Deadly Israeli strikes yesterday hit Lebanon and Gaza as the US secretary of state was set to visit Israel aiming to finalize a Gaza truce agreement that diplomats say could avert a wider regional conflagration.
The Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon killed 10 people, including a Syrian woman and her two children.
The strike was among the deadliest in southern Lebanon since the onset of near-daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah following the start of the Gaza war in October last year.
Photo: Reuters
Israel’s military said it struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility.
In Hamas-run Gaza, civil defense rescuers said an Israeli airstrike killed 15 people from a single Palestinian family. The fatalities in al-Zawaida helped push the Gaza health ministry’s war death toll to 40,074.
“We are in the morgue seeing indescribable scenes of limbs and severed heads and children who are dismembered,” said Omar al-Dreemli, a relative.
On Friday, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported Gaza’s first polio case in 25 years.
An unvaccinated 10-month-old child in Gaza was on Friday diagnosed with highly infectious polio, the ministry said.
The announcement came hours after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children against type 2 poliovirus, which was first detected in the territory’s wastewater in June.
“We are closer than we have ever been” to a ceasefire in the Gaza war, US President Joe Biden said on Friday, although previous optimism during months of on-off talks has so far proven futile.
Yesterday, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said that Biden’s comment was an “illusion.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was yesterday to leave for Israel and seek to “conclude the agreement for a ceasefire and release of hostages and detainees,” the US Department of State said.
With a deal “now in sight, no one in the region should take actions to undermine this process,” Biden said.
On Friday, officials said that Hamas would not accept “new conditions” from Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday had detailed its conditions for a truce, including “a veto on certain prisoners” being released from its jails.
Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ayman Safadi, a Western ally, blamed Netanyahu for “impeding attempts to finalize” a deal and urged pressure on him.
Netanyahu has denied being the obstacle to a deal, blaming Hamas.
RESPONSE: The transit sends a message that China’s alignment with other countries would not deter the West from defending freedom of navigation, an academic said Canadian frigate the Ville de Quebec and Australian guided-missile destroyer the Brisbane transited the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning, the first time the two nations have conducted a joint freedom of navigation operation. The Canadian and Australian militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Ministry of National Defense declined to confirm the passage, saying only that Taiwan’s armed forces had deployed surveillance and reconnaissance assets, along with warships and combat aircraft, to safeguard security across the Strait. The two vessels were observed transiting northward along the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait’s median line, with Japan being their most likely destination,
‘NOT ALONE’: A Taiwan Strait war would disrupt global trade routes, and could spark a worldwide crisis, so a powerful US presence is needed as a deterrence, a US senator said US Senator Deb Fischer on Thursday urged her colleagues in the US Congress to deepen Washington’s cooperation with Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific partners to contain the global security threat from China. Fischer and other lawmakers recently returned from an official trip to the Indo-Pacific region, where they toured US military bases in Hawaii and Guam, and visited leaders, including President William Lai (賴清德). The trip underscored the reality that the world is undergoing turmoil, and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific region is crucial to the security interests of the US and its partners, she said. Her visit to Taiwan demonstrated ways the
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
RELEASED: Ko emerged from a courthouse before about 700 supporters, describing his year in custody as a period of ‘suffering’ and vowed to ‘not surrender’ Former Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was released on NT$70 million (US$2.29 million) bail yesterday, bringing an end to his year-long incommunicado detention as he awaits trial on corruption charges. Under the conditions set by the Taipei District Court on Friday, Ko must remain at a registered address, wear a GPS-enabled ankle monitor and is prohibited from leaving the country. He is also barred from contacting codefendants or witnesses. After Ko’s wife, Peggy Chen (陳佩琪), posted bail, Ko was transported from the Taipei Detention Center to the Taipei District Court at 12:20pm, where he was fitted with the tracking
RSS