Netanyahu vows ‘complete victory’ as more bombs hit Gaza

An Israeli artillery unit fires, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, near the Israel-Gaza border, in southern Israel, January 6, 2024. (REUTERS)
An Israeli artillery unit fires, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, near the Israel-Gaza border, in southern Israel, January 6, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 07 January 2024
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Netanyahu vows ‘complete victory’ as more bombs hit Gaza

Netanyahu vows ‘complete victory’ as more bombs hit Gaza
  • Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the conflict as the scale of the destruction has triggered mass displacement and a deepening humanitarian crisis
  • The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israel kept up its bombing of Gaza on Saturday as its war on Hamas approached its fourth month, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to achieve “complete victory” over the Palestinian militants.
AFP correspondents reported Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter from the fighting.
Victims of the bombardment were brought to the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered.
One of them, Mohamed Awad, wept over the body of a 12-year-old boy and counted the deaths in his family.




Relatives and supporters hold placards bearing portraits of Israeli hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, during a rally calling for their release, in Tel Aviv on December 30, 2023. (AFP)

“My brother, his wife, his children, his relatives and the brothers of his wife — there are more than 20 martyrs,” Awad, a journalist, told AFP.
A defiant Netanyahu vowed that Israel would continue its campaign to “eliminate Hamas, return our hostages and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel.”
“We have to put everything aside... until the complete victory is achieved,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.

Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israel had “completed the dismantling of the Hamas military framework in the northern Gaza Strip” and would now focus on the center and the south.
The war was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel launched by Hamas on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.




Israeli military excavators demolish the house of the Palestinian Shuqairat family, which was reportedly built without a construction permit, in the Jabal Mukaber neighbourhood of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on January 3, 2024. (AFP)

The militants also took around 250 hostages, 132 of whom remain in captivity, according to Israel, including at least 24 believed to have been killed.
In response, Israel is carrying out a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least 22,722 people, most of them women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
In a statement on Saturday, the ministry said it had recorded more than 120 deaths over the past 24 hours.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant presented Israel’s first plan for the “day after” on Thursday, though it has not yet been adopted by Israel’s war cabinet.
However, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official said on Saturday that Gaza’s future “is determined by the Palestinian people, not Israel.”
“All scenarios proposed by the occupation politicians and leaders are doomed to fail,” said Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the PLO executive committee.

Top Western diplomats were in the region on Saturday as part of a fresh push to boost the flow of aid into Gaza and address mounting fears of a wider conflict.
In Beirut, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell met a senior figure in the political wing of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah as part of efforts to Lebanon being drawn into the war, an EU source confirmed.
Borrell held talks with the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, Lebanese media reported.
The EU is “engaging in diplomatic dialogue with all relevant political representatives who have influence on the situation on the ground or have a stake in it,” the EU source said.
The Hamas-allied Hezbollah movement has been trading near-daily fire with Israeli forces since early October and earlier fired a barrage of dozens of rockets at an Israeli military base in response to the killing of a senior Hamas figure in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut on Tuesday.
Before heading to Saudi Arabia, Borrell called for a redoubling of peace efforts.
“Israel has declared a goal to eradicate Hamas. There must be another way to eradicate Hamas that doesn’t... create so many people getting killed,” he said.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Greece as part of a tour that will take him to several Arab states ahead of talks in Israel and the occupied West Bank next week.
Blinken said he wants to make sure the conflict in the Middle East “doesn’t spread.”
“One of the real concerns is the border between Israel and Lebanon, and we want to do everything possible to make sure we see no escalation,” he added.
Hezbollah said it had targeted the Israeli military’s Meron air control base with 62 missiles in its “initial response” to the killing of Saleh Al-Aruri, Hamas’s deputy leader, in Beirut.
The Israeli army reported “approximately 40 launches from Lebanon” and said it struck Hezbollah “military sites” in response.
By the afternoon, warning sirens had sounded seven times in northern Israel, the military said.
Contacted by AFP, a military spokesperson confirmed the mountaintop base had been targeted but did not say whether it was damaged. There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the conflict as the scale of the destruction has triggered mass displacement and a deepening humanitarian crisis.
With swathes of the territory reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths on Friday said “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable.”
The World Health Organization says the majority of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages.
In the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah, men clambered carefully around the concrete ruins and twisted rebar where Mohammad Al-Attar’s house stood before rockets that he blamed on Israel destroyed it.
“There was no prior warning or anything,” Attar said, his hands stained grey from the debris. “There’s still the corpse of a little girl” underneath.
Akram El-Shafei, a journalist, died at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis from wounds sustained in Gaza City in November.
Shafei’s condition had initially improved, said relative Magda El-Shafei, but he “needed treatment” and there was “nothing” available.
“He’s gone,” she told AFP.
The World Health Organization says the majority of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages.
 


