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21 July 2014 - NPWJ News Digest on Middle East and North Africa Democracy
Articles
Gaza crisis: Barack Obama and UN call for immediate ceasefire
By The Guardian, 21 Jul 2014
US President Barack Obama has called for an "immediate ceasefire" between Israel and Hamas as the death toll among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip reached 508. Israeli continued its assault on the neighbourhood of Shujai'iya on Monday, where bombardment and fierce fighting on the ground between Israeli troops and Hamas militants on Sunday left shattered streets littered with bodies after Israeli forces subjected it to an intense bombardment. At least 120 Palestinians were killed on Sunday in Shujai'iya, a third of them women and children. Thirteen Israeli soldiers were also killed on the same day, in the heaviest loss of life for the Israeli military in years, two of them US citizens.
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Neighborhood Ravaged on Deadliest Day So Far for Both Sides in Gaza
By The New York Times, 21 Jul 2014
GAZA CITY — The mayhem began in the early hours of Sunday morning in Shejaiya, an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City, where Israeli forces battled with Hamas militants. Terrified civilians fled, sometimes past the bodies of those struck down in earlier artillery barrages. By dusk it was clear that Sunday was the deadliest single day for the Palestinians in the latest conflict and the deadliest for the Israeli military in years.At least 60 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers and officers were killed in Shejaiya alone, and the shattered neighborhood was quickly becoming a new symbol of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, underlining the rising cost of this newest Gaza war.
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Time runs out for Christian Iraq: Isis deadline passes with mass flight
By The Independent, 20 Jul 2014
The last Christians in northern Iraq are fleeing from places where their communities have lived for almost 2,000 years, as a deadline passed for them to either convert to Islam, pay a special tax or be killed.The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) issued a decree last week offering Christians the three options accompanied by the ominous threat that, if they did not comply by midday on 19 July, “then there is nothing to give them but the sword”.It is the greatest mass flight of Christians in the Middle East since the Armenian massacres and the expulsion of Christians from Turkey during and after the First World War. Isis, which now rules an area larger than Great Britain, has already eliminated many of the ancient Christian communities of eastern Syria, where those who had not escaped were given a similar choice between conversion, payment of a special tax or death.
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Deaths in battle for Libya's main airport
By Al Jazeera, 20 Jul 2014
At least three people have died as rival armed Libyan groups battle for control of Tripoli's international airport, according to a security official.The week-long fight over the capital's airport is being waged by a powerful group from the western city of Zintan, which controls the facility, and Islamist-led groups, including fighters from Misrata, east of Tripoli.The clashes resumed early on Sunday after ceasefire efforts failed.An unnamed security official said two fighters from Misrata and a civilian died when a stray rocket hit his house.A mortar shell struck a Libyan Arab Airlines plane and a column of black smoke could be seen rising from inside the airport, which has been closed since Monday.Tripoli is witnessing one of its worst spells of violence since the toppling of longtime ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
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Ex-Libyan rebel commander appeals ruling on British torture case
By Reuters, 20 Jul 2014
Reuters) - A former Libyan Islamist commander who says he suffered years of torture by Muammar Gaddafi's henchmen after British and U.S. spies handed him over to Libya will try this week to overturn a ruling blocking legal action against the British government.Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a rebel leader who helped topple Gaddafi in 2011 and is now leader of the Libyan al-Watan Party, says he and his pregnant wife Fatima were abducted by U.S. CIA agents in Thailand in 2004 and then illegally transferred to Tripoli with the help of British spies.Two years ago, he began legal action against former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Britain's MI5 and MI6 spy agencies, a former intelligence chief, and relevant government departments.But in December, a High Court judge ruled that because of the "act of state doctrine", English courts could not hear the case as allegations about Belhadj's abduction and rendition involved other countries, most notably the United States.This week, Belhadj launches an appeal against that decision.