Israeli air strikes wounded 15 people in the Gaza Strip yesterday, local residents said, and militants kept up rocket fire on Israel, damaging two homes, in rising border tensions following the death of a Palestinian youth.
Violent Arab protests erupted on Wednesday after the body of the 16-year-old Palestinian boy was discovered in Jerusalem, possibly the victim of a revenge killing following the deaths of three Israeli teenagers that the Jewish state has blamed on Hamas militants in the occupied West Bank.
The city was quiet yesterday, but tensions remained high as police continued an investigation into the Palestinian’s death.
The Israeli air strikes hit at least three Hamas training facilities in Gaza, said a source in the Islamist group, which dominates the Palestinian enclave.
The Israeli military said 14 projectiles had been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip and that rockets that struck the two homes in the southern town of Sderot caused no casualties.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay condemned both Palestinians and Israelis yesterday for the latest flareup of violence across the Gaza border and also the killing of the Palestinian teenager.
“From a human rights point of view, I utterly condemn these rocket attacks and more especially I condemn Israel’s excessive acts of retaliation,” Pillay told journalists in Vienna.
The Israeli Security Cabinet met again late on Wednesday to mull military options in response to the persistent rocket fire from the Gaza Strip over the past several weeks, but there was no official word that any decisions had been made amid public calls from some ministers for strong action.
The Palestinian youth, Mohammed Abu Khudair, was last seen alive being bundled into a van on Wednesday near his home in the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat in Jerusalem, a day after the burials of the Jewish teens, who were abducted on June 12.
No time has been set for the boy’s funeral, an event which could trigger more Palestinian protests.
Abu Khudair’s family said police, who have stepped up patrols in the city, told them the body would be released in the pre-dawn hours of today.
A police spokeswoman gave no details of the investigation, other than to say a forensic examination was still underway.
She declined to say when the teenager’s body would be handed over.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who accused Jewish settlers of killing the teenager, spoke by telephone with the teenager’s father yesterday.
“Mohammed is one of the martyrs of this great people,” Abbas said, according to official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement on Wednesday, called the killing a “loathsome murder” and urged all sides not to take the law into their own hands.
The killing of Abu Khudair also drew international condemnation and the US urged Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to “take all necessary steps to prevent an atmosphere of revenge and retribution.”
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
A group affiliated with indicted Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) is to be dissolved for monitoring Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, a source said yesterday. Xu, the secretary-general of the Cross-Strait Marriage and Family Service Alliance, was indicted on March 24 on charges of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法). The alliance “illegally monitored" Chinese immigrants living in Taiwan on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Ministry of the Interior is expected to dissolve the organization in the coming days under provisions of the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法), the source said. Xu, who married a Taiwanese in 1993 and became a Republic
Taiwanese shares yesterday posted a record daily gain of more than 1,700 points to close above 40,000 points for the first time, led by large-cap semiconductor stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) amid optimism about the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The TAIEX ended up 1,778.51 points, or 4.57 percent, at 40,705.14 after moving between 39,228.39 and 40,755.52, while the New Taiwan dollar closed up NT$0.038 at NT$31.610 per US dollar, ending three consecutive sessions of declines. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$1.007 trillion (US$31.9 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$66.98 billion
RSS