Gaza airstrike hit as displaced gathered for soccer match

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 10 July 2024

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By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Hatem Khaled

CAIRO/GAZA - An Israeli missile slammed into a tent encampment in southern Gaza on Tuesday just as displaced people had gathered to watch a football match at a school, eyewitnesses said on Wednesday.

At least 29 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the strike, according to Palestinian officials, which took place as spectators crowded the school grounds in Abassan east of Khan Younis and hawkers sold smoothies and biscuits.

"They were watching a football match. There were injuries and martyrs. I witnessed this...people thrown around and body parts scattered, blood," a young woman, Ghazzal Nasser, told Reuters in Abassan.

"Everything was normal. People were playing, others were buying and selling (food and drinks). There was no sound of planes or anything," she said.

The Israeli military said it was reviewing reports that civilians were harmed. It said the incident occurred when it struck with "precise munition" a Hamas fighter who took part in the Oct. 7 raid on Israel that triggered the war.

The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it knew a football match was going on when the strike was ordered.

At the nearby Nasser Hospital, dozens of Palestinians bid farewell to loved ones before funerals and burials.

"The schools were overcrowded with people and the street was full too, suddenly a missile hit and destroyed the whole place," said Asmaa Qudeih, who lost some relatives in the attack.

"Bodies flew in the wind, body parts flew, I don't know how to describe it," she said.

Israeli forces continued to press their offensive in north and central Gaza on Wednesday, and deepened their incursion into two Gaza City districts. Soldiers carried out house-to-house searches in some areas and tanks shelled several homes, according to residents.

The militant group Hamas said the renewed Israeli campaign threatened to derail efforts to secure a ceasefire in the nine-month-old war, with talks to resume in Doha on Wednesday.

Leaflets were dropped on Gaza City, this time with a map marking "safe routes" for the evacuation of the whole city, not just certain districts. The Israeli leaflets urge civilians to head south along two routes to the central Gaza Strip.

The city, home to more than a quarter of Gaza's population before the war, was destroyed by an Israeli assault in the first weeks of fighting last year, but hundreds of thousands of Gazans are believed to have returned to the ruins in recent months.

Israeli forces patrolled the main road to the coast, snipers commandeered rooftops of some high-rise buildings still standing, and tanks were stationed inside the headquarters of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, residents said.

The Israeli military said in a statement its forces were continuing operations in Gaza City against militants of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad, who they said had operated from inside the UNRWA facilities, using them as a base for attacks.

"After a defined corridor was opened to facilitate the evacuation of civilians from the area, IDF troops conducted a targeted raid on the structure, eliminated terrorists in close-quarters combat, and located large amounts of weapons in the area," the military said.

CALLS FOR HELP

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had received dozens of desperate calls from residents in Gaza City trapped in their homes but their teams were unable to reach them because of the intensity of the bombing.

"The information coming from Gaza City shows residents are living through tragic conditions.

(Israeli) occupation forces continue to hit residential districts, and displace people from their homes and refuge shelters," it said in a statement.

The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said fighters fought with Israeli forces operating in the area with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, and sometimes in close-range combat.

The Israeli military announced that one of its soldiers was killed in fighting on Tuesday in central Gaza. The Israeli military has published the names of 681 military personnel killed in the Oct. 7 attacks and subsequent fighting.

Israel's Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Wednesday that 60% of the fighters of Hamas had been killed or wounded as a result of the military offensive in Gaza.

In the central Gaza camp of Al-Nuseirat, medics said six Palestinians, including children, were killed in an airstrike on a house early on Wednesday, while another airstrike killed two people and wounded several others in Khan Younis.

More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, health officials in the Hamas-run territory said.

The war erupted when militants led by Hamas infiltrated southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.

Thousands flee their homes as Israeli forces bomb southern Gaza

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 02 July 2024

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By Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Mohammad Salem

CAIRO/GAZA - Eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when Israeli forces bombarded several areas of Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, health officials said on Tuesday, as thousands of people fled their homes under fire.

The Israeli army had ordered residents of several towns and villages in eastern Khan Younis to evacuate their homes on Monday, prior to tanks re-entering the area the military had left several weeks ago.

Thousands who had not heeded the call were forced to flee their homes in the dark overnight, as Israeli tanks and planes bombed Karara, Abassan and other areas that had been named in the evacuation orders, residents and Hamas media said.

"Where will we go?" said Tamer, a 55-year-old businessman, who has been displaced six times since Oct. 7.

