Region

MAARAT AL NAASAN (Syria) — Protests broke out across opposition-held parts of northwest Syria on Friday against an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group after it opened a trade crossing into regime territory, an AFP correspondent and a war monitor said.

"Mass protests broke out in several towns and villages in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo to denounce the practises of the Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS)alliance" said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

In particular, the demonstrators "voiced their refusal to open any crossing with regime forces in the area",  it said.

Led by Syria's former Al Qaeda affiliate, HTS and allied rebel groups dominate large swathes of Idlib province and slivers of neighbouring Aleppo.

Despite being sworn opponents of the regime, the radical group on Thursday opened a crossing into government-held territory in Aleppo's western countryside, near Idlib's provincial borders, according to the Observatory.

An AFP correspondent said that HTS was hoping to charge fees on vehicles passing through, but the jihadist group on Friday said it would walk-back on its decision because of popular pressure.

"We have decided to suspend our decision to open a new crossing... for the public good of the liberated north," it said in a statement.

Earlier, hundreds had taken to the streets across opposition-held parts of Idlib and Aleppo, brandishing Syrian revolution flags and chanting anti-HTS slogans, the correspondent said.

Vehicles and motorbikes bearing posters and flags packed roads.

"Death and not humilation," demonstrators chanted in unison.

Among them, Nizar Hamadi said that the opening of the crossing showed HTS has little concern for the fate of the region's population.

"How can they gamble with lives of millions," he told AFP.

Syria's last major rebel bastion in the country's northwest is home to three million people, half of whom have been displaced from other parts of the country following successive regime offensives.

The latest government assault on the northwest has displaced nearly a million people since December, although fighting has slowed since a ceasefire took hold in March.

Many are now returning to their homes, but residents fear that the regime may renew its attacks at any moment.

"This is a criminal regime that killed us and killed our children," said Alaa, another protester.

"Why would we open a crossing with them?" he asked rhetorically.

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden said that he would keep the US embassy in Israel in Jerusalem if elected -- even though he disagrees with Donald Trump's controversial 2017 decision to move it out of Tel Aviv.

The former vice president said the embassy should never have been moved without that decision being part of a wider Middle East peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

"But now that it's done, I would not move the embassy back to Tel Aviv," Biden told a virtual fundraising event on Wednesday.

The location of the US embassy is a hot-button issue: the status of Jerusalem is one of the most hotly contested issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel seized control of the east of the city in 1967 and later annexed it in moves never recognised by the international community.

Israel considers the city its undivided capital, but Palestinians believe the east is illegally occupied and see it as the capital of their future state.

Trump shattered the status quo when he recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announced his decision to shift the US embassy to the holy city in December 2017.

He has repeatedly boasted that he is the most pro-Israeli US president in history, and has slashed aid to the Palestinians while making big concessions to the Israelis.

Biden said he would reopen the consulate in Jerusalem "to engage the Palestinians and my administration will urge both sides to take steps to keep the prospect of a two-state solution alive".

In January this year, Trump's son-in-law and senior aide Jared Kushner unveiled his Middle East peace plan.

It proposes the establishment of a Palestinian capital in Abu Dis, a suburb of Jerusalem, and gives consent for the annexation of Israeli settlements as well as the Jordan Valley -- Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967.

The Palestinians -- backed by the Arab League, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the African Union -- have rejected the plan.

Biden, who during his time as vice president had an uneasy relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has said previously that "we can't be afraid to tell the truth to our closest friends."

TEHRAN — Iran's health ministry said on Thursday that 71 new deaths from the novel coronavirus took the country's overall toll past the 6,000 mark.

"The number of deaths from this disease effectively crossed 6,000 today," ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in televised remarks.

"Considering that we lost 71 of our countrymen in the past 24 hours, a total of 6,028 of those infected with COVID-19 have passed away to date," he added.

He added that another 983 people tested positive for the virus during the same period, bringing the total to 94,640.

More than 75,100 of those infected had already been released from hospital after recovering.

Of those still being treated for the disease, 2,976 were in critical condition.

Doubts have been cast over Iran's coronavirus casualty figures by experts and officials both at home and abroad.

Health Minister Saeed Namaki criticised some Iranians for not taking the outbreak seriously.

"I have a complaint about some citizens; you are considering the situation to be too normal," Namaki said in televised remarks.

"It is true that we had very good results at the height of economic distress, that deaths dropped to double digits and hospitalisations reached minimum, but this does not mean the coronavirus is done with."

