Israel’s ultra-Orthodox party, United Torah Judaism (UTJ), has announced it is quitting the country’s fractious right-wing coalition due to a long-running dispute over mandatory military service, threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hold on power.
Six of the remaining seven members of UTJ, which is comprised of the Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael factions, wrote letters of resignation, Israeli media reported late on Monday.
UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf had resigned a month ago. A spokesperson for Goldknopf confirmed that, in all, seven UTJ Knesset members are leaving the government.
Degel HaTorah was quoted by news reports as saying the decision was made “in accordance with the directive” of the group’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Dov Lando.
Degel Hatorah said in a statement that after conferring with its head rabbis, “and following repeated violations by the government of its commitments to ensure the status of holy yeshiva students who diligently engage in their studies … [its MKs] have announced their resignation from the coalition and the government”.
The decision would leave Netanyahu with a razor-thin majority of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament.
It was not clear whether Shas, another ultra-Orthodox party, would follow suit.
Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers have long threatened to leave the coalition over the conscription bill. They argue that a bill to exempt “yeshiva” or seminary students from conscription was a key promise in their agreement to join Netanyahu’s coalition in late 2022.
In June, on the eve of Israel’s war with Iran, the coalition barely survived after governing lawmakers reached a deal with ultra-Orthodox parties regarding exemptions to the mandatory military service.
The ultra-Orthodox have long been exempt from military service, which applies to most other young Israelis. But last year, the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Defense to end that practice and start conscripting seminary students.
Netanyahu had been pushing hard to resolve the deadlock over the new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.
He is under pressure from his own Likud party to draft more ultra-Orthodox men and impose penalties on dodgers, a red line for the Shas party, which demands a law guaranteeing its members’ permanent exemption from military service.
Cape Town, South Africa – When Patricia Blows heard a senior police official’s explosive allegations against South Africa’s political and law enforcement elite last week, her thoughts went straight to the stalled investigation into her son’s killing nine years ago.
Angelo, an apprentice boilermaker, was about to turn 28 when he was shot in an apparent robbery on a Sunday afternoon in March 2016 while walking home from work in Langlaagte, Johannesburg.
To this day, the investigation has gone nowhere despite Blows providing the police with evidence they said they lacked, including witness statements she collected herself.
The lack of progress in the case began to make sense last week when the police commissioner in coastal KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province, Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, claimed he had uncovered a crime syndicate involving politicians, senior police officers, correctional services officials, prosecutors, the judiciary and businesspeople in his province.
According to Mkhwanazi, speaking at a news conference on July 6, the systemic corruption rises all the way to the country’s police minister, Senzo Mchunu, whom he accused of disbanding a task force set up to investigate political killings in KZN to protect his shady associates.
Like millions of South Africans, Blows was outraged by Mkhwanazi’s allegations – but not entirely surprised.
“I immediately thought of our battle for justice. I just couldn’t find an open door. It still hurts like hell,” said Blows, a community activist from Blackheath on the Cape Flats, a part of Cape Town plagued by violent drug-trafficking gangs.
“I had fresh hope in Mchunu. Now this? Then doubt drifted in, and I had an overwhelming fear for [Mkhwanazi’s] safety,” Blows said from her suburb on the outskirts of the Cape Flats, where a police station came under attack about a month ago, presumably in retaliation for the arrest of a local crime boss.
‘Hands off Mkhwanazi’
Mkhwanazi’s revelations triggered an outpouring of support from crime-weary South Africans and politicians alike, who almost universally admire his no-nonsense approach to crime. Last month, after a series of police shootouts with criminals, he was quoted as saying he cared more about impact than strategy.
His popularity reflects a national malaise as well as a regional one that is particular to volatile KZN. The province regularly features among the country’s crime hotspots and is notorious for its history of political violence that dates back to the 1980s when the apartheid regime fomented tensions among the Black supporters of the African National Congress (ANC) and its rival Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in an attempt to undermine the planned transition to democracy.
