Page 64 - Gaza

Western allies seek rapid end to war in Gaza, Blinken holds talks

Israel kills Hezbollah commander in Beirut

Palestinians flee from Gaza's main hospital as fighting draws closer

Medics, patients and displaced people are fleeing from the main hospital in central Gaza as the fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants draws closer, witnesses said on Monday. Losing the facility would be another major blow to a health system shattered by three months of war. Doctors Without Borders and other aid groups withdrew from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in recent days, saying it is too dangerous. That spread panic among people sheltering there, causing many to join the hundreds of thousands who have fled to the south of the besieged territory. Israel says it has largely wrapped up major operations in northern Gaza and is now focusing on the central region and the southern city of Khan Younis. Israeli officials have said the fighting will continue for many more months as the army seeks to dismantle Hamas and return scores of hostages taken during the militant group's October 7 attack that triggered the war. The offensive has already killed ove

With every strike, Israel, US, and Iran's allies inch closer to all-out war

In the last week alone, Israel has killed a senior Hamas militant in an airstrike in Beirut, Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets into Israel, the US has killed a militia commander in Baghdad and Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have traded fire with the American Navy. Each strike and counterstrike increases the risk of the already catastrophic war in Gaza spilling across the region. And in the decades-old standoff pitting the US and Israel against Iran and allied militant groups, any one party could choose all-out war over a loss of face. The divisions within each camp add another layer of volatility: Hamas might have hoped its October 7 attack would drag its allies into a wider war with Israel. Israelis increasingly talk about the need to change the equation in Lebanon, even as the US aims to contain the conflict. As the intertwined chess games grow ever more complicated, the potential for miscalculation rises. GAZA IS GROUND ZERO Hamas says the October 7 attack that triggered the

Hezbollah struck a sensitive air traffic base in north: Israeli military

Hezbollah has struck an air traffic control base in northern Israel, the Israeli military said Sunday, and warned of another war with the Iran-backed militant group. The increase in fighting across the border with Lebanon as Israel battles Hamas militants in Gaza gave new urgency to U.S. diplomatic efforts as Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to visit Israel on his latest Mideast tour. This is a conflict that could easily metastasize, causing even more insecurity and even more suffering, Blinken told reporters after talks in Qatar, a key mediator. The escalation of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has complicated a U.S. push to prevent a regional conflict. The Israeli military said Hezbollah fire hit the sensitive air traffic control base on Mount Meron on Saturday but air defences were not affected because backup systems were in place. It said that no soldiers were hurt and all damage will be repaired. Nonetheless, it was one of the most serious attacks

Israel ministry to give go-ahead for Elon Musk-owned Starlink this week

Sales will initially be restricted to official bodies, and Starlink agreed not to grant access to humanitarian organizations in the Gaza Strip without the approval of Israel's defense establishment

Netanyahu declares war won't end until Israel achieves 'all' of its goals

"My government directed the IDF to go to war to eliminate Hamas, return our hostages and ensure that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel," Netanyahu said

Blinken meets Jordan's king and minister to keep Gaza war from spreading

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Sunday with Jordan's king and foreign minister and visited a World Food Programme warehouse in Amman as he pressed ahead with an urgent Middle East diplomatic mission to prevent Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza from spreading. On his fourth visit to the region in three months, Blinken stressed the need for Israel to adjust its military operations to reduce civilian casualties and significantly boost the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza while highlighting the importance of preparing detailed plans for the post-conflict future of the territory, which has been decimated by intensive Israeli airstrikes and ground offensives. After a day of talks with Turkish and Greek leaders in Istanbul and Crete, Blinken met Sunday with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi seeking buy-in for US efforts to tamp down resurgent fears that the three-month-old war could engulf the region, ramp up aid deliveries to Gaza and prepare

Israeli military signals it has wrapped up major combat in northern Gaza

The Israeli military signaled that it has wrapped up major combat in northern Gaza, saying it has completed dismantling Hamas' military infrastructure there, as the war against the militant group entered its fourth month on Sunday. Its spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said late Saturday that forces would continue to deepen the achievement there, strengthen defences along the Israel-Gaza border fence and focus on the central and southern parts of the territory. The announcement came ahead of a visit to Israel by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Biden administration officials, including Blinken, have repeatedly urged Israel to wind down its blistering air and ground offensive in Gaza and shift to more targeted attacks against Hamas leaders to prevent harm to Palestinian civilians. In recent weeks, Israel had already been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its offensive in the territory's south, where most of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians are bein

