Sayidina

NEWS

  • Rescue teams find three more bodies after central Texas floods

    Search teams continue searching for flood victims near Camp Mystic, in the aftermath of deadly flooding in Kerr County, Texas, U.S., July 7, 2025. REUTERS

    July 8 – The death toll in Kerr County crept up to 87 on Tuesday as search and rescue teams recovered three more bodies in the flood-ravaged hills of central Texas, according to officials in the county worst hit by the disaster.

    Rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for survivors, which have been hindered by thunderstorms and downpours. As they work through lists of people reported missing, the teams have not found a living survivor in Kerr County since Friday.

    The floods have killed at least 109 people including dozens of children.

    “The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming,” Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at the press conference. “It’s dirty work. The water is still there.”

    Torrential rains before dawn on Friday deluged the Guadalupe River, which burst its banks and killed dozens of people, leaving behind mangled piles of debris, trees and cars. Local and federal emergency officials have faced days of angry questions about whether they could have warned people in flood-prone Texas Hill Country sooner.

    At least 56 adults and 30 children have been killed in Kerr County, Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a press conference in Kerrville, the county seat, with more than two dozen victims yet to be identified. Authorities have not determined if the 87th victim was an adult or child.

    Some of the flood victims were sleeping at Camp Mystic, a riverside Christian girls’ summer camp near the town of Hunt; five children and one camp counsellor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday.

    The sheriff rebuffed several questions about the county’s emergency management operations and preparedness, and declined to say who in the county was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing a flood warning or evacuation order.

    He said his office first started getting 911 emergency calls between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. “We’re in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline,” Leitha said.

    The floods killed at least another 22 people outside Kerr County, according to local sheriffs’ and media reports, with seven dead in Travis County, seven dead in Kendall County, five dead in Burnett County, two in Williamson County and one in Tom Green County.

    REUTERS

  • Israeli military official says Iran hit some military sites last month

    A drone view shows an impacted residential site, following an early morning missile attack from Iran on Israel, in Be’er Sheva, Israel June 24, 2025. REUTERS

    TEL AVIV, July 8 – An Israeli military official said on Tuesday that Iranian air strikes last month had hit some Israeli military sites, the first such apparent public acknowledgement that such locations had been struck.

    The official, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with military briefing rules, said that “very few” sites had been hit and that they remained functional.

    The official declined to provide further details, including identifying which military locations were affected or how severe the damage was to military infrastructure.

    Iran carried out waves of air strikes against Israel last month after Israel launched a surprise attack on June 13, targeting Iranian nuclear facilities and missile arsenal.

    The Iranian strikes frequently targeted densely populated cities Tel Aviv and Haifa, and the country’s south around Beersheba, where there are a number of military facilities.

    Several residential buildings were hit in the attacks, although the Israeli military says that most incoming missiles and drones launched by Iran were intercepted during the 12-day war.

    REUTERS

  • 2 martyrs in Israeli attack on vehicle in northern Lebanon

    Two people were killed and three others were injured on Tuesday after an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle in the town of al-Ayrouniyah, located in Zgharta, North Lebanon, according to a statement from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

    Israeli drones continued to fly intensively over the Tripoli region and the site of the strike following the attack.

    In a statement, the Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike, alleging it had targeted “a central figure in the Hamas organization” operating in the Tripoli area. The claim has not been independently verified.

    AL MAYADEEN, 8.7.2025

  • Spain opens war crimes probe into Netanyahu over Israel’s attack on Gaza-bound humanitarian aid ship

    ISTANBUL – Spain’s National Court on Tuesday launched a criminal investigation into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, and several senior military officials over their alleged involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly Israel’s attack last month on a humanitarian aid ship.

    The probe focuses on the June 1 raid on the Madleen, a ship en route to Gaza, Spanish MEP Jaume Asens said on X.

    The vessel, which was carrying 12 international activists and humanitarian aid, was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters. Among those detained were Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French-Palestinian human rights advocate Rima Hassan.

    The case was filed under the principle of universal jurisdiction by Spanish citizen Sergio Toribio and the Committee for Solidarity with the Arab Cause.

    It alleges that Israeli forces used drones, tear gas, and carried out the illegal detention of civilians in what it describes as part of a broader pattern of violations tied to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

    The court ruling requests cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) and frames the assault in the context of the genocide in Gaza.

    It marks the first time Spain has opened a formal investigation into Israeli leadership over the war in Gaza.

    “This is a major step in the fight against impunity. When states fail to fulfill their obligations, it is up to civil society to activate justice as an ethical, legal, and political tool against horror,” Asens said.

    If upheld, the investigation could restrict Netanyahu’s and other Israeli officials’ ability to travel to Europe without risking arrest warrants linked to the case.

    The Israeli government has not yet issued an official response to the development.

    ANADOLU

  • 27 Palestinians killed in fresh Israeli attacks on war-torn Gaza

    ISTANBUL – The Israeli army escalated airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, killing at least 27 more Palestinians, medics said.

    Four Palestinians, including an infant, were killed when an Israeli aircraft struck a house in Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City, Al-Shifa Hospital said.

    The Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital reported that two Palestinians were killed and others injured in another Israeli strike targeting a house in Al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

    A number of civilians were injured following an Israeli strike on Abu Helo School, which shelters displaced Palestinians in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, causing panic among the displaced families, a medical source at Al-Awda Hospital said.

    Meanwhile, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital received another body and several injured Palestinians following an Israeli airstrike targeting a room on the rooftop of a house in central Deir al-Balah city.

