GAZA — Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said on Wednesday that Gaza has become a “graveyard” for children.
“They are being killed, injured, forced to flee, and deprived of safety, education, and play,” Lazzarini said in a statement marking World Children’s Day, observed annually on Nov. 20.
“Their childhood has been stolen, and they are on the verge of becoming a lost generation, having lost another school year,” Lazzarini said.
He noted that children in the West Bank are enduring constant fear and anxiety. Since last October, more than 170 children have been killed, while many others have lost their childhood to detention in Israeli facilities.
On Wednesday, Palestinian groups called for international action to protect children in Gaza and the West Bank, highlighting the catastrophic humanitarian conditions they are enduring.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement emphasizing that children are the most vulnerable and affected by Israeli practices, enduring dire conditions that violate their fundamental rights, including the right to life.
The ministry warned that children in Gaza face a real threat, with hundreds of thousands estimated to be suffering from severe shortages of food and clean drinking water.
The statement also emphasized that children in the West Bank are consistently subjected to the same “criminal” policies, such as arbitrary detention, and face illegal trials, which blatantly violate their rights under international agreements.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian National Council said that children in Gaza are “paying the heavy price” since October 2023, “in full view of the world, which remains unable to stop this genocide.”
A statement issued by the council on the occasion noted that the bodies of Gaza’s children have been exposed to various weapons, including rockets and bombs, as well as “the most horrific images of killing and destruction,” with many dying from hunger, thirst, and diseases due to the siege. Thousands of children have become orphans.
A drone view shows multiple fallen trees after a powerful storm hit, in Seattle, Washington, November 20. REUTERS
A powerful storm clobbered Washington state on Wednesday, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people while disrupting road travel and causing at least two deaths and two injuries.
Winds should die down across the region by midday, but the storm has moved to California and is set to bring extreme rainfall by the end of the week, according to forecasters.
A woman was killed on Tuesday when a tree fell on a homeless encampment in Lynnwood, north of Seattle, local officials said. A second woman was killed near Seattle when a tree fell on her home, Bellevue officials said. Two people were injured when a tree fell on their trailer in Maple Valley, southeast of Seattle.
The storm with tropical-storm-force winds of 50 miles (80 km) per hour and gusts around 70 mph (110 kph) felled trees and power lines overnight. More than 530,000 homes and businesses in Washington, southwest Oregon and Northern California were without power, according to Poweroutage.us, down from more than 600,000 earlier.
The windstorm and heavy rain also damaged the power system in Canada’s Pacific coast province of British Columbia and cut power to some 225,000 customers Tuesday night, according to provincial electricity provider BC Hydro. By Wednesday morning, about 100,000 customers, mostly on Vancouver Island, remained without power.
An NBC affiliate in Seattle broadcast images of cars smashed by fallen trees and damaged homes.
The Snohomish Regional Fire & Rescue service in western Washington urged residents to stay home, with many trees and power lines down.
“Trees are coming down all over the city & falling onto homes,” the fire department of Bellevue posted on social media. “If you can, go to the lowest floor and stay away from windows. Do not go outside if you can avoid it.”
Schools across western Washington canceled classes or postponed the start of school on Wednesday.
“The storm is just beginning,” said Rich Otto, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
“We haven’t gotten a ton of rain yet, just two to three inches (5.1-7.6 cm) over southwest Oregon and northern California,” Otto said.
‘BOMB CYCLONE’
The storm, called a “bomb cyclone” when the storm rapidly intensifies, will stall over Northern California in the next few days, Otto said. On Friday, rainfall could reach up to 20 inches (51 cm) in parts of southwestern Oregon and northern California, Otto said.
A bomb cyclone rapidly intensifies in 24 hours or less when a cold air mass from the polar region collides with warm tropical air in a process that meteorologists call bombogenesis.
The weather service has issued warnings and watches across the U.S. Pacific Northwest for high winds and flooding, including blizzard warnings, from northern Washington to the Sierra Nevada Range.
The Washington state’s transportation department warned motorists to be cautious while on roadways as downed trees and weather conditions slowed traffic across the state.
Ukrainian service personnel use searchlights as they search for drones in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine November 20, 2024. REUTERS
KYIV — Ukraine fired a volley of British Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia on Wednesday, the latest new Western weapon it has been permitted to use on Russian targets a day after it fired U.S. ATACMS missiles.
