Israel says it plans to direct Palestinians out of Rafah ahead of anticipated offensive

Palestinians wait to receive food during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan in Rafah on Mar. 13, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 13 March 2024
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Israel says it plans to direct Palestinians out of Rafah ahead of anticipated offensive

  • The fate of the people in Rafah has been a major area of concern of Israel’s allies — including the United States — and humanitarian groups
  • Rafah has swelled in size in the last months as Palestinians in Gaza have fled fighting in nearly every other corner of the territory

TEL AVIV: The Israeli military said Wednesday it plans to direct a significant portion of the 1.4 million displaced Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip’s southernmost town of Rafah toward “humanitarian islands” in the center of the territory ahead of its planned offensive in the area.
The fate of the people in Rafah has been a major area of concern of Israel’s allies — including the United States — and humanitarian groups, worried an offensive in the region densely crowded with so many displaced people would be a catastrophe. Rafah is also Gaza’s main entry point for desperately needed aid.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said a Rafah offensive is crucial to achieve Israel’s stated aim of destroying Hamas following the militants’ Oct. 7 attack in which about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and around 250 taken hostage and brought into Gaza. Israel’s invasion of Gaza has killed more than 31,000, according to Gaza health officials, left much of the enclave in ruins and displaced some 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people.
Israel’s chief military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said moving those in Rafah to the designated areas, which he said would be done in coordination with international actors, was a key part of the military’s preparations for its anticipated invasion of Rafah, where Israel says Hamas maintains four battalions it wants to destroy.
Rafah has swelled in size in the last months as Palestinians in Gaza have fled fighting in nearly every other corner of the territory. The town is covered in tents.
“We need to make sure that 1.4 million people or at least a significant amount of the 1.4 million will move. Where? To humanitarian islands that we will create with the international community,” Hagari told reporters at a briefing.
Hagari said those islands would provide temporary housing, food, water and other necessities to evacuated Palestinians. He did not say when Rafah’s evacuation would occur, nor when the Rafah offensive would begin, saying that Israel wanted the timing to be right operationally and to be coordinated with neighboring Egypt, which has said it does not want an influx of displaced Palestinians crossing its border.
At the start of the war, Israel directed evacuees to a slice of undeveloped land along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast that it designated as a safe zone. But aid groups said there were no real plans in place to receive large numbers of displaced there. Israeli strikes also targeted the area.
More than 31,270 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and most of its 2.3 million people forced from their homes, Gaza’s Health Ministry says. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
Israel blames the civilian death toll on Hamas because the militants fight in dense, residential areas. The military has said it has killed 13,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.
Meanwhile, fighting continued across Gaza. An Israeli strike Wednesday hit a food distribution site in southern Gaza run by UNRWA, the UN agency that works with Palestinian refugees, killing one staff member from the agency and wounding 22 others.
The death brings to 165 the number of workers for the agency killed during the past five months of fighting, according to UNRWA.
Gaza’s health authorities said a total of five people were killed in the strike on the yard of an UNRWA warehouse.
Hagari said the army was looking into the report.
The conflict has sparked a humanitarian disaster that has led to growing hunger. Aid delivery has been hobbled by Israeli restrictions, the ongoing hostilities and the breakdown of order inside Gaza, according to the United Nations. Israel denies it is restricting the entry of aid.
The crisis has been particularly acute in northern Gaza, Israel’s initial target in the early weeks of the war.
Hagari said Wednesday Israel plans to “flood the area” with aid, with plans to scale up the entry of goods from multiple points in northern Gaza, after half a dozen trucks delivered aid entered from the north on Tuesday as part of a pilot program. He did not say how many more trucks were expected to enter and at what frequency.
Hagari also said representatives from the US military were expected in Israel this week to further coordinate a planned US floating pier that will be built off the coast of Gaza, which he said would be “significant” for northern Gaza.
The US and other countries have also been airdropping food into northern Gaza in recent weeks to help alleviate the crisis. Aid groups said air drops and bringing sea shipments are far less efficient and effective than bringing in food by truck.


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 6 sec ago
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Updated 43 min 41 sec ago
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.


Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

Updated 36 min 1 sec ago
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Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

  • Airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 30, Palestinian medics and media say
  • Israeli military says it ‘eliminated terrorists’ in latest operations

CAIRO/QABATIYAH: Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip and West Bank have resulted in significant casualties, as conflict in the region intensifies.

Since Monday night, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with strikes leveling buildings and tightening sieges on northern areas of the enclave, according to Palestinian media and medical sources.

In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, two houses were heavily damaged in an airstrike, killing at least 20 people late on Monday, as reported by WAFA and Hamas-linked media. The Gaza health ministry has not immediately verified this toll. Additionally, four people were reported dead in the central town of Al-Zawayda around midnight.

Meanwhile, six more Palestinians died in separate airstrikes on Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah. The Israeli military claimed that its forces had "eliminated terrorists" in central Gaza and Jabalia and uncovered weapons and explosives in the southern area of Rafah, where it had also dismantled "terrorist infrastructure."

Reports from the ground suggest that Israel's tactics aim to clear northern Gaza towns and refugee camps to establish buffer zones, a strategy Israel says has successfully neutralized hundreds of Palestinian fighters in Jabalia over the past month.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have died in Gaza over a year of fighting, and much of the region has been devastated. The conflict initially erupted following Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 Israelis and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza.

Violence has also erupted in the occupied West Bank. On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinians in separate incidents during two military operations.

In Tammun, near Tubas, two Palestinians died, one of whom was severely mutilated, according to the city’s governor, Ahmad Assad.

The health ministry in Ramallah confirmed the deaths, noting that the identity of one victim remains unverified and that the army is withholding the body.

In a separate airstrike in Qabatiyah near Jenin, two more Palestinian men, aged 40 and 38 and reportedly related, were killed, confirmed Kamal Abu Rubb, governor of Jenin.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to inquiries about these operations. The West Bank has seen escalating violence since the onset of the Gaza conflict, with at least 754 Palestinians killed in the territory by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

In contrast, Palestinian attacks have claimed 24 Israeli lives during the same period, according to official Israeli sources.


Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Updated 05 November 2024
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Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed in the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, pro-democracy activists said on Tuesday, in an attack they blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Madani Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the country, said the RSF carried out the killings on Monday night in the village of Barborab, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital Wad Madani.