Yemen’s government shuts down unlicensed exchange firms to stop riyal devaluation

Yemen’s government shuts down unlicensed exchange firms to stop riyal devaluation
Updated 44 min 20 sec ago
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Yemen’s government shuts down unlicensed exchange firms to stop riyal devaluation

Yemen’s government shuts down unlicensed exchange firms to stop riyal devaluation
  • Local money traders and media said that the riyal was trading at 2050 against the dollar
  • Yemeni government closed dozens of exchange firms in Aden, Yemen’s interim capital, Hadramout, Shabwa, and Mahra that lack or have expired licenses

AL-MUKALLA: The Yemeni riyal stabilized on Monday near its all-time low of 2050 against the dollar in government-controlled areas, as the Yemeni government launched a campaign targeting unlicensed exchange firms.

Local money traders and media said that the riyal was trading at 2050 against the dollar, maintaining the same record low, days after breaking the historic low of 2000 against the dollar. In early 2015, the Yemeni riyal was worth 215 per dollar.

This comes as the Yemeni government closed dozens of exchange firms in Aden, Yemen’s interim capital, Hadramout, Shabwa, and Mahra that lack or have expired licenses.

Local officials, escorted by armed policemen, were seen in the streets of Aden, Al-Mukalla in Hadramout, Attaq in Shabwa, and Al-Ghaydah in Mahra province, inspecting exchange firms and shops’ licenses and closing the doors of unlicensed firms to slow the devaluation of the Yemeni riyal.

The Yemeni government has long accused local money traders of engaging in currency speculation, which resulted in the Yemeni riyal’s rapid devaluation.

Another reason for the devaluation, according to the Yemeni government, is the Houthis’ attacks on oil terminals in Hadramout and Shabwa in late 2022, which resulted in a complete halt to oil exports.

Saleh Fadaeq, the head of the central bank branch in Shabwa, said on Monday that the campaign against unauthorized exchange firms would continue to stop the Yemeni riyal’s devaluation, end currency speculation, and combat money laundering, according to the official news agency SABA.

The Presidential Leadership Council and the Yemeni government have recently requested financial assistance from international donors to help stabilize the Yemeni riyal, pay employees, and fund critical projects.

Yemenis across the political and social spectrum have warned of a major humanitarian crisis in Yemen, as the rapid devaluation of the riyal has driven up the prices of food, fuel, and other essential commodities, pushing people deeper into poverty.

Ismael Al-Sharabi wrote on Facebook that the riyal’s depreciation is causing “a humanitarian crisis,” with the prices for basic food items reaching unprecedented highs. He urged the Yemeni government to quickly bring under control the riyal’s fall.

“A tomato now costs 1,000 riyals. This is a humanitarian disaster and a historical curse that has befallen these people, who are now fighting death to survive, swallowing all burdens, high prices, and extreme poverty,” Al-Sharabi said.

High prices caused by the riyal’s devaluation have sparked violent protests in Aden and Al-Mukalla, as well as other Yemeni cities under government control, over the last several years.

Mustafa Nasr, director of the Studies and Economic Media Center, said the government’s campaign against unlicensed exchange firms did not lead to the riyal’s recovery as it only targeted small firms and not the large exchange firms that control the market, calling for stricter government measures to prevent the riyal’s fall.

“The exchange sector has become disorganized, bloated, and has sufficient liquidity to influence the exchange market,” Nasr told Arab News.

In its most recent report on the Yemeni economy, released late last month, the World Bank depicted a bleak economy in 2025, saying that Yemen’s gross domestic product is expected to fall by 1 percent in 2024, compared to a 2 percent drop last year.

Sixty percent of Yemenis have insufficient access to food due to an unprecedented level of insecurity brought about by the war, and the Houthis’ attacks on oil terminals slashed 42 percent of the government’s revenues, making it difficult for it to provide public services and devaluing the Yemeni riyal, according to the World Bank.