"Every time people go back to their homes and begin to rebuild some of their lives even on the rubble of their houses, the occupation sends the tanks back to destroy what is left," he told Reuters via a chat app.

The Israeli military said its forces had struck areas in Khan Younis from where around 20 rockets had been fired on Monday. Targets included weapon storage facilities and operational centres, it added.

It said measures were taken before the strikes to ensure civilians were unharmed by enabling them to evacuate from the area, referring to the evacuation orders. The military accused Hamas of using civilian infrastructure and the wider population as human shields. The Islamist group denies that.

Islamic Jihad, an allied group of Hamas, took credit for firing the rockets, which it said came in response to "the crimes of the Zionist enemy against our Palestinian people".

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led fighters burst into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killed 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages, including civilians and soldiers, back into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

The offensive launched by Israel in retaliation has killed nearly 38,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the heavily built-up coastal enclave in ruins.

The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but officials say most of the dead are civilians. Israel says 317 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza and that at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters.

ENDGAME IN RAFAH

Within the areas subject to evacuation orders was the European Gaza Hospital, which serves both Khan Younis and Rafah, and medical officials had to evacuate patients and families who had taken shelter in the facility, witnesses and medics said.

Some residents headed west towards the Mawasi area by the beach, which is designated as a humanitarian area but is overcrowded by displaced families. Some slept in the street as they could not find shelter.

Israel has signalled that its operation in Rafah, in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, that was meant to stamp out Hamas in its final redoubt would soon be concluded.

After the intense phase of the war is over, its forces will focus on smaller-scale operations meant to stop Hamas from regrouping, officials say.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was nearing its goal of destroying the military capabilities of Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007. Less intense operations would continue, he said.

"We are advancing to the end of the phase of eliminating the terrorist army of Hamas, and there will be a continuation to strike its remnants," Netanyahu said.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to stage attacks against Israeli forces operating inside Gaza and fire rockets from time to time into Israel in a show of defiance.

Hamas says Netanyahu has failed to achieve the goals of the war and the group is ready to fight for years.

Arab mediators' efforts to secure a ceasefire, backed by the United States, have stalled. Hamas says any deal must end the war and bring a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it will accept only temporary pauses in the fighting until Hamas is eradicated.

China targets Morocco as launchpad into Europe’s green auto market

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 27 June 2024

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BY ANTONIA ZIMMERMANN AND JORDYN DAHL, Politico, 26 June 2024

LONDON - As Brussels gets tougher on Chinese imports, Beijing is diversifying its strategies to maintain access to key markets.

The “Shanghai of Morocco,” less than half an hour’s drive from the port city of Tangier, is for now little more than a construction site.

But fast-forward a couple of years and the industrial park — officially named “Cité Mohammed VI Tanger Tech” after the country’s king — could already be teeming with Chinese auto component-makers and electric car battery-producers.

As Brussels and Washington throw up trade barriers, establishing itself in Morocco’s booming auto sector is a key part of China’s strategy to safeguard its access to those markets. To wit, it allows Beijing to leverage the North African country’s ambition to become a leader in the electric vehicle revolution, taking advantage of its proximity to Europe and its existing trade accords with both the European Union and the U.S.

In May, U.S. President Joe Biden quadrupled tariffs on electric vehicles from China to 100 percent. On June 12, meanwhile, the European Commission announced extra provisional duties of up to 38.1 percent on made-in-China electric vehicle imports from July 4 — a level that was much higher than expected.

“Tariffs on made-in-China goods will only accelerate the regionalization of Chinese supply chains to such places as Morocco in order to circumvent such barriers,” said Bill Russo, a Shanghai-based automotive analyst.

Beijing is fully aware of the prospect of growing restrictions, with Chinese investment in Morocco’s electric vehicle sector booming. Just this month, Beijing’s Gotion High-Tech signed a deal with the government to build the country’s first EV battery gigafactory, at a total cost of $1.3 billion.

Morocco’s trade agreements with European countries and the U.S. were among the decisive factors that helped get the Gotion deal over the line, Mohcine Jazouli, the country’s minister delegate in charge of investment, said at the signing ceremony.

A person from the Chinese business sector, who was not authorized to speak publicly, called investment in Morocco a “good option” to maintain access to the EU’s EV market, arguing that it’s “already on the radar of some EV-makers” and allows access to “other markets beyond Europe.”

