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U.S. declares Bazoum’s ousting a coup, suspends military aid, training to Niger
United States, yesterday, formally declared the ousting of Niger’s democratically-elected president a coup d’état, more than two months after mutinous soldiers seized power.
According to senior administration officials, the U.S. was taking action after exhausting all avenues to preserve constitutional order in the West African nation, including urging the military leaders to restore civilian rule within four months in compliance with the constitution.
The coup designation comes with the suspension of counterterrorism assistance and military training as well as the pausing of certain foreign assistance programmes worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Confirming this, U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said: “The United States has concluded that a military coup d’etat has taken place in Niger. Pursuant to section 7008 of the Department of State’s annual appropriations act, the United States is suspending most U.S. assistance to the government of Niger.
“On August 5, the United States temporarily paused certain foreign assistance programmes to the government of Niger, totaling nearly $200 million. That assistance is now also suspended pursuant to section 7008 of the Department of State’s annual appropriations act. We also note the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s suspension of all assistance to Niger, including all preparatory work on its $302 million Niger Regional Transportation Compact and all new activity on its 2018 Compact.
[Guardian]
‘He’s not performing’ – Saha slams Man Utd star, wants Brighton’s Mitoma at Old Trafford
Former Manchester United striker, Louis Saha, has hit out at the club’s summer signing Mason Mount, insisting that the former Chelsea star is not performing for the Red Devils.
Saha, who claimed he has not seen enough of Mount this season, wants Man United to sign Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma in the next transfer window.
“Man Utd are relying on one or two players to create, and I have not seen enough of Mount yet,” Saha told King Casino Bonus.
“His creativity is nowhere to be seen. I didn’t see any positive runs from him against Brentford. His timing is off, too, and he can’t make chances by playing like this.
“I hope that the players find their groove, and once they do, they will be hard to play against. They have the energy, and when players like Bruno Fernandes start making those passes, I will be more confident in Man Utd.
“I’d say, based on what we’ve seen, Mount isn’t performing and I’ve seen Casemiro play more offensively than Mount. That’s a crazy thing to say, but it’s true.’
He added, “I would like to see Mitoma arrive at Old Trafford. He’s a very exciting player and he never seems to have any doubt on the ball.”
[DailyPost]
Weah, 19 others await results in Liberia’s poll
Liberia went to the polls for the presidential and parliamentary elections yesterday in which 20 presidential candidates, including incumbent George Weah, were hopeful to lead the country of five million.
Hundreds of people had gathered at polling stations in the capital, Monrovia, early yesterday morning ahead of the start of voting at 08:00 GMT.
Weah, a former international football star, rode to victory on a wave of optimism in 2017, bringing hope to a country that had been devastated by two back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003, and the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016.
His election was an historic event, marking the country’s first democratic transfer to power since 1944. He promised to tackle poverty, create jobs, build roads and end corruption.
Nearly five years after he took office in 2018, the former Ballon d’Or winner remains popular in some parts of the country, but anger is growing over persistently high levels of corruption and the cost of living.
The main political parties have pledged that the presidential and legislative elections in the West African country would pass off peacefully.
However, the death of three people last month during clashes between rival party supporters has raised concerns about a return to bloodshed.
Scuffles also broke out on Sunday as Weah, who is seeking a second six-year term as president, held his final campaign rally, leaving several injured.
The election was the first to be held since the United Nations ended its peacekeeping mission in Liberia in 2018.
UN peacekeepers were deployed to the country after more than 250,000 people died in two civil wars between 1989 and 2003.
Weah has argued that he needs more time to fix the nation’s decrepit economy and infrastructure.
The former athlete is the favourite among 20 candidates but could face a second-round run-off if he does not secure an absolute majority in the first round of voting.
The European Union, the African Union, the West African bloc ECOWAS and the United States have deployed observers to oversee the vote.
Some 2.4 million Liberians were eligible to vote in the elections, with polling stations closing at 18:00 GMT.
