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Israeli forces kill 5 Palestinians in West Bank — health ministry

By - Oct 29,2023 - Last updated at Oct 29,2023

RAMALLAH, Occupied Palestine — Israeli occupation troops killed five Palestinians on Sunday across the occupied West Bank, health officials said, raising to more than 110 the death toll in surging violence there since the start of the Gaza war.

The Palestinian health ministry said five people aged 29 to 35 were shot dead by Israeli forces at dawn, two of them in Nablus’s Askar refugee camp.

The other incidents took place in Beit Rima, northwest of Ramallah, Bethlehem’s Dheisheh refugee camp and in Tamun north of Nablus.

The Palestinian ministry did not provide further details.

Since October 7, “over 1,030 wanted suspects have been apprehended” in the West Bank, “700 of whom are affiliated with Hamas”, the army said, as its forces fight the militant group in the Gaza Strip.

On Saturday, a 40-year-old Palestinian who was harvesting his olives was killed by a settler in the village of Sawiya near Nablus, the health ministry said.

 

Shelling injures peacekeeper in south Lebanon — UN

By - Oct 29,2023 - Last updated at Oct 29,2023

BEIRUT — A UN peacekeeper was injured on Saturday by shelling in south Lebanon, the mission’s spokesman said, hours after reporting a hit at its headquarters as Israel-Lebanon border skirmishes intensify amid war in Gaza.

“One peacekeeper was lightly injured” near the border village of Hula, said Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said a Nepalese peacekeeper was “moderately injured in the stomach and arm after two Israeli shells” fell in Hula.

Earlier on Saturday, Tenenti had told AFP that “a shell hit inside the base” in Naqura, where UNIFIL headquarters are located, indicating there were “no injuries but some damage”.

He said UNIFIL was seeking to verify who fired the shells.

A Lebanese military source, who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to talk to the media, said “an Israeli shell penetrated the cement wall” around the UNIFIL headquarters.

The shell did not explode, a UNIFIL statement said, adding that “several of our other positions have also sustained damage in the past three weeks” and urging “all parties to immediately cease fire”.

Since Palestinian group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, Lebanon’s southern border has seen tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed Hizbollah, a Hamas ally.

The cross-border skirmishes have killed at least 58 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally, mostly Hizbollah combatants but also four civilians, including Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah.

At least four people have been killed on the Israeli side, including one civilian.

The unrest has displaced nearly 29,000 people across Lebanon, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

On October 15, UNIFIL said its headquarters was struck by a rocket but nobody was hurt.

Hizbollah said it attacked a number of Israeli positions on Saturday, using artillery, guided missiles and other weapons.

Israel’s army confirmed that “several anti-tank missile and mortar shell launches” had been fired at its posts along the border, indicating they “fell in open areas”.

It said its tanks and artillery were “responding with fire towards the origin of the launches and striking Hizbollah military infrastructure in Lebanon”.

 

'Potential for thousands more to die' in Gaza if Israel presses major ground op — UN

By - Oct 28,2023 - Last updated at Oct 28,2023

GENEVA — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned on Saturday there was the potential for thousands more civilians to die if Israel presses a major ground offensive in Gaza.

Israel's army relentlessly hammered the territory on Saturday after fierce overnight bombardment that rescuers said destroyed hundreds of buildings three weeks into a war sparked by the deadliest attack in the country's history.

"Given the manner in which military operations have been conducted until now, in the context of the 56-year-old occupation, I am raising alarm about the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza and the potential for thousands more civilians to die," Turk said.

"There is no safe place in Gaza and there is no way out. I am very worried for my colleagues, as I am for all civilians in Gaza."

"Compounding the misery and suffering of civilians, Israeli strikes on telecommunications installations and subsequent Internet shutdown have effectively left Gazans with no way of knowing what is happening across Gaza and cut them off from the outside world," he said.

"Ambulances and civil defence teams are no longer able to locate the injured, or the thousands of people estimated to be still under the rubble.

“When these hostilities end, those who have survived will face the rubble of their homes and the graves of their family members,” Turk said.

He called on all parties “to do all in their power to de-escalate the conflict”.

The conflict is the fifth and deadliest in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian territory in 2005.

The latest Israeli strikes against Hamas, the resistance group that has ruled Gaza since 2007, were the most intense since the war broke out. They coincided with ground operations.

“Continued violence is not the answer. I call on all parties as well as third States, in particular those with influence over the parties to the conflict, to do all in their power to de-escalate this conflict,” Turk added.

Israeli strikes destroy 'hundreds' of Gaza buildings – rescuers

Health ministry in Gaza says war deaths hit 7,703

By - Oct 28,2023 - Last updated at Oct 28,2023

A picture taken from near the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 28, 2023, shows smoke raising during an Israeli strike in the northern Gaza Strip (AFP photo)

GAZA STRIP, Occupied Palestine — Israel's army relentlessly hammered Gaza on Saturday after fierce overnight bombardment that rescuers said destroyed hundreds of buildings three weeks into a war sparked by the deadliest attack in the country's history.

The United Nations warned thousands more civilians could die as Israel escalated ground operations, while the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas said the government snubbed them when asking about the captives' fate.

Israel unleashed its bombing campaign after Hamas fighters stormed across the Gaza border on October 7, killing 1,400 people and seizing more than 220 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Israeli strikes had killed 7,703 people, mainly civilians, with more than 3,500 of them children.

The conflict is the fifth and deadliest in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian territory in 2005.

The intense Israeli strikes against Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, coincided with ground operations and came as tens of thousands of troops massed along the Gaza border ahead of an expected full-blown invasion.

Israeli occupation forces had also made limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday.

“Hundreds of buildings and houses were completely destroyed and thousands of other homes were damaged,” said Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.

Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, said it targeted Israeli forces in an area of northern Gaza near the border on Saturday.

Israeli warplanes flew overhead and successive booms could be heard coming from Gaza, AFP journalists reported.

A thick haze of smoke covered Gaza and southern Israel after the night of heavy bombardment.

“There are a large number of martyrs and a large number of survivors under the rubble, and we cannot reach them,” a Gaza civil defence official said.

“The stench of death is everywhere, in every neighbourhood, every street and every house,” respiratory physician Raed Al Astal told AFP from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

 

 ‘Stop this madness’ 

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “Israel must immediately stop this madness and end its attacks” in a post on X on Saturday, after the UN General Assembly called for an “immediate humanitarian truce” in Gaza.

The non-binding resolution on Friday received overwhelming support, but Israel and the United States criticised it for failing to mention Hamas.

Israel’s bombardment has displaced more than 1.4 million people inside Gaza, according to the UN, while supplies of food, water and power to the crowded territory have been almost completely cut off.

Israel has blocked all deliveries of fuel, saying it would be exploited by Hamas to manufacture weapons and explosives.

A first tranche of aid was allowed on October 21, but only 84 have crossed in total, according to the UN, which says a daily average of 500 trucks had entered Gaza before the conflict.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Gazans were “not only dying from bombs and strikes, soon many more will die from the consequences of [the] siege”.

“These few trucks are nothing more than crumbs that will not make a difference.”

Violence has also risen sharply in the occupied West Bank since the October 7 attacks, with more than 100 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,000 wounded, according to the UN.

US says anti-Iran strikes in Syria hit ammunition depots

By - Oct 28,2023 - Last updated at Oct 28,2023

WASHINGTON — The United States said Friday it sought to degrade ammunition supplies of Iranian-linked militias with strikes in Syria but insisted it did not want to widen the Middle East conflict.

The Pentagon on Thursday announced air strikes on two sites in eastern Syria it said were used by Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after a string of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

"The purpose for those two sites that we targeted was to have a significant impact on future IRGC and Iran-backed militia group operations," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday.

"It went right at storage facilities and ammo depots that we know will be used to support the work of these militia groups, particularly in Syria."

"The main goal was to disrupt that ability and also to deter, to prevent,  future attacks," he said.

The White House earlier said that President Joe Biden had relayed a direct warning to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against militias' strikes on US troops in Syria and Iraq, where US forces are stationed as part of efforts against the Islamic State group, which also has clashed with Shiite Iran.

There have been at least 14 attacks on US and allied forces in Iraq and six in Syria since October 17, a period in which 21 American military personnel suffered minor injuries and one contractor died from a cardiac incident, according to the Pentagon.

The US strikes on Thursday were the first on Iranian interests since March, breaking a stretch of calm after the Biden administration opened quiet diplomacy with the US arch-enemy that led to a prisoner swap and conversations on Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.

The October 7 assault by Hamas and Israel’s strikes have inflamed the region. Iran’s clerical leaders back Hamas, while the United States is the foremost ally of Israel.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a statement Thursday, said that the strikes were “narrowly tailored” to protect US personnel.

“They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict,” Austin said.

The Pentagon said on Friday evening that its current assessment is the strikes did not cause casualties.

 

 ‘Finger on the trigger’ 

 

The Biden administration has vowed to target the finances of Hamas, which holds hundreds of millions of dollars in global assets, according to US Treasury Department estimates.

 

'Worse than earthquake': Gaza hammered as Israel widens war

By - Oct 28,2023 - Last updated at Oct 28,2023

A man sits in front of buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City on Saturday (AFP photo)

Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine — After air strikes and artillery fire rained down for hours overnight, much of the Gaza Strip has become an indistinguishable wasteland of rubble, with residents likening the devastation to that of a natural disaster.

The intense bombardments "changed the landscape", Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the Gaza Civil Defence told AFP of the damage.

"Hundreds of buildings and houses were completely destroyed and thousands of other homes were damaged," he added.

The destruction followed an announcement from the Israeli military that its forces had expanded operations in Gaza, following three weeks of intense bombardments in the wake of the October 7 attacks by Hamas in southern Israel.

More than 7,700 people have since been killed in retaliatory Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, including some 3,500 children, according to the territory's health ministry.

In Shati refugee camp on the outskirts of Gaza City, widespread damage was visible.

"What happened in Shati is worse than an earthquake," camp resident Alaa Mahdi, 51, told AFP.

"There was bombing from everywhere, the navy, artillery and the planes," he continued.

"Who are they striking, the resistance? No, the poor people."

Mahdi said the Internet and communications blackout in the Gaza Strip since Friday evening had been imposed so that Israel "would commit a massacre without anyone hearing about it".

The blackout triggered condemnation from a range of rights groups.

"This information blackout risks providing cover for mass atrocities and contributing to impunity for human rights violations," said Human Rights Watch in a statement.

 

'The situation 

is very bad'

 

Amid a humanitarian situation described by world organisations as "catastrophic", a food rations distribution centre run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees was looted.

Dozens of Palestinians were seen coming out of the premises in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza, one carrying a sack of flour on his shoulder, another bottles of oil under his arm.

“If we weren’t in need, we wouldn’t have gone in. The whole world is against us,” said one as he left the centre.

In a street in the camp, dozens of residents picked through the debris of a residential tower that along with several houses nearby was razed by the bombing.

“Is anybody there? We are here to save you,” shouted Abdelmajid Abu Hassira, as he waded through the wreckage searching for survivors.

Kamal Abou Fattoum, 47, who fled south from Gaza City last week, returned on Saturday morning to find his house reduced to debris.

“I saw destruction worse than that caused by the earthquake in Turkey,” he said, referring to the devastating natural disaster in February that killed more than 50,000 people in south-eastern Turkey.

“People are under the rubble. Some are dead, others are still alive,” he added.

 

UN says nearly 29,000 displaced in Lebanon amid skirmishes on Israel border

At least 58 people have been killed in cross-border exchanges of fire

By - Oct 28,2023 - Last updated at Oct 28,2023

Flares are fired from northern Israel over the southern Lebanese border village of Aita Al Shaab, on Saturday, amid intensifying cross-border skirmishes (AFP photo)

BEIRUT — Nearly 29,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon amid deadly exchanges between Iran-backed Hizbollah fighters and the Israeli army, a United Nations agency said on Friday.

A total of 28,965 people have been displaced, mainly in the country's south, the International Organisation for Migration said in an update, adding that the figure had risen by 37 per cent since October 23.

Some have found refuge with family members elsewhere in the country, while those who can afford it have been able to rent apartments on a short-term basis.

But with Lebanon in the grips of an economic crisis that has plunged most of the population into poverty, some are living in makeshift shelters in the south's larger towns.

In Lebanon, at least 58 people have been killed in the cross-border exchanges of fire, most of them Hizbollah fighters but also including at least four civilians, one of them Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah.

Many more to die' from Gaza siege, UN warns on day 21 of war

By - Oct 27,2023 - Last updated at Oct 27,2023

Palestinian women make traditional unleavened bread on an open fire at a shelter for displaced families mainly from the north of the Gaza Strip, at a UN-run school in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday (AFP photo)

THE GAZA STRIP - The UN warned on Friday that "many more will die" in Gaza from catastrophic shortages after nearly three weeks of bombardment by Israel.

As the conflict raged into its 21st day, the Israeli forces said its soldiers backed by fighter jets and drones mounted a land incursion into the Gaza Strip, as it prepares for a ground offensive.

Concern is growing about regional fallout from the conflict, with the United States warning Iran against escalation while striking facilities in Syria it says were used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and others.

Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza since Hamas fighters surprisingly attacked across the border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, according to Israeli officials.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip says the strikes have killed more than 7,000 people, mainly civilians and many of them children, leading to growing calls for protection of innocents caught up in the conflict.

"People in Gaza are dying, they are not only dying from bombs and strikes, soon many more will die from the consequences of [the]siege imposed on the Gaza Strip," Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told reporters in Jerusalem.

Israel has cut supplies of food, water and power to Gaza, notably blocking all deliveries of fuel.

"Basic services are crumbling, medicine is running out, food and water are running out, the streets of Gaza have started overflowing with sewage," he said of the devastated territory where around 45 per cent of all housing has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN which cited local authorities. 

A first tranche of critically needed aid was allowed in at the weekend but since then only 74 trucks have crossed in via the Rafah border with Egypt, which aid agencies say is just a tiny fraction of what was needed.

Before the conflict, an average of 500 trucks entered Gaza every working day, UN figures show.

Gaza needed a "meaningful and uninterrupted aid flow" and a "humanitarian ceasefire to ensure this aid reaches those in need", Lazzarini said, echoing a similar call by European Union leaders.

European Union leaders had on Thursday evening demanded "continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs".

Between the bombardments and the fuel shortages, 12 of Gaza's 35 hospitals have been forced to close, and UNRWA said it has had to "significantly reduce its operations".

"What needs more support? Bakeries, water stations, life support machines in a hospital -- all this needs fuel to function," the head of the agency said on Friday.

The agency has so far had 57 staff killed since the war began, Lazzarini told journalists.

 

'Our lives stopped'

 

With tens of thousands of Israeli troops massed along the Gaza border ahead of a widely expected ground offensive, the army said its forces had staged a ground incursion into central Gaza.

Black-and-white footage released by the military showed a column of armoured vehicles as a thick cloud of dust billowed into the night sky after the strikes.

Tanks and infantry had staged a similar raid targeting the Hamas in northern Gaza the previous night, the army said.

Israel has won staunch backing from allies including the United States for its military action in Gaza, demanding Hamas release the more than 220 hostages it snatched on October 7 that include a mix of Israelis, foreigners and dual nationals.

The fate of the hostages remains a complicating factor for Israel's planned ground operation.

Hamas' armed wing said on Thursday that "almost 50" hostages had been killed in the bombardments.

 

'Wherever we go, we will die'

Inside Gaza, the punishing strikes have left people "with nothing but impossible choices", said Lynne Hastings, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory.

 

Heading the Israeli warnings, Rahma Saqallah fled her Gaza City home to go south with her family. But after strikes killed her husband and three of her children, she turned round to go back.

"Wherever we go, we will die," she told AFP before leaving the southern town of Khan Yunis with her surviving child.

"They told us to leave for the south and then they killed us [here]."

Meanwhile, concern is growing over the regional fallout from the conflict, with Egypt's army saying Friday six people were lightly injured when an "unidentified drone fell" on a town on the border with Israel.

The army said the drone crashed into "a building next to Taba hospital", in the Red Sea town of the same name just across the border from the Israeli resort of Eilat.

Egypt's Al Qahera News television had said "a rocket" hit Taba, with witnesses telling AFP it struck a hospital annex in town, which lies 200 kilometres south of Egypt's border with Gaza.

Palestinian top diplomat calls Israel offensive 'war of revenge'

By - Oct 27,2023 - Last updated at Oct 27,2023

A wounded Palestinian woman and her child are wheeled into the Nasser hospital following Israeli bombardment, in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 26, 2023 (AFP photo)

THE HAGUE — The Palestinian Authority's foreign minister on Thursday said Israel's offensive in Gaza was a "war of revenge", as he called for a ceasefire in the conflict.

The visit of Riyad Al Maliki to the Hague comes as Israel said a column of tanks and infantry had launched an overnight raid into Hamas-controlled Gaza.

"This time the war that Israel is waging is different. This time... it's a war of revenge," Maliki said in The Hague.

"This war has no real objective than the total destruction of every livable corner in Gaza," Maliki told reporters at the Palestinian Authority's mission to The Hague.

He said the need for a ceasefire was a top priority to get aid into Gaza, where the main UN agency warned Wednesday operations would cease as it was running out of fuel.

"First we need to end this aggression, this one-sided war and then we need to call for a ceasefire," he said, adding that "a ceasefire is essential... for the distribution of humanitarian aid".

 

'Humanitarian pauses' 

 

But Maliki stressed that so-called "humanitarian pauses" would not alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

European Union leaders were set on Thursday to call for "humanitarian corridors and pauses" in order for aid to reach civilians in Gaza.

Maliki said he was not confident EU officials "would go for a full cease-fire.

"But I am confident that they will have a very serious discussion and they will be able understand the difference between a humanitarian pause and a ceasefire."

"A humanitarian pause is not going to help in bringing in... the necessary distribution of such goods into Gaza."

Maliki also said the only long-term solution in the conflict would be a return to the two-state solution, the framework proposed for separate Israeli and Palestinian states.

"It will be difficult, but not impossible to go to the two-state solution. But what is the alternative?

"We don't have an alternative."

On Wednesday, Maliki met top officials at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, including its chief prosecutor Karim Khan.

“The situation in Gaza is so dangerous now that it needs immediate intervention by the [ICC] prosecutor,” Maliki said, accusing Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The Palestinian Authority was “working with the ICC prosecutor”, he added.

The Palestinians have made a second submission to the UN’s highest International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is also based in The Hague, he said.

The UN’s general Assembly has asked the ICJ’s judges for an advisory legal opinion on Israel’s occupation in Palestinian territories.

Sudan peace talks resume in Jeddah: Saudi statement

By - Oct 27,2023 - Last updated at Oct 27,2023

RIYADH — Sudan's warring parties on Thursday resumed talks in Saudi Arabia aimed at ending a conflict that has raged for over six months and left thousands dead, the Saudi foreign ministry said.

Since April, the war between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has killed more than 9,000 people and displaced over 5.6 million.

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia welcomes the resumption of talks between representatives of the Sudanese Armed Forces and representatives of the Rapid Support Forces in the city of Jeddah," a statement said.

Both sides announced Wednesday they had accepted an invitation to resume US- and Saudi-brokered negotiations in Jeddah.

Previous mediation attempts have yielded only brief truces, and even those were systematically violated.

The latest talks are occurring "in partnership" with a representative of the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the East African regional bloc led by close US partner Kenya, the Saudi statement said.

The statement called on negotiators to abide by an earlier agreement announced on May 11 to protect civilians and a short-term ceasefire deal signed on May 20.

“The Kingdom affirms its keenness on unity of ranks... to stop the bloodshed and alleviate the suffering of the Sudanese people,” the statement said.

Riyadh hopes for “a political agreement under which security, stability and prosperity will be achieved for Sudan and its brotherly people”.

 

‘Unhindered humanitarian access’ 

 

Before the first round of the Jeddah talks were suspended, mediators had grown increasingly frustrated with both sides’ reluctance to work towards a sustained truce.

Experts believed that Burhan and Daglo had opted for a war of attrition instead, hoping to extract greater concessions at the negotiating table later.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who helped mediate at the start of the crisis, finalised details on the new talks during a recent visit to Saudi Arabia as part of a trip largely devoted to the Israel-Hamas war, US officials said this week.

The talks will aim for a ceasefire but it is premature to discuss a lasting political solution, the officials said.

“The new round will focus on ensuring unhindered humanitarian access and achieving ceasefires and other confidence-building measures,” a State Department official said on condition of anonymity.

As talks resumed on Thursday, witnesses again reported fighting in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.

The RSF meanwhile announced that its fighters had seized “complete control” of army positions in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur and Sudan’s second most populous city.

 

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