Hamas, Islamic Jihad claim responsibility for bomb blast in Tel Aviv

Hamas, Islamic Jihad claim responsibility for bomb blast in Tel Aviv
Israeli security and emergency responders work at the site of a bomb blast in Tel Aviv, Israel. (File/Reuters)
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Updated 19 August 2024
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Hamas, Islamic Jihad claim responsibility for bomb blast in Tel Aviv

Hamas, Islamic Jihad claim responsibility for bomb blast in Tel Aviv
  • A man who was carrying the bomb was killed and a passerby was injured

TEL AVIV: The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility on Monday for a bomb blast near a synagogue in Tel Aviv that Israeli police and the Shin Bet intelligence agency described as a terrorist attack.
A man who was carrying the bomb was killed and a passerby was injured in the incident late on Sunday, according to police at the scene.
In their statement the Brigades added that their “martyrdom operations” inside Israel would return to the forefront as long as the “occupation’s massacres and assassination policy continue” — an allusion to Israel’s offensive in Gaza and the July 31 killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death in the Iranian capital.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7 last year when Hamas gunmen stormed across the border into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military campaign has since levelled wide swathes of the Gaza Strip and killed at least 40,000 people, according to the enclave’s health authorities.
Sunday’s explosion in Tel Aviv came about an hour after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv to push for a ceasefire in Gaza to end the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas.
There has been increased urgency to reach a ceasefire deal amid fears of an escalation across the wider region. Iran has threatened to retaliate against Israel after the assassination of Haniyeh.


Palestinians say Israeli forces kill two in West Bank raids

Palestinians say Israeli forces kill two in West Bank raids
Updated 5 sec ago
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Palestinians say Israeli forces kill two in West Bank raids

Palestinians say Israeli forces kill two in West Bank raids
  • The Israeli military has launched an intense assault on the Jenin area
  • Osama Abu Al-Hija was killed late on Tuesday in Jenin
  • Ayman Naji was killed in the northern city of Tulkarem “after being shot” by Israeli forces

RAMALLAH: The Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday that Israeli forces killed two people in separate overnight raids in the occupied West Bank, including one in Jenin, where the Israeli military is conducting a major offensive.
The Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement that a 25-year-old man it identified as Osama Abu Al-Hija was killed late on Tuesday in Jenin “as a result of an Israeli air strike.”
The military told AFP that an Israeli aircraft conducted a strike in Jenin on Tuesday night “after a terrorist threw an explosive device” toward troops.
The Israeli military has launched an intense assault on the Jenin area, now in its eighth day, to root out Palestinian militant groups.
On Monday it said it had “eliminated over 15 terrorists” and arrested 40 wanted people during the offensive.
Abu Al-Hija is the 16th person killed during the raid, which has caused many residents of Jenin refugee camp, the focus of the operation, to flee.
During a visit in the Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the operation — dubbed Iron Wall — was aimed at defeating “terror infrastructure” built “with funding and armament from Iran.”
“The Jenin refugee camp will not return to what it was — after the completion of the operation, the (Israeli army) will remain in the camp to ensure that terror does not return,” Katz added.
Katz’s office told AFP that Israeli forces would not remain in the area “forever” after the operation’s end.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, the health ministry also said a 23-year-old Palestinian man it identified as Ayman Naji was killed in the northern city of Tulkarem “after being shot” by Israeli forces.
The army told AFP it was looking into the details of both deaths.
Tulkarem, Jenin and their refugee camps are known as bastions of Palestinian militant groups, whose factions present themselves as a more effective alternative to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority in the fight against Israel.
Before the current Israeli operation, Jenin’s refugee camp was the site of a long operation by the Palestinian Authority’s security forces attempting to root out Palestinian militants affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups.
Violence has soared throughout the West Bank since the war between Hamas and Israel broke out in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 863 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 29 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to official Israeli figures.


