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Israeli forces mistakenly kill 3 hostages during fighting in Gaza, IDF says
(JTA) – Israeli soldiers accidentally killed three hostages during combat in Gaza, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said.
The soldiers mistakenly identified the hostages as a threat during fighting on Friday in Shejaiya, a neighborhood that is a Hamas stronghold in the Gaza City area, said Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman.
After combat in the area, troops conducted a sweep and found the bodies, “raising suspicions about their identity,” Hagari said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. The bodies were taken to Israeli territory and identified as Israeli hostages.
The hostages were identified as Yotam Haim and Alon Shimriz, who were captured from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Samer Talalkah, who was taken from Nir Oz. All three were captured by Hamas on Oct. 7, Hagari said. The families were notified of the hostages’ deaths by representatives from the IDF and Israel Police.
Earlier Friday, the IDF said troops had recovered the bodies of three other hostages, including two soldiers and one civilian. All were captured by Hamas on Oct. 7.
The hostages’ killings occurred two weeks after fighting in Gaza resumed following a seven-day truce. During that pause in combat, Hamas released more than 100 hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prison on security offenses. Israel estimates that Hamas is still holding more than 130 hostages.
In the period since the truce, the families of the remaining hostages have pressured the Israeli government to resume negotiations toward their release, marching on Israel’s parliament earlier this week. Some of the protesters expressed worry that their relatives would be killed if a deal was not reached.
“This is a sad and tragic event that pains us all,” Hagari said at a press briefing. “The IDF expresses its deep sorrow over the incident and shares the grief of the families.”
The incident occurred in an area that has seen heavy combat in recent days, said Hagari, who added that it would be investigated. IDF troops had encountered enemy combatants including suicide bombers who were otherwise unarmed, and ambush attempts, in the area of the killings.
The three hostages were apparently on their own before they were killed. In response to a reporter’s question, Hagari said it was still unclear if the hostages had escaped their captors or been abandoned.
Friendly fire between Israeli troops had already caused casualties among Israeli soldiers ahead of the hostages’ deaths. On Tuesday, the IDF released data indicating that 20 troops had been killed by friendly fire and other accidents, the Times of Israel reported. The figure amounted to nearly 20% of the 105 military deaths at the time.
The deaths were caused by Israeli forces mistakenly identifying their own as enemy combatants, errant gunfire, armored vehicles running over troops, and shrapnel from Israeli explosives hitting Israeli soldiers.
The number of soldiers killed since the beginning of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza rose to 119 on Friday, when the IDF said that three soldiers were killed in combat.
The deaths come as Israeli forces continue intense airstrikes and ground fighting in Gaza, which has elicited heavy international pressure to stop the fighting.
Israel has vowed to press on with the campaign to destroy Hamas after the terror group invaded on Oct. 7, killing an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and committing numerous other atrocities.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry says more than 18,000 people have been killed in Gaza. The figure cannot be independently verified, and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, or those killed by errant Palestinian rockets. The IDF says it has killed thousands of enemy fighters in the campaign, estimating that it has killed two civilians for every Hamas fighter.
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The post Israeli forces mistakenly kill 3 hostages during fighting in Gaza, IDF says appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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