Latest news with #tribes
Malay Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Malay Mail
‘It doesn't look good': Battling to survive, Hamas faces revolt from clans and waning Iranian support
Hamas faces internal challenges, uncertainty over Iran support Hamas weakness emboldens tribal challenges, analyst says Ceasefire needed for Hamas to regroup, sources say Israel demands exile and disarmament of the group CAIRO, June 29 — Short of commanders, deprived of much of its tunnel network and unsure of support from its ally Iran, Hamas is battling to survive in Gaza in the face of rebellious local clans and relentless Israeli military pressure. Hamas fighters are operating autonomously under orders to hold out as long as possible but the Islamist group is struggling to maintain its grip as Israel openly backs tribes opposing it, three sources close to Hamas said. With a humanitarian crisis in Gaza intensifying international pressure for a ceasefire, Hamas badly needs a pause in the fighting, one of the people said. Not only would a ceasefire offer respite to weary Gazans, who are growing increasingly critical of Hamas, but it would also allow the Islamist group to crush rogue elements, including some clans and looters who have been stealing aid, the person said. To counter the immediate threat, Hamas has sent some of its top fighters to kill one rebellious leader, Yasser Abu Shabab, but so far he has remained beyond their reach in the Rafah area held by Israeli troops, according to two Hamas sources and two other sources familiar with the situation. Reuters spoke to 16 sources including people close to Hamas, Israeli security sources and diplomats who painted a picture of a severely weakened group, retaining some sway and operational capacity in Gaza despite its setbacks, but facing stiff challenges. Hamas is still capable of landing blows: it killed seven Israeli soldiers in an attack in southern Gaza on Tuesday. But three diplomats in the Middle East said intelligence assessments showed it had lost its centralised command and control and was reduced to limited, surprise attacks. An Israeli military official estimated Israel had killed 20,000 or more Hamas fighters and destroyed or rendered unusable hundreds of miles of tunnels under the coastal strip. Much of Gaza has been turned to rubble in 20 months of conflict. One Israeli security source said the average age of Hamas fighters was 'getting lower by the day'. Israeli security sources say Hamas is recruiting from hundreds of thousands of impoverished, unemployed, displaced young men. Hamas does not disclose how many of its fighters have died. 'They're hiding because they are being instantly hit by planes but they appear here and there, organising queues in front of bakeries, protecting aid trucks, or punishing criminals,' said Essam, 57 a construction worker in Gaza City. 'They're not like before the war, but they exist.' Asked for comment for this story, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the group was working for an agreement to end the war with Israel but 'surrender is not an option'. Hamas remained committed to negotiations and was 'ready to release all prisoners at once', he said, referring to Israeli hostages, but it wanted the killing to stop and Israel to withdraw. Palestinian Hamas militants keep guard on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages, identified at the time by Palestinian militant groups as Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip February 20, 2025. — Reuters pic 'It doesn't look good' Hamas is a shadow of the group that attacked Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking another 251 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's offensive has killed more than 56,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities. The damage inflicted by Israel is unlike anything Hamas has suffered since its creation, with most of its top military commanders in Gaza killed. Founded in 1987, Hamas had gradually established itself as the main rival of the Fatah faction led by President Mahmoud Abbas and finally seized Gaza from his control in 2007. With a US-brokered truce in the Iran-Israel war holding, attention has switched back to the possibility of a Gaza deal that might end the conflict and release the remaining hostages. One of the people close to Hamas told Reuters it would welcome a truce, even for a couple of months, to confront the local clans that are gaining influence. But he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's terms for ending the war — including Hamas leaders leaving Gaza — would amount to total defeat, and Hamas would never surrender. 'We keep the faith, but in reality, it doesn't look good,' the source said. Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, said he believed Hamas was simply trying to survive. That was not just a physical challenge of holding out militarily, he said, but above all a political one. 