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Federal authorities have set up checkpoints around the nation’s capital, asking people for their immigration status and detaining them. President Donald Trump claims a crime crisis requires this intervention, despite statistics showing the problem was waning. Immigration enforcement seems to…
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By CHRIS MEGERIAN and JACQUELYN MARTIN – Associated Press
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Police officers arrested 18 people at worker-led protests at Microsoft headquarters Wednesday as the tech company promises an “urgent” review of the Israeli military’s use of its technology during the ongoing war in Gaza.
Two consecutive days of protest at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington called for the tech giant to immediately cut its business ties with Israel.
But unlike Tuesday, when about 35 protesters occupying a plaza between office buildings left after Microsoft asked them to leave, the protesters on Wednesday “resisted and became aggressive” after the company told police they were trespassing, according to the Redmond Police Department.
The protesters also splattered red paint resembling the color of blood over a landmark sign that bears the company logo and spells Microsoft in big gray letters.
“We said, ‘Please leave or you will be arrested,’ and they chose not to leave so they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.
Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
“Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage,” the company said in a statement posted Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”
In February, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about the tech giant’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with military use of commercial artificial intelligence products skyrocketing by nearly 200 times after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The AP reported that the Israeli military uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance, which can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI-enabled targeting systems.
Following The AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged the military applications but said a review it commissioned found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review or say who conducted it.
Microsoft said it will share the latest review’s findings after it’s completed by law firm Covington & Burling.
The promise of a second review was insufficient for the employee-led No Azure for Apartheid group, which for months has protested Microsoft’s supplying the Israeli military with technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza. The group said Wednesday the technology is “being used to surveil, starve and kill Palestinians.”
Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the contracts, and in April, fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.
On Tuesday, the protesters posted online a call for what they called a “worker intifada,” using language evoking the Palestinian uprisings against Israeli military occupation that began in 1987.
On Wednesday, the police department said it took 18 people into custody “for multiple charges, including trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest, and obstruction.” It wasn’t clear how many were Microsoft employees. No injuries were reported.
Microsoft said in a statement after the arrests that it “will continue to do the hard work needed to uphold its human rights standards in the Middle East, while supporting and taking clear steps to address unlawful actions that damage property, disrupt business or that threaten and harm others.”
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Police officers arrested 18 people at worker-led protests at Microsoft headquarters Wednesday as the tech company promises an “urgent” review of the Israeli military’s use of its technology during the ongoing war in Gaza.
Two consecutive days of protest at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington called for the tech giant to immediately cut its business ties with Israel.
But unlike Tuesday, when about 35 protesters occupying a plaza between office buildings left after Microsoft asked them to leave, the protesters on Wednesday “resisted and became aggressive” after the company told police they were trespassing, according to the Redmond Police Department.
The protesters also splattered red paint resembling the color of blood over a landmark sign that bears the company logo and spells Microsoft in big gray letters.
“We said, ‘Please leave or you will be arrested,’ and they chose not to leave so they were detained,” said police spokesperson Jill Green.
Microsoft late last week said it was tapping a law firm to investigate allegations reported by British newspaper The Guardian that the Israeli Defense Forces used Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to store phone call data obtained through the mass surveillance of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
“Microsoft’s standard terms of service prohibit this type of usage,” the company said in a statement posted Friday, adding that the report raises “precise allegations that merit a full and urgent review.”
In February, The Associated Press revealed previously unreported details about the tech giant’s close partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, with military use of commercial artificial intelligence products skyrocketing by nearly 200 times after the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. The AP reported that the Israeli military uses Azure to transcribe, translate and process intelligence gathered through mass surveillance, which can then be cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI-enabled targeting systems.
Following The AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged the military applications but said a review it commissioned found no evidence that its Azure platform and artificial intelligence technologies were used to target or harm people in Gaza. Microsoft did not share a copy of that review or say who conducted it.
Microsoft said it will share the latest review’s findings after it’s completed by law firm Covington & Burling.
The promise of a second review was insufficient for the employee-led No Azure for Apartheid group, which for months has protested Microsoft’s supplying the Israeli military with technology used for its war against Hamas in Gaza. The group said Wednesday the technology is “being used to surveil, starve and kill Palestinians.”
Microsoft in May fired an employee who interrupted a speech by CEO Satya Nadella to protest the contracts, and in April, fired two others who interrupted the company’s 50th anniversary celebration.
On Tuesday, the protesters posted online a call for what they called a “worker intifada,” using language evoking the Palestinian uprisings against Israeli military occupation that began in 1987.
On Wednesday, the police department said it took 18 people into custody “for multiple charges, including trespassing, malicious mischief, resisting arrest, and obstruction.” It wasn’t clear how many were Microsoft employees. No injuries were reported.
Microsoft said in a statement after the arrests that it “will continue to do the hard work needed to uphold its human rights standards in the Middle East, while supporting and taking clear steps to address unlawful actions that damage property, disrupt business or that threaten and harm others.”
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President Donald Trump’s decision to increase federal law enforcement and immigration agents in Washington, D.C., has had an impact on neighborhoods like Columbia Heights. On Tuesday, vendors noticed fewer customers, especially Spanish speakers. The White House reported 450 arrests since…
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By MATT BROWN, LINDSAY WHITEHURST and CHRIS MEGERIAN – Associated Press
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NEW YORK (AP) — A New Jersey man who was among seven people charged with smuggling electronic components to aid Russia’s war effort pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other charges, authorities said.
Vadim Yermolenko, 43, faces up to 30 years in prison for his role in a transnational procurement and money laundering network that sought to acquire sensitive electronics for Russian military and intelligence services, Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Yermolenko, who lives in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and has dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, was indicted along with six other people in December 2022.
Prosecutors said the conspirators worked with two Moscow-based companies controlled by Russian intelligence services to acquire electronic components in the U.S. that have civilian uses but can also be used to make nuclear and hypersonic weapons and in quantum computing.
The exporting of the technology violated U.S. sanctions, prosecutors said.
The prosecution was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency entity dedicated to enforcing sanctions imposed after Russian invaded Ukraine.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in statement that Yermolenko “joins the nearly two dozen other criminals that our Task Force KleptoCapture has brought to justice in American courtrooms over the past two and a half years for enabling Russia’s military aggression.”
A message seeking comment was sent to Yermolenko’s attorney with the federal public defender’s office.
Prosecutors said Yermolenko helped set up shell companies and U.S. bank accounts to move money and export-controlled goods. Money from one of his accounts was used to purchase export-controlled sniper bullets that were intercepted in Estonia before they could be smuggled into Russia, they said.
One of Yermolenko’s co-defendants, Alexey Brayman of Merrimack, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty previously to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentencing.
Another, Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States. He was later released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other individuals.
The four others named in the indictment are Russian nationals who remain at large, prosecutors said.
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NEW YORK — A New Jersey man who was among seven people charged with smuggling electronic components to aid Russia’s war effort pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and other charges, authorities said.
Vadim Yermolenko, 43, faces up to 30 years in prison for his role in a transnational procurement and money laundering network that sought to acquire sensitive electronics for Russian military and intelligence services, Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Yermolenko, who lives in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey and has dual U.S. and Russian citizenship, was indicted along with six other people in December 2022.
Prosecutors said the conspirators worked with two Moscow-based companies controlled by Russian intelligence services to acquire electronic components in the U.S. that have civilian uses but can also be used to make nuclear and hypersonic weapons and in quantum computing.
The exporting of the technology violated U.S. sanctions, prosecutors said.
The prosecution was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency entity dedicated to enforcing sanctions imposed after Russian invaded Ukraine.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in statement that Yermolenko “joins the nearly two dozen other criminals that our Task Force KleptoCapture has brought to justice in American courtrooms over the past two and a half years for enabling Russia’s military aggression.”
A message seeking comment was sent to Yermolenko’s attorney with the federal public defender’s office.
Prosecutors said Yermolenko helped set up shell companies and U.S. bank accounts to move money and export-controlled goods. Money from one of his accounts was used to purchase export-controlled sniper bullets that were intercepted in Estonia before they could be smuggled into Russia, they said.
One of Yermolenko’s co-defendants, Alexey Brayman of Merrimack, New Hampshire, pleaded guilty previously to conspiracy to defraud the United States and is awaiting sentencing.
Another, Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected officer with Russia’s Federal Security Service, was arrested in Estonia and extradited to the United States. He was later released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange that included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and other individuals.
The four others named in the indictment are Russian nationals who remain at large, prosecutors said.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Boeing overcharged the Air Force nearly $1 million for spare parts on C-17 cargo planes, including an 8,000% markup for simple lavatory soap dispensers, according to the Pentagon’s inspector general.
The Defense Department’s auditor reviewed prices paid for 46 spare parts on the C-17 from 2018 to 2022 and found that 12 were overpriced and nine seemed reasonably priced. It couldn’t determine the fairness of prices on the other 25 items.
The Office of the Inspector General said it reviewed the soap dispenser prices after getting a hotline tip.
Boeing disputed the findings.
“We are reviewing the report, which appears to be based on an inapt comparison of the prices paid for parts that meet aircraft and contract specifications and designs versus basic commercial items that would not be qualified or approved for use on the C-17,” Boeing said in a statement. “We will continue to work with the OIG and the U.S. Air Force to provide a detailed written response to the report in the coming days.”
The C-17 Globemaster is one of the military’s largest cargo aircraft. It can carry multiple military vehicles, large pallets of humanitarian supplies or, in extreme circumstances, hundreds of people. The Air Force flew C-17s nonstop for two weeks during the hectic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, evacuating more than 120,000 civilians fleeing the Taliban.
Since 2011, the U.S. government has awarded Boeing more than $30 billion in contracts to purchase needed spare parts for the C-17 and be reimbursed by the Air Force.
Boeing is still trying to recover from financial and reputational damage caused by two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 of its bestselling airline jet, the 737 Max.
This has been a particularly volatile year for the aerospace giant. It came under renewed scrutiny and federal investigations after a door plug flew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Federal regulators limited Boeing production of the plane.
In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a felony count of conspiracy to defraud the government for misleading regulators who approved pilot training rules for the Max. That plea deal is pending before a federal judge in Texas.
Boeing is on its third chief executive in five years, having hired an outsider who joined the company in August. Last week, Boeing reported a third-quarter loss of more than $6 billion because of charges for several commercial, defense and space programs.
A strike by 33,000 union machinists is now seven weeks old and has crippled production of 737s, 777s and 767 freighters, cutting off much-need cash. New CEO Kelly Ortberg has announced roughly 17,000 layoffs, and the company will issue new stock to raise up to $19 billion to shore up its debt-laden balance sheet.
Koenig reported from Dallas.
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BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s security forces arrested the son-in-law of the country’s former longtime military ruler, Than Shwe, for allegedly posting inflammatory statements on his Facebook account, the state-run media said Friday.
Nay Soe Maung, a 67-year-old retired colonel and a former army medical officer, was the latest to be arrested and jailed for writing Facebook posts that allegedly spread inflammatory news.
His arrest came two weeks after he posted criticism of the current military leader and his condolences for the death of Zaw Myint Maung, a senior member of Myanmar’s former ruling party whose government was ousted during the 2021 military takeover.
The state-run The Mirror Daily newspaper said Nay Soe Maung was detained and prosecuted at a police station in Pyigyidagun township in Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city on Wednesday.
Friday’s report said people who make incitements or share propaganda and support for opposition groups on social media will be prosecuted under the country’s laws including counter-terrorism, electronic transactions, sedition and incitement.
Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb.1, 2021. The army’s takeover triggered mass public protests that the military and police responded to with lethal force, triggering armed resistance and violence that has escalated into a civil war.
Myanmar’s military leadership is known for being close-knit, secretive and sensitive.
Data for Myanmar, an independent research group, said in a report last month that about 1,691 people were detained for criticizing the military regime and showing support for opposition groups on social media since the army takeover.
Nay Soe Maung is married to a daughter of dictator Than Shwe, who ruled from 1992 until 2011, when he handed power to a nominally civilian, pro-military government. During his rule, he led a feared junta that brutally crushed dissent and routinely jailed political opponents, including Suu Kyi, the charismatic face of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement.
Nay Soe Maung served as a lecturer and rector of the University of Public Health, Yangon, the country’s largest city, after retiring as army doctor.
Before the army’s 2021 takeover, he had express support for the previous government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and joined peaceful protests on the streets in Yangon after the military arrested her during the takeover.
Days before his arrest, he posted condolences on the death of Zaw Myint Maung, Suu Kyi’s colleague and spokesperson of her NLD party.
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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey struck suspected Kurdish militant targets in Syria and Iraq for a second day on Thursday following an attack on the premises of a key defense company that killed at least five people, the state-run news agency reported.
The National Intelligence Organization targeted numerous “strategic locations” used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — the PKK — or by Syrian Kurdish militia that are affiliated with the militants, the Anadolu Agency reported. The targets included military, intelligence, energy and infrastructure facilities and ammunition depots, the report said. A security official said armed drones were used in Thursday’s strikes.
