Police on high alert for France-Israel soccer match after violence in Amsterdam
A heavy police presence but few visiting fans are expected when France hosts Israel in Nations League soccer on Thursday, a week after violence erupted in Amsterdam in connection with an Israeli team’s visit.
French police chief Laurent Nuñez said 4,000 police officers and security staff will be deployed around the Stade de France, with another 1,500 police on public transit.
Paris authorities are on high alert following the violence in Amsterdam before and after a Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Dutch authorities say fans from both sides were involved in the unrest. The assaults on Maccabi fans sparked outrage and were widely condemned as antisemitic.
“What we learned from Amsterdam is that we need to be present in the public space, including far away from the stadium” and in public transit before and after the match, Nuñez said Thursday on French news broadcaster France Info.
Three months after hosting the Olympics closing ceremony, the atmosphere has gone from festive to fearful, and the national stadium was expected to be three-quarters empty for the match. French President Emmanuel Macron and French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau will be present.
Former French presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy are also to attend.
“We will not give in to antisemitism, anywhere. And violence, including in the French Republic, will never prevail, nor will intimidation,” Macron told BFM TV channel.
Only 20,000 of 80,000 tickets have been sold, with about 150 supporters of the Israeli team reportedly attending, escorted by police.
“We’ve tried to prepare for this match as normally as possible. But obviously none of us within the team can be insensitive to such a heavy context,” France coach Didier Deschamps said Wednesday. “It impacts the amount of supporters present tomorrow and everything that goes with it.”
Amsterdam banned demonstrations for three days beginning Friday while giving police emergency stop-and-search powers after overnight attacks on Israeli soccer supporters. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were ‘attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks’ by what she described as ‘antisemitic hit-and-run squads.’
The away match against Israel on Oct. 10 — which France won 4-1 — was played in Budapest, Hungary’s capital.
“These are situations the players are not accustomed to,” Deschamps said. “But we have to adapt.”
The low number of visiting fans comes after Israel’s National Security Council warned citizens abroad to avoid sports and cultural events, specifically the match in Paris.
Retailleau told French news channel TF1 on Tuesday that no specific threats were identified, but “zero risk does not exist.” Therefore, he said, exceptional measures are in place “before the match, during the match and after the match.”
The elite tactical unit of the French National Police, known as RAID, will be in the stadium, and some police officers will be in plain clothes mingling with fans. There will also be heavy surveillance within Paris, including at Jewish places of worship and schools.
Repeat of violence ‘out of the question,’ minister says
“It is out of the question that we take the risk of seeing a repeat of the dramatic events, of the manhunt, that we saw in Amsterdam,” Retailleau said, adding that postponing or moving the game elsewhere was ruled out.
“France does not submit, and the France-Israel match will take place where it’s supposed to,” he said.
In Amsterdam, a number of Maccabi fans attacked a cab and chanted anti-Arab slogans, while some men carried out “hit and run” attacks on people they thought were Jews, according to Mayor Femke Halsema.
After the match, parts of a large group of Maccabi supporters armed with sticks ran around “destroying things,” a 12-page report on the violence issued by Amsterdam authorities said.
There were also “rioters, moving in small groups, by foot, scooter or car, quickly attacking Maccabi fans before disappearing,” it said.
Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday night against a controversial gala organized by far-right figures in support of Israel.
The game in Saint-Denis, the suburb north of Paris, is scheduled to kick off at 8:45 p.m. local time.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof has condemned violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam, Thursday night. Video shows some Israelis ripping down a Palestinian flag and chanting anti-Arab slogans the day before, suggesting tensions had been simmering.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration is organized at a Saint-Denis plaza at 6 p.m. local time to protest the match.
Nine years ago, Stade de France was one of several locations during the Nov. 13 terror attacks in which 130 people died. France was playing Germany that night when two explosions occurred outside the stadium.
Deschamps, Germany coach Joachim Löw and all of the players stayed together in the locker rooms for hours until it was safe to leave.
“It’s a sad date for us given what happened in 2015,” Deschamps said.
Published at Thu, 14 Nov 2024 18:33:41 +0000
Israeli military’s ‘massive’ forced displacement in Gaza amounts to war crimes: new report
Human Rights Watch says the “massive” and “deliberate” forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza carried out by Israeli forces equates to war crimes and crimes against humanity, in a new report published Thursday.
