Search and rescue operations under way while five suspects have been arrested, Tunisian National Guard says.
At least 23 people are missing off the Tunisian coast, local authorities have said, as search and rescue operations are under way.
Tunisia’s National Guard said in a statement on Saturday that it had been notified of “unauthorised sailing operations” from several areas along the Tunisian coast. Five suspects in organising the crossing have been arrested, it added.
The National Guard said families of the missing individuals had lost contact with them and notified the authorities. The statement did not identify the nationality of the missing people.
The state-run news agency TAP said a vessel departed from the town of Korba in the northeastern Nabeul governorate.
Both Tunisia and neighbouring Libya are key departure points for those looking to travel irregularly by boat to Europe.
Migrants seeking to travel to Europe often arrive on Tunisia’s coasts from across the globe, particularly from impoverished and conflict-stricken areas of sub-Saharan Africa. More than 12,000 people are registered as refugees and asylum seekers in Tunisia, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Tunisian nationals have also sought to migrate to Europe via sea to escape poverty and search for employment opportunities. As of 2023, the unemployment rate in Tunisia was more than 16 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Some 17,000 irregular Tunisian arrivals landed in Italy in 2023, many from working-class areas where refugees stay, like the industrial areas around Sfax, 278km (172 miles) south of Tunis on the coast.
In February, 17 Tunisians went missing after setting sail towards Italy on a fishing boat.
The central Mediterranean Sea is one of the world’s deadliest migration routes. About 3,000 migrants and asylum seekers are known to have drowned while crossing it since 2023, according to the International Organization For Migration (IOM).
In the first 11 months of 2023, Tunisia’s National Guard intercepted almost 70,000 irregular migrants and asylum seekers. Of those, 77.5 percent had travelled to Tunisia from across Africa.
Today we mark the 15th anniversary of the bloody end of Sri Lanka’s three-decades-long civil war. This anniversary comes around at a critical historical juncture, amid the humanitarian catastrophe unleashed by Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The global response to Gaza, across many states, peoples and international institutions, shows that there is a strong will to uphold international norms on protecting civilians and a strong will to address the underlying political injustices of the conflict itself, rather than seeing it merely as a problem of security and terrorism. The international failure to translate this will into concrete action is appalling but sadly not unprecedented.
The state of Sri Lanka, 15 years after the end of the armed conflict there, shows what happens when mass atrocities are unaddressed and the political fault lines that led to them in the first place remain unresolved and are arguably exacerbated. There are also striking and unavoidable similarities between the events still unfolding in Gaza and those that took place in the Vanni, the area of northern Sri Lanka where the war ended.
In the final months of the conflict, the Sri Lankan military besieged and bombarded a civilian population of 330,000 along with an estimated 5,000 Tamil Tiger fighters, corralling them into ever thinner strips of land in the Vanni. The offensive was brutal and unconstrained. It destroyed and defeated the Tamil Tigers’ armed group LTTE but also made a raging bonfire out of international humanitarian law, the laws of war and basic norms of civilian protection.
The Sri Lankan military bombed and shelled food distribution centres, hospitals and civilian shelters even though it had received the precise coordinates of these from the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross. It ordered civilians into ever-shrinking “no-fire” zones that it would then relentlessly attack using unguided artillery shells and multi-barrelled rocket launchers, firing hundreds and sometimes thousands of shells a day.
The last of the no-fire zones was a mere 2-3 square kilometres and the death toll often reached 1,000 civilians a day, sometimes more. Sri Lanka also limited the supply of food and essential medicines including anaesthetics in moves calculated to compound and exacerbate the humanitarian distress.
Subsequent UN investigations concluded that the Sri Lankan military’s campaign amounted to the “persecution of the Vanni population”. At least 40,000 people were reported killed in the fighting, but some estimates based on population figures suggest the death toll could be as high as 169,000.
