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A new United States Congress convenes in Washington, DC, on January 3. But for the first time in 18 years, a key Republican leader will no longer be at the helm: Senator Mitch McConnell.

McConnell has led the Republican Party in the Senate since 2007, guiding his caucus through numerous legislative challenges and four different presidencies.

According to experts, his leadership as the Senate’s longest-serving party leader will ultimately serve as a turning point for both Republicans and Congress as a whole.

Under McConnell, US politics moved away from the back-slappers and consensus-builders of earlier eras. Instead, McConnell helped to usher in a period of norm-breaking, hyper-partisan politics that paved the way for figures like incoming President Donald Trump, the leader of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.

“First and foremost, he extended a trend in minority obstruction in the Senate”, Steven S Smith, professor emeritus of political science at Washington University in St Louis, told Al Jazeera.

McConnell, who served as Senate leader for only six of his 18 years, had a Republican majority, according to Smith. The majority of his time has been used to mobilize a Senate minority to stymie the Democratic Party’s agenda.

“Second, he will be known for deepening partisan polarisation in the Senate”, Smith said. “While McConnell is not a conservative or MAGA extremist by today’s standards, he was a deeply partisan leader”.

Some view McConnell as a potential ally for figures like Trump, with whom he has previously had disagreements, despite his support for the Republican Party.

McConnell intends to serve as the Senate’s leader for the remainder of his six-year term despite his resignation. However, it’s still to be seen how much McConnell will support Trump’s ambitious second-term goals.

“I’d be surprised to see him make a public provocative comment. His influence is going underground”, Al Cross, a veteran reporter and columnist who covered McConnell’s tenure, told Al Jazeera.

“I usually play the villain,” I say.

McConnell has served in the Senate for a distinguished career. In 1984, he made his first bid for a seat in the chamber, ousting an incumbent Democrat.

Since then, he hasn’t lost. In 2020, he won his seventh straight term.

Without much opposition, he rose to the top of the Senate. The 2007 retirement of the previous Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, left the position vacant.

But even from his first days as a Senate leader, McConnell cultivated a reputation as a hardliner and obstructionist.

During his first year as Republican leader, The New York Times described him as operating with “near-robotic efficiency” to smack down Democratic policies, despite leading a minority in the Senate.

According to reporter David Herszenhorn, “Mr. McConnell and his fellow Republicans are playing such tight defense, blocking nearly every bill proposed by the sluggish Democratic majority.”

McConnell quickly embraced his visibility as a partisan warrior, a self-described “grim reaper” for progressive proposals.

For refusing to work across the aisle, he was given the nickname “Senator No.” McConnell himself greeted reporters once by saying, “Darth Vader has arrived”.

“Over the three decades I have been a US Senator, I’ve been the subject of many profiles”, McConnell wrote in the opening lines of his 2016 memoir. “I usually play the villain”.

Smith, the Washington University professor, described McConnell as sparking a “transformation” in the Senate as a result of his hardline approach.

Before McConnell’s leadership, Smith said the Senate only saw “occasional minority obstruction”. But afterwards, the chamber became known in political circles as the “60-vote Senate”.

That nickname is a reference to the 60 votes required to overcome a minority obstruction, otherwise known as a filibuster.

Under McConnell, Smith explained, “acting on legislation of any importance would face minority obstruction and require 60 votes for cloture”.

Bending norms

One of McConnell’s most divisive moments came in 2016, with the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Normally, when a justice dies, the sitting president is entitled to nominate a replacement. But Scalia’s death came 11 months before a pivotal presidential election. And Barack Obama, the president at the time, was approaching the end of his last term.

McConnell made a stunning — and swift — political gamble. Within hours of Scalia’s death, the Republican leader announced he would refuse to call a vote to confirm Obama’s chosen replacement.

The American people should be able to choose their next Supreme Court Justice, the statement read. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president”, McConnell said in a statement.

Left-leaning publications like The Nation decried McConnell’s decision as an assault on the US Constitution. “This refusal exploded norms”, journalist Alec MacGillis wrote in the publication ProPublica.

However, McConnell’s plan altered the court’s power balance for generations to come.

Trump, a political newcomer, was elected in the US in November, setting the stage for even more fundamental changes in Washington.