On Wednesday, Turkey’s air force carried out airstrikes against similar targets in northern Syria and northern Iraq, hours after government officials blamed the deadly attack at the headquarters of the aerospace and defense company TUSAS, on the PKK.
Defense Minister Yasar Guler said Thursday that 47 alleged PKK targets were destroyed in Wednesday’s airstrikes — 29 in Iraq and 18 in Syria.
“Our noble nation should rest assured that we will continue with increasing determination our struggle to eliminate the evil forces that threaten the security and peace of our country and people until the last terrorist disappears from this geography,” Guler said.
The assailants — a man and a woman — arrived at the TUSAS premises on the outskirts of Ankara in a taxi they commandeered after killing its driver, reports said. Armed with assault rifles, they set off explosives and opened fire, killing four people at TUSAS, including a security guard and a mechanical engineer.
Security teams were dispatched as soon as the attack started at around 3:30 pm, the interior minister said. The two assailants were also killed and more than 20 people were injured in the attack.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya named the assailants as Mine Sevjin Alcicek and Ali Orek and identified them as PKK members.
There was no immediate statement from the PKK on the attack or the Turkish airstrikes.
In Syria, the main U.S.-backed force said Turkish strikes in the north of the country killed 12 civilians and wounded 25.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Turkish warplanes and drones struck bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and local police checkpoints.
Amir Samu, an administrator at the al Swediya oil refinery in Derik, northern Syria, said overnight strikes at the facility resulted in the deaths of seven workers and guards.
“They were all poor workers working in the refinery to make a living. It is a civil institution, not military or anything like that,” he said.
Samu stated that al Swediya was the only refinery “feeding” the area. “The damage will have effects on diesel, petrol and gas,” he said.
TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its defense systems have been credited as key to Turkey gaining an upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants.
The attack occurred a day after the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party that’s allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the possibility that the PKK’s imprisoned leader could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands his organization.
Abdullah Ocalan, who was captured in 1999, is serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul.
In a related development, his nephew Omer Ocalan announced on the social platform X that on Wednesday family members were allowed to visit him for the first time since March 2020.
Omer Ocalan, a lawmaker from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, also conveyed a message from Abdullah Ocalan, saying he was being kept in isolation and offering to work to end the conflict “if the conditions are right.”
“I have the theoretical and practical power to (transform) this process from one grounded in conflict and violence to one that is grounded on law and politics,” Omer Ocalan quoted his uncle as saying.
The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.
On Thursday, large crowds gathered in the courtyard of a mosque in Ankara to take part in the funeral prayers for three of the victims, including Zahide Guclu — an engineer who was part of a TUSAS helicopter project. She was killed by the assailants after she had gone to the entrance of the complex to collect flowers sent by her husband.
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Associated Press reporters Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Hogir Abdo in Derik, Syria contributed.
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TYRE, Lebanon — Israeli jets struck multiple buildings in Lebanon’s southern coastal city of Tyre on Wednesday, sending up large clouds of black smoke, while Hezbollah confirmed that a top official widely expected to be the militant group’s next leader had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike on the nearby town of Maarakeh killed three people. There were no reports of casualties in Tyre, where the Israeli military had issued evacuation warnings prior to the strikes.
Hezbollah meanwhile fired more rockets into Israel, including two that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv before being intercepted. A cloud of smoke could be seen in the sky from the hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was staying on his latest visit to the region to try to renew cease-fire talks.
On Wednesday night, the Israeli military said another four “projectiles” crossed from Lebanon into Israel, with two intercepted and one falling in open land. There were no immediate reports of injuries, the military said.
Hezbollah confirmed that top official Hashem Safieddine had been killed in an announcement one day after Israel said it had killed him in a strike earlier this month in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Safieddine, a powerful cleric within the party ranks, had been expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike last month.
Hezbollah said Safieddine had “joined his brother, our most noble and precious martyr,” Nasrallah.
The militant group began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel, drawing retaliatory airstrikes, after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack from Gaza triggered the war there. All-out war erupted in Lebanon last month, and Israeli strikes killed Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders. Israeli ground forces invaded southern Lebanon at the beginning of October.
Tyre, a provincial capital, had largely been spared, but strikes in and around the city have intensified recently.
The 2,500-year-old city, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Beirut, is known for its pristine beaches, ancient harbor and imposing Roman ruins and hippodrome, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is among Lebanon’s largest cities and a vibrant metropolis popular with tourists.
The buildings struck Wednesday were between several heritage sites, including the hippodrome and a cluster of seaside sites associated with the ancient Phoenicians and the Crusaders.
The Israeli military issued evacuation warnings a couple of hours before the strikes for dozens of buildings in the heart of the city. It told residents to move north of the Awali River, dozens of kilometers (miles) to the north.
Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesman, said on the platform X there were Hezbollah assets in the area, without elaborating or providing evidence.
The Shiite Muslim Hezbollah has a strong presence in the city, and its legislators are members of the group or its allies. But Tyre is also home to civilians with no ties to the group, including a sizable Christian community.
Civil Defense first responders warned residents through loudspeakers to evacuate and helped older adults and others who had difficulty leaving. Ali Safieddine, the head of the Civil Defense, told The Associated Press there were no casualties.
Dr. Wissam Ghazal, a health official in Tyre, said the strikes hit six buildings, flattening four of them, around 2 1/2 hours after the evacuation warnings. People displaced by the strikes could be seen in parks and sitting on the sides of nearby roads.
The head of Tyre’s disaster management unit, Mortada Mhanna, told the AP that although many had fled, thousands of residents and others displaced from other areas remain. Many people, including hundreds of families, previously had fled villages in South Lebanon to seek refuge in shelters in Tyre.
An estimated 15,000 people remain in the city out of a pre-war population of about 100,000, Mhanna said.
On Wednesday night the pan-Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen, which is politically allied with Hezbollah, said the Israeli military struck its office building on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
“Al-Mayadeen holds the Israeli occupation accountable for the attack on a known media office for a known media outlet,” the TV station said. It added that the office had been evacuated. The Israeli army did not issue a warning prior to the strike.
On Nov. 21, an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon killed two Al-Mayadeen journalists reporting on military activity along the border with Israel.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 28 people were killed and 139 wounded over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll since the conflict began last year to 2,574, with 12,001 people wounded. The fighting has driven 1.2 million people from their homes, including more than 400,000 children, according to the U.N. children’s agency.
