The heads of the CIA and MI6 issue joint call for Gaza ceasefire

The heads of the CIA and MI6 issue joint call for Gaza ceasefire
Palestinians inspect the damage at a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital, hit by an Israeli bombardment on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip. (File/AP)
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Updated 07 September 2024
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The heads of the CIA and MI6 issue joint call for Gaza ceasefire

The heads of the CIA and MI6 issue joint call for Gaza ceasefire
  • CIA Director William Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore said their agencies had “exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation”

LONDON: The heads of the American and British foreign intelligence agencies said Saturday they are “working ceaselessly” for a ceasefire in Gaza, using a rare joint public statement to press for peace.
CIA Director William Burns and MI6 Chief Richard Moore said their agencies had “exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation.”
In an opinion piece for the Financial Times, the two spymasters said a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas “could end the suffering and appalling loss of life of Palestinian civilians and bring home the hostages after 11 months of hellish confinement.”
Burns has been heavily involved in efforts to broker an end to the fighting, traveling to Egypt in August for high-level talks aimed at bringing about a hostage deal and at least a temporary halt to the conflict.
So far there has been no agreement, though United States officials insist a deal is close. US President Joe Biden said recently that “just a couple more issues” remain unresolved. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, has said reports of a breakthrough are “exactly inaccurate.”
The US and the United Kingdom are both staunch allies of Israel, though London diverged from Washington on Monday by suspending some arms exports to Israel because of the risk they could be used to break international law.
Burns and Moore stressed the strength of the trans-Atlantic relationship in the face of “an unprecedented array of threats,” including an assertive Russia, an ever-more powerful China and the constant threat from international terrorism — all complicated by rapid technological change.
They highlighted Russia’s “reckless campaign of sabotage” across Europe and the “cynical use of technology to spread lies and disinformation designed to drive wedges between us.”
US officials have long accused Moscow of meddling in American elections, and this week the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged employees of Russian broadcaster RT with covertly funding social media campaigns to pump out pro-Kremlin messages and sow discord around November’s presidential contest.


Hezbollah says targets north Israel ‘military industries’ firm

Hezbollah says targets north Israel ‘military industries’ firm
Updated 39 min ago
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Hezbollah says targets north Israel ‘military industries’ firm

Hezbollah says targets north Israel ‘military industries’ firm
  • The group said it launched “a rocket salvo” toward a “military industries company” east of Acre

BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it launched rockets at a defense company in northern Israel Saturday, the latest attacks after Israel intensified its bombing campaign last week, nearly a year into cross-border clashes with the group.
The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it launched “a rocket salvo” toward a “military industries company” east of Acre.


Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7

Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
Updated 05 October 2024
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Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7

Thousands march in London in support of Palestinians, 1 year after Oct 7
  • Pro-Palestinian supporters from across the country began the march from Russell Square to Downing Street demanding an end to the conflict
  • At Saturday’s 20th “National March for Palestine” in London, familiar chants — “ceasefire now,” “stop bombing hospitals, stop bombing civilians“

LONDON: Thousands of protesters marched through central London on Saturday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon as the war in the Palestinian territory neared the one-year mark.
Pro-Palestinian supporters from across the country began the march from Russell Square to Downing Street demanding an end to the conflict, which has killed nearly 42,000 people in Gaza;
At Saturday’s 20th “National March for Palestine” in London, familiar chants — “ceasefire now,” “stop bombing hospitals, stop bombing civilians” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — were joined by shouts of “hands off Lebanon.”
The rally came ahead of the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack in Israel by fighters from Palestinian group Hamas which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,825 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s health ministry and described as reliable by the United Nations.
Zackerea Bakir, 28, said he has attended dozens of marches around the Uk.
Large numbers continue to turn up because “everyone wants a change,” Bakir told AFP.
“It’s continuing to just get worse and worse, and yet nothing seems to be changing... I think it’s tiring that we have to continue to come out,” said Bakir, joined at the rally by his mother and brother.
Several protesters carried posters reading “Starmer has blood on his hands.”
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas, as well as suspended some arms licenses to Israel.
However, many at the rally said it was not enough.
Sophia Thomson, 27, found the Labour government’s stance “hypocritical.”
According to Thomson, the size of the protests “goes to show the government doesn’t speak for the people.”
“It’s not good enough. It’s not good enough,” added Bakir, calling for the government to “stop giving a carte blanche of support to the Israeli government.”
London’s Metropolitan police put in place a “significant” policing operation ahead of planned protests and memorial events.
While the rally was largely peaceful, two were arrested for assaulting an emergency worker, according to the Met.
Three others were arrested as tensions rose between the main march and a counter protest.
While exact numbers at the demonstration were unclear, “it appears to be greater than other recent protests,” the Met said on X.
Another rally also took place simultaneously in the Irish capital, Dublin.
A memorial for the October 7 attack will be held in London on Sunday.


Israelis threaten to destroy town of Taraya in Bekaa

Israelis threaten to destroy town of Taraya in Bekaa
Updated 14 sec ago
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Israelis threaten to destroy town of Taraya in Bekaa

Israelis threaten to destroy town of Taraya in Bekaa
  • Israeli strike hits Tripoli in north Lebanon, source says
  • More nightly raids hit Beirut’s southern suburbs

BEIRUT: The Israeli military has threatened to destroy a town in Bekaa, believing it contains weapons that may be used by the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Mayors in the town of Taraya — Ali Hamieh, Ahmed Mohsen Hamieh, and Yasser Mehdi Hamieh — have received calls from Israel informing them that Hezbollah weapons are being held in their town and if they are not removed within a day, the town will be destroyed.

Taraya is located in central Bekaa and is part of the Baalbek district, 74 km from Beirut. It is considered a supportive environment for Hezbollah and has been targeted by numerous Israeli airstrikes in the past two weeks.

This is the first time a direct threat has been made to completely destroy an entire town. Previous threats have been limited to southern towns and neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs.

Israeli attacks intensified on Saturday on Beirut’s southern suburbs and southern towns. According to a report by the Higher Defense Council, the death toll in the past 24 hours had reached 37, with 151 injured, raising the total number of victims in Lebanon since the confrontations began to 2,011 dead and 9,535 wounded.

The scope of Israeli targeting is no longer confined to a specific area, or with any restrictions.

Israeli attacks have reached the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, specifically the Beddawi Palestinian refugee camp, where a combat drone targeted an apartment in a residential building inside the camp, killing Hamas’ leader Saeed Atallah Ali and three members of his family.

Airstrikes have also resumed in Beirut’s southern suburbs, targeting the area of Mrayjeh and Ain Al-Sikka Square in Burj Al-Barajneh, killing two people and injuring others.

The area had not been fully evacuated because some residents believed “there were no Hezbollah security zones,” while other people had “no other place to go.”

Airstrikes for the first time have targeted the road leading to Al-Rassoul Al-Aazam Hospital in a Hezbollah stronghold.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee told residents in neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate in preparation for further strikes.

Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids following the warning, targeting the vicinity of Al-Qaim Mosque, Burj Al-Barajneh, the Sayed Al-Shuhada Complex, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abd, Al-Ruwais, Al-Abyad, Choueifat Al-Ajneha, Al-Khamseh, and Al-Marija.

The Israel Broadcasting Authority said that “Israel attacked the southern suburbs of Beirut at least six times within a span of 20 minutes.”

Rescue teams have not yet been able to clear the debris from a location that was targeted late on Thursday — a Hezbollah command center underground in Al-Marija — due to Israeli threats to target anyone who approaches the area.

It is believed that the target of the airstrike was Hashem Safieddine, a prominent Hezbollah leader and one of the leading candidates to succeed its former chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted the party’s command center a week ago.

While Hezbollah has not provided any clarification about the fate of Safieddine and his companions, Al Arabiya quoted a Lebanese security source as saying that “contact with Safieddine has been cut off since Friday’s raids” and that “he was most likely assassinated in the raids.”

Israeli airstrikes targeted the area of the Masnaa border crossing with Syria for a second day on Saturday, with crossing now only possible on foot.

Raids also targeted the road to Baalbek. A young woman lost her life due to injuries incurred during a raid on the town of Ain, located in northern Bekaa, where she was serving with the Lebanese Red Cross.

One person was killed in a raid on the Saadnayel plain in central Bekaa while two fatalities occurred as a result of a guided missile strike on a vehicle along the Marj Zebdine-Nabatieh road.

Operations conducted in the southern region on Friday night resulted in the deaths of two young men in Harouf in the Nabatieh district while one person was killed and another injured in the town of Majdal Selm in Tyre.

Three people lost their lives during a raid on a residence in the eastern town of Zawtar.

