Israel issues rare apology after Gaza church strike kills two
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem confirmed the deaths of a man and a woman. The church was reportedly sheltering Christians and Muslims, including children with disabilities.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni strongly condemned the attack, saying that Israeli actions against the civilian population are unacceptable and cannot be justified.
Pope Leo expressed profound sadness over the fatalities and renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire and regional dialogue.
Israel 's foreign ministry issued a rare apology for the incident, expressing sorrow for the damage to the church and any civilian casualties, while the IDF said it was reviewing the circumstances.
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The Independent
10 minutes ago
- The Independent
Hezbollah threatens to resume firing missiles at Israel if it intensifies operations in Lebanon
The leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah warned Tuesday that if Israel intensifies its military operations against his group, the Iran-backed armed faction will resume firing missiles toward Israel. Naim Kassem's comments came as Lebanon's Cabinet was meeting to discuss Hezbollah's disarmament. Beirut is under U.S. pressure to disarm the group that recently fought a 14-month war with Israel and was left gravely weakened, with many of its political and military leaders dead. Since the war ended in November with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Hezbollah officials have said the group will not discuss its disarmament until Israel withdraws from five hills it controls inside Lebanon and stops almost daily airstrikes that have killed or wounded hundreds of people, most of them Hezbollah members. Israel has accused Hezbollah of trying to rebuild its military capabilities. Israel's military has said the five locations in Lebanon provide vantage points or are located across from communities in northern Israel, where about 60,000 Israelis were displaced during the war. Since the ceasefire, Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for one attack on a disputed area along the border. In a televised speech Tuesday, Kassem said Hezbollah rejects any timetable to hand over its weapons. 'Israel's interest is not to widen the aggression because if they expand, the resistance will defend, the army will defend and the people will defend,' Kassem said. 'This defense will lead to the fall of missiles inside Israel.' Since the war ended, Hezbollah has withdrawn most of its fighters and weapons from the area along the border with Israel south of the Litani river. Last week, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reiterated calls for Hezbollah to give up its weapons, angering the group's leadership. The ceasefire agreement left vague how Hezbollah's weapons and military facilities north of the Litani river should be treated, saying Lebanese authorities should dismantle unauthorized facilities starting with the area south of the river. Hezbollah maintains the deal only covers the area south of the Litani, while Israel and the U.S. say it mandates disarmament of the group throughout Lebanon. Kassem said Hezbollah rejects a government vote over its weapons, saying such a decision should be unanimously backed by all Lebanese. "No one can deprive Lebanon of its force to protect its sovereignty,' Kassem said. Hezbollah's weapons are a divisive issue among Lebanese, with some groups calling for its disarmament. The Israel-Hezbollah war started a day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack against Israel from Gaza. It left more than 4,000 people dead and caused damage worth $11 billion.
The Independent
40 minutes ago
- The Independent
Gaza aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds and armed gangs
Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory's Hamas rulers. Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza's markets for exorbitant prices. Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said. Drivers have been killed in the mayhem. Since March, when Israel ended a ceasefire in its war with Hamas and halted all imports, the situation has grown increasingly dire in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians. International experts are now warning of a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in Gaza. Under heavy international pressure, Israel last week announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. Though aid groups say it's still not enough, getting even that amount from the border crossings to the people who need it is difficult and extremely dangerous, the drivers said. Driving aid trucks can be deadly Thousands of people packed around the road Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, AP video showed. Young men overwhelmed the trucks, standing on the cabs' roofs, dangling from the sides and clambering over each other onto the truck beds to grab boxes even as the trucks slowly kept driving. 'Some of my drivers are scared to go transfer aid because they're concerned about how they'll untangle themselves from large crowds of people,' said Abu Khaled Selim, vice president of the Special Transport Association, a nonprofit group that works with private transportation companies across the Gaza Strip and advocates for truck drivers' rights. Selim said his nephew, Ashraf Selim, a father of eight, was killed July 29 by a stray bullet when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds climbing onto the aid truck he was driving. Shifa Hospital officials said they received his body with an apparent gunshot to the head. The Israeli military said it was unaware of the incident and that 'as a rule" it does not carry out deliberate attacks on aid trucks. Earlier in the war, aid deliveries were safer because, with more food getting into Gaza, the population was less desperate. Hamas-run police had been seen securing convoys and went after suspected looters and merchants who resold aid at exorbitant prices, Now, 'with the situation unsecured, everything is permissible,' said Selim, who appealed for protection so the aid trucks could reach warehouses. The U.N. does not accept protection from Israeli forces, saying it would violate its rules of neutrality, and said that given the urgent need for aid it would accept that hungry people were going to grab food off the back of the trucks as long as they weren't violent. Flooding Gaza with renewed aid would ease the desperation and make things safer for the drivers, said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. The danger for drivers is growing Ali al-Derbashi, 22, was an aid truck driver for more than a year and a half, but he quit after his last trip three weeks ago because of the increasing danger, he said. Some people taking aid off the trucks are now carrying cleavers, knives and axes, he said. He was once ambushed and forcibly redirected to an area designated by Israel as a conflict zone in its war against Hamas. There everything was stolen, including his truck's fuel and batteries, and his tires were shot out, he said. He was beaten and his phone was stolen. 'We put our lives in danger for this. We leave our families for two or three days every time. And we don't even have water or food ourselves,' he said. In addition to the danger, the drivers faced humiliation from Israeli forces, he said, who put them through 'prolonged searches, unclear instructions, and hours of waiting.' The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures by Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The threats come from everywhere Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, said the danger for the drivers comes from everywhere. He accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields. The Israeli military did not comment on the accusation. In recent days, men linked to a violent Gaza clan fired at drivers, injuring one, and looted a convoy of 14 trucks, he said. They later looted a convoy of 10 trucks. Hossni al-Sharafi, who runs a trucking company and was an aid driver himself, said he is only allowed to use drivers who have no political affiliation and have been approved by Israel to transport aid from crossings. Al-Sharafi said he was detained by Israeli forces for more than 10 days last year while transporting aid from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing and interrogated about where the truck was headed and how the aid was being distributed. Israeli officials did not comment on the accusations. Some drivers spoke of being shot at repeatedly by armed gangs. Others said their trucks were routinely picked clean — even of the wooden pallets— by waves of desperate people, many of whom were fighting each other for the food, while Israeli troops were shooting. Hungry families who miss out on the aid throw stones at the trucks in anger. Anas Rabea said the moment he pulled out of the Zikkim crossing last week his aid truck was overwhelmed by a crowd. 'Our instructions are to stop, because we don't want to run anyone over,' he said. 'It's crazy. You have people climbing all over the cargo, over the windows. It's like you're blind, you can't see out.' After the crowd had stripped everything, he drove another few hundred meters and was stopped by an armed gang that threatened to shoot him. They searched the truck and took a bag of flour he had saved for himself, he said. 'Every time we go out, we get robbed," he said. "It's getting worse day by day.' ——- Associated Press writers Julia Frankel contributed to this report from Jerusalem and Sally Abou Aljoud from Beirut. Mariam Dagga contributed from Khan Younis, Gaza Strip.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Importing more anti-Semites is the last thing France needs
Emmanuel Macron's surprise announcement on July 24 that he would formally recognise the 'State of Palestine' at the United Nations 80th General Assembly in September should come as no surprise. Once a supporter of Israel as the model of la start-up nation, the French president now believes in ensuring his legacy among the bien-pensant Left – or, more practically, that he now stands a chance of being elected as the next UN secretary-general after he finishes his last presidential term. Closer to home, with his personal polling in the doldrums, Macron has watched with keen interest the younger troops of the French Left, his original home, turning the issue of Gaza into a hot national button. In hierarchical France, following up le Chef 's decisions with some gesture demonstrating your allegiance is de rigueur. France's foreign secretary, Jean-Noël Barrot, soon announced that following a month-old ruling by the National Court of Asylum all Gaza residents qualify for entry in France as full refugees. And 292 of their top students would be admitted in French academic institutions, with benefits and housing allocations extending up to three years depending on their degree program. A list of suitable names was compiled within hours by the French Consulate in Jerusalem, which, unlike the one in Tel Aviv, only concerns itself with Palestinian territories matters. The fiasco that followed was perfectly predictable. Nour Atallah, a student from Gaza in France, allegedly shared a video in October 2023 of Hitler with the caption: 'kill the Jews everywhere. I don't want a Jewish lineage on this earth, you must kill them before they kill you.' Miss Atallah's acceptance into the prestigious Sciences-Po Lille for a master in media and business, complete with housing in the university's own president's accommodation, has now been rescinded. The case of Fady Hossam Hanona is similar. His experience as a journalist in Gaza and as a stringer for, among others, the New York Times and the Guardian meant that when he arrived in France in July a job already awaited him in the Arabic Service at France 24. But Hanona reportedly said on social media in August 2022: 'The Jews are sons of dogs, and I am with killing them and burning them, like Hitler did to them – I would be extremely happy.' (He has deleted the post). All 292 Palestinians asylum guests are belatedly being screened, and the programme has been suspended. But some of their bloodthirsty language – which has been for decades the vernacular in Palestinian school manuals, mosque preaches and the Internet – has long been present in France. It is evident first among the country's resentful clusters of unintegrated and jobless youths; and now among the hard Left. It is no wonder that ten days after the October attacks, an employee of the foreign ministry called Sophie Pommier was caught on camera and seemed to be ragefully tearing down posters of Israeli hostages. Since the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2000, French Jews have been subject to a number of horrific attacks and murders. In 2012, a man named Mohamed Merah went on anti-Semitic rampage and killed seven people in southern France; salesman Ilan Halimi was tortured and murdered in 2006; Sarah Halimi was beaten and defenestrated in 2017. Macron's warm words of sympathy to the Jewish community, meanwhile, are invariably followed by strange decisions, such as declining to take part in a march against anti-Semitism in Paris in November 2023. Thinking himself attuned to the Zeitgeist, the once-youngest president of the Fifth Republic, now a middle-aged 47, hankers after the political youth cred he believes he once enjoyed. He finds it at home among the keffiyeh-wearing crowd that Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Insoumise seems to effortlessly mobilise. And he finds it abroad at the UN, where his last decision is definitely popular.
