Germany flies more citizens out of Lebanon

Germany flies more citizens out of Lebanon
A picture taken during a tour organized by Hezbollah media office on Oct. 2, 2024 shows journalists inspecting the destruction in Israeli airstrikes on a neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs. (AFP)
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Updated 02 October 2024
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Germany flies more citizens out of Lebanon

Germany flies more citizens out of Lebanon
  • An Airbus A330 MRTT departed for Beirut to pick up 130 German nationals
  • The special flight was also carrying some 5,000 kilograms of relief supplies from the German Red Cross

FRANKFURT: Germany on Wednesday said it had organized a second military flight to evacuate its nationals from Lebanon, after Israel launched ground raids into its neighbor and Iran fired missiles at Israel.

An Airbus A330 MRTT departed for Beirut to pick up 130 German nationals considered “particularly vulnerable,” Germany’s foreign and defense ministries said in a joint statement.

The special flight was also carrying some 5,000 kilograms (11,000 pounds) of relief supplies from the German Red Cross, mainly medical supplies such as infusion equipment and bandages, “to provide emergency care for Lebanon’s civilian population.”

Germany already flew around 110 passengers out of Lebanon on Monday.

“The situation in the Middle East remains extremely volatile,” the ministries said.

Further flights would be deployed depending on the need and on how the situation develops, they added.

Other countries are also evacuating their citizens from Lebanon, including France, Spain, Britain and Canada.


UK’s top Jewish body demands surge in Gaza aid

UK’s top Jewish body demands surge in Gaza aid
Updated 9 sec ago
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UK’s top Jewish body demands surge in Gaza aid

UK’s top Jewish body demands surge in Gaza aid
  • Board of Deputies of British Jews issues rare criticism of Israel after emergency meeting
  • It follows growing divisions within Jewish community over Gaza war

LONDON: Britain’s leading Jewish body has demanded that Israel launch a surge of aid to Gaza.

In rare criticism of Israel’s government, the Board of Deputies of British Jews called for a “rapid, uninhibited and sustained increase in aid through all available channels” for the Palestinian enclave.

It followed an emergency meeting held by the organization on Tuesday amid mounting anguish over the catastrophic situation in Gaza.

Phil Rosenberg, the board’s president, said: “The suffering we are witnessing in the Gaza Strip demands a response ... We need to see a rapid, uninhibited, and sustained increase in aid through all available channels, and we need to see all agencies cooperating in this endeavor.

“As we have been saying for months, food must not be used as a weapon of war, by any side in this conflict.”

A month ago, the organization took controversial disciplinary action against 36 of its elected officials who had signed an open letter criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza. Five of the 36 were suspended for two years.

The board’s statement represents a significant shift within the British Jewish body politic, and follows rising tensions within the community over the war in Gaza.

Dozens of deputies wrote to the board leadership before Tuesday’s emergency meeting demanding that the organization appeal to the Israeli government to “end this suffering.”

The letter added: “Nothing could be more damaging to the British Jewish community than staying silent in this moment.”

Marie van der Zyl, the former president of the board, wrote last week for Jewish News that “hunger and human suffering, on this scale, are incompatible with the core values of our faith.”

In a letter, a group of more than 400 influential rabbis from around the world, including many from the UK, also called on the Israeli government to end its “callous indifference to starvation.”

Jewish people worldwide “face a great moral crisis,” the letter warned. “We cannot condone the mass killings of civilians, including a great many women, children and elderly, or the use of starvation as a weapon of war.”


At least 46 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire, Gaza hospitals say, as the war drags on

At least 46 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire, Gaza hospitals say, as the war drags on
Updated 37 min 57 sec ago
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At least 46 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire, Gaza hospitals say, as the war drags on

At least 46 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire, Gaza hospitals say, as the war drags on
  • The Israeli military did not immediately comment on any of the strikes, but says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas

DEIR AL-BALAH: Israeli strikes and gunfire in the Gaza Strip killed at least 46 Palestinians overnight into Wednesday morning, most of them among crowds seeking food, local hospitals said.

The dead include more than 30 people who were killed while seeking humanitarian aid, according to that treated dozens of wounded people.

The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment on any of the strikes, but says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, because the group’s militants operate in densely populated areas.

The deaths came as the United Kingdom announced that it would recognize a Palestinian state in September, unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, following a similar declaration by France’s president. Israel’s foreign ministry said that it rejected the British statement.

The Shifa hospital in Gaza City said that it received 12 people who were killed Tuesday night when Israeli forces opened fire toward crowds awaiting aid trucks coming from the Zikim crossing in northwestern Gaza.

Thirteen others were killed in strikes in the Jabaliya refugee camp, and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, the hospital said.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the Nasser hospital said it received the bodies of 16 people who it says were killed Tuesday evening while waiting for aid trucks close to the newly-built Morag corridor, which separates Khan Younis from the southernmost city of Rafah.

The hospital received another body for a man killed in a strike on a tent in Khan Younis, it said.

The Awda hospital in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp said that it received the bodies of four Palestinians who it says were killed Wednesday by Israeli fire close to an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, in the Netzarim corridor area, south of the Wadi Gaza.

In addtion, seven Palestinians, including a child, have died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said on Wednesday. A total of 89 children have died of malnutrition since the war began in Gaza. The ministry said that 65 Palestinian adults have also died of malnutrition-related causes across Gaza since late June, when it started counting deaths among adults.

Israel’s military offensive has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians. The ministry operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.


Libyan coast guards train in Greece under plan to stem migrant flows

Libyan coast guards train in Greece under plan to stem migrant flows
Updated 30 July 2025
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Libyan coast guards train in Greece under plan to stem migrant flows

Libyan coast guards train in Greece under plan to stem migrant flows

ATHENS: Libyan coast guard officers have started training on the Greek island of Crete as part of a plan to strengthen cooperation and help the two countries stem a surge in migrant arrivals, Greek sources said on Wednesday.

Relations between Greece and Libya have been strained by a maritime boundary agreement signed in 2019 between the Tripoli-based Libyan government and Turkiye, Greece’s long-standing foe.

A tender that Greece launched this year to develop hydrocarbon resources off Crete revived those tensions, while a spike in migrant flows from North Africa to Europe has prompted Athens to deploy frigates off Libya and pass legislation banning migrants arriving from Libya by sea from requesting asylum.

The division of Libya by factional conflict into eastern and western sections for over a decade has further complicated relations. Greece says it is determined to continue talking to both the Tripoli-based government and a parallel administration based in Benghazi to the east.

So far, coast guard officers from eastern Libya have been training in Greece, including areas such as patrolling and search and rescue operations. Coast guard officers from western Libya are expected to also participate in the training, the sources said.

As part of efforts to improve relations, Athens last week invited Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli to start talks on demarcating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea.

Missions from both countries are expected to hold talks on maritime zones in the coming months, the Greek sources said.


Israeli rights groups break taboo with accusations of genocide

Israeli rights groups break taboo with accusations of genocide
Updated 30 July 2025
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Israeli rights groups break taboo with accusations of genocide

Israeli rights groups break taboo with accusations of genocide
  • Israeli human rights groups brace for backlash
  • Deeply sensitive accusation in Israel, founded after Holocaust

JERUSALEM: When two human rights groups became the first major voices in Israel to accuse the state of committing genocide in Gaza, breaking a taboo in a country founded after the Holocaust, they were prepared for a backlash.

B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel released reports at a press conference in Jerusalem on Monday, saying Israel was carrying out “coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip.”

That marked the strongest possible accusation against the state, which vehemently denies it. The charge of genocide is deeply sensitive in Israel because of its origins in the work of Jewish legal scholars in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust. Israeli officials have rejected genocide allegations as antisemitic.

So Sarit Michaeli, B’Tselem’s international director, said the group expected to face attacks for making the claim in a country still traumatized by October 7, 2023.

