First Italian ship with 16 intercepted migrants docks at Albanian port to process asylum request

SHENGJIN, Albania (AP) — An Italian navy ship on Wednesday docked at the Albanian port of Shengjin to bring the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters to be processed there.

The naval ship Libra left the port of Lampedusa on Monday with 16 men — 10 from Bangladesh and six from Egypt — who were rescued at sea after departing from Libya, a ministry spokesperson said.

Last week, Italy formally opened two centers in Albania where it plans to process thousands of asylum-seekers outside its borders.

The centers will only house adult men, while vulnerable people such as women, children, the elderly and those who are ill or victims of torture will be accommodated in Italy. Families will not be separated.

Italian Ambassador to Albania Fabrizio Bucci said Friday the two centers were ready to process migrants after the opening was delayed for months to consolidate the crumbling soil at one center, in Gjader where they will be accommodated.

A small group of activists gathered at the entrance of the port to protest the arrival of the migrants, holding a banner saying, “The European dream ends here.”

“This deal is against human rights, more concretely the migrants’ rights,” said Edison Lika, a protester.

Though the center in Gjader has capacity for 3,000 migrants, it will start with 400 and increase to 880 in a few weeks.

The number of people reaching Italy along the central Mediterranean migration route from North Africa has fallen by 61% in 2024 from 2023. According to the Italian Interior Ministry, as of Oct. 15, 54,129 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea this year, compared to 138,947 by the same date last year.

Under a five-year deal signed last November by Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, up to 3,000 migrants picked up by the Italian coast guard in international waters each month will be sheltered in Albania. They will be screened initially on board the ships that rescue them before being sent to Albania for further screening.

The two centers will cost Italy 670 million euros ($730 million) over five years. The facilities are run by Italy and are under Italian jurisdiction, while Albanian guards provide external security.

The first center, an area in Shengjin, 66 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the capital, Tirana, is used for screening newcomers. While the other center, about 22 kilometers (14 miles) to its east near the former military airport in Gjader, accommodates migrants during the processing of their asylum requests.

Italian officials expect the Gjader center will never be at full occupancy but that depends on the flow of migrants brought to Albania.

In Albania, the migrants retain their right under international and European Union law to apply for asylum in Italy and have their claims processed there, a move expected to take a maximum of 28 days, including any appeal case, to process.

Italy has agreed to welcome those who are granted asylum. Those whose applications are rejected face deportation directly from Albania.

The controversial agreement to outsource the housing of asylum-seekers to a non-EU member country has been hailed by some countries that, like Italy, are suffering a heavy burden of refugees.

The agreement was endorsed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as an example of “out-of-box thinking” in tackling the issue of migration into the European Union.

But it has been slammed by human rights groups as setting a dangerous precedent.

Rama has made it clear that no other country will be able to have such centers in Albania. He said Albania felt an expression of gratitude for the tens of thousands of Albanians who were welcomed by Italy when communism fell in 1991, or support extended by Rome during the economic turmoil in 1997 and in the aftermath of the 2019 earthquake.

Meloni and her right-wing allies have long demanded that European countries share more of the migration burden. She has held up the Albania agreement as an innovative solution to a problem that has vexed the EU for years.

Follow Llazar Semini at https://x.com/lsemini

Migrants and security officials walk at the port of Shengjin, northwestern Albania. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 after disembarking from the Italian navy ship Libra carrying the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

Migrants and security officials walk at the port of Shengjin, northwestern Albania. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 after disembarking from the Italian navy ship Libra, carrying the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

Migrants and security officials walk at the port of Shengjin, northwestern Albania. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 after disembarking from the Italian navy ship Libra, carrying the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

Migrant and security officials walk at the port of Shengjin, northwestern Albania. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 after disembarking from the Italian navy ship Libra, carrying the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

The Italian navy ship Libra is docked at Shengjin port northwestern Albania Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, carrying the first group of migrants who were intercepted in international waters and redirected to Albania in force of an agreement between the two counties.. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

A migrant and security officials walk at the port of Shengjin, northwestern Albania. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 after disembarking from the Italian navy ship Libra, carrying the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

