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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 16:49:00 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 22:20:14 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 7:11pm Summary--The World Health Organization has issued a statement condemning Israel’s orders of the evacuation of 22 hospitals in northern Gaza that are treating more than 2,000 inpatients. In a statement on Saturday, the WHO warned that the “forced evacuations of patients and health workers will further worsen the current humanitarian and public health catastrophe”. --Iran has warned of “far-reaching consequences” if Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” are not stopped immediately. On Saturday, the permanent mission of Iran to the United Nations added: “The responsibility of which lies with the UN, the Security Council & the states steering the Council toward a dead end.” --Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian appears to have met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar, this evening. The exact meeting details have yet to be disclosed. --US president Joe Biden spoke separately with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday. Netanyahu’s office said that the prime minister told Biden that “unity and determination” are needed to achieve Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas. Meanwhile, Abbas’s office said that the president told Biden that he rejects the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza as thousands flee amid deadly Israeli airstrikes. --Israel’s military said on Saturday that it has fired back at Syrian areas from which two rockets were launched towards Israeli territory and fell into open areas. The military also said it fired an interceptor towards a “suspicious target” that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon but did not provide any additional details. --The European Council chief has called on a virtual summit with EU leaders next week to discuss the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. “It is of utmost importance that the European Council, in line with the treaties and our values, sets our common position and establishes a clear unified course of action that reflects the complexity of the unfolding situation,” said Charles Michel, president of the European Council. --Médicins Sans Frontieres has called on the ‘Israeli authorities to ‘show humanity’. In a statement issued on Saturday, MSF condemned Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip “without restraint for a week”. --Israel has admitted to intelligence ‘mistakes’ in failing to predict Hamas’s attacks last weekend. “It’s my mistake, and it reflects the mistakes of all those making [intelligence] assessments,” Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said at a press briefing. --The Israeli military announced on Saturday that its forces are preparing to implement a wide range of operational offensive plans. It also announced that its forces have been deployed throughout Israel and is preparing for the next stages “with an emphasis on significant ground operations”. --Lebanon said on Saturday that Israel had launched a deadly strike on Friday that killed a Reuters journalist and injured six other journalists from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Al Jazeera. The Lebanese army said in a statement that “the Israeli enemy fired a rocket shell that hit a civilian car belonging to a media team, leading to the death of Issam Abdallah”. --The UN’s under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “fast becoming untenable”. In a statement issued on Saturday, Griffiths said: “Even wars have rules, and these rules must be upheld, at all times, and by all sides. Civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian workers and assets, must be protected.” --The European Commission announced this afternoon that it will triple humanitarian aid for Gaza. The move comes after the EU faced criticism for conflicting messaging from its senior leadership. The commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, spoke with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, today, the commission said.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 22:21:00 GMT -5
(The Guardian) US sending second aircraft carrier to eastern Mediterranean – reportsThe United States is ordering a second aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean near Israel, according to US ABC and CNN reports. The ABC quoted US officials as saying the Pentagon was sending the second carrier to the area to deter Iran or Hezbollah from joining the Israel-Hamas conflict. The USS Eisenhower carrier strike group will be ordered to the eastern Mediterranean to join the USS Gerald R Ford carrier strike group that arrived there earlier this week and is in international waters off Israel, it quoted a senior US official as saying. CNN reported that the US warships were not intended to join the fighting in Gaza or take part in Israel’s operations but that the presence of two of the US navy’s most powerful ships was designed to send a message of deterrence to Iran and Iranian proxies in the region such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Pentagon did not immediately comment on the reports. US sending second aircraft carrier ‘to deter hostile actions against Israel’, Lloyd Austin saysThe US defence secretary has confirmed the US is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean, saying it is “to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack”. Lloyd Austin said on Saturday the deployment signalled Washington’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war”, Agence France-Presse reports. The USS Eisenhower and its affiliated warships will join another carrier group already deployed to the region in the wake of the attack on Israel a week ago and Israel’s ongoing response. The US has sent munitions to Israel and warned other countries not to escalate the conflict.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 22:28:23 GMT -5
(The Guardian) President Joe Biden has underlined US support for efforts to protect civilians amid the Israeli siege and bombardment of Gaza in a phone call with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The call was held on the same day Washington announced a second US carrier was being deployed to the eastern Mediterranean Sea near Israel. “President Biden affirmed his support for all efforts to protect civilians,” Agence France-Presse reported the White House as saying in a statement about the call, which did not specifically mention Gaza. Biden also spoke on Saturday with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmud Abbas for the first time since hostilities broke out, condemning “Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel”. A White House statement about the talk between the two leaders said Biden told Abbas: Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination.
Tens of thousands of people have rallied in London and other British cities at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, amid police warnings that anyone showing support for the militant group Hamas could face arrest. Protesters marching through the heart of the UK capital on Saturday were shadowed by a heavy police presence of more than 1,000 officers, Agence France-Presse reports. Similar rallies took place in Manchester in northern England, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, and other British cities. In London, demonstrators massed neared BBC News’ headquarters before an afternoon rally near prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street residence. Parts of the entrance to the building in central London’s Portland Place, where the rally started, were left splattered with red paint thrown by protesters from the Palestine Action group. The broadcaster has been criticised by supporters of both Israel and the Palestinians.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 22:29:10 GMT -5
(The Guardian) A Reuters videographer killed in Israeli shelling of southern Lebanon has been laid to rest in his hometown in a funeral procession attended by hundreds of people, Associated Press reports. Draped in a Lebanese flag, Issam Abdallah’s body was carried on a stretcher through the streets of the southern town of Khiam from his family’s home to the local cemetery. Dozens of journalists and Lebanese legislators attended the funeral on Saturday. Abdallah was killed on Friday evening near the village of Alma al-Shaab in south Lebanon when an Israeli shell landed on a gathering of international journalists covering exchange of fire along the border between Israeli troops and members of Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah. The Lebanese army said in a statement on Saturday that Israeli troops fired a shell the day before hitting a civilian car used by journalists, killing Abdallah and wounding others. The army said other areas in south Lebanon at the time were targeted by an Israeli helicopter gunship and artillery. Lebanon’s foreign ministry asked Beirut’s mission to the UN to file a complaint against Israel over Friday’s shelling, calling it a “flagrant violation and a crime against freedom of opinion and press”. The Israel Defence Forces said in a statement that it responded with tank and artillery fire after a missile was fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah. The incident was under review, the IDF said. Israeli military spokesperson Lt Col Richard Hecht, speaking in Jerusalem earlier on Saturday, did not confirm that journalists had been hit by Israeli shells but called the incident “tragic”, adding: “We’re very sorry for his death.”
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 22:29:52 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The Israel Defence Forces says it is continuing to attack targets throughout the Gaza Strip and that “terrorists identified coming out of a tunnel shaft in Gaza territory were killed”. Black-and-white footage of apparent explosions, filmed from above, accompanied the IDF’s post on X/Twitter. It said: The IDF continued throughout the day to vigorously attack military targets of the terrorist organization Hamas, with an emphasis on the neighborhoods of Jabaliya, Zeytun, al-Furkan and Beit Hanun.
