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Tag: Military and defense

  • US Navy helicopters fire at Yemen's Houthi rebels and kill several in latest Red Sea shipping attack

    US Navy helicopters fire at Yemen's Houthi rebels and kill several in latest Red Sea shipping attack

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    BEIRUT — The U.S. military said Sunday that its forces opened fire on Houthi rebels after they attacked a cargo ship in the Red Sea, killing several of them in an escalation of the maritime conflict linked to the war in Gaza.

    In a series of statements, the U.S. Central Command said the crew of the USS Gravely destroyer first shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles fired at the Singapore-flagged Maersk Hangzhou late Saturday, after the vessel reported getting hit by a missile earlier that evening as it sailed through the Southern Red Sea.

    Four small boats then attacked the same cargo ship with small arms fire early Sunday and rebels tried to board the vessel, the U.S. Navy said.

    Next, the USS Gravely and helicopters from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier responded to the Maersk Hangzhou’s distress call and issued verbal warnings to the attackers, who responded by firing on the helicopters.

    “The U.S. Navy helicopters returned fire in self-defense,” sinking three of the four boats and killing the people on board while the fourth boat fled the area, the U.S. Central Command said. No damage to U.S. personnel or equipment was reported.

    There was no immediate comment from the Houthis.

    The events surrounding the Maersk Hangzhou represented the 23rd illegal attack by the Houthis on international shipping since Nov. 19, the Central Command said. It was the first time the U.S. Navy said its personnel had killed Houthi fighters since the Red Sea attacks started.

    For over a month, Iran-backed Houthis have claimed attacks on ships in the Red Sea that they say are either linked to Israel or heading to Israeli ports. They say their attacks aim to end the Israeli air-and-ground offensive in the Gaza Strip that was triggered by the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ Oct.7 attack in southern Israel.

    However, the links to the ships targeted in the rebel assaults have grown more tenuous as the attacks continue.

    The Denmark-based shipping giant Maersk, owner of Maersk Hangzhou, said Sunday it would suspend shipping through the Red Sea again after the two attacks on its freighter.

    “In light of the (most recent) incident — ​​and to give time to investigate the details of the incident and assess the security situation further — it has been decided that all transits through the area will be postponed for the next 48 hours,” Maersk was quoted as saying by the Danish public broadcaster DR.

    On Saturday, the top commander of U.S. naval forces in the Middle East said Houthi rebels have shown no signs of ending their “reckless” attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea even as more nations join the international maritime mission to protect vessels in the vital waterway and trade traffic begins to pick up.

    Earlier this month, Washington announced the establishment of a new international coalition to protect vessels traveling through the waterway. The United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain are also part of the new maritime security mission.

    Since the Pentagon announced Operation Prosperity Guardian to counter the attacks just over 10 days ago, 1,200 merchant ships have traveled through the Red Sea region, and none had been hit by drone or missile strikes, Vice Adm. Brad Cooper told The Associated Press in an interview on Saturday.

    —-

    Associated Press writer Jari Tanner in Helsinki, Finland contributed to this report.

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  • Israeli strikes in central Gaza kill at least 35 as Netanyahu says war will continue for months

    Israeli strikes in central Gaza kill at least 35 as Netanyahu says war will continue for months

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    DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes in central Gaza killed at least 35 people Sunday, hospital officials said, as the military targeted areas in several parts of the territory a day after the country’s prime minister said the war will continue for “many more months,” resisting international calls for a cease-fire.

    The military said Israeli forces were operating in Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, and residents reported strikes in the central part of the tiny enclave, after Israel this week made that region the new focus of its war.

    The war has raised fears of a broader regional conflagration. The U.S. military on Sunday said it shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles fired toward a container ship by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. Hours later, four boats tried to attack the same ship, but U.S. forces opened fire, killing several of the armed crews, the U.S. Central Command said.

    Israel says it wants to destroy Hamas’ governing and military capabilities in Gaza, from where it launched its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and took 240 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

    Israel’s unprecedented air and ground offensive has killed more than 21,600 Palestinians and wounded more than 55,000 others, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. The war has sparked a humanitarian crisis, with a quarter of Gaza residents facing starvation, according to the United Nations. Israel’s bombardments have levelled vast swaths of the territory, making parts uninhabitable and displacing some 85% of Gaza’s inhabitants.

    Israel expanded its offensive to central Gaza this week, targeting a belt of dense urban neighborhoods that house refugees from the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948 and their descendants. The fighting has left Palestinians in Gaza with the feeling that nowhere is safe.

    In the area of Zweida in central Gaza, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 13 people and wounded dozens of others, according to witnesses. The bodies were draped in white plastic and laid out in front of a hospital, where prayers were held before burial.

    “They were innocent people,” said Hussein Siam, whose relatives were among the dead. “Israeli warplanes bombarded the whole family.”

    Officials from Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah said the 13 were among 35 bodies received on Sunday.

    The Israeli military said it was battling militants in Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas leaders are hiding. It also said its forces operating in Shati, in northern Gaza, found a bomb in a kindergarten and defused it. Hamas continued to launch rockets toward southern Israel.

    Israel has faced stiff resistance from Hamas since it began its ground offensive in late October, and the military says 172 soldiers have been killed during that time.

    The magnitude of the destruction in Gaza coupled with the war’s length has raised questions about the achievability of Israel’s goal to quash Hamas as well as about its plans for post-war Gaza.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel must maintain open-ended security control over the Gaza Strip, without saying what would come next. At a news conference Saturday, where he said the war would continue for “many more months,” he reiterated his intention to preserve an Israeli military foothold in a narrow strip of land in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt.

    “(It) must be in our hands, it must be sealed. It’s clear that any other agreement will not guarantee the demilitarization that we need and require,” Netanyahu said. Israel says Hamas has smuggled weapons in through the Egyptian border, but Egypt is likely to oppose any Israeli military presence there.

    In his public remarks about Israel’s plans for the Gaza Strip, Netanyahu has also said he won’t allow the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority, which administers some parts of the West Bank, to participate in any future rule over Gaza.

    That position has put Netanyahu at odds with the Biden administration over who should run Gaza after the war. The U.S. backs the idea that a unified Palestinian government should run both Gaza and parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a precursor to eventual statehood.

    Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu has repeatedly dodged holding meetings with his War Cabinet about the post-war possibilities.

    Israelis, who still largely stand behind the war’s goals, are showing signs they are losing patience.

    On Saturday night, thousands protested against Netanyahu, one of the largest demonstrations against the long-serving Israeli leader since the war began. The country, which is sharply divided over Netanyahu and a legal overhaul plan he has set in motion, has remained mostly united over the war.

    “It is true that the state of Israel has many enemies and threats, but unfortunately today Prime Minister Netanyahu and his continued rule is the most significant existential threat to our country and our society,” said protester Gal Tzur.

    A separate protest Saturday called for the release of the 129 remaining hostages held by Hamas. Families of hostages and their supporters have demanded that the government prioritize hostage releases over other war objectives, and have staged large protests every weekend.

    Egypt, one of the mediators between Israel and Hamas, has proposed a multistage plan that would kick off with a swap of hostages for prisoners, accompanied by a temporary cease-fire — along the lines of an exchange during a weeklong truce in November.

    But the sides still appear far from striking a new deal. The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group holding Israeli hostages said Sunday there will be no exchange with Israel before the war ends and Israel withdraws its troops from the Gaza Strip, echoing Hamas’ position.

    ___

    Mroue reported from Beirut and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

    ___

    Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

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  • Venezuela will hold military exercises off its shores as a British warship heads to Guyana

    Venezuela will hold military exercises off its shores as a British warship heads to Guyana

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    BOGOTA, Colombia — President Nicolás Maduro ordered Venezuela’s armed forces to conduct defensive exercises in the Eastern Caribbean after the United Kingdom sent a warship toward Guyana’s territorial waters as the South American neighbors dispute a large border region.