Namaki also warned that Iran must prepare itself for a "simultaneous heavy wave of COVID-19 and the flu" in the coming autumn and winter.

Iran has shut schools, universities, cinemas and stadiums among other public spaces since March to contain the spread of the virus.

But since April 11, it has allowed a phased reopening of its economy and lifted restrictions on intercity travel.

Mosques remain closed even as Muslims observe the fasting month of Ramadan.

According to Namaki, his ministry is devising health protocols to allow on Friday and group prayers to recommence in cities that have been given the all clear.

Group prayers have been banned in the Islamic republic as a high-risk activity since mid-March.

CAIRO — The Arab League said on Thursday Israel's controversial proposal to annex much of the West Bank constituted a "new war crime" against the Palestinians, during a virtual conference chaired in Cairo.

"The implementation of plans to annex any part of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, including the Jordan Valley... and the lands on which Israeli settlements are standing represents a new war crime... against the Palestinian people," Arab foreign ministers said in a joint statement.

The Arab League also urged the United States to "withdraw its support in enabling the plans of the occupying Israeli government".

US President Donald Trump in January unveiled a controversial peace plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rejected by the Palestinians and condemned by much of the international community, the plan gives Israel the green light to annex Jewish settlements and other strategic territory in the occupied West Bank.

An Israeli coalition government agreement reached last week includes a framework for implementing the annexations outlined in the plan.

Such annexations would violate international law and likely inflame tensions in the volatile region.

The Palestinians would be granted a sovereign but demilitarised state in the remaining parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, along with promises of major investment.

The Palestinian state's capital would be on the outskirts of Jerusalem, the contested holy city, which would remain fully under Israeli sovereignty.

Palestinians fear the Al Aqsa Mosque and surrounding compound -- Islam's third holiest site -- would be effectively under Israeli control.

Palestinian foreign minister Riyad Al Malki cautioned against the annexation during the Arab League meeting, saying it would "end the two-state solution".

He said the move would "turn the battle from a political one to an endless religious war... that will never bring about stability, security or peace to our region".

On Monday, the United States said it was ready to recognise Israel's annexation of key parts of the West Bank, but also asked the new unity government to negotiate with the Palestinians.

TUNIS — Amnesty International urged Algerian authorities on Thursday to free imprisoned journalist Khaled Drareni and end the "targeted harassment of independent media". 

Drareni, the founder of the Casbah Tribune website, is a correspondent for French-language channel TV5 Monde and press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

He had been arrested on March 7 while covering an anti-government protest, accused of "inciting an unarmed gathering and damaging national integrity", then released and re-arrested.

"The authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Khaled and end the outrageous prosecution" against him, Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement.

"He is being punished simply for daring to do his journalistic work independently and bravely. Journalism should never be a punishable crime." 

At the end of March, Drareni was ordered to be held in pre-trial detention, and is currently incarcerated in the Kolea prison, west of the capital Algiers.

Ahead of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Amnesty called for an end to "the unjustified restrictions imposed on journalists and independent media in Algeria".

This month, authorities have blocked three news websites that have covered Algeria's anti-government protests.

Two of them, Maghreb Emergent and Radio M, are accused of "defamation and insult" against Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Weekly anti-government protests have rocked the North African country for over a year and only came to a halt due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, with the authorities banning marches and the opposition suspending them.

According to prisoners' support group CNLD, 51 people are currently detained over links to the Hirak protest movement.

Earlier this week, Amnesty urged the authorities to end "arbitrary prosecutions aimed at silencing Hirak activists and journalists" during the pandemic, and called for the release of detainees.

The rights group said Thursday that authorities were endangering detainees' health, "given the risks of a COVID-19 outbreak in prisons and places of detention".

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Arab foreign ministers are to hold talks on Thursday on Israel's US-backed plans to annex key parts of the occupied West Bank.

Concern has mounted since Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- an outspoken advocate of annexing large parts of the Palestinian territory -- agreed to form a coalition with his centrist rival Benny Gantz.

The Netanyahu-Gantz agreement includes a framework for implementing annexations outlined in US President Donald Trump's controversial plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, unveiled at the White House in January.

Here are some key questions surrounding Israel's potential annexation moves, likely to inflame tensions in the volatile region.

What did Trump propose?

Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, tapped his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner to forge a Middle East peace plan.

Kushner consulted widely with the Israelis on the initiative, but there was no input from the Palestinians after they cut all ties with the Trump administration accusing it of bias.

The Oslo peace accords of the 1990s gave the Palestinians self-rule in parts of the West Bank.

But some 60 percent of the territory -- dubbed Area C -- remains under full Israeli civil and military control.

That includes all Israeli settlements and Trump's plan gives US support for their annexation.

It also offers US recognition for Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley, a strategic strip along the Jordanian border that makes up around a third of the West Bank.

Trump's plan provides for the creation of a Palestinian state in the remainder of the West Bank, including the city of Ramallah where president Mahmud Abbas is based, and in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Abbas rivals Hamas.

Israel seized control of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in the Six-Day War of 1967 and has occupied it ever since.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements constructed in the territory, which Palestinians regard as the mainstay of their future state.

The settlements are considered illegal under international law because they were built under military occupation.

How the US position evolved?

Kushner has said Washington wants an Israeli government in place that could work with the US on implementation of Trump's plan.

Israel had been without a stable government since December 2018.

The Netanyahu-Gantz deal, sealed on April 20 after three inconclusive elections, looks set to end the stalemate.

The United States said on Monday it was ready to recognise Israel's annexation of much of the West Bank but asked the new unity government also to negotiate with the Palestinians.

"We are prepared to recognise Israeli actions," a State Department spokesperson said.

The step would be "in the context of the Government of Israel agreeing to negotiate with the Palestinians along the lines set forth in President Trump's Vision", she said.

What have Gantz, Netanyahu agreed?

Netanyahu has lauded the Trump plan as a "historic" opportunity for Israel.

Gantz, a former armed forces chief, has also praised the initiative but raised concern about Israel acting unilaterally.

Apart from the US, no country has publicly backed the annexation plans.

Under the three-year coalition agreement, which is due to be approved by parliament in the coming days, Netanyahu will serve as premier for 18 months, with Gantz as his alternate.

They will swap at the mid-way point.

On the Trump plan, the coalition deal states: "The prime minister and alternate prime minister will act together and in a coordinated manner in full agreement with the United States."

They will also conduct "international dialogue on the issue, while pursuing the security and strategic interests of Israel, including the need for maintaining regional stability, maintaining peace agreements and striving for future peace agreements".

It says the premier can bring the Trump annexation plan to the cabinet and parliament for "debate and approval" from July 1.

Israeli media have suggested the initial annexation may be only partial -- possibly starting with Maale Adumim, a large settlement on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem.

What will it entail?

Around 65,000 Palestinians live in the Jordan Valley, along with fewer than 10,000 Israelis.

It is not clear whether those Palestinians will be given Israeli documents.

That number excludes the ancient city of Jericho, the largest Palestinian town in the area, which is already under Palestinian self-rule as stipulated in the Oslo accords.

It will potentially be left as an enclave, entirely surrounded by Israeli-annexed territory.

How have Palestinians responded?

The Palestinians condemned Israel's new "annexation government".

"[Annexation]means ending the two-state solution and the dismantling of the rights of the people of Palestine," Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh tweeted.

President Mahmud Abbas threatened to rip up all agreements with Israel.

The UN special envoy said that annexation would "constitute a serious violation of international law [and] deal a devastating blow to the two-state solution".

There have been suggestions the Palestinians could call on Russia to intervene.

The 22-member Arab League -- just two of whose members, Egypt and Jordan, have peace treaties with Israel -- has called Thursday's virtual meeting to discuss how to galvanise international opposition.

ADEN — Yemen's internationally recognised government on Wednesday reported five new coronavirus cases amid warnings by health and aid organisations the pandemic could have dire consequences in the war-ravaged country.

The United Nations has declared Yemen, where war a conflict erupted in 2014, as "the world's worst humanitarian crisis" with millions suffering malnutrition and a crumpling healthcare system.

So far, Yemen has been largely spared from the spread of coronavirus, reporting only a single case in early April in the southern government-controlled province of Hadramawt.

But five new cases were reported in the southern city of Aden, the interim capital of the internationally-recognised government, the committee monitoring the outbreak said in a Twitter post.

The war between Iran-backed Huthi rebels and pro-government troops escalated in March 2015, when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened against the rebels who control swathes of Yemen including the capital Sanaa.

Over the past six years, tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict, according to relief agencies.

More than 24 million Yemenis, or more than two thirds of the population, need aid, according to the United Nations.

Millions of Yemenis have been also displaced within the country, which has also seen a cholera outbreak.

The UN said Tuesday that nearly one million of those displaced risk losing their shelter, and warned of a dire funding shortfall as the COVID-19 pandemic looms.

