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Promised Hamas command center at Al-Shifa still elusive

This grab from handout footage released by the Israeli army on November 17, 2023, shows what the army says is the entrance of a tunnel under Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital that stretches beneath the complex where troops have been conducting a major operation. (AFP)
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Updated 22 November 2023
AP
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Promised Hamas command center at Al-Shifa still elusive

Updated 22 November 2023
AP

JERUSALEM: Three weeks ago, the Israeli military unveiled a detailed 3D model of Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital — showing a series of underground installations that it said was part of an elaborate Hamas command and control center under the territory’s largest healthcare center.

Days after taking control of the hospital, the military has yet to unveil this purported center. But it has released videos of weapons allegedly seized inside the hospital, a tunnel running through the complex and videos appearing to show Hamas militants dragging hostages through the hospital’s hallways. Israel says there will be much more to come.

What Israel finds — or fails to find — could play a large part in its efforts to rally international support for its war against Hamas.

Gaza’s hospitals have played a central role in the dueling narratives surrounding the war.

Hospitals enjoy special protected status under the international laws of war. But they can lose that status if they are used for military purposes.

Osama Hamdan, a top Hamas leader based in Beirut, acknowledged that Israel could find a tunnel “here or there.”

“We don’t deny there are hundreds of kilometers of tunnels in and around Gaza,” he told a news conference. But he said Hamas does not use hospitals for militant activities.

Hamdan, the Hamas leader, mocked the Israeli discoveries so far. “The Israelis said there was a command and control center, which means that the matter is greater than just a tunnel,” he said.

Israel has long claimed that Hamas uses hospitals, schools, mosques and residential neighborhoods as human shields.

In particular, it says Hamas has hidden command centers and bunkers underneath the sprawling grounds of Al-Shifa. The United States says its own intelligence corroborates those claims. Hamas denies the allegations.

The UN and other international organizations say these evacuations have endangered patients and overwhelmed the remaining hospitals in the besieged territory.

With Israel already facing mounting international criticism of its offensive, a failure to uncover a significant Hamas presence could step up the pressure to halt the operation. Israel has vowed to press ahead until it destroys Hamas.

The Israeli military has released videos showing AK47s, ammunition and other military equipment it said was found in the hospital’s MRI unit.

Topics: War on Gaza

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Gaza health officials say baby dies from ‘severe cold’

Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
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Gaza health officials say baby dies from ‘severe cold’

  • Jumaa Al-Batran died from the cold, while his twin brother remains in the intensive care unit at a local hospital
  • The vast majority of the territory’s residents have been displaced since the Israeli offensive
Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza health officials said that a 20-day-old baby died on Sunday from “severe cold” as the war-ravaged Palestinian territory grapples with winter weather.
Jumaa Al-Batran died from the cold, while his twin brother remains in the intensive care unit at a local hospital, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement.
Marwan Al-Hamas, head of field hospitals in Gaza, confirmed the death. He said it brought to five the total number of children “who have died due to severe cold” in recent weeks.
“There is no electricity. The water is cold and there is no gas, heating or food,” said Yahya Al-Batran, the father of the child.
“My children are dying in front of my eyes and nobody cares. Jumaa has died and I fear that his brother Ali may follow.”
Yahya Al-Batran said he and his wife were living in a tattered tent in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are crammed into unsuitable tents, most of which were hastily set up in Deir el-Balah and in the southern areas of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October last year, Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have endured severe shortages of electricity, drinkable water, food and medical services.
The vast majority of the territory’s residents have been displaced at least once since the war broke out with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

One tourist killed, another injured in shark attack in Egypt’s Marsa Alam

Updated 14 min 34 sec ago
Reuters
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One tourist killed, another injured in shark attack in Egypt’s Marsa Alam

Updated 14 min 34 sec ago
Reuters

CAIRO: One tourist was killed and another was injured in a shark attack in Egypt’s Marsa Alam resort, according to a statement from the environment ministry on Sunday.

The nationalities of the tourists were not disclosed.

