Middle East
Dozens killed in strike on market in Sudan’s North Darfur | Sudan war News
Local rights groups accuse military of carrying out attack as army spokesperson says civilians not targeted.
Dozens of people have been killed in an air strike on a market in North Darfur in western Sudan, according to the United Nations and local rights groups.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN secretary-general, said on Tuesday that “dozens” of casualties were reported after the attack late on Monday on a market in the town of Tora, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of el-Fasher city.
Emergency Lawyers, a pro-democracy network which has been documenting abuses by both sides in Sudan’s nearly two-year civil war, said on X that “hundreds” of civilians were killed and dozens of others were wounded in the attack on the town of Tora. It blamed the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for the attack.
“This deliberate targeting of civilians constitutes a systematic war crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law,” said the lawyers’ network.
Nabil Abdullah, a spokesperson for the Sudanese military, told The Associated Press news agency that civilians had not been targeted, claiming that the allegations were “incorrect” and are raised whenever the army exercises its “constitutional and legal right to deal with hostile targets”.
Al Jazeera could not independently verify the death toll.
Local rights group Darfur Victims Support shared a video on social media that appeared to show charred bodies strewn across the ground. It accused the military of carrying out an air strike.
The attack follows two other deadly strikes on civilians since the military retook the presidential palace in central Khartoum from the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last week.
On Monday, Emergency Lawyers accused the RSF of shelling a mosque in the East Nile district of Khartoum, killing at least five people and injuring dozens of others as they conducted their evening prayers.
On Sunday, the RSF also pounded Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, killing three civilians in what witnesses described as some of the heaviest bombardments in recent months.
Sudanese government forces have recently made advances in the conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), seizing strategically important areas in the east of the country, including large parts of the capital, Khartoum.
The RSF maintains control over much of the country’s western region, and Darfur in particular, where it is working to establish its own government along with allies.
Human rights organisations accuse both sides of serious human rights violations, such as sexual violence and the arbitrary shooting of civilians.
The conflict has caused the world’s largest refugee crisis, with 12.9 million people displaced since it began in April 2023, according to the United Nations.
Israeli prime minister also outlines maximalist conditions for ending the war.
The entire Gaza Strip will be under the Israeli military’s control at the end of its latest offensive, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says in his first news conference since December, setting out maximalist conditions for ending the devastating war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardments across Gaza in recent days, at least 82 since dawn Wednesday, as starvation takes hold and only a small amount of aid trucks is allowed in with the blockade in effect in place.
Netanyahu also said on Wednesday that if “there is an opportunity for a temporary ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, Israel will be open to it”.
The Israeli leader laid out the following conditions for ending the war: the release of all captives, the disarmament of Hamas, the exile of its leadership and the possibility of carrying on a plan outlined by United States President Donald Trump in February that would expel Palestinians from Gaza.
Trump has said the US should run Gaza and transform the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. This is the first time Trump’s plan has been mentioned by Netanyahu as one of the conditions to halt fighting. Multiple nations and rights groups have called the plan ethnic cleansing.
Netanyahu said Israel should avoid a “humanitarian crisis to preserve our freedom of operational action”, referring to Israel’s decision to allow a very limited number of humanitarian aid trucks into Gaza. He also referenced a much-criticised plan “developed with the US” to distribute food in the enclave without Hamas taking control of it. The Palestinian group denies it takes aid.
Limited aid entering Gaza, but no distribution
Israel has come under international pressure to halt its punishing total blockade on Gaza, which had prevented any food or aid trucks from entering the territory since March 2.
That has exacerbated the already dire humanitarian catastrophe inside the enclave. A United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification assessment found more than 93 percent of children in Gaza, or about 930,000, are on the brink of famine.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army said it allowed 100 aid trucks carrying flour, baby food and medical equipment into Gaza. Yet UN officials said distribution problems had meant no aid had so far reached people in need.
“The limited supplies finally being allowed to enter Kerem Shalom [in Arabic, the Karem Abu Salem border crossing] are nowhere near enough to meet the needs in Gaza, which are vast, which are tremendous. Much, much more aid needs to get in,” said Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief’s spokesperson.
Aid groups have said the amount of aid that Israel is allowing is not nearly enough, calling Netanyahu’s efforts a “smokescreen to pretend the siege is over”.
“The Israeli authorities’ decision to allow a ridiculously inadequate amount of aid into Gaza after months of an air-tight siege signals their intention to avoid the accusation of starving people in Gaza while, in fact, keeping them barely surviving,” said Pascale Coissard, the emergency coordinator in Khan Younis for Doctors Without Borders.
