Moroccan archaeologists unearth new ruins at Chellah, Rabat

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Written by northsouth

Category: MENA

Published: 04 November 2023

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RABAT, MOROCCO - Archaeologists have unearthed more ancient ruins of what they believe was once a bustling port city near the capital of modern-day Morocco, digging out thermal baths and working class neighborhoods that the country hopes will lure tourists and scholars in the years ahead.

On Friday, researchers from Morocco’s National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage presented new discoveries made this year at Chellah — a 1.2-square-mile (3.15-square-kilometer) UNESCO World Heritage Site with a footprint almost five times the size of Pompeii.

Scholars believe the area was first settled by the Phoenicians and emerged as a key Roman empire outpost from the second to fifth century. The fortified necropolis and surrounding settlements were built near the Atlantic Ocean along the banks of the Bou Regreg river. Findings have included bricks inscribed in neo-Punic, a language that predates the Romans’ arrival in Morocco.

The main excavation site has been closed for renovations since the pandemic and archaeologists have worked on expanding it since March. The footprint — including the extended site presented on Friday — is larger than that of Volubilis, widely visited ruins 111 miles (179 kilometers) east of Rabat.

Abdelaziz El Khayari, a professor of pre-Islamic archaeology from Morocco’s National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage, said that the site’s significance stems from its location on the water, which likely made it an important trading site, facilitating the exchange of materials including the import of Italian marble and export of African ivory. He said that new excavations underscored the city’s wealth and hoped to find out more in the coming months and years.

“We still haven’t discovered the actual port,” he said.

El Khayari and his team of archaeologists said the new discoveries further from the center of Chellah have never been subject to study. At a Friday news conference, they showed reporters a recently discovered statue of a woman — possibly a deity or empress — draped in cloth. They said it was the first such statue discovered in Morocco since the 1960s. They also exhibited a limestone and sunbrick neighborhood.

Mehdi Ben Said, Morocco’s minister of youth, culture and communication, said that he was confident the ruins’ location near the center of Morocco’s capital would become a draw for tourists both from Morocco and abroad. His department has invested $487,000 (455,000 euros) in the project since March, and plans to double that amount next year and each year following until excavation is complete.

“It’s something that can interest everyone,” Ben Said said. “Sites like Volubilis get 500,000 visitors per year. We are aiming for 1 million by developing this site, bringing it to life, setting up marketing, communications and everything.”

When ‘the voice of Gaza’ lost his family

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Published: 01 November 2023

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DOHA - Wael Dahdouh was live on air when he got the news: an Israeli raid had destroyed the home his family was in. His wife, son, daughter and two grandchildren were dead.

The veteran Al Jazeera correspondent’s family had fled Israeli bombardment in Gaza City to stay with relatives at the Nuseirat refugee camp – an area Israel had deemed was safe to evacuate to.

His daughter, Sham, was seven, and his son Mahmoud, was a senior in high school who wanted to be a journalist like his father.

Al Jazeera Arabic presenter Tamer Almisshal said the killing of Dahdouh’s family members is the deliberate Israeli targeting of Palestinian journalists.

He referred to his colleague as the “voice of Gaza”.

“His voice will go on – that we can guarantee. All our voices will go on, and we’ll continue to cover this assault to get the truth out every day,” said Almisshal.

When Dahdouh bid farewell to his family, they were lying on the floor, with no room elsewhere as the number of dead pile up in hospitals across the strip.

For days now, surgeons in the Gaza Strip have been operating under the glow of their mobile phones, conserving energy so that respirators and other machines keeping patients alive can continue to run.

But now, one by one, the enclave’s hospitals are going dark, with 10 out of 35 now out of service as Israel’s siege on vital supplies, including fuel for generators, approaches its third week.

Doctors are forced to work around the clock as they face a severe shortage of supplies and medicines. Some aid was allowed across the border with Egypt this week, but it’s only a tiny fraction of what's needed, humanitarian organisations say.

And as access to clean water runs out, the threat of cholera and other water-borne diseases looms large.

But despite Israel’s bombardment of the besieged enclave, there have been small moments to be thankful for.

In the neonatal intensive care unit of al-Shifa Hospital, a premature baby survived an emergency caesarean section performed on his dead mother, Maryam, after an air attack on her home.

Still, with so many people being killed, few are left to mourn the death of women like Maryam, who never saw her baby. In a single night this week, 700 Palestinians were killed, the highest number in a 24-hour period since the conflict began.

Among the dead is Sameh Murad’s wife, who died when an aerial attack targeted a convoy of fleeing civilians.

“She was the love of my life,” Murad told Al Jazeera. “I don’t think I will ever meet someone like her again.”

Meanwhile, survivors of air attacks say they feel as if they are dying each day.

“[Israel] wants us in eternal exile and terrorised till the very end of our lives,” said Abdulrahman, who witnessed an explosion just a few hundred metres away from him and his family.

Places of refuge like churches were also not spared this week, with the territory’s oldest Greek Orthodox church bombed. Neither were journalists.

Hamas released two captives this week, but the group said Israel refused to accept them, a claim the Israeli government dismissed as propaganda.

But amid the relentless terror and trauma of missiles and the siege, a community has come together.

On the pavement outside the Abu Assi family’s home in the southern Gaza town of Bani Suhaila, large pots of food are prepared daily to feed thousands of displaced Palestinians.

“We cannot accept hungry people not being able to find food,” Abu Assi said.

