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Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement is due on Thursday to elect a new central committee for the first time in 10 years, as it faces existential challenges in the wake of the Gaza war.

During the three-day general conference, the movement will vote on the central committee, its highest leadership body, even as analysts warn of Fatah’s diminishing legitimacy in the face of endemic corruption and its lack of progress on Palestinian statehood — especially amid an intensified Israeli settlement drive, reported AFP.

The committee is expected to play a key role in the post-Abbas era, with some wondering whether the 90-year-old leader might finally step down after more than two decades at the helm, despite the lack of a clear heir apparent.

The conference comes as the Palestinian national movement is facing some of “the most serious challenges in our struggle”, said Jibril Rajoub, the current secretary general of the committee.

He expressed hope that the conference, repeatedly delayed, would contribute to “ensuring and protecting the establishment of a Palestinian state on the world’s agenda and protecting the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”.

Fatah has historically been the main component of the PLO, which includes most Palestinian factions but excludes Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups.

In recent decades, Fatah’s popularity and influence have dwindled amid internal divisions and growing public frustration over the stagnation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The sense of disappointment led to a surge in support for rival Hamas, which made huge political gains in the occupied West Bank in 2006 elections that it won handily, before going on to expel Fatah from the Gaza Strip almost entirely after a bout of factional fighting.

Hani al-Masri, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies (Masarat), told AFP that Fatah now merely uses the PLO to provide itself with legitimacy, “a legitimacy that is eroding in the absence of a unified national project, elections and national consensus”.

He added that Thursday’s conference was overshadowed by competition over seats on the central committee, “while the national project is conspicuously absent from the discussions”.

Rajoub nonetheless declared that the conference was a first step towards “putting the Palestinian house in order, to build a partner for establishing a (Palestinian) state”.

– Succession –

The conference will be held over three days, with approximately 2,580 Fatah members participating, the majority of them in Ramallah, though several hundred are also spread across Gaza, Cairo and Beirut.

They are expected to elect 18 representatives to the central committee and 80 to the movement’s parliament, known as the revolutionary council.

Fatah is the main party within the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has been touted abroad as a natural partner in rebuilding and running the Gaza Strip after Israel’s devastating war with Hamas there.

But Fatah remains marginalized in the territory, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed that it, the PA and Hamas will have no role in post-war governance.

Despite repeated declarations from the movement that it is working as a “united front”, major figures will be absent from Thursday’s conference, notably Nasser al-Qudwa, a key Palestinian leader who is boycotting the gathering.

“This conference is illegitimate, and this leadership that has usurped power is illegitimate and its time is up,” said Qudwa, a nephew of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Key figures competing to replace Abbas include Rajoub and PA deputy Hussein al-Sheikh.

Also missing is Marwan Barghouti, who is considered a uniquely unifying Palestinian leader often cited as a possible successor to Abbas, but is serving a life sentence in Israeli prison after being found guilty of involvement in deadly attacks.

Meanwhile, the president’s eldest son, Yasser Abbas, is on the ballot to join the central committee, having risen in prominence over recent years after he was named the president’s special representative despite largely residing in Canada.

Al-Masri said the president’s son’s bid for a seat “indicates a trend towards dynastic succession”, which is “extremely dangerous for Fatah, the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian cause”.

Original Post

Israel’s military said it launched strikes against Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon on Thursday, hours before US-brokered talks between the two countries were set to begin in Washington.

“The IDF has begun striking Hezbollah terror infrastructure sites in several areas in southern Lebanon,” the military said after issuing evacuation warnings for a number of villages in the area.

Also Thursday, a Hezbollah drone strike injured several Israeli civilians, the Israeli military said.

“A short while ago, an explosive drone that was launched by the Hezbollah terrorist organization fell within Israeli territory, near the Israel-Lebanon border,” the military said.

“As a result, several Israeli civilians were injured and evacuated to receive medical treatment at the hospital.”

Original Post

Most of Abdi Ahmed Farah’s hundreds of goats have died. It has not rained steadily in this part of Somalia for three years, something the 70-year-old never thought possible.

He is in debt from buying water. The reservoir outside his tent is nearly empty. His family is down to one meal a day: rice with sugar and oil. The youngest of his 22 children was born three weeks ago and his wife produces only occasional drops of breast milk.

“I have considered abandoning my family because I cannot provide for them,” said Farah, sitting in front of dwindling food supplies, as if on guard.

Yet another drought is affecting millions of people across Somalia, one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate shocks. Some rivers are dry. Crops have withered. Experts say the drought could be among the worst in Somali history, The Associated Press said.

The crisis is compounded by aid cuts, most dramatically by the Trump administration, and rising prices from the Iran war. Somalia buys most of its fuel from the Middle East, and 70% of its food is imported.

Production of staple crops of maize and sorghum in the October-December rainy season was the lowest on record in Somalia, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Food security experts warn that nearly a half-million children might face severe acute malnutrition, the harshest kind. That would be higher than the number of children requiring treatment for it during droughts in 2011 and 2022, according to UNICEF.

‘It’s a repeated climate shock’ “2026 is the worst year on record for Somalia in terms of drought,” said Hameed Nuru, the UN World Food Program director for Somalia. “Children have started dying.”

The Somali government and United Nations estimate that 6.5 million people face crisis levels of hunger, representing a third of the country’s population and a 25% increase since January.

Aid agencies are trying to maximize resources, and the Somali diaspora is sending money to help, but humanitarian workers warn it is not enough.

“This drought is not just another cycle of dry season. It’s a repeated climate shock with shrinking humanitarian support,” said Mohamed Assair, a manager with Save the Children in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region.

People drank dirty rainwater and got sick

Farah once had 680 goats, but a lack of food and water as well as diseases exacerbated by drought have claimed all but 110 of them, barely clinging to life.

“There is no market for my goats because they are so thin. Previously we would trade them for rice, but now we can’t,” he said. Farah’s family has been at a site outside Usgure village for 10 days. Almost a dozen goat carcasses lie nearby.

In Usgure, home to 700 families, community leader Abshir Hirsi Ali said the local economy has collapsed because they rely on pastoralists like Farah. Shops have closed and food rations have run low.

A recent, brief shower brought puddles of dirty rainwater. “Some families were so desperate they drank it … now there is a high number of people with fever,” Ali said.

Save the Children occasionally brings free water to Usgure, but private water trucks have quadrupled their prices and the cost of a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of flour has increased by a third, to $40.

“I’m not only afraid for my family but the future of the whole village,” said Muhubo Tahir Omar, a 47-year-old mother of 11 children.

Omar, like other parents, had sold her goats to pay for school fees, “but when we didn’t pay, the teachers left.” Her last goat is now sick.

‘Conflict made our situation even worse’ Decades of conflict in Somalia have displaced millions of people. The drought has displaced another 200,000 this year, the UN estimates.

Some families flee across harsh landscapes with limited supplies.

“People are on the move … and when people move, people die,” said Kevin Mackey, the Somalia director for humanitarian group World Vision. He recently met people who had walked for nine days to get aid in Dollow in the south.

Around 80 families live in a displacement camp outside Shahda village in Puntland.

Shukri, a 20-year-old mother of four, usually can eke out one meal a day from handouts. Now there is nothing to eat and limited access to clean water.

“The children got diarrhea (from dirty water) and malnourishment worsened,” said Shukri, who gave only her first name. “I know a few people who have died.”

Many people head to Mogadishu, the capital, where food also remains scarce.

Fadumo, a 45-year-old mother of seven, moved there from Lower Shabelle, where livelihoods were already threatened by al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militants.

“The water sources we depended on for farming, including the river, dried up,” Fadumo said. “Conflict made our situation even worse, forcing us to flee.”

‘The outlook is deeply concerning’ Drought ravaged Somalia in 2022 and an estimated 36,000 people died, according to the UN. Now the kind of aid that was rushed to respond to such crises is shrinking.

“Unless there is a sudden and substantial response from donors, the outlook is deeply concerning. A drought of similar severity in 2022 received a response five times greater than what we are seeing,” said Antoine Grand, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Somalia.

Aid funding to Somalia dropped to $531 million in 2025 in large part because of aid cuts by the United States, which had been Somalia’s top donor. In 2022, aid funding was nearly five times as much at $2.38 billion.

WFP said it intended to help 2 million people with food aid this year but has reached only 300,000 because of funding gaps.

A center at the hospital in Qardho, Puntland, treats children with severe acute malnutrition. But therapeutic milk is now rarely in stock, and nurses resort to homemade alternatives such as cow’s milk, said director Shamis Abdirahman.

The center receives around 15 children a month, but they expect more as displaced people arrive.

One 4-year-old, Farhia, weighs a scant 7.5 kilograms (16.5 pounds). Her eyes are sunken and her bones are prominent under her skin.

Her family fled to Qardho when all of their goats died, said her mother, Najma.

“I don’t know what to hope for, or see how we can get back to what we had,” she said.

Original Post

Legal moves and public pressure inside Libya, particularly from supporters of the former regime, have intensified in recent weeks, demanding that authorities disclose the circumstances surrounding the killing of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Saif al-Islam, son of Libya’s late leader Moammar Gaddafi, was killed in the western city of Zintan on Feb. 3, 100 days ago.

Since Libyan Attorney General al-Siddiq al-Sour announced on March 5 that three suspects had been identified in connection with the crime – without revealing their names – public calls have grown for the full investigation findings to be released, for those behind the incident to be identified, and for all those involved to be brought to trial in order to ensure transparency and justice.

A Libyan source familiar with the matter in the capital, Tripoli, confirmed that new legal efforts are underway in the case.

Asharq Al-Awsat learned that Khaled al-Zaidi, head of the defense team in the Saif al-Islam assassination case, visited the office of the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, counselor Abdullah Abu Rzeiza, in Tripoli on Sunday morning. No details were disclosed about the visit or the issues discussed.

The same source, who requested anonymity, said that “these legal moves could lead to positive results and developments that may help uncover the truth and push the case toward greater clarity in the coming period,” without elaborating further.

Additionally, an initiative known as the “National Truth Committee on the Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Case” launched an online public petition calling on the attorney general to disclose details of the crime and announce the investigation results publicly, stressing the need to uphold the law and ensure the principles of justice.

The petition also called for legal measures against the three individuals referred to in the attorney general’s office statement, as well as an expansion of the investigation to include anyone who planned, participated in, financed or assisted in carrying out the crime.

At the same time, public pressure has increased across Libya. The Conference of Social and Political Activities and Civil Society Institutions in Fezzan called on the attorney general to clarify the reasons behind the delay in arresting the suspects, saying the continued ambiguity has raised widespread questions among the public.

Political activist Dr. Khaled al-Hijazi, who is close to the former regime, said the public pressure was “logical,” given that “the assassination of Saif al-Islam is a public opinion issue that cannot be ignored or covered up.”

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the importance of the case is compounded by its connection to a public political figure who previously ran in a presidential race and enjoys significant popular support inside the country.”

A source in the public prosecution office had previously told Asharq Al-Awsat that investigations into the case were still ongoing, in response to unofficial accounts circulating in Libya regarding the identities and regional affiliations of the perpetrators.

 

 

Original Post