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Over 100 dead in new migrant tragedy, second wreck feared

‘Not enough has been done so far to avoid these tragedies’

By - Nov 03,2016 - Last updated at Nov 03,2016

Migrants and refugees panic as they fall in the water during a rescue operation of the Topaz Responder rescue ship run by Maltese NGO Moas and Italian Red Cross, off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea, on Thursday (AFP photo)

ROME — At least 110 people are feared to have drowned off Libya when a migrant boat capsized, and more may have died in another stricken vessel, the UN’s refugee agency said on Thursday, citing survivor testimonies.

“A vessel with around 140 people on board overturned Wednesday just a few hours after setting off from Libya, throwing everyone into the water. Only 29 people survived,” UNHCR Spokesperson Carlotta Sami told AFP.

The Norwegian vessel Siem Pilot was first on the scene, around 20 nautical miles off Libya, and rescued the survivors — all of whom were in poor condition after spending hours in the water — and recovered 12 bodies.

Those pulled to safety were transferred to the island of Lampedusa by the Italian coast guard. 

In what could be a second incident, which could not be immediately confirmed by the coast guard, two women told the UN agency they believed they were the only survivors in an disaster in which some 125 people drowned.

“They told us they were on a faulty dinghy which began to sink as soon as they set sail. They were the only survivors,” Sami said.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) quoted the same survivors, putting the death toll for both wrecks at 240 people.

“Not enough has been done so far to avoid these tragedies,” said Flavio di Giacomo, IOM spokesman in Italy.

The Italian coast guard said it had no information on the second reported rescue on Wednesday or the saving of two women.

One of the 29 survivors had suffered severe burns after sitting in fuel and was transferred by helicopter to hospital in Palermo along with an other who suffered from epilepsy.

Over 4,000 migrants have died or are missing feared drowned after attempting the perilous Mediterranean crossing this year.

 

Migrants overboard 

 

The rescue situation is often chaotic, with people confused, sick or exhausted after periods in crisis-hit Libya unable to specify how many people were on board their dinghies at the outset or what vessel pulled them from the water.

At least two rescue missions were underway off Libya on Thursday, with close to 180 people pulled to safety according to an AFP photographer aboard the Topaz Responder, run by the Malta-based MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station).

“Before dawn, we saw a migrant dinghy, lit up by the Responder’s search light,” photographer Andreas Solaro said, adding that 31 people, 28 men and three women, one of them elderly, were rescued.

In the second rescue, 147 people from Eritrea, Ghana, Sudan, Mali and Sierra Leone were pulled to safety, including 20 women, though only after some had fallen into the sea.

“The [Responder] crew was shouting at them to sit down and stay calm while the lifejackets were handed out but they were getting agitated, and around 10 of them fell overboard, some without lifejackets on,” Solaro said.

All were pulled to safety.

October marked a record monthly high in the number of migrants arriving in Italy in recent years — some 27,000 people — and the departures have showed no sign of slowing, despite worsening weather in the Mediterranean.

Amnesty International warned on Thursday the pressure placed on Italy by Europe to cope alone with the worst migration crisis since World War II had led to “unlawful expulsions and ill-treatment which in some cases may amount to torture”.

 

The report was bluntly rejected by Italy’s chief of police, who denied the use of violent methods in the force’s handling of migrants.

Iran cuts Syria presence after strikes blamed on Israel —monitor

By - Apr 25,2024 - Last updated at Apr 25,2024

BEIRUT — Iran has reduced its military footprint in Syria after a succession of strikes blamed on Israel, a source close to Iran-backed fighter group Hizbollah and a war monitor said on Wednesday.

Iran has provided military support to Syrian government forces through more than a decade of civil war but a series of strikes targeting its commanders in recent months has prompted a reshaping of its presence, the sources said.

"Iran withdrew its forces from southern Syria," including both Quneitra and Daraa provinces, which abut the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the source close to Hizbollah said.

But it still maintains a presence in other parts of the country, the source added.

Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 strike that levelled the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guard, two of them generals.

That strike prompted Iran to launch a first-ever direct missile and drone attack against Israel on April 13-14 that sent regional tensions spiralling.