In the end, Trump announced three right-wing Supreme Court nominees, including one to succeed Scalia. That established a conservative super-majority on the bench, which was anticipated to influence American law for generations to come.

Trump later credited McConnell as his “ace in the hole” and “partner”.

“Mitch recognized, as did I, that since judges enjoy life tenure, the impact of judicial nominations can be felt for thirty years or more”, Trump wrote in a forward to McConnell’s memoir. The ultimate long game is to transform the federal judiciary!

A Trump rivalry

But in the lead-up to a new and emboldened Trump administration in 2025, McConnell has increasingly spoken out against the president-elect and his isolationist “America First” platform.

The two Republican leaders have repeatedly argued heads, which is particularly frosty in their relationship.

Trump has openly called McConnell an “old crow” and vilified his “China-loving wife” Elaine Chao, a slap at her Asian heritage.

McConnell, meanwhile, has countered with his own fighting words, implying parallels between Trump and isolationism in the 1930s.

“We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War II”, McConnell told the Financial Times in December. “Even the slogan is the same. ‘ America First. ‘ That was what the 1930s were all about.

McConnell is expected to assume the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense when he leaves his position as leader in January.

In his new role, he is likely to advocate for expanding the US military in an effort to fend off adversaries like Russia, Iran, and China.

However, experts say McConnell is unlikely to face much resistance from the incoming Trump administration at the age of 82, despite health issues like a recent fall.

I don’t anticipate much in the way of sustained opposition from Senator McConnell because he has left his position of authority and is physically frail, according to Harvard University political scientist Daniel Ziblatt, who spoke to Al Jazeera.

He may cast a dissident vote in a few places that might make a difference, for example. But his track record doesn’t leave me holding my breath”.

No greater institutionalist

Still, Herbert Weisberg, a professor of political science at The Ohio State University, anticipates that McConnell may act as an occasional dissenting voice, particularly as the Senate weighs some of Trump’s controversial nominees for high-level government posts.

“He’d normally want to defer to a Republican president on appointees, but he’ll be cautious on the unusual Trump nominees. He might be willing to vote against a few, but not all of them”, Weisberg told Al Jazeera.

Already, McConnell — a childhood polio survivor — issued a public warning to incoming administration officials to “steer clear of” efforts “to undermine public confidence” in “proven cures”, lest they scuttle their Senate confirmation hearings.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee for Trump’s health, was immediately linked to an effort to revoke the polio vaccine’s approval, according to The New York Times.

But a single Republican is unlikely to stall a nomination or piece of legislation, as Steven Okun, an analyst on US politics, government and trade, pointed out.

In the incoming Senate, Republicans have a majority of 53 members. And many in the party are firmly behind Trump’s leadership.

According to Okun, “four Republican senators would be required to stop anything that a future President Trump proposes to the Senate would require,” if there was a united Democratic opposition.

McConnell, Okun said, is unlikely to play the dissident position, “only when Donald Trump takes the most aggressive actions that would be against the US national interest.”

After all, party loyalty has been a key tenet of McConnell’s leadership. And the journalist Cross believes McConnell won’t want to miss a chance to influence presidential policy using the Senate’s authority.

“I can’t think of any greater institutionalist than Mitch McConnell”, Cross said. “He loves the Senate, it’s what he’s aspired to. He doesn’t want to give up its role in advice and consent”.

When I started studying nursing at Al Azhar University, I knew I wanted to work at al-Shifa Hospital. It was my dream.

It was the biggest, most prestigious hospital in the Gaza Strip. There, some of Palestine’s top doctors and nurses worked there. Additionally, a number of foreign medical missions would travel there to offer training and care.

At al-Shifa, there were many people who traveled from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip seeking medical care. In Arabic, the hospital’s name means “healing,” and it was in fact a hospital where the Palestinians of Gaza received healing.

I left nursing school in 2020 and attempted to work in the private sector. After several short-term jobs, I got into al-Shifa as a volunteer nurse.

I thoroughly enjoyed working in the emergency department. Every day, I went to work with enthusiasm and optimism. I would smile broadly at patients to help them with some of their pain. I’ve always enjoyed hearing patients’ thanksgivings for me.

