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Tag: air strikes

  • More than 20 dead in Russian attack on Ukrainian village, Zelensky says

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    At least 21 have been killed in a Russian air strike on a village in eastern Ukraine, say local Ukrainian officials.

    The victims were ordinary people collecting their pensions in the Donetsk settlement of Yarova, said President Volodymr Zelensky. Donetsk regional leader Vadym Filkashkin said emergency services were at the scene, and that as many people were wounded as killed.

    Yarova is to the north of Sloviansk, one of the big cities in the region, and not far from the front line as Russian forces advance slowly in the east.

    If confirmed, the death toll would be among the heaviest attacks on Ukrainian civilians in recent weeks, 42 months into Russia’s full-scale invasion.

    Donetsk’s regional leader shared an image of the attack’s aftermath, parts of which are too graphic to show [Vadym Filashkin/Telegram]

    At least 23 people were killed in overnight air strikes on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv at the end of August.

    At the weekend Russia launched its biggest air assault of the war on Kyiv so far, hitting the main government building in the capital, in what Zelensky said was a “ruthless” attack aimed at prolonging the war.

    Posting graphic footage of the attack on Yarova online, Zelensky said there were “no words” to describe the latest Russian strikes. There was no immediate response from Russia’s military.

    Vadym Filashkin said the attack took place at 12:30 on Tuesday as pensions were being handed out.

    Yarova sites on a key railway line in Donetsk, between Lyman and Izium. It is also only 6km (3.6 miles) away from the next village of Novoselivka, where Russian forces are closing in on the outskirts.

    Ukraine’s state emergency service said another three people had died in earlier Russian shelling of settlements in Donetsk.

    “The world must not remain silent,” Zelensky said, calling for a response from both the US, Europe and the G20 group of nations.

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  • More than 30 jihadists killed in air strikes, Nigerian military says

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    Nigeria’s military has killed 35 jihadists in a series of air strikes near its north-eastern border with Cameroon, it said in a statement.

    The strikes were carried out in four areas to thwart an attempt by the jihadists to attack ground troops, the military added.

    Nigeria has been battling jihadist groups for more than a decade, as well as violent criminal gangs, sectarian conflict and widespread kidnappings for ransom.

    On Saturday, a group of prominent Nigerians, including ex-government ministers, business persons and civil society activists, issued a statement, raising concern that parts of Nigeria were enduring “war-time levels of slaughter”, while the country was officially at peace.

    The group cited a report released in May by rights group Amnesty International, which said that at least 10,217 people had been killed since President Bola Tinubu took office two years ago.

    It called for the formation of a Presidential Task Force with wide-ranging powers to to end the numerous conflicts – including the resurgence of the militant Islamist group Boko Haram in the north-east.

    Last week, the army reported killing nearly 600 militants in eight months in the region. There is no independent confirmation of the claim.

    The Nigerian Air Force said it would continue to provide air cover to ground troops dismantling jihadist bases in the north-east.

    More BBC stories on Nigeria:

    [Getty Images/BBC]

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  • Saudi says escalating tensions amid Houthi attacks and US strikes are dangerous

    Saudi says escalating tensions amid Houthi attacks and US strikes are dangerous

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    By Kanishka Singh

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said the kingdom was “very worried” that tensions in the Red Sea amid attacks by Yemen’s Houthis and U.S. strikes on Houthi targets could spiral out of control and escalate the conflict in the region.

    “I mean, of course, we are very worried. I mean, you know, we are in a very difficult and dangerous time in the region, and that’s why we are calling for de-escalation,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan told CNN ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS’ in an interview that will be aired on Sunday.

    Attacks by the Iran-aligned Houthi militia on ships in and around the Red Sea for the past several weeks have slowed trade between Asia and Europe and alarmed major powers in an escalation of the war in Gaza.

    The Saudi foreign minister said the kingdom believed in freedom of navigation and wanted tensions in the region to be de-escalated.

    “We of course, believe very much in the freedom of navigation. And that’s something that needs to be protected. But we also need to protect the security and stability of the region. So we are very focused on de-escalating the situation as much as possible,” he told CNN.

