JERUSALEM: Israeli aircraft hit what the military said were Islamic Jihad sites in the Gaza Strip late Sunday, after Palestinian militants said they fired a barrage of rockets at Israel.
In a new flareup a week ahead of a general election in the Jewish state, the Israeli Air Force carried out strikes on “Islamic Jihad terror sites,” a military statement said, without elaborating.
Palestinian security sources said the Israeli aircraft repeatedly hit a base of the radical group in the north of the coastal strip.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
In what an army spokeswoman said was a separate operation, a military aircraft fired at “Islamic Jihad terror operatives preparing to launch rockets,” from the northern Gaza Strip.
“A hit was identified,” a military statement said.
Islamic Jihad said it carried out Sunday’s rocket fire in response to Israel’s killing of one of its fighters earlier in the day.
“The Palestinian resistance targeted Sunday evening the city of Ashkelon and the Gaza envelope with a number of rockets, as a response to the crime of the Zionist enemy,” it said in a statement.
The rockets set off warning sirens in the southern city of Ashkelon and several other locations, while around 10 were intercepted by the Jewish state’s Iron Dome missile defense system, the Israeli army said.
Others crashed into open fields. There were no reports of serious injuries.
“Twenty launches were identified from the Gaza Strip toward Israeli territory,” a military statement said.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and has fought three wars with Israel since 2008 but has struck a series of unofficial truce agreements with the Jewish state in the past year.
On Sunday morning, Israel’s army said it had “spotted two terrorists approaching the security fence in the southern Gaza Strip and placing an explosive device adjacent to it.”
“The troops opened fire toward them. A hit was identified,” it said.
Islamic Jihad identified the dead man as Mohammed Al-Naem, 27, a member of its armed Al-Quds Brigade forces.
A video later emerged on social media showing a bulldozer approaching a body while a group of young, apparently unarmed men, were trying to retrieve it.
The sound of gunfire is heard and the men ultimately run away as the bulldozer scoops up the body.
A tank can be seen positioned nearby.
The Gaza health ministry said two civilians were wounded by Israeli gunfire at the scene.
Israel’s hawkish Defense Minister Naftali Bennett has pursued a policy of retaining the bodies of militants from Gaza as bargaining chips to pressure Hamas, which has held the bodies of two Israeli soldiers since 2014.
Hamas is also believed to be detaining two Israeli citizens who entered Gaza separately and whose families say suffer from mental illness.
Israel has a general election on March 2, its third in less than a year after deadlocked polls in April and September 2019.
Embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing trial over a series of corruption allegations, is again neck and neck with centrist challenger Benny Gantz, a former military general.
Hamas and Israel last fought a full-scale war in 2014 but smaller flareups are relatively common.
In November, Islamic Jihad and Israel fought a three-day conflict that left 35 Palestinians dead and more than 100 wounded, according to official figures.
There were no Israeli fatalities.
Under the informal agreements in the past year, Israel has slightly eased a blockade of the impoverished Palestinian enclave in exchange for relative calm.
Israeli jets bomb Gaza after Palestinian militants fire rockets
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Israeli jets bomb Gaza after Palestinian militants fire rockets
- The rockets set off warning sirens in the southern city of Ashkelon and several other locations
- Others crashed into open fields and there were no reports of serious injuries
Lebanon PM to visit new Damascus ruler on Saturday
- Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati will on Saturday make his first official trip to neighboring Syria since the fall of president Bashar Assad, his office told AFP
Mikati’s office said Friday the trip came at the invitation of the country’s new de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa during a phone call last week.
Syria imposed new restrictions on the entry of Lebanese citizens last week, two security sources have told AFP, following what the Lebanese army said was a border skirmish with unnamed armed Syrians.
Lebanese nationals had previously been allowed into Syria without a visa, using just their passport or ID card.
Lebanon’s eastern border is porous and known for smuggling.
Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah supported Assad with fighters during Syria’s civil war.
But the Iran-backed movement has been weakened after a war with Israel killed its long-time leader and Islamist-led rebels seized Damascus last month.
