GAZA CITY: The head of a Palestinian armed group opposed to Hamas and accused of aid looting in the Gaza Strip confirmed Sunday it was coordinating with the Israeli military in an interview with public radio.
Yasser Abu Shabab said his group, known as the Popular Forces, was able to move freely in zones under Israeli military control and communicated their operations beforehand.
“We keep them informed, but we carry out the military actions on our own,” he said in an interview with Makan, Israel’s Arabic-language public radio broadcaster.
Abu Shabab also said his group had received “logistical and financial support from several parties,” without mentioning Israel directly.
“There are things we can’t talk about publicly.”
Last month, the Israeli authorities admitted to providing support to armed Palestinian groups opposed to Hamas in Gaza, without naming them, though local media reports identified the group in question as Abu Shabab’s.
“It is only good, it is saving lives of Israeli soldiers,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time.
Knesset member and ex-defense minister Avigdor Lieberman, however, accused the government of “giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons.”
The European Council on Foreign Relations think tank describes Abu Shabab as the head of a criminal gang in the Rafah region of southern Gaza that has been suspected of looting aid trucks.
Abu Shabab did not address the accusation in his radio interview, and stressed that the only goal of his militia was to defeat Hamas and to provide an alternative for governance in the Gaza Strip.
“We do not belong to any ideology or political organization,” Abu Shabab said in the interview, adding that he was seeking to eradicate Hamas’s “injustice” and “corruption.”
“We will continue to fight, no matter the bloodshed,” he added. “Right now, Hamas is dying. They know their end is near.”
Abu Shabab has drawn the ire of Hamas, which has ruled over the Gaza Strip since 2007. On Wednesday, a Hamas military court gave him 10 days to turn himself in to be tried for treason, among other charges.
On Sunday, a coalition of Palestinian clans accused the Popular Forces of “shamelessly collaborating with the enemy.”
“They are rejected by all our people,” the coalition said in a statement.
“We will show no mercy to them or to anyone who follows in their footsteps by aiding the occupation. They will be treated as they deserve to be: traitors and collaborators.”
Palestinian armed group in Gaza admits to coordination with Israel
https://arab.news/6qhrm
Palestinian armed group in Gaza admits to coordination with Israel
- Yasser Abu Shabab said his group, known as the Popular Forces, was able to move freely in zones under Israeli military control
- European Council on Foreign Relations think tank describes Abu Shabab as head of a criminal gang in Rafah that has been suspected of looting aid trucks
Israeli snipers shooting children ‘like a game’ at Gaza aid centers: British surgeon
- Prof. Nick Maynard: Different body parts being targeted depending on day of the week
- ‘I’ve never had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover’
LONDON: Israeli soldiers are opening fire on children in Gaza at aid distribution centers, targeting different body parts depending on the day of the week, a British doctor has said.
Prof. Nick Maynard, a gastrointestinal surgeon working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told the BBC that he and his colleagues are encountering “clear patterns of injury” in young casualties, including “certain body parts on different days, such as the head, legs or genitals.”
Speaking to the “Today” program on BBC Radio 4, Maynard said: “On one day they’ll all be abdominal gunshot wounds, on another they’ll all be head gunshot wounds or neck gunshot wounds, on another they’ll be arm or leg gunshot wounds.”
He added: “It’s almost as if a game is being played, that they’re deciding to shoot the head today, the neck tomorrow, the testicles the day after.”
Maynard said the victims at the aid distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which he called “death traps,” tend more often than not to be teenaged boys.
“These are mainly from the militarized distribution points, where starving civilians are going to try and get food but then report getting targeted by Israeli soldiers or quadcopters,” he added.
“A 12-year-old boy I was operating on died from his injuries on the operating table — he’d been shot through the chest.”
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READ MORE: British surgeon in Gaza describes wounded Palestinians dying due to malnutrition
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GHF sites, backed by the US and Israel, are manned by private contractors and Israeli soldiers.
At least 875 Palestinians seeking food at the centers have been killed by live fire since May, according to the UN.
Maynard said levels of malnutrition seen in young patients are affecting their ability to recover from their wounds.
“The repairs that we carry out fall to pieces, patients get terrible infections, and they die,” he added. “I’ve never had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover.”
The BBC said other medics working in central and southern Gaza had also reported patterns of gunshot wounds in people shot at GHF centers.
Ancient statue returns to Turkiye 65 years later
- “It was a long struggle … we won,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said
- “We brought the ‘Philosopher Emperor’ Marcus Aurelius back to the land where he belongs“
ISTNABUL: Turkiye has repatriated an ancient statue believed to depict Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius from the United States as part of efforts to recover antiquities illegally removed from the country, the government announced on Saturday.
The bronze statue, smuggled from the ancient city of Boubon — now the province of Burdur in southwest Turkiye — in the 1960s, was returned to Turkiye after 65 years, according to Turkish officials.
“It was a long struggle. We were right, we were determined, we were patient, and we won,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said.
“We brought the ‘Philosopher Emperor’ Marcus Aurelius back to the land where he belongs,” he added.
This unique artefact, once exhibited in the United States, was repatriated to Turkiye based on scientific analyzes, archival documents and witness statements, added the minister.
“Through the combined power of diplomacy, law, and science, the process we conducted with the New York Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the US Homeland Security Investigations Unit is more than just a repatriation; it is a historical achievement,” Ersoy said.
“Marcus Aurelius’s return to our country is a concrete result of our years-long pursuit of justice.”
The headless statue had been on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art from April to July, before its return to Turkiye.
Ersoy said Turkiye was determined to protect all its cultural heritage that has been smuggled out.
“We will soon present the Philosopher Emperor to the people of (Turkiye’s capital) Ankara in a surprise exhibition,” he announced.
21 dead in Iran as coach overturns: state media
- The accident, the cause of which remains unclear, occurred near Kavar
- Iranian media showed images of a coach lying on its side on a mountain road
TEHRAN: At least 21 people were killed and nearly 30 injured when a coach overturned in southern Iran on Saturday, state media reported.
The accident, the cause of which remains unclear, occurred near Kavar, a town about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from the capital, Tehran.
“Unfortunately, 21 deaths have been recorded,” Kavar Hospital director Mohsen Afrasiabi told state television, adding that 29 people were injured.
Iranian media showed images of a coach lying on its side on a mountain road.
Iran has a poor road safety record, with nearly 20,000 deaths from traffic accidents in the 12 months to March, according to official news agency IRNA.
Unidentified drone kills PKK member, injures another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, sources say
- Officials said this is the first attack of its kind in months
BAGHDAD: An unidentified drone attack killed a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and injured another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah on Saturday, security sources and local officials said, the first attack of its kind in months.
Six local officials detained over Iraq deadly mall fire
- The ministry said: “There was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut
- Three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained
BAGHDAD: Iraq has detained six local officials and suspended other public employees following a fire that killed 61 people at a shopping mall earlier this week, authorities said Saturday.
The blaze, which broke out late Wednesday in a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern city of Kut, is the latest fatal disaster in a country where safety regulations are often ignored.
After an initial investigation, the interior ministry said “there was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut, located around 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.
It added that three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained, and 17 employees suspended from work until further notice.
The Commission of Integrity, an anti-graft body, said later that security forces had detained three more officials “over the violations that led to the fire” at the Corniche Hypermarket Mall, including the head of the violations department at Kut’s municipality.
Officials say their investigation is ongoing, and the number of detainees may change.
Safety standards in Iraq’s construction sector are often ignored, and the country — its infrastructure weakened by decades of conflict — frequently experiences fatal fires and accidents.
Fires increase during the blistering summer as temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).
The cause of the mall fire was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner had exploded on the second floor before the five-story building was rapidly engulfed in flames.
Several people told AFP they lost family members — and in some cases whole families — who had gone to shop and dine at the mall days after it opened.
