Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure

Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure
Israeli soldiers take up position in Kfar Aza, south Israel, bordering the Gaza Strip on October 10, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 12 September 2024
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Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure

Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure
  • Israeli army statement: ‘The commander of the 8200 unit, (Brig. General) Yossi Sariel, has informed his commanders and subordinates of his intention to end his position’
  • Public broadcaster Kan disclosed the existence of an intelligence brief prepared by Unit 8200 in Sept. 2023 that warned military officials of Hamas’s preparations for the attack

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Thursday that the head of an elite intelligence unit will resign over the failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“The commander of the 8200 unit, (Brig. General) Yossi Sariel, has informed his commanders and subordinates of his intention to end his position,” the army said in a statement.
“The officer will conclude his role in the near future.”
The prestigious and secretive Unit 8200 is in charge of decoding and analizing intercepts and other signals intelligence.
In the wake of October 7, Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate was thrown into a crisis that led to its commander, Major General Aharon Haliva, announcing his resignation in April 2024.
The army said then that Haliva had asked to be relieved of his duties for the directorate’s failure to foil the October 7 attack.
Israeli media on Thursday broadcast a copy of Sariel’s resignation letter in which he asked for “forgiveness” for “not fulfilling the mission we were entrusted with” on October 7.
In June, public broadcaster Kan disclosed the existence of an intelligence brief prepared by Unit 8200 in September 2023 that warned military officials of Hamas’s preparations for the attack.
Kan said the Unit 8200 document included details of elite Hamas fighters training for hostage-taking and plans for raids on military positions and Israeli communities in southern Israel.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Included in that count are hostages who were killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 41,118 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to open an official inquiry into October 7 until the war in Gaza is over.


UK’s Lammy repeats calls for ceasefire after talk with Blinken on Middle East

UK’s Lammy repeats calls for ceasefire after talk with Blinken on Middle East
Updated 15 sec ago
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UK’s Lammy repeats calls for ceasefire after talk with Blinken on Middle East

UK’s Lammy repeats calls for ceasefire after talk with Blinken on Middle East
  • David Lammy: ‘The best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution’
  • David Lammy: ‘I urge UK nationals to leave, because the situation on the ground is fast moving’

LONDON: British foreign minister David Lammy repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire amid reports of a potential escalation in the Israel-Lebanon conflict, after discussing the matter with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the phone on Monday.
“We’ve both seen the reports in the media about a next phase for Israel in Lebanon,” Lammy told Sky News, amid growing indications that Israel was on the verge of sending ground troops into Lebanon.
“We both agreed the position that we had at the UN last week that the best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution.”
Earlier in the day a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “all parties to show restraint.”
Lammy also repeated the government’s advice that British citizens leave Lebanon.
“We have secured places on commercial flights that are flying tomorrow so that UK nationals can get out. I urge them to leave, because the situation on the ground is fast moving,” he said.
“Whilst we will do everything we can to protect British nationals and those plans are in place to do so, we cannot anticipate the circumstances and the speed with which we could do that if things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days.”


Two-thirds of Gaza buildings damaged in war

Two-thirds of Gaza buildings damaged in war
Updated 21 min 53 sec ago
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Two-thirds of Gaza buildings damaged in war

Two-thirds of Gaza buildings damaged in war
  • High-resolution imagery collected on Sept. 3 and 6 showed clear deterioration, UN Satellite Center says

GENEVA: Two-thirds of the buildings in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed since the Gaza war began in October 2023, the UN said.

Updating its damage assessment, the UN Satellite Center, or UNOSAT, said very high-resolution imagery collected on Sept. 3 and 6 showed a clear deterioration.

“This analysis ... shows that two-thirds of the total structures in the Gaza Strip have sustained damage,” UNOSAT said.

“Those 66 percent of damaged buildings in the Gaza Strip account for 163,778 structures in total,” it said.

The last assessment, based on images from early July, determined that 63 percent of structures in the Palestinian territory had been damaged.

Monday’s update said the damage now included “52,564 structures that have been destroyed; 18,913 severely damaged; 35,591 possibly damaged structures; and 56,710 moderately affected.”

Gaza City has been notably affected, with 36,611 structures destroyed, it added.

UNOSAT and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said that approximately 68 percent of the permanent crop fields in the Gaza Strip showed “a significant decline in health and density” in September.

Hamas’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,615 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the territory’s Health Ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

Part of the UN Institute for Training and Research, or UNITAR, Geneva-based UNOSAT says its satellite imagery analysis helps the humanitarian community assess the extent of conflict-related damage and helps shape emergency relief efforts.

“Over the past year, UNOSAT’s team has worked tirelessly to provide the world with precise and timely insights into the impact of the conflict on buildings and infrastructure in Gaza,” said UNITAR’s executive director Nikhil Seth.

Critics highlight that from the time a UN General Assembly vote paved the way for Israel’s establishment in 1948, the country has ignored numerous UN resolutions and international court rulings without consequences.

Israel has always snubbed Resolution 194, which guarantees the Palestinians expelled in 1948 from the territory Israel conquered the right to return or to compensation.

It has also ignored rulings condemning its forceful acquisition of territory and the annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the continuing and expanding settlement policy in the West Bank, among others. 


