At least 10 people killed in Israeli strikes at Gaza food distribution center

Update At least 10 people killed in Israeli strikes at Gaza food distribution center
In recent days, the military has launched an intense ground and air assault in northern Gaza, particularly in and around the city of Jabalia. (File/AFP)
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Updated 14 October 2024
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At least 10 people killed in Israeli strikes at Gaza food distribution center

At least 10 people killed in Israeli strikes at Gaza food distribution center
  • Tank shells hit people queuing for food, they say
  • Forces continue operations around Jabalia

GAZA: At least 10 people were killed and 40 injured in northern Gaza on Monday after Israeli tank shells hit people queuing for food, Palestinian medics said, as fears mounted in the enclave that Israel plans to displace all residents from the north.
Medics said an Israeli drone had also opened fire where dozens of residents had gathered to receive food in Jabalia, one of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps. Women and children were among the victims, they said.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for around 10 days and the military has now encircled the camp and sent tanks into nearby Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns, with the declared aim of stamping out Hamas fighters who are trying to regroup there.
With the Israeli military calling on Palestinians to evacuate south as they step up pressure on Hamas — and Hamas telling them not to leave because it was too risky — the past few days resemble earlier phases of the war.
The northern part of Gaza, home to well over half the territory’s 2.3 million people, was heavily bombed in the first phase of Israel’s assault on the territory which began a year ago.
Hundreds of thousands of northern Gaza residents quit their homes in the early months of the war, driven by Israeli evacuation orders and a military ground offensive in their areas, while around 400,000 people remained, according to United Nations estimates.
But months after intense ground fighting there, Israel sent troops back to Jabalia to root out Hamas fighters it said were regrouping for more attacks.
The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters have been staging attacks against the Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs. For residents, there has been no reprieve. “We have been hit from the air and the ground, non-stop for a week, they want us to leave, they want to punish us for refusing to leave our homes,” said Marwa, 26, who left with her family to a school in Gaza City.
People were afraid they would never be able to return if they head south, she said.
Later on Monday, Hamas said Israel aimed to displace the people of northern Gaza by force through constant bombardment, and the blocking of aid, food and fuel.
“The international community should act against this war crime as the occupation is closing the territory and preventing the entry of relief goods and medication,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
“By doing so it causes slow death, that is in addition to daily direct killings it has been conducting,” said Abu Zuhri.

Concern over Israel plans to empty Jabalia
Some residents also fear that Israel plans to empty Jabalia and possibly, the entire northern area under a proposal floated by former Israeli generals, which calls for north Gaza to be cleared of civilians and remaining militants to be put under siege until they surrender.
Israel flatly denies such designs.
“We have not received a plan like that,” military spokesman Nadav Shoshani told reporters. “We are making sure we’re getting civilians out of harm’s way while we operate against those terror cells in Jabalia,” he said.
The proposal’s main author, Giora Eiland, said that his plan is meant to pressure Hamas to release hostages by ending its control of territory and aid, rather than sending Israeli forces in to battle its fighters.
“What they’re doing in Jabalia now is more of the same,” Eiland told Army Radio on Sunday. “My plan is not being implemented.”
Israel’s plans for the future of Gaza are unclear, beyond its stated aim of dismantling Hamas as a military and governing force.
The United Nations has described dire conditions affecting the civilian population remaining in Jabalia.
“Over 50,000 people have been displaced from the Jabalia area, which is cut off, while others remain stranded in their homes amid increased bombardment and fighting,” The UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator Muhannad Hadi said on Sunday.
“The latest military operations in northern Gaza have forced the closure of water wells, bakeries, medical points and shelters, as well as the suspension of protection services, malnutrition treatment, and temporary learning spaces. At the same time, hospitals have seen an influx of trauma injuries.”
The Israeli military did not immediately comment. Israel launched the offensive against Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage to Gaza, by Israeli tallies. More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive so far, according to Gaza’s health authorities.


Explosion heard near Syria's capital, Syrian state media says

Explosion heard near Syria's capital, Syrian state media says
Updated 48 sec ago
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Explosion heard near Syria's capital, Syrian state media says

Explosion heard near Syria's capital, Syrian state media says

Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids

Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids
Updated 5 min 44 sec ago
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Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids

Sudan’s RSF chases civilians out of villages in violent raids
  • The war has unleashed hunger across the country, erased most signs of a functioning state in RSF-held areas, and prompted fears of fragmentation

NEW HALFA: Salwa Abdallah was recuperating from a caesarean section and tending to her one-month old baby when soldiers from the Rapid Support Forces barged into her home in Sudan’s eastern El Gezira state late last month.
They accused her of loyalty to the army and its allies, their rivals in an 18-month war. “They said ‘You killed us, so today we’ll kill you and rape your girls,’” she told Reuters, sheltering under a makeshift sheet in the town of New Halfa, where she arrived after walking for days on foot with her elderly mother and children.
She said the soldiers chased them out of their village with whips and later shot at them on motorcycles, which two other victims of the attack also mentioned.
Reuters spoke to 13 victims of a series of intense, violent raids in eastern Gezira over the past two weeks, which affected at least 65 villages and towns according to activists.
The UN says some 135,000 people have been displaced, largely to Kassala, Gedaref, and River Nile states, which are already packed with many of the more than 11 million internally displaced by the devastating war that broke out in April 2023.
“I am shocked and deeply appalled that human rights violations of the kind witnessed in Darfur last year ... are being repeated in El Gezira State. These are atrocious crimes,” said the UN’s top official in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, referring to attacks last year that prompted accusations of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity from the United States and others.
The war has unleashed hunger across the country, erased most signs of a functioning state in RSF-held areas, and prompted fears of fragmentation.
Both sides are accused of hindering much needed international assistance.
Spokespersons from the RSF and Sudanese army did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

REVENGE ATTACKS
Though El Gezira state has been subject to a violent looting campaign since the RSF took control in December, the defection of its chief in the state unleashed a series of revenge attacks.
The Wad Madani Resistance Committee, a pro-democracy group, named 169 people killed since the violence began on Oct. 20, though in a statement it said there were hundreds more.
The UN’s human rights office said last week that there were at least 25 cases of sexual violence, including an 11 year-old girl who died as a result. The office also said that the RSF had confiscated Internet devices in at least 30 villages, and cited reports they had burnt fields of crops.
The worst incident was in Al-Sireha, where the committee said 124 people were killed on Oct. 25.
Video verified by Reuters showed RSF soldiers lining up men, many of them elderly, and some in blood-splattered clothes, taunting them and forcing them to bleat.
Another video verified by Reuters showed dozens of bodies wrapped up in sheets for burial.
The RSF has denied ordering both attacks, and said the attacks in Gezira were the result of the army arming local communities.
The army has responded by emphasising popular resistance campaigns, though there has been little evidence of widescale arming of civilians in Gezira.
The Sudanese Human Rights Monitor warned the army against “leaving civilians ... exposed to direct and disproportionate confrontations with the RSF,” which it criticized for not fulfilling promises to protect civilians.
Hashim Bashir, a man disabled after his leg was amputated prior to the war, said RSF soldiers threw him out of his home in Al-Nayb village.
“They are very vicious... If you survive their gunshots, they hit you in your head. If you survive that, they beat you with a whip,” he said, showing scars on his functioning leg.
His niece, Faiza Mohammed, said the RSF soldiers allowed them to take nothing with them, even identifying documents.
“I hid under the bed, but they got me, beat me, and pulled my earring straight off my ear,” she said.


‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season

‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season
Updated 04 November 2024
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‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season

‘War ruined me’: Lebanon’s farmers mourn lost season
  • Agricultural regions in Lebanon have been caught in the crossfire since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah ramped up in October last year, a full-scale war breaking out on September 23

BEIRUT: Lebanese farmer Abu Taleb briefly returned to his orchard last month to salvage an avocado harvest but ran away empty handed as soon as Israeli air raids began.
“The war broke out just before the first harvest season,” said Abu Taleb, displaced from the village of Tayr Debba near the southern city Tyre.
“When I went back in mid-October, it was deserted... it was scary,” said the father of two, who is now sheltering in Tripoli more than 160 kilometers to the north and asked to be identified by a pseudonym because of security concerns.
Abu Taleb said his harvesting attempt was interrupted by an Israeli raid on the neighboring town of Markaba.
He was forced back to Tripoli without the avocados he usually exports every year.
Agricultural regions in Lebanon have been caught in the crossfire since hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah ramped up in October last year, a full-scale war breaking out on September 23.
The UN’s agriculture agency, FAO, said more than 1,909 hectares of farmland in south Lebanon had been damaged or left unharvested between October last year and September 28.
The conflict has also displaced more than half a million people, including farmers who abandoned their crops just when they were ready to harvest.
Hani Saad had to abandon 120 hectares of farmland in the southern region of Nabatiyeh, which is rich in citrus and avocado plantations.
“If the ceasefire takes place within a month, I can save the harvest, otherwise, the whole season is ruined,” said Saad who has been displaced to the coastal city of Jounieh, north of Beirut.
When an Israeli strike sparked a fire in one of Saad’s orchards, he had to pay out of his own pocket for the fuel of the fire engine that extinguished the blaze.
His employees, meanwhile, have fled. Of 32 workers, 28 have left, mainly to neighboring Syria.


