Israel kills three Palestinians in continued West Bank onslaught

JUBA, South Sudan: South Sudanese soldiers surrounded Vice President Riek Machar’s home in the capital on Wednesday and several of his allies were arrested after an armed group allied to him overrun an army base in the country’s north.
Machar, whose political rivalry with President Salva Kiir has in the past exploded into civil war, said last month that the firing of several of his allies from posts in the government threatened the 2018 peace deal between him and Kiir that ended a five-year civil war in which more than 400,000 people were killed.
Deputy army chief Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, also loyal to Machar, was detained Tuesday over the fighting in the north, while Machar ally and Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol was arrested Wednesday alongside his bodyguards and family. No reason was given for the arrests.
Neither Machar nor his SPLM-IO party have commented about the fighting, but Water Minister Pal Mai Deng, who is also the party’s spokesperson, said Lam’s detention “puts the entire peace agreement at risk.”
Western envoys last week urged leaders to de-escalate the tension.
Ter Manyang Gatwich, Executive Director of the Center for Peace and Advocacy, has called for the immediate release of those detained to avert further escalation of violence and further bloodshed from degenerating into what he called a “full-scale war.”
South Sudan is yet to fully implement the 2018 peace agreement and elections that were scheduled for last year were postponed by two years due to a lack of funds.

DAMASCUS: Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani said he would take part in a meeting Wednesday of the international chemical weapons watchdog in the Netherlands, nearly three months after Bashar Assad’s ouster.
“Today, for the first time in Syria’s history, I am attending the executive council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague,” Shaibani said in a statement on X.
“This participation reaffirms Syria’s commitment to international security and honors those who lost their lives suffocating at the hands of the Assad regime,” he added.
Assad was repeatedly accused of using chemical weapons during Syria’s 13-year civil war, and there has been widespread concern about the fate of Syria’s stockpile since his December 8 ouster.
More than a decade ago, Syria agreed to hand over its declared stockpile for destruction, but the OPCW has always been concerned that the declaration was incomplete and that more weapons remain unaccounted for.
Last month, OPCW chief Fernando Arias met Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in a first visit to Damascus since Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad.
The visit raised hope that Syria could be definitively rid of chemical weapons after years of obstruction to the organization’s work.
Arias said that his trip marked “a reset” and that “after 11 years of obstruction by the previous authorities, the Syrian caretaker authorities have a chance to turn the page.”
The OPCW has expressed concern that valuable evidence may have been destroyed in the intense Israeli bombing of Syrian military assets that followed Assad’s overthrow.
Israel has said suspected chemical weapons sites were among its targets as it sought to stop the assets from falling into the hands of “extremists.”