UN chief Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school

A member of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) checks the courtyard of a school after an Israeli air strike hit the site, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on September 11, 2024, amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Updated 12 September 2024
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UN chief Guterres says 6 colleagues killed in Israel strike on Gaza school

  • “Among those killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing assistance to displaced people,” UNRWA said on X

GAZA: An Israeli air strike hit a school in central Gaza on Wednesday, with the Hamas-run territory’s civil defense agency reporting that 18 people were killed, including UN staffers, and the military saying it had targeted militants.
The Al-Jawni school in Nuseirat, already hit several times during the war, was struck again on Wednesday, killing 18 people, including two members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said Gaza’s civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
UNRWA gave the higher figure of six staffers killed at the Nuseirat school-turned-shelter, calling it the highest death toll among its team in a single incident.
“This school has been hit five times since the war began. It is home to around 12,000 displaced people, mainly women and children,” the UN agency separately posted on X. “No one is safe in Gaza.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres deplored the killings, which he also said included six UNRWA colleagues.
“What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” he wrote on social media platform X.
“These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now.”
Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least 18 other people were wounded in the school bombing.
AFP could not independently verify the toll, which the agency said included several women and children.
Israel’s military said its air force had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command-and-control center” on the grounds of Al-Jawni, without elaborating on the outcome or the identities of those targeted.
“Most of the people took refuge in schools and the schools were bombed,” said Basil Amarneh from Gaza’s Al-Aqsa hospital, where children were arriving in the arms of medics.
“Where will people go?”
The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the war, triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, with many seeking safety in schools.
Israeli forces have struck several such schools in recent months, saying Palestinian militants were operating there and hiding among displaced civilians — charges denied by Hamas.
In July, at least 16 people were killed in an air strike on the Al-Jawni facility that Israel said had targeted “terrorists.”
Israel’s military offensive since the war began on October 7 has killed at least 41,084 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which also includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s military meanwhile reported the deaths of two soldiers late Tuesday when an army helicopter crashed in the area of Gaza’s southern city of Rafah.
The military announced on Wednesday that the helicopter had crashed while landing and that another eight soldiers were injured.
The aircraft had been on a “life-saving operation” to evacuate a wounded soldier when it crashed, Major General Tomer Bar said in a statement.
“An investigative committee has been appointed to investigate the details of the crash,” he said, and called it an “operational accident.”
The latest deaths bring the Israeli military’s losses in the Gaza campaign to 344 since its ground offensive began on October 27.


Iran top diplomat meets senior Houthi official in Oman: ministry

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Iran top diplomat meets senior Houthi official in Oman: ministry

TEHRAN: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met in Muscat on Monday with Mohammed Abdelsalam, a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement, according to his office.
The foreign ministry released pictures of the pair holding talks during Araghchi’s visit to the Omani capital, the latest in a series of diplomatic trips in the region following Israel’s vow to retaliate against an Iranian missile attack.

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

Updated 4 min 30 sec ago
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At least 10 people killed in Israeli strikes at Gaza food distribution center

GAZA: Palestinian medics said on Monday that at least 10 people were killed and at least 30 injured in Israeli airstrikes on a food distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, with casualties including women and children.


Israeli strike on hospital tent camp kills 4 and ignites a fire that burns dozens

Updated 14 October 2024
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Israeli strike on hospital tent camp kills 4 and ignites a fire that burns dozens

  • Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir Al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded people from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter that killed 20

DEIR AL-BALAH: An Israeli airstrike on a hospital courtyard in the Gaza Strip early Monday killed at least four people and sent flames sweeping through a packed tent camp for people displaced by the war, leaving more than two dozen with severe burns, according to Palestinian medics.
The Israeli military said it targeted militants hiding out among civilians, without providing evidence. In recent months it has repeatedly struck crowded shelters and tent camps, alleging that Hamas fighters were using them as staging grounds for attacks.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir Al-Balah was already struggling to treat a large number of wounded people from an earlier strike on a school-turned-shelter nearby that killed at least 20 people when the early morning airstrike hit and fire engulfed many of the tents.
Associated Press footage showed children among the wounded. A man sobbed as he carried a toddler with a bandaged head in his arms. Another small child with a bandaged leg was given a blood transfusion on the floor of the packed hospital.
Hospital records showed that four people were killed and 40 wounded. Twenty-five people were transferred to the Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza after suffering severe burns, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Israel is still carrying out near-daily strikes across the Gaza Strip more than a year into the war, and has been waging a major ground assault in the north, where it says militants have regrouped.
The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, while Palestinian militants abducted around 250 hostages. Around 100 are still being held inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says women and children make up more than half the fatalities. Around 90 percent of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced by the war, often multiple times, and large areas of the coastal territory have been completely destroyed.
Israel has ordered the entire remaining population of the northern third of Gaza, estimated at around 400,000 people, to evacuate to the south and has not allowed any food to enter the north since the start of the month. Hundreds of thousands of people from the north heeded Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war and have not been allowed to return.
That has raised fears among Palestinians that Israel intends to implement a plan devised by former generals in which it would order all civilians out of northern Gaza and label anyone remaining there a combatant — a surrender-or-starve strategy that rights groups say would violate international law. The plan has been presented to the Israeli government, but it’s unclear whether it has been adopted.
With no end in sight to the war in Gaza, Israel is also waging an air and ground war in southern Lebanon against the Hezbollah militant group, an ally of Hamas that has been firing rockets into northern Israel for more than a year. Israel has also threatened to strike Iran in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack, raising the prospect of an all-out regionwide war.
A Hezbollah aerial attack on an army base in northern Israel killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others Sunday, the military said, in the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel launched its ground invasion of Lebanon nearly two weeks ago.
The Lebanon-based Hezbollah called the attack near Binyamina city retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people. It said it targeted Israel’s elite Golani brigade, launching dozens of missiles to occupy Israeli air defense systems during the assault by “squadrons” of drones.
Israel’s national rescue service said the attack wounded 61. With Israel’s advanced air-defense systems, it’s rare for so many people to be injured by drones or missiles.


Bodies rot in the streets of northern Gaza

Updated 14 October 2024
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Bodies rot in the streets of northern Gaza

  • The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1

DEIR AL-BALAH: A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza almost daily. A strike hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp late Saturday, killing parents and six children ages 8 to 23, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir Al-Balah. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies there.
“They were safe, while he was sleeping, and he and all his children died,” said the man’s brother, Mohammad Abu Ghali. Women stroked the body bags, in tears.
Israel’s military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas.
In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and other areas.
Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war’s opening weeks. Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there.
The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1
The military confirmed that hospitals were included in evacuation orders but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers.
Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” remain uncollected from the streets and under rubble.
“We are unable to reach them,” he said, asserting that dogs are eating some remains.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked a year ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, a third believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between militants or civilians, but says women and children make up over half the deaths.
Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.


Hezbollah drone strike kills four, wounds dozens at Israeli base

Updated 14 October 2024
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Hezbollah drone strike kills four, wounds dozens at Israeli base

  • Hezbollah says “squadron of attack drones” launched at military training camp in Binyamina, south of Haifa
  • Strike was in response to Israeli attacks on Thursday that Lebanon says killed at least 22 people in central Beirut

Beirut: Israel’s military said a Hezbollah drone killed four soldiers at one of its northern bases Sunday, as it expanded its bombardments of Lebanon and troops battled militants across the border.

The attack on a military training camp in Binyamina, near Haifa, was the deadliest such assault on an Israeli base since September 23, when Israel increased its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Emergency services reported more than 60 wounded.

Authorities in Gaza, meanwhile, said the death toll from an Israeli strike Sunday on a school being used as a shelter for displaced people had risen to 15, including whole families, while a separate overnight strike on a hospital killed four.

And as fighting raged between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon’s south, United Nations peacekeepers said they had again been in the firing line.

They said Israeli troops “forcibly” entered a UN position with two tanks, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the force to withdraw from the area.
Israel’s military said a tank had backed into the UN post while under fire.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said late Sunday that it launched “a squadron of attack drones” at the Binyamina camp, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of the major city of Haifa.

