World

A Palestinian lawyer was killed Wednesday, the fifth day of Israeli raids in the West Bank following deadly attacks in the Jewish state, amid heightened tensions after a flashpoint religious site was vandalised.

Israel has poured in additional forces and is reinforcing its wall and fence barrier with the occupied territory after four deadly attacks have claimed 14 lives in Israel, most of them civilians, in the past three weeks.

Violent clashes erupted in the West Bank city of Nablus where Israeli forces were escorting a work crew that came to repair Joseph’s Tomb, which is sacred to Jews and which was smashed in an act of vandalism last weekend.

Israeli troops racing through the city’s streets in an armoured convoy opened fire as a crowd pelted them with rocks and incendiary devices.

“Hundreds of Palestinians instigated a violent riot, burned tyres and hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers” who responded with “riot dispersal means and live ammunition,” the army said.

The Palestinian health ministry said human rights lawyer Muhammad Hassan Muhammad Assaf, 34, “died after being shot in the chest by the Israeli occupation army during the aggression on the city of Nablus”.

The Israeli army did not confirm its forces had shot the lawyer, whose death brought to 16 the number of Palestinian fatalities in the ongoing escalation.

– ‘On the offensive’ –

Witnesses told AFP Assaf was standing by the roadside, having just taken his nephews to school, when he was hit by a bullet as Israeli forces fired while pulling out of Nablus.

Assaf was mourned as a “fierce defender of his people” by his employer, the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. 

Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh charged that Israeli soldiers “murder for the sake of murder, with a license granted by the prime minister of the occupying state, Naftali Bennett, without the slightest regard for international law”.

Bennett has warned that Israel is now “on the offensive” and determined to arrest militant suspects.

The latest major attack Israel suffered was a shooting rampage last Thursday in Tel Aviv that claimed three lives and wounded over a dozen more. The gunman, from Jenin, died in a shootout with Israeli forces following an all-night manhunt. 

The Israeli army said Wednesday it also carried out “counterterrorist operations” in the Palestinian militant bastion of Jenin and other West Bank cities. 

In the city of Tulkarem, Israeli border police said they shot and wounded “a suspect in terrorist activity” who fled special forces trying to arrest him.

Violence flared near Joseph’s Tomb as Israeli forces escorted the Jewish settler construction crew sent in to repair the damaged site.

– ‘Restore the honour’ –

Bennett had vowed on Sunday that “we will not abide such an assault on a place that is holy to us — on the eve of Passover”, the Jewish festival.

The operation’s commander could be heard in a video telling his soldiers that “we get to restore the honour to this land and the people of Israel”, and that they would enter the site “as sons of kings”.

The Palestinian Red Crescent reported 31 people wounded around the Nablus site and a nearby village, including 10 hit by live rounds.

The holy site, where Jews say the Biblical patriarch Joseph is buried, is a frequent flashpoint between Israelis and Palestinians. It was partially destroyed in 2000 during a Palestinian uprising and also torched in 2015.

Palestinian authorities consider the wider site an Islamic archaeological monument where a revered cleric was buried two centuries ago.

The clashes have come during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and ahead of the start of Passover Friday, an overlap that can heighten tensions around sacred sites in Jerusalem’s Old City. 

Last year Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, fired rockets toward Jerusalem following disturbances at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, setting off a devastating 11-day war.

A Ukrainian climber said Wednesday she will summit Mount Everest carrying her national flag to rally global support for her country and boost morale among those fighting the Russian invasion. 

Antonina Samoilova will be the only climber from Ukraine attempting to summit a Himalayan peak this season, and the 33-year-old said her endeavour was the only way she knew how to draw attention to the suffering of her compatriots.

“I climb Everest to support all the people of Ukraine, to support every warrior, every volunteer and all the people who were affected by this cruel war and to give strength to fight until we win,” she told AFP in Kathmandu.

“I think that (it) would be great support for Ukrainian people to know that even in this hardest year… our Ukrainian flag will flying on the top of the world,” she added.

Samoilova is aiming to join the select club of climbers to scale the Seven Summits — the highest mountains on each continent — and has already completed Kilimanjaro in Africa, Europe’s Elbrus and Antarctica’s Mount Vinson.  

She was at the summit of Pico de Orizaba, Mexico’s highest mountain, when news of the Russian invasion reached her in February.

Her first updates on the war came from a Kyiv bomb shelter where her sister was hiding.

She said her father and brother were now fighting and she was “very proud of them”.

Irina Galay, the first Ukrainian woman to climb Everest, has called for Russian athletes to be banned from Himalayan mountains this year in retaliation for the invasion.

The issue was taken up by Ukraine’s government but no action has been taken by Nepal, with 17 Russians among the 607 climbers given permits for the current season. 

Samoilova will soon be at the tented city at Everest base camp with at least 225 other climbers, but said she is preoccupied with thoughts of home.