Cumbersome process and inspections slow aid delivery into Gaza: US senators

At Egypt's Rafah border crossing, lines of hundreds of trucks carrying aid wait for weeks to enter Gaza, and a warehouse is full of goods rejected by Israeli inspectors, everything from water testing equipment to medical kits for delivering babies, two U.S. senators said Saturday after a visit to the border. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley pointed to a cumbersome process that is slowing relief to the Palestinian population in the besieged territory largely due to Israeli inspections of aid cargos, with seemingly arbitrary rejections of vital humanitarian equipment. The system to ensure that aid deliveries within Gaza don't get hit by Israeli forces is totally broken, they said. What struck me yesterday was the miles of backed-up trucks. We couldn't count, but there were hundreds, Merkley said in a briefing with Van Hollen to a group of reporters in Cairo. The U.S. has been pressing Israel for weeks to let greater amounts of food, water, fuel, medicine and other supplies int

Turkey committed to a positive role in postwar Gaza, says Antony Blinken

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that Turkey is committed to playing a positive, productive role for postwar Gaza and prepared to use its influence in the region to prevent the Israel-Hamas conflict from broadening even more. The latest Mideast mission by America's top diplomat opened with talks in Turkey and Greece before shifting to the region for not necessarily easy conversations with allies and partners about what they are willing to do to build durable peace and security. Blinken's fourth visit in three months comes as developments in Lebanon, northern Israel, the Red Sea and Iraq have put intense strains on what had been a modestly successful U.S. push to prevent a regional conflagration since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, and as international criticism of Israel's military operation mounts. Blinken held meetings with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, in Istanbul about what Turkey and others can do to exert

Blinken holds talks with Turkey as he seeks to curb spread of Gaza war

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkey's leaders Saturday during the first stop of his latest Mideast diplomatic mission as fears grow that Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza may expand into a broader conflict. Blinken's fourth visit in three months comes as developments in Lebanon, northern Israel, the Red Sea and Iraq have put intense strains on what had been a modestly successful US push to prevent a regional conflagration since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, and as international criticism of Israel's military operation mounts. Blinken held talks with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, in Istanbul about what Turkey and others can do to exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to ease tensions, speed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza and begin planning for reconstruction and governance of postwar Gaza. Much of the territory has been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardments. Hours before Blinken's meeting

Gaza now 'uninhabitable' due to Israel-Hamas war: UN humanitarian chief

The U.N. humanitarian chief described Gaza on Friday as uninhabitable three months into Israel's war with Hamas, warning that famine was looming and a public health disaster unfolding. In a grim assessment of the devastating impact of Israel's military response to the horrific Hamas attacks on October 7, Martin Griffiths said that Gaza's 2.3 million people face daily threats to their very existence while the world just watches. He said tens of thousands of people, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, families are sleeping in the open as temperatures plummet, and areas where Palestinians were told to relocate have been bombed. People are facing the highest levels of food insecurity ever recorded (and) famine is around the corner, Griffiths said. The few partially functioning hospitals are overwhelmed and critically short of supplies, medical facilities are under relentless attack, infectious diseases are spreading, and amidst the chaos some 180 Palestinian women ar

Families in Gaza desparate for food, water; wait in long lines for aid

Stranded in a corner of southern Gaza, members of the Abu Jarad family are clinging to a strict survival routine. They fled their comfortable three-bedroom home in northern Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war broke out nearly three months ago. The 10-person family now squeezes into a 16-square meter (172-square foot) tent on a garbage-strewn sandy plot, part of a sprawling encampment of displaced Palestinians. Every family member is assigned daily tasks, from collecting twigs to build a fire for cooking, to scouring the city's markets for vegetables. But their best efforts can't mask their desperation. At night dogs are hovering over the tents, said Awatif Abu Jarad, an older member of the family. We are living like dogs! Palestinians seeking refuge in southern Gaza say every day has become a struggle to find food, water, medicine and working bathrooms. All the while, they live in fear of Israeli airstrikes and the growing threat of illnesses. Israel's bombardment and ground invasion

Int'l Court of Justice schedules public hearings on Gaza 'genocide'

The hearings will be held at the ICJ headquarters in The Hague on January 11 and 12, the court announced on social media

Mossad chief vows to hunt down Hamas members day after senior figure killed

The chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence service vowed on Wednesday that the agency would hunt down every Hamas member involved in the October 7 attack on Israel, no matter where they are. His pledge came a day after the deputy head of the Palestinian militant group was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut. Israel has refused to comment on reports it carried out the killing, but the remarks by David Barnea appeared to be the strongest indication yet it was behind the blast. He made a comparison to the aftermath of the slayings at the Munich Olympics in 1972, when Mossad agents tracked down and killed Palestinian militants involved in killing Israeli athletes. Israel was on high alert on Wednesday for an escalation with Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah militia after the strike in the Lebanese capital killed Saleh Arouri, the most senior Hamas member slain since the war in Gaza erupted nearly three months ago. The strike in Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold could cause the

Mossad vows to hunt down Hamas members day after killing senior figure

The chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence service vowed on Wednesday that the agency would hunt down every Hamas member involved in the October 7 attack on Israel, no matter where they are. He made the pledge a day after the deputy head of the Palestinian militant group was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut. Israel has refused to comment on reports it carried out the killing, but the comments by David Barnea appeared to be the strongest indication yet it was behind the blast. He made a comparison to the aftermath of 1972 Munich Massacre, when Mossad agents tracked down and killed a string of Palestinian militants involved in abducting and killing Israeli athletes at that year's Olympic games. Israel was on high alert Wednesday for an escalation with Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah militia after the strike in the Lebanese capital killed Saleh Arouri, the most senior Hamas member slain since the war in Gaza erupted nearly three months ago. The implications of the killing fo

Denmark's Maersk continues to pause all cargo shipments through the Red Sea

The Houthi group, which controls parts of Yemen after years of war, in November started attacking international ships traversing the Red Sea, saying it was a response to Israel's assault on Gaza

Israeli who fought Hamas for 2 months indicted for impersonating soldier

An Israeli man who never served in the military was charged with impersonating a soldier and stealing weapons after sneaking into an army unit and joining the fighting against Hamas. According to an indictment filed on Sunday, Roi Yifrach, 35, took advantage of the chaotic situation in the aftermath of Hamas' October 7 attack to join combat operations and steal large amounts of military gear, including weapons, munitions and sensitive communications equipment. Israeli media said he spent time fighting in Gaza and even appeared in a photo next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during one of his visits to soldiers in the field. Yifrach went to southern Israel on October 7 and presented himself alternately as a combat soldier from elite anti-terrorism units, a bomb dispersal expert, and a member of the Shin Bet internal security service, the indictment said. Police arrested Yifrach on December 17 and found large amounts of weapons, grenades, magazines, walkie-talkies, a drone, ...

Israel pulling troops from Gaza in precursor to scaled-back offensive

The Israeli military confirmed on Monday that it was pulling thousands of troops out of the Gaza Strip, a step that could clear the way for a new long-term phase of lower-intensity fighting against the Hamas militant group. The confirmation of the planned troop drawdown came the same day that Israel's Supreme Court struck down a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's contentious judicial overhaul plan. While the plan is not directly connected to the war effort, it was the source of deep divisions inside Israel and had threatened the military's readiness before the October 7 Hamas attack that triggered the ongoing war. Politicians warned against reigniting those divisions and harming the national unity that has prevailed throughout the Israel-Hamas war. Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the military offensive until Hamas is crushed and the more than 100 hostages still held by the militant group in Gaza are freed. But Israel has come under growing international .

Israel's court overturns key component of Netanyahu's judicial overhaul

Israel's Supreme Court on Monday struck down a key component of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's contentious judicial overhaul, a decision that threatens to reopen the fissures in Israeli society that preceded the country's ongoing war against Hamas. Those divisions were largely been put aside while the country focuses on the war, which was triggered by a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas. Monday's court decision could reignite those tensions, which sparked months of mass protests against the government and had rattled the cohesion of the powerful military. There was no immediate reaction from Netanyahu. In Monday's 8-7 majority decision, the court narrowly voted to overturn a law passed in July that prevents judges from overturning government decisions they deem unreasonable. Opponents had argued that Netanyahu's efforts to remove the standard of reasonability opens the door to corruption and improper appointments of unqualified cronies to important positions. The law was th