Serbian officer shot with crossbow outside Israeli embassy

A police officer has been injured in a crossbow attack outside the Israeli embassy in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told reporters that the officer had subsequently shot and killed the assailant.

The attacker – who authorities say was Serbian – hit the policeman in the neck with an arrow, Mr Dacic said. The officer, Milos Jevremovic, underwent surgery and is no longer in a serious condition, authorities have said.

Officials have described the assailant as a Muslim convert and classified the attack as “terrorist” in nature.

Mr Dacic said the attacker had approached a small building at the front of the Israeli embassy several times around 11:00 (09:00 GMT), purportedly asking about a museum.

He then opened the door to the small building, removed a crossbow from a bag and shot the officer, Mr Dacic said. The officer then returned fire and the assailant died about half an hour later.

Serbian authorities named the attacker as Milos Zujovic, who was born in 1999 in the town of Mladenovac, around 30 miles (48km) from the capital, before moving to Novi Pazar – the cultural centre of the Bosniak Muslim minority.

They said that after converting to Islam, he went by the “religious name” Salahudin.

The Israeli foreign ministry said the embassy had been closed at the time of the incident and that no employees had been injured.

Mr Dacic said the case had been taken over by special prosecutors, who had subsequently declared the incident a “terrorist act”.

As a result, he had increased Serbia’s threat level to red – initiating a greater police presence around potential targets, as well as searches of locations where plotting is suspected.

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Earlier in the day, Mr Dacic said that several individuals had been arrested as a precautionary measure.

While the interior minister suggested the attack may have been part of a larger threat, Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic called it “a crime of an individual”.

In comments quoted by the Beta news agency, he described the incident as “an act of insanity, which cannot be attributed to any religion and any nation”.

Mr Vucevic urged the public to “remain calm and not succumb to propaganda” that might encourage hate crimes.

Both the prime minister and interior minister characterised the incident as a “terrorist act”.

Mr Dacic’s office later said that Igor Despotovic, also born in 1999, from Belgrade, had been arrested after allegedly being found to have had “daily communication” with Zujovic. It also said Despotovic was arrested two years ago for running online extremist groups, in a case that is ongoing.

Serbian authorities said police were still searching for another person believed to harbour the same views as Zujovic, who may take several days to locate and arrest.

President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters that there were “several more persons that we are looking for”, according to news agency AFP.

Mr Dacic said on Saturday afternoon that police operations were ongoing in several locations across the country.

Israeli ambassador to Serbia Yahel Vilan wrote on X/Twitter that he was “deeply shocked” by the attack, and thanked Mr Jevremovic, “who courageously prevented the attack”.

Meanwhile, Serbia’s top Islamic cleric, Senad Halitovic, condemned the attack. According to AFP, he said: “Such crimes are against all religious teachings, especially the teachings of Islam. Today’s crime is the work of a mindless individual.”

The incident in Belgrade is not the first time someone has seemingly attempted to attack an Israeli embassy since 7 October, when Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, and Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza.

After visiting Mr Jevremovic in hospital, Mr Vucic said that he was conscious and would be honoured for his actions as soon as he is discharged.

Serbian officer shot with crossbow outside Israeli embassy

No news on truce deal, says Hamas as thousands of Israelis protest

Hamas says there’s been no progress in ceasefire talks with Israel over the war on Gaza as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv demanding the government save the captives and get a deal done.

Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon, said on Saturday the Palestinian group is still ready to discuss any truce proposal that ends the nearly nine-month conflict.

“Once again, Hamas is ready to deal positively with any proposal that secures a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and a serious swap deal,” Hamdan told a news conference in Beirut.

Arab mediators’ efforts, backed by the United States, have so far failed to conclude a ceasefire with both sides blaming each other for the impasse. Hamas says any deal must end the war for good and bring full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Israel says it will accept only temporary pauses in fighting until Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, is “eradicated”.

Hamdan also blamed the United States for applying pressure on Hamas to accept Israel’s conditions.

Antigovernment protest organisers in Tel Aviv estimated 130,000 Israelis converged downtown on Saturday night demanding an immediate truce deal to bring the captives home.

At a news conference held outside the defence ministry, family members of those held in Gaza made statements to the crowd.

“Do not let Netanyahu sabotage the deal again. Netanyahu’s insistence on prolonging the war stands between us and our loved ones,” one unidentified relative said.

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“Continuing the war means killing the hostages at the hands of the Israeli government. The people understand that Netanyahu prolongs the war for personal reasons – reaching a deal would lead to early elections and end his rule.”

New American text

On Saturday, The Associated Press news agency quoted an unnamed “senior Biden administration official” as saying the US has presented new language to intermediaries Egypt and Qatar aimed at trying to jump-start stalled Israel-Hamas negotiations.

The official said the revised text focuses on negotiations that are to start between Israel and Hamas during the first phase of a three-phase deal that US President Joe Biden laid out nearly a month ago.

The first phase calls for a “full and complete ceasefire”, a withdrawal of Israeli forces from all densely populated areas of Gaza, and the release of a number of captives – including women, older people and the wounded – in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

The proposal called for the parties to negotiate the terms of the second phase during the 42 days of phase one. Under the current proposal, Hamas could release all of the remaining men, both civilians and soldiers. In return, Israel could free an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The releases will not occur until “sustainable calm” takes effect and all Israeli troops withdraw from Gaza.

The new proposed language, which the official did not detail, aims to find a workaround for differences between Israel and Hamas regarding the parameters of the negotiations between phase one and phase two.

Hamas wants negotiations centred on the number and identity of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails, in exchange for remaining living Israeli soldiers and male captives held in Gaza, the official said. Israel wants negotiations to be broader and include the demilitarisation of the territory controlled by Hamas.

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Hamdan said the group had yet to receive a new ceasefire proposal from mediators. Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh spoke by phone with the head of Egypt’s intelligence service to discuss the negotiations, Hamas said in a statement.

Growing fears of wider war

Talks of a truce come as pressure mounts on regional and world leaders to bring a halt to the Gaza war as fears of its expansion into Lebanon rise. Both Hamas ally Hezbollah and Israel officials have threatened major escalation over the past week.

Analysts have said a full-out war in northern Israel and southern Lebanon would be catastrophic for the Middle East. Seven countries have called on their nationals to urgently leave Lebanon, the latest being Saudi Arabia, which urged its citizens to “depart the Lebanese territory immediately”.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant threatened this week to bomb Lebanon “back to the Stone Age” if major conflict erupted. Hezbollah’s main ally Iran warned Israel of an “obliterating war” if it attacked Lebanon.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Saturday highlighted the prospect of an “unprecedented” war in the region, calling for urgent international intervention to prevent the “expansion of the gravely escalating conflict”.

No news on truce deal, says Hamas as thousands of Israelis protest

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

North Gaza battle rages as Palestinian fighters ambush Israeli troops

Palestinian fighters engaged Israeli forces in fierce battles in northern Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood a day after tanks and troops rolled in and sent tens of thousands of terrified civilians fleeing.

In a statement on Friday, al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said it blew up a booby-trapped residential building in Shujayea, killing four Israeli soldiers and wounding five others.

The improvised explosive device used was an undetonated F-16 missile recovered intact after it was fired from an Israeli warplane, it said.

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said its fighters also continue to engage in “violent clashes” while “inflicting deaths and injuries” in attacks with anti-tank rockets and small-arms fire.

A day earlier, Israeli forces carried out heavy air and artillery attacks and sent armoured vehicles into war-ravaged northern Gaza in a renewed assault after pulling out in January saying Hamas had been “dismantled” in the area.

Palestinian civilians are leaving on foot carrying their meagre belongings through rubble-strewn streets in the intense summer heat. Israel displaced at least 60,000 people from Gaza City since Thursday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.

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No official confirmation of soldiers’ deaths Shujayea was immediately available on Friday but Israel’s military did report one soldier was killed and nine were wounded in clashes throughout Gaza over the last 24 hours.

Rafah battles ongoing

Ground operations backed by air raids are continuing in northern Gaza, killing “dozens” of fighters, the army said on Friday. The heavy fighting follows comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week suggesting the “intense phase” of the war is winding down.

Soldiers “started to conduct targeted raids” in Shujayea as intelligence indicated “the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the area “, the military said, in its first details of the operation.

At least 668 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, 2023, including more than 300 since the ground invasion of Gaza began. Another 3,953 have been wounded.

Israel says it killed about 15,000 Palestinian fighters during the nearly nine-month conflict.

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Israel lost eight soldiers in a single attack earlier this month in southern Rafah as Hamas fighters ambushed and blew up a military vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade.

Palestinian health officials said tank shelling in Rafah killed at least 11 people on Friday. Displaced Palestinian families fled what they said was intensifying Israeli fire to seek shelter further north, describing chaotic scenes as fighting drew closer.

One resident said some bulldozers in the Shakoush area piled up sand for Israeli tanks to station behind.

“The situation there is very dangerous and many families are leaving towards Khan Younis, even from the Mawasi area as things became unsafe for them,” the unnamed man told the Reuters news agency.

The UN’s Dujarric said incursions into al-Mawasi – declared an “evacuation zone” by Israel’s army – resulted in many casualties and displacement of at least 5,000 people.

Most of Gaza’s population has been uprooted and much of the territory’s infrastructure destroyed, leaving residents struggling to survive. A UN-backed assessment this week said nearly 500,000 people in Gaza are experiencing “catastrophic” hunger.

North Gaza battle rages as Palestinian fighters ambush Israeli troops

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES