Israeli military strikes yesterday killed multiple civilians at a UN shelter and hospital in the main combat zone in the Gaza Strip as the assault intensified on the besieged enclave’s Hamas rulers amid growing international uproar over the soaring death toll and deepening humanitarian crisis.
Israel’s military has said it has encircled Gaza City, the target of its offensive to crush Hamas, but yesterday offered a three-hour window for residents trapped by the fighting to flee south.
The new attacks came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the region trying to find ways to ease the plight of the civilians caught in the fighting. He met with Arab foreign ministers yesterday in Jordan, the day after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who insisted there can be no temporary ceasefire until all hostages held by Hamas are released.
Photo: AFP
The Israeli military has repeatedly demanded that northern Gaza’s 1.1 million residents flee south as it escalates bombardment of the north and closes in around Gaza City.
However, some of those traveling south were killed during their journey in the past few days, and Israel has continued bombing in the south, saying it is striking Hamas targets.
With wide swaths of residential neighborhoods leveled in airstrikes, most of northern Gaza’s remaining residents, estimated at about 300,000, have sought shelter in UN-run schools and in hospitals where they hope they would be safe, but Israeli strikes have also repeatedly hit and damaged those shelters.
Photo: AFP
Yesterday, two strikes hit a UN school-turned-shelter just north of Gaza City, killing several people in tents in the schoolyard and women who were baking bread inside the building, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said.
Initial reports indicated that 20 people were killed, but the agency has not yet been able to verify the figure, said Juliette Touma, director of communications at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported that 12 people were killed at the school and another 50 people wounded. About 18,000 Palestinians had been sheltering there.
Also on Saturday, two people were killed in a strike by the gate of Nasser Hospital in Gaza, health ministry spokesman Medhat Abbas said.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’