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Battlefield Lebanon

Israel targets potential Hezbollah chief and intel HQ in Lebanon; Iran says it will not back down

Update An Israeli Apache attack helicopter fires a missile towards southern Lebanon, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from northern Israel, October 4, 2024. (REUTERS)
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An Israeli Apache attack helicopter fires a missile towards southern Lebanon, amid hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as seen from northern Israel, October 4, 2024. (REUTERS)
Update Israel targets potential Hezbollah chief and intel HQ in Lebanon; Iran says it will not back down
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Flames and smoke rise from a building that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh on Oct. 4, 2024, as Beirut's Rafik Hariri International airport is seen in the background. (AP)
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Updated 05 October 2024
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Israel targets potential Hezbollah chief and intel HQ in Lebanon; Iran says it will not back down

Israel targets potential Hezbollah chief and intel HQ in Lebanon; Iran says it will not back down
  • Attack reportedly targeted Hashem Safieddine, the potential successor to Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel a week ago
  • Israeli strike also targeted a warehouse next to Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport
Updated 05 October 2024
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BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israel said it had targeted the intelligence headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut overnight and was assessing the damage on Friday after a series of strikes on senior figures in the group that Iran’s Supreme Leader dismissed as counterproductive.
Israel has been weighing options in its response to Iranian ballistic missile attack on Tuesday, which Iran had carried out in response to Israel’s military action in Lebanon.

Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an attack on Iran’s oil facilities as Israel pursues its goals of pushing back Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and eliminating their Hamas allies in Gaza.
The air attack on Beirut, part of a wider assault that has driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes, was reported to have targeted the potential successor to the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, killed by Israel a week ago.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Biden says would think of alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields if he were Israel

• UN spokesperson calls civilian toll in Israel’s Lebanon campaign ‘totally unacceptable’

• Death toll surpasses 2,000 in Lebanon, health ministry says

Hashem Safieddine’s fate was unclear and neither Israel nor Hezbollah have offered any comment.
US President Joe Biden said on Friday he would think about alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields if he were in Israel’s shoes, adding that he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.

Biden was asked at a White House press briefing if he thought that by not engaging in diplomacy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to influence the Nov. 5 US election in which Republican former President Donald Trump faces Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Whether he is trying to influence the election, I don’t know but I am not counting on that,” Biden said in response. “No administration has done more to help Israel than I have.”
The government in Lebanon says more than 2,000 people have been killed there in the past year, most in the past two weeks.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called the toll on civilians “totally unacceptable.”
The Lebanese government has accused Israel of targeting civilians, pointing to dozens of women and children killed. It has not broken down the overall figure between civilians and Hezbollah fighters.
Israel says it targets military capabilities and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. It accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.
The latest bloodletting in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict stems from an attack by Palestinian Hamas militants’ Oct. 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 and in which about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly Gaza’s entire population, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations that Israel denies.
The Israeli military said some 70 projectiles were launched from Lebanon into Israeli territory on Friday evening and were either intercepted or fell in open land.
Israel sent ground forces into Lebanon this week after the Iranian missiles attacks. It has said its ground operations are “localized” in villages near the border, but has not specified how far into Lebanon they would advance or how long they would last.
Israel says the operations aim to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments that forced them to evacuate from its north.

 

 

IRAN VOWS NOT TO BACK DOWN
Iran’s missile salvo was partly in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hezbollah secretary-general Nasrallah, a dominant figure who had turned the group into a powerful armed and political force with reach across the Middle East.
Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a huge crowd in Tehran Iran and its regional allies would not back down.
Israel’s adversaries in the region should “double your efforts and capabilities... and resist the aggressive enemy,” Khamenei said in a rare appearance leading Friday prayers, at which he mentioned Nasrallah and called Iran’s attack on Israel legal and legitimate.
He said Iran would not “procrastinate nor act hastily to carry out its duty” in confronting Israel.
The semi-official Iranian news agency SNN quoted Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Ali Fadavi as saying on Friday that if Israel attacked, Tehran would target Israeli energy and gas installations.
Axios reporter Barak Ravid cited three Israeli officials as saying that Hezbollah official Safieddine, rumored to be Nasrallah’s successor, had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut overnight but his fate was not clear.
Israeli Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said on Friday the military was still assessing the Thursday night airstrikes, which he said targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters.
Earlier the Israeli military reported that it had killed the head of Hezbollah’s communication networks, Mohammad Rashid Sakafi. It declined to comment on the report that Safieddine was targeted.
Hezbollah made no comment on the fate of Sakafi.
Khamenei said assassinations would just spur more attacks.
“Every strike launched by any group against Israel is a service to the region and to all humanity,” he said, adding that Afghanistan should join the “defense.”
FLATTENED BEIRUT BUILDINGS
In Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, many buildings have been reduced to rubble. Nearly all the storefronts in the main market street, Moawad Souk, were damaged and the road filled with broken glass.
“We’re alive but don’t know for how long,” said Nouhad Chaib, a 40-year-old man already displaced from the south.
The Islamic Health Authority, a civil defense agency linked to Hezbollah, said 11 medics had been killed in three separate Israeli attacks across southern Lebanon on Friday.
The Israeli military said that in the past day it had struck several weapons storage facilities, command and control centers, and additional Hezbollah infrastructure sites in the Beirut area.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, visiting Beirut and meeting with top Lebanese officials, said Tehran supported efforts for a ceasefire in Lebanon provided it was backed by Hezbollah and was simultaneous with a Gaza ceasefire.

 

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Hezbollah Israel Lebanon

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Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone

Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone
Updated 3 sec ago
AP
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Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone

Israel’s path of destruction in southern Lebanon raises fears of an attempt to create a buffer zone
  • Israeli warplanes and ground forces have blasted a trail of destruction through southern Lebanon the past month
  • More than 1 million people have fled bombardment, emptying much of the south
Updated 3 sec ago
AP
BEIRUT: Perched on a hilltop a short walk from the Israeli border, the tiny southern Lebanese village of Ramyah has almost been wiped off the map. In a neighboring village, satellite photos show a similar scene: a hill once covered with houses, now reduced to a gray smear of rubble.
Israeli warplanes and ground forces have blasted a trail of destruction through southern Lebanon the past month. The aim, Israel says, is to debilitate the Hezbollah militant group, push it away from the border and end more than a year of Hezbollah fire into northern Israel.
Even United Nations peacekeepers and Lebanese troops in the south have come under fire from Israeli forces, raising questions over whether they can remain in place.
More than 1 million people have fled bombardment, emptying much of the south. Some experts say Israel may be aiming to create a depopulated buffer zone, a strategy it has already deployed along its border with Gaza.
Some conditions for such a zone appear already in place, according to an Associated Press analysis of satellite imagery and data collected by mapping experts that show the breadth of destruction across 11 villages next to the border.
The Israeli military has said the bombardment is necessary to destroy Hezbollah tunnels and other infrastructure it says the group embedded within towns. The blasts have also destroyed homes, neighborhoods and sometimes entire villages, where families have lived for generations.
Israel says it aims to push Hezbollah far enough back that its citizens can return safely to homes in the north, but Israeli officials acknowledge they don’t have a concrete plan for ensuring Hezbollah stays away from the border long term. That is a key focus in attempts by the United States to broker a ceasefire.
Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel’s immediate aim is not to create a buffer zone — but that might change.
“Maybe we’ll have no other choice than staying there until we have an arrangement that promises us that Hezbollah will not come back to the zone,” she said.
A path of destruction
Troops pushed into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1, backed by heavy bombardment that has intensified since.
Using satellite images provided by Planet Labs PBC, AP identified a line of 11 villages — all within 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) of Lebanon’s border with Israel — that have been severely damaged in the past month, either by strikes or detonations of explosives laid by Israeli soldiers.
Analysis found the most intense damage in the south came in villages closest to the border, with between 100 and 500 buildings likely destroyed or damaged in each, according to Corey Scher of CUNY Graduate Center and Jamon Van Der Hoek of Oregon State University, experts in damage assessments.
In Ramyah, barely a single structure still stands on the village’s central hilltop, after a controlled detonation that Israeli soldiers showed themselves carrying out in videos posted on social media. In the next town over, Aita Al-Shaab — a village with strong Hezbollah influence — bombardment turned the hilltop with the highest concentration of buildings into a gray wasteland of rubble.
In other villages, the damage is more selective. In some, bombardment tore scars through blocks of houses; in others, certain homes were crushed while their neighbors remained intact.
Another controlled detonation leveled much of the village of Odeissah, with an explosion so strong it set off earthquake alerts in Israel.
In videos of the blast, Lubnan Baalbaki, conductor of the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, watched in disbelief as his parents’ house — containing the art collection and a library his father had built up for years — was destroyed.
“This house was a project and a dream for both of my parents,” he told the AP. His parents’ graves in the garden are now lost.
When asked whether its intention was to create a buffer zone, Israel’s military said it was “conducting localized, limited, targeted raids based on precise intelligence” against Hezbollah targets. It said Hezbollah had “deliberately embedded” weapons in homes and villages.
Israeli journalist Danny Kushmaro even helped blow up a home that the military said was being used to store Hezbollah ammunition. In a television segment, Kushmaro and soldiers counted down before they pressed a button, setting off a massive explosion.
Videos posted online by Israel’s military and individual soldiers show Israeli troops planting flags on Lebanese soil. Still, Israel has not built any bases or managed to hold a permanent presence in southern Lebanon. Troops appear to move back and forth across the border, sometimes under heavy fire from Hezbollah.
October has been the deadliest month of 2024 for the Israeli military, with around 60 soldiers killed.
Attacks on UN peacekeeping troops and the Lebanese Army
The bombardment has been punctuated by Israeli attacks on UN troops and the Lebanese Army — forces which, under international law, are supposed to keep the peace in the area. Israel has long complained that their presence has not prevented Hezbollah from building up its infrastructure across the south.
Israel denies targeting either force.
The Lebanese military has said at least 11 of its soldiers were killed in eight Israeli strikes, either at their positions or while assisting evacuations.
The peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, said its forces and infrastructure have been harmed at least 30 times since late September, blaming Israeli military fire or actions for about 20 of them, “with seven being clearly deliberate.”
A rocket likely fired by Hezbollah or an allied group hit UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura on Tuesday, causing some minor injuries, said UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti.
UNIFIL has refused to leave southern Lebanon, despite calls by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for them to go.
Experts warn that could change if peacekeepers come under greater fire.
“If you went from the UN taking casualties to the UN actually taking fatalities,” some nations contributing troops may “say ‘enough is enough,’ and you might see the mission start to crumble,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group.
The future of the territory is uncertain
International ceasefire efforts appear to be centered on implementing UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
It specified that Israeli forces would fully withdraw from Lebanon while the Lebanese army and UNIFIL — not Hezbollah — would be the exclusive armed presence in a zone about 25 kilometers (15 miles) from the border.
But the resolution was not fully implemented. Hezbollah never left the border zone, and Lebanon accuses Israel of continuing to occupy small areas of its land and carrying out frequent military overflights above its territory.
During a recent visit to Beirut, US envoy Amos Hochstein said a new agreement was needed to enforce Resolution 1701.
Israel could be trying to pressure an agreement into existence through the destruction wreaked in southern Lebanon.
Yossi Yehoshua, military correspondent for the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote that the military needs to “entrench further its operational achievements” to push Hezbollah, the Lebanese government and mediating countries “to accept an end (of the war) under conditions that are convenient for Israel.”
Some Lebanese fear that means an occupation of parts of the south, 25 years after Israel ended its occupation there.
Lebanese parliamentarian Mark Daou, a critic of both Hezbollah and of Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, said he believed Israel was trying to degrade Hezbollah’s capabilities and turn the Lebanese public “against the will to resist Israeli incursions.”
Gowan, of the International Crisis Group, said one aim of Resolution 1701 was to give the Lebanese army enough credibility that it, not Hezbollah, would be seen “as the legitimate defender” in the south.
“That evaporates if they become (Israel’s) gendarmerie of southern Lebanon,” he said.

Lebanon PM says expanded strikes suggest Israel rejects truce

Lebanon PM says expanded strikes suggest Israel rejects truce
Updated 55 min 57 sec ago
NAJIA HOUSSARI
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Lebanon PM says expanded strikes suggest Israel rejects truce

Lebanon PM says expanded strikes suggest Israel rejects truce
  • Caretaker PM Najib Mikati on Friday accused Israel of blocking progress in negotiations
  • US envoys have been working to secure truces on both fronts ahead of US election next week
Updated 55 min 57 sec ago
NAJIA HOUSSARI

BEIRUT: Israel bombarded the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday as caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused it of “stubbornness” in negotiations.

Israeli attacks came amid stalled talks by two US envoys in Israel in an attempt to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon.

Mikati reaffirmed Lebanon’s continued commitment to UN resolution 1701 and its provisions.

Mikati said he believed that Israel’s “renewed expansion of the scope of its aggression on Lebanese regions, its repeated threats to the population to evacuate entire cities and villages, and its renewed targeting of the southern suburbs of Beirut with destructive raids are all indicators that confirm Israel’s rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire in preparation for the full implementation of UN Resolution 1701.”

He said: “Israeli statements and diplomatic signals that Lebanon received confirm Israel’s stubbornness in rejecting the proposed solutions and insisting on the approach of killing and destruction.

“This places the entire international community before its historical and moral responsibilities to stop this aggression.”

Mikati denied the claims of two Reuters sources on Friday, which stated that the US “had asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire to inject momentum into stalled talks on a deal to end hostilities.”

His media office said that the Lebanese government’s stance was “clear on seeking a ceasefire from both sides and the implementation of Resolution 1701.”

Mikati’s warning came as the Israeli Air Force carried out 14 raids against neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs after two weeks of cautious calm in the area.

The raids affected Burj Al-Barajneh, Rweis, Haret Hreik, Hadath and the old airport road.

Twelve raids targeted Baalbek-Hermel, causing further casualties, including entire families.

In Amhazieh alone, 12 people died in a raid, most of whom were children, while a woman was killed and five were injured in a raid in Taraya, west of Baalbek.

Three people were killed in Hrabta, while another was killed in Kasarnaba.

Before the raids, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee sent evacuation warnings to residents at about 3.30 a.m., which was followed by heavy shooting by Hezbollah members to alert sleeping residents in the areas targeted.

People left their homes in pyjamas, carrying their children along the streets near the old airport road, one of the targeted areas

During a week-long period of relative calm, many residents of Beirut’s southern suburbs returned to their homes, which were not affected by previous raids.

The raids caused widespread destruction in these areas, which are considered by the Israeli army as Hezbollah’s security square, although the Lebanese consider the area residential.

In a statement on Friday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed concern over “the impact of the Israeli operations on civilians and infrastructure in Lebanon.” 

Israeli strikes on the ancient cities of Tyre and Baalbek, home to UNESCO-designated Roman ruins, were endangering Lebanon’s cultural heritage, said UN special coordinator Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert.

“Ancient Phoenician cities steeped in history are in deep peril of being left in ruins,” Hennis-Plasschaert said in a social media post, adding that Lebanon’s cultural heritage “must not become yet another casualty in this devastating conflict.”

Her appeal came as Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said: “Since last September, Israel has wasted more than one opportunity to reach a ceasefire, implement Resolution 1701, restore calm, and return the displaced to both sides of the border.”

He underlined Lebanon’s “commitment to implementing Resolution 1701 as the only option to achieve regional security and stability.”

MP Michel Moussa, a parliamentary Development and Liberation Bloc member, said Berri “has been informed that ceasefire negotiations have reached an impasse.”

Moussa said Israel had shown no intention to negotiate, appearing to await US elections as a “significant turning point.”

During his meeting with US special envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk,  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel “is determined to confront the threats in the north. Any ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon must guarantee Israel’s security.”

He added: “There is pressure to prematurely achieve a settlement in Lebanon, and reality has proven otherwise.

“I did not set a date for the war’s end, but I set clear goals for victory,” Netanyahu said. “We respect Resolutions 1701 and 1559, but they are not the main thing.”

The Israeli airstrikes, which continued on Friday morning and during the day, targeted a residential apartment in the town of Qmatiyeh in Aley, killing three members of a family living there and wounding five.

They also targeted dozens of towns in the south and northern Bekaa after the city of Baalbek turned into a ghost town as a result of renewed Israeli warnings against the return of those who were displaced from it.

Israeli attacks on Baalbek-Hermel Governorate and Central Bekaa include 1,035 airstrikes, which have killed 528 and 1,069 injured people.

According to a report by the ministerial emergency committee, the toll has risen to 2,822 dead and 12,937 wounded since the first attack by Israel against Lebanon about 14 months.

Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan estimated that about “60,000 people were displaced from Baalbek and Hermel, and the figure needs to be updated daily.”

