JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that 60 percent of Hamas fighters had been “eliminated or wounded” in the Gaza war since the militant group’s October 7 attacks.
Gallant reaffirmed in a statement to parliament on the first nine months of the conflict that Israel was “determined” to meet its war goals of eradicating Hamas and bringing all hostages back from Gaza.
The minister praised Israeli soldiers for “performing their work with dedication, sacrifice and success” and said “the achievements are many.”
Israel has launched major new offensives in Gaza City in the north and around Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south, even as it also embarks on contacts with international mediators on conditions for negotiating a truce with Hamas.
“We have eliminated or wounded 60 percent of the Hamas terrorists” and “dismantled” most the Palestinian group’s 24 battalions, Gallant said.
The minister did not give figures for the casualties and the Israeli military said it did not immediately have statistics.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.
Israel’s military retaliation has killed at least 38,295 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
While many countries expressed solidarity with Israel after the October 7 attacks, the government has also faced a wave of criticism for its military campaign that has devastated Gaza.
Gallant insisted Israel would stick to its aims.
“We have returned half of the hostages and we are determined to return the rest,” he said.
“The security establishment, and myself heading it, are determined to achieve the goals of the war and complete them.”
Israel defense minister says ‘60 percent’ of Hamas dead or wounded
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Israel defense minister says ‘60 percent’ of Hamas dead or wounded
- Yoav Gallant reaffirms that Israel is ‘determined’ to meet its war goals of eradicating Hamas and bringing all hostages back from Gaza
- Israel has launched major new offensives in Gaza City in the north and around Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south
US’s Blinken says ‘every indication’ Golan rocket fired by Hezbollah
- Blinken said Washington in talks with Israel to avoid conflict escalation
TOKYO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that there was “every indication” that Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was behind a rocket strike in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 young people.
“Every indication is that indeed the rocket was from Hezbollah. We stand by Israel’s right to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks,” Blinken told reporters in Japan.
The Israeli military said the young people were struck on Saturday by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Iran-backed Hezbollah fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike.
“We are determined to bring the Gaza conflict to a close. It’s gone on for far too long. It’s cost far too many lives. We want to see Israelis, we want to see Palestinians, we want to see Lebanese live free from the threat of conflict and violence,” Blinken said.
“We’re in conversations with the government of Israel. And again, I emphasize its right to defend its citizens and our determination to make sure that they’re able to do that,” he said in Tokyo.
“But we also don’t want to see the conflict escalating. We don’t want to see a spread. That has been one of our goals from day one, from October 7 on, and we’ll continue to do that.
“But again, the best way to do that in a sustained way is to get the ceasefire in Gaza that we’re working so hard on virtually every minute of the day,” he said.
Libya opens nominations for new government presidency
- Submission of nomination documents at HoR headquarters in Benghazi open until August 11.
BENGHAZI: Libya’s House of Representatives on Sunday announced the opening of nominations for the presidency of a new government, the Libyan News Agency reported.
Those wishing to run are invited to submit their nomination documents at HoR headquarters in Benghazi starting on Sunday, until Aug. 11.
House spokesperson Abdullah Balihaq, in an announcement on the council’s official page, said that the speaker, Aguila Saleh, is urging representatives and members of the Supreme Council of State to recommend qualified candidates for the position of prime minister.
Balihaq said that this call is based on the constitutional declaration, the 13th Constitutional Amendment, election laws issued by the House of Representatives, the outcomes of the 6+6 Committee, and the agreement made on March 10, 2024, between the speaker of the House of Representatives, the president of the Supreme Council of State, and the president of the Presidential Council at the League of Arab States headquarters in Cairo.
The invitation also, Balihaq added, follows the statement issued by the members of the House of Representatives and the State Council after their meeting in Cairo on July 18.
Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers
- New Iranian president due to be sworn in parliament on Tuesday
- Pezeshkian won runoff election in July against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili
TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Sunday his official endorsement of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s ninth president, following snap elections that had concluded earlier this month.
In a message read by the director of Khamenei’s office, he said: “I endorse the vote (for) the wise, honest, popular and scholarly Mr.Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday.
The endorsement ceremony was held in the capital Tehran in the presence of senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats, and broadcast on state TV.
Pezeshkian won a runoff election on July 5 against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash in May.
The 69-year-old reformist secured more than 16 million votes, or about 54 percent of the roughly 30 million ballots cast.
Turnout in the runoff election stood at 49.8 percent, up from a record low of about 40 percent in the first round, according to Iran’s electoral authority.
Jalili attended Sunday’s ceremony, as did former moderate president Hassan Rouhani who had backed Pezeshkian’s presidential bid along with Iran’s main reformist coalition.
Pezeshkian was the only candidate representing Iran’s reformist camp allowed to stand in the election, for which all contenders were approved by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council.
Iran’s president is not head of state, and the ultimate authority rests with the supreme leader — a post held by Khamenei for the last 35 years.
Following Khamenei’s official endorsement, Pezeshkian thanked the leader and the Iranian people, vowing to carry the “heavy burden” of the presidency.
The election came against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions since the Gaza war began in early October, disputes with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program, and domestic discontent over the state of the sanctions-hit economy.
On the campaign trail, Pezeshkian had pledged to try to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers, which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.
The deal collapsed in 2018 after Washington withdrew from it.
Pezeshkian has in a recent article called for “constructive relations” with European countries, even though he accused them of reneging on commitments to mitigate the impact of US sanctions.
Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon who has represented the northwestern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008.
He served as health minister under Iran’s last reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who held office from 1997 to 2005.
Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack
- Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years
Thousands of Druze men and women, many dressed in black, arrived for the funeral Sunday of several of the 12 youths killed in a rocket attack on the Israeli annexed Golan Heights the day before.
The Israeli military said they were struck by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.
Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike.
Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years.
Druze follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Early on Sunday morning, Druze women gathered around the coffins covered in white shrouds ahead of the funeral.
Several women dressed in black abayas cried as they laid flowers on the caskets, an AFP correspondent reported.
Many held pink flowers, while hundreds of men dressed in traditional Druze attire, including white caps topped with red, arrived for the ceremonies.
“Every night, every day, every minute we are worried. It’s been like this for 10 months,” Laith, a 42-year-old nurse who gave only his first name, told AFP.
“Everybody you see here is worried all the time,” he said. “We are so very sad. We lost children, children playing soccer.”
Under scorching sun, religious leaders led hundreds at a prayer meeting in a local municipal building, with the entire town at a standstill.
Shops closed, and checkpoints were set up at the entrance of every village in the Golan.
Israel’s army called Saturday’s rocket strike “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that triggered war in Gaza.
In Majdal Shams many residents have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.
That October 7 attack resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza has killed 39,324 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Iran’s Khamenei formally grants Pezeshkian presidential powers
- The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday
TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Sunday his official endorsement of reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s ninth president, following snap elections that had concluded earlier this month.
In a message read by the director of Khamenei’s office, he said: “I endorse the vote (for) the wise, honest, popular and scholarly Mr.Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday.
The endorsement ceremony was held in the capital Tehran in the presence of senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats, and broadcast on state TV.
Pezeshkian won a runoff election on July 5 against the ultraconservative Saeed Jalili to replace president Ebrahim Raisi who died in a helicopter crash in May.
The 69-year-old reformist secured more than 16 million votes, or about 54 percent of the roughly 30 million ballots cast.
Turnout in the runoff election stood at 49.8 percent, up from a record low of about 40 percent in the first round, according to Iran’s electoral authority.
Jalili attended Sunday’s ceremony, as did former moderate president Hassan Rouhani who had backed Pezeshkian’s presidential bid along with Iran’s main reformist coalition.
Pezeshkian was the only candidate representing Iran’s reformist camp allowed to stand in the election, for which all contenders were approved by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council.
Iran’s president is not head of state, and the ultimate authority rests with the supreme leader — a post held by Khamenei for the last 35 years.
Following Khamenei’s official endorsement, Pezeshkian thanked the leader and the Iranian people, vowing to carry the “heavy burden” of the presidency.
The election came against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions since the Gaza war began in early October, disputes with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program, and domestic discontent over the state of the sanctions-hit economy.
On the campaign trail, Pezeshkian had pledged to try to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other world powers, which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.
The deal collapsed in 2018 after Washington withdrew from it.
Pezeshkian has in a recent article called for “constructive relations” with European countries, even though he accused them of reneging on commitments to mitigate the impact of US sanctions.
Pezeshkian is a heart surgeon who has represented the northwestern city of Tabriz in parliament since 2008.
He served as health minister under Iran’s last reformist president Mohammad Khatami, who held office from 1997 to 2005.
