Mozambique rocked by brutal killings of 2 prominent opposition figures soon after disputed election

MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Gunmen in two vehicles chased down the lawyer for Mozambique's leading opposition politician and a senior opposition official and fatally shot them in their SUV late at night on a main avenue in the capital, their party said Saturday, in a brutal burst of violence that rocked a country where tensions were already high amid a disputed election.

The killings came as the opposition party the two men were associated with prepared to challenge the results of this month's presidential election that drew more allegations of vote rigging and clamping down on dissent against the long-ruling governing party, which has been in power for nearly 50 years.

Elvino Dias, a lawyer and advisor to opposition presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane, was killed late Friday night by gunmen who riddled his car with bullets in the port capital of Maputo, the PODEMOS opposition party said.

Paulo Guambe, a senior member and the spokesperson for PODEMOS, was also in the car with Dias and died in the shooting, the party said in a statement.

The killings are “further clear evidence of the lack of justice that we are all subjected to,” PODEMOS said.

PODEMOS is a relatively new opposition party that challenged the 49-year rule of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique, or Frelimo, party in the Oct. 9 election.

Although Mondlane ran for president as an independent, he was supported by PODEMOS. Mondlane, PODEMOS and other opposition parties have accused Frelimo of electoral fraud and rigging the election.

Frelimo candidate Daniel Chapo holds a clear lead in the presidential race, according to preliminary results. Mondlane was second behind Chapo in the count.

The final election results are due to be announced next week and Chapo is expected to be announced as the winner to succeed President Filipe Nyusi, who has served a maximum of two terms, taking the leftist Frelimo's grip on power past a half-century.

Dias was seen as a key figure in the legal preparations to challenge the results of the election in the Constitutional Council, Mozambique’s supreme electoral court. Mondlane and PODEMOS had also called for a nationwide strike and protests on Monday against the election results.

Adriano Nuvunga, the director of Mozambican human rights NGO, the Centre for Democracy and Development, wrote on social media that the killing of Dias was a “political assassination” amid rising tensions.

Authorities did not immediately comment on the killings, widely viewed in Mozambique as politically motivated.

Frelimo, which has been in power in the southern African country since independence from Portugal in 1975, has often been accused of rigging elections, which it has consistently denied.

Rights groups accused Mozambican authorities of clamping down on dissent in the run-up to the election and have also accused the security forces of using deadly force to break up peaceful protests. Police broke up a post-election march by Mondlane supporters in the central city of Nampula earlier this week. There has been a large police presence on the streets of Maputo for days.

While Frelimo has regularly faced accusations of manipulating elections, harassing the opposition and the arbitrary arrests of journalists, the assassination of high-profile political leaders would be new "and a major escalation of violence,” Marcelo Mosse, editor of the independent online newspaper Carta de Moçambique, wrote in a Saturday morning column.

The shooting happened just before midnight on Joaquim Chissano Avenue near the Russian Embassy, according to a local resident, who said he heard the gunshots. The resident, who asked not to be identified, said he was close enough to smell the gunpowder in the air after the shooting. He said he heard a steady sequence of around five shots followed a few seconds later by another round of five shots.

Videos published on social media — and shared widely in Mozambique — showed a dark gray BMW SUV in the middle of the road with numerous bullet holes in the bodywork. People were gathered around the car soon after the shooting, and some of the videos showed what appeared to be the bodies of two men, one with blood on his chest, in the front seats. The other body was slumped over.

The Mozambican Bar Association condemned the “barbaric murder” of Dias, who had been a member. The organization said the killing was “an attack on the legal profession, its independence, the rule of law and democracy,” and called for a protest march to be held in all provinces.

Frelimo established a one-party state following independence and then fought a bloody, 15-year civil war against the rebel group Renamo. They signed a peace deal in 1992 and Renamo became the main opposition party following the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, but the peace between them has been fragile.

Mondlane was previously a member of the Renamo party before leaving to run for president as an independent and becoming the leading opposition candidate.

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People queue to cast their votes during the general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Charles Mangwiro)

Independent candidate Venancio Mondlane, right, casts his vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

Supporters take part in a ruling party rally to support presidential candidate Daniel Chapo ahead of elections, in Maputo, Mozambique, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Uqueio)

Daniel Chapo, right, presidential candidate for the ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique party, holds up his finger after casting his vote in the general elections, in Inhambane, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo)

Independent candidate Venancio Mondlane holds up his finger after casting his vote in general elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Equeio)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli government said a drone targeted the prime minister’s house Saturday, though there were no casualties, as Iran’s supreme leader vowed Hamas would continue its fight following the killing of the mastermind of last year’s deadly Oct. 7 attack.

Sirens wailed in Israel warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. The military said dozens of projectiles were launched. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea, though neither he nor his wife were home.

The barrage comes as Israel considers its expected response to an Iranian attack earlier this month and presses its offensives against Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at hospitals in the battered northern part of the Palestinian enclave, and strikes in the strip killed more than 50 people, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter there.

In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.

In addition to the drone launched at Netanyahu’s private residence, Israel’s military said some 180 projectiles were fired throughout the day from Lebanon on Saturday morning. A 50-year-old man was killed after being hit by shrapnel while sitting in his car in northern Israel, and four people were injured, Israel’s medical services said.

In the northern city of Kiryat Ata, sirens blared as people ran for cover and intercepted missiles exploded in the sky. One rocket landed in the area, and Associated Press reporters saw burned cars and a damaged building. Itzik Billet, commander for the Haifa area, said nine people were lightly injured.

The Israeli fire service also said it was battling several blazes resulting from missiles in the Shlomi area, less than a mile (1 kilometer) from the Lebanese border.

Israel's war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October.

Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel.

In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli airstrike Saturday hit a vehicle on a main highway north of Beirut, killing two people. It was unclear who was in the car when it was struck.

A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar this week.

On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him.

“Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” Khamenei said in his first comments on the killing.

Since Israel claimed Sinwar’s death Thursday, confirmed by a top Hamas official Friday, Hamas has reiterated its stance that the hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The staunch position pushed back against a statement by Netanyahu that his country’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.

Sinwar was the chief architect of the 2023 Hamas raid on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children.

More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement that Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and that forces opened fire at the hospital’s building and its courtyard, causing panic among patients and medical staff.

At Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, strikes hit the building’s top floors, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement. Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight Friday, killing at least 30 people, more than half of them women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least 80 people were injured.

In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where the casualties were taken. Another strike killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the Maghazi refugee camp, the same hospital said. Associated Press journalists counted the bodies from both strikes at the hospital.

The strikes knocked out internet networks in northern Gaza, said Paltel, the Palestinian communications company, on Facebook Saturday.

The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.

Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and it could shift the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country.

Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a speech Thursday announcing the killing that “our war is not yet ended.”

Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the fighting.

In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.

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Associated Press reporters Jack Jeffery from Ramallah, West Bank and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Lebanon contributed to this report.

Israeli security forces secure a road near where Israel's government says a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Caesarea, Israel Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Officers from the Israeli Home Front Command military unit walk on a road near where Israel's government says a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Caesarea, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli security forces secure a road near where Israel's government says a drone launched toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house in Caesarea, Israel Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

FILE - Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith, File)