GAZA: The handcuffed bodies of three Palestinian men freed from Israeli custody have been found near Gaza’s border with Israel, and an uncle of one of them and a witness said they had been attacked by Israeli forces shortly after their release.
Abdel Hadi Ghabayen, an uncle of one of the detainees, Kamel Ghabayen, said he set out at 5 a.m. on Sunday looking for his nephew following his arrest by Israeli forces on Saturday.
“I found him left on the ground along with the other two martyrs. They were without clothes, and their hands had plastic cuffs put on them by the Israeli army,” Ghabayen said.
The bodies were found near the Israeli border fence on Sunday in the vicinity of the Karam Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing in southern Gaza, he said.
Reuters could not independently confirm what happened to the three men or the reason for their arrest. In response to Reuters requests for comment, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “From a review conducted the IDF is unfamiliar with an incident in which the suspects were killed by IDF fire.”
Abdel Hadi Ghabayen said one of the men had lost a leg and his body was “in pieces” after what he said was an attack by Israeli forces carried out shortly after their release.
Abdel Hadi Ghabayen said that when he tried to recover the man’s dismembered leg the Israelis “started shooting at me, so I stopped.” He later carried the bodies of the three on his truck to Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
The three — Kamel Ghabayen, Mohammed Awad Ramadan Abu Hejazi and Ramadan Awad Ramadan Aby Hejaz — were among several Palestinians detained on Saturday and held for questioning, according to one of the men, Mahmoud Abu Taha.
Abu Taha said they came under fire shortly after their release.
“We reached Karkar Street (in Gaza). After 10 minutes of being there, we found a bomb thrown at the people with me. Thank God I was at the front. The bomb hit 6 or 7 people who were detained with us. Thank God I am alive,” he said.
The war began on Oct. 7 when fighters led by Hamas, which controlled Gaza, attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures. More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military offensive since then, according to Gaza health officials.
Three Gazans found dead after release from Israeli custody, relative and witness say
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Three Gazans found dead after release from Israeli custody, relative and witness say
Hezbollah rockets hit Israel’s Haifa, 10 injured
- Israel’s military said fighter jets hit targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Intelligence Headquarters in Beirut, including intelligence-gathering means, command centers, and additional infrastructure sites
JERUSALEM: Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, Israeli police said early on Monday, and Israeli media reported 10 people were injured in the country’s north.
Hezbollah said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with a salvo of “Fadi 1” missiles. Media reports said two rockets hit Haifa.
Police said that some buildings and properties were damaged, and that there were several reports of minor injuries and people were taken to a nearby hospital.
Israel’s military said fighter jets hit targets belonging to Hezbollah’s Intelligence Headquarters in Beirut, including intelligence-gathering means, command centers, and additional infrastructure sites.
Over the past few hours, the airstrikes struck Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the area of Beirut, the military said, noting that secondary explosions were identified following the strikes, indicating the presence of weaponry.
Airstrikes also struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa area, including weapons storage facilities, infrastructure sites, a command center, and a launcher, the military said.
It blamed Hezbollah for deliberately embedding its command centers and weaponry beneath residential buildings in the heart of the city of Beirut and endangering the civilian population.
Russia says it struck two Syrian militant sites
- “Russian Aerospace Forces have struck two identified sites of militant who left the Al-Tanf zone,” RIA quoted Ignasyuk, who is also theputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, as telling a briefing
DAMASCUS: Russia’s air force carried out strikes on two militant sites in Syria outside the area of Al-Tanf, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported on Sunday, referring to the region of a US military base.
Citing Captain Oleg Ignasyuk, the report did not specify the location but said the militants had recently left the Al-Tanf area, which borders Jordan.
“Russian Aerospace Forces have struck two identified sites of militant who left the Al-Tanf zone,” RIA quoted Ignasyuk, who is also theputy head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, as telling a briefing.
Tunisia’s Saied toward landslide win in election, supporters celebrate
- Saied, 66, has rejected criticism of his actions, saying he is fighting a corrupt elite and traitors, and that he will not be a dictator
TUNIS: Supporters of current Tunisian President Kais Saied began celebrations in the capital on Sunday night after an exit poll broadcast on state television showed him winning, beating two rivals, one of whom is now in prison
Saied on Sunday faced two election rivals: his former ally turned critic, Chaab Party leader Zouhair Maghzaoui, and Ayachi Zammel, who was jailed last month.
Turnout stood at 27.7 percent, the election commission said after the close of polls — just half what it was in the runoff round of the 2019 presidential election.
Official results are not expected until Monday evening but an exit poll by Sigma company, a polling agency, showed Saied in the lead with 89.2 percent of votes, according to state television.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Main rival was jailed last month
• Rights groups say Saied has undone democratic gains
• Saied says he is fighting a corrupt elite
• Exit poll puts Saied in the lead with 89.2 percent of votes
In his first comment, Saied told state television, “This is a continuation of the revolution. We will build and will cleanse the country of the corrupt, traitors and conspirators.”
