Hamas officials say Gaza war deaths top 24,000

Relatives mourn over one body during the funeral of Ahmed and Jalal Jabarin, who were shot dead by Israeli troops when their car broke through a checkpoint near the city of Hebron, in the southern West Bank village of Sair, east of Hebron, on January 15, 2024. (AFP)
Relatives mourn over one body during the funeral of Ahmed and Jalal Jabarin, who were shot dead by Israeli troops when their car broke through a checkpoint near the city of Hebron, in the southern West Bank village of Sair, east of Hebron, on January 15, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 15 January 2024
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Hamas officials say Gaza war deaths top 24,000

Hamas officials say Gaza war deaths top 24,000
  • A missile struck a US-owned cargo ship off Yemen on Monday, a British security agency and maritime risk company said, a day after the Houthis fired a cruise missile at an American destroyer
  • United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres again called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, “to ensure sufficient aid gets to where it is needed

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Health officials in Hamas-run Gaza reported on Monday more than 24,000 deaths in the war with Israel which has rocked the region, and militants released a video announcing the death of two Israeli hostages.
Deadly violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, exchanges of fire over Israel’s border with Lebanon, and strikes by United States forces and Iran-backed Yemeni rebels in the Red Sea, have all raised fears of an escalation beyond the Gaza Strip.
The war, sparked by unprecedented Hamas attacks on Israel, has created a humanitarian catastrophe for the 2.4 million people in the besieged strip, the United Nations and aid groups warn, and reduced much of the territory to rubble.
The health ministry in Gaza, ruled by Hamas since 2007, reported more than 60 “martyrs” overnight, in what the group’s media office described as “intense” Israeli bombardment.
The Hamas government media office said two hospitals, a girls’ school and “dozens” of homes were hit.
In a statement released with the video, Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades blamed “the Zionist army’s bombing” for the death of two male hostages.
The video showed a woman hostage, speaking under duress, revealing that two men she was held captive with had been killed in captivity.
Hospitals in Gaza have been hit repeatedly since the war erupted, and the World Health Organization (WHO) says most of them are no longer functioning.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas militants of operating out of civilian facilities or from tunnels under them, a charge the Islamist group denies.
AFPTV footage showed smoke billowing over Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, as explosions could be heard from nearby Rafah, on the territory’s southern border with Egypt.
Israel’s army said it had struck “two terrorists loading weapons into a vehicle” in Khan Yunis, raided “a Hamas command center” there and seized weapons.
In central Israel, which has been largely spared the current violence, a suspected car ramming attack on Monday killed one woman and injured 17 other people, medics said, and police arrested two Palestinian suspects.

Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack that triggered the war resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 132 of whom Israel says remain in Gaza, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched a relentless military campaign that has killed at least 24,100 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
The UN says more than three months of fighting have displaced roughly 85 percent of Gaza’s population, crowded into shelters and struggling to get food, water, fuel and medical care.
As temperatures plunge, families living in makeshift tents in Rafah have resorted to burning plastic to ward off the chill, despite the noxious fumes.
“At night, I feel like we’re going to die from the cold,” said Haneen Adwan, 31, a mother of six children who was forced to flee from central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres again called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, “to ensure sufficient aid gets to where it is needed. To facilitate the release of the hostages. To tamp down the flames of wider war,” he said.
Echoing earlier warnings of a fast-approaching famine, UN agencies earlier called on Israel to allow access to its Ashdod port, north of Gaza, for critical aid deliveries.
They sought “a fundamental step change in the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” arguing current levels are far below what is needed.
On Sunday, thousands of Palestinians swamped two aid trucks delivering flour and tinned food to warehouses in Gaza City, an AFP correspondent said.
“We are only eating rice, but rice is not enough for a human being,” said 53-year-old Omar Al-Shandogi.
Israel has faced international pressure over surging civilian casualties in Gaza, with King Abdullah II of neighboring Jordan warning on Monday that continuing Israeli attacks could cause the conflict to expand across the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under intense domestic pressure to return the hostages and account for political and security failings surrounding the October 7 attacks.
Hagit Chen said it was “hard to live, to sleep, to breathe, to eat” because she has heard nothing from her son Itay, 19, since Hamas took him captive on October 7.
“The hostages have no time. Everyone is ill and injured,” she said in Berlin, where hostage relatives met German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday.
Violence involving regional allies of Iran-backed Hamas — considered a “terrorist” group by the United States and the European Union — has surged since the war began.
Attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who say they act in solidarity with Gaza, have disrupted shipping in the vital Red Sea maritime trade route, triggering strikes on scores of rebel targets last Friday by US and British forces.
A missile struck a US-owned cargo ship off Yemen on Monday, a British security agency and maritime risk company said, a day after the Houthis fired a cruise missile at an American destroyer. US warplanes shot that missile down.
Since October, violence has also surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where three Palestinians were killed Monday in separate clashes with the Israeli army, the Palestinian health ministry said.
International efforts to avoid escalation will see Australia’s top diplomat Penny Wong in the region this week to support “diplomatic efforts toward a durable peace in the Middle East,” her office said.
In Turkiye, a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, authorities have accused Israeli footballer Sagiv Jehezkel of “incitement to hate and hostility” over a goal celebration.
Jehezkel, who left the country on Monday after being sacked by his Turkish team, showed a message written on a wrist bandage, which read “100 days. 07/10” along with a Star of David.
In a testimony to the police, Jehezkel said he wanted to call attention to the hostages taken by Hamas.
 

 

 


Iran offers to cap sensitive uranium stock as IAEA resolution looms

Iran offers to cap sensitive uranium stock as IAEA resolution looms
Updated 4 sec ago
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Iran offers to cap sensitive uranium stock as IAEA resolution looms

Iran offers to cap sensitive uranium stock as IAEA resolution looms
  • Tehran has enough material at up to 60 percent purity for four bombs
  • Offer conditional on no resolution against Iran, diplomats say
VIENNA: Iran has tried in vain to prevent a Western push for a resolution against it at the UN nuclear watchdog’s board meeting by offering to cap its stock of uranium just shy of weapons grade, the watchdog and diplomats said on Tuesday.
One of two confidential International Atomic Energy Agency reports to member states, both seen by Reuters, said Iran had offered not to expand its stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity, near the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade, and had made preparations to do that.
The offer is conditional, however, on Western powers abandoning their push for a resolution against Iran at this week’s quarterly meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors over its lack of cooperation with the IAEA, diplomats said, adding that the push was continuing regardless.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot that the push from France, Germany and Britain to submit a resolution against Tehran would “complicate matters” and contradict the “positive atmosphere created between Iran and the IAEA,” the Iranian foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
During IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s trip to Iran last week, “the possibility of Iran not further expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 percent U-235 was discussed,” read one of the two quarterly IAEA reports.
It added that the IAEA had verified Iran had “begun implementation of preparatory measures.” A senior diplomat added that the pace of enrichment to that level had slowed, a step necessary before stopping.
Western diplomats dismissed Iran’s overture as yet another last-minute attempt to avoid censure at a board meeting, much like a vague pledge of deeper cooperation with the IAEA in March of last year that was never fully implemented.
“Stopping enriching to 60 percent, great, they shouldn’t be doing that in the first place as we all know there’s no credible civilian use for the 60 percent,” one Western diplomat said, adding: “It’s something they could switch back on again easily.”
Iran’s offer was to cap the stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent at around 185 kg, or the amount it had two days ago, a senior diplomat said. That is enough in principle, if enriched further, for four nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
The report said Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent had grown by 17.6 kg in the past quarter to 182.3 kg as of Oct. 26, also enough for four weapons by that measure.