Man arrested after breaking into Moroccan embassy in Sweden

Policemen stand outside Morocco's embassy to Sweden in Stockholm on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
Policemen stand outside Morocco's embassy to Sweden in Stockholm on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 22 min 31 sec ago
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Man arrested after breaking into Moroccan embassy in Sweden

Policemen stand outside Morocco's embassy to Sweden in Stockholm on September 30, 2024. (AFP)
  • The perpetrator, who has not yet been identified, is suspected of breaking and entering, aggravated vandalism and causing bodily injury, after shattered glass from a window fell on a passerby on the street, they added

STOCKHOLM: A man was arrested on Monday after breaking into Morocco’s embassy in Stockholm and smashing windows before hanging a rainbow flag from a window, police said.
Police stormed the building and arrested the man, who daily newspaper Aftonbladet said was armed with a knife and had barricaded himself in a room.
The man’s motive was not immediately known, police said.
The perpetrator, who has not yet been identified, is suspected of breaking and entering, aggravated vandalism and causing bodily injury, after shattered glass from a window fell on a passerby on the street, they added.
“The person was not seriously injured and was going to seek medical help on their own,” police said.
The embassy has yet to respond to AFP’s request for comment.
 

 


Gaza children ‘extremely impacted’ by war: UNICEF

Gaza children ‘extremely impacted’ by war: UNICEF
Updated 16 min 52 sec ago
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Gaza children ‘extremely impacted’ by war: UNICEF

Gaza children ‘extremely impacted’ by war: UNICEF
  • Jonathan Crickx: ‘You see children who are not allowed to have the life of normal children, no education, no play, no joy’
  • Crickx: ‘You see a lot of children carrying these dirty yellow plastic jerrycans’ with up to 25 liters of water

JERUSALEM: Nearly a year of devastating war has left Gaza’s 2.4 million people enduring a humanitarian tragedy, with children in the besieged territory the most vulnerable, a UNICEF official told AFP in an interview.
Jonathan Crickx, the UN agency’s spokesman for the Palestinian territories, has returned this month from a week-long mission to Gaza, still heavily impacted even as Israel shifts its military focus to Lebanon.
He talked to AFP about the plight of Gaza’s children, who have not had a single day of education since the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7.
“You see children who are not allowed to have the life of normal children, no education, no play, no joy,” Crickx said.
“The faces of these children are... so sad.”
Most children he saw in the war-battered Palestinian territory were helping their family as they no longer had classes to attend.
“So, you see a lot of children carrying these dirty yellow plastic jerrycans” with up to 25 liters of water, he said.
“I’ve seen children pushing these jerrycans with a broken wheelchair, trying to bring water, which is one of the major issues... in the Gaza Strip.”
Crickx said it was heartbreaking to see children, some as young as five or six, trying to find food for their families.
They are “walking in huge piles of garbage and trying to get whatever they can,” he said.
“These children are extremely impacted by the violence and the bombings and insecurity they have been through for a year.”
Crickx vividly remembers his conversation with Ahmad, a 10-year-old Gazan boy who lived with his family in a displacement camp in southern Gaza.
The boy’s uncle had died a horrific death, Crickx said.
Ahmad “was saying things that a 10-year-old should not tell you, how the body was in pieces, how the head was far away,” he recalled.
“This is extremely intense and difficult to hear from a 10-year-old child.”
Many children in Gaza have lost at least one of their parents, said Crickx.
Exact figures are unavailable, “but the frequency at which we meet with those children is very high,” he said.
UNICEF estimates that there are 19,000 children who are unaccompanied or have been separated from their parents, he said.
On top of that, not a single school is functioning across Gaza, he said, and 85 percent of all school buildings have been destroyed by the fighting.
“You have the entire population of school-aged children who didn’t attend a single hour of class in the past 12 months,” Crickx said.
“What is really striking is how they want to go to school, how they want to play with their friends, how they want to see their teachers... education, learning give hope.”
UN agencies and aid groups have warned of the spread of preventable disease and other health risks compounded by the war.
“With a very high level of density of people, extremely bad hygiene conditions, high temperatures, too little access to a bathroom, it’s the perfect, terrible recipe for the emergence of diseases,” Crickx said.
Many children are sick and need treatment, but most hospitals across Gaza are not functioning.
“This situation is really leading to children not getting the proper treatment that they need,” Crickx said.
He said he had met four children in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital who were suffering from cancer or heart problems.
“These children actually need an immediate medical evacuation (or) they will not make it,” he said.


Grief and fear in Damascus after Nasrallah killing

Grief and fear in Damascus after Nasrallah killing
Updated 25 min 21 sec ago
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Grief and fear in Damascus after Nasrallah killing

Grief and fear in Damascus after Nasrallah killing

DAMASCUS: In central Damascus, a giant screen aired images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as news of his killing in an Israeli strike reverberated across the city.

Syrians fear Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon could spill into regime-held areas, which have already faced hundreds of Israeli strikes over the years.

“Sayyed Nasrallah’s killing was a great shock and a tragedy for us and Arab nations,” said Ayham Barada, a 30-year-old shop owner. 

“We lost a man of great stature.”

Nasrallah was a key ally of President Bashar Assad and backed the Damascus regime’s forces during the Syrian civil war. 

His group, alongside Russia and Iran, helped Assad to claw back lost territory.

Assad offered condolences to Nasrallah’s family, saying he “will remain in the memory of Syrians” for heading the group during its fight “alongside Syria in its war against the tools of Israel.”

In Damascus, the group has a presence in the Sayyida Zeinab area south of the capital, home to an important Shiite Muslim shrine that is protected by pro-Iran groups.

Nasrallah’s face adorns walls across the neighborhood, and prayers echo from loudspeakers. Residents say that young men distribute white roses and water to passersby. In other parts of the city, mourners gathered for three days to mark his death.