logo
Gaza rescuers say at least 10 killed in Israel strikes

Gaza rescuers say at least 10 killed in Israel strikes

Al Arabiyaa day ago

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 10 people in the battered Palestinian territory on Thursday as the military keeps up an intensified offensive.
'Ten martyrs so far resulting from Israeli strikes since dawn,' agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP, adding that they had targeted an area where displaced civilians were sheltering in the southern city of Khan Yunis, as well as houses in Gaza City and the central town of Deir al-Balah.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Israel army issues evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City
Israel army issues evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City

Arab News

timean hour ago

  • Arab News

Israel army issues evacuation warning for parts of Gaza City

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: The Israeli military issued an evacuation order for residents of parts of Gaza City on Friday ahead of an attack, as it presses an intensified campaign in the battered Palestinian territory. 'This is a final and urgent warning ahead of an impending strike,' army spokesman Avichay Adraee said. The army 'will strike all areas from which rockets are launched.' The evacuation order comes at the beginning of the Eid Al-Adha holiday, one of the main religious festivals of the Muslim calendar. The Israeli military has recently stepped up its campaign in Gaza in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war. International calls for a negotiated ceasefire have grown in recent weeks. Hamas's lead negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya said on Thursday that the Palestinian Islamist group was ready to enter a new round of talks aimed at sealing a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Talks aimed at brokering a new ceasefire have failed to yield a breakthrough since the last brief truce fell apart in March with the resumption of Israeli operations in Gaza. Israel and Hamas appeared close to an agreement late last month, but a deal proved elusive, with each side accusing the other of scuppering a US-backed proposal. Israel has faced mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, after it imposed a more than two-month blockade that led to widespread shortages of food and other essentials. It recently eased the blockade and has worked with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to implement a new aid distribution mechanism via a handful of centers in south and central Gaza. But since its inception, the GHF has been a magnet for criticism from the UN and other members of the aid world — which only intensified following a recent string of deadly incidents near its facilities. Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 4,402 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 54,677, mostly civilians.

Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians
Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians

Arab News

time2 hours ago

  • Arab News

Homes smashed, help slashed: no respite for returning Syrians

DAMASCUS: Around a dozen Syrian women sat in a circle at a UN-funded center in Damascus, happy to share stories about their daily struggles, but their bonding was overshadowed by fears that such meet-ups could soon end due to international aid cuts. The community center, funded by the United Nations' refugee agency (UNHCR), offers vital services that families cannot get elsewhere in a country scarred by war, with an economy broken by decades of mismanagement and Western sanctions. 'We have no stability. We are scared and we need support,' said Fatima Al-Abbiad, a mother of four. 'There are a lot of problems at home, a lot of tension, a lot of violence because of the lack of income.' But the center's future now hangs in the balance as the UNHCR has had to cut down its activities in Syria because of the international aid squeeze caused by US President Donald Trump's decision to halt foreign aid. The cuts will close nearly half of the UNHCR centers in Syria and the widespread services they provide — from educational support and medical equipment to mental health and counselling sessions — just as the population needs them the most. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees returning home after the fall of Bashar Assad last year. UNHCR's representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, said the situation was a 'disaster' and that the agency would struggle to help returning refugees. 'I think that we have been forced — here I use very deliberately the word forced — to adopt plans which are more modest than we would have liked,' he told Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation in Damascus. 'It has taken us years to build that extraordinary network of support, and almost half of them are going to be closed exactly at the moment of opportunity for refugee and IDPs (internally displaced people) return.' BIG LOSS A UNHCR spokesperson told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the agency would shut down around 42 percent of its 122 community centers in Syria in June, which will deprive some 500,000 people of assistance and reduce aid for another 600,000 that benefit from the remaining centers. The UNHCR will also cut 30 percent of its staff in Syria, said the spokesperson, while the livelihood program that supports small businesses will shrink by 20 percent unless it finds new funding. Around 100 people visit the center in Damascus each day, said Mirna Mimas, a supervisor with GOPA-DERD, the church charity that runs the center with UNHCR. Already the center's educational programs, which benefited 900 children last year, are at risk, said Mimas. Nour Huda Madani, 41, said she had been 'lucky' to receive support for her autistic child at the center. 'They taught me how to deal with him,' said the mother of five. Another visitor, Odette Badawi, said the center was important for her well-being after she returned to Syria five years ago, having fled to Lebanon when war broke out in Syria in 2011. '(The center) made me feel like I am part of society,' said the 68-year-old. Mimas said if the center closed, the loss to the community would be enormous: 'If we must tell people we are leaving, I will weep before they do,' she said UNHCR HELP 'SELECTIVE' Aid funding for Syria had already been declining before Trump's seismic cuts to the US Agency for International Development this year and cuts by other countries to international aid budgets. But the new blows come at a particularly bad time. Since former president Assad was ousted by Islamist rebels last December, around 507,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries and around 1.2 million people displaced inside the country went back home, according to UN estimates. Llosa said, given the aid cuts, UNHCR would have only limited scope to support the return of some of the 6 million Syrians who fled the country since 2011. 'We will need to help only those that absolutely want to go home and simply do not have any means to do so,' Llosa said. 'That means that we will need to be very selective as opposed to what we wanted, which was to be expansive.' ESSENTIAL SUPPORT Ayoub Merhi Hariri had been counting on support from the livelihood program to pay off the money he borrowed to set up a business after he moved back to Syria at the end of 2024. After 12 years in Lebanon, he returned to Daraa in southwestern Syria to find his house destroyed — no doors, no windows, no running water, no electricity. He moved in with relatives and registered for livelihood support at a UN-backed center in Daraa to help him start a spice manufacturing business to support his family and ill mother. While his business was doing well, he said he would struggle to repay his creditors the 20 million Syrian pounds ($1,540) he owed them now that his livelihood support had been cut. 'Thank God (the business) was a success, and it is generating an income for us to live off,' he said. 'But I can't pay back the debt,' he said, fearing the worst. 'I'll have to sell everything.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store