JERUSALEM — Israeli forces stormed the office of Al Jazeera in West Bank’s Ramallah, with a military order to close it for 45 days, the Qatari broadcaster reported on Sunday.

It said that heavily armed and masked Israeli soldiers entered the building and handed the closure order to the network’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari.

“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” a soldier told al-Omari. The exchange was broadcast live on Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera reported.

XINHUA

YAOUNDE — At least 503 people have been killed by flooding in Chad since July, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Chad said on Saturday.

Around 1.7 million people have been affected by floods and thousands of homes destroyed, OCHA said in its latest report on the disaster.

Humanitarian assistance was urgently needed and authorities warned that continuous torrential rains and surging river levels would lead to more floods.

XINHUA

MEXICO CITY — A bus carrying a Brazilian football team flipped on a road south of Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, killing three people and injuring at least six, authorities said.

Local media reported the three dead were players from the American football team the Coritiba Crocodiles of the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba.

The team was headed Saturday to Rio de Janeiro, where they were set to play in the country’s American football championship. But the game was canceled following the deadly accident. Photos circulating on local news sites and social media show the damaged bus laying on its side in the middle of the road.

“Our hearts are heavy with grief, and we ask everyone to send their prayers and positive energy,” the Coritiba Crocodiles said in a statement Saturday. “In the face of this tragedy, all our efforts are focused on supporting the team members and their loved ones.

The injured were being treated in a hospital and local authorities said they will investigate the cause of the crash.

AP

MINNEAPOLIS — Two people died and two teenage girls were among three others injured early Saturday during a shooting in downtown Minneapolis.

Police received a call about shots being fired just before 2 a.m. Saturday. Arriving officers found five people injured — two men ages 20 and 21, two girls ages 16 and 17 and a 21-year-old woman.

The two men died at a hospital. Police said the injuries to the others are not believed to be life-threatening.

Police say a fight between groups of people led to the shooting. One person was arrested on suspicion of inciting a riot.

Police will increase patrols downtown in partnership with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, Metro Transit Police and a community group, Assistant Police Chief Katie Blackwell said, according to WCCO-TV.

AP

Russian forces struck a multi-storey apartment building in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, on Saturday evening, injuring at least 12 people and prompting an evacuation of some of its residents, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Kharkiv, 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border, has been a frequent target of Moscow’s attacks since the Kremlin’s troops launched their February 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbour.

Terekhov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the Russians had deployed a guided bomb, and that rescue operations were under way at the site. He said many windows had been shattered and 60 residents had been evacuated from the building.

Public broadcaster Suspilne said the bomb landed in a tree outside one of the building’s entrances and a number of cars had exploded or were set ablaze.

Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said a child was among those injured. He said there had been two attacks on the city and a strike near the city of Izium, southeast of Kharkiv, which had set two private homes on fire.

On Friday, Russian forces launched three strikes on Kharkiv, injuring 15 people.

Further south, a Russian drone attack killed two people on Saturday in the town of Nikopol, the regional governor said.

In Kurakhove, one of the focal points of Russia’s slow advance through Donetsk region, one person was killed in a Russian artillery strike, regional prosecutors said.

And local authorities in Sumy region said Russian aircraft struck energy infrastructure in the town of Shostka.

Sumy has been another frequent target of Russian attacks and lies opposite Russia’s southern Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion last month.

REUTERS

RABAT — Floods in southern Morocco have swept away a bus, leaving two passengers dead and 14 others missing, local authorities said Saturday.

Torrential rains earlier this month triggered floods that killed at least 18 people in areas of southern Morocco that straddle the Sahara desert.

Regional authorities in Tata province said heavy rainstorms late Friday led to “exceptional” floods that caused houses to collapse and swept away the bus.

A statement which gave the toll of dead and missing said 13 others were rescued.

The rare heavy rains come as the North African kingdom grapples with its worst drought in nearly 40 years, threatening its economically crucial agriculture sector.

Morocco is one of the world’s most water-stressed nations, with frequent droughts affecting a third of the population employed in agriculture.

Experts say climate change is making extreme weather, such as storms and droughts, more frequent and intense.

For water levels in dams to rise and groundwater to replenish, experts say the rains would need to continue over a longer period of time.

AN-AFP, Sep 21, 2024

JERUSALEM — The Israel Defense Forces announced on Saturday evening a new wave of strikes on Lebanon to “thwart major Hezbollah rocket attacks.”

XINHUA

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM — At least 37 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb on Friday, including three children and seven women, the Lebanese health ministry said on Saturday.

