JERUSALEM: The Israeli military is checking whether senior Hamas militant Marwan Issa was killed in an air strike in Gaza this week, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Monday.
The Israeli military did not immediately confirm the report, which said a site in central Gaza’s Nusseirat was struck two days ago, based on intelligence that Issa, believed to be the second-in-command of Hamas’ armed wing, was there.
Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Israeli newspaper report.
Issa is at the top of Israel’s most-wanted list, together with Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’ military wing the Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam Brigades, and Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who are believed to have masterminded the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war.
If confirmed, his death could complicate efforts to secure a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal in negotiations that have already stalled.
Hamas-linked website warns Palestinians not to work with Israel’
A Hamas-linked website on Monday warned Palestinian individuals or groups against co-operating with Israel to provide security for aid convoys amid the five-month-old war in the Gaza Strip.
Those who did would be treated as collaborators and be handled with an iron fist, the Hamas Al-Majd security website said, quoting a security official in Palestinian militant forces.
The warning came in response to Israeli media reports that Israel was considering arming some Palestinian individuals or clans in Gaza to provide security protection for aid convoys into the besieged enclave as part of wider planning for humanitarian supplies after the fighting ends.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office has declined to comment on the report, which came a week after dozens of Palestinians were killed in an incident in which crowds surrounded a convoy of aid trucks entering northern Gaza and troops opened fire.
“The occupation’s attempt to communicate with the leaders and clans of some families to operate within the Gaza Strip is considered direct collaboration with the occupation and is a betrayal of the nation that we will not tolerate,” the website said, quoting the official.
“The occupation’s (Israel) efforts to establish bodies to manage Gaza are a ‘failed conspiracy’ that will not materialize.”
With civil order increasingly strained in Hamas-run Gaza and police refusing to provide security to convoys because of the risk of being targeted by Israeli forces, the issue of secure distribution of desperately needed food and other supplies has become a major problem.
Gaza has several large traditional family clans, affiliated with political factions including Hamas and Fatah, the rival group that dominates the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank. Some of those clans are believed to be well-armed and there has been no indication that they would consider working with Israel.
Responding to plans by the European Union and the United States to create a sea corridor to send aid ships to the enclave, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said it was a “positive” step but the world should have rather acted to end the war.
“Ensuring all the needs of the population in the Gaza Strip are met is not a favor from anyone; it is a guaranteed right under international humanitarian law even during times of war,” Naim told Reuters.
“If the US administration is serious about solving the humanitarian crisis, the easiest and shortest path is to stop using veto power to allow a ceasefire to be reached, and to compel Israel to open all land crossings and allow entry of all required aid,” Naim said.
Israel checking if top Hamas militant killed in air strike, Haaretz newspaper reports
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Israel checking if top Hamas militant killed in air strike, Haaretz newspaper reports
- Marwan Issa believed to be the second-in-command of Hamas’ armed wing reported killed in an air strike in Gaza this week
Syrian state media: Israel attacked town near Lebanon border
“An Israeli aggression targeted the industrial zone in Al-Qusayr” in Homs province, the official SANA news agency said. There was no immediate news of casualties or damage.
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391
- The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours
GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,391 people have been killed in the year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands
- At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents
- Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps
ATHENS: Some islands in the southeast of the Aegean sea, including Rhodes, are seeing an increase in migrants arriving by boat from Turkiye, Greek migration and asylum minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said Tuesday.
“The southeast of the Aegean and the island of Rhodes are experiencing migratory pressure right now,” he said on public television station ERT, though he said the increase does not appear to be linked to rising tensions in the Middle East.
At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents and local authorities.
According to local media Rodiaki, more than 700 migrants arrived during the last week of October.
Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps on the mainland or in other islands.
Previously, Aegean islands further north such as Lesbos and Samos had received the brunt of migrants crossing from Turkish shores.
Crete, which has likewise seen an increase in arrivals from Libya, also needs to build facilities to process migrants.
Greece has seen a 25 percent increase this year in the number of people fleeing war and poverty, with a 30 percent increase alone to Rhodes and the south-east Aegean, according to the Migration Ministry.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says 48,158 arrivals have been recorded so far in 2024, of which around 42,000 arrived by boat and 6,000 by crossing the land frontier with Turkiye.
“The camps on the islands have an occupancy rate of 100 percent. But on the mainland they are only 55 percent full, which provides a margin in the event of an increase in arrivals on the islands,” Panagiotopoulos said.
Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister
- Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF
PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army-backed government on Tuesday accused neighboring Chad of supplying arms to rebel militias, likely referring to the paramilitary forces it is battling.
The northeast African country has been engulfed by war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between the regular army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Justice minister Muawiya Osman said Burhan’s administration had lodged the complaint against Chad at the African Union.
Speaking to reporters, including AFP, Osman said the government demanded compensation and accused Chad of “supplying arms to rebel militias” and causing “harm to Sudanese citizens.”
“We will present evidence to the relevant authorities,” he added from Port Sudan, where Burhan relocated after fighting spread to the capital, Khartoum.
Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF.
“We do not support any of the factions that are fighting on Sudanese territory — we are in favor of peace,” foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said at the time.
The United Nations has been using the Adre border crossing between the two countries to deliver humanitarian aid.
Sudan had initially agreed to keep the crossing open for three months, a period set to expire on November 15. Authorities in Khartoum have yet to decide whether to extend the arrangement.
The Sudanese war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, including 3.1 million who are now sheltering beyond the country’s borders.
Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12
- The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations
ANKARA: An explosion at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkiye on Tuesday left at least 12 employees slightly injured, the company said. A fire at the facility was quickly brought under control.
The Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, TUPRAS, said a fire broke out at its facilities in Izmit, in Kocaeli province, during maintenance work on a compressor. The company’s emergency teams responded immediately to the incident, it said in a statement.
The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations, the company said.
The company said the unit where the incident occurred “was deactivated in a controlled manner” and that other operations at the refinery were “continuing as normal.”
Earlier, Tahir Buyukakin, the mayor for Kocaeli told private NTV television that the blast occurred during a drill. The fire was quickly brought under control by the company’s own crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery, which is one of Turkiye’s largest. Izmit is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Istanbul.
The Borsa Istanbul stock exchange temporarily halted trading of TUPRAS shares, until the company provides a detailed explanation of the incident.