In the emergency department, we were 80 nurses in total – both women and men – and we were all friends. In fact, some of my closest friends were colleagues at the hospital. Alaa was one of them. We worked together and went to coffee shops after work. She was a stunning woman who was incredibly generous and adored by everyone.

When the war broke out, it was through these friendships and the staff’s cohesion that helped me survive.

From the very first day, the hospital became overwhelmed with casualties. After my first shift ended that day, I spent an hour crying in the nurses room because I had witnessed so many injured people suffering.

In the hospital, there were more than a thousand wounded and martyrs in just a few days. The more people were brought in, the harder we worked, trying to save lives.

I had no idea that this heinous occurrence would last longer than a month. But it did.

Soon, the Israeli army called my family and informed us that we had to leave Gaza City. In this terrible time, I had to make a difficult choice: to be with my family or to be with the patients who needed me the most. I decided to stay.

I bid my last farewell to my southbound family in Rafah while residing at al-Shifa Hospital, my second home. Alaa also remained in place. We offered each other comfort and support.

The Israeli army placed a siege on the hospital in early November, prompting us to leave it. Our medical supplies began to diminish. Our power plants, which were supplying life-saving equipment, were quickly running out of fuel.

The moment when we ran out of fuel and oxygen and were unable to place the premature babies in the incubators was perhaps the most heartbreaking. They needed to be moved to an operating room where we made an effort to keep them warm. We had no oxygen to assist them because they were struggling to breathe. We lost eight innocent babies. That day, I can recall sitting and crying so loudly for those innocent people.

Then on November 15, Israeli soldiers stormed the complex. The attack came as a shock. The Israeli army was supposed to be protected by international law, but that was untrue.

Our administration informed us shortly before the raid that they had been informed that an Israeli medical complex was about to be stormed. We quickly unarmed the emergency department’s gate and gathered inside the nursing area in the middle of it. The next day, we saw Israeli soldiers surrounding the building. We were unable to leave, and our medical supplies were running out. The patients we had with us had to be treated, but we had a hard time doing so.

No water or food was left. I recall having a fainting sensation. For three days, I had not eaten anything. Due to the Israeli raid and the siege, some patients have died.

On November 18, Dr Mohammad Abu Salmiya, al-Shifa’s director, came to tell us that the Israelis had ordered the whole medical complex to be evacuated. If I had a choice, I would have stayed, but the Israeli army did not leave me one.

Hundreds of us, doctors and nurses, were forced to leave, along with many patients. About 20 of the staff members stayed behind, leaving only bed-bound patients at the time. Dr. Abu Salmiya remained in the area and was later detained. For the following seven months, he disappeared.

According to Israeli orders, I and dozens of other colleagues travel south. Alaa and a few others defied these instructions and headed north to their families. We walked for a lot of kilometers before passing Israeli checkpoints where we had to wait for hours before discovering a donkey cart that could take us some of the way.

When we finally arrived in Rafah, I was beyond happy to see my family. There was a lot of relief and crying. However, shocking news quickly overshadowed my family’s joy.

Alaa, who had been displaced in a school shelter, was able to move back to her family in Beit Lahiya. However, when she and her brother went to their deserted home to retrieve some belongings, an Israeli missile struck the structure, killing them.

She passed away, which shocked everyone greatly. One of the sweetest people I had ever known, who loved to help others and was there for me when times were difficult, passed away a year later.

In March, Israeli soldiers returned to al-Shifa. For two weeks, they rampaged through the hospital, leaving behind death and devastation. There was no structure in the medical complex that had not been destroyed or burned down. From a place of healing, al-Shifa was transformed into a graveyard.

When I return to the hospital, I’m not sure how I’ll feel. How will it make me feel knowing that my favorite professional accomplishments and memories of my closest friends have also been the site of displacement, forced disappearances, and death?

Today, more than a year after I lost my workplace, I live in a tent and care for the ill in a makeshift clinic. My future, our future is uncertain. But in the new year, I have a dream: to see al-Shifa as it used to be – grand and beautiful.

Russian gas was stopped on New Year’s Day after Ukraine, which had fought with Moscow, refused to renegotiate a transit agreement.

Russia will lose money that it can use to fund its war because of Ukraine’s unwillingness to renew the five-year-old transit agreement, but Transnistria, a breakaway Moldovan region, will likely experience an energy crisis, cutting hot water and electricity supplies to homes.

“It brings to a final end what was once Russia’s dominance of the EU energy market”, Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, reporting from Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, said. Before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia supplied some 35 percent of Europe’s pipeline natural gas exports.

With the shutdown of Russia’s oldest gas route to Europe, functional for more than 40 years, Russia’s share has dwindled to less than 10 percent. Hungary is still able to access gas from another pipeline that passes through Turkiye.

What might happen next if you turn off the taps during the height of the winter, particularly in Eastern Europe?

Why was Russian gas stopped flowing through Ukraine to Europe?

Gas supplies to Europe were suspended at 8am local time (05:00 GMT) on Wednesday, according to Russian energy giant Gazprom, after Naftogaz, the state-owned oil and gas company in Ukraine, refused to renew its most recent five-year transit agreement.

On Wednesday, Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in a statement, “We stopped the transit of Russian gas. This is an historic event. Russia is losing its markets, it will suffer financial losses. Russia’s gas industry has already been abandoned in Europe.

The most recent contract, which paid for Ukraine’s transportation costs, was signed in 2020. However, in light of the ongoing conflict, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, had warned Kyiv that the transit agreement would not be renewed.

What volume of gas did Russia export to Europe?

Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, many European nations began to cut back on Russian gas.

At its peak, Moscow’s share of European gas imports stood at 35 percent, but has fallen to about 8 percent.

As of December 1, less than 14 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Russian gas was flown through Ukraine than the contract’s annual high of 65bcm (bcm) at the beginning of the year.

The gas is sent through the Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline from Siberia through Sudzha, a town in Russia’s Kursk region which is now under the Ukrainian military’s control. The gas moves via Ukraine into Slovakia. The supply to Austria and the Czech Republic is divided into branches where the pipeline is located.

Both Russia and Ukraine were receiving financial benefits from the transit agreement.

Serhii Makohon, the former head of the Ukrainian GTS Operator, claimed that Russia received significantly more money from the transit agreement than Ukraine.

According to Makohon, Russia is making $5 billion annually, according to a report from Reuters News. On the other hand, Ukraine was receiving $800 million annually, but the majority of it is used for transit itself. ]Ukraine’s] treasury receives $100-200m in taxes and dividends”, Makohon was quoted by Ukrainska Pravda.

Bloomberg estimated Russia’s earnings from the deal to be even higher, at $6.5bn annually.

Will there be an electricity shortage? Who will suffer as a result?

The transit route provided the power supply for Austria, Slovakia, and Moldova.

Slovakia was obtaining about 3 billion cubic meters annually, which equaled roughly two-thirds of its demand, while Austria was primarily getting its gas from Russia via Ukraine.

E-Control, the Austrian energy regulator, has stated that it is prepared to switch to a supply switch and won’t experience interruptions.

The halt in supply will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in transit revenue for the Slovak nation, according to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, and a higher cost for the import of additional gas.

Fico claimed that this would cause Europe’s gas prices to rise. According to the Slovak economy ministry, gas will cost 177 million euros ($184 million) to receive it through alternative means, according to the government ministry.

Possibly the most vulnerable is Moldova. Since 2022, Russia has been sending about 2 billion cubic meters of gas through Ukraine to Transnistria, a pro-Russian separatist region. Transnistria, which borders Ukraine, would then sell electricity, generated using Russian gas, to government-controlled parts of Moldova.

Moldova has already declared an emergency in response to the looming gas shortage. Maia Sandu, the president of Moldova, has attributed this winter’s “harsh” to Gazprom because it hasn’t considered an alternative route.

Dorin Recean, the prime minister of Moldova, has asserted that the country has diversified its gas supply sources.

On Wednesday, Transnistria, home to 450, 000 people, cut off heating and hot water supplies to households.

According to the European Commission, the bloc had prepared for the cut-off, adding that Ukraine does not use Russian transit gas.

Has the Russian gas supply completely ceased in Europe?

One of the last operational routes used to export Russian gas was the Ukrainian pipeline. Following the Ukrainian War of 2022, several pipelines, including the Nord Stream pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the Yamal-Europe pipeline through Belarus, were shut down.