Hezbollah said overnight that those killed in the deadliest strike in a year of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel included 16 of its members, and that senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and another top commander, Ahmed Wahbi, were among the dead.

The Israeli army, in posts on X, said the strike hit an underground gathering of Aqil and senior commanders of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, and had “almost completely dismantled” Hezbollah’s military chain of command.

Heavy cross-border strikes continued on Saturday, with Israeli warplanes carrying some of its heaviest bombardment in 11 months of fighting across Lebanon’s south and Hezbollah claiming rocket attacks on military targets in Israel’s north.

Friday’s strike sharply escalated the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group, and inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks this week in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.

The total death toll in those attacks has risen to 39, and more than 3,000 were injured.

The attacks on communications devices were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Hezbollah-aligned transport minister Ali Hamieh told reporters at the scene of Friday’s strike that at least 23 people were still missing.

“The Israeli enemy is taking the region to war,” he said.

The ministry had dispatched vehicles and equipment to help rescuers dig through the collapsed buildings.

“We’ve been taking out women and children from under the rubble,” he said.

‘NEW PHASE’

Hezbollah confirmed Aqil’s death in a statement just after midnight that called him “one of its top leaders”.

It said overnight that 15 other members were also killed, including senior commander Wahbi, who oversaw the military operations of the Radwan forces during the Gaza war until early 2024.

The Friday afternoon strike targeted a building next door to a nursery, which suffered from the impact of the strike, a security source said on Friday.

A second security source said multiple missiles slammed into the opening of a building’s garage. The explosion tore into the building’s lower levels as Aqil met other commanders inside.

In a brief statement on Friday evening carried by Israeli media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s goals were clear and its actions spoke for themselves.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said this week Israel was launching a new phase of war on the northern border, posted on X: “The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.”

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in the nearly year-old Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israel’s military said on Saturday that airspace in northern Israel – from the city of Hadera north – was closed to private flights, but that the measure did not affect international flights.

“These restrictions were set in place to maintain the security of flights and in accordance with operational activity,” the military said.

‘DANGEROUS CYCLE OF VIOLENCE’

With at least 70 people killed in Lebanon this week, the death toll in the country since October has surpassed 740. The current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is the worst since they fought an all-out war in 2006.

The U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine-Hennis Plasschaert, said on Friday the strike in a densely populated area of Beirut’s southern suburbs was part of “an extremely dangerous cycle of violence with devastating consequences. This must stop now.”

Friday’s strike marked the second time in less than two months that Israel has targeted a leading Hezbollah military commander in Beirut. In July, an Israeli airstrike killed Fuad Shukr, the group’s top military commander.

While the current conflict has largely been contained to areas at or near the frontier, this week’s escalation has heightened concerns that it could widen and further intensify.

REUTERS

KUALA LUMPUR — Seorang lelaki warga asing ditahan selepas disyaki melarikan seorang kanak-kanak perempuan dan melakukan amang seksual di Seri Kembangan, Serdang, dekat sini, semalam.

Ketua Polis Daerah Serdang, Asisten Komisioner A A Anbalagan berkata mangsa berusia sembilan tahun itu, dilarikan kira-kira jam 11 malam.

Katanya, ketika kejadian bapa kanak-kanak itu kebetulan berada berhampiran sedang bekerja manakala mangsa bermain bersama beberapa rakan tidak jauh dari situ.

“Bapa mangsa menyedari mangsa dilarikan seorang lelaki dan terus membuat aduan kepada polis.

“Sejurus kejadian, polis berjaya membuat tangkapan ke atas seorang lelaki warga asing berumur 35 tahun bagi membantu siasatan.

“Hasil pemeriksaan lanjut mendapati suspek memiliki bahan lucah dan tiada dokumen perjalanan yang sah,” katanya dalam kenyataan, hari ini.

Anbalagan berkata hasil ujian saringan air kencing suspek disahkan negatif.

Katanya, suspek direman tujuh hari sehingga 29 September ini.

“Kes disiasat mengikut Seksyen 14(a) Akta Kesalahan-kesalahan Seksual Terhadap Kanak-Kanak 2017, Seksyen 363 Kanun Keseksaan dan Seksyen 292 Kanun Keseksaan.

“Siasatan turut dijalankan mengikut Akta Imigresen 1959/63,” katanya.

BH ONLINE

BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes conducted numerous intense airstrikes today targeting multiple towns in southern Lebanon and the western Bekaa Valley.

