General Michael Kurilla, center right, head of US Central Command, with Israel’s military chief Lt. General Herzi Halevi, center left, in Tel Aviv earlier this week. (Israeli Army/AFP)
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Updated 09 August 2024
AFP
Israel army says US CENTCOM chief makes second visit to assess security
- General Michael Kurilla arrives in Israel for his second visit this week to assess the security situation amid fears of a region-wide conflict
Updated 09 August 2024
AFP
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JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Friday the head of US Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, had arrived in Israel for his second visit this week to assess the security situation amid fears of a region-wide Middle East war.
Israel’s army chief Lt. General Herzi Halevi and Kurilla, who arrived on Thursday, held a “situational assessment on security and strategic issues, as well as joint preparations in the region, as part of the response to threats in the Middle East,” the military said in a statement. Kurilla also visited on Monday.
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Updated 9 sec ago
Germany’s Scholz urges Israel to conclude hostage release and ceasefire
Updated 9 sec ago
BERLIN: Germany’s chancellor has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call that he should conclude a deal on a ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas, a German government spokesperson said on Sunday.
Many military objectives in the fight against Hamas have been achieved while civilian casualties and human suffering in Gaza are enormous, Olaf Scholz told Netanyahu, according to a German government statement.
“An end to the war in Gaza would be a decisive step toward a regional de-escalation,” the spokesperson said.
Updated 11 August 2024
Reuters
Iran’s president nominates new foreign and oil ministers
- Abbas Araghchi has been nominated as Iran’s new foreign minister
- Mohsen Paknezhad has been nominated as oil minister
Updated 11 August 2024
Reuters
DUBAI: President Masoud Pezeshkian has nominated two seasoned officials for key ministerial positions in Iran, as announced by the parliament speaker on the Student News Network.
Abbas Araghchi, a veteran diplomat and former chief negotiator in the nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers from 2013 to 2021, has been nominated as Iran’s new foreign minister.
Araghchi’s extensive diplomatic career includes serving as Iran’s ambassador to Turkiye and Japan and holding various high-level positions within the foreign ministry, such as deputy for legal and international affairs and deputy for political affairs. He holds a PhD in Political Thought from the University of Kent.
Meanwhile, Mohsen Paknezhad has been nominated as Iran’s oil minister.
Paknezhad’s previous roles include Deputy Minister of Oil for the supervision of hydrocarbon resources from 2018 to 2021, as well as various leadership positions within the Iranian Central Oil Fields Company and the National Iranian Oil Company.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran and a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Amirkabir University of Technology.
Topics: Iran
Updated 11 August 2024
AP
Israel broadens evacuation orders after deadly Gaza school strike
- Palestinians say nowhere in the besieged territory feels safe
- Hundreds of families carrying their belongings in their arms left their homes and shelters
Updated 11 August 2024
AP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: The Israeli military ordered more evacuations in southern Gaza early Sunday after a deadly airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in the north killed at least 80 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. Israel said it targeted a militant command post, killing at least 19 fighters.
Israel has repeatedly ordered mass evacuations as its troops have returned to heavily destroyed areas where they had previously battled Palestinian militants. The vast majority of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been displaced by the 10-month old war, often multiple times.
Hundreds of thousands have crammed into squalid tent camps with few public services or sought shelter in schools like the one struck on Saturday. Palestinians say nowhere in the besieged territory feels safe.
The latest evacuation orders apply to areas in Khan Younis, including part of an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone from which the military said rockets had been fired. Israel accuses Hamas and other militants of hiding among civilians and launching attacks from residential areas.
Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, suffered widespread destruction during an air and ground offensive earlier this year. Tens of thousands fled again last week after an earlier evacuation order.
Hundreds of families carrying their belongings in their arms left their homes and shelters early Sunday, seeking elusive refuge.
“We don’t know where to go,” said Amal Abu Yahia, a mother of three, who had returned to Khan Younis in June to shelter in their severely damaged home. “This is my fourth displacement,” said the 42-year-old widow, whose husband was killed when an Israeli airstrike hit their neighbors’ house in March.
She said they went to Muwasi, a sprawling tent camp along the coast, but could not find any space.