On Wednesday, rescuers recovered the bodies of a mother and her 7-year-old child two days after an Israeli airstrike on Monday hit a densely populated slum near Beirut’s main public hospital, Saad al-Ahmar, the commander of the Civil Defense’s southern district fire and rescue unit, told The Associated Press.
Monday’s strike killed at least 18 people, including four children, and wounded over 60 others, the Health Ministry said. It also damaged the nearby Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Beirut’s primary public medical facility.
The Israeli military said it had targeted a Hezbollah site, without providing further details, and stated the hospital itself was not the intended target.
On the Israeli side, Hezbollah attacks have killed around 60 people, half of them soldiers. Near-daily rocket barrages have emptied communities across northern Israel, displacing some 60,000 people. In recent weeks Hezbollah has extended its range, launching scores of rockets daily and regularly targeting the northern Israeli city of Haifa. Most are intercepted or fall in open areas.
In Gaza, the Israeli military has pressed ahead with a major operation in the northern part of the territory, where the United Nations’ humanitarian office has said Israel has severely restricted aid deliveries. During his visit to the region, Blinken reiterated a warning that hindering aid could force the U.S. to scale back crucial military support for Israel.
Israel’s army said it had arrested about 150 suspected Palestinian militants, while about 20,000 people left Jabaliya, a refugee camp that has turned into a densely built neighborhood over the decades. The military released drone footage showing thousands of people walking past bombed buildings. Over the past few days, several Palestinians said the Israeli military forced them to leave.
The U.N. estimates 60,000 people have fled the far north of Gaza southwards over more than a two-week period.
A Palestinian resident of Beit Lahiya, near Jabaliya, told the AP that Israel’s military has rounded up hundreds of men in northern Gaza, separating them as families try to flee the area.
Hisham Abu Zaqout, a father of four, said he was held for at least three hours along with dozens of men in a school near a hospital.
The Israeli army says it is trying to uproot Hamas militants from Jabaliya, as well other parts of northern Gaza, issuing mass evacuation orders there earlier this month. Jabaliya has been the scene of on-and-off fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants for months, leaving parts of it destroyed.
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Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut and Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.
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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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BEIRUT — Israel said Tuesday that one of its airstrikes outside Beirut earlier this month killed a Hezbollah official widely expected to replace the militant group’s longtime leader, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike last month.
There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah about the fate of Hashem Safieddine, a powerful cleric who was expected to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, one of the group’s founders.
Safieddine was killed in early October in a strike that also killed 25 other Hezbollah leaders, according to Israel, whose airstrikes in southern Lebanon in recent months have killed many of Hezbollah’s top leaders, leaving the group in disarray.
Last week, Israel killed the top leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, during a battle in Gaza.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday during a trip to Israel that leaders there should “capitalize” on Sinwar’s death as an opportunity to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of hostages taken as part of the deadly Hamas attack that started the war. Blinken also stressed the need for Israel to do more to help increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office called his meeting with Blinken, which lasted more than two hours, “friendly and productive.”
The Beirut suburb where Safieddine was killed was pummeled by a series of fresh airstrikes on Tuesday, including one that leveled a building Israel said housed Hezbollah facilities. The collapse sent smoke and debris flying into the air a few hundred meters (yards) from where a spokesperson for Hezbollah had just briefed journalists about a weekend drone attack that damaged Netanyahu’s house.
Tuesday’s airstrikes came 40 minutes after Israel issued an evacuation warning for two buildings in the area that it said were used by Hezbollah. The Hezbollah press conference nearby was cut short, and an Associated Press photographer captured an image of a missile heading towards the building moments before it was destroyed. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Hezbollah’s chief spokesman, Mohammed Afif, said the group was behind the Saturday drone attack on Netanyahu’s home in the coastal town of Caesarea. Israel has said neither the prime minister nor his wife were home at the time of the attack.
Blinken’s meetings with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders was part of his 11th visit to the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. He landed hours after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into central Israel, setting off air raid sirens in populated areas and at its international airport, but causing no apparent damage or injuries.
An Israeli airstrike late Monday in Beirut destroyed several buildings across the street from the country’s largest public hospital, killing 18 people and wounding at least 60 others. The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah target, without elaborating, and said that it hadn’t targeted the hospital itself.
AP reporters visited the Rafik Hariri University Hospital on Tuesday. They saw broken windows in the hospital’s pharmacy and dialysis center, which was full of patients at the time.
Staff at another Beirut hospital feared it would be targeted after Israel alleged that Hezbollah had stashed hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold in its basement, without providing evidence.
The director of the Sahel General Hospital denied the allegations and invited journalists to visit the hospital and its two underground floors on Tuesday. AP reporters saw no sign of militants or anything out of the ordinary.
The few remaining patients had been evacuated after the Israeli military’s announcement the night before.
“We have been living in terror for the last 24 hours,” hospital director Mazen Alame said. “There is nothing under the hospital.”
Many in Lebanon fear Israel could target its hospitals in the same way it has raided medical facilities across Gaza. The Israeli military has accused Hamas and other militants of using hospitals for military purposes, allegations denied by medical staff.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Tuesday that 63 people have been killed over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,546. Three Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday, one in Gaza, one in Lebanon, and one in a rocket attack in northern Israel, according to the military.
During his meeting with Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders, Blinken underscored the need for a dramatic increase in the amount of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza, according to U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. The need for more aid in Gaza is something Blinken and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made clear in a letter to Israeli officials last week.
Miller said Blinken also stressed the importance of ending the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated earlier this month when Israel launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
The United States, Egypt and Qatar have brokered months of talks between Israel and Hamas, trying to strike a deal in which the militants would release dozens of hostages in return for an end to the war, a lasting cease-fire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
But both Israel and Hamas accused each other of making new and unacceptable demands over the summer, and the talks ground to a halt in August. Hamas says its demands haven’t changed following the killing of Sinwar.
Israel said it launched its ground invasion of Lebanon to try to stop near daily rocket attacks from Hezbollah since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has said it plans to strike Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — in response to its ballistic missile attack on Israel earlier this month.
The U.S. has also tried to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, but those efforts fell apart as tensions spiked last month with a series of Israeli strikes that killed Nasrallah and most of his senior commanders.
Israel has carried out waves of heavy airstrikes across southern Beirut and the country’s south and east, areas where Hezbollah has a strong presence. Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets, missiles and drones into Israel over the past year, including some that have reached the country’s populous center.
Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and took another 250 hostage. Around 100 of the captives are still held in Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded tens of thousands, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children. It has also caused major devastation across the territory and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million.
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Sarah El Deeb reported from Beirut. Kareem Chehayeb, Sally Abou AlJoud and Bassem Mroue contributed from Beirut and Melanie Lidman contributed from Tel Aviv.