But Iran had already begun drawing down its forces after a January 20 strike that killed five Revolutionary Guards in Damascus, including their Syria intelligence chief and his deputy, the source close to Hizbollah said.

Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Iranian forces had withdrawn from Damascus and southern Syria.

Iran-backed Lebanese and Iraqi fighters had taken their place, observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Iran has said repeatedly that it has no combat troops in Syria, only officers to provide military advice and training.

But the observatory says as many as 3,000 Iranian military personnel are present in Syria, supported by tens of thousands of Iranian-trained fighters from countries including Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Abdel Rahman said that many of Iran’s advisers had left Syria in recent months, especially after a strike in March killed a Revolutionary Guard and two others -- although some remained in Aleppo province in the north and Deir Ezzor province in the east.

 

Israel pummels Gaza after US Congress approves military aid

EU urges probe into reported mass graves at Gaza hospitals

By - Apr 25,2024 - Last updated at Apr 25,2024

People walk on a road lined with destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday (AFP photo)

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Israel pounded Gaza with air strikes and artillery fire on Wednesday after the US Congress approved $13 billion in military aid.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said the Senate's approval of the aid package already passed by the House of Representatives sent a "strong message to all our enemies" in a post on social media platform X.

US-Israeli relations been strained by Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's determination to send troops into the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where 1.5 million people are sheltering, many in makeshift encampments.

Fears are rising that Israel will soon launch an assault on Rafah, which it says is the "last" major Hamas stronghold, but aid groups warn any invasion would create an "apocalyptic situation".

Early Wednesday, hospital and security sources in Gaza reported Israeli air strikes in Rafah, as well as the central Nuseirat refugee camp.

An AFP correspondent and witnesses also reported heavy bombardment of several areas of northern Gaza during the night, while the Israeli military said its aircraft "struck over 50 targets" over the previous 24 hours.

Netanyahu, however, has insisted the assault on Rafah will go ahead.

Citing Egyptian officials briefed on the Israeli plans, the Wall Street Journal said Israel was planning to move civilians from Rafah to nearby Khan Yunis over a period of two to three weeks.

Satellite images shared by Maxar Technologies showed new blocks of tents that had been set up in recent weeks in southern Gaza.

The Journal reported that Israel would then send troops into Rafah gradually, targeting areas where Hamas leaders are thought to be hiding in an operation expected to last six weeks.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Hamas government media office said an invasion would be a “crime” and that central Gaza and Khan Yunis “cannot accommodate the numbers of displaced people in Rafah”.

The war began with an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

In retaliation, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 34,262 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The Israeli army announced the death of a soldier in Gaza, raising its losses to 261 since the ground operation began.

Israel estimates that 129 of the roughly 250 people abducted during the Hamas attack remain in Gaza, including 34 it says are presumed dead.

 

Hospital bodies 

 

The UN human rights office said on Tuesday it was “horrified” by reports of mass graves found at the Gaza Strip’s two biggest hospitals after Israeli sieges and raids.

Gaza’s Civil Defence agency said nearly 340 bodies were uncovered of people killed and buried by Israeli forces at the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

The Israeli army said claims it had buried Palestinian bodies were “baseless”, without directly addressing allegations that Israeli troops were behind the killings.

It said that “corpses buried by Palestinians” had been examined by Israeli troops searching for hostages and then “returned to their place”.

The European Union backed a call from UN human rights chief Volker Turk for an “independent” probe into the deaths at the two hospitals.

“This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed,” EU spokesman Peter Stano said Wednesday.

UN human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said some of the bodies found at Nasser Hospital were allegedly “found with their hands tied and stripped of their clothes”, adding that efforts were underway to corroborate the reports.

 

Call to renew UN agency funding 

 

The war has left much of Gaza’s medical system in ruins, with medics struggling to treat both casualties of the war and people with pre-existing conditions.

Amjad Aleway, an emergency doctor in Gaza City speaking in the ruins of Al Shifa hospital, told AFP “the number of casualties is overwhelming, and we lack sufficient operating theatres to address them, nor do we have specialised facilities for patients with kidney and heart conditions”.