El-Sisi says Egypt ‘cannot take part’ in forced displacement of Gazans

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said Wednesday that the forced displacement of Gazans is an “injustice.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said Wednesday that the forced displacement of Gazans is an “injustice.”
Updated 5 min 20 sec ago
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El-Sisi says Egypt ‘cannot take part’ in forced displacement of Gazans

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said Wednesday that the forced displacement of Gazans is an “injustice.”
  • “The constants of Egypt’s historic position on the Palestinian cause.... can never be compromised,” El-Sisi said

CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said Wednesday that the forced displacement of Gazans is an “injustice that we cannot take part in,” after US President Donald Trump floated a plan to move Palestinians from the territory to Egypt and Jordan.
“The constants of Egypt’s historic position on the Palestinian cause.... can never be compromised,” El-Sisi said during a news conference in Cairo with Kenyan President William Ruto.
El-Sisi said Egypt supported “the establishment of a Palestinian state and the preservation of its capabilities, particularly its people and its territory.”
He added that Egypt was “determined to work with President Trump, who seeks to achieve the desired peace based on the two-state solution.”
“We believe that President Trump is capable of fulfilling this long-awaited goal of establishing a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
After the Israel-Hamas ceasefire came into force on January 19, Trump touted a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip, reiterating the idea on Monday as he called for Palestinians to move to “safer” locations such as Egypt or Jordan.
The US president has repeatedly claimed credit for sealing the truce deal after months of fruitless negotiations.


Syria demands Israel pullout from Golan: state media

Syria demands Israel pullout from Golan: state media
Updated 29 January 2025
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Syria demands Israel pullout from Golan: state media

Syria demands Israel pullout from Golan: state media
  • Syria is also ready to redeploy forces to the Golan in line with a 1974 agreement
  • Israel sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone on December 8, the day Assad was toppled

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities on Wednesday urged Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory it occupied in the Golan Heights after president Bashar Assad’s ousting, during talks with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, state media reported.
During Lacroix’s meeting with Syria’s foreign and defense ministers, “it was confirmed that Syria is ready to fully cooperate with the UN,” the SANA news agency said.
Syria is also ready to redeploy forces to the Golan in line with a 1974 agreement establishing a buffer zone “provided Israeli forces withdraw immediately,” SANA added.
Israel sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone on December 8, the day Assad was toppled.
Israel seized most of the mountainous plateau from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and annexed it in 1981. The UN-patrolled buffer zone was intended to keep Israeli and Syrian forces apart.
Forces loyal to Assad’s government had abandoned their positions in southern Syria before rebel groups even reached Damascus, leading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to say there was a “vacuum on Israel’s border.”
The United Nations considers Israel’s takeover of the buffer zone a violation of the 1974 disengagement accord.
During his visit, Lacroix was to meet peacekeepers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which monitors compliance with the deal.
In December, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to “prepare to remain” in the buffer zone throughout winter.
On Tuesday, he said troops would remain “at the top of Mount Hermon and in the security zone indefinitely to protect Golan communities, the north and all Israeli citizens.”
Mount Hermon straddles Syria and Lebanon, overlooking the Golan Heights.
“We will not allow hostile forces to establish themselves in the security zone in southern Syria,” he said.


UNRWA Lebanon says not impacted by US aid freeze or new Israeli law

UNRWA Lebanon says not impacted by US aid freeze or new Israeli law
Updated 29 January 2025
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UNRWA Lebanon says not impacted by US aid freeze or new Israeli law

UNRWA Lebanon says not impacted by US aid freeze or new Israeli law
  • Klaus said there was “no direct impact” on the agency’s Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
  • “UNRWA will continue fully operating in Lebanon“

BEIRUT: The director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon said on Wednesday that the agency had not been affected by US President Donald Trump’s halt to US foreign aid funding or by an Israeli ban on its operations.
“UNRWA currently is not receiving any US funding so there is no direct impact of the more recent decisions related to the UN system for UNRWA,” Dorothee Klaus told reporters at UNRWA’s field office in Lebanon.
US funding to UNRWA was suspended last year until March 2025 under a deal reached by US lawmakers and after Israel accused 12 of the agency’s 13,000 employees in Gaza of participating in the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war.
The UN has said it had fired nine UNRWA staff who may have been involved and said it would investigate all accusations made.
Klaus said that UNRWA Lebanon had also placed four staff members on administrative leave as it investigated allegations they had breached the UN principle of neutrality.
One UNRWA teacher had already been suspended last year and a Hamas commander in Lebanon — killed in September in an Israeli strike — was found to have had an UNRWA job.
Klaus also said there was “no direct impact” on the agency’s Lebanon operations from a new Israeli law banning UNRWA operations in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and that “UNRWA will continue fully operating in Lebanon.”
The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA’s operation on Israeli land — including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally — and contact with Israeli authorities from Jan. 30.
UNRWA provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighboring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Its commissioner general Philippe Lazzarini said on Tuesday that UNRWA has been the target of a “fierce disinformation campaign” to “portray the agency as a terrorist organization.”


