Category World News

President Isaac Herzog has requested a formal pardon from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing long-running corruption cases.

The President’s Office is aware that this request is unusual and has significant implications. The president will take the request seriously and sincerely after receiving all relevant opinions, Herzog’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

In addition to allegations of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, Netanyahu faces three additional cases of corruption in 2019. He denies the accusations and enters a not-guilty plea.

Herzog is requesting Netanyahu’s pardon in the circumstances that US President Donald Trump is pressing for. Trump earlier in November wrote to Herzog asking him to take the pardon into account.

In an address to the Israeli parliament in October, Trump had also urged Herzog to pardon Netanyahu.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is also looking into the Israeli prime minister. The ICC issued arrest warrants for former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza in November 2024.

After being accused of fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes in three separate cases where he was accused of favoring wealthy political supporters, Netanyahu is the only sitting prime minister in Israeli history to go on trial.

He is accused of receiving nearly 700,000 shekels ($211, 832) in gifts from businessmen in the graft cases against him.

Herzog has the authority to pardon convicted criminals in unusual circumstances, despite the presidency of Israel’s largely ceremonial role.

However, Netanyahu’s trial, which started in 2020, is still unfinished.

Netanyahu claimed that the trial had divided the nation and that a pardon would bring back national harmony in a videotaped statement. He added that he finds it difficult to lead the nation because of the requirement that he appear in court three times per week.

Sudan’s army, known as the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), is still fighting a devastating conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), despite the country’s continuing humanitarian crisis.

The resource-rich Northeast African nation’s top generals, who are both accused of crimes against humanity and crimes against humanity, don’t appear to be turning down international calls for a ceasefire.

What significant humanitarian, political, and battlefield developments are occurring this month?

Military and combat control

After retaking El-Fasher, the last remaining army stronghold in the area, in late October, the RSF has been killing civilians and strengthening its grip on the West Darfur state.
• Most of the country’s eastern and central regions, including Khartoum and parts of Kordofan, are occupied by the SAF. However, the RSF and some of its allied militias have been deploying troops and equipment to further central Kordofan.
• The RSF has targeted Babnusa and El-Obeid, strategic cities with high agricultural, livestock, and petroleum resources, which give them a significant military advantage and an economic advantage over Khartoum.
• As international organizations push for a ceasefire that might allow the Army to retake control of Kazqil and Um Dam Haj Ahmed in North Kordofan, they have been occupying the area in central Sudan.

Humanitarian crisis

• Witnesses and international aid organizations in Darfur remarked numerous, horrifying atrocities committed by the RSF following its bloody annexation of El-Fasher. RSF militias are implicated in numerous mass murders, including rape of girls and women, as well as holding hostages for ransom.
• After fleeing El-Fasher to nearby Tawila, thousands of people have still vanished. In response to the humanitarian crisis there, where the UN is struggling, and where thousands more Sudanese civilians are being forced to flee, there are agencies working to help those in the country.
• In an effort to conceal what a Sudanese non-governmental medical organization called a “genocide,” the RSF burned and buried a large number of bodies in mass graves throughout several areas of El-Fasher, according to satellite images.
• Early in November, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) revealed that famine had been found in Kadugli, a town in South Kordofan, as well as in El-Fasher. According to the UN-backed global hunger monitor, 20 other Darfur and Kordofan regions are seriously at risk of experiencing severe famine conditions as a result of the majority of aid remaining blocked.
• Sudan has the largest displacement crisis in the world, according to Amy Pope, director general of the UN’s International Organization for Migration, and it is not receiving the attention it deserves despite affecting most children and women. Nearly 14 million people are internally displaced or forced to flee to developing nations.

political and diplomatic developments

• A truce proposal that envisages a possible transition to civilian rule in Sudan has been submitted by the so-called Quad, which includes the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Even though the RSF claims to accept the proposal while the SAF rejects it, fighting continues on the ground.
• The RSF announced on November 6 that it had accepted the mediators’ proposals, and its commanding general, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is well-known as Hemedti, claimed in a video message on November 26 that his paramilitary force is engaged in an ostensibly unilateral three-month “humanitarian truce.” However, November’s RSF attacks continued.
• The RSF commander announced this the day after army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan publicly stated his opposition to the Quad proposal in an address to senior commanders. Al-Burhan claimed that the proposal severely impairs the RSF, dissolves security organizations, and keeps the RSF in its current positions.
• The army commander also cited the UAE as a source of legitimacy and claimed that the Quad had been “the only country to witness the UAE’s support for rebels against the Sudanese state.” The RSF continues to deny arming and funding it, despite the largest import of gold from Sudan.
• Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appealed to the US president during a White House visit, and he vowed “cooperation and coordination” to put an end to Sudan’s conflict. Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior adviser on Arab and African affairs, and Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s president’s diplomatic adviser, held a press conference to discuss the proposed truce.