In a report on its field operations against the Israeli army, Hezbollah said that “more than 95 soldiers were killed, 900 others wounded, and 42 Merkava tanks were destroyed” since the ground offensive began. “Three Hermes 450 and two Hermes 900 drones were shot down. Israeli forces are trying not to move or change their positions in the fields, fearing being targeted,” Hezbollah said.

The UNIFIL commander, Gen. Aroldo Lazaro, visited Mikati and Berri on Friday to discuss the ongoing military operations against Lebanon and the difficulties and threats UNIFIL faces while carrying out its mission.

Mikati emphasized the importance of “adhering to the role of UNIFIL, recognizing its importance in the south and not compromising its rules of work and the missions it is carrying out in close cooperation with the Lebanese army.”

In Israel, sirens sounded in several settlements in the Galilee panhandle, coinciding with an Israeli announcement “detecting around 10 rockets being launched from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted and others landed in open areas.”
 
Hezbollah announced targeting “Kiryat Shmona, Hatzor HaGlilit, Kidmat Tzvi, Yesod HaMa’ala and Karmiel,” and a group of soldiers near the Lebanese border town of Khiyam.

Also on Friday, a 17th Saudi relief plane, operated by the Saudi aid agency KSRelief, landed at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, carrying food, shelter and medical aid, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Nineteen reported injured in central Israel after projectile launch

Nineteen reported injured in central Israel after projectile launch
Updated 02 November 2024
Reuters
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Nineteen reported injured in central Israel after projectile launch

Nineteen reported injured in central Israel after projectile launch
  • The Israeli military said the projectiles were launched into Israeli territory and that sirens sounded in a number of areas in central Israel
Updated 02 November 2024
Reuters

CAIRO: Nineteen people in central Israel’s Sharon region were injured, the Israeli police said, after the military reported the launch of three projectiles from Lebanon into Israeli territory early on Saturday.
The national ambulance service previously reported that seven people in the central Israeli town of Tira were injured.
The Israeli military said that sirens sounded in several areas of central Israel after the projectile launch. Some projectiles had been intercepted, it said.
“A fallen projectile was most likely identified in the area,” the army added, noting that details were under investigation.
The national ambulance service and local media said the injuries in Tira ranged from mild to moderate, while two other people suffered stress symptoms.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said later in a statement it had launched drones at a “vital target” in northern Israel. It was not immediately clear if the group’s action was related to the injuries.
Fighting in Lebanon has escalated dramatically in recent weeks between Israeli forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah group

Topics: War on Gaza Battlefield Lebanon Gaza Lebanon

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Deaths of 10 newborns shake millions’ trust in Turkiye’s health care system

Deaths of 10 newborns shake millions’ trust in Turkiye’s health care system
Updated 02 November 2024
AP
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Deaths of 10 newborns shake millions’ trust in Turkiye’s health care system

Deaths of 10 newborns shake millions’ trust in Turkiye’s health care system
  • Turkish prosecutors have accused 47 doctors and other medical workers of neglect or malpractice in the deaths of 10 newborns since last year
  • Prosecutors say that the evidence clearly shows medical fraud for profit, although they haven’t said how much the defendants allegedly earned
Updated 02 November 2024
AP

ANKARA, Turkiye: The mother thought her baby looked healthy when he was born 1.5 months early, but staff swiftly whisked him to the neonatal intensive care unit.
It was the last time Burcu Gokdeniz would see her baby alive. The doctor in charge told her that Umut Ali’s heart stopped after his health deteriorated unexpectedly.
Seeing her son wrapped in a shroud 10 days after he was born was the “worst moment” of her life, the 32-year-old e-commerce specialist told The Associated Press.
Gokdeniz is among hundreds of parents who have come forward seeking an investigation into the deaths of their children or other loved ones since Turkish prosecutors accused 47 doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers and other medical workers of neglect or malpractice in the deaths of 10 newborns since last year.
Turkiye guarantees all citizens health care through a system that includes both private and state institutions: The government reimburses private hospitals that treat eligible patients when the public system is overwhelmed.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, in power since 2002, has promoted the expansion of private health care facilities to improve access in the country of 85 million people. The case of the newborn deaths has put for-profit health care for the country’s most vulnerable — newborns — into the most horrifying light imaginable.
The medical workers say they made the best possible decisions while caring for the most delicate patients imaginable, and now face criminal penalties for unavoidable unwanted outcomes.
Shattered parents say they have lost trust in the system and the cases have prompted so much outrage that demonstrators staged protests in October outside hospitals where some of the deaths occurred, hurling stones at the buildings.
After the scandal emerged, at least 350 families petitioned prosecutors, the Health Ministry or the president’s office seeking an investigation into the deaths of their loved ones, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
 

