Israel pounds Gaza, Hamas fires rockets as Netanyahu indicates long war

This photograph taken near the border with the Gaza Strip shows Israeli soldiers on an armoured personnel carrier (APC) rolling back from the Gaza Strip, on December 31, 2023 amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (AFP)
This photograph taken near the border with the Gaza Strip shows Israeli soldiers on an armoured personnel carrier (APC) rolling back from the Gaza Strip, on December 31, 2023 amid continuing battles between Israel and the militant group Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 01 January 2024
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Israel pounds Gaza, Hamas fires rockets as Netanyahu indicates long war

Israel pounds Gaza, Hamas fires rockets as Netanyahu indicates long war
  • Israel’s air and artillery bombardment has killed more than 21,800 people according to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, with many more feared dead in the rubble, and pushed nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes

CAIRO/GAZA/JERUSALEM: Israeli jets intensified attacks on central Gaza on Sunday, residents and medics said, as battles raged through the rubble of towns and refugee camps in a war Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would take “many more months” to end.
Netanyahu’s comments signal no let-up in a campaign that has killed many thousands and levelled much of Gaza, while his vow to restore Israeli control over the enclave’s border with Egypt raises new questions over an eventual two-state solution.
The Israeli military will release some reservists who were called up to fight Hamas in Gaza, a move it said on Sunday would help the economy as the country prepares for a prolonged war.
Air strikes pounded Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij in the center of Gaza, killing 10 people in one house and driving more to flee to Rafah on the border with Egypt from front lines where Israeli tanks are battling Hamas fighters.
Rockets fired from Gaza raced toward central Israel overnight, triggering sirens throughout the central and southern parts of the country. Israeli media carried footage of numerous interceptions. There were no reports of any direct hits.
Hamas’ armed wing said the barrage was in response to “massacres against civilians” in Gaza.
A Red Crescent video published on Sunday showed rescuers working in the dark to carry an injured child from smoking rubble in central Gaza. Six people died in a strike on the village of Al-Mughraqa outside Gaza City, health officials said. A separate strike on a house in Khan Younis killed one person and wounded others, they added.
As 2023 drew to a close, Palestinians in Gaza prayed for a cease-fire but had little hope the new year would be better.
“Tonight the sky in world countries will be lit by firecrackers, and joyful laughs will fill the air. In Gaza our skies are now filled with Israeli missiles and tank shells that land on innocent, homeless civilians,” said Zainab Khalil, 57, a resident from northern Gaza now in Rafah.
The stated goal of Israel’s military is to eliminate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched a surprise cross-border assault on Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and grabbing 240 hostages.
Israel’s air and artillery bombardment has killed more than 21,800 people according to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, with many more feared dead in the rubble, and pushed nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes.
Palestinian health ministry casualty figures do not differentiate between fighters and civilians but the ministry has said that 70 percent of Gaza’s dead are women and people under 18. Israel disputes Palestinian casualty figures and says it has killed 8,000 fighters.
Israel blockaded most food, fuel and medicine after the Oct. 7 attack. It said on Sunday that it was ready to let ships from some Western countries deliver aid directly to Gaza’s shores after security checks in Cyprus.
Gemma Connell, an official with the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said that many of the tens of thousands of people fleeing to Rafah had no possessions and nowhere to sleep.
“I just am so fearful that the amount of deaths that we’ve been seeing is going to increase exponentially both because of this renewed offensive but also because of these conditions which are literally unbelievable,” she said.

’WHERE WILL PEOPLE GO?’
The United States, Israel’s main ally, has urged it to scale down the war and European states have signalled alarm at the extent of Palestinian civilian suffering.
However Netanyahu’s comments on Saturday, when he said he would not resign despite opinion polls showing his government is broadly unpopular and defended his security record despite the Oct. 7 attack, indicate that there will be no easing anytime soon.
Netanyahu said the “the war is at its height” and Israel would have to retake control of Gaza’s border with Egypt, an area now crammed with civilians who have fled the carnage across the rest of the enclave.
Retaking the border could also constitute a de facto reversal of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, raising new questions over the future of the enclave and prospects for a Palestinian state.
Washington said Israel should allow a Palestinian government to control Gaza when the conflict is over.
“We just take a fundamentally different view here in terms of what post-conflict Gaza needs to look like,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on ABC television.
Israel’s hard-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich fueled concerns about the offensive’s aims on Sunday by calling for Palestinians to leave Gaza and make way for Israelis who could “make the desert bloom.”
That clashed with the official Israeli government position that Gazans will be able to return to their homes. Smotrich and other hard-line coalition ministers have been excluded from the core war cabinet but have pushed to take part in decisions about the conflict.
In his last comments as Israeli foreign minister before switching to the energy portfolio on Sunday, Eli Cohen said the border was the likely source of weaponry Hamas had obtained over recent years.
Senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein Al-Sheikh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank said via social media that Israel taking over the border was evidence of a decision “to completely return the occupation.”
“We moved here from Khan Younis on the basis that Rafah was a safe place. There is no space in Rafah as it is overcrowded with displaced,” said Umm Mohammed, 45, a displaced Palestinian woman sheltering by the border.
“If they control the border, where will people go?” she asked, saying that would be “a disaster.”

MAERSK CARGO SHIP ATTACKED
The war risks morphing into a wider regional conflict involving Hamas ally Iran and groups Tehran supports across the Middle East.
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah have exchanged regular cross-border fire, with the Israeli military saying it struck targets in Lebanon on Sunday. Israel has hit Iran-linked targets in Syria. And Iran-backed groups have attacked US targets in Iraq.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group, which has been attacking shipping in the Red Sea for weeks in what it calls a response to Israel’s war in Gaza, attacked a Maersk cargo ship, the US military said.
US naval helicopters sank three of the four small boats the Houthis had used in Sunday’s attack and drove the fourth back to shore, the military said.
Israel says 174 of its military personnel have been killed in the Gaza fighting but that its operations are making progress, including by destroying some Hamas tunnels under the enclave.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad — both sworn to Israel’s destruction — have said that they continue to target Israeli forces operating in the enclave.

 


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan
Updated 23 sec ago
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan
  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says
Updated 43 min 58 sec ago
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says
  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions
Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions
  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.


Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead
Updated 36 min 18 sec ago
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Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead
  • Airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 30, Palestinian medics and media say
  • Israeli military says it ‘eliminated terrorists’ in latest operations

CAIRO/QABATIYAH: Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip and West Bank have resulted in significant casualties, as conflict in the region intensifies.

Since Monday night, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with strikes leveling buildings and tightening sieges on northern areas of the enclave, according to Palestinian media and medical sources.

In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, two houses were heavily damaged in an airstrike, killing at least 20 people late on Monday, as reported by WAFA and Hamas-linked media. The Gaza health ministry has not immediately verified this toll. Additionally, four people were reported dead in the central town of Al-Zawayda around midnight.

Meanwhile, six more Palestinians died in separate airstrikes on Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah. The Israeli military claimed that its forces had "eliminated terrorists" in central Gaza and Jabalia and uncovered weapons and explosives in the southern area of Rafah, where it had also dismantled "terrorist infrastructure."

Reports from the ground suggest that Israel's tactics aim to clear northern Gaza towns and refugee camps to establish buffer zones, a strategy Israel says has successfully neutralized hundreds of Palestinian fighters in Jabalia over the past month.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have died in Gaza over a year of fighting, and much of the region has been devastated. The conflict initially erupted following Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 Israelis and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza.

Violence has also erupted in the occupied West Bank. On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinians in separate incidents during two military operations.

In Tammun, near Tubas, two Palestinians died, one of whom was severely mutilated, according to the city’s governor, Ahmad Assad.

The health ministry in Ramallah confirmed the deaths, noting that the identity of one victim remains unverified and that the army is withholding the body.

In a separate airstrike in Qabatiyah near Jenin, two more Palestinian men, aged 40 and 38 and reportedly related, were killed, confirmed Kamal Abu Rubb, governor of Jenin.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to inquiries about these operations. The West Bank has seen escalating violence since the onset of the Gaza conflict, with at least 754 Palestinians killed in the territory by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

In contrast, Palestinian attacks have claimed 24 Israeli lives during the same period, according to official Israeli sources.


Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists
Updated 05 November 2024
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Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed in the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, pro-democracy activists said on Tuesday, in an attack they blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Madani Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the country, said the RSF carried out the killings on Monday night in the village of Barborab, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital Wad Madani.