The European Union’s humanitarian chief Janez Lenarcic called on donor governments to fund the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which has been central to aid operations in Gaza.

His comment came after an independent report found “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” for its claim that UNRWA employs “terrorists”.

The report did find “neutrality-related issues”, such as agency staff sharing biased posts on social media.

After the report was released, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini called for an investigation into the “blatant disregard” for UN operations in Gaza, adding that 180 of the agency’s staff had been killed since the war began.

While some governments have renewed funding for the agency — including Germany, which announced it would resume cooperation on Wednesday — the United States and Britain are among the holdouts.

The White House would “have to see real progress” before it restores funding, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, there has been a surge in deadly violence in the occupied West Bank.

On Wednesday the Israeli military said it had killed a woman during an “attempted stabbing” near Hebron. The Palestinian health ministry identified her as Maimunah Abdel Hamid Harahsheh, 20.

 

UAE announces $544m for repairs after record rains

By - Apr 25,2024 - Last updated at Apr 25,2024

This handout photo courtesy of NASA’s Earth Observatory taken on April 19 by the the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager-2) on Landsat 9 shows a false colour (bands 6-5-3) satellite image of flooding in Jebel Ali, about 35 kilometres southwest of Dubai (AFP photo)

DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates announced $544 million to repair the homes of Emirati families on Wednesday after last week’s record rains caused widespread flooding and brought the oil-rich Gulf state to a standstill.

“We learned great lessons in dealing with severe rains,” said Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum after a cabinet meeting, adding that ministers approved “two billion dirhams to deal with damage to the homes of citizens”.

Wednesday’s announcement comes more than a week after the unprecedented deluge lashed the desert country, where it turned streets into rivers and hobbled Dubai airport, the world’s busiest for international passengers.

“A ministerial committee was assigned to follow up on this file... and disburse compensation in cooperation with the rest of the federal and local authorities,” said Sheikh Mohammed, who is also the ruler of Dubai, which was one of the worst hit of the UAE’s seven sheikhdoms.

The rainfall, the UAE’s heaviest since records began 75 years ago, killed at least four people, including three Filipino workers and one Emirati. UAE authorities have not released an official toll.

Cabinet ministers also formed a second committee to log infrastructure damage and propose solutions, Sheikh Mohammed said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“The situation was unprecedented in its severity but we are a country that learns from every experience,” he said.

The storm — which dumped up to two years’ worth of rain on the UAE, a federal monarchy with a 90 per cent expatriate population — had subsided by last Wednesday.

But the glam-hub of Dubai, touted as a picture-perfect city, faced severe disruption for days later, with water-clogged roads and flooded homes. 

Dubai airport cancelled 2,155 flights, diverted 115 and did not return to full capacity until Tuesday.

“We must acknowledge... that there has been an unreasonable and unacceptable deficiency and collapse in services and crisis management,” prominent Emirati analyst Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said Wednesday on X.

“We hope that this will not be repeated in the future,” he added, in a rare public rebuke.

Climatologist Friederike Otto, a specialist in assessing the role of global warming on extreme weather events, told AFP it was “high likely” that the rainfall “was made heavier by human-caused climate change”.

Baby delivered from dying mother's womb in Gaza 'miracle'

By - Apr 24,2024 - Last updated at Apr 24,2024

A Palestinian doctor tends to the baby of Sabreen Al Sakani, who reached the emergency unit of the Kuwait Hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in critical condition after she was gravely wounded in the head and abdomen in an Israeli air strike, according to witnesses on Saturday (AFP photo)

RAFAH, Palestinian Territories — Under a ceaseless storm of strikes in Gaza, a baby girl has survived insurmountable odds as the only member of her family left alive after she was delivered by Caesarian section as her mother lay dying.

At just seven months pregnant, her mother, Sabreen Al Sakani, reached the emergency unit in critical condition after she was fatally wounded in the head and abdomen at the weekend.

An Israeli air strike hit her family's house in the east of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, witnesses told AFP.

