🧸An Israeli airstrike hit central Gaza, killing at least 25 Palestinians and injuring many others, according to Palestinian medics. Photos from the site showed a completely collapsed building with people walking through its mangled and charred remains, smoke rising from piles of belongings strewn over the rubble.
♚This attack happened just hours after President Joe Biden's national security adviser expressed hope for a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza.
✨India on Thursday voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and reiterated the demand for immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
✅Israel's offensive has killed over 44,800 Palestinians in Gaza, more than half of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
🎐The fighting has plunged Gaza into a severe humanitarian crisis, with experts warning of famine.
🐽Eventhough Israel has claimed several times that it allows enough aid to enter and blamed UN agencies for not distributing it. The UN on the other hand said that the Israeli restrictions, and the breakdown of law and order after Israel repeatedly targeted the Hamas-run police force, make it extremely difficult to operate in the territory.
🍰Similar food crisis is also observed in Syria as the World Food Programme estimated that 3 million people in the country were “acutely food insecure” and very hungry before the Israel-Hezbollah war began. Currently the scenario remains even dire as many Syrian refugees are back to their home country and adding on to that the instability caused by the overthrow of Assad have led to further crisis of food.
West Asia Crisis | Latest
Israeli Airstrike Kills 25 Palestinians
🧸An Israeli airstrike has hit the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 25 Palestinians and wounding dozens more, according to Palestinian medics.
🤡Officials at two hospitals in the Gaza Strip, al-Awda Hospital in the north and al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, reported they received a combined total of 25 bodies from an Israeli strike on a multi-storey residential building in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp on Thursday.
🌠Palestinian medics also reported that over 40 people, most of them children, were receiving treatment at the two hospitals. The al-Aqsa Hospital said that the Israeli attack also damaged several nearby houses in Nuseirat.
😼There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the deadly strike. Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas, which led the attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that sparked the war in Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas militants hide among Gaza's civilian population.
US Says Israel's Ceasefire With Lebanon Might Help End War In Gaza
♌President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters in Jerusalem on Thursday that Israel's ceasefire in Lebanon has helped clear the way for another deal to end the war in Gaza.
He plans to travel next to Qatar and Egypt — key mediators in the ceasefire talks — as the Biden administration makes a final push on negotiations before Donald Trump is inaugurated.
🎶Sullivan said “Hamas' posture at the negotiating table did adapt” after Israel decimated the leadership of its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon and reached a ceasefire there.
ꦅ“We believe it puts us in a position to close this negotiation,” he said.
🐟Sullivan dismissed speculation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was waiting for Trump to take office to finalize a deal. He said the US believes there are three American hostages still alive in Gaza, but it's hard to know for sure.
♛He also said “the balance of power in the Middle East has changed significantly” since Hamas' Oct 7 attack on Israel, especially with the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key ally of Hezbollah and Iran.
🃏“We are now faced with a dramatically reshaped Middle East in which Israel is stronger, Iran is weaker, its proxies decimated, and a ceasefire that is new and will be lasting in Lebanon that ensures Israel's security over the long term,” he said.
World Food Programme Faces Challenges In Syria
The UN food 🐻agency is trying to deal with massive needs in Syria not only from escalating war-related food insecurity and an upsurge in displaced people fleeing Lebanon but also the dramatically new environment following the ouster of Bashar Assad, a senior UN official says.
꧟“It's a triple crisis and the needs are going to be massive,” said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme, in an interview with The Associated Press late Wednesday.
🌞The WFP estimated that 3 million people in Syria were “acutely food insecure” and very hungry. However, that estimate was made before the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon pushed many Syrian refugees back to their home country, plus the instability caused by the overthrow of Assad. Due to funding cuts, the WFP had been targeting only 2 million of those people, he said.
🀅Because WFP has been working in Syria during the 13-year civil war, he said, it has pre-positioned food in the country. It has 500 staff in seven offices nationwide and has operated across conflict lines, across borders, and with all different parties, he said.
🧜Skau said Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the main rebel group now in control of Syria, has promised to provide security for WFP warehouses. Humanitarian aid supplies had been looted at UN warehouses in the disorder after Assad fell.
Israel Launches Attack On Lebanon Hours After Withdrawing Troops
🉐An Israeli strike killed at least one person Thursday in the Lebanese border town of Khiam, the state news agency said, less than a day after Israeli troops handed the hilltop village back to the Lebanese army in coordination with UN peacekeepers.
ꦚKhiam is the first Lebanese town Israel has pull out of since a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah militants began two weeks ago, and marks an important test of the fragile truce.
🐽Lebanon's news agency did not provide details on who was killed, and the Israeli army said it was looking into reports about the strike.
ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚLebanese troops deployed in the northern section of the town on Thursday morning and were coordinating with UN peacekeepers to finalise Israel's withdrawal before fully entering into other neighbourhoods.
India Votes In Favour Of UNGA Resolution Demanding Immediate, Permanent Ceasefire In Gaza
ℱIndia voted in favour of a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and reiterated the demand for immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
💝The UN General Assembly has approved resolutions demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and backing the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that Israel has moved to ban.
ꦰThe 193-member General Assembly voted Wednesday at the 10th emergency special session to adopt the draft resolution ‘Demand for ceasefire in Gaza’, introduced by Indonesia.
🍸India was among the 158 nations that voted in favour of the resolution while nine member states, including Israel and the US, voted against it. Among the 13 nations that abstained were Albania and Ukraine.
⭕India on Thursday also said that it remains "concerned" at the evolving situation in West Asia and attacks against commercial vessels in and around the Red Sea threaten freedom of navigation and "impact our trade", the government informed the Parliament.
Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh in a written response to a query in the Indian Parliament 🌱also said the government has "raised the issue" with the countries in the region and the Indian Missions are "closely monitoring" the situation to mitigate its impact.
Israel's Military Says It Hit Hamas Militants In Two Locations In Southern Gaza
🌟The Israeli military says it struck Hamas militants in two locations in the southern Gaza Strip who planned to hijack aid convoys.
🐎Palestinian Health officials had earlier said that the two strikes killed 15 men who were part of local committees established to secure aid deliveries. The committees have been organized in cooperation with the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza.
ꦺIt was not possible to independently confirm either account of the strikes, which occurred overnight into Thursday.
♎Israel has long accused Hamas of hijacking humanitarian aid deliveries, while UN officials have said there is no systemic diversion of aid.
US Secretary of State Blinken visits Mideast after Assad's ouster in Syria
𝕴US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Jordan on his 12th visit to the Mideast since the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year and his first since the weekend ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad that has sparked new fears of instability in a region wracked by three conflicts despite a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon.
꧋Blinken was meeting in Aqaba with Jordan's King Abdullah II and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Thursday before traveling to Turkey for talks with Turkish officials on Friday. The meetings will focus largely on Syria but also touch on long-elusive hopes for a deal to end the fighting in Gaza that has devastated the Palestinian territory since October 2023.
🅰Blinken is the latest senior US official to visit the Middle East in the five days since Assad was deposed as the Biden administration navigates more volatility in the region in its last few weeks in office and as President-elect Donald Trump has said the U.S. should stay out of the Syrian conflict.