In this photo provided by the Eskici family, Eymen, the newborn son of Ozan Eskici and Ebru Eskici, lays in an incubator in the now closed Istanbul's Reyap Hospital neonatal intensive care unit in April 2019. (Eskici family via AP)

The prosecution’s case
Prosecutors are demanding up to 583 years in prison for the main defendant, Dr. Firat Sari, who operated the neonatal intensive care units of several hospitals in Istanbul. Sari is charged with “establishing an organization with the aim of committing a crime,” “defrauding public institutions,” “forgery of official documents” and “homicide by negligence.”
Prosecutors say that the evidence clearly shows medical fraud for profit, although they haven’t said how much the defendants allegedly earned. An indictment issued this month accused the defendants of falsifying records, and placing patients in the neonatal care units of some private hospitals for prolonged and sometimes unnecessary treatments in facilities unprepared to treat them.
The indictment and the testimonies of nurses who have come forward suggest that the newborns were sometimes transferred to hospitals that were understaffed and had outdated equipment or insufficient medicine.
The indictment and testimonies also claim that the defendants withheld treatment and gave false reports to parents in order to keep hospital stays long as possible and to embezzle the social security system out of more money. The indictment alleges that the long-term stays coupled with patient mistreatment resulted in babies’ deaths.
The prosecutor’s office included hundreds of pages of transcripts of audio recordings in the indictment but the recordings themselves were not made available to the public.
In one of the transcripts, a nurse and a doctor talk about how they mishandled the treatement of a baby and agree to fake the the hospital record. The transcript describes the nurse as saying: “Let me write in the file the situation worsened, and the baby was intubated.”
Suspect Hakan Dogukan Tasci — a male nurse — is described as accusing Sari of compromising patient care by leaving just him in charge at the hospital instead of having a doctor present in the intensive care unit.
Tasci is also described as accusing an ambulance driver, who is among the 47 who have been charged in the scandal, of transferring babies to some hospitals for “profit.”
“He does not check whether the hospital is suitable for these newborn babies or not, he risks the lives of the babies and sends them to hospitals just to make money,” the indictment quotes the male nurse as saying.
In an interview with the Turkish newspaper BirGun, Dr. Esin Koc, president of the Turkiye Neonatology Association, said that the private hospitals in the indictment most likely had “insufficient staff.”
“They made it seem like there were doctors who didn’t exist,” she told BirGun.
She said that her association conducted inspections of the neonatal intensive care units of private, state and university hospitals in about 40 hospitals in 2017 and while university and state hospitals were good, “there were problems in private hospitals at that time.”
Years without a family, then a death
After years of fertility treatment, Ozan Eskici and his wife welcomed twins — a boy and a girl — to one of Sari’s hospitals in 2019. Although the babies initially appeared to be healthy, both were admitted to intensive care. The girl was discharged after 11 days, but the boy died 24 days later.
During questioning by prosecutors, Sari denied accusations that the babies were not given the proper care, that the neonatal units were understaffed or that his employees were not appropriately qualified, according to a 1,400-page indictment.
He told prosecutors: “Everything is in accordance with procedures.”
This week, a court in Istanbul approved the indictment and scheduled the trial date for Nov. 18 in a case that whose defendants are increasingly isolated.
Lawyer Ali Karaoglan said he and two other attorneys who represented Sari during the investigation have recently withdrawn from the case. And authorities have since revoked the licenses and closed nine of the 19 hospitals implicated in the scandal, including one owned by a former health minister.
The scandal has led main opposition party leader Ozgur Ozel to call for all hospitals involved to be seized by the state and nationalized. Erdogan said those responsible for the deaths would be severely punished but warned against placing all blame on the country’s health care system.
“We will not allow our health care community to be battered because of a few rotten apples,” Erdogan said, calling the alleged culprits “a gang of people devoid of humanity.”
“This gang ... committed such despicable atrocities by exploiting the facilities provided by our state to ensure citizens with higher quality and more accessible, affordable health care,” Erdogan said.
No more trust in the system
Gokdeniz, who gave birth in 2020, said she trusted Sari and accepted her son’s death as natural until she watched the scandal unfold in TV news and on social media.
“It all started to fall into place like dominoes,” she said.
Eskici, too, had placed complete trust in Sari, whose assurances he now views as cruel deceptions.
“The sentences he told me are in front of my eyes like it was yesterday,” he said.
Sibel Kosal, who lost her baby daughter Zeynep at a private hospital in 2017, is also seeking answers. She says the scandal has shattered her trust in the health care system and left her in constant fear for her surviving children.
“They have ruined a dad and a mom,” she said.
Kosal pleaded to the authorities to take immediate action.
“Don’t let babies die, don’t let mothers cry,” she said. “We want a livable world, one where our children are safe.”
 

