What mass graves uncovered in Libya reveal about Europe’s migrant crisis

Analysis What mass graves uncovered in Libya reveal about Europe’s migrant crisis
For years, Libya has functioned as a key transit hub for migrants attempting to reach Europe. (AFP/File)
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Updated 25 February 2025
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What mass graves uncovered in Libya reveal about Europe’s migrant crisis

What mass graves uncovered in Libya reveal about Europe’s migrant crisis
  • Libya has become a major hub for human trafficking, with armed groups, officials, and militias profiting from migrant exploitation
  • Experts call for an overhaul of migration policies, safe legal routes, and accountability for those running trafficking networks

LONDON: From the orange desert sand of southeast Libya, investigators were met with the unmistakable signs of yet another cruel atrocity. In crude pits dug in this remote expanse, the tattered clothing and yellowing remains of multiple victims emerged from the earth.

The recent discovery of these latest mass graves in the troubled North African country has laid bare the horrific human cost of the migration crisis, exposing the ruthless exploitation of vulnerable people and the complicity of states and armed groups in perpetuating this grim cycle.

For years, Libya has functioned as a key transit hub for migrants attempting to reach Europe, but for thousands, the journey ends not with the hope of a new life, but with torture, enslavement, and, in the case of those found in these desert graves, even death.




The recent discovery of these latest mass graves in the troubled North African country has laid bare the horrific human cost of the migration crisis. (Reuters/File)

The latest mass graves are not isolated tragedies. They are the consequence of a system designed to control migration at any cost — no matter, it would seem, how many bodies it leaves behind.

In early February, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed the existence of two mass graves in Libya — one in Jakharrah, around 400 kilometers south of Benghazi, containing 19 bodies, and another in the Kufra desert in the southeast, where at least 30 and possibly up to 70 were found.

The victims’ identities remain unknown, but evidence suggests they were murdered, as many of the bodies had gunshot wounds. These graves, found near known migrant detention centers, provide further proof of the extreme abuses suffered by migrants on Libyan soil.

“The loss of these lives is yet another tragic reminder of the dangers faced by migrants embarking on perilous journeys,” Nicoletta Giordano, IOM’s Libya chief of mission, said in a statement.

“Far too many migrants along these journeys endure severe exploitation, violence, and abuse, underscoring the need to prioritize human rights and protect those at risk.”

FASTFACTS

• Collapse of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime in 2011 amid a NATO-backed uprising plunged Libya into chaos. 

• Desert borders with Chad, Niger, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia make Libya a migrant gateway to Europe. 

• Critics say externalization of migrant problem allows Europe to distance itself from abuses in Libya.

These latest discoveries follow years of similar grim findings. In March 2024, another mass grave containing the bodies of 65 migrants was uncovered in the country’s southwest. Yet, despite mounting evidence of the scale of abuse and killings, little has changed.

The international response has been slow, and Libya’s fractured governance has allowed human trafficking networks to flourish with near-total impunity.

For more than a decade, Libya has been at the center of a human trafficking and smuggling network with tentacles reaching across continents.




The country’s vast desert borders with Chad, Niger, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia make it an attractive gateway for those seeking to reach Europe. (AFP/File)

The collapse of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime in 2011 amid a NATO-backed uprising plunged the country into chaos, creating a lawless environment where armed groups, militias, and even government officials have profited from the suffering of migrants.

The country’s vast desert borders with Chad, Niger, Sudan, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia make it an attractive gateway for those seeking to reach Europe, but they also make it a potential death trap for those who fall into the hands of traffickers.

“Libya’s trafficking networks aren’t just criminal enterprises — they’re institutionalized businesses involving state officials, armed groups, and even those tasked with stopping them,” Anas El-Gomati, director general of the Sadeq Institute, a Libyan think tank, told Arab News.

“Take Kufra, where these graves were found. It’s under the Libyan National Army and Khalifa Haftar’s control, yet these operations continue openly. Why? Because trafficking isn’t a bug in the system; it’s a feature.”

Migrants attempting to cross Libya are often captured, detained, and forced into brutal conditions. Some are held in unofficial prisons run by militias, where they often face beatings, torture, rape and forced labor.




For thousands, the journey ends not with the hope of a new life, but with torture, enslavement, and, in the case of those found in these desert graves, even death. (AFP/File)

Others are extorted, as families back home are contacted and pressured to pay ransoms for their release. If no ransom is forthcoming, migrants may be sold into slavery, trafficked again, or simply executed.

Tim Eaton, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, explains that human smuggling in Libya operates within a broad ecosystem of corruption and armed conflict.

“It’s not just about a highly integrated set of traffickers — though of course those traffickers exist. It’s more widely about that system, and it’s about the profits and the rents that are distributed throughout it,” he told Arab News.

“Armed groups are benefiting from both sides of the ledger — from facilitating smuggling to a degree and from the use of abusive patterns to extract labor and other things from the migrants. Plus they are able to get legitimacy and financial support from European policymakers for their work.”

Indeed, this cycle of abuse is fueled, in part, by European migration policies that even mainstream political parties now say should prioritize reducing the number of arrivals over the safeguarding of human lives.

Some say EU migration policies have played a significant role in shaping the crisis in Libya. Their argument: by outsourcing border control to Libyan authorities and funding the Libyan Coast Guard, the EU has effectively helped sustain a system that facilitates human trafficking rather than dismantling it.

Migrants intercepted at sea are often returned to detention centers where they are subjected to further abuse. “The most troubling part? The same forces receiving EU money to ‘combat trafficking’ are often the ones profiting from it,” said El-Gomati.

“It’s a lucrative cycle: intercept migrants, detain them, extort them, and sometimes traffic them again. All while Europe looks the other way, preferring to keep migrants out at any cost.”

This strategy of externalization has allowed European governments to distance themselves from the abuses occurring in Libya, while still benefiting from the reduction in irregular migration. The price of this policy is paid in human lives.

According to the UN, more than 2,200 people died or went missing in the Mediterranean in 2024 alone, and many more perished before ever reaching the coast.

The mass graves in Libya are a grim testament to the need for reform. Experts argue that without meaningful intervention, these tragedies will continue. But what should that intervention look like?

“The solution isn’t more boats for the Libyan Coast Guard or more funding for detention centers,” said El-Gomati. “We need a complete overhaul of the system.

“First, stop treating Libya as Europe’s border guard. Second, create safe, legal migration pathways. Third, implement real accountability — not just for low-level traffickers, but for the officials and armed groups running these networks.”




Migrants attempting to cross Libya are often captured, detained, and forced into brutal conditions. (AFP/File)

This may be wishful thinking, however, as across Europe and in the UK, public tolerance for immigration — both regular and irregular — seems to be at an all-time low. Eaton, nevertheless, agrees that securitization alone is not enough.

“Up until now, really, the prevailing approach has been to securitize this problem, to say that this is a rule of law issue, that the borders need to be enforced, that criminals need to be imprisoned. But in reality, that can never address all of the aspects of this ecosystem,” he said.

Instead, Eaton suggests a long-term solution must involve addressing the economic and political incentives that sustain human trafficking in Libya.

“If it’s going to be possible to convince Libyans who live in those areas to transition away from those sources of revenue, then clearly part of this is going to be looking at other, softer approaches, such as local economic development and finding pathways and alternatives for those people from these areas to find other sources of revenue,” he said.

Beyond Libya, experts want to see broader international cooperation to tackle the root causes of migration. Many of those who embark on these dangerous journeys are fleeing war, poverty, and persecution. Without addressing these underlying factors, aid agencies believe no amount of border security will stop people from risking everything for a chance at a better life.




Some say EU migration policies have played a significant role in shaping the crisis in Libya. (AFP/File)

The mass graves found in Libya are not just evidence of individual crimes — they are perhaps symbolic of a system that has allowed mass killings, enslavement, and exploitation to become routine.

Each person buried in these graves once dreamed of something better, who risked everything for a future that was denied to them.

Until there is the political will to dismantle trafficking networks, hold perpetrators accountable, and provide safe migration routes, it is highly likely that many more bodies will turn up in the desert and Libya will remain a hostage to criminality.

 


West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp

West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp
Updated 6 sec ago
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West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp

West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp
  • Month-long operation in northern West Bank has been one of biggest seen since Second Intifada
  • At least 40,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Jenin and nearby city of Tulkarm in West Bank

JENIN, West Bank: Israeli bulldozers have demolished large areas of the now virtually empty Jenin refugee camp and appear to be carving wide roadways through its once-crowded warren of alleyways, echoing tactics already employed in Gaza as troops prepare for a long-term stay.
At least 40,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Jenin and the nearby city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank since Israel began its operation just a day after reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza after 15 months of war.
“Jenin is a repeat of what happened in Jabalia,” said Basheer Matahen, spokesperson for the Jenin municipality, referring to the refugee camp in northern Gaza that was cleared out by the Israeli army after weeks of bitter fighting. “The camp has become uninhabitable.”

He said at least 12 bulldozers were at work demolishing houses and infrastructure in the camp, once a crowded township that housed descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes or were driven out in the 1948 war in what Palestinians call the ‘Nakba’ or catastrophe at the start of the state of Israel.
He said army engineering teams could be seen making preparations for a long-term stay, bringing water tanks and generators to a special area of almost one acre in size.
No comment was immediately available from the Israeli military but on Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered troops to prepare for “a prolonged stay,” saying the camps had been cleared “for the coming year” and residents would not be allowed to return.
The month-long operation in the northern West Bank has been one of the biggest seen since the Second Intifada uprising by Palestinians more than 20 years ago, involving several brigades of Israeli troops backed by drones, helicopters, and, for the first time in decades, heavy battle tanks.
“There is a broad and ongoing evacuation of population, mainly in the two refugee camps, Nur Shams, near to Tulkarm and Jenin,” said Michael Milshtein, a former military intelligence official who heads the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.
“I don’t know what the broad strategy is but there’s no doubt at all that we didn’t see such a step in the past.”
Israel launched the operation, saying it intended to take on Iranian-backed militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad that have been firmly implanted in the refugee camps for decades, despite repeated Israeli attempts to root them out.
But as the weeks have gone on, Palestinians have said the real intention appears to be a large scale, permanent displacement of the population by destroying homes and making it impossible for them to stay.
“Israel wants to erase the camps and the memory of the camps, morally and financially, they want to erase the name of refugees from the memory of the people,” said 85-year-old Hassan Al-Katib, who lived in the Jenin camp with 20 children and grandchildren before abandoning his house and all his possessions during the Israeli operation.
Already, Israel has campaigned to undermine UNWRA, the main Palestinian relief agency, banning it from its former headquarters in East Jerusalem and ordering it to stop operations in Jenin.
“We don’t know what is the intention of the state of Israel. We know there’s a lot of displacement out of the camps,” said UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma, adding that refugees enjoyed protected status regardless of their physical location.

’MILITARY OPERATION’
The camps, permanent symbols of the unresolved status of 5.9 Palestinian refugees, have been a constant target for Israel which says the refugee issue has hindered any resolution of the decades-long conflict.
But it has always held back from clearing them permanently. On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denied that the operation in the West Bank had any wider purpose than combating militant groups.
“It’s military operations taking place there against terrorists, and no other objectives but that,” he told reporters in Brussels where he met European Union officials in the EU-Israel Association Council.
But many Palestinians see an echo of US President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be moved out of Gaza to make way for a US property development project, a call that was endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the operation in the northern West Bank appeared to be repeating tactics used in the Gaza, where Israeli troops systematically displaced thousands of Palestinians as they moved through the enclave.
“We demand that the US administration force the occupation state to immediately stop the aggression it is waging on the cities of the West Bank,” he said.
Israeli hard-liners inside and outside the government have called repeatedly for Israel to annex the West Bank, a kidney-shaped area around 100 kilometers long that Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state, along with Gaza.
But pressure has been tempered by fears that outright annexation could sink prospects of building economic and security ties with Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, and face a veto by Israel’s main ally, the United States.
However, hard-liners have been heartened by the large number of strongly pro-Israel figures in the new US administration and by Trump himself, who said earlier this month that he would announce his position on the West Bank within weeks.


Israel refuses entry to 2 EU lawmakers and accuses 1 of promoting boycotts of it

Rima Hassan (L) and Lynn Boylan. (Supplied)
Rima Hassan (L) and Lynn Boylan. (Supplied)
Updated 25 February 2025
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Israel refuses entry to 2 EU lawmakers and accuses 1 of promoting boycotts of it

Rima Hassan (L) and Lynn Boylan. (Supplied)
  • “Israel is a rogue state, and this disgraceful move shows the level of utter disregard that they have for international law. Europe must now hold Israel to account”

TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel on Monday denied entry to two European Union lawmakers, accusing one of promoting boycotts of the country.
Lynn Boylan, who chairs the European Parliament EU-Palestine delegation, and Rima Hassan were refused entry at Ben-Gurion airport and ordered to return to Europe.
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel said French politician Hassan has “consistently worked to promote boycotts against Israel in addition to numerous public statements both on social media and in media interviews.”
No reasons were immediately given for Boylan being denied entry.
Hassan was born in Aleppo, Syria, and, like Boylan, is a member of The Left group in the EU parliament. On Friday, The Left group called for the immediate suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement – a pact that underpins their relations – given the International Court of Justice investigation into crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza.
Boylan said she had planned to meet with Palestinian Authority officials, representatives of civil society organizations and people living under Israeli occupation. Boylan is a member of the Sinn Fein party in Ireland, which has been among the most vocal countries in criticizing the Israeli government over its treatment of Palestinians.
“This utter contempt from Israel is the result of the international community failing to hold them to account,” Boylan said in a statement. “Israel is a rogue state, and this disgraceful move shows the level of utter disregard that they have for international law. Europe must now hold Israel to account.”
Israeli legislators passed a law this month that prohibits entry to people who have denied Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack or expressed support for the international prosecution of Israeli soldiers.
The law, which applies to non-citizens and non-residents of Israel, builds on previous legislation that denied entry to anyone calling for a boycott of Israel. The law also bans the entry of Holocaust deniers.
The original law was seen by opponents as an attempt by Israel to silence critics. It was used on multiple occasions to bar entry to activists who support the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, known as BDS.
Supporters portray BDS as nonviolent activism based on a similar campaign against apartheid South Africa. Israel views the movement as an attack on its very legitimacy and accuses some organizers of antisemitism, allegations they deny.
Hassan, who hails from the French hard-left France Unbowed, called for a rally outside EU headquarters where the meeting took place on Monday, and where some protesters had gathered.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar was on a diplomatic visit to Brussels for the EU-Israel Association Council. The council does not meet frequently, and Monday’s meeting was called amid pressure from Spain and Ireland to suspend the forum over Israel’s actions in Gaza. Saar met with several European leaders in Brussels.
Earlier on Monday, Saar told reporters Israel was used to facing criticism and ready to approach all discussions with an open mind.
“It’s OK as long as the criticism is not connected to the delegitimization, demonization or double standards, which from time to time are things we see in the attacks against Israel,” he said.
 

 


West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp

West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp
Updated 25 February 2025
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West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp

West Bank Palestinians fear Gaza-style clearance as Israel squeezes Jenin camp
  • The month-long operation in the northern West Bank has been one of the biggest seen since the Second Intifada uprising by Palestinians more than 20 years ago
  • Already, Israel has campaigned to undermine UNWRA, the main Palestinian relief agency, banning it from its former headquarters in East Jerusalem and ordering it to stop operations in Jenin

JENIN, West Bank: Israeli bulldozers have demolished large areas of the now virtually empty Jenin refugee camp and appear to be carving wide roadways through its once-crowded warren of alleyways, echoing tactics already employed in Gaza as troops prepare for a long-term stay.
At least 40,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Jenin and the nearby city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank since Israel began its operation just a day after reaching a ceasefire agreement in Gaza after 15 months of war.
“Jenin is a repeat of what happened in Jabalia,” said Basheer Matahen, spokesperson for the Jenin municipality, referring to the refugee camp in northern Gaza that was cleared out by the Israeli army after weeks of bitter fighting. “The camp has become uninhabitable.”

HIGHLIGHTS

• Tens of thousands cleared from camps in northern West Bank

• Israeli troops seen preparing for long stay

• Israeli hardliners look to Trump for support

He said at least 12 bulldozers were at work demolishing houses and infrastructure in the camp, once a crowded township that housed descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes or were driven out in the 1948 war in what Palestinians call the ‘Nakba’ or catastrophe at the start of the state of Israel.
He said army engineering teams could be seen making preparations for a long-term stay, bringing water tanks and generators to a special area of almost one acre in size.
No comment was immediately available from the Israeli military but on Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered troops to prepare for “a prolonged stay,” saying the camps had been cleared “for the coming year” and residents would not be allowed to return.
The month-long operation in the northern West Bank has been one of the biggest seen since the Second Intifada uprising by Palestinians more than 20 years ago, involving several brigades of Israeli troops backed by drones, helicopters, and, for the first time in decades, heavy battle tanks.
“There is a broad and ongoing evacuation of population, mainly in the two refugee camps, Nur Shams, near to Tulkarm and Jenin,” said Michael Milshtein, a former military intelligence official who heads the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.
“I don’t know what the broad strategy is but there’s no doubt at all that we didn’t see such a step in the past.”
Israel launched the operation, saying it intended to take on Iranian-backed militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad that have been firmly implanted in the refugee camps for decades, despite repeated Israeli attempts to root them out.
But as the weeks have gone on, Palestinians have said the real intention appears to be a large scale, permanent displacement of the population by destroying homes and making it impossible for them to stay.
“Israel wants to erase the camps and the memory of the camps, morally and financially, they want to erase the name of refugees from the memory of the people,” said 85-year-old Hassan Al-Katib, who lived in the Jenin camp with 20 children and grandchildren before abandoning his house and all his possessions during the Israeli operation.
Already, Israel has campaigned to undermine UNWRA, the main Palestinian relief agency, banning it from its former headquarters in East Jerusalem and ordering it to stop operations in Jenin.
“We don’t know what is the intention of the state of Israel. We know there’s a lot of displacement out of the camps,” said UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma, adding that refugees enjoyed protected status regardless of their physical location.

’MILITARY OPERATION’
The camps, permanent symbols of the unresolved status of 5.9 Palestinian refugees, have been a constant target for Israel which says the refugee issue has hindered any resolution of the decades-long conflict.
But it has always held back from clearing them permanently. On Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar denied that the operation in the West Bank had any wider purpose than combating militant groups.
“It’s military operations taking place there against terrorists, and no other objectives but that,” he told reporters in Brussels where he met European Union officials in the EU-Israel Association Council.
But many Palestinians see an echo of US President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be moved out of Gaza to make way for a US property development project, a call that was endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the operation in the northern West Bank appeared to be repeating tactics used in the Gaza, where Israeli troops systematically displaced thousands of Palestinians as they moved through the enclave.
“We demand that the US administration force the occupation state to immediately stop the aggression it is waging on the cities of the West Bank,” he said.
Israeli hard-liners inside and outside the government have called repeatedly for Israel to annex the West Bank, a kidney-shaped area around 100 kilometers long that Palestinians see as the core of a future independent state, along with Gaza.
But pressure has been tempered by fears that outright annexation could sink prospects of building economic and security ties with Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, and face a veto by Israel’s main ally, the United States.
However, hard-liners have been heartened by the large number of strongly pro-Israel figures in the new US administration and by Trump himself, who said earlier this month that he would announce his position on the West Bank within weeks.

 


Gaza ceasefire faces hurdle but not collapsing yet, say analysts

Gaza ceasefire faces hurdle but not collapsing yet, say analysts
Updated 25 February 2025
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Gaza ceasefire faces hurdle but not collapsing yet, say analysts

Gaza ceasefire faces hurdle but not collapsing yet, say analysts
  • Hamas, in turn, warned that Israel’s decision jeopardizes the “entire agreement,” stopping short of promising a return to fighting
  • Despite Israel demanding Gaza be completely demilitarised and Hamas removed, while the militant group insisting on remaining in the territory after the war, Mendoza said that if Trump throws his weight behind phase two “then it will happen”

JERUSALEM: Gaza’s fragile five-week truce faces a major hurdle with Israel’s refusal to release Palestinian prisoners, but analysts say the ceasefire is likely to hold as Washington pushes for its extension.
“It’s actually the most complicated crisis since the beginning of the ceasefire,” Palestinian affairs expert Michael Milshtein of Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center told AFP.
While previous obstacles have tested the truce — including Hamas’s threat to stop releasing hostages over alleged violations of the ceasefire including insufficient aid entering Gaza — Milshtein emphasized that “this time, it is even more complicated.”
On Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, after militants freed six hostages.
He condemned what he described as “humiliating ceremonies” by Hamas to free hostages in Gaza.
Palestinian militants had in the weeks prior paraded Israeli captives and later displayed black coffins containing deceased hostages on stage, sparking outrage across Israel.
Netanyahu went further on Sunday, warning that Israel was ready to “resume intense fighting at any moment” in the Palestinian territory.

Hamas, in turn, warned that Israel’s decision jeopardizes the “entire agreement,” stopping short of promising a return to fighting.
Yet, despite the escalating rhetoric, both sides appear intent on maintaining the ceasefire, according to Milshtein.
“Hamas really wants to implement phase one of the deal because on Saturday, the IDF (military) is meant to start leaving the Philadelphi Corridor,” he noted, referring to a strategic strip that runs along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
For Israel, Mairav Zonszein, an analyst from the International Crisis Group, said that Netanyahu was also stuck “in the same quagmire of trying to get hostages out while trying to get rid of the people holding those hostages.”
“I think Netanyahu is kind of doing what he does best, which is dragging things out, buying time, trying to see if he can leverage withholding these prisoners,” she said.
Zonszein noted that Israeli public opinion is putting pressure on Netanyahu to uphold the ceasefire, particularly as more hostages are seen “coming out alive.”
Some analysts suggest that Israel’s tougher stance is a calculated negotiating tactic ahead of upcoming talks for the second phase of truce.
“I don’t think the ceasefire will collapse, it’s not in Netanyahu’s interest to have it collapse particularly as hostages are still being held in Gaza,” said Sanam Vakil, director of UK-based think tank Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program.
“What we are witnessing now is political hardball, with them (Israel) trying to up the ante, or increase pressure on Hamas” ahead of the next phase, she said.

