Category World News

Halhul, occupied West Bank – Like kids the world over, Naji al-Baba dreamed of becoming an international football player, “just like Ronaldo”.

But – like his name, which means “survivor” – that was not to be the fate of a boy born in the occupied West Bank.

Tall for a 14-year-old, Naji was always smiling and his family remember his kindness, calmness and helpfulness to everyone around him.

He spent hours practicing football at the Halhul sports club, which was close to Hebron.

A typical boy who enjoyed playing football with the neighborhood kids after school.

His mother, Samahar al-Zamara, recalls the moment his daughter realized Naji had grown taller than her and how he never turned down a friend or loved one’s request.

“He grew up before his age,” the 40-year-old says. I felt as though I had lost a part of myself that we will never be able to return after he left. ”

Naji was killed by Israeli soldiers a month ago while playing football with his friends, a sport he loved.

November 3 – the day Naji died – didn’t seem unusual, his father Nidal Abdel Moti al-Baba, 47, tells Al Jazeera.

Naji and I both went to school in Bethlehem the day after I left for work. When I returned from work at 12 noon, I found Naji near his school, leaving for home. He and I both climbed into the truck to take us home. ”

For lunch, Nadi’s sisters had prepared his preferred meal, chicken-based molokhia. Afterwards, he asked his father to let him go out to play with his friends near his grandfather’s grocery store, which is close to their home.

Naji was the fifth of six children, after Sondos, 23; Bashir, 21; Amira, 20; and Mohammed, 16; and ahead of Rataj, 13.

After about 30 minutes, he checked in at home, which was about 3 o’clock, and then started playing.

The family would never see him again until now.

‘The most difficult 40 minutes of my life’

Just moments later, at about 3:30pm, Naji’s cousin ran to the house, shouting: “Uncle Nidal! Uncle Nidal! ”

The family listened in horror. Naji was hit when Israeli soldiers arrived and began shooting at the children in a nearby wooded area, he claimed.

Naji’s father and uncle Samir rushed to the spot where a group of Israeli soldiers were standing, hoping that he was just hurt, as many others have been since the increase in illegal Israeli settlements and Israeli incursions by Israeli settlers and the army across the West Bank since Israel’s war on Gaza began.

“I want my son! I want my son! Before about 10 soldiers turned on him and his brother and violently beat them, Nidal screamed and broke his hand.

As he continued to demand to see his son, he was handcuffed, tied up and left on the ground for more than 40 minutes.

The most difficult 40 minutes of his life, Nidal says now.

To carry the body, an officer reportedly asked the soldiers to stand in two teams, five on the right and one on the left.

“That’s when I started screaming: ‘How can you kill a 14-year-old child? How did he treat you? How did he treat you? ’”

One of the soldiers responded, claiming that Naji had visited a place that only Palestinians could enter.

In this confusion: “For a moment,” Nidal says, “I thought: ‘Maybe this child isn’t my son. ’

I recognized the soldier as Naji as he was being carried on his shoulders toward an army vehicle.

I recognized him from the pair of shoes I had just purchased for him; a pair of unintended black trainers. When I bought him these, all I could think about was how happy he was. ”

The soldiers ordered Nidal and Samir to leave immediately or they would be killed after they found Naji’s body.

After two hours, the family learned that a Palestinian ambulance had arrived, and the deceased man’s body was taken to Halhul’s Abu Mazen Hospital overnight.

The forensic medical report found that  Four bullets struck Naji: one in the foot, the other in the pelvis, the third in the heart, and the fourth in the shoulder.

After being shot, the boy was left for 30 minutes without medical care.

The next morning, Naji’s family were able to visit the hospital to prepare him for his funeral.

Nidal insisted on carrying his son’s body on his shoulder for the funeral, which attracted hundreds of Halhul residents despite his broken hand.

Naji al-Baba’s death was the subject of an al Jazeera request to speak with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, but it never came back.

Remembering Naji

For nearly a month, the family was devastated and unable to contact anyone.

In simpler times, Naji was the one to look after his family, taking his father’s blood pressure medication and monitoring the dosages.

“I have 20 grandchildren, but he was the most loving among them, affectionate, supportive and helpful,” his grandmother Intisar al-Baba, 70, remembers.

She claims that Naji would watch the firewood during the winter and op-out without being asked for it.

He would look after everything like a 30-year-old man, and he would frequently ask for his favorite dishes from the family so we wouldn’t feel alone. ”

She now sobs whenever Naji would have been present.

Nasser Merib, 61, a manager at Halhul Sports Club nicknamed “Captain”, remembers the skilled footballer with “a strong right foot” and a talent for headers.

“He really raised the level of the team in matches,” he says.   He had a vision to become as famous as Ronaldo and was ambitious. ”

A dream ripped away by four bullets, Captain says.

Reda Haniehn, his friend and teammate, recalls fighting with Naji about who would take the free kicks in games.

“He was the tallest… and he laughed a lot,” Reda says.

In tense, tense elections that come amid waning economic hardship and general dissatisfaction with Ghana’s government, voters will go to the polls on Saturday.

Former National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader John Dramani Mahama and current Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) square off in the presidential election.

Both Bawumia and Mahama have made a strong appeal to their supporters in the historically underdeveloped northern region of the nation. Their approaches to the economy – Ghana’s main issue at present – differ. While the NPP favours a private sector growth approach, the NDC wants to implement more government intervention.

According to analyst Emmanuel Yeboah of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD), “these elections are unique because the north will likely likely determine the winner for the first time.”

In a region where armed groups are dominant, Ghana is known for its largely peaceful transfer of power and overall security. It is one of West Africa’s most prosperous and stable economies.

With 34 million people, it is the second-most populous country in the region. The southern Akan group (46 percent) is the largest ethnic group and most Ghanaians (71 percent) are Christians. The currency is the cedi, and the capital city is Accra.

What information about the vote is important to you:

How does voting work in Ghana?

• Ghanaians 18 and above are eligible. Since 1992’s reintroduction of multiparty voting after years of military rule, 18.8 million people have registered to cast ballots in the ninth general election. Turnout, on average, has been about 70 percent in previous elections.
• Voters will select representatives for 276 parliamentary seats representing all constituencies.
• Voters will gather at voting locations all over the country to pick up their ballots at 7am (WEST Africa Time) at 6:00 PM.
• Of the 12 candidates vying for the top job of president, there are two favourites: the candidates for the ruling NPP and opposition NDC parties.
• The election is won by the candidate who receives more than 50% of the votes cast. In the event of no overall majority, a run-off vote between the two with the most votes will take place, likely a week later.
• By Monday, December 10, the election results should be available.

Who are the main candidates for president?

Although the Electoral Commission of Ghana approved 12 presidential candidates, it is widely accepted that the election will pit the established NPP against the opposition NDC.

Since 1992, the two main parties have split in power in close elections. Neither party, however, has managed to “break the eight” or win three consecutive presidential terms. No one may serve more than two terms on the president’s four-year terms.

Mahamudu Bawumia

The 61-year-old Oxford graduate and former central bank deputy, who is a Muslim from the historically underprivileged north of the country, represents the ruling NPP. He is currently Ghana’s vice president.

Because he had not previously held a political position, he was not a popular choice when he ran for office as President Akufo-Addo’s deputy in 2016.

Bawumia, a key member of the presidential economic management team, has been held responsible by the opposition for the nation’s financial problems. Ghana made its first sovereign debt default in 2022, causing inflation to reach unheard levels.

In response, the NPP’s general support has increased due to rising food prices, a lack of jobs for young Ghanaians, and other factors.

Throughout his campaign for the presidential election, which ended on Thursday, Bawumia has blamed external factors like COVID-19 for these economic problems. His team also emphasized two of the government’s biggest achievements, including the government’s “one-district, one factory” initiative, which has supported the construction of factories in many of the 261 administrative districts, including the Twyford Ceramics factory, which opened in the Shama District of the Western Region in 2021.

That strategy seems to be working, analysts say. Many people actually believed that it was a clear win for Mahama three months ago, according to Yeboah of the CDD. “Right now, it’s just too close to call”.

Still, Bawumia faces challenges, as many remain doubtful about the NPP government in general. The fact that Bawumia is a Muslim, non-Akan, and a member of a tribe and religion have an impact on how people vote can affect him.

He was forced to run alongside Christian Akan Matthew Opoku Prempeh as his deputy to appease the ruling party’s traditional home base because he was the first NPP candidate to not speak Twi.

If he wins, Bawumia will become Ghana’s first Muslim president. The NPP would also, for the first time, have won three consecutive terms in office.

John Dramani Mahama

Mahama, 66, of the opposition NDC party, ascended to the presidency in 2012, after President John Atta Mills died. His tenure until 2016 was marked by turbulence: drastic power cuts, locally called “dumsor”, earned him the nickname “Mr Dumsor”.

Mahama was also accused of receiving bribes from a businessman in the form of a Ford four-wheel drive in 2012. Government agencies battled allegations of corruption.

