Heavy gun battle in Gaza as Israel steps up ground war – Hamas

Published

1 year ago

October 30, 2023

Heavy gun battle in Gaza as Israel steps up ground war – Hamas

Hamas said it was engaged in “heavy fighting” with Israeli troops on Sunday inside northern Gaza, where besieged residents were again told to flee.

After weeks of ferocious air strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared a new “stage” in what he warned will be a “long and difficult” war.

Israel’s military released a series of images late Sunday purporting to show tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and equipment-laden infantrymen operating inside Palestinian territory.

Hamas said its Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades were already “engaged in heavy fighting… with the invading occupation forces”.

The Israel Defence Forces claimed to have struck more than “450 terror targets, including operational command centres, observation posts, and anti-tank missile launch posts”.

The military also said 31-year-old sergeant Yinon Fleishman was killed in Gaza when his tank overturned.

With a fierce urban war now feared, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari told Palestinian civilians to go south “to a safer area”.

“We are gradually expanding the ground activity and the scope of our forces in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

It is now more than three weeks since Hamas gunmen launched a wave of bloody cross-border raids against homes, communities, farms and security posts inside Israel.

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An estimated 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and 239 people were taken hostage, according to the latest Israeli tallies.

Grieving and enraged, Israel has vowed to free the hostages, track down those responsible and “eradicate” Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist movement that has governed Gaza since 2007.

But there is growing international concern about the toll of Israel’s campaign on Gaza’s two-plus million residents.

The territory is under siege, with people unable to leave and only a trickle of humanitarian aid allowed in.

Meanwhile, Israel has carried out one of the most intense bombing campaigns in recent memory.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 8,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed — half of them children.

– Food, water, medicine –

Inside Gaza’s maze of streets, rubble and hulled-out buildings, there is a growing sense of panic, fear and desperation.

Ibrahim Shandoughli, a 53-year-old from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, asked why he would head south when that area is also being bombed.

“Where do you want us to evacuate to? All the areas are dangerous,” he said.

Etidal al-Masri was among those who did move south.

But even in the border town of Rafah, she still struggles to find even the basics amid shortages of food, water and medicine.

Gazans “must now queue for bread, toilets and even for sleep”, she said.

On Sunday, the desperation appeared to boil over.

The United Nations reported that “thousands of people” had ransacked its warehouses looking for tinned food, flour, oil and hygiene supplies.

The UN also reported that 33 trucks carrying water, food, and medical supplies had entered Gaza from Egypt on October 29.

It is one of the largest deliveries to date, but still far short of the 100 trucks a day that aid groups say is needed.

International Criminal Court lead prosecutor Karim Khan warned Israel on Sunday that preventing access to humanitarian aid could be a “crime”.

– ‘Axis of resistance’ –

In a phone call with Netanyahu on Sunday, US President Joe Biden also underscored the need to “immediately and significantly” increase the flow of aid.

And while the White House has welcomed the gradual return of cell phone and internet services that had been cut for days, it had a sharp warning for Israel’s leaders.

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The “burden” lies with Israel to distinguish between militants and innocent civilians in Gaza, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN.

According to the UN, all 10 hospitals in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders — despite sheltering thousands of patients and about 117,000 of the displaced.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has said evacuation is impossible and reported repeated strikes around Al-Quds Hospital in central Gaza.

The head of the World Health Organisation said calls to evacuate Al-Quds Hospital were “deeply concerning”.

“We reiterate – it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X.

Mohamed al-Talmas, who has taken shelter in Gaza’s biggest hospital Al-Shifa, said “the ground shook” there with intense Israeli raids.

Israel describes Al-Shifa hospital as a de facto Hamas “command centre” and headquarters.

Washington has also expressed deep concern about the war spilling over, as Israel’s enemies — and in particular an Iran-allied “axis of resistance” — step up actions across the Middle East.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has warned Israel’s “crimes have crossed the red lines, which may force everyone to take action”.

Since Hamas’s attack on October 7, Iran-backed groups have launched attacks from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

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Skirmishes have intensified on the Israeli-Lebanese border with Iran-backed Hamas ally Hezbollah.

On Sunday militants in south Lebanon fired rockets towards Israel, which has responded with strikes.

The Israel Defense Forces also said they had “struck military infrastructure in Syrian territory” in response to launches “toward Israeli territory.”

– ‘Psychological games’ –

Inside Israel, where shocked residents still face daily rocket attacks, much of the focus is on the hostages abducted by Hamas.

Hamas has released four prisoners and offered to release more as part of a swap for Palestinians detained in Israel.

It has also claimed “almost 50” hostages were killed by Israeli strikes — a claim that was impossible to verify but has caused anguish to those praying for their loved ones to return.

“We demanded that no action be taken that endangers the fate of our family members,” said Meirav Leshem Gonen, the mother of hostage Romi Gonen.

Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant accused Hamas of playing “psychological games”.

“Hamas is cynically using those who are dear to us – they understand the pain and the pressure,” he said.

Heavy gun battle in Gaza as Israel steps up ground war – Hamas

(AFP)

Related Topics:Featured Gaza Hamas Israel

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Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

Published

2 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Trends Admin

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

Officials from Canada, Mexico and China have warned US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to impose sweeping tariffs on America’s three largest trading partners could upend the economies of all four countries.

“To one tariff will follow another in response and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk,” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum said.

Trump vowed on Monday night to introduce 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada and an additional 10% on goods coming from China. He said the duties were a bid to clamp down on drugs and illegal immigration.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he spoke to Trump in the hours after the announcement and planned to hold a meeting with Canada’s provincial leaders on Wednesday to discuss a response.

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington DC told the BBC: “No-one will win a trade war or a tariff war.”