The strikes hit villages including Nmairiyeh, Zefta, Ansar, Zarariyeh, Kounine, Anata, Khardali, Mahmudiyah, Deir Siryani, Zawtar, Al-Qatran, Mays al-Jabal, Alma al-Shab, Deir Zaherani, Roumine, Barghoz, and the heights of Jabal al-Rihane, as well as the banks of the Litani River.

Additionally, towns such as Sahmur, Shemisa, and Labaya in the western Bekaa were also struck. The airstrikes were accompanied by extensive reconnaissance flights, with warplanes breaking the sound barrier over Lebanese airspace.

WAFA

GAZA — Israeli occupation forces committed four massacres against families in the Gaza Strip over the last 72 hours, resulting in the killing of at least 119 Palestinians and the injury of 209 others, according to medical reports.

Local health authorities confirmed that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught since October 7 has risen to 41,391 reported fatalities, with an additional 95,760 individuals sustaining injuries. The majority of the victims are women and children.

According to the same sources, emergency services are still unable to reach many casualties and dead bodies trapped under the rubble or scattered on roads across the war-torn enclave, as Israeli occupation forces continue to obstruct the movement of ambulance and civil defense crews.

WAFA

RAMALLAH — The Israeli occupation forces detained at least 20 people, including former detainees, in the occupied West Bank during the last 24 hours.

The Detainees and Ex-Detainees Commission and the Palestine Prisoners Society said in a joint statement that the detention operations took place across the governorates of Hebron, Jenin, Qalqilya, and Jerusalem, accompanied by widespread raids and abuse, assaults and threats against detainees and their families, in addition to vandalism and destruction of citizens’ homes.

PPS and the Commission affirmed that, the total number of Palestinians detained in the occupied West Bank since October 7th has risen to over 10,800. This figure includes those detained from their homes, at military checkpoints, those who surrendered under pressure, and those taken hostage.

WAFA

GAZA — Four employees of the Gaza-based health authorities were killed on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike targeting a warehouse in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, the health authorities said.

In a press statement, the health authorities said that four of its workers died and six others injured in the attack on their warehouse in the Musbah area, north of Rafah.

The statement added that ambulance crews are unable to reach the area to retrieve the bodies of the victims and treat the wounded due to ongoing Israeli shelling.

The Israeli army has not commented on the incident.

Israel launched a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to retaliate against a Hamas rampage through the southern Israeli border on Oct. 7, 2023, during which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.

The Palestinian death toll from ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza has risen to 41,391, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement Saturday.

XINHUA

BEIRUT/DAMASCUS — A displaced Syrian was killed Saturday morning in an Israeli airstrike targeting a motorcycle in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese military sources.

The sources, who spoke anonymously, told Xinhua that an Israeli drone fired two air-to-ground missiles at a motorcycle on the road of Hamoul near the town of Naqoura, burning the motorcycle and killing its driver.

The body of the victim was transported by a civil defense vehicle to a hospital in the city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, the sources said.

The sources told Xinhua that Israeli warplanes and drones carried out three airstrikes Saturday morning on the outskirts of three border towns and villages in southern Lebanon, and Israeli artillery shelled eight towns and villages in southern Lebanon.

So far, the Israeli side has not commented on the attacks.

Also on Saturday, Lebanese Minister of Public Health Firass Abiad said at least 31 people, including three children and seven women, were killed, and 66 others injured in an Israeli airstrike on Friday targeting a building in the Jamous area of Dahieh in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah issued separate statements mourning the death of 14 commanders who it said were killed in Friday’s airstrike.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Saturday that a Syrian woman and her child, both traveling from the rural area of Syria’s Aleppo to Lebanon, died of injuries sustained in Friday’s airstrike.

Since the Gaza war began in October last year, the total number of Syrians killed in Lebanon has reached 34, including eight women and three children, while injuries total 18, according to the war monitor.

Tension along the Israel-Lebanon border has escalated sharply following communications devices explosions in Lebanon earlier this week that killed 37 and injured 2,931.

These developments marked the latest escalation of ongoing conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border that began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel to show support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, prompting Israel’s retaliatory artillery fire and airstrikes into southeastern Lebanon. The conflict has already caused heavy casualties and displaced tens of thousands on both sides.

XINHUA

TOKYO — One person was killed and at least seven were missing on Saturday, officials said, as “unprecedented” rains triggered floods and landslides in Japan’s quake-hit region of Ishikawa, where authorities told tens of thousands to evacuate.

A dozen rivers in the region, on the west coast of central Japan that was hit by a large quake on New Year’s Day, had burst their banks by 11:00 am (0200 GMT), land ministry official Masaru Kojima said.

One person was killed, three people were missing and two people were seriously injured in Ishikawa, the region’s government said in a statement, with two of the missing reportedly carried away by strong river currents.