‘Enormous potential’

To Chinese companies, finding ways to skirt tariffs and trade restrictions through backdoor manufacturing hubs is a familiar game.

Every tenth car sold in Mexico, for example, is Chinese. Although no Chinese auto firm has started manufacturing vehicles there yet, the country’s proximity to the U.S. is ringing alarm bells in Washington.

The fear among U.S politicians is that carmakers will use Mexico — which has a regional free-trade agreement with the U.S. and Canada — as a backdoor to circumvent Washington’s tariffs and shake up a market that is struggling with a flood of cheaper and more efficient vehicles. In 2023, the U.S. ranked sixth in the world in vehicle exports, behind Mexico, South Korea and Germany — compared to fourth prior to 2020. BYD, China’s largest manufacturer, is currently scoping out Mexico for a new battery plant.

A similar story is now unfolding on Europe’s doorstep, just across the Strait of Gibraltar.

“Morocco has an enormous potential, particularly in the automotive sector,” said Steven Jackson, emeritus professor at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Now a critical manufacturing hub for the industry, Morocco last year overtook China, Japan and India — the traditional powerhouses — to become the leading car exporter to the EU. Exports surged to $14 billion, with the largest share of cars shipped to France, Italy and Spain.

Morocco has long been a darling of French automotive company Renault, which first established a manufacturing presence there in 2012 and now produces more than 287,000 vehicles annually. Its popular Dacia Sandero model is made almost exclusively in Morocco, leading Renault to dub the North African nation “Sandero-land.” Franco-American-Italian carmaker Stellantis is also growing its presence in the country.

Beijing was acutely aware of that potential when it started pursuing closer ties with Rabat, a strategy that gained momentum in 2016 with a visit by King Mohammed to China, where the two sides signed a strategic partnership.

Doing so doesn’t come without diplomatic risk, however. It forces Beijing to thread the diplomatic needle between its ambitions in Morocco and in its eastern neighbor, Algeria — with whom China enjoys far closer relations, but whose ties with Rabat remain fraught after a series of crises since the countries’ independence.

But while “Algeria was the old friend of the established ... political and commercial relationship, Morocco had the potential, and China has been trying to push that potential to have a good relationship with these two incompatible countries,” Jackson argued.

Through the back door

With Morocco seeking foreign investment to help it become a leader in new-energy vehicles and batteries that are meant to land in Europe, conditions are ripe for Chinese companies to set up shop.

Rabat aims to ensure that made-in-Morocco EVs represent up to 60 percent of the cars it exports ahead of the EU’s planned 2035 ban on new fossil-fuel cars, Ryad Mezzour, the country’s industry and trade minister, said in April. Together with occupied Western Sahara, Morocco holds 70 percent of the world’s phosphate reserves — used for fertilizer production but also in cheaper models of EV batteries.

Chinese EV-makers, the person from the Chinese business sector said, tend to set up a plant “if they have big sales in the country or nearby” or “if the country has better access to their targeted market or [a] favorable business environment for them.”

Stability, geographical proximity to a key market, a rich industrial landscape and cheap labor — that’s exactly what Morocco offers, according to Christian Géraud Neema Byamungu, an expert on China-Africa relations and the Francophone Africa editor of the China Global South Project.

As gaining access to key markets is key to justifying the higher cost of producing abroad, Morocco’s abundance of cheap labor — caused by a six-year drought that has pushed farmers out of employment and sent unemployment rates soaring — is a decisive factor. Quoting Mezzour, Chinese state media Xinhua said Chinese manufacturers benefited from the low cost of making batteries, which is 50 percent cheaper than in Europe.

Following on, the last several months have seen a series of Chinese investments in the batteries sector, with Chinese EV battery manufacturers Hailiang, Shinzoom and BTR New Material Group all announcing plans to set up manufacturing plants. Morocco has also seen a number of joint ventures between Chinese and Western EV battery companies.

As China’s influence grows, the EU could opt to up the ante. Bowing to pressure from Washington, Mexico has started refusing to offer additional incentives such as low-cost public land or tax cuts for investment in EV production to Chinese carmakers. Should he return to the White House, Donald Trump has vowed to impose tariffs on cars crossing the border from Mexico.

In the long term, however, Byamungu, the expert, expects this strategy will push Western powers to take a less hawkish approach to China.

“Private companies still need Chinese money … As much as they want fully to cut off the ties, the reality of private companies will kick in, and will force them to dilute their approach,” he said.