GAZA STRIP: Fighting raged Monday in and around the besieged Gaza Strip’s largest hospital complex where Israel said its forces killed and arrested Hamas militants, as Palestinians fled by foot under heavy bombardment.
While the army launched the overnight raid at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, the Israeli government sent the head of its Mossad spy agency to Qatar for renewed talks toward a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The devastating war since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel has left roughly half of Gazans — around 1.1 million people — experiencing “catastrophic” hunger, a UN-backed food security assessment warned.
The expert report is “exhibit A for the need for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, decrying an “entirely man-made disaster.”
“We must act now to prevent the unthinkable, the unacceptable and the unjustifiable,” he said.
Gaza’s soaring civilian death toll and large-scale destruction have hardened global opposition to Israel’s military operation and siege, including accusations of deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Israel’s military campaign had turned long-blockaded Gaza from the world’s “greatest open-air prison” into its biggest “open-air graveyard,” and that Israel was using famine as a “weapon of war.”
Foreign Minister Israel Katz replied that “Israel allows extensive humanitarian aid into Gaza” and accused Borrell of “attacking Israel.”
In the latest heavy battle, Israeli forces raided Al-Shifa in an operation the army said targeted senior Hamas militants.
Witnesses reported air strikes and tanks near the complex crowded with thousands of Palestinian patients and displaced people.
AFP images showed black smoke engulfing parts of the city after bombardment, with Palestinians fleeing by foot along rubble-strewn roads as others treated the wounded in the street.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said nearby residents had reported dozens of casualties who could not be helped “due to the intensity of gunfire and artillery shelling.”
An AFP journalist witnessed air strikes on buildings in the area around Al-Shifa and reported seeing “hundreds of people, mostly children, women, and the elderly, fleeing their homes.”
The Israeli military, which had asked Gazans to evacuate the area, said 20 militants were killed and dozens of others were detained at the hospital.
The army identified one of the fatalities as Hamas internal security official Fayq Al-Mabhouh, saying that “weapons were located in the room adjacent to where he was eliminated.”
A Gaza police source confirmed his death and said he was a brigadier general in the force. Relatives said he was also the brother of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas’s armed wing slain in Dubai in 2010.
Israeli forces previously raided Al-Shifa in November, when ground operations were focused on northern Gaza. In January Israel said it had “completed the dismantling” of Hamas’s command structure in the area.
Israel has repeatedly said the complex housed an underground Hamas control base, which the militants have denied.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “terribly worried” about the renewed fighting around Al-Shifa which was “endangering health workers, patients and civilians.”
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on October 7 that resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead.
Israel has carried out a relentless bombing campaign and ground offensive that Gaza’s health ministry says has killed at least 31,726 people, most of them women and children.
As the fighting flared around Al-Shifa, elsewhere in Gaza City a massive crowd gathered at a UN food distribution center to collect bags of flour.
“There’s nothing to eat or drink. Children are dying,” said resident Umm Omar Al-Masharwai.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which operates the facility and coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has faced funding cuts since Israel accused about a dozen of its employees of involvement in the October 7 attack.
UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Monday he intended to visit Gaza but had been denied entry by “Israeli authorities,” a claim Israel did not immediately comment on.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Israel of “starving children to death” in its siege of the Gaza Strip, and humanitarian charity Oxfam said Israel was “systematically and deliberately” blocking aid.
Global concern has focussed on Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million Palestinians now live, many of them in crowded shelters and tent cities near the Egyptian border.
Repeated Israeli warnings of a looming ground invasion have raised fears of an even worse humanitarian catastrophe.
Responding to concerns voiced by top ally the United States and other governments, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday reiterated that civilians would be evacuated from Rafah before any ground attack, without detailing where to.
Mediation efforts toward a truce were expected to resume, following a week-long ceasefire in November.
A meeting in Qatar between Israel’s Mossad spy chief, David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egyptian officials “is expected to take place today,” a source close to the talks said.
It follows the latest proposal submitted by Hamas for a six-week truce, vastly more aid into Gaza and the initial release of about 42 hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
During the proposed truce, Israeli forces would withdraw from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza, according to a Hamas official.
Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that Hamas’s new proposal was “unrealistic” but that Israel would send a delegation to Doha.
