Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,010

A boy mourns near the body of his father and other Palestinians, who were killed in an Israeli strike, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Oct. 9, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 09 October 2024
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,010

  • The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Wednesday that at least 42,010 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 97,720 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.


Israeli strike kills policeman in Syria: state media

Updated 2 min 43 sec ago
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Israeli strike kills policeman in Syria: state media

  • It comes after a strike in the Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh late Tuesday

BEIRUT: Israeli bombardment on Wednesday killed a policeman in the south of Syria near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, state media said, the day after a deadly air strike on the capital.
Israel has repeatedly struck Syria throughout the civil war that started in 2011, but it has ramped these up in recent weeks as it also pounds Lebanon.
Citing a police official, the official SANA news agency reported “the death of a security force member and wounding of another in an Israeli strike” on the outskirts of Quneitra city.
It comes after a strike in the Damascus neighborhood of Mazzeh late Tuesday, that a war monitor said targeted a building used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Syrian government said it killed seven civilians.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor on Wednesday reported a higher toll of nine civilians, including four children.
The Britain-based organization said four others were also killed, including two members of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Last week, the Observatory said an Israeli strike on Mazzeh killed four people, including the son-in-law of the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on south Beirut last month.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence.
Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been among the Syrian government’s most important allies in the country’s more than decade-old civil war.


Six wounded in stabbing attack in Israel, police say

Updated 18 sec ago
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Six wounded in stabbing attack in Israel, police say

  • At least two were in serious condition

JERUSALEM: At least six people were wounded, two of them seriously, in a stabbing attack in the Israeli city of Hadera on Wednesday, Israeli authorities said.
“The terrorist has been neutralized,” police said in a statement. “Four separate locations have been identified, resulting in six victims with stab wounds.”
The police did not immediately provide other details, but issued a brief video of the suspected attacker being apprehended.
Of the six people rushed to the hospital, at least two were in serious condition, according to medical officials.
Israel has been on high security alert since the Hamas assault a year ago sparked the war in Gaza, while a the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon continues to escalate.


Turkiye moves to evacuate nationals from Lebanon

Updated 31 min 2 sec ago
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Turkiye moves to evacuate nationals from Lebanon

  • Turkiye is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon

ANKARA: Turkiye on Wednesday sent ships to evacuate around 2,000 of its citizens from Lebanon, with its Beirut envoy saying it would be “the biggest” evacuation of its type from the war-torn country.

A Turkish diplomatic source told AFP two naval ships carrying the evacuated nationals and their families would arrive at the southern Turkish port of Mersin “in the early hours” of Thursday morning.

The two ships set sail overnight for the Lebanese capital whose southern suburbs were hit overnight by fresh Israeli bombardments.

“These ships, with a capacity of around 2,000 people, will be ready to take those of our citizens who requested it from Lebanon to Mersin port,” Turkish ambassador Ali Baris Ulusoy told TRT Haber public television.

Turkiye, which is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon, announced the move on Tuesday because of the deteriorating security situation on the ground in Lebanon.

Images on TRT Haber showed a crowd of people at Beirut port waiting to board the boats.

The ambassador said the two ships were also bringing “approximately 300 tons of humanitarian aid” to show Turkiye’s support for the Lebanese people, including tents, bedding, hygiene kits and kitchenware.

Since September 23, Israel has intensified strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, killing more than 1,100 people and forcing more than a million to flee, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday.


Hamas, Fatah leaders to hold Palestinian unity talks in Cairo

Updated 09 October 2024
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Hamas, Fatah leaders to hold Palestinian unity talks in Cairo

  • Hamas delegation led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar

CAIRO: Leaders from the Islamist group Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement will hold further unity talks in Cairo on Wednesday, a Hamas official told Reuters.
According to Taher Al-Nono, the media adviser of the Hamas political chief, the Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday. It was led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar.
“The meeting will discuss the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, and the challenges facing the Palestinian cause,” Nono said.
There was no immediate comment from Fatah.
The meeting will be the first in months since the two groups held talks in the Chinese capital in July, agreeing on steps to form a unity government. Similar rounds in the past have so far failed to make progress.
The issue of the post-war Gaza administration is one of the thorniest issues facing the Palestinians, and both factions have said it was an internal affair, rejecting any Israeli conditions.
Israel vowed it would not accept any role for Hamas in post-war Gaza. It says it doesn’t trust the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority to do the job either.


Israel carries out new strikes in Gaza, UN chief says many trapped in north

Updated 09 October 2024
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Israel carries out new strikes in Gaza, UN chief says many trapped in north

  • Israel says it is rooting our Hamas militants
  • Israel presses on with raid on Jabalia refugee camp

CAIRO: At least 18 people were killed in overnight military strikes on Gaza, Palestinian medics said on Wednesday, as Israeli forces pressed on with a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in the enclave’s north.
The Israeli military says the raid, now in its fifth day, is intended to stop Hamas fighters staging further attacks from Jabalia and to prevent them regrouping.
It has repeatedly issued evacuation orders to residents of Jabalia and nearby areas, but Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe places to flee to in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received unconfirmed reports that dozens of Palestinians may have been killed in Jabalia and other areas of northern Gaza, but is unable reach them because of Israeli bombardments.
“At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee Agency (UNRWA), posted on X on Wednesday.
“Recent evacuation orders from the Israeli Authorities are forcing people to flee again & again, especially from Jabalia Camp. Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere in #Gaza is safe.”
Lazzarini said some UNRWA shelters and services were being forced to shut down for the first time since the war began and that with almost no basic supplies available, hunger was spreading again in northern Gaza.
“This recent military operation also threatens the implementation of the second phase of the #polio vaccination campaign for children,” he said.
Israel did not immediately comment on Lazzarini’s remarks. Israeli authorities have previously said they facilitate food deliveries to Gaza despite challenging conditions.
Overnight strikes 
Israel’s military, which is also in conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, says Hamas militants use residential areas as cover in the densely populated territory, including schools and hospitals. Hamas denies this.
In one Israeli strike overnight on a house in Shejaia, a suburb of Gaza City, nine people of the same family were killed, medics said. The rest of the dead from the overnight strikes were killed in central areas of the Gaza Strip.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, the Gaza health ministry says. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the enclave has been laid to waste.