Page 78 - Israel

US defence secy discusses hostage negotiation with Israeli defence minister

Earlier on June 11, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution vote on the US proposal for a permanent ceasefire and release of the hostages in Gaza

As Gaza's doctors struggle to save lives, many lose their own in airstrikes

Dr Hassan Hamdan was one of the few trained plastic surgeons in Gaza, a specialist in wound reconstruction. His skills were vitally needed as Israel's military onslaught filled hospitals with patients torn by blasts and shrapnel, so the 65-year-old came out of retirement to help. Earlier this month, an Israeli airstrike killed him along with his wife, son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law, a son-in-law, six grandchildren and one other person, as his family sheltered in their home in an Israeli-declared safe zone. Israel's 9-month-old war with Hamas in Gaza has decimated the territory's medical system. It has not only wreaked physical destruction on hospitals and health facilities, it has devastated Gaza's medical personnel. More than 500 health care workers have been killed since October, according to the U.N. Among them were many specialists like Hamdan. Dr. Ahmed al-Maqadma, also a reconstructive surgeon and a former fellow at U.K. Royal College, was found shot to death alongside

Rights group finds Hamas militants committed war crimes during Oct attack

Hamas-led armed groups committed numerous war crimes during the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that precipitated the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, according to a global human rights group report released Wednesday. Human Rights Watch said the acts of the Palestinian fighters, who killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 during the attack, met the international legal definition for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The group's report found that five different Palestinian armed groups, led by Hamas' Qassam Brigades, engaged in war crimes and violated international law by killing, torturing, taking hostages, looting and committing crimes involving sexual and gender-based violence. The New York-based rights group said its researchers were unable to independently verify claims of sexual violence and rape but that they relied on a separate report by a special U.N. envoy who found reasonable grounds to believe Hamas fighters committed sexual violence during the ...

Yemen's Houthi rebels launch two missile attacks targeting ships in Red Sea

Two attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels targeted ships in the Red Sea on Monday as a new US aircraft carrier approached the region to provide security for the key international trade route that has been under assault since the Israel-Hamas war erupted nine months ago. Three small Houthi vessels, two of which were crewed and another uncrewed, attacked the Panama-flagged and Israeli-owned MT Bently I off the coast of Al Hudaydah, Yemen, according to British and American authorities. The reported unmanned small craft collided with the vessel twice and the 2 manned small craft fired at the vessel," the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre reported. The vessel conducted self-protection measures, after 15 minutes the small craft aborted the attack." The captain later reported three separate waves of missile attacks that exploded in close proximity to the vessel. Later on Monday, in a separate incident off the same coast, the MT Chios Lion, a Liberian-flagged an

Israel to start drafting ultra-Orthodox men on Sunday; could rattle govt

The Israeli military on Tuesday said it would begin sending draft notices to Jewish ultra-Orthodox men on Sunday a step that could destabilise Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government. The announcement followed a landmark Supreme Court order for young religious men to begin enlisting for military service. Under long-standing political arrangements, ultra-Orthodox men had been exempt from the draft, which is compulsory for most Jewish men. The exemptions created resentment among the general public in Israel, especially after more than nine months of war against Hamas militants in Gaza. The army summons is the beginning of a monthslong enlistment process that could be difficult to enforce if there is large-scale refusal to comply. The army did not say when it expects ultra-Orthodox men to begin serving or how many it expects to enlist. The court ruled that the system of exemptions, which allow religious men to study in Jewish seminaries while others are forced to serve in the .

Israeli strike targets Hamas' military commander, kills 90 in southern Gaza

Israel said it targeted Hamas' shadowy military commander in a massive strike Saturday in the crowded southern Gaza Strip that killed at least 90 people including children, according to local health officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there still isn't absolute certainty that Mohammed Deif and a second Hamas commander, Rafa Salama, were killed. Hamas rejected the claim that Dief was in the area, saying these false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre. The strike took place in an area Israel's military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Deif and Hamas' top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, are believed by Israel to be the chief architects of the October 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and triggered the Israel-Hamas war. Not seen in public for years, Deif has long topped Israel's most-wanted list and is believed to have escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts. On October

Israel targets Hamas' leader in Gaza. Who is he and what it means for war?