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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — China is holding live-fire drills off the coast of its southern Fujian province facing Taiwan, just a week after a massive air-and-sea drill it called punishment for Taiwan’s president rejecting Beijing’s claims of sovereignty.
The live fire drills were being held near the Pingtan islands off Fujian province from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., according to a notice from the Maritime Safety Administration. It warned ships to avoid the area. It did not offer additional details.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said China’s drills were part of an annual exercise and was tracking them. “It cannot be ruled out that it is one of the ways to expand the deterrent effect in line with the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait,” the statement added.
Taiwan is a self-ruled island that Beijing claims is part of China. Tensions around the issue has flared in recent years. China has increased its presence in the waters and skies around Taiwan. It now increasingly sends large amounts of warplanes and navy vessels in military exercises near Taiwan and its coast guard carries out patrols.
Last week, China held a one-day military exercise aimed at practicing the “sealing off of key ports and key areas.” Taiwan counted a record one-day total of 153 aircraft, 14 navy vessels, and 12 Chinese government ships.
In response to Chinese moves, the U.S. has continued to host what it calls “freedom of navigation” transits through the Taiwan Strait. On Sunday, the destroyer USS Higgins and the Canadian frigate HMCS Vancouver transited the narrow band of ocean that separates China and Taiwan.
Germany sent two warships through the Taiwan Strait last month as it seeks to increase its defense engagement in the Asia-Pacific region.
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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned” about the unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel’s preparation for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran, a White House spokesman said Monday.
The Biden administration is still not certain if the classified information was leaked or hacked, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said. Officials don’t have any indication at this point of “additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain,” he said.
Kirby added that the Pentagon is investigating. U.S. officials on Saturday had confirmed an investigation by the administration.
“We’re deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned about any leakage of classified information into the public domain. That is not supposed to happen, and it’s unacceptable when it does,” Kirby said.
The documents are attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, and note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” an intelligence alliance comprised of the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Marked top secret, the documents first appeared online Friday on the Telegram messaging app and quickly spread among Telegram channels popular with Iranians.
Analysts at the SITE Intelligence Group, a consultancy that monitors and analyzes online threats from extremist groups, tracked the release of the documents to a Telegram channel popular with Iran-backed militias. The channel contained posts from an anonymous user with a long history of posting other supposedly top-secret content who said they had access to the leaked documents. The user also wrote that they had sold some of the material and provided it to the Iranian military.
The release comes at a pivotal time in the Middle East, as Israel considers its response to Iran’s attack.
“The smallest item — even something like the leak of this relatively innocuous document — could move things in new directions,” said Rita Katz, SITE’s co-founder and executive director.
Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the unauthorized release of the information was concerning, especially given the “high stakes of what’s going on in the Middle East right now.”
While it remains possible the information was obtained through hacking, “if this has been a leak, it is criminal and it is certainly espionage,“ Turner said Monday on the BBC.
The Telegram channel identifies itself as being based in Tehran, Iran’s capital. It previously published memes featuring Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and material in support of Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance,” which includes Middle East militant groups armed by the Islamic Republic.
One of the two documents resembled the style of other material from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency leaked by Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman who pleaded guilty in March to leaking highly classified military documents about Russia’s war on Ukraine and other national security secrets.
The U.S. has urged Israel to take advantage of its elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and press for a cease-fire in Gaza and has likewise urgently cautioned Israel not to further expand military operations in the north in Lebanon and risk a wider regional war.
However, Israel’s leadership has repeatedly stressed it will not let Iran’s missile attack go unanswered.
The investigation into the release of the documents may take some time as authorities look for digital or physical clues that could reveal how the information got out, and what implications it may have for information management and intelligence sharing with U.S. allies, according to Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“I imagine they’ll eventually get to the bottom of it,” said Wilde, who formerly worked on the National Security Council. “The intelligence community has gotten a lot better at digital chain of custody — who has seen a particular document, how many times it’s been shared, and with whom.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday declined to comment on what changes the government has made to better safeguard top secret information in the aftermath of the Discord leak. She added that Biden has “complete confidence” in the Pentagon, Justice Department and intelligence community following the latest unauthorized disclosure.
The nation’s spy agencies have worked to bolster cybersecurity since the Discord leak and the conviction of former NSA contractor Reality Winner. Accounting for human behavior, however, can be a harder challenge, according to Shawnee Delaney, a former officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now CEO of the Vaillance Group, a private threat analysis firm.
“Cybersecurity isn’t just a technological issue,” Delaney told The Associated Press. “It’s a human one, and humans are wholly unpredictable.”
Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the NSA said officials were aware of the incident but had no further comment.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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By AAMER MADHANI and DAVID KLEPPER – Associated Press
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Fox News anchor Bret Baier says he “made a mistake” during his interview with Kamala Harris in not airing video of a Donald Trump comment, something Harris pointed out to him in real time.
Baier made that admission on Thursday roughly 24 hours after his interview with the Democratic presidential candidate was aired. Just under 8 million people watched the session, Harris’ first sit-down with a Fox News Channel journalist during the campaign.
It wasn’t immediately clear, however, what Baier meant by saying he made a mistake.
Their exchange over the Trump video, one of the most contentious of the interview, came after Harris criticized her Republican opponent for saying that he might have to call out the National Guard or military to deal with “the enemy within,” whom he defined as “radical left lunatics.”
Baier then said his colleague, Harris Faulkner, had asked Trump about his “enemy within” comment earlier in the day, “and this is how he responded.” The clip showed Trump saying he wasn’t threatening anybody, and criticized “phony investigations” of him, cracking a joke his audience laughed at.
“Bret, I’m sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within … that’s not what you just showed,” Harris said.
Speaking a day later, Baier said that when he asked his staff for video to play during the interview, he was expecting to get two clips — one that showed Trump making the “enemy within” comment to Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, and the one from Faulkner’s town hall that was played during the Harris interview.
“Take a listen to what I meant to roll,” Baier said on Thursday. He then aired both clips back to back.
Yet during the interview, Baier had given no indication that he meant to air the “enemy within” comment at all, even after Harris had pointed it out. For that reason, his explanation of a mistake met with some skepticism online.
“Newsflash: When wrong clips run (which happens) hosts can easily say `Sorry that was the wrong clip,’” former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson wrote on “X.” “He or his producers would have know it was the wrong one right then.”
There was no immediate comment from a Fox representative on Friday to clarify what Baier meant.
David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
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JAKARTA, Indonesia — JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Prabowo Subianto was inaugurated Sunday as the eighth president of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation, completing his journey from an ex-general accused of rights abuses during the dark days of Indonesia’s military dictatorship to the presidential palace.
The former defense minister, who turned 73 on Thursday, was cheered through the streets by thousands of waving supporters after taking his oath on the Quran in front of lawmakers and foreign dignitaries. Banners and billboards filled the streets of the capital, Jakarta, where tens of thousands gathered for festivities.
Wearing a blue Betawi traditional cloth and a dark baseball cap, Subianto stood up in the sunroof of a white van and waved, occasionally shaking people’s hands, as his motorcade struggled to pass through the thousands of supporters calling his name and chanting “Good luck Prabowo-Gibran,” filling the road leading from the parliament building to the presidential palace.
“I see a firm and patriotic figure in him,” said Atalaric Eka Prayoga, 25. “That’s a figure we need to lead Indonesia.”
Another resident, Silky Putri, said he hopes Subianto “can build Indonesia to be more advanced and improve the current gloomy economic situation.”
Subianto was a longtime rival of the immensely popular President Joko Widodo, who ran against him for the presidency twice and refused to accept his defeat on both occasions, in 2014 and 2019.
But Widodo appointed Subianto as defense chief after his reelection, paving the way for an alliance despite their rival political parties. During the campaign, Subianto ran as the popular outgoing president’s heir, vowing to continue signature policies like the construction of a multibillion-dollar new capital city and limits on exporting raw materials intended to boost domestic industry.
Backed by Widodo, Subianto swept to a landslide victory in February’s direct presidential election on promises of policy continuity.
Subianto was sworn in with his new vice president, 37-year-old Surakarta ex-Mayor Gibran Rakabuming Raka. He chose Raka, who is Widodo’s son, as his running mate, with Widodo favoring Subianto over the candidate of his own former party. The former rivals became tacit allies, even though Indonesian presidents don’t typically endorse candidates.
But how he’ll govern the biggest economy in Southeast Asia — where nearly 90% of Indonesia’s 282 million people are Muslims — remains uncertain after a campaign in which he made few concrete promises besides continuity with the popular former president.
After decades of dictatorship under President Suharto, Indonesia was convulsed by political, ethnic and religious unrest in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, it has consolidated its democratic transition as the world’s third-largest democracy, and is home to a rapidly expanding middle class.
Subianto, who comes from one of the country’s wealthiest families, is a sharp contrast to Widodo, the first Indonesian president to emerge from outside the political and military elite.
Subianto was a special forces commander until he was expelled by the army in 1998 over accusations that he played a role in the kidnappings and torture of activists and other abuses. He never faced trial and went into self-imposed exile in Jordan in 1998, although several of his underlings were tried and convicted.
Jordanian King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein was expected to attend Sunday’s ceremony, but canceled at the last minute because of escalating Middle East tensions, instead deciding to send Foreign Affairs Minister Nancy Namrouqa as his special envoy. Subianto and Abdullah met in person in June for talks in Amman on humanitarian assistance to people affected by the war in Gaza.
Subianto, who has never held elective office, will lead a massive, diverse archipelago nation whose economy has boomed amid strong global demand for its natural resources. But he’ll have to contend with global economic distress and regional tensions in Asia, where territorial conflicts and the U.S.-China rivalry loom large.
Leaders and senior officials from more than 30 countries flew in to attend the ceremony, including Chinese Vice President Han Zheng and leaders of Southeast Asia countries. U.S. President Joe Biden sent Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Adm. Samuel Paparo, the U.S. commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, was also among the American delegation.
Analysts and the media consider Subianto a leader with greater international awareness than Widodo. He’s already held dozens of meetings with scores of foreign officials, said Adhi Priamarizki, a fellow researcher at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
He said that defense development was at the top of his list of priorities. Subianto has advocated an expansion of the military through the purchases of submarines, frigates and fighter jets and wants to initiate more defense cooperation with various countries, Priamarizki said.
The election outcome capped a long comeback for Subianto, who was banned for years from traveling to the United States and Australia.
He has vowed to continue Widodo’s modernization efforts, which have boosted Indonesia’s economic growth by building infrastructure and leveraging the country’s abundant resources. A signature policy required nickel, a major Indonesian export and a key component of electric car batteries, to be processed in local factories rather than exported raw.
He has also promised to push through Widodo’s most ambitious and controversial project: the construction of a new capital on Borneo, about 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) away from congested Jakarta.
A rousing speaker, Subianto railed against widespread corruption in his inauguration speech, saying many people are unbale to get jobs, children are malnourished and their schools are not well maintained.
“Too many of our brothers and sisters are below the poverty line, too many of our children go to school without breakfast and do not have clothes for school,” Subianto said.
Before February’s presidential election, he also promised to provide free school lunches and milk to 83 million students at more than 400,000 schools across the country. It’s projected to cost 71 trillion rupiah ($4.5 billion) in its first year and aims to reduce malnutrition and stunted growth among children.
“We must dare to see all of this and we must dare to solve all of these problems,” Subianto said Sunday.
He also pledged to continue a non-aligned foreign policy and to be a good neighbor.
“We will stand against all colonialism and we will defend the interests of oppressed people worldwide,” Subianto said.
Subianto had at least seven interactions with U.S. officials, the most among foreign officials he had met in the post-election period, and six with Chinese officials, Priamarizki said.
“It can be read as an initial signal that Prabowo intends to adopt a more balanced approach towards the two countries,” he said.
Subianto’s “good neighbor foreign policy” also signals his intention to establish stronger ties with Southeast Asian countries.
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Associated Press journalists Edna Tarigan and Andi Jatmiko contributed to this report.
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TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli forces have spent much of the past year destroying Hamas’ vast underground network in Gaza. They are now focused on dismantling tunnels and other hideouts belonging to Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.
Scarred by Hamas’ deadly raid into Israel last year that sparked the war in Gaza, Israel says it aims to prevent a similar incursion across its northern border from ever getting off the ground.
The Israeli military has combed through the dense brush of southern Lebanon for the past two weeks, uncovering what it says are Hezbollah’s deep attack capabilities — highlighted by a tunnel system equipped with weapons caches and rocket launchers that Israel says pose a direct threat to nearby communities.
Israel’s war against the Iran-backed militant group stretches far inside Lebanon, and its airstrikes in recent weeks have killed more than 1,700 people, about a quarter of whom were women and children, according to local health authorities. But its ground campaign has centered on a narrow patch of land just along the border, where Hezbollah has had a longstanding presence.
Hezbollah, which has called for Israel’s destruction, is the Arab world’s most significant paramilitary force. It began firing rockets into Israel a day after Hamas’ attack. After nearly a year of tit-for-tat fighting with Hezbollah, Israel launched its ground invasion into southern Lebanon on Oct. 1 and has since sent thousands of troops into the rugged terrain.
Even as it continues to bolster its forces, Israel says its invasion consists of “limited, localized and targeted ground raids” that are meant to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure so that tens of thousands of displaced Israelis can return home. The fighting also has uprooted more than 1 million Lebanese in the past month.
Many residents of southern Lebanon are supporters of the group and benefit from its social outreach. Though most fled the area months ago, they widely see the heavily armed Hezbollah as their defender, especially as the U.S.-backed Lebanese army does not have suitable weapons to protect them from any Israeli incursion.
That broad support has allowed Hezbollah to establish “a military infrastructure for itself” within the villages, said Eva J. Koulouriotis, a political analyst specialized in the Middle East and Islamic militant groups. The Israeli military says it has found weapons within homes and buildings in the villages.
With Israel’s air power far outstripping Hezbollah’s defenses, the militant group has turned to underground tunnels as a way to elude Israeli drones and jets. Experts say Hezbollah’s tunnels are not limited to the south.
“It’s a land of tunnels,” said Tal Beeri, who studies Hezbollah as director of research at The Alma Research and Education Center, a think tank with a focus on northern Israel’s security.
Koulouriotis said tunnels stretch under the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah’s command and control are located and where it keeps a stockpile of strategic missiles. She said the group also maintains tunnels along the border with Syria, which it uses to smuggle weapons and other supplies from Iran into Lebanon.
Southern Lebanon is where Hezbollah maintains tunnels to store missiles — and from where it can launch them, Koulouriotis said. Some of the more than 50 Israelis killed by Hezbollah over the past year were hit by anti-tank missiles.
In contrast to the tunnels dug out by Hamas in the sandy coastal terrain of Gaza, Hezbollah’s tunnels in southern Lebanon were carved into solid rock, a feat that likely required time, money, machinery and expertise.
An Israeli military official said that using prior intelligence, Israel had found “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds” of underground positions, many of which could hold about ten fighters and were stocked with rations. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military rules, said troops were blowing up the tunnels found or using cement to make them unusable.
Israel’s military on Saturday said troops had found and destroyed over 50 tunnel shafts in southern Lebanon but did not say over what period of time.
The group used tunnels during the monthlong 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, but the network has been expanded since, even as a United Nations cease-fire resolution compelled Lebanese and U.N. forces to keep Hezbollah fighters out of the south.
In mid-August, Hezbollah released a video showing what appeared to be a cavernous underground tunnel large enough for trucks loaded with missiles to drive through. Hezbollah operatives were also seen riding motorcycles inside the illuminated tunnel, named Imad-4 after the group’s late military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in Syria in 2008 in an explosion blamed on Israel.
Israeli troops are pushing through southern Lebanon using tanks and engineering equipment, and air and ground forces have struck thousands of targets in the area since the invasion began.
The military recently said it found one cross-border tunnel that stretched just a few meters into Israel but did not have an opening. Israel also exposed a tunnel shaft that was located about 100 meters (yards) from a U.N. peacekeepers ’ post, although it wasn’t clear what the precise purpose of that tunnel was.
Israel says the tunnels are stocked with supplies and weapons and are outfitted with lighting, ventilation and sometimes plumbing, indicating they could be used for long stays. It says it has arrested several Hezbollah fighters hiding inside, including three on Tuesday who were said to have been found armed. The Israeli military official said many Hezbollah fighters appear to have withdrawn from the area.
Lebanese military expert, Naji Malaeb, a retired brigadier general, said he assessed that Hezbollah’s tunnels were preventing Israel from making major gains. He compared that achievement to the war in Gaza, where Hamas has used its tunnels to bedevil Israeli forces and stage insurgency-like attacks.
Israeli authorities insist the mission in Lebanon is succeeding. It says it has killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters since the ground operation in Lebanon began, though at least 15 Israeli soldiers have been killed during that time.
Israel has encountered Hezbollah’s tunnels before. In 2018, Israel launched an operation to destroy what is said were attack tunnels that crossed into Israeli territory. Beeri said that six tunnels were discovered, including one that was 1 kilometer (1,000 yards) long and 80 meters (87 yards) deep, crossing some 50 meters (yards) into Israel.
For Israel, the tunnels are evidence that Hezbollah planned what Israel says would be a bloody offensive against communities in the north.
“Hezbollah has openly declared that it plans to carry out its own Oct. 7 massacre on Israel’s northern border, on an even larger scale,” Israeli military spokesman Rear. Adm. Daniel Hagari said the day troops entered Lebanon.
Israel has not released evidence that any such attack was imminent but has expressed concern that one might be launched once residents return.
Former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel last month while in an underground bunker, had signaled in speeches that Hezbollah could launch an attack on northern Israel.
In May 2023, just months before Hamas’ attack, Hezbollah staged a simulation of an incursion into northern Israel with rifle-toting militants on motorcycles bursting through a mock border fence bedecked with Israeli flags.
Hezbollah officials have at times framed calls for an attack against Israel as a defensive measure that would be taken in times of war.
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Mroue reported from Beirut.
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DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — A drone strike hit central Israel on Sunday, wounding more than 60 people, some of them critically, rescue services said, in one of the bloodiest attacks in Israel in a year of war. The Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group claimed responsibility, saying it targeted a military camp.
Hezbollah said the strike was retaliation for two Israeli strikes in Beirut on Thursday that killed 22 people.
With Israel’s advanced air-defense systems, it’s rare for so many people to be hurt by drones or missiles. Israeli media reported that two drones were launched from Lebanon, and the military said one was intercepted.
It was not immediately clear whether military members were hurt or what was hit in the city of Binyamina. There were no details from Israel’s military, which earlier reported that at least 115 rockets were fired from Lebanon.
It was the second time in two days that a drone has struck in Israel. On Saturday, during the Israeli holiday of Yom Kippur, one hit a suburb of Tel Aviv, causing damage but no injuries.
The latest strike came on the same day that the United States announced it would send a new air-defense system to Israel to help bolster its protection against missiles, along with the troops needed to operate it. An Israeli army spokesperson declined to provide a timeline.
Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both Iran-backed militant groups — and is expected to strike Iran in retaliation for a missile attack earlier this month, though it has not said how or when. Iran has said it will respond to any Israeli attack.
