Foreign News
Middle East Gaza Officials say Hospitals Come Under New Israeli Attacks
Gaza officials said Israel launched air strikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, further stressing the Palestinian enclave’s precarious health system as it struggles to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel’s war against Hamas militants.
“The Israeli occupation launched simultaneous strikes on a number of hospitals during the past hours”, Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra told Al Jazeera television.
The medical facilities included Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Jazeera Shifa, where Israel said Hamas has hidden command centres and tunnels, allegations Hamas denies.
Qidra said Israel targeted the Gaza City medical complex’s courtyard and there were casualties, but he did not provide details.
Israel’s military did not immediately comment on Qidra’s statement, which Reuters could not independently verify.
Gaza’s hospitals have struggled to care for victims of Israel’s month-old military campaign, aimed at obliterating Palestinian militant group Hamas, as medical supplies, clean water and fuel to power generators run out.
Gaza’s health ministry has said 18 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals and 40 other health centres were out of service either due to damage from bombardment or lack of fuel.
Palestinian media published video footage on Friday of Al Shifa, which Reuters was not immediately able to authenticate, that it said showed the aftermath of an Israeli attack on a parking lot where displaced Palestinians were sheltered and journalists were observing.
A pool of blood could be seen next to the body of a man being placed on a stretcher.
“With ongoing strikes and fighting nearby (Al Shifa), we are gravely concerned about the well-being of thousands of civilians there, many children among them, seeking medical care and shelter,” Human Rights Watch said on social media site X.
Qidra said Al-Rantisi Pediatric Hospital and Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital “have been witnessing a series of direct attacks and bombardments” on Friday.
He said strikes on the hospital grounds at Al-Rantisi set vehicles on fire but they had been partly extinguished.
Israel unleashed its assault in response to a cross-border Hamas raid on southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 in which Israel says 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 240 taken hostage. Israel says it has lost 35 soldiers in Gaza.
Palestinian officials said 10,812 Gaza residents had been killed as of Thursday, about 40 per cent of them children, in air and artillery strikes.
A humanitarian catastrophe has unfolded as basic supplies like food and water run out and shelling displaces civilians from their homes.
Israel’s military has said it has evidence that Hamas uses Al Shifa and other hospitals such as the Indonesian Hospital to hide command posts and entry points to an extensive tunnel network under Gaza.
It says it does not target civilians, and it has allowed some wounded Palestinian civilians to cross into Egypt for treatment.
But Israel’s military advance on central Gaza City, which brought tanks within about 1.2 kilometre (3/4 mile) of Al Shifa, according to residents, has raised questions about how Israel will interpret international laws on protecting medical centres and displaced people sheltering there. (Reuters/NAN)
Brad Smith, the president of technology giant Microsoft has issued a stark warning regarding foreign attempts to influence the U.S. presidential election in November.
“The most perilous moment will come, I think, 48 hours before the election,” Smith told a U.S. Senate hearing on Wednesday.
“That’s the lesson to be learned from, say, the Slovakian election last fall,” he added.
Smith said two days ahead of the parliamentary election vote in the European country “a Russian group” released and pushed, including by amplifying the story with a top Russian official, a deep fake audio purporting to reveal a vote-stealing plot.
“The Russian government is very capable, very sophisticated, not just in technology but in social science,” Smith said.
The Microsoft boss stressed that “there are real and serious threats,” including in the upcoming U.S. presidential election set to take place on Nov. 5.
The race for the White House may be between Republican candidate Donald Trump and the Democrats’ Kamala Harris, “but this is also becoming an election of Iran versus Trump and Russia versus Harris,” the Microsoft boss said.
“It is an election where Russia, Iran, and China are united with the common interest in discrediting democracy in the eyes of our voters,” Smith warned.
Just a few days ago, U.S. authorities exposed a Russian-sponsored campaign that deployed right-wing influencers.
Accounts masquerading as the websites of news outlets like conservative channel Fox News and newspaper The Washington Post posted fake stories.
On Wednesday, a Russian group published a video of Harris, manipulated with the help of artificial intelligence, in which words were put into her mouth that she never said, said Smith.
The administration in Washington has accused Russia of interfering in the U.S. presidential election campaign.
Similar accusations had been made in previous elections.
Smith testified alongside Meta’s Nick Clegg and Kent Walker, president and chief legal officer for Google’s Alphabet. (dpa/NAN)
Six staff members with the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees (UNRWA) were killed in Gaza on Wednesday when two Israeli airstrikes hit a school-turned-shelter and its surroundings.“This is the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident,” UNRWA said in a post on the social media platform, X.
At least 34 people were killed in the strikes, according to media reports. UNRWA said the shelter manager and other team members were among the victims. UN Secretary-General António Guterres deplored the bloodshed.“What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable,” he wrote on X.“These dramatic violations of international humanitarian law need to stop now.”The UNRWA school in Nuseirat, located in the Middle Area of the Gaza Strip, was sheltering around 12,000 displaced people, mainly women and children.This marked the fifth time that it had been hit since the conflict began 11 months ago.Earlier on Wednesday the UN said the site had been previously deconflicted with the Israeli forces.UNRWA called on all parties to the conflict to never use schools or the areas around them for military or fighting purposes.“No one is safe in Gaza. No one is spared. Schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times, they are not a target,” the tweet said.UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini lamented the “endless and senseless killing, day after day” in Gaza.Writing on X, he said at least 220 agency staff have lost their lives since the war began.“Humanitarian staff, premises and operations have been blatantly and unabatedly disregarded since the beginning of the war,” he said.He warned that “the longer impunity prevails, the more international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions will become irrelevant.”In a related development, the UN reported that health workers continue efforts to vaccinate young children in northern Gaza against polio, part of a wider campaign to defeat the disease, which can cause paralysis.More than 81,600 boys and girls were vaccinated as of Tuesday, according to preliminary data from the World Health Organisation (WHO).Polio was detected in Gaza in June and UN agencies and partners launched a two-round campaign this month to provide over 640,000 children with two doses of novel oral polio vaccine type 2.So far, nearly 528,000 children have been reached in the first round. (NAN)
An Israeli drone on Tuesday fired several missiles at a flat in a five-story building in the market town of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.Eight people were injured, according to an initial toll announced by the Lebanese Health Ministry.It was not immediately clear whether there were any Hezbollah members were in the targeted building.
Earlier, an Israeli drone assassinated a Hezbollah fighter riding a motorbike on the Bab Mareaa-Saghbine road in Western Bekaa and wounded two passersby. Hezbollah said that one of its fighters, Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, was killed but did not specify where and when he was killed.The Israeli army confirmed it “struck and eliminated” the terrorist Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, who served as a Hezbollah Radwan Force commander, in the area of Qaraoun,It added that the Israeli artillery struck the areas of Sawaneh and Aita al-Shaab.Since the war began between Israel and the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas in Gaza last October, there have been clashes between the Israeli army and the pro-Iranian Hezbollah in Lebanon in the border area.There have been casualties on both sides, most of them members of Hezbollah, which says it is acting in solidarity with Hamas. (dpa/NAN)
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