National quarterly statistics for January to March indicated a decrease in violent crime compared with the same quarter in 2024. Murders decreased by 12.4 percent to 5,727, or an average of 64 per day, according to the Institute for Security Studies.
Still, violent crime is a major problem. According to the World Population Review, South Africa has the fifth highest crime index in the world, following Venezuela, Papua New Guinea, Afghanistan and Haiti.
South Africa also ranks 82nd in the world on the corruption perception index compiled by the NGO Transparency International.
In this context, Mkhwanazi has become a hero to many South Africans who are fed up with the government’s failure to address chronic social ills.
Not even an investigation into his conduct in March could dampen the support for Mkhwanazi. The Independent Police Investigative Directorate dropped the case after a “Hands off Mkhwanazi” campaign, which was revived on social media after his July 6 news conference.
Dressed in special operations fatigues and surrounded by armed guards, Mkhwanazi told journalists: “I am combat ready. I will die for this badge. I will not back down.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa [Reuters]
Ramaphosa’s legacy at risk
Much to the frustration of many South Africans, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s response to the unfolding crisis has been in sharp contrast to Mkhwanazi’s gung-ho attitude.
In a brief and carefully crafted televised address on Sunday, Ramaphosa announced that Mchunu had been placed on special leave and he would establish a judicial commission of inquiry to look into the allegations raised by Mkhwanazi.
Kagiso Pooe, a senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Governance in Johannesburg, was hoping for Mchunu to be suspended or fired and the country’s seemingly compromised security structure to be overhauled, especially after the recent arrest of a senior crime intelligence official and several officers for fraud.
Pooe believes Ramaphosa played it safe to preserve himself and his ANC party, which was forced to form a coalition government with rivals after it failed to secure an outright majority in last year’s general election. It was a historic defeat for Nelson Mandela’s party, which has dominated domestic politics since the democratic era began in 1994.
Before local government elections next year, Pooe believes the last thing Ramaphosa wants is to alienate an ally like Mchunu, who has a strong support base in the highly contested KZN and helped secure Ramaphosa’s presidency in 2017.
“He doesn’t rock the boat. It’s not in his nature,” Pooe said, pointing out that Ramaphosa is determined to accomplish what no president has managed to do since 1994 – complete a second term in office.
“I give the president 33 percent, which is the average score for everything he does,” he said.
Pooe bemoaned the idea of yet another commission of inquiry under Ramaphosa. In May, the president even appointed a commission to investigate the by-product of a previous commission set up in 1996 that failed to deal with apartheid-era crimes. Decades on, more than 100 cases that arose from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have yet to be prosecuted.
The most high-profile commission under Ramaphosa was established shortly after he took office in 2017. The Zondo Commission was meant to investigate corruption that was so deeply entrenched under Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma that it became known as “state capture”.
After millions of dollars and years of highly publicised testimony, the findings of the commission have yet to deliver a major prosecution.
Toyin Adetiba, a professor at the University of Zululand’s Department of Political and International Studies, said Ramaphosa could pay a dear price for failing to act decisively, especially at a time when he is trying to burnish South Africa’s international reputation and fend off the threat of potentially damaging tariffs from the United States.
“Remember, he will soon be out as the president of the country and that of the ANC. The respect that he commands among political leaders across the continent will suffer a setback, and for him to play the role of elder statesperson after leaving office will be a Herculean task as no one will respect his opinion, no matter how important and genuine it might be,” Adetiba said.
In a strange twist of timing, this crisis comes as the country marks the anniversary of the July 2021 unrest when riots broke out in two of the country’s most populous provinces – KZN and Gauteng – after Zuma’s imprisonment for contempt of court following his refusal to testify before the Zondo Commission.
The leader of the minority party Freedom Front Plus, Pieter Groenewald, blamed the unrest on a failure of the intelligence services. Pooe said Mkhwanazi’s allegations supported the view that the country’s intelligence has been compromised.
“South Africa is literally naked intelligence-wise. Think about it from the perspective of foreign entities and criminals,” Pooe said. “If this [the allegations of corruption] is happening, don’t you think criminals also know that you can take advantage of a country like South Africa?”
