Region

BAGHDAD — US fighter jets struck two targets in Iraq early on Wednesday, killing eight pro-Iran fighters in retaliation for repeated attacks on American troops, US and Iraqi sources said.

The twin strikes, which followed similar bombardment of Iran-backed forces on Tuesday, drew condemnation from the Iraqi government, which said it had not been consulted about the military action on its soil.

The US military "conducted discrete, precision strikes against two facilities in Iraq", US Central Command said on X, previously Twitter.

"The strikes were in direct response to the attacks against US and coalition forces by Iran and Iran-backed groups," the post added.

The Iran-backed Hizbollah Brigades, which form part of the Hashed Al Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) force within Iraq’s armed forces, said the strikes killed eight of its fighters.

Hours earlier, a warplane struck the vehicle of Iranian-backed fighters after they had fired a short-range ballistic missile at US and allied personnel, the Pentagon said.

It was the first time the United States has announced a strike on Iran-backed forces in Iraq since they launched a flurry of attacks against US targets in response to Washington’s support for Israel in its war to destroy Hamas.

Washington has targeted Iran-backed groups in neighbouring Syria, however, carrying out strikes on three occasions in recent weeks.

Since the Gaza war on October 7, US forces deployed in Iraq and Syria have been attacked at least 66 times, most recently on Monday night, according to Pentagon officials.

“We can confirm an attack last night by Iran-backed militias using a close-range ballistic missile against US and coalition forces at Al Asad Airbase, which resulted in eight injuries and some minor damage to infrastructure,” Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday.

‘Self-defence strike’ 

The Ain Al Asad Airbase lies in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, and hosts forces of the US-led coalition fighting the Daesh terror group in Iraq.

“Immediately following the attack, a US military AC-130 aircraft in the area conducted a self-defence strike against an Iranian-backed militia vehicle and a number of Iranian-backed militia personnel involved in this attack. This self-defence strike resulted in several enemy KIA [killed in action],” Ryder said.

Government spokesman Bassem Al Awadi said the pre-dawn strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday were carried out “without the knowledge of Iraqi government agencies” and constituted an “unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty”.

But he also criticised the Iran-backed groups that have repeatedly attacked Iraqi bases used by forces of the US-led coalition fighting Daesh.

“Any armed action or activity outside the military institution is deemed condemnable and an unlawful endeavour that jeopardises the national interest,” he said in a statement.

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters in Washington that US forces “have been attacked approximately 66 times since October 17, 32 separate times in Iraq and 34 separate times in Syria”.

She said the attacks had resulted in approximately 62 injuries to US personnel, but that number did not include the eight cited by Ryder.

While US forces have been targeted in both Iraq and Syria, Washington had until now only responded with strikes in Syria in an apparent bid to avoid inflaming political tensions in Iraq, which the United States invaded in 2003 and where Iran wields substantial influence.

There are roughly 2,500 US troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of efforts to prevent a resurgence of Daesh.

GAZA STRIP, Palestine — Gaza's Hamas government said on Tuesday the death toll in the Palestinian territory had reached 14,128 since war began on October 7 between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters.

The Hamas government said 5,840 children and 3,920 women were among the dead, with another 33,000 people wounded. Its health ministry has previously said it can no longer give exact tolls as intense fighting has prevented bodies from being recovered.

The UN warned on Tuesday that fuel shortages, a lack of water and worsening sanitation in Gaza, along with attacks on healthcare and mass displacement, are creating "a perfect storm for tragedy".

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Tuesday that already around 160 children are killed every day in Gaza, and the UN children's agency UNICEF warned that the number could skyrocket.

"If children's access to water and sanitation in Gaza continue to be restricted and insufficient, we will see a tragic, yet entirely avoidable,  surge in the number of children dying," spokesman James Elder said.

Elder said the daily minimum need in emergency situations was 15 litres of water per person, for drinking, hygiene and cooking, but that in parts of Gaza as little as 3 litres per day is available, and none on some days.

“We have then a perfect storm for the spread of disease,” he said, pointing to “a desperate lack of water, faecal matter strewn across densely-populated settlements [and] an unacceptable lack of latrines”.

He stressed the urgent need for sufficient fuel to be allowed into the territory, among other things, to get water pumps, desalination stations and waste management working again.

After weeks of no fuel entering Gaza, an agreement has been reached to allow 70,000 litres per day, but the UN says 200,000 litres are needed daily for humanitarian operations.

Overcrowded shelters 

More than 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants are estimated to be internally displaced within the enclave, nearly half of them children, the UN said on Tuesday.

Nearly 900,000 of those displaced are staying in severely overcrowded shelters run by UNRWA, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees.

On average, there are 700 people to one shower unit and 150 people to a toilet in those shelters, Elder said.

The WHO said last week that only 10 of the territory’s 36 hospitals were still functioning, with the situation deteriorating since then. 

It said on Monday there are no functioning hospitals in northern Gaza.

WHO said it had been asked by health personnel to help evacuate three non-functioning hospitals in the north: Al Shifa and Al Ahli in Gaza City and the Indonesian hospital near the Jabalia refugee camp.

The WHO, which has described Al Shifa as a “death zone”, helped evacuate 31 premature babies on Saturday.

But WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said on Tuesday that two others had died prior to the evacuation.

Three of the evacuated babies were at a hospital in southern Gaza, while 28 arrived in Egypt on Monday.

Lindmeier said on Tuesday that the WHO was making plans to bring out the remaining 200 patients and 50 health workers still stuck in Al Shifa.

He said around 180 babies were born every day in Gaza, with more than 20 needing specialised care.

WHO warned that Gaza’s health system was struggling to cope amid an influx of casualties and sharp increases in diseases.

More than 72,000 cases of upper respiratory infections had been detected in displacement shelters, Lindmeier said.

There had also been nearly 49,000 cases of diarrhoea among children under five, 31 times the monthly average.

Cases of scabies, lice, chicken pox and skin rashes are also surging.

UNICEF said no cholera had yet been detected in Gaza, but stressed that an outbreak could see the number of children dying in Gaza rise “exponentially”.

PARIS — Fifty-three journalists and media workers have been killed in the latest Israeli war on Gaza, according to a tally by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) published on Tuesday.

The toll includes 46 Palestinians, four Israelis and three Lebanese killed since the war began on October 7, the New York-based organisation said.

The most recent casualties were two journalists from the Lebanese channel Al Mayadeen, killed by Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Tuesday according to state-run media.

The CPJ said 11 journalists have been injured and three are missing since the start of the conflict, while 18 have been arrested.

“Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli air strikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages and extensive power outages,” the NGO said on its website.

GAZA STRIP, Palestine — Hopes mounted on Tuesday that dozens of hostages seized by Hamas could be released from war-torn Gaza, after the group's leader and key mediator Qatar both said a truce agreement with Israel was in sight.

"We are close to reaching a deal on a truce," Ismail Haniyeh said, according to a statement sent by his office to AFP, after US President Joe Biden indicated an accord was on the cards on Monday.

In Qatar, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Majed Al Ansari told reporters: "We are at the closest point we ever had been in reaching an agreement.

"We're very optimistic, very hopeful," he added.

Hopes of a breakthrough have been mounting since Qatar on Sunday said only "minor" practical issues remained to secure a deal.

Speculation grew further when the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is often involved in prisoner exchanges and hostage releases, said on Monday that its president had met Haniyeh in Qatar.

Sources from Hamas and Islamic Jihad told AFP on condition of anonymity that their groups had agreed to the terms of a truce deal.

The tentative agreement would include a five-day truce, comprised of a complete ceasefire on the ground and an end to Israeli air operations over Gaza, except in the north, where they would only halt for six hours daily.

Under the deal, which the sources said could yet change, between 50 and 100 Israeli civilian and foreign hostages would be released, but no military personnel.

In exchange, some 300 Palestinians would be freed from Israeli jails, among them women and minors.

An agreement could bring some respite for Gazans who have endured more than six weeks under Israel bombardment and an expanding ground offensive.

Large parts of Gaza have been flattened by thousands of air strikes, and the territory is under siege, with minimal food, water and fuel allowed to enter.

According to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad sources, the proposed deal would also allow for up to 300 trucks of food and medical aid to enter Gaza.

GAZA STRIP, Palestine — Gaza's health ministry said on Monday Israeli forces had struck the Indonesian Hospital and killed at least 12 people, including patients, in the north of the war-torn Palestinian territory.

Dozens more were wounded and around 700 people remained trapped inside the "besieged" medical centre, said Ashraf Al Qudra, a spokesman of the ministry which has reported a death toll of more than 13,000 in Gaza.

The latest reported blow to Gaza's devastated health sector came as hopes rose that 31 premature babies evacuated from another hospital, Al Shifa, would be taken from a Gaza clinic to safety in Egypt through the Rafah crossing.

Frantic diplomatic efforts were meanwhile underway to seal a deal for the release of some of the hostages. Mediator Qatar voiced hope on Sunday that an agreement was near, but Israel and Hamas have not yet reported that a deal is imminent.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war has reduced much of the coastal strip to rubble and seen Israeli troops raid, occupy and evacuate the biggest hospital, Al Shifa, in recent days, which saw hundreds flee the area on foot toward southern Gaza.

After another Gaza building was hit, in Deir Al Balah south of Gaza City on Sunday, rescuers searched through the debris for survivors and bodies, using the lights of their mobile phones in the rain.

“There are only children and women in the house and no one else,” exclaimed one resident. “How can that give them [the Israeli army] an excuse to hit it?... We don’t have any equipment to pull people out from under the rubble.”

Bodies on the road 

Alarm has surged over the dire humanitarian situation as the war rages into a seventh week.

The Israeli offensive has killed more than 13,000 people, including thousands of children, according to the Hamas-run government, fuelling mounting global pressure for a ceasefire.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA has described a “collapse of services” at hospitals across northern Gaza, amid shortages of electricity, fuel and medical supplies.

The hospital has been a focal point of global concern after Israeli forces launched a raid on it last week, with the World Health Organisation calling it “a death zone”.

Over the weekend, hundreds fled the Al Shifa hospital on foot as loud explosions were heard around the complex. At least 15 bodies, some decomposing, were strewn along the route, an AFP journalist said.

The Indonesia Hospital is located near the Jabalia refugee camp, where on Saturday a health official said more than 80 people were killed in twin strikes, including on a UN school sheltering displaced people.

The Gaza war has sparked fears of a wider conflagration in the Middle East where Israel has long faced arch enemy Iran and its allies.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani on Monday refused to accept the resignation of three Cabinet ministers who stepped down over the dismissal of the parliament speaker.

The supreme court last week said it was dismissing speaker Mohamed Al Halbussi, an influential Sunni Muslim politician, after a lawmaker accused him of forging a document.

Halbussi's Taqadom Party hit back by announcing that the government ministers of culture, industry and planning — all three members of the party — were stepping down in protest.

But on Monday Sudani's office released a statement saying the prime minister "has rejected the resignations of the ministers of planning, industry, and culture".

"Consequently, they will resume their duties in service of our beloved people," the statement read.

It said that Sudani's government was committed to a comprehensive political representation "in line with the commitment to support political stability" across the multi-ethnic country.

Under a power-sharing system adopted in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, political positions are divided between Iraq's ethnic and confessional communities.

The president is chosen from the Kurdish community, while the prime minister is a Shiite Muslim — who represent the majority of the population — and the speaker of parliament represents the Sunni Muslim community.

Iraq's 329-member parliament is dominated by a coalition of pro-Iran Shiite parties.

Halbussi led a sizeable Sunni bloc, with his Taqadom Party's 37 members in parliament, until he faced growing unease within Iraq's Sunni political sphere in recent months

Laith Al Duleimi, who was an MP for Taqadom, had accused Halbussi of forging a resignation letter, saying the speaker had changed the date on an older document to force him out of parliament.

Halbussi had rejected the court's decision to dismiss him, calling it a "strange verdict" and said "some seek to destabilise the country".