    In a nationally televised address Thursday, Maduro said that 6,000 Venezuelan troops — including air and naval forces — will conduct joint operations off the nation’s eastern coast near the border with Guyana.

    Maduro described the impending arrival of British ship HMS Trent to Guyana’s shores as a threat to his country. He argued the ship’s deployment violates a recent agreement between the South American nations.

    “We believe in diplomacy, in dialogue and in peace, but no one is going to threaten Venezuela,” Maduro said in a room where he was accompanied by a dozen military commanders. “This is an unacceptable threat to any sovereign country in Latin America.”

    Venezuela and Guyana are currently involved in a border dispute over the Essequibo, a sparsely populated region the size of Florida with vast oil deposits off its shores.

    The region has been under Guyana’s control for decades, but in December, Venezuela relaunched its historical claim to the Essequibo through a referendum in which it asked voters in the country whether the Essequibo should be turned into a Venezuelan state.

    As tensions over the region escalated, the leaders of both countries met in the Caribbean island of St. Vincent, and signed an agreement which said they would solve their dispute through nonviolent means.

    During the talks, however, Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said his nation reserved its right to work with its partners to ensure the defense of his country.

    On Thursday, Guyanese officials described the visit of HMS Trent as a planned activity aimed at improving the nation’s defense capabilities and said the ship’s visit will continue as scheduled.

    “Nothing that we do or have done is threatening Venezuela,” Guyana’s Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo told reporters in Georgetown, the nation’s capital.

    HMS Trent is a patrol and rescue ship that was recently used to intercept drug traffickers off the West Coast of Africa. It can accommodate up to 30 sailors and a contingent of 18 marines, and is equipped with 30 mm cannons and a landing pad for helicopters and drones.

    The ship had been sent to Barbados in early December to intercept drug traffickers, but its mission was changed on Dec. 24, when it was sent to Guyana. Authorities did not specify when it was expected to arrive off Guyana’s shores.

    The United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry said the ship would be conducting joint operations with Guyana’s defense forces.

    The nation of 800,000 people has a small military that is made up of 3,000 soldiers, 200 sailors and four small patrol boats known as Barracudas.

    Venezuela says it was the victim of a land theft conspiracy in 1899, when Guyana was a British colony and arbitrators from Britain, Russia and the United States decided the boundary. The U.S. represented Venezuela in part because the Venezuelan government had broken off diplomatic relations with Britain.

    Venezuelan officials contend Americans and Europeans colluded to cheat their country out of the land. They also argue that an agreement among Venezuela, Britain and the colony of British Guiana signed in 1966 to resolve the dispute effectively nullified the original arbitration.

    Guyana maintains the initial accord is legal and binding and asked the United Nations’ top court in 2018 to rule it as such, but a decision is years away. The century-old dispute was recently reignited with the discovery of oil in Guyana.

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  • Mexico's army-run airline takes to the skies, with first flight to resort of Tulum

    Mexico's army-run airline takes to the skies, with first flight to resort of Tulum

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    MEXICO CITY — Mexico launched its army-run airline Tuesday, when the first Mexicana airlines flight took off from Mexico City bound for the Caribbean resort of Tulum.

    It was another sign of the outsized role that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has given to Mexico’s armed forces. The airline’s military-run holding company now also operates about a dozen airports, hotels, trains, the country’s customs service and tourist parks.

    Gen. Luís Cresencio Sandoval, Mexico’s defense secretary, said that having all those diverse businesses run by the military was “common in developed countries.”

    In fact, only a few countries like Cuba, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Colombia have military-run airlines. They are mostly small carriers with a handful of prop planes that operate mostly on under-served or remote domestic routes.

    But the Mexicana airline plans to carry tourists from Mexican cities to resorts like Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Zihuatanejo, Acapulco and Mazatlan. Flights appear to be scheduled every three or four days, largely on weekends.

    The carrier hopes to compete mainly on price: the first 425 tickets sold offered prices of about $92 for the flight from Mexico City to Tulum, which the government claimed was about one-third cheaper than commercial airlines.

    However, Mexicana’s first flight didn’t go according to plan. The company said Flight MXA 1788 had to be re-routed to the colonial city of Merida because of poor weather conditions in Tulum. After a wait, it finally took off again and arrived in Tulum about five hours after it took off from Mexico City, about double the usual travel time.

    Mexicana also hopes to fly to 16 small regional airports that currently have no flights or very few. For those worried about being told to “Fasten your seatbelt, and that’s an order,” the cabin crew on the Mexicana flight appeared to be civilians. In Mexico, the air force is a wing of the army.

    Sandoval said the airline began operations with three Boeing jets and two smaller leased Embraer planes, and hopes to lease or acquire five more jets in early 2024.

    López Obrador called the takeoff of the first Boeing 737-800 jet “a historic event” and a “new stage,” marking the return of the formerly government-run airline Mexicana, which had been privatized, then went bankrupt and finally closed in 2010.

    The airline combines Lopez Obrador’s reliance on the military — which he claims is the most incorruptible and patriotic arm of the government — and his nostalgia for the state-run companies that dominated Mexico’s economy until widespread privatizations were carried out in the 1980s.

    López Obrador recalled fondly the days when government-run firms operated everything from oil, gas, electricity and mining, to airlines and telephone service. He bashed the privatizations, which were carried out because Mexico’s indebted government could no longer afford to operate the inefficient, state-owned companies.

    “They carried out a big fraud,” the president said at his daily morning news briefing. “They deceived a lot of people, saying these state-run companies didn’t work.”

    In fact, the state-run companies in Mexico accumulated a well-deserved reputation for inefficiency, poor service, corruption and political control. For example, Mexico’s state-run paper distribution company often refused to sell newsprint to opposition newspapers.

    When the national telephone company was owned by the government, customers routinely had to wait years to get a phone line installed, and were required to buy shares in the company in order to eventually get service, problems that rapidly disappeared after it was privatized in 1990.

    While unable to restore the government-run companies to their former glory, the administration depicts its efforts to recreate them on a smaller scale as part of a historic battle to return Mexico’s economy to a more collectivist past.

    “This will be the great legacy of your administration, and will echo throughout eternity,” the air traffic controller at Mexico City’s Felipe Angeles airport intoned as the first Mexicana flight took off.

    López Obrador has also put the military in charge of many of the country’s infrastructure building projects, and given it the lead role in domestic law enforcement.

    For example, the army built both the Felipe Angeles airport and the one in Tulum.

    Apart from boosting traffic at the underused Felipe Angeles airport, the army-run Mexicana apparently will provide flights to feed passengers into the president’s Maya Train tourism project. The army is also building that train line, which will connect beach resorts and archaeological sites on the Yucatan Peninsula.

    The army, which has no experience running commercial flights, has created a subsidiary to be in charge of Mexicana.

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  • North Korea fires suspected long-range ballistic missile into sea in resumption of weapons launches

    North Korea fires suspected long-range ballistic missile into sea in resumption of weapons launches

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    SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a suspected long-range ballistic missile into the sea Monday in a resumption of its weapons testing activities, its neighbors said, as the North vows retaliatory steps against U.S. and South Korean moves to boost their nuclear deterrence plans.

    South Korea’s military said in a statement that North Korea launched what appeared to be a long-range ballistic missile from its capital region Monday morning. It said South Korea maintain a readiness while exchanging information about the launch with U.S. and Japanese authorities.

    Japan’s Defense Ministry said it also spotted a ballistic missile launch by North Korea. A ministry statement said that the missile was still in flight and that it was expected to land in waters outside the Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone.

    Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that he had so far received no report of injuries or damages from the missile launch and that he planned to hold a National Security Council meeting to discuss the test.

    The launch came hours after South Korea reported North Korea conducted a short-range ballistic missile test into the sea Sunday night. It was the North’s first weapons launch in about a month.

    Observers said the North’s back-to-back launches were likely a protest against the moves by South Korea and the United States to bolster their nuclear deterrence plans in the face of North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats.

    Senior U.S. and South Korean officials met in Washington over the weekend and agreed to update their nuclear deterrence and contingency strategies and incorporate nuclear operation scenarios in their combined military exercises next summer.

    On Sunday, North Korea’s Defense Ministry slammed its rivals’ move to include nuclear operation scenarios in their joint drills, describing it as an open threat to potentially use nuclear weapons against the North. It vowed to prepare unspecified “offensive countermeasures.”

    “The armed forces of (North Korea) will thoroughly neutralize the U.S. and its vassal forces’ attempt to ignite a nuclear war,” the North Korean statement said. “Any attempt by the hostile forces to use armed force against (North Korea) will face a preemptive and deadly counteraction.”

    Animosities between the two Koreas deepened after North Korea launched its first military reconnaissance satellite into space Nov. 21 in violation of U.N. bans.

    South Korea, the U.S. and Japan strongly condemned the launch, viewing it as an attempt by the North to improve its missile technology as well as establish a space-based surveillance system.

    South Korea announced plans to resume front-line aerial surveillance in response. North Korea quickly retaliated by restoring border guard posts, officials in Seoul said. Both steps would breach a 2018 inter-Korean deal on easing front-line military tensions.

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  • Greek parliament passes government's 2024 budget

    Greek parliament passes government's 2024 budget

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    ATHENS, Greece — The Greek parliament on Sunday evening approved the government’s 2024 budget, the first in 14 years with Greek debt listed at investment grade.

    The budget passed on a 158-142 vote in the 300-member body, with only lawmakers from the governing conservative New Democracy party voting for it. In a separate vote, the defense budget was approved 249-51, an unusually wide margin.

    A relatively low-key debate over the budget lasted five days.

    The budget forecasts 2.9% growth in the economy for 2024, up from a projected 2.4% in 2023, which is four times faster than the Eurozone average. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said he hoped the economy could grow at least 3%, based on strong investment spending, forecast to rise 15.1%.

    Greece’s gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, was predicted to top 200 billion euros ($218 billion) for the first time since 2010, when Greece had to be rescued after defaulting on its debt.

    Inflation was forecast to average 2.8%, slightly higher than initial estimates, mainly because of persistently high food prices. The government expects to spend about 2.5 billion euros in subsidies to prop up lower incomes hit by inflation, including high electricity prices.

    Answering opposition critics who argued the economy is mostly creating low-paying precarious jobs, Mitsotakis said the minimum wage is set to rise for the fourth time in three years in April. He also said 660,000 civil servants will see real pay hikes for the first time in 14 years in January.

    But Mitsotakis also conceded problems persist, including many structural weaknesses in the economy and the way the government operates that helped bring on the financial crisis in the 2010s. The answer, he said, is bolder and deeper reforms.

    As is customary, the parliament recessed for the end-of-year holidays after the budget vote.

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  • Israel faces new calls for truce after killing of hostages raises alarm about its conduct in Gaza

    Israel faces new calls for truce after killing of hostages raises alarm about its conduct in Gaza

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    DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s government faced calls for a cease-fire from some of its closest European allies and from protesters at home on Sunday after a series of shootings, including of three hostages who waved a white flag, added to mounting concerns about its conduct in the 10-week-old war in Gaza.

    The protesters urge the government to renew hostage negotiations with Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whom it has vowed to destroy. Israel could also face pressure to scale back major combat operations when U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visits Monday. Washington is expressing growing unease with civilian casualties even while as it provides vital military and diplomatic support.

    The war has flattened large parts of northern Gaza, killed thousands of civilians and driven most of the population to the southern part of the besieged territory, where many are in crowded shelters and tent camps. Some 1.9 million Palestinians — nearly 85% of Gaza’s population — have fled their homes.

    They survive off a trickle of humanitarian aid. Israel said that starting Sunday, U.N. aid trucks would be able to enter Gaza from a second location, Kerem Shalom, in Israel.

    Dozens of desperate Palestinians surrounded aid trucks after they drove in through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, forcing some to stop before climbing aboard, pulling down boxes and carrying them off. Other trucks appeared to be guarded by masked people carrying sticks.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will continue to fight until the end,” with the goal of eliminating Hamas, which triggered the war with its Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel. Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people that day, mostly civilians, and captured scores of hostages.

    Netanyahu vowed to bring back the estimated 129 hostages still in captivity. Anger over the mistaken killing of hostages is likely to increase pressure on him to renew Qatar-mediated negotiations with Hamas over swapping more of the remaining captives for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

    Gaza, meanwhile, saw telecom services gradually resume after a four-day communications blackout, the longest of several outages during the war. Aid groups say they complicate rescue efforts and make it more difficult to monitor the toll on civilians.

    In Israel on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called for an “immediate truce” aimed at releasing more hostages, getting larger amounts of aid into Gaza and moving toward “the beginning of a political solution.”

    France’s Foreign Ministry earlier said an employee was killed in an Israeli strike on a home in Rafah on Wednesday. It condemned the strike, which it said killed several civilians, and demanded clarification from Israeli authorities.

    The foreign ministers of the U.K. and Germany, meanwhile, called for a “sustainable” cease-fire, saying too many civilians had been killed.

    “Israel will not win this war if its operations destroy the prospect of peaceful co-existence with Palestinians,” British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote in the U.K.’s Sunday Times.

    The U.S. defense secretary is set to travel to Israel to continue discussions on a timetable for ending the war’s most intense phase. Israeli and U.S. officials have spoken of a transition to more targeted strikes aimed at killing Hamas leaders and rescuing hostages, without saying when it would occur.

    Hamas has said no more hostages will be released until the war ends, and that in exchange it will demand the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, including high-profile militants.

    Hamas released over 100 of more than 240 hostages captured on Oct. 7 in exchange for the release of scores of Palestinian prisoners during a brief cease-fire in November. Nearly all freed on both sides were women and minors. Israel has rescued one hostage.

    The Israeli military said Sunday it had discovered a large tunnel in Gaza close to what was once a busy crossing into Israel, raising new questions about how Israeli surveillance missed such conspicuous attack preparations by Hamas.

    Military officials said Saturday that the three hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops had tried to signal that they posed no harm. It was Israel’s first such acknowledgement of harming hostages in the war.

    The hostages, all in their 20s, were killed Friday in the Gaza City area of Shijaiyah, where troops are engaged in fierce fighting with Hamas. An Israeli military official said the shootings were against the army’s rules of engagement and were being investigated at the highest level.

    Israel says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians and accuses Hamas of using them as human shields. But Palestinians and rights groups have repeatedly accused Israeli forces of recklessly endangering civilians and firing on those who do not threaten them, both in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, which has seen a surge of violence since the war began.

    Pope Francis on Sunday called for peace, saying “unarmed civilians are being bombed and shot at, and this has even happened inside the Holy Family parish complex, where there are no terrorists but families, children and sick people with disabilities, nuns.” He spoke after the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said two Christian women at a church compound in Gaza were killed by Israeli sniper fire.

    A British lawmaker, Layla Moran, said several family members were among hundreds sheltering in the compound. “This is a church. It’s a week before Christmas. This is Advent. This is an important time in the Christian family’s religious calendar. And there is a sniper killing women and firing at children,” she asserted.

    In Gaza, Palestinians on several occasions have said Israeli soldiers opened fire at fleeing civilians.

    The offensive has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Thursday in its last update before the communications blackout. It has said that thousands more casualties are buried under the rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths, but has said that most of those killed were women and children.

    On Sunday, five people were killed and many injured after a reported Israeli airstrike hit near a U.N.-run school in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis where displaced Palestinians were sheltering. A cameraman with The Associated Press counted five bodies delivered to a hospital.

    The plight of Palestinian civilians has gotten little attention inside Israel, where many are still deeply traumatized by the Oct. 7 attack and where support for the war remains strong.

    Israel’s military says 121 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza offensive. It says it has killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.

    ___

    Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed to this report.

    ___

    Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

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  • US and Britain say their navies shot down 15 attack drones over the Red Sea

    US and Britain say their navies shot down 15 attack drones over the Red Sea

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    LONDON — A U.S. warship shot down 14 suspected attack drones over the Red Sea on Saturday, and a Royal Navy destroyer downed another drone that was targeting commercial ships, the British and American militaries said.

    Houthi rebels in Yemen have launched a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, and have launched drones and missiles targeting Israel, as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to spread.

    U.S. Central Command said that the destroyer USS Carney “successfully engaged 14 unmanned aerial systems” launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

    The drones “were shot down with no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries,” Central Command tweeted.

    U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said that HMS Diamond fired a Sea Viper missile and destroyed a drone that was “targeting merchant shipping.” The overnight action is the first time the Royal Navy has shot down an aerial target in anger since the 1991 Gulf War.

    Shapps said attacks on commercial ships in the global trade artery by Yemen’s Houthi rebels “represent a direct threat to international commerce and maritime security.”

    “The U.K. remains committed to repelling these attacks to protect the free flow of global trade,” he said in a statement.

    HMS Diamond was sent to the region two weeks ago as a deterrent, joining vessels from the U.S., France and other countries.

    Global shipping has become a target during the war between Israel and Hamas, which like the Houthis is backed by Iran.

    Houthi rebels said they fired a barrage of drones on Saturday toward the port city of Eilat in southern Israel. The announcement came hours after Egypt’s state-run media reported that Egyptian air defense had shot down a “flying object” off the Egyptian resort town of Dahab on the Red Sea.

    Israeli-linked vessels also have been targeted, but the threat to trade has grown as container ships and oil tankers flagged to countries like Norway and Liberia have been attacked or drawn missile fire while traversing the waterway between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

    Earlier this month, three commercial ships in the Red Sea were struck by ballistic missiles fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen. A U.S. warship shot down three drones during the assault, the U.S. military said.

    French container shipping line CMA CGM Group said Saturday it had ordered all its vessels scheduled to pass through the Red Sea to “pause their journey in safe waters with immediate effect until further notice.”

    On Friday, Maersk, the world’s biggest shipping company, also told all its vessels planning to pass through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea to stop their journeys after a missile attack on a Liberian-flagged cargo ship. German-based shipper Hapag-Lloyd said it was pausing all of its container ship traffic through the Red Sea until Monday.

    Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Salam said Saturday that the rebels have engaged in “communications and discussions” with international parties, brokered by Oman, on the Houthis’ attacks on ships in the Red and Arabian seas.

    He tweeted that the Houthis would continue targeting Israel-linked vessels “until the aggression stops” and the siege of Gaza is lifted. He added that “any genuine steps responding to the humanitarian situation in Palestine and Gaza through bringing in food and medicine would contribute to reducing the escalation.”

    ___

    Samy Magdy contributed to this report from Cairo.

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  • US military leaders head to Israel and will offer advice on shifting to the war's next phase in Gaza

    US military leaders head to Israel and will offer advice on shifting to the war's next phase in Gaza

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    WASHINGTON — The top two U.S. military leaders are traveling to Tel Aviv to advise the Israeli government on how to transition from major combat operations against Hamas in Gaza to a more limited and precise campaign — the kind of strategic shift they both have considerable expertise in.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown served in leadership roles as U.S. airpower and ground forces moved from major combat to lower-intensity counterterrorism operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it is not clear how deeply their advice from lessons learned will resonate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government

    Israel is still stinging from the deadliest attack ever on its homefront and has pledged to continue its bombardment of Gaza until Hamas, which orchestrated the Oct. 7 attacks, is fully destroyed.

    Their trip highlights the increased efforts by the Biden administration to convince Israel that it should scale back its offensive, which has flattened much of Gaza’s northern region, displaced millions and killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

    Israel’s push has been complicated by the dense urban population and Hamas’ network of tunnels, and the militants are accused of using civilians as “human shields.” The sustained intensity of Israel’s campaign has led President Joe Biden to warn that the U.S. ally is losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing.”

    U.S. officials have been telling Israel for several weeks that its window is closing for concluding major combat operations in Gaza without risking the loss of even more backing.

    In a meeting Thursday, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, urged Netanyahu to shift to more targeted operations by smaller military teams hunting specific high-value targets, rather than the sustained broad bombardment that has occurred so far. In response, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his country would continue major combat operations against Hamas for several more months.

    There are implications for the tens of thousands of U.S. service members deployed in the region.

    Austin on Friday extended the deployment once more of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and a second warship in order to retain a two-carrier presence in the Mediterranean Sea. The ships are seen as vital to deter Iran from widening the Israel-Hamas war into a regional conflict. The approximately 5,000 sailors aboard the Ford were originally due home in early November.

    U.S. warships that were deployed with the Ford have intercepted incoming missiles fired toward Israel from areas of Yemen controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. They also have shot down one-way attack drones headed toward the ships and responded to calls for assistance from commercial vessels that have come under persistent Houthi attacks near the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

    As of Friday, there are 19 U.S. warships in the region, including seven in the eastern Mediterranean. A dozen more stretched down the Red Sea, across the Arabian Sea and up into the Persian Gulf.

    On Saturday, one of the warships assigned to the Ford carrier strike group, the destroyer USS Carney, “successfully engaged” 14 one-way attack drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. Britain reported that a Royal Navy destroyer downed another drone that was targeting commercial ships.

    The missile and drone attacks have led at least two major shipping companies, Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk, to order their commercial vessels to temporarily pause transits through the strait.

    “The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait are alarming and pose a significant threat to the safety & lives of seafarers,” Maersk said in a statement posted to its official account on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday. “This issue cannot be addressed by the global shipping industry alone, and we urge the international society to come together to find a swift resolution to bring the situation under control.”

    Austin is expected also to visit Bahrain and Qatar and further work toward establishing a new maritime mission to provide increased security for commercial ships sailing in the southern Red Sea. Bahrain is the home of the U.S. Navy’s Central Command headquarters and the international maritime task force charged with ensuring safe passage for vessels in the region.

    Qatar has been vital in helping keep what has been a deadly localized war from boiling over into a regional conflict and negotiating hostage release.

    Earlier in his Army career, Austin oversaw the drawdown of forces in Iraq in 2011. He visited Israel days after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and has spoken to Gallant, his Israeli counterpart, more than two dozen times since then.

    In his meetings in Israel, he is likely to continue discussions on how Israelis define different military campaign milestones, to be able to assess when they will have sufficiently degraded Hamas to ensure their own security and shift from major combat operations, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters traveling with Austin.

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  • Arizona's governor is sending the state's National Guard to the border to help with a migrant influx

    Arizona's governor is sending the state's National Guard to the border to help with a migrant influx

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    PHOENIX — Arizona’s governor on Friday ordered the state’s National Guard to the border with Mexico to help federal officials manage an influx of migrants.

    Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs said she issued the executive order because “the federal government is refusing to do its job to secure our border and keep our communities safe.”

    “I am taking action where the federal government won’t,” Hobbs said.

    It was unclear when the troops would arrive at the border and exactly how many would be mobilized.

    Hobbs asked President Joe Biden’s administration a week ago to mobilize 243 Arizona National Guard troops already in the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector that includes Lukeville, Arizona, to help federal officers reopen the border crossing that was indefinitely closed Dec. 4.

    Customs and Border Protection has said shutting down the official crossing was necessary to allow personnel stationed there to help Border Patrol agents manage the hundreds of migrants illegally crossing in that area daily.

    Although remote, the crossing is a popular route for Arizonans traveling to the Mexican resort of Puerto Peñasco, or Rocky Point, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) south of the border on the northern shores of the Sea of Cortez.