To export gas, Russia still uses the TurkStream pipeline, which is located on the Black Sea bed. One of the two lines, which feeds Turkiye’s domestic market, and the other, which supplies customers in Central Europe, including Hungary and Serbia, is fed by the other.

However, the TurkStream has limited annual capacity, amounting to 31.5bcm for both lines combined.

What other options does Europe have?

With the purchase of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar and the US, along with piped gas from Norway, Europe has been trying to reduce its reliance on Russian gas.

Central and Eastern Europe can access non-Russian gas via alternative routes thanks to the European gas infrastructure. Since 2022, significant new LNG import capacities have been added, according to Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, a Commission spokesperson.

SPP, a major energy supplier in Slovakia, said in a statement on Wednesday that it was prepared for the transition and would provide its customers with alternative sources, primarily from Germany and Hungary. It added that additional fees would apply to transportation, though.

Slovakia could receive gas from Hungary, about a third from Austria, and the rest could come from the Czech Republic and Poland, according to Austrian energy regulator E-Control. Additionally, the Czech Republic has stated that it can provide storage and transit for gas for Slovakia.

The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been engaged in an armed conflict with the M23 rebel group for three years, which has resulted in the displacement of nearly two million people and the deaths of hundreds of people.

M23 was first formed after a mutiny within the Congolese national army (FARDC) in 2012. The group resurrected “Wazalendo” self-defence groups in North Kivu province in 2022 despite the initial uprising, which was overturned.

M23 says it is defending the interests of minority Congolese Tutsis, many of whom say they suffer discrimination and exclusion in DRC for their ethnic links to Rwanda’s Tutsi community.

With regional tensions rising as bodies like the UN accuse Rwanda of supporting M23 with troops and weapons, which Rwanda denies, Kinshasa perceives M23 as the greatest security threat it currently faces.

Despite attempts at ceasefires and negotiations – including the 2022 Nairobi peace process and recent mediation efforts by Angola – fighting has continued. In Lubero, M23 accelerated by several thousand kilometers in a short period of time.

Bertrand Bisimwa, the head of the political wing of M23, maintains that the group is fighting a “defensive” war. He discussed the war in eastern DRC with Bojana Coulibaly, a researcher with a focus on peace and security in Africa’s Great Lakes region, and expressed hope that a dialogue will start to form.

Bojana Coulibaly: Could you please clarify what M23’s demands are?

Bertrand Bisimwa: Our demands boil down to a struggle for survival. Because the Congolese government sentences some of its citizens to death, we are engaged in an existential conflict. And this didn’t start today. People are forced to seek refuge from fear of death and avoid being killed in this situation, which has been occurring for decades. There is hate speech and there is also a kind of radicalisation that is taking shape. The Tutsi serve as the Congolese government’s scapegoats for the people’s failures in governance.

So, we told ourselves that we must not sit idly by and watch our citizens being killed in this way. To defend these citizens, we are currently engaged in a defensive war. So that they do not continue to be put to death. They are not citizens of inferiority. The state must take care of them and not consider them as stateless, or who are not Congolese. Like all other Congolese, they are full-fledged citizens.

Coulibaly: Recently, there’s been intense fighting between government forces and M23 in Great North Kivu, in the Lubero territory. Could you describe what transpired?

Bisimwa: In March, the mediator in the crisis between Rwanda and the DRC, Angola’s President]Joao] Lourenco, had invited us to Luanda to convey the message from the African Union which was to sign a ceasefire. Kinshasa resisted signing the ceasefire, which we signed. Later, Kinshasa simply continued the war against us, and we started again – we continued to defend ourselves.

Although neither the Rwandan government nor the Rwandan military are on Congolese soil and aren’t fighting, a meeting was scheduled between the two governments on December 15.

The Congolese government wanted to have a victory on the ground before the 15th. They put pressure on us in order to secure a victory that would put them in a good position, forcing Rwanda to either sign what Kinshasa desired or almost derail the Luanda meeting. That was the government’s objective.