"It's a miracle that she was still alive, despite her difficulties in breathing," Sahib Al Shams, a surgeon and director of the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, told AFP.

While examining Sakani, the hospital's medical team realised she was pregnant.

They decided to go ahead with a C-section immediately, despite a lack of anaesthetics.

"The mother died 10 minutes later," Shams said, adding that the baby's father and sister had been declared dead on arrival at the hospital.

Hospital staff said the baby was in stable condition on Tuesday morning.

At least 19 people died in the air strike on the Sakani family home, according to Gaza's health ministry.

The newborn was transferred to the paediatrics unit of the Emirati hospital, a field hospital established in December in Rafah to cope with the besieged Palestinian territory's mounting toll of injured and dead.

"We quickly put her in an incubator, put her on oxygen and treated her with antibiotics," Haidar Abu Snimeh, an official at the Emirati hospital, told AFP. 

'Baby of the martyr' 

Rami Al Sheikh, the baby's uncle, will become the orphan's caretaker upon her release from the hospital.

“Every day, I go to the hospital to check on my brother’s daughter who was rescued from her mother’s womb,” Sheikh told AFP.

“I named her ‘Sabreen Al Ruh’ because her father wanted to name her Ruh,” he added, referring to the Arabic word for soul.

Several local media said the baby weighed less than two kilogrammes, and that her mother had been in her seventh month of pregnancy when she was born.

“The fact that this little girl was born alive despite the circumstances is nothing short of a great feat,” Abu Snimeh said.

He added that when a pregnant woman like Sakani struggles to breathe, the foetus lacks oxygen, which can hinder its development.

Palestinian journalists filmed the birth, footage of which was widely circulated Monday.

Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 34,183 people, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

More than 1.5 million of 2.4 million Gazans were estimated to have taken refuge in Rafah, in the far south on the border with Egypt, though thousands have since been seen heading back north.

A handful of similar births were reported in the coastal territory.

Mecca Abu Chamalah was born by post-mortem C-section on October 21, after his mother was critically wounded by an air strike on their home in Rafah.

The identification tag pinned to his incubator read “baby of the martyr Dareen Abu Chamalah”.

Turkey’s Erdogan in rare Iraq visit to discuss water, oil, security

By - Apr 23,2024 - Last updated at Apr 23,2024

Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attend the signing of the ‘Development Road’ framework agreement on security, economy, and development in Baghdad on Monday (AFP photo)

BAGHDAD — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived on Monday in neighbouring Iraq for his first state visit there in years, with water, oil and regional security issues expected to top the agenda.

Erdogan was greeted with a 21-gun salute at Baghdad’s international airport by Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al Sudani, state television showed, with the Iraqi and Turkish national anthems played by a marching band.

The Turkish leader is scheduled to hold meetings with Sudani and President Abdel Latif Rashid in Baghdad before visiting officials in Arbil, the capital of northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region.

“Iraq and Turkey share a history and have similarities, interests and opportunities, but also problems,” Sudani said during an event at the Atlantic Council on the sidelines of a recent visit to Washington.

“Water and security will be at the top of the agenda,” he said of the upcoming meeting with Erdogan, who last visited Iraq in 2011.

The trip comes as regional tensions spiral, fuelled by the Hamas-Israel war in the Gaza Strip and attacks between Israel and Iran.

Farhad Alaaldin, foreign affairs adviser to Sudani, told AFP that the main topics Erdogan will discuss with Iraqi officials include “investments, trade... security aspects of the cooperation between the two countries, water management and water resources”.

Alaaldin expects the signing of several memoranda of understanding during the visit.

The sharing of water resources is a major point of contention, with Baghdad highly critical of upstream dams set up by Turkey on their shared Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which have worsened water scarcity in Iraq.

Erdogan said the issue of water would be “one of the most important points” of his visit following “requests” made by the Iraqi side. 

“We will make an effort to resolve them, that is also their wish,” he said.

 

‘Strategic agreement’ 

 

Iraqi oil exports are another point of tension, with a major pipeline shut down for over a year over legal disputes and technical issues.

