Author: ALJAZEERA

Israeli forces bombed areas in the southern border city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza’s internally displaced population is sheltering, as the United States warned that a military push into the city could be a “disaster”. Aid agencies have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe if Israel follows through on its threat to enter Rafah, where people are desperate for shelter and one of the last remaining areas of the Gaza Strip into which its troops have not moved. “To conduct such an operation right now with no planning and little thought in an area” where one million people…

NewsFeedThe scale of destruction across Gaza has been described as being among the worst in modern history. Al Jazeera’s Nada Qaddourah illustrates the extent of the damage through maps.Published On 8 Feb 20248 Feb 2024 Source link

Rafah, Gaza Strip – Seham al-Najjar and her family have nowhere else to run if Israel intensifies its assault on Rafah, a town in southernmost Gaza. Like 1.8 million people, Seham fled to Rafah in search of relative safety from Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground invasion in other parts of the Gaza Strip. She arrived weeks ago with 20 members of her family from Khan Younis, a city that Israel designated as “safe” at the start of the war and then reduced to rubble in December. Seham fears that Rafah could suffer an even worse fate. Israeli Prime Minister “Benjamin Netanyahu…

Baghdad says the US ‘has become a factor for instability and threatens to entangle Iraq in the cycle of conflict’.Iraq has denounced a US drone strike in Baghdad that killed a commander of an Iran-aligned group, saying the United States-led military coalition in the country is becoming a “factor for instability”. Army spokesperson Yahya Rasool said on Thursday that repeated attacks by the US in Iraq are pushing the government to end the coalition’s mission. The US has conducted frequent attacks, targeting Iran-backed armed groups that it said were behind missile and drone strikes on its troops in Iraq and…

Officials said an investigation was launched as the search was ongoing for 27 missing people.At least 13 Sudanese asylum seekers have died after their boat capsized off the coast of Tunisia. A Tunisian judicial official said on Thursday that 27 people were still missing after their boat sank on Wednesday, having set off from Jebiniana, a town near the Mediterranean port city of Sfax. The boat was carrying 42 people, all of them Sudanese, and two people were rescued, said Farid Ben Jha, a court spokesperson in the coastal Tunisian city of Monastir. The asylum seekers were likely “exploited in a…

PodcastPodcast, The TakeAntony Blinken arrived in the Middle East to seal a truce deal, but he leaves with Israel promising ‘total victory’. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the Middle East this week for the fifth time since October 7. There were hopes he could seal a truce for Gaza. But by the end of his trip, Israel had stepped up attacks on Palestinians in southern Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised no end to the war without “victory”. So what progress has the US made? In this episode:  Episode credits: This episode was produced by Sari el-Khalili…

Tunisian media had little to say about the sentencing of Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the self-styled Muslim democrats, Ennahdha, and former speaker of parliament, to an additional three years’ imprisonment, providing some indication of the extent of the president’s current authoritarian reach, analysts say. The 82-year-old Ghannouchi was sentenced along with his son-in-law, former Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem, for receiving foreign funding, illegal under Tunisian law. At the time of sentencing, Abdessalem was overseas while Ghannouchi was already in jail, having already been found guilty of “incitement” last year. Abdessalam had left Tunisia after he was convicted of having defamed…

NewsFeedA 15-year-old Palestinian boy has been dubbed ‘Gaza’s Newton’. He’s successfully generated electricity, using scrap items to light up his displaced family’s tent.Published On 7 Feb 20247 Feb 2024 Source link

UN chief says ground invasion of city would widen the ‘humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences’.Panic is growing in Rafah over an imminent ground invasion after Israel’s prime minister ordered his military to prepare to enter the city in the southern Gaza Strip that is sheltering 1.2 million people with nowhere else to go as he rejected Hamas’s truce plan and rebuffed US efforts to reach a deal. A new round of talks aimed at securing a truce with Hamas were set to open on Thursday in Egypt after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will not end the war…

NewsFeedThe US says it was behind a drone strike in Iraq’s capital Baghdad that killed two commanders of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia group linked to the killing of three US troops last month.Published On 8 Feb 20248 Feb 2024 Source link