Inspectors
The second report said Iran had also agreed to consider allowing four more “experienced inspectors” to work in Iran after it barred most of the IAEA’s inspectors who are experts in enrichment last year in what the IAEA called a “very serious blow” to its ability to do its job properly in Iran.
Diplomats said they could not be the same inspectors that were barred.
The reports were delayed by Grossi’s trip, during which he hoped to persuade Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian to end a standoff with the IAEA over long-running issues like unexplained uranium traces at undeclared sites and extending IAEA oversight to more areas.
The draft resolution backed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States condemning Iran for its poor cooperation with the IAEA would also task the IAEA with issuing a “comprehensive report” on Iran’s nuclear activities, diplomats said.
There is little doubt the board will pass the resolution, due to be formally submitted on Tuesday evening for a vote later this week. The last resolution against Iran was in June. Only Russia and China opposed it.
The aim is to pressure Iran to return to the negotiating table to agree fresh restrictions on its nuclear activities since a 2015 deal with far-ranging curbs fell apart. Although most of its terms have been broken, the deal’s “termination day” formally lifting them is in October of next year.
It is the last quarterly board meeting before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal in 2018, which prompted its unraveling. It is far from clear if he would back talks with Iran, having pledged instead to again take a more confrontational approach and align Washington even more closely with Iran’s arch-foe Israel, which opposed the deal.

Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades

Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades
Updated 43 min 36 sec ago
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Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades

Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades
  • The census will be the first to employ advanced technologies for gathering and analyzing data, providing a comprehensive picture of Iraq’s demographic, social, and economic landscape

BAGHDAD: Iraq began its first nationwide population census in decades Wednesday, a step aimed at modernizing data collection and planning in a country long impacted by conflict and political divisions.
The act of counting the population is also contentious. The census is expected to have profound implications for Iraq’s resource distribution, budget allocations and development planning.
Minority groups fear that a documented decline in their numbers will bring decreased political influence and fewer economic benefits in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system.
The count in territories such as Kirkuk, Diyala and Mosul — where control is disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in the north — has drawn intense scrutiny.
Ali Arian Saleh, the executive director of the census at the Ministry of Planning, said agreements on how to conduct the count in the disputed areas were reached in meetings involving Iraq’s prime minister, president and senior officials from the Kurdish region.
“Researchers from all major ethnic groups — Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and Christians — will conduct the census in these areas to ensure fairness,” he said.
The last nationwide census in Iraq was held in 1987. Another one held in 1997 excluded the Kurdish region.
The new census “charts a developmental map for the future and sends a message of stability,” Planning Minister Mohammed Tamim said in a televised address.
The census will be the first to employ advanced technologies for gathering and analyzing data, providing a comprehensive picture of Iraq’s demographic, social, and economic landscape, offiials say. Some 120,000 census workers will survey households across the country, covering approximately 160 housing units each over two days.
The Interior Ministry announced a nationwide curfew during the census period, restricting movement of citizens, vehicles and trains between cities, districts and rural areas, with exceptions for humanitarian cases.
The count will be carried out using the “de jure” method, in which people are counted in their usual area of residence, Saleh said.
That means that people internally displaced by years of war will be counted in the areas where they have since settled, not in their original communities. The census will not include Iraqis residing abroad or those forcibly displaced to other countries.
Saleh estimated Iraq’s population at 44.5 million and said the Kurdish region’s share of the national budget — currently 12 percent — is based on an estimated population of 6 million. The census will also clarify the number of public employees in the region.
By order of Iraq’s federal court, the census excluded questions about ethnicity and sectarian affiliation, focusing solely on broad religious categories such as Muslim and Christian.
“This approach is intended to prevent tensions and ensure the census serves developmental rather than divisive goals,” Saleh said. The census will be monitored by international observers who will travel across Iraq’s provinces to assess the data quality, he said.
Hogr Chato, director of the Irbil-based Public Aid Organization, said the census will reshape the map of political thinking and future decision making.
“Even though some leaders deny it, the data will inevitably have political and economic implications,” he said. “It’s also fair to allocate budgets based on population numbers, as areas with larger populations or those impacted by war need more resources.”
Chato said he believes the delays in conducting the census were not only due to security concerns but also political considerations. “There was data they didn’t want to make public, such as poverty levels in each governorate,” he said.
Ahead of the census, leaders in Iraq’s various communities urged people to be counted.
In Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, Abdul Wahhab Al-Samarrai, preacher at Imam Abu Hanifa Mosque, urged citizens to cooperate with the census.
“This is a duty for every Muslim to ensure the rights of future generations,” he said in a Friday sermon the week before the count.


UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear

UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear
Updated 20 November 2024
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UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear

UN to vote again on Gaza ceasefire, US plans unclear
  • The few resolutions that the United States did allow to pass by abstaining stopped short of calling for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire
  • The latest draft of the resolution demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hamas

United Nations: The UN Security Council is expected to vote Wednesday on another draft resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in its latest attempt to exert pressure to end the war.
But the draft could be blocked by the United States, Israel’s main ally.
The latest draft of the resolution demands “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hamas and “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
The wording has angered Israel and raised fears of a US veto.
Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon has called the text “shameful,” adding: “We cannot allow the UN to tie the hands of the State of Israel from protecting its citizens, and we will not stop fighting until we return all the kidnapped men and women home.”
“For us, it has to be a linkage between a ceasefire and the release of hostages,” said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador. “It has been our principle position from the beginning and it still remains.”
The war was triggered by Palestinian group Hamas’s assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, a stunning cross-border raid that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll from the resulting war had reached 43,972 people, the majority civilians. The United Nations considers the figures reliable.
Of 251 hostages seized during the October 7 attack, 97 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Almost all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced by the war, which has caused a humanitarian catastrophe.
Since the beginning of the war, the Security Council has struggled to speak with one voice, as the United States used its veto power several times, although Russia and China have as well.
The few resolutions that the United States did allow to pass by abstaining stopped short of calling for an unconditional and permanent ceasefire.
In March, the council called for a temporary ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but this appeal was ignored by the warring parties.
In June, the council pledged support for a multi-stage US ceasefire and hostage release plan that went nowhere.
Some diplomats have expressed hope that following Donald Trump’s election win on November 5, President Joe Biden might be more flexible in the few weeks he has left in power.
They imagined a possible repeat of events in December 2016 when then-president Barack Obama was finishing his second term and the council passed a resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlement building in the occupied territories, a first since 1979.
The United States refrained from using its veto in this case, a break from traditional US support for Israel on the sensitive issue of settlements.
The draft being voted on Wednesday also calls for “safe and unhindered entry of humanitarian assistance at scale,” including in besieged northern Gaza, and denounces any attempt to starve the Palestinians.
The Palestinian delegation at the UN has suggested this text does not go far enough.
“Gaza’s fate will haunt the world for generations to come,” ambassador Riyad Mansour warned.
He said the only course of action for the council is to call for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire under Chapter 7 of the UN charter.
That chapter allows the council to take steps to enforce its resolutions, such as sanctions, but the latest text makes no reference to this option.


Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
Updated 20 November 2024
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Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
  • During Oct. 7, 2023 attack which triggered war in Gaza, Hamas took 251 hostages
  • Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a hostage held in Gaza.
“Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
“We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage.”
Wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket, Netanyahu spoke with his back to the Mediterranean in the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s main military supply route which carves the Gaza Strip in two just south of Gaza City.
“Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead — we will pursue you and we will catch up with you,” he said.
Accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu underlined that one of Israel’s war aims remained that “Hamas does not rule in Gaza.”
“We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won’t give up. We will continue until we’ve found them all, alive or dead.”
During Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, militants took 251 hostages. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead.


Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
Updated 20 November 2024
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Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed

Netanyahu says Israel offering $5 mn reward for each Gaza hostage freed
  • “Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu says

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a hostage held in Gaza.
“Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
“We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage.”
Wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket, Netanyahu spoke with his back to the Mediterranean in the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s main military supply route which carves the Gaza Strip in two just south of Gaza City.
“Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead — we will pursue you and we will catch up with you,” he said.
Accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu underlined that one of Israel’s war aims remained that “Hamas does not rule in Gaza.”
“We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won’t give up. We will continue until we’ve found them all, alive or dead.”
During Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, militants took 251 hostages. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead.