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NEW YORK: The UN Security Council on Thursday expressed grave concern over what it described as a horrifying assault by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces on the besieged city of El-Fasher, North Darfur, warning that atrocities against civilians risk spiraling into large-scale, ethnically motivated killings.

In a statement adopted by consensus, council members condemned the RSF attack and its “devastating impact on the civilian population,” recalling Resolution 2736 from 2024 which demands that the RSF lift its siege of the city and halt hostilities.

The council urged all sides to “protect civilians and abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law,” while stressing the need for “safe passage for those trying to flee the city.”

The statement called on all parties to “allow and facilitate safe and unhindered humanitarian access,” and reaffirmed the council’s opposition to any “parallel governing authority” in areas under RSF control. It also urged states to refrain from “external interference which seeks to foment conflict and instability.”

The Security Council’s message came as top UN officials described a catastrophic situation on the ground.

UN Humanitarian Chief Tom Fletcher told the council that after more than a year of siege, El-Fasher has “descended into an even darker hell.”

“Can anyone here say we did not know this was coming?” Fletcher asked, describing reports of mass executions, rapes, and mutilations by RSF fighters.

“We cannot hear the screams, but as we sit here today, the horror is continuing.”

He cited reports that nearly 500 people, including patients and their companions, were killed this week at the Saudi Maternity Hospital in the city, calling it “yet another example of the depravity with which this war has been fought.”

“Those who want to leave El-Fasher must be able to do so safely. Those who remain must be protected,” Fletcher said.

“There must be accountability for those carrying out the killing and the sexual violence. For those giving the orders. And those providing the weapons should consider their responsibility.”

He said the UN had been repeatedly blocked by the RSF from delivering food and medicine, even as “tens of thousands of terrified, starving civilians” fled on foot toward Tawila, itself overwhelmed with displaced people.

“This is not just a crisis of violence — it is a crisis of hunger,” he said.

“Famine is confirmed, and severe food insecurity is spreading. Blood on the sand. And Mr. President, blood on the hands.”

Fletcher condemned the expulsion of World Food Programme officials by Sudanese authorities, and warned that “humanitarians simply asking that we be allowed to do our jobs and save lives is not working.”

Assistant Secretary-General Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee told the council that El-Fasher had fallen to the RSF after more than 500 days under siege, with only “small pockets of resistance” remaining.

“The situation is simply horrifying,” Pobee said. “In the past week, the UN Human Rights Office has documented widespread and serious violations, including mass killings and summary executions during house-to-house searches and as civilians tried to flee.”

She said communications with the city had been severed, making it difficult to assess the full scale of casualties. “Despite commitments to protect civilians, the reality is that no one is safe in El-Fasher. There is no safe passage for civilians to leave the city.”

Pobee also cited reports of atrocities in North Kordofan, including the killing of 50 civilians and five Red Crescent volunteers in Bara after the RSF captured the town. “These acts are often ethnically motivated reprisals,” she said.

The UN political chief warned that the conflict’s territorial scope is widening, with drone strikes and fighting spreading across Kordofan, Blue Nile, Sennar, and Khartoum. “The risk of mass atrocities remains alarmingly high,” she said.

Pobee reiterated the secretary-general’s call for an immediate ceasefire and cautioned against foreign meddling.

“External support is enabling the conflict. Weapons and fighters continue to flow into Sudan,” she said, urging states with influence over the warring parties to press for de-escalation.

Fletcher ended his address with a stark warning about the world’s moral failure to stop atrocities reminiscent of Darfur’s darkest days.

“What is unfolding in El-Fasher recalls the horrors Darfur was subjected to 20 years ago,” he said. “But somehow today we are seeing a very different global reaction — one of indifference, resignation, a shrugging of shoulders.”

He addressed the council: “Where is our diplomacy? Where are our values? Where is our conscience?

“The world has failed an entire generation of Sudan’s children,” Fletcher said. “If this council does not act now, it will own that failure.”

JERUSALEM: A mass ultra-Orthodox Jewish rally against military conscription turned deadly in Jerusalem on Thursday, when a teenage boy fell to his death during the demonstration which had shut down the main entrance to the city.
Packed crowds of mostly men clogged the roads around the Route 1 highway leading into Jerusalem. Israeli media estimated that around 200,000 people flocked to the rally.
Photos showed some had climbed atop roofs of buildings, a gas station and onto cranes. The Israeli ambulance service said a 15-year-old fell to his death and police said they had opened an investigation into the incident.
Military exemptions a hot-button issue in Israel
The debate over mandatory military service, and those who are exempt from it, has long caused tensions within Israel’s deeply divided society and has placed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under increasing political strain over the past year.
Ultra-Orthodox seminary students have long been exempt from mandatory military service. Many Israelis fume at what they see as an unfair burden carried by the mainstream who serve.
That frustration only intensified during wars over the past two years that exacted the highest Israeli military death toll in decades as fighting stretched from the Gaza Strip to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.
This has added fuel to an already explosive debate over a new conscription bill that lies at the center of a crisis rattling Netanyahu’s coalition, which took power in late 2022 for a four-year term.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders say full-time devotion to the study of holy scriptures is sacrosanct and fear their young men will drift away from religious life if they are drafted into the military.
Right now, people who refuse to go to the army are taken to military prison,” said Shmuel Orbach, a protester, “It’s not so bad. But we are a Jewish country. You cannot fight against Judaism in a Jewish country, it does not work.”
Struggle to pass new conscription bill 
But last year the Supreme Court ordered an end to the exemption. Parliament has been struggling to draft a new conscription bill, which has so far failed to meet both the ultra-Orthodox demands and those of a stretched military. Two long-time loyal political allies, ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), quit Netanyahu’s coalition government in July in a dispute over the new military draft legislation. Their exit left Netanyahu with an increasingly splintered coalition whose far-right members are unhappy about Israel’s ceasefire deal with Gaza’s dominant Palestinian militant group Hamas, brokered by the United States.
The door has been left open for the ultra-Orthodox parties to rejoin the coalition should the dispute be resolved.
But reaching an accommodation acceptable to ultra-Orthodox political leaders may alienate many other Israelis as the country heads into an election year, and risks being shot down by the Supreme Court.
Surveys over the past two years have consistently predicted Netanyahu’s coalition would lose the next ballot.