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    The Guardian view on foreign powers in Sudan: struggling for advantage while civilians starve | Editorial

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    The often denied but obvious involvement of foreign powers in Sudan’s deadly civil war is now firmly in the spotlight. Tens of thousands of people, including many civilians, have been killed since it began last April. Now, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has accused the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) of bombing its ambassador’s residence in Khartoum, causing “extensive damage”. The SAF denied it, claiming that last month’s strike was the work of the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), backed by the UAE.What’s not in doubt is that both sides are committing war crimes and that they are able to do so because foreign governments are supporting them. The ceaseless flow of arms has resulted in a vast, growing humanitarian disaster. Last week, UN-appointed experts accused combatants of using “starvation tactics” against 25 million civilians. Additionally, 10 million people have been displaced, and diseases such as cholera are rapidly spreading amid the world’s largest hunger crisis.While the autumn harvest should somewhat alleviate immediate food shortages for many, the longer-term prognosis is catastrophic. Both factions have targeted volunteers working to feed the hungry, many of whom are former members of the resistance committees that led the pro-democracy protests a few years ago.Wars between would-be strongmen punish and kill the powerless. But there is something especially grotesque about seeing the citizens of Sudan, having seen off a dictator and attempted to transition to civilian government, sacrificed to the cynical interests of outsiders.Though the UAE denies supporting the RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, UN experts have laid out “credible” allegations of arms shipments. The UAE is interested in strategically valuable Red Sea ports and resources from gold to land. Saudi Arabia and Egypt support the SAF, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who has also sought closer ties with Iran.All this has been described as “a Middle East war being played out in Africa”. But diplomatic energy is focused on the spiralling Middle East war in the Middle East. When the UAE’s leader, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, visited Mr Biden in Washington recently, Sudan merited just two paragraphs in their lengthy joint statement. Sudan has not always been the priority even when it comes to Sudan. A new paper by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace notes that the US never matched rhetorical support for the democratic opening there with adequate strategic planning, engagement or assistance. The Trump administration’s priority was pressuring the transitional government to recognise Israel as it tried to advance its Abraham accords.The latest plans for informal talks to resolve the struggle between the two generals fell through. Having recently launched a counteroffensive to retake Khartoum, Gen Burhan appears in denial about the strength of his hand. A resolution in Sudan seems unlikely unless key external actors – namely the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt – reach an agreement. With the US showing no sign of turning up the pressure, the UK government, which leads on the issue at the UN security council, should step up. But so should others. The UAE was dismayed when the US rapper Macklemore pulled out of a concert in Dubai over its role in Sudan. Its keenness to burnish its international standing means that a cultural boycott and protests by sports stars and fans could have real impact.

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      Hostage Rescued in Gaza as Israeli Airstrikes Kill Scores of Palestinians

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      A Bedouin Arab citizen of Israel was rescued after Israeli commandos found him alone in an underground warren, apparently abandoned by his captors.An elite Israeli military unit rescued a frail and gaunt hostage from a tunnel deep beneath the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the eighth living captive to be freed by Israeli troops in nearly 11 months of war and the first to be found alive in the subterranean labyrinth used by Hamas.The rescue came amid Israeli airstrikes across Gaza that Palestinian emergency services said killed at least 20 people. At one of the bombing sites in the southern city of Khan Younis, emergency crews frantically searched for survivors trapped under a collapsed building.The rescued hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, 52, a member of Israel’s Bedouin Arab minority, was freed by commandos without a fight after being discovered in a room roughly 25 yards underground, Israeli officials said. More than 100 hostages remain in Gaza, at least 30 of whom are now presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, portrayed the operation to rescue Mr. al-Qadi, as “complex and brave.” He said the soldiers reached him after “precise intelligence” was collected by Israel’s security services.But that account was at odds with details provided by two senior Israeli officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter.Mr. al-Qadi, the Israeli officials said, was found by chance during an operation to capture a Hamas tunnel network. A team led by Flotilla 13, Israel’s equivalent to the U.S. Navy SEALs, were combing the tunnels for signs of Hamas when, to the forces’ surprise, they found Mr. al-Qadi on his own, without guards, the officials said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Famine Declared in Darfur Region of Sudan

