BEIRUT — Sixty-eight pro-Iran militants were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Syrian city of Palmyra, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said on Thursday.
Those killed in Wednesday’s strikes included 42 fighters from pro-Iran Syrian groups, 26 foreign fighters, most of them from the Iraqi Al-Nujaba movement, and four from Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group, the monitor said.
AN-AFP
GAZA — A Hamas official said on Wednesday that there would be no prisoner exchange without the Gaza ceasefire.
“We say clearly, we want this aggression to stop, and it must stop first in order to carry out any prisoner exchange,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, was quoted by Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV as saying.
Al-Hayya noted that communications with various countries and intermediaries are ongoing, emphasizing that they are “ready and proactive.” However, he stressed the key lies in “the occupation’s true will to stop the aggression.”
Al-Hayya reaffirmed that Hamas is exploring all paths to stop the “aggression,” affirming that “as Palestinians, we want, in the clearest terms, the cessation of the aggression.”
He said Hamas supports the creation of a committee to handle Gaza-related issues, “with the essential condition that this committee manages Gaza fully and locally, handling all matters related to daily life there.”
Al-Hayya underscored the importance of productive meetings in Cairo with Fatah and other Palestinian leaders, which have advanced unity efforts.
“Gaza is not isolated; it is an integral part of the Palestinian national fabric. We call for continued coordination between Gaza and the West Bank to safeguard the interests of the Palestinian people and prevent divisions or threats,” he said.
XINHUA
BELGRADE — Serbia’s Minister of Domestic and Foreign Trade, Tomislav Momirovic, has submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Milos Vucevic on Wednesday, national public broadcaster RTS reported.
Momirovic’s resignation came after President Aleksandar Vucic said that additional government officials would bear political responsibility for the tragic collapse of a concrete canopy at Novi Sad railway station on Nov. 1.
That incident left 15 dead and two critically injured after the falling canopy trapped 17 people under rubble.
Although the accident is not under Momirovic’s current portfolio, he served as minister of construction, transport, and infrastructure from 2020 to 2022. Goran Vesic, the minister of construction at the time of the incident, resigned shortly after the tragedy.
RTS also reported that Jelena Tanaskovic, acting director of the state enterprise Serbian Infrastructure Railways, has stepped down.
The tragedy has sparked a public outcry, with opposition protests erupting in Novi Sad and Belgrade. On Wednesday, clashes took place between protesters and police in Novi Sad.
XINHUA
GAZA — Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), said on Wednesday that Gaza has become a “graveyard” for children.
“They are being killed, injured, forced to flee, and deprived of safety, education, and play,” Lazzarini said in a statement marking World Children’s Day, observed annually on Nov. 20.
“Their childhood has been stolen, and they are on the verge of becoming a lost generation, having lost another school year,” Lazzarini said.
He noted that children in the West Bank are enduring constant fear and anxiety. Since last October, more than 170 children have been killed, while many others have lost their childhood to detention in Israeli facilities.
On Wednesday, Palestinian groups called for international action to protect children in Gaza and the West Bank, highlighting the catastrophic humanitarian conditions they are enduring.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement emphasizing that children are the most vulnerable and affected by Israeli practices, enduring dire conditions that violate their fundamental rights, including the right to life.
The ministry warned that children in Gaza face a real threat, with hundreds of thousands estimated to be suffering from severe shortages of food and clean drinking water.
The statement also emphasized that children in the West Bank are consistently subjected to the same “criminal” policies, such as arbitrary detention, and face illegal trials, which blatantly violate their rights under international agreements.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian National Council said that children in Gaza are “paying the heavy price” since October 2023, “in full view of the world, which remains unable to stop this genocide.”
A statement issued by the council on the occasion noted that the bodies of Gaza’s children have been exposed to various weapons, including rockets and bombs, as well as “the most horrific images of killing and destruction,” with many dying from hunger, thirst, and diseases due to the siege. Thousands of children have become orphans.
XINHUA
PUTRAJAYA — Seorang wanita hamil antara tiga maut manakala seorang lagi wanita hamil parah selepas kereta dinaiki mereka terbabas berhampiran pusat beli-belah IOI City Mall di sini, tengah malam tadi.
Mangsa yang meninggal dunia adalah Muhammad Danial Mohd Nuzi, 24, Nurulhuda Ramli, 41, dan Amizan Sapiie, 27, manakala mangsa yang parah dikenal pasti sebagai Nizasuhana Ujang, 28.
Penolong Pengarah Operasi Jabatan Bomba dan Penyelamat Malaysia (JBPM) Selangor Ahmad Mukhlis Mokhtar, berkata anggota dari Balai Bomba dan Penyelamat (BBP) Cyberjaya dikejarkan ke lokasi sebaik menerima laporan kemalangan pada jam 12.10 tengah malam.
Katanya, kemalangan membabitkan sebuah kereta Perodua Viva yang dipercayai terbabas sendiri.
“Terdapat empat mangsa masing-masing dalam kereta, dua lelaki dan dua perempuan hamil. Seorang wanita hamil cedera parah dan sudah dihantar ke Hospital Putrajaya.
“Dua lelaki dan seorang lagi wanita hamil disahkan meninggal dunia oleh pihak Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia (KKM),” katanya dalam kenyataan hari ini.
Ahmad Mukhlis berkata mayat ketiga-tiga mangsa yang meninggal dunia diserahkan kepada pihak polis.
BH ONLINE
NEW YORK — A major storm swept across the northwest United States, battering the region with strong winds and rain, causing widespread power outages and downing trees that killed at least one person, according to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The Weather Prediction Center issued excessive rainfall risks through Friday and hurricane-force wind warnings were in effect as the strongest atmospheric river, a large plume of moisture, that California and the Pacific Northwest has seen this season overwhelmed the region.
The storm system is considered a “bomb cyclone,” which occurs when a cyclone intensifies rapidly.
Rainfall of 12 to 16 inches (30 to 40 centimeters) was expected over far northern California and far southwest Oregon into Friday, the center said. The intensity was expected to peak Thursday, with flash flooding, rock slides and debris flows likely.
Heavy, wet snow was expected to continue along the Cascades and in parts of far northern California. Forecasters warned of blizzard and whiteout conditions and near impossible travel at pass level due to accumulation rates of 2 to 3 inches (5 to 7.6 centimeters) per hour and wind gusts of up to 65 mph (105 kph).
XINHUA
PESHAWAR — A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at a security post in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 11 security forces and wounding several others, four intelligence and security officials said Wednesday.
The attack, one of the deadliest in recent months, happened Tuesday evening in Bannu, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. There was no immediate comment by the government, but the security and intelligence officials said security personnel were carrying out an operation targeting those who orchestrated the attack.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Pakistan has witnessed a steady increase in violence since November 2022, when the Pakistani Taliban ended a monthslong ceasefire with the government in Islamabad.
The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group but are allies of the Afghanistan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan emboldened the TTP, whose top leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.
In December 2023, a suicide bomber targeted a police station’s main gate in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in northwestern Pakistan, killing 23 troops.
Tuesday’s attack happened in Bannu while the country’s political and military leadership was meeting in Islamabad to discuss how to respond to the surge in militant violence.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday approved a “comprehensive military operation” against separatist groups, including the Balochistan Liberation Army, in southwestern Balochistan province. The order came following a Nov. 9 suicide attack by the group at a train station that killed 26 people in Quetta, the capital of the province.
In recent months. violence has also surged in northwest Pakistan, where security forces often target TTP and the Gul Bahadur group.
Abdullah Khan, a senior defense analyst and managing director of the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies, said over 900 security forces have been killed in militant attacks in Pakistan since 2022, when TTP ended the ceasefire with the government.
“TTP and other groups have expanded their operations, showing they are getting more recruits, money and weapons,” Khan said. He said there is a need for political stability in the country to defeat the insurgents.
Pakistan has experienced a political crisis since 2022, when then-Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament.
He was arrested and imprisoned in 2023. Since then, his supporters have been rallying to demand his release.
AN-AP
PORT SUDAN — A medic on Wednesday said 40 people were killed “by gunshot wounds” during a paramilitary attack on the Sudanese village of Wad Oshaib in the central state of Al-Jazira.