At the end of the war, the Sri Lankan authorities summarily executed LTTE cadres and others who surrendered and herded the remaining civilians into barbed wire-ringed internment camps, allegedly for “processing”. The government only released them after immense international pressure.
Sri Lanka justified its campaign as the only way to defeat “terrorism” and proclaimed its “victory” over the LTTE as a military model that other countries could follow. It has consistently and vehemently rejected international demands for meaningful accountability and has also refused to implement political changes that would ensure real political equality for the Tamils and address the root causes of the conflict.
Yet, Sri Lanka’s trajectory after 2009 shows that mass atrocities and the “victory” they secure entail consequences that rebound and not just for the Tamil population. After the war ended, Sri Lanka simply doubled down on its repression of Tamils.
The high-intensity bombardment turned into a suffocating and all-pervasive de facto military occupation that continues to this day. Five out of seven of the army’s regional commands are stationed in the northern and eastern provinces and in some districts, there is one soldier for every two civilians.
The military is also participating in the ongoing process of “Sinhalisation” and “Buddhisisation” of the northeast. Military personnel accompany Buddhist monks and Sinhala settlers as they violently seize Tamil lands and places of worship so that they can be converted into Sinhala ones.
Finally, military personnel exercise a constant surveillance of everyday Tamil social, cultural and political activities that has a chilling effect on everyday life and makes meaningless any talk of “reconciliation” or even a return to “normalcy”.
Yet Tamils in the former war zones and the now extensive diaspora have not been cowed into submission. They have worked to keep alive the struggle for justice and accountability. These efforts have kept Sri Lanka on the back foot internationally with repeated UN investigations and resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council. Sri Lankan officials also have to live with the ever-present danger of sanctions and possible prosecutions for their involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The war and its aftermath empowered the Rajapaksa family and their unvarnished form of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. From 2005 until 2022, they dominated the Sinhala electorate, lauded as the leaders who had finally vanquished the Tamil separatists. Yet, their reckless and nepotistic approach to the economy and international politics brought financial ruin and increasing isolation.
Colombo sought to play off the geopolitical rivalries of India, China and Western states but this failed to secure any tangible material benefits and also could not avert the escalating debt crisis. In April 2022, Sri Lanka defaulted on its debt amid acute shortages of food, fuel and essential medicines. The outrage and roiling protests triggered by the economic meltdown ousted the last Rajapaksa president but Sri Lanka is yet to find a viable or stable post-Rajapaksa settlement.
Meanwhile, the same militarisation and repression used against Tamils are now being deployed against other communities. Sri Lanka has used “high security zones” extensively in the Tamil-speaking areas to confiscate land, displace civilians and militarise public space. This same tactic has now been deployed to restrict protests in the capital city of Colombo. The anti-terrorism measures that were normally reserved for use against Tamils are now being deployed against other dissidents and critics.
In the years after the end of the war, Muslim and Christian communities have also become targets of violence and hatred. Buddhist monks have led attacks on Muslim homes and businesses and on churches. They have led campaigns against Halal meat and the headscarf. During the pandemic, Muslims who had died as a consequence of COVID-19 infection were forcibly cremated for spurious “public health” reasons.
The impunity with which Sri Lanka’s security forces operate is now a threat to all communities on the island. There is no better illustration of this than Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith’s ongoing campaign calling for an international investigation into the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks that killed 250 people.
Cardinal Ranjith had previously been a staunch Rajapaksa ally and had opposed Tamil demands for international accountability for the crimes committed at the end of the war. He is now calling for an international investigation because he is convinced, like many on the island, that elements of Sri Lanka’s security state were aware of the plans for the appalling Easter Sunday attacks but did not take action in order to bolster the eventually successful 2020 presidential campaign of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
The effects of Sri Lanka’s massacres have extended well beyond May 2009 and the killing fields of the Vanni. They are evident in the ongoing de facto occupation of the Tamil-speaking areas by a military that eats up the scarce resources of a now effectively bankrupt state. They are evident in the political instability and growing repression in Colombo. They are also evident in security forces who have become such a power unto themselves that they have been accused by a formerly loyal cardinal of allowing brutal terrorist attacks to take place to secure electoral victory for their preferred candidate.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has rightly brought international attention and focus on the need to uphold and defend humanitarian law. Sri Lanka shows what happens when states that commit mass atrocities are allowed to go scot-free.
Remembering and effectively addressing the Vanni atrocities is not just about the past, it is also about the future. Most immediately, it is about Sri Lanka’s future. But it is also about re-building and securing the viability and integrity of international humanitarian law and the possibility of securing genuine and lasting peace, security and prosperity.
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
As Israel’s bombing of Gaza intensifies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a rift in his war cabinet and growing international pressure. And yet, this is a war that the vast majority of Israelis continue to support – thanks in no small part to one-sided coverage by Israeli media.
Contributors:
Yael Berda – Associate professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Dalia Fahmy – Associate professor of political science, Long Island University Tahani Mustafa – Senior Palestine analyst, International Crisis Group Michael Omer-Man – Director of research for Israel-Palestine, DAWN
On our radar:
South Africans are voting this month and, for the first time in 30 years, the ruling African National Congress’s majority is under threat. Meenakshi Ravi reports on the ANC’s attempts to interfere with the public broadcaster.
FAKE: India’s Digital Deception
India’s elections are under way, and deepfakes are proliferating all over social media. Johanna Hoes looks at how the technology enables politicians to make fake content look convincing, and dismiss genuine content as fake.
Featuring:
Henry Ajder – Co-founder, Latent Space Divyendra Singh Jadoun – Synthetic media artist Mitali Mukherjee – Director of journalist programmes, Reuters Institute
Lebanon and the Lebanese people are still suffering a debilitating economic crisis that has gripped the country since 2019.
The pound has plummeted to less than 10 percent of its value before the crisis, savings have disappeared both in terms of exchange rates and actual deposits as banks announce they have no cash to release, and more and more people worry about simply staying alive.
About 80 percent of the population is below the poverty line and 36 percent is below the “extreme poverty line”, living on less than $2.15 a day.
A recent deal worth 1 billion euros ($1.06bn) with the European Union may have been seen as a godsend in such circumstances, but it has brought to the fore even more problems.
‘Shameful’
EU grants over the past three years are not purely to help Lebanon’s economy.
Rather, they are mostly to “ensure the wellbeing of host communities and Syrian refugees”, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. Nearly three-quarters of the package is earmarked for that in hopes that refugees will be dissuaded from heading for Europe.
Lebanon has taken in millions of Syrian refugees who have fled their country’s 13-year war.
The EU package was strongly criticised by human rights workers and analysts, who said the deal rewards the state’s financial mismanagement and mistreatment of the Syrian community.
More than 300 Syrians have returned – or been returned – to their home country in what Lebanese authorities call a “voluntary return” programme.
But rights groups have panned the initiative, which comes off the back of 13,000 forced deportations of Syrians in 2023 alone, violence towards refugees in Lebanon and ongoing conflict in Syria itself.
“Human Rights Watch has documented the summary deportation of thousands of Syrians in 2023 and [the] deportation of opposition activists and army defectors this year,” Ramzi Kaiss, a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division at the right group, told Al Jazeera.
“Among those documented deportations were Syrians who were attempting to flee Lebanon by sea and returned to Lebanon by the Lebanese armed forces and subsequently deported.
“The fact that the EU would provide funds to encourage that behaviour is shameful.”
‘Asking people to starve’
Another enduring issue in Lebanon renders the assistance less than helpful.
Syrian children play at a refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley [File: Ali Hashisho/Reuters]
“The biggest problem is the total absence of accountability,” Karim Emile Bitar, professor of international relations at Saint Joseph’s University in Beirut, told Al Jazeera. “Even the Lebanese minister of finance acknowledged that local corruption could be a major [issue].”