    The Houthis, who control most of Yemen, say their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians under attack from Israel in Gaza.

    Since last week, the United States has been launching strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, and this week returned the militia to a list of “terrorist” groups. President Joe Biden said on Thursday that air strikes would continue even as he acknowledged they may not be halting the Houthi attacks.

    The confrontation risks an expansion of the conflict beyond Hamas-governed Gaza, where the local health ministry says over 24,000 people – or more than 1% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population – have been killed in Israel’s assault.

    Israel launched its offensive following Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group, which Israeli officials say killed 1,200 people.

    (Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

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  • Israeli strike destroys prestige Qatar-funded Gaza complex

    Israeli strike destroys prestige Qatar-funded Gaza complex

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    At almost exactly the same time Israeli negotiators pulled out of deadlocked truce talks in Qatar on Saturday, Israeli jets sent a prestige Doha-funded housing development in the Gaza Strip up in smoke.

    Hamad City is named for the former emir of the Gulf petro-state, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who laid the foundation stone on a visit 11 years ago.

    Inaugurated in 2016, it was still among the newest projects in the Gaza Strip, the housing complex in the city of Khan Yunis boasting an impressive mosque, shops and gardens.

    The first flats — more than 1,000 of them — were provided to Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in the war between Israel and Hamas two years earlier.

    On Saturday it happened again, a day after a Qatar-brokered pause in the current war between Israel and Hamas expired.

    First their phones pinged around noon with an “immediate” evacuation order SMS sent by the Israeli army, which says the system is aimed at minimising civilian casualties.

    Around an hour later, five Israeli air strikes rained down on the neighbourhood in the space of just two minutes.

    Bombs slammed into the pale apartment blocks one by one, reducing them largely to rubble and sending a huge pall of black smoke into the sky, as people fled and cries of ‘help!’ and ‘ambulance!’ rang out.

    “At least we got through it,” 26-year-old Nader Abu Warda told AFP, amazed he was still alive.

    – No phones –

    The Israeli military has divided the Gaza Strip into 2,300 “blocs” and is now sending SMS messages to residents telling them to leave before they launch the strikes which they say will “eliminate Hamas”.

    Around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, died in the Islamist movement’s October 7 assault on southern Israel and some 240 were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

    The Hamas-led Gaza Strip government says Israel’s campaign has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, since it was launched eight weeks ago.

    The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, has highlighted that the warning messages do not indicate where the recipients should go.

    Ibrahim al-Jamal, a civil servant in his 40s, said he does not have any “internet, any electricity or even a radio to receive information” and that he has “never seen this map” setting out the different blocs.

    “Many people in Gaza have never heard of it and it wouldn’t matter anyway as the bombings are taking place everywhere,” he said.

    Humanitarian bodies say the most vulnerable in Gaza are the estimated 1.7 million displaced people.

    Many of them do not have access to phones and have to rely on warning leaflets dropped by planes, not visible from inside an apartment.

    – ‘Go where?’ –

    According to the Gaza Strip’s Civil Defence emergency and rescue organisation, in recent weeks “hundreds of displaced families” had been taking refuge in 3,000 apartments at Hamad City.

    Mohammed Foura, 21, already displaced once from Gaza City, told AFP that half an hour before the strike he had been warned by other residents to flee.

    They shouted “get out, get out”, he said, as families piled their belongings into cars or carried them away in enormous bundles.

    Nader Abu Warda fled Jabalia, near Gaza City, at the start of the war and no longer knows which way to go or what to do.

    He, his wife and three children had been staying in a friend’s apartment in the complex.

    “They told us ‘Gaza City is a war zone’, now it’s Khan Yunis,” he said. “Yesterday, they were saying ‘evacuate the east of Khan Yunis’. Today, they say ‘evacuate the west’,” he added, visibly exasperated.

    “Where are we going now, into the sea? Where are we going to put our children to bed?”

    yh-az/sbh/har/slb/dr

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