The White House said US President Joe Biden and Netanyahu spoke on Monday in their first call for over a month, with tensions rising over the war and its impact on civilians.
Battle rages at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital
https://arab.news/m74a6
Battle rages at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital
- Witnesses reported air strikes and tanks near the complex crowded with thousands of Palestinian patients and displaced people
- UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Monday he intended to visit Gaza but had been denied entry by “Israeli authorities”
Lebanon says Israeli strike on eastern town kills at least 8
BEIRUT: Lebanon said eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday in the east, with state media reporting the attack on a house killed a mother and her children.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Shmostar killed eight people, including four children, and nine others were injured, including four in critical condition,” a ministry statement said, giving a preliminary toll.
The official National Nwes Agency earlier said the attack “killed a family including a mother and her four children.”
Doctor at the heart of Turkiye’s newborn baby deaths case says he was a ‘trusted’ physician
- Dr. Firat Sari is one of 47 people on trial accused of transferring newborn babies to neonatal units of private hospitals
- “Patients were referred to me because people trusted me. We did not accept patients by bribing anyone from 112,” Sari said
ISTANBUL: The Turkish doctor at the center of an alleged fraud scheme that led to the deaths of 10 babies told an Istanbul court Saturday that he was a “trusted” physician.
Dr. Firat Sari is one of 47 people on trial accused of transferring newborn babies to neonatal units of private hospitals, where they were allegedly kept for prolonged and sometimes unnecessary treatments in order to receive social security payments.
“Patients were referred to me because people trusted me. We did not accept patients by bribing anyone from 112,” Sari said, referring to Turkiye’s emergency medical phone line.
Sari, said to be the plot’s ringleader, operated the neonatal intensive care units of several private hospitals in Istanbul. He is facing a sentence of up to 583 years in prison in a case where doctors, nurses, hospital managers and other health staff are accused of putting financial gain before newborns’ wellbeing.
The case, which emerged last month, has sparked public outrage and calls for greater oversight of the health care system. Authorities have since revoked the licenses and closed 10 of the 19 hospitals that were implicated in the scandal.
“I want to tell everything so that the events can be revealed,” Sari, the owner of Medisense Health Services, told the court. “I love my profession very much. I love being a doctor very much.”
Although the defendants are charged with the negligent homicide of 10 infants since January 2023, an investigative report cited by the state-run Anadolu news agency said they caused the deaths of “hundreds” of babies over a much longer time period.
Over 350 families have petitioned prosecutors or other state institutions seeking investigations into the deaths of their children, according to state media.
Prosecutors at the trial, which opened on Monday, say the defendants also falsified reports to make the babies’ condition appear more serious so as to obtain more money from the state as well as from families.
The main defendants have denied any wrongdoing, insisting they made the best possible decisions and are now facing punishment for unavoidable, unwanted outcomes.
Sari is charged with establishing an organization with the aim of committing a crime, defrauding public institutions, forgery of official documents and homicide by negligence.
During questioning by prosecutors before the trial, Sari denied accusations that the babies were not given the proper care, that the neonatal units were understaffed or that his employees were not appropriately qualified, according to a 1,400-page indictment.
“Everything is in accordance with procedures,” he told prosecutors in a statement.
The hearings at Bakirkoy courthouse, on Istanbul’s European side, have seen protests outside calling for private hospitals to be shut down and “baby killers” to be held accountable.
The case has also led to calls for the resignation of Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu, who was the Istanbul provincial health director at the time some of the deaths occurred. Ozgur Ozel, the main opposition party leader, has called for all hospitals involved to be nationalized.
In a Saturday interview with the A Haber TV channel, Memisoglu characterized the defendants as “bad apples” who had been “weeded out.”
“Our health system is one of the best health systems in the world,” he said. “This is a very exceptional, very organized criminal organization. It is a mistake to evaluate this in the health system as a whole.”
Memisoglu also denied the claim that he shut down an investigation into the claims in 2016, when he was Istanbul’s health director, calling it “a lie and slander.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week that those responsible for the deaths would be severely punished but warned against placing all the blame on the country’s health care system.
“We will not allow our health care community to be battered because of a few rotten apples,” he said.
Fear in central Beirut district hit by Israeli strikes
- “The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads,” said Samir
- There had been no evacuation warning issued by the Israeli military for the Basta area
BEIRUT: When Lebanese carpenter Samir awoke in a panic Saturday to the sound of explosions and screams, he thought his own building in central Beirut had been hit by an air raid.
As it turned out, the early morning air strike — which killed at least 11 people and injured 63, according to authorities — had actually brought down an eight-story building nearby, in the second such attack on the working-class neighborhood of Basta in as many months.
A Lebanese security source told AFP the target had been a senior Hezbollah figure, without naming him.
“The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads,” said Samir, 60, who lives with his family in a building facing the one that was hit.
“It felt like they had targeted my house,” he said, asking to be identified by only his first name because of security concerns.
There had been no evacuation warning issued by the Israeli military for the Basta area.
After the strike, Samir fled his home in the middle of the night with his wife and two children, aged 14 and just three.
On Saturday morning, dumbstruck residents watched as an excavator cleared the wreckage of the razed building and rescue efforts continued, with nearby buildings also damaged in the attack, AFP journalists reported.
The densely packed district has welcomed people displaced from traditional Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east, south and southern Beirut, after Israel intensified its air campaign on September 23, later sending in ground troops.
“We saw two dead people on the ground... The children started crying and their mother cried even more,” Samir told AFP, reporting minor damage to his home.
Since last Sunday, four deadly Israeli strikes have hit central Beirut, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
Residents across the city and its outskirts awoke at 0400 (0200 GMT) on Saturday to loud explosions and the smell of gunpowder in the air.
“It was the first time I’ve woken up screaming in terror,” said Salah, a 35-year-old father of two who lives in the same street as the building that was targeted.
“Words can’t express the fear that gripped me,” he said.
Saturday’s strikes were the second time the Basta district had been targeted since war broke out, after deadly twin strikes early in October hit the area and the Nweiri neighborhood.
Last month’s attacks killed 22 people and had targeted Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa, who made it out alive, a source close to the group told AFP.
Salah said his wife and children had been in the northern city of Tripoli, about 70 kilometers away (45 miles), but that he had to stay in the capital because of work.
His family had been due to return this weekend because their school reopens on Monday, but now he has decided against it following the attack.
“I miss them. Every day they ask me: ‘Dad, when are we coming home?’” he said.
Lebanon’s health ministry says that more than 3,650 people have been killed since October 2023, after Hezbollah initiated exchanges of fire with Israel in solidarity with its Iran-backed ally Hamas over the Gaza war.
However, most of the deaths in Lebanon have been since September this year.
Despite the trauma caused by Saturday’s strike, Samir said he and his family had no choice but to return home.
“Where else would I go?” he asked.
“All my relatives and siblings have been displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs and from the south.”
US says committed to ‘diplomatic resolution’ in Lebanon
- Austin “reiterated US commitment to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes “
- He also “urged the Government of Israel to continue to take steps to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza”
WASHSINGTON: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed that the United States was dedicated to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon and urged Israel to improve “dire” conditions in Gaza, in a call Saturday with his Israeli counterpart.
Austin “reiterated US commitment to a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the border” in his call with Israel Katz, according to a Pentagon spokesperson.
Austin also “urged the Government of Israel to continue to take steps to improve the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza and emphasized the US commitment to securing the release of all hostages, including US citizens.”
Lebanon said Saturday that an Israeli air strike in the heart of Beirut that brought down a residential building and jolted residents across the city killed at least 11 people.
Israel stepped up its campaign against the Hezbollah militant group in late September, targeting its strongholds in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,645 people have been killed since October 2023, when Hezbollah began trading fire with Israel in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas.
The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel said Friday it had killed two commanders involved in Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
In the call with Katz, Austin also discussed ongoing Israeli operations and reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” the Pentagon said.
Turkiye’s Erdogan hails ‘courageous’ ICC warrants for Israeli leaders
ISTANBUL: Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday praised the “courageous decision” of the International Criminal Court to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
“We support the arrest warrant. We consider it important that this courageous decision be carried out by all country members of the accord to renew the trust of humanity in the international system,” Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul. The ICC issued the warrants against the Israeli leaders and Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif on Thursday on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Gaza conflict.
