Israel Palestine Conflict Escalation, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ban for TikTok, Somaliland Refugees

cronos0(69)

Published in

Deep Dives

Words

969

Reading

5 min

Listen to this post

~6 min

Israel Palestine Conflict Escalation

An exchange of air strikes and rocket fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip after a deadly military raid has raised fears of a broader escalation in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Israeli military said six rockets had been fired overnight from Gaza, five of which were intercepted, and the sixth fell into an open area. No one is reported to have been injured. Palestinian military group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rockets, saying they were responding to Israel's major crime in the city of Nablus. Not long after, Israeli jets struck two sites that the military said were affiliated with the Hamas military group, one of which was said to be a weapons manufacturing facility. Again, no injuries were reported. Efforts to calm the situation are underway. The UN's envoy for the Middle East peace process headed to the Gaza Strip this morning to meet with Hamas officials. The UN envoy said he was continuing to engage with all concerned parties to de-escalate the situation and that he urges all sides to refrain from steps that could further inflame an already volatile situation.

Leaders from the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad reportedly warned mediators that things could escalate into an open confrontation if there was no change. The latest exchange of fire was sparked by Wednesday's rare daytime raid by Israel's military forces, which killed at least 11 Palestinians and reportedly left more than 100 injured. The Israeli operation took place in Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Israeli authorities said that it had targeted three suspects planning attacks in the immediate future. The Israel Defense Force and Security Agency said the three had been neutralized. Of the 11 Palestinians killed, six were gunmen and five were civilians, according to Palestinian sources cited by Reuters. Among the civilians killed were three elderly men. The past year has seen a serious escalation of tensions in Israel and the Palestinian territories. In late January, a similar Israeli military raid in Jenin left ten dead and was followed by an attack near a synagogue in which a Palestinian gunmen killed seven Israelis.

In 2023 so far alone, 62 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. In the same time period, Israel's foreign ministry said. Ten Israelis and one tourist had been killed in Palestinian attacks. Speaking after the Israeli raid on Nablus, the US State Department said it was deeply concerned that the impact of today's raid could set back efforts aimed at restoring calm for both Israelis and Palestinians. The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is at its most combustible in years, with sky high tensions and a stalled peace process. O

Azerbaijan and Armenia

The International Court of Justice has ordered Azerbaijan to end its blockade in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which has left the region at risk of shortages of food, medicine and fuel. Nagorno-karabakh is a mostly Armenia populated enclave within Azerbaijan. It's internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but much of the territory is not actually controlled by Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan have had a long running dispute over the region and things flared up into a full war in 2020, killing more than six and a half thousand people and ending with a Russian brokered truce. Groups of Azerbaijanis have since mid-December been blocking the Lachine corridor, which is the only road between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. The Azerbaijani say they are protesting what they claim is illegal mining and environmental damage. The ICJ has ordered an end to the blockade, saying Azerbaijan should take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movements of persons, vehicle and cargo along the Lachine corridor in both directions, adding that the disruption has impeded the transfer of persons of Armenian national and ethnic origin.

Ban for TikTok

Staff at the European Commission have been banned from using TikTok amid security concerns relating to the Chinese social media. App. Staff at the EU's executive branch were reportedly ordered on Thursday morning to remove TikTok from their official devices. They were also told to delete it from their personal devices if they have work related apps installed or alternatively to uninstall the work related apps and keep TikTok on their personal phones. The order was made to, quote, protect the Commission's data and increase its cybersecurity. It follows similar moves in the United States and the Netherlands. Back in November TikTok, which is owned by Beijing based Bytedance, confirmed that worldwide user data could be accessed by certain employees at the company's corporate centers in countries including China.

Somaliland Refugees

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled to Ethiopia from Somaliland after an eruption of violence in the town of Lars. And for some brief context, Somaliland is a breakaway region in northern Somalia. It's internationally unrecognized but is a self-governing, de facto sovereign state. The sool region has been claimed by Somaliland since its unilateral declaration of independence from Somalia in 1991. However, the region is disputed between Somaliland and the Somali state of Puntland. Things escalated in December after a local opposition politician was assassinated, sparking anti-government protests. Things escalated further this month when elders from the Dole Bahati clan declared that they wanted the sool region to be independent from both Somaliland and Puntland and instead be its own federal state within Somalia. Fighting between Somaliland forces and the local militia has centred on the town of Lass, and more than 60,000 refugees have crossed the border into Ethiopia, arriving in a part of the country that has already been hit hard by drought. The UN estimates that more than 185,000 have been displaced due to the conflict and 89% of whom are women and children.

Sources:

Deep Dives

teamukraine

deepdives

informationwar

politics

via ecency

$ 9.886