda, a 2020 survey by U.N.-backed local authorities found that 95% of women and girls had experienced physical or sexual violence, or both, after turning 15.

Isimbwa said he has been threatened by some locals for trying to empower women. But Ourganda aims to take its work to more villages and “create rapport” with local officials who make or break efforts to prosecute offenders, he said.

“We have created more awareness in communities. Now people tend to know what they are supposed to do. They try their level best to make sure that they don’t violate other people’s rights,” he said.

Many in Bundibugyo who spoke to The Associated Press said domestic violence is often sparked by financial disputes and disagreements over sex — quarrels that can be intensified by alcoholism and illiteracy.

Most cases are never prosecuted. Out of 2,194 cases of teenage pregnancy in 2023 — a broad category that encompasses some forms of domestic violence — only 54 were reported to the police in Bundibugyo, said Pamela Grace Adong, the district’s probation and social welfare officer. Bundibugyo is home to around 20,000 people.

“It is now going up,” she said of gender-based violence. “For example, last year we got around 575 cases … But this year – this is now June – we have around 300.”

Ourganda’s mediation work helps to police communities, she said.

In the town of Sara-Kihombya, a collection of mud houses across from the Seventh-day Adventist church run by Ourganda, many men congregate in bars in the morning and stay the whole day.

Domestic violence is said to rise between October and February, peak season for harvesting the cocoa plants dotting the volcanic soil. Some couples fight over how to share the earnings, many residents said.

If a man returns home from selling cocoa and the woman asks for some money, “that is war,” said Linda Kabugho, a kindergarten teacher who said that until recently she was repeatedly attacked by her husband.

The 23-year-old Kabugho, who dropped out of secondary school when she became pregnant in 2022, said she would fight with her husband when he came home feeling miserable over his soccer betting losses. “He brings all the anger on me,” she said. “We fight, we fight, we fight.”

Last year she reached out to local officials who introduced her to Ourganda. The couple were counseled by a group of Soul Sisters, and she is now one of them. The man was warned he risked going to jail if he beat his wife again.

Kabugho said her husband had not beaten her in many months, and she thinks of him as a responsible man.

“A least now I can sleep. I can eat very well,” she said. “We are somehow safe, and I am somehow safe.”

Harris Quickly Pivots to Convincing Arab American Voters of Her Leadership

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI

7:08 AM EDT, July 29, 2024

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Osama Siblani’s phone won’t stop ringing.

Just days after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic presidential nomination, top officials from both major political parties have been asking the publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab American News if Harris can regain the support of the nation’s largest Muslim population located in metro Detroit.

His response: “We are in listening mode.”

Harris, who is moving to seize the Democratic nomination after Biden stepped down, appears to be pivoting quickly to the task of convincing Arab American voters in Michigan, a state Democrats believe she can’t afford to lose in November, that she is a leader they can unite behind.

Community leaders have expressed a willingness to listen, and some have had initial conversations with Harris’ team. Many had grown exasperated with Biden after they felt months of outreach had not yielded many results.

“The door is cracked open since Biden has stepped down,” said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. “There’s an opportunity for the Democratic nominee to coalesce the coalition that ushered in Biden’s presidency four years ago. But that responsibility will now fall on the vice president.”

Arab American leaders such as Hammoud and Siblani are watching closely for signals that Harris will be more vocal in pressing for a cease-fire. They’re excited by her candidacy but want to be sure she will be an advocate for peace and not an unequivocal supporter of Israel.

But Harris will need to walk a fine line not to publicly break with Biden’s position on the war in Gaza, where officials in his administration have been working diligently toward a cease-fire, mostly behind the scenes.

The divide within Harris’ own party was evident in Washington last week during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to address Congress. Some Democrats supported the visit, while others protested and refused to attend. Outside the Capitol, pro-Palestinian protesters were met with pepper spray and arrests.

Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress whose district includes Dearborn, held up a sign that read “war criminal” during Netanyahu’s remarks.

Harris did not attend.

Some Arab American leaders interpret her absence — she instead attended a campaign event in Indianapolis — as a sign of good faith with them, though they recognize her ongoing responsibilities as vice president, including a meeting Thursday with Netanyahu.

