UNITED NATIONS, US: The health care system in the Gaza Strip is “on its knees,” the head of the World Health Organization warned Friday, noting that half of the territory’s 36 hospitals are no longer functioning.
Speaking to the Security Council, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the situation on the ground as desperate: “Hospital corridors crammed with the injured, the sick, the dying; morgues overflowing; surgery without anesthesia; tens of thousands of displaced people sheltering at hospitals.”
“The health system is on its knees, and yet somehow is continuing to deliver lifesaving care,” he said.
Tedros said there had been more than 250 attacks on health care — such as strikes on hospitals, clinics, ambulances and patients — in Gaza and the West Bank, and 25 such attacks in Israel in the conflict triggered by Hamas’s shock October 7 assault.
“The best way to support those health workers and the people they serve is by giving them the tools they need to deliver that care — medicines, medical equipment and fuel for hospital generators,” he said, calling for an increase in aid trickling in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt and repeating the UN’s call for a cease-fire.
“I understand what the children of Gaza must be going through, because as a child, I went through the same thing,” said the WHO chief, who is from Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
“The sound of gunfire and shells whistling through the air; the smell of smoke after they struck; tracer bullets in the night sky; the fear; the pain; the loss — these things have stayed with me throughout my life.”
He also denounced the “horrific, barbaric and unjustifiable attacks” carried out by Hamas fighters, and demanded the release of hostages held by the militant group.
The head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, Marwan Jilani, addressed the Security Council by video, calling on members to “do all you can to spare further deaths and sufferings.” The council is divided on the war and has failed to issue a resolution on it.
He highlighted the dire situation at the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which the Red Crescent said was fired on Friday by Israeli snipers.
“Our utmost concern is the direct threat to the lives of all those wounded and sick, together with tens of thousands of civilians, including thousands of children,” Jilani said.
“They are looking at you, imploring you to act to stop another possible massacre unfolding.”
The Security Council started its meeting with a minute of silence to honor the victims of the Hamas assault, the civilians killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza, as well as the journalists and UN personnel who have died in the war.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that its teams in recent days had distributed critical supplies to medical structures across Gaza, and had seen “horrendous images that have now gotten worse due to sharpened hostilities.”
This was severely affecting hospitals and ambulances and taking a heavy toll on civilians, patients, and medical staff, it said in a statement.
“Overstretched, running on thin supplies and increasingly unsafe, the health care system in Gaza has reached a point of no return.”
Medical facilities and personnel across Gaza have repeatedly come under attack since Israel’s war with Hamas erupted just over a month ago.
Such attacks have dealt “a heavy blow to the health care system in Gaza, which is severely weakened after more than one month of heavy fighting,” ICRC said.
“The destruction affecting hospitals in Gaza is becoming unbearable and needs to stop,” William Schomburg, head of the ICRC sub-delegation in Gaza, said in Friday’s statement.
“The lives of thousands of civilians, patients and medical staff are at risk.”
The ICRC pointed out that children’s hospitals had not been spared from the violence, including the Al Nasser Hospital, which had been heavily damaged by hostilities and Al Rantisi Hospital, which had been forced to cease operations.
“Our partner the Palestine Red Crescent Society or PRCS, has been working relentlessly to continue operating the Al-Quds Hospital, as it desperately runs out of the necessary means amidst increasing hostilities,” it said.
Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, which was hit by a strike on Friday, is meanwhile not only overwhelmed with patients but also now hosting thousands of displaced families.
“Any military operation around hospitals must consider the presence of civilians, who are protected under international humanitarian law,” ICRC said.
“The rules of war are clear. Hospitals are specially protected facilities under international humanitarian law,” it said.
The protection of civilians, including humanitarian workers and medical personnel, “is not only a legal obligation but a moral imperative to preserve human life in these terrible times.”
Gaza’s health system ‘on its knees,’ WHO chief warns
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Gaza’s health system ‘on its knees,’ WHO chief warns
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- The rules of war are clear. Hospitals are specially protected facilities under international humanitarian law
Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim they shot down another US MQ-9 drone
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- The rebels 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
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed early Sunday they shot down another American-made MQ-9 drone flying over the country, marking potentially the latest downing of the multimillion-dollar surveillance aircraft. The US responded with airstrikes over Houthi-controlled territory, the rebels said.
The US military did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the Houthi claim. The rebels offered no pictures or video to support the claim as they have in the past, though such material can appear in propaganda footage days later.
However, the Houthis have repeatedly downed General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drones in the years since they seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014. Those attacks have exponentially increased since the start of the Israel-Hamas war and the Houthis launched their campaign targeting shipping in the Red Sea corridor.
Houthi military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree made the claim in a prerecorded video message. He said the Houthis shot down the drone over Yemen’s Marib province.
Saree offered no details on how the rebels down the aircraft. However, Iran has armed the rebels with a surface-to-air missile known as the 358 for years. Iran denies arming the rebels, though Tehran-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in seaborne shipments heading to Yemen despite a United Nations arms embargo.
The Houthis “continue to perform their jihadist duties in victory for the oppressed Palestinian people and in defense of dear Yemen,” Saree said.
Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) and have an endurance of up to 24 hours before needing to land. The aircraft have been flown by both the US military and the CIA over Yemen for years.
After the claim, the Houthis’ Al-Masirah satellite news channel reported multiple US-led airstrikes near the city of Ibb. The US military did not immediately acknowledge the strikes, but the Americans have been striking Houthi targets intensely since January.
The Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. 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 rebels 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.
Those attacks include the barrage that struck the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion in the Red Sea. Salvagers last week abandoned an initial effort to tow away the burning oil tanker, leaving the Sounion stranded and its 1 million barrels of oil at risk of spilling.
Hezbollah says rockets fired at Israeli town after attack kills Lebanon rescuers
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- The Israeli military said Saturday that it had identified “projectiles” crossing from Lebanon and intercepting some of them, adding “a number of UAVs (drones) were identified crossing from Lebanese territory”
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Hezbollah announced retaliatory rocket fire targeting a town in northern Israel early Sunday, hours after Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli attack killed three civil defense personnel in the country’s south.
The Iran-backed Lebanese movement has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.
Hezbollah said it had bombarded “Kiryat Shmona with a volley of Falaq rockets” early Sunday “in response to the enemy attacks... and particularly the attack” that killed the emergency workers in the Lebanese village of Froun.
Hezbollah usually says it targets military positions in northern Israel, while Israel has said it targets Hezbollah infrastructure and fighters in south and east Lebanon.
On Saturday, Lebanon’s health ministry said the “Israeli enemy targeting of a Lebanese civil defense team that was putting out fires sparked by the recent Israeli strikes in the village of Froun led to the martyrdom of three emergency responders.”
Two others were wounded, one of them critically, the ministry added.
Lebanon’s civil defense said in a statement that three of its employees were killed in “an Israeli strike that targeted a firefighting vehicle after they had finished a firefighting mission.”
The health ministry statement condemned the “blatant Israeli attack that targeted a team from an official body of the Lebanese state.”
Hezbollah ally the Amal movement said two of its members were among the dead in Saturday’s strike. It said they were killed “while carrying out their humanitarian and national duty defending Lebanon and the south.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the attack on the emergency workers, saying in a statement that “this new aggression against Lebanon is a blatant violation of international laws... and human values.”
Lebanon’s health ministry said the attack was “the second of its kind against an emergency team in less than 12 hours.”
Earlier Saturday, the ministry said two emergency personnel from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were wounded when “the Israeli enemy deliberately targeted” near a fire they were heading to extinguish in south Lebanon’s Qabrikha, causing their vehicle to swerve.
Several militant groups operate health centers and emergency response operations in south Lebanon.
Hezbollah had announced a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border on Saturday, including with Katyusha rockets and “explosives-laden drones,” some in a stated response to “Israeli enemy attacks” on south Lebanon.
The Israeli military said Saturday that it had identified “projectiles” crossing from Lebanon and intercepting some of them, adding “a number of UAVs (drones) were identified crossing from Lebanese territory.”
It said the air force struck “Hezbollah military infrastructure and a launcher” in the Qabrikha area, while its artillery targeted several other areas of south Lebanon.
The cross-border violence has killed some 614 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 138 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.
A statement from Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said that “due to the (Israeli) aggression,” 27 emergency personnel and health workers have been killed and 94 others wounded since October.
Two hospitals and 21 health centers have been “targeted,” while 32 fire or ambulance vehicles have been “put out of service or partially damaged,” the statement said, urging an end to the “repeated and deliberate targeting of health workers and civilians.”
Algeria presidential election sees low turnout as Tebboune poised for victory
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- More than 24 million Algerians are registered to vote, and both of Tebboune’s challengers have urged a large turnout
ALGIERS, Algeria: Less than half of Algeria’s eligible voters cast a ballot in the country’s presidential poll, preliminary figures from electoral authorities showed early Sunday, despite incumbent Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s hopes for a high turnout.
Tebboune, 78, is heavily favored to secure a second term, seeing off moderate Islamist Abdelaali Hassani, 57, and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche, 41.
His main challenge was to increase the voter participation level in Saturday’s vote after a historic abstention rate of over 60 percent in 2019, the year he became president.
More than 24 million Algerians were registered to vote this year, with about a third under the age of 40.
Electoral board ANIE announced early Sunday an “average turnout” rate of 48 percent, but did not provide the total number of people who cast a ballot.
ANIE said the figure was “provisional,” adding that it would give an official turnout rate later on Sunday along with the election’s results.
The announcement came three hours behind schedule after the election board said on Saturday evening that it was extending voting by one hour, expecting more voters to show up.
“Voters wondered what was the point of voting when all predictions are in favor of the president,” said analyst Hasni Abidi, calling the candidates’ bids “mediocre.”
He said Tebboune “barely did four rallies,” while his challengers “weren’t up to the task.”
“Not voting does not mean political opposition,” he added. “Rather, it means people did not see themselves as part of the electoral game.”
Both of Tebboune’s challengers had called for a large turnout Saturday morning.
“Today we start building our future by voting for our project and leaving boycott and despair behind us,” Aouchiche said on national television after voting.
Hassani told journalists he hoped “the Algerian people will vote in force” because “a high turnout gives greater credibility to these elections.”
But Tebboune did not mention voter numbers, saying only that he hoped “Algeria will win in any case” after voting in Algiers.
He said that whoever wins “will continue the project” of what he often calls the New Algeria — the country that emerged following mass pro-democracy protests.
“I came early to exercise my duty and choose the president of my country in a democratic manner,” Sidali Mahmoudi, a 65-year-old early voter, told AFP.
Seghir Derouiche, 72, told AFP that not voting was “ignoring one’s right.” Two women, Taous Zaiedi, 66, and Leila Belgaremi, 42, said they were voting to “improve the country.”
Algerians abroad have been able to vote since Monday.
ANIE is set to announce the official results on Sunday.
Yet the winner was “known in advance,” political commentator Mohamed Hennad posted on Facebook before voting began, referring to Tebboune.
Tebboune’s opponents stood little chance because of low support and the “conditions in which the electoral campaign took place, which is nothing more than a farce,” Hennad wrote.
The 2019 low turnout had followed the Hirak pro-democracy protests, which toppled former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika before they were quashed with ramped-up policing and the jailing of hundreds of people.
This year’s election still failed to enthuse Algerians, and campaign rallies have struggled to generate interest in the nation of 45 million, partly because of the summer heat.
With young people making up more than half the population, all three candidates have courted their votes with promises to improve living standards and reduce dependence on hydrocarbons.
Tebboune has touted economic successes during his first term, including more jobs and higher wages in Africa’s largest exporter of natural gas.
His challengers have vowed to grant the people more freedoms.
Aouchiche says he is committed “to release prisoners of conscience through an amnesty and to review unjust laws,” including on media and terrorism.
Hassani has advocated “freedoms that have been reduced to nothing in recent years.”
Political analyst Abidi said Tebboune should address the major deficit in political and media freedoms, with Algerians having “divorced from current politics” after the Hirak protests ended.
Five years later, rights group Amnesty International said Algerian authorities were “committed to maintaining a zero-tolerance approach toward dissenting opinions.”
Israelis surge into the streets again in protest as the toll in Gaza grows
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- Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Huge numbers of Israelis again poured into the streets to protest the government’s failure to secure the return of remaining hostages in Gaza, while hospital and local authorities said Israeli air raids in the territory killed more than a dozen people overnight into Saturday.
The new protest came a week after one of the largest demonstrations of the war following the discovery of another six dead hostages in Gaza, and after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against pressure for a ceasefire deal and declared that “no one will preach to me.”
“I think even those who were maybe reluctant to go out, who are not used to protest, who are sad but prefer to be in private space within their sadness, understood our voice must join together to one huge scream: Bring the hostages with a deal. Do not risk their lives,” said one protester in Tel Aviv, Efrat Machikawa, niece of hostage Gadi Moses.