    Hobbs said the National Guard members will be stationed at multiple locations along the southern border, including around Lukeville.

    There, they will support state and local agencies engaged in law enforcement, including interdiction of illegal drugs and human trafficking.

    The San Miguel crossing located farther east on the Tohono O’odham Nation is also seeing hundreds of migrant arrivals daily, but tribal officials said the National Guard would not be stationed on the reservation.

    “We are in close communication with Governor Hobbs on this issue,” said Verlon Jose, chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation. “We made clear that no National Guard would be deployed to the Nation and her office has agreed. Today’s action by the Governor is a necessary step in addressing the current crisis at the border.”

    Hobbs said the Biden administration had not responded to her request that the U.S. government reimburse Arizona for border security spending.

    Customs and Border Protection officials said they did not have an immediate response to the governor’s decision.

    The Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, National Guard confirmed Friday afternoon it was activating members.

    Major Gen. Kerry L. Muehlenbeck, who oversees the Arizona National Guard, noted that in September it wrapped up a 30-month active-duty mission providing support to law enforcement agencies in southern Arizona.

    Muehlenbeck said the earlier mission provided logistics, administrative, cyber, and medical support.

    U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, who represents southern Arizona, said he disagreed with Hobbs’ executive order.

    “But I do appreciate that Governor Hobbs has rejected the brutal and cruel tactics of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott who have taken advantage of this crisis to inhumanely and illegally use migrants as political pawns and to politicize and pander instead of working on real solutions,” Grijalva said in a statement.

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  • More than 50 people were injured in a nighttime Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian capital

    More than 50 people were injured in a nighttime Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian capital

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s capital came under another ballistic missile attack early Wednesday, resulting in more than 50 injuries and several damaged buildings, officials said.

    A series of loud explosions could be heard in Kyiv at 3 a.m. as the city’s air defenses were activated for the second time this week. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 10 ballistic missiles toward the capital and all were intercepted by air defenses.

    However, debris from intercepted missiles fell in the eastern Dniprovskyi district, injuring at least 53 people, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Kitschko said on Telegram. Twenty people including two children were hospitalized, while 33 people received medical treatment on the spot.

    An apartment building, a private house and several cars caught fire, while the windows of a children’s hospital were shattered, Klitschko said. Falling rocket debris also damaged the water supply system in the district.

    It wasn’t immediately clear what type of missile was used in the attack.

    In other parts of Ukraine, 10 Russian drones were shot down, most of them in the Odesa region, the Ukrainian air force said.

    On Monday, a Russian missile attack destroyed several homes on the outskirts of Kyiv and left more than 100 households temporarily without electricity.

    Wednesday’s attack came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington, where he made an impassioned plea to Congress to approve additional aid to fight Russia’s invasion.

    Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff who was traveling with the president, said the interception of the missiles fired at Kyiv showed how Western support is helping Ukraine resist the Russian aggression.

    “The effectiveness of Western weaponry in the hands of Ukrainian soldiers is beyond doubt,” Yermak wrote on Telegram.

    As winter sets in and hampers troop movements, allowing little change along the front line, air bombardment plays a growing role in the war. Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia will target energy infrastructure to cause power outages and blackouts like it did last winter.

    Cyberattacks are also a busy battleground. Ukrainian telecom provider Kyivstar, which serves more than 24 million mobile customers across the country, said its services were disrupted Tuesday by a “powerful” attack by hackers. It also disrupted the air raid warning system in part of the Kyiv region, according to the head of the Kyiv regional administration, Ruslan Kravchenko.

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  • Private intelligence firms say ship was attacked off Yemen as Houthi rebel threats grow

    Private intelligence firms say ship was attacked off Yemen as Houthi rebel threats grow

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A ship off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea has been attacked, private intelligence firms said Tuesday.

    The attack on the vessel comes as threats have increased from Yemen’s Houthi rebels on commercial shipping in the area over the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack, though rebel military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said an important announcement would be coming from them soon.

    The private intelligence firms Ambrey and Dryad Global confirmed the attack happened near the crucial Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula.

    Dryad Global identified the vessel attacked as the Strinda, a Norwegian-owned-and-operated ship that had broadcast it had armed guards aboard as it went through the strait. The ship’s managers did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday. The vessel, an oil-and-chemical carrier, was coming from Malaysia and was bound for the Suez Canal.

    The U.S. and British militaries did not immediately respond to requests for comment. However, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, earlier reported a fire aboard an unidentified vessel off Mokha, Yemen, with all the crew aboard being safe.

    The coordinates of that fire correspond to the last known location of the Strinda. It wasn’t immediately clear what kind of weapon was used in the attack.

    The Iranian-backed Houthis have carried out a series of attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and also launched drones and missiles targeting Israel. In recent days, they have threatened to attack any vessel they believe is either going to or coming from Israel, though there was no immediate apparent link between the Strinda and Israel.

    Analysts suggest the Houthis hope to shore up waning popular support after years of civil war in Yemen between it and Saudi-backed forces.

    France and the U.S. have stopped short of saying their ships were targeted in rebel attacks, but have said Houthi drones have headed toward their ships and have been shot down in self-defense. Washington so far has declined to directly respond to the attacks, as has Israel, whose military continues to describe the ships as not having links to their country.

    Global shipping has increasingly been targeted as the Israel-Hamas war threatens to become a wider regional conflict — even as a truce briefly halted fighting and Hamas exchanged hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. The collapse of the truce and the resumption of a punishing Israeli ground offensive and airstrikes on Gaza have raised the risk of more sea attacks.

    In November, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen. The rebels still hold the vessel near the port city of Hodeida. Separately, a container ship owned by an Israeli billionaire came under attack by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean.

    A separate, tentative cease-fire between the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition fighting on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government has held for months despite that country’s long war. That’s raised concerns that any wider conflict in the sea — or a potential reprisal strike from Western forces — could reignite those tensions in the Arab world’s poorest nation.

    In 2016, the U.S. launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that destroyed three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory to retaliate for missiles being fired at U.S. Navy ships at the time.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.

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  • Military-themed brewery wants to open in a big Navy town. An ex-SEAL is getting in the way

    Military-themed brewery wants to open in a big Navy town. An ex-SEAL is getting in the way

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    NORFOLK, Va. — NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A former U.S. Navy SEAL who says he shot Osama bin Laden is at the center of a much different fight in Virginia, where plans for a military-themed brewery are drawing opposition over his alleged racist and homophobic remarks.

    Robert J. O’Neill has a small ownership stake in Armed Forces Brewing Company and has served as its brand ambassador. His recent social media complaint about a Navy sailor who performs as a drag queen and a police report alleging he used a racial slur are fueling efforts to stop the brewery from opening in military-friendly Norfolk.

    The company, which markets itself with politically conservative ads, has dismissed claims of bigotry and toned down O’Neill’s public-facing role. But last month, Norfolk’s planning commission recommended the City Council deny permits for the planned taproom and distribution center, which would be only a few miles (kilometers) from the nation’s largest Navy base.

    The nonbinding 4-to-2 vote came after nearly 800 public comments were filed, many of which opposed the venture. The brewery also failed to get the support of the local neighborhood association, which serves the largely Black community of Park Place.

    The City Council could vote as soon as Tuesday on the brewery’s conditional use permits. The company has warned it will sue if the application is rejected.

    In a letter to Norfolk’s attorney, brewery lawyer Tim Anderson said the planning commission’s vote was based on the owners’ political views.

    “What is 100% clear to me is that if my client was an activist brewery positively engaged in promoting LGBTQ ideas — the application would have sailed through planning,” Anderson said.

    In some ways, the matter resembles an inverse, if miniature, version of the uproar over Bud Light sending a commemorative can to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Sales of the brand plunged amid a conservative backlash, although Bud Light’s parent Anheuser-Busch also angered supporters of transgender rights who believed the company later abandoned Mulvaney.