The international pushback came a day after Trump announced his plans for his first day in office, on 20 January, in a post on his social media website, Truth Social.

Trudeau said his country was prepared to work with the US in “constructive ways”.

“This is a relationship that we know takes a certain amount of working on, and that’s what we’ll do,” Trudeau told reporters.

In a phone call with Trump, Trudeau said the pair discussed trade and border security, with the prime minister pointing out that the number of migrants crossing the Canadian border was much smaller compared with the US-Mexico border.

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Trump’s team declined to confirm the phone call.

But Trump spokesman Steven Cheung added that world leaders had sought to “develop stronger relationships” with Trump “because he represents global peace and stability”.

Mexico’s President Sheinbaum told reporters on Tuesday that neither threats nor tariffs would solve the “migration phenomenon” or drug consumption in the US.

Reading from a letter that she said she would send to Trump, Sheinbaum also warned that Mexico would retaliate by imposing its own taxes on US imports, which would “put common enterprises at risk”.

She said Mexico had taken steps to tackle illegal migration into the US and that “caravans of migrants no longer reach the border”.

The issue of drugs, she added, “is a problem of public health and consumption in your country’s society”.

Sheinbaum, who took office last month, noted that US car manufacturers produce some of their parts in Mexico and Canada.

“If tariffs go up, who will it hurt? General Motors,” she said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, told the BBC that “China-US economic and trade co-operation is mutually beneficial in nature”.

He denied that China allows chemicals used in the manufacture of illegal drugs – including fentanyl – to be smuggled to the US.

“China has responded to US request for verifying clues on certain cases and taken action,” Liu said.

“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality.”

President Joe Biden has left in place the tariffs on China that Trump introduced in his first term, and added a few more of his own.

Currently, a majority of what the two countries sell to each other is subject to tariffs – 66.4% of US imports from China and 58.3% of Chinese imports from the US.

Speaking in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Trudeau told lawmakers that “the idea of going to war with the United States isn’t what anyone wants”.

He called on them to not “panic”, and to work together.

“That is the work we will do seriously, methodically. But without freaking out,” he said.

The leaders of Canadian provinces suggested that they would impose their own tariffs on the US.

“The things we sell to the United States are the things they really need,” Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Tuesday. “We sell them oil, we sell them electricity, we sell them critical minerals and metals.”

America’s northern neighbour accounted for some $437bn (£347bn) of US imports in 2022, and was the largest market for US exports in the same year, according to US data.

Canada sends about 75% of its total exports to the US.

Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said on Monday the proposed tariff would be “devastating to workers and jobs in both Canada and the US”.

“To compare us to Mexico is the most insulting thing I’ve ever heard,” said Ford.

Ford was echoed by the premiers of Quebec, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, while a post on the X account of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith acknowledged that Trump had “valid concerns related to illegal activities at our shared border”.

The Canadian dollar, the Loonie, has plunged in value since Trump vowed to impose tariffs on Canadian imports come January.

The Canadian dollar dipped below 71 US cents, the lowest level the Loonie has fallen to since May 2020, when Trump threatened to impose tariffs on Canadian goods during his first stint as US president. The Mexican peso fell to its lowest value this year, around 4.8 cents.

Canada, Mexico, China respond to Trump tariff threats

BBC

International

Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon

Published

3 hours ago

November 27, 2024

Trends Admin

Relief as Israel agrees to ceasefire with Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will bring a US-brokered proposal for a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon to his government for approval as soon as Tuesday evening.

He said in a televised address that he would put “a ceasefire outline” to ministers “this evening”.

He however did not say how long the truce would last, noting “the length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon”.

But it later learnt that the ceasefire would is for 60 days.

During the period, Hezbollah fighters are expected to retreat 40 kilometres from Israel’s border, with Israeli ground forces withdrawing from Lebanese territory.

“If Hezbollah violates the agreement and attempts to rearm, we will strike,” Netanyahu warned.

Key Israel backer the United States has led ceasefire efforts for Lebanon alongside France.

US President Joe Biden is optimistic the deal will lead to a “permanent cessation of hostilities”.

Biden added that the US would lead another push for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“In full coordination with the United States, we are maintaining full military freedom of action,” Netanyahu said, outlining the seven-front war Israel says it faces in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

Even as Netanyahu spoke about the ceasefire, the Israeli military carried out multiple strikes on heart of Beirut while the army said some 15 projectiles had entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon.

Demonstrators raise placards and Israeli flags during a protest in front of the Israeli Defence Ministry in the coastal city Tel Aviv on November 26, 2024, against a possible ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon. – Israel’s security cabinet has started discussing a proposed ceasefire deal in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Israeli official confirmed to AFP on November 26. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)

The war in Lebanon escalated after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah, which said it was acting in support of Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.

The war has killed at least 3,823 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.

On the Israeli side, the hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.

Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow Israel to focus on “the Iranian threat” and ramp up its fight against Hamas in Gaza.

“With Hezbollah out of the picture, Hamas is left on its own,” he said.

“We will increase our pressure on Hamas and that will help us in our sacred mission of releasing our hostages.”

During last year’s Hamas attack, militants took 251 hostages, of whom 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the army has declared dead.

International

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

Published

18 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Trends Admin

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes pounded a densely-populated part of the Lebanese capital and its southern suburbs on Tuesday, hours ahead of an anticipated announcement of a ceasefire ending hostilities between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

A strike on Beirut hit the Noueiri district with no evacuation warning and killed at least one person, Lebanon’s health ministry said in a preliminary toll.

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Minutes later, at least 10 Israeli strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs. They began approximately 30 minutes after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders for 20 locations in the area, the largest such warning yet.

As the strikes were under way, Israel’s military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said the air force was conducting a “widespread attack” on Hezbollah targets across the city.