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      Experts who monitor global hunger rarely make an official declaration of famine, but they just sounded the alarm for more than half a million people who have fled the fighting in Sudan’s civil war.Famine has officially been declared in a city in Sudan’s Darfur region that has been under siege in the midst of the country’s 15-month long civil war, two organizations that monitor world hunger announced on Thursday.People who fled to a camp known as Zamzam near the city of El Fasher, in North Darfur state, have been facing famine since June, and no food aid is reaching them, prompting the official declaration, the agencies said. The Zamzam camp has grown recently and now holds about half a million people. An official declaration of famine is rare, and is intended to prompt a response from aid agencies and governments.This one shows how the war between rival military factions has plunged a fertile nation once considered a global breadbasket into a deepening hunger and humanitarian crisis.Two other camps in the city of El Fasher — Abu Shouk and Al Salam — were likely undergoing famine but limited evidence made it difficult to confirm, according to the two organizations — the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a research group funded by the United States government, and the Famine Review Committee, an independent group of experts.Experts use a strict methodology to classify famine. A famine is declared when 20 percent of households, or one in five people in an area, face an extreme lack of food, 30 percent of children suffer from acute malnutrition and two adults or four children for every 10,000 are dying every day from malnutrition or starvation.Famine is expected to last in these camps, which together host between 400,000 and 600,000 people, at least through October, the organizations said.The declaration of famine is the first in Africa since South Sudan’s in 2020. The group of experts also projected famine in Somalia in 2022 and in Gaza this year, but stopped short of officially declaring those emergencies to be famines.Sudan’s Darfur region has been the site of intense conflict and even massacres since the war between the country’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began on April 15 last year.But the situation in El Fasher had sharply deteriorated since April this year, when the paramilitary group laid siege to the city and ratcheted up attacks on surrounding villages. The escalating battle for the city entrapped many civilians, destroyed health care facilities and left communities without food or water. The conflict also damaged farmlands, limited the availability of food in the city’s markets and hindered access to humanitarian aid.Sudan is currently home to the world’s largest hunger crisis, according to the World Food Program. More than half of the country’s 48 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger, the U.N. agency said. Sudan is also facing the world’s worst displacement crisis, with more than 10 million people internally displaced or pushed to flee to neighboring countries. More

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      Aid Deliveries From Egypt Into Gaza Are Due to Resume

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      Aid trucks from Egypt were expected to enter the devastated Gaza Strip on Sunday under a new U.S.-brokered agreement to reopen a vital conduit for humanitarian relief.Egypt has blocked aid from entering the enclave via its territory since Israel’s seizure of the Rafah crossing — which provides access to southern Gaza — in early May. The two sides have traded blame over the crossing’s closure, even as aid has piled up on the Egyptian side. After U.S. pressure, Egypt announced on Friday that it had agreed to divert trucks through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, which is roughly two miles from the Rafah crossing, as a temporary measure.Roughly 200 trucks carrying food and other aid from Egypt were set to enter Gaza on Sunday via Kerem Shalom, according to Ahmad Ezzat, an Egyptian Red Crescent official. COGAT, an Israeli military agency that oversees Palestinian civilian affairs, could not be reached for comment.The quantity of food, water and medicines reaching Gazans has plummeted since the war began nearly eight months ago. As a result, the United Nations and aid groups have been warning of widespread hunger in the enclave and urging Israel to open more routes for aid to enter. But in recent weeks, aid shipments into Gaza through the two main land conduits have been interrupted.One of those crossings is Kerem Shalom, which sits at the intersection of Gaza, Israel and Egypt. Israel temporarily closed Kerem Shalom a few weeks ago after a Hamas rocket attack there killed four of its soldiers. Since then Israel has allowed some aid into Gaza though Kerem Shalom, but its distribution has been a point of contention. Israel says that aid agencies must distribute the aid. But the agencies say that the Israeli military’s activity in southern Gaza has made their job nearly impossible.The other major gateway for aid is between Gaza and Egypt, at Rafah. Israeli forces captured the crossing as part of their initial advance toward the city overnight on May 6. Since then, Israeli, Egyptian and Palestinian officials have been unable to strike a deal to resume aid shipments there.When the Rafah crossing closed, the Egyptian government also initially held out on sending aid trucks toward Kerem Shalom, in what American and Israeli officials called an attempt to pressure Israel to back down from its operation in Rafah.On Friday, Egypt and the United States announced that Cairo had agreed to temporarily allow food, basic supplies and fuel to move from its territory into Gaza though Kerem Shalom. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Egyptian president, emphasized that the measure was a stopgap until “a new legal mechanism” could be found on the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing.It remains unclear when the Rafah crossing will reopen for aid. U.S. officials are expected to head to Cairo this week to “support efforts to reopen the Rafah crossing,” according to the White House. More

