Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Shifa hospital after gunbattle at gates – Newstrends
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Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Shifa hospital after gunbattle at gates

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Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Shifa hospital after gunbattle at gates

ISRAELI troops entered Gaza’s biggest hospital on Wednesday and were searching its rooms and basement, witnesses said, culminating a siege that caused global alarm over the fate of thousands of civilians trapped inside.

Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has become the main target of the ground operation by Israeli forces, who say Hamas fighters have the “beating heart” of their operations in a headquarters in tunnels beneath it, which Hamas denies.

World attention has been focused on the fate of hundreds of patients trapped inside without power to operate basic medical equipment and thousands of displaced civilians who had sought shelter there.

Gaza officials say many patients including three newborn babies died in recent days as a result of Israel’s encirclement of the facility.

Israel said its troops killed fighters in a clash outside the gates before entering and had brought medical supplies for those inside.

“Before entering the hospital our forces were confronted by explosive devices and terrorist squads, and fighting ensued in which terrorists were killed,” the Israeli military said.

“We can confirm that incubators, baby food, and medical supplies brought by IDF tanks from Israel have successfully reached the Shifa hospital.

“Our medical teams and Arabic-speaking soldiers are on the ground to ensure that these supplies reach those in need,” the Israeli military said.

Dr Ahmed El Mohallalati, a surgeon, told Reuters by phone that staff were in hiding as the fighting unfolded outside the hospital overnight.

“So yesterday early evening it started… shooting around the hospital and within the hospital. And the sound was really horrible. Look, you can feel that it’s, you know, it’s very near to the hospital,” he said.

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“And then we realised that the tanks were moving around the hospital. One of the big tanks entered the hospital premises from the eastern main gate, and they just parked in front of the hospital emergency department.

“All kinds of weapons were used around the hospital. They targeted the hospital directly. We tried to avoid being near the windows,” he said.

Another witness inside the hospital, reached by telephone, said tanks had entered the compound at 3:00 a.m.

The Israeli troops dismounted and spread out in the yard, and began searching the basement and entering buildings.

“It was very dangerous looking from the glass window.

“The administration of the hospital told us the occupation army informed them they wanted to search us and search room by room.

“I am very scared,” the man said, asking that his name be withheld for fear of Israeli reprisals.

“There was no shooting because there were no gunmen inside the facility.

“The soldiers were acting freely as were people inside the hospital, the doctors, the wounded, and the displaced,” the man said.

He later told Reuters that gunfire could occasionally be heard and he was remaining in hiding.

In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said: “Based on intelligence information and an operational necessity, IDF forces are carrying out a precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area in the Shifa hospital.”

Israel said it had given Hamas a 12-hour deadline to cease military activity at the hospital, but “Unfortunately, it did not.”

Israeli army spokesman Lt.-Col. Peter Lerner told CNN that the hospital and compound were for Hamas “a central hub of their operations, perhaps even the beating heart and maybe even a centre of gravity.”

The United States said on Tuesday that its own intelligence supported Israel’s conclusions about the presence of a Hamas headquarters at Al Shifa.

Hamas said that amounted to giving Israel a “green light” for Israel to raid the hospital, and it held U.S. President Joe Biden fully responsible alongside Israel itself for a “war crime”.

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Medical personnel and the multitude of internally displaced people are now facing a “barbaric assault” on a health facility safeguarded by the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hamas statement said.

Israel launched its campaign to annihilate Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, after fighters crossed into Israel on Oct. 7, rampaging through towns, killing civilians, and dragging hostages back into Gaza.

Israel says 1,200 people were killed and some 240 captives taken in the deadliest day in its 75-year history.

Since then, Israel has put Gaza’s entire population of 2.3 million under siege, pounding the crowded strip with air strikes.

Gaza health officials, considered reliable by the United Nations, say more than 11,000 Palestinians are confirmed killed, around 40 per cent of them children, and more are buried under the rubble.

Israel has ordered the entire northern half of Gaza evacuated, and around two-thirds of residents are now homeless.

Israeli ground forces entered at the end of October and gradually tightened their circle around the Shifa complex.

The reported deaths of newborn babies in recent days added to international alarm.

Palestinians say hospitals are protected by the Geneva Conventions and Israel’s assault is a war crime.

Israel says Hamas fighters are to blame for harm to civilians by hiding among them.

Israeli troops enter Gaza’s Shifa hospital after gunbattle at gates

(Reuters/NAN)

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Syria not threat to world, rebel leader al-Sharaa tells BBC

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3 days ago

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December 19, 2024

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Ahmed al-Sharaa

Syria not threat to world, rebel leader al-Sharaa tells BBC

The de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said the country is exhausted by war and is not a threat to its neighbours or to the West.

In an interview with the BBC in Damascus, he called for sanctions on Syria to be lifted.

“Now, after all that has happened, sanctions must be lifted because they were targeted at the old regime. The victim and the oppressor should not be treated in the same way,” he said.

Sharaa led the lightning offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime less than two weeks ago. He is the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant group in the rebel alliance, and was previously known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

He said HTS should be de-listed as a terrorist organisation. It is designated as one by the UN, US, EU and UK, among many others, as it started as a splinter group of al-Qaeda, which it broke away from in 2016.

Sharaa said HTS was not a terrorist group.

They did not target civilians or civilian areas, he said. In fact, they considered themselves to be victim of the crimes of the Assad regime.

He denied that he wanted to turn Syria into a version of Afghanistan.

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Sharaa said the countries were very different, with different traditions. Afghanistan was a tribal society. In Syria, he said, there was a different mindset.

He said he believed in education for women.

“We’ve had universities in Idlib for more than eight years,” Sharaa said, referring to Syria’s north-western province that has been held by rebels since 2011.

“I think the percentage of women in universities is more than 60%.”

And when asked whether the consumption of alcohol would be allowed, Sharaa said: “There are many things I just don’t have the right to talk about because they are legal issues.”

He added that there would be a “Syrian committee of legal experts to write a constitution. They will decide. And any ruler or president will have to follow the law”.

Sharaa was relaxed throughout the interview, wearing civilian clothes, and tried to offer reassurance to all those who believe his group has not broken with its extremist past.

Many Syrians do not believe him.

The actions of Syria’s new rulers in the next few months will indicate the kind of country they want Syria to be – and the way they want to rule it.

Syria not threat to world, rebel leader al-Sharaa tells BBC

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Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted

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3 days ago

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December 19, 2024

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Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted

JERUSALEM: Israel said Thursday it struck ports and energy infrastructure it alleges are used by Houthi militants, after intercepting a missile fired by the group.

Israel’s military said it “conducted precise strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen — including ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa, which the Houthis have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military actions.”

The announcement came shortly after Israel said it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen.

Al-Masira, a media channel belonging to the Houthis, said a series of “aggressive raids” were launched in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeidah.

It reported raids that “targeted two central power plants” in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, while in Hodeidah it said “the enemy launched four aggressive raids targeting the port… and two raids targeting” an oil facility.

The strikes were the second time this week that Israel’s military has intercepted a missile from Yemen.

On Monday, the Houthis claimed a missile launch they said was aimed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of Yaffa” — a reference to Israel’s Tel Aviv area.

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Also Monday, an Israeli navy missile boat intercepted a drone in the Mediterranean after it was launched from Yemen, the military said.

The Houthi militants have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and pledged Monday to continue operations “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”

On December 9, a drone claimed by Houthis exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israel city of Yavne, causing no casualties.

In July, a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

The Houthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets by United States and sometimes British forces.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the group had become a “global threat,” pointing to Iran’s support for the militants.

“We will continue to act against anyone, anyone in the Middle East, that threatens the state of Israel,” he said.

 

Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted

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Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 20 people

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3 days ago

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December 19, 2024

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A Palestinian boy looks as others inspect the damage at a tent camp sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Al-Mawasi area, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, December 18, 2024. (Reuters)

Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 20 people

CAIRO: The United States, joined by Arab mediators, sought on Wednesday to conclude an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt the 14-month-old war in the Gaza Strip where medics said Israeli strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians overnight.

A Palestinian official close to the negotiations said on Wednesday that mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses. He said Israel had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected but would not elaborate.

On Tuesday, sources close to the talks in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, said an agreement could be signed in coming days on a ceasefire and a release of hostages held in Gaza in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya while six were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, Nuseirat camp in central areas, and Rafah near the border with Egypt.

In Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said four people were killed in an airstrike on a house. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military spokesman.

Israeli forces have operated in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya as well as the nearby Jabalia camp since October, in a campaign the military said aimed to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.

Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out acts of “ethnic cleansing” to depopulate the northern edge of the enclave to create a buffer zone. Israel denies it.

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Hamas does not disclose its casualties, and the Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish in its daily death toll between combatants and non-combatants.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it struck a number of Hamas militants planning an imminent attack against Israeli forces operating in Jabalia.

Later on Wednesday, Muhammad Saleh, director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, said Israeli shelling in the vicinity damaged the facility, wounding seven medics and one patient inside the hospital.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

In the Central Gaza camp of Bureij, Palestinian families began leaving some districts after the army posted new evacuation orders on X and in written and audio messages to mobile phones of some of the population there, citing new firing of rockets by Palestinian militants from the area.

CEASEFIRE GAINS MOMENTUM

The US administration, joined by mediators from Egypt and Qatar, has made intensive efforts in recent days to advance the talks before President Joe Biden leaves office next month.

In Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met Adam Boehler, US President-elect Donald Trump’s designated envoy for hostage affairs. Trump has threatened that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release its hostages by Jan. 20, the day Trump returns to the White House.

CIA Director William Burns was due in Doha on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on bridging remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, other knowledgeable sources said. The CIA declined to comment.

Israeli negotiators were in Doha on Monday looking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas on a deal Biden outlined in May.

There have been repeated rounds of talks over the past year, all of which have failed, with Israel insisting on retaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refusing to release hostages until the troops pulled out.

The war in Gaza, triggered by a Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw more than 250 abducted as hostages, has sent shockwaves across the Middle East and left Israel isolated internationally.

Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.

 

Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 20 people

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