Her first test within the community will come when Harris chooses a running mate. One of the names on her short list, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, has been public in his criticism of pro-Palestinian protesters and is Jewish. Some Arab American leaders in Michigan say putting him on the ticket would ramp up their unease about the level of support they could expect from a Harris administration.

“Josh Shapiro was one of the first ones to criticize the students on campus. So it doesn’t differentiate Harris very much if she picks him. That just says I’m going to continue the same policies as Biden,” said Rima Meroueh, director of the National Network for Arab American Communities.

Arab Americans are betting that their vote holds enough electoral significance in pivotal swing states like Michigan to ensure that officials will listen to them. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the nation, and the state’s majority-Muslim cities overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020. He won Dearborn, for example, by a roughly 3-to-1 margin over former President Donald Trump.

In February, over 100,000 Michigan Democratic primary voters chose “uncommitted,” securing two delegates to protest the Biden administration’s unequivocal support for Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. Nationally, “uncommitted” garnered a total of 36 delegates in the primaries earlier this year.

The groups leading this effort have called for — at a minimum — an embargo on all weapons shipments to Israel and a permanent cease-fire.

“If Harris called for an arms embargo, I would work around the clock every day until the election to get her elected,” said Abbas Alawieh, an “uncommitted” Michigan delegate and national leader of the movement. “There’s a real opportunity right now to unite the coalition. It’s on her to deliver, but we are cautiously optimistic.”

Those divisions were on full display Wednesday night when the Michigan Democratic Party brought together over 100 delegates to pitch them on uniting behind Harris. During the meeting, Alawieh, one of three state delegates who did not commit to Harris, was speaking when another delegate interrupted him by unmuting and telling him to “shut up,” using an expletive, according to Alawieh.

The call could be a preview of tensions expected to surface again in August, when Democratic leaders, lawmakers, and delegates convene in Chicago for the party’s national convention. Mass protests are planned, and the “uncommitted” movement intends to ensure their voices are heard within the United Center, where the convention will be held.

Trump and his campaign, meanwhile, are keenly aware of the turmoil within the Democratic base and are actively seeking the support of Arab American voters. That effort has been complicated by Trump’s history of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy during his one term as president.

A meeting between over a dozen Arab American leaders from across the country and several of Trump’s surrogates was convened in Dearborn last week. Among the surrogates was Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-born businessman whose son married Tiffany Trump, the former president’s younger daughter, two years ago. Boulos is leveraging his connections to rally support for Trump.

Part of the pitch that Boulos and Bishara Bahbah, chairman of Arab Americans for Trump, made in Dearborn was that Trump has shown an openness to a two-state solution. He posted a letter on social media from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and pledged to work for peace in the Middle East.

“The three main points that were noted in the meeting were that Trump needs to state more clearly that he wants an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and that he supports the two-state solution, and that there is no such thing as a Muslim ban,” said Bahbah. “This is what the community wants to hear in a clear manner.”

Before a July 20 rally in Michigan, Trump also met with Bahbah, who pressed him about a two-state solution. According to Bahbah, Trump responded affirmatively, saying, “100%.”

But any apparent political opportunity for Trump may be limited by criticism from many Arab Americans about the former president’s ban on immigration from several majority Muslim countries and remarks they felt were insulting.

“I have not heard any individuals saying I’m now rushing to Donald Trump,” said Hammoud, Dearborn’s Democratic mayor. “I have yet to hear that in any of the conversations I’ve had. They all know what Donald Trump represents.”

Siblani, who organized Wednesday’s meeting with Trump surrogates, has spent months serving as an intermediary between his community and officials from all political parties and foreign dignitaries. Privately, he says, almost all express the need for a permanent cease-fire.

“Everybody wants our votes, but nobody wants to be seen as aligning with us publicly,” Siblani said.

Cappelletti covers politics and state government for The Associated Press in Michigan. He is based in Lansing.

‘White Dudes for Harris’ is the Latest in a Series of Zoom Gatherings Backing the Vice President

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks at a campaign event in Pittsfield, Mass., Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough, Pool)

By WILL WEISSERT

11:19 PM EDT, July 29, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — On a “White Dudes for Harris” virtual call, it was probably fitting that “The Dude” dropped in.