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      South Africa Again Asks the ICJ to Order Israel to Withdraw From Rafah

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      Days after an Israeli military incursion into Rafah, in southern Gaza, South Africa once again asked the United Nations’ top court to issue constraints on Israel, saying “the very survival” of Palestinians in Gaza was under threat.In filings disclosed by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Friday, South Africa asked the court to order Israel to immediately withdraw from Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city where more than a million Palestinians displaced by the war have sought shelter, and to “cease its military offensive” and allow “unimpeded access” to international officials, investigators and journalists.South Africa’s latest move is part of a case the country filed in December in which it accused Israel of genocide. Since then, the court has ordered Israel to take action to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and ordered the delivery of more humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the face of growing starvation in areas. But the court has not ordered Israel to stop its military campaign against Hamas.Israel has strongly denied South Africa’s accusations and said that it had gone to great lengths to admit deliveries of food and fuel into Gaza and to lessen harm to civilians. It has also said that its war in Gaza was necessary to defend itself against the Oct. 7 attacks led by Hamas and other armed groups that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and led to the capture of about 250 others.Friday’s request is the fourth time that South Africa has asked the U.N. court for temporary injunctions. The filings noted that conditions had deteriorated significantly for civilians sheltering in Gaza.“Rafah is the last population center in Gaza that has not been substantially destroyed by Israel and as such the last refuge for Palestinians in Gaza,” South Africa stated.The court has not indicated when it will respond to the South African request, but its rules require that it must give priority to petitions for emergency orders. The 15-judge court has no means of enforcing its orders.The main case, dealing with the question of genocide, is not expected to start until next year. More

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      U.S. Ship Carrying Aid for Gaza Departs From Cyprus

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      An American vessel carrying aid intended for Gaza has departed from Cyprus, the Pentagon said on Thursday, but the temporary floating pier constructed by the U.S. military is not in place to unload the food and supplies meant for the enclave.Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said in a news briefing on Thursday afternoon that while the construction of the floating pier and the causeway has been completed, weather conditions have made it unsafe to actually place them off the coast of Gaza.General Ryder said that the aid on the vessel, called Sagamore, eventually would be loaded onto another American motor vessel docked at Ashdod, the Roy P. Benavidez. It would take the aid to the floating pier system as soon as it is installed, he said, and then delivered to Gaza.Sagamore appeared to be anchored at the Israeli port of Ashdod by late Thursday evening, according to VesselFinder, a ship tracking website. For now, the aid for Palestinians, desperately needed, is roughly 20 miles from the nearest Gazan border crossing.“While I’m not going to provide a specific date, we expect these temporary piers to be put into position in the very near future, pending suitable security and weather conditions,” General Ryder said.Israel has prevented the construction of Gaza’s own international seaport, prompting the United States and another aid group, the World Central Kitchen, to create their own systems for getting aid into the enclave by sea.But aid groups and experts have frequently criticized the maritime efforts as costly and complicated ways to deliver aid, citing trucking as a more efficient way to get food inside Gaza. After Israeli strikes killed seven World Central Kitchen workers, the group paused its maritime operations there. The food charity has since said it would restart operations in Gaza with the help of Palestinian aid workers.More food is needed in Gaza. The director of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, said recently that some areas are already experiencing a famine. More

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      Parts of Gaza in ‘Full-Blown Famine,’ U.N. Aid Official Says

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      Cindy McCain, the director of the World Food Program, said starvation is entrenched in northern Gaza and is “moving its way south.”The leader of the World Food Program said that parts of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a “full-blown famine” that is spreading across the territory after almost seven months of war that have made delivering aid extremely challenging.“There is famine — full-blown famine in the north, and it’s moving its way south,” Cindy McCain, the program’s director, said in excerpts released late Friday of an interview with “Meet The Press.” Ms. McCain is the second high-profile American leading a U.S. government or U.N. aid effort who has said that there is famine in northern Gaza, although her remarks do not constitute an official declaration, which is a complex bureaucratic process.She did not explain why an official famine declaration has not been made. But she said her assessment was “based on what we have seen and what we have experienced on the ground.”The hunger crisis is most severe in the strip’s northern section, a largely lawless and gang ridden area where the Israeli military exercises little or no control. In recent weeks, after Israel faced mounting global pressure to improve dire conditions there, more aid has flowed into the devastated area.On the diplomatic front, negotiations resumed in Cairo on Saturday aimed at reaching a cease-fire and an agreement to release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. A delegation of Hamas leaders traveled to the Egyptian capital, the Palestinian armed group said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Parts of Gaza Are in Famine, World Food Program Chief Says