Israel has been under increasing pressure from the United States and other allies to reach a ceasefire deal, but Netanyahu insists on continued Israeli control of the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow band along Gaza’s border with Egypt where Israel contends Hamas smuggles weapons. Egypt and Hamas deny it.
Inside Gaza, health workers wrapped up the second phase of an urgent polio vaccination campaign designed to prevent a large-scale outbreak. The drive, launched after the first polio case in the Palestinian enclave in 25 years, aims to vaccinate 640,000 children during a war that has destroyed the health care system. The third phase of vaccinations will be in the north.
Israel kept up its military offensive. In central Gaza’s urban refugee camp of Nuseirat, Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of nine people killed in two air raids. One hit a residential building, killing four people and wounding at least 10, while five people were killed in a strike on a house in western Nuseirat.
Separately, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, central Gaza’s main hospital, said a woman and her two children were killed in a strike on a house in the nearby urban refugee camp of Bureij.
In northern Gaza, an airstrike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in the town of Jabaliya killed at least four people and wounded about two dozen others, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense authority, which operates under the territory’s Hamas-run government. Israel’s military said it struck a Hamas command post embedded in a former school compound.
The war began when Hamas and other militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, primarily civilians. Hamas is believed to still be holding more than 100 hostages. Israeli authorities estimate about a third are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry says more than 94,000 people have been wounded.
Violence has also spiked in the occupied West Bank. A dayslong military operation in Jenin left dozens of dead.
A day after an American protester was shot and killed in the West Bank, her family urged President Joe Biden to order an independent investigation, saying that “given the circumstances of (her) killing, an Israeli investigation is not adequate.” Their statement called the 26-year-old recent university graduate a “ray of sunshine” and an advocate for human dignity.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who also holds Turkish nationality, was shot in the head, two Palestinian doctors said. She had been demonstrating against Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Witnesses said she was shot during a moment of calm following earlier clashes.
The White House has said it was “deeply disturbed” and called on Israel to investigate. The Israeli military said it was looking into reports that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity.”
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in 1967. Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians have left more than 690 Palestinians dead since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, according to Palestinian health officials.
In Gaza, Hamas has accused Israel of dragging out ceasefire negotiations by issuing new demands. Hamas has offered to release all hostages in return for an end to the war, the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants — broadly the terms called for under an outline for a deal put forward by Biden in July.
Along the border with Lebanon, near-daily clashes continued between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
An Israeli drone strike hit a Lebanese Civil Defense team fighting a fire in the town of Froun, killing three volunteers and wounding two others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. The blaze was sparked by a previous Israeli strike, the statement said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Israel’s military said some 45 rockets were fired at northern Israel in several barrages, many targeting the Mount Meron area but falling in open areas. Several rockets fell in Shlomi and around the city of Safed. There were no injuries. The military later said its jets struck Hezbollah military infrastructure and a rocket launcher in the area of Qabrikha in southern Lebanon.
Iraq’s Kurdish authorities extradite activist to Iran: group
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- Khosrawi “asked to return to the Islamic Republic of Iran” and signed a document stating this, the Asayesh added in a statement
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: An Iranian Kurdish activist was extradited from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region back to Iran, the opposition group he belongs to said on Saturday, an account disputed by local authorities.
Behzad Khosrawi was arrested last week by security forces in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah and handed over to “Iranian intelligence,” said the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), one of several Iranian Kurdish groups exiled for decades in northern Iraq.
“He is a member of an opposition political party... and enjoys the right to asylum as a political refugee,” said the group, condemning his extradition.
Local security forces, called Asayesh, said Khosrawi was arrested “because he did not have residency” in the Kurdish region, denying he had any connection to “political activism.”
Khosrawi “asked to return to the Islamic Republic of Iran” and signed a document stating this, the Asayesh added in a statement.
The KDPI said Khosrawi, a member of their party, “had been living with his mother and sister in Sulaimaniyah for more than 10 years... and their residency was in order.”
He had been given refugee status by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the KDPI said.
Iran considers the KDPI a “terrorist” organization.
Iranian Kurdish groups, whose members are made up of Iran’s long-marginalized Kurdish minority, have trained to use weapons from their outposts in northern Iraq for decades.
After several Iranian strikes on the groups, Iraqi authorities in late 2023 pledged to disarm these factions and move them from bases near the Iranian border to camps.
Tehran has accused the Kurdish opposition groups of inciting mass protest in Iran in 2022, after the death of Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police.