More than 22, 000 men are gathering around 15 regiments, supported by the FDLR [Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, an armed rebel group] – the former genocidaires of the 1994 Tutsi genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, who are using them against us. We understood the manoeuvres, so we prepared sufficiently to defend ourselves.

Because for us, it was crucial to thwart this military offensive on their part, and we were successful in doing so, this is what caused this violence to escalate.

We learned that they continue to prepare to reignite the war, and if they do reignite it, we will continue to defend ourselves to prevent them from continuing down that path, because we believe that for peace, it is necessary to thwart the path of war.

Coulibaly: The United Nations says M23’s advance towards the Great North Kivu as well as the increase in control of areas are a desire for expansion and conquest of territory. What is your response? &nbsp ,

Bisimwa: Since starting our war, we have been responding to the government’s daily assaults. And each time, we say it: if they continue to attack us, we will silence the weapons everywhere they shoot at us.

When you have supremacy over one, you must take the space they were shooting at you, according to the logic of war. And we fight for that. We are required to silence the weapons from the area where they aim when we fight against the government, those who attack us. And that is what allows us to stop the war. So we can’t just defend ourselves from the enemy without getting shot at. That would be illogical, it would mean continuing to submit ourselves to death and to submit to death the people that are in our area.

You’ll notice that we stop and wait every time we take control of the opponent’s hand and clear the area they were shooting at us. If they launch the same offensive again, at that moment we advance. Therefore, it is impossible to fault ourselves for defending our country and defeating the offensive we are given.

When there is war, people are afraid and can flee, because they must seek shelter. And this attitude is entirely acceptable. So, we cannot place this responsibility on just one party. We succeeded in restoring or emptying more than nine camps of displaced people that were established in the area we control today, so I believe there is a certain refusal to face reality at the UN level as well. OCHA recently published a report where it stated that more than 480, 000 families have returned to their homes, in our area. Therefore, I believe that everyone needs to examine themselves and have the guts to expose what is actually happening on the ground rather than start to condemn.

Coulibaly: After M23 was excluded from the peace process in Nairobi in April 2022, the Luanda process has been stumbling over the issue of dialogue – because Kinshasa considers you to be just a proxy of Rwanda. What do you think about this dialogue being thwarted?

Bisimwa: The refusal of dialogue by the Congolese government is a refusal of a civilised resolution of conflicts. Because today’s civilized world no longer fights, it resolves issues through dialogue and progresses. But Kinshasa is in the logic of war.

To understand the circumstances surrounding our visit to Nairobi in 2022 is necessary first. On April 10, the heads of state of the East African Community had gathered, at the request of President]Felix] Tshisekedi, to ask us to withdraw to a certain distance, because we had just liberated locations. And we were asked to engage in dialogue by the Congolese government.

We found that civilised because we told ourselves, after all, we have the dialogue we wanted in order to address the root causes of the conflict. On April 20, 2022, we arrived in Nairobi and assumed we were going to talk. But while we were in Nairobi, the armed forces of the DRC began to reclaim the locations from which we had withdrawn, and it was moving towards our positions.

We made it clear to the facilitators that a situation is emerging on the ground that requires immediate attention because it runs the risk of getting worse. The facilitator discussed with the Congolese government, but nothing was stopping on the ground.

Unfortunately, the war broke out and we were not heard. The next day, FARDC soldiers woke up, they shot at our soldiers, we defended ourselves and the war resumed. The Congolese government reacted by saying it couldn’t tolerate us in the room and that we should leave.

That is when we understood that the Congolese government was not ready to be in dialogue with us. And the same logic is still in place today.

War cannot solve our problems. Only dialogue alone can reveal the conflict’s underlying causes. Because it has lasted a long time. These unsolved conflicts are affecting the east of the nation. And the east of the country is our home. Our families reside there. Our families cannot continue to be put to death every day simply because the capital is located 2, 000km from where we live. If Kinshasa can’t solve our problems, it should let us do it ourselves.

According to Congolese Foreign Affairs Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, who vehemently opposes any dialogue with M23, she would like to invite all armed groups to a dialogue or resume the Nairobi process. What is your response? &nbsp ,

Bisimwa: Everyone knows – the whole world knows – that there are no more armed groups in Congo. These various armed organizations have all been made reserve members of the FARDC. There is a law that came out, all these Wazalendo, all those we call the VDP, are auxiliaries of the FARDC who have been officially integrated. Official integration of the FDLR into the FARDC So, there are no more armed groups.

