Lebanon reports Israeli strikes in south
Lebanese official media said Israel struck a vehicle in the south on Wednesday, killing one person -- the first death since Israeli troops withdrew from most of the border area. "An enemy drone struck a vehicle... in the town of Aita al Shaab," near the southern border, the official National News agency said, reporting one person was killed. The NNA also reported Israeli automatic weapons fire towards homes near the town of Shebaa. — AFP
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18 hours ago
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Ukraine attack on Russian bombers risks escalation
WASHINGTON: Ukraine's dramatic drone attack on Russian bombers over the weekend has increased the risk of escalation to "unacceptable" levels, said US envoy Keith Kellogg. "The risk levels are going way up," Kellogg, President Donald Trump's envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said. "When you attack an opponent's part of their national survival system, which is their nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don't know what the other side is going to do." Ukraine conducted a massive drone attack against Russian military airbases on Sunday, saying it had destroyed several Russian nuclear-capable bombers worth billions of dollars. The triad refers to a country's nuclear strike capabilities across land, air, and sea. "But any time you attack the triad, it is not so much the damage done on the bombers... it's the psychological impact you have," said Kellogg, adding that it showed Ukraine "is not lying down on this." The attack also showed Ukraine can raise risk levels "that are basically to me, they've got to be unacceptable." Since Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, it has flexed its nuclear might to deter Kyiv's allies from intervening militarily. — AFP
Observer
2 days ago
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27 Palestinians killed near Gaza aid site
CAIRO/JERUSALEM: At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution site in southern Gaza on Tuesday, health officials said, in a third day running of chaos and bloodshed to blight the aid operation. The Israeli military said its forces had opened fire on a group of people they viewed as a threat after they left a designated access route near the distribution centre in Rafah and approached their positions. It added it was still investigating what had happened. The deaths came hours after Israel said three of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in northern Gaza, as its forces pushed ahead with a months-long offensive against Hamas militants that has laid much of the enclave to waste. Reuters could not independently verify the reports in northern and southern Gaza. An International Committee of the Red Cross spokesperson said its field hospital in Rafah had received 184 casualties, adding that 19 of those were dead upon arrival, and eight died of their wounds shortly after. Video showed injured people, including at least one woman, being rushed to a medical centre on carts drawn by donkeys. Health officials said at least 18 more Palestinians were killed in other military strikes in the territory on Tuesday. The United Nations human rights office in Geneva said on Tuesday the impediment of access to food relief for civilians in Gaza might constitute a war crime and described attacks on people trying to access food aid as "unconscionable". The head of the UN agency, Volker Turk, urged a prompt and impartial investigation into the killings. Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer denied that civilians had been targeted. "The IDF is doing everything in its power to allow Gazans to get to the humanitarian aid. The IDF is not preventing the arrival of Gazans at humanitarian aid sites. Indeed, we are encouraging it," Mencer said. The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation launched its first distribution sites last week in an effort to alleviate widespread hunger amongst Gaza's 2.3 million population, most of whom have been forced to abandon their homes to flee fighting. "This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site and control. We recognise the difficult nature of the situation and advise all civilians to remain in the safe corridor when travelling to our distribution sites." Palestinians who collected food boxes on Tuesday described scenes of pandemonium, with no-one overseeing the handover of supplies or checking IDs, as crowds jostled for provisions. "It is complete chaos and humiliation, and people have no choice but to keep coming because there is no food in Gaza," said one Palestinian, who declined to be named, adding he was lucky to have survived the shootings. On Sunday, Palestinian and international officials said at least 31 people were killed and dozens more injured. On Monday, three Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli fire. - Reuters
Observer
2 days ago
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Attacks on Gaza aid sites ‘a war crime', says UN
GENEVA: UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Tuesday that "deadly attacks" on civilians around aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip constituted "a war crime". Rescuers in the Palestinian territory said Israeli fire targeting civilians near an aid distribution centre in the southern city of Rafah killed 27 people on Tuesday, raising an earlier toll. It came after a similar incident on Sunday when rescuers said 31 people were killed at the same location, witnesses saying they had been on their way to collect aid. "Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable," Turk said in a statement. "For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured." The US-backed GHF is a recently formed group that Israel has cooperated with to implement a new aid distribution mechanism in Gaza. The United Nations does not work with the foundation because of concerns that it does not meet core humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence. Turk called for a prompt and impartial investigation into each attack, and for those responsible to be held to account. "Attacks directed against civilians constitute a grave breach of international law, and a war crime," he said. "Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel's militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism. "This militarised system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned." Tuesday's shooting in the southern city of Rafah came as the agency reported 19 people killed in other Israeli attacks in the territory, and as the Israeli army announced three soldiers had been killed in northern Gaza. "Twenty-seven people were killed and more than 90 injured in the massacre targeting civilians who were waiting for American aid in the Al-Alam area of Rafah," said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal, who earlier said that the deaths occurred "when Israeli forces opened fire with tanks and drones". The Al Alam roundabout is about a kilometre (a little over half a mile) from a centre run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Rania al Astal, 30, said she had gone to the area with her husband to try to get food. "The shooting began intermittently around 5:00 am. Every time people approached Al Alam roundabout, they were fired upon," she said. "But people didn't care and rushed forward all at once — that's when the army began firing heavily." UN chief Antonio Guterres urged an independent investigation into that shooting, calling it "unacceptable that Palestinians are risking their lives for food". Israel has come under mounting pressure to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where people are facing severe shortages after Israel imposed a more than two-month blockade on supplies. The blockade was recently eased, but the aid community has urged Israel to allow in more food, faster. The US-backed GHF has opened a handful of aid distribution centres in southern and central Gaza, and says it has distributed more than seven million meals' worth of food. Israel has stepped up its offensive in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the war. The Israeli army said three of its soldiers had been killed in combat in northern Gaza, bringing the number of Israeli troops killed in the territory since the start of the conflict to 424. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 4,240 people have been killed in the territory since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war's overall toll to 54,510,mostly civilians. — AFP
