An Israeli strike on a five-story building where displaced Palestinians were sheltering in the northern Gaza Strip killed at least 60 people early yesterday, more than half of them women and children, Gaza’s health ministry said.
In a separate development, Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah said it has chosen Sheikh Naim Kassem as its new top leader following the killing of Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike last month.
The group said in a statement that Hezbollah’s decisionmaking Shura Council elected Kassem, who had been Nasrallah’s deputy leader for more than three decades, as the new secretary-general.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Hezbollah vowed to continue with Nasrallah’s policies “until victory is achieved.”
Marwan al-Hams, director of the field hospitals’ department at the Gaza health ministry, announced the toll from yesterday’s strike in the northern town of Beit Lahiya at a news conference. He said another 17 people were missing.
The ministry’s emergency service said the dead included at least 12 women and 20 children, including babies.
The dead included a mother and her five children, some of them adults, and a second mother with her six children, according to an initial casualty list provided by the emergency service.
Kamal Adwan Hospital director Hossam Abu Safiya said it was overwhelmed by the wave of wounded people from the strike.
Israeli forces raided the medical facility over the weekend, detaining dozens of medics.
The Israeli military has repeatedly struck shelters for displaced people in recent months, saying it carried out precise strikes targeting Palestinian militants and tried to avoid harming civilians. The strikes have often killed women and children.
The military said it detained scores of Hamas militants in the raid on Kamal Adwan, the latest in a series of raids on hospitals since the start of the war.
Israel has sharply restricted aid to the north this month, prompting a warning from the US that failure to facilitate greater aid efforts could lead to a reduction in military aid.
On Monday, Israel’s parliament passed two laws that could prevent the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from operating in the Palestinian territories. It was the culmination of a long-running campaign against UNRWA, which Israel says has been infiltrated by Hamas, allegations denied by the agency.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7 last year killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, one-third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities. About 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million have been displaced from their homes, often multiple times.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
STORM’S PATH: Kong-Rey could be the first typhoon to make landfall in Taiwan in November since Gilda in 1967. Taitung-Green Island ferry services have been halted Tropical Storm Kong-rey is forecast to strengthen into a typhoon early today and could make landfall in Taitung County between late Thursday and early Friday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, Kong-Rey was 1,030km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), the nation’s southernmost point, and was moving west at 7kph. The tropical storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 101kph, with gusts of up to 126 kph, CWA data showed. After landing in Taitung, the eye of the storm is forecast to move into the Taiwan Strait through central Taiwan on Friday morning, the agency said. With the storm moving
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
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