Israeli army leaves north Gaza hospital, detains medics, says health ministry

Israeli army leaves north Gaza hospital, detains medics, says health ministry
Wounded Palestinians receive treatment at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia the northern Gaza Strip on October 26, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 26 October 2024
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Israeli army leaves north Gaza hospital, detains medics, says health ministry

Israeli army leaves north Gaza hospital, detains medics, says health ministry
  • Footage circulated by the health ministry showed damage to several buildings after the Israeli forces withdrew
  • Three nurses were injured during the raid and three ambulance vehicles were destroyed, the ministry said

CAIRO: Israeli forces withdrew from a hospital complex in northern Gaza on Saturday, one day after storming it, and the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said the troops had detained dozens of male medical staffers and some of the patients.
Health officials said on Friday Israeli forces had stormed Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities struggling to operate in the area, and also stationed forces outside it.
Footage circulated by the health ministry — which Reuters could not immediately verify — showed damage to several buildings after the Israeli forces withdrew.
Medics said at least 44 of the facility’s 70-member team of the hospital had been detained by the army. It later said the army had released 14 of them, including the hospital’s director.
An Israeli military spokesperson declined comment on the hospital report. On Friday the Israeli military said it operated in the area of the hospital based on intelligence “regarding the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure” there.
Medics said at least two children had died inside the intensive care unit after Israeli fire hit the generators and oxygen station in the facility on Friday.
Medical staffers have refused Israeli army orders to evacuate the hospital or leave their patients unattended. Before the army raid, medics said at least 600 people had been in the hospital, including patients and their escorts.
“The safety and lives of patients who are left inside Kamal Adwan Hospital without medical staff and much needed medication are at risk now,” said Marwan Al-Hams of the health ministry.
Three nurses were injured during the raid and three ambulance vehicles were destroyed, the ministry said.

MILITARY STRIKES
Israeli military strikes on the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza have so far killed around 800 people during a three-week offensive, the Gaza ministry added.
Israel says its forces returned to northern Gaza to root out Hamas fighters who regrouped there. The Israeli military said on Friday that three of its soldiers were killed in combat in the north of the Gaza Strip.
Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said Israel’s incursions in northern Gaza and storming Kamal Adwan Hospital were a violation of international humanitarian law that it could not have committed without “the protection of Western countries.”
Israel regularly accuses Hamas of exploiting the civilian population and property, including hospitals and mosques, for military purposes. Hamas denies the accusation.
The Israeli military said on Saturday it had expanded the humanitarian-designated area of Al-Mawasi in the southern Gaza Strip, where the army has in the past told Palestinians to go when forced to evacuate their homes.
Separately on Saturday Israeli forces killed a Hamas member during a raid in the city of Tulkarm, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Israeli security force said in a statement. It said the man had been planning an imminent attack.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the dead man as Islam Jamil Awda, 29. In a statement, Hamas said Awda had died “clashing with the occupation forces who besieged him for hours in a house in Tulkarm camp.”
Violence has surged across the West Bank since the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinians — including armed fighters, stone-throwing youths and civilian bystanders — have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces.
Dozens of Israelis have also been killed in Palestinian street attacks over the past year.
Hamas-led fighters attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
The death toll from Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza is approaching 43,000, with the densely populated enclave in ruins.


Syrians taste freedom at famous Damascus ice cream parlour

Syrians taste freedom at famous Damascus ice cream parlour
Updated 4 sec ago
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Syrians taste freedom at famous Damascus ice cream parlour

Syrians taste freedom at famous Damascus ice cream parlour
Idrees had last savoured it 15 years earlier, before the Syrian civil war made him a refugee
For more than 100 years and through many wars, Bakdash has served up an Arabic-style of ice cream that is infused with Sahlab