Israel on Saturday said it tried to assassinate Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of the Hamas group's military wing who has long topped the country's most-wanted list. The strike took place in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone in southern Gaza, killing at least 90 Palestinians and wounding nearly 300 more, according to local health officials. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was still not absolutely certain whether Deif and another target of the strike, Rafa Salama, were killed. He also told a news conference that Hamas' entire leadership is marked for death. Here is a closer look at Hamas' elusive military leader and what his death could mean for the trajectory of the war. Who is Mohammed Deif ? Deif was among the founders of Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, in the 1990s and has led the unit for over 20 years. Israel has identified him and Hamas' Gaza leader, Yahya Sinwar, as the chief architects of the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people i

Israeli attack on southern region leaves 71 dead, says Gaza health ministry

The Gaza Health Ministry said 71 people were killed in an Israeli attack Saturday in the south of the war-stricken enclave. The ministry said 289 others were injured in the attack that struck the Khan Younis area. It said that many of the injured and dead were taken to nearby Nasser Hospital. At the hospital, Associated Press journalists counted over 40 bodies and witnesses there described an attack that included several strikes. It remains unclear if the attack landed inside Muwasi, an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone, which stretches from northern Rafah to Khan Younis. The coastal strip is where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled to in search of safety, sheltering mostly in makeshift tents. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas' Oct 7 attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, killed some 1,200 people - mostly civilians - and abducted about 250. Since then, Israeli ground offensives and bombardments have killed more than 38,300

Argentina's show of support to Israel, designates Hamas a terrorist group

Argentina designated Hamas a terrorist organisation on Friday and ordered a freeze on the financial assets of the Palestinian group, a largely symbolic move as President Javier Milei seeks to align Argentina strongly with the US and Israel. Announcing the decision, Milei's office cited the militant Palestinian group's cross-border attack on Israel last October 7 that killed some 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage, in the deadliest assault in Israel's 76-year history. The statement also mentioned Hamas' close ties to Iran, which Argentina blames for two deadly militant attacks on Jewish sites in the country. The move comes just days before the 30th anniversary of one of those attacks, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. It killed 85 people and wounded hundreds more in the worst such attack in Argentina's modern history. The other attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, in 1992, killed more than 20 people. Argentina's judiciary has accused memb

Emergency workers uncover dozens of bodies in Gaza after Israeli assault

Civil defence workers on Friday dug bodies out of collapsed buildings and pulled them off rubble-covered streets, as they collected dozens of Palestinians killed this week by an Israeli assault in a district of Gaza City. The discovery of the bodies came after Israeli troops reportedly pulled out of parts of the Tal al-Hawa and Sanaa neighbourhoods following days of bombardment and fighting there. The Israeli military launched an incursion into the districts earlier this week to fight what it said were Hamas militants who had regrouped. The grisly scenes of the dead underscored the horrifying cycle nine months into the Gaza war. After invading nearly every urban area across the tiny territory since October, Israeli forces are now repeatedly re-invading parts as Hamas shifts and maintains capabilities. Palestinians are forced to flee over and over to escape the changing offensives or to remain in place and face death. Cease-fire negotiations push ahead, nearing but never reaching a

Israeli army admits October 7 failures, including slow response time

The Israeli military on Thursday acknowledged a string of errors in its response to the deadly Hamas attacks last Oct. 7, including slow response times and disorganization, as it released the results of its first investigation into failures during the assault that triggered the war in Gaza. The report focused on the border community of Be'eri, where over 100 people were killed and more than 30 others taken hostage by Hamas. It was among the hardest-hit communities in the early morning attack, and it was the scene of one of the highest-profile confrontations of Oct. 7 a standoff in which militants held a group of hostages inside a home. The army failed in its mission to protect the residents of Kibbutz Be'eri, the military's chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in a televised address. It is painful and difficult for me to say that. During the standoff, a tank fired at the home, raising concerns that the 13 hostages inside were killed by friendly fire. The military conclude

Israel-Gaza war should end now, Israel must not occupy Gaza: Prez Biden

Biden in late May detailed a proposal of three phases aimed at achieving a ceasefire

Palestinians return to rubble in Gaza City after Israeli withdrawal

Palestinians returned to breathtaking scenes of destruction in the Gaza City district of Shijaiyah after Israeli troops withdrew, ending a two-week offensive there. Civil defense workers said Thursday that so far, they had found the bodies of 60 people in the rubble. Families who fled the assault ventured back into Shijaiyah to see the condition of their homes or salvage whatever they could. Nearly every building was flattened to rubble for block after block, leaving giant piles of concrete and twisted rebar. Here and there, grey gutted concrete frames still stood a few stories high. The ever-present buzzing sound of Israeli military drones hung in the hot summer air as people on bicycles or horse-drawn carts made their way over dirt paths where the streets had apparently been bulldozed away. Sharif Abu Shanab found his family's four-story building collapsed. I can't enter it. I can't take anything out of it, not even a can of tuna. We have nothing, no food or drink, he said. Since

