الكاتب: kafej

Sitting President Weah was accused of failing to live up to his promises of curbing poverty and fighting corruption.

Joseph Boakai has become Liberia’s new leader after his rival and sitting President George Weah conceded a tight election to mark a peaceful transfer of power in a region that has recently seen many military coups.

The country’s elections commission said on Friday that the 78-year-old Boakai, a former vice president, has managed to secure a narrow victory with 50.9 percent of the vote to Weah’s 49.1 percent, with almost all the votes counted.

“The Liberian people have spoken and we have heard their voice,” Weah said in an address to the nation.

“I urge you to follow my example and accept the result of the elections,” he said, adding that “our time will come again” in 2029 when Boakai’s six-year term in office ends.

The results mark a considerable shift compared with 2017 when former international football star Weah had succeeded in defeating Boakai comfortably by garnering 62 percent of the vote.

He had ridden a wave of public hope to the presidency, promising to combat poverty, develop the country’s ailing infrastructure and crackdown on injustice and corruption.

But voters grew disillusioned over time and the 57-year-old Weah was accused of failing to live up to his election promises to improve conditions in the West African nation.

Regardless of the results of Friday’s vote, the fact that the president conceded even before the final official tally was announced is significant as the region has seen eight military coups in the past three years, raising concerns about the fall of the democratic process.

Gabon, in Central Africa, earlier this year became the latest nation in the region to experience a coup as military leaders swept up power in the aftermath of a presidential election.

When elections are not overtaken by military commanders in the region, they usually are contested in court, with accusations of fraud abound.

But Boakai supporters took to the streets in the capital Monrovia after he was declared the winner to celebrate. Boakai told the Reuters news agency after the results were announced that “we have a job ahead of us to do and I’m excited that the citizens have given us approval”.

“First and foremost, we want to have a message of peace and reconciliation,” he said.

Boakai’s victory comes as Liberia is trying to recover from two civil wars between 1989 and 2003 that killed at least 250,000 people, and an Ebola outbreak in the mid-2010s that killed thousands.

Rescuers in Uttarakhand temporarily suspend work after hearing ‘large-scale cracking sound’.

Indian rescue workers have paused efforts to reach 40 men trapped in a collapsed highway tunnel over fears of more cave-ins.

Rescuers temporarily suspended work on Friday after a “large-scale cracking sound” was heard while trying to restart a drilling machine, the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL) said.

The sound created “a panic situation” for rescuers and there was a “strong possibility of further collapse”, the NHIDCL said.

Excavators have been removing debris since Sunday after a portion of the under-construction tunnel in the northern Himalayan state of Uttarakhand caved in.

Rescue efforts have been hindered by falling debris and the repeated breakdown of drilling machinery.

The trapped men have been supplied with light, oxygen, food, water and medicines from the outside and are able to communicate via walkie-talkie.

NHIDCL director Anshu Manish Khalko on Friday warned that the rescue operation “may take time”.

The 4.5km (3 mile) tunnel is being constructed between Silkyara and Dandalgaon to connect the Hindu shrines of Uttarkashi and Yamunotri.

The project is seen as one of the most ambitious undertakings of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

Authorities have not given a reason for the collapse, but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.

Accidents on large infrastructure construction sites are not uncommon in India.

Earlier this year, Indian authorities evacuated hundreds of people from their homes in Joshimath town, also located in Uttarakhand, after buildings in the area popular with pilgrims and tourists developed cracks.

Medan, Indonesia – Indonesian medics have held a communal prayer event in Jakarta to call for a ceasefire and an end to the “genocide” in Gaza where the Indonesia Hospital, located in the north of the war-torn Palestinian enclave, has been forced to cease operations.

The event held in Jakarta and online included staff from Indonesia’s doctors’, midwives’, pharmacists’ and dentists’ associations, and was organised by the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C) which helped fund the construction of the Indonesian Hospital in 2011.

It is “time to scream to the world, stop genocide”, the Indonesian Medical Association and MER-C said in a joint statement.

“Attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers constitute violations of international law,” they said in the statement.

“A total of 22 hospitals and 49 health centres were forced to stop operating in the Gaza Strip due to Israeli arrogance,” the two groups said, calling on Indonesia’s government to “engage in firm diplomacy on the international stage to pressure Israel to cease its aggression in Gaza”.

Three Indonesian volunteers, Fikri Rofiul Haq, Reza Aldilla Kurniawan and Farid Zanjabil Al Ayubi, are currently based at the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza’s Beit Lahia.

The hospital’s director, Atef al-Kahlout, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that the medical facility was no longer able to “offer any more services … we cannot offer patients any beds”.

Severe Israeli attacks were reported in the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital on Friday. Describing the bombing, journalist Hussam Shabbat said from the Indonesian Hospital: “We lived 15 minutes of hell.”

Shabbat said that while Israel has bombed the area daily, Friday was the most difficult day since the war began.

