Imran Khan to be sworn in as Pakistan PM before August 14, PTI reaches out to smaller parties

New Delhi, Sept 17: Atishi will be the new Chief Minister of Delhi. The decision came after a legislative party meeting was chaired by Arvind Kejriwal at his Delhi residence earlier today.

Kejriwal is expected to tender his resignation later today, and will also meet Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena at 4.30 pm.

On September 13, Arvind Kejriwal was released from Tihar Jail, where he had been lodged for his alleged involvement in the Delhi liquor policy case. Nearly two days after his release, on Sunday, Kejriwal said he would resign as the Chief Minister within 48 hours.

He also sought early polls in Delhi, and vowed not to sit in the chief minister’s chair until people gave him a “certificate of honesty”.

On Monday, the AAP held a series of meetings as Kejriwal sought feedback from members of the political affairs committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, on his successor in one-on-one meetings at his official residence.

Names of Delhi ministers Atishi, Gopal Rai, Kailash Gahlot and Saurabh Bharadwaj were making the rounds as contenders, news agency PTI had quoted party insiders as saying and added that Kejriwal’s wife Sunita Kejriwal and Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel were also the probables.

Mangolpuri MLA Rakhi Birla, who is also the deputy speaker in the assembly, and Kondli legislator Kuldeep Kumar were also potential candidates, they added.

Earlier, sources with the AAP had told PTI that the surprise candidate could also be a member of the minority community as the party has witnessed its support among the community wavering since the 2020 Delhi riots.

The Israeli regime is recruiting African asylum seekers to kill Palestinians in the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in exchange for permanent residency status, according to a report.

The report, ran by the Israeli paper Haaretz on Sunday, revealed that the project is conducted in an organized manner, with the guidance of military establishment legal advisers.  

In Gaza, the death toll passes 41,200 with close to 100,000 more injured in almost a year since the Israeli regime forces launched their genocidal war. However, the continued violence is prompting some Jewish Israelis to leave the occupied Palestinian land.

To make up for the loss, Tel Aviv is offering the incentive of permanent residency status to asylum seekers who agree to join the Israeli regime forces ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Haaretz has learned that some people have expressed objections to the practice, arguing that it exploits people who have fled their countries due to war. However, according to those sources, these voices have been silenced.

“This is a very problematic matter,” one source was quoted as saying by Haaretz.

According to the report, there are currently some 30,000 African asylum seekers living in the occupied territories, most of them young men. Around 3,500 are Sudanese citizens with temporary status granted by the court because the regime has not processed and ruled on their applications.

Unnamed sources who spoke with Haaretz also revealed that while there were some inquiries about granting status to asylum seekers who assisted in the genocidal war in Gaza, none were actually given status.

Haaretz also learned that the Interior Ministry explored the possibility of drafting the children of asylum seekers, who were educated in schools in the occupied territories, into the Israeli military.

In the past, the regime allowed the children of foreign workers to serve in the military in exchange for granting status to their immediate family members.

African refugees, who came to the occupied territories seeking asylum, were previously kept in internment camps and deported without their own consent.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees says six of its employees are among the at least 18 people killed in a recent Israeli aerial assault on a school in the central Gaza Strip.

In a statement released on Thursday, UNRWA said Wednesday’s Israeli airstrikes targeting the UN-run al-Jaouni school in the Nuseirat refugee camp resulted in "the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident” since the occupying regime waged a genocidal war on Gaza more than 11 months ago.

"Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people," it added.

UNRWA also said the al-Jaouni school, home to around 12,000 displaced Palestinians- mainly women and children, has been hit five times since the Israeli aggression began.

“No one is safe in Gaza. No one is spared,” it emphasized. “Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target.”

In an X post, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the deaths demonstrated “very dramatic violations of the international humanitarian law and the total absence of an effective protection of civilians.”

Meanwhile, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said the agency's staff who were killed had been providing support to families sheltering in the al-Jaouni school.

“Humanitarian staff, premises & operations have been blatantly & unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war,” he asserted.

Lazzarini further noted that at least 220 UNRWA employees have been killed during the Israeli offensive on Gaza.

The Israeli military claimed that the school had been used by members of the Hamas resistance group to “plan and execute” attacks against the occupation troops.

However, a survivor said the section of the school that was hit by Israel had been “dedicated only to women.”

“All of a sudden there was a huge explosion … Women and children were blown to pieces. We rushed to see our children but found them torn to pieces,” he told Al Jazeera.

Another survivor said she had lost all of her six children in the Israeli attack, adding, “What crime, what wrong did those innocent children do?”

Israel waged its brutal Gaza offensive on October 7, 2023, after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 41,084 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 95,029 others.