    Opponents say Armed Forces Brewing would be a glaringly bad fit for the city of about 230,000 people on the Chesapeake Bay. They argue its ownership doesn’t reflect the diversity of the U.S. military, veterans or liberal-leaning Norfolk.

    Robert Bracknell, an attorney and former Marine, said the company made no effort to win over surrounding neighborhoods while relying on conservative identity politics for its branding. Community opposition is not anti-military but “anti-intolerance and anti-hate,” he said.

    “These guys are not the Navy,” said Bracknell, who lives less than 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the proposed taproom. “They’re a really small sliver of a veteran community that doesn’t represent the rest of us.”

    Opponents cited O’Neill’s August arrest in Frisco, Texas, in which police said he assaulted a hotel security officer while intoxicated and used a racial slur. O’Neill, who faces misdemeanor assault and public intoxication charges, later posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter: “I categorically deny ever using this horrible language recently reported.”

    In response to news that an active-duty sailor who moonlights as a drag queen was helping Navy recruitment efforts, O’Neill posted on X in May: “Alright. The U.S. Navy is now using an enlisted sailor Drag Queen as a recruiter. I’m done. China is going to destroy us. YOU GOT THIS NAVY. I can’t believe I fought for this bull.”

    O’Neill, who is now a public speaker and podcaster, did not respond to a request for comment sent through his website, LinkedIn profile or Facebook page.

    Brewery opponents also focused on shareholder and advisor Gretchen Smith. The Air Force veteran posted on X that Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of killing George Floyd, was innocent.

    Another Smith post cited the “Great Reset,” a conspiracy theory that the Anti-Defamation League said can have antisemitic overtones, although she voiced support for Israel in other posts.

    The company’s promotional videos also drew criticism. Some involve the firing of lots of guns. And a tongue-in-cheek ad for investors warned off anyone who has ever watched “The View” television show or loves “taking your 5-year-old child to drag shows.”

    In response to efforts to get comment from Smith, Armed Forces Brewing said she was out of the country. But the company said in an email: “Gretchen is disliked by the vocal minority because she holds political views that tens of millions of conservative Americans hold — and which she has the First Amendment right to express on her personal social media.”

    Planning commissioner Kim Sudderth voted against the brewery, citing reservations about antisemitism and violent hate speech.

    “I’m genuinely concerned that you may not comply with city conditions and partner successfully with the community,” Sudderth said at a meeting last month.

    Alan Beal, Armed Forces Brewing’s CEO, told the commission that O’Neill and Smith aren’t part of daily operations. Although O’Neill still sits on its board, he is no longer the brewery’s director of military services, Beal said, noting that O’Neill recently sought treatment in Mexico for post-traumatic stress.

    “Despite the rumors that the opposition is spreading around town, no one is running around the brewing facility with AR-15s or guns and there’s no barbed wire up on the fence,” Beal told the commission last month. “The military is diverse. And yes, everyone is welcome at Armed Forces Brewing Company.”

    In a promotional video, Beal said the goal is to brew beer for the military community while employing veterans and supporting their causes.

    Anderson, the brewery’s attorney, told the planning commission that the business needs to open for people to realize it’s not the “boogeyman.”

    “This is not going to be some place that’s going to hold rallies against the LGBTQ community or anything distasteful,” Anderson said. “Everything’s going to calm down.”

    Jeff Ryder, president of Hampton Roads Pride, is skeptical. He said the community will continue raising concerns while trying to establish a relationship with the brewery.

    “But they haven’t really given me any indication they want that,” Ryder said.

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  • Israel presses on with its Gaza offensive after US veto derails Security Council efforts to halt war

    Israel presses on with its Gaza offensive after US veto derails Security Council efforts to halt war

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    DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israel’s military pushed ahead with its punishing air and ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday, bolstered by a U.S. veto derailing U.N. Security Council efforts to end the war and word that an emergency sale of $106 million worth of tank ammunition had been approved by Washington.

    Unable to leave Gaza, a territory 25 miles (40 kilometers) long by about 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide, more than 2 million Palestinians faced more bombardment Saturday, even in areas that Israel had described as safe zones.

    The sale of nearly 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition was announced a day after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, a measure that had wide international support. The U.S. said Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined that “an emergency exists” in the national interest requiring the immediate sale, meaning it bypasses congressional review. Such a determination is rare.

    A day after Israel confirmed it was rounding up Palestinian men for interrogation, some men released Saturday told The Associated Press they had been treated badly, providing the first accounts of the conditions from the detentions.

    Osama Oula said Israeli troops had pulled men out of a building in the Shujaiyah area of Gaza City, ordering them to the street in their underwear. Oula said Israeli forces bound him and others with zip ties, beat them for several days and gave them little water to drink.

    Ahmad Nimr Salman showed his hands, marked and swollen from the zip ties, and said older men with diabetes or high blood pressure were ignored when they asked soldiers to remove their ties.

    He said the troops asked, ”‘Are you with Hamas?’ We say ‘no,’ then they would slap us or kick us.” He said his 17-year-old son Amjad is still held by the troops.

    The group was released after five days and told to walk south. Ten freed detainees arrived at a hospital in Deir al-Balah on Saturday after flagging down an ambulance.

    The Israeli military had no immediate comment when asked about the alleged abuse.

    With the war in its third month, the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,700, the majority women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

    Two hospitals in central and southern Gaza received the bodies of 133 people from Israeli bombings over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said midday Saturday.

    Israel holds the Hamas militants responsible for civilian casualties, accusing them of using civilians as human shields, and says it has made considerable efforts with evacuation orders to get civilians out of harm’s way. It says 97 Israeli soldiers have died in the ground offensive after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 240 hostages.

    Hamas said Saturday that it continued its rocket fire into Israel.

    In Gaza, residents reported airstrikes and shelling, including in the southern city of Rafah near the Egyptian border — one area where the Israeli army had told civilians to go. In a colorful classroom there, knee-high children’s tables were strewn with rubble.

    “We now live in the Gaza Strip and are governed by the American law of the jungle. America has killed human rights,” said Rafah resident Abu Yasser al-Khatib.

    In northern Gaza, Israel has been trying to secure the military’s hold, despite heavy resistance from Hamas. The military said that it found weapons inside a school in Shujaiyah, a densely populated neighborhood of Gaza City, and that, in a separate incident, militants shot at troops from a U.N.-run school in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.

    More than 2,500 Palestinians have been killed since the Dec. 1 collapse of a weeklong truce, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

    The truce saw hostages and Palestinian prisoners released, but Israel says 137 hostages remain in Gaza.

    On Saturday, a kibbutz that came under attack on Oct. 7 said 25-year-old hostage Sahar Baruch had died in captivity. His captors said Baruch was killed during a failed rescue mission by Israeli forces Friday. The Israeli military said Hamas killed him.

    With no new cease-fire in sight and humanitarian aid reaching little of Gaza, residents reported severe food shortages. Nine of 10 people in northern Gaza reported spending at least one full day and night without food, according to a World Food Program assessment during the truce. Two of three people in the south said the same. The WFP called the situation “alarming.”

    “I am very hungry,” said Mustafa al-Najjar, sheltering in a U.N.-run school in the devastated Jabaliya refugee camp in the north. “We are living on canned food and biscuits and this is not sufficient.”

    While adults can cope, “it’s extremely difficult and painful when you see your young son or daughter crying because they are hungry,” he said.

    Israelis who had been taken hostage also saw the food situation deteriorate, the recently freed Adina Moshe told a rally of thousands of people in Tel Aviv seeking the rapid return of all. “We ended up eating only rice,” said Moshe, who was held for 49 days.

    The rally speakers accused Israel’s government of not doing enough to bring loved ones home. “How can I sleep at night? How can I protect my daughter?” asked Eli Albag, the father of 18-year-old hostage Liri Albag.