Another four people, who were working for the land ministry to restore a road in Wajima, were also missing, ministry official Koji Yamamoto told AFP.

“About 60 people have been working to restore a road hit by the quake but a landslide occurred” on Saturday morning, Yamamoto said.

“I asked (contractors) to check the safety of workers… but we are still unable to contact four people,” he said.
Rescue workers were on their way to the site but were “blocked by landslides.”

About 20 workers were taking shelter inside a tunnel they had been working to restore, Yamamoto said.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said as many as 10 people were missing in Wajima.

Many buildings were inundated, with landslides blocking roads, some 6,000 households without power and an unknown number of households without running water, the Ishikawa government said.

Communication services were also cut for some people, operators said.

The cities of Wajima and Suzu, as well as Noto town, ordered about 44,700 residents to evacuate, officials said.

Another 16,700 residents in Niigata and Yamagata prefectures north of Ishikawa were also told to evacuate, the fire and disaster management agency said.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said it issued its highest-level warning for Ishikawa, advising of a “life-threatening situation.”

The areas under the warning were seeing “heavy rain of unprecedented levels,” JMA forecaster Satoshi Sugimoto told reporters, adding “it is a situation in which you have to secure your safety immediately.”

More than 120 millimeters (4.7 inches) of rainfall per hour was recorded in Wajima in the morning, the heaviest rain since comparative data became available in 1929.

Footage on NHK showed an entire street submerged in Wajima.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida instructed the government “to do its best in disaster management with saving people’s lives as the first priority,” top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

Self-Defense Force personnel have been sent to the Ishikawa region to join rescue workers, he said.

Wajima and Suzu, in central Japan’s Noto peninsula, were among the areas hardest hit by the huge New Year’s Day earthquake that killed at least 236 people.

The region is still reeling from the magnitude 7.5 quake that toppled buildings, ripped up roads and sparked a major fire.

Parts of Japan have seen unprecedented rainfall in recent years, with floods and landslides sometimes causing casualties.

Scientists say human-driven climate change is intensifying the risk of heavy rain in the country and elsewhere because a warmer atmosphere holds more water.

AN-AFP

NEW YORK — Lebanon’s foreign minister on Friday called the detonation of hand-held communication devices this week a “terror” attack which he blamed on Israel.

The blasts that killed dozens across Lebanon over two days is “an unprecedented method of warfare in its brutality and terror,” Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told the United Nations Security Council, calling the attack “nothing but terrorism.”

AN-AFP

BEIRUT — Israel launched a series of airstrikes on towns and villages in southern and eastern Lebanon on Saturday afternoon, prompting Hezbollah’s retaliatory bombing at northern Israel, according to Lebanese military sources.

The sources, who spoke anonymously, told Xinhua that Israeli warplanes carried out about 50 airstrikes in less than half an hour, more intense than previous airstrikes, targeting “Hezbollah sites and the outskirts of dozens of towns and villages in southern and eastern Lebanon.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced in separate statements that in response to the Israeli airstrikes, the group has attacked several bases and sites in northern Israel.

“The Islamic Resistance fighters targeted on Saturday the Northern Command’s air defense missile system at Berea Barracks with Katyusha rockets,” and “bombed the headquarters for reconnaissance force of Golani Brigade 631 at Ramot Naftali Barracks with a salvo of Katyusha rockets and attacked the Jal al-Alam Israeli site, located between the towns of Alma Al-Shaab and Naqoura, with artillery shells,” it said.

Tension along the Israel-Lebanon border has escalated sharply following communication device explosions across Lebanon earlier this week that killed 37 and injured 2,931, as well as an Israeli airstrike on Friday targeting a building in the Jamous area in the southern suburbs of Beirut that killed at least 31 and injured 66.

These developments marked the latest escalation of ongoing conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border that began on Oct. 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, prompting Israel’s retaliatory artillery fire and airstrikes into southeastern Lebanon. The conflict has already caused heavy casualties and displaced tens of thousands on both sides.

XINHUA

BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities announced on Saturday the dispatch of two planes loaded with medical aid to Lebanon to meet the needs of local hospitals.

The aid included various medical supplies for eye injuries, amputations, abdominal injuries and burns, according to a statement released by the Hashd Shaabi forces, also known as Popular Mobilization Forces, a state-sponsored paramilitary network composed of mostly Shia Muslim groups.

The dispatch followed communication device explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday across Lebanon that led to dozens of deaths and thousands of injuries, and a deadly Israeli airstrike on Friday targeting a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

XINHUA