Hamas accuses Israel of delaying Gaza aid

Hamas accuses Israel of delaying Gaza aid
Updated 27 min 13 sec ago
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Hamas accuses Israel of delaying Gaza aid

Hamas accuses Israel of delaying Gaza aid
  • Two senior Hamas officials accused Israel of slowing down aid deliveries
  • Israel hit back at the accusation, with a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, calling it “totally fake news“

JERUSALEM: Hamas officials accused Israel on Wednesday of delaying aid deliveries to Gaza and jeopardizing a truce and hostage release deal, an allegation Israel dismissed as “fake news.”
Since a ceasefire in the war in Gaza took effect on January 19, truckloads of aid have been allowed into the devastated Gaza Strip.
The truce is hinged on the release of Israeli hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, in exchange for 1,900 people held in Israeli jails.
Hamas has so far released seven hostages, with 290 prisoners freed in exchange. Three more hostages are due to be released on Thursday.
But two senior Hamas officials accused Israel of slowing down aid deliveries, with one citing items key to Gaza’s recovery such as fuel, tents, heavy machinery and other equipment.
“According to the agreement, these materials were supposed to enter during the first week of the ceasefire,” one official said.
“We warn that continued delays and failure to address these points will affect the natural progression of the agreement, including the prisoner exchange.”
Israel hit back at the accusation, with a spokesman for COGAT, the Israeli defense ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, calling it “totally fake news.”
Between Sunday and 1100 GMT on Wednesday, “3,000 trucks entered Gaza,” the spokesman said.
“The agreement says it should be 4,200 in seven days,” he added.
As the text of the agreement that Qatar, Egypt and the United States mediated has not been made public, AFP was not able to verify its terms on aid.
Both Hamas officials said group representatives raised the issue during a meeting with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Wednesday.
If all goes to plan on the hostage and prisoner releases on Thursday, a further three hostages are set to be released on Saturday.
The agreement is intended to end more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas that erupted with the militant group’s attack on Israel in 2023.
The two sides are currently implementing the first 42-day phase of the agreement, which should see 33 hostages freed.
Next, they are due to start discussing a long-term end to the war.
The third and final phase of the deal should see the reconstruction of Gaza as well as the return of the bodies of any remaining dead hostages.
The families of people still held in Gaza were holding out hope the truce would hold, with hundreds of people attending a rally in Tel Aviv on Wednesday to show support.
“We have to be optimistic. We have to keep on trying and not give up,” 27-year-old Shakked Fainsod said.
“If their families keep on fighting, then I don’t have the privilege to stay home and not keep fighting as well.”
Despite the devastation wrought by the war, more than 376,000 displaced Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA.
“I’m happy to be back at my home,” said Saif Al-Din Qazaat, who returned to northern Gaza but had to sleep in a tent next to the ruins of his house.
“I kept a fire burning all night near the kids to keep them warm... (They) slept peacefully despite the cold but we don’t have enough blankets,” the 41-year-old told AFP.
For many, the journey marked not just a return home but a confrontation with the harsh realities of the destruction wrought by the war.
Mona Abu Aathra managed to travel from central Gaza to Gaza City, though she has yet to assess the full extent of the war’s impact on her home.
Her hometown, Beit Hanoun, was among the areas hardest hit by a months-long Israeli military operation which continued right up to this month’s ceasefire.
“We returned to Gaza City with nothing, and there’s no drinking water. Most streets are still blocked by the rubble of destroyed homes,” the 20-year-old told AFP.