The strike was in response to Israeli attacks, including air strikes on Thursday that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.

In a later statement, Hezbollah warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people.”

An Israeli volunteer rescue service, United Hatzalah, said its teams in Binyamina assisted “over 60 wounded people” with injuries ranging from mild to critical.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets and drones into Israel for more than a year in support of Hamas militants in Gaza.

Since late September, however, its strikes have reached further into the country.

Israel’s sophisticated air defenses have intercepted most of the projectiles, with few casualties caused by strikes or falling debris.

Israel’s recent strikes have increasingly focused on areas beyond Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in southern Beirut, and Lebanon’s south and east.

Israel said its air force hit “Hezbollah launchers, anti-tank missile posts, weapons storage facilities” and other targets, while on the ground its soldiers “eliminated dozens” of fighters.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Israeli forces had “escalated their attacks” on southern Lebanon with “successive air strikes” pounding several border villages.

It later reported that an Israeli strike on Mayfadoun, near Nabatiyeh, in southern Lebanon, had killed five people and wounded one other.

Hezbollah said its forces clashed several times with Israeli troops who tried to “infiltrate” villages along the border.

Before the drone strike it had said it launched a salvo of rockets at a “base in southern Haifa.”

The group later aired an audio recording of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah calling on fighters to “defend this holy and blessed land and this honorable people.”

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike in south Beirut on September 27, and several other senior commanders of the movement have also been killed.

Israel’s military said about 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had crossed into Israeli territory by Sunday afternoon.

A Hezbollah fighter was captured emerging from a tunnel in south Lebanon on Sunday, Israel’s military said, the first such announcement since the start of the ground offensive.

UN peacekeepers accused Israeli troops of breaking through a gate and entering one of their positions before dawn Sunday in south Lebanon, the latest of several incidents the UNIFIL mission has reported since Thursday.

Five Blue Helmets have so far been injured, provoking international condemnation.

“Two IDF (Israeli military) Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position” in the Ramia area, before leaving 45 minutes later, UNIFIL said.

The Israeli military later said a tank “backed several meters into a UNIFIL post” while “under fire” and attempting to evacuate injured soldiers.Earlier Sunday, Netanyahu had called on the UN to move peacekeepers in southern Lebanon out of harm’s way, after the mission rejected requests to abandon its positions.

The peacekeepers’ presence had “the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields,” said Netanyahu.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Sunday said “attacks” against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime.”

UNIFIL, with about 9,500 troops, is in southern Lebanon under the longstanding UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.

Three Lebanese soldiers were wounded on Sunday, the country’s army said, when Israeli forces fired on military vehicles in the Marjayoun area.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in a phone call with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, appealed to Tehran to support “a general de-escalation” in Lebanon and Gaza, his office said.Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli shelling had killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens more Sunday at a school turned shelter for displaced Palestinians in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.

“The school was bombarded with a large volley of Israeli artillery, resulting in an initial death toll of 15 martyrs, including children, women and entire families, and 50 wounded,” said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency.

Israel’s military said it was “looking into the reports.”

Separately, the military said early Monday that it had carried out a strike targeting a “command and control center, which was embedded inside a compound that previously served as the ‘Shuhadah Al-Aqsa’ hospital.”

Civil defense spokesman Bassal said the strike had killed four people and wounded many more, noting it was the seventh time an attack had hit the “tents for displaced people inside the walls of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.”

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said late Sunday that a WHO-Palestine Red Crescent operation had managed to resupply two hospitals in northern Gaza.

“WHO and partners finally managed to reach Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba hospitals yesterday after 9 attempts this past week,” he posted on X.

Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

The number includes hostages killed in captivity.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 42,000 people, the majority civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there. The UN considers these figures to be reliable.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed more than 1,300 people since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures, including for Saturday.

That toll exceeds the entire Lebanese toll of 1,200 — mostly civilians — in the last Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006, when 160 people, mostly soldiers, died in Israel.

The Pentagon said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system and its US military crew to Israel to help the ally protect itself from potential Iranian attack.