The country’s poor do not benefit from money coming into the country, left to fend for themselves.
“In this country, we live by the blessing of God Almighty, … and people help each other,” Abu Omar, the owner of a clothing shop in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest and poorest city, told Al Jazeera.
“Everything is very expensive, and the economic situation is very bad. There’s no money and very little work and lots of taxes.”
Lebanon’s Parliament passed a new budget in January aimed at cutting its significant deficit, which the World Bank says is 12.8 percent of its gross domestic product.
The new budget increased the value-added tax and decreased progressive taxes on things like capital gains, real estate and investments – hitting the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest, according to economists.
“With this kind of strategy to curb the deficit, people can’t meet basic needs of health, food, shelter and education,” Farah Al Shami, the social protection programme leader at the Arab Reform Initiative, told Al Jazeera.
“They’re just asking people to starve and to die.”
‘Nothing new under the sun’
International financial institutions like the World Bank have been pushing Lebanon’s leaders to introduce reforms to increase “transparency, inclusion and accountability” as a condition for releasing aid packages.
The International Monetary Fund has been sitting on a badly needed $3bn package that would, in theory, help the state’s many near-bankrupt, paralysed institutions get up and running again.
Lebanon’s political elite has avoided implementing reforms, worried that transparency may reveal corruption among a leaders focused on protecting their business monopolies, according to Leila Dagher and Sumru Altug, writing for the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.
The alternative, according to some observers, has been to wait and hope that the international community will eventually feel that it is to its benefit to prop up even a failing governing structure as long as it helps hold back some refugees.
The EU has given Lebanon more than 3 billion euros ($3.3bn) since 2011, half of which was to help with the fallout from the war in Syria – money that was supposed to help refugees become self-sufficient and help the Lebanese host community.
Another 860 million euros ($934m) has gone to humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable in Lebanon, including refugees and the poor.
Expectations that the latest EU package will have a different impact this time around are unrealistic, analysts said.
“There is nothing new under the sun [in this deal],” according to Bitar.
Politics supersedes all
Much of the money provided by foreign governments and international bodies to Lebanon since 2011 is assumed to have found its way into the pockets of corrupt bankers, businessmen and politicians.
But that has not stopped the EU from growing closer to the Lebanese ruling class and prioritising its political considerations.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has been coordinating with caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati over migration as the economy and local hostility push more Syrians and Lebanese to attempt the sea crossing to Europe.
Von der Leyen, who recently announced her re-election bid, was the smiling face of the latest aid package as she stood beside Mikati and Christodoulides.
“Unfortunately, there is nothing positive we can expect from her,” Bitar said, “neither on the Lebanese dossier nor on the Syrian refugee file.”
During her tenure as European Commission president, von der Leyen has focused heavily on migration, securing deals with North African countries to reduce refugee flows to Europe despite heavy criticism from rights groups and some EU member states.
“This is just the latest in a series of bad migration deals with Turkey, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia, so it’s following a trend in Europe of really abdicating responsibilities for migrants and refugees,” Adriana Tidona, a European migration researcher at Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera.
“Europe is risking becoming complicit in very serious human rights violations.”
A shirtless Fury eyeballed the Ukrainian and then pushed him angrily, sparking a brief melee on stage, before hurling a series of swear words at his opponent on Friday.
“We’re ready to rock and roll, so fireworks tomorrow night. I’m going knock [him] spark out,” raged the 35-year-old Brit, drawing cheers from the crowd.
“I’m coming for his heart, that’s what I’m coming for. [Forget] his belts. I’m coming for his heart, he’s getting it tomorrow, spark out!”
Fury weighed in at 118.8 kilos (262 pounds), more than 6.8kg (15 pounds) lighter than his last outing, while Usyk was 105.9kg (233.5 pounds), significantly heavier than his customary 100.2kg (221 pounds).