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      The director of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain, says that parts of the Gaza Strip are experiencing a “full-blown famine” that is rapidly spreading throughout the territory after almost seven months of war.Ms. McCain is the second high-profile American leading a U.S. government or U.N. aid effort who has said that there is famine in northern Gaza, although her remarks do not constitute an official declaration, which is a complex bureaucratic process.“There is famine — full-blown famine in the north, and it’s moving its way south,” Ms. McCain said in excerpts released on Friday of an interview with “Meet the Press.” The interviewer, Kristen Welker, asked Ms. McCain to repeat herself.“What you are saying is significant,” Ms. Welker said. “You are saying there is full-blown famine in northern Gaza?”“Yes, I am,” Ms. McCain replied. “Yes, I am.”The first American official to say there was famine in Gaza during the conflict was Samantha Power, the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who made her remarks in congressional testimony last month.Ms. McCain was appointed by President Biden as the American ambassador to the U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture in 2021 and became head of the W.F.P., a U.N. agency, last year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Guardian view on the catastrophe in Gaza: it must not be overshadowed by the Iran crisis | Editorial

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      The Middle East is “on the precipice” and “one miscalculation, one miscommunication, one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned on Thursday. Israel has vowed to retaliate to Iran’s weekend barrage of missiles and drones – itself a response to Israel’s killing of two generals at an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus. It is hard to have confidence in either’s ability to calibrate their actions when both have misjudged already.Yet the spectre of full-scale regional conflict, and the many deaths that could result, must not draw attention away from the almost 34,000 Palestinians already killed in Gaza, according to its health authorities, and the many more who will soon die without an immediate ceasefire and massive increase in aid in what Mr Guterres called a “humanitarian hellscape”.Joe Biden, losing support in his own party over his response, finally turned up the pressure on Israel following the deaths of foreign aid workers earlier this month, resulting in the opening of more crossing points for humanitarian goods and pledges of a surge in supplies of food and medicine. In reality, progress was slow to materialise, inconsistent and wholly inadequate, with improvements in some areas offset by problems elsewhere.Restrictions on shipments and the breakdown in security mean that starvation still grips the population, particularly in the north. The US said that monitoring aid shipments was a priority, but it is clear that its attention has shifted. Even in the unlikely event that tomorrow saw an end to the war and vast quantities of aid distributed across Gaza, the famine that has already set in would continue to claim lives.Hopes of a ceasefire have ebbed too. Qatar has said that it will reconsider its role as mediator – suggesting it no longer feels that the investment of diplomatic effort and credibility as a broker is worthwhile with the odds on a deal dwindling. The prospect of an offensive on Rafah, where at least 1.4 million have fled to escape fighting elsewhere, looms. Reports suggest the Israeli military is preparing for an assault by deploying extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers nearby. Benjamin Netanyahu may well prefer continuing to threaten a ground offensive to actually mounting one. But his far-right coalition partners have made no secret of their desire for an assault, and the perpetuation of a forever war staves off the point at which a hugely unpopular prime minister will have to wave goodbye to power and face the corruption cases he has fought for so long.The US has made clear its opposition to such an offensive. Even at its most frustrated, it has also made clear that it is reluctant to attach serious consequences to its demands on Mr Netanyahu’s government. In the wake of Iran’s attack, it has stepped up its support for Israel.Yet an assault on Rafah would be a disaster for those sheltering there, and for the broader distribution of aid arriving via its crossing to Egypt. The urgent need to prevent a regional conflagration need not mean relegating Gaza to an afterthought. Far from it: the two issues are closely connected. A ceasefire and the release of hostages, along with the promised surge in aid, could help defuse regional tensions and find a path out of the dangers. The alternative is many more deaths in Gaza, and increased peril for those outside.
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