Eyewitnesses in the village told AFP the Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023, attacked the village on Tuesday evening. “The attack resumed this morning,” one eyewitness said by phone Wednesday, adding that paramilitary fighters were “looting property.”
AN-AFP
BEIRUT — A war monitor said Israeli strikes on central Syria’s Palmyra on Wednesday killed four pro-Iran fighters, while Syrian state media reported an unspecified number of wounded in the attack.
“Four non-Syrian fighters from pro-Iran groups were killed and six others including civilians were wounded in a provisional toll of the Israeli strikes” on Palmyra, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The strikes targeted “a warehouse in the industrial area and a restaurant and buildings near the ancient city of Palmyra,” the Britain-based Observatory added.
State news agency SANA said an “Israeli attack… targeted residential buildings and the industrial area” of the city, renowned for its ancient ruins.
State television reported unspecified “wounded due to the Israeli attack that targeted the city of Palmyra.”
Since the civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed armed groups, including Hezbollah.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes since almost a year of hostilities with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into all-out war in late September.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence there.
AN-AFP
KABUL — Checking imported books, removing texts from libraries and distributing lists of banned titles — Taliban authorities are working to remove “un-Islamic” and anti-government literature from circulation.
The efforts are led by a commission established under the Ministry of Information and Culture soon after the Taliban swept to power in 2021 and implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia.
In October, the ministry announced the commission had identified 400 books “that conflicted with Islamic and Afghan values, most of which have been collected from the markets.”
The department in charge of publishing has distributed copies of the Qur’an and other Islamic texts to replace seized books, the ministry statement said.
The ministry has not provided figures for the number of removed books, but two sources, a publisher in Kabul and a government employee, said texts had been collected in the first year of Taliban rule and again in recent months.
“There is a lot of censorship. It is very difficult to work, and fear has spread everywhere,” the Kabul publisher told AFP.
Books were also restricted under the previous foreign-backed government ousted by the Taliban, when there was “a lot of corruption, pressures and other issues,” he said.
But “there was no fear, one could say whatever he or she wanted to say,” he added.
“Whether or not we could make any change, we could raise our voices.”
AFP received a list of five of the banned titles from an information ministry official.
It includes “Jesus the Son of Man” by renowned Lebanese-American author Khalil Gibran, for containing “blasphemous expressions,” and the “counterculture” novel “Twilight of the Eastern Gods” by Albanian author Ismail Kadare.
“Afghanistan and the Region: A West Asian Perspective” by Mirwais Balkhi, an education minister under the former government, was also banned for “negative propaganda.”
During the Taliban’s previous rule from 1996 to 2001, there were comparatively few publishing houses and booksellers in Kabul, the country having already been wracked by decades of war.
Today, thousands of books are imported each week alone from neighboring Iran — which shares the Persian language with Afghanistan — through the Islam Qala border crossing in western Herat province.
Taliban authorities rifled through boxes of a shipment at a customs warehouse in Herat city last week.
One man flipped through a thick English-language title, as another, wearing a camouflage uniform with a man’s image on the shoulder patch, searched for pictures of people and animals in the books.
“We have not banned books from any specific country or person, but we study the books and we block those that are contradictory to religion, sharia or the government, or if they have photos of living things,” said Mohammad Sediq Khademi, an official with the Herat department for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV).
“Any books that are against religion, faith, sect, sharia… we will not allow them,” the 38-year-old told AFP, adding the evaluations of imported books started some three months ago.
Images of living things — barred under some interpretations of Islam — are restricted according to a recent “vice and virtue” law that codifies rules imposed since the Taliban returned to power, but the regulations have been unevenly enforced.
Importers have been advised of which books to avoid, and when books are deemed unsuitable, they are given the option of returning them and getting their money back, Khademi said.
“But if they can’t, we don’t have any other option but to seize them,” he added.
“Once, we had 28 cartons of books that were rejected.”
Authorities have not gone from shop to shop checking for banned books, an official with the provincial information department and a Herat bookseller said, asking not to be named.
