التصنيف: estaql

Ukraine and Russia both claim to have thwarted major drone attacks as a former NATO chief warned against world attention shifting from the ongoing conflict.

Kyiv said its military had destroyed eight of nine unmanned aircraft launched overnight by invading forces.

There were no immediate reports of damage or about where the remaining device had struck.

The attack comes a day after what officials described as Russia’s largest drone offensive of the war.

Ukraine has warned in recent weeks that Russia will target critical infrastructure in a winter aerial campaign, as it did last year.

Meanwhile, Moscow said it had shot down at least 20 drones over Russian territory, including the capital.

One person was injured in the city of Tula when an intercepted drone hit an apartment building, the region’s governor Alexei Dyumin said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said: “A mass drone attack was attempted overnight.”

Russian media reported flights were delayed or cancelled at Moscow’s main airports due to the drone attack.

Against this backdrop, former NATO secretary-general Lord Robertson of Port Ellen stressed the need for the international focus to “stay on Ukraine”, with the situation in Israel and Gaza dominating much of the news agenda.

Read more on Sky News:
Eurovision winner on Russia wanted list says Kremlin is trying to ‘scare’ her
The importance of David Cameron’s trip to Kyiv

The Labour former defence secretary cautioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be emboldened to extend the attacks beyond Ukraine if foreign governments stop providing weaponry.

Lord Robertson, who led the military alliance between 1999 and 2003, welcomed the temporary ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict, but said: “I think it is inevitable that because we’re seeing the television from Gaza every day, that people are paying less attention to Ukraine, but that must change.

“We have got to keep the world’s attention focused on Ukraine because they are involved in a fight with Russia that has got huge implications for all of us as well.

“Vladimir Putin is not simply interested in subjugating Ukraine.

“He has got a much bigger agenda in the future, and if he succeeds in Ukraine, who knows where he is going to stop.”

He added: “We cannot allow the Ukraine conflict to go down the attention span. That suits Vladimir Putin and nobody else.

“The fact is that most of his objectives have actually turned to dust. He wanted to stop NATO enlargement, and it is now bigger. He wanted to divide Europe and divide Europe from America, he failed in that respect.

“He wanted to take over the whole of Ukraine and now he is stuck in the Donbas. There’s a miserable failure there by the one man who made the decision to invade Ukraine.

“We have got to change the mind of that one man by staying absolutely united and making sure that Ukrainians get the weaponry and the ammunition they need, when they actually need it.

“That is the only way we’ll change Vladimir Putin’s mind. The stakes are enormously high because if Putin succeeds, he won’t stop at Ukraine.”

Lord Robertson also called for a long-term solution to resolve the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He said: “I think gradually the countries in the region will need to come together to find a long-term solution so that the Israelis and the Palestinians can live in harmony together.

“The present conflict will go on and on for years unless there is a long-term solution.”

Five Palestinians were shot dead in Jenin, while a sixth was killed in the village of Yatma in Nablus on Sunday.

Israeli forces have killed six Palestinians, including one minor, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, taking the total number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank to 239 since October 7.

Israeli forces shot dead five Palestinians in the city of Jenin late on Saturday and early Sunday, and killed a sixth in the village of Yatma, near Nablus, the ministry said on Sunday. Six other Palestinians were injured in the Israeli raid in Jenin.

Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces stormed Jenin “from several directions, firing bullets and surrounding government hospitals and the headquarters of the Red Crescent Society”.

The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said it was looking into the reports.

The raids come despite an ongoing four-day truce between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas in the war-torn Gaza Strip, where nearly 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes.

Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed in the surprise Hamas attack on October 7, when the Palestinian group took about 240 people captive.

On Saturday, Hamas released 13 Israeli and four Thai captives, while Israel released a first batch of 39 Palestinian prisoners in exchange. More Israeli captives and Palestinian prisoners are expected to be freed on Sunday.

Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 237 Palestinians, including 52 children, in the occupied West Bank, while arresting more than 3,000 people, as it intensified raids in the West Bank since launching its military offensive on Gaza.

Last year was the “deadliest” for the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2006, according to the United Nations. Israeli forces had killed 170 Palestinians in those areas in 2022. This year, Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 371 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

“For every Palestinian prisoner [the Israelis] release, there seems to be a continued disregard for the freedoms of Palestinians they continue to detain, a continuous disregard for Palestinian life as they continue to kill people in very violent and endless raids in the occupied West Bank,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Zein Basravi, reporting from Ramallah in the West Bank.

