International

Lebanon local official says 19 killed in Israeli strike on family’s home

Published

1 month ago

October 24, 2024

Lebanon local official says 19 killed in Israeli strike on family’s home

At least 19 people, including six women and five children, were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, a local official has said.

Suad Hammoud told the BBC that the dead included former school principal Ahmed Ezzedine and three generations of his family, who all lived in the three-storey building in the village of Teffahta.

The village’s imam, Sheikh Abdo Abo Rayya, was killed while walking near the house at the time of the strike along with two passers-by, she added.

The Israeli military has not yet commented on the incident, but it has repeatedly said it takes measures to mitigate harm to civilians.

It has carried out thousands of air strikes across Lebanon over the past four weeks, targeting what it has said are the armed group Hezbollah’s operatives, infrastructure and weapons.

Ms Hammoud said Wednesday’s strike in Teffahta happened after the funeral for Ahmed Ezzedine’s cousin and brother-in-law, Khodr, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in the neighbouring village of Marwanieh on Monday.

But she said a report by the state-run National News Agency (NNA) that the strike had targeted a wake for mourners to express their condolences was incorrect.

“Only the house’s residents were there. They came back after the funeral. There were no strangers there,” she said.

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“People are aware that the circumstances do not allow them offering condolences in person, so there are no wakes in the village anymore.”

Also inside the house with Mr Ezzedine were his wife, sister, daughters, daughter-in-law, sons-in-law and his grandchildren, she said.

Mr Ezzedine lived on the ground floor, while his children and their families lived on the upper floors. But everyone is believed to have been on the ground floor when the house was hit.

A video posted on social media showed shortly afterwards showed a huge plume of smoke rising from a hillside in Teffahta where the house was located.

On Wednesday morning, Lebanese TV broadcast footage of a pile of rubble and twisted metal that once made up the upper floors.

The Lebanese health ministry has not reported how many people were killed in the strike. But Ms Hammoud and Teffahta’s community Facebook account put the death toll at 19.

The Facebook account named the five children as Mohammed Yassin, Ahmed and Malak Ezzedine, and Sara and Mohammed Kinyar, and the six women as Zaineb, Malak, Hadiya, Fadiya and Fatima Ezzedine and Zaina Taleb.

Sheikh Abo Rayya was walking near the house at the time of the strike, according to Ms Hammoud.

“The houses in the village aren’t isolated, they’re very close to one another,” she said, adding that another two men identified by the Facebook account as Rabih Younes and Hussein Saleh were also likely to have been passers-by killed by the explosion.

A relative of Sheikh Abo Rayya told the BBC that strike happened at about 17:10 local time, about 15 minutes after the funeral.

They insisted that the sheikh was not the target, noting that the house had been “obliterated”.

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“Sheikh Abdo was just passing by the house. He wasn’t inside the house. He was on his way to the mosque with his companion. They were going to prayers,” they said.

“The imam was going down the hill and the pressure wave blew him away. He didn’t die immediately. He was injured and died at the hospital around five hours later.”

Last week, the UN human rights office received reports that 12 women and two children were among 23 people killed in an Israeli air strike on a four-storey residential building in the northern Lebanese town of Aitou.

It called for an investigation into the attack, expressing concerns with respect to international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction and proportionality.

The Israeli military said it “struck a target belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation”.

Israel’s launched an air campaign and ground invasion against Hezbollah after almost a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the war in Gaza, saying it wanted to ensure the safe return of tens of thousands of residents of Israeli border areas displaced by rocket attacks.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Palestinians on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.

More than 2,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since then, including 1,900 in the past five weeks, according to the country’s health ministry. Israeli authorities say 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

Lebanon local official says 19 killed in Israeli strike on family’s home

BBC

International

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

Published

5 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.

Israeli strikes pound central Beirut, suburbs

ARAB NEWS

International

Over $100m wasted, Trump mocks Democrats for targeting him

Published

6 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Trends Admin

President-elect Donald Trump

Over $100m wasted, Trump mocks Democrats for targeting him

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has fiercely criticised the legal cases brought against him, calling them “empty and lawless”.

He accused Democrats of weaponising the judicial system to target him as a political opponent.

In a strongly worded statement, Trump alleged that over $100 million in taxpayer money had been wasted in what he described as a politically driven effort to undermine his influence.

“Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before,” he said, pointing to high-profile prosecutors, including Georgia’s Fani Willis and New York Attorney General Letitia James, as key figures in what he called a “political hijacking.”

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Trump also accused Willis of colluding with Nathan Wade, whom he described as “her lover” and lacking the experience to handle such cases.

He claimed Wade was paid “millions,” allegedly enabling lavish trips and cruises.

Letitia James, who is pursuing a civil fraud case against Trump, was also criticised.

Over $100m wasted, Trump mocks Democrats for targeting him

International

US-based Nigerians get 30-year sentence over $3.5m romance scam

Published

6 hours ago

November 26, 2024

Trends Admin

US-based Nigerians get 30-year sentence over $3.5m romance scam

A United States federal jury sentenced two Nigerians, Anthony Ibekie and Samuel Aniukwu, to 30 years in prison for scamming certain US citizens $3,500,000.

This was mentioned in a news statement made public on the US Department of Justice website on Monday.

According to the statement, the Nigerians, Ibekie and Aniukwu mislead their victims by informing them that they had received big inheritances that required payment to claim.

The couple would then ask their victims to transfer money, promising to refund them after the inheritances were claimed.

It also stated that the duo carried out romance scams by establishing romantic relationships with their victims and demanding them to send money after they had built trust in their victims.

It read, “An undercover law enforcement investigation has resulted in federal prison sentences for two Nigerian nationals residing in the Chicago suburbs who conducted online inheritance scams and other fraud schemes.

“Using aliases, Anthony Emeka Ibekie and Samuel Aniukwu communicated with victims throughout the United States, convincing them they had received substantial inheritances and needed to send money to individuals associated with the defendants in order to claim it.

“In addition to the inheritance scam, the pair carried out an online romance scam that involved communicating with victims via social media and dating websites, building trust with the victims through a purported online romance, and convincing them to send money to a predetermined recipient. Aniukwu and Ibekie also orchestrated a ‘business email compromise’ scam that targeted corporate email accounts.

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“The fraud schemes were uncovered by a covert law enforcement investigation. The scams resulted in losses to victims of at least $3.5 million.”

According to the statement, after being arraigned on 14 charges, the duo pleaded guilty to their different alterations.

Following their guilty pleas, Ibekie was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday, and Aniukwu was sentenced to 10 years in prison on November 8.

The statement continued, “A federal jury earlier this year convicted Ibekie, 59, of Oswego, Illinois, on all 14 counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, making false statements to a bank, and passport fraud. U.S. District Judge Steven C. Seeger on Thursday sentenced Ibekie to 20 years in federal prison.

“Aniukwu, 50, of Romeoville, Illinois, pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and money laundering charges. Judge Seeger on Nov. 8, 2024, sentenced Aniukwu to 10 years in prison.”

Meanwhile, Jennifer Gosha, an accomplice of the Nigerians and a US citizen, is expected to be sentenced on December 18 after pleading guilty.

“A third defendant, Jennifer Gosha, 52, a U.S. citizen from Oak Park, Ill., pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of wire fraud and making false statements to a federal agent. Gosha is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Seeger on December 18, 2024,” the statement concluded.