Dr Zecky Eko Triwahyudi, an orthopaedics and traumatology doctor at the Jakarta Cempaka Putih Islamic Hospital, who attended the prayer event in the Indonesian capital, said it was “the least he could do” to support the people of Gaza.

“Health facilities, which should not be targeted, have been targeted by Israeli forces for the past month. Without any basis, excuses are made up as justification for attacking hospitals and health workers. All hospitals in the Gaza Strip have become targets,” he said.

Triwahyudi said that a humanitarian response was a matter of urgency as the two largest and best-known trauma hospitals in the Gaza Strip, al-Shifa Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, “have been paralysed in the last few days”.

The Indonesian Hospital is the main trauma hospital in northern Gaza, and thus offers essential care in that area, while al-Shifa Hospital is located in central Gaza, he said.

‘Indonesia’s response could be more robust’

While Indonesian health workers have rallied behind the Indonesian Hospital and the plight of Gaza, Indonesia’s government faces a challenging diplomatic situation regarding the war, and the fate of the hospital and its staff, as Jakarta moves closer to the United States – Israel’s staunchest ally.

Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country and has seen large demonstrations in support of Palestinians as well as calls for a boycott of businesses seen as linked to Israel.

During a meeting earlier this week, Indonesian President Joko Widodo pressed US President Joe Biden to do more to end “atrocities” in Gaza and help bring about a ceasefire. The two then agreed to elevate diplomatic relations to a “comprehensive strategic partnership”.

Ahmad Rizky M Umar, an associate lecturer at the University of Queensland, told Al Jazeera that while Indonesia built and facilitates the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza, it is unable to protect it now.

“Indonesia does not have sufficient diplomatic capacity to defend it, especially from attacks by” Israeli forces, he said. “Indonesia’s response could be more robust by convincing other countries to put pressure on Israel. Especially, to encourage a ceasefire and stronger humanitarian response,” he said.

Dr Yogi Prabowo, also an orthopaedic and traumatology doctor at the Jakarta Cempaka Putih Islamic Hospital, said the Indonesian Hospital’s cessation of operations will likely have fatal consequences for Palestinians, particularly after al-Shifa also stopped providing services.

“The Indonesian Hospital was the last breath of medical services in Gaza, but now it has stopped,” Prabowo said.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Thousands of displaced people and patients, many in critical condition, do not have ambulances or a means to move.

Israeli forces have given doctors, patients and displaced people at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza one hour to evacuate the compound, a medical source told Al Jazeera.

The doctor said it was an “impossible” as the facility, which has been bombarded and besieged by Israeli troops for days, houses thousands of people, many in critical condition.

“They do not have any ambulances to transfer the patients and premature babies to the south [of Gaza],” said Al Jazeera’s Youmna ElSayed, reporting from Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Saturday.

“This is what he called ‘a crisis’, to ask them to evacuate in one hour.”

This is a breaking story. More to follow.

Before Hamas’s unprecedented incursion into Israeli territory on October 7, Kibbutz Be’eri was a cherished corner of paradise.

Located in the northwestern Negev desert, its avocado groves and cotton, wheat and barley fields were shared among the close-knit group of residents practising the communal way of life rooted in a socialist brand of Zionism.

Its 1,100 inhabitants had grown accustomed to the sounds of the air defence system occasionally intercepting incoming rockets from the nearby Gaza Strip, but visitors were often startled by the glaring reminder of a decades-long conflict that otherwise went on largely unseen.

Ariella Giniger visited her friend Vivian Silver, a 74-year-old, Canadian-born peace activist, two weeks before the surprise attack killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, including about 100 Be’eri residents.

During an early morning walk in the wilderness, they came across the fence running 41km (25 miles) northwards along the perimeter of the enclave. “I was a little nervous looking at Gaza,” Giniger, 70, told Al Jazeera. “I said, ‘Let’s go back, so that we’re in time for yoga’, and we had a beautiful breakfast.”

On October 4, days before the manicured landscape became a scene of death and devastation, Silver, a founding member of the Israeli-Palestinian Women Wage Peace (WWP) movement, marched from Jerusalem alongside Israeli and Palestinian women advocating for a peaceful, women-led solution to the conflict.

The march was the culmination of years of work, and they gathered around a symbolic negotiation table as they reached the shores of the Dead Sea. “We called for an agreement as opposed to a ‘settlement’ or an ‘arrangement’,” Giniger, an active member of the WWP, said. “An agreement is something that both sides agree upon. We thought any mother in the world would want that.”

Three days later, on the day now commonly referred to as Black Saturday, Hamas fighters tore through the fence that had kept two worlds largely separate. They targeted border areas in Israel, many of which happened to be historical leftist strongholds where residents identify as proponents of peace.

Silver, who moved to Israel from Winnipeg in 1973 to engage in peace work, was confirmed this week to be among the victims. Her remains were identified in Kibbutz Be’eri, dashing hopes that she might have been captured and taken to Gaza with about 240 other people.