Gaza crisis ‘reached an unprecedented level of dehumanisation’: rights expert

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Written by northsouth

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Published: 01 November 2023

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GENEVA - The crisis sparked by the Hamas terrorist attack and ongoing Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip is a "political and humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions” said the UN’s independent human rights expert for the Occupied Palestinian Territory this week.

In an interview with UN News, UN Human Rights Council-appointed expert Francesca Albanese, said it was “impossible to describe the pain and suffering that Israelis are going through because of what happened to them...because there are not only those who were killed, those who were taken hostage, but there is an entire population that was completely shaken”.

But describing the UN chief’s words to the Security Council last Tuesday when he noted that the brutal attacks by Hamas fighters of 7 October “did not occur in a vacuum” as “brave”, she stressed Gazans have “already suffered five deadly wars…during the period Israel has declared an unlawful blockade over the Gaza Strip, entrapping 2.2 million people.”

And since 7 October "they have been recklessly bombarded with an average of 6,000 bombs launched per week,” she added.

Protecting children

Over 7,700 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli bombing campaign began, with more than 19,740 injured, said the UN aid coordination office (OCHA) on Saturday, according to the Hamas run Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Children’s Fund UNICEF reported earlier in the week that nearly 2,400 children were among the dead in Gaza, with women and children accounting for 66 per cent of the casualties.

“All schools have been targeted one way or another”, said Ms. Albanese.

“Schools have been hit by the bombings, hospitals have been hit by the bombings" and there has been a tightening of the blockade. "Israeli leaders, one way or another, are blaming and holding all Palestinians in Gaza responsible and are punishing all Palestinians in Gaza for what Hamas and other military groups have done”, she added.

Occupying power

The independent human rights expert also criticised Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands and the mistreatment of Palestinians.

“We are talking of an occupying power. Israel is an occupying power vis a vis the Palestinians. There is no independent and sovereign Palestinian state,” said Ms. Albanese.

“The occupation has been the vehicle to colonise, brutalise, arbitrarily arrest and detain and to carry out summary executions against the Palestinian people.”

She criticised the international community for not doing more to end the illegal occupation.

“Has the international community ever stopped this protracted illegality? No. This is why I keep on saying the international community has a huge, huge responsibility in the catastrophe that is now unfolding.”

Right to self-defence

The rights expert highlighted that both Israel and Palestine maintain the right to defend themselves militarily, although this response must remain proportional to the perceived threat.

“There was an incursion in Israeli territory that resulted in the killing and brutalization of Israeli civilians so that incursions had to be repelled,” said Ms. Albanese.

She argued that, once the attack was successfully repelled, however, the subsequent bombings of targets in Gaza represent violations of international law.

“What Israel is doing is considered by some Member States legitimate self-defence, which it is not. Because how can it be self-defence, the bombing, the carpet bombing of an entire population under a very opaque and vague objective of eradicating Hamas?”

Right to resistance

The right to resist is guaranteed under international law, although this resistance does have limits. The rights expert emphasised that, despite Palestinians’ right to resist Israeli occupation, Hamas’ attack on civilians violated the right to resistance.

“Resistance has rules and limits, and they are the same that apply to any warring parties. So, each actor engaging as part of the resistance becomes responsible for the choice of actions and methods of engagement. And killing civilians is never permitted under international law.”

Legitimate targets?

Ms. Albanese criticised the Israeli government’s continued dehumanisation of Palestinian civilians.

“It manifests in the statements of various Israeli political leaders who have referred to the Palestinians as human animals, as deserving the treatment they are receiving because they are all responsible for what Hamas is doing, otherwise they would have revolted against Hamas. As if that hadn’t happened,” she said.

“[Israeli politician] Naftali Bennett has inferred that there are no civilians in Gaza, that even babies become a legitimate target. How can it be? How can it be? How can you hold a newborn responsible?”

International failures

The international community has failed to provide adequate support for ending hostilities between Israel and Palestine, argued Ms. Albanese.

“What the international community had an opportunity to do, for once, was to show support to both the Israeli and Palestinian people. It was horrific what the Israelis have suffered as of the 7th of October, and at the same time, the international community missed the opportunity to act wisely and even-handedly, vis a vis both in a way that could be seen as leading to peace.”

She also criticised Western countries for their unwavering support of Israel despite its human rights violations.

“Western countries have, with a few exceptions, rallied around Israel, basically supporting what Israel is doing, self-defence. What Israel does should be in line with international [law]. But it's not.”

Ms. Albanese also called on the Arab world to condemn Hamas’ targeting of civilian targets while still expressing their support for Palestine.

“There is a huge mobilisation in the Arab world in solidarity with the Palestinians. At the same time, I want to say to those in the Arab world, you can stand in solidarity with the Palestinians and still condemn the atrocities that Hamas has committed. This is necessary.”

‘Many more people are going to die’

The Special Rapporteur lamented the situation, claiming many more would die if more was not done to immediately end the conflict.

“Many more people are going to die in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territory, for sure. This is not going to stop, and genocidal intentions have to be addressed.

“I really fear for what the Palestinians are going to face, and I also fear for the future of these two people. I feel for their present, but I also fear for the future, for the Palestinians and Israelis.”

Independent experts

Special Rapporteurs and other independent rights experts are part of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, work on a voluntary and unpaid basis, are not UN staff, and work independent of any government or organisation.