[OPINION] For Justice and Peace in Palestine - Kayode Komolafe
Beyond the high principles espoused on all sides of the current Israeli-Palestinian war is the enormous human cost of the conflict. While Israel, formidably backed by America, legitimately insists on the right to defend itself against attacks by Hamas, the Palestinians battle cry is their freedom. They want an end to the 56-year old illegal occupation of their land and humiliation by Israel. Blood and tears have been flowing in the periodic eruptions of violence in over seven decades of the perennial conflict. In the more recent violence that has defined the region, thousands have been killed since the first Palestinian intifada in 1987.
The toll is rising in the current war triggered by Hamas attack on Israel on Saturday. Experts say the war might extend beyond Israel, Gaza and West Bank.
Among the hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians killed were scores of children.
This is the issue for rest of humanity that seems to have mentally normalised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The conflict remains an open sore on the social conscience of humanity. It fundamentally questions the moral content of western civilisation.
A judicious way of looking at the conflict is that war crimes are being committed by both Israel and Hamas, as former foreign minister, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, put it while offering profound insights into the crisis on ARISE Television yesterday morning.
Reports from Gaza and West Bank suggest that a humanitarian crisis looms in the areas as Israel has imposed a blockade on a people already under occupation in defiance of international laws.
Stopping the violence and averting the resultant humanitarian crisis is the immediate task. But the more urgent task for the United States appears to be arming Israel for the “elimination of the Hamas leadership,” as the Israeli opposition leader, Avigdor Lieberman, has demanded. The prospects of a diplomatic solution are dim as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership are not embracing the option of negotiation.
Like the previous periodic bloodlettings on both sides, the fundamentals of the conflict are again being ignored.
That is the Question of Palestine. Originally, the word Palestine was geographically used to refer to the eastern Mediterranean region. In geo-political terms, it comprises of parts of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories of Gaza and West Bank. The history of Palestine in the last 3, 000 years has been that of changes in political status. Jews, Christians and Muslims have their sacred sites in Palestine. Since the last century Arabs and Jews have made conflicting claims on the land. Some claims to the land even have Biblical dimensions.
Such is the complexity of the region’s reality. To unravel this complexity, it is unhelpful to begin the story with the “terrorism” of Hamas. The provenance of the story in the modern sense was the United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947. It is also called the Partition Resolution. According to the resolution, the Britain’s former mandate of Palestine should be partitioned into Jewish and Arab states. The mandate was billed to end in May 1948. And indeed the State of Israel was created that year. However, the other state for the Arabs in Palestine (now simply called the Palestinians) have not been created 75 years after despite heaps of resolutions by the same United Nations and futile negotiations to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, the Palestinians have lost a good portion of the land they owned before the 1967 war to encroachment by Jewish settlers.
This monumental failure to make the Palestinian State a reality is squarely at the root of the conflict.
Ironically, the conflict has persisted not because reasoned propositions have not been put on the table broadly from all sides of the conflict. But the generations of implacable extremists among the Jews and Arabs in Palestine have seemingly made the application of reason impossible.
Yet since the first intifada, Jewish and Arab thinkers have made critical observations pointing to the ultimate futility of the approaches currently adopted by both Israel and Hamas.
Take a sample.
An Emeritus Rabbi based in the United Kingdom, David Goldberg, has questioned the tendency of Israeli politicians and generals to “prefer to remain in ignorance of the army’s brutality” in the occupied territories in his book entitled “This is not the Way: Jews, Judaism and Israel.”
As a Jew in the Diaspora, Goldberg says criticism of Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism. His point is as follows: “So what might coax Israel to accept that holding on to the Territories is counter-productive? … A start would be a mass petition from Jews worldwide to the Israeli prime minister’s office under the slogan ‘Passover for the Palestinians’. Even Eli Wiesel might have difficulty in refusing to sign it. All of Judaism’s ethical teachings are based on and derive from the concept of Freedom. It is the sine qua non of Jewish values. The exodus from Egyptian slavery is the folk memory above all others that is embedded in our collective unconscious and unites religious, secular, atheist and only-just Jews in nominating the Passover Seder as their favourite celebration. It was Heine, in many ways the epitome of the post-Enlightenment Jew adjusting to the temptations of modernity without forfeiting Jewish distinctiveness, who wrote in Germany to Luther, ‘Since the Exodus, Freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.” The journey of the Hebrew slaves to freedom has been the inspiration for most liberation movements in Western history and ‘Let my people go’ the battle cry that has urged them forward. Liberty is a universal yearning, shared by all peoples everywhere.”
From the other polar end is the view of eminent Palestinian American scholar, Edward W. Said. In one of his last essays compiled in a book entitled “From Oslo to Iraq and the Roadmap,” Said observed that the tragedy of Palestine would deepen unless the Palestinian (nay Arab) leadership changed their approach to the conflict. Said, who died 20 years ago, wrote within the context of the siege on the Palestinian territories following the crisis provoked by the visit of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, surrounded by thousands of Israeli soldiers, to Jerusalem’s Haram al-Shariff (the Noble Sanctuary), a Muslim’s holy place on September 29, 2000. Goldberg’s reasoning is as follows: “No one can deny that Palestine is an exception to nearly all the colonial issues of the past two hundred years: it is exceptional but not removed from history. Human history is full of similar, if not absolutely the same, instances, and what has surprised me, as someone living at a distance from the Middle East but close to it in all sorts of ways, is how insulated from the rest of the world we keep ourselves. Whereas, I believe, a great deal can be learned from the history of other oppressed peoples in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and even Europe. Why do we resist comparing ourselves, say, with the South African blacks, or with the American Indians, or with the Vietnamese? By comparing, I don’t mean mechanically or slavishly but rather creatively and imaginatively.
“The late Eqbal Ahmad, who was certainly one of the two or three most brilliant analysts of contemporary history and politics that I ever knew, always drew attention to the fact that successful liberation movements were successful precisely because they employed creative ideas, original ideas, imaginative ideas, whereas less successful movements (like ours, alas) had a pronounced tendency to use formulas and an uninspired repetition of past slogans and past patterns of behaviour. Take as a primary instance the idea of armed struggle. For decades we have relied in our minds on ideas about guns and killing, ideas that from the 1930s until today have brought us plentiful martyrs but have had little real effect either on Zionism or on our own ideas about what to do next. In our case, the fighting is done by a small brave number of people pitted against hopeless odds: stones against helicopter gunships, Merkava tanks, missiles. Yet a quick look at other movements- say, the Indian nationalist movement, the South African liberation movement, the American civil rights movement-tells us first of all that only a mass movement employing tactics and strategy that maximizes the popular element ever makes any difference on the occupier and or oppressor. Second, only a mass movement that has been politicised and imbued with a vision of participating directly in a future of its own making, only such a movement has a historical chance of liberating itself from oppression or military occupation. The future, like the past, is built by human beings. They, and not some distant mediator or saviours, provide the agency for change.
It is clear to me, for example, that the immediate task in Palestine is to establish the goal of ridding ourselves of the occupation, using imaginative means of struggle… “
If you synthesis the different perspectives of Goldberg, a Jew, and that of Said, a Palestinian, it would be obvious to see the irrationality in Hamas’ refusal to recognise Israel which it calls an “illegitimate state” and Israel’s illusion of resting on its military power to occupy Palestinian territories for ever. Other Palestinian factions which do not also recognise Israel are making the same mistakes as well as the right-wing extremist Jews ruling out perpetually the possibility of a Palestinian state. They are all poor students of history. The dialectic of history is that oppression cannot last for ever.
In fact, the proud national history of the Jews themselves shows that a determined people will survive the worst form oppression and persecution.
