ReportWire

Tag: Military and defense

  • Army private who fled to North Korea charged with desertion, held by US military, officials tell AP

    Army private who fled to North Korea charged with desertion, held by US military, officials tell AP

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — An Army private who fled to North Korea before being returned home to the United States last month has been detained by the U.S. military, two officials said Thursday night, and is facing charges including desertion and possessing sexual images of a child.

    The eight counts against Pvt. Travis King are detailed in a charging document seen by The Associated Press. The officials who confirmed King’s confinement spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the charges have not been publicly announced.

    King’s mother, Claudine Gates, said in a statement that she loved her son “unconditionally” and was “extremely concerned about his mental health.”

    “As his mother, I ask that my son be afforded the presumption of innocence,” she said.

    Desertion is a very serious charge and can result in imprisonment for as much as three years. King is also accused of kicking and punching other officers last year, unlawfully possessing alcohol, making a false statement and possessing a video of a child engaged in sexual activity. That allegation dates to July 10, the same day he was released from a South Korean prison where he had served nearly two months on assault charges.

    One week later, King, 23, ran across the heavily fortified border from South Korea and became the first American detained in North Korea in nearly five years. He was set to be sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he could have faced potential additional disciplinary actions and discharge.

    Officials said King was taken to the airport and escorted as far as customs. But instead of getting on the plane, he left and later joined a civilian tour of the Korean border village of Panmunjom. He ran across the border, which is lined with guards and often crowded with tourists, in the afternoon.

    After about two months, Pyongyang abruptly announced that it would expel him. He was flown on Sept. 28 to an Air Force base in Texas.

    His release from North Korea was aided by Swedish officials who took King to the Chinese border, where he was met by U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, the Swedish ambassador to China and at least one U.S. Defense Department official. He was then flown to a U.S. military base in South Korea before heading to the U.S.

    Once back in the U.S., King was taken to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston outside San Antonio. He went through what the military describes as a “reintegration” process that included medical exams, psychological assessments and debriefings. And he was also allowed to meet with family.

    Because he had willingly run into enemy hands, he legally was kept in military custody throughout that process.

    At the time, officials said they did not know exactly why North Korea decided to let King go, but suspected Pyongyang determined that as a low-ranking serviceman he had no real value in terms of either leverage or information. King joined the Army in January 2021, and served as a cavalry scout.

    While he was gone, Army leaders declared him absent without leave, opting to not consider him a deserter, which is far more serious. By declaring King a deserter, the Army would have to conclude that King left and intended to stay away permanently. In times of war, desertion can carry the death penalty.

    Service members can go AWOL for several days, but may return voluntarily. The punishment can include confinement in the brig, forfeiture of pay or dishonorable discharge and it is largely based on how long they were away and whether they were apprehended or returned on their own.

    The charging document does not provide significant detail on any of the allegations, though it does accuse King of knowingly possessing a video of a child engaging in sexual conduct last July 10 and says that he solicited a user of Snapchat, a social media platform, to produce images of underage sexual activity.

    Sean Timmons, an attorney who specializes in military law at the Tully Rinckey law firm and who reviewed the charging document, said all the transactions that occurred on Snapchat were not secure or private and were accessible by the government.

    “He probably reasonably believed his illegal conduct would have no evidentiary trail, but Snapchat actually saves everything,” Timmons said.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US military shoots down missiles and drones as it faces growing threats in volatile Middle East

    US military shoots down missiles and drones as it faces growing threats in volatile Middle East

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — With tensions spiking in the Middle East, U.S. forces in the region are facing increasing threats, as a Navy warship shot down missiles appearing to head toward Israel Thursday and American bases in Iraq and Syria were repeatedly targeted by drone attacks.

    The USS Carney, a Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea, intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces in Yemen. The action by the Carney potentially represented the first shots by the U.S. military in the defense of Israel in this conflict.

    Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters the missiles were “potentially” headed toward Israel but said the U.S. hasn’t finished its assessment of what they were targeting.

    A U.S. official said they don’t believe the missiles — which were shot down over the water — were aimed at the U.S. warship. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations that had not yet been announced.

    But an array of other drone attacks over the past three days did target U.S. bases, including one in southern Syria on Thursday that caused minor injuries.

    The rash of violence comes in the wake of an explosion at a Gaza hospital that killed hundreds of people, triggering protests in a number of Muslim nations. The Israeli military has relentlessly attacked Gaza in retaliation for the devastating Hamas rampage in southern Israel almost two weeks ago, but Israel has denied responsibility for the al-Ahli hospital blast and the U.S. has said its intelligence assessment found that Tel Aviv was not to blame.

    In recent days, however, a number of militant groups across the region — from Hezbolla to the Houthis — have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Since Tuesday, militants have launched at least four drone attacks on U.S. military installations in Iraq and Syria where U.S. troops train local defense forces and support the mission to counter the Islamic State group.

    The attacks fuel escalating worries in the U.S. and the West that the war in Israel could expand into a larger regional conflict.

    “That’s exactly what we are trying to prevent,” Ryder said.

    The most recent drone attack was Thursday at al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq posted a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, saying they had fired a salvo of rockets at the base and “they hit their targets directly and precisely.” A U.S. official confirmed the latest attack but said it was too early to assess any impact.

    Also Thursday, the al-Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria was struck by drones. U.S. troops have maintained a presence at the base for a number of years to train Syrian allies and monitor Islamic State militant activity.

    The Pentagon said one drone was shot down, but another hit the base and caused minor injuries.

    The garrison is located on a vital road that often used by Iranian-backed militants to ferry weapons to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon — and Israel’s doorstep.

    Syrian opposition activists also said there was a separate drone attack on an oil facility in eastern Syria that houses American troops. Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet, said three drones with explosives struck the Conoco gas field in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, also confirmed explosions at the site.

    On Tuesday, militants launched three drones against two Iraq bases that the U.S. uses to train forces and conduct operations against the Islamic States. During the spate of launches, one warning turned out to be a false alarm at al-Asad, but it sent personnel rushing into bunkers. During that incident, a contractor suffered a cardiac arrest and died, Ryder said.

    He said the Pentagon does not yet have confirmation on who launched the drone attacks but said the U.S. ”will take all necessary actions to defend U.S. and coalition forces against any threat.” He said any military response would come “at a time and a manner of our choosing.”

    On the intercepts by the Carney, Ryder said the strikes were done because the Houthi missiles “posed a potential threat” based on their flight profile. He added that the U.S. is prepared to do whatever is needed “to protect our partners and our interests in this important region.” He said the U.S. is still assessing what the target was, but said no U.S. forces or civilians on the ground were injured.

    Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel. Last week, in Yemen’s Sanaa, which is held by the Houthi rebels still at war with a Saudi-led coalition, demonstrators crowded the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags. The rebels’ slogan long has been, “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse of the Jews; victory to Islam.”

    Last week, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, the rebel group’s leader, warned the United States against intervening in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, threatening that his forces would retaliate by firing drones and missiles.

    When approached Thursday, two Houthi officials declined to comment on the incident. One said he was unaware of the incident, while the second said he did not have the authority to speak about it.

    __

    Associated Press writer Jack Jeffery contributed to this report from Cairo.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Marine killed in homicide at Camp Lejeune; second Marine held

    Marine killed in homicide at Camp Lejeune; second Marine held

    [ad_1]

    A Marine has been killed in a homicide at Camp Lejeune and a second Marine is being held on suspicion of being involved

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 19, 2023, 1:04 AM

    CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — A Marine was killed in a homicide at Camp Lejeune on Wednesday night and a second Marine was held on suspicion of being involved, the base said.

    Base authorities took the Marine into custody at about 10:15 p.m. after an incident that occurred in a barracks room on the North Carolina base earlier in the evening, a statement from the base said.

    The statement called the death a homicide and described the other Marine as a suspect but didn’t provide any other details, including how the Marine died.

    The sprawling Camp Lejeune covers about 240 square miles (621 square kilometers) and is home to the II Marine Expeditionary Force. Its beaches and ranges provide training in amphibious assaults and urban warfare and it is used both for U.S. Marine training and for exercises involving other military forces from around the world.

    The death came two days before the base was scheduled to conduct annual training known as Exercise Urgent Response that “provides an opportunity for tenant commands to develop and exercise emergency security procedures,” according to a press release.

    In 2021, a Marine was shot and wounded in a barracks at the base. Authorities later determined that the shooting was accidental.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Gaza’s doctors struggle to save hospital blast survivors as Middle East rage grows

    Gaza’s doctors struggle to save hospital blast survivors as Middle East rage grows

    [ad_1]

    KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Doctors in Gaza City faced with dwindling medical supplies performed surgery on hospital floors, often without anesthesia, in a desperate bid to save badly wounded victims of a massive blast that killed civilians sheltering in a nearby hospital amid Israeli bombings and a blockade of the territory.

    The Hamas militant group blamed the blast on an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants. At least 500 people were killed, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.

    Rage at the hospital carnage spread through the Middle East as U.S. President Joe Biden landed in Israel in hopes of stopping a spread of the war, which started after Hamas militants attacked towns and cities across southern Israel last week.

    After President Joe Biden came down the stairs of Air Force One, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately went in to embrace the American leader.

    Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Wednesday.

    Jordan’s foreign minister said his country canceled a meeting there between Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. Biden will now visit only Israel, a White House official said.

    The war between Israel and Hamas was “pushing the region to the brink,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told state-run television.

    The Israeli military held a briefing Wednesday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital. It was not firing in the area, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

    Instead, Hagari said, Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage fired by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at that time of the blast, around 6:59 p.m. Independent video showed one of the rockets in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

    The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rocket’s warhead and its unspent propellant, he said.

    The Israeli military also released a recording they said was between two Hamas militants discussing the blast, during which the speakers say it was believed to be an Islamic Jihad misfire and that the shrapnel appeared to be from IJ weapons, not Israel’s.

    Hagari said Israeli’s intelligence would be shared with U.S. and British officials. He also questioned the death toll provided by Gaza’s Hamas-led health ministry.

    Since the war began, roughly 450 rockets fired at Israel by militant groups had landed in Gaza, the military said.

    Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital blast “a horrific massacre,” saying it was caused by an Israeli strike.

    Islamic Jihad dismissed Israel’s claims, accusing Israel of “trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.”

    The group pointed to Israel’s order that Al-Ahli be evacuated and reports of a previous blast at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target. It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bomb’s fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel.

    The blast left gruesome scenes. Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

    Ghassan Abu Sitta, a plastic surgeon working at al-Alhi, said the hospital was filled with internally displaced people seeking shelter from Israeli airstrikes when he heard a loud explosion and the ceiling of his operating room collapsed.

    “The wounded started stumbling toward us,” he wrote in an account posted to Facebook. He saw hundreds of dead and severely wounded people.

    “I put a tourniquet on the thigh of a man who had his leg blown off and then went to tend to a man with a penetrating neck injury,” he said.

    Video that The Associated Press confirmed was from the hospital showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children, as fire engulfed the building. The grass was strewn with blankets, school backpacks and other belongings. On Wednesday morning the blast scene was littered with charred cars and the ground was blackened by debris.

    Ambulances and private cars rushed some 350 casualties to Gaza City’s main hospital, al-Shifa, which was already overwhelmed with wounded from other strikes, said its director, Mohammed Abu Selmia.

    Victims arrived with gruesome injuries, Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said. Some were decapitated, disemboweled, or missing limbs.

    Doctors in the overwhelmed hospital resorted to performing surgery on floors and in the halls, mostly without anesthesia.

    “We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds, we need anesthesia, we need everything,” Abu Selmia said. He warned that fuel for the hospital’s generators would run out within hours, forcing a complete shutdown, unless supplies enter the Gaza Strip.

    The bloodshed unfolded as the U.S. tried to convince Israel to allow the delivery of supplies to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals in the tiny Gaza Strip, which has been under a complete siege since Hamas’ deadly rampage last week. Hundreds of thousands of increasingly desperate people were searching for bread and water.

    Before the al-Alhi Hospital deaths, Israeli strikes on Gaza killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and nearly two-thirds of those killed were children. Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

    More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians who were slain in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The assault also resulted in some 200 being taken captive into Gaza. Militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since, aiming at cities across Israel.

    Protests erupted across the Middle East. In Amman, a palace statement said Jordan’s king condemned “the ugly massacre perpetrated by Israel against innocent civilians.”

    The king “warned that this war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will plunge the region into an unspeakable disaster,” the statement said.

    With troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza.

    Throughout the day Tuesday, airstrikes killed dozens of civilians and at least one senior Hamas figure in the southern half of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military told fleeing Palestinians to go. An Associated Press reporter saw around 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital after strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis.

    The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to put the blame on Hamas for Israel’s retaliatory attacks and the rising civilian casualties in Gaza. “Not only is it targeting and murdering civilians with unprecedented savagery, it’s hiding behind civilians,” he said.

    With Israel barring entry of most water, fuel and food into Gaza since Hamas’ brutal attack, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken secured an agreement with Netanyahu to discuss creation of a mechanism for delivering aid to the territory’s 2.3 million people. But aid was not getting in as of Wednesday morning.

    More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes — roughly half of Gaza’s population — and 60% are now in the approximately 14-kilometer (8-mile) long area south of the evacuation zone, the U.N. said.

    The Israeli military again called on Palestinians to move out of Gaza City and head south, saying that if aid were to be delivered it would be near the city of Khan Younis in south Gaza.

    At the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid have been waiting to enter for more than a day.

    ___

    Kullab reported from Baghdad. Nessman reported from Jerusalem. Lee reported from Amman. Associated Press journalists Amy Teibel in Jerusalem; Abby Sewell in Beirut; Samy Magdy and Jack Jeffrey in Cairo; and Ashraf Sweilam in el-Arish, Egypt contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Israeli military announces it is prepared for “coordinated” air, ground and naval offensive in Gaza Strip.

    Israeli military announces it is prepared for “coordinated” air, ground and naval offensive in Gaza Strip.

    [ad_1]

    Israeli military announces it is prepared for “coordinated” air, ground and naval offensive in Gaza Strip.

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 14, 2023, 12:28 PM

    JERUSALEM — Israeli military announces it is prepared for “coordinated” air, ground and naval offensive in Gaza Strip.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US defense secretary is in Israel to meet with its leaders and see America’s security assistance

    US defense secretary is in Israel to meet with its leaders and see America’s security assistance

    [ad_1]

    TEL AVIV, Israel — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arrived Friday in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv to meet with senior government leaders and see firsthand some of the U.S. weapons and security assistance that Washington rapidly delivered to Israel in the first week of its war with the militant Hamas group.

    Austin is the second high-level U.S. official to visit Israel in two days. His quick trip from Brussels, where he was attending a NATO defense ministers meeting, comes a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the region on Thursday. Blinken is continuing the frantic Mideast diplomacy, seeking to avert an expanded regional conflict.

    Austin is expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, and the Israeli War Cabinet.

    His arrival comes as Israel’s military directed hundreds of thousands of residents in Gaza City to evacuate “for their own safety and protection,” ahead of a feared Israeli ground offensive. Gaza’s Hamas rulers responded by calling on Palestinians to “remain steadfast in your homes and to stand firm” against Israel.

    Defense officials traveling with Austin said he wants to underscore America’s unwavering support for the people of Israel and that the United States is committed to making sure the country has what it needs to defend itself.

    A senior defense official said the U.S. has already given Israel small diameter bombs as well as interceptor missiles for its Iron Dome system and more will be delivered. Other munitions are expected to arrive Friday.

    Austin has spoken nearly daily with Gallant, and directed the rapid shift of U.S. ships, intelligence support and other assets to Israel and the region. Within hours after the brutal Hamas attack across the border into Israel, the U.S. moved warships and aircraft to the region.

    The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group is already in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and a second carrier was departing Friday from Virginia, also heading to the region.

    Austin declined to say if the U.S. is doing surveillance flights in the region, but the U.S. is providing intelligence and other planning assistance to the Israelis, including advice on the hostage situation.

    A day after visiting Israel to offer the Biden administration’s diplomatic support in person, Blinken was in Jordan on Friday and held talks with Jordanian King Abdullah II. They did not speak to reporters after the meeting. Blinken then went on to a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has a home in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

    In the meeting with the king, Blinken discussed Hamas’ attack last Saturday and efforts to release all hostages the militants seized, as well as efforts to “prevent the conflict from widening,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

    Blinken “underscored that Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination and discussed ways to address the humanitarian needs of civilians in Gaza while Israel conducts legitimate security operations to defend itself from terrorism.”

    The monarch rules over a country with a large Palestinian population and has a vested interest in their status while Abbas runs the Palestinian Authority that controls the West Bank.

    According to a palace statement, Abdullah stressed the need to open humanitarian corridors for medical aid and relief into Gaza while protecting civilians and working to end the escalation of the conflict.

    He appealed against hindering the work of international agencies and warned against any attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza and elsewhere, or to cause their internal displacement.

    Earlier on Friday, Israel’s military had told some 1 million Palestinians living in Gaza to evacuate the north, according to the United Nations — an unprecedented order for almost half the population of the sealed-off territory ahead an expected ground invasion by Israel against the ruling Hamas.

    The king also urged for the protection of innocent civilians on all sides, in line with shared human values, international law, and international humanitarian law.

    Later Friday, Blinken is to fly to Doha for meetings with Qatari officials who have close contacts with the Hamas leadership and have been exploring an exchange of Palestinian prisoners in Israel for the release of dozens of Israelis and foreigners taken hostage by Hamas during the unprecedented incursion of the militants into southern Israel last weekend.

    Blinken will make a brief stop in Bahrain and end the day in Saudi Arabia, a key player in the Arab world that has been considering normalizing ties with Israel, a U.S.-mediated process that is now on hold.

    He will also travel to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt over the weekend.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Matthew Lee and Omar Akour in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Hamas practiced in plain sight, posting video of mock attack weeks before border breach

    Hamas practiced in plain sight, posting video of mock attack weeks before border breach

    [ad_1]

    Less than a month before Hamas fighters blew through Israel’s high-tech “Iron Wall” and launched an attack that would leave more than 1,200 Israelis dead, they practiced in a very public dress rehearsal.

    A slickly produced two-minute propaganda video posted to social media by Hamas on Sept. 12 shows fighters using explosives to blast through a replica of the border gate, sweep in on pickup trucks and then move building by building through a full-scale reconstruction of an Israeli town, firing automatic weapons at human-silhouetted paper targets.

    The Islamic militant group’s live-fire exercise dubbed operation “Strong Pillar” also had militants in body armor and combat fatigues carrying out operations that included the destruction of mock-ups of the wall’s concrete towers and a communications antenna, just as they would do for real in the deadly attack last Saturday.

    While Israel’s highly regarded security and intelligence services were clearly caught flatfooted by Hamas’ ability to breach its Gaza defenses, the group appears to have hidden its extensive preparations for the deadly assault in plain sight.

    “There clearly were warnings and indications that should have been picked up,” said Bradley Bowman, a former U.S. Army officer who is now senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington research institute. “Or maybe they were picked up, but they didn’t spark necessary preparations to prevent these horrific terrorist acts from happening.”

    The Associated Press reviewed and verified key details from dozens of videos Hamas released over the last year, primarily through the social media app Telegram.

    Using satellite imagery, the AP matched the location of the mocked-up town to a patch of desert outside Al-Mawasi, a Palestinian town on the southern coast of the Gaza Strip. A large sign in Hebrew and Arabic at the gate says “Horesh Yaron,” the name of a controversial Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

    Bowman said there are indications that Hamas intentionally led Israeli officials to believe it was preparing to carry out raids in the West Bank, rather than Gaza. It was also potentially significant that the exercise has been held annually since 2020 in December, but was moved up by nearly four months this year to coincide with the anniversary of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.

    In a separate video posted to Telegram from last year’s Strong Pillar exercise on Dec. 28, Hamas fighters are shown storming what appears to be a mockup Israeli military base, complete with a full-size model of a tank with an Israeli flag flying from its turret. The gunmen move through the cinderblock buildings, seizing other men playing the roles of Israeli soldiers as hostages.

    Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli colonel who previously led the military intelligence department overseeing the Palestinian territories, said he was aware of the Hamas videos, but he was still caught off guard by the ambition and scale of Saturday’s attack.

    “We knew about the drones, we knew about booby traps, we knew about cyberattacks and the marine forces … The surprise was the coordination between all those systems,” Milshtein said.

    The seeds of Israel’s failure to anticipate and stop Saturday’s attack go back at least a decade. Faced with recurring attacks from Hamas militants tunneling under Israel’s border fence, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a very concrete solution — build a bigger wall.

    With financial help from U.S. taxpayers, Israel completed construction of a $1.1 billion project to fortify its existing defenses along its 40-mile land border with Gaza in 2021. The new, upgraded barrier includes a “smart fence” up to 6-meters (19.7 feet) high, festooned with cameras that can see in the dark, razor wire and seismic sensors capable of detecting the digging of tunnels more than 200 feet below. Manned guard posts were replaced with concrete towers topped with remote-controlled machine guns.

    “In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts,” Netanyahu said in 2016, referring to Palestinians and neighboring Arab states. “At the end of the day as I see it, there will be a fence like this one surrounding Israel in its entirety.”

    Shortly after dawn on Saturday, Hamas fighters pushed through Netanyahu’s wall in a matter of minutes. And they did it on the relative cheap, using explosive charges to blow holes in the barrier and then sending in bulldozers to widen the breaches as fighters streamed through on motorcycles and in pick-up trucks. Cameras and communications gear were bombarded by off-the-shelf commercial drones adapted to drop hand grenades and mortar shells — a tactic borrowed directly from the battlefields of Ukraine.

    Snipers took out Israel’s sophisticated roboguns by targeting their exposed ammunition boxes, causing them to explode. Militants armed with assault rifles sailed over the Israeli defenses slung under paragliders, providing Hamas airborne troops despite lacking airplanes. Increasingly sophisticated homemade rockets, capable of striking Israel’s capital of Tel Aviv, substituted for a lack of heavy artillery.

    Satellite images analyzed by the AP show the massive extent of the damage done at the heavily fortified Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel. The images taken Sunday and analyzed Tuesday showed gaping holes in three sections of the border wall, the largest more than 70 meters (230 feet) wide.

    Once the wall was breached, Hamas fighters streamed through by the hundreds. A video showed a lone Israeli battle tank rushing to the sight of the attack, only to be attacked and quickly destroyed in a ball of flame. Hamas then disabled radio towers and radar sites, likely impeding the ability of the Israeli commanders to see and understand the extent of the attack.

    Hamas forces also struck a nearby army base near Zikim, engaging in an intense firefight with Israeli troops before overrunning the post. Videos posted by Hamas show graphic scenes with dozens of dead Israeli soldiers.

    They then fanned out across the countryside of Southern Israel, attacking kibbutzim and a music festival. On the bodies of some of the Hamas militants killed during the invasion were detailed maps showing planned zones and routes of attack, according to images posted by Israeli first responders who recovered some of the the corpses. Israeli authorities announced Wednesday they had recovered the bodies of about 1,500 Islamic fighters, though no details were provided about where they were found or how they died.

    Military experts told the AP the attack showed a level of sophistication not previously exhibited by Hamas, likely suggesting they had external help.

    “I just was impressed with Hamas’s ability to use basics and fundamentals to be able to penetrate the wall,” said retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Stephen Danner, a combat engineer trained to build and breach defenses. “They seemed to be able to find those weak spots and penetrate quickly and then exploit that breach.”

    Ali Barakeh, a Beirut-based senior Hamas official, acknowledged that over the years the group had received supplies, financial support, military expertise and training from its allies abroad, including Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. But he insisted the recent operation to breach Israel’s border defenses was homegrown, with the exact date and time for the attack known only to a handful of commanders within Hamas.

    Details of the operation were kept so tight that some Hamas fighters who took part in the assault Saturday believed they were heading to just another drill, showing up in street clothes rather than their uniforms, Barakeh said.

    Last weekend’s devastating surprise attack has shaken political support for Netanyahu within Israel, who pushed ahead with spending big to build walls despite some within his own cabinet and military warning that it probably wouldn’t work.

    In the days since Hamas struck, senior Israeli officials have largely deflected questions about the wall and the apparent intelligence failure. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, acknowledged the military owes the public an explanation, but said now is not the time.

    “First, we fight, then we investigate,” he said.

    In his push to build border walls, Netanyahu found an enthusiastic partner in then-President Donald Trump, who praised Netanyahu’s Iron Wall as a potential model for the expanded barrier he planned for the U.S. Southern border with Mexico.

    Under Trump, the U.S. expanded a joint initiative with Israel started under the Obama Administration to develop technologies for detecting underground tunnels along the Gaza border defenses. Since 2016, Congress has appropriated $320 million toward the project.

    But even with all its high-tech gadgets, the Iron Wall was still largely just a physical barrier that could be breached, said Victor Tricaud, a senior analyst with the London-based consulting firm Control Risks.

    “The fence, no matter how many sensors … no matter how deep the underground obstacles go, at the end of the day, it’s effectively a metal fence,” he said. “Explosives, bulldozers can eventually get through it. What was remarkable was Hamas’s capability to keep all the preparations under wraps.”

    ___

    Biesecker reported from Washington and El Deeb from Beirut. AP reporters Jon Gambrell in Jerusalem, Lori Hinnant in Paris, Beatrice Dupuy in New York, and Aaron Kessler and Fu Ting in Washington contributed.

    ___

    Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Germany offers Israel military help and promises to crack down at home on support for Hamas

    Germany offers Israel military help and promises to crack down at home on support for Hamas

    [ad_1]

    Germany is offering military help to Israel and promising to crack down on support for the militant Hamas group at home following its attack on Israel

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 12, 2023, 4:25 AM

    German Chancellor Olaf Scholz delivers a government statement on the situation in Israel during a meeting of the German federal parliament, Bundestag, at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)

    The Associated Press

    BERLIN — Germany is offering military help to Israel and promising to crack down on support for the militant Hamas group at home following the group’s attack on Israel. Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday underlined Germany’s historical responsibility for Israel’s security.

    The Defense Ministry said it agreed to an Israeli request to use up to two of five Heron TP combat drones that are currently leased by the German military and were already in Israel for the training of German servicepeople. And Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in Brussels that Israel has requested ammunition for warships, a request that will now be discussed.

    Scholz told the German parliament that he has asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to inform Germany of any needs, “for example the treatment of wounded.”

    “At this moment, there is only one place for Germany — the place at Israel’s side,” he told lawmakers. “Our own history, our responsibility arising from the Holocaust, makes it a perpetual task for us to stand up for the security of the state of Israel.”

    Scholz noted that thousands of people have demonstrated in support of Israel in recent days, but said that “there were also other, shameful pictures from Germany last weekend.”

    On Saturday, a small group handed out pastries in a Berlin street and dozens of people later demonstrated in celebration of the Hamas attack.

    Scholz said that Germany will issue a formal ban on activity by or in support of Hamas, which is already listed by the European Union as a terror group. He said groups such as Samidoun, which was behind the weekend pastry action, will be banned.

    Scholz said there will be “zero tolerance for antisemitism.”

    The chancellor also questioned the lack of a clear condemnation of the Hamas attack by the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying that “their silence is shameful.”

    Germany has suspended development aid for the Palestinian areas, though it is keeping up humanitarian help.

    Scholz also assailed Iran’s role in the region. “We have no tangible evidence that Iran gave concrete and operative support to this cowardly attack by Hamas,” he said. “But is clear to us all that, without Iranian support in recent years, Hamas would not have been capable of these unprecedented attacks on Israeli territory.”

    Several German citizens were among those kidnapped in Saturday attack.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 2 senior generals purged from Myanmar’s military government are sentenced to life for corruption

    2 senior generals purged from Myanmar’s military government are sentenced to life for corruption

    [ad_1]

    A military tribunal in strife-torn Myanmar has sentenced two high-ranking generals to life imprisonment after they were found guilty of high treason, accepting bribes, illegal possession of foreign currency and violating military discipline

    ByThe Associated Press

    October 11, 2023, 3:25 AM

    BANGKOK — A military tribunal in strife-torn Myanmar has sentenced two high-ranking generals to life imprisonment after they were found guilty of high treason, accepting bribes, illegal possession of foreign currency and violating military discipline, state-run media reported Wednesday.

    The sentences appeared to be the harshest so far for the senior members of the military’s administrative bodies that were set up after the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi more than 2 1/2 years ago. The country has been in turmoil since then, with widespread armed resistance to military rule.

    The officers include Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun, who had been army chief of staff, served as a member of the military’s ruling State Administration Council and chaired three major economic supervisory bodies. He was sentenced “to suffer transportation” for a 20-year term equal to a life sentence.

    “Transportation” is an archaic legal term meaning banishment to a remote place, usually a penal colony.

    Yan Naung Soe, a brigadier general who served as a joint secretary of one of the committees that Moe Myint Tun chaired, received the same prison sentence, according to the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

    Both were described as former generals in the report, meaning that they had already been dismissed from the army.

    Last month, the two officers were reportedly detained in the capital Naypyitaw and investigated, following the arrests of scores of private business operators who allegedly bribed Moe Myint Tun and his subordinates. Moe Myint Tun was removed from the State Administration Council in a reshuffle in late September.

    In a meeting held a few days after the reshuffle, Myanmar’s military leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was reported to have told his fellow ruling council members that they had been appointed because they were regarded as trustworthy, and those who abuse their rank would be suspended and punished.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • California-based Navy sailor pleads guilty to providing sensitive military information to China

    California-based Navy sailor pleads guilty to providing sensitive military information to China

    [ad_1]

    LOS ANGELES — A U.S. Navy sailor charged with providing sensitive military information to China pleaded guilty in Los Angeles on Tuesday to conspiring with a foreign intelligence officer and receiving a bribe, federal prosecutors said.

