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Netanyahu says Israel must retain control of security in Gaza after the war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that the military would have to retain open-ended security control over the Gaza Strip long after the war against Hamas ends.
The remarks came as Israel's military said its troops had entered Gaza's second-largest city in its its pursuit to wipe out the territory's Hamas rulers. The war has already killed more than 15,000 Palestinians and displaced over three-fourths of Gaza's 2.3 million residents, who are running out of safe places to go.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll in the territory since Oct. 7 has surpassed 16,248, with more than 42,000 wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but said 70% of the dead were women and children. Israel says it targets Hamas operatives and blames civilian casualties on the militants, accusing them of operating in residential neighborhoods.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt, which mediated an earlier cease-fire, say they are working on a longer truce. Hamas said talks on releasing more of the scores of hostages seized by militants on Oct. 7 must be tied to a permanent cease-fire.
GAZA DEATH TOLL PASSES 16,000
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 16,248 Palestinians have been killed and more than 42,000 wounded since the Israel-Hamas war broke out two months ago.
The ministry said Tuesday evening that the death toll included more than 6,000 children and more than 4,000 women. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The figures show a sharp rise in deaths since a weeklong truce between Israel and Hamas collapsed late last week. Since the resumption of fighting on Friday, more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed, according to the Health Ministry.
Last week, the United States urged Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians as its air and ground campaign shifted to southern Gaza, particularly in and around Khan Younis, the territory’s second largest city.
LIMITED HUMANITARIAN AID IS GOING TO GAZA
UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations says limited humanitarian aid is being delivered only to the Rafah region in southern Gaza because of intense hostilities. It also says that all telecom services have shut down due to cuts in the main fiber routes.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday that only 100 aid trucks with humanitarian supplies and 69,000 liters of fuel entered Gaza from Egypt on Monday, about the same amount as Sunday.
That is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 liters of fuel that entered Gaza during the humanitarian pause from Nov. 24-30, he said.
Dujarric quoted Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian territories, saying “shelters have no capacity, the health system is on its knees, and there is a lack of clean drinking water, no proper sanitation and poor nutrition.”
He reiterated that there are no safe places in Gaza and that “those places that fly the U.N. flag are not safe either.”
Dujarric said the main telecommunication provider in Gaza announced the shutdown of all telecom services Monday night..
NETANYAHU, BIDEN SPEAK OUT ABOUT RAPE ALLEGATIONS
JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused international human rights groups of turning a blind eye to rapes that Israel says were committed by Hamas militants during their Oct. 7 cross-border rampage.
Witnesses and medical experts have said that Hamas militants committed a series of rapes and other attacks before killing the victims in the attack, though the extent of the sexual violence remains unknown.
Experts have been piecing together evidence in recent weeks in a case that is complicated because there are no known victims to testify and limited forensic evidence.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday, Netanyahu accused the international community of playing down the attacks and even ignoring them. He said he expects "all civilized leaders, governments, nations to speak up against this atrocity.”
Speaking at a campaign fundraiser in Boston, U.S. President Joe Biden called on the world to condemn the acts by Hamas “without equivocation” and “without exception.”
He also stressed that “Hamas’ refusal to release the remaining young women” is what ended a temporary truce and hostage agreement that the U.S. helped broker.
HOSTAGES' RELATIVES MEET WITH NETANYAHU
JERUSALEM — Family members of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza held a tense meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet Tuesday. Participants said the meeting ended after nearly half the room had left in disappointment with the government’s efforts to return their loved ones.
It was the first time the war cabinet had heard directly from recently released hostages. At least five shared harrowing details of their experience in Gaza and called on the government to do more to bring home some 138 still in captivity.
A group representing the hostages’ families said one recently freed hostage testified during the meeting to Hamas “touching” female hostages. Another hostage, according to the group, told the war cabinet the militants shaved off a male hostage’s body hair to humiliate him. Others said they were deprived of water.
Witnesses and medical experts have said Hamas militants raped women during the Oct. 7 cross-border rampage that triggered the war. The Associated Press has not been able to verify reports that hostages were sexually abused in captivity.
Some 110 hostages were freed in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a weeklong cease-fire that ended Friday. The Israeli army says 138 people remain in captivity in Gaza.
ISRAEL CONSIDERS FLOODING GAZA TUNNELS
JERUSALEM — Israel’s army chief has confirmed that Israel is considering flooding Hamas’ tunnels in Gaza with seawater to destroy the militant group’s underground network. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the army has assembled a system of large pumps that could flood the approximately 300 miles of Hamas tunnels in Gaza. Asked about the report, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said flooding the tunnels could be a “good idea” and that it was “one of a number of options we are considering.” Hamas is believed to have a sprawling network of tunnels it uses to move fighters, weapons and supplies throughout Gaza. Israel has said it already has destroyed hundreds of tunnel sections during the war. It is unclear if flooding the tunnels with seawater could threaten Gaza’s already overtaxed underground freshwater aquifer or potentially damage soil with salt and hazardous materials.
US PROMISES MORE AID FOR GAZA
EL-ARISH, Egypt — The United States has pledged an additional $21 million in humanitarian assistance for Gaza to help establish a field hospital.
The aid was announced Tuesday by Samantha Power, who heads the U.S. Agency for International Development, during a visit to the Egyptian city of el-Arish.
The city is some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Gaza’s western border and has become the drop-off point for international aid before it’s packed in trucks and transported to the besieged enclave. The war between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers has forced many of the territory’s hospitals to close.
Power also reiterated that the U.S was committed to boosting aid and protecting civilians as Israel presses ahead with its offensive.
“Military operations need to be conducted in a way that distinguishes fighters from civilians,” Power said.
The U.S., a close ally of Israel, has backed Israel’s offensive but urged Israel to reduce civilian casualties. It has also called for humanitarian pauses to ease the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.
A weeklong cease-fire that ended Friday saw an uptick in aid enter Gaza, including fuel. Since Oct. 7., a trickle of aid has flowed intermittently into Gaza through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing.
US ORGANIZES AID FLIGHT TO GAZA
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — White House Principal Deputy Secretary Olivia Dalton said Tuesday the U.S. had organized a second aid flight into Gaza with 36,000 pounds (16,329 kilograms) of food and medical supplies.
An Air Force C-17 aircraft delivered the items to Egypt, where they were to be transported into Gaza and distributed by United Nations agencies, Dalton said.
The aid came as USAID administrator Samantha Power arrived in Egypt to meet with local officials and Egyptian and international humanitarian organizations.
Dalton spoke as President Joe Biden traveled to Boston for a series of fundraisers for the 2024 campaign.
ISRAELI SHELLING KILLS A LEBANESE SOLDIER, ARMY SAYS
BEIRUT — Israeli shelling hit an army post in south Lebanon on Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding three others, the Lebanese army said.
It was the first report of a death of a Lebanese army soldier during the clashes between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the border against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. The Lebanese army has not been an active party in the conflict.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the Lebanese soldiers were not the intended target of the strike, which it said was launched in “self-defense to eliminate an imminent threat.” It added that the Israeli army “expresses regret over the incident.”
Hezbollah said in a statement that it had fired guided missiles at a group of Israeli soldiers in Manara in northern Israel in retaliation for the killing. The militant group also claimed an earlier drone attack on an Israeli position in Metula.
Hezbollah started attacking Israeli positions on Oct. 8, a day after the Israel-Hamas war began, in the disputed Chebaa Farms area along the
RULER OF QATAR ACCUSES ISRAEL OF GENOCIDE
CAIRO — The ruler of Qatar, which has played a key role in mediating between Israel and Hamas, has accused Israel of carrying out “crimes of genocide” in Gaza.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani lashed out at Israel at a summit of Gulf Arab leaders in Doha on Tuesday.
He said “all religious, ethical and humanitarian values have been violated in occupied Palestine through crimes the occupation forces are committing against humanity.”
Israel says it is acting in self-defense after Hamas launched an attack deep into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and capturing scores of men, women and children.
Qatar’s emir said self-defense “doesn’t permit the crimes of genocide that Israel is committing.”
The war has killed over 15,000 people in Gaza, 70% of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel says it makes every effort to spare civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields.
Qatar has long hosted a Hamas political office, and some of the group’s top leaders are based there.
In an audio recording released this week, Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, threatened to target Hamas leaders everywhere, including in Qatar.
TURKISH PRESIDENT SAYS NETANYAHU GOVERNMENT IS ENDANGERING REGION'S SECURITY
ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Israel should not be allowed to “get away” with alleged crimes committed in Gaza.
In an address Tuesday to a Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Doha, Erdogan also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is entangle in legal troubles, of putting the entire region at danger for his alleged political survival.
“The Netanyahu administration is endangering the security and future of our entire region in order to extend its political life,” Erdogan said in televised comments.
“The loss of life of 17,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women, is a crime against humanity and a war crime. Israel should not get away with these crimes,” he said.
A vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, Erdogan has repeatedly called for Netanyahu to be put on trial for alleged war crimes.