As the country processes Ramaphosa’s much-awaited speech in response to Mkhwanazi’s allegations and wonders what is to come, Blows is recovering from the shock of another shooting in her neighbourhood, reported on a community WhatsApp group. This time, it sounded like an automatic weapon was used.
Syrian troops have entered the predominantly Druze city of Suwayda after days of deadly clashes with Bedouin tribes that have killed dozens of people.
The deployment on Tuesday came after the Druze spiritual leadership, which had resisted any deployment of Syrian troops in the southern city, urged Druze fighters to lay down their arms and allow government forces in.
A curfew was to be imposed on the city in a bid to halt the violence, which erupted during the weekend and has since spread across the Suwayda governorate, killing at least 99 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
The dead include 60 Druze, including four civilians, 18 Bedouin fighters, 14 security personnel and seven unidentified people in military uniforms, the monitor said. The Ministry of Defence reported 18 deaths among the armed forces.
On Tuesday morning, Syrian military columns were seen advancing towards Suwayda, with heavy artillery deployed nearby. The Defence Ministry later said they had entered the city, and urged people to “stay home and report any movements of outlaw groups”.
It is the first time government forces have deployed to Suwayda since the overthrow of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December and the formation of an interim government under President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that originated as a 10th-century offshoot of a branch of Shia Islam. In Syria, the 700,000-strong community primarily resides in the southern Suwayda province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.
Bedouin and Druze factions have a longstanding feud in Suwayda, with violence occasionally erupting.
Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Deir Az Azor in Syria, said fighting in the city had been ongoing since Friday.
“It escalated and more than two dozen people were killed. The government sent its reinforcements and then there was an ambush of the government troops as well, where at least 18 soldiers we believe were either killed or wounded,” he said.
Bin Javaid said the situation has been exacerbated by Israeli attacks on government positions in Syria.
Israel, which has attempted to portray itself as a protector of the Druze in Syria and sees them as potential allies, bombed several Syrian tanks on Monday.
A 3,800-year-old citadel of the Caral civilisation – one of the world’s oldest – has reopened for visitors in Peru after eight years of comprehensive restoration and research.
Researchers have identified the Penico archaeological site as a vital trading centre that connected early Pacific coastal communities with those in the Andes and Amazon regions.
Located in the Supe Valley, about 180km (110 miles) north of Lima and only 19km (12 miles) from the Pacific Ocean, Penico was an unremarkable hilly landscape until excavations commenced in 2017.
Archaeologists believe the site could provide crucial information about the enigmatic collapse of the Caral civilisation, which flourished between 3,000 and 1,800 BC.
The opening ceremony featured regional artists playing pututus – traditional shell trumpets – as part of an ancient ritual honouring Pachamama, Mother Earth, with ceremonial offerings of agricultural products, coca leaves, and local beverages.
“Penico was an organised urban centre devoted to agriculture and trade between the coast, the mountains and the forest,” archaeologist Ruth Shady, who leads research at the site, told the AFP news agency. She said the settlement dates to between 1,800 and 1,500 BC.
The site demonstrates sophisticated planning, strategically built on a geological terrace 600 metres (2,000ft) above sea level and parallel to a river to avoid flooding.
Research by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture has uncovered 18 distinct structures, including public buildings and residential complexes. Scholars believe Penico was built during the same period as the earliest civilisations in the Middle East and Asia.
According to Shady, researchers hope the site will shed light on the crisis they believe hastened the Caral civilisation’s decline. This crisis, she explained, was linked to climate change that caused droughts and disrupted agricultural activities throughout the region.
Chinese President Xi Jinping says relations with Australia have “turned around” as the two countries stress dialogue and seek to stabilise trade in the face of global tensions.
Xi made the remarks as he hosted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Tuesday.
The six-day visit by Albanese – his second as prime minister – aims to boost economic cooperation with Beijing, Australia’s top trading partner.