    Petty Officer Wenheng Zhao, 26, originally pleaded not guilty when he was charged Aug. 4. The Justice Department alleges that Zhao, based at Naval Base Ventura County, north of Los Angeles, conspired to collect nearly $15,000 in bribes from a Chinese intelligence officer in exchange for information, photos and videos of involving Navy exercises, operations and facilities.

    The information included plans for a large-scale U.S. military exercise in the Indo-Pacific region, which detailed the location and timing of naval force movements, prosecutors said. The Chinese officer told Zhao the information was needed for maritime economic research to inform investment decisions, according to the indictment.

    Zhao, who also went by the name Thomas Zhao and held a U.S. security clearance, “admitted he engaged in a corrupt scheme to collect and transmit sensitive U.S. military information to the intelligence officer in violation of his official duties,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release Tuesday.

    Zhao, of Monterey Park, California, faces a statutory maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison. He has been in custody since his arrest on Aug. 3.

    Zhao was charged on the same day as another California-based Navy sailor who is accused of similar crimes. But they are separate cases, and federal officials haven’t said if the two were courted or paid by the same Chinese intelligence officer as part of a larger scheme.

    Jinchao Wei, a 22-year-old assigned to the San Diego-based USS Essex, is charged with providing detailed information on the weapons systems and aircraft aboard the Essex and other amphibious assault ships that act as small aircraft carriers. He pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Diego.

    Last week, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer was charged in Seattle with attempting to provide classified defense information to the Chinese security services during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sgt. Joseph Daniel Schmidt, 29, was arrested Oct. 6 at San Francisco International Airport as he arrived from Hong Kong, where he had been living since March 2020, the Justice Department said.

    A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with retention and attempted delivery of national defense information. U.S. District Court records in Seattle did not yet list an attorney representing Schmidt on the charges, and neither the U.S. attorney’s office nor the federal public defender’s office had information about whether he had a lawyer.

    An FBI declaration filed in the case quoted Schmidt as telling his sister in an email that he left the U.S. because he disagreed with unspecified aspects of American policy.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The US declares the ousting of Niger’s president a coup and suspends military aid and training

    The US declares the ousting of Niger’s president a coup and suspends military aid and training

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — The United States on Tuesday formally declared the ousting of Niger’s democratically-elected president a coup d’etat, more than two months after mutinous soldiers seized power.

    Senior administration officials told reporters that the U.S. was taking action after exhausting all avenues to preserve constitutional order in the West African nation, including urging the military leaders to restore civilian rule within four months in compliance with the constitution. The coup designation comes with the suspension of counterterrorism assistance and military training as well as the pausing of certain foreign assistance programs worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

    “As time has passed it’s become clear that the (junta) officials that we’ve been dealing with did not want to abide by these constitutional guidelines and in fact they’ve told us that they’ve chosen to repeal that constitution and are in the process of creating a new draft with an uncertain timeline,” said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.

    U.S. Ambassador to Niger Kathleen FitzGibbon remains in the country and has been in contact with the military junta, called the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland, or CNSP, to address U.S. staff protection and logistical needs.

    Any resumption of suspended assistance will require action by the CNSP to usher in democratic rule in a quick and credible timeframe and the release of ousted President Mohamed Bazoum who’s been under house arrest with his wife and son since July, the administration officials said.

    In August, Niger’s military rulers said they would restore constitutional order within three years and would decide on the country’s roadmap through the results from a national dialogue. They haven’t specified when Bazoum and his family will be released.

    Under U.S. law, a formal determination of a coup — the unconstitutional overthrow of a democratically elected government — typically results in a suspension of all non-humanitarian assistance, particularly military aid and cooperation, to the country concerned.

    The Biden administration had been delaying a coup decision because Niger plays a critical role in U.S. counterterrorism activity in Africa’s Sahel region and is seen by many countries as one of the last democratic nations in the region to partner with to counter jihadi violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali have had two coups each since 2020.

    The U.S. had made Niger its main regional outpost for wide-ranging patrols by armed drones and other counterterror operations against Islamic extremist movements that over the years have seized territory, massacred civilians and battled foreign armies. The bases are a critical part of America’s overall efforts in West Africa and Niger, hosting more than 1,000 troops in the country.

    In the months since July’s coup the U.S. has drawdown some of its troops and moved others from the air base near the capital Niamey, to another in Agadez about 560 miles (900 kilometers) away.

    While a sizeable footprint remains in the country, those troops are not conducting either partnered training or counterterrorism missions, administration officials said, raising questions as to why they were staying.

    The U.S. officials said that drone-based surveillance operations will continue and limited to force protection. Yet officials also acknowledged that troops needed to remain to monitor threats “more broadly in the region” to ensure the security vacuum in Niger doesn’t create an opportunity for terrorist cells to exploit.

    While the coup declaration comes with consequences, it reflects the reality of the situation, which indicates that the ousting of Bazoum is unlikely to be reversed, said Peter Pham, former U.S. special envoy for West Africa’s Sahel region and a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council.

    “The question then becomes, how do we best deal with this new reality?” he said.

    “Pragmatism will better serve the long-term interests of both the people of Niger and those of the United States. After all, who would likely benefit if the progress in counterterrorism and development cooperation of recent years was sacrificed altogether just to virtue signal? Jihadist and other malevolent actors, including geopolitical rivals and/or their proxies,” he said.

    ___

    Mednick reported from Cotonou, Benin.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Myanmar military accused of bombing a displacement camp in a northern state, killing about 30

    Myanmar military accused of bombing a displacement camp in a northern state, killing about 30

    [ad_1]

    BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military was accused of launching an airstrike on a camp for displaced persons in the northern state of Kachin late Monday that killed about 30 people, including about a dozen children, Kachin militants and activists and local media said.

    Col. Naw Bu, a spokesperson for the Kachin Independence Army, said 29 people including 11 children under the age of 16 were killed and 57 others injured in the attacks carried out by air and artillery. The casualties occurred at the Mung Lai Hkyet displacement camp in the northern part of Laiza, a town where the headquarters of the rebel KIA is based.

    A spokesperson for Kachin Human Rights Watch gave slightly different figures, saying 19 adults and 13 children were killed in the attack, which occurred shortly before midnight.

    Laiza is about 324 kilometers (200 miles) northeast of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-biggest city.

    Myanmar’s National Unity Government, the main nationwide opposition group that considers itself the country’s legitimate administrative body, said a kindergarten, school, church and many civilian houses were destroyed at the camp.

    “This deliberate and targeted attack by the terrorist military council on civilians fleeing conflict constitutes a blatant crime against humanity and war crime,” it said.

    Myanmar’s military government “has taken advantage of the moment of the international community’s attention on the recent developments of the Israel-Hamas conflict to commit yet another crime against humanity and war crime,” it added.

    Naw Bu said it was unclear how the attack was carried out because people did not hear a jet fighter on a bombing run. The absence of such a sound, familiar in many parts of the countryside, could indicate that the camp was hit by air-to-ground missiles fired from a distance or by an armed drone.

    He said the army used artillery to shell an area including the camp and nearby villages where about 400 people live.

    In a statement over the phone to state television MRTV, military government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun denied responsibility for the attack but said the military is capable of attacking the headquarters of all of Myanmar’s insurgent groups.

    Zaw Min Tun said the area where the explosions occurred may have been used to store bombs for drones and unmanned aircraft for the Kachin fighting forces.

    It was impossible to independently confirm details of the incident, though media sympathetic to the Kachin posted videos showing what they said was the attack’s aftermath, with images of dead bodies and flattened wooden structures.

    Myanmar Witness, a non-governmental organization that collects and analyzes evidence related to human rights incidents, said it confirmed the camp was damaged but that it was still investigating the cause.

    Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

    The military government in the past year has stepped up the use of airstrikes in combat against two enemies: the armed pro-democracy Peoples Defense Forces, which formed after the 2021 takeover, and ethnic minority guerrilla groups such as the Kachin that have been fighting for greater autonomy for decades.

    The military claims it targets only armed guerrilla forces and facilities, but there is considerable evidence that churches and schools have also been hit and many civilians killed and wounded. Artillery is frequently used.

    The Kachin are one of the stronger ethnic rebel groups and are capable of manufacturing some of their own armaments. They also have a loose alliance with the armed militias of the pro-democracy forces that were formed to fight army rule.

    In October last year, the military carried out airstrikes that hit a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the Kachin Independence Organization, the political wing of the Kachin Independence Army, near a village in Hpakant township, a remote mountainous area 167 kilometers (103 miles) northwest of Laiza. The attack killed as many as 80 people, including Kachin officers and soldiers, along with singers and musicians, jade mining entrepreneurs and other civilians.

    “Killing us en masse like this is a criminal act. The international community needs to know and take action. I would also like to ask the U.N. organizations to take action,” KIA spokesperson Naw Bu said Tuesday.

    Monday night’s incident came a few days before the military government is scheduled to host an event in the capital, Naypyitaw, to mark the eighth anniversary of the signing of a ceasefire agreement between the previous military-backed government and eight ethnic rebel armies.

    The larger ethnic rebel armies, including the Kachin and the Wa, refused to sign the ceasefire agreement.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • As Israel pummels Gaza, families of those held hostage by militants agonize over loved ones’ safety

    As Israel pummels Gaza, families of those held hostage by militants agonize over loved ones’ safety

    [ad_1]

    JERUSALEM — In the hours after Hamas blew through Israel’s heavily fortified separation fence and crossed into the country from Gaza, Ahal Besorai tried desperately to reach his sister. There was no answer.

    Soon after, he learned from witnesses that militants had seized her, her husband and their teenage son and daughter, along with dozens of others. Now, aching uncertainty over their fate has left Besorai and scores of other Israelis in limbo.

    “Should I cry because they are dead already? Should I be happy because maybe they are captured but still alive?” said Besorai, a life coach and resort owner who lives in the Philippines and grew up on Kibbutz Be’eri. “I pray to God every day that she will be found alive with her family and we can all be reunited.”

    As Israel strikes back with missile attacks on targets in Gaza, the families grapple with the knowledge that it could come at the cost of their loved ones’ lives. Hamas has warned it will kill one of the 130 hostages every time Israel’s military bombs civilian targets in Gaza without warning.

    Eli Elbag said he woke Saturday to text messages from his daughter, Liri, 18, who’d just began her military training as an Army lookout at the Gaza border. Militants were shooting at her, she wrote. Minutes later, the messages stopped. By nightfall, a video circulated by Hamas showed her crowded into an Israeli military truck overtaken by militants. The face of a hostage next to Liri was marred and bloodied.

    “We are watching television constantly looking for a sign of her,” Elbag said. “We think about her all the time. All the time wondering if they’re take caring of her, if they’re feeding her, how she’s feeling and what she’s feeling.”

    For Israel, locating hostages in Gaza may prove difficult. Although the strip is tiny, subject to constant aerial surveillance and surrounded by Israeli ground and naval forces, the territory just over an hour from Tel Aviv remains somewhat opaque to Israeli intelligence agencies.

    Militants posted video of the hostages, and families were left in agony wondering about their fate.

    Yosi Shnaider has wrestled with worry since his family members were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz, just over a mile from the Gaza fenceline. He saw video of his cousin and her two young boys, held hostage.

    “It’s like an unbelievable bad movie, like a nightmare,” Shnaider said Monday. “I just need information on if they are alive,” he added.

    Also missing, his aunt who requires medicine to treat her diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. Since the family found out they were taken hostage, the woman’s sister has been so mortified that she is “like a zombie, alive and dead at the same time” said Shnaider, a real estate agent in the Israeli city of Holon.

    Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, said the country is committed the bringing the hostages home and issued a warning to Hamas, which controls Gaza.

    “We demand Hamas not to harm any of the hostages,” he said. “This war crime will not be forgiven.”

    Hamas has also said it seeks the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails — some 4,500 detainees, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem — in exchange for the Israeli captives.

    Uncertainty also weighs heavily on families who still do not know whether their relatives have been killed, taken into Hamas captivity, or have escaped and are on the run. Tomer Neumann, whose cousin was attending a music festival near the Gaza border and has since vanished, hopes it’s the last of the three options.

    The cousin, Rotem Neumann, who is 25 and a Portuguese citizen, called her parents from the festival when she heard rocket fire, he said. She piled into a car with friends, witnesses said, but fled when they encountered trucks filled with militants. Later, her phone was found near a concrete shelter.

    “All we have is bits and pieces of information,” said Neumann, who lives in Bat Yam, a city just south of Tel Aviv.

    “What now is on my mind is not war and is not bombing,” he said. “All we want is to know where Rotem is and to know what happened to her and we want peace.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US begins delivering munitions to Israel as the American death toll rises to 11 in Hamas attacks

    US begins delivering munitions to Israel as the American death toll rises to 11 in Hamas attacks

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. has already begun delivering critically needed munitions and military equipment to Israel, the White House said Monday, as the Pentagon reviews its inventories to see what else can be sent quickly to boost its ally in the three-day-old war with Hamas.

    John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed Monday evening that the first batch of military aid in the wake of the violent assault by Hamas militants is “making its way” to Israel.

    The delivery came as President Joe Biden prepared to give formal remarks on the attacks from the White House on Tuesday afternoon, after he confirmed that at least 11 Americans were killed in the violence over the weekend.

    “We fully expect there will be additional requests for security assistance for Israel as they continue to expend munitions in this fight,” Kirby said. “We will stay in lockstep with them, making sure that we’re filling their needs as best we can and as fast as we can.”

    Also on Monday, a senior Defense Department official warned that the U.S. is closely watching Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups, noting that the decision to shift American ships in the region was to deter any of these groups from entering or expanding the conflict against Israel. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive shipments.

    The official said the U.S. is “flooding the zone” with calls and other messages so that extremist groups and other nations know they should not question America’s commitment to supporting the defense of Israel. The official, however, would not comment on whether U.S. military forces would be used at all, and Kirby later emphasized that “there is no intention to put U.S. boots on the ground.”

    Meanwhile, Kirby said U.S. officials have yet to identify a direct link from the Hamas militants who executed this weekend’s deadly attacks to Iran itself, although the country has a “degree of complicity” considering its long support for the group.

    While the Pentagon official said the U.S. has the ability to supply weapons to Ukraine and Israel and maintain security for America, the rapid delivery of munitions to the new war has raised concerns.

    Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said Congress must pass more funding quickly for the U.S. to be able to give both Israel and Ukraine the weapons and munitions they both now need.

    “The intent is to lean forward in support of Israel,” she said. “But in particular with munitions and the ability to support Israel and Ukraine simultaneously, additional funding is needed to increase our capacity to expand production and then also pay for the munitions themselves.”

    At the White House, officials were more cautious, emphasizing that the U.S. government has existing funding to support Israel for the time being. But it was becoming clear that the administration is now facing potentially competing requests from Israel and Ukraine for additional weaponry.

    “If we need — and it’s an ‘if’, but — if we need to go back to Capitol Hill for additional funding support for Israel, we will absolutely do that,” Kirby said. Referring to Israel and Ukraine, he added, “We are a large enough, big enough, economically viable and vibrant enough country to be able to support both.”

    On Capitol Hill, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers expressed support for Israel, although immediate congressional action was virtually impossible with the House remaining without a speaker and the Senate out of Washington until next week. Also uncertain is whether the debate over further assistance to Ukraine, which is opposed by a group of hard-right Republicans, will complicate efforts to pass assistance for Israel.

    Wormuth, speaking at the annual Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, said the administration is still “in the early stage of the process of evaluating our ability to support what the IDF needs,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces. She did not provide details, but Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, told reporters at the conference that conversations are underway about what the U.S. can provide. He said it likely will be a wide range of equipment, from small arms to sophisticated munitions.

    Most of the weaponry sent already to help Ukraine has come from Army stocks and defense contractors at a rate that has challenged the global supply chain, and while the Army has recently ramped up production of some critical lines, such as 155 mm ammunition for howitzers, they are not yet at full speed.

    With a new ground offensive in Gaza imminent following the Saturday surprise attack by Hamas, Army officials said Monday they were concerned about the ability to meet additional demand for ground munitions and Congress needed to act quickly to provide help in time.

    In addition to the 11 American citizens whose deaths Biden confirmed, an undetermined number remain unaccounted for. It was not yet clear if the missing are dead, in hiding, or had been taken hostage.

    Biden said the U.S. believes it is likely that American citizens may be among those being held hostage by Hamas, but officials are working to confirm that.

    “I have directed my team to work with their Israeli counterparts on every aspect of the hostage crisis, including sharing intelligence and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts,” Biden said in a statement.

    To underscore U.S. solidarity with Israel, the White House was lit in the blue and white colors of the Israeli flag on Monday night.

    The attack by Hamas and Israel’s retaliation have left more than 1,600 dead and thousands wounded on both sides.

    In the aftermath of the Hamas attack, the White House has asked Senate leaders to fast track confirmation of President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the next ambassador to Israel, former Obama-era Treasury Secretary and White House chief of staff Jack Lew, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity. The White House has received assurances that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will push forward hearings for Lew, the official added. The U.S. has been without an ambassador since the departure of Ambassador Tom Nides in July.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday he has ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, from possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.

    The senior Defense Department official said worries about Hezbollah opening a second front of violence against Israel was the main reason for moving the ships to the Eastern Mediterranean. The official said the U.S. is deeply concerned Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups will make the wrong decision to try to “pile on” and widen the war.

    The Norfolk, Virginia-based carrier strike group already was in the Mediterranean. Last week it was conducting naval exercises with Italy in the Ionian Sea. The carrier is in its first full deployment.

    _____

    Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US begins delivering munitions to Israel as the American death toll rises to 11 in Hamas attacks

    US begins delivering munitions to Israel as the American death toll rises to 11 in Hamas attacks

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. has already begun delivering critically needed munitions and military equipment to Israel, and the Pentagon is reviewing inventories to see what else can be sent quickly to boost its ally in the three-day-old war with Hamas, a senior Defense Department official said Monday.

    Planes have already taken off, said the official, who declined to provide details on the weapons. The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive shipments, also warned that the U.S. is closely watching Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups, noting that the decision to shift American ships in the region was to deter any of them from entering or expanding the conflict against Israel.

    The weapons movement came as President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. death toll in the war has gone up to 11.

    The official said the U.S. is “flooding the zone” with calls and other messages so that extremist groups and other nations know they should not question America’s commitment to supporting the defense of Israel. The official, however, would not comment on whether U.S. military forces would be used at all.

    While the official said the U.S. has the ability to support weapons needs in Ukraine and Israel and maintain security for America, the rapid delivery of munitions to the new war has raised concerns.

    Congress must pass more funding quickly for the U.S. to be able to give both Israel and Ukraine the weapons and munitions they both now need, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said Monday.

    “The intent is to lean forward in support of Israel,” she said. “But in particular with munitions and the ability to support Israel and Ukraine simultaneously, additional funding is needed to increase our capacity to expand production and then also pay for the munitions themselves.”

    It is clear the administration is now facing potentially competing requests from Israel and Ukraine for additional weaponry. And while there is strong bipartisan support in Congress for aid to Israel, the next steps are uncertain, with the House lacking a leader after the ouster of the Republican speaker and the Senate out of town until next week.

    Also uncertain is whether the debate over further assistance to Ukraine, which is opposed by a group of hard-right Republicans, will complicate efforts to pass assistance for Israel.

    Wormuth, speaking at the annual Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, said the administration is still “in the early stage of the process of evaluating our ability to support what the IDF needs,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces. She did not provide details, but Doug Bush, the Army’s assistant secretary for acquisition, told reporters at the conference that conversations are underway about what the U.S. can provide. He said it likely will be a wide range of equipment, from small arms to sophisticated munitions.

    Most of the weaponry sent already to help Ukraine has come from Army stocks and defense contractors at a rate that has challenged the global supply chain, and while the Army has recently ramped up production of some critical lines, such as 155 mm ammunition for howitzers, they are not yet at full speed.

    With a new ground offensive in Gaza imminent following the Saturday surprise attack by Hamas, Army officials said Monday they were concerned about the ability to meet additional demand for ground munitions and that Congress needed to act quickly to provide help in time.

