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60 Bodies Found After Israeli Operation In Gaza City

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2 years ago

July 12, 2024

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Smoke billows during Israeli bombardment on the village of Khiam in south Lebanon near the border with Israel on June 19, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by RABIH DAHER / AFP)

Around 60 bodies were found under the rubble of a Gaza City neighbourhood, officials in the Hamas-run territory said Thursday, after Israel’s military declared an end to its operation there.

The upsurge in fighting, bombardment and displacement in the eastern district of Shujaiya came as talks were held in mediator Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal.

US President Joe Biden told reporters that his administration was “making progress” towards a ceasefire agreement as he called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.

His statement came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Israel retain control of key Gaza territory along the border with Egypt — a condition that conflicts with Hamas’s position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said around 60 bodies had been found under the rubble in Shujaiya, after some of Gaza City’s heaviest combat in months.

Hamas said Israel’s operation there had left “more than 300 residential units and more than 100 business destroyed”.

Mohammed Nairi, a Shujaiya resident, said he and others returning to the neighbourhood had seen “immense destruction that defies description. All the houses were demolished.”

Israel’s military said on Wednesday it had completed its mission in Shujaiya after two weeks, but bombardments and fighting continued to shake Gaza City.

Witnesses said tanks and troops had moved on to other parts of the city.

An AFP correspondent reported air strikes on the Sabra neighbourhood while militants engaged in heavy clashes with Israeli forces in Tel al-Hawa.

Hamas reported 45 air strikes in the Gaza City area, as well as in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where Netanyahu had said the intense phase of the war was nearing its conclusion.

– ‘Difficult, complex issues’ –

Netanyahu’s office confirmed that its negotiating team, led by Mossad intelligence chief David Barnea, had returned to Israel following talks with mediators in Doha on Thursday.

Speaking after the team’s return, Netanyahu said Israel needed control of the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border with Egypt to stop weapons reaching Hamas.

He added that Israel must also be allowed to keep on fighting until its war aims of destroying Hamas and bringing home all hostages are achieved.

In Washington, Biden acknowledged “difficult, complex issues” remain between Israel and Hamas, but that progress was being made in reaching a ceasefire deal.

“There’s a lot of things in retrospect I wish I had been able to convince the Israelis to do, but the bottom line is we have a chance now. It’s time to end this war,” he said after a NATO summit.

The Washington Post had reported on Wednesday that both Israel and Hamas had “signalled their acceptance of an ‘interim governance’ plan” in which neither would rule the territory and a US-trained force of Palestinian Authority supporters would provide security.

The Pentagon has also announced it will soon permanently end its problem-plagued effort to deliver aid to Gaza by sea from Cyprus using a temporary pier that had been repeatedly damaged by weather conditions.

The UN’s health agency meanwhile said that only five trucks carrying medical supplies were allowed into Gaza last week.

“More than 34 of our trucks are waiting at the Al Arish crossing, and 850 pallets of medical supplies are awaiting collection. A further 40 trucks are waiting at Ismailiya in Egypt,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday on social media platform X.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s health ministry.

– ‘Dangerous combat zone’ –

The Israeli army dropped leaflets on Wednesday warning “everyone in Gaza City” that it would “remain a dangerous combat zone”.

The leaflets urged residents to flee, and set out designated escape routes from the area where the UN humanitarian office said up to 350,000 people had been sheltering.

The UN said the latest evacuations “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times”, and who face “critical levels of need”.

Hamas official Hossam Badran told AFP that Israel was “hoping that the resistance will relinquish its legitimate demands” in truce negotiations.

But “the continuation of massacres compels us to adhere to our demands”, he said.

Israel’s military said operations were also continuing in the Rafah area where “dozens” of militants were killed over the past day.

The military said it responded with air and ground strikes after five rockets were fired from the area towards Israel on Thursday.

The military separately acknowledged Thursday it had “failed” to protect Kibbutz Beeri, where more than 100 people died during Hamas’s October 7 attacks.

A summary of the inquiry, made public after being presented to kibbutz residents, said there had been a “lack of coordination” in the military response.

AFP

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International News

Israel Says It had Struck Two Naval Missile Production Sites In Tehran

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4 hours ago

March 25, 2026

thecolumnng

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The Israeli military announced on Wednesday it had struck two naval cruise missile production facilities operating under Iran’s ministry of defence in Tehran.

“In recent days, the Israeli air force acting on IDF intelligence struck two key naval cruise missile production sites in Tehran,” the military said.

It said the facilities were used to “develop and manufacture long-range naval cruise missiles, which are capable of rapidly destroying targets at sea and on land”.

The strikes “represent another step in deepening the damage done to the regime’s military production infrastructure”, the military added.

Last week, the military announced its fighter jets had struck several Iranian naval ships in the Caspian Sea, including vessels equipped with anti-submarine missiles.

AFP

International News

2025 ‘Deadliest Year’ Yet For Red Sea Migrants, UN Reports 922 Deaths

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4 hours ago

March 25, 2026

thecolumnng

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The number of migrants who died on the “Eastern Route” from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula doubled to a record high of 922 last year, the UN migration agency said Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of migrants from Ethiopia, Somalia and neighbouring countries take the route across the Red Sea each year, mostly from Djibouti to Yemen, in search of work as labourers or domestic workers in wealthy Gulf countries.