Phase two was “always going to be the hardest phase of the negotiations, made worse by the US position and posturing and by the fact there is no coherent Arab plan,” she said.
Trump has stirred controversy by openly suggesting that the United States should take control of Gaza and expel its 2.4 million inhabitants to Egypt and Jordan.
But in recent days he has toned down his view and on Wednesday his special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to arrive in Israel to push forward the phase two talks.
“I think the key to this is the Americans, they will determine what takes place next,” said Alan Mendoza, executive director of the UK-based Henry Jackson Society.
“Trump was the main factor in getting Netanyahu to agree to ceasefire,” he said, noting that the deal was on the table previously but “Trump pushed it and both the Israelis and Hamas have agreed to its terms.”
Despite Israel demanding Gaza be completely demilitarised and Hamas removed, while the militant group insisting on remaining in the territory after the war, Mendoza said that if Trump throws his weight behind phase two “then it will happen.”
“It’s a tough negotiation round and the odds are we will not be able to agree on a stage two plan but if the Arab states buck up... and take more of an interest given Trump’s Gaza Riveria plans — there’s a possibility we could do it.”
 

 


Doctors Without Borders halts activities at Sudan’s Zamzam camp due to heavy fighting

Doctors Without Borders halts activities at Sudan’s Zamzam camp due to heavy fighting
Updated 25 February 2025
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Doctors Without Borders halts activities at Sudan’s Zamzam camp due to heavy fighting

Doctors Without Borders halts activities at Sudan’s Zamzam camp due to heavy fighting
  • The escalation made it “impossible” for the group to provide life-saving humanitarian needs to thousands of displaced people in the area

CAIRO: Doctors Without Borders on Monday halted its operations in Sudan’s famine-stricken Zamzam camp due to an escalation of attacks and fighting in the vicinity.
The international medical aid group, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières and acronym MSF, said fighting between the Sudanese military and its rival paramilitary the Rapid Support Forces intensified in the camp, located in North Darfur.
The escalation made it “impossible” for the group to provide life-saving humanitarian needs to thousands of displaced people in the area, it said in a statement, adding it had suspended all activities in Zamzam, including at its field hospital.
“Halting our project in the midst of a worsening disaster in Zamzam is a heart breaking decision,” said Yahya Kalilah, the group’s head of mission in Sudan.
Kalilah said that being close to violence, experiencing great difficulty in sending supplies, dealing with the “impossibility” of send experienced staff, and the uncertainty around routes out of the camp, left MSF with “little choice.”
Sudan plunged into war when fighting began in April 2023 between the military and the RSF after simmering tensions. As a result of fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and spread to the other parts of the country. The conflict that killed more than 24,000 people, forced over 14 million people out of their homes, and created famine across various parts of the country.
The fighting in Zamzam ramped up on Feb. 11-12, according to the MSF. The field hospital received 130 wounded patients, most suffering from gunshot and shrapnel wounds.
The MSF facility in Zamzam can’t provide trauma surgery for those in critical conditions as it was originally established to address the significant malnutrition crisis unfolding in the camp.
Kalilah said that 11 patients died in the hospital, including five children, because staff couldn’t treat them properly or refer them to the local hospital in El Fasher, the regional capital. Access to water and food in the area has been more compromised because of the fighting, according to the MSF. The central market has been looted and burnt.
Zamzam camp hosts around 500,000 people and has seen displaced families newly arriving from the areas of Abu Zerega, Shagra, and Saluma, who told MSF teams of abuses in villages and roads in the El Fasher locality that include killings, sexual violence, lootings, and beatings.
“In January and December, two of our ambulances carrying patients from the camp to El Fasher were shot at,” Kalilah said. “Now it’s even more dangerous and as a result, many people, including patients requiring trauma surgery or emergency caesarean sections, are trapped in Zamzam.”