Syrian state media reports Israeli strike south of Damascus

Syrian state media reports Israeli strike south of Damascus
Updated 23 min 58 sec ago
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Syrian state media reports Israeli strike south of Damascus

Syrian state media reports Israeli strike south of Damascus
  • The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported at least three strikes in the area

DAMASCUS: Syrian state media reported Israeli strikes on Monday near the Sayyeda Zeinab area south of Damascus, home to an important Shiite sanctuary and guarded by pro-Iranian groups, including Hezbollah.
"At approximately 5:18 pm (14:15 GMT), the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, targeting a number of civilian sites south of Damascus, which led to some material losses," the official SANA news agency said, citing a military source.
Mehdi Mahfouz, a 34-year-old resident of the area, said he "heard three successive explosions, one of which was very strong."
"Then I saw a large black cloud of smoke rising," Mahfouz added.
The blasts were heard in the neighbouring Jaramana suburb of Damascus, according to an AFP photographer, as ambulances headed to the area.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported at least three strikes in the area.
The targets include a house "used by members of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," the monitor added, saying it is located in a farm in the Sayyeda Zeinab area.
Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on Syria since it launched its war on Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.


Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids

Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids
Updated 04 November 2024
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Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids

Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids
  • The war has unleashed hunger across the country, erased most signs of a functioning state in RSF-held areas, and prompted fears of fragmentation

NEW HALFA: Salwa Abdallah was recuperating from a caesarean section and tending to her one-month old baby when soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces barged into her home in Sudan’s eastern El Gezira state late last month.
They accused her of loyalty to the army and its allies, their rivals in an 18-month war. “They said ‘You killed us, so today we’ll kill you and rape your girls,’” she told Reuters, sheltering under a makeshift sheet in the town of New Halfa, where she arrived after walking for days on foot with her elderly mother and children.
She said the soldiers chased them out of their village with whips and later shot at them on motorcycles, which two other victims of the attack also mentioned.
Reuters spoke to 13 victims of a series of intense, violent raids in eastern Gezira over the past two weeks, which affected at least 65 villages and towns according to activists.
The UN says some 135,000 people have been displaced, largely to Kassala, Gedaref, and River Nile states, which are already packed with many of the more than 11 million internally displaced by the devastating war that broke out in April 2023.
“I am shocked and deeply appalled that human rights violations of the kind witnessed in Darfur last year ... are being repeated in El Gezira State. These are atrocious crimes,” said the UN’s top official in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, referring to attacks last year that prompted accusations of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity from the United States and others.
The war has unleashed hunger across the country, erased most signs of a functioning state in RSF-held areas, and prompted fears of fragmentation.
Both sides are accused of hindering much needed international assistance.
Spokespersons from the RSF and Sudanese army did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

REVENGE ATTACKS
Though El Gezira state has been subject to a violent looting campaign since the RSF took control in December, the defection of its chief in the state unleashed a series of revenge attacks.
The Wad Madani Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy group, named 169 people killed since the violence began on Oct. 20, though in a statement it said there were hundreds more.
The UN’s human rights office said last week that there were at least 25 cases of sexual violence, including an 11 year-old girl who died as a result. The office also said that the RSF had confiscated Internet devices in at least 30 villages, and cited reports they had burnt fields of crops.
The worst incident was in Al-Sireha, where the committee said 124 people were killed on Oct. 25.
Video verified by Reuters showed RSF soldiers lining up men, many of them elderly, and some in blood-splattered clothes, taunting them and forcing them to bleat.
Another video verified by Reuters showed dozens of bodies wrapped up in sheets for burial.
The RSF has denied ordering both attacks, and said the attacks in Gezira were the result of the army arming local communities.
The army has responded by emphasising popular resistance campaigns, though there has been little evidence of widescale arming of civilians in Gezira.
The Sudanese Human Rights Monitor warned the army against “leaving civilians ... exposed to direct and disproportionate confrontations with the RSF,” which it criticized for not fulfilling promises to protect civilians.
Hashim Bashir, a man disabled after his leg was amputated prior to the war, said RSF soldiers threw him out of his home in Al-Nayb village.
“They are very vicious... If you survive their gunshots, they hit you in your head. If you survive that, they beat you with a whip,” he said, showing scars on his functioning leg.
His niece, Faiza Mohammed, said the RSF soldiers allowed them to take nothing with them, even identifying documents.
“I hid under the bed, but they got me, beat me, and pulled my earring straight off my ear,” she said.


‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season

‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season
Updated 04 November 2024
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‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season

‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season
  • Agricultural regions in Lebanon have been caught in the crossfire since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah ramped up in October last year, a full-scale war breaking out on September 23

BEIRUT: Lebanese farmer Abu Taleb briefly returned to his orchard last month to salvage an avocado harvest but ran away empty handed as soon as Israeli air raids began.
“The war broke out just before the first harvest season,” said Abu Taleb, displaced from the village of Tayr Debba near the southern city Tyre.
“When I went back in mid-October, it was deserted... it was scary,” said the father of two, who is now sheltering in Tripoli more than 160 kilometers to the north and asked to be identified by a pseudonym because of security concerns.
Abu Taleb said his harvesting attempt was interrupted by an Israeli raid on the neighboring town of Markaba.
He was forced back to Tripoli without the avocados he usually exports every year.
Agricultural regions in Lebanon have been caught in the crossfire since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah ramped up in October last year, a full-scale war breaking out on September 23.
The UN’s agriculture agency, FAO, said more than 1,909 hectares of farmland in south Lebanon had been damaged or left unharvested between October last year and September 28.
The conflict has also displaced more than half a million people, including farmers who abandoned their crops just when they were ready to harvest.
Hani Saad had to abandon 120 hectares of farmland in the southern region of Nabatiyeh, which is rich in citrus and avocado plantations.
“If the ceasefire takes place within a month, I can save the harvest, otherwise, the whole season is ruined,” said Saad who has been displaced to the coastal city of Jounieh, north of Beirut.
When an Israeli strike sparked a fire in one of Saad’s orchards, he had to pay out of his own pocket for the fuel of the fire engine that extinguished the blaze.
His employees, meanwhile, have fled. Of 32 workers, 28 have left, mainly to neighboring Syria.


Israeli strikes have put at least two land crossings with Syria out of service, blocking a key export route for produce and crops.
Airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon as insurance costs soar.
This has dealt a deadly blow to agricultural exports, most of which are destined for Gulf Arab states.
Fruit exporter Chadi Kaadan said exports to the Gulf have dropped by more than 50 percent.
The supply surplus in the local market has caused prices to plummet at home, he added.
“In the end, it is the farmer who loses,” said Saad who used to earn $5000 a day before the war started.
Today, he barely manages $300.
While avocados can stay on the tree for months, they are starting to run out of water following Israeli strikes on irrigation channels, Saad said.
Citrus fruits and cherimoyas have already started to fall.
“The war has ruined me. I spend my time in front of the TV waiting for a ceasefire so I can return to my livelihood,” Saad told AFP.
Gaby Hage, a resident of the Christian town of Rmeish, on the border with Israel, is one of the few farmers who decided to stay in south Lebanon.
He has only been able to harvest 100 of his 350 olive trees, which were left untended for a year because of cross-border strikes.
“I took advantage of a slight lull in the fighting to pick what I could,” he told AFP.
Hage said agriculture was a lifeline for the inhabitants of his town, which has been cut off by the war.
Ibrahim Tarchichi, president of the farmers’ union in the Bekaa Valley, which was hit hard by the strikes, believes that agriculture in Lebanon is going through the “worst phase” of its recent history.
“I have experienced four wars, it has never been this serious,” he said.


Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack

Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack
Updated 25 min 17 sec ago
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Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack

Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack
  • Governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh Laila Ghannam: ‘Attacks are increasing because of impunity’ for attackers
  • Some 490,000 settlers live in settlements considered illegal under international law in the West Bank

AL-BIREH: Israeli settlers torched nearly 20 cars early Monday in the occupied West Bank city of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence and an Israeli security source.
An AFP journalist saw several cars completely charred, and the blackened facade of the five-story building outside which they were parked.
An alert rang “at 3:30am (0130 GMT) signalling that settlers entered the area and committed acts of vandalism,” said Rami Omar, head of the local civil defense office.
An Israeli security official told AFP notification of the incident came at 4:00 am and soldiers were sent who arrived on site after the settlers had gone.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said 19 vehicles had been burned by settlers.
Israeli police, soldiers and Shin Bet security agency officers collected evidence in Al-Bireh for the investigation, the official added.
Israeli authorities did not yet know where the settlers came from and what their motives were.
Ihab Al-Zabin, a resident of the damaged building, told AFP he saw the arsonists run away toward the nearby Israeli settlement of Beit El.
Zabin said he saw around 10 people he identified as settlers “pouring liquids on vehicles in front of the building and then setting them on fire.”
“I yelled from my apartment, and at that moment they ran away,” he said. “When I went down with my neighbors to put out the fire, settlers shot toward us.”
Abdullah Abu Rahmah from the Palestinian Commission against Settlements told AFP that the attackers belong to a group of arsonists who have attacked other nearby villages in the past.
Laila Ghannam, governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, told journalists at the scene “there could have been a massacre in this building,” which residents say housed more than 60 people.
“Attacks are increasing because of impunity” for attackers, she said.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
The UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said in August: “Between 1 and 28 October, OCHA documented nearly 270 settler-related incidents affecting Palestinians and their property.”
Some 490,000 settlers live in settlements considered illegal under international law in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
The territory is home to three million Palestinians.