Ukraine’s Usyk, when asked what he had said to Fury, replied: “Don’t be afraid, I won’t leave you tomorrow.”
He said he was able to remain so calm “because that’s my plan. If I’m nervous, I won’t win”.
Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are both undefeated in their professional boxing careers. That streak will come to an end for one of these competitors on Saturday night in Riyadh [Andrew Couldridge/Reuters]
Promoter Frank Warren called it the “most important fight of the 21st century”.
“It’s the fight we’ve been waiting for – the two best heavyweights in the world, both undefeated,” he said on a sweltering Thursday evening.
“This is something special. Fights like [this] come along once in a generation.”
Opinions are split over the outcome, with some tipping the rangy, street-smart “Gypsy King” Fury and others backing the supreme skills and fitness of Usyk.
“Tyson Fury should win on points,” Lewis told the BBC. “The bigger guy has longer arms, great movement.”
However, Tony Bellew, Usyk’s final victim at cruiserweight, warned: “He is the purest and best boxer Fury will ever face in his life.”
“The guy is on another platform. There are boxers and then there is Usyk,” Bellew added.
The final build-up has been explosive at times, including when Fury’s father headbutted a member of Usyk’s entourage and was seen with blood streaming down his face.
However, both fighters were taciturn during the final news conference on Thursday, with Fury promising to pray for Usyk and the Ukrainian scribbling down a poem.
Fury tipped the scales at a bulky 125.9kg (277.7 pounds) against MMA convert Francis Ngannou in October, when he looked sluggish and was knocked down before winning a split decision.
The “Gypsy King” was 112kg (247 pounds) for his biggest victory to date, upsetting Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. His career-lightest weight was 111.3kg (245.5 pounds) for Vinny Maddalone in 2012.
Usyk, a former cruiserweight, had previously been remarkably consistent during his heavyweight career, weighing in at 100.2kg (221 pounds) for his 2021 and 2022 wins over Anthony Joshua, and 99.7kg (220 pounds) against Daniel Dubois last year.
Tales of his training are legendary, including 10-kilometre (6-mile) swims, four-minutes-plus breath-holds, juggling – and catching – six coins at once to demonstrate his reflexes.
With little to choose between them, it may come down to whoever can stay smart and adapt over the 12 scheduled rounds.
Israeli forces have continued to bombard the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive is deepening a humanitarian crisis in the already ravaged part of the Palestinian enclave.
Hamas said on Friday that its fighters were battling invading Israeli troops in the narrow alleyways of Jabalia – the Gaza Strip’s largest refugee camp – in some of the fiercest confrontations since soldiers returned to the area a week ago.
Israeli forces have stepped up their attacks on northern Gaza in recent days, displacing more than 100,000 people, according to United Nations figures.
Residents said Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles had moved deep into the heart of Jabalia while bulldozers were demolishing homes and shops.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said the Palestinian Civil Defence said at least 93 bodies were recovered within 24 hours from the “streets and the alleyways” of Jabalia.
“They are saying there are still more bodies in areas that they are unable to reach,” Mahmoud said.
Meanwhile, fighting between Palestinian armed groups and the Israeli military was also reported in other parts of the coastal territory.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, the al-Quds Brigades, said on Friday that their fighters shelled an Israeli “command post” in the south part of Gaza City.
The spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, Abu Obaida, also said in a rare statement that Hamas fighters had targeted 100 Israeli army vehicles across all “fighting fronts” over the past 10 days and had inflicted casualties.
Lack of humanitarian supplies
Israel’s intensifying bombardment of Gaza comes as the United Nations and human rights advocates continue to call for a lasting ceasefire to end the war, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians since early October. The war began after Hamas carried out attacks in southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,139 people.
Gaza faces dire shortages of food, water, medicine and other critical supplies because Israel has impeded aid deliveries.
