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Japan Today
4 days ago
- Health
- Japan Today
34 killed in deadliest day of shootings near Gaza's new food distribution centers
By WAFAA SHURAFA and SAMY MAGDY Israeli troops opened fire Monday as crowds tried to reach Israeli- and U.S.-supported food distribution centers in Gaza, witnesses said. The 34 people killed, according to health officials, made it the deadliest day of such shootings since the new aid system launched last month. The Israeli military didn't immediately comment on Monday's shootings. But after some previous ones that have been a near-daily occurrence since the aid centers opened three weeks ago, it said its troops had fired warning shots at what it called suspects approaching their positions, though it didn't say whether those shots struck anyone. Palestinians say they face the choice of starving or risking death as they make their way past Israeli forces to reach the distribution points, which are run by a private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Health Ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza says several hundred people have been killed and hundreds more wounded in such shootings since the centers opened. The ministry said 33 Palestinians were killed Monday trying to reach the GHF center near the southern city of Rafah and another was killed while headed to a GHF hub in central Gaza. It said four other people who weren't trying to get to distribution centers were killed elsewhere. Palestinians are desperate to feed their families after most food ran out during the 2½ months this year when Israel barred all supplies from entering the territory. Israel has eased the blockade since last month to let in a trickle of aid. Israeli troops started firing as thousands of Palestinians massed around 4 a.m. at the Flag Roundabout before the scheduled opening time of the Rafah food center, according to Heba Jouda and Mohamed Abed, two Palestinians who were in the crowd. People fell to the ground, trying to take cover, they said. 'Fire was coming from everywhere,' said Jouda, who has repeatedly made the journey to get food for her family over the past week. "It's getting worse day by day," she said. The Red Cross field hospital nearby received some 200 injured Monday, the highest single mass casualty event it has seen, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement. Only a day earlier, it said, around 170 were brought to the facility, most of them wounded by gunshots while trying to reach the GHF center. The Health Ministry toll made it the deadliest day around the food sites since June 2, when 31 people were killed. The Flag Roundabout, hundreds of meters (yards) from the GHF center, has been the scene of repeated shootings. It is on the route designated by the Israeli military for people to take to reach the center. Palestinians over the past weeks have said Israeli troops open fire to prevent people from moving past a certain point on the road before the scheduled opening of the center or because people leave the road. A GHF spokesperson told The Associated Press on Sunday that 'none of the incidents to date have occurred at our sites or during operating hours.' It said the incidents have involved aid-seekers who were moving 'during prohibited times ... or trying to take a short cut.' It said it was trying to improve safety measures, including by recently moving the opening times from nighttime to daylight hours. Israel and the United States say the GHF system is intended to replace the U.N.-led humanitarian operation that has delivered aid across Gaza since the start of the 20-month Israel-Hamas war. Israel contends that the new mechanism is needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid. U.N. agencies and major aid groups deny that there is widespread theft of aid by Hamas and have rejected the new system. They say it can't meet the population's needs and turns food into a weapon for Israel to carry out its military goals, including moving the more than 2 million Palestinians into a 'sterile' enclave in the southern Gaza. Speaking at Britain's House of Commons' Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday, an official with Doctors Without Borders said Israel's claims of extensive diversion by Hamas were 'specious and cynical,' and were intended 'to undermine a humanitarian system which was actually functioning.' 'This is neither a humanitarian enterprise nor a system. This is basically lethal chaos,' Anna Halford, a field coordinator for the group, said when asked by lawmakers about the GHF centers. Experts warn that Israel's ongoing military campaign and restrictions on aid entry have put Gaza at risk of famine. Israel's military campaign since October 2023 has killed over 55,300 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Its count doesn't distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage. The militants still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Paramilitaries carry out drone attack on Red Sea port city, Sudan's army says
This is a locator map for Sudan with its capital, Khartoum. (AP Photo) By SAMY MAGDY Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces launched a drone attack Sunday targeting a military airbase and civilian facilities in the coastal city of Port Sudan, the military said. No casualties were reported in what is the first known attack by the Rapid Support Forces on the Red Sea city. Port Sudan has served as an interim seat for the government since the war between the military and the RSF paramilitary group started more than two years ago. Brig. Gen. Nabil Abdullah, a spokesman for the Sudanese military, said RSF drones hit an ammunition warehouse in the Osman Digna airbase, causing explosions. The attack also hit a cargo warehouse and civilian installations, he said in a statement. Video footage posted on social media appeared to show plumes of thick smoke rising above the airbase. The attack briefly halted air traffic at Port Sudan's airport, according to the Sudanese civil aviation authority. The city's airport has been the country's entry point since the RSF occupied the Khartoum international airport at the start of the war. The miliary retook the capital's airport earlier this year but the facility has yet to be functional. There was no immediate comment from the RSF. The rebel group has stepped up its drone attacks on civilian facilities in military held areas in Sudan. Last month, the paramilitaries hit a major power plant in Atbara, a railway city, north of Khartoum. The drone attacks came after the military re-took Khartoum earlier this year, pushing the RSF to their stronghold in the western region of Darfur. As the military consolidated its positions in the capital, the RSF advanced in other areas in the county's peripheries, capturing Sudan's largest camp for displaced people in North Darfur and a key town in West Kordofan province. Activists accused the RSF of committing atrocities, including street killing and rape, in the two areas where hundreds of people were reported killed. Sudan's ongoing war broke out on April 15, 2023 after simmering tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open warfare across the country. Since then, at least 24,000 people have been killed, though the number is likely far higher. The war has driven about 13 million people from their homes, including 4 million who crossed into neighboring countries. It also pushed parts of the country into famine. The fighting has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in Darfur, according to the U.N. and international rights groups. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Sudan's paramilitaries kill more than 30 in new attack on Darfur city, activists say
By SAMY MAGDY A paramilitary group in Sudan attacked a city in the western Darfur region, killing more than 30 people, an activist group said, in the latest deadly offensive on an area that is home to hundreds of thousands of displaced people. The Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, and allied militias launched an offensive on el-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, on Sunday, the Resistance Committees in the city said. Dozens of other people were wounded in the attack, said the group, which tracks the war. The RSF renewed its attack on Monday, shelling residential buildings and open markets in the city, the activist group said. There was no immediate comment from the RSF. El-Fasher, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) southwest of the capital, Khartoum, is under the control of the military, which has fought the RSF since Sudan descended into civil war more than two years ago, killing more than than 24,000 people, according to the United Nations, though activists say the number is likely far higher. The RSF has been attempting to seize el-Fasher for a year to complete its control of the entire Darfur region. Since then, it has launched many attacks on the city and two major famine-hit camps for displaced people on its outskirts. The city is now estimated to be home to more than 1 million people, many of whom have been displaced by the ongoing war and previous bouts of violence in Darfur. The RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed militias, mobilized two decades ago by then President Omar al-Bashir against populations that identify as Central or East African in Darfur. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings, rapes and other atrocities. The attacks on el-Fasher have intensified in recent months as the RSF suffered battlefield setbacks in Khartoum and other urban areas in the county's east and center. Sunday's violence came less than a week after a two-day attack by the RSF and its allied militias on the city and the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps killed more than 400 people, according to the United Nations. Last week's attack forced up to 400,000 people to flee the Zamzam camp, Sudan's largest, which has become inaccessible to aid workers, U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