“I’m dreaming of coming back to Ukraine… and to hug all my family. And I hope it will come true,” she said. 

A dispute has erupted at the UN cultural agency over Russia’s hosting of its World Heritage Committee in just two months, which Western nations say they will boycott over the invasion of Ukraine.

Russia is due to host the annual meeting of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in the city of Kazan in its Tatarstan region from June 19-30.

The meeting is notably tasked each year with deciding which sites and monuments will be given the organisation’s coveted World Heritage status — and which could be stripped of the label if countries have fallen short on looking after them.

The meeting is one of the few international events that Russia is still scheduled to host after President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which according to UNESCO has caused damage to almost 100 cultural sites.

But in a sign of the West’s difficulties in building a broad international coalition against Moscow, the campaign to strip Kazan of its right to host the event is proving an uphill battle.

Just a week before official invitations are set out, the mainly Western nations opposing Russia’s right to host the event are racing against the clock to try to convince the committee to find another venue and strip Russia of its presidency of the group.

“It’s complicated,” an ambassador of a Western nation who asked to remain anonymous told AFP in Paris, referring to the reluctance of some countries to isolate Russia at an institution that traditionally encourages dialogue in the face of crises. 

– ‘Inconceivable’ –

It was decided in July 2021 to award the meeting to Kazan, the cultural centre of Russia’s Turkic Tatar minority that has long billed itself as a meeting point between different cultures and religions.

British Culture Minister Nadine Dorries said in March that it was “inconceivable” Russia should host the meeting, and that Britain would not attend if it did.

Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko echoed her call, saying Russia’s goal is to “destroy Ukraine” and suggesting the session should be moved to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

On April 8, 46 states led by Britain wrote a letter to all members of the World Heritage Committee saying they “would not attend a meeting of the Committee either in Russia or under Russian presidency.”

It said such a meeting is “impossible” while Russia is destroying “outstanding universal value” in Ukraine.

UNESCO has said dozens of sites and monuments in Ukraine have been damaged in the Russian invasion.

“The credibility of UNESCO and the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World’s Cultural and Natural Heritage is at stake,” said the letter, signed by Britain’s ambassador to UNESCO Laura Davies on behalf of the 46 countries.

Since then, intense behind the scenes discussions have been taking place to find an agreement.

“In non-Western countries, there is certainly disapproval of Russian aggression in Ukraine, but this disapproval does not amount to condemnation and even less a desire to break with Russia or isolate it,” said Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria and special advisor to the Institut Montaigne think-tank in Paris.

– Elusive consensus –

UNESCO is at pains to emphasise that the decision on the meeting is not taken by UNESCO’s leaders but by the members of the World Heritage Committee. 

The 21 countries that make up the World Heritage Committee and to whom the UK letter was addressed include Argentina, India and Saudi Arabia.

Two-thirds of the members must agree to hold an extraordinary meeting on the issue, where a decision on the Kazan meeting could be decided by consensus or majority vote.

But while London should have no problem in persuading the European members of the committee — Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria and Greece — to come on board, it is another matter for states like India.

“Several countries on the committee have already given us their support,” said a source close to the campaign, who asked not to be named, insisting on the “disastrous” image of a meeting in Kazan if it went ahead even while boycotted by a quarter of UNESCO members states.

In the absence of consensus, one option could be to postpone the session for several months –- a scenario excluded in the letter by the signatory countries –- or to host the meeting in a neutral place, such as the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Rattled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Finland’s prime minister said Wednesday the Nordic nation would decide whether to apply for NATO membership “within weeks”, despite the risk of infuriating Moscow.

Helsinki’s parliament will next week open a debate about joining the Western alliance after the Ukraine war sparked a dramatic U-turn in public and political opinion in Finland and neighbouring Sweden over long-held policies of military non-alignment.

Attempting to join NATO would almost certainly be seen as a provocation by Moscow, for whom NATO’s expansion on its borders has been a prime security grievance.

But Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Finland would now decide quickly on whether to apply for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“I think it will happen quite fast. Within weeks, not within months,” Marin told a Stockholm press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson. 

Sweden is also discussing NATO membership following Russia’s February 24 invasion.

– Guarantees –

A Finnish government-commissioned report released Wednesday examined the “fundamentally changed” security environment, according to the foreign ministry, and will make its way through parliament.

The report did not make recommendations but stressed, as did Marin in her speech, that without NATO membership Finland enjoys no security guarantees, despite being a partner to the alliance.

“There is no other way to have security guarantees than under NATO’s deterrence and common defence as guaranteed by NATO’s Article 5,” Marin said, referring to an attack on one member being considered an attack on all.

The “deterrent effect” on Finland’s defence would also be “considerably greater” inside the alliance, the report noted while adding it also carried obligations for Finland to assist other members. 

An opening parliamentary debate on membership is set for next Wednesday.

Former prime minister and long-time NATO advocate Alexander Stubb said he believes a membership application is “a foregone conclusion”.

Finland has a long history with Russia. In 1917 it declared independence after 150 years of Russian rule.

During World War II, its vastly outnumbered army fought off a Soviet invasion, before a peace deal saw it cede several border areas to Moscow.

During the Cold War, Finland remained neutral in exchange for guarantees from Moscow that it would not invade.

– Change of heart –

The turnaround in sentiment on NATO would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.

As recently as January, Prime Minister Marin had said membership was “very unlikely” during her term.

But after two decades of public support for membership remaining steady at 20-30 percent, the war caused a surge in those in favour to over 60 percent.

Public statements gathered by newspaper Helsingin Sanomat suggest half of Finland’s 200 MPs now support membership while only 12 oppose. 

Others say they will announce a position after detailed discussions.

The government said it hopes to build a parliamentary consensus over the coming weeks, with MPs due to hear from a number of security experts.

Many analysts predict Finland could submit a bid in time for a NATO summit in June.

Any membership bid must be accepted by all 30 NATO states, a process that could take four months to a year.

Finland has so far received public assurances from secretary general Jens Stoltenberg that NATO’s door remains open, and support from several members.

– ‘Like changing religion’ –

Unlike Finland, Sweden shares no land border with Russia and the two countries have not been at war for two centuries.

Nonetheless, pro-NATO sentiment is also rising among Swedes who “are realising that they might find themselves in the same position as Ukraine, a lot of sympathy but no military help”, said Robert Dalsjo, research director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency.

Many commentators expect Sweden and Finland will act in tandem on whether to join, but their leaders have stressed they may reach differing decisions.

Sweden’s ruling party this week announced a review of its long-held opposition to joining NATO.

“For the Social Democrats in Sweden to change opinion (on NATO) is like changing religion,” ex-PM  Stubb told AFP.

“And I’m not talking Protestant to Catholic, I’m talking Christian to Muslim.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned Russia would take measures to “rebalance the situation” if  Finland joined.

President Sauli Niinisto said Russia’s response could include airspace, territorial violations and hybrid attacks, which Finnish NATO proponents believe the country is well prepared to withstand.

Wednesday’s report  stated that even as a member, “Finland’s goal would be to maintain functioning relations with Russia.”

“Russia will most certainly huff and puff,” Dalsjo said, but added: “I don’t think they will do anything violent.

“However, in the mood that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is right now, I wouldn’t rule it out entirely.”

Nervous New York commuters crowded on to the subway Wednesday morning, as police on the streets above intensified their hunt for a fugitive gunman who shot 10 people in a train car the day before.

New York mayor Eric Adams called on residents to be “vigilant” but said there was no evidence the shooter had an accomplice, adding: “It appears he was acting alone.”

“We’re running full service on all of our lines after NYPD completed its investigation,” the New York City transit authority announced — with the “business as usual” message underscored by an announcement of signal delays a short time later.

Tuesday’s incident in Brooklyn — in which no one was killed — was not being investigated as an act of terrorism, and none of the injuries were considered life threatening.

Police have identified a “person of interest” in the attack, which also wounded 13 others as they scrambled to get out of the station or suffered smoke inhalation, offering a $50,000 reward for any information. 

The suspected gunman put on a gas mask just as the train was arriving at the station, then opened two smoke canisters and began shooting, police said.

“All you see is like a smoke, black smoke bomb going off, and then … people bum rushing to the back,” one of the gunshot victims, Hourari Benkada, told CNN, referring to a charge by passengers towards the door at the end of the car.

Benkada said he had boarded the first car at 59th Street and sat next to the gunman — but with his headphones on he did not notice anything until smoke began filling the car.

– ‘Person of interest’ –

He said he did not understand that there were shots at first, and that he was trying to comfort a pregnant woman next to him. 

“I got pushed and that’s when I got shot in the back of my knee,” he said.

NYPD chief James Essig said the gunman had fired 33 shots. Police later recovered a Glock 17 nine-millimeter handgun, three additional ammunition magazines and a hatchet from the scene.

Benkada said the shooting lasted for perhaps a minute, and that he heard about 10 shots. 

The bullet went through the back of his knee and out the side, leaving a hole “the size of a quarter,” he said. “I lost so much blood.”

Police have identified a 62-year-old man named Frank James as the “person of interest”, and published a photograph of him. US media reported that his credit card and keys to a van he had rented were found at the scene.

James had posted several videos on YouTube of himself delivering long, sometimes aggressive political tirades. He also criticized mayor Adams.

Shootings in New York have risen this year, and the uptick in violent gun crime has been a central focus for Adams since he took office in January. Through April 3, shooting incidents rose to 296 from 260 during the same period last year, according to police statistics.

Lax gun laws and a constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms have repeatedly stymied attempts to clamp down on the number of weapons in circulation in the United States, despite a majority of Americans backing greater controls.