Topics: Turkiye

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Head of UN-backed team of experts cites RSF paramilitaries in Sudan for sexual violence as war rages

Head of UN-backed team of experts cites RSF paramilitaries in Sudan for sexual violence as war rages
Updated 02 November 2024
AP
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Head of UN-backed team of experts cites RSF paramilitaries in Sudan for sexual violence as war rages

Head of UN-backed team of experts cites RSF paramilitaries in Sudan for sexual violence as war rages
  • The fact-finding mission on Tuesday released a more comprehensive version of its report presented in September to the rights council
  • Earlier this week, the UN migration agency said 14 million people have been displaced either within Sudan or abroad because of the conflict
Updated 02 November 2024
AP

GENEVA: The head of a UN-backed fact-finding team looking into human rights violations and abuses in Sudan said Friday it found the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces responsible for large-scale sexual violence in areas that it controls.
Mohamed Chande Othman has denounced “staggering violence” in Sudan since war broke out more than 18 months ago between the Sudanese military and the RSF, starting with open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, that later spread across the country.
“We said in our report that we attribute sexual gender-based violence to RSF in West Darfur, in Darfur, in greater Khartoum, and in Al-Gezira (state),” the Tanzanian lawyer said Friday by phone from Zimbabwe, where he was attending a conference.
However, Othman said a renewed mandate from the UN Human Rights Council would allow his team of independent experts to investigate “credible” allegations of sexual exploitation by the Sudanese armed forces as well.
Sudan plunged into conflict in mid-April 2023, when long-simmering tensions between its military and paramilitary leaders broke out in the capital Khartoum and spread to other regions including western Darfur. The war has killed more than 24,000 people so far, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a group monitoring the conflict since it started.

Infographic courtesy of UN International Migration Office

The fact-finding mission on Tuesday released a more comprehensive version of its report presented in September to the rights council, which has 47 member countries. The broader report cited gang rapes, sexual slavery and the abduction of victims in areas the RSF controls.
“It’s important to highlight the horrendous nature and the widespread nature — the patterns of violence — that were committed,” Othman said.
His team found the sexual violence and allegations of enforced marriages and human trafficking across borders for sexual purposes took place mostly during invasions of towns and cities.
“Victims and witnesses consistently reported that perpetrators threatened them with weapons, including firearms, knives and whips to intimidate and coerce them,” the latest report said, citing violence like punching, beatings with sticks, and lashing before and during rape.
“Men and boys were also reportedly targeted while in detention with sexual violence, including rape, threats of rape, forced nudity and beating on the genitals, requiring further investigation,” it added.
The violence in Sudan has been unrelenting. On Sunday, a doctors group and the United Nations reported that RSF fighters in east central Sudan’s Jazirah state carried out a multi-day attack that killed more than 120 people in one town.
On Tuesday, the UN migration agency said 14 million people — or over 30 percent of the country’s population — have been displaced either within Sudan or abroad because of the conflict, making it the world’s largest displacement crisis.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the RSF attacks in Jazirah and the appalling reports of a large number of killings, detentions and acts of sexual violence against women and girls as well as the looting of homes and markets, and the burning of farms, his spokesman said.
“Such acts may constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “Perpetrators of such serious violations must be held accountable.”
The UN chief reiterated his call for a ceasefire, expressed alarm at the worsening humanitarian situation in Sudan and demanded that all parties facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, Dujarric said.

Topics: Sudan Mohamed Chande Othman

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