    In addition to the 11 American citizens whose deaths Biden confirmed, an undetermined number of remain unaccounted for. It was not yet clear if the missing are dead, in hiding, or had been taken hostage.

    Biden said the U.S. believes it is likely that American citizens may be among those being held hostage by Hamas, but officials are working to confirm that.

    “I have directed my team to work with their Israeli counterparts on every aspect of the hostage crisis, including sharing intelligence and deploying experts from across the United States government to consult with and advise Israeli counterparts on hostage recovery efforts,” Biden said in a statement.

    The attack by Hamas and Israel’s response have left more than 1,100 dead and thousands wounded on both sides.

    In the aftermath of the Hamas attack, the White House has asked Senate leaders to fast track confirmation of President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the next ambassador to Israel, former Obama-era Treasury Secretary and White House chief of staff Jack Lew, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity. The White House has received assurances that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will push forward hearings for Lew, the official added.

    The U.S. is currently without an ambassador after the departure of Ambassador Tom Nides in July. Biden nominated Lew in September.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday he has ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, from possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.

    The senior Defense Department official said worries about Hezbollah opening a second front of violence against Israel was the main reason for moving the ships to the Eastern Mediterranean. The official said the U.S. is deeply concerned Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups will make the wrong decision to try to “pile on” and widen the war.

    Along with the Ford, the U.S. is sending the cruiser USS Normandy and destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt, and the U.S. is augmenting Air Force F-35, F-15, F-16, and A-10 fighter aircraft squadrons in the region.

    The Norfolk, Virginia-based carrier strike group already was in the Mediterranean. Last week it was conducting naval exercises with Italy in the Ionian Sea. The carrier is in its first full deployment.

    Senior officials from the Pentagon and State Department briefed senators Sunday night, and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said they were assured that the United States was giving Israel “everything they need.”

    _____

    Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Israel vows complete siege of Gaza as it strikes the Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas

    Israel vows complete siege of Gaza as it strikes the Palestinian territory after incursion by Hamas

    [ad_1]

    JERUSALEM — Israel vowed to lay total siege to the Gaza Strip on Monday, as its military scoured the country’s south for militants, guarded breaches in its border fence and pounded the impoverished, Hamas-ruled territory in the wake of an unprecedented weekend incursion.

    More than two days after Hamas launched its surprise attack, the military said the fighting had largely died down for now. Israel’s vaunted military and intelligence apparatus was caught completely off guard, bringing heavy battles to its streets for the first time in decades.

    Israel formally declared war on Sunday and the army called up around 300,000 reservists, portending greater fighting ahead and a possible ground assault into Gaza — a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy “the military and governing capabilities” of the militant group, which is deeply rooted in Gaza and has ruled unchallenged since 2007.

    As Israel hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza and its tanks and drones guarded openings in the border fence to prevent more infiltrations, Palestinian militants continued firing barrages of rockets, setting off air raid sirens in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Video posted online appeared to show a plume of smoke near a terminal at Ben Gurion International Airport. There was no immediate word on casualties or damage.

    But civilians have already paid a high price. Around 700 people have been killed in Israel — a staggering toll by the scale of its recent conflicts. Nearly 500 have been killed in Gaza, an enclave of 2.3 million Palestinians bordering Israel and Egypt.

    Palestinian militant groups claimed to be holding over 130 people captured in Israel and dragged to Gaza. The armed wing of Hamas said on its Telegram channel that four of them were killed in Israeli airstrikes.

    That claim could not be independently confirmed — but underscored the dilemma facing Israel’s government as it bombards a territory where its own citizens are held captive.

    In an effort to further ratchet up the pressure on Hamas, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza, saying authorities would cut electricity and prevent food and fuel from entering the territory. He said Israel was at war with “human animals,” using the kind of dehumanizing language often heard on both sides at times of soaring tensions.

    Israel and Egypt have imposed various levels of blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power, but in recent years Israel had provided limited electricity and allowed the import of food, fuel and consumer goods, while heavily restricting travel in and out.

    After about 48 hours of pitched battles inside Israel, the chief military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told reporters Israel has “control” of its border communities. He said there had been some isolated incidents early Monday, but that “at this stage, there is no fighting in the communities.”

    But he added that militants may remain inside Israel, and said that 15 of 24 border communities have been evacuated, with the rest expected to be emptied in the coming day.

    Earlier, Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif al-Qanoua told The Associated Press over the phone that the group’s fighters continued to battle outside Gaza and had captured more Israelis as recently as Monday morning.

    He said the group aims to free all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which in the past has agreed to painful, lopsided exchanges in which it released large numbers of prisoners for individual captives or even the remains of soldiers.

    Egypt is trying to mediate an initial deal in which Hamas would release captive women in exchange for Israel freeing female Palestinian prisoners, Egypt’s state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper reported. It said that if both sides agree, there would be a temporary cease-fire to facilitate the exchange.

    Among the captives that Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group claim to have taken are soldiers and civilians, including women, children and older adults, mostly Israelis but also some people of other nationalities. The Israeli military has said only that the number of captives is “significant.”

    Mayyan Zin, a divorced mother of two, said she learned that her two daughters had been abducted when a relative sent her photos from a Telegram group showing them sitting on mattresses in captivity. She then found online videos taken inside her ex-husband’s home, showing gunmen, her two girls — ages 8 and 15 — and their father.

    In its airstrikes, Israel’s military said it leveled much of Beit Hanoun — a town in northeast Gaza that military spokesperson Hagari said Hamas was using the as a staging ground for attacks. There was no immediate word on casualties, and most of the community’s population of tens of thousands likely fled beforehand.

    Hagari reiterated that the goal is to decimate Hamas’ military and governing capabilities — a massive task given that the group has ruled Gaza through the 16-year blockade and four previous wars with Israel.

    After breaking through Israeli barriers with explosives at daybreak Saturday, Hamas gunmen rampaged for hours, gunning down civilians and snatching people in towns, along highways and at a techno music festival attended by thousands in the desert. Palestinian militants have also launched around 4,400 rockets at Israel, according to the military.

    The Israeli military estimated 1,000 Hamas fighters took part in Saturday’s initial incursion. The high figure underscored the extent of planning by the militant group, which has said it launched the attack in response to mounting Palestinian suffering under Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, its blockade of Gaza, its discriminatory policies in annexed east Jerusalem and tensions around a disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Muslims and Jews.

    The Palestinians want a state of their own in all three territories, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, but the last serious peace talks broke down well over a decade ago, and Israel’s far-right government is opposed to Palestinian statehood.

    In Gaza, where the U.N. said more than 123,000 people had been displaced by the fighting, residents feared further escalation.

    As of late Sunday, Israeli airstrikes had destroyed 159 housing units across the territory and severely damaged 1,210 others, the U.N. said. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit. It did not say where the fire came from.

    In the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed 19 people, including women and children, said Talat Barhoum, a doctor at the local Al-Najjar Hospital. Barhoum said aircraft hit the home of the Abu Hilal family, and that one of those killed was Rafaat Abu Hilal, a leader of a local armed group.

    Over the weekend, another airstrike on a home in Rafah killed 19 members of the Abu Quta family, including women and children, survivors said.

    Several Israeli media outlets, citing rescue service officials, said those killed on the Israeli side include at least 73 soldiers. The Gaza Health Ministry said 493 people, including 78 children and 41 women, were killed in the territory. Thousands have been wounded on both sides. An Israeli official said security forces have killed 400 militants and captured dozens more.

    On Sunday, the U.S. dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel.

    In northern Israel, a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group fanned fears that the fighting could expand into a wider regional war. The Israeli military said the situation was calm after the exchange.

    Elsewhere, six Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers Sunday around the West Bank.

    ___

    This story has been updated to correct the name of Palestinian family to Abu Quta, not Abu Outa.

    ___

    Adwan reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Wafaa Shurafa in Gaza City; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Bassem Mroue in Beirut; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Israel intensifies Gaza strikes and battles to repel Hamas, with over 1,100 dead in fighting so far

    Israel intensifies Gaza strikes and battles to repel Hamas, with over 1,100 dead in fighting so far

    [ad_1]

    JERUSALEM — Israel’s military battled to drive Hamas fighters out of southern towns and seal its borders Monday, as it pounded the Gaza Strip from the air and mustered for a campaign its prime minister said would destroy “the military and governing capabilities” of the militant group.

    Civilians paid a high price on both sides. At least 700 people have reportedly been killed in Israel — a staggering toll on a scale the country has not experienced in decades — and more than 400 have been killed in Gaza. Palestinian militant groups claimed to be holding over 130 captives from the Israeli side.

    More than two days after Hamas launched its unprecedented incursion out of Gaza, Israeli forces were still battling militants holed up in several locations.

    As Monday began, the military said it was fighting Hamas in “seven to eight” places in southern Israel.

    Military spokesperson Richard Hecht said it was taking longer than expected to repel the incursion because there were still multiple breaches in the border, which Hamas could be using to bring in more fighters and weapons. “We thought this morning we’d be in a better place,” Hecht said.

    The Israeli Defense Forces said that 70 additional militants infiltrated Be’eri kibbutz, which the military has been unable to wrest from Hamas, overnight.

    Meanwhile, Israel hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza, its military said, including airstrikes that leveled much of the town of Beit Hanoun in the enclave’s northeast corner.

    Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters Hamas was using the town as a staging ground for attacks. There was no immediate word on casualties, and most of the community’s population of tens of thousands likely fled beforehand.

    “We will continue to attack in this way, with this force, continuously, on all gathering (places) and routes” used by Hamas, Hagari said.

    The declaration of war portended greater fighting ahead, and a major question was whether Israel would launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties. An Israeli military spokesperson said that the army had called up around 100,000 reservists, and said in a statement that Israel would aim to end Hamas’ rule of Gaza.

    “Our task is to make sure that Hamas will no longer have any military capabilities to threaten Israel with this,” said spokesperson Jonathan Conricus in a video tweeted by Israel’s military. “And in addition to that, we will make sure that Hamas is no longer able to govern the Gaza Strip.”