“No matter how the international landscape may evolve, we should uphold this overall direction unswervingly,” Xi said, acknowledging that China-Australia ties had “risen from the setbacks”.
Relations between Beijing and Canberra have charted a bumpy course over the past decade, a period marked by repeated disagreements over national security and competing interests across the vast Pacific region.
Ties improved in December when China called off a ban on imported Australian rock lobster, removing the final obstacle to ending a damaging trade war waged between the countries from 2017.
Albanese said he welcomed “the opportunity to set out Australia’s views and interests” and stressed that “dialogue” must be at the heart of the ties between the two countries.
“Australia values our relationship with China and will continue to approach it in a calm and consistent manner, guided by our national interest,” Albanese, the leader of Australia’s centre-left Labor government, said.
“It’s important we have these direct discussions on issues that matter to us and to the stability and prosperity of our region. As you and I have agreed previously, dialogue needs to be at the centre of our relationship,” he said.
The meeting between the two leaders came as China tries to capitalise on United States President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs by presenting itself as a stable and reliable partner. Australia, which regards the US as its major security ally, has also pursued a policy on China of “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must” under Albanese.
Chinese officials have expressed interest in expanding a decade-old free trade deal and cooperating in artificial intelligence. Xi said China was willing to “promote further development in the China-Australia relationship”.
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, described the meeting as “warm”, noting the “positive tone” Xi and Albanese projected.
“Prime Minister Albanese is really credited for bringing the Beijing-Canberra ties back to stability”, she said.
On Tuesday, the state-owned China Daily newspaper published a glowing opinion piece about Albanese’s visit and said it showed countries with different political systems could still cooperate.
However, any cooperation is likely to be constrained by longstanding Australian concerns about China’s military build-up and the jailing of Australian writer Yang Hengjun, who was sentenced to death in China over allegations of espionage.
Beijing has also separately criticised Canberra’s increased screening of foreign investment in critical minerals and Albanese’s pledge to return a Chinese-leased port to Australian ownership.
A group of human rights lawyers in Sudan have accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of raiding and setting fire to villages in the state of North Kordofan and killing nearly 300 people, including children and pregnant women.
The statement by Emergency Lawyers late on Monday came as fighting rages between the RSF and the Sudanese army in the western areas of the country.
The two sides have been locked in a civil war since 2023, and the army has taken firm control of the centre and east of the country, while the RSF is trying to consolidate its control of the western regions, including North Kordofan and Darfur.
Emergency Lawyers said the RSF had attacked several villages on Saturday around the city of Bara, which the paramilitary force controls.
In one village, Shag Alnom, more than 200 people were killed in a “terrible massacre”, the group said. The victims were either “burned inside their homes” or shot. In the neighbouring villages, 38 other civilians were also killed and dozens more have been forcibly disappeared.
The next day, the RSF carried out “another massacre” in the village of Hilat Hamid, killing at least 46 people, including pregnant women and children, the group added.
“It has been proven that these targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives, which makes clear the criminal nature of these crimes carried out in complete disregard of international humanitarian law,” Emergency Lawyers said, placing the responsibility with the RSF leadership.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday that intensified fighting in the region forced more than 3,000 people to flee the villages of Shag Alnom and al-Kordi.
Many have sought refuge in the surrounding parts of Bara, according to the UN agency.
The United States and human rights groups have accused the RSF of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Its soldiers have carried out a series of violent looting raids in territory it has taken control of across the country.
The RSF leadership says it will bring those found responsible for such acts to justice.
Sudan’s civil war has created the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, driving more than half the population into hunger and spreading disease, including cholera, across the country.
At least 40,000 people have been killed, while 13 million have been displaced.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a new probe into war crimes in the western Darfur region, and on Thursday, senior prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan told the UN Security Council that her office has “reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity” are being committed there.
Khan said her office has focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, and interviewed victims who have fled to neighbouring Chad.
She said the depth of suffering and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur “has reached an intolerable state”, with famine escalating and hospitals, humanitarian convoys and other civilian infrastructure being targeted.