DAMASCUS: After racing from Lebanon to Syria to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime and making arrangements for his family to follow, 42-year-old Anas Idrees knew what was next on his list of priorities.
He ventured into the grand Hamidiyeh Souk in old Damascus until he arrived at the renowned Bakdash ice cream parlour, then ordered a large scoop of their signature mastic-infused Arabic gelato.
Idrees had last savoured it 15 years earlier, before the Syrian civil war made him a refugee.
“I swear to God, it tastes different now,” he said after eating a spoonful. “It was good before, but it’s changed because now we are happy inside.”
For more than 100 years and through many wars, Bakdash has served up an Arabic-style of ice cream that is infused with Sahlab, a flour made from orchid roots and pounded by hand with meter-long mallets until it takes on a soft, stretchy texture.
A generous heap costs just $1 per bowl, and is served coated in pistachios.
Bakdash is much-loved across Syria, but many Syrians have been unable to visit their capital city since former Syrian President Bashar Assad cracked down on pro-democracy protests in 2011, igniting a 13-year civil war that divided the country.
In the wake of Assad’s ouster following a lightning rebel advance, tens of thousands of Syrians have converged on Damascus from across the country and outside its borders.
On Monday, hundreds turned up at Bakdash, many of them fighters fresh from the battlefield who slung guns around their backs to tuck into the cool treat that sometimes got caught in long, unkempt beards.
Ahmed Aslaan, a 22-year-old combatant wearing green fatigues, said he had not seen Damascus in more than a decade and enjoying the ice cream was a perk of his newfound freedom.
“Thank God we achieved our goal. Now we can go around all of Syria in our own car,” he said between bites. “We were all stuck in a tiny area before, now we have space.”
Co-owner Samir Bakdash said reopening the day after Assad fell was his way to show his joy at the end of a government that oppressed Syrians for decades and forced him to pay bribes just to keep his shop open.
He insisted the signature recipe had not changed since his great-grandfather came up with it in the 1890s.
But even regular customers said something felt new.
“It tastes different – it’s delicious and has gotten even better,” said Eman Ghazal, a business student in her 20s who has been coming to Bakdash since she was a child.
“It’s not just the ice cream, it’s life in general. It’s as if the walls are smiling and the sun has finally come out.”

Turkiye to reopen Damascus embassy ‘when conditions right’

Turkiye to reopen Damascus embassy ‘when conditions right’
Updated 7 min 20 sec ago
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Turkiye to reopen Damascus embassy ‘when conditions right’

Turkiye to reopen Damascus embassy ‘when conditions right’
  • The embassy closed on March 26, 2012 due to the deteriorating security situation

ANKARA: Turkiye’s top diplomat Hakan Fidan said Tuesday Ankara would reopen its embassy in Damascus when conditions allow following the ouster of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad.
At a gathering of Turkish diplomats in Ankara, Fidan was asked whether Turkiye was planning to reopen its embassy in the Syrian capital, which closed a year into the civil war that began in 2011.
“We will look into it. We’ll wait for the conditions to be right,” he told delegates.
The embassy closed on March 26, 2012 due to the deteriorating security situation and amid calls by the Turkish government for Assad to step down.


Eight dead in Cairo building collapse: health ministry

Eight dead in Cairo building collapse: health ministry
Updated 21 min 54 sec ago
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Eight dead in Cairo building collapse: health ministry

Eight dead in Cairo building collapse: health ministry
  • Nine ambulances were dispatched to the scene

CAIRO: Eight people were killed and three more injured when a six-story residential building collapsed in central Cairo on Tuesday, Egypt’s health ministry said.
Nine ambulances were dispatched to the scene as rescuers continue to “lift rubble and search for any wounded or bodies,” health ministry spokesman Hossam Abdel Ghaffar said in a statement.


Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial

Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial
Updated 58 min 54 sec ago
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Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial

Netanyahu assails media as he testifies for first time in his corruption trial
  • “I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth,” Netanyahu told the three-judge court
  • “But I am also a prime minister … I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel”

TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the witness stand for the first time on Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial, saying he was being hounded for his hawkish security policies.
Netanyahu, 75, is Israel’s first sitting prime minister to be charged with a crime. He is testifying at the same time Israel is engaged in a war in Gaza and facing possible new threats posed by regional turmoil, including in Syria.
Last week judges ruled that Netanyahu, indicted in 2019, must testify three times a week, forcing the longtime Israeli leader to juggle between the courtroom and the war room at Israel’s Defense Ministry, minutes away from the courthouse.
The leader of the right-wing Likud party, Netanyahu assailed the Israeli media for what he called its leftist stance and accused journalists of having hounded him for years because his policies did not align with a push for a Palestinian state.
“I have been waiting for eight years for this moment to tell the truth,” Netanyahu told the three-judge court. “But I am also a prime minister … I am leading the country through a seven-front war. And I think the two can be done in parallel.”
Prosecutors accuse Netanyahu of granting regulatory favors worth around 1.8 billion shekels (about $500 million) to Bezeq Telecom Israel (BEZQ.TA) in return for positive coverage of himself and his wife Sara on a news website controlled by the company’s former chairman.
He is also accused of negotiating a deal with the owner of Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper for better coverage in return for legislation to slow the growth of a rival paper.
Netanyahu denies the allegations against him and has pleaded not guilty. He stood rather than sat in the witness box throughout his morning testimony.
“Had I wanted good coverage all I would have had to have done would be to signal toward a two-state solution. ... Had I moved two steps to the left I would have been hailed,” he said.
In lengthy replies, he portrayed himself as a staunch defender of Israel’s security, withstanding pressures from international powers and a hostile domestic media.

TRIAL IN UNDERGROUND COURTROOM
Netanyahu smiled confidently when he entered the Tel Aviv District Court around 10 a.m. (0800 GMT). The trial was moved from Jerusalem for undisclosed security reasons and convened in an underground courtroom.
Before Netanyahu took the stand, his lawyer Amit Hadad laid out for the judges what the defense maintains are fundamental flaws in the investigation. Prosecutors, Hadad said, “weren’t investigating a crime, they were going after a person.”
A few dozen protesters gathered outside the courthouse, some of them supporters and others demanding he do more to negotiate the release of some 100 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Israel has been waging war in Gaza against the Palestinian militant group for more than a year, during which Netanyahu had been granted a delay for the start of his court appearances. But last Thursday, judges ruled that he must start testifying.
Charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, Netanyahu will testify three times a week, the court said, despite the Gaza war and possible new threats posed by wider Middle East turmoil.
Netanyahu was indicted in three cases involving gifts from millionaire friends and for allegedly seeking regulatory favors for media tycoons in return for favorable coverage. He denies any wrongdoing.
In the run-up to his court date, Netanyahu revived familiar pre-war rhetoric against law enforcement, describing investigations against him as a witch hunt. He denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

DIVISIONS AMONG THE ISRAELI PUBLIC
Before the war, Netanyahu’s legal troubles bitterly divided Israelis and shook Israeli politics through five rounds of elections. His government’s bid last year to curb the powers of the judiciary further polarized Israelis.
The shock Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing Gaza war swept Netanyahu’s trial off the public agenda as Israelis came together in grief and trauma. But as the war dragged on, political unity crumbled.
In recent weeks, while fighting abated on one front after Israel reached a ceasefire with Hamas’ Lebanese ally Hezbollah, members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, including his justice and police ministers, have clashed with the judiciary.
His domestic legal woes were compounded last month when the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant along with a Hamas leader, for alleged war crimes in the Gaza conflict.


Qatar urges open dialogue on Syria’s future

Qatar urges open dialogue on Syria’s future
Updated 10 December 2024
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Qatar urges open dialogue on Syria’s future

Qatar urges open dialogue on Syria’s future

DUBAI: Qatar’s Foreign Ministry has reiterated its commitment to engaging with all parties in Syria to shape the country’s future.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, spokesperson Majed Al-Ansari emphasized that “all doors and channels of communication” are open, highlighting the importance of collaborative efforts to achieve progress.

Al-Ansari described the situation as “historic days for the region,” and that it was a “ray of hope” for the Syrian people to fulfill their aspirations amid ongoing challenges.

He criticized Israel’s actions in Syria, stating it was unacceptable for Tel Aviv to “exploit” the current circumstances and violate that nation’s sovereignty.