Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry yesterday said that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian enclave since Israel launched its withering bombing campaign more than two weeks ago.
Alarm has surged about the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid the war sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people who were gunned down, stabbed or burnt by the Islamist militants.
On a day when Israel’s army reported more than 300 new strikes within 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said the death toll had surged above 5,000, with more than 2,000 of the dead being children, in figures Agence France-Presse has not been able to independently verify.
Photo: AFP
About a dozen trucks carrying desperately needed aid — the third convoy in three days — arrived in Gaza from Egypt yesterday through Rafah, Gaza’s only crossing not controlled by Israel.
The US, which has brokered the entry of the aid convoys, has vowed a “continued flow” of relief goods into Gaza, even as UN aid agencies have said far more is needed.
Gaza’s Hamas-controlled government media office said that “more than 60 were martyred in the raids” during the night — including 17 in a single strike that hit a house in Gaza’s north — and at least 10 others were killed in new strikes early yesterday.
The Israeli military said that it had hit “over 320 military targets in the Gaza Strip” in the past 24 hours.
It said the targets “included tunnels containing Hamas terrorists, dozens of operational command centers,” as well as “military compounds and observation posts” used by Islamic Jihad, another militant group.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
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CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
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