Salah Ghandour Hospital in Bint Jbeil received intense shelling following an Israeli appeal for its evacuation. The bombardment resulted in injuries to nine members of the medical and nursing staff, with the hospital later being evacuated and medical operations suspended.

Hezbollah continued its attacks on Israeli military installations. The group said it had aimed at “enemy positions and assemblies near the Dan settlement, the city of Safed, the Karmiel settlement, and the Sasa settlement using two Falaq-2 missiles.”

The Israeli military said it had “intercepted some of Hezbollah’s missiles, while others fell in open areas,” adding that “the air force will intensify its strikes on the southern suburbs.”

Hezbollah said its members were “monitoring, tracking, and responding to any hostile movements at the front line in southern Lebanon; actively pursuing Israeli soldiers in their bases and rear positions along the border in the occupied territories; (and) utilizing artillery shells and rocket barrages.”


Displaced Gazan mothers struggle to care for their newborns

Displaced Gazan mothers struggle to care for their newborns
Updated 05 October 2024
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Displaced Gazan mothers struggle to care for their newborns

Displaced Gazan mothers struggle to care for their newborns
  • “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant or given birth during the war because life is completely different,” said Rana Salah
  • Milana is one of around 20,000 babies to have been born in Gaza in the last year, according to UNICEF statistics

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza: Gazan mother Rana Salah cradles her one-month-old daughter Milana in her arms in a sweltering tent for the displaced, and speaks of the guilt she feels for bringing her child into a world of war and suffering.
“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant or given birth during the war because life is completely different; we’ve never lived this life before,” she said, speaking at a camp in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
“I gave birth twice before, and life was better and easier for me and the child. Now, I feel like I’ve wronged both myself and the child because we deserve to live better than this.”
Milana was born in a hospital tent by caesarean owing to complications with Salah’s pregnancy. The family have not been able to return home due to the conflict, moving instead from one tent to another.
Milana is one of around 20,000 babies to have been born in Gaza in the last year, according to UNICEF statistics.
The current war, a particularly deadly episode in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israeli air and artillery strikes in response have reduced much of the Palestinian enclave to rubble and more than 41,500 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli assault, according to the Gaza health ministry. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced.

INFECTION RISK
Salah fans Milana with cardboard and says the heat is bad for the baby’s skin.
“Instead of returning to our house, we keep moving from one tent to another... where diseases are widespread and the water is contaminated.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said postnatal services have decreased significantly in Gaza, so women who have complications have less access to the care they need, as do their babies.
Rick Brennan, the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional emergency director, said malnutrition was a threat to newborns, particularly if their mothers were unable to breastfeed, as there was no access to breast milk substitutes.
Displacement and being constantly on the move are disruptive for a newborn and expose them to risks of infection, he said.
Manar Abu Jarad is staying in a school shelter run by the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). Her youngest daughter Sahar was born on Sept. 4th, also by caesarean section. Her husband was killed in the war.
On hearing she would need a caesarean for the birth, she worried about how she would care for her other children.
“I already have three girls. I started shouting... How can I carry (water) buckets? How can I bathe my daughters? How can I help them and my husband is not with me, he was martyred.”
Children rock baby Sahar, who is swaddled in a crib, next to Jarad.
“I’ve reached the point where I cannot carry the responsibility for this girl ... Thank God I found some help here,” she said. She has borrowed what she can from family and uses one diaper a day for the baby as she can’t afford more.
“I don’t have the money to provide diapers or milk for her.”
Jarad longs for an end to the war and a return to her home, even if it is just a tent next to her former home.
“The important thing is to go home. Enough of all the exhaustion we are experiencing here, enough carrying buckets, enough of the dirt in the bathrooms. It’s really, really hard and really tiring for us. Diseases are everywhere.”


Macron urges halt to arms deliveries to Israel for use in Gaza

Macron urges halt to arms deliveries to Israel for use in Gaza
Updated 05 October 2024
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Macron urges halt to arms deliveries to Israel for use in Gaza

Macron urges halt to arms deliveries to Israel for use in Gaza
  • “The priority is that we return to a political solution,” Macron told broadcaster France Inter

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged a halt to arms deliveries to Israel, which has been criticized over the conduct of its retaliatory operation in Gaza.
“I think that today, the priority is that we return to a political solution, that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza,” Macron told broadcaster France Inter, adding that France was not sending any arms to Israel.