This month, the Israeli army seized and shut down the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt – a vital entry point for aid in southern Gaza.
On Friday, the US military announced that the first trucks began making deliveries to Gaza of aid arriving at a temporary pier set up by the country off the coast of Gaza.
The US military’s Central Command said “trucks carrying humanitarian assistance began moving ashore” via the pier a day after it was anchored to a Gaza beach.
“This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor that is entirely humanitarian in nature,” it said.
The aid is being transported from Cyprus, the European Union’s easternmost member, about 360km (225 miles) from Gaza. The first shipment included 88,000 cans of food from Romania, the 27-member bloc said.
Pier ‘not a replacement’
But the UN and other observers have said the pier is not a solution. Instead, they have urged Israel to allow aid into Gaza through land crossings.
Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said on Friday that the UN had agreed to help receive aid and arrange for its dispatch to Gaza from the floating pier “as long as … the neutrality and independence of humanitarian operations” are respected.
But Haq said aid deliveries by land remain the most effective way to combat the humanitarian crisis impacting 2.3 million people in Gaza.
“Given the immense needs in Gaza, the floating dock is intended to supplement existing land crossings of aid into Gaza, including Rafah, Kerem Shalom [Karem Abu Salem] and Erez [Beit Hanoon]. It is not meant to replace any crossings,” Haq said.
That was echoed by White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, who told Al Jazeera on Friday that the pier “is an additive, not an alternative, to ground crossings”.
“It is not a replacement,” said Kirby, who added that the US is hoping to increase the amount of aid getting into Gaza in the next “72 hours or so”.
Still, Kirby said the pier itself “will not be enough all on its own to get the food, water and medicine that the Palestinians living in Gaza so desperately need”. “We have to get those land crossings open as soon as possible,” Kirby said.
Israel says captives’ bodies retrieved
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said on Friday that it had retrieved the bodies of three captives from the Gaza Strip.
Military spokesperson Daniel Hagari identified the three as Shani Louk, Amit Buskila and Yitzhak Gelernter, who he said “were murdered by Hamas while escaping the Nova music festival on October 7 and their bodies were taken into Gaza”.
Hagari did not say where the bodies were found.
The Israeli government had confirmed the death of German-Israeli Louk, a 23-year-old tattoo artist, in late October. But the family of 57-year-old Gelernter was “in total darkness” about his fate until Friday, his daughter, Yarden Pivko, told Channel 12 News.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the military operation in a statement on Friday and reiterated a pledge to return all the captives, “the living and the deceased alike”.
In response to the announcement, the Qassam Brigades said it was “sceptical” of Israel’s claim. It added that the only way for the remaining captives to return alive was through a truce.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are displaced, their homes turned to rubble and their futures indefinitely on hold. Al Jazeera’s Urooba Jamal recounts speaking to a young student, a father of three and an artist about how this war is deferring their dreams.
Army says it retrieved bodies of Itzhak Gelerenter, Amit Buskila and Shani Louk, who were killed at Nova music festival.
The Israeli army says the bodies of three captives who were killed during the October 7 attacks by Palestinian groups on southern Israel have been recovered from the Gaza Strip.
Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a statement on Friday that the bodies of Itzhak Gelerenter, Amit Buskila and Shani Louk were found during an operation by the army and the country’s internal security service, Shin Bet.
Hagari said the three “were murdered by Hamas while escaping the Nova music festival” on October 7 and “their bodies were taken into Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the operation and offered his condolences to the families.
“We will return all of our hostages, the living and the deceased alike,” he said. “I commend our brave forces whose determined action has returned the sons and daughters to their own border.”
The announcement was made as Israel continues to bombard Gaza, where its military offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and spurred a dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave.
More than 1,100 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on October 7 while 253 were taken captive. The Israeli envoy to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday that 132 captives remained in Gaza.
Last week, Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, released a video announcing British-Israeli captive Nadav Popplewell’s death. The group said Popplewell had died of wounds sustained in an Israeli air strike a month ago.