Actor Jeff Bridges addressed a fundraising event geared toward white men supporting Vice President Kamala Harris and sang her praises on Monday night, before channeling his iconic role as “The Dude” in 1998’s “The Big Lebowski,” declaring, “As the Dude might say, ‘That’s just my opinion, man.’” (The original line was “That’s just, like, your opinion, man.”)

The call lasted more than three hours and organizers said it attracted 180,000-plus people who donated more than $3.7 million. It was the latest in a series of Zoom gatherings to raise money and rally support among tens of thousands of supporters for Harris, after President Joe Biden announced he was leaving the presidential race and endorsing her.

Zooms have previously been organized by supporters’ backgrounds — including Black women, Hispanic women, Black men, Asian Americans, Native Americans and the LGBTQ+ community.

It reflected how Democrats, including Biden, have frequently relied on voters from broad and disparate backgrounds to piece together a diverse coalition of support. The president’s 2020 victory, for example, relied on segments of the population ranging from organized labor to conservative, suburban women disillusioned with Republican Donald Trump.

The “white dudes” Zoom event also featured appearances from actors Mark Ruffalo, Mark Hamill and Bradley Whitford, who deadpanned about so many white male speakers being “a rainbow of beige.”

Also participating were Democratic officials including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, all of whom have been mentioned as potential Harris running mates.

Pritzker joked that he wouldn’t normally attend “an event with a name like, White Dudes for” something, while Buttigieg talked about what an honor it was to share a call with Bridges as “The Dude” before striking a more serious tone: “Men are also more free in a country where we have a president who stands up for things like access to abortion rights.”

Walz said Trump supporters aren’t inherently bad people but urged participants: “Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values. One person’s socialism is another person neighborliness.”

Ross Morales Rocketto, a progressive operative who founded the “dudes” group, said, “We know that the silent majority of white men aren’t MAGA supporters,” referring to Trump’s ”Make America Great Again” movement.

The Zoom calls haven’t been organized by Harris’ team, but her campaign welcomes the assist — and the millions of dollars in fundraising. “Winning campaigns are powered by real, organic support,” said Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler.

Amit Ahuja, a political science professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara whose research focus includes the processes of inclusion and exclusion in multiethnic societies, said that “no campaign’s going to say no” to groups from different backgrounds organizing themselves and bolstering enthusiasm and fundraising.

But he said that it is up to the candidate to accept support from individual groups while offering a larger personal story that can resonate with the larger country as a whole. An example, he said, is then-candidate Barack Obama, who rose above early campaign questions about racial identities to build a narrative around his personal story and hope.

“This is a challenge for both sides. This is a tight race. They both have to compile the largest possible coalition. And, by leaning into one identity or the other, they could actually really hurt themselves,” Ahuja said. He said the best response is to urge voters to “look at the candidate, don’t look at the groups.”

The calls for Harris often feature celebrities who have supported Biden’s campaign in the past. And their sheer number demonstrates how the vice president will need to appeal to different facets of the increasingly pluralistic population.

The political networking group “Win With Black Women” held a Zoom meeting the same night that Biden dopped out, and saw its number of participants swell to more than 44,000. It featured celebratory speeches from activists, business leaders, members of Congress and staff from the vice president’s office.

After that, a “Win With Black Men” virtual fundraising event attracted more than 53,000 attendees. They heard several presentations, including by 27-year-old Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, who had been a leading advocate for Biden’s campaign among younger voters, and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock.

A Zoom of “White Women for Harris” attracted more than 164,000 participants — so many that the platform struggled to meet the demand. It was headlined by the likes of singer Pink, soccer star Megan Rapinoe and actor Connie Britton.

Trump’s campaign has also organized different groups of supporters by their distinct backgrounds, including events in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Georgia for Black voters and “Latino Americans for Trump.”

Some Republicans have criticized Harris for her “diversity, equality and inclusion politics,” arguing that the vice president’s political career was helped by Democratic efforts to promote diversity. That’s despite House Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders on Capitol Hill discouraging lines of criticism that they considered racist and sexist — instead urging members of the party to focus their criticisms on Harris’ political record.

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who announced he didn’t want to be considered as Harris’ running mate just before Monday’s night call began, asked those assembled about GOP attacks, “A DEI candidate?”

“Here’s what they’re saying, that women and people of color don’t deserve to lead,” Cooper said. “We know better than that, guys.”

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Associated Press writers Matt Brown in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Will is a national political reporter based in Washington.