Latest news with #AlZeitoun
The National
4 days ago
- Politics
- The National
Israel faces resistance from armed factions in Gaza city
Israeli troops preparing to seize Gaza city have been fired on by armed groups, as their offensive left dozens more Palestinians dead across the strip. The Israeli army is hunting explosives and dismantling what it says is 'terrorist infrastructure' in the Al Zeitoun area of Gaza city. Residents say an air assault has already flattened the neighbourhood, in what they fear is the first stage of Israel's plan to capture the city. Several armed factions have claimed attacks on Israeli troops in the area. The Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said they fired a shell at a Merkava main battle tank in Al Zeitoun. On Friday the Al Nasser Salah Al Din Brigades – a coalition of militants who took part in the October 7 attacks on Israel in 2023 – said they 'bombed a gathering' of Israeli troops and vehicles in the area. Statements from the groups were carried by friendly media outlets. The Israeli army said it came under fire from an anti-tank missile, with no injuries reported. 'The troops swiftly located and eliminated the terrorists,' it said on Friday, without specifying when that incident took place. As part of their operations in Al Zeitoun, Israeli troops 'struck and dismantled a booby-trapped structure that stored weapons', the military said. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved plans last week to capture the Gaza city as a first step towards taking control of the whole territory. The move has been widely condemned amid fears the dire conditions in the strip will worsen further. Gaza health officials raised the war's death toll to 61,827 on Friday, after 51 bodies were brought to hospitals in the previous 24 hours. They said one child died of malnutrition in the same period. The Palestinian news agency Wafa said six people were killed while waiting to receive aid. The UN human rights office said on Friday that at least 1,760 Palestinians had been killed while seeking aid in Gaza since late May, a jump of several hundred since its last published figure in early August. Israel denies a campaign to kill civilians, saying the starvation and chaos at food banks are the fault of Hamas and UN aid workers. 'All of this could have been prevented easily if [aid agency] UNRWA and other humanitarian organisations were allowed to bring in the minimum every day, and that is 500 to 600 trucks of basics,' said UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma. 'We're not asking for the moon here.' Gaza's civil defence agency says Israeli forces have destroyed more than 300 homes in Al Zeitoun neighbourhood in just three days. According to journalist Bilal Al Nabih, the Israeli army has attacked the area at least five times since the war escalated in March, but the current operation is by far the most destructive. Israel's army chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said on Thursday that the military was 'completing preparations' for the new offensive in Gaza. 'The campaign will end when we have ensured our security and our future,' he said.
Al Jazeera
02-07-2025
- Al Jazeera
Woman rescued from rubble and fire after Israeli strike in Gaza
Woman rescued from rubble and fire after Israeli strike in Gaza NewsFeed Video from a Palestinian defence volunteer shows the rescue of a woman from rubble and flames in Gaza City following an Israeli bombing of a building in Al-Zeitoun neighbourhood. The post says the woman is alive and in the hospital under medical supervision. Video Duration 02 minutes 42 seconds 02:42 Video Duration 00 minutes 46 seconds 00:46 Video Duration 01 minutes 05 seconds 01:05 Video Duration 03 minutes 34 seconds 03:34 Video Duration 01 minutes 57 seconds 01:57 Video Duration 00 minutes 20 seconds 00:20 Video Duration 00 minutes 51 seconds 00:51
The National
30-06-2025
- Politics
- The National
Israel steps up attacks on Gaza killing at least 80, health officials say
Israel intensified attacks on Gaza on Monday that killed more than 80 Palestinians, health officials said, with one air strike hitting a cafe near the strip's seafront. The toll included 13 people killed as they were waiting for aid in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Dozens were also reported injured in the attack, with some in a critical condition. Another 10 people were killed when Israel bombed an aid distribution warehouse in Al Zeitoun, Gaza city, officials said. At least 33 were killed, including a journalist, when Israeli warplanes struck a rest area on the Gaza city beach, medical sources told the Wafa news agency. About 50 people were wounded, some of them in critical condition, in the attack that targeted Al Baqa rest area, the sources said. Journalist Ismail Abu Hatab was among those killed, Wafa news agency reported, while another journalist was injured. The Israeli military said it struck militant targets in northern Gaza, including command and control centres, after taking steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians. There was no immediate word from Israel on the reported casualties. A ceasefire remains elusive in the strip. Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty spoke to Donald Trump envoy Steve Witkoff on Monday and 'emphasised the necessity' of a truce, his office in Cairo said. He said this could be a prelude to achieving the US President's 'vision of establishing comprehensive peace'. The latest bombardment followed new displacement orders to vast areas in the north, where Israeli forces had operated before and left behind widespread destruction. The military ordered people there to head south, saying it planned to fight Hamas militants operating in northern Gaza, including in the heart of Gaza city. The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,500 Palestinians, most of them civilians, says Gaza's Health Ministry, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis. More than 80 per cent of the territory is now an Israeli-controlled zone or under displacement orders, the UN says. Israel has vowed to destroy the militant group but after more than a year and a half of devastating war, Hamas is still hanging on in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's "victory" over Iran in their 12-day war had created "opportunities", including for freeing hostages still held in Gaza. In an address to officers of Israel's security services, Mr Netanyahu added: "Of course, we will also have to solve the Gaza issue, to defeat Hamas, but I estimate that we will achieve both goals."
New York Times
20-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Syria's Easter Celebrations Pass Peacefully, in Early Test of New Government
At one of the most famous Christian churches in Damascus, the Melkite Greek Catholic cathedral known as Al Zeitoun, the bishop spent part of Sunday's Easter sermon comparing Jesus's Resurrection to that of Syria. The metaphor was an obvious one. Less than five months have passed since Syrian rebels overthrew President Bashar al-Assad, putting a sudden end to the Assad family's brutal half-century reign. The new Syria, liberated Syria, is still rising to its feet. But what that new nation will come to look like is an open question. While many Sunni Muslim Syrians have embraced the country's new leaders, who espouse a conservative version of Islam, religious minorities who felt protected or empowered during Mr. al-Assad's rule greeted the takeover with anxiety. Easter, for Syria's historically persecuted Christians, was therefore something of a test. How would the new government led by President Ahmed al-Shara, a former Al Qaeda member who says he has moderated and who has promised inclusivity and tolerance, handle one of Christianity's most important holidays? Would it pass as peacefully as it had under Mr. al-Assad, who courted minority support with his secular outlook? In the end, it was like any other Easter — at least in Damascus, the capital. The city's ancient heart is a historically Christian quarter known as Bab Touma, which houses churches of at least a half-dozen different denominations. Purple banners and crosses festooned the neighborhood on Good Friday, and people carried lit candles the night of Holy Saturday, on their way to celebrations that lasted until early morning. On Sunday morning, crowds of people dressed in their Easter best headed to church down cobblestone streets, the children to be rewarded with chocolate and red-dyed Easter eggs that would stain their lips pink. Young church scouts later led processions through the same streets, waving religious banners and the new Syrian flag, drumming and blaring trumpets. 'I feel secure — nothing has changed,' said Angela Ammeyan, 40, who had crowded into the courtyard of an Orthodox Armenian church that lies just off the Street Called Straight, of biblical fame. (It plays a supporting role in the story of the apostle Paul's conversion to Christianity.) Ms. Ammeyan noted a ubiquitous sight during Holy Week, leading up to Easter: black-uniformed security officers sent by the new government to guard the entrances to the largely Christian neighborhood. That, she said, had reassured her and other Christians who had initially felt uneasy about openly celebrating the holiday. 'This is a rebirth for Syria,' Ms. Ammeyan said. But others were reserving judgment. The celebrations might have been supported in the capital, but it was not clear whether Christians in the rest of Syria felt as free to practice openly, said Kivork Kivorkian, 80, head of a community committee at the Armenian church. 'Outside of Damascus, we don't know,' he said. The new government, Mr. Kivorkian said, likely wanted to make a show of tolerance for journalists and visitors, who were concentrated in the capital. By late Sunday, no reports of violence against Easter celebrations elsewhere in the country had emerged. Providing security was the least the new government could do, Mr. Kivorkian said. 'It's a good sign, but this is the minimum, to be able to come to church,' he said. 'This is not grace from the new government.' Berge Boghossian, 60, the head of the church's executive committee, who said many Armenians he knew were weighing whether to leave the country out of fear of what would come next. 'I hope you'll come back and find things better,' Mr. Boghossian told a New York Times journalist on Sunday. 'If not, then you won't find us here.' The city's Christians have already made note of the mass killings of Alawites, another religious minority, in March; they saw the road map toward a new constitution take shape with what they said was little input from much of society; and they saw signs that the new government might try to curtail social freedoms, including failed attempts to close down several Damascus bars. 'We're so used to being free to live our lives the way we want,' said Ghaida Halout, 50, holding a dyed egg outside the Mariamite Cathedral of Damascus, a Greek Orthodox church. 'We don't have a problem with the newcomers, but we hope they don't have a problem with us.' Nearby, Fadi Zughaib, 63, an actor and director, summarized some of the long and fearful history of Christians in Syria in a few minutes, from the time of the Umayyad conquerors through the 1860 Ottoman-era massacre of 5,000 Christians by Muslims. To Mr. Zughaib, it seems that Mr. al-Shara, the new president, has been leading just as undemocratically as Mr. al-Assad did, with major decisions reserved for him and a few loyalists. The former dictator ruled through the Baath Party, the only political party Syria knew for decades. And now? Resurrection was on Mr. Zughaib's mind, too. 'It's like the rebirth,' he said, 'of the Baath Party.'
