Latest news with #CrispianBalmer
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israeli strikes kill 27 in Gaza, three die in church late pope often spoke to
By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Crispian Balmer CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed at least 27 people in attacks in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including three people who died in a strike on a church that late Pope Francis used to speak to regularly, medics and church officials said. Eight men tasked with protecting aid trucks were reported among the dead in airstrikes that were carried out while mediators continued ceasefire talks in Doha. A U.S. official said this week the talks were going well but two officials from the Palestinian militant group Hamas told Reuters there had been no breakthrough as the Israeli military continued to pummel Gaza. Two women and one man died and several people were wounded in a strike by the Israeli army on Gaza's Holy Family Church, said the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which oversees the small parish. "The Latin Patriarchate strongly condemns this tragedy and this targeting of innocent civilians and of a sacred place," a statement by the Patriarchate said, adding that the victims had turned to the church compound as a safe haven "after their homes, possessions, and dignity had already been stripped away". "This horrific war must come to a complete end," it said. Photos released by the church showed its roof had been hit close to the main cross, scorching the stone facade, and that windows had been broken. Father Gabriele Romanelli, an Argentine who used to regularly update the late Pope Francis about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was lightly injured in the attack. TV footage showed him sitting receiving treatment at Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza, with a bandage around his lower right leg. Pope Leo said in a statement that he was "deeply saddened" by the loss of life and renewed his appeal for an immediate ceasefire, while Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said attacks on civilians were unacceptable. The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident. Israel's foreign ministry said in a statement on X that the results of the investigation would be published. It also said the country did not target churches or religious sites and regretted harm to them or civilians. Israel has been trying to eradicate Hamas in Gaza in a military campaign that began after the group's deadly attack on Israel in October 2023 and has caused widespread hunger and privation in the tiny enclave. Palestinian medics said one airstrike on Thursday had killed a man, his wife and their five children in Jabalia in northern Gaza, and that another in the north had killed eight men who had been handed responsibility for protecting aid trucks. Three people were killed in an airstrike in central Gaza and four in Zeitoun in eastern Gaza, medics said. CEASEFIRE TALKS Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a proposed U.S. 60-day truce. As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release detained Palestinians. The exact number is not clear. A Hamas source with knowledge of the matter said Israel had presented new maps to the mediators, pledging to pull the army further back than had previously been offered. The source said this partially met Hamas' demands, but was still insufficient. Disputes also remain over aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said the two other Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters. Israel has told the mediators it is willing to drop its demand to maintain a military presence along the so-called Morag Corridor in southern Gaza during a ceasefire and is prepared to show flexibility regarding the size of the security buffer it would retain near the Israeli border, Israeli media reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office did not immediately comment on the reports. On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said that negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza were going well. A Palestinian official close to the talks said such optimistic comments were "empty of substance." Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, according to Israeli tallies. (Additional reporting by Alvise Armellini in Rome, Editing by Timothy Heritage, William Maclean)
Japan Today
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Israeli missile hits Gaza children collecting water; IDF blames malfunction
A Palestinian boy inspects the site of an Israeli strike that killed Palestinians, gathered to collect water from a distribution point, according to medics, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip July 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer By Crispian Balmer At least eight Palestinians, most of them children, were killed and more than a dozen were wounded in central Gaza when they went to collect water on Sunday, local officials said, in an Israeli strike which the military said missed its target. The Israeli military said the missile had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad militant in the area but that a malfunction had caused it to fall "dozens of meters from the target". "The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians," it said in a statement, adding that the incident was under review. The strike hit a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing six children and injuring 17 others, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al-Awda Hospital. Water shortages in Gaza have worsened sharply in recent weeks, with fuel shortages causing desalination and sanitation facilities to close, making people dependent on collection centers where they can fill up their plastic containers. Hours later, 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike on a market in Gaza City, including a prominent hospital consultant, Ahmad Qandil, Palestinian media reported. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack. Gaza's health ministry said on Sunday that more than 58,000 people had been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, with 139 people added to the death toll over the past 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its tally, but says over half of those killed are women and children. CEASEFIRE? U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that he was "hopeful" on Gaza ceasefire negotiations underway in Qatar. He told reporters in Teterboro, New Jersey, that he planned to meet senior Qatari officials on the sidelines of the FIFA Club World Cup final. However, negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire have been stalling, with the two sides divided over the extent of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources said at the weekend. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to convene ministers late on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in the talks, an Israeli official said. The indirect talks over a U.S. proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are being held in Doha, but optimism that surfaced last week of a looming deal has largely faded, with both sides accusing each other of intransigence. Netanyahu in a video he posted on Telegram on Sunday said Israel would not back down from its core demands - releasing all the hostages still in Gaza, destroying Hamas and ensuring Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel. The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages there are believed to still be alive. Families of hostages gathered outside Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem to call for a deal. "The overwhelming majority of the people of Israel have spoken loudly and clearly. We want to do a deal, even at the cost of ending this war, and we want to do it now," said Jon Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was held hostage by Hamas in a Gaza tunnel and slain by his captors in August 2024. Netanyahu and his ministers were also set to discuss a plan on Sunday to move hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the southern area of Rafah, in what Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has described as a new "humanitarian city" but which would be likely to draw international criticism for forced displacement. An Israeli source briefed on discussions in Israel said that the plan was to establish the complex in Rafah during the ceasefire, if it is reached. On Saturday, a Palestinian source familiar with the truce talks said that Hamas rejected withdrawal maps which Israel proposed, because they would leave around 40% of the territory under Israeli control, including all of Rafah. Israel's campaign against Hamas has displaced almost the entire population of more than 2 million people, but Gazans say nowhere is safe in the coastal enclave. Early on Sunday morning, a missile hit a house in Gaza City where a family had moved after receiving an evacuation order from their home in the southern outskirts. "My aunt, her husband and the children, are gone. What is the fault of the children who died in an ugly bloody massacre at dawn?" said Anas Matar, standing in the rubble of the building. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Today
10-07-2025
- Health
- Japan Today
Israeli strike kills 16 near Gaza clinic with no immediate truce in sight
A Palestinian woman comforts a child as casualties are brought into Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital following an Israeli strike, in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, July 10, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY By Crispian Balmer, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta An Israeli airstrike hit Palestinians near a medical centre in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected. Verified video footage from the strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amid dust and screaming. One clip showed several motionless children lying on a donkey cart. "She didn't do anything, she was innocent, I swear. Her dream was for the war to end and that they announce it today, to go back to school," said Samah al-Nouri, sitting by the body of her daughter who was killed in the blast. "She was only getting treatment in a medical facility. Why did they kill them?" she said, with other bodies laid out around her at a nearby hospital. Israel's military said it had struck a militant who took part in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. It said it was aware of reports regarding a number of injured bystanders and that the incident was under review. U.S.-based Project HOPE said the strike had hit right outside its Altayara health clinic. "Horrified and heartbroken cannot properly communicate how we feel anymore," the aid group said in a statement. The Deir al-Balah missile strike came as Israeli and Hamas negotiators hold talks with mediators in Qatar over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal aimed at building agreement on a lasting truce. A senior Israeli official said on Wednesday that an agreement was not likely to be secured for another one or two weeks, however, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday he was hopeful of a deal. "I think we're closer, and I think perhaps we're closer than we've been in quite a while," Rubio told reporters at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia. Several rounds of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have failed to produce a breakthrough since the Israeli military resumed its campaign in March following a previous ceasefire. Repeated attacks by Israeli forces in recent weeks have killed hundreds of Gazans, many of them civilians, and injured thousands, according to local health authorities, putting an enormous strain on the enclave's few remaining hospitals. Dwindling fuel supplies risk further disruption in the semi-functioning hospitals, including to incubators at the neonatal unit of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, doctors there said. "We are forced to place four, five or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator," said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital director, adding that premature babies were now in a critical condition. An Israeli military official said that fuel destined for hospitals and other humanitarian facilities was let into the enclave on Wednesday and on Thursday. However, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that far more fuel was needed to keep essential life-saving and life-sustaining services operating. U.S. President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to discuss the situation in Gaza amid reports that Israel and Hamas were nearing agreement on a U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal after 21 months of war. Netanyahu said that if the two sides reach agreements on the U.S. 60-day truce plan, Israel will begin negotiations on a permanent ceasefire. In a statement from Washington, he reiterated Israel's terms for ending the war, including Hamas disarming and no longer ruling Gaza. Hamas has rejected calls to lay down its weapons. "If this can be achieved through negotiations - that's good. If it's not achieved through 60-day negotiations then we will achieve it by other means, by use of force," Netanyahu said. A Palestinian official said the talks in Qatar were in crisis and that issues under dispute, including whether Israel would continue to occupy parts of Gaza after a ceasefire, had yet to be resolved. The two sides previously agreed a ceasefire in January but it did not lead to a deal on ending the war and Israel resumed its military assault two months later, stopping all aid supplies into Gaza for 11 weeks and telling civilians to leave the north of the tiny territory. Israel's military campaign in Gaza has now killed more than 57,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. It has destroyed swathes of the territory and driven most Gazans from their homes. The Hamas attack on Israeli border communities that triggered the war in 2023 killed around 1,200 people and the militant group seized 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. At least 20 are believed to still be alive. There has also been repeated violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. An Israeli man was killed at a shopping centre in the territory on Thursday by two Palestinian militants, who were then shot dead, police said. In a separate incident, a Palestinian man was shot dead after he stabbed and injured a soldier, the army said. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Israeli strike kills children near Gaza clinic with no immediate truce in sight
By Crispian Balmer, Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta JERUSALEM/CAIRO (Reuters) -An Israeli airstrike hit Palestinians near a medical centre in Gaza on Thursday, killing 10 children and six adults, local health authorities said, as ceasefire talks dragged on with no immediate deal expected. Verified video footage from the strike in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip showed the bodies of women and children lying in pools of blood amid dust and screaming. One clip showed several motionless children lying on a donkey cart. "She didn't do anything, she was innocent, I swear. Her dream was for the war to end and that they announce it today, to go back to school," said Samah al-Nouri, sitting by the body of her daughter who was killed in the blast. "She was only getting treatment in a medical facility. Why did they kill them?" she said, with other bodies laid out around her at a nearby hospital. Israel's military said it had struck a militant who took part in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. It said it was aware of reports regarding a number of injured bystanders and that the incident was under review. The Deir al-Balah missile strike came as Israeli and Hamas negotiators hold talks with mediators in Qatar over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal aimed at building agreement on a lasting truce. A senior Israeli official said on Wednesday that an agreement was not likely to be secured for another one or two weeks, however U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday he was hopeful of a deal. "I think we're closer, and I think perhaps we're closer than we've been in quite a while," Rubio told reporters at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia. Several rounds of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have failed to produce a breakthrough since the Israeli military resumed its campaign in March following a previous ceasefire. Repeated attacks by Israeli forces in recent weeks have killed hundreds of Gazans, many of them civilians, and injured thousands, according to local health authorities, putting an enormous strain on the enclave's few remaining hospitals. Dwindling fuel supplies risk further disruption in the semi-functioning hospitals, including to incubators at the neonatal unit of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, doctors there said. "We are forced to place four, five or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator," said Dr Mohammed Abu Selmia, the hospital director, adding that premature babies were now in a critical condition. TALKS U.S. President Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week to discuss the situation in Gaza amid reports that Israel and Hamas were nearing agreement on a U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal after 21 months of war. The Israeli official who was in Washington with Netanyahu said that if the two sides agree to the ceasefire plan, Israel would use that time to offer a permanent truce requiring Hamas to disarm. If Hamas refuses, "we'll proceed" with military operations in Gaza, the official said on condition of anonymity. A Palestinian official said the talks in Qatar were in crisis and that issues under dispute, including whether Israel would continue to occupy parts of Gaza after a ceasefire, had yet to be resolved. The two sides previously agreed a ceasefire in January but it did not lead to a deal on a permanent truce and Israel resumed its military assault two months later, stopping all aid supplies into Gaza and telling civilians to leave the north of the tiny territory. Israel's military campaign in Gaza has now killed more than 57,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. It has destroyed swathes of the territory and driven most Gazans from their homes. The Hamas attack on Israeli border communities that triggered the war killed around 1,200 people and the militant group seized around 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. There has also been repeated violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. An Israeli man was killed at a shopping centre in the territory on Thursday by two Palestinian militants, who were then shot dead, police said. In a separate incident, a Palestinian man was shot dead after he stabbed and injured a soldier, the army said.
Yahoo
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Analysis-Netanyahu sees redemption in Iran war, but Gaza looms large
By Crispian Balmer, Emily Rose and Alexander Cornwell JERUSALEM/TEL AVIV (Reuters) -After months of political turmoil, war and plummeting popularity, Israel's powerful strike on Iran is likely to reframe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's legacy, allies and analysts say. During a 12-day air assault ordered by Netanyahu, Israel bombed nuclear sites deep inside Iran, eliminated many of its arch foe's top military commanders and scientists, and targeted multiple missile facilities across the country. Both nations agreed to a ceasefire on Tuesday, and although they accused each other of violating the deal in the hours after it was announced, Netanyahu was swift to claim total victory. "The State of Israel has accomplished great historic achievements and positioned itself side-by-side with the world's superpowers," the government said. The jubilant tone was a far cry from October 7, 2023, when a surprise attack by Hamas militants out of Gaza handed Israel the deadliest security failure in its history, dealing a devastating blow to Netanyahu's carefully crafted reputation as the nation's guardian and triggering a collapse in his public support. Netanyahu's recent rhetoric has "completely erased October 7th. He's just talking about Iran," said Dr. Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University. However, the war against Hamas in Gaza is still grinding on, a constant reminder of the 2023 blunders, and pressure is likely to build quickly on Netanyahu to reach a deal that will end the fighting and secure the release of all remaining hostages. "A comprehensive agreement to return all the hostages is the call of the moment," said Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is among the 20 hostages in Gaza still believed to be alive. "The annals of history are being written now, one chapter is still missing, the chapter of October 7. Netanyahu, it's up to you," she wrote on X. REDRAWING THE MIDDLE EAST Despite the cloud of Gaza, the political benefits of the Iranian mission are already being felt. A survey released last week said 83% of Jewish Israelis supported the assault on Iran and pollsters said they expected Netanyahu's Likud party, which had long been predicted to lose power in any national election, would now gain ground. "I think there'll be less of a movement to punish him for October 7," said Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster who worked for Netanyahu in the 1990s. "He's definitely in a strong position." The Iranian operation marks a dramatic change in Israel's regional position, which has been evolving at dizzying speed over the past 20 months. During that time, Israeli forces have severely weakened its enemy Hezbollah in Lebanon, inflicted heavy losses on Hamas in Gaza, decimated air defences in Syria, and now struck directly at Iran – once considered too risky a move. Netanyahu also managed to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to join the attack and hit Iranian nuclear sites with bunker-busting bombs that only the U.S. airforce possesses -- a coup for the Israeli leader who had previously spent years fruitlessly trying to persuade Washington to strike Iran. Trump gave the conflict added significance on Tuesday by calling it "The 12-day War" -- recalling the Six Day War of 1967, when Israel launched a preemptive strike on neighbouring Arab states and captured the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan Heights. Some of Netanyahu's allies have been pushing a new narrative to recast the October 7 attack not as a failure, but as a necessary wake-up call, which finally jolted the nation into confronting its regional foes head-on, rather than contain them. "October 7 saved the Israeli people," Aryeh Deri, a partner in the right-wing ruling coalition, told Channel 14 TV station. POLITICAL RECKONING Netanyahu will now face pressure to negotiate an end to the Gaza conflict, which has so far killed 56,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, most of them civilians. Opponents have accused him of prolonging the fighting to avoid a political reckoning over who was to blame for the conflict. Procrastination is no longer acceptable, they say. "Now Gaza," opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X on Tuesday. "It is the moment to close there as well. To bring back the captives, to end the war. Israel needs to start rebuilding." Israel has become increasingly isolated over its actions in Gaza, where it cut off aid for weeks, shrugging off warnings of famine, and reduced much of the enclave to rubble. Trump himself in recent weeks has called on Israel to wrap up the fighting, having promised during his election campaign last year to bring peace to the region. However, inside Netanyahu's government, there appeared little willingness on Tuesday to compromise or negotiate. "Now with all our strength to Gaza, to complete the work, to destroy Hamas and return our hostages," Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right coalition partner, wrote on X. Smotrich and other cabinet hardliners are pushing for a long-term military occupation of Gaza, including the re-establishment of Jewish settlements -- something Palestinians and Western nations would fiercely oppose. Talshir described the coming talks over a ceasefire deal in Gaza as a competition between Smotrich and Donald Trump "over who has more leverage on Netanyahu," she said. Some analysts say Netanyahu might try to capitalize on the Iran operation by calling elections a year early, though pollster Barak said expanding his coalition's slim parliamentary majority made more sense. "Whenever you go to elections, it sounds great, (but) you go for a roll of the dice," he said. (Additional reporting by Alexander Cornwell and Howard Goller; Editing by Jon Boyle)