However, some books have been removed from Herat libraries and Kabul bookstores, a bookseller told AFP, also asking for anonymity, including “The History of Jihadi Groups in Afghanistan” by Afghan author Yaqub Mashauf.
Books bearing images of living things can still be found in Herat shops.
In Kabul and Takhar — a northern province where booksellers said they had received the list of 400 banned books — disallowed titles remained on some shelves.
Many non-Afghan works were banned, one seller said, “so they look at the author, whose name is there, and they are mostly banned” if they’re foreign.
His bookshop still carried translations of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “The Gambler” and fantasy novel “Daughter of the Moon Goddess” by Sue Lynn Tan.
But he was keen to sell them “very cheap” now, to clear them from his stock.
AN-AFP
The US embassy in Kyiv has received information of a potential significant air attack on Wednesday and will be closed, the US Department of State Consular Affairs said in a statement.
“Out of an abundance of caution, the embassy will be closed, and embassy employees are being instructed to shelter in place,” the department said in a statement published on the website of the US embassy in Kyiv.
“The US Embassy recommends US citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced.”
The warning comes a day after Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory, taking advantage of newly granted permission from the outgoing administration of US President Joe Biden on the war’s 1,000th day.
Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire US, British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in October that Moscow will respond to Ukraine’s strikes with US-made weapons deep into Russia.
On Tuesday, Putin lowered the threshold for a nuclear strike in response to a broader range of conventional attacks, with nuclear risks rising amid the highest tensions between Russia and West in more than half a century.
AN-REUTERS
MOSCOW — Moscow’s revised nuclear doctrine outlines the possibility of a nuclear response if Kiev uses Western-made missiles against Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression against it or the Republic of Belarus, … with the use of conventional weapons, in a way that poses a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity,” Peskov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree approving Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine on Tuesday.
The spokesperson further said that Russia would view the use of Western non-nuclear missiles by Ukraine as an attack by a non-nuclear state with the support of a nuclear state against the country, potentially justifying the use of nuclear weapons by Moscow.
Peskov said that the doctrine outlines that “aggression against Russia by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state” would be considered a joint attack.
XINHUA
DAMASCUS — U.S. airstrikes killed five members of Iran-backed militias and wounded several others in eastern Syria on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britain-based monitoring group reported that U.S. warplanes targeted military gatherings in the Al-Quriyah desert of Deir ez-Zor province. It said the strikes came after a rocket believed to be fired by pro-Iran militiamen landed near a U.S. base in the countryside of al-Hasakah province in northeastern Syria.
Meanwhile, intermittent explosions of unknown origin were heard at a U.S. military base inside the al-Omar oil field base in Deir ez-Zor, the observatory said.
U.S. fighter jets were seen flying over several villages, reaching as far as the town of Mayadeen in Deir ez-Zor’s countryside near the Iraqi border, according to the observatory.
There were no immediate reports of additional casualties.
The region has seen increased tensions between U.S. forces and Iran-backed groups, which have a significant presence in eastern Syria.
XINHUA
RAMALLAH — Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli army gunfire in the eastern neighborhood of Jenin city in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, according to Palestinian medical sources.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its team retrieved two bodies from a house in the neighborhood.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that two unidentified victims were brought to Jenin Government Hospital after being shot by the Israeli army in the eastern neighborhood. No further details were provided about the incident.
The Israeli army has not commented on this incident yet. Israel usually described these raids in the West Bank as “counter-terrorism operations” targeting “terrorists” linked to Palestinian armed groups.
The death toll of Palestinians has risen to five during Israeli raids in Jenin since Tuesday morning, with three Palestinians killed earlier in the day during an Israeli army siege on a house in the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin.
Since the outbreak of the Hamas-Israel conflict on Oct. 7, 2023, violence in the West Bank has intensified, resulting in the deaths of over 780 Palestinians due to Israeli gunfire and airstrikes, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
XINHUA
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel was offering a reward of $5 million to anybody who brings out a hostage held in Gaza.
“Anybody who brings out a hostage will find with us a secure way for them and their family to leave” Gaza, Netanyahu said in a video filmed inside the Palestinian territory, according to his office.
“We will also give them a reward of $5 million for each hostage.”
