Page 2 - Gaza Firing

Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza's main hospital after 2-week raid

Palestinian residents say the Israeli military has withdrawn from Gaza's main hospital after a two-week raid, leaving behind a vast swath of destruction. Hundreds of people returned to Shifa Hospital and the surrounding area after the withdrawal early Monday, where they found bodies inside and outside of the facility. The military has described the raid as one of the most successful operations of the nearly six-month war, saying it killed scores of Hamas and other militants, as well as seizing valuable intelligence. Mohammed Mahdi, who was among those who returned, described a scene of total destruction. He said several buildings had been burned down. He counted six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard. Another resident, Yahia Abu Auf, said there were still patients, medical workers and displaced people sheltering inside the medical compound. He said several patients had been taken to the nearby Ahli Hospital. He said army bulldozers had plowed over a makeshi

Talks resume to bring Israeli delegation to US for discussion on Gaza war

Talks have restarted aimed at bringing top Israeli officials to Washington to discuss potential military operations in Gaza, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a planned visit this week because he was angry about the US vote on a UN cease-fire resolution, two US officials said on Wednesday. No date has been finalised for strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer and national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi to come to Washington, the officials said. The officials were not authorised to speak publicly about the sensitive discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. An Israeli official said the White House had reached out with the goal of setting a new meeting. The official was not authorized to talk to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. Netanyahu's office said the prime minister did not authorise the departure of the delegation to Washington. The prime minister cancelled the trip this week after the UN vote to demand a cease-fire in .

As military chiefs meet, Pentagon stresses on protecting civilians in Gaza

US defence leaders pressed their Israeli counterparts Tuesday to ensure that any military operation in the southern city of Rafah unfold in phases to protect civilians and secure the delivery of aid, a senior Pentagon official said. Israel's defence minister was receptive, the official said, but it's not clear what impact the meeting will have on Israeli plans for Gaza or on growing tensions between the two nations. US leaders have consistently warned against a ground invasion of Rafah and pressed for an alternative, more precise operation. The senior defence official described the 90-minute meeting at the Pentagon as very productive and "really quite meaty", but demurred when asked if Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sought to condition future US military aid to Israel on an improvement of the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Austin said the US will continue to stand up for Israel's right to defend itself in accordance with the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law,

Israel intensifies air strikes on Hamas, operations in hospital compound

Targets included tunnel shafts, terror infrastructure, and a launching area from where rockets were fired at the Israeli city of Sderot

Trump urges Israel to 'finish up' Gaza offensive amid fading global support

Former US President Donald Trump said he would have responded the same way as Israel did after the October 7 attack by Hamas but urged the country to "finish up" its offensive in Gaza and "get this over with", warning about international support fading. "You have to finish up your war. You have to finish it up. You've got to get it done," he said in an interview with Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom. "We've got to get to peace. You can't have this going on, and I will say Israel has to be very careful because you are losing a lot of the world. You are losing a lot of support." Trump, who earlier this month became the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, brought up global criticism of Israel's offensive even as he has repeatedly attacked President Joe Biden's handling of the conflict. According to the newspaper's transcript of the interview, Trump said "Israel made a very big mistake" in releasing photos and videos of its offensive in Gaza, commenting the country's public image is "

Gaza war, Red Sea attacks may push Yemen back into war, says UN envoy

The longer the war in Gaza goes on and Yemen's Houthi rebels keep attacking ships in the Red Sea the greater the risk that Yemen could be propelled back into war, the UN special envoy for the poorest Arab nation warned on Thursday. Hans Grundberg told the UN Security Council it has been impossible to shield his promising efforts to restore peace to Yemen because the reality is, what happens regionally impacts Yemen and what happens in Yemen can impact the region. Since November, the Iranian-backed Houthis have targeted ships in the Red Sea to demand a cease-fire in Israel's offensive in Gaza. It began after Gaza's Hamas rulers launched a surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people and led to about 250 others being taken captive. Israel's ongoing military operation has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. The Houthi attacks targeting vessels since November, however, have increasingly had little or no connecti

Ahead of anticipated offensive, Israel to direct Palestinians out of Rafah

The Israeli military said Wednesday it plans to direct a significant portion of the 1.4 million displaced Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip's southernmost town of Rafah toward humanitarian islands in the centre of the territory ahead of its planned offensive in the area. The fate of the people in Rafah has been a major area of concern of Israel's allies including the United States and humanitarian groups, worried an offensive in the region densely crowded with so many displaced people would be a catastrophe. Rafah is also Gaza's main entry point for desperately needed aid. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a Rafah offensive is crucial to achieve Israel's stated aim of destroying Hamas following the militants' Oct 7 attack in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and around 250 taken hostage and brought into Gaza. Israel's invasion of Gaza has killed more than 31,000, according to Gaza health officials, left much of the enclave in ruins and ...

Effort to get aid to Gaza by sea halted as first ship still waits in Cyprus

A US Army vessel carrying equipment to build a temporary pier in Gaza was heading to the Mediterranean on Sunday, after US President Joe Biden announced plans to increase aid deliveries by sea to the besieged enclave where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are going hungry. The new push for aid came as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was set to begin Monday in much of the world after officials in Saudi Arabia saw the crescent moon. Hopes for a new cease-fire by Ramadan faded days ago with negotiations apparently stalled. The opening of the sea corridor, along with airdrops by the US, Jordan and others, reflected growing alarm over Gaza's deadly humanitarian crisis and a new willingness to bypass Israeli control over land shipments. But aid officials say that air and sea deliveries can't make up for a shortage of land routes. Aid trucks entering Gaza daily are far below the 500 entering before the war. A ship belonging to Spanish aid group Open Arms and carrying 200 tons of food

Biden to announce aid port on Gaza's coast as cease-fire talks stall

President Joe Biden will announce Thursday that he is directing the U.S. military to help set up a temporary port off the Gaza coast to establish a sea route for food and other direly needed aid for Palestinian civilians trapped in the Israel-Hamas war, senior U.S. administration officials said. The announcement signals further deepening U.S. involvement in the war and the escalating conflicts and tensions in the region. The move also shows the Biden administration resorting to a highly unusual workaround to deliver aid to Gaza's 2.3 million civilians, in the face of restrictions that U.S. ally Israel has placed on overland aid deliveries. Meanwhile, hopes for reaching a cease-fire before the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts in the coming days, stalled Thursday when Hamas said its delegation had left Cairo, where talks were being held. The outline for the cease-fire would have including a wide infusion of aid into Gaza. A widening humanitarian crisis across Gaza .

Israel kills 100 Palestinians in 24 hrs amid hold on cease-fire talks

More than 100 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip over a 24-hour period, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Friday. Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh held talks with Egyptian officials about a possible cease-fire in Gaza and an exchange of hostages held by the militants for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, according to a Hamas statement Friday morning. During Hamas' Oct 7 attack on southern Israel, militants killed about 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages. Roughly half of the hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. About 100 hostages remain in captivity, in addition to the bodies of 30 others who were killed on Oct 7 or died in captivity. Israel's subsequent offensive in Gaza has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians and driven some 80% of the territory's 2.3 million people from their homes. Most heeded Israeli orders to flee south, and around 1.5 million are packed into Rafah near the border with ...

Israeli army fires into Gaza hospital; kills a patient, wounds six others

Israeli forces fired into the main hospital in southern Gaza early on Thursday, killing a patient and wounding six others, according to medics, as the army sought to evacuate thousands of displaced people from the medical complex that has been largely cut off by fighting for weeks. Israeli airstrikes meanwhile killed at least 13 people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, 10 civilians mostly women and children and three fighters from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas. The strikes came just hours after a rocket attack from Lebanon killed an Israeli soldier in what was the deadliest of daily exchanges of fire along the border since the October 7 start of the war in Gaza. It also underscored the risks of a broader conflict. Negotiations over a cease-fire in Gaza appear to have stalled, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until Hamas is destroyed and scores of hostages taken during the October 7 attack that sparked the wa