Topics: Egypt Red Sea shark attack

Sudan government rejects UN-backed famine declaration

Updated 29 December 2024
AFP
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Sudan government rejects UN-backed famine declaration

  • War between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had created famine conditions
  • Both the Sudanese army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war
Updated 29 December 2024
AFP

CAIRO: The Sudanese government rejected on Sunday a report backed by the United Nations which determined that famine had spread to five areas of the war-torn country.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) review, which UN agencies use, said last week that the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had created famine conditions for 638,000 people, with a further 8.1 million on the brink of mass starvation.
The army-aligned government “categorically rejects the IPC’s description of the situation in Sudan as a famine,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement called the report “essentially speculative” and accused the IPC of procedural and transparency failings.
They said the team did not have access to updated field data and had not consulted with the government’s technical team on the final version before publication.
The IPC did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
The Sudanese government, loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, has been based in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan since the capital Khartoum became a warzone in April 2023.
It has repeatedly been accused of stonewalling international efforts to assess the food security situation in the war-torn country.
The authorities have also been accused of creating bureaucratic hurdles to humanitarian work and blocking visas for foreign teams.
The International Rescue Committee said the army was “leveraging its status as the internationally recognized government (and blocking) the UN and other agencies from reaching RSF-controlled areas.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted over 12 million people, including millions who face dire food insecurity in army-controlled areas.
Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face high levels of acute food insecurity.

Topics: Clashes in Sudan Sudan UN Famine

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Egypt tests new extension of the Suez Canal

Updated 29 December 2024
AFP
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Egypt tests new extension of the Suez Canal

  • Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said
  • The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day
Updated 29 December 2024
AFP

CAIRO: Egypt has tested a new 10-kilometer extension to the Suez Canal as it tries to minimize the impact of currents on shipping and increase the key waterway’s capacity.
Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said.
Authority chief Osama Rabie said the development in the canal’s southern region will “enhance navigational safety and reduce the effects of water and air currents on passing ships.”
Vessels navigating the waterway have at times run aground, mostly because of strong winds and sandstorms.
In 2021, giant container ship Ever Given became wedged diagonally in the canal, blocking trade for nearly a week and resulting in delays that cost billions of dollars.
The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day, Rabie said, and it will open after new navigational maps are issued.
In 2015, Egypt undertook an $8-billion expansion to the waterway, followed by several smaller development projects.
The Suez Canal has long been a vital source of foreign currency for Egypt that has been undergoing its worst ever economic crisis.
According to the International Monetary Fund, revenue from the canal has been slashed by up to 70 percent since last year because of attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea.
Before the attacks pushed companies to change routes, the vital passage accounted for around 10 percent of global maritime trade.

Topics: suez canal Egypt

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Israeli forces order new evacuation at besieged northern Gaza town, residents say

Updated 29 December 2024
Reuters
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Israeli forces order new evacuation at besieged northern Gaza town, residents say

  • Israeli forces instruct Beit Hanoun residents to leave, causing new displacements
  • Palestinian officials say evacuations worsen Gaza’s humanitarian conditions
Updated 29 December 2024
Reuters

CAIRO: Israeli forces carrying out a weeks-long offensive in northern Gaza ordered any residents remaining in Beit Hanoun to quit the town on Sunday, pointing to Palestinian militant rocket fire from the area, residents said.
The instruction to residents to leave caused a new wave of displacement, although it was not immediately clear how many people were affected, the residents said.
Israel says its almost three-month-old campaign in northern Gaza is aimed at Hamas militants and preventing them from regrouping. Its instructions to civilians to evacuate are meant to keep them out of harm’s way, the military says.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say no place is safe in Gaza and that evacuations worsen humanitarian conditions of the population.
Much of the area around the northern towns of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahiya has been cleared of people and razed, fueling speculation that Israel intends to keep the area as a closed buffer zone after the fighting in Gaza ends.
The Israeli military announced its new push into the Beit Hanoun area on Saturday.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had lost communication with people still trapped in the town, and it was unable to send teams into the area because of the raid.
On Friday, Israeli forces stormed the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. The military said it was being used by militants, which Hamas denies.
The raid on the hospital, one of three medical facilities on the northern edge of Gaza, put the last major health facility in the area out of service, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on X.
Some patients were evacuated from Kamal Adwan to the Indonesian Hospital, which is not in service, and medics were prevented from joining them there, the Health Ministry said. Other patients and staff were taken to other medical facilities.
On Sunday, health officials said an Israeli tank shell hit the upper floor of the Al-Ahly Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City near the X-ray division.
Meanwhile, Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes across the enclave killed at least 16 people on Sunday. One of those strikes killed seven people and wounded others at Al-WAFA Hospital in Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency service said in a statement.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run enclave. Most of the population of 2.3 million has been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins.
The war was triggered by Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken to Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Topics: War on Gaza Israeli Gaza Hamas

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