Wearing a helmet and a bullet-proof jacket, Netanyahu spoke with his back to the Mediterranean in the Netzarim Corridor, Israel’s main military supply route which carves the Gaza Strip in two just south of Gaza City.
“Anyone who dares to do harm to our hostages is considered dead — we will pursue you and we will catch up with you,” he said.
Accompanied by Defense Minister Israel Katz, Netanyahu underlined that one of Israel’s war aims remained that “Hamas does not rule in Gaza.”
“We are also making efforts to locate the hostages and bring them home. We won’t give up. We will continue until we’ve found them all, alive or dead.”
During Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, militants took 251 hostages. Of those, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who have been confirmed dead.
AN-AFP
BEIRUT — Four Ghanaian peacekeepers on duty sustained injuries on Tuesday as a rocket hit their base in the east of the southern Lebanese village of Ramyah, according to a statement by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The rocket was “fired most likely by non-State actors within Lebanon,” said the statement, noting that three of the peacekeepers were transferred to a hospital for treatment.
On the same day, UNIFIL peacekeepers and facilities were affected by two other separate incidents. One involved the UNIFIL West Sector headquarters in Chamaa, where five rockets hit the maintenance workshop, though no peacekeepers were injured. This marked the second time in less than a week that the base had been impacted by the ongoing clashes between Israel and Hezbollah. On Nov. 15, a 155mm live artillery shell had struck the base.
In another incident, an armed person fired at a UNIFIL patrol passing through a road northeast of the village of Khirbet Selm. There were no reports of injuries among the peacekeepers.
The UN mission has informed the Lebanese Armed Forces about the incidents and launched investigations into each.
“UNIFIL once again reminds all actors involved in the ongoing hostilities to respect the inviolability of United Nations peacekeepers and premises. The pattern of regular attacks — direct or indirect — against peacekeepers must end immediately,” said the statement.
UNIFIL sites and installations have previously been attacked, leading to injuries, amidst the ongoing conflict between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
XINHUA
SEOUL, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) — Three researchers suffocated to death at a plant of South Korea’s Hyundai Motor, Yonhap news agency said Tuesday.
The researchers were found by another employee lying in the vehicle performance test chamber of the plant in the country’s southeastern port city of Ulsan at about 3:00 p.m. local time (0600 GMT). They were taken to hospital but all died.
They were believed to have suffocated while working in the chamber, about the size of one vehicle, to test a driving performance.
Exhaust emissions were estimated not to be discharged to the outside during the testing in the chamber.
Police were investigating the exact cause of the accident.
XINHUA
PESHAWAR — Unidentified gunmen abducted seven policemen from a check post on Monday in Pakistan’s northwestern district of Bannu, police said, as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province battles a rise in militant attacks on cops and other government officials.
Pakistan’s northwest has seen a rise in militant attacks in recent months, which Islamabad says are mostly carried out by Afghan nationals and their facilitators and by Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups who cross over into Pakistan using safe haven in Afghanistan.
The Taliban government in Kabul says Pakistan’s security challenges are a domestic issue and cannot be blamed on the neighbor.
Police data shows 75 policemen have been killed and 113 injured in militant attacks and targeted assassinations in 2024 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan.
“Armed men abducted seven police personnel from the Rocha checkpoint in the jurisdiction of Utmanzai Police Station in Bannu district,” District Police Officer (DPO) Zia Uddin told Arab News, saying up to 40 gunmen first surrounded the checkpoint in the mountainous area of Sub-Division Wazir on Monday evening.
“The armed men abducted seven police personnel from the Rocha checkpoint in the jurisdiction of Utmanzai Police Station in Bannu district.”
The militants also took away all weapons and equipment at the checkpoint.
“Four police personnel escaped as they were not present at the location at the time,” the DPO added.
The Pakistani government and security officials have said repeatedly that such attacks have risen in recent months, many of them claimed by the TTP and launched from Afghan soil.
The TTP is separate from the Afghan Taliban movement, but pledges loyalty to the Islamist group that now rules Afghanistan after US-led international forces withdrew in 2021.
Islamabad says TTP uses Afghanistan as a base and says the ruling Taliban administration has provided safe havens to the group close to the border. The Taliban deny this.
AN
YAOUNDE — At least three people – a soldier and two civilians – have been killed in a separatist attack in Cameron’s war-torn northwest region, local and security sources said Monday evening.
The civilians were driving along the Ndu-Foumban road early Monday when separatist fighters ambushed them, a security source in the region said.
“They (the civilians) gave the soldier a lift. Along the way, the separatists who were hiding in the bush opened fire on their car, killing three people and injuring two others,” the source told Xinhua.
Additional troops have been deployed to the road where attacks have become recurrent.
A separatist insurgency has been going on in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest since 2017.
Armed separatists want to secede from the largely French-speaking Cameroon and create an independent nation in the English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest.
XINHUA
GAZA — Twenty people were killed on Monday in a security operation east of Rafah, southern Gaza, which was supported by Hamas and targeted gangs accused of looting aid trucks entering Gaza, according to Al-Aqsa TV channel of Hamas.
Sources in the local authorities told Al-Aqsa TV that the operation, in cooperation with tribal committees, marks the beginning of a broader security campaign targeting those involved in stealing aid trucks.
The campaign “does not target specific tribes but aims to eradicate the phenomenon of truck thefts that have significantly impacted the community and caused famine-like conditions in southern Gaza,” the sources said.
Local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua that they heard heavy gunfire and explosions during the operation, which lasted for several hours in border areas east of Rafah.
The operation came two days after the “gangs” seized dozens of aid trucks, particularly those carrying flour, causing severe shortages and widespread public discontent, they told Xinhua.
Also on Monday, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said on social media platform X that a 109-truck UN convoy carrying food supplies was “violently looted” on Saturday after entering Gaza, as 97 of its trucks were lost and the drivers were forced at gunpoint to unload aid.
“The Israeli authorities continue to disregard their legal obligations under international law to ensure the population’s basic needs are met and to facilitate the safe delivery of aid. Such responsibilities continue when trucks enter the Gaza Strip until people are reached with essential assistance,” it said.
Gazans have repeatedly demanded actions against those looting aid trucks entering Gaza so as to prevent the aid from being sold on black markets at inflated prices.
XINHUA
CHANGSHA — Multiple students were injured Tuesday morning after being struck by a car outside a primary school in Changde City, central China’s Hunan Province.
XINHUA
NEW YORK — A homeless man killed two people and critically wounded another one in a series of random stabbing in Manhattan early Monday, said New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The 51-year-old man, who had been arrested eight times before, was arrested shortly after his attack on the third victim.
Investigation is going on and law enforcement departments in New York City are not looking for any additional suspects at this time, according to Adams.
“It is a clear, clear example of the criminal justice system, mental health system that continues to fail New Yorkers,” Adams said.
XINHUA
GAZA — At least 50 Palestinians were killed, including women and children, and many others injured on Monday in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza said.
The Civil Defense said in a press statement that Israeli bombing targeted residential homes and shelters for displaced people in Beit Lahia and Jabalia in northern Gaza, the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, and the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah in the south.
It said its work remained halted across northern Gaza due to “continued Israeli targeting and aggression,” leaving thousands of citizens without humanitarian response, medical care, and relief.
Meanwhile, Raed Al-Namas, a media official of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, told journalists in Gaza that the health system in the north is deteriorating due to shortages of medical supplies and personnel.
The services provided are at a minimum, and 12,000 injured people require treatment outside the Strip, Al-Namas said.
Israel has been launching a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.
The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza has risen to 43,922, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Monday.
XINHUA
RAMALLAH — A young man was killed by Israeli army gunfire in the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Monday.
The ministry said in a press release that 18-year-old Nour Arafat died from gunshot wounds to his chest, abdomen, and shoulder after being shot in the al-Masaken al-Sha’biya neighborhood of Nablus.
Local sources and eyewitnesses told Xinhua that clashes erupted after Israeli military forces raided the neighborhood in eastern Nablus, during which soldiers fired live ammunition.
Arafat, critically injured in the clash, was later transported to hospital, where he was pronounced dead, said the sources.
The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education issued a statement on Monday mourning Arafat, who was a high school student.