These armed organizations don’t bother us. We have existential problems that will not be solved by armed groups. The government is in charge of the nation, not these armed groups. It is to the government that we must address and not the armed groups.

Second, we are not fighting for jobs within the government, and Minister Wagner should be very aware of this. We are not fighting for ranks. The Congolese army has its officers and soldiers. They had ranks there. Some of us served as ministers in Kinshasa and as government members. They left because the problem had not been resolved. This implies that even if these positions were offered to us, they would not alleviate our suffering and suffering today.

We must address the root causes of the conflict to stop the violence in the east of the country. If the country turns peaceful, each of us has access to fertile land so that they can live wherever they like. We can cultivate the land, we can keep our cows, we can produce milk, we can go teach. Instead of engaging in politics, each of us has a chance to improve our family and ensure our survival.

What we want is to talk with them to resolve issues related to the governance of the country. A government that causes us to be killed, a government that causes exile, and a government that won’t allow us to provide for our children tomorrow and the day after. Our children must be able to live. We must create a setting that will prevent the future from inheriting the issues we haven’t been able to resolve.

Coulibaly: The latest battles against the government coalition took place near territories affected by the presence of the ADF armed group. Is there a connection between your movement and the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS) claimed to be affiliated with this organization?

Bisimwa: We were the first in this country to denounce the ADF threat. And I think we’ve been discussing it for more than ten years. And the Congolese government has always taken us for people who are joking. They claimed there is no ADF. Today, this issue has become a reality visible to everyone, because they have excelled in massacres against the population and to say that it is us who have links with them – that is also immoral, to think in that way. We have always fought to bring those people to justice. And the sooner they are neutralised, the better the country would be today.

The FARDC or the Congolese government mobilize more forces than they do against us. Against the ADF, they just send a few soldiers to accompany the Ugandan army that does all the work, against us, they mobilise more than 15 regiments of 22, 000 men. They use impressive weapons and cutting-edge technology. So, between us and those who behave in this way, who can we say is closer to the ADF?

Coulibaly, you are accused of squandering Rwanda’s mines for profit. What do you say to this?

Bisimwa: We initially opposed Rubaya because we never intended to take mineral-rich areas. We have always avoided this so that we would not confuse our existential cause with the exploitation of minerals.

However, the reality is that there was a training facility in Rubaya run by the Burundian army and the Imbonerakure militia, where young people from the Congolese were trained in how to use bladed weapons in order to enslave them and cause desolation in our country. We communicated this to the world so that everyone would understand that there is a threat in Rubaya that needs to be addressed quickly. Everyone ignored this, and there was no response. This is how we made the decision to stop this thing because it was going to create for us more problems than solutions.

There was never any fighting inside Rubaya when we entered this space, in this region of the country. The strategy we took was to evacuate from Rubaya all those who had weapons in these mining sites. Children who were used in the mines, which had the greatest chance of having an accident, were the second group of people to leave those locations. The third group of people we extracted from Rubaya were pregnant women who very often were mistreated.

Rubaya is performing well today. We have kept in Rubaya the same people, the same organisations that were exploiting the mines because they are private entities that were exploiting the mines there. Additionally, we forbid our officials from working in Rubaya’s mines. There is not a single member of the M23 in the mines of Rubaya. Therefore, we have allowed the perpetrators to continue their abuse. And we are happy with a small tax to allow that this police mechanism that we have established around Rubaya can continue to hold. We have done this, exactly.

Coulibaly: M23 currently controls the world-renowned biodiversity reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site in danger, Virunga National Park, which was established in 1994. What is the current status of Virunga Park since you arrived there in 2023?

Bisimwa: We have always taken care of this world biodiversity reserve in, around, or close to it regardless of our population levels or the actions we take. Before our arrival, we found that the park was overrun by the FDLR who were engaged in woodcutting activities to make charcoal. A report from the United Nations that claimed the FDLR made money off of this charcoal trade has been released. They were talking about more than $100m a year.

The FARDC’s invasion of the park, among other things, was the second thing we noticed. These FARDC who were not paid, they were killing the park animals to feed themselves. And we said no because the parks still have no trees left. So, we created a protection force for the park that works in agreement with the rangers to protect the park.

Our third course of action was an educational one for the population. To make them understand that they have no interest in invading the park. because we discovered that the parks’ boundaries were in danger. There are even citizens who have taken plots of land in the park concession, which was unacceptable. We started by informing the population that there is another way to benefit from what we get from the park. That is to say, when tourists come, what they will pay as tourists will allow us to carry out development projects.

There was no wildlife when we arrived at the park. But now, all the animals that had left the park are starting to return because there is security. In the swamps, hippos can be seen parading. We can see families of antelopes running here and there. The gorillas are visible to us. And it’s beautiful. Everyone who travels by that road is aware of how much of the beauty of the natural world is available to us, and I think that privilege must be preserved.

At least 10 people have been killed in New Orleans, US, as a result of an armed man driving through a crowd. The driver then reportedly opened fire and left the car, according to city officials.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 20 Palestinians, including children, in Gaza on New Year’s Day, as makeshift shelters for displaced people across the Strip flooded after days of heavy rain.

On Wednesday, reports of the attacks in Khan Younis, the southern city of Khan Younis, and Jabalia in northern Gaza, the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, and the Bureij refugee camp in the south were made.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, one woman and four children were among the deceased. Other Palestinians who had vanished and are thought to be hiding under the rubble were reportedly ten others.

According to Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Gaza civil defense agency, “Fifteen people were killed and more than 20 were hurt in a massacre that occurred in a house where displaced people were residing in the town of Jabalia.”

Some of the victims’ families reported that the first responders were still looking for survivors. “The house has turned into a pile of debris”, said Jibri Abu Warda.

“There were body parts of children and women everywhere, and it was a massacre.” They were sleeping when the house was bombed”, Abu Warda said. Nobody knows why they shot the house, they said. They were all civilians”.

A woman and a child were killed overnight in the Bureij refugee camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.

The Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital, which received the bodies, claim that three people were killed in a third strike in Khan Younis.

Due to recent days of intense Israeli bombardment, the civil defense agency said it has been having trouble responding to distress calls from families.

“Those who are besieged in the incursion’s areas experience utter poverty. Citizens who are subject to Israeli bombardment have been completely impacted by the suspension of our services, according to a civil defense official.

“The New Year arrives in Gaza, not with joy or hope, but with the boom of fighter jets, drones, and eardrum-shattering explosion sounds”, said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 45, 553 Palestinians and wounded 108, 379 since October 7, 2023, Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

“It’s not just Israeli bombs and the forced displacement that are overwhelming Palestinians, but also the severe cold weather. Many of them are in tents, lacking warm winter clothing, and they are trying to cope with it all by resorting to primitive means of heating”, Abu Azzoum said.

As Israel continues to obstruct the flow of humanitarian aid, hundreds of makeshift shelters have been flooded throughout the enclave as a result of days of heavy rain. In recent days, at least six infants have died from the cold.

“For three days, we haven’t slept out of fear that our children would fall sick because of the winter, as well as fear of missiles falling on us”, said Samah Darabieh, a woman displaced from central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah and now living in Beit Lahiya.

Israeli forces have regularly besieged and attacked medical facilities that house both patients and displaced families throughout their 15-month assault on Gaza.

“Two days ago, they bombed Al-Wafaa hospital, which is behind us, and the shrapnel dropped here”, Darabieh said.

Last week, Israeli forces raided north Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, forcibly evacuating medical staff and patients from the facility and arresting the hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safia, whose whereabouts remain unknown.

Kamal Adwan Hospital is “suffering from a stifling siege, as the operating and surgery departments, laboratory, maintenance, ambulance units and warehouses have been completely burned”, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s hospitals have “pushed its healthcare system toward the brink of total collapse,” according to the UN, and Israeli claims that Palestinian armed groups’ claims are “vague, broad, and contradictory are contrary to publicly available information.

Officials and human rights organizations have increasingly condemned Israel’s continued assault on Gaza, calling the attacks and blocking aid deliveries acts genocides.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant are wanted on arrest in Gaza on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the International Criminal Court (ICC).