Seven weeks of relentless Israeli attacks in Gaza killed at least 14,854 Palestinians, more than a third of them children, and displaced at least 1.5 million, according to Gaza officials.

Farmers in the occupied West Bank face near-daily incursions and violence from Israeli settlers, to the point that they live in fear of having their homes and land stolen, they say.

Added to that is the violence they witness in nearby urban areas, like Jenin city and refugee camp that the Israeli army stepped up raids on, killing 10 people and wounding 20 in just one week.

According to the Ministry of Health, at least 237 Palestinians have been killed and about 2,850 others injured by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since October 7.

Farmer Ayman Assad, 45, and his family can clearly hear the attacks from their home just 2km (1.2 miles) from the camp and they have made the past few weeks a nightmare for him, his wife and five children.

“The children are constantly scared, and they don’t play outside any more, it’s too dangerous,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We can hear the attacks on the refugee camp, explosions and gunshots.”

Assad said his children are no longer going to school because even if they were to brave the route there, the Israeli army is blocking many of the roads in the area. All classes have gone online.

The greatest worry right now is that his chicken farm, which is further away in Area C of the West Bank, will be attacked by Israeli settlers while he is unable to defend it. “I’m scared my land will be stolen.”

Palestine is known for its olives, olive oil and vegetables, which are exported far and wide. The olive trees, in particular, are an important symbol of Palestinians’ attachment to their land.

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since 1967. Since then, about 700,000 Israeli settlers have illegally settled in the Palestinian territory. and have been stealing from, attacking and destroying olive groves, farmland and property there for years.

But these incursions have stepped up in recent weeks, as Israeli forces and settlers mount armed raids while Palestinians are confined to their homes under curfew, Abbas Milhem, director of the Palestinian Farmers’ Union (PAFU) in Ramallah said. His own family’s farm was among those targeted.

‘A second war is happening in the West Bank’

Just over two weeks ago, armed Israeli settlers invaded the Milhem farm, fired guns in the direction of the people working on the harvest and stole olives.

One of the workers at the farm, Iman Abdallah Jawabri, 45, was harvesting olives in a crew that included her husband when five settlers came in.

“They shot towards us as if they wanted to scare us, then when they came closer, they took our phones to prevent us from taking photos of them. Then they told all the women to leave and started hitting the men, forcing them to sit on the ground under the olive trees.

“We (the women) were still looking at them from afar. After this, they took all of our olives and forced us to leave.”

The farm is now under military control despite being in Area B of the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority technically controls civilian matters. The Milhems and their workers have been unable to return.

“The farmers are afraid of being shot if they do,” said Iman.

“I have several grandchildren and fear for the future, but I also thank God for what we have and pray for the people of Gaza,” she added.

“There is a second war in Palestine which is happening in the occupied West Bank,” said Milhem. “It is also crucial to understand how it affects farmers in the occupied West Bank.”

He added that he cannot travel to visit his ageing mother in Jenin because Israeli forces have blocked many of the roads.

“I am also afraid when my sons go out at night, and I call them constantly to see if they are OK,” he said.

‘They have guns – I only have my hands’

According to Human Rights Watch, Israeli security forces have killed more Palestinians in the occupied West Bank between January 1 and October 6 this year than in any year since 2005, when the United Nations began recording fatalities. This has raised Palestinian fears for their safety and the safety of their families, in addition to their fears for their livelihoods.

Being unable to move around the West Bank to work since October 7 due to the vastly increased raids and curfews by Israeli forces and armed settlers means Palestinians are facing a crisis.

According to the UN, poverty has increased by 20 percent and gross domestic product declined by 4.2 percent since October 7.

Milhem said exports have completely stopped and nearly 50 percent of olives have not been harvested because of restrictions by the Israeli army on Palestinians’ movement.

Another Palestinian farmer, Salah Awwad, 28, lost his home and land in Wadi Tahta in the south of the occupied West Bank in August. Settlers invaded his land, poured benzene around his property and set it on fire, destroying his beehives.

They took over the land and Awwad was forced to flee with his family of eight children. After a few days, he said, he was able to retrieve his 100 sheep, but he can no longer return to the land.

Since October 7, conditions at his new home in Sha’ab Tariq, 9km (5.6 miles) away, have worsened and now his livelihood is in the balance: he is not allowed to let his sheep graze, he told Al Jazeera.