Migrantw and security officials walk at the port of Shengjin, northwestern Albania. Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 after disembarking from the Italian navy ship Libra, carrying the first group of 16 migrants intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

The Italian navy ship Libra, right, arrives at the port of Shengjin northwestern Albania Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, carrying the first group of migrants who were intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

The Italian navy ship Libra arrives at the port of Shengjin northwestern Albania Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, carrying the first group of migrants who were intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

FILE - Italy's Premier Giorgia Meloni, right, and Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama shake hands after the signing of a memorandum of understanding on migrant management centers during a meeting in Rome, Italy, on Nov. 6, 2023. (Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse via AP, File)

FILE - Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama, left, walks with his arm around Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni after a group photo during the European Political Community Summit at the Mimi Castle in Bulboaca, Moldova, on June 1, 2023. Italy's government on Friday, Oct. 11, 2024 formally opened two centers in Albania where it plans to process male migrants who are intercepted in international waters. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)

An Italian navy ship approaches the port of Shengjin northwestern Albania Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 carrying the first group of migrants who were intercepted in international waters and whose asylum applications will be processed in Albania instead of in Italy, under a five-year agreement between the two countries. (AP Photo/Vlasov Sulaj)

Israeli jets struck southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people including a city mayor, Lebanese officials said.

Hezbollah acting leader Sheikh Naim Kassem declared Tuesday that the Lebanese militant group will ramp up attacks on Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike Monday on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people. Israel said it struck a target belonging to Hezbollah, but the United Nations called Tuesday for an independent investigation.

Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, after a year of near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire.

It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.

In northern Gaza, Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, leaving families trapped in their shelters.

United States President Joe Biden’s administration warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza within the next 30 days or risk losing access to American weapons funding.

Here's the latest:

JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities say they have arrested a man who was involved in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli scientist.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Shin Bet internal security agency said Iran paid 35-year-old Vladimir Verhovski $100,000 to kill an Israeli scientist. It did not provide evidence or name the target of the alleged plot.

Iran has accused Israel of being behind the targeted killing of scientists involved in its nuclear program.

The Shin Bet said Verhovski had acquired a gun, cartridge and bullets, and agreed to flee to Russia afterwards. It said he had also gathered information at the direction of Iran.

It’s one of several alleged plots the Shin Bet says it has foiled in recent months that involved Israelis accused of having been recruited by Iran.

Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for years that burst to the surface after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Israel and Iran exchanged fire directly for the first time in April, and Israel has vowed to retaliate after an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.

Iran supports armed groups across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry says Israeli airstrikes on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh have killed at least 5 people.

The ministry and the state-run National News Agency said the provincial capital’s municipality building was hit by one of the strikes Wednesday. Huwaida Turk, the governor of Nabatiyeh province, told The Associated Press that Mayor Ahmad Kahil was killed in Wednesday’s strikes on the provincial capital. Local media reported that the mayor of Nabatiyeh and local government staff were in the building. Rescue workers are searching for bodies under the rubble.

The NNA says there were at least seven airstrikes in Nabatiyeh and some nearby villages.

Earlier in the week, Israeli strikes over Nabatiyeh destroyed its historic century-old market district.

The Israeli military said it struck dozens of targets in and around Nabatiyeh linked to the Hezbollah militant group, including command centers and weapons storage facilities that it said were embedded in civilian areas.

BEIRUT — Israeli strikes have killed at least 15 people in the southern Lebanese town of Qana, which has long been associated with civilian deaths after Israeli strikes during previous conflicts with Hezbollah.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes in Qana late Tuesday. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said 15 bodies had been recovered from the rubble of a building and that rescue efforts were still underway.

In 1996, Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana killed at least 100 civilians and wounded scores more, including four U.N. peacekeepers. During the 2006 war, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed nearly three dozen people, a third of them children. Israel said at the time that it struck a Hezbollah rocket launcher behind the building.

PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron stressed “the absolute necessity of a cease-fire without further delay in Lebanon” and called for Israel to stop operations there in a phone call Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Macron urged Israel “to put an end to this unjustifiable targeting," according to a statement from his office, which also said France would continue to work with troop contributors and alongside the United Nations Secretary-General to ensure the full implementation of the mission of the peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.

Netanyahu said in a statement after the call that he was opposed to a unilateral cease-fire. He said he would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide security for residents of northern Israel and “does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.”

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran is ready for a retaliatory attack from Israel, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

In a phone call Tuesday with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country is fully prepared to answer to any kind of “adventure-seeking.”

“Responsibility of consequences of spreading insecurity in the region will be on the regime and the United States as main supporter,” of Israel, he added.

He urged the U.N. to use its entire capacity for stopping “crimes and invasions,” as well as providing humanitarian aid to Lebanon and Gaza.

Iran launched some 180 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 in retaliation for the deaths of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel has threatened to strike back for the barrage.

Iran is the main backer of Lebanese Hezbollah and supports anti-Israeli groups in the region such as Palestinian Hamas.

BEIRUT — Israeli jets struck the southern suburbs of Beirut early Wednesday for the first time in six days, Lebanese state media reported. The casualty count was not yet clear.

The attack comes just one day after caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the United States government gave him some assurances of Israel easing its strikes in the Lebanese capital.

Israel says it is striking Hezbollah assets in the suburbs, where the militant group has a strong presence, but is also a busy residential and commercial area. The Israeli military said the Wednesday strike hit a weapons warehouse stored under a residential building.

The Israeli military posted an evacuation warning on X, formerly Twitter, saying it is targeting a building in the Haret Hreik neighborhood. An Associated Press photographer saw three airstrikes in the area, the first coming less than an hour after the notice.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8 in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following their surprise attack on southern Israel. Almost one year of low-level fighting has turned into all-out war and displaced some 1.2 million people in Lebanon.

Elsewhere, Israeli strikes late Tuesday in the southern town of Qana killed at least 15 people, according to Lebanese Civil Defense.

MANILA, Philippines — A European Union official expressed regret over the failure so far of efforts to forge a cease-fire in the Middle East, saying that fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah has made it more difficult to work for wide-ranging reforms in Lebanon and create conditions to draw international financial aid in.

EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič told The Associated Press in an interview late Tuesday in Manila that stalled reforms in Lebanon include the election of a new president, the establishment of a working government and the signing of a deal with the International Monetary Fund.

“It’s difficult to see that happening in these circumstances when Lebanon is under such a strain,” said Lenarčič, who flew to Manila to attend an Asia Pacific conference on disaster mitigation.

“That’s one of the reasons why we’re calling for a cease-fire, so as to allow Lebanon to organize itself so that it can benefit from all the funding which is out there,” he said. “I regret that we have not been heard.”

The EU was also extremely concerned over the killings of civilians in the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. “This collateral damage is simply unacceptable,” Lenarčič said.

Rescue workers remove rubble, as they search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Destroyed buildings that were hit by Israeli airstrikes are seen in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Rescue workers search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings, as they search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Rescue workers use a bulldozer to remove rubble of destroyed buildings, as they search for victims at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Rescue workers carry remains of dead people at the site that was hit by Israeli airstrikes in Qana village, south Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Zavik Zoigi checks the Sukkah, a temporary hut built for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, placed in front of his residence ahead the weeklong holiday celebrations in Kiryat Shmona, a town located neart to the border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

Lebanese Red Cross volunteers remove the remains of killed people from the rubble of a destroyed building at the site of Monday's Israeli airstrike in Aito village, north Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People attend the funeral ceremony of the late Iranian Revolutionary Guard Gen. Abbas Nilforushan, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut in late September, in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Lebanese army soldiers stand on the rubble of a destroyed building at the site of Monday's Israeli airstrike in the village of Aito, north Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Palestinian activist Khairi Hanoun holds up a poster of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah who was killed by an Israeli strike in September, while mourning Rayan al-Sayed, a Palestinian killed in an Israeli raid Monday in the West Bank city of Jenin, during Al-Sayed's funeral, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes on Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)