"Yemen is already considered to be the world's largest humanitarian crisis," UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo told a virtual news briefing in Geneva.

"The country is now also facing the overlapping threat of the coronavirus pandemic, and the impact of recent torrential rain and flooding."

Also on Tuesday, the World Health Organisation warned of the impact coronavirus could have in Middle Eastern conflict zones, including Yemen and Syria.

TEHRAN — Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday told the United States it "should not plot against the Iranian nation every day", amid fresh tensions between the arch foes in the Gulf.

Tehran and Washington have traded barbs over a spate of incidents in the past year involving their forces in the sensitive waters of the Gulf.

Their latest high-seas confrontation came on April 15, when the United States said 11 Iranian boats harassed its navy ships in what it described as the international waters of the "Arabian Gulf".

President Donald Trump then tweeted that he had ordered the US Navy to "shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea".

Iran's president on Wednesday replied that "the Americans should know that this gulf is called the Persian Gulf, not the New York Gulf or the Washington Gulf".

"They must understand the situation by that name and by the coastal nation that has protected this waterway for thousands of years," Rouhani said in a televised address during a cabinet meeting.

"They should not plot against the Iranian nation every day.

"The soldiers of our armed forces in the guardians of the Revolution, the army, Basij [paramilitary organization] and the police have always been and will be the guardians of the Persian Gulf."

Iran and the United States have been at loggerheads for decades.

Tensions between them have escalated since 2018 when Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a multinational accord that froze Iran's nuclear programme and reimposed crippling sanctions on its economy.

The arch enemies have appeared to come close to a direct military confrontation twice since June last year, when Iran shot down a US drone in the Gulf.

On that occasion, Trump cancelled retaliatory air strikes at the last minute.

Trump also opted not to take any military action in January after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq.

Iran launched the missiles after a US drone strike near Baghdad airport killed Qassem Soleimani, the general who headed the Revolutionary Guards' foreign operations arm, the Quds Force.

BEIRUT — A fuel truck bomb killed 36 people including at least six Turkey-backed rebel fighters on Tuesday in a northern Syrian city controlled by Ankara's proxies, a war monitor said.

"At least 36 people including civilians were killed and 40 others wounded when an explosive device inside a fuel truck exploded in a market" in Afrin, said Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He said the death toll could climb as some of the wounded were in critical condition.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the blast, one of the largest to rock Afrin since Turkish troops and allied rebels seized the region from Kurdish forces in March 2018 after a two-month air and ground offensive.

The Turkish defence ministry blamed Tuesday's attack on the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) which it views as a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"The enemy of humanity PKK/YPG has once again targeted innocent civilians in Afrin," the Turkish ministry said on Twitter.

The PKK has been waging a bloody insurgency in Turkey for three decades.

In January, at least seven people were killed in a car bomb in Azaz, another northern city held by pro-Turkey forces, according to the observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

The Syrian conflict has killed more than 380,000 people since 2011 and forced more than half of the country's pre-war population from their homes.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — A 26-year-old protester died on Tuesday from a bullet wound he sustained during overnight clashes between hundreds of anti-government demonstrators and the army in north Lebanon.

Fawaz Al Samman's funeral was held in Al Nour Square, the main protest camp in the city of Tripoli, and attended by dozens of mourners despite a nationwide lockdown because of the coronavirus.

"He took to the streets to demand his rights and he never threw stones at the army or carried a weapon," his sister Fatima told AFP during the ceremony.

Protests rocked Lebanon’s second city of Tripoli overnight, with demonstrators torching banks and vandalising ATM machines in anger at soaring inflation and an unprecedented devaluation of the Lebanese pound.

Scores were wounded on both sides as protesters threw stones at soldiers who fired live rounds in the air and tear gas to disperse crowds.

Fatima said her brother was hit by a bullet in the thigh and later went into a coma before succumbing to his wounds.

She blamed the Lebanese army for the incident.

In a statement, the army expressed its "regret" for the death, saying it has opened an investigation.

It said it respects freedom of expression, as long as it does not involve the destruction of private and public property.

Earlier, the army said 40 troops were wounded in the clashes, and accused demonstrators of torching three banks, destroying several ATMs and attacking an army vehicle.

It said nine people were arrested, while a local health body in Tripoli said 20 other people were wounded.

Lebanon is facing the worst economic crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war.

The economic meltdown has reignited a protest movement that first rallied in October to demand the overhaul of a political class deemed incompetent and corrupt.