The video was released amid growing domestic pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of the remaining captives.
Thousands of Israelis, including relatives and other loved ones of those still held in Gaza, have taken to the streets in recent days to demand that Netanyahu do more to free them.
Many have also called on Israel to agree to a ceasefire to bring their relatives home safely.
Reporting from Amman, Jordan, on Friday, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan said an advocacy group working on behalf of the captives’ families would likely not be satisfied by Netanyahu’s statement on the retrieval of the three captives’ bodies.
Al Jazeera is reporting from outside Israel because it has been banned by the Israeli government.
The Bring Them Home campaign has said Netanyahu “hasn’t done enough to try and get people out”, Khan said.
“Expect in the coming hours to see people out on the streets. We’ve seen these spontaneous protests in the past.”
Naama Weinberg, whose cousin Itai Svirsky was abducted on October 7 and is believed to have been killed in captivity, last week urged the Israeli government to take urgent action.
“Soon, even those who managed to survive this long will no longer be among the living. They must be saved now,” Weinberg said.
“There is no victory and can be no victory without the return of the hostages.”
Marc Lamont Hill talks to journalist Orly Noy about the extreme elements in Israel’s leadership.
Israel’s war on Gaza rages on with the death toll at more than 35,000 Palestinians and climbing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is facing growing internal friction over the way forward in the war. Many of the coalition’s far-right members have urged the prime minister to ignore growing international pressure to rein in Israel’s onslaught on the territory.
Tensions are also rising among the Israeli public with citizens taking to the streets to protest against Netanyahu’s policies and demand his resignation.
So what lies ahead for the country’s leadership?
This week on UpFront, Marc Lamont Hill speaks to journalist and editor of Local Call, Orly Noy, about the political climate in Israel.
Former Manchester United and Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo is named highest-paid athlete for a fourth time.
Cristiano Ronaldo topped Forbes’ list of highest-paid athletes for the fourth time in his career while Spanish golfer Jon Rahm moved up to second following his sensational switch to Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
Ronaldo became the world’s highest-paid athlete after his move to Saudi Arabian side Al-Nassr and Forbes said the 39-year-old footballer’s estimated total earnings were in the region of $260m, an all-time high for a football player.
His on-field earnings amounted to $200m while his off-field earnings were $60m, thanks to sponsorship deals where brands make use of his 629 million Instagram followers.
Twice major winner Rahm joined LIV Golf in December in a big-money move that sent shockwaves through the sport after media reports said the current world number five would be paid at least $300m.
Apart from that guarantee, Rahm has earned $218m and joins Ronaldo as the only two athletes to earn over $200m.
Third on the list is record eight-times Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi, who made a lucrative switch to Major League Soccer side Inter Miami, helping the Argentine World Cup winner earn $135m.
The 36-year-old has earned $65m in on-field earnings but $70m off it thanks to deals with major sponsors such as Adidas and Apple.
Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James is fourth at $128.2m and although the 39-year-old, the first NBA player to score 40,000 career points, is nearing the end of his career, the American is set to have one last crack at the Olympics.
Fellow NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo ($111m) of the Milwaukee Bucks rounds out the top five while France soccer captain Kylian Mbappe has dropped down to sixth ($110m).
Mbappe announced he would be leaving Paris Saint-Germain after seven years in the French capital where he became the club’s all-time leading scorer and the 25-year-old is expected to join Spanish giants Real Madrid in the close season.
Former PSG star Neymar, who also moved to the Saudi Pro League to join Al-Hilal, is seventh ($108m) despite sitting out the majority of the season with a torn ACL.
French striker Karim Benzema, who also moved to Saudi Arabia, is eighth ($106m) on the list followed by Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry ($102m).
Lamar Jackson is the only NFL player on the list in 10th place ($100.5m) thanks to the signing bonus that was negotiated in his new Baltimore Ravens contract last year.
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