“2025 was the deadliest year ever recorded on the Eastern migration route… with 922 people dead or missing — double the number from the previous year,” Tanja Pacifico, head of mission for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Djibouti, told AFP.

The majority of victims were from Ethiopia, the second most-populous country in Africa with more than 130 million people. It is plagued by multiple internal conflicts and deep poverty.

“IOM remains fully committed to working alongside the government of Djibouti to promote safe and dignified migration pathways, in order to prevent further tragedies,” said Pacifico.

Many migrants who cross the Red Sea find themselves stuck in Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, which has been embroiled in a civil war for nearly a decade, and some even choose to return.

Rapid economic growth in Ethiopia — estimated to reach around 10 percent in 2026 — could encourage less migration, IOM says, but that is mitigated by high inflation, also around 10 percent in February.

AFP

International News

Denmark Faces Lengthy Negotiations To Form A Government

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4 hours ago

March 25, 2026

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Election workers recount ballots in the Marselisborg Hallen in Aarhus, Denmark on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Mikkel Berg Pedersen / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) /

Denmark’s political parties began the thorny process of forming a government Wednesday, with the centrist Moderates as kingmaker after the prime minister’s Social Democrats scraped through a general election without a majority.

Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit party member Naaja Nathanielsen (C) looks on in a polling station in Nuuk, on March 24, 2026, during the parliamentary election in Denmark (Photo by Oscar Scott Carl / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT

Danes were braced for a weeks-long process as Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen seeks to consolidate power in the deeply splintered parliament after Tuesday’s snap vote.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen arrives at Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen to inform the king about the election result one day after the parliamentary election on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Martin Sylvest / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP)

A left-wing bloc made up of five parties, including Frederiksen’s Social Democrats, won 84 seats; the right-wing and far-right claimed 77; and the Moderates won 14 in the election.

The Social Democrats posted their worst election score since 1903—though they remained Denmark’s largest single party, with 38 seats in the 179-seat parliament.

Chairwoman of the Social Democrats Mette Frederiksen attends a party leader debate hosted by Publicists’ Club one the day after the parliamentary election at the Confederation of Danish Industry’s building in Copenhagen on March 25, 2026. (Photo by Liselotte Sabroe / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP)

Frederiksen formally tendered her coalition government’s resignation to King Frederik on Wednesday, telling a televised party leader debate she wanted to try to form a centre-left government.

“The most realistic scenario” would be a coalition with the five parties on the left and the centre-right Moderates, she said.

But it is not certain the Moderates, led by Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, would agree to that.

“I don’t believe that Denmark needs policies aligned with” the leftist Red-Green Alliance, Lokke said.

Chairman of the Moderates Lars Loekke Rasmussen attends a party leader debate at the Confederation of Danish Industry’s building in Copenhagen on March 25, 2026, the day after the parliamentary election. (Photo by Liselotte Sabroe / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP) / Denmark OUT

King Frederik was to meet party leaders individually later Wednesday to determine who should be asked to try to form the next government.

“My expectation is that Mette Frederiksen will become prime minister,” University of Copenhagen political science professor Rune Stubager told reporters.

“But I don’t know with the backing of which parties, like the left wing or the right wing,” he said.

He noted that Lokke, a two-time former prime minister, would likely vie for the position of prime minister, even though he has adamantly denied any interest in the job.

“Danes want me and not another prime minister. I still have the backing to be able to continue on behalf of the Danish people,” Frederiksen insisted during the debate.

Frederiksen has for the past four years headed an unprecedented left-right coalition made up of her Social Democrats, the Moderates and the Liberals.

The Liberals have refused to continue in a Social Democrat-led government.

‘Too Hard To Say’

Danes are now prepared for long negotiations. After the 2022 election, the talks lasted six weeks.

“It’s a long process, which means the government won’t be formed and it will be quite difficult to pass laws during this period,” lamented Jesper Dyrfjeld Christensen, a 54-year-old engineer.

“It’s really too hard to say who will be part of the coalition,” admitted Stubager.

With 12 parties in parliament, the political landscape is jagged — though Denmark is accustomed to minority governments.

“To some extent, this is the way Danish politics works. You have a minority government in the centre which forms a majority with the left on some issues and with the right on others,” he explained.

The negotiations are expected to focus on economic and pension issues, pollution and immigration, he said.

The traditional far-right party, the Danish People’s Party, which has heavily influenced policy since the late 1990s but slumped in the 2022 election, more than tripled its result to 9.1 per cent of votes.

The three anti-immigration groups together garnered 17 per cent, a stable figure for Denmark’s populist right over the past two decades.

“If negotiations take place in the left-wing bloc with the moderates, then there will be more focus on green issues than on immigration,” Stubager said.

“But if, instead, the Moderates negotiate with the parties on the right, then the central issue will be immigration.”

Four seats in Denmark’s parliament are held by its two autonomous territories — two for Greenland and two for the Faroe Islands.

While the Faroese renewed the mandates of the two outgoing lawmakers, with one for each bloc, Greenland overwhelmingly backed the left-wing party and Naleraq, which advocates rapid independence from Denmark.

AFP