The United States and its western allies are also part of the problem. Former American president, Jimmy Carter, once described the inhuman condition of the occupied territories as that of “apartheid.” Without saying so, America and its allies are today not too worried about the settler-colonialism existing in Gaza and West Bank. The last time the United States showed real enthusiasm about resolving the crisis was on September 13, 1993 when President Bill Clinton presided over the signing of a peace agreement in White House between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat. Unlike Clinton, President Joe Biden has not put the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a “priority” of his administration. For America, the Palestinian Question is not an urgent item like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Neither is it as urgent as America’s ill-fated democracy projects in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
The European countries are hardly different in failing to nudge both Israel and the Palestinians towards a just resolution in the interest of peace and security of the Middle East and indeed the world.
Even the United Nations appears helpless in the situation. The lack of even -handedness on the part of the UN in the matter is reflected in the Monday statement of its secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, in which he expressed “condemnation of the abhorrent attacks of Hamas and others on Israel” while he was only “alarmed by reports of over 500 Palestinians-including women and children killed in Gaza and over 3,000 injured.”
That is not a balanced approach to resolve a conflict
Israel is legitimately entitled to its national security just as the Palestinians have fundamental human rights to their freedom and national dignity as a people. These are rights embodied in the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. Israel’s national security and the existence of the Palestinian state are not be mutually exclusive.
That is the logic of the two-state solution.
Peace and security based on justice can come to Palestine.
Saudi Arabia Submits Letter Of Intent To Host 2034 World Cup
Saudi Arabia announced it took the second step to bid for the 2034 World Cup by submitting a letter of intent to host the event to world soccer governing body Fifa on Monday.
“Last week we announced our ambitions to host the 2034 Fifa World Cup, and this official submission continues our journey to make the dreams of our people a reality,” Yasser Al Misehal, President of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation SAFF said in a statement.
“We are extremely committed to presenting the most competitive bid possible that will also help unite the world through football,” he added.
SAFF said that once they declared their intention on Wednesday to bid for the tournament, “over 70 Fifa Member Associations from across different continents have publicly pledged their support for the Kingdom.”
Last week, Fifa named Morocco, Spain and Portugal as hosts of the 2030 World Cup, with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay hosting the opening matches to mark the tournament’s centenary.
Spain Call Up Fati, Zaragoza To Replace Pino
Spain selected Ansu Fati and Bryan Zaragoza to replace the injured Yeremy Pino for upcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers on Monday.
Granada winger Zaragoza, 22, scored twice in his team’s 2-2 draw against champions Barcelona in LaLiga on Sunday, earning his first international call-up.
“Barca players congratulated me a lot (on the performance)… and told me to stop running in the middle of the game,” Zaragoza told DAZN.
Brighton forward Ansu Fati, on loan from Barcelona, was not selected by Spain coach Luis de la Fuente for the previous qualifying wins over Georgia and Cyprus in September.
Fati’s last appearance for Spain came in June in the Nations League final victory over Croatia, when he came on as a substitute for Pino.
Villarreal winger Pino suffered a hamstring injury during his side’s 2-1 defeat by Las Palmas on Sunday.
Spain, second, will face Group A leaders Scotland on Thursday before visiting third-place Norway on Sunday.
[Leadership]
FCTA impounds 69 commercial vehicles
THE Security Taskforce of the Federal Capital Territory Administration on Monday impounded 69 commercial vehicles in the territory for various offences ranging from wrongful parking to rickety vehicles and failure to use number plates.
The FCTA said the action was in continuation of its efforts to rid the city of illegal operators of commercial vehicles and to improve the security of lives and properties of residents of Abuja.
The Director of the FCTA Directorate of Road Traffic Services, Abdulateef Bello, who addressed journalists during the exercise, stressed that the administration will not slack in its efforts to clear out nuisances from the city and that owners of the 69 impounded vehicles will be prosecuted by the FCT Mobile Court, sitting in the premises of the DRTS.
He disclosed that three of the commercial vehicle operators, who were alleged to be members of the “one-chance” syndicate were arrested during the exercise and would be handed over to the Police for prosecution.
The Director of the FCT Department of Development Control, Mukhtar Galadima, described indiscipline as a major contributor to the increased rate of the “one-chance” operations in the city, adding that the administration will continue to make use of the 40 taxi ranks provided by the FCTA in the city centre.
[NaijaTimes]
How Nigerian universities can be self-funded — Deputy Speaker
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, on Monday, urged Vice Chancellors of various Universities in Nigeria to leverage the contributions of the alumni association and other endowment funds to finance education.
Hon. Kalu gave the charge while delivering his goodwill message at the opening ceremony of the 61st anniversary and 36th Conference of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU) themed: ’60 years of Leadership in Nigerian Universities’, held at Baze University, Abuja.
He said: “One of the key areas where Nigerian universities can chart a new course for sustainable development is in innovative funding models. I am particularly encouraged by the efforts to leverage the vast network of alumni and the Triple-Helix model, involving collaboration with industries and the government.
“This approach aligns with global best practices seen in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, where endowment funds managed by capital market fund managers and venture capitalists have played a pivotal role in financing higher education.
“It is my sincere hope that these innovative funding models will provide the financial stability needed to propel our universities to even greater heights.
“As we explore these avenues, let us remember that the pursuit of knowledge and the advancement of education are noble endeavors worthy of our collective support.
“The first, second, and third generation publicly owned higher education institutions have an upper hand if they follow this approach, solely by looking at their respective extensive Alumni for initial deals structuring and set up of the endowment funds”.
While applauding the Committee of Vice Chancellors for its higher education leadership programme on strategic thinking for managing challenging times and creative financing of the universities and other tertiary institutions, he observed that: “Such initiatives are essential in equipping our academic leaders with the skills and strategies needed to navigate the complex landscape of higher education in the 21st century.
“Government is not left out in this regard especially the respective state governments in the country. It is imperative for them to play a contributory role and follow it up with the creation of an enabling environment for the higher education institutions in their states to able to attract alternative sources of funding to continue to run and thrive,” he said.
Pledging the partnership of the Parliament with the universities and other stakeholders in the education sector, Hon. Kalu urged the Committee to also address the issues of gender equity, equality, diversity, and inclusion while also considering the role of technology and the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the future of Nigerian education.
[Nigerian Tribune]
Lagos Govt Airlifts 310 Pilgrims From Jerusalem After Attack On Israel
No fewer than 310 Lagos State citizens who went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem have been airlifted home after Palestinian militant group Hamas’ Saturday morning surprise attack on Israel.
Sharing photos of the indigenes at baggage reclaim Tuesday, presumably upon their arrival, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu posted on X, “I’m happy to announce that we have successfully airlifted and returned all three hundred and ten (310) citizens who went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Israel.
“I want to thank you all for your concern and I must also express my joy to our Ministry of Home Affairs for a job well done. We pray for peace in Israel, and indeed the world at large.”
Good morning Lagos,
I’m happy to announce that we have successfully airlifted and returned all three hundred and ten (310) citizens who went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Israel.
I want to thank you all for your concern and I must also express my joy to our Ministry of Home… pic.twitter.com/1gOU3Jtr34
— Babajide Sanwo-Olu (@jidesanwoolu) October 10, 2023
Israel has been left reeling by Hamas’ unprecedented ground, air and sea assault, likening it to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
The death toll rose to more than 900 in Israel, which has retaliated with a withering barrage of strikes on Gaza, raising the death toll there to 687
The Nigerian government has since called for a ceasefire, saying the escalation between both countries would result in an unending cycle of pain and suffering for the civilian population, advising that both parties should exercise restraint and prioritise the safety of civilians.
[Channels TV]
[OPINION] What Is Hamas? - Zachary Laub and Kali Robinson
- A spin-off of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s, the Islamist militant group Hamas took over the Gaza Strip after defeating its rival political party, Fatah, in elections in 2006.
- The United States and European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist organization because of its armed resistance against Israel, which has included suicide bombings and rocket attacks.
- Israel has declared war on Hamas following its surprise assault on southern Israel in 2023, the deadliest attack on the country in decades.
Introduction
Hamas is an Islamist militant movement and one of the Palestinian territories’ two major political parties. It governs more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, but the group is best known for its armed resistance to Israel. In October 2023, Hamas launched a massive surprise attack on southern Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and soldiers and taking dozens more as hostages. Israel has declared war on the group in response and indicated its military is planning for a long campaign to defeat it.
Dozens of countries have designated Hamas a terrorist organization, though some apply this label only to its military wing. Iran provides it with material and financial support, and Turkey reportedly harbors some of its top leaders. Its rival party, Fatah, which dominates the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and rules in the West Bank, has renounced violence. The split in Palestinian leadership and Hamas’s unwavering hostility toward Israel have diminished prospects for stability in Gaza.
What are the group’s origins?
Hamas, an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”), was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric who became an activist in local branches of the Muslim Brotherhood after dedicating his early life to Islamic scholarship in Cairo. Beginning in the late 1960s, Yassin preached and performed charitable work in the West Bank and Gaza, both of which Israel occupied following the 1967 Six-Day War.
Yassin established Hamas as the Brotherhood’s political arm in Gaza in December 1987, following the outbreak of the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. At the time, Hamas’s purpose was to counter Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), another organization whose commitment to violently resisting Israel threatened to draw Palestinians’ support away from the Brotherhood. In 1988, Hamas published its charter, calling for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic society in historic Palestine. In what observers called an attempt to moderate its image, Hamas presented a new document [PDF] in 2017 that accepted an interim Palestinian state along the “Green Line” border established before the Six-Day War but that still refused to recognize Israel.
Hamas first employed suicide bombing in April 1993, five months before PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords. The historic pact established limited self-government for parts of the West Bank and Gaza under a newly created entity called the Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas condemned the accords, as well as the PLO’s and Israel’s recognition of each other, which Arafat and Rabin officially agreed to in letters sent days before Oslo.
In 1997, the United States designated Hamas a foreign terrorist organization. The movement went on to spearhead violent resistance during the second intifada, in the early 2000s, though PIJ and Fatah’s Tanzim militia were also responsible for violence against Israelis.
Who are its leaders?
Hamas has a host of leadership bodies that perform various political, military, and social functions. General policy is set by an overarching consultative body, often called the politburo, which operates in exile. Local committees manage grassroots issues in Gaza and the West Bank.
Ismail Haniyeh currently serves as political chief, having replaced longtime leader Khaled Meshaal in 2017. Haniyeh has operated from Doha, Qatar, since 2020, reportedly because Egypt restricts his movement into and out of Gaza. Hamas leaders established a presence in Qatar after falling out with their previous host, Syria, when Palestinian refugees participated in the 2011 uprising that preceded the Syrian Civil War. Some senior Hamas figures reportedly operate out of the group’s offices in Turkey.
Day-to-day affairs in Gaza are overseen by Yahya Sinwar, who previously headed Hamas’s military wing and served twenty-two years in an Israeli prison for masterminding the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers. He was among the more than one thousand Palestinian prisoners freed in 2011 in exchange for an Israeli soldier held by Hamas. As of June 2021, Gaza’s de facto prime minister is Issam al-Da’alis.
Marwan Issa and Mohammed Deif command Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Israeli forces assassinated the militia’s founder, Salah Shehadeh, in a 2002 air strike. Fifteen civilians were killed in the attack, focusing Israeli and international scrutiny on such tactics. Israelis forces killed Yassin, Hamas’s founder, in 2004.
Saleh al-Arouri reportedly heads Hamas’s Lebanon branch. He also took over the group’s West Bank leadership following internal elections that concluded in 2021, while Meshaal was chosen to lead the diaspora office and Salameh Katawi was elected to manage the affairs of imprisoned Hamas members.
How is Hamas funded?
As a designated terrorist entity, Hamas is cut off from official assistance that the United States and European Union (EU) provide to the PLO in the West Bank. Historically, Palestinian expatriates and private donors in the Persian Gulf provided much of the movement’s funding. In addition, some Islamic charities in the West have channeled money to Hamas-backed social service groups, prompting asset freezes by the U.S. Treasury.