    The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis also received the bodies of two people who were targeted by an Israeli drone on the Khan Younis-Rafah western road, southern Gaza Strip.

    In another attack, four family members were killed and others injured in a strike that targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, Khan Younis.

    Three Palestinians were also killed when a tent sheltering displaced people next to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis was targeted.

    Separately, a person was killed near the Shuhada Mosque area in Khan Younis, while several others were injured in a strike on a second tent sheltering displaced people in the al-Mawasi area.

    Nine Palestinians, including a child, were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli strike targeting tents for displaced people in the same area.

    Another Palestinian was killed by Israeli army gunfire on Al-Tina Street, west of Khan Younis.

    The Israeli army has killed more than 57,500 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has destroyed the enclave and led to food shortages and a spread of disease.

    US President Donald Trump met Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, while Israeli officials continue engagement with Hamas aimed at securing a Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal in Doha, Qatar’s capital.

    ANADOLU

  • 6 Chinese nationals among 18 missing in Nepal floods

    KATHMANDU, July 8 – Eighteen people including six Chinese nationals went missing in floods triggered by incessant rainfalls on Tuesday morning in northern Nepal.

    According to the Chinese Embassy in Nepal, six Chinese nationals and eight Nepali nationals went missing as they had been working together on facilities aided by China at Rasuwagadhi border point.

    Rasuwagadhi police confirmed that eighteen people including three Nepali police officers and nine Nepali nationals were reported missing in addition to the Chinese.

    The Chinese embassy has sent a working group to the disaster-stricken area.

    Inspector Krishna Dhital from Rasuwa district police told Xinhua earlier that the majority of the missing were working at a dry port close to the border.

    A bridge at the Rasuwagadhi-Kerung border point was washed away, and several electric vehicles parked at the dry port were swept away, Dhital said.

    Two bodies have been found in neighboring Dhading district, Subash Hamal, spokesperson for Dhading district police, told Xinhua.

    Nepal suffers from floods, landslides and mudslides sparked by monsoon rains each year.

    XINHUA

  • 3 children killed, several injured as train hits school van in India

    NEW DELHI, July 8 – At least three children were killed and six others injured after a passenger train hit a school van attempting to cross a manned level crossing in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, police said.

    The accident took place at Semmankuppam of Cuddalore district, about 204 km south of Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu.

    According to officials, the school van was badly mangled in the accident.

    Reports said a bystander, identified as a 55-year-old man, was also injured at the spot after coming into contact with an electrical cable that snapped during the crash.

    Preliminary investigations carried out by the police revealed that the van driver insisted on allowing his vehicle to cross the gate.

    XINHUA

  • Iran stashed thousands of missiles, drones in secure place

    TEHRAN, Jul. 08 – A senior military advisor to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says Iran has stockpiled several thousand missiles and drones in secure locations ready to defend the country against any aggression.

    Press TV quoted Major General Yahya Rahim-Safavi as saying on Monday that the Armed Forces are fully prepared for any scenario, amid reports that Israel could launch another attack on Iran despite a ceasefire that ended 12 days of military aggression last month.

    He noted that key military branches—such as the Navy and the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)—were not mobilized and the Army did not deploy its full capabilities as the Armed Forces fended off Israeli attacks.

    “We have produced several thousand missiles and drones so far, and their place is secure,” he added.

    “Peaceful nuclear energy and the manufacturing of missiles are the results of indigenous knowledge, intellect, and science,” and thus they cannot be destroyed, he said.

    Rahim-Safavi also described Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “wicked and criminal” person who has killed 60,000 people in Gaza and virtually 1,000 in Iran in pursuit of his own objectives.

    However, he noted that Netanyahu “failed to achieve all his goals because the Islamic Republic was neither overthrown nor divided, and the people did not disperse. Although we suffered damage, we also inflicted damage on them (the Israelis).”

    MEHR

  • Huge explosions rock Syria’s Aleppo

    TEHRAN, Jul. 08 – A series of powerful explosions rocked western Aleppo early Tuesday, with local sources linking the blasts to possible Israeli strikes targeting Syrian military sites.

    News sources have reported that massive explosions have shaken the city of Aleppo and its surrounding areas in northwestern Syria.

    According to Syrian media, the explosions occurred in the western part of Aleppo, and the cause remains unclear.

    Some reports pinpoint the location of the blasts to be the 46th Brigade of the Syrian Army, located west of the city.

    Local outlets have cited the explosion of ammunition depots in the area as a potential cause. However, no official confirmation or statement has yet been released by the Syrian official sources.

    Certain Syrian media outlets have claimed that the ruling Syrian group is aware that the explosions were the result of Israeli attacks, yet has remained silent.

    They suggest this silence stems from the Syrian interim government’s reluctance to publicly confront or criticize the Israeli regime regarding the alleged strikes.

    MEHR

  • 18 people missing in floods in northern Nepal

    KATHMANDU, July 8 – At least 18 people went missing early Tuesday in floods triggered by incessant rainfalls in the northern area of Nepal, local police said.

    The police have received reports that at least 18 people have gone missing in floods that occurred at Rasuwagadhi border point, Inspector Krishna Dhital from Rasuwa district police told Xinhua.

    “The majority of them were working at a dry port close to the border,” he said.

    A bridge at the border point was washed away, and several electric vehicles parked at the dry port were swept away, Dhital said.

    Nepal suffers from monsoon rains each year.

    XINHUA