'They face being eliminated on the ground in Gaza if the war doesn't stop, but they also face being erased from any governing formula that ends the war in Gaza (if such a thing can be found),' he wrote in response to Reuters' questions. Palestinian tribes have emerged as part of Israel's strategy to counter Hamas. Netanyahu has said publicly that Israel has been arming clans that oppose Hamas, but has not said which. One of the most prominent challenges has come from Abu Shabab, a Palestinian Bedouin based in the Rafah area, which is under Israeli control. Hamas wants Abu Shabab captured, dead or alive, accusing him of collaboration with Israel and planning attacks on the Islamist group, three Hamas sources told Reuters. Abu Shabab controls eastern Rafah and his group is believed to have freedom of movement in the wider Rafah area. Images on their Facebook page show their armed men organising the entry of aid trucks from the Kerem Shalom crossing. Announcements by his group indicate that it is trying to build an independent administration in the area, though they deny trying to become a governing authority. The group has called on people from Rafah now in other areas of Gaza to return home, promising food and shelter. In response to Reuters' questions, Abu Shabab's group denied getting support from Israel or contacts with the Israeli army, describing itself as a popular force protecting humanitarian aid from looting by escorting aid trucks. It accused Hamas of violence and muzzling dissent. A Hamas security official said the Palestinian security services would 'strike with an iron fist to uproot the gangs of the collaborator Yasser Abu Shabab', saying they would show no mercy or hesitation and accusing him of being part of 'an effort to create chaos and lawlessness'. Not all of Gaza's clans are at odds with Hamas, however. On Thursday, a tribal alliance said its men had protected aid trucks from looters in northern Gaza. Sources close to Hamas said the group had approved of the alliance's involvement. Israel said Hamas fighters had in fact commandeered the trucks, which both the clans and Hamas denied. An Iranian man walks next to an installation with the flags of Iran, Hezbollah and Lebanon in a street in Tehran, Iran, October 18, 2024. — Wana pic via Reuters Iran uncertainty Palestinian analyst Akram Attallah said the emergence of Abu Shabab was a result of the weakness of Hamas, though he expected him to fail ultimately because Palestinians broadly reject any hint of collaboration with Israel. Nevertheless, regardless of how small Abu Shabab's group is, the fact Hamas has an enemy from the same culture was dangerous, he said. 'It remains a threat until it is dealt with.' Israel's bombing campaign against Iran has added to the uncertainties facing Hamas. Tehran's backing for Hamas played a big part in developing its armed wing into a force capable of shooting missiles deep into Israel. While both Iran and Israel have claimed victory, Netanyahu on Sunday indicated the Israeli campaign against Tehran had further strengthened his hand in Gaza, saying it would 'help us expedite our victory and the release of all our hostages'. US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that great progress was being made on Gaza, adding that the strike on Iran would help get the hostages released. A Palestinian official close to Hamas said the group was weighing the risk of diminished Iranian backing, anticipating 'the impact will be on the shape of funding and the expertise Iran used to give to the resistance and Hamas'. One target of Israel's campaign in Iran was a Revolutionary Guards officer who oversaw coordination with Hamas. Israel said Saeed Izadi, whose death it announced on Saturday, was the driving force behind the Iran-Hamas axis. Hamas extended condolences to Iran on Thursday, calling Izadi a friend who was directly responsible for ties with 'the leadership of the Palestinian resistance'. A source from an Iran-backed group in the region said Izadi helped develop Hamas capabilities, including how to carry out complex attacks, including rocket launches, infiltration operations, and drones. Asked about how the Israeli campaign against Iran might affect its support for Hamas, Abu Zuhri said Iran was a large and powerful country that would not be defeated. — Reuters
South China Morning Post
16-06-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
Indian tribes visit UK museum to bring home ancestors' remains, taken in colonial era
Tribes from the Indian state of Nagaland have held talks at a museum in Britain to secure the return of ancestral remains taken during the colonial era and put on display for decades. Skulls and other body parts were often brought from Asia, Africa and elsewhere to Britain and to other former colonial powers as 'trophies', to be traded, displayed or studied. There are growing calls worldwide for such remains, as well as stolen art, to be returned to their communities as part of a centuries-old movement demanding reparations for colonialism and slavery. Just last month, skulls of 19 African Americans were returned to New Orleans from Germany, where they were sent for examination by phrenology, the now discredited belief that the shape and size of a head shows mental ability and character, especially when applied to different ethnic groups. Historians say some of the remains were taken by colonial officers from burial sites and battlefields in Nagaland, where for centuries headhunting was common practice. Others were looted in acts of violence. Naga artefacts on display on Friday at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, Britain. Photo: Reuters. The Pitt Rivers Museum, which displays collections from Oxford University, holds the world's largest Naga collection, including thousands of artefacts, 41 human remains, primarily skulls, and 178 objects that contain or may contain human hair.
Associated Press
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Trump administration pulls US out of agreement to help restore salmon in the Columbia River
SEATTLE (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday pulled the U.S. out of an agreement with Washington, Oregon and four American Indian tribes to work together to restore salmon populations and boost tribal clean energy development in the Pacific Northwest, deriding the plan as 'radical environmentalism' that could have resulted in the breaching of four controversial dams on the Snake River. The deal, known as the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, was reached in late 2023 and heralded by the Biden administration, tribes and conservationists as historic. It allowed for a pause in decades of litigation over the harm the federal government's operation of dams in the Northwest has done to the fish. Under it, the federal government said it planned to spend more than $1 billion over a decade to help recover depleted salmon runs. The government also said that it would build enough new clean energy projects in the Pacific Northwest to replace the hydropower generated by the Lower Snake River dams — the Ice Harbor, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and Lower Granite — should Congress ever agree to remove them. In a statement, the White House said former President Joe Biden's decision to sign the agreement 'placed concerns about climate change above the Nation's interests in reliable energy sources.' Conservations groups, Democratic members of Congress and the Northwest tribes criticized Trump's action. 'Donald Trump doesn't know the first thing about the Northwest and our way of life — so of course, he is abruptly and unilaterally upending a historic agreement that finally put us on a path to salmon recovery, while preserving stable dam operations for growers and producers, public utilities, river users, ports and others throughout the Northwest,' Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a written statement. 'This decision is grievously wrong and couldn't be more shortsighted.' Basin was once world's greatest salmon-producing river system The Columbia River Basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, was once the world's greatest salmon-producing river system, with at least 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead. Today, four are extinct and seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act. Another iconic but endangered Northwest species, a population of killer whales, also depend on the salmon. The construction of the first dams on the main Columbia River, including the Grand Coulee and Bonneville dams in the 1930s, provided jobs during the Great Depression, as well as hydropower and navigation. The dams made the town of Lewiston, Idaho, the most inland seaport on the West Coast, and many farmers in the region rely on barges to ship their crops. But the dams are also main culprit behind the salmon's decline, and fisheries scientists have concluded that breaching the dams in eastern Washington on the Snake River, the largest tributary of the Columbia, would be the best hope for recovering them, providing the fish with access to hundreds of miles of pristine habitat and spawning grounds in Idaho. The tribes, which reserved the right to fish in their usual and accustomed grounds when they ceded vast amounts of land in their 19th century treaties with the U.S., warned as far back as the late 1930s that the salmon runs could disappear, with the fish no longer able to access spawning grounds upstream. 'This agreement was designed to foster collaborative and informed resource management and energy development in the Pacific Northwest, including significant tribal energy initiatives,' Yakama Tribal Council Chairman Gerald Lewis said in a written statement. 'The Administration's decision to terminate these commitments echoes the federal government's historic pattern of broken promises to tribes, and is contrary to President Trump's stated commitment to domestic energy development.' Republicans in region opposed agreement Northwestern Republicans in Congress had largely opposed the agreement, warning that it would hurt the region's economy, though in 2021 Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho proposed removing the earthen berms on either side of the four Lower Snake River dams to let the river flow freely, and to spend $33 billion to replace the benefits of the dams. 'Today's action by President Trump reverses the efforts by the Biden administration and extreme environmental activists to remove the dams, which would have threatened the reliability of our power grid, raised energy prices, and decimated our ability to export grain to foreign markets,' Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington, said in a news release. Tribes, environmentalists vow to fight for salmon The tribes and the environmental law firm Earthjustice, which represents conservation, clean energy and fishing groups in litigation against the federal government, said they would continue working to rebuild salmon stocks. 'Unfortunately, this short-sighted decision to renege on this important agreement is just the latest in a series of anti-government and anti-science actions coming from the Trump administration,' Earthjustice Senior Attorney Amanda Goodin said. 'This administration may be giving up on our salmon, but we will keep fighting to prevent extinction and realize win-win solutions for the region.'