Talks of reconciliation among Israeli leftists have largely been replaced by raw sentiments of pain and grief amid widespread support for Israel’s war on Gaza. In the hours after the Hamas attack, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu promised to “take mighty vengeance” and “turn Gaza into a deserted island”. He launched a relentless bombing campaign followed by a ground invasion that has since killed at least 11,500 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 4,700 children.

Some bereaved Israelis are determined not to let their losses be used to justify taking revenge on the people of Gaza, even as any prospects for peace seem more outlandish than ever. “We are just drowning in our own violence and blood,” Yonatan Zeigen, Silver’s 35-year-old son, told Al Jazeera. “Israel won’t cure our dead babies by killing more babies.”

Silver was one among several victims known to regularly volunteer to drive sick Palestinians from the Gaza border to hospitals in Israel for treatment. Before June 2007 when Hamas took control of the enclave and Israel imposed a blockade, she would visit Palestinian communities in a bid to forge dialogue.

“My mother believed in human encounters. She did a lot to get people from both sides together to humanise each other and to see that, in the end, we all want peaceful lives,” Zeigen said.

“The concept of resistance cannot be eradicated with force but with peace. So the question now is, is there an option for peace?”

Building bridges

Individual efforts to build bridges often run counter to the security approach undertaken by the Israeli government. An estimated 2.3 million Palestinians have been confined for the best part of two decades to live in 365sq km (140sq miles) under severe restrictions on the economy and their movement. According to the Israeli watchdog B’Tselem, in 2022, Israel denied more than 20,000 requests from patients seeking medical care in Israeli hospitals. The grounds for rejection are never disclosed.

Gaza, described as an “open-air prison” by human rights watchdogs, was born out of the mass exodus of Palestinians during the war that followed the creation of Israel in May 1948. More than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes, an event remembered as the Nakba, which means “catastrophe”.

Across the fence surrounding the crowded strip, kibbutz residents live in towns that once bore Palestinian names with allowances for home expansions as they have more children. The Law of Return passed by the Israeli parliament in 1950 gives Jews from across the world the right to relocate to the land and acquire citizenship, a process known as “making aliyah”.

Competing claims to the land and failed attempts at brokering a two-state solution have long rendered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one of the most intractable in the world.

Udi Goren, a photographer and activist, was part of a group of Israelis and Palestinians offering dual narrative tours of the region before the recent hostilities ground tourism to a halt.

Goren’s own family has now been embroiled in the conflict. His 42-year-old cousin, Tal Haimi, was taken captive in Nir Yithak, a kibbutz 35km (22 miles) from Be’eri. The father of three is thought to have left a bomb shelter to face the assailants when it became clear that a ground assault was taking place.

“He’s a really stand-up guy, always the first to offer help and has a constant smile on his face,” Goren told Al Jazeera. “I don’t see how the continuation of this war is going to bring my cousin back.”

Goren has been a vocal member of a group of relatives demanding the return of all captives in exchange for a ceasefire in Gaza. While the call for revenge among the Israeli public has been “loud and clear”, he said he is “horrified” at the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

“I don’t think that what we’re doing is in Israel’s interest,” he said. “Winning over Hamas will not happen through war. There’s no way. Making sure that Hamas doesn’t come back after this war means reaching major agreements about the regional status quo and giving hope to Gazans.”

‘War is easier than dialogue’

Speaking on behalf of the captives’ families at the United Nations on October 25, Rachel Goldberg-Polin said she has “lived on a different planet” since the shocking news that her 23-year-old son, Hersh, had been abducted by Hamas.

The Israeli American was among 3,000 revellers attending an electronic music festival 5.3km (3.3 miles) from Gaza as Hamas fighters breached the fence and entered southern Israel.

He ran for cover in a bomb shelter and was later caught on camera as he was abducted by Hamas. The lower half of his left arm appeared to have been blown off by a grenade, and he had fashioned a makeshift tourniquet out of clothes to stem the bleeding.

Choked with emotion, Goldberg-Polin spoke of the pain of not knowing whether her son was alive or had died minutes, hours or days ago. But she also stressed that in times of trial, everyone across the globe is called to ask themselves: “Do I aspire to be human, or am I swept up in the enticing and delicious world of hatred?”

Speaking to Al Jazeera, she said the “cycles of violence that humans put themselves through are not productive”. “We go through these cycles of hatred, war, violence and revenge, and the people who get hurt are the innocent,” she added.

She described Hersh as a voracious reader with a dry sense of humour and a love for travel and music. Members of the campaign Bring Hersh Home also described him as a fervent anti-racist and part of Hapoel Jerusalem, a politically left-leaning football club rooted in socialist principles.

“Dialogue is always the way to deal with conflict because what’s much easier is going to war,” Goldberg-Polin said. “There are segments of my society that I’m not proud of, and it is important to be able to say: ‘I’m Jewish, and I do not agree with the atrocities that Jewish terrorists have perpetrated against our Palestinian neighbours. They are unacceptable.’”

“But this is not a competition of pain. Nobody wins. We have all suffered terribly,” she added. “Fear of the other is much easier, but there are still people who want a society that can work for everyone.”