The exports were previously independently sold by the autonomous Kurdistan region, without the approval or oversight of the central administration in Baghdad, through the Turkish port of Ceyhan. 

The halted oil sales represent more than $14 billion in lost revenues for Iraq, according to an estimate by the Association of the Petroleum Industry of Kurdistan which represents international oil companies active in the region.

Majid Al Lajmawi, Iraq’s ambassador to Turkey, hopes for “progress on the water and energy issues, and in the process of resuming Iraqi oil exports via Turkey”, according to a statement published by the Iraqi foreign ministry.

The ambassador also expects the signing of a “strategic framework agreement” on security, economy and development.

Also on the agenda is a $17 billion road and rail project known as the “Route of Development” which is expected to consolidate economic ties between the two neighbours.

Stretching 1,200 kilometres across Iraq, it aims to connect by 2030 the northern border with Turkey to the Gulf in the south.

In the first quarter of 2024, Iraq was Turkey’s fifth-largest importer of products, buying food, chemicals, metals and other products.

 

‘Safeguard the borders’ 

 

Regional security is another topic expected to be thrashed out during Erdogan’s meetings in Iraq.

For decades, Turkey has operated from several dozen military bases in northern Iraq against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is considered a “terrorist” group by Ankara and its Western allies.

Both Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government have been accused of tolerating Turkey’s military activities to preserve their close economic ties.

But the operations, which sometimes take place deep into Iraqi territory, have regularly strained bilateral ties, while Ankara has sought out increased cooperation from Baghdad in its fight against the PKK.

However, in a televised interview in March, Iraqi Defence Minister Thabet Al Abbasi ruled out “joint military operations” between Baghdad and Ankara.

He said they would establish a “coordination intelligence centre at the appropriate time and place”.

Alaaldin, the Iraqi prime minister’s adviser, said security issues will be “highly featured in this trip”.

“There will be some sort of agreement... and perhaps arrangements to safeguard the borders between Iraq and Turkey where no attacks and no armed groups infiltrate the border from both sides,” he said.

“It is something that will be discussed but the exact details have to be worked out.”

Rockets fired from Iraq at US-led coalition base in Syria

By - Apr 22,2024 - Last updated at Apr 22,2024

BAGHDAD - Rockets were fired late Sunday from northern Iraq at a military base in Syria housing a US-led coalition, according to Iraqi security forces.
The anti-extremist coalition said one of its fighter jets in Iraq had "destroyed a launcher in self-defence after reports of a failed rocket attack" near a base in northeast Syria.


"No US personnel were injured," it added in a brief statement to AFP.


It is the first major attack against the coalition forces in several weeks.


It comes days after Israel reportedly responded to an Iranian attack with a drone strike on the Islamic republic, amid tensions fuelled by the Gaza war.
Iraqi forces had earlier said they launched a major search operation in the northern Nineveh province and found the vehicle used in the attack.

The statement from the Iraqi security forces accused "outlaw elements of having targeted a base of the international coalition with rockets in the heart of Syrian territory", at around 9:50 pm (1850 GMT).
The security forces burned the vehicle involved in the attack, the statement added.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, said several rockets had been fired "from Iraqi territory at the Kharab al-Jir base", where US forces are stationed.
He accused the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups, of staging the attack.
The group has claimed most of the attacks on US forces carried between mid-October and early February.

Rising regional tension 

Following a series of rocket attacks and drone strikes by pro-Iran armed factions against US soldiers deployed in the Middle East over the winter, there had been several weeks of calm.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has said it is acting in solidarity with Palestinians and out of anger at US support for Israel in the Gaza war.
A January 28 drone attack killed three US soldiers in the Jordanian border with Syria.
In response, the US military struck dozens of targets in Syria and Iraq, aiming for pro-Iran forces, and drawing criticism from the governments of both countries.
The United States has around 2,500 soldiers stationed in Iraq and nearly 900 across the border in Syria as part of an international coalition created in 2014 to fight the Daesh terror group.

Sunday night's rocket attack came against the background of increasing tension in the region, with a flare-up between Iran and Israel.