New York Times
13-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Withdraws From Agreement With Tribes to Protect Salmon
President Trump moved on Thursday to withdraw from a Biden administration agreement that had brokered a truce in a decades-long legal battle with tribes in the Pacific Northwest. The federal government has been mired in legal battles for decades over the depletion of fish populations in the Columbia River Basin, caused by four hydroelectric dams in the lower Snake River. Native American tribes have argued in court that the federal government has violated longstanding treaties by failing to protect the salmon and other fish that have been prevented by the dams from spawning upstream of the river. That legal fight is now expected to resume, with no brokered agreement in place. In its statement announcing the withdrawal, the White House made no mention of the affected tribes and portrayed the issue falsely as revolving around 'speculative climate change concerns.' The tribes had called for the dams to be breached as a way to restore the salmon population, a proposal that has faced intense pushback because of the potential costs. A study found that removing the four dams was the most promising approach to restoring the salmon population, but also reported that replacing the electricity generated by the dams, shipping routes and irrigation water would cost between $10.3 billion and $27.2 billion. The 2023 agreement from the Biden administration, a memorandum of understanding with the tribes that brokered a 10-year truce in the legal battles, committed $300 million to Washington, Oregon and the tribes to restore the wild salmon population. The Biden administration allocated another $60 million to the effort last year. But the Biden administration did not take a position on the most contentious proposal of breaching the dams. The agreement called for additional study of the proposal and committed to supporting clean energy projects that could replace the power generated by the dams. However, the Biden White House noted in a statement that any decision and authority to breach the dams 'resides with Congress.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Digital Trends
11-06-2025
- Digital Trends
Strawberry Moon tonight: How to watch the stunning lunar show
Tonight offers a wonderful opportunity to witness a full Strawberry Moon. It's a gorgeous phenomenon, with out nearest neighbor casting a warm, golden-pink hue across the sky as it rises. The term 'Strawberry Moon' originated from Algonquian-speaking tribes in the northeastern U.S., as this particular full moon took place when strawberries were ripening and ready to be harvested. The name has been passed down the generations and continues to be used by many people today. Recommended Videos The Strawberry Moon will rise in the eastern sky at around dusk on Wednesday, between around 8:30 p.m. ET and shortly after sunset in other regions — for example, the best time to view it in San Francisco will be 8 p.m., though you're advised to check your own city's moonrise time for precise information. For the most dramatic view, watch shortly after moonrise when the celestial body will appear at its largest and should take on a warm, golden or orange tint due to atmospheric scattering, a phenomenon caused by its light passing through more of Earth's atmosphere. To view the Strawberry Moon, here's what you need to know: Location: Choose a spot with a clear, unobstructed view of the eastern horizon. Rural areas, hilltops, open fields, or waterfronts are ideal. In urban areas, local parks or elevated locations — like the top of a very tall building — can help minimize light pollution and obstructions. Weather: Check local weather forecasts to ensure clear skies. Cloud cover can obscure the view, so choose a location where skies are expected to be mostly clear. Preparation: Take binoculars or a camera with a telephoto lens if you'd like to observe details or capture photos. It's a great opportunity to capture some striking images as the moon's low position and unusual coloring should make it appear larger and more dramatic. What to expect: The Strawberry Moon will appear low in the sky, glowing with a yellow, orange, or even rosy hue as it rises. This year's full moon is especially notable because it's the lowest in the sky in several decades, due to a rare lunar standstill. Bonus view: Also, as the moon wanes over the coming weeks, look out for the Milky Way. June is a great time to view the galaxy of which we are a part!
