Author: ALJAZEERA

Commander Mohammad Reza Zahedi and his deputy Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi among seven killed, IRGC says.Iran has promised to respond after two commanders from its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were among seven people killed in an Israeli air strike that flattened the Iranian consulate in Damascus. Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the elite Quds Force of the IRGC and his deputy General Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi were killed in the attack, the IRGC said in a statement on Monday. Reporters at the scene in Damascus’s Mezzeh district, where the consulate is located, saw smoke rising from rubble,…

Iran has promised a response after its consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus was destroyed in a suspected Israeli missile attack, killing seven people including a top commander and his deputy. Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander in the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and his deputy General Mohammad Hadi Hajriahimi were killed in Monday’s attack, the IRGC said in a statement. Israel has long targeted Iran’s military installations in Syria and those of its proxies but Monday’s attack was the first time it had targeted the embassy compound itself. Here’s what we know:…

Top US and Israeli officials have ‘constructive engagement on Rafah’ during talks previously delayed by Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu.Washington, DC – Israeli officials have agreed to take the United States’s “concerns” about a possible invasion of Rafah in Gaza into consideration after a virtual meeting, the White House has said. It remains unclear whether the talks on Monday will push Israel to delay or cancel its planned assault on the crowded southern Gaza city, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have taken shelter. Officials from both countries had a “constructive engagement on Rafa”, the US White House said in a…

blinking-dotLive updatesLive updates, Foreign and Palestinian aid workers with World Central Kitchen were killed in Israeli air attack after delivering food supplies to central Gaza. Source link

Biden administration says ‘too many civilians’ killed in Gaza but reasserts commitment to supporting Israel in war.Washington, DC – The United States has defended its arms transfers to Israel, reasserting its commitment to the country’s security despite growing concerns about rights abuses in the Gaza Strip. Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller was asked on Monday whether recent weapons transfers, which included fighter jets and 900kg (2,000lb) bombs, damaged the “credibility” and “sincerity” of US statements decrying the crisis in Gaza. “I do not agree with that at all. We have been very clear that we want to see Israel…

El-Sisi’s new term of six years is supposed to be his last, according to the constitution.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Tuesday in the new capital being built outside Cairo, according to government news outlet Al-Ahram. El-Sisi “will take the oath of office on the constitution Tuesday in the new parliament premises in the administrative capital”, east of Cairo, Al-Ahram reported on Monday. In power for more than a decade, the 69-year-old leader will officially begin his term on Wednesday, more than three months after he was re-elected with 89.6 percent…

Washington, DC – Forty-eight folding chairs, but will it be enough? “It’s OK, some of us will stand,” said 60-year-old Haitham Arafat, a soft-spoken, bespectacled man in a keffiyeh and a canary yellow shirt. But soon, more chairs arrived, and were quickly lined up along 40 metres (131 feet) of table that stretched along a street facing the Israeli embassy in the northwest corner of this US capital city. A row of Ramadan lanterns lit the place settings ahead of the iftar meal. “We break fast here every day,” said Arafat, who has been coming to the embassy for the…

The opposition in Turkey has claimed a big victory over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in local elections with the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) claiming wins in the major cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. In the final count after Sunday’s voting, the CHP won 37.8 percent of the ballots, followed by the AK Party with just under 35.5 percent, according to the Daily Sabah newspaper. Istanbul’s CHP mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, held the city, defeating AK Party candidate and former Environment and Urbanisation Minister Murat Kurum with just more than 51…

Deir el-Balah, Gaza – Mohammad Sukkar is safe now – or safer – but even as the team at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah work to help him, his eyes fill with tears as he recounts his experience in al-Shifa Hospital. The 27-year-old man fled south, wounded and stripped of his clothes, after days of siege and then detention by the Israeli army in the Shifa complex, along with dozens of other people. “I had been displaced from al-Shujayea east of Gaza, which was destroyed and I was volunteering at the hospital after being displaced,” Sukkar told Al Jazeera,…

The Israeli military has withdrawn from the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital after a two-week raid, leaving behind scenes of devastation. Hundreds of people returned to al-Shifa Hospital and the surrounding area after the withdrawal early on Monday. They reported finding bodies strewn inside and outside the facility. Mohammed Mahdi, who was among those who returned, described a scene of “total destruction”. He said several buildings had been burned down and that he had counted six bodies in the area, including two in the hospital courtyard. Another resident, Yahia Abu Auf, said army bulldozers had ploughed over a makeshift cemetery inside…