The strikes were widely reported by Russian war correspondents on Telegram and confirmed by an official on condition of anonymity. A spokesperson for Ukraine’s General Staff said he had no information.
Moscow has said the use of Western weapons to strike Russian territory far from the border would be a major escalation in the conflict.
Kyiv says it needs the capability to defend itself by hitting Russian rear bases used to support Moscow’s invasion, which entered its 1,000th day this week.
Accounts of Russian war correspondents on Telegram posted video they said included the sound of the missiles striking Kursk region, which borders northeastern Ukraine.
At least 14 huge explosions could be heard, most of them preceded by the sharp whistle of what sounded like an incoming missile. The video, shot in a residential area, showed black smoke rising in the distance.
The pro-Russian Two Majors channel on Telegram said Ukraine fired up to 12 Storm Shadows into the Kursk region and carried pictures of missile pieces with the name Storm Shadow clearly visible.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer declined to comment.
Britain had previously allowed Ukraine to use Storm Shadows, which have a range in excess of 250 km (155 miles), within Ukrainian territory.
Air-launched long-range Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missile, manufactured by MBDA, pictured at the 54th International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France, June 20, 2023. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo
The Kyiv government has been pressing Western partners for permission to use such weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia, and it obtained the all-clear from U.S. President Joe Biden to use the ATACMS this week, two months before Biden leaves office.
As Ukraine’s use of the missiles raised tensions, the United States shut its embassy in Kyiv on Wednesday as a precaution due to what it called the threat of a significant air attack. It later said the embassy would reopen on Thursday.
The Pentagon on Wednesday also announced $275 million in military aid to Ukraine that included more ammunition for the HIMARS rocket system, and the Biden administration moved to forgive $4.7 billion in U.S. loans to Ukraine as outgoing officials sought to do what they could to bolster Kyiv before they leave office.
ANTICIPATING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
Biden’s successor, President-elect Donald Trump, has said he will end the war, without saying how, and criticised billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine under Biden. The warring sides believe Trump is likely to push for peace talks – not known to have been held since the war’s earliest months – and are trying to attain strong positions before negotiations.
Kyiv says Moscow, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, has previously taken advantage of limits on Ukraine’s use of weapons, particularly to strike Ukrainian cities from the air with heavy guided bombs.
Western countries say the arrival of more than 10,000 North Korean troops to fight for Russia in recent weeks was an escalation that merited a response.
The first use of the U.S. ATACMS on Tuesday, fired at a Russian arsenal in the Bryansk region on Ukraine’s northern border, prompted firm words from Moscow, which announced a change to its nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for the use of atomic weapons. Washington has said it sees no need to adjust its own nuclear posture and accused Moscow of resorting to irresponsible rhetoric.
Military analysts have said the longer-range missiles are unlikely to give Ukraine a decisive edge in the war but could strengthen its position, especially in the battle for a sliver of land inside Russia’s Kursk region it seized in August.
An air raid siren in Kyiv in the early afternoon on Wednesday jangled nerves. But Ukraine’s military spy agency said a widely reported threat of massive drone and missile attacks across the country was fake, and it accused Russia of trying to sow panic by circulating online messages about it.
“The enemy, unable to subdue Ukrainians by force, resorts to measures of intimidation and psychological pressure on society. We ask you to be vigilant and steadfast,” it said.
With the U.S. embassy’s temporary closure, the Italian, Spanish and Greek embassies said they too had closed their doors in Kyiv. Canada said it suspended in-person services at its mission. The French embassy remained open but urged its citizens to be cautious. The Kremlin said it had no comment.
Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin said in an interview published on Wednesday that Moscow would retaliate against NATO countries that facilitate long-range Ukrainian missile strikes against Russian territory.
The war is at a volatile juncture, with nearly a fifth of Ukrainian territory in Russian hands, North Korean troops deployed in Russia’s Kursk region and doubts over the future of Western aid under Trump, whose nominees for administration posts include sceptics of support for Kyiv.
On Sunday, Russia staged a missile and drone strike on Ukraine’s national power grid that killed seven people and renewed fears over the durability of the hobbled energy network.
Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip November 10, 2024. REUTERS/Hassan Al-Zaanin/File Photo
CAIRO — Israeli forces killed at least 48 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including a rescue worker, health officials said, as troops deepened an incursion along the territory’s northern edge, bombarding a hospital and blowing up homes.
Medics said at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the Jabalia area of northern Gaza earlier on Wednesday, and at least 10 people remained missing as rescue operations continued. Another man was killed in tank shelling nearby, they said.
In the southern Gaza Strip, an Israeli airstrike killed seven Palestinians, including a girl, in Al-Mawasi, a humanitarian-designated area in western Khan Younis, Gaza medics said. Palestinian and U.N. officials say no place in the enclave is safe.
Another air strike on a house in the Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City killed four people, while a strike killed three Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others at a school sheltering displaced families in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the besieged northern area, said the hospital “was bombed across all its departments without warning, as we were trying to save an injured person in the intensive care unit” on Tuesday.
“Following the arrest of 45 members of the medical and surgical staff and the denial of entry to a replacement team, we are now losing wounded patients daily who could have survived if resources were available,” he told Reuters by text message.
“Unfortunately, food and water are not allowed to enter, and not even a single ambulance is permitted access to the north.”
There were 85 injured people, including children and women, at the hospital, six in the ICU. Seventeen children had arrived with signs of malnutrition as a result of food shortages. One man died of dehydration a day ago, Abu Safiya added.
Israeli operations in Gaza have focused for weeks on the northern edge of the territory, where the military has laid siege to three major towns and ordered residents to flee.
Residents in the three towns – Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun – said Israeli forces had blown up dozens of houses. Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, which Israel denies.
Israel’s 13-month campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,000 people and displaced nearly all the enclave’s population at least once. It was launched in response to an attack by Hamas-led fighters who killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Months of attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress and negotiations are now on ice, with mediator Qatar having suspended its efforts until the sides are prepared to make concessions.
Although Israel’s assaults have been focused on the towns on the northern edge of Gaza since last month, its strikes have continued across the territory.
In the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said an Israeli airstrike targeted one of its teams during a rescue operation, killing one staff member and wounding three others. In the nearby Zeitoun neighbourhood an Israeli strike on a house killed two people, medics said.
The death in Sabra raised the number of civil emergency service members killed since Oct 7, 2023, to 87, the service said.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the incidents.
In Rafah, in the south, medics said three men were killed and others wounded in two separate Israeli airstrikes.
Speaking during a visit to Gaza on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas would not rule the Palestinian enclave after the war had ended and that Israel had destroyed the Islamist group’s military capabilities.
Netanyahu also said Israel had not given up trying to locate the 101 remaining hostages believed to be still in the enclave, and he offered a $5 million reward for the return of each one.
Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu has vowed the war can end only once Hamas is eradicated.
NEW YORK — A major storm swept across the northwest United States, battering the region with strong winds and rain, causing widespread power outages and downing trees that killed at least one person, according to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The Weather Prediction Center issued excessive rainfall risks through Friday and hurricane-force wind warnings were in effect as the strongest atmospheric river, a large plume of moisture, that California and the Pacific Northwest has seen this season overwhelmed the region.
The storm system is considered a “bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly.
Rainfall of 12 to 16 inches (30 to 40 centimeters) was expected over far northern California and far southwest Oregon into Friday, the center said. The intensity was expected to peak Thursday, with flash flooding, rock slides and debris flows likely.
Heavy, wet snow was expected to continue along the Cascades and in parts of far northern California. Forecasters warned of blizzard and whiteout conditions and near impossible travel at pass level due to accumulation rates of 2 to 3 inches (5 to 7.6 centimeters) per hour and wind gusts of up to 65 mph (105 kph).
DUBAI — An Israeli attack on Syria’s historic city of Palmyra killed 36 people and wounded more than 50 on Wednesday after it hit residential buildings and an industrial zone, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
The Israeli military declined to comment when asked about the attack.
“At approximately 1:30 p.m. today, the Israeli enemy launched an air attack from the direction of the al-Tanf area, targeting a number of buildings in the city of Palmyra in the Syrian desert, which led to the martyrdom of 36 people (and) the injury of more than 50 others,” SANA said, quoting a military official.
It added that the attack also caused significant damage to the targeted buildings and surrounding area.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
The Israeli military said last week it had attacked transit routes on the Syrian-Lebanese border that were used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah.
Syrian state media reported several Israeli attacks last week in the vicinity of Homs province, which borders Lebanon. Palmyra is located in Homs.
Palmyra’s ancient city is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was seized by Islamic State militants in 2015 and partially destroyed before it was recaptured by the Syrian army.
PESHAWAR — A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at a security post in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 11 security forces and wounding several others, four intelligence and security officials said Wednesday.
The attack, one of the deadliest in recent months, happened Tuesday evening in Bannu, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. There was no immediate comment by the government, but the security and intelligence officials said security personnel were carrying out an operation targeting those who orchestrated the attack.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Pakistan has witnessed a steady increase in violence since November 2022, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong ceasefire with the government in Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group but are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened the TTP, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
In December 2023, a suicide bomber targeted a police station’s main gate in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in northwestern Pakistan, killing 23 troops.
Tuesday’s attack happened in Bannu while the country’s political and military leadership was meeting in Islamabad to discuss how to respond to the surge in militant violence.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday approved a “comprehensive military operation” against separatist groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army, in southwestern Balochistan province. The order came following a Nov. 9 suicide attack by the group at a train station that killed 26 people in Quetta, the capital of the province.
In recent months. violence has also surged in northwest Pakistan, where security forces often target TTP and the Gul Bahadur group.
Abdullah Khan, a senior defense analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, said over 900 security forces have been killed in militant attacks in Pakistan since 2022, when TTP ended the ceasefire with the government.
“TTP and other groups have expanded their operations, showing they are getting more recruits, money and weapons,” Khan said. He said there is a need for political stability in the country to defeat the insurgents.
Pakistan has experienced a political crisis since 2022, when then-Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament.
He was arrested and imprisoned in 2023. Since then, his supporters have been rallying to demand his release.
A Sudanese army soldier mans a machine gun on top of a military pickup truck outside a hospital in Omdurman on November 2, 2024. (File/AFP)
PORT SUDAN — A medic on Wednesday said 40 people were killed “by gunshot wounds” during a paramilitary attack on the Sudanese village of Wad Oshaib in the central state of Al-Jazira.
Eyewitnesses in the village told AFP the Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023, attacked the village on Tuesday evening. “The attack resumed this morning,” one eyewitness said by phone Wednesday, adding that paramilitary fighters were “looting property.”
BEIRUT — A war monitor said Israeli strikes on central Syria’s Palmyra on Wednesday killed four pro-Iran fighters, while Syrian state media reported an unspecified number of wounded in the attack.
“Four non-Syrian fighters from pro-Iran groups were killed and six others including civilians were wounded in a provisional toll of the Israeli strikes” on Palmyra, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The strikes targeted “a warehouse in the industrial area and a restaurant and buildings near the ancient city of Palmyra,” the Britain-based Observatory added.
State news agency SANA said an “Israeli attack… targeted residential buildings and the industrial area” of the city, renowned for its ancient ruins.
State television reported unspecified “wounded due to the Israeli attack that targeted the city of Palmyra.” Since the civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed armed groups, including Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes since almost a year of hostilities with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into all-out war in late September.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence there.
FILE PHOTO: A serviceman of 24th Mechanized brigade named after King Danylo of the Ukrainian Armed Forces fires a 2s5 “Hyacinth-s” self-propelled howitzer toward Russian troops at a front line (Reuters)
The US embassy in Kyiv has received information of a potential significant air attack on Wednesday and will be closed, the US Department of State Consular Affairs said in a statement.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the embassy will be closed, and embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place,” the department said in a statement published on the website of the US embassy in Kyiv.
“The US Embassy recommends US citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced.”
The warning comes a day after Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory, taking advantage of newly granted permission from the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden on the war’s 1,000th day.
Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire US, British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October that Moscow will respond to Ukraine’s strikes with US-made weapons deep into Russia.
On Tuesday, Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, with nuclear risks rising amid the highest tensions between Russia and West in more than half a century.
MOSCOW — Moscow’s revised nuclear doctrine outlines the possibility of a nuclear response if Kiev uses Western-made missiles against Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against it or the Republic of Belarus, … with the use of conventional weapons, in a way that poses a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity,” Peskov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine on Tuesday.
The spokesperson further said that Russia would view the use of Western non-nuclear missiles by Ukraine as an attack by a non-nuclear state with the support of a nuclear state against the country, potentially justifying the use of nuclear weapons by Moscow.
Peskov said that the doctrine outlines that “aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state” would be considered a joint attack.
DAMASCUS — U.S. airstrikes killed five members of Iran-backed militias and wounded several others in eastern Syria on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based monitoring group reported that U.S. warplanes targeted military gatherings in the Al-Quriyah desert of Deir ez-Zor province. It said the strikes came after a rocket believed to be fired by pro-Iran militiamen landed near a U.S. base in the countryside of al-Hasakah province in northeastern Syria.
Meanwhile, intermittent explosions of unknown origin were heard at a U.S. military base inside the al-Omar oil field base in Deir ez-Zor, the observatory said.
U.S. fighter jets were seen flying over several villages, reaching as far as the town of Mayadeen in Deir ez-Zor’s countryside near the Iraqi border, according to the observatory.
There were no immediate reports of additional casualties.
The region has seen increased tensions between U.S. forces and Iran-backed groups, which have a significant presence in eastern Syria.
RAMALLAH — Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli army gunfire in the eastern neighborhood of Jenin city in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, according to Palestinian medical sources.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its team retrieved two bodies from a house in the neighborhood.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that two unidentified victims were brought to Jenin Government Hospital after being shot by the Israeli army in the eastern neighborhood. No further details were provided about the incident.
The Israeli army has not commented on this incident yet. Israel usually described these raids in the West Bank as “counter-terrorism operations” targeting “terrorists” linked to Palestinian armed groups.
The death toll of Palestinians has risen to five during Israeli raids in Jenin since Tuesday morning, with three Palestinians killed earlier in the day during an Israeli army siege on a house in the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin.
Since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel conflict on Oct. 7, 2023, violence in the West Bank has intensified, resulting in the deaths of over 780 Palestinians due to Israeli gunfire and airstrikes, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a hostage held in Gaza.
“Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
“We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage.”
Wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket, Netanyahu spoke with his back to the Mediterranean in the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s main military supply route which carves the Gaza Strip in two just south of Gaza City.
“Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead — we will pursue you and we will catch up with you,” he said.
Accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu underlined that one of Israel’s war aims remained that “Hamas does not rule in Gaza.”
“We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won’t give up. We will continue until we’ve found them all, alive or dead.”
During Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, militants took 251 hostages. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead.
BEIRUT — Four Ghanaian peacekeepers on duty sustained injuries on Tuesday as a rocket hit their base in the east of the southern Lebanese village of Ramyah, according to a statement by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The rocket was “fired most likely by non-State actors within Lebanon,” said the statement, noting that three of the peacekeepers were transferred to a hospital for treatment.
On the same day, UNIFIL peacekeepers and facilities were affected by two other separate incidents. One involved the UNIFIL West Sector headquarters in Chamaa, where five rockets hit the maintenance workshop, though no peacekeepers were injured. This marked the second time in less than a week that the base had been impacted by the ongoing clashes between Israel and Hezbollah. On Nov. 15, a 155mm live artillery shell had struck the base.
In another incident, an armed person fired at a UNIFIL patrol passing through a road northeast of the village of Khirbet Selm. There were no reports of injuries among the peacekeepers.
The UN mission has informed the Lebanese Armed Forces about the incidents and launched investigations into each.
“UNIFIL once again reminds all actors involved in the ongoing hostilities to respect the inviolability of United Nations peacekeepers and premises. The pattern of regular attacks — direct or indirect — against peacekeepers must end immediately,” said the statement.
UNIFIL sites and installations have previously been attacked, leading to injuries, amidst the ongoing conflict between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
TEHRAN — Amid growing domestic opposition to Washington’s unconditional support for Israel, dozens of White House staff members have signed a letter urging the suspension of US military aid to Israel.
According to a Monday report by Politico, at least 20 White House employees criticized the administration for failing to pursue the demands laid out on October 13 by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin which called for Israel to take concrete actions to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza within 30 days.
The letter represents the latest internal pushback against the White House’s policy towards Israel’s military operations in Gaza. It demands a halt to military aid to Israel, citing urgent humanitarian concerns.
The signees, who remained anonymous due to fears of the administration’s reaction, stated in the letter that time is running out to do the right thing and take a decisive action which they said could save invaluable lives over the next two months.
Despite such calls, the report notes that such letters have yet to significantly alter US policy. President Joe Biden has repeatedly pledged ironclad support for Israel and has backed away from conditioning military aid on Israel’s addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Meanwhile, several senators, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Chris Van Hollen, are pushing forward a resolution to block further US arms sales to Israel.
This development follows earlier protests from US State Department employees, many of whom publicly or privately opposed Washington’s support for Israel, with some resigning in protest.
Israeli military vehicles maneuver during an Israeli raid in Qabatiya, near Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank November 19, 2024. (REUTERS)
JENIN — Three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military operation near Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli security forces said.
A joint statement from the army, police and Shin Bet security agency said the three militants died in an exchange of fire in Qabatiya village, where undercover border police attempted to arrest a wanted man.
The Israeli forces came under fire from a building where the suspect, Raed Hanaysha, was hiding, the statement said, before killing him and “two armed terrorists.”
The Israeli army said it seized weapons from the scene, “destroyed two bomb-making labs,” and that its forces were still active in the area.
“There are three bodies of martyrs that are now with the Israeli side, after they killed them,” local governor Kamal Abu Al-Rub said, citing the office in charge of liaising between Israeli and Palestinian authorities in the West Bank.
The Palestinian health ministry said the District Coordination Office had also informed it of the deaths of “three young men shot by Israeli forces near Qabatiya,” which is in the Jenin governorate.
The three men were between 24 and 32 years old, a ministry statement said, identifying Raed Hanaysha as one of the dead.
Israeli security forces said Hanaysha had been involved “in shooting and bombing attacks” recently against the army.
Violence in the West Bank, particularly in the north, has soared since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7 last year.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 771 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the same period in the West Bank, according to official Israeli figures.
LONDON — Reporters Without Borders has condemned Israel for labeling journalists in Gaza as “terrorists,” describing the move as part of a troubling trend to control the narrative of the ongoing conflict.
Speaking in Geneva, RSF Director General Thibaut Bruttin voiced alarm over the Israeli Defense Forces’ portrayal of Palestinian journalists, calling it a blatant disregard for press freedom.
“We’re seeing Israeli defense forces trying to portray Palestinian journalists as terrorists. So we’re very worried about that trend too,” said Bruttin.
“In the past we had responses which were not satisfying … but still they were trying to pretend that they were abiding by international standards in terms of protection of the press. Today, now they’re outrageously lying and trying to portray journalists in Gaza as terrorists.”
Since the conflict began on Oct. 7 last year, Israel has been accused of waging a “retaliatory campaign” against media workers in Gaza.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 137 journalists — mostly Palestinians — have been killed so far, though the actual toll is believed to be significantly higher.
“Not only have they not been able to protect them, but also we have good reasons to believe that a fair amount of the about 140 journalists that have been killed have been deliberately killed, have been targeted,” Bruttin said.
Bruttin, who succeeded Christophe Deloire in July, highlighted the dire conditions faced by Palestinian journalists, noting severe shortages of essential resources such as food, water and electricity.
He emphasized that Gaza remained closed to international press, forcing global news outlets to rely heavily on exhausted local journalists who faced dual risks as both civilians and potential targets.
“We’re very worried about what’s happening there,” Bruttin said, describing the circumstances as “unprecedented.”
He urged the international community to hold Israel accountable for its treatment of journalists, stressing the need for genuine pressure on Tel Aviv to change its policies.
Despite the dangers, journalists continue to report on the conflict, said Bruttin.
“In such a short period of time, I think it’s fairly unprecedented. But we have seen wars in the beginning of the 21st century which have been very violent and rough too.
“The war in Iraq has been a nightmare for journalists and hundreds of journalists have been killed there. So we are aware of the specific nature of the conflict in Gaza.”
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military announced on Tuesday that the commander of Hezbollah’s medium-range rocket unit was killed in an airstrike on Monday in southern Lebanon.
In a statement, the military said Ali Tawfiq Dweiq was killed by the Israeli Air Force in the village of Kfar Jouz, near the town of Nabatieh.
Dweiq had commanded Hezbollah’s medium-range rocket array since September 2024, replacing the previous commander, who was also killed by Israel. The Israeli military said Dweiq was responsible for launching more than 300 projectiles toward Israel, including strikes on Haifa and central Israel.
Over the past few months, Israel has struck “dozens” of infrastructure sites used by Hezbollah’s medium-range rocket array and weapons storage facilities, according to the military.
The assassination of Dweiq is the latest in a series of targeted killings by Israel, including the September airstrike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah late leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in a cross-border conflict since October last year.
BAGHDAD — A policeman was killed and another wounded when resolving tribal clashes in the southern Iraqi province of Muthanna, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The incident occurred late on Monday night when armed men from two tribes clashed over an agricultural land near the provincial capital Samawah, prompting police intervention to resolve the armed dispute, according to the statement.
It said that the clash resulted in the killing of a policeman and the wounding of another, while the police arrested 60 persons from both tribes and seized many weapons.