    On Saturday, 100 trucks carrying unspecified aid entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, said Wael Abu Omar, a spokesman for the Palestinian Crossings Authority. That is still well below the daily average before the war.

    Despite growing international pressure, President Joe Biden’s administration remains opposed to an open-ended cease-fire, arguing it would enable Hamas to continue posing a threat to Israel.

    Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has argued that “a cease-fire is handing a prize to Hamas.”

    Blinken continued to speak with counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and elsewhere amid open criticism of the U.S. stance.

    “From now on, humanity won’t think the U.S.A. supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech.

    Protesters at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai called for a cease-fire, despite restrictions on demonstrations.

    Amid concerns about a wider conflict, Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen threatened to prevent any ship heading to Israeli ports from passing through the Red Sea and Arabian Sea until food and medicine can enter Gaza freely. Spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said in a speech that all ships heading to Israel, no matter their nationality, will be a target.

    The French navy said the frigate Languedoc in the Red Sea shot down two drones Saturday night coming “straight toward it” from a Houthi-held port city. The statement did not say whether the French navy assessed its frigate was the target of the drones.

    Meanwhile, Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group claimed responsibility for nine attacks on Saturday, saying one targeted an Israeli post near the town of Metula. The Israeli army said one of its fighter jets struck a Hezbollah operational command center in Lebanon. The U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said the tower of one of its bases along the border with Israel was hit during the skirmishes, with no injuries.

    In southern Gaza, thousands were on the run after what residents called a night of heavy gunfire and shelling.

    Israel has designated a narrow patch of barren southern coastline, Muwasi, as a safe zone. But Palestinians described desperately overcrowded conditions with scant shelter and no toilets. They faced an overnight temperature of around 11 degrees Celsius (52 degrees Fahrenheit).

    “I am sleeping on the sand. It’s freezing,” said Soad Qarmoot, who described herself as a cancer patient forced to leave her home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

    As she spoke, her children huddled around a fire.

    ___

    Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Samy Magdy in Cairo; Matthew Lee in Washington; Andrew Wilks in Istanbul; and Cara Anna in Albany, New York, contributed to this report.

    ___

    Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

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  • A rocket attack targets US embassy in Baghdad, causing minor damage, no casualties

    A rocket attack targets US embassy in Baghdad, causing minor damage, no casualties

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    BAGHDAD — A rocket attack at the sprawling U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Friday morning caused minor material damage but no casualties, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

    The attack is the first to be confirmed since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war on the U.S. Embassy, in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses Iraqi government buildings and embassies, on the west bank of the Tigris River.

    Iran-backed militias in Iraq have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks that targeted bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since the Israel-Hamas war began two months ago. The U.S. military says a total of 78 attacks have been carried out against U.S. facilities over the past weeks of which 37 were in Iraq and 41 in Syria.

    An Iraqi security official said 14 Katyusha rockets were fired on Friday, of which some struck near the one of the embassy’s gates while others fell in the river. The official said the rocket attack caused material damage but no casualties.

    A U.S. military official said a multi-rocket attack was launched at U.S. and Coalition forces in the vicinity of the embassy complex and Union III that houses offices of the U.S.-led coalition. The official added that no casualties and no damage to infrastructure were reported.

    An embassy spokesperson said at approximately 4:15 a.m. (0215 GMT) the U.S. Embassy was attacked by two salvos of rockets.

    “Assessments are ongoing, but there are no reported casualties on the Embassy compound,” the official said, adding that by Friday morning no specific group had claimed responsibility, but indications are the attacks were from Iran-aligned militias.

    “We again call on the Government of Iraq, as we have done on many occasions, to do all in its power to protect diplomatic and Coalition partner personnel and facilities,” the official said. “We reiterate that we reserve the right to self-defense and to protect our personnel anywhere in the world.”

    The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

    There are roughly 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq and around 900 others in eastern Syria, on missions against the Islamic State group. In both countries, Iran has militias loyal to Tehran.

    In response to attacks against American troops, the U.S. has retaliated with airstrikes three times in Syria since Oct. 17, targeting weapons depots and other facilities linked directly to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and the militias. The U.S. also struck multiple sites in Iraq late last month after a militia group for the first time fired short-range ballistic missiles at U.S. forces at al Asad air base.

    _____

    Associated Press writers Abby Sewell and Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

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  • Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza's second-largest city, blocking aid from population

    Fighting between Israel and Hamas rages in Gaza's second-largest city, blocking aid from population

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    RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli troops battled Hamas militants Wednesday in the center of the Gaza Strip’s second-largest city, the military said, pressing a ground offensive that has sent tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing to the territory’s southernmost edge and prevented aid groups from delivering food, water and other supplies.

    Two months into the war, Israel’s offensive into southern Gaza was bringing to Khan Younis the same fierce urban fighting and intensified bombardment that obliterated much of Gaza City and the north of the territory in past weeks.

    But in the south, the areas where Palestinians can seek safety are rapidly shrinking. Ahead of the assault, Israel urged residents to evacuate Khan Younis, the childhood home of two top Hamas leaders. But much of the city’s population remains in place, along with large numbers who were displaced from northern Gaza and are unable to leave or wary of fleeing to the disastrously overcrowded far south.

    Cut off from outside aid, people in U.N.-run shelters in Khan Younis are fighting over food, said Nawraz Abu Libdeh, a shelter resident who has been displaced six times. “The hunger war has started,” he said. “This is the worst of all wars.”

    The U.N. says some 1.87 million people — over 80% of the population of 2.3 million — have already fled their homes, many of them displaced multiple times. Almost the entire population is now crowded into southern and central Gaza, dependent on aid. International officials escalated warnings over the worsening humanitarian calamity.

    “Palestinians in Gaza are living in utter, deepening horror,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said at a news conference in Geneva. “My humanitarian colleagues have described the situation as apocalyptic.”

    Israel’s campaign has killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — and wounded more than 42,000, the territory’s Health Ministry said late Tuesday. The agency has said many are also trapped under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

    Israel has vowed to fight on, saying it can no longer accept Hamas rule or the group’s military presence in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took captive some 240 men, women and children in that attack.

    An estimated 138 hostages remain in Gaza after more than 100 were freed during a cease-fire last week. Their plight and accounts of rape and other atrocities committed during the rampage have deepened Israel’s outrage and further galvanized support for the war.

    The refugee camp within Khan Younis was the childhood home of Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, and the group’s military chief, Mohammed Deif, as well as other Hamas leaders — giving it major symbolic importance in Israel’s offensive.

    Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Sinwar is “not above ground, he is underground,” but would not elaborate on where Israel believes him to be. ”Our job is to find Sinwar and kill him.”

    The military said its special forces at Khan Younis had broken through defense lines of Hamas fighters and were assaulting their positions in the city center. It said warplanes destroyed tunnel shafts and troops seized a Hamas outpost as well as several weapons caches. The Israeli accounts of the battle could not be independently confirmed.

    Video released by the military showed commandos and troops moving amid sounds of gunfire down city streets strewn with wreckage and buildings with giant holes punched into them. Some took positions behind an earthen berm, while others inside a home fired out through a window, its flowered curtains fluttering around them.

    Hagari said heavy fighting was also continuing in the north, in the Jabaliya refugee camp and the district of Shujaiya.

    Hamas posted video it said showed its fighters in Shujaiya moving through narrow alleys and wrecked buildings and opening fire with rocket-propelled grenades on Israel armored vehicles. Several of the vehicles are shown bursting into flames.

    Its account could not be independently confirmed. But Hamas’ continuing ability to fight in areas where Israel entered with overwhelming force weeks ago signals that eradicating the group while avoiding further mass casualties and displacement — as Israel’s top ally, the U.S., has requested — could prove elusive.

