Israeli troops launch a new assault into Gaza’s Khan Younis as mediators push for ceasefire talks

Israeli troops launch a new assault into Gaza’s Khan Younis as mediators push for ceasefire talks
Israel has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to figures from health officials in the enclave, who say thousands of others are feared dead under the rubble. (Reuters)
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Updated 10 August 2024
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Israeli troops launch a new assault into Gaza’s Khan Younis as mediators push for ceasefire talks

Israeli troops launch a new assault into Gaza’s Khan Younis as mediators push for ceasefire talks
  • Israel has killed around 40,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 91,700 others

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli troops launched a new assault Friday into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, targeting Hamas fighters who the military claims still operate there despite repeated offensives, as American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators renewed their push for Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire deal.
Israeli evacuation orders triggered yet another exodus of Palestinians from the heavily destroyed eastern districts of Khan Younis, where many had just returned less than two weeks ago — after the Israeli military’s last incursion into the city in July.
A wave of Israeli airstrikes in the city Friday killed at least 21 Palestinians, medics at the city’s Nasser Hospital said. Israeli bombardment also continued in central Gaza, with the bodies of seven people — four women and six children — arriving at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah from airstrikes that hit towns nearby.
With tensions running high along the Israel-Lebanon border, an Israeli drone strike on Friday crashed into an SUV in the Lebanese city of Sidon, killing a Hamas official identified as Samer Al-Hajj on the main road to the southern port city, Lebanon’s state media reported.
The explosion engulfed Al-Hajj’s car in flames just outside the sprawling Palestinian refugee camp of Ein Al-Hilweh, where Lebanese media reported that he oversaw security matters. Israel confirmed it targeted Al-Hajj, describing him as a senior Hamas commander and accusing him of recruiting militants to attack Israel as well as directing rocket launches.
In the Gaza Strip, one of the airstrikes in Khan Younis hit the home of the Abu Moamar family, killing a Palestine TV journalist, his wife and three daughters.
Another strike smashed into tents housing displaced people in Mawasi, a costal community just west of Khan Younis that the Israeli military has designated as a humanitarian zone, killing a journalist for the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV channel and five others. A third airstrike targeted a car in Khan Younis.
Thousands had fled the city Thursday, carrying essentials like small gas cylinders, mattresses, tents, backpacks and blankets.
It’s at least the third time that Israeli forces have launched a major incursion into Khan Younis, where Israeli and American officials have said they believe Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ newly named top leader and one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, could be hiding. Hamas’ military wing, the Qassam Brigades, pledged allegiance to Sinwar as its new leader and promised to carry out his decisions.
Haniyeh’s swift replacement “shows that Hamas is coherent and strong,” said Abu Obaida, the group’s chief spokesperson.
The Israeli military said Friday its warplanes struck 30 Hamas targets in the city, including fighters and weapons storage sites. It said troops were searching for Hamas tunnels and other infrastructure while fighting “above and below ground.”
After 10 months of war in Gaza, the mediators’ push aims to resume indirect negotiations for a ceasefire that have been on hold since Sinwar’s predecessor, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in a presumed Israeli blast in Tehran on July 31.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed Thursday that it would send negotiators to talks that mediators have called for on Aug. 15, to be held in either Qatar’s capital of Doha or Egypt’s capital of Cairo.
Netanyahu’s far-right allies have resisted calls for a ceasefire, with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calling the latest proposal a “dangerous trap” that amounts to an Israeli surrender.
On Friday, the White House sharply rebuked Smotrich for his opposition to negotiations, with US national security adviser John Kirby telling reporters that his criticism is “ridiculous” and “dead wrong.”
“The views expressed by Mr. Smotrich would in fact sacrifice the lives of Israeli hostages, his own countrymen,” Kirby said, in unusually pointed public comments.
There was no immediate response from Hamas, which announced Tuesday that Sinwar, the group’s leader in Gaza, would replace Haniyeh as the group’s top leader. Haniyeh previously served as the key interlocutor in the negotiations.
Haniyeh’s killing and that of a top Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut brought vows of retaliation from Hezbollah and Iran.
The head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, which leads the guard’s operations around the region, repeated promises of retaliation in a letter to Sinwar, a copy of which was seen by The Associated Press. “We are preparing to avenge his blood,” Ismail Qaani wrote, referring to Haniyeh.
International diplomats have been scrambling to prevent an escalation and seal a deal to stop the fighting in Gaza and release the hostages still captive in the enclave.
In a joint statement, the United States, Egypt and Qatar called for the new round of talks, to be held either in Doha or Cairo, and pressed both sides to move ahead.
“There is no further time to waste nor excuses from any party for further delay,” they said, adding that the negotiators have already finalized a framework for the deal.
A key question hanging over the talks is the impact of Sinwar’s elevation to Hamas’ top leadership post. Seen as a hard-liner within the group, Sinwar has been hiding in the vast network of tunnels running under Gaza throughout the war as Israel vows to kill him.
Sinwar has already been closely involved in negotiations from behind the scenes. Hamas officials have said negotiators regularly sought his approval on the group’s positions as it pressed for guarantees that a deal would bring a complete end to the war and withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza, in return for the release of all hostages.
Israel says it aims to destroy Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack, in which militants from Gaza stormed into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 250 others. After a round of release exchanges in November, Israel says 111 hostages remain in Gaza, including 39 bodies.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 39,600 Palestinians and wounded more than 91,700 others. More than 1.9 million of Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million have been driven from their homes, fleeing repeatedly across the territory to escape offensives. Most are now crowded into ramshackle tent camps in an area about 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) on the Gaza coast.
With sanitation systems collapsed, diseases have run rampant, health officials say, and humanitarian groups are trying to feed the population. The United Nations says a half-million Palestinians facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity.
Israel’s military said Friday that its forces were still battling Hamas fighters in Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, in an assault there that has lasted three months. Its new assault in Khan Younis drove more people into the camps and neighboring areas.
Ghazi Abu Daka, one of the evacuees, told the AP that he and his family have been forced to flee Khan Younis four times now.
“Every day there is war. Every day there are rockets. There is no safe place in the eastern area. Now, we are displaced in the streets and don’t know where to go,” he said as he carried his son, a piece of cloth on his head to protect him from the heat.
Yasser Abu Alyan, another evacuee, said he was displaced six times from the Beni Seheila area east of the city. He said he took nothing with him except his two little girls: “Everything is gone.”
 

 


Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’

Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’
Updated 20 September 2024
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Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’

Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday the US Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by half of a percentage point was “a political move.”
“It really is a political move. Most people thought it was going to be half of that number, which probably would have been the right thing to do,” Trump said in an interview with Newsmax.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kicked off what is expected to be a series of interest rate cuts with an unusually large half-percentage-point reduction.
Trump said last month that US presidents should have a say over decisions made by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed chair and the other six members of its board of governors are nominated by the president, subject to confirmation by the Senate. The Fed enjoys substantial operational independence to make policy decisions that wield tremendous influence over the direction of the world’s largest economy and global asset markets.


Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term, WSJ reports

Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term, WSJ reports
Updated 20 September 2024
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Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term, WSJ reports

Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term, WSJ reports

WASHINGTON: US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza is unlikely before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The newspaper cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday before the report was published.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90 percent of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.
The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire but have failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.
Two obstacles have been especially difficult: Israel’s demand to keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The United States has said a Gaza ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears the conflict could widen.
Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time Israel agreed to. As the talks hit obstacles, officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.


Macron says ‘diplomatic path exists’ in Lebanon

Macron says ‘diplomatic path exists’ in Lebanon
Updated 20 September 2024
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Macron says ‘diplomatic path exists’ in Lebanon

Macron says ‘diplomatic path exists’ in Lebanon

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that a “diplomatic path exists” in Lebanon, where fears of an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel spiked after deadly explosions of hand-held devices.

War is “not inevitable” and “nothing, no regional adventure, no private interest, no loyalty to any cause merits triggering a conflict in Lebanon,” Macron said in a video to the Lebanese people posted on social media.
 


Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria

Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria
Updated 20 September 2024
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Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria

Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria
  • Daesh ‘tried to annihilate the Yazidi ethnic group on an industrial scale,’ prosecutor Reena Devgun says

DENMARK: Swedish authorities have charged a 52-year-old woman associated with the Daesh group with genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes against Yazidi women and children in Syria — in the first such case of a person to be tried in the Scandinavian country.

Lina Laina Ishaq, who’s a Swedish citizen, allegedly committed the crimes from August 2014 to December 2016 in Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the self-proclaimed Daesh caliphate and home to about 300,000 people.

The crimes “took place under Daesh rule in Raqqa, and this is the first time that Daesh attacks against the Yazidi minority have been tried in Sweden,” senior prosecutor Reena Devgun said in a statement.

“Women, children, and men were regarded as property and subjected to being traded as slaves, sexual slavery, forced labor, deprivation of liberty, and extrajudicial executions,” Devgun said.

When announcing the charges, Devgun said that they were able to identify the woman through information from UNITAD, the UN team investigating atrocities in Iraq.

 

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Daesh “tried to annihilate the Yazidi ethnic group on an industrial scale,” Devgun said.

In a separate statement, the Stockholm District Court said the prosecutor claims the woman detained a number of women and children belonging to the Yazidi ethnic group in her residence in Raqqa and “allegedly exposed them to, among other things, severe suffering, torture or other inhumane treatment as well as for persecution by depriving them of fundamental rights for cultural, religious and gender reasons contrary to general international law.”

According to the charge sheet, Ishaq is suspected of holding nine people, including children, in her Raqqa home for up to seven months and treating them as slaves. She also abused several of those she held captive.

The charge sheet said that Ishaq, who denies wrongdoing, is accused of having molested a baby, said to have been one month old at the time, by holding a hand over the child’s mouth when he screamed to make him shut up.

She is also suspected of having sold people to Daesh, knowing they risked being killed or subjected to serious sexual abuse.

In 2014, Daesh stormed Yazidi towns and villages in Iraq’s Sinjar region and abducted women and children. Women were forced into sexual slavery, and boys were taken to be indoctrinated in jihadi ideology.

The woman earlier had been convicted in Sweden and was sentenced to three years in prison for taking her 2-year-old son to Syria in 2014, an area that Daesh then controlled.

The woman claimed she had told the child’s father that she and the boy were only going on holiday to Turkiye. However, once in Turkiye, the two crossed into Syria and the Daesh-run territory.

In 2017, when Daesh’s reign began to collapse, she fled from Raqqa and was captured by Syrian Kurdish troops. She managed to escape to Turkiye, where she was arrested with her son and two other children she had given birth to in the meantime, with a Daesh foreign fighter from Tunisia.

She was extradited from Turkiye to Sweden.

Before her 2021 conviction, the woman lived in the southern town of Landskrona.

The court said the trial was planned to start Oct. 7 and last approximately two months.

Large parts of the trial are to be held behind closed doors.


Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says

Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says
Updated 20 September 2024
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Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says

Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says

GENEVA: A UN committee has accused Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children’s rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had a catastrophic impact on them and are among the worst violations in recent history.

Palestinian health authorities say 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7. Of those killed in Gaza, at least 11,355 are children, Palestinian data shows, and thousands more are injured.

“The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” said Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice chair of the Committee.

“I don’t think we have seen a violation that is so massive before as we’ve seen in Gaza. These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see,” he said.

Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, sent a large delegation to the UN hearings in Geneva between September 3-4.

They argued that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law. It says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating Hamas.

The committee praised Israel for attending but said it “deeply regrets the state party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations.”

The 18-member UN Committee monitors countries’ compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child — a widely adopted treaty that protects them from violence and other abuses.

In its conclusions, it called on Israel to provide urgent assistance to thousands of children maimed or injured by the war, provide support for orphans, and allow more medical evacuations from Gaza.

The UN body has no means of enforcing its recommendations, although countries generally aim to comply.

During the hearings, the UN experts also asked many questions about Israeli children, including details about those taken hostage by Hamas, to which Israel’s delegation gave extensive responses.