ADDIS ABABA - A senior Israeli diplomat was removed on Saturday from the African Union's annual summit in Ethiopia, as a dispute over Israel's accreditation to the bloc escalated.
Images posted online showed AU security personnel confronting the diplomat during the opening ceremony of the summit, before she left the auditorium.
The incident occurred on the first day of the summit, where leaders are discussing a slew of challenges facing the continent, including a record drought in the Horn of Africa and deadly violence in the Sahel region and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Israel blamed the incident on South Africa and Algeria, two key nations in the 55-country bloc, saying they were holding the AU hostage and were driven by "hate".
"Israel looks harshly upon the incident in which the deputy director for Africa, Ambassador Sharon Bar-Li, was removed from the African Union hall despite her status as an accredited observer with entrance badges," the foreign ministry said.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said the charge d'affaires at South Africa's embassy would be summoned for a reprimand.
"The attempt to cancel Israel's observer status has no basis in the organisation's laws," the ministry said.
South Africa rejected the claim, saying Israel's application for observer status at the AU has not been decided upon by the bloc.
"Until the AU takes a decision on whether to grant Israel observer status, you cannot have the country sitting and observing," Clayson Monyela, the head of public diplomacy in South Africa's department of international relations, told Reuters.
"So, it's not about South Africa or Algeria, it's an issue of principle."
South Africa's ruling party, the ANC, has historically been a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause.
The Algerian delegation at the summit was not immediately available for comment.
The incident follows a long-running dispute over Israel's accreditation as an observer to the 55-member bloc in 2021.
Last year's AU summit suspended a debate on whether to withdraw the accreditation and established a committee to address the issue, but the bloc has not said whether it would be discussed this year.
An AU official told AFP the individual who was "asked to leave" was not invited to attend the meeting, with a non-transferable invitation only issued to Israel's ambassador to the AU, Aleli Admasu.
"It is regrettable that the individual in question would abuse such a courtesy," Ebba Kalondo, the spokesperson for AU Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat.
Backsliding of democracy , free trade, armed conflict
All eyes are on the AU to see if it can achieve ceasefires in the Sahel and the eastern DRC, where M23 rebels have seized swathes of territory and sparked a diplomatic row between Kinshasa and Rwanda's government, which is accused of backing the rebels.
At a mini-summit on Friday, leaders of the seven-nation East African Community pushed for all armed groups to withdraw from occupied areas in the eastern DRC by the end of next month and for an immediate ceasefire.
On Saturday, Guterres urged African leaders to take "action for peace".
"I am deeply concerned about the recent rise in violence by armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and the rise of terrorist groups in the Sahel and elsewhere," he told the summit.
Guterres said other challenges faced by the continent of 1.4 billion people included "a dysfunctional and unfair global financial system that denies many African countries the debt relief and concessional financing they need" and charges "extortionate" interest rates.
Comoros President Azali Assoumani, leader of the small Indian Ocean archipelago of almost 900,000 people, echoed those views as he took over the one-year rotating AU chairmanship from Senegal's Macky Sall.
Assoumani called for a "total cancellation" of African debt but did not elaborate on how this could be achieved.
Guterres also announced that the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund would release $250 million to support some of the most vulnerable people in the world, including those at risk of famine in the drought-hit Horn of Africa.
He said 339 million people were in need of humanitarian aid, up 25% from last year.
Junta-ruled Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea, which have been suspended from the AU, cannot participate in this weekend's summit, but have sent diplomats to Addis Ababa to lobby for readmission.
"In some countries, hard-won democratic gains are disappearing," Guterres warned.
Faki had announced there would be a meeting of the AU's Peace and Security Council to discuss lifting their suspension but gave no date.
He told the summit on Saturday that the bloc needed new strategies to counter the backsliding of democracy.
"Sanctions imposed on member states following unconstitutional changes of government... do not seem to produce the expected results."
The summit, largely held behind closed doors, was also aiming to kickstart the faltering African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) launched in 2020.
African nations currently trade only about 15% of their goods and services with each other, and the AfCFTA aims to boost that by 60% by 2034 by eliminating almost all tariffs.
But implementation has fallen well short of that goal, with governments at odds over tariff reductions.
Reuters and AFP