The Palestinian health ministry said early on Sunday that 300 people, mostly children and women, had been killed and 800 others had been injured in Gaza over the past 24 hours. Reuters quotes Gaza authorities as saying more than 2,200 people have been killed – a quarter of them children – and nearly 10,000 wounded in total as Israel hits back after last weekend’s unprecedented attack by Hamas militants. Palestinian rescue workers have been desperately searching for survivors of nighttime air raids. One million people have reportedly left their homes after the Israeli military told residents of the northern half of the Gaza Strip – which includes its biggest settlement, Gaza City – to move south immediately. Israeli troops continued preparations on Sunday for their expected ground assault on the Hamas-controlled enclave.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 22:40:22 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Israel will start “significant” military operations in Gaza once it sees that civilians have left the area, CNN has quoted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as saying. The network reported that IDF spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said Israel had been very generous in giving “ample warning, more than 25 hours” for the more than 1 million Gazans in the northern part of the densely populated territory to move south. Conricus said: I cannot stress more than enough to say now is the time for Gazans to leave. Take your belongings, go south. Preserve your life, and do not fall into the trap that Hamas is setting up for you.CNN also quoted Conricus as saying the area around the Gaza Strip was packed with “hundreds of thousands of Israeli reserve units” preparing for various missions.
Chinese envoy Zhai Jun will visit the Middle East next week to push for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict and promote peace talks, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has reported. Zhai “will visit the Middle East next week to coordinate with various parties for a ceasefire, to protect civilians, ease the situation and promote peace talks”, Agence France-Presse quoted CCTV as saying on Sunday in a video posted to its official social media account on Sunday.
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Post by Webster on Oct 14, 2023 22:41:00 GMT -5
(The Guardian) As the prospect of a ground assault on Gaza looms, defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh has taken a look at the risks, uncertainty and potential humanitarian consequences of such an operation. -- “Hamas has long been ready for an Israeli incursion, digging a sophisticated network of tunnels across Gaza intended to allow its forces to survive aerial bombardment,” he writes. “Some tunnels previously discovered by Israel because they went under the border fence are as deep as 70 metres.
“The heavily urbanised terrain – the Gaza Strip is one of the world’s most densely populated areas – will also favour the defenders as they try to fight back. Each remaining building will have to be fought over, and heavy mining could further impede the Israelis if Hamas copies the technique used by Russia to blunt Ukraine’s counteroffensive.”
Sabbagh adds: “The near certain reality is that a ground invasion will be bloody, and it is possible international political support for Israel, which is high after Hamas’s brutal attack a week ago killed 1,300 Israeli civilians, will dip as more Palestinian civilians are killed or remain trapped without shelter, food or electricity.”
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Post by Webster on Oct 15, 2023 1:04:59 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 11:31pm Summary--The US is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean, the US defence secretary has confirmed, saying it is “to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack”. Lloyd Austin said on Saturday the deployment signalled Washington’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security and our resolve to deter any state or non-state actor seeking to escalate this war”. The USS Eisenhower and its affiliated warships will join another carrier group already deployed to the region in the wake of the attack on Israel a week ago and Israel’s ongoing response. The US has sent munitions to Israel and warned other countries not to escalate the conflict. --The World Health Organization has condemned Israel’s order to evacuate 22 hospitals in northern Gaza that are treating more than 2,000 inpatients. Moving that many patients to southern Gaza, “where health facilities are already running at maximum capacity and unable to absorb a dramatic rise in the number patients, could be tantamount to a death sentence”, the organisation said. --Iran has warned of “far-reaching consequences” if Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” are not stopped immediately. On Saturday, the permanent mission of Iran to the United Nations added: “The responsibility of which lies with the UN, the security council and the states steering the council toward a dead end.” --Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar. Hamas said the two had agreed to continue cooperation to achieve Hamas’s goals. Earlier, Haniyeh said in a televised speech that “there will be no migration from Gaza to Egypt” in the wake of Israel’s order to evacuate, and that Egypt “welcomes the Palestinian people, but not on the basis of migration or an exodus”. --US president Joe Biden spoke separately with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday. Netanyahu’s office said that the prime minister told Biden that “unity and determination” were needed to achieve Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas. Meanwhile, Abbas’s office said Abbas told Biden he rejected the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza as thousands fled amid deadly Israeli airstrikes. --Russia has asked the United Nations security council to vote on Monday on a draft resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict that calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and condemns violence against civilians and all acts of terrorism. --The Syrian defence ministry has confirmed Israel’s targeting of its Aleppo airport on Saturday night, putting it out of action. “The Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia, targeting Aleppo international airport, which led to material damage to the airport and it being out of service,” Reuters reports the ministry saying. --Israel’s military said on Saturday that it had fired back at Syrian areas from which two rockets were launched towards Israeli territory and fell into open areas. The military also said it fired an interceptor towards a “suspicious target” that crossed into Israeli territory from Lebanon but did not provide any additional details. --The European Council chief has called on a virtual summit with EU leaders next week to discuss the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. “It is of utmost importance that the European Council, in line with the treaties and our values, sets our common position and establishes a clear unified course of action that reflects the complexity of the unfolding situation,” said Charles Michel, president of the European Council. --Médicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has called on the Israeli authorities to “show humanity”. In a statement issued on Saturday, MSF condemned Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip “without restraint for a week”. --Israel has admitted to intelligence “mistakes” in failing to predict Hamas’s attacks last weekend. “It’s my mistake, and it reflects the mistakes of all those making [intelligence] assessments,” Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said at a press briefing. --The Israeli military announced on Saturday that its forces were preparing to implement a wide range of operational offensive plans. It also announced its forces had been deployed throughout Israel and were preparing for the next stages “with an emphasis on significant ground operations”. --Lebanon said on Saturday that Israel had launched a deadly strike on Friday that killed a Reuters journalist and injured six other journalists from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Al Jazeera. The Lebanese army said in a statement: “The Israeli enemy fired a rocket shell that hit a civilian car belonging to a media team, leading to the death of Issam Abdallah.” --The UN’s under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, has warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “fast becoming untenable”. In a statement issued on Saturday, Griffiths said: “Even wars have rules, and these rules must be upheld, at all times, and by all sides. Civilians and civilian infrastructure, including humanitarian workers and assets, must be protected.” --The European Commission announced that it will triple humanitarian aid for Gaza. The move comes after the EU faced criticism for conflicting messaging from its senior leadership. The commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, spoke on Saturday with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, the commission said.
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Post by Webster on Oct 15, 2023 1:06:01 GMT -5
A fireball erupts during Israeli bombardment in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images A column of Israeli armoured personnel carriers near the Gaza border in southern Israel. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images
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Post by Webster on Oct 15, 2023 1:07:08 GMT -5
(The Guardian) An estimated 35,000 people have crammed into the grounds of Gaza City’s main hospital, seeking refugee ahead of the expected Israeli ground offensive, medical officials say. Mohammad Abu Selim, the general director of Shifa hospital – the largest in Gaza Strip – confirmed that huge crowds had thronged the building and the courtyard outside, Associated Press reports. Health ministry official Dr Medhat Abbas said: People think this is the only safe space after their homes were destroyed and they were forced to flee. Gaza City is a frightening scene of devastation.The Israeli military has ordered roughly half of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million, including all of Gaza City, to evacuate as it prepares to send in ground forces. Aid groups have warned the exodus could cause a humanitarian disaster.
Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel last weekend, which killed more than 1,300 Israelis and led to an estimated 130 more held captive in Gaza, has been met with a harsh crackdown by Israeli forces across the West Bank. Beyond the closed checkpoints and the empty roads, residents across Ramallah have feared the rising violence from the Israeli military and security forces, as well as some of the estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers across the area. The Palestinian health ministry said 54 people, including children, had been killed with more than 1,100 injured in the West Bank since Hamas’s attack. Monitoring groups said the dead included minors shot in the head, chest or abdomen with live rounds. Fatal violence from Israeli settlers was twice caught on video last week. The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem circulated footage of a settler in the village of At-Tuwani, south of Hebron, shoving a Palestinian man before shooting him at point blank range as the man dropped to his knees, with an Israel Defence Forces soldier standing nearby. The day before, video footage showed armed Israeli settlers attacking the village of Qusra, south of Nablus.
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Post by Webster on Oct 15, 2023 1:08:02 GMT -5
(The Guardian) An Israeli official says Iran is trying to move strategic weapons to or via Syria to open a second front in the Israel-Hamas war, Reuters has just snapped, citing a post on X/Twitter.
The Jerusalem Post reported earlier that Iran had sent a private message to Israel through the UN that it could intervene if Israel continues its military campaign in Gaza. The report, first covered by Israeli news site Walla, said Tehran had warned of “far-reaching consequences” if the Israel Defence Forces’ bombing of Gaza was not stopped, as diplomats worked feverishly to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from escalating into a regional conflict that could include Iran and militant Lebanese group Hezbollah. Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met with the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, in Beirut on Saturday to discuss the situation. Amirabdollahian later met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar, and the two agreed to continue cooperation to achieve the group’s goals, Hamas said in a statement.
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Post by Webster on Oct 15, 2023 1:08:47 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Mohammed Ghalayini awoke to the sound of outgoing rocket fire. It was 6am on Saturday 6 October and his first thought was how surreal the rockets sounded in the beautiful morning sky over Gaza City. He soon saw that things were going to be different this time, not like the previous Israeli attacks on the enclave. Ghalayini, a 44-year-old an air quality scientist living in Manchester, England, who had temporarily returned to his hometown of Gaza City, later heard a loud bang and the sound of shattering glass – a building just 100 metres away had been hit. With his mother and sister, Ghalayini and their neighbours fled their apartments on the Gaza seafront, fearing they were too exposed to what they knew was about to come. The buzz of drones intensified overhead as they filled their overnight bags with passports, medications and as many books, clothes, toiletries and chargers as they could carry. “It’s hard to leave your home not knowing if you’ll have a home to come back to,” he said. Ghalayini didn’t realise this would be the first of three times he would flee in just one week. -Read more: www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/15/view-from-gaza-i-cant-leave-its-horrific-that-i-have-to-choose-between-my-life-and-my-home
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Post by Webster on Oct 15, 2023 1:09:32 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The death toll in the Gaza Strip climbed to 2,329 Palestinians dead and 9,714 injured on Sunday morning, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The latest casualty toll, reported by Reuters, reflects those killed and injured by Israeli forces since the conflict began on 7 October.
Israel’s actions in Gaza have gone “beyond the scope of self-defence” and the Israeli government must “cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza”, China’s foreign minister said in remarks published on Sunday. Wang Yi’s remarks – made on a call to his Saudi counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, on Saturday – came as Israel appeared poised for a ground offensive in Gaza against Hamas, Agence France-Presse reports “Israel’s actions have gone beyond the scope of self-defence,” Wang said, according to a foreign ministry readout. -- It should listen earnestly to the calls of the international community and the UN secretary general, and cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza.Wang comments were China’s strongest so far on the conflict.
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Post by Webster on Oct 15, 2023 1:10:39 GMT -5
(The Guardian) US secretary of state Antony Blinken began a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh soon after 7.30am (0430 GMT) on Sunday, a US official said, as Blinken works with regional allies to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiralling into a bigger conflict and help win release of Israeli hostages. A senior Israeli official, meanwhile, accused Iran on Sunday of trying to open such a second front by deploying weapons in or through Syria, in a response to a post on X/Twitter posited such a scenario, Reuters reports. “They [Iranians] are,” wrote Joshua Zarka, head of strategic affairs for Israel’s foreign ministry. Iran’s mission to the UN warned late on Saturday that if Israel’s “war crimes and genocide” were not halted immediately, “the situation could spiral out of control” and have far-reaching consequences. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has told the militant group Hezbolla – which neighbours Israel to the north and like Hamas is backed by Iran – not to start a war on a second front, threatening the “destruction of Lebanon” if it did.
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