Israeli strikes have put at least two land crossings with Syria out of service, blocking a key export route for produce and crops.
Airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon as insurance costs soar.
This has dealt a deadly blow to agricultural exports, most of which are destined for Gulf Arab states.
Fruit exporter Chadi Kaadan said exports to the Gulf have dropped by more than 50 percent.
The supply surplus in the local market has caused prices to plummet at home, he added.
“In the end, it is the farmer who loses,” said Saad who used to earn $5000 a day before the war started.
Today, he barely manages $300.
While avocados can stay on the tree for months, they are starting to run out of water following Israeli strikes on irrigation channels, Saad said.
Citrus fruits and cherimoyas have already started to fall.
“The war has ruined me. I spend my time in front of the TV waiting for a ceasefire so I can return to my livelihood,” Saad told AFP.
Gaby Hage, a resident of the Christian town of Rmeish, on the border with Israel, is one of the few farmers who decided to stay in south Lebanon.
He has only been able to harvest 100 of his 350 olive trees, which were left untended for a year because of cross-border strikes.
“I took advantage of a slight lull in the fighting to pick what I could,” he told AFP.
Hage said agriculture was a lifeline for the inhabitants of his town, which has been cut off by the war.
Ibrahim Tarchichi, president of the farmers’ union in the Bekaa Valley, which was hit hard by the strikes, believes that agriculture in Lebanon is going through the “worst phase” of its recent history.
“I have experienced four wars, it has never been this serious,” he said.


Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack

Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack
Updated 04 November 2024
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Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack

Israeli settlers burn cars in West Bank attack
  • Governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh Laila Ghannam: ‘Attacks are increasing because of impunity’ for attackers
  • Some 490,000 settlers live in settlements considered illegal under international law in the West Bank

AL-BIREH: Israeli settlers torched nearly 20 cars early Monday in the occupied West Bank city of Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Civil Defence and an Israeli security source.
An AFP journalist saw several cars completely charred, and the blackened facade of the five-story building outside which they were parked.
An alert rang “at 3:30am (0130 GMT) signalling that settlers entered the area and committed acts of vandalism,” said Rami Omar, head of the local civil defense office.
An Israeli security official told AFP notification of the incident came at 4:00 am and soldiers were sent who arrived on site after the settlers had gone.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said 19 vehicles had been burned by settlers.
Israeli police, soldiers and Shin Bet security agency officers collected evidence in Al-Bireh for the investigation, the official added.
Israeli authorities did not yet know where the settlers came from and what their motives were.
Ihab Al-Zabin, a resident of the damaged building, told AFP he saw the arsonists run away toward the nearby Israeli settlement of Beit El.
Zabin said he saw around 10 people he identified as settlers “pouring liquids on vehicles in front of the building and then setting them on fire.”
“I yelled from my apartment, and at that moment they ran away,” he said. “When I went down with my neighbors to put out the fire, settlers shot toward us.”
Abdullah Abu Rahmah from the Palestinian Commission against Settlements told AFP that the attackers belong to a group of arsonists who have attacked other nearby villages in the past.
Laila Ghannam, governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, told journalists at the scene “there could have been a massacre in this building,” which residents say housed more than 60 people.
“Attacks are increasing because of impunity” for attackers, she said.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
The UN’s office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said in August: “Between 1 and 28 October, OCHA documented nearly 270 settler-related incidents affecting Palestinians and their property.”
Some 490,000 settlers live in settlements considered illegal under international law in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
The territory is home to three million Palestinians.


Iran slams US deployment of B-52 bombers as ‘destabilizing’

Iran slams US deployment of B-52 bombers as ‘destabilizing’
Updated 04 November 2024
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Iran slams US deployment of B-52 bombers as ‘destabilizing’

Iran slams US deployment of B-52 bombers as ‘destabilizing’
  • The US military announced on Saturday the deployment of B-52 bombers to the Middle East as a warning to Iran which has vowed to respond to Israeli strikes on its military sites on October 26

Tehran: Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Monday criticized what he called the United States’ “destabilizing presence” after the deployment of B-52 bombers in the region.
“We have always believed that the presence of America in the region is a destabilising presence,” said Baghaei told a news conference in response to a question about the deployment, adding that it “will not deter (Iran’s) resolve to defend itself.”
The US military announced on Saturday the deployment of B-52 bombers to the Middle East as a warning to Iran which has vowed to respond to Israeli strikes on its military sites on October 26.
Israel’s attack was in retaliation for an October 1 Iranian missile barrage, itself retaliation for the killing of Iran-backed militant leaders and a Revolutionary Guards commander.
At least four soldiers were killed in the strikes which also caused “limited damage” to a few radar systems, officials said at the time. Iranian media also reported that a civilian was killed.
Baghaei said Iran’s response would be “definite and decisive.”
He added that Iran supported “all initiatives and efforts” to push for a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is at war with the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah armed groups, respectively.
Israel said its October 26 attack targeted Iran’s defense capabilities and missile production, but Tehran said its missile production remained intact.
On Monday, President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran had missiles so Israel “wouldn’t dare attack us.”
During the news conference, Baghaei said Iran’s official position against changing the nuclear doctrine and pursuing atomic weapons remained the same.
Citing a recent speech by Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Baghaei said the Islamic republic would be “equipped with everything necessary to defend” itself.