Israeli forces raided a Palestinian wedding ceremony in occupied East Jerusalem, firing live ammunition and stun grenades at attendees. Several men, including the groom, were detained.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
The town of Hpapun was once a bustling regional hub with banks, regional government offices, and stores that supplied the surrounding valleys.
It even had its own airport, which was particularly useful in this remote corner of eastern Myanmar.
The ruling military government say Hpapun will be part of the second phase of voting when the general election resumes this Sunday, after the first phase at the end of December.
The only problem: Hpapun is actually a ghost town.
On the walls of the police station, a sign asks helpfully, “Can We Help You?” in English. But just inside the gate, a white skull and crossbones on a red background warns of landmines planted inside.
When Al Jazeera visited Hpapun several weeks ago, not a single soul remained in the town, and all the businesses and homes had been either burned, bombed or reclaimed by the jungle.
Some voting will take place inside the Tactical Command post about 10km (6 miles) down the road. But anyone wanting to cast their ballot will have to get past landmines, booby traps and about 800 government soldiers, who have been under siege since 2024.
“The military junta’s upcoming election is a sham. It’s a staged, fake election designed to maintain the power they have stolen,” says Tin Oo, commander of the People’s Defence Force, one of the groups of fighters currently trying to clear government forces out of the area.
And at least 3.5 million voters across Myanmar won’t be able to vote because they’ve been forced from their homes by fighting in the civil war.
Aye Thu Zar fled from her village, Pazun Myaung, two months ago after it was hit by air strikes from government fighter jets. Now she and her son Moe live in a community of 150 other displaced people on the banks of the Sittang river, surviving on what she ekes out of the land. There are no relief agencies operating here offering handouts of shelter or food.
“No, I’m not voting,” she told me, sitting in the bamboo hut she now calls home. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about it. We live in a remote area, so we don’t know about the election.”
![Overgrowth outside an office of the National League for Democracy, of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who is now under house arrest [Tony Cheng/ Al Jazeera]](https://i0.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/IMG_1234-1768051626.jpg?w=696&ssl=1)
Just two hours’ drive away in Yangon, Myanmar’s most populated city, security is light and the civil war feels far away. Many of the country’s urban areas voted in the first phase of the election on December 28. After the second phase on Sunday, a third phase will take place on January 25 before final results are declared.
But with military-backed parties the only option on the ballot paper, many voters simply didn’t show up in cities like Yangon, and while official figures are yet to be released, local election officials told Al Jazeera that the turnout could be as low as 35 percent.
None of these problems seems to be troubling the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), however. They’ve already been named as the easy winners in the first phase, with 89 out of 102 lower seats won, and it seems likely they will emerge as the winners when the outcome is announced at the end of the month.
Somalia’s minister of defence, Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, has accused Israel of planning to forcibly displace Palestinians to the breakaway region of Somaliland, denouncing the alleged plan as a “serious violation” of international law.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Saturday, Fiqi called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to withdraw his diplomatic recognition of the “separatist region”, calling the move announced late last year a “direct attack” on Somalia’s sovereignty.
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“Israel has long had goals and plans to divide countries – maybe before 20 years – and it wants to divide the map of the Middle East and control its countries… this is why they found this separatist group in northwestern Somalia,” Fiqi told Al Jazeera.
“We have confirmed information that Israel has a plan to transfer Palestinians and to send them to [Somaliland],” he added.
Fiqi’s comments came amid a global outcry over Netanyahu’s decision in December to recognise Somaliland, a breakaway part of Somalia comprising the northwestern portion of what was once the British Protectorate.
The move made Israel the first country in the world to recognise Somaliland as an independent state and came months after The Associated Press news agency reported that Israeli officials had contacted parties in Somalia, Somaliland and Sudan to discuss using their territory for forcibly displacing Palestinians amid its genocidal war on Gaza.
Somalia denounced the Israeli move, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud telling Al Jazeera that Somaliland had accepted three conditions from Israel: The resettlement of Palestinians, the establishment of a military base on the coast of the Gulf of Aden, and joining the Abraham Accords to normalise ties with Israel.
Officials in Somaliland have denied agreeing to resettle Palestinians from Gaza, and say there have been no discussions on an Israeli military base in the area.
But Fiqi on Saturday reiterated that Israel “wants to create a military base to destabilise the region” on the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea.
“I see it as an occupation to destabilise the area,” Fiqi added.
He also stressed that Israel has no legal right to grant legitimacy to a region within a sovereign state.
Somaliland first declared independence from Somalia in 1991, but it has failed to gain recognition from any United Nations member state since.
Israel’s world-first announcement triggered protests in Somalia and swift criticisms from dozens of countries and organisations, including Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and the African Union.
Fiqi told Al Jazeera that Israel’s move falls into a decades-long goal to control the Middle East and accused Israel of exploiting separatist movements in the region. Roughly half of the areas formerly known as Somaliland have declared their affiliation with Somalia over the past two years, he added.
The minister praised the countries that had condemned Israel and pledged that Somalia would lean on all diplomatic and legal means to reject Israel’s “violation”.
He also commended United States President Donald Trump’s administration for not recognising Somaliland.
Although the US was the only member of the 15-member United Nations Security Council that did not condemn Israel for the recognition on December 30, it said its position on Somaliland had not changed.
For its part, Somaliland’s governing party has defended its newfound relations with Israel after Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar travelled to Hargeisa, the region’s largest city and self-declared capital, earlier this week.
Hersi Ali Haji Hassan, chairman of the governing Waddani party, told Al Jazeera days later that Somaliland was “not in a position to choose” who provided it with legitimacy after decades of being spurned by the international community.
“We are in a state of necessity for official international recognition,” Hassan said. “There is no choice before us but to welcome any country that recognises our existential right.”
Hassan did not deny the prospect of a potential military base.
“We have started diplomatic relations… This topic [a military base] has not been touched upon now,” he said.
When pressed on whether Somaliland would accept such a request in the future, Hassan said only to “ask the question when the time comes”, calling the line of inquiry “untimely”.
Israeli think tanks say Somaliland’s location, at the gateway to the Red Sea and across from Yemen, make it a strategic site for operations against the Yemeni Houthi rebel group, which imposed a naval blockade on Israeli-linked shipping before the US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza.
The Institute for National Security Studies, in a November report, said Somaliland’s territory could “serve as a forward base” for intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and serve “a platform for direct operations” against them.
DEVELOPING STORYDEVELOPING STORY,
The last fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have left the city of Aleppo, according to officials, following a ceasefire deal that allowed evacuations after days of deadly clashes.
Aleppo Governor Azzam al-Gharib told Al Jazeera early on Sunday that Aleppo has become “empty of SDF fighters” after government forces coordinated their withdrawal on buses out of the city overnight.
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SDF commander Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) said the group had reached an understanding through international mediation on a ceasefire and the safe evacuation of civilians and fighters.
“We have reached an understanding that leads to a ceasefire and securing the evacuation of the dead, the wounded, the stranded civilians and the fighters from the Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods to northern and eastern Syria,” he said in a post on X.
“We call on the mediators to adhere to their promises to stop the violations and work towards a safe return for the displaced to their homes,” he added.
The development came after the Syrian army took over the Kurdish-majority neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud following days of clashes that broke out when talks to integrate the SDF into the national army collapsed.
At least 30 people were killed in the clashes, while more than 150,000 were displaced.
Here is where things stand on Sunday, January 11:
