Four Palestinians were killed in a feud between two families allied with political rivals Hamas and Fatah, raising concerns about a new outbreak of factional fighting.
Saturday was the deadliest day in Gaza since Hamas and Fatah reached a power-sharing deal two weeks ago. That agreement halted months of bloody clashes, but Gaza remains volatile because families of some of those killed still seek revenge.
The latest fighting erupted in the southern town of Khan Younis, between the Ghelban clan allied with Hamas and the Karouah family, which is linked to Fatah. Both families sustained casualties in recent months of fighting.
Just before midnight on Friday, Mohammed Ghelban, 28, a local commander of Hamas' military wing, was driving in his car with his wife and children, said a local security official. Assailants dragged Ghelban from his car and shot and killed him in front of his family, the official said. It was not immediately clear what prompted the attack.
A member of the rival clan, 22-year-old Hazem Karouah, 22, was killed several hours later, as was 75-year-old Ismail Sabah, who was caught in the line of fire. Later on Saturday, 27-year-old Ghada Karouah died of gunshot wounds.
Thirty-seven people were wounded, including four who were in critical condition, hospital officials said.
The two factions did not openly blame each other. However, government spokesman Ghazi Hamad of Hamas said some groups were "trying to revive the internal conflict through acts of aggression."
Talal Okal, a Palestinian commentator, said that the family feuds "are part of the rubble left over from the fighting." However, he said he expected Hamas and Fatah to try to suppress revenge attacks in order not the endanger the power-sharing agreement.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS