Shock and fear after gun attack in Israeli city leaves five dead

Mourners carry the body of Yaakov Shalom, 36, during his funeral in Petah Tikva, Israel, Wednesday, March 30, 2022. Shalom was one of five killed by a gunman in a crowded city in central Israel late Tuesday. (AP)
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Updated 30 March 2022
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Shock and fear after gun attack in Israeli city leaves five dead

TEL AVIV: Shlomo Alperin had planned to study in a religious school on Wednesday but instead was attending a funeral, still in shock after witnessing the most violent attack in years in greater Tel Aviv.

“I want to go to the funerals. I feel a need for the closeness,” Alperin said, after five people were gunned down on Tuesday on the streets of Beni Brak.

From his flat, the 23-year-old ultra-Orthodox man had heard bursts of gunfire, before seeing his neighbor’s body crumpled in a car, and two men dead at a cafe often frequented by Ukrainian construction workers.

Hours later grief-stricken Michaela Ursulan, 25, was still in her pajamas on Wednesday as she mourned her friend, one of two Ukrainian victims.

“Every day we talked,” Ursulan recalled, looking at pictures of her friend on a recent fishing trip, as a candle flickered in her kitchen.

Ursulan said she and her friend both moved to Israel for work from Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, and had bonded while living far from home.

“We don’t have our parents here, everyone’s overseas,” she said.

Police said a Palestinian gunman armed with an M-16 shot dead two Ukrainian nationals as well as two ultra-Orthodox Jewish men and an Arab Christian police officer from northern Israel late on Tuesday.

The two Ukrainians have not been named, but they were manual laborers, said witness Lior Rahimi, pointing to a corner shop and cafe.

They “used to sit here for hours each day after work,” said the 38-year-old, describing them as friendly and helpful men.

Police identified the perpetrator as Diaa Armashah, 27, a Palestinian from the West Bank village of Yabad. He was shot dead by police on the scene.

The slain Israelis, Yaakov Shalom, 36, and Avishai Yehezkel, 29, both ultra-Orthodox residents of Bnei Brak, were buried on Wednesday. The funeral for Amir Khoury, 32, an Arab Christian policeman from Nof Hagalil, was scheduled for Thursday. “It’s painful. It’s your neighbors,” said Alperin. “My neighbor lost his life for nothing.”

The Bnei Brak shooting rampage was the third fatal attack in the Jewish state in the past week.

On Sunday, two Arab citizens of Israel shot dead two police officers in the northern city of Hadera, in an assault claimed by Daesh.

Days before, an Arab Bedouin citizen of Israel who had previously tried to join Daesh killed four people by stabbing and ramming his vehicle in the southern city of Beersheba.

“There is real fear!” said Neta Levi, 37, an artist.

“I’m going to avoid places where there are a lot of people,” she said in Ramat Gan, a city next to Bnei Brak, saying she had not told her young sons “so they don’t get scared.”

Roni Maili, 65, saw the attacker on security camera footage as he stalked the office stairwell.

“Between him and me there was a door, ” he said. “I usually leave the door open,” he said. “I don’t know why I had shut the door.”

“I don’t know how I’m alive,” he added saying he hadn’t been able to sleep, as the shocking incident kept replaying in his mind.


Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strikes

Updated 58 min 28 sec ago
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Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strikes

  • On Thursday the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes

Gaza City: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Friday that 15 people, including 10 from the same family, had been killed in two overnight Israeli strikes.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said on Telegram that “our crews recovered the bodies of 10 martyrs and a large number of wounded from the house of the Baraka family and the neighboring houses targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Bani Suhaila area east of Khan Yunis,” in the southern Gaza Strip.
Bassal later announced that a separate strike hit two houses in northern Gaza’s Tal Al-Zaatar, where crews had “recovered the bodies of five people.”
The Israeli military, which did not immediately comment, has intensified its aerial bombardments and expanded its ground operations in the Gaza Strip since it resumed its offensive in the besieged Palestinian territory on March 18.
On Thursday, the civil defense agency reported the deaths of at least 40 residents in Israeli strikes, most of them in camps for displaced civilians, as Israel pressed its offensive.


Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen

Updated 18 April 2025
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Israeli military intercepts missile launched from Yemen

  • Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Friday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, from where the Iran-backed Houthi militia have regularly fired missiles and drones targeting Israel.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted,” Israel’s army said on Telegram, adding that aerial defense systems had been deployed “to intercept the threat.”


US strike on Yemen fuel port kills at least 38, Houthi media say

Updated 18 April 2025
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US strike on Yemen fuel port kills at least 38, Houthi media say

WASHINGTON: US strikes on a fuel port in Yemen killed at least 38 people on Thursday, Houthi-run media said, one of the deadliest days since the United States began its attacks on the Iran-backed militants.

The United States has vowed not to halt the large-scale strikes begun last month in its biggest military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January, unless the Houthis cease attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Al Masirah TV said 102 people were also wounded in Thursday’s strikes on the western fuel port of Ras Isa, which the US military said aimed to cut off a source of fuel for the Houthi militant group.