    Israel accuses Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for 16 years, of using civilians as human shields when the militants operate in residential areas and blames that for the high civilian death toll. But Israel has not given detailed accounts of its individual strikes, some of which have leveled entire city blocks.

    The military says 88 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. It also says some 5,000 militants have been killed, without saying how it arrived at its count.

    Tens of thousands of people have fled from Khan Younis and other areas to Rafah, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, the U.N. said. Rafah, normally home to around 280,000 people, has already been packed with more than 470,000 who fled from other parts of Gaza.

    On the other side of the border, Egypt has deployed thousands of troops and erected earthen barriers to prevent any mass influx of refugees. It says an influx would undermine its decades-old peace treaty with Israel, and it doubts Israel will let them back into Gaza.

    Overcrowded shelters and homes are now overflowing, residents say.

    “You find displaced people in the streets, in schools, in mosques, in hospitals … everywhere,” said Hamza Abu Mustafa, a teacher who lives near a school-turned-shelter in Rafah and is hosting three families himself.

    For the past three days, aid groups have only been able to distribute supplies in and around Rafah — and mainly just flour and water, the U.N.’s humanitarian aid office said. Access farther north has been cut off by fighting and road closures by Israeli forces. The World Food Program warned of the worsening of “the catastrophic hunger crisis that already threatens to overwhelm the civilian population.”

    Israeli strikes continued in Rafah, where the military has told evacuees to take refuge. One strike Wednesday evening leveled a home in the town’s Shaboura district, where hours earlier the military had announced a pause in operations to allow delivery of aid. A wave of wounded flowed into a nearby hospital, including at least six children. Medics carried in the limp form of one little girl, her face bloodied.

    “We live in fear every moment, for our children, ourselves, our families,” said Dalia Abu Samhadaneh, now living in Shaboura with her family after fleeing Khan Younis. “We live with the anxiety of expulsion.” She said diarrhea was rampant among children, with little clean water available.

    A Palestinian woman who identified herself as Umm Ahmed said the harsh conditions and limited access to toilets are especially difficult for women who are pregnant or menstruating. Some have taken to social media to request menstrual pads, which are increasingly hard to find.

    “For women and girls, the suffering is double,” Umm Ahmed said. “It’s more humiliation.”

    Gaza has been without electricity since the first week of the war, and several hospitals have been forced to shut down for lack of fuel to operate emergency generators. Israel has barred entry of food, water, medicine, fuel and other supplies, except for a trickle of aid from Egypt.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his Security Cabinet has approved small deliveries of fuel into the southern Gaza Strip “from time to time” to prevent a humanitarian crisis and the spread of disease. The “minimal amount” of fuel will be set by the war cabinet, a three-member authority in charge of managing the war against Hamas, Netanyahu said.

    The decision comes as Israel faces mounting pressure from the United States to ramp up aid to Gaza.

    Israel has greatly restricted shipments of fuel, saying Hamas diverts it for military purposes.

    ___

    Jeffery and Keath reported from Cairo. Associated Press reporters Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed.

    ___

    Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

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  • Tuberville is ending blockade of most military nominees, clearing way for hundreds to be approved

    Tuberville is ending blockade of most military nominees, clearing way for hundreds to be approved

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    Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama says he is ending his blockade of hundreds of military promotions, clearing the way for hundreds to be approved

    ByKEVIN FREKING Associated Press

    December 5, 2023, 1:35 PM

    FILE – Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, talks to reporters as he and other senators arrive at the chamber for votes, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

    The Associated Press

    WASHINGTON — Sen. Tommy Tuberville announced on Tuesday that he’s ending his blockade of hundreds of military promotions, following heavy criticism from many of his colleagues in the Senate and clearing the way for hundreds to be approved.

    Tuberville’s blockade of military promotions was over a dispute about a Pentagon abortion policy. The Alabama Republican said Tuesday he’s “not going to hold the promotions of these people any longer.”

    Almost 400 military nominations have been in limbo due to Tuberville’s blanket hold on confirmations and promotions for senior military officers. It’s a stance that has left key national security positions unfilled and military families with an uncertain path forward.

    Tuberville was blocking the nominations in opposition to new Pentagon rules that allow reimbursement for travel when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care. President Joe Biden’s administration instituted the new rules after the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to an abortion, and some states have limited or banned the procedure.

    Critics said that Tuberville’s ire was misplaced and that he was blocking the promotions of people who had nothing to do with the policy he opposed.

    “Why are we punishing American heroes who have nothing to with the dispute?” said Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska. “Remember we are against the Biden abortion travel policy, but why are we punishing people who have nothing to do with the dispute and if they get confirmed can’t fix it? No one has had an answer for that question because there is no answer.”

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  • Israeli military says it has expanded ground operation to every part of the Gaza Strip

    Israeli military says it has expanded ground operation to every part of the Gaza Strip

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    Israeli military says it has expanded ground operation to every part of the Gaza Strip

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  • British military reports an explosion off the coast of Yemen in the key Bab el-Mandeb Strait

    British military reports an explosion off the coast of Yemen in the key Bab el-Mandeb Strait

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    A “potential explosion” has struck a key shipping route off the coast of Yemen

    ByThe Associated Press

    December 3, 2023, 4:22 AM

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A “potential explosion” has struck a key shipping route off the coast of Yemen, the British military said Sunday.

    The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations issued a brief warning to shippers that the incident happened in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that separates East Africa from the Arabian Peninsula.

    The UKMTO said drone activity also had been reported in the area.

    The Bab el-Mandeb links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. That area has seen a series of attacks in recent weeks attributed to Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have also launched missiles and drones toward Israel over its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

    The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the incident.

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  • US military affirms it will end live-fire training in Hawaii's Makua Valley

    US military affirms it will end live-fire training in Hawaii's Makua Valley

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    The U.S. military has confirmed that it will permanently end live-fire training in Makua Valley on Oahu

    ByThe Associated Press

    December 2, 2023, 6:15 PM

    FILE – An Army Kiowa helicopter flies over a convoy of U.S. soldiers at the Makua Military Reservation in Hawaii, Dec. 8, 2003. In December 2023, the U.S. military confirmed that it will permanently end live-fire training in Makua Valley on Oahu, in a major win for Native Hawaiian groups and environmentalists after decades of activism. (AP Photo/Carol Cunningham, File)

    The Associated Press

    HONOLULU — The U.S. military has confirmed that it will permanently end live-fire training in Makua Valley on Oahu, a major win for Native Hawaiian groups and environmentalists after decades of activism.

    U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth filed a statement with federal court in Hawaii on Friday affirming the military’s new stance that it would “no longer need to conduct live-fire training at (Makua Military Reservation), now or in the future,” Hawaii News Now reported.

    Under the terms of a 2001 settlement, the military hasn’t conducted live-fire training at Makua Valley since 2004. But the court filing “removed the threat that Makua will ever again be subjected to live-fire training,” environmental nonprofit Earthjustice said in a news release.

    Earthjustice has represented local activist group Malama Makua in its long-running legal dispute with the Army.

    Makua Valley was the site of decades of live-fire military training. The training at times sparked wildfires that destroyed native forest habitat and sacred cultural sites, Earthjustice said.

    The Makua Military Reservation spans nearly 5,000 acres. It is home to more than 40 endangered and threatened species and dozens of sacred and cultural sites, according to Earthjustice.

    The military seized Makua Valley for training following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, “evicting Hawaiians with the promise that their lands would be cleaned up and returned,” said Malama Makua board member Sparky Rodrigues. “Almost 80 years later, we’re still waiting. Ending live-fire training is an important first step in undoing the wrongs of the past and restoring Makua — which means ‘parents’ in Hawaiian.”

    Friday’s court filing came 25 years after Malama Makua sued the Army to compel compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The law requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts of proposed federal actions.

    In 2018, the Army agreed to restore access to cultural sites in the valley.

    The state’s lease to the Army for its use of Makua Valley expires in 2029.

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