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87 people killed or missing in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, health ministry says

Displaced Palestinians, ordered by the Israeli army to leave the school in Beit Lahia where they were sheltered, rest as they arrive in Gaza City on October 19, 2024 Gaza's civil defence agency said on October 19, more than 400 Palestinians were killed in the north of the territory over the past two weeks during an ongoing Israeli military assault which has displaced tens of thousands. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians, ordered by the Israeli army to leave the school in Beit Lahia where they were sheltered, rest as they arrive in Gaza City on October 19, 2024 Gaza's civil defence agency said on October 19, more than 400 Palestinians were killed in the north of the territory over the past two weeks during an ongoing Israeli military assault which has displaced tens of thousands. (AFP)
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Updated 20 October 2024

87 people killed or missing in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, health ministry says

87 people killed or missing in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, health ministry says
  • Palestinian health officials said rescue operations were being hampered by the cut-off of telecommunication and Internet services for a second day

CAIRO: A total of 87 people were killed or missing under the rubble after an Israeli attack on Saturday on northern Gaza’s town of Beit Lahiya, the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
More than 40 others were injured, it added.

Medics said they targeted a multi-floor building and damaged several houses nearby.
The Israeli military said they were checking the report.
Palestinian health officials said rescue operations were being hampered by the cut-off of telecommunication and Internet services for a second day. Earlier in the day, the Gaza health ministry said Israeli military strikes killed 35 Palestinians across the enclave.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Israeli strike kills 73 people in Beit Lahiya

• Israel says checking the reports, casts doubts on death toll by Hamas media office

• Israeli strikes kill 108 people across Gaza, medics say

• Israel tightens siege around hospitals in north, medics say

“This is a war of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The occupation has conducted a horrifying massacre in Beit Lahiya,” the Hamas media office said.
Residents and medics said Israeli forces had tightened their siege on Jabalia, the largest of the enclave’s eight historic camps, which it encircled by also sending tanks to the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and issuing evacuation orders to residents.
Israeli officials said evacuation orders were aimed at separating Hamas fighters from civilians and denied there was any systematic plan to clear civilians out of Jabalia or other northern areas.
In Jabalia, residents said Israeli forces besieged several shelters housing displaced families before they stormed them and detained dozens of men. Footage on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed dozens of Palestinian men sitting on the ground next to a tank, while others were led by a soldier to a gathering site.
Residents and medical officials said Israeli forces were bombing houses and besieging hospitals, preventing medical and food supplies from entering to force them to leave the camp.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army to evacuate the hospital or leave the patients, many in critical condition, unattended.
“Hospitals in northern Gaza suffer from stark shortages of medical supplies and manpower and are overwhelmed by the number of casualties,” said Hussam Abu Safiya.
“We are now trying to decide who among the wounded we needed to attend to first, and several wounded died because we could not deal with them,” he said.

SINWAR LEAFLETS
Earlier on Saturday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over southern Gaza on Saturday showing a picture of the dead Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar with the message “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza,” echoing language used by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The move came as Israeli military strikes killed at least 108 people across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said.
“Whoever drops the weapon and hands over the hostages will be allowed to leave and live in peace,” read the leaflet, written in Arabic, according to residents of the southern city of Khan Younis and images circulating online.
The leaflet’s wording was from a statement by Netanyahu on Thursday after Sinwar was killed by Israeli soldiers operating in Rafah, in the south near the Egyptian border, on Wednesday.
The Oct. 7 attack Sinwar planned on Israeli communities a year ago killed around 1,200 people, with another 253 dragged back to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent war has devastated Gaza, killing more than 42,603 Palestinians, with another 10,000 uncounted dead thought to lie under the rubble, Gaza health authorities say.
In the central Gaza Strip camp of Al-Maghzai, an Israeli strike on a house killed 11 people, while another strike at the nearby camp of Nuseirat killed four others.
Five other people were killed in two separate strikes in the south Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, medics said, while seven Palestinians were killed in the Shati camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
Later on Saturday, an Israeli strike killed three Palestinians in Nuseirat, medics said.
Late on Friday, medics said 33 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 85 others were wounded in Israeli strikes that destroyed at least three houses in Jabalia.
The Israeli military said it was unaware of that incident.
It said forces were continuing operations against Hamas across the enclave, killing several gunmen in Rafah and Jabalia and dismantling military infrastructure. Palestinian medics said five people were killed in Jabalia on Saturday.


Hamas negotiators ‘not in Doha’ but political office not closed: Qatar

Hamas negotiators ‘not in Doha’ but political office not closed: Qatar
Updated 8 sec ago

Hamas negotiators ‘not in Doha’ but political office not closed: Qatar

Hamas negotiators ‘not in Doha’ but political office not closed: Qatar
  • Qatar hosted the Palestinian militant group since 2012 announced earlier this month it was pausing its mediation efforts
Doha: Hamas negotiators are not in Doha but the Palestinian militant group’s office there has not been permanently closed, Qatar said on Tuesday.
“The leaders of Hamas that are within the negotiating team are now not in Doha,” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari said, adding: “The decision to... close down the office permanently, is a decision that you will hear about from us directly.”
Qatar, along with the United States and Egypt, had been engaged in months of fruitless negotiations for a truce in the Gaza war, which would include a hostage and prisoner release deal.
But the Gulf state, which has hosted the Palestinian militant group since 2012, with Washington’s blessing, announced earlier this month it was pausing its mediation efforts.
“The mediation process right now... is suspended unless we take a decision to reverse that which is based on the positions of both sides,” Ansari said on Tuesday.
“The office of Hamas in Doha was created for the sake of the mediation process. Obviously, when there is no mediation process, the office itself doesn’t have any function,” he added, declining to confirm whether Qatar had asked Hamas officials to leave.

Syrian top diplomat arrives in Tehran for talks

Syrian top diplomat arrives in Tehran for talks
Updated 4 min 33 sec ago

Syrian top diplomat arrives in Tehran for talks

Syrian top diplomat arrives in Tehran for talks
  • Sabbagh is in Tehran for his first visit since taking up his post in September to meet Iranian officials, local media reported

Tehran: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi welcomed his new Syrian counterpart Bassam Al-Sabbagh in Tehran on Tuesday, the latest in a series of meetings between top officials from the close allies.
Sabbagh is in Tehran for his first visit since taking up his post in September to meet Iranian officials, local media reported.
Details of his meetings have not yet been disclosed.
Al-Sabbagh’s visit comes less than a week after Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, visited Syria and met with Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran.
Over the weekend, Iranian Defense Minister Aziz Nasrizadeh was in Damascus to hold talks with Syrian officials.
Earlier in October, Araghchi himself traveled to Damascus as part of a regional tour just days before Israel’s first confirmed attack on Iranian military sites.
This attack was a response to a large Iranian missile strike on Israel at the start of the month that was prompted by the killing of commanders of militant groups affiliated with Iran, including Hezbollah, and a commander of the Revolutionary Guards.
It followed an Iranian missile and drone attack against Israel in April that was triggered by a strike on an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus blamed on Israel.
Iran does not recognize Israel and has made support for the Palestinian cause a cornerstone of its foreign policy since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
As a staunch ally of Damascus, Tehran has supported Bashar Assad during more than a decade of civil war in Syria.


Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA

Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA
Updated 33 min 12 sec ago

Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA

Norway to ask ICJ to step in after Israel bans UNRWA
  • Bills passed by Israel’s parliament will stop UN agency from sending vital aid to Gaza
  • Norwegian FM: Bills will ‘undermine the stability of the entire Middle East’

London: Norway will ask the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion condemning Israel for ceasing cooperation with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

Last month, Israel’s parliament passed two bills banning the agency from the country and forbidding state cooperation with it.

There are fears that the bills, due to come into effect within three months, will prevent UNRWA from delivering vital aid into Gaza.

The agency says two-thirds of its buildings have been destroyed in Israel’s invasion of the Palestinian enclave, and 243 staff have been killed.

Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik has held talks at the UN on a draft resolution to urge an advisory opinion from the ICJ to protect the existence of UNRWA.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said: “The international community cannot accept that the UN, international humanitarian organizations, and states continue to face systematic obstacles when working in Palestine and delivering humanitarian assistance to Palestinians under occupation.

“We are therefore requesting the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on Israel’s obligations to facilitate humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian population, delivered by international organizations, including the UN, and states.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said the Israeli bills would “undermine the stability of the entire Middle East” and have “severe consequences for millions of civilians already living in the most dire of circumstances.”

Norway’s move is being backed by an increasing number of UN figures and member states. UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said at the UN on Monday: “The situation (in Gaza) is devastating and beyond comprehension, and frankly it is getting worse. It is totally unacceptable that it is harder than ever to get aid into Gaza.

“In October only 37 aid trucks reached Gaza, the lowest ever. There is no excuse for Israeli restrictions on aid.”

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said: “I have drawn the attention of the member states that now the clock is ticking … We have to stop or prevent the implementation of this bill.”

According to the UN Charter, UN buildings are meant to be inviolable during conflicts. After the 2008 war in Gaza, Israel paid the UN compensation amounting to $10.4 million for damage caused to its premises after an investigation determined “an egregious breach of the inviolability of the United Nations premises and a failure to accord the property and assets of the organisation immunity from any form of interference.”


UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under 2 months

UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under 2 months
Updated 47 min 35 sec ago

UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under 2 months

UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under 2 months

Geneva: The UN said Tuesday that over 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in the less than two months since Israel escalated its attacks targeting Hezbollah.
“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva.
“Over the last two months in Lebanon, an average of three children have been killed every single day,” he said.


Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel

Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel
Updated 19 November 2024

Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel

Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel
  • On Monday, one person was killed and several people injured in two separate incidents

Jerusalem: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that some 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into central and northern Israel, with first responders reporting that four people were lightly injured by shrapnel.
“Following sirens that sounded between 09:50 and 09:51 in the Upper Galilee, Western Galilee, and Central Galilee areas, approximately 25 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israel. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified in the area,” the military said in a statement.
That announcement followed earlier reports that some 15 projectiles fired that set of air raid sirens.
A spokesperson for Israeli first responders said that in central Israel it found “four individuals with light injuries from glass shards.... They were injured while in a concrete building where the windows shattered.”
The Israeli police said they were searching the impact sites from projectiles intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems but did not report any serious damage.
On Monday, one person was killed and several people were injured in two separate incidents, one in the northern Israeli town of Shfaram and the other in the suburbs of Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
The military said Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, which is backed by Iran, fired around 100 projectiles from Lebanon toward Israel on Monday, while Israel’s air force carried out strikes on Beirut.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October last year in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. Since September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns in Lebanon primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, though some strikes have hit areas outside the Iran-backed group’s control.