No comment has been made by the Israeli army regarding the incident.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, more than 770 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire and bombings in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
XINHUA
JERUSALEM — A woman was killed and 10 others wounded in a rocket attack on northern Israel on Monday, Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said.
The woman was trapped in a building hit in the Arab town of Shfar’am in Galilee and later pronounced dead, it said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said in a statement that about 10 rockets crossed into Israel from Lebanon, and Israel’s aerial defense systems attempted to intercept them.
Israel’s state-owned Kan TV news said the rockets were fired by Hezbollah.
XINHUA
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks… even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
AN-AFP, Nov 18, 2024
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s health ministry said Israel struck a densely packed Beirut neighborhood on Monday, killing at least four people, in the third attack in two days on the city’s central districts.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Zuqaq Al-Blat in Beirut killed four people and injured 18,” a ministry statement said in preliminary toll.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said an apartment near a Shiite Muslim place of worship had been targeted.
“A hostile drone targeted a residential apartment behind the Husseiniya of Zuqaq Al-Blat in the capital Beirut, causing great damage,” the NNA said.
An AFP correspondent in the area heard two blasts, and said the raid badly damaged the ground floor of a building.
Reporters elsewhere in the city heard ambulance sirens.
The densely populated working class district of Zuqaq Al-Blat has welcomed many displaced people who fled Israeli strikes on south and east Lebanon, as well as south Beirut — areas where the Iran-backed Hezbollah holds sway.
The strike hit near a building housing many displaced Lebanese, the AFP correspondent said.
It was cordoned off by security forces as residents rushed to help in the rescue efforts, he added.
Several hundreds of meters (yards) away was the site of a similar strike on Sunday, in the Mar Elias neighborhood, which the Lebanese health ministry said killed three people including a woman.
Israel has not commented on Monday’s and Sunday’s strikes in central Beirut, but confirmed one air raid in the area the killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
The strike, also on Sunday, hit the Lebanese office of the Syrian Baath party, killing Afif and four other members of his media team, Hezbollah said, with the health ministry saying seven people had been killed in total.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops following almost a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,510 people have been killed since Hezbollah-Israel clashes began in October last year, with most casualties recorded since war erupted in September.
AN-AFP, Nov 18, 2024
KASHGAR — Three students were seriously injured in a stampede at a high school in Kashgar Prefecture, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on Monday, local authorities said.
The three seriously injured were being treated in hospital, while 11 others with slight injuries were also hospitalized for further observation.
The stampede occurred at around 3:25 p.m. at the Kashgar No. 8 High School when a student accidentally fell on the staircase of their dormitory building, causing other students to fall from behind, according to the prefecture’s publicity department.
At the time of the accident, the schoolboys were on their way to class from their dormitory building.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is underway.
XINHUA
KIEV — A Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa killed at least eight people on Monday, according to Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper.
Kiper said on Telegram that at least 18 people, including a child, were also injured in the strike, while Lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said that the attack ignited two residential buildings.
Earlier on Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile attack killed at least 11 people and injured 89 others in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy, according to the State Service for Emergencies.
One missile hit a nine-story apartment building within a densely populated residential area, while another struck critical infrastructure, leaving the city without power. The strikes damaged at least six apartment buildings and 14 vehicles, forcing about 400 people to evacuate.
XINHUA
DAR ES SALAAM — Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has ordered an inspection of all storied buildings in the port city of Dar es Salaam’s Kariakoo suburb to establish their validity as the number of people killed in the collapse of a four-story building rose from five on Saturday to 13 on Sunday.
A statement issued Sunday by the Directorate of Presidential Communications from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said President Hassan made the order following the collapse of the four-story building in Kariakoo on Saturday morning.
Hassan is in Brazil to attend the G20 summit, which starts on Monday.
According to the statement, 84 people who were trapped in the rubble of the building had been rescued by Sunday evening, and 26 of them were still receiving treatment in hospitals.
Hassan also ordered the Tanzania police force to get a detailed report from the owner of the collapsed building on how it collapsed.
She said the government would cover medical expenses for the victims and funeral costs for the 13 dead.
XINHUA