Mahama became the first incumbent to miss out on a second term when Akufo-Addo defeated him in his second presidential bid in 2016. He ran for president once more in 2020, losing to his rival.

However, the politician, who is also from the north and is Christian, has campaigned on promises of a swift economic recovery from NPP rule.

He makes his appeal to both the north and central regions’ bases in the NDC and the 18 to 35-year-olds who make up 62 percent of the voting population.

Alan Kyerematen

A former minister and ex-member of the NPP, Kyerematen, 69, exited the party ahead of chaotic and disputed primaries late in 2023.

Kyeremetan is unlikely to face much of a challenge from the NPP or NDC parties because he is an independent candidate supported by his Movement for Change, which he founded in September 2023. However, analysts warn that he could steal NPP votes in its Akan strongholds, particularly in central Kumasi city, where the politician is from.

Nana Kwame Bediako

The real estate business mogul, 44, is running as an independent candidate, backed by the New Force movement, which targets young people.

Before he entered politics, Bediako was well-known as a wealthy man with a penchant for flair, even once residing with his own tigers.

The announcement of his decision to stand as a presidential candidate came weeks after billboards in Accra showed a mystery, masked candidate, and piqued young people’s interest. Bediako has promised to end the country’s “brain drain” by creating more jobs.

What are the key issues?

Economy

Despite being a major producer of cocoa, gold, and oil, Ghana is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation. The cost of food is rising, and the value of the currency has fallen.

Ghana’s economic crisis reached its height in 2022 when it for the first time failed to pay its $30 billion external debts. By the end of that year, the nation was unable to provide funding for the budget for the following year because inflation had reached a new high of more than 50%.

Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) owes private power suppliers $1.6 billion, which is a common cause of power blackouts. In October 2024, one supplier, Sunon Asogli, suspended operations because of the debts.

Even though President Akufo-Addo had previously promised never to do this, his government was forced to apply for a $3 billion IMF loan package to support the economy. This week, the IMF released the third tranche of the loan, worth $360m. The bank released $600m in July 2023 and January 2024. Since 2020, inflation has decreased by 20%, but many people still struggle with the cost of living.

The two main parties’ strategies for fixing the economy are different. While the ruling NPP favours private sector-led growth to boost the economy, the NDC wants to implement government-led interventionist policies such as large, public infrastructure projects in agriculture and manufacturing.

Unemployment

Unemployment has hit 14.7 percent in Ghana, according to government data from 2023. In what has been referred to as a “brain drain,” young Ghanaians, especially healthcare workers, are being compelled to leave the country.

Bawumia’s campaign blames other factors for this: COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine war and even problems created during Mahama’s last presidency. The vice president has promised new economic strategies: cancelling some taxes, such as import duties on mobile phones, for example.

NDC’s Mahama, for his part, has made the economy a cornerstone of his campaign, promising to cut the number of ministers to reduce government spending. &nbsp, He has called Akufo-Addo and Bawumia’s IMF deal “reckless”.

Corruption

This week, a Ghanaian news site, The Fourth Estate, revealed that the country’s National Service Authority, which recruits graduates to public offices, was paying salaries to thousands of “ghost workers”, although this claim has not been officially investigated.

In 2023, Ghana placed 70th out of 180 nations on the Corruption Perceptions Index, indicating high levels of political corruption. The NDC’s Mahamasa promised an “Operation Return All Loot” and targeted corrupt officials.

Illegal mining and pollution

Millions of people in Ghana depend on these water bodies for both agriculture and consumption, and illegal gold mining, or “galamsey,” is causing widespread destruction.

This year’s higher gold prices and higher unemployment have increased the scope of galamsey, which involves removing pieces of gold from the topsoil and utilizing water and chemicals like mercury and cyanide to clean it up. The River Pra, which is now polluted murky brown, is where the soil is deposited, where it is reclaimed. Farmers claim that cocoa harvests have been hampered by pollution.

Ghana’s water authority announced in August that it had to stop providing clean water to communities because it couldn’t remove the harmful chemicals and it was unsafe to drink. The government has been accused of being ineffective in stopping it and have launched protests in response. Some have called it an “ecocide”.

According to Ewurabena Yanyi-Akofur, country head of the non-governmental organization WaterAid Ghana, illegal mining was primarily confined to the south of the nation but has since spread to the north.

According to research from WaterAid, the communities where illegal mining is most prevalent also experience health issues like chest pain brought on by their daily activities and the polluted water. However, when asked, illegal miners say they have no choice because of the lack of jobs.

“You have to feel sympathy for their situation. Unemployment rates are high, and climate change has resulted in less reliable rainfall that’s affecting farming”, Yanyi-Akofur added.