Responding to a Reuters query for comment on the Houthis’ casualty figure and its own estimate, the US Central Command said it had none beyond the initial announcement of the attacks.

“The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis, who continue to exploit and bring great pain upon their fellow countrymen,” it had said in a post on X.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have launched dozens of drone and missile attacks on vessels transiting the waterway, saying they were targeting ships linked to Israel in protest over the war in Gaza.

They halted attacks on shipping lanes during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza. Although they vowed to resume strikes after Israel renewed its assault on Gaza last month, they have not claimed any since.

In March, two days of US attacks killed more than 50 people, Houthi officials said.


Cash crunch leaves Syrians queueing for hours to collect salaries

Updated 18 April 2025
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Cash crunch leaves Syrians queueing for hours to collect salaries

  • Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception
  • The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet

DAMASCUS: Seated on the pavement outside a bank in central Damascus, Abu Fares’s face is worn with exhaustion as he waits to collect a small portion of his pension.
“I’ve been here for four hours and I haven’t so much as touched my pension,” said the 77-year-old, who did not wish to give his full name.
“The cash dispensers are under-stocked and the queues are long,” he continued.
Since the overthrow of president Bashar Assad last December, Syria has been struggling to emerge from the wake of nearly 14 years of civil war, and its banking sector is no exception.
Decades of punishing sanctions imposed on the Assad dynasty – which the new authorities are seeking to have lifted – have left about 90 percent of Syrians under the poverty line, according to the United Nations.
The liquidity crisis has forced authorities to drastically limit cash withdrawals, leaving much of the population struggling to make ends meet.
Prior to his ousting, Assad’s key ally Russia held a monopoly on printing banknotes. The new authorities have only announced once that they have received a shipment of banknotes from Moscow since Assad’s overthrow.
In a country with about 1.25 million public sector employees, civil servants must queue at one of two state banks or affiliated ATMs to make withdrawals, capped at about 200,000 Syrian pounds, the equivalent on the black market of $20 per day.
In some cases, they have to take a day off just to wait for the cash.
“There are sick people, elderly... we can’t continue like this,” said Abu Fares.
“There is a clear lack of cash, and for that reason we deactivate the ATMs at the end of the workday,” an employee at a private bank said, preferring not to give her name.
A haphazard queue of about 300 people stretches outside the Commercial Bank of Syria. Some are sitting on the ground.
Afraa Jumaa, a civil servant, said she spends most of the money she withdraws on the travel fare to get to and from the bank.
“The conditions are difficult and we need to withdraw our salaries as quickly as possible,” said the 43-year-old.
“It’s not acceptable that we have to spend days to withdraw meagre sums.”
The local currency has plunged in value since the civil war erupted in 2011, prior to which the dollar was valued at 50 pounds.
Economist Georges Khouzam explained that foreign exchange vendors – whose work was outlawed under Assad – “deliberately reduced cash flows in Syrian pounds to provoke rapid fluctuations in the market and turn a profit.”
Muntaha Abbas, a 37-year-old civil servant, had to return three times to withdraw her entire salary of 500,000 pounds.
“There are a lot of ATMs in Damascus, but very few of them work,” she said.
After a five-hour wait, she was finally able to withdraw 200,000 pounds.
“Queues and more queues... our lives have become a series of queues,” she lamented.


Trump administration orders Gaza-linked social media vetting for visa applicants

Updated 18 April 2025
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Trump administration orders Gaza-linked social media vetting for visa applicants

  • New order sent to all US diplomatic missions
  • Social media vetting includes NGO workers

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Thursday ordered a social media vetting for all US visa applicants who have been to the Gaza Strip on or after January 1, 2007, an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters showed, in the latest push to tighten screening of foreign travelers.
The order to conduct a social media vetting for all immigrant and non-immigrant visas should include non-governmental organization workers as well as individuals who have been in the Palestinian enclave for any length of time in an official or diplomatic capacity, the cable said.
“If the review of social media results uncovers potential derogatory information relating to security issues, then a SAO must be submitted,” the cable said, referring to a security advisory opinion, which is an interagency investigation to determine if a visa applicant poses a national security risk to the United States.
The cable was sent to all US diplomatic and consular posts.
The move comes as President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked hundreds of visas across the country, including the status of some lawful permanent residents under a 1952 law allowing the deportation of any immigrant whose presence in the country the secretary of state deems harmful to US foreign policy.
The cable dated April 17 was signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said in late March that he may have revoked more than 300 visas already.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump officials have said student visa holders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, calling their actions a threat to US foreign policy interests.
Trump’s critics have called the effort an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech for everyone in the US, regardless of immigration status. But there have been high-profile instances of the administration revoking visas of students who advocated against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Among the most widely publicized of such arrests was one captured on video last month of masked agents taking a Tufts University student from Turkiye, Rumeysa Ozturk, into custody.
When asked about Ozturk at a news conference last month, Rubio said: “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas” and he warned there would be more individuals whose visas could be revoked.