Zammel and Maghzaoui’s campaigns rejected the exit poll results saying the real results will be different.
On the main avenue of Habib Bourguiba in the capital city of Tunis, celebrants raised pictures of Saied and the Tunisian flag, chanting “The people want to build and develop.”
“We rejoice for a person because he served the state and not for his own benefit, he serves for the benefit of the people and the state,” Mohsen Ibrahim said when he was celebrating.
Tunisia had for years been hailed as the only relative success story of the 2011 “Arab Spring” uprisings for introducing a competitive, though flawed, democracy following decades of autocratic rule.
However, rights groups now say Saied, in power since 2019, has undone many of those democratic gains while removing institutional and legal checks on his power. Saied, 66, has rejected criticism of his actions, saying he is fighting a corrupt elite and traitors, and that he will not be a dictator.
Senior figures from the biggest parties, which largely oppose Saied, have been imprisoned on various charges over the past year and those parties have not publicly backed any of the three candidates on Sunday’s ballot. Other opponents have been barred from running.
“The scene is shameful. Journalists and opponents in prison, including one presidential candidate.” said Wael, a bank employee in Tunis, who gave only his first name.
CANDIDATES DISQUALIFIED
Political tensions have risen since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.
Lawmakers loyal to Saied then approved a law last week stripping the administrative court of authority over election disputes. This court is widely seen as the country’s last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022.
While elections in the years soon after the 2011 revolution were fiercely contested and drew very high participation rates, public anger at Tunisia’s poor economic performance and corruption among the elite led to disillusionment.
Saied, elected in 2019, seized most powers in 2021 when he dissolved the elected parliament and rewrote the constitution, a move the opposition described as a coup.
A referendum on the constitution passed with turnout of only 30 percent, while a January 2023 runoff for the new, nearly powerless, parliament he created with that constitution had turnout of only 11 percent.
Although tourism revenues are on the rise and there has been financial help from European countries worried about migration, state finances remain strained. Shortages of subsidised goods are common, as are outages of power and water.
Hamas praises ‘glorious’ Oct 7 attack ahead of anniversary
- At least 41,870 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza
DOHA: Palestinian militant group Hamas on Sunday praised its October 7 attack on Israel in a video message ahead of the first anniversary of the deadly storming of southern Israel which sparked the war in Gaza.
“The crossing of the glorious 7th of October shattered the illusions the enemy had created for itself, convincing the world and the region of its supposed superiority and capabilities,” Qatar-based Hamas member Khalil Al-Hayya said in a video statement.
Last year’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
At least 41,870 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to data provided by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
Al-Hayya, said a year after the October 7 attack, “all of Palestine, particularly Gaza, and our Palestinian people are writing a new history with their resistance, blood, and steadfastness.”
The Hamas member, who has emerged as the Islamist group’s public face following the killing of its former leader Ismail Haniyeh in July, said Gazans had remained “resilient to all attempts at displacement... despite the kinds of torture and terrorism you have endured, and the horrific genocide and daily massacre.”
Iran’s Quds Force chief out of contact since Beirut strikes, Iranian officials say
- The second Iranian official also said Qaani had traveled to Lebanon after the killing of Nasrallah and the Iranian authorities had not been able to contact him since the strike against Safieddine, who was widely expected to be the next Hezbollah chief
DAMASCUS: Iran’s Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, who traveled to Lebanon after the killing last month of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike, has not been heard from since strikes on Beirut late last week, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters.
One of the officials said Qaani was in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh, during a strike that was reported to have targeted senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine but the official said he was not meeting Safieddine.
A Hezbollah official said Israel was not allowing a search for Safieddine to progress after it bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday. The officials said the group would only announce Safieddine’s fate when the search concluded.
Safieddine is seen as a likely successor to Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Dahiyeh on Sept. 27.
The Iranian official said Iran and Hezbollah had not been able to contact Qaani, named by Tehran as the head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps’ overseas military-intelligence service, or Quds Force, after the United States assassinated his predecessor Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
Israel has been hitting multiple targets in Dahiyeh as it pursues a campaign against Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
The second Iranian official also said Qaani had traveled to Lebanon after the killing of Nasrallah and the Iranian authorities had not been able to contact him since the strike against Safieddine, who was widely expected to be the next Hezbollah chief.
Asked about reports that Qaani may have been killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the results of the strikes were still being assessed.
He said that Israel had conducted an attack late last week against Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut.
“When we have more specific results from that strike, we will share it. There’s a lot of questions about who was there and who was not,” he told a briefing with reporters.
The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, oversees dealings with militias allied with Tehran across the Middle East, such as Hezbollah.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Brig. Gen. Abbas Nilforoushan was killed with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit on Sept. 27 by Israeli bombs.