Lebanese lawmakers elected the country’s army chief Joseph Aoun as president on Thursday, ending a vacancy of more than two years that critics blamed on Hezbollah.
For three decades under the Assad clan, Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon after intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war.
Syria eventually withdrew its troops in 2005 under international pressure after the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri.
UN says 3 million Sudan children facing acute malnutrition
- Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month
- Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the army and the paramilitary forces
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: An estimated 3.2 million children under the age of five are expected to face acute malnutrition this year in war-torn Sudan, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
“Of this number, around 772,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition,” Eva Hinds, UNICEF Sudan’s Head of Advocacy and Communication, told AFP late on Thursday.
Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed assessment.
Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands and, according to the United Nations, uprooting 12 million in the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Confirming to AFP that 3.2 million children are currently expected to face acute malnutrition, Hinds said “the number of severely malnourished children increased from an estimated 730,000 in 2024 to over 770,000 in 2025.”
The IPC expects famine to expand to five more parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region by May — a vast area that has seen some of the conflict’s worst violence. A further 17 areas in western and central Sudan are also at risk of famine, it said.
“Without immediate, unhindered humanitarian access facilitating a significant scale-up of a multisectoral response, malnutrition is likely to increase in these areas,” Hinds warned.
Sudan’s army-aligned government strongly rejected the IPC findings, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.
In October, experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council accused both sides of using “starvation tactics.”
On Tuesday the United States determined that the RSF had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader.
Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to IPC, which said: “Only a ceasefire can reduce the risk of famine spreading further.”
Turkiye says France must take back its militants from Syria
- Ankara is threatening military action against Kurdish fighters in the northeast
- Turkiye considers the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as linked to its domestic nemesis
ISTANBUL: France must take back its militant nationals from Syria, Turkiye’s top diplomat said Friday, insisting Washington was its only interlocutor for developments in the northeast where Ankara is threatening military action against Kurdish fighters.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insisted Turkiye’s only aim was to ensure “stability” in Syria after the toppling of strongman Bashar Assad.
In its sights are the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which have been working with the United States for the past decade to fight Daesh group militants.
Turkiye considers the group as linked to its domestic nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye and is considered a terror organization by both Turkiye and the US.
The US is currently leading talks to head off a Turkish offensive in the area.
“The US is our only counterpart... Frankly we don’t take into account countries that try to advance their own interests in Syria by hiding behind US power,” he said.
His remarks were widely understood to be a reference to France, which is part of an international coalition to prevent a militant resurgence in the area.
Asked about the possibility of a French-US troop deployment in northeast Syria, he said France’s main concern should be to take back its nationals who have been jailed there in connection with militant activity.
“If France had anything to do, it should take its own citizens, bring them to its own prisons and judge them,” he said.
Lebanese caretaker PM says country to begin disarming south Litani to ensure state presence
- Najib Mikati: ‘We are in a new phase – in this new phase, we will start with south Lebanon and south Litani’
DUBAI: Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Friday that the state will begin disarming southern Lebanon, particularly the south Litani region, to establish its presence across the country.
“We are in a new phase – in this new phase, we will start with south Lebanon and south Litani specifically in order to pull weapons so that the state can be present across Lebanese territory,” Mikati said.
Tanker hit by Yemen militia that threatened Red Sea spill has been salvaged
- The Sounion had been a disaster in waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard
- The Houthis have targeted some 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started
DUBAI: An oil tanker that burned for weeks in the Red Sea and threatened a massive oil spill has been “successfully” salvaged, a security firm said Friday.
The Sounion had been a disaster in waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard that had been struck and later sabotaged with explosives by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militia. It took months for salvagers to tow the vessel away, extinguish the fires and offload the remaining crude oil.
The Houthis initially attacked the Greek-flagged Sounion tanker on Aug. 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Aspides rescued its crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.
The Houthis later released footage showing they planted explosives on board the Sounion and ignited them in a propaganda video, something the militia have done before in their campaign.
The Houthis have targeted some 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The Houthis maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
