GAZA STRIP: Israel’s army said it was battling Hamas militants Monday around two Gaza hospitals, reporting some 20 fighters killed in the past day in close-quarters combat and air strikes.
Israel has launched raids on and near several Gaza hospitals since the war erupted in October, claiming that fighters have used them as bases — charges denied by the Palestinian militants.
Palestinians living near Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, have reported hellish conditions, including corpses in the streets, constant bombardment and the rounding up of men, who are stripped to their underwear and questioned.
Israel labelled the raids underway Monday around Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, and in the Khan Yunis neighborhood surrounding Al-Amal hospital, “precise operational activities.”
But the raids have sparked major fears for the patients and displaced people who are inside the facilities, which in some cases Israel has raided or cordoned off on more than one occasion.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Al-Amal had all of its entrances surrounded by military vehicles and that hospital staff were prohibited from leaving.
The military said its operation in the Al-Amal neighborhood included “raids on several terrorist infrastructure sites in the area and located explosive devices, RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and military equipment.”
“Over 20 terrorists were eliminated in the Al-Amal area over the past day in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes,” the army added.
The raid at Al-Shifa is now in its eighth day and the military reported detaining some “500 terrorists affiliated with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations” and locating weapons in the area.
Israel has said that the operation will continue until the last militant is “in their hands,” signalling an extended presence at Al-Shifa, which troops also raided in November.
The Red Crescent on Sunday said military vehicles had also surrounded Nasser hospital, about a one-kilometer (half mile) drive from the Al-Amal medical center, but the situation at Nasser on Monday was unclear.
Israel says fighting Hamas around two Gaza hospitals
https://arab.news/jzec3
Israel says fighting Hamas around two Gaza hospitals
- The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces were besieging two hospitals in southern Gaza
Western Libya forces kill notorious migrant smuggler, security agency says
- The Security Threats Combating Agency raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi
- Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018
BENGHAZI: Western Libyan security forces said on Friday they had killed a notorious migrant smuggler in the coastal city of Sabratha after “criminal gangs” affiliated with him attacked one of their checkpoints overnight.
The Security Threats Combating Agency, a security agency under western Libya’s Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah, said they raided the group’s hideout in response to the attack and killed its leader, Ahmed Al-Dabbashi, also known as “Al-Amu.”
Dabbashi’s brother was arrested and six members of the force were wounded in the fighting, the agency said in the statement on its Facebook page.
Dabbashi had been under US sanctions since 2018. Washington described him as the “leader of one of two powerful migrant smuggling organizations” based in Sabratha and said he had “used his organization to rob and enslave migrants before allowing them to leave for Italy.”
Human trafficking is rife in Libya, which has been divided between rival armed factions since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The proliferation of smuggling gangs and the absence of a strong central authority have made the country one of the main staging points for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe.
Dbeibah was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021, but significant parts of western Libya remain outside his control. Dbeibah’s Government of National Unity, or GNU, is not recognized by rival authorities in the east.
An armed alliance affiliated with an earlier UN-backed government in Tripoli – the Government of National Accord – had taken on Dabbashi’s forces in a three-week battle in 2017 that killed and wounded dozens and damaged residential areas and Sabratha’s Roman ruins.
