US deploying ships closer to Israel, sends munitions

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The US Navy's aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and other ships comprising its strike group have been ordered to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean amid an unprecedented attack against Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza. (The Canadian Press via AP/File photo)
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An F/A-18 E fighter jet is launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford during flight deck operations on Oct. 5, 2022, off the Virginia Coast. (AP/File photo)
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Updated 09 October 2023
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US deploying ships closer to Israel, sends munitions

  • President Joe Biden talked with Israeli PM Netanyahu on Sunday and assured him of US support as it battles Hamas militants
  • The Palestinian group later accused the US of “actual participation in the aggression against our people” by moving the aircraft carrier

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden ordered US ships and warplanes to move closer to Israel in a show of support on Sunday, while sending fresh military aid after attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The Pentagon said it was sending the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its accompanying warships to the eastern Mediterranean, while boosting fighter aircraft squadrons in the region. US Central Command confirmed Sunday afternoon that ships and planes had begun moving to their new posts.
The United States, a major supplier of arms to Israel, has moved quickly to affirm its backing for Israel after Saturday’s surprise attack from the Gaza Strip, vowing “rock solid” support and warning other parties to stay out of the conflict.
Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “conveyed that additional assistance for the Israeli Defense Forces is now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days,” the White House said.
“The leaders also discussed ongoing efforts to ensure that no enemies of Israel believe they can or should seek advantage from the current situation,” it said in a statement.
The US president further “pledged his full support for the Government and people of Israel in the face of an unprecedented and appalling assault by Hamas terrorists.”
Hamas later accused the United States in a statement of “actual participation in the aggression against our people” by moving the aircraft carrier.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s worst escalation in decades has claimed more than 700 lives on the Israeli side, the government press office said, while Gaza officials reported at least 400 deaths in Israeli air strikes.
Israel’s Netanyahu has steeled his shocked nation for what he called a long war ahead, with tens of thousands of Israeli forces already deployed to battle holdout Hamas forces and prepare a possible Gaza ground offensive.

The conflict has stoked fears of a wider conflagration. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said Sunday it had fired shells and missiles at Israeli positions.
With tensions rising, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he was sending forces to “bolster regional deterrence efforts” after discussions with Biden.
As well as the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier, this deployment includes a guided missile cruiser and four guided missile destroyers, Austin said in a statement.
“The United States government will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions,” added Austin, who also spoke with his Israeli counterpart on Sunday.
The movement of US ships and planes and the aid to Israel “underscores the United States’ ironclad support for the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli people.”
The United States on Sunday afternoon led calls for condemnation of a Hamas assault on Israel at the United Nations Security Council.
“I expect to hear from the other Council members very strong condemnation of these heinous acts of terrorism committed against the Israeli people and their government,” senior US diplomat Robert Wood told reporters.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier that Biden ordered his administration to give Israel “everything it needs in this moment to deal with the attacks from Hamas.”
A number of Americans may also have been taken hostage, Blinken said.
“We have reports that several Americans were killed. We’re working overtime to verify that. At the same time, there are reports of missing Americans and there again, we’re working to verify those reports,” Blinken said.
He told ABC that “this is a massive terrorist attack that is gunning down Israeli civilians in their towns, in their homes, and as we’ve seen so graphically, literally dragging people across the border with Gaza.
“So, you can imagine the impact this is having throughout Israel. And the world should be revolted at what it has seen.”
State and local authorities throughout the United States — including in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Houston — said there would be increased security presence at US synagogues in the coming days, though there was no specific threat.
 


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Updated 25 November 2024
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Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.


2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

Updated 25 November 2024
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2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

  • The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night

Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.


Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

Updated 25 November 2024
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Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

  • The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
  • Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.


HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

Updated 25 November 2024
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HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Monday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a US-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review.”
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement.
HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack,” it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates,” the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.”
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions,” it added.
The watchdog said it contacted Boeing and Woodard but received no response.
In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.
In November last year, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.
Lebanese rights groups have said five more journalists and photographers working for local media have been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.


Officials in Egypt say over a dozen people are missing after a tourist vessel sank in the Red Sea

Updated 38 min 36 sec ago
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Officials in Egypt say over a dozen people are missing after a tourist vessel sank in the Red Sea

CAIRO: Egypt's governor of the Red Sea region said Monday afternoon that authorities are searching for 17 people who went missing from a sinking vessel off Marsa Alam city.
Amr Hanafy said in a statement that rescuers saved 28 people from the boat, Sea Story, which was carrying 45 people, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 14 crew.

The tourists were on a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam, according to a statement by the Red Sea Governorate. 
Hanafi said some survivors were rescued using a helicopter and have been taken to medical care. Efforts to locate more survivors were ongoing in coordination with the Egyptian navy and army.
The governorate said a distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) and that the boat had departed from Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday, with plans to return to Hurghada Marina on Nov. 29.
The Red Sea is a popular diving destination renowned for its coral reefs and marine life, key to Egypt’s vital tourism industry.