In the report, the international non-governmental organization said it had collected evidence that suggested “the war crime of forcible transfer.” It described the Israeli force’s actions as “a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).”
The report comes as Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza said Israeli forces had inflicted widespread destruction on their home districts in a more than month-long offensive — something Human Rights Watch (HRW) says is a “deliberate attempt” by Israel to create conditions that will make returning “not just difficult, but impossible” for many Palestinians.
“The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones and cuts off food, water and sanitation,” said Nadia Hardman, HRW refugee and migrant rights researcher.
“Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas.”
The report found that Israeli authorities’ conduct has led to the displacement of roughly 1.9 million Palestinians, more than 90 per cent of the population of Gaza, and the widespread destruction of much of Gaza over the last 13 months.
Forced displacement across the Gaza Strip has been “widespread, and the evidence shows it has been systematic and part of a state policy,” the report said.
“Such acts also constitute crimes against humanity,” it said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military or foreign ministry, but Israeli authorities have previously rejected such accusations and say their forces operate in compliance with international law.
Report latest in aid group warnings over Gaza
The 154-page report is the latest in a series from aid groups and international bodies warning about the dire humanitarian situation in the war-ravaged enclave.
For the past month, Israeli troops have moved tens of thousands of people from areas in the north of the enclave as they have sought to destroy Hamas forces the military says have been reforming around the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
“Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating ‘buffer zones’ and security ‘corridors,’ from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced,” the report said.
Adam Coogle, HRW’s deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division, said the forced displacement of Palestinians and mass destruction of some areas in Gaza amount to “ethnic cleansing.”
Coogle said the organization is calling on governments to condemn the forced displacement and crimes against humanity, and to also adopt targeted sanctions and other measures and to halt weapons sales to Israel.
“We believe that the International Criminal Court prosecutor should investigate forced displacement in Gaza,” he said.
Evacuation orders ‘inconsistent’ and ‘inaccurate’: report
In the report, HRW said evacuation orders have been “inconsistent, inaccurate and frequently not communicated to civilians with enough time to allow evacuations, or at all,” adding that the orders did not take into consideration the needs of people with disabilities.
“There is no plausible imperative military reason to justify Israel’s mass displacement of nearly all of Gaza’s population, often multiple times,” it said. “Rather than ensuring civilians’ security, military ‘evacuation orders’ have caused grave harm.”
The law of armed conflict forbids the forcible displacement of civilian populations from occupied territory, unless necessary for the security of civilians or imperative military reasons. The report accused Israeli authorities of not evacuating civilians in Gaza for their security, saying they have not been secure during evacuations or on arrival at designated safe zones.
Recent photos posted on X by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) show hundreds of displaced civilians lined up together, holding their meagre belongings and filing out of the Jabalia refugee camp, under IDF instruction.
Hear from two people who spoke to a CBC News freelance journalist in Gaza about what it was like to be forced out.
“Even where there is a military imperative that puts civilians at risk, what would otherwise be forcible transfer, will only be permitted as a lawful evacuation if Israel as the occupying power takes sufficient steps to safeguard civilians during their displacement and return them to their homes as soon as it is safe to do so,” it added.
The report said Israel has as a result not met the requirements and “cannot plausibly claim” that the displacement in Gaza falls within the exemptions to allow lawful evacuation.
Israel invaded the Gaza Strip last year after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and abducted more than 250 as hostages. An estimated 100 hostages remain in Gaza.
The Israeli campaign has killed more than 43,500 people, according to Gaza health authorities, and destroyed much of the enclave’s infrastructure, forcing most of the 2.3 million population to move several times. The Palestinian civil emergency service estimates that the bodies of 10,000 people may be trapped under the rubble, which would take the reported death toll to more than 50,000.
Last week, the UN Human Rights Office said nearly 70 per cent of the fatalities it has verified for the first six months of the Gaza war were women and children.
Human Rights Watch said it interviewed 39 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, analyzed Israel’s evacuation system, including 184 evacuation orders and satellite imagery confirming the widespread destruction, and verified videos and photographs of attacks on designated safe zones and evacuation routes.
The Israeli military has denied seeking to create permanent buffer zones, and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that Palestinians displaced from their homes in northern Gaza would be allowed to return at the end of the war.
Published at Thu, 14 Nov 2024 13:10:12 +0000
