LONDON: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Thursday stressed the importance of dialogue and diplomatic solutions to the ongoing Ukraine crisis, during a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
During the call, Zelensky briefed El-Sisi on the latest developments in the crisis and in the course of the negotiations, where the Egyptian leader affirmed his country’s support for all endeavors that would speed up a political settlement to the conflict through discussions and negotiations.
Spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency Bassam Rady said El-Sisi said that Egypt was following with great concern and concern the developments on the ground and the resulting deterioration of the humanitarian situation, expressing appreciation for the measures taken by the Ukrainian side to facilitate the exit of Egyptian citizens from the Ukrainian ports, and to ensure their safety and security.
Zelensky expressed his appreciation and gratitude for Egyptian efforts to continue hosting Ukrainian tourists in tourist resorts in Egypt, providing them with all means of assistance since the outbreak of the crisis, as well as facilitating the procedures for their return to Ukraine’s neighboring countries.

NEW YORK: An investigator appointed by the UN has accused Israel of the crime of apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is the first time an official from the organization has used the term to describe what other international watchdogs have said is a struggle for equal rights rather than a dispute over land.

Michael Lynk is a special rapporteur, an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, tasked with investigating human rights abuses in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

“There are now five million stateless Palestinians living without rights, in an acute state of subjugation and with no path to self-determination or a viable independent state, which the international community has repeatedly promised as their right,” Lynk said ahead of the publication of a full report on his most recent investigations.

The two-tier justice system that Israel operates in the West Bank has cemented oppression of Palestinians that can no longer be seen as an unintended consequence of temporary occupation, he added.

“The differences in living conditions and citizenship rights and benefits are stark, deeply discriminatory and maintained through systematic and institutionalized oppression,” Lynk stated in his report.

It describes a situation in which Israeli Jews and Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live “under a single regime which differentiates its distribution of rights and benefits on the basis of national and ethnic identity and which ensures the supremacy of one group over, and to the detriment of, the other.”

This system “endows one racial-national-ethnic group with substantial rights, benefits and privileges while intentionally subjecting another group to live behind walls, checkpoints and under a permanent military rule. (This) satisfies the prevailing evidentiary standard for the existence of apartheid.”

Other international watchdogs have previously accused Israel of implementing policies of “domination and oppression” in the Occupied Territories that amount to apartheid.

Amnesty International is the latest rights advocate to accuse Israel of operating an apartheid system by embracing laws and practices that are intended to maintain a “cruel system of control over Palestinians, have left them fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and in a constant state of fear and insecurity.”

Although Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations have described the situation in the Occupied Territories as “apartheid” for many years, in recent months the term has increasingly become part of the international discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During a recent meeting of the UN Security Council, Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour wore a black mask emblazoned with the words “end apartheid.”

“This council may not be ready to use the word but apartheid is, and has been for a while now, our reality,” he told the members of the council.

Israeli authorities have repeatedly accused the UN of producing biased reports. They have said that it is unfair to apportion blame to Israel without taking into account the security challenges it faces and the daily threats to its citizens from armed Palestinian groups.

WASHINGTON/CAIRO: The US State Department said it welcomed the trilateral summit on Tuesday between the leaders of Egypt, Israel and the UAE, who met in Sharm El-Sheikh for talks on the economic impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the growing influence of Iran in the region.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters that US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley has been in close consultations with Gulf partners.

The summit came nearly a month after Russia invaded Ukraine in a move that sparked concerns about security and sent prices of oil, wheat and other key commodities soaring.

“Against the backdrop of the recent developments in the world and the region, the leaders discussed the ties between the three countries and ways to strengthen them on all levels,” said a statement from the office of Israeli Premier Naftali Bennett.

ADEN: Bullet-riddled homes, buildings turned to rubble and countless pictures of “martyrs”: Seven years into Yemen’s civil war, the interim capital Aden bears the scars of a conflict that shows no signs of abating.

While Aden is now relatively stable, economically the ancient port city has been left on its knees.

Water and electricity are intermittent, serving a population that officials say has tripled to more than 3 million, as people seek safety from fighting raging elsewhere.

Aden Gov. Ahmed Lamlas said the outbreak of war in 2015 was a “disaster,” leaving the city’s infrastructure in ruins. “We are still suffering from the impacts of war,” said Lamlas, who narrowly escaped a deadly car bomb attack in October.

Yemen has a long history of civil war, and was divided into North and South Yemen until 1990.

It descended into brutal conflict again when Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a military campaign to seize power in 2014, taking large swathes of territory including the capital Sanaa in the north.

The following year, after the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen intervened, the insurgents were at the gates of Aden. They held sway for a few months before being pushed out by loyalist forces.

As if civil war and a struggle for the city were not enough, Aden has also been targeted by a number of bombings claimed by Daesh.

Along the corniche in Aden stands a large portrait of the former governor, Jaafar Saad, who was killed in a car bomb claimed by Daesh in 2015.

At the airport, a gaping hole torn into the arrivals terminal reminds visitors of a missile attack on Cabinet members in 2020, a memorial of sorts to the at least 26 people killed.

QAMISHLI, Syria: The Syrian Kurdish forces that spearheaded the battle to crush the Daesh group’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” in 2019 warned on Wednesday that the world’s lack of support risked allowing for a jihadist rebirth.

The Daesh proto-state — which once administered millions of people across swathes of Syria and Iraq, on territory roughly the size of Britain — was declared defeated on March 23, 2019.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which act as the autonomous Kurdish administration’s army, led the battle that flushed out the village of Baghouz where Daesh made its last stand.

The SDF’s central command warned in a statement that the countries that assisted in the military operation at the time should not turn their backs on the region now.

“The absence of a clear, comprehensive long-term international plan increases human and material losses and allows Daesh to strengthen its organization,” it said.

Daesh has not had fixed positions in Iraq or Syria since March 2019 but its remnants have continued to launch hit-and-run guerilla attacks from desert hideouts.

The SDF said a huge attack on a prison in Hasakah in January was evidence that Daesh was seeking to expand its operational capabilities.

The battles sparked by the Ghwayran prison break left at least 370 people dead.

According to Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a significant number of Daesh fighters were sprung free.

The Kurdish forces also blamed those countries that are still reluctant to repatriate their citizens held in camps and prisons for suspected Daesh members and their relatives.

The autonomous administration has repeatedly complained it did not have the resources to detain the thousands of suspects who poured out of Daesh territory in the caliphate’s dying weeks, let alone to organize trials.