Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops killed two Palestinians, including a suspected top bombmaker, during an arrest raid early yesterday, Palestinian officials said, raising the death toll to eight in a two-day surge of fighting.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group linked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, said the men were killed after Israeli troops surrounded a building where they were hiding and ordered people out. Most occupants came out, but the two militants remained holed up inside. An exchange of fire broke out and the two men were killed, the group said.
The group said the dead included Amin Lubadi, a suspected bombmaker who had been wanted by the Israelis for more than three years.
PHOTO: AFP
Palestinian medical officials confirmed the deaths of two men.
Witnesses said the sounds of gunfire and explosions could be heard in Nablus as the army pushed forward with its latest crackdown.
IDF was looking into the report.
On Saturday, five people were killed during Israeli arrest raids in the northern West Bank. The area is known as a stronghold of Palestinian militants. The dead included a 17-year-old girl who was shot by Israeli gunfire as she looked out the window of her home, officials said.
In other violence on Saturday, a 37-year-old man was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip. The army said the airstrike was in response to a rocket attack carried out by Palestinian militants. One rocket hit a house in a southern Israeli town, though there were no injuries from the attack.
Israeli officials defended the operations as the latest steps in their ongoing war against Palestinian militants. But Palestinian officials said the bloodshed only hurt efforts to expand a ceasefire in Gaza to the West Bank.
Israel and Palestinian militants have been observing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip since last November. The truce has largely held, though Gaza militants have periodically fired rockets into Israel.
In talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Abbas has raised the possibility of expanding the ceasefire to the West Bank, where the army frequently conducts raids searching for wanted militants.
Israel sealed the West Bank and Gaza Strip early yesterday for Memorial Day and Independence Day, restricting the movement of Palestinians into Israel.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese