UN chief ‘shocked by harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction’ in north Gaza

A man reacts while sitting atop rubble following Israeli bombardment on the four-storey Muqat family house in the Zarqa neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City on October 26, 2024. (AFP)
A man reacts while sitting atop rubble following Israeli bombardment on the four-storey Muqat family house in the Zarqa neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City on October 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 27 October 2024
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UN chief ‘shocked by harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction’ in north Gaza

A man reacts while sitting atop rubble following Israeli bombardment on the Zarqa neighbourhood in the north of Gaza City.
  • “The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in North Gaza is unbearable,” Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said

NEW YORK: UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Sunday he was “shocked by harrowing levels of death, injury and destruction” in north Gaza, where Israeli forces are carrying out attacks they say aim to prevent Hamas regrouping.

“The plight of Palestinian civilians trapped in North Gaza is unbearable,” Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

“The secretary-general is shocked by the harrowing levels of death, injury, and destruction in the north, with civilians trapped under rubble, the sick and wounded going without life-saving healthcare, and families lacking food and shelter.”

The spokesman said that according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks, and more than 60,000 others were forced to flee.

“Repeated efforts to deliver humanitarian supplies essential to survive — food, medicine, and shelter — continue to be denied by the Israeli authorities, with few exceptions, putting countless lives in peril,” Dujarric said.

“In the name of humanity, the secretary-general reiterates his calls for an immediate ceasefire, the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and accountability for crimes under international law.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Saturday described the civilian population in “horrific circumstances.”

Israel has waged a massive air and ground offensive in northern Gaza since early October. 

Hundreds of people have been killed, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled to Gaza City in the latest wave of displacement.

Israeli strikes on northern Gaza killed at least 22 people, mostly women and children, Palestinian officials said on Sunday.

The Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service said 11 women and two children were among the 22 killed in strikes on several homes and buildings in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. 

It said another 15 were wounded. 

Aid groups have warned of a catastrophic situation in northern Gaza, which has suffered the heaviest destruction of the war. 

Israel has severely limited the entry of basic humanitarian aid in recent weeks, and the three remaining hospitals in the north — one raided over the weekend — say they have been overwhelmed by waves of wounded.

Israel’s offensive has devastated much of Gaza and displaced around 90 percent of its population of 2.3 million, often multiple times.

Hundreds of thousands of people have crowded into squalid tent camps, and aid groups say hunger is rampant.

Israeli spy chief David Barnea was scheduled to head to Qatar for talks to restart negotiations toward a hostage deal.


Yemen’s Houthis say they targeted three supply ships and two American destroyers

Updated 7 sec ago
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Yemen’s Houthis say they targeted three supply ships and two American destroyers

Yemen’s Houthis say they targeted three supply ships and two American destroyers
Houthis targeted two American destroyers

CAIRO: Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis targeted three supply ships and two American destroyers accompanying them in the Gulf of Aden, a military spokesman for the Houthis said on Tuesday.

G7 to discuss Syria crisis in talks Friday: US

G7 to discuss Syria crisis in talks Friday: US
Updated 43 min 22 sec ago
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G7 to discuss Syria crisis in talks Friday: US

G7 to discuss Syria crisis in talks Friday: US
  • Kirby said he would have “more to say” about the agenda later in the week
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had earlier on Tuesday urged all nations to support an “inclusive” political process in Syria

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden and his G7 partners will discuss the turmoil in Syria when they hold a scheduled virtual meeting this Friday, the White House said.
The talks — which will also deal with Russia’s war in Ukraine — come days after Islamist-led militants in Syria ousted longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
“Syria and Ukraine will absolutely be on the agenda for the G7,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday.
Kirby said he would have “more to say” about the agenda later in the week “but you can bet that those two topics will be front and center.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had earlier on Tuesday urged all nations to support an “inclusive” political process in Syria.
Russia will be hovering in the background of both crises. Moscow has granted asylum to its fallen ally Assad, while it continues to push its invasion in Ukraine.
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States make up the G7 allies, who coordinate broadly on diplomatic and economic policies.
The meeting was called days ago, before the fall of Assad, according to sources close to the prime minister’s office in Italy, which currently holds the group’s rotating presidency.
The meeting, which was scheduled as an official handover to Canada as it assumes the presidency in January, will also address “other international crises, from Ukraine to the Middle East,” the source said.


At least 176 killed in two days of Sudan battles

At least 176 killed in two days of Sudan battles
Updated 53 min 29 sec ago
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At least 176 killed in two days of Sudan battles

At least 176 killed in two days of Sudan battles
  • In Omdurman, part of the Sudanese capital, paramilitary shelling killed at least 65 people and wounded hundreds
  • A single shell on a passenger bus “killed everyone on board and turned 22 people into body parts,” said Khartoum governor Ahmed Othman Hamza

PORT SUDAN: At least 176 people were killed in two days of army and paramilitary strikes across Sudan, according to an AFP tally of tolls provided by officials, activists and lawyers on Tuesday.
In Omdurman, part of the Sudanese capital, paramilitary shelling killed at least 65 people and wounded hundreds on Tuesday, according to the state’s army-aligned governor.
A single shell on a passenger bus “killed everyone on board and turned 22 people into body parts,” said Khartoum governor Ahmed Othman Hamza.
He attributed the strike to “the terrorist militia,” in reference to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023.
The attack comes a day after an army air strike on a market in the North Darfur town of Kabkabiya killed over 100 people, the pro-democracy Emergency Lawyers reported Tuesday.
“The air strike took place on the town’s weekly market day, where residents from various nearby villages had gathered to shop, resulting in the death of more than 100 people and injury of hundreds, including women and children,” said the lawyers’ group, which has been documenting human rights abuses during the conflict.
The lawyers also reported six people were killed in North Kordofan state when a drone that had crashed on November 26 exploded.
In the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur, paramilitary shelling on Tuesday killed five people, according to civil society group the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.
A UN-backed report in July declared famine had taken hold in the camp after a months-long RSF siege of state capital El-Fasher and the surrounding area.
The war between the RSF and the regular army has so far killed tens of thousands, uprooted 12 million and created what the United Nations has called the worst humanitarian crisis in recent memory.
It has also nearly destroyed Khartoum, control over which both sides have not managed to claim.
Most of Omdurman — the capital’s twin city across the Nile — is under army control, while the RSF holds Khartoum North (Bahri) to the east.
Residents have continuously reported shelling across the river, with bombs and shrapnel regularly striking homes on both banks.
On Tuesday, eyewitnesses said artillery was striking Omdurman from multiple fronts.
“We haven’t seen bombing this intense in six months,” one eyewitness to the passenger bus shelling told AFP, also requesting anonymity.
Another reported shelling from the Wadi Seidna army base, in northern Omdurman, toward RSF positions in western Omdurman and across the river in Bahri.
The army currently controls parts of the capital, as well as the country’s north and east.
The RSF has seized nearly the entire vast western region of Darfur, swathes of the southern Kordofan region and much of central Sudan.
Darfur, a region the size of France, is home to around a quarter of Sudan’s population but more than half its displaced people.
It has also been the site of some of the war’s most horrific violence.
In footage sent to AFP purporting to show the aftermath of Monday’s strike on the market, people were seen sifting through rubble as the charred remains of children lay on scorched ground.
The footage, which AFP was unable to independently verify, was supplied by the Darfur General Coordination of Camps for the Displaced and Refugees.
Though some drone attacks have been attributed to the RSF, the Sudanese military is the only party with fighter jets and maintains a functional monopoly on the skies.
In a statement Tuesday, the army accused RSF-affiliated political groups of “spreading lies” and said its forces “target rebel activity bases.”
The lawyers described the attack as a “horrendous massacre committed by army air strikes.”
They said recent strikes across the country were part of an “escalation campaign... deliberately concentrated on densely populated residential areas,” contradicting claims by warring parties that they only target military objectives.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of indiscriminately targeting civilians and deliberately bombing residential areas.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch accused the RSF and allied Arab militias of carrying out numerous abuses against civilians in South Kordofan state from December 2023 to March 2024.
The rights organization accused the groups of “war crimes” including “killings, rapes, and abductions of ethnic Nuba residents, as well as the looting and destruction of homes.”
The group also urged the United Nations and the African Union to deploy a mission to protect civilians in Sudan.


Israel says it will impose ‘sterile defense zone’ in southern Syria

Israel says it will impose ‘sterile defense zone’ in southern Syria
Updated 5 min 12 sec ago
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Israel says it will impose ‘sterile defense zone’ in southern Syria

Israel says it will impose ‘sterile defense zone’ in southern Syria
  • “We will not allow this, we will not allow threats to the state of Israel,” Katz said
  • He denied that forces had penetrated Syrian territory significantly beyond the zone