“The settlers are surrounding my home, and they are not letting me work,” he said. “I am afraid I might be shot, as they carry guns. What can I do? They have their weapons; I only have my hands.”

Awwad added that, while life was difficult before the war began, prices have now risen sharply, particularly for farmers. The price of fodder for his sheep has risen by more than one-third since October 7.

“No one is looking at us, only God,” he said. “But I will not move again, even if they try to force me.”

Cairo, Egypt – A large gathering of international and grassroots aid organisations working in Sudan has met to discuss the increasingly desperate needs of people on the ground as the armed conflict continues to take lives and displace hundreds of thousands – as well as how to work together more effectively.

International organisations need to communicate and coordinate more effectively with local groups, Mawada Mohammed, head of psychological rehabilitation and community development organisation Ud, in Khartoum, told Al Jazeera at the Sudan Humanitarian Crisis Conference in Cairo (November 18 to 20).

She said this “lack of coordination among themselves and between them and governments or international organisations” is one of the greatest challenges local groups face.

CEO of diaspora-led humanitarian organisation, Shabaka, Bashair Ahmed told Al Jazeera: “Local responders should have a voice in high-level policy and advocacy … they must be provided with the tools and skills to do so, and not just invited to be dressing.”

Kidnap, rape and assault

Since the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began a military campaign to seize control of Khartoum on April 15, more than 10,000 people have been killed and at least six million displaced due to the heavy fighting that has spread through most states.

The head of the World Health Organization warned that the conflict in Sudan is having “a devastating impact on lives, health and well-being”, as aid agencies raised the alarm that their Sudanese workers are being kidnapped, raped and assaulted.

In a speech to the conference, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 700 million Sudanese children suffer “severe, acute malnutrition” and the country’s beleaguered healthcare system is nearing “a breaking point”.

Dr Abubakr Bakri, operations manager for Eastern Africa at Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), called for humanitarian workers to be provided with security.

MSF staff have endured beatings, death threats and theft during the past months of the conflict, he said. He added that violence and threats were mainly directed towards MSF’s Sudanese staff, a point echoed by other NGOs at the summit, who said female local staff have also been kidnapped and raped.

Aid organisations said they are unable to reach places where people need the most assistance due to fighting and blockades, and warned that local workers are in increasing danger.

Experts from NGOs highlighted that more than half of Sudan’s population – 25 million people – are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and the medical situation is critical, with 70 to 80 percent of all hospitals out of service across the country.

At least seven areas have come under siege by the RSF in Khartoum alone, Mukhtar Atif, a volunteer for the Emergency Response Rooms, said. Other areas away from the capital have been completely cut off by fighting, rendering the arrival of humanitarian supplies impossible, he added.

“There is a mounting difficulty in providing humanitarian assistance to citizens who find themselves in conflict zones,” Mohammed Salah, a Sudanese activist and member of the Emergency Lawyers group, told Al Jazeera.

A call for humanitarian corridors

Salah joined the conference in Cairo after more than 48 hours of travelling from Gezira State in Sudan, where he has been staying since his home in Khartoum was overrun by fighting. He said the 1,020km (634-mile) journey to the airport at Port Sudan was full of checkpoints operated by the Sudanese Army, at which all passengers were searched and interrogated.

The checkpoints operated by both RSF and Sudanese Army forces pose a significant obstacle to the movement of people and goods, making humanitarian responses to urgent needs extremely difficult, experts said.

International relief organisations, including conference co-organiser the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), called for the creation of humanitarian corridors to enable aid workers to assist those in need.

NRC’s Secretary-General Jan Egeland said aid and staff convoys were not being allowed to perform their humanitarian duties, especially in the areas that are suffering the most due to the raging conflict – Khartoum and Darfur.

“Unfortunately, there is no way to put pressure on the warring parties to force them to open safe corridors and paths. We continue to urge them to do so but without success,” Salah said.

One month ago, MSF announced that it had been forced to suspend life-saving surgical activities at the Bashair Teaching Hospital in south Khartoum because of the military blockade on supplies.

Aid officials and experts said, however, that nothing can be achieved without political and diplomatic efforts. Lawyer Mohammed Salah said: “The international community must put pressure on the warring parties to put an end to this human suffering and war.”

As NRC’s Egeland noted when he opened the conference, there is no “humanitarian solution for a horrific war”.

“There are political and diplomatic solutions for the war and for the rebuilding of the country, accompanied by humanitarian assistance.”