By 2030, if things don’t change, WaterAid predicts Ghana might run out of potable water altogether, and would be forced to import water from its neighbours.

Could there be violent incidents during these elections?

Although previous elections in Ghana were largely peaceful, experts predict there will be some violence this time.

Any candidate could win in any of the candidates’ “hotspots,” according to analyst Yeboah of Ghana CDD.

Parts of the Northern Region, which is now tensely split between Bawumia and Mahama, could also witness some violence, he said.

Kadamtala (Tripura), India – The last thing that Shahin Ahmed, 38, remembers of his brother, Alfeshani Ahmed, was a frantic call with him amid gunshots and screams.

At about 9pm on October 6, Alfeshani, a 36-year-old owner of a smartphone and electronic accessories shop, had just hastily shut his shop in the Kadamtala market to rush back home to Jher Jheri, a Muslim-majority village over three kilometres (about 2 miles) away in North Tripura, a district in northeast India.

A mob was running riot in the market, and Ahmed knew his shop wouldn’t be spared. He then left the store, leaving only the store’s account ledger, which contained all of his financial transactions and records, Ahmed said.

Prior to the start of the day, a Muslim driver in the area had protested a local Hindu club’s subscription for Durga Puja, a significant Hindu festival. The driver and a passenger, both Muslims, were also allegedly assaulted by the members of the club.

Hindus and Muslims make up nearly 64 percent of the population in the Kadamtala subdivision, which also includes the market, and Muslims make up nearly 35 percent of that population. Muslims, the state’s largest minority group, also make up about 9 percent of Tripura’s population of 3.6 million.

Traditional payment plans for Durga Puja celebrations by Muslims in Kadamtala and the nearby Hindu-majority North Tripura serve as a sign of reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims. The state’s chief minister, Makan Saha, had previously warned organizations against using force to collect Durga Puja subscription fees.

The situation, on October 6, however, snowballed by the evening, as Hindu and Muslim groups clashed, leading to the heavy deployment of security personnel. The police baton-charged the mobs and opened fire, according to reports.

Seventeen people, mostly police personnel, were injured in the communal clashes and one person died.

It was Alfeshani. “He was on the phone with me when a bullet hit him on the head”, Shahin Ahmed, Alfeshani’s brother, told Al Jazeera.

Bhanupada Chakraborty, who was North Tripura district’s superintendent of police at that time, however, said that police did not target anyone specifically, and Alfeshani’s cause of death is “under investigation”.

His family, however, dispute the police’s version. “He was shot in the head by the police”, Alifjaan Begum, Alfeshani’s mother, said, welling up. “My heart will never be sputtering,” he said. It was a murder”.

The trigger

A delegation of Muslims earlier earlier requested that the local police make an arrest for the alleged assault on the Muslim driver and passenger. In response to the alleged assault on the Muslim driver and passenger, the Kadamtala police also detained two other people. Following a protest by the local Muslims, they were detained.

A member of the Muslim delegation who requested anonymity claimed that another Durga Puja organizer made an “inflammatory comment” about the Prophet Muhammad on Facebook. The comment can be independently verified by Al Jazeera.

An irate Muslim group went looking for the young man in a Hindu-dominated neighbourhood. “They pelted stones and broke down doors and windows, creating a scene of panic among the Hindus, and asked them to hand over the Hindu boy to them”, Bibhu Debnath, secretary of the Kadamtala Market Association, told Al Jazeera.

That in turn enraged Hindus. A few Muslim businesses in the Kadamtala market were targeted by groups affiliated with the Hindu majoritarian Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological heart of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which also governs in Tripura.

As the back-and-forth rioting by the two groups intensified, Alfeshani tried to escape.

He couldn’t.

“Selectively burned”

Suhail Ahmed Khan, 40, finally arrived at his shop in the Kadamtala market early on October 8th. It was a five-minute ride from home, but it took two days before it was safe for him to go there, because of the violence.

On the market’s edge, local Hindus and a mob from outside Kadamtala that are suspected of belonging to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, allegedly affiliated with the RSS, had gathered a day earlier on October 7. Then they made their way to the market, “burning and looting houses”, said a local political leader, Heera Lal Nath from the opposition Congress party. Tapas Roy, RSS’s publicity-in-charge in Tripura denied these allegations.

Khan’s shop was burned to a cinder. In the Kadamtala market, which also housed smartphones and other electronic devices, was also looted.

Khan had invested all of his life’s savings in this establishment. “Over 57 lakh rupees]$67, 550] had gone in flames”, Khan said, struggling to talk. “With such loss, my life became death”.

“It was collective punishment”, Khan said, struggling to talk. “They have ruined us both mentally and economically”.

The Kadamtala Jama mosque was also set on fire by a mob on October 7 and is located right next to the Kadamtala Market. “They burned all the religious books”, Abdul Motin, adviser to the Kadamtala Jama mosque committee, told Al Jazeera.

On the market’s outskirts in the Saraspur neighbourhood, Islam Uddin, who is 40, is rebuilding his charred home. His house was among the 10 Muslim-owned dwellings, located in a neighbourhood with a sizeable Hindu population, which were torched by a mob on the same day on October 7.

“My family and I had to flee for our lives”, he said.

His neighbour, Atarun Nessa, whose home was burned, is now surviving on charity from local NGOs. Her family’s only source of income – an e-rickshaw that her husband, Siraj Uddin, would ply – was charred by the Hindu mob.

“It was the only way for us to manage a morsel”, 47-year-old Nessa told Al Jazeera, breaking down. What kind of existence are we currently experiencing?

Several witnesses, requesting anonymity, claimed that the police stood by as “spectators” when the irate Hindu mob was carrying out the rampage on October 7.

Local legislator Islam Uddin, from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), claimed the police allowed the arson. “If]police] wanted, they could have stopped the Hindu mob”, he said, and added that “it all felt like they were picking a side”.

Sudip Roy Barman, a legislator from the opposition Congress party, said that violence in Kadamtala was “state-sponsored” by the BJP. “The BJP wanted to instigate the Muslims”.

When reached for comment, Chakraborty, the then-superintendent of North Tripura’s police, told Al Jazeera: “I am not the right person to speak with the press”.

Al Jazeera’s calls to the Tripura police chief, Amitabh Ranjan, were not answered. Al Jazeera has also sent a thorough questionnaire to his office, but it hasn’t yet responded. He, however, has previously rebuffed allegations of police inaction during the violence.

Muslims “live in fear,” according to the statement.

Following tensions that erupted repeatedly in August and October over claims that Muslims had defaced Hindu deities, the clashes in Kadamtala are just the most recent instances of interreligious conflict in Tripura. In retaliation, mosques were attacked, and in some cases, Muslim homes were burned.

These recent attacks recall the horror of the massive riots that erupted in the state in 2021 for Sultan Ahmed, a militant from Tripura and national secretary of the Students Islamic Organization of India, a student body.

According to Ahmed, “Muslims in Tripura still feign what actually happened.”

Large Hindu mobs, affiliated with far-right groups, attacked Muslim homes and mosques across many districts in the state, especially in North Tripura, which shares a 96km-long (60-mile) border with Bangladesh.

Following the discovery of a Hindu deity’s cross on a Hindu deity’s knee during Durga Puja celebrations, Muslim mobs in Bangladesh launched the attacks.

Muslims in North Tripura are on edge because of any attacks on Hindus since then, Ahmed said.

Hindus have “changed,” they say.

Bengalis and tribal communities have long been the subject of ethnic violence in Tripura. The sleepy hill state, however, did not have a history of clashes on religious lines between Hindus and Muslims.

Until Modi’s BJP came to power in 2018.

While the Ministry of Home Affairs of India no longer publishes statistics on interreligious riots, data from the National Crime Record Bureau on statewide riots from 2016 to 2020 shows that Tripura only reported two instances of communal violence, and those same cases were in 2019.

However, that number has risen sharply since, with Hindu groups trying to “foment communal sentiments” in about a dozen instances since 2018, Uddin, the lawmaker from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), said.

Right-wing organizations have been alleged to be attacking state-owned rubber plantations where Muslims in the state have claimed that an old mosque is a temple.

Muslim men have also been lynched by Hindu mobs in recent years.

BJP’s spokesperson in Tripura, Subrata Chakraborty, told Al Jazeera that “no such]group] gets privilege under the current government”.

“This government is pro-active government and pro-development government”, Chakraborty said.

Meanwhile, Kadamtala remains tense. According to Khan, whose Hindu shop was set on fire by a Hindu mob, “Muslims who account for 70% of customers in the market now do not want to buy anything from there.” It will take years, or maybe never, to restore the harmony that once existed.

For Abdul Haque, a former member of the BJP’s minority wing in Kadamtala, the recent violence was emblematic of a broader shift.

“Earlier, during Hindu festivals, they would fix the loudspeaker in a way that it does not disturb the Muslims, but now, they crank up the loudspeakers and play provocative songs”, he said.