“We’ve looked into all of the risks that we could be facing. These are legal, reputation, media risks, other types of risk, societal risks and we’ve done work to try and mitigate these risks,” said Michaeli, whose organization is seen as being on the political fringe in Israel but is respected internationally.

“We are also quite experienced in attacks by the government or social media, so this is not the first time.” It’s not unrealistic “to expect this issue, which is so fraught and so deeply contentious within Israeli society and internationally to lead to an even greater reaction,” she said.

Israel’s foreign ministry and prime minister’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Shortly after the reports were released on Monday, government spokesperson David Mencer said: “Yes, of course we have free speech in Israel.” He strongly rejected the reports’ findings and said that such accusations fostered anti-semitism abroad.

Some Israelis have expressed concern over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, destroyed much of the enclave and led to widespread hunger.

An international global hunger monitor said on Tuesday a famine scenario was unfolding in the Gaza Strip, with malnutrition soaring, children under five dying of hunger-related causes and humanitarian access severely restricted.

“For me, life is life, and it’s sad. No one should die there,” said nurse Shmuel Sherenzon, 31.

But the Israeli public generally rejects allegations of genocide.

Most of the 1,200 people killed and the 251 taken hostage to Gaza in the October 7 attacks in southern Israel were civilians, including men, women, children and the elderly.

In an editorial titled “Why are we blind to Gaza?” published on the mainstream news site Ynet last week, Israeli journalist Sever Plocker said images of ordinary Palestinians rejoicing over the attacks in and even following the militants to take part in violence made it almost impossible for Israelis to feel compassion for Gazans in the months that followed.

“The crimes of Hamas on October 7 have deeply burned – for generations – the consciousness of the entire Jewish public in Israel, which now interprets the destruction and killing in Gaza as a deterrent retaliation and therefore also morally legitimate.”

Israel has fended off accusations of genocide since the early days of the Gaza war, including a case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice in the Hague that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned as “outrageous.”

While Israeli human rights groups say it can be difficult working under Israel’s far-right government, they don’t experience the kind of tough crackdowns their counterparts face in other parts of the Middle East.

Israel has consistently said its actions in Gaza are justified as self-defense and accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge the militant group denies.

Israeli media has focused more on the plight of hostages taken by Hamas, in the worst single attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

In this atmosphere, for B’Tselem’s Israeli staff members to come to the stark conclusion that their own country was guilty of genocide was emotionally challenging, said Yuli Novak, the organization’s executive director.

“It’s really incomprehensible, it’s a phenomena that the mind cannot bear,” Novak said, choking up.

“I think many of our colleagues are struggling at the moment, not only fear of sanctions but also to fully grasp this thing.”

Guy Shalev, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, said the organization faced a “wall of denial.”

It has been under pressure for months and is expecting a stronger backlash after releasing its report.

“Bureaucratic, legal, financial institutions such as banks freezing accounts including ours, and some of the challenges we expect to see in the next days...these efforts will intensify,” he told Reuters.


Turkiye to start providing Syria with natural gas on Aug 2, minister says

Turkiye to start providing Syria with natural gas on Aug 2, minister says
Updated 30 July 2025
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Turkiye to start providing Syria with natural gas on Aug 2, minister says

Turkiye to start providing Syria with natural gas on Aug 2, minister says
  • Turkiye to start providing Syria with natural gas on Aug 2, minister says

ANKARA: Turkiye will start exporting natural gas from Azerbaijan to Syria from Saturday, the energy minister said on Wednesday.

Syria’s Islamist authorities, who toppled Bashar Assad in December, are seeking to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and economy after almost 14 years of civil war.

The conflict badly damaged Syria’s power infrastructure, leading to cuts that can last for more than 20 hours a day.

“We will start exporting natural gas from Azerbaijan to Aleppo via Kilis,” a province in southernmost Turkiye near the Syrian border, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said.

In May, Syrian Energy Minister Mohammad Al-Bashir said Damascus and Ankara had reached a deal for Turkiye to supply natural gas to the war-torn country via a pipeline in the north.

Gas-rich Azerbaijan is a historic ally of Turkiye which maintains close ties with the Syrian transitional government.