UAE reportedly deports university student who yelled 'Free Palestine'

At the graduation ceremony of New York University Abu Dhabi this May, a student wearing the traditional Palestinian black-and-white keffiyeh scarf shouted Free Palestine! as he crossed the stage to receive his diploma, witnesses say. Days later, he reportedly was deported from the United Arab Emirates. The incident at the graduation comes as the UAE tries to balance its diplomatic recognition of Israel with the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that's devastated the Gaza Strip. While offering aid to the Palestinians, there have been none of the mass demonstrations that swept the Arab world here in the UAE, a federation of seven emirates that tightly controls speech and where political parties are illegal. That's stretched into academic life at NYU Abu Dhabi, where students say activities over the war have been barred, and into cultural events in the country's capital as well where those wearing the keffiyeh have been stopped from entering. I think the government and the laws of the country .

Israeli airstrike kills 25 in Gaza as assault shuts down medical facilities

An apparent Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in southern Gaza killed at least 25 Palestinians on Tuesday, as heavy bombardment in the north forced the closure of medical facilities in Gaza City and sent thousands fleeing in search of increasingly-elusive refuge. Israel's new ground assault in Gaza's largest city is its latest effort to battle Hamas militants regrouping in areas the army previously said had been largely cleared. Large parts of Gaza City and urban areas around it have been flattened or left a shattered landscape after nine months of fighting. Much of the population fled earlier in the war, but several hundred thousand Palestinians remain in the north. "The fighting has been intense," said Hakeem Abdel-Bar, who fled Gaza City's Tuffah district to the home of relatives in another part of the city. He said Israeli warplanes and drones were "striking anything moving" and that tanks had moved into central districts. The strike at the entrance to the school kil

Thousands flee again after Israeli forces push deeper into Gaza city

Israeli forces advanced deeper into the Gaza Strip's largest city in pursuit of militants who had regrouped there, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing on Monday from an area ravaged in the early weeks of the nine-month-long war. The Gaza City incursion comes as Israel and Hamas drew closer to bridging gaps in indirect talks over a cease-fire and hostage release. Israeli troops were again battling militants in areas that the army said had been largely cleared months ago in northern Gaza. The military ordered evacuations ahead of the raids, but Palestinians say nowhere feels safe. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are packed into sweltering tent camps. Israel ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza in the opening weeks of the war and has prevented most people from returning. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain, living in the shells of homes or shelters. We fled in the darkness amid heavy strikes, s

Israeli protesters block highways, call for ceasefire to return hostages

Marking nine months since the war in Gaza started, Israeli protesters blocked highways across the country on Sunday, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down and pushing for a ceasefire to bring back scores of hostages held by Hamas. The demonstrations come as long-running efforts to broker a truce gained momentum last week when Hamas dropped a key demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war. The militant group still wants mediators to guarantee a permanent ceasefire, while Netanyahu is vowing to keep fighting until Israel destroys Hamas' military and governing capabilities. "Any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved," Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday that was likely to deepen Hamas' concerns about the proposal. Sunday's "Day of Disruption" started at 6:29 am, the same time Hamas militants launched the first rockets toward Israel in the October 7 attack that triggered the war. Protesters blocked main roads

Highlights: Delhi Police books TMC MP Mahua Moitra for 'derogatory' social media post on NCW chief

From Surat's building collapse to Israel-Hamas truce talks, catch all the latest update from across the globe here

Israeli interest rate cuts off table as war complicates next move

Alongside its decision on Monday, the central bank will publish fresh economic forecasts and could revise an outlook from April that showed the key rate at 3.75% in the first quarter of 2025

Israeli protesters block highways, demand ceasefire to bring back hostages

Marking nine months since the war in Gaza started, Israeli protesters blocked highways across the country on Sunday, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down and pushing for a cease-fire that could bring back hostages held by Hamas. The demonstrations come as international mediators have renewed efforts to broker a deal, with Hamas over the weekend appearing to have dropped a key demand for an Israeli commitment to end the war, according to Egyptian and Hamas officials who spoke to The Associated Press. This could deliver the first pause in fighting since November and set the stage for further talks. The war, triggered by the Palestinian militant group following a cross-border attack on October 7, saw 1,200 people killed and 250 others taken hostage. A retaliatory Israeli air and ground offensive has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has ...