    After breaking through Israeli barriers with explosives at daybreak Saturday, the Hamas gunmen rampaged for hours, gunning down civilians and snatching people in towns, along highways and at a techno music festival attended by thousands in the desert. The rescue service Zaka said it removed about 260 bodies from the festival, and that number was expected to rise. It was not clear how many of those bodies were already included in Israel’s overall toll.

    The Israeli military estimated 1,000 Hamas fighters took part in Saturday’s initial incursion. The high figure underscored the extent of planning by the militant group ruling Gaza, which has said it launched the attack in response to mounting Palestinian suffering under Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza.

    Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group claimed to have taken captive more than 130 people from inside Israel and brought them into Gaza, saying they would be traded for the release of thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The announcement, though unconfirmed, was the first sign of the scope of abductions.

    The captives are known to include soldiers and civilians, including women, children and older adults, mostly Israelis but also some people of other nationalities. The Israeli military said only that the number of captives is “significant.”

    Mayyan Zin, a divorced mother of two, said she learned that her two daughters had been abducted when a relative sent her photos from a Telegram group showing them sitting on mattresses in captivity. She then found online videos of a chilling scene in her ex-husband’s home in the town of Nahal Oz: Gunmen who had broken in speak to him, his leg bleeding, in the living room near the two terrified, weeping daughters, Dafna, 15, and Ella, 8. Another video showed the father being taken across the border into Gaza.

    “Just bring my daughters home and to their family. All the people,” Zin said.

    The Israeli military was evacuating at least five towns close to Gaza, while the U.N. said more than 123,000 Gazans had been displaced by the fighting.

    In Gaza, a tiny enclave of 2.3 million people sealed off by an Israeli-Egyptian blockade for 16 years since the Hamas takeover, residents feared further escalation.

    As of late Sunday, Israeli airstrikes had destroyed 159 housing units across Gaza and severely damaged 1,210 others, the U.N. said. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said a school sheltering more than 225 people took a direct hit. It did not say where the fire came from.

    In the Palestinian city of Rafah in southern Gaza, an Israeli airstrike early Monday killed 19 people, including women and children, said Talat Barhoum, a doctor at the local Al-Najjar Hospital. Barhoum said aircraft hit the home of the Abu Hilal family, and that one of those killed was Rafaat Abu Hilal, a leader of a local armed group. The strike caused damage to surrounding homes.

    Over the weekend, another airstrike on a home in Rafah killed 19 members of the Abu Outa family, including women and children, when they were huddling on the ground floor in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, survivors said.

    Several Israeli media outlets, citing rescue service officials, said at least 700 people have been killed in Israel, including 73 soldiers. The Gaza Health Ministry said 413 people, including 78 children and 41 women, were killed in the territory. Some 2,000 people have been wounded on each side. An Israeli official said security forces have killed 400 militants and captured dozens more.

    The declaration of war was largely symbolic, said Yohanan Plesner, the head of the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank, but it “demonstrates that the government thinks we are entering a more lengthy, intense and significant period of war.”

    Israel has carried out major military campaigns over the past four decades in Lebanon and Gaza that it portrayed as wars, but without a formal declaration.

    The presence of hostages in Gaza complicates Israel’s response. Israel has a history of making heavily lopsided exchanges to bring captive Israelis home.

    An Egyptian official said Israel sought help from Cairo to ensure the safety of the hostages. Egypt also spoke with both sides about a potential cease-fire, but Israel was not open to a truce “at this stage,” according to the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to brief media.

    On Sunday, the U.S. dispatched an aircraft carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel, and said it would send additional military aid.

    In northern Israel, a brief exchange of strikes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group fanned fears that the fighting could expand into a wider regional war. Hezbollah fired rockets and shells Sunday at Israeli positions in a disputed area along the border, and Israel fired back using armed drones. The Israeli military said the situation was calm after the exchange.

    Elsewhere, six Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers Sunday around the West Bank.

    Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

    ___

    Adwan reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem; Wafaa Shurafa in Gaza City; Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel; Bassem Mroue in Beirut; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • The Marines are moving gradually and sometimes reluctantly to integrate women and men in boot camp

    The Marines are moving gradually and sometimes reluctantly to integrate women and men in boot camp

    [ad_1]

    PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. — Under a scorching sky at Marine Base Parris Island, two young recruits grapple awkwardly in hand-to-hand combat inside an Octagon training structure. Circling them, the drill instructor barks orders, “Hit her! Punch her! DO something!”

    Outside the ring, a mix of male and female Marine hopefuls are helping each other put on protective headgear, preparing for their turn at combat. They are assigned to one of the mixed-gender recruit companies as the Marine Corps moves gradually — and at times reluctantly — to more integrated training at boot camp.

    It’s been a bit hit-and-miss.

    While companies of men and women train together at the ring, on the obstacle course or at the range, the line of recruits outside the swimming pool presents a sharp contrast. There the companies are broken up into their smaller platoons that remain separated by gender. So as they line up, there is a small group of women standing rod-straight at the front with groups of men in formation behind them.

    It’s a stark visual reminder that Corps leaders still fervently believe there must be a degree of segregation as they mold young people into tomorrow’s force of what they promote as the Few, the Proud, the Marines.

    This summer — nearly eight years after the defense secretary at the time, Ash Carter, ordered all combat jobs open to women — the Marine Corps formally deactivated the 4th Marine Recruit Training Battalion at Parris Island. Since 1949, all female recruits have gone through boot camp at the South Carolina base; the 4th Battalion was created in 1986 as the women’s unit.

    The Marines have inched grudgingly toward integration. Marine leaders flatly opposed allowing women in combat jobs, but Carter dismissed their arguments. Many Corps officers stridently defended the training separation, insisting that women could grow more confident quickly if they were not directly competing with their often larger or stronger male counterparts.

    Under pressure from Congress, the Marines over the past four years gradually made the 4th Battalion coed, then disbanded it in June. The remaining recruit battalions include a mix of gender-integrated and all-male companies.

    Now, Marine leaders say, boot camp is integrated.

    But from watching the training for several days, it’s not that clear-cut.

    Inside the pool, men and women struggle side by side, jumping off a platform and swimming to the other end. Some wear their fatigues inside out, identifying them as Marines who are just learning to swim and flailing the length of the pool in a mix of dog paddle and haphazard overhand stroke. Instructors are also a mix of men and women, and they line the sides ready to toss a float or jump in if needed.

    But outside, a group of recruits moving through the woods and then dropping to crawl across a stretch of blistering hot sand are all men trying to get through the final tests to become a Marine. A second group on a different part of the course also includes no women.

    Brig. Gen. Walker Field, who heads the recruit depot, is insistent that keeping the platoons segregated by gender is key to the way the Corps makes Marines — by taking individuals, breaking them down and building them back up as team members.

    “We have established a tried-and-true manner by which we train Marines that proves effective in transforming young Americans,” he said in a recent interview at Parris Island. “We break down their individuality and grow them as a team. We’re adamant about that outcome. Having the platoon model is absolutely part of that.”

    He added that by 2024, training at Marine Recruit Depot San Diego on the West Coast will also be fully integrated. Female recruits will then be split evenly between the two locations.

    Field said keeping the platoons all one gender allows unit leaders to provide guidance and instruction tailored for each group when they are together in their barracks in the evenings. “Being the same gender at the platoon level allows us to optimize the training schedule every single day and every hour of the day,” he said.

    Some measure of all-male companies would be necessary no matter what because there just are not enough female recruits to go around. Of all the military services, the Corps has the smallest percentage of woman, hovering between 8% and 9%.

    Lt. Col. Aixa Dones and other female officers are also strong advocates of the continued segregation.

    “As someone who came through this battalion as a recruit and has worked here as a young company grade officer, I would advocate that there’s goodness to there being all-female platoons,” said Dones, who served as the last commander of the 4th Battalion before its shutdown this year.

    Speaking in the former battalion’s offices, now largely empty, she said she remembers being a young recruit, and “I can’t imagine it having gone any other way.” Noting that 17- and 18-year-olds are not too mature, she said they can easily get distracted by “liking and feelings and emotions.”

    She and others say keeping the men and women in separate platoons helps them stay focused and that changing to full integration could present problems.

    Out near the firing range, Sgt. Maria Torres, a drill instructor, is working on firearm basics with her all-female platoon. The company-level integration, she said, is necessary and a good start. But expanding it to the platoon level might have consequences, so “we’d have to start small.”

    But many disagree. They say the separate platoons only reinforce the stigma that the women are not considered equal and should be treated differently.

    Erin Kirk, a former Marine sergeant who went through the more segregated training in 2010, remembers the ridicule and the cat calls from male recruits who looked down on the women in the 4th Battalion. The split, she said, divided them into “male Marines” and “female Marines,” and that shaped the men’s view of the women and made it more difficult for them to work together as they moved along.

    “It made you feel like you weren’t part of the team. It made it difficult to be seen as a real Marine,” said Kirk, who served for five years. “Now we have the opportunity to have equity and inclusion and not be seen as an ‘other.’”

    Another female Marine officer — who is still on active duty and has served for more than 15 years — said her first surprise as a new recruit was when she was issued her uniform and realized it was not the same as the one her male recruiter had worn.

    Her uniform did not have the same collar and the hat was different. And when she got to Parris Island, “the first class I got was how to do my hair. We’re training to be the most lethal force and the first thing you learn is how to do my hair.”

    The officer spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid any repercussions because she is still in the Corps.

    Asked about those complaints, Dones disagreed that the segregation presented problems for the women.

    “Our female platoons have been outperforming our male teams, and we have had more female company honor graduates than we have had male,” she said.

    Young female recruits, who usually come from high schools where there is little separation, acknowledge the differences but voice no complaints.

    Nicole Momura, 22, said she chose the Marines because she thought it was the hardest military branch, and “this recruit was looking for something bigger than herself.” She shrugged off the platoon segregation, noting that “we’re all going to be working together in the fleet.”

    Nubia Delatorre, 19, said she is proud to be a member of the second female platoon in Bravo Company, but admits the men and women do not interact very much. “We’re not allowed to talk to the males,” she said.

    Taking a quick pause from her workout inside the gym, where she was recovering from a stress fracture of her hip, Delatorre said she believes they all get the same training. She said she joined the Marine Corps because “I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something hard.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Hamas surprise attack out of Gaza stuns Israel and leaves hundreds dead in fighting, retaliation

    Hamas surprise attack out of Gaza stuns Israel and leaves hundreds dead in fighting, retaliation

    [ad_1]

    JERUSALEM — Backed by a barrage of rockets, dozens of Hamas militants broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and into nearby Israeli towns, killing dozens and abducting others in an unprecedented surprise early morning attack during a major Jewish holiday Saturday. A stunned Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza, with its prime minister saying the country is now at war with Hamas and vowing to inflict an “unprecedented price.”

    In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip, including towns and other communities as far as 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Gaza border. In some places, they roamed for hours, gunning down civilians and soldiers as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response. Gunbattles continued well after nightfall, and militants held hostages in standoffs in two towns and occupied a police station in a third.

    Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, said at least 250 people were killed and 1,500 wounded, making it the deadliest attack in Israel in decades. At least 232 people in the Gaza Strip have been killed and at least 1,700 wounded in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Hamas fighters took an unknown number of civilians and soldiers captive into Gaza, a deeply sensitive issue for Israel, in harrowing scenes posted on social media videos.

    The conflict threatened to escalate to an even deadlier stage with Israel’s vows of greater retaliation. Previous conflicts between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers brought widespread death and destruction in Gaza and days of rocket fire on Israeli towns. The situation is potentially more volatile now, with Israel’s far-right government stung by the security breach and with Palestinians in despair over a never-ending occupation in the West Bank and suffocating blockade of Gaza.

    In a televised address Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier declared Israel to be at war, said the military will use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities and “take revenge for this black day. But he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”

    “All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins,” he added. “Get out of there now,” he told Gaza residents, who have no way to leave the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory of 2.3 million people.

    After nightfall, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza intensified, flattening several residential buildings in giant explosions, including a 14-story tower that held dozens of apartments as well as Hamas offices in central Gaza City. Israeli forces fired a warning just before, and there were no reports of casualties.

    Soon after, a Hamas rocket barrage into central Israel hit four cities, including Tel Aviv and a nearby suburb, where two people were seriously injured. Throughout the day, Hamas fired more than 3,500 rockets, the Israeli military said.

    In the southern Gaza city of Rafah, an Israeli airstrike late Saturday flattened a home, killing 12 members of the Abu Qouto family, neighbors said. Ten members of a family in the northern town of Jebalya were killed in another airstrike, relatives said. It was not known why the homes were targeted.

    The strength, sophistication and timing of the Saturday morning attack shocked Israelis. Hamas fighters used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast without resistance from the military.

    In some towns, a trail of civilians’ bodies lay where they had encountered the advancing gunmen. On the road outside the town of Sderot, a bloodied woman slumped dead in the seat of her car. At least nine people gunned down at a bus shelter in the town were laid out on stretchers on the street, their bags still on the curb nearby. One woman, screaming, embraced the body of a family member sprawled under a sheet next to a toppled motorcycle; as she was led away, she picked up the dead person’s helmet from the ground nearby.

    In amateur video, hundreds of terrified young people who had been dancing at a rave fled for their lives after Hamas militants entered the area and began firing at them. Israeli media said dozens of people were killed.

    Associated Press photos showed an abducted elderly Israeli woman being brought back into Gaza on a golf cart by Hamas gunmen and another woman squeezed between two fighters on a motorcycle. Images also showed fighters parading captured Israeli military vehicles through Gaza streets.

    Among the dead in Israel was Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer who commanded the military’s Nahal Brigade, a prominent infantry unit.

    The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa — the disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount — increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians and growth of settlements.

    “Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message. He said the attack was only the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight. “Today the people are regaining their revolution.”

    The Hamas incursion on Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll, revived painful memories of the 1973 Mideast war practically 50 years to the day, in which Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, aiming to take back Israeli-occupied territories.

    Comparisons to one of the most traumatic moments in Israeli history sharpened criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned on more aggressive action against threats from Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the government and military over its failure to anticipate what appeared to be a Hamas attack unseen in its level of planning and coordination.

    Asked by reporters how Hamas had managed to catch the army off guard, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesman, replied, “That’s a good question.”

    The abduction of Israeli civilians and soldiers also raised a particularly thorny issue for Israel, which has a history of making heavily lopsided exchanges to bring captive Israelis home.

    Hamas’ military wing claimed it was holding dozens of Israeli soldiers captive in “safe places” and tunnels in the Gaza Strip. Hecht confirmed that a number of Israelis were abducted but would not give a figure, saying only that the number was “substantial.”

    If true, the claim could set the stage for complicated negotiations on a swap with Israel, which is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons.

    An unknown number of civilians were also taken. AP journalists saw four taken from the kibbutz of Kfar Azza, including two women. In Gaza, a black jeep pulled to a stop and, when the rear door opened, a young Israeli woman stumbled out, bleeding from the head and with her hands tied behind her back. A man waving a gun in the air grabbed her by the hair and pushed her into the vehicle’s back seat. Israeli TV reported that workers from Thailand and the Philippines were also among the captives.

    In the kibbutz of Nahal Oz, just 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Gaza Strip, terrified residents who were huddled indoors said they could hear constant gunfire echoing off the buildings as firefights continued.

    “With rockets we somehow feel safer, knowing that we have the Iron Dome (missile defense system) and our safe rooms. But knowing that terrorists are walking around communities is a different kind of fear,” said Mirjam Reijnen, a 42-year-old volunteer firefighter and mother of three.

    Earlier in the day, Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.

    Israel’s military was bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area, the spokesman Hagari said. And the Israeli military later released an Arabic-language video warning Gazans to leave their homes in targeted areas of the dense coastal enclave.

    In Gaza, much of the population was thrown into darkness after nightfall as electrical supplies from Israel — which supplies almost all the territories’ power — were cut off. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel would stop supplying electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.

    Hamas said it had planned for a potentially long fight. “We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, told Al-Jazeera TV. “We are ready to do whatever is necessary for the dignity and freedom of our people.”

    U.S. President Joe Biden said from the White House that he had spoken with Netanyahu to say the United States “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop.”

    Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks with the U.S. about normalizing relations with Israel, called on both sides to exercise restraint. The kingdom said it had repeatedly warned about the danger of “the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation (and) the Palestinian people being deprived of their legitimate rights.”

    Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group congratulated Hamas, praising the attack as a response to “Israeli crimes.” The group said its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.

    The attack comes at a time of historic division within Israel over Netanyahu’s proposal to overhaul the judiciary. Mass protests over the plan have sent hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators into the streets and prompted hundreds of military reservists to avoid volunteer duty — turmoil that has raised fears over the military’s battlefield readiness.

    It also comes at a time of mounting tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, with the peace process effectively dead for years. Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there and tensions have flared around a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

    Palestinians demonstrated in towns and cities around the West Bank on Saturday night amid the offensive from Gaza and Israeli retaliation. Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire killed five there, but gave few details.

    ___

    Adwan reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • A Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine kills a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother

    A Russian missile attack in eastern Ukraine kills a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother

    [ad_1]

    KHARKIV, Ukraine — A Russian missile attack killed a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother Friday in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, officials said, a day after a strike in the same region killed at least 51 civilians in one of the deadliest attacks in the war in months.

    Associated Press reporters saw emergency crews pulling the boy’s body from the rubble of a building after the early morning attack. He was wearing pajamas with a Spider-Man design.

    The strike also killed the boy’s grandmother and injured an 11-month-old child, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

    Regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said 30 people were wounded and rescue operations were continuing.

    Officials said preliminary information indicated the Kremlin’s forces used two Iskander missiles in the attack, the same as in the previous day’s attack on the eastern village of Hroza that killed 51.

    One of the missiles landed in the street, leaving a crater, and the other hit a three-story building, setting it ablaze, according to Syniehubov.

    Debris and rubble littered the street. Surrounding buildings were blackened by the blast, which blew out windows and damaged parked cars.

    Yevhen Shevchenko, a resident of a nearby nine-story building, said he was in bed when the attack occurred. “There was a blast wave, a powerful explosion. It blew out the windows and doors in the apartment,” he said.

    A day earlier, a Russian Iskander ballistic missile turned a village cafe and store to rubble in Hroza, a village in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 51 civilians, according to Ukrainian officials.

    Around 60 people, including children, were attending a wake at the cafe when the missile hit, the officials said.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Friday that Russia was responsible for the Hroza attack. He insisted, as Moscow has in the past, that the Russian military doesn’t target civilian facilities.

    The Hroza victims made up most of the 54 civilians killed in the country over the previous 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office said Friday.

    The office of the U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, said he was “shocked and saddened” by the Hroza attack.

    It said on X, formerly Twitter, that its human rights monitors intended to visit the site and collect information. “Accountability is key,” it said.

    Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, attending a summit of about 50 European leaders in Spain to rally support from Ukraine’s allies, called the strike a “demonstrably brutal Russian crime” and “a completely deliberate act of terrorism.”

    His visit to the summit aimed to secure more military aid, among other goals, and Zelenskyy said late Thursday that his efforts had produced results.

    “We will have more air defense systems,” he wrote on his Telegram channel. “There will be more long-range weapons.”

    The air defense systems are crucial as Ukrainian officials try to prevent attacks like the ones in Kharkiv and amid fears Moscow will resume concerted attacks on power facilities during the winter, in a repeat of its tactics last year when it tried to break Ukrainians’ spirit by denying them electricity.

    Zelenskyy is also fighting against signs that Western support for his country’s war effort could be fraying.

    Concerns over the resupply of Ukraine’s armed forces have deepened amid political turmoil in the United States and warnings that Europe’s ammunition and military hardware stocks are running low.

    The Swedish government said Friday it plans to send to Ukraine a military aid package worth 2.2 billion kronor ($199 million), mainly consisting of 155-millimeter artillery ammunition.

    “We are preparing for it to be a long war, therefore we need to design our support long-term and sustainably,” Defense Minister Pål Jonson told a press conference. “It is now important that more countries step up to support Ukraine.”

    ___

    Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    [ad_2]

    Source link