JERUSALEM/DAMASCUS: Israel has ordered its forces to create a “sterile defense zone” in southern Syria that would be enforced without a permanent Israeli presence as it tightens its hold along the line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday.
He gave no details but said the zone, would “prevent the establishment and organization of terror in Syria.”
“We will not allow this, we will not allow threats to the state of Israel,” he said in a statement following a visit to a naval base in the northern Israeli port of Haifa.
Earlier, a military spokesperson said Israeli troops remained in the demilitarized buffer zone in Syrian territory created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war as well as “a few additional points” outside the separation area.
But he denied that forces had penetrated Syrian territory significantly beyond the zone, after Syrian sources said the incursion had extended to within 25 km (15 miles) of the capital Damascus.
“IDF forces are not advancing toward Damascus. This is not something we are doing or pursuing in any way,” Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, the military spokesperson, told a briefing with reporters.
“We are not involved in what’s happening in Syria internally, we are not a side in this conflict and we do not have any interest other than protecting our borders and the security of our citizens,” Shoshani said.
Israeli jets have struck a string of targets across Syria since the weekend, aiming to ensure Syrian military equipment, including combat aircraft, missiles and chemical weapons, does not fall into militant hands.
As part of the wave of strikes, Katz said Israeli missile ships had destroyed the Syrian military fleet in an operation on Monday night.
Israeli media reported that the air force had carried out as many as 250 strikes. The military declined to confirm the number but did confirm it was seeking to stop Syrian military weapons from being seized and used by potential enemies.
“We’re acting to prevent lethal strategic weapons from falling into hostile hands. We’ve been doing this for years now in different ways and in different situations, and we’re doing it now,” Shoshani said.
LIMITED, TEMPORARY MEASURE
The flight of Syrian President Bashar Assad on Sunday ended over five decades of his family’s rule.
Israeli troops then moved into the demilitarised zone inside Syria, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where it took over an abandoned Syrian military post.
Israel, which has just agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon following weeks of fighting the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, calls the incursion a temporary measure to ensure border security.
But it remained unclear how far beyond the designated buffer zone its troops had stopped.
Three security sources said on Tuesday the Israelis had advanced beyond the demilitarised zone. One Syrian source said they had reached the town of Qatana, several kilometers (miles) to the east of the zone and just a short drive from Damascus airport.
Israel welcomed the fall of Assad, an ally of its main enemy Iran, but has reacted cautiously to the leading militant faction, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham. HTS has roots in Islamist movements including Al-Qaeda and Islamic State though it has sought for years to moderate its image.
Israel has said it does not seek conflict with Syria. But as in southern Lebanon following the ceasefire with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement, Israeli leaders have said they will intervene whenever they feel Israel’s security is threatened.
“We will not allow an extremist Islamic terrorist entity to act against Israel across its border,” Katz said.


Israeli jets pound ‘strategic weapons systems’ across Syria

Israeli jets pound ‘strategic weapons systems’ across Syria
Updated 10 December 2024
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Israeli jets pound ‘strategic weapons systems’ across Syria

Israeli jets pound ‘strategic weapons systems’ across Syria
  • UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that it has documented more than 310 strikes by the IDF since Sunday
  • Israel FM Gideon Sa’ar: ‘That’s why we attack strategic weapons systems like chemical weapons, or long-range missiles, in order that they will not fall into the hands of extremists’

LONDON: Israeli jets have reportedly carried out hundreds of airstrikes on “strategic weapons systems” across Syria since the fall of the Assad regime.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that it has documented more than 310 strikes by the IDF since Sunday.

The strikes have targeted military facilities of the Syrian Army, including weapon warehouses, ammunition depots, airports, naval bases and research centers.

Israel claimed its actions aim to prevent weapons falling “into the hands of extremists” as Syria transitions into a post-Assad era.

The SOHR reported that the attacks spanned Aleppo, Damascus and Hama, with more than 60 taking place overnight between Monday and Tuesday alone.

Reports said that many of the facilities hit have not merely been damaged, but completely destroyed.

Rami Abdul Rahman, SOHR’s founder, described the impact of the strikes as destroying “all the capabilities of the Syrian army” and said that “Syrian lands are being violated.”

The IDF denied that its troops had strayed into Syrian territory and said that reports of tanks near Damascus are “false.”

A spokesperson said: “IDF troops are stationed within the buffer zone, as stated in the past.”

The IDF seized Syrian positions in the buffer zone as a “temporary defensive position until a suitable arrangement is found,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

“If we can establish neighborly relations and peaceful relations with the new forces emerging in Syria, that’s our desire. But if we do not, we will do whatever it takes to defend the state of Israel and the border of Israel,” he said on Monday.

Asked about the IDF strikes on Monday night, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that Israel is only concerned with defending its citizens.

“That’s why we attack strategic weapons systems like, for example, remaining chemical weapons or long-range missiles and rockets in order that they will not fall into the hands of extremists,” he added.

It is not known where or how many chemical weapons Syria has, but it is believed that former president Bashar Assad kept stockpiles.

Israel’s attacks come after Syrian rebel fighters captured the capital, Damascus, and toppled the Assad regime over the weekend. He and his father had been in power in the country since 1971.

Forces led by the Islamist opposition group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham entered Damascus in the early hours of Sunday, before appearing on state television to declare that Syria was now “free.”