Onlookers at the site Sunday clambered over large slabs of concrete, surrounded by high piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters, likely used by rescuers to penetrate under the site of the explosion were visible, some of them apparently up to 30 meters (100 feet) deep.
A few Hezbollah workers were using a bulldozer to excavate around one of the craters, some of them apparently dug by rescuers to reach the dead. State security and investigators were nowhere to be seen.
Here’s the latest:
PALESTINIANS WANT U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO RECONSIDER THEIR BID FOR FULL MEMBERSHIP (…)
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told The Associated Press late Tuesday that the vote will take place on May 10.
(today)
The path to the April 1 attack started months ago, as aid groups desperately looked for ways to feed millions cut off from regular food deliveries. Gaza was sealed off by Israeli forces within hours of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants that ignited the war. Since then, more than 33,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 80% of the enclave’s 2.3 million people displaced.
Hunger has become commonplace. Famine, U.N. officials warn, has become increasingly likely in war-ravaged northern Gaza.
(02.04.2024)
DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — An Israeli airstrike that demolished Iran’s consulate in Syria on Monday killed two Iranian generals and five officers, according to Iranian officials. The strike appeared to signify an escalation of Israel’s targeting of military officials from Iran, which supports militant groups fighting Israel in Gaza, and along its border with Lebanon.
Israeli jets on Sunday launched several strikes near the Shifa Hospital, which largely stopped functioning following the November raid. After claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center there, Israeli forces months ago exposed a single tunnel leading to a few underground rooms.
Hardly any aid has been delivered in recent weeks to northern Gaza and Gaza City, where Shifa is located.
(today)
Both the strikes in Iraq and Yemen targeted sites that the U.S. has said are involved in the attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria and were threatening U.S. military and commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
Israelis were left stunned and speechless when three hostages held by Hamas were killed by Israeli forces in the middle of an active war zone after they waved a white flag and screamed out in Hebrew to show they did not pose a threat.
For some, the incident was a shocking example of the ugliness of war, where a complex and dangerous battlefield is safe for no one. But for critics, the incident underscores what they say is the excessively violent conduct of Israel’s security apparatus against Palestinians.
(01.12.2023)
The attack was planned in plain sight. A month before the assault, Hamas posted a video to social media showing fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.
In the video, the militants destroyed mock-ups of the wall’s concrete towers and a communications antenna, just as they would do for real on Oct. 7.
The United Nations and other international institutions and experts, as well as Palestinian authorities in the West Bank — rivals of Hamas — say the Gaza ministry has long made a good-faith effort to account for the dead under the most difficult conditions.
“The numbers may not be perfectly accurate on a minute-to-minute basis,” said Michael Ryan, of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program. “But they largely reflect the level of death and injury.”
(September 28, 2023)
Since the country’s first coup in January 2022, the number of people killed by Islamic extremists has nearly tripled compared with the 18 months before, according to a recent report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.
On Thursday, the bloc ordered the deployment of a “standby” force to restore constitutional rule in Niger, with Nigeria, Benin, Senegal and Ivory Coast saying they would contribute troops.
But it’s unclear when, how or if the troops will deploy. The move could take weeks or months to set into motion, and while the bloc decides what to do the junta is gaining power, some observers say.
Iran did not provide a reason for launching the drill, though such snap exercises have happened in the past.
Thousands of Marines backed by advanced U.S. fighter jets and warships are slowly building up a presence in the Persian Gulf. It’s a sign that while America’s wars in the region may be finished, its conflict with Iran over its advancing nuclear program continues to worsen, with no solutions in sight.
The dispatch of the troop-and-aircraft-carrying USS Bataan to the Gulf, alongside stealth F-35 fighters and other warplanes, comes as America wants to focus on China and Russia.
That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradict information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told the AP that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.
According to a report released by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), during the first half of 2022, Saudi Arabia executed 120 people, a number higher than that of 2020 and 2021 combined. The kingdom is on its way to surpassing the record of 186 executions set in 2019.
Most of the executions carried out this year took place on 12 March, when Saudi officials killed 81 detainees on charges of “terrorism-related activities.”
A letter from Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and members of the U.N. Security Council was obtained by The Associated Press ahead of a closed council meeting late Wednesday requested by Britain, France and the United States on Iran’s sale of hundreds of drones to Russia.
The three Western countries strongly back Ukraine’s contention that the drones were transferred to Russia and violate a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal between Iran and six key nations — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear activities and preventing the country from developing a nuclear weapon.
(May 26, 2022)
By now it’s as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers: A mass shooting leaves many dead, and wild conspiracy theories and misinformation about the carnage soon follow.
Millions of health care workers across the U.S. were supposed to have their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by this coming Monday under a mandate issued by President Joe Biden’s administration. Thanks to legal challenges, they won’t have to worry about it, at least for now.
Same goes for a Jan. 4 deadline set by the administration for businesses with at least 100 employees to ensure their workers are vaccinated or tested weekly for the virus.
(13.07.2021)
They all just blindly copied and pasted the Associated Press‘ pic.
But to anyone who knows about Cuba, the massive red and black flags saying „26 Julio“ (Fidel Castro‘s political party) should have been a dead give away! (ht @BenjaminNorton
)
Am Samstag hatte das Militär nach einer Vorwarnung auch das Gebäude in Trümmer gelegt, in dem die Nachrichtenagentur AP und der katarische Fernsehsender Al-Dschasira ihre Büros hatten. Standardmäßig nannte es eine Präsenz der Hamas in dem Haus als Grund und warf Hamas vor, Journalisten als menschliche Schutzschilde benutzt zu haben. AP-Präsident Gary Pruitt sagte dagegen, die Nachrichtenagentur habe seit 15 Jahren in dem Gebäude gearbeitet und keinerlei Hinweise auf eine Anwesenheit der Hamas dort gehabt, obwohl sie dies aktiv und nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen prüfe.
An Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building in Gaza City that housed offices of The Associated Press and other media on Saturday, the latest step by the military to silence reporting from the territory amid its battle with the militant group Hamas. (May 15)
The Jala Tower complex in the Gaza Strip is also where the Gaza offices of several international news media outlets are based, including the Associated Press and al-Jazeera.
The tower‘s owner had received a warning from the IDF ahead of the airstrikes, allowing the civilians inside to evacuate, media reports suggest.
„We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don‘t want the truth to be exposed,“ Trump wrote in a statement. „The simple fact is this election is far from over. Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor.“
The Associated Press called the race for Biden on Saturday when it said that Pennsylvania‘s 20 electoral votes put him over the 270-vote threshold needed to win the Electoral College.
It‘s a fitting tipping point state.
(01.09.2020)
The CDC data table is based on an analysis of death certificates that mention COVID-19 as a cause. For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned, the CDC notes.
The other 94% list COVID-19 and other conditions together. Among those deaths, there were, on average, 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death, the public health agency said.
Protesters marched through Seattle in silence on Friday. The protest came on the same day that a U.S. judge has ordered Seattle police to temporarily stop using tear gas, pepper spray and flash-bang devices to break up peaceful protests. (June 12)
Officials said the incident illustrates the continuing illegal smuggling of weapons to Houthi rebels and comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were meeting, with Iran as the main topic.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive military mission.
United Nations ambassadors from France, Germany and the United Kingdom circulated a letter citing footage released on social media showing the flight test of the Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile that is „technically capable of delivering a nuclear weapon,“ reported the Associated Press.