FRANCE FREEZES HAMAS LEADER'S ASSETS
PARIS — France froze all assets belonging to Hamas’ top leader in Gaza starting Tuesday and lasting six months.
Yehya Sinwar is considered the mastermind of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. A decision published in the Official Journal of the French Republic said that “funds and economic resources owned, held or controlled” by Yehya Sinwar were being frozen. The total value of Sinwar’s assets in France was not provided.
At least 85 civilians killed by a Nigerian army drone attack, in the latest such deadly mistake
At least 85 civilians were killed when an army drone attack erroneously targeted a religious gathering in northwest Nigeria, officials confirmed Tuesday, as the president ordered an investigation into the latest in a series of such deadly mistakes in Nigeria’s conflict zones.
The strike took place Sunday night in Kaduna state's Tudun Biri village while residents observed the Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, government officials said. The military believed it was “targeting terrorists and bandits," officials said.
At least 66 people also were injured in the attack, the National Emergency Management Agency said in a statement. Eighty-five bodies, including of children, women and the elderly, have been buried so far, as a search continues for any additional victims, the agency said.
Nigeria’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, apologized for the drone strike during a visit to the village Tuesday and said it had been carried out "based on the observation of some tactics usually employed by bandits.”
“Unfortunately, the reports we got revealed it was innocent civilians that the drone conducted a strike on,” Lagbaja said.
Since 2017, some 400 civilians have been killed by airstrikes that the military said were targeting armed groups in the deadly security crisis in the country’s north, according to the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.
“The incidence of miscalculated airstrikes is assuming a worrisome dimension in the country,” said Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former vice-president and the main opposition presidential candidate in this year’s election.
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered “a thorough and full-fledged investigation into the incident.” However, such investigations and their outcomes are often shrouded in secrecy.
Nigeria’s military often conducts air raids as it fights the extremist violence and rebel attacks that have destabilized Nigeria’s north for more than a decade, often leaving civilian casualties in its wake, including in January when dozens were killed in Nasarawa state and in December 2022 when dozens also died in Zamfara state.
Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Defense Headquarters, said in a statement Tuesday that terror suspects often “deliberately embed themselves within civilian population centers," though he wasn't speaking specifically about Sunday's holiday gathering.
Analysts have in the past raised concerns about the lack of collaboration among Nigerian security agencies as well as the absence of due diligence in some of their special operations in conflict zones.
One major concern has been the proliferation of drones within Nigerian security agencies such that “there is no guiding principle one when these can be used,” according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja.
"The military sees itself as a little bit over and above civilian accountability as it were," Adamu said.
In the incident in Nasarawa in January, when 39 people were killed, the Nigerian air force “provided little information and no justice” over the incident, Human Rights Watch said.
Such incidents are enabled by a lack of punishment for erring officers or agencies, according to Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International's director in Nigeria.
"The Nigerian military is taking lightly the lack of consequences ... and the civilians they are supposed to protect are the ones paying the price of their incompetence and lack of due diligence," Sanusi told The Associated Press.
Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai says world needs to recognise Taliban’s ‘gender apartheid’ against women
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said Tuesday that the world needs to recognize and confront the “gender apartheid” against women and girls imposed by the Taliban since they seized power in Afghanistan more than two years ago.
She urged the international community to take collective and urgent action to end the “dark days” in Afghanistan. Yousafzai was awarded the peace prize in 2014 at the age of 17 for her fight for girls’ education in her home country, Pakistan. She is the youngest Nobel laureate.
Two years earlier, she survived an assassination attempt by the Pakistani Taliban — a separate militant group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban — when she was shot in the head on a bus after school.
The 26-year-old activist spoke to The Associated Press after delivering the annual Nelson Mandela lecture in Johannesburg on the 10th anniversary of the death of South Africa’s anti-apartheid leader and Nobel laureate.
Yousafzai is also the youngest person to give the lecture, following in the footsteps of past lecturers, including former President Barack Obama, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
She dedicated her speech to Afghan women and girls, hoping to re-focus the world’s attention on their oppression amid the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
“It took a bullet to my head for the world to stand with me,” she said. “What will it take for the world to stand with girls in Afghanistan?”
Since their takeover, the Taliban have banned education for girls beyond the sixth grade and imposed severe restrictions on women, barring them from work and most public spaces and seeking to implement their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.
“Afghanistan has only seen dark days after it fell to the Taliban,” Yousafzai said in the AP interview. “It has been two and half years and most girls have not seen school again.”
Yousafzai appealed to the United Nations to “recognize the current state of Afghanistan as a gender apartheid” and cited recent reports of “women being detained, put into prisons and beaten and even put into forced marriages.”
“Two and a half years is a very long time,” Yousafzai said and added that it could cost a woman her future.
Yousafzai also described as “heartbreaking” Islamabad’s new policy of forceful deportations of Afghans who are in Pakistan illegally, saying that deporting them would put the lives of women and girls who are forced to go back at risk.
She also called for an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and decried that “so many children’s and women’s lives (have been) lost” in besieged Gaza.
The war — sparked by the militant Hamas group’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people in Israel — has so far killed more than 15,890 people in Gaza, the majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.
Yousafzai said the world must hold accountable those on both sides who have violated international law and committed war crimes.
“We need to make sure that we always are on the side of the innocent people,” she said. “And we are advocating for protecting them and we are advocating for stopping more wars and conflicts.”
Yousafzai praised the awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize to Iranian women’s rights and pro-democracy activist Narges Mohammadi, who remains imprisoned in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Mohammadi’s children are due to accept the Nobel medal and diploma on her behalf on Sunday.
“When we see more women being appreciated for their tireless efforts to bring justice, to fight against oppression and to fight against gender discrimination, it gives us hope because you realize that you are not alone,” Yousafzai said.
Yousafzai began her fight against the oppression of women and girls by writing and publishing blogs at the age off 11.
She had a heartfelt message for young girls today, urging them to find their voice.
“Don’t wait for anyone else to speak for you,” she said. “You have the power to stand up for yourself.”
Israel moves into Gaza's second-largest city and intensifies strikes in bloody new phase of the war
Israel said Tuesday that its troops had entered Gaza’s second-largest city as intensified bombardment sent streams of ambulances and cars racing to hospitals with wounded and dead Palestinians, including children, in a bloody new phase of the war.
The military said its forces were “in the heart” of Khan Younis, which has emerged as the first target in the expanded ground offensive into southern Gaza that Israel says aims to destroy Hamas. Military officials said they were engaged in the “most intense day” of battles since the ground offensive began more than five weeks ago, with heavy firefights also taking place in northern Gaza.
The assault into the south threatens to fuel a new wave of displaced Palestinians and a worsening of Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe. The U.N. said 1.87 million people — more than 80% of Gaza’s population — have been driven from their homes, and that fighting is now preventing distribution of food, water and medicine outside a tiny sliver of southern Gaza. New military evacuation orders are squeezing people into ever-smaller areas of the south.
Israel strikes in and around Gaza's second-largest city in a bloody new phase of the war
Bombardment has grown fiercer across the territory, including areas where Palestinians are told to seek safety. In the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, just north of Khan Younis, a strike Tuesday destroyed a house where dozens of displaced people were sheltering. At least 34 people were killed, including at least six children, according to an Associated Press reporter at the hospital who counted the bodies.
Footage from the scene showed women screaming from an upper floor of a house shattered to a concrete shell. In the wreckage below, men pulled the limp body of a child from under a slab next to a burning car. At the nearby hospital, medics tried to resuscitate a young boy and girl, bloodied and unmoving on a stretcher.
Israel's assault in retaliation for Hamas's Oct 7 attack has killed more than 15,890 people in Gaza — 70% of them women and children — with more than 42,000 wounded, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. It says hundreds have been killed or wounded since a weeklong cease-fire ended Friday, and many still are trapped under rubble.
Israel says it must remove Hamas from power to prevent a repeat of the attack that ignited the war, when Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took captive some 240 men, women and children.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday the military would have to retain open-ended security control over the Gaza Strip long after the war ends. His comments suggested a renewed direct Israeli occupation of Gaza, something the United States says it opposes.
Israel’s military calls for more evacuations in southern Gaza as it widens offensive
Netanyahu said only the Israeli military can ensure Gaza remains demilitarized. “No international force can be responsible for this,” he said at a news conference. “I’m not ready to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement.”
Under U.S. pressure to prevent further mass casualties, Israel says it is being more precise as it widens its offensive and is taking extra steps to urge civilians to evacuate out of its path. Weeks of bombardment and a ground offensive obliterated much of northern Gaza.
The military accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields when the militants operate in dense residential areas. But Israel has not provided accounting for targeting in individual strikes, some of which have leveled entire city blocks and complexes of dozens of multi-story apartment towers.
Military Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi acknowledged that Israeli forces use heavy force against civilian structures, saying militants keep weapons in houses and buildings so fighters in civilian clothes can use them to fire on troops.
“Striking them requires significant use of fire, both to target the enemy but also to, of course, protect our forces,” he said. “Therefore the forces operate powerfully.”
BATTLES IN KHAN YOUNIS AND NORTH GAZAHalevi said his forces had begun the “third phase of the ground operations,” moving against Hamas in the south after seizing much of the north. Israel has not given specific details on troop movements.
Residents said troops advanced to Bani Suheila, on Khan Younis' eastern edge. Israeli forces also appear to be moving to partially cut across the strip between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah. Satellite photos from Sunday showed around 150 Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles on the main road between the two cities.
The past days brought some of the heaviest bombardment of the entire war, the U.N.’s humanitarian affairs office OCHA said.
Witnesses said a strike Tuesday hit a school in Khan Younis where hundreds of displaced people were sheltering. Casualties overwhelmed the nearby Nasser Hospital, where wounded men and children were lain on a bloody floor amid a tangle of IV tubes. In the morgue, a woman draped herself over the stretcher where her dead husband and child lay among at least nine bodies.
“What’s happening here is unimaginable,” said Hamza al-Bursh, who lives near the school. “They strike indiscriminately.”
In northern Gaza, the military said its troops were battling Hamas militants in the Jabaliya refugee camp and the district of Shujaiya, capturing Hamas positions and destroying rocket launchers and underground infrastructure.
The battles in the north signaled the tough resistance from Hamas since Israeli forces moved in on Oct. 27. The military says 86 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive and that thousands of Hamas fighters have been killed, though it has not produced evidence.
Even after weeks of bombardment, Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar — whose location is unknown — was able to conduct complex cease-fire negotiations and orchestrate the release of more than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners last week. Palestinian militants have also kept up their rocket fire into Israel.
FEWER PLACES TO GOAfter the full-scale evacuation of northern Gaza ordered by Israel early in the war, most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million is squeezed into the 90 square miles of central and southern Gaza.
Since moving into the south, the Israeli military has ordered people out of nearly two dozen neighborhoods in and around Khan Younis. That further reduced the area where civilians can seek refuge by more than a quarter. It was not clear how many people followed the evacuation call.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza, and there is nowhere left to go,” Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said Monday. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist. If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold.”
For the past two days, aid distribution — mainly just supplies of flour and water — has been possible only in the city of Rafah, at the far south by the border, the U.N. said. Locations deeper inside Gaza, including Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah and northern Gaza, could not be reached because of fighting.
Dr. Nasser Bolbol, head of neonatal intensive care at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis, said acute hunger was spreading, with some deaths of children from dehydration and undernourishment, after nearly two months with only limited aid entering the territory, under an Israeli seal.
“Gaza is entirely covered in death and darkness,” he said.
STILL HOSTAGEFamily members of hostages still held in Gaza held tense talks with Netanyahu and the war cabinet Tuesday. Observers present said more than 100 people attended the nearly three-hour meeting. Some relatives shouted at cabinet members, perceiving they did not have any immediate plans to rescue some 138 hostages still captive. Nearly half the room left in disappointment before the meeting ended.
During the gathering, five hostages released during the truce shared harrowing details of their experience. One spoke of Hamas fighters “touching” female hostages, and another said militants shaved off a male hostage’s body hair to humiliate him, according to a group representing the hostages’ families. Others said they were deprived of water.
A doctor who treated some of the 110 released hostages told the AP separately that at least 10 women and men among those freed were sexually assaulted or abused, but did not provide further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the hostages’ identities.
Noam Peri, whose 80-year-old father is still being held captive, said the meeting with Netanyahu and the war cabinet was not a relaxed discussion.
“After 60 days, people are tired and worried,” Peri said.
More bodies found after sudden eruption of Indonesia's Mount Marapi, raising confirmed toll to 23
Rescuers searching the hazardous slopes of Indonesia's Mount Marapi volcano found the last body of climbers who were caught by a surprise weekend eruption, raising the number of confirmed dead to 23, officials said Wednesday.
About 75 climbers started their way up the nearly 2,900-meter (9,480-foot) mountain in Agam district of West Sumatra province on Saturday and became stranded.
Some 52 climbers were rescued after the initial eruption Sunday, and 11 others were initially confirmed dead. New eruptions on Monday and Tuesday spewed more hot ash as high as 800 meters (2,620 feet) into the air, reducing visibility and temporarily halting search and recovery operations, said Abdul Malik, chief of the Padang Search and Rescue Agency.
The bodies of two climbers were located on Monday and nine more on Tuesday, the National Search and Rescue Agency said.
Indonesia’s Marapi volcano erupts for the second day as 12 climbers remain missing
West Sumatra's Police Chief Suharyono said the body of the last climber was found early Wednesday, just a few meters (yards) from the eruption site, bringing the death toll rise to 23.
The rescuers contended with bad weather and difficult terrain, along with winds that brought heat from the eruptions, while distraught relatives gathered at a relief post command in Batu Palano on the mountain slope, hoping for news of missing family members.
Twenty bodies had been taken to a hospital for identification by Wednesday morning, as more than 300 rescuers, including police and soldiers, struggled to bring the others down the mountain and search for the missing climber, said Suharyono who goes by a single name like many Indonesians.
Marapi has stayed at the third highest of four alert levels since 2011, indicating above-normal volcanic activity under which climbers and villagers must stay more than 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from the peak, according to Indonesia's Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation.
UNHCR welcomes recent boat rescues, safe disembarkation in Indonesia
Officially, climbers were only allowed below the danger zone and had to register at two command posts or online. However, local officials acknowledge that many people may have climbed higher than permitted.
Marapi spewed thick columns of ash as high as 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) in Sunday's eruption and hot ash clouds spread for several kilometers (miles). Nearby villages and towns were blanketed by tons of volcanic debris that blocked sunlight, and authorities recommended that people wear masks to protect themselves from the ash.
About 1,400 people live on Marapi’s slopes in Rubai and Gobah Cumantiang, the nearest villages, about 5 to 6 kilometers (3 to 3.7 miles) from the peak.
Marapi is known for sudden eruptions that are difficult to predict because the source is shallow and near the peak, and its eruptions are not caused by a deep movement of magma, which sets off tremors that register on seismic monitors.
Marapi has been active since a January eruption that caused no casualties. It is among more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia, which is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.
In a rare action against Israel, US says extremist West Bank settlers will be barred from America
In a rare punitive move against Israel, the State Department said Tuesday it will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the step after warning Israel last week that President Joe Biden's administration would be taking action over the attacks. Blinken did not announce individual visa bans, but officials said those would be coming this week and could affect dozens of settlers and their families.
Also read: Israel strikes in and around Gaza's second-largest city in a bloody new phase of the war
"We have underscored to the Israeli government the need to do more to hold accountable extremist settlers who have committed violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank," Blinken said in a statement. "As President Biden has repeatedly said, those attacks are unacceptable."
"Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians' access to essential services and basic necessities," Blinken said.
Also read: Israel’s military calls for more evacuations in southern Gaza as it widens offensive
He said the U.S. would continue to seek accountability for settler violence against Palestinians as well as Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and Israel, particularly as tensions are extremely high due to the conflict in Gaza.
"Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have the responsibility to uphold stability in the West Bank," Blinken said. "Instability in the West Bank both harms the Israeli and Palestinian people and threatens Israel's national security interests."
Tuesday's move comes just a month after Israel was granted entry into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program, which allows its citizens visa-free entry into the U.S. Those targeted will not be eligible for the program, and those who hold current U.S. visas will have them revoked.
Also read: Israeli military says ground offensive expanded to every part of Gaza
Israel strikes in and around Gaza's second-largest city in a bloody new phase of the war
Israel intensified its bombardment in and around Gaza's second-largest city early Tuesday, sending ambulances and private cars racing into a local hospital carrying people wounded in a bloody new phase of the war.
Under U.S. pressure to prevent further mass casualties, Israel says it is being more precise as it widens its offensive into southern Gaza after obliterating much of the north — but Palestinians say there are no areas where they feel safe, and many fear that if they leave their homes they will never be allowed to return.
Read: Israel’s military calls for more evacuations in southern Gaza as it widens offensive
Aerial bombardment and the ground offensive have already driven three-fourths of the territory's 2.3 million people from their homes — and new orders to evacuate areas around Khan Younis are squeezing people into ever-smaller areas of the already tiny coastal strip.
At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, ambulances brought dozens of wounded people in. At one point, a car pulled up and a man emerged carrying a young boy in a bloody shirt, whose hand had been blown off.
“What’s happening here is unimaginable,” said Hamza al-Bursh, who lives in the neighborhood of Maan, one of several in and around the city where Israel has ordered civilians to leave. “They strike indiscriminately.”
Residents said troops had advanced following heavy airstrikes to Bani Suheila, a town just east of Khan Younis. Halima Abdel-Rahman, who fled to the town earlier in the war from her home in the north, said they could hear explosions through the night.
“They are very close,” she said. “It’s the same scenario we saw in the north.”
Satellite photos from Sunday showed around 150 Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles just under 6 kilometers (4 miles) north of the heart of the city.
FEWER PLACES TO GO
Israel ordered the full-scale evacuation of northern Gaza in the early days of the war and has barred people who left from returning. In the south, it has ordered people out of nearly two dozen neighborhoods in and around Khan Younis. That further reduced the area where civilians can seek refuge in central and southern Gaza by more than a quarter.
Read: Israeli military says ground offensive expanded to every part of Gaza
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza, and there is nowhere left to go,” Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said Monday. “The conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist. If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold.”
Israel says it must dismantle Hamas' extensive military infrastructure and remove it from power in order to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack that ignited the war. The surprise assault through the border fence saw Hamas and other Palestinian militants kill about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capture some 240 men, women and children.
The military says it makes every effort to spare civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields as the militants fight in dense residential areas, where they have labyrinths of tunnels, bunkers, rocket launchers and sniper nests.
Hamas is deeply rooted in Palestinian society, and its determination to end decades of open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians is shared by the vast majority, even those opposed to its ideology and its attacks on Israeli civilians. That will complicate any effort to eliminate Hamas without causing massive casualties and further displacement.
Even after weeks of unrelenting bombardment, Hamas' top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, was able to conduct complex cease-fire negotiations and orchestrate the release of more than 100 Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners last week. Palestinian militants have also kept up their rocket fire into Israel, both before and after the truce.
AN UNPRECEDENTED TOLL
The fighting has meanwhile brought unprecedented death and destruction to the coastal strip.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said the death toll in the territory since Oct. 7 has surpassed 15,890 people — 70% of them women and children — with more than 42,000 wounded. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths. It says hundreds have been killed or wounded since the cease-fire’s end, and many still are trapped under rubble.
Read: Israeli offensive shifts to crowded southern Gaza, driving up death toll despite evacuation orders
An Israeli army official provided a similar figure for the death toll in Gaza on Monday, after weeks in which Israeli officials had cast doubt on the ministry's count. The official said at least 15,000 people have been killed, including 5,000 militants, without saying how the military arrived at its figures. The military says 86 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday that it was too soon to pass judgment on Israeli operations, but that it was unusual for a modern military to identify precise areas of expected ground maneuvers and ask people to move out, as Israel has done in Khan Younis.
“These are the kinds of steps that we have asked them to undertake,” he said.
Leaflets dropped by the Israeli military over Khan Younis in recent days warn people to head farther south toward the border with Egypt, but they are unable to leave Gaza, as both Israel and neighboring Egypt have refused to accept any refugees.
The area that Israel ordered evacuated was home to some 117,000 people, and now it also houses more than 50,000 people displaced from the north, living in 21 shelters, the U.N. said. It was not known how many were fleeing.
World Insights: Media outlets of developing countries call for louder voice of Global South
Representatives from developing countries at the fifth World Media Summit being held in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Kunming have made a strong call for a louder voice of the Global South.
In an era of increasing global interconnectedness, a louder voice from the Global South has become more imperative than ever before, and the media also shoulder the responsibility for promoting global common development through exchanges and cooperation, they said.
Read: A Nigerian military attack mistakenly bombed a religious gathering and killed civilians
President of Prensa Latina News Agency, Luis Enrique Gonzalez Acosta, said he takes this summit as an opportunity to collaborate with other media outlets in providing objective and responsible reports that can amplify the voices of developing countries and jointly address the challenges facing the Global South.
"We must not be afraid to position ourselves as the voice of the Global South," said Iqbal Surve, chairman of South Africa's Independent Media. "Our narrative, our communication, our stories must be about the possibility of global growth and development."
Media's role extends beyond conveying facts, Surve said, adding that it should catalyze social-economic change and development.
"If we have one task only as a social responsibility, that task is to ensure that media must be a change agent in the world today, to promote a common humanity and a shared future and shared prosperity," he added.
South-South cooperation among media is crucial in ensuring that the voices of developing countries are heard worldwide, said experts present at the summit. It plays a significant role in fostering diverse and inclusive narrative perspectives on a global scale, they said.
Read: Blinken will return to Israel as the US hopes to see further extensions of the Gaza ceasefire
Creating a grand shared narrative that would promote common prosperity is imperative, said Seife Deribe Endale, CEO of Ethiopian News Agency.
"We are now in the critical juncture to create an inclusive media ecosystem through the lens of alternative narratives like that of the BRICS," he said, adding that the true and success stories of Ethiopia and the whole of Africa need to be heard worldwide.
South-South communication is of great importance, said Maria Bernarda Llorente, president of Telam, Argentina's official news agency. Communication between developing countries is fundamental to building relations, she added.
To foster more dialogues among nations and cultivate a culture of peace and understanding within the international system, it is crucial and urgent to formulate a shared agenda in response to global threats, she said.
Roger Agana, managing director of News Ghana, said the world needs to know a real Africa and a real China. "As African media, we do have a story to tell," he said.
At least 85 civilians killed by a Nigerian army drone attack
At least 85 civilians were killed when an army drone attack erroneously targeted a religious gathering in northwest Nigeria, officials confirmed Tuesday, as the president ordered a probe into the latest in a series of such deadly mistakes in Nigeria's conflict zones.
The strike took place Sunday night in Kaduna state's Tudun Biri village while residents observed the Muslim holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, government officials said. The military believed it was "targeting terrorists and bandits," officials said.
At least 66 people also were injured in the attack, the National Emergency Management Agency said in a statement. Eighty-five bodies, including of children, women and the elderly, have been buried so far, as a search continues for any additional victims, the agency said.
Read: Pakistan arrests 17 suspects in connection to the weekend bus shooting that killed 10
Nigeria's army chief, Lt. Gen. Taoreed Lagbaja, apologized for the drone strike during a visit to the village Tuesday and said it had been carried out "based on the observation of some tactics usually employed by bandits."
"Unfortunately, the reports we got revealed it was innocent civilians that the drone conducted a strike on," Lagbaja said.
Since 2017, some 400 civilians have been killed by airstrikes that the military said were targeting armed groups in the deadly security crisis in the country's north, according to the Lagos-based SBM Intelligence security firm.
"The incidence of miscalculated airstrikes is assuming a worrisome dimension in the country," said Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria's former vice-president and the main opposition presidential candidate in this year's election.
Read: Philippine president blames foreign militants for a bombing that killed 4 Christian worshippers
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered "a thorough and full-fledged investigation into the incident." However, such investigations and their outcomes are often shrouded in secrecy.
Nigeria's military often conducts air raids as it fights the extremist violence and rebel attacks that have destabilized Nigeria's north for more than a decade, often leaving civilian casualties in its wake, including in January when dozens were killed in Nasarawa state and in December 2022 when dozens also died in Zamfara state.
Maj. Gen. Edward Buba, a spokesman for Nigeria's Defense Headquarters, said in a statement Tuesday that terror suspects often "deliberately embed themselves within civilian population centers," though he wasn't speaking specifically about Sunday's holiday gathering.
Read: Rohingya man killed in clash between ARSA and RSO in Cox’s Bazar
Analysts have in the past raised concerns about the lack of collaboration among Nigerian security agencies as well as the absence of due diligence in some of their special operations in conflict zones.
One major concern has been the proliferation of drones within Nigerian security agencies such that "there is no guiding principle one when these can be used," according to Kabir Adamu, the founder of Beacon Consulting, a security firm based in Nigeria's capital, Abuja.
"The military sees itself as a little bit over and above civilian accountability as it were," Adamu said.
In the incident in Nasarawa in January, when 39 people were killed, the Nigerian air force "provided little information and no justice" over the incident, Human Rights Watch said.
Such incidents are enabled by a lack of punishment for erring officers or agencies, according to Isa Sanusi, Amnesty International's director in Nigeria.
"The Nigerian military is taking lightly the lack of consequences ... and the civilians they are supposed to protect are the ones paying the price of their incompetence and lack of due diligence," Sanusi told The Associated Press.
Putin to discuss Israel-Hamas war during a 1-day trip to Saudi Arabia and UAE
Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a one-day trip to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia focused on the Israeli-Hamas war and host the Iranian president in Moscow this week, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
Putin will make working visits to both countries on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The talks will focus on bilateral relations, the war between Israel and Hamas and other international issues, Peskov said. Issues related to oil price caps under OPEC+ will also be on the agenda, he added.
Read: Israeli military says ground offensive expanded to every part of Gaza
Putin's trip was first announced on Monday by his foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, who didn't give a date for the visits when he spoke to the Russian news outlet Life.
“I hope that these will be very useful negotiations, which we consider extremely important,” Ushakov was quoted as saying by Life.
Putin will make the visit at a time when Russia wants to advance its role as a power broker in the conflict in the Middle East.
Putin will host Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in the Kremlin on Thursday, Peskov added.
The Russian president visited China in October and recently made several trips to former Soviet nations.
Read:Palestinian death toll in Gaza tops 15,200
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in March for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine.
Since the warrant was issued, Putin chose not to attend a BRICS summit in South Africa because the country would be obliged to arrest Putin upon arrival as it is a signatory to the international court’s treaty.
Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE have signed the ICC’s founding treaty.
The notice against Putin in March was the first time the global court issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The ICC said in a statement that Putin is accused of the war crime of ” unlawful deportation ″ of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.