‘A pressured, obsessed, lying man’
Critics were swift in reacting to Netanyahu’s news conference. His “words today mean the occupation of Gaza for many years and waking up every day to the death of soldiers”, opposition leader Yair Lapid said, adding that the country’s international standing would collapse and the economy would be severely damaged.
“I saw a presentation by a pressured, obsessed, lying man who takes no responsibility for anything,” the Democrats party leader Yair Golan said after the news conference. “I will sue you for defamation because of the lies you spread about me, and we will defeat you in the elections very soon and send you to the pages of history.”
Netanyahu had slammed Golan on Tuesday after the opposition leader had said, “A sane country … does not kill babies as a hobby.” Netanyahu called the comment “appalling”.
British police say Mo Chara displayed a flag of Lebanon’s Hezbollah at a concert.
A member of the Irish rap band Kneecap has been charged with a “terrorism” offence in the United Kingdom for waving a flag of the armed Lebanese group Hezbollah at a concert in November 2024 in London.
Liam O’Hanna, whose stage name is Mo Chara, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London on June 18, charged under the Terrorism Act, British police said on Wednesday.
Kneecap has been vocal in its support for the Palestinian cause since the October 7, 2023-led Hamas attacks and Israel’s devastating war on Gaza, equating the struggles of the Irish under British colonial rule to that of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation and siege.
Pro-Palestinian chants are a regular fixture in their gigs. The band says they have been targets of a smear campaign for calling out Israel’s genocidal war.
KNEECAP STATEMENT:
Since our statements at Coachella — exposing the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people — we have faced a coordinated smear campaign.
For over a year, we have used our shows to call out the British and Irish governments’ complicity in war crimes.… pic.twitter.com/mBojb5QBOP
— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) April 25, 2025
The Belfast trio is also well known for its political and satirical lyrics and use of symbolism associated with the Irish Republican movement, which seeks to unite Northern Ireland, currently part of the UK, with the Republic of Ireland.
More than 3,600 people were killed during three decades of violence in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles” involving the Irish Republican Army (IRA), pro-British Loyalist militias and the UK security forces.
Kneecap takes its name from a brutal punishment, which involved being shot in the kneecaps, that was meted out by paramilitary groups to informers and drug dealers.
The band has been praised for invigorating the Irish-language cultural scene in Northern Ireland, where the status of the language remains a contested political issue in a society still split between Protestant British Unionists and Catholic Irish Nationalist communities.
It has also been criticised for lyrics laden with expletives and drug references.
Kneecap came under intense scrutiny and criticism last month during their performance at the music festival Coachella in California when they projected the words “F*** Israel. Free Palestine.” on stage.
“The Irish not so long ago were persecuted by the Brits, but we were never bombed from the f****** skies with nowhere to go! The Palestinians have nowhere to go – it’s their f****** home and they’re bombing them from the sky. If you’re not calling it a genocide what the f*** are you calling it?” read the words projected by Mo Chara.
Kneecap came under renewed scrutiny at the start of this month when UK intelligence said they would investigate comments made by the rap group about UK and Middle East politics.
They were reported to police over footage from a 2024 concert in which a band member appeared to say: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.” Footage from another concert, in 2023, appears to show a member of the trio shouting “Up Hamas, Up Hezbollah” – the UK considers both to be “terrorist” organisations.
In response, Kneecap said it had “never supported Hamas or Hezbollah,” and accused “establishment figures” of taking comments out of context to “manufacture moral hysteria” because of the band’s criticism of Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in Gaza.
Several Kneecap gigs have been cancelled as a result of the controversy, and some British lawmakers have called on organisers of June’s Glastonbury Festival to scrap a planned performance by the group.
The UK pauses trade talks as the EU threatens to review ties with Israel.
Israel is facing condemnation from some of its strongest allies over its increasing aggression in Gaza.
The UK is cancelling new trade talks and the EU is reviewing old agreements, while both are imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
The two powers say they cannot stand by while Israel expands military operations, increases air strikes and starves Palestinians in Gaza with its total blockade.
But critics are asking why they did not step in before.
Will the new measures be imposed?
And most importantly: Will any of this change the reality on the ground for the Palestinians?
Presenter:
Folly Bah Thibault
Guests:
James Moran – Former EU ambassador to Egypt and Jordan
Yossi Mekelberg – Senior consulting fellow at Chatham House
Zaid Belbagi – Managing partner of Hardcastle Advisory and political commentator
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