Highlights of the day Mizoram CM to present state budget on Feb 27

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UAE warns Israel against launching military operation in Rafah, Gaza

The Ministry reaffirmed the UAE's position, calling for a return to negotiations to achieve the two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state

Fleeing Gaza family killed by Israel along with medics sent to find them

The sound of gunfire crackled over the phone as the teenage girl hid in the car and spoke. An Israeli tank was near the vehicle as she and her family were trying to heed Israel's call to evacuate their home in Gaza. Something had gone horribly wrong. Everyone in the vehicle was dead, the teen said. Everyone but her and her five-year-old female cousin, Hind. "They are shooting at us," 15-year-old Layan told the Palestinian Red Crescent. "The tank is next to me." And then there was a burst of gunfire. She screamed and fell silent. That began a desperate rescue attempt by medics with the Palestinian Red Crescent, one of many during the war in Gaza and one that ended on Saturday with the discovery of their ambulance, blackened and destroyed. The two medics were dead. The Palestinian Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of targeting the ambulance as it pulled up near the family's vehicle. The organisation said it had coordinated the journey with Israeli forces as in the past. There was

Netanyahu orders population of Gaza's Rafah evacuated ahead of invasion

Israel says Rafah is the last remaining Hamas stronghold and it needs to send in troops to complete its war plan against the Islamic militant group

US military drills in Philippines unaffected by focus on Ukraine, Gaza

Combat exercises between the United States and the Philippines involving thousands of forces each year will not be affected by America's focus on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, a US general said Thursday. The Biden administration has been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific region to build deterrence and to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan and the disputed South China Sea. But there have been concerns that the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict could hamper America's pivot to Asia and the Pacific and divert military resources intended for the region. "Certainly, it does not affect our presence, Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, commanding general of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division, told The Associated Press in an interview late Thursday when asked to comment on those concerns. "If anything, it drives an increased sense of urgency to focus on these partnerships that we've developed decades ago and it'

Still seek complete ceasefire in Gaza, end to Israeli offensive, says Hamas

Hamas says it has responded in a positive spirit to the latest proposal from the US and Mideast mediators for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages. But the militant group said in a statement on Tuesday that it still seeks a comprehensive and complete" cease-fire to end "the aggression against our people". Israel has ruled out the kind of permanent cease-fire sought by the militant group. Qatar's prime minister said on Tuesday that Hamas' reaction to the latest plan for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages was generally positive" as he met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was making his latest visit to the Middle East. Qatar, which has long mediated with Hamas, has been working with the US and Egypt to broker a cease-fire that would involve an extended halt in fighting and the release of the over 100 hostages still held by Hamas after its October 7 cross-border raid that ignited the war nearly four months ago. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman ..

'Good progress' in talks on freeing hostages and Gaza ceasefire: Qatari PM

According to Al Thani, Hamas needs to reach "to a place where they engage positively and constructively in the process"

UN court misrepresented my comments in genocide ruling: Israel's president

Israel's president on Sunday accused the UN world court of misrepresenting his words in a ruling that ordered Israel to take steps to protect Palestinians and prevent a genocide in the Gaza Strip. The court's ruling on Friday cited a series of statements made by Israeli leaders as evidence of incitement and dehumanizing language against Palestinians. They included comments by President Isaac Herzog made just days after the October 7 Hamas cross-border attack that triggered Israel's war against the Islamic militant group. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in that attack and took about 250 others hostage. The Israeli offensive has left more than 26,000 Palestinians dead, displaced more than 80 per cent of Gaza's inhabitants and led to a humanitarian crisis in the territory. Talking about Gaza's Palestinians at an October 12 news conference, Herzog said that an entire nation was responsible for the massacre, the report by the International Court of Justice noted. But Herzog s

United Nations fires Gaza staff over claims they joined Hamas attack

A vast majority of UNRWA's 30,000 staff is Palestinian, with 13,000 of those in Gaza. The US State Department said in a statement Friday that 12 UNRWA staff had been accused of links to the attacks