AFP ,July 25, 2025, BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon on Friday killed one person, authorities said, with the Israeli military identifying the slain man as an official with militant group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel has repeatedly struck Lebanon despite a November ceasefire that sought to end over a year of hostilities with Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lebanese health ministry said Friday that \u201can Israeli strike on a vehicle in the village of Baraachit resulted in one dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli military said it had \u201celiminated the personnel officer for Hezbollah\u2019s Bint Jbeil sector,\u201d near the Israeli border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man \u201cwas involved in efforts to rehabilitate the terrorist organization in the Bint Jbeil area of southern Lebanon and operated to recruit terrorists during the war,\u201d a military statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, Israel said it had struck Hezbollah weapons depots and a rocket launcher, and \u201celiminated a Hezbollah terrorist\u201d in Lebanon\u2019s south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the November truce, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving Lebanon\u2019s army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel was to withdraw its troops from Lebanon but has kept them in five areas it deems strategic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sudan\u2019s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed at least 30 civilians in a two-day assault on a village in the country\u2019s western region of Kordofan, a war monitor said Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent months, as the war between the paramilitary troops and the regular army roared into its third year, Kordofan has emerged as a key battlefront, with the paramilitaries seeking to consolidate their control in the west after losing the capital Khartoum. The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the war, said paramilitary fighters attacked the village of Brima Rasheed on Wednesday and Thursday, killing three civilians in the first raid and 27 others the following day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added in a statement that the dead included women and children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
FASTFACTS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Emergency Lawyers said the paramilitary troops\u2019 \u201cindiscriminate killing\u201d of civilians constituted \u201ca serious violation\u201d of international law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casualty figures are nearly impossible to independently verify, with most health facilities shut down and large swaths of Sudan inaccessible to journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The monitor said sporadic clashes were also reported between paramilitary fighters and armed civilians in Brima Rasheed village, near the RSF-held city of En Nahud in West Kordofan state \u2014 a key transit point once used by the army to send reinforcements further west.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Emergency Lawyers said that in recent days violence has spread across En Nahud, with reports of dozens of civilians killed and residential areas attacked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group added that the RSF also stormed major medical facilities in the city, expelling patients and using hospitals to treat wounded paramilitary fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those who resisted were beaten or detained, the Emergency Lawyers said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the UN said Friday that more than 1.3 million people who fled the fighting in Sudan have headed home, pleading for greater international aid to help returnees rebuild shattered lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over a million internally displaced people have returned to their homes in recent months, UN agencies said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A further 320,000 refugees have crossed back into Sudan this year, mainly from neighboring Egypt and South Sudan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While fighting has subsided in the \u201cpockets of relative safety\u201d to where people are beginning to return, the situation remains highly precarious, the UN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a joint statement, the UN\u2019s IOM migration agency, UNHCR refugee agency and UNDP development agency called for an urgent increase in financial support to fund the recovery as people begin to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said humanitarian operations were \u201cmassively underfunded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sudan has 10 million IDPs, including 7.7 million forced from their homes by the current conflict, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over 4 million have sought refuge in neighboring countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sudan is \u201cthe largest humanitarian catastrophe facing our world and also the least remembered,\u201d the IOM\u2019s regional director Othman Belbeisi, speaking from Port Sudan, told a media briefing in Geneva.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said most of the returns (71 percent) had been to Al-Jazira state, while 8 percent had been to Khartoum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other returnees were mostly heading for Sennar state. Both Al-Jazira and Sennar are located southeast of Khartoum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the army controlling Sudan\u2019s center, north and east, and the RSF holding nearly all of the western Darfur region, Kordofan in the south has become the main battleground of the war in recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe expect 2.1 million to return to Khartoum by the end of this year but this will depend on many factors, especially the security situation and the ability to restore services in a timely manner,\u201d Belbeisi said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the \u201cvicious, horrifying civil war continues to take lives with impunity,\u201d imploring the warring factions to put down their guns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe war has unleashed hell for millions and millions of ordinary people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSudan is a living nightmare. The violence needs to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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