International

Netanyahu vows to increase military pressure on Hamas

Published

2 weeks ago

April 21, 2024

Netanyahu vows to increase military pressure on Hamas

Israel will increase ‘military pressure’ on Hamas in a bid to secure the release of hostages held in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed.

Netanyahu threatened action ‘in the coming days’ and promised Israeli forces would ‘deliver additional and painful blows’ without specifying further.

Despite an international outcry, Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the army will launch a ground assault on Rafah, a southern Gaza city so far spared an Israeli invasion where more than 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge.

Israeli strikes on Rafah overnight killed 22 people, including 18 children, health officials said Sunday.

The premier’s latest remarks came a day after US lawmakers approved $13 billion in new military aid to close ally Israel, even as global criticism mounts over the dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Hamas, whose October 7 attack triggered the Gaza war, said the US aid was a ‘green light’ for Israel to ‘continue the brutal aggression against our people’.

Netanyahu, in a video statement on Sunday, the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover, said Israel ‘will deliver additional and painful blows’ to Hamas.

‘In the coming days we will increase the military and political pressure on Hamas because this is the only way to free our hostages,’ he said.

‘We will land more and painful blows on Hamas – soon.’

Israel estimates 129 captives remain in Gaza after the October 7 Hamas attack, including 34 who the military says are dead.

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The army has said at least some of the hostages are held in Rafah, which has so far been spared an Israeli invasion and is where most of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have sought shelter.

Earlier this week, the G7 group of developed economies said that it opposed a ‘full-scale military operation’ there, fearing ‘catastrophic consequences’ for civilians.

Israeli forces had already been carrying out regular strikes on the city.

Netanyahu has faced pressure within Israel, with an anti-government rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday demanding action to secure the release of hostages.

Ofir Angrest, whose brother Matan was kidnapped on October 7, called for Jewish Israelis to leave an empty chair at their Seder meals, marking the beginning of Passover on Monday, to remember the captives.

Israel has carried out near-daily air raids on Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.

The first Israeli strike in Rafah killed a man, his wife and their 3-year-old child, according to the nearby Kuwaiti Hospital, which received the bodies. The woman was pregnant and the doctors saved the baby, the hospital said. The second strike killed 17 children and two women from an extended family.

‘These children were sleeping. What did they do? What was their fault?’ asked one relative, Umm Kareem. Another relative, Umm Mohammad, said the oldest killed, an 80-year-old aunt, was taken out ‘in pieces.’ Small children were zipped into body bags.

Mohammed al-Beheiri said his daughter, Rasha, and her six children, the youngest 18 months old, were among those killed. A woman and three children were still under the rubble.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, at least two-thirds of them children and women.

It has devastated Gaza’s two largest cities and left a swath of destruction. Around 80 per cent of the territory’s population have fled to other parts of the besieged coastal enclave.

The $26 billion aid package approved by the US House of Representatives on Saturday includes around $9 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza, which experts say is on the brink of famine. The Senate could pass the package as soon as Tuesday, and President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately.

The conflict, now in its seventh month, has sparked regional unrest pitting Israel and the US against Iran and allied militant groups across the Middle East. Israel and Iran traded fire directly this month, raising fears of all-out war between the longtime foes.

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Tensions have also spiked in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli troops killed two Palestinians who the military says attacked a checkpoint with a knife and a gun near the southern West Bank town of Hebron early Sunday.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the two killed were 18 and 19, from the same family. No Israeli forces were wounded, the army said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said it had recovered 14 bodies from an Israeli raid in the Nur Shams urban refugee camp in the West Bank that began late Thursday. Those killed include three militants from the Islamic Jihad group and a 15-year-old boy.

The military said it killed 14 militants in the camp and arrested eight suspects. Ten Israeli soldiers and one border police officer were wounded.

In a separate incident in the West Bank, an Israeli man was wounded in an explosion Sunday, the Magen David Adom rescue service said.

A video circulating online shows a man approaching a Palestinian flag planted in a field. When he kicks it, it appears to trigger an explosive device.

At least 469 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Most have been killed during Israeli military raids, which often trigger gunbattles, or in violent protests.

The war in Gaza was sparked by an unprecedented Oct. 7 raid into southern Israel in which Hamas and other militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages. Israel says militants are still holding around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for new elections to replace Netanyahu and a deal with Hamas to release the hostages. Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed and all the hostages are returned.

The war has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians and wounded another 76,980, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count. It says the real toll is likely higher as many bodies are stuck beneath the rubble or in areas that medics cannot reach.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militants fight in dense, residential neighborhoods. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children. The military says it has killed over 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.

Netanyahu vows to increase military pressure on Hamas

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International

Scammers steal over $3.4bn from older Americans – FBI report

Published

2 days ago

May 1, 2024

Trends Admin

Scammers steal over $3.4bn from older Americans – FBI report

Scammers stole more than $3.4 billion from older Americans last year, according to an FBI analysis issued Tuesday, indicating a spike in losses caused by increasingly sophisticated criminal tactics used to deceive the vulnerable into giving up their life savings.

Losses from scams reported by Americans over the age of 60 increased 11% last year compared to the previous year, according to the FBI.

Investigators are warning of an increase in brazen bank account-draining operations that entail deploying couriers in person to collect cash or gold from victims.

“It can have a devastating impact on older Americans who lack the ability to go out and make money,” said Deputy Assistant Director James Barnacle of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “People lose all their money. Some people become destitute.”

Last year, the FBI received more than 100,000 complaints from victims of scammers over the age of 60, with over 6,000 individuals losing more than $100,000.

It comes after a significant increase in reported losses by older Americans in the two years following the 2020 coronavirus epidemic, when people were confined to their homes and easier to reach over the phone.