Early on Saturday, an explosion at an Iraqi military base killed one person and wounded eight others.
Security forces said the blast hit the Kalsu military base in Babylon province south of Baghdad, where regular army, police and members of Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Forces, or Hashed Al-Shaabi, are stationed.

CENTCOM, the US military command in the region, denied involvement in a strike there. The Israeli army refused to comment.

Israel pounds Gaza as West Bank violence surges

By - Apr 22,2024 - Last updated at Apr 22,2024

A Palestinian man wait for news of his daughter as rescue workers search for survivors under the rubble of a building hit in an overnight Israeli bombing in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Sunday (AFP photo)

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — Israel carried out deadly strikes in Gaza, first responders in the war-battered Palestinian territory said on Sunday, as violence flared in the occupied West Bank.

The latest bombardments came as lawmakers in Israel's top ally, the United States, approved $13 billion in new Israeli military aid even as global criticism mounts over the death toll and dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

However, fears of wider war breaking out in the Middle East have eased somewhat after Iran downplayed Israel's reported retaliation over its unprecedented missile and drone attack on the country a week ago.

Attention has turned back towards the war in Gaza, which Israel hit with several strikes overnight, according to the Palestinian territory’s Civil Defence agency.

The bodies of 13 people, mostly children, were recovered after an Israeli strike hit the home of a family near the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah, the agency said. Other people were believed to be under rubble.

A separate Israeli strike on a home in the Rafah area killed at least three people and wounded others, Civil Defence said.

Resident Umm Hassan Kloub, 35, said her children screamed when they “woke up to a nightmare of an explosion”.

“Every second we live in terror, even the sound of Israeli aircraft doesn’t stop,” she said.

“We don’t know whether we will live or die. This is not life.”

 

 ‘Second Gaza’ 

 

Soon after the war began, when Hamas fighters from Gaza attacked southern Israel on October 7, Israel told Palestinians in northern Gaza to move to “safe zones” further south such as Rafah.

Around 1.5 million of Gaza’s 2.4 million people are now estimated to be sheltering in the city.

However, Israel has for two months threatened to invade the city in its mission to destroy Hamas.

The G7 group of developed economies said on Friday that it opposed a “full-scale military operation” there, fearing “catastrophic consequences” for Rafah’s civilians.

Violence has also flared in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where a two-year surge in clashes has further escalated since the war broke out.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Saturday that at least 14 people were killed during an Israeli raid on a refugee camp in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli army said it killed 10 militants during the operation at Nur Shams camp, which started on Thursday.

A camp resident who declined to give his name said the West Bank had become a “second Gaza”.

“This is the first time in our history that we have seen such destruction, such devastation,” the grey-bearded man told AFP.

Separately, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian teenagers near the West Bank city of Hebron, the Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday, bringing to at least 483 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 7, according to ministry data.

The Israeli army said the two assailants had attempted to stab and shoot troops near the village of Beit Einun.

According to the Shin Bet internal security agency, at least 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the West Bank since the Gaza war started.

 

US boosts Israeli defences 

 

Much of the new military assistance approved by the US House of Representatives on Saturday was expected to be used to reinforce Israel’s air defences.

Israel welcomed the aid, while Hamas condemned it as a “green light” for continued Israeli “aggression”.

The US bill said that more than $9 billion will also be earmarked to address “the dire need for humanitarian assistance for Gaza as well as other vulnerable populations around the world”.

The boost for Israel’s defences comes after almost all of the more than 300 missiles and drones that Iran launched towards the country a week ago were intercepted, according to the Israeli military.

Israel had vowed to respond to Iran’s first-ever attack on its territory, which was itself retaliation for a deadly April 1 strike on Iran’s embassy consular annex in Damascus.

Iran blamed Israel for that attack.

Israel’s response appeared to come on Friday when explosions were reported in the central Iranian province of Isfahan.

Israeli officials have made no public comment, and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian downplayed the incident.

He told NBC News that Tehran would not respond “as long as there is no new adventure on behalf of the Israeli regime against Iran’s interests”.

On Sunday, Israel said it will hold a “protest talk” with ambassadors from several United Nations Security Council members which voted for the “State of Palestine” to become a full UN member.

France, Japan and others backed the bid which the United States vetoed.

 

Israeli anger over hostages 

 

Israel has faced growing global opposition to the war, which has turned vast areas of Gaza into rubble while a siege has left residents without enough water, food, medicines and other vital supplies.

The population “faces famine, malnutrition, and infectious disease outbreaks”, the International Rescue Committee charity warned this week.

Hamas’s attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,097 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also come under pressure within Israel, including to reach a deal for the release of hostages still held by Hamas. Israel estimates 129 captives remain in Gaza, including 34 who the military says are dead.

Families of the hostages were among thousands attending an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday night.

Ofir Angrest, whose brother Matan was kidnapped on October 7, called for Jewish Israelis to leave an empty chair at their traditional Seder meals marking the beginning of the holiday Passover on Monday.

“Enough! After more than six months, you’re simply disrespecting me and the families of the hostages,” Angrest said, adding that he was addressing the Israeli Cabinet.

Iran president to visit Pakistan, boost ties — Islamabad

By - Apr 22,2024 - Last updated at Apr 22,2024

ISLAMABAD — Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi will travel to Islamabad on Monday to meet his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said, as the two countries seek to mend ties following deadly cross-border attacks this year.

Raisi will be accompanied by “a high-level delegation comprising the foreign minister... as well as a large business delegation”, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

The tit-for-tat missile strikes in January in the porous border region of Balochistan — split between the two nations — stoked regional tensions already inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.

Tehran carried out the strikes against an anti-Iran group in Pakistan the same week it targeted Iraq and Syria.

Pakistan responded with a raid on “militant targets” in Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province, one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim regions in Shiite-dominated Iran.

Both countries have in the past accused each other of sheltering militants.

A visit to Islamabad by Tehran’s foreign minister led to the two sides pledging to improve dialogue and install liaison officers in both countries.

Sistan-Balochistan province has for years faced unrest involving cross-border drug-smuggling gangs and rebels from the Baloch ethnic minority, and Muslim extremists.

Raisi will also visit Lahore and Karachi to meet provincial leaders, according to the statement.

The countries will further strengthen ties and enhance cooperation in “trade, connectivity, energy, agriculture, and people-to-people contacts”, it added.

Pakistan is counting on a joint gas project with Iran to solve a long-running power crisis that has sapped its economic growth.

A $7.5-billion Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline intended to feed Pakistani power plants was inaugurated with great fanfare in March 2013.

But the project immediately stagnated following international sanctions on Iran.

Tehran has built its own section of the 1,800-kilometre  pipeline, which should eventually link its South Pars gas fields to the Pakistani city of Nawabshah, near Karachi.

In February, Pakistan’s outgoing caretaker government approved the construction of an 80-kilometre section of the pipeline, primarily to avoid the payment of billions of dollars in penalties to Iran due to years of delays.

Washington has warned that Pakistan could face US sanctions, saying it does not support the pipeline going forward.

Abbas says Palestinian Authority will 'reconsider' relations with US

By - Apr 22,2024 - Last updated at Apr 22,2024

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — The Palestinian Authority will "reconsider" its relationship with the United States after Washington vetoed a Palestinian bid for full UN membership earlier this week, President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday.

"The Palestinian leadership will reconsider bilateral relations with the United States to ensure the protection of our people's interests, our cause and our rights," Abbas told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Wafa said his remarks came "on the heels of the United States' use of veto power" at the UN Security Council.

Thursday's vote saw 12 countries on the Council back a resolution recommending full Palestinian membership and two — Britain and Switzerland — abstain.

Only the United States, Israel's staunchest ally, voted against, using its veto to block the resolution.

Abbas said the Palestinian leadership will "develop a new strategy to protect Palestinian national decisions independently and follow a Palestinian agenda rather than an American vision or regional agendas".

He said Palestinians would “not remain hostage to policies that have proven their failure and have been exposed to the entire world”.

And he said the stance of the US government had “generated unprecedented anger among the Palestinian people and the region’s populations, potentially pushing the region towards further instability, chaos and terrorism”.

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