Ramadan Issa, a father of five in his 50s, fled Khan Younis with 17 members of his extended family, joining hundreds of people walking toward central Gaza early Sunday.
“Every time we settle in one place and build tents for women and children, the occupation comes and bombs the area,” he said, referring to Israel. “This situation is unbearable.”
Gaza’s Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll from the 10-month-old war is approaching 40,000, without saying how many were fighters. Aid groups have struggled to address the staggering humanitarian crisis in the territory, while international experts have warned of famine.
The war began when Hamas-led militants burst through Israel’s defenses on Oct. 7 and rampaged through farming communities and army bases near the border, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting around 250 people.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have spent months trying to mediate a ceasefire and the return of the roughly 110 remaining hostages, around a third of whom Israeli authorities believe to be deceased. The conflict has meanwhile threatened to trigger a regional war, as Israel has traded fire with Iran and its militant allies across the region.
The strike on Saturday hit a mosque inside a school in Gaza City where thousands of people were sheltering. The Gaza Health Ministry said 80 people were killed and around 50 wounded. The Israeli military disputed the toll, saying it had killed 19 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in a precise strike.
Gaza City and the rest of the north have been surrounded by Israeli forces and largely cut off from the world since late last year, and it was not possible to independently confirm details of the strike.
The UN human rights office says Israel has carried out “systematic attacks on schools,” which have served as shelters since the start of the war, with at least 21 hit since July 4, leaving hundreds dead, including women and children.
European leaders condemned the strike, while the US said it was concerned about the reports of civilian casualties. Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking to reporters traveling with her in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday, said: “Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed.”
“We need a hostage deal and we need a ceasefire,” she said. “The deal needs to get done and it needs to get done now.”
Topics: War on Gaza
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Updated 11 August 2024
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Iran condemns ‘barbaric’ Israeli strike on Gaza school
- Iran does not recognize Israel and has made support for the Palestinian cause a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution
Updated 11 August 2024
AFP
TEHRAN, Iran: Iran condemned a “barbaric” Israeli air strike on a school in Gaza housing displaced Palestinians that left dozens dead on Saturday, calling it a “war crime.”
The attack showed once again that Israel “does not respect any of the rules and regulations of international law and moral and human principles,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement.
He said the strike was “a clear example of the simultaneous perpetration of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity” by Israel.
Kanani called for “firm action by Muslim and freedom-loving countries around the world to support the Palestinian nation and its legitimate struggles and resistance against the occupation.”
The civil defense agency in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, said 93 people were killed in the strike.
Israel’s military accused Hamas militants of using the building as a command center.
AFP could not independently verify the toll which, if confirmed, would be one of the largest from a single strike during 10 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Iran does not recognize Israel and has made support for the Palestinian cause a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Tehran has hailed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel but denied any involvement.
Tensions between Iran and Israel have soared since the killing on July 31 of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Tehran, which blamed Israel and vowed to retaliate.
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Updated 11 August 2024
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Hezbollah says launched ‘squadrons of drones’ at Israel after Sidon attack
- Ten months of cross-border violence has killed some 562 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to the AFP tally
Updated 11 August 2024
AFP
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon’s Iran-back Hezbollah group said it launched on Saturday explosive-laden drones at a north Israel army base following the killing of a Hamas commander in south Lebanon a day earlier.
Hezbollah fighters launched “squadrons of explosive-laden drones” at the Michve Alon base near the Galilee town of Safed “in response to the attack and assassination carried out by the Israeli enemy in the city of Sidon” on Friday, the group said in a statement.
Hezbollah’s media office said it was “the first time” the group had targeted that base.
On Friday, an Israeli strike on a vehicle in the south Lebanon city of Sidon killed a Hamas commander, the Palestinian militant group and the Israeli military said.
Hamas said in a statement that Samer Al-Hajj was killed “in a Zionist strike in the city of Sidon.”
The Israeli military said that its aircraft struck the Sidon area and “eliminated” Hajj, whom it identified as “a senior commander” for Hamas in Lebanon.
It was the first strike of its kind in Sidon since Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, triggering war in Gaza and prompting its Lebanese ally Hezbollah to begin trading near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army in a bid to tie down its troops.
Ten months of cross-border violence has killed some 562 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including at least 116 civilians, according to the AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
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