Barnacle stated that investigators are finding organised, transnational criminal enterprises targeting older Americans through a variety of schemes, such as romance scams and investment frauds.

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Last year, the most common type of fraud reported by older individuals was tech support scams, in which scammers impersonate technical or customer care staff over the phone.

In one such scam, which authorities say is becoming more popular, criminals impersonate technology, banking, and government officials to convince victims that foreign hackers have infiltrated their bank accounts and that they should transfer their funds to a new account that the scammers secretly control.

According to the FBI, between May and December, there was an increase in scammers utilising live couriers to steal money from victims who were fooled into believing their accounts had been hijacked.

In those circumstances, scammers inform victims that their bank accounts have been compromised and that they must sell their possessions for cash or purchase gold or other precious metals to secure their savings. The fraudsters then arrange for a courier to collect it in person.

“A lot of the fraud schemes ask victims to send money via a wire transfer or a cryptocurrency transfer. When the victim is reluctant to do that, they’re given an alternative,” Barnacle said. “And so the bad guy will use courier services.”

According to prosecutors, an 81-year-old Ohio man shot and killed an Uber driver who he believed was attempting to rob him after receiving fraudulent phone calls earlier this month.

The man had been receiving calls from someone claiming to be an officer from the local court and demanding money.

The Uber driver had been instructed to get a package from the man’s residence, a request that officials believe was made by the same hoax caller or an accomplice.

The enormous losses to older Americans are most likely an underestimate. Only roughly half of the more than 880,000 complaints submitted to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre last year included information about the victim’s age.

Scammers steal over $3.4bn from older Americans – FBI report

International

Gaza: Protesters clash at UCLA, police arrest pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University

Published

2 days ago

May 1, 2024

Trends Admin

Gaza: Protesters clash at UCLA, police arrest pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University

Violent skirmishes broke out on Wednesday on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) between pro-Palestinian protesters and a group of counter-demonstrators, a live video coverage by a US broadcaster revealed.

According to the UCLA student publication Daily Bruin, supporters of Israel attempted to knock down a pro-Palestinian protest campsite on campus.

Police were responding to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block’s call for assistance, said Zach Seidl, Los Angeles Deputy Mayor of Communications, on X.

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The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, followed by an Israeli offensive on the Palestinian territory, has sparked the largest outpouring of US student action since the 2020 anti-racism rallies.

Aerial footage from KABC, an ABC affiliate, showed people using sticks or poles attacking wooden planks set up as a temporary barricade to defend pro-Palestinian protesters, some of whom held placards or umbrellas.

Late on Tuesday, New York City police detained scores of pro-Palestinian activists holed up in an academic building on Columbia University’s campus in New York and dismantled a protest encampment that the Ivy League school had attempted to destroy for nearly two weeks.

Gaza: Protesters clash at UCLA, police arrest pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University

Reuters

International

UN warns Israel assault on Gaza’s Rafah on ‘immediate horizon’

Published

2 days ago

May 1, 2024

Trends Admin

United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres

UN warns Israel assault on Gaza’s Rafah on ‘immediate horizon’

UNITED NATIONS, April 30 (Reuters) – The United Nations on Tuesday warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip was “on the immediate horizon” and that “incremental” progress by Israel on aid access to the enclave could not be used to prepare for or justify an operation.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for states with influence over Israel “to do everything in their power” to prevent an Israeli assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1.2 million displaced Gaza Palestinians are sheltering.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday to go ahead with a long-promised assault, whatever the response by Hamas to latest proposals for a halt to fighting in the nearly seven-month-long war and a return of Israeli hostages.

“The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon,” said U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths in a statement. “The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words.”

Israel pledged nearly a month ago to improve aid access to the enclave of 2.3 million people after U.S. President Joe Biden demanded steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, saying the U.S. could place conditions on support if Israel did not act.

Guterres told reporters that there had been “incremental progress” toward averting “an entirely preventable, human-made famine” in northern Gaza, but much more was urgently needed.

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“These improvements in bringing more aid into Gaza cannot be used to prepare for or justify a full-blown military assault on Rafah,” Griffiths said.

Guterres specifically called on Israel to follow through on its promise to open two crossings to the north.

“A major obstacle to distributing aid across Gaza is the lack of security for humanitarians and the people we serve. Humanitarian convoys, facilities and personnel, and the people in need must not be targets,” Guterres told reporters.

NO ALTERNATIVE TO LAND

A U.N.-backed report in March said famine was imminent and likely by May in northern Gaza, and could spread across the enclave by July. Guterres said the most vulnerable in the north “are already dying of hunger and disease.”

When asked what leverage the U.S. could use over its ally Israel to boost aid access and avert a Rafah assault, Guterres said: “It is very important to put all possible pressure in order to avoid what would be an absolutely devastating tragedy.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he will discuss with Netanyahu on Wednesday measures that Israel still needs to take to increase the flow of aid into Gaza.

“I strongly encourage the government of Israel and the Hamas leadership to reach now an agreement,” Guterres said. “Without that, I fear the war, with all its consequences both in Gaza and across the region, will worsen exponentially.”

The U.N. is in talks with the U.S. about a floating pier it is constructing to allow maritime aid deliveries to Gaza from Cyprus. Guterres said: “We welcome aid delivery by air and sea, but there is no alternative to the massive use of land routes.”

Israel’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Miller said last week that Israel continued “to elevate and step up” its aid support and that there had been substantial results with a “dramatic increase” in the volume of aid over the past several months.

Israel is retaliating against Hamas in Gaza over an Oct. 7 surprise attack on southern Israel led by the militant group.

Israel says about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people were taken hostage in the assault. Gaza health authorities say Israel has killed more than 34,000 people in its offensive in Hamas-run Gaza since then.