Gaza’s economic situation was already dire before Hamas’s 2023 assault on Israel, and the ensuing war is almost certain to exacerbate the extreme poverty of its residents. Egypt and Israel largely closed their borders with it in 2006–07, restricting the movement of goods and people into and out of the territory. The two countries maintain a blockade today, cutting off the territory from most of the world and forcing more than one million Gazan Palestinians to rely on international aid. Israel has allowed Qatar to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance through Hamas. Other foreign aid generally reaches Gaza via the PA and UN agencies.
For years after the blockade began, Hamas collected revenue by taxing goods moving through a sophisticated network of tunnels that circumvented the Egyptian crossing into Gaza; this brought staples such as food, medicine, and cheap gas for electricity production into the territory, as well as construction materials, cash, and arms. After Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi took power in 2013, Cairo became hostile toward Hamas, which it saw as an extension of its chief domestic rival, the Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian army shut down most of the tunnels breaching its territory while it waged a counterterrorism campaign against a branch of the self-proclaimed Islamic State on its side of the border, on the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt began to allow some commercial goods to enter Gaza through its Salah al-Din border crossing in 2018. As of 2021, Hamas reportedly collected upward of $12 million per month from taxes on Egyptian goods imported into Gaza.
Today, Iran is one of Hamas’s biggest benefactors, contributing funds, weapons, and training. Though Iran and Hamas briefly fell out after backing opposing sides in Syria’s civil war, Iran currently provides some $100 million annually [PDF] to Hamas, PIJ, and other Palestinian groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. Iran was quick to praise Hamas’s assault on Israel in late 2023 and pledge its continuing support for the Palestinian group.
Turkey has been another stalwart backer of Hamas—and a critic of Israel—following President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rise to power in 2002. Though Ankara insists it only supports Hamas politically, it has been accused of funding Hamas’s terrorism, including through aid diverted from the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.
How does it govern Gaza?
Hamas has been the de facto authority in Gaza since shortly after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005. The following year, Hamas won a majority of seats in the PA’s legislature and formed a government. It earned votes for the social services it provided and as a rejection of the incumbent Fatah, which many voters perceived as having grown corrupt at the helm of the PLO and delivering little to Palestinians through its negotiations with Israel. The outcome was unacceptable to Fatah and its Western backers, and the party ousted Hamas from power in the West Bank. In Gaza, Hamas routed Fatah’s militias in a week of fighting, resulting in a political schism between the two Palestinian territories. Palestinians have not voted for a legislature since 2006, nor a president since 2008.
As Hamas took over the remnants of PA institutions in the strip, it established a judiciary and put in place authoritarian institutions. In theory, Hamas governs in accordance with the sharia-based Palestinian Basic Law, as does the PA; but it has generally been more restrictive than the law requires, including by controlling how women dress and enforcing gender segregation in public during the early years of its rule. The watchdog group Freedom House found in 2020 that the “Hamas-controlled government has no effective or independent mechanisms for ensuring transparency in its funding, procurements, or operations.” Hamas also represses the Gazan media, civilian activism on social media, the political opposition, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), leaving it without mechanisms for accountability.
How do Palestinians view Hamas?
The political bifurcation of the West Bank and Gaza is widely unpopular: a June 2023 poll [PDF] by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) showed that one-third of Palestinians consider it the most damaging development for their people since the state of Israel’s 1948 creation. The same poll found that more than half of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would vote for Hamas’s Haniyeh over PA President Mahmoud Abbas in a presidential election, while just one-third of Palestinians would choose Abbas. Additionally, Abbas has indefinitely postponed national elections scheduled for 2021, citing Israel’s alleged refusal to let Palestinians in East Jerusalem vote, though observers suspect that Abbas aims to prevent a likely Hamas victory.
How has Hamas challenged Israel?
Hamas has fired rockets and mortars into Israel since the group took over the Gaza Strip in the mid 2000s. Iranian security officials have said that Tehran provided some of these weapons, but that Hamas gained the ability to build its own missiles after training with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and proxies. In recent years, Israel estimated that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza had about thirty thousand rockets and mortars in their arsenal. Hamas militants have flown balloons carrying incendiary devices toward Israel, which have sometimes caused fires. The group has also carried out incursions into Israeli territory, killing and kidnapping soldiers and civilians.
Prior to the 2023 conflict, Hamas and Israel had their deadliest fighting in years in 2021, when Hamas fired rockets into Israel following weeks of tensions between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem. Some analysts say that Hamas wanted to bolster its reputation as the defender of the Palestinian cause after the PA postponed the 2021 elections. During the eleven-day conflict, Hamas and PIJ fired more than four thousand rockets from Gaza, killing ten Israeli civilians and injuring more than three hundred others. Hamas reportedly coordinated with the IRGC and Lebanon’s Hezbollah during the fighting, and used so-called suicide drones along with its usual arsenal of less precise missiles. The United States and Egypt brokered a cease-fire to the conflict.
How is Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 different?
Hamas’s assault on southern Israel this year, which the group’s leaders have called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” was extraordinary in its strategy, scale, and secrecy, analysts say. It began early in the morning on October 7, the Jewish Sabbath and an important Jewish holiday, with Hamas launching several thousand rockets into southern and central Israel, hitting cities as far north as Tel Aviv. Hamas militants also breached the heavily fortified Gaza border and infiltrated many southern Israeli towns and villages, killing hundreds of Israeli troops and civilians, and wounding and kidnapping scores more.
Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Deif, said the group undertook its assault because of Israel’s long-running blockade of Gaza, its occupation of Palestinian lands, and its alleged crimes against Muslims, including the desecration of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
It is the deadliest attack on Israeli soil in decades and has inflicted a deep psychological trauma on the Israeli people, with some analysts drawing comparisons to the surprise Pearl Harbor and September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly had no indications that Hamas was planning an assault of this nature. “It is completely unprecedented that a terrorist organization would have the capacity or the wherewithal to mount coordinated, simultaneous assaults from the air, sea, and land,” writes CFR Senior Fellow Bruce Hoffman.
Israel has declared war on Hamas and countered with intensifying air strikes on targets in Gaza and ground operations to push the group’s militants out of the country. The government has ordered the evacuation of all civilians from Israeli communities bordering Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned of a “long and difficult war” against Hamas, and Israel’s military response is expected to be extraordinary, if not unprecedented.
Some observers are questioning if Israel will attempt a full-scale invasion and reoccupation of the Palestinian territory, a campaign that could incur heavy casualties on both sides. “Israel had mounted numerous military operations against Hamas since its takeover in 2007, two years after Israel pulled out of Gaza. But these were mostly from the air. And even when Israeli troops were deployed, they never stayed for long,” writes CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot for the Washington Post.
An Israeli invasion of Gaza could also provoke a significant attack against Israel by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon, risking a wider conflagration in the region, analysts say. “Iran is, of course, a patron of Hezbollah [as well as Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups] and there is an ever-present danger of a two-front conflict, which would devastate parts of Israel and much of Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. There is a risk of escalation,” says CFR Senior Fellow Steven A. Cook.
Portuguese Officials to Officiate Nigeria vs Mozambique Friendly
The match referee for Nigeria’s international friendly against the Mambas of Mozambique will be Portuguese official Miguel Nogueira.
Nogueira will be supported by his compatriots Paulo Bras, Ana Loide, and Bruno Viera, who will serve as assistant referee 1, assistant referee 2, and fourth official respectively.
This encounter is scheduled to take place at Estadio Municipal de Portimão on Monday next week.
It will mark the fifth meeting between both countries.
The match will kick off at 4:00 pm Portuguese time, which is the same as Nigeria’s time.
The Eagles are expected to start arriving at their Penina Hotel and Resort, Portimao, on Tuesday, with the first friendly against the Green Falcons of Saudi Arabia set for Friday.
[newsnownigeria]