The U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon known as UNIFIL said Israeli tanks forcibly entered the gates of one of its positions early Sunday and destroyed the main gate, and later fired smoke rounds near peacekeepers in that location, causing skin irritation. UNIFIL said the incident was a “further flagrant violation of international law.”
International criticism is growing after Israeli forces have repeatedly fired on U.N. peacekeepers since the start of the ground operation in Lebanon. Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions in recent days, with most blamed on Israeli forces.
The military says Hezbollah operates in the vicinity of the peacekeepers, without providing evidence.
Israel’s military said a tank trying to evacuate wounded soldiers backed into a U.N. post while under fire. It said a smoke screen was used to provide cover.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani asserted that Israel has tried to maintain constant contact with UNIFIL and that any instance of U.N. forces being harmed will be investigated at “the highest level.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah.
“We regret the injury to the UNIFIL soldiers, and we are doing everything in our power to prevent this injury. But the simple and obvious way to ensure this is simply to get them out of the danger zone,” he said in a video addressed to the U.N. secretary-general, who has been banned from entering Israel.
Israel has long accused the United Nations of being biased against it, and relations have plunged further since the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has accused the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees of being infiltrated by Hamas, allegations the agency denies.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel a day after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, drawing retaliatory airstrikes. The conflict dramatically escalated in September with Israeli strikes that killed Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and most of his senior commanders.
Israel launched a ground operation earlier this month. More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters. At least 54 people have been killed in rocket attacks on Israel, nearly half of them soldiers.
Israeli airstrikes overnight destroyed an Ottoman-era market in Lebanon’s southern city of Nabatiyeh, killing at least one person and wounding four more. Lebanon’s Civil Defense said it battled fires in 12 residential buildings and 40 shops in the market, which dates back to 1910.
“Our livelihoods have all been leveled,” said Ahmad Fakih, whose shop was destroyed. Rescuers searched pancaked buildings as Israeli drones buzzed overhead.
The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah targets, without elaborating, and said it continued to target the militants on Sunday.
Separately, the Lebanese Red Cross said paramedics were searching for casualties in a house destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon on Sunday, when a second strike left four paramedics with concussions and damaged two ambulances.
The Red Cross said the operation had been coordinated with U.N. peacekeepers, who informed the Israeli side.
A year into the war with Hamas, Israel continues to strike what it says are militant targets in Gaza almost daily. A strike hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp late Saturday, killing parents and six children ages 8 to 23, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies there.
“They were safe, while he was sleeping, and he and all his children died,” said the man’s brother, Mohammad Abu Ghali. Women stroked the body bags, in tears.
Israel’s military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups because they operate in densely populated areas.
In northern Gaza, Israeli air and ground forces have been attacking Jabaliya, where the military says militants have regrouped. Over the past year, Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to the built-up refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, and other areas.
Israel has ordered the full evacuation of northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An estimated 400,000 people remain in the north after a mass evacuation ordered in the war’s opening weeks. Palestinians fear Israel intends to permanently depopulate the north to establish military bases or Jewish settlements there.
The United Nations says no food has entered northern Gaza since Oct. 1.
The military confirmed that hospitals were included in evacuation orders but said it had not set a timetable and was working with local authorities to facilitate patient transfers.
Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency service, said the bodies of a “large number of martyrs” remain uncollected from the streets and under rubble.
“We are unable to reach them,” he said, asserting that dogs are eating some remains.
The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked a year ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages are still held in Gaza, a third believed to be dead.
Israel’s bombardment and its ground invasion of Gaza have killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, and left much of the territory in ruins. The ministry doesn’t distinguish between militants or civilians, but says women and children make up over half the deaths.
Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
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Find more of AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Sunday its front-line army units are ready to launch strikes on South Korea, ramping up pressure on its rival that it said flew drones and dropped leaflets over its capital Pyongyang.
South Korea has refused to confirm whether it sent drones but warned it would sternly punish North Korea if the safety of its citizens is threatened.
North Korea on Friday accused South Korea of launching drones to drop propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang three times this month and threatened to respond with force if it happened again.
In a statement carried by state media Sunday, the North’s Defense Ministry said that the military had issued a preliminary operation order to artillery and other army units near the border with South Korea to “get fully ready to open fire.”
An unidentified ministry spokesperson said the North Korea’s military ordered relevant units to fully prepare for situations like launching immediate strikes on unspecified enemy targets when South Korea infiltrates drones across the border again, possibly triggering fighting on the Korean Peninsula, according to the statement.
The spokesperson said that “grave touch-and-go military tensions are prevailing on the Korean Peninsula” because of the South Korean drone launches. In a separate statement later Sunday, the spokesperson said that the entire South Korean territory “might turn into piles of ashes” following the North’s powerful attack.
Also Sunday, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described as “suicidal” the South Korean Defense Ministry’s reported warning that North Korea would face the end of its regime if it harms South Korean nationals. She warned Saturday that the discovery of a new South Korean drone will “certainly lead to a horrible disaster.”
North Korea often issues such fiery, blistering rhetoric in times of elevated animosities with South Korea and the United States.
Ties between the two Koreas remain tense since a U.S.-led diplomacy on ending North Korea’s nuclear program fell apart in 2019. North Korea has since pushed hard to expand its nuclear arsenal and repeatedly threatened to attack South Korea and the U.S. with its nuclear weapons. But experts say it’s unlikely for North Korea to launch a full-blown attack because its military is outpaced by the combined U.S. and South Korean forces.
Observers predicted North Korea would escalate tensions ahead of next month’s U.S. presidential election to boost its leverage in future diplomacy with the Americans.
Since May, North Korea has floated thousands of balloons carrying rubbish toward South Korea in retaliation for South Korean activists flying their own balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets. South Korea’s military responded to the North’s balloon campaign by restarting border loudspeakers to blare broadcast propaganda and K-pop songs to North Korea.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of the authoritarian government of Kim Jong Un and his family’s dynastic rule.
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MEXICO CITY — Mexico has sent 660 soldiers and militarized National Guard officers this month to the western state of Michoacan to protect lime growers who complained they were suffering extortion demands by cartels.
The Defense Department said Thursday that since the start of President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration on Oct. 1, it has sent 300 soldiers and 360 Guard officers to several lime-growing townships.
In August, more than half of lime packing warehouses in the lowlands of Michoacan closed temporarily after growers and distributors said they had received demands from the Los Viagras and other cartels for a cut of their income.
The department said the troops were visiting packing houses, escorting trucks transporting the fruit and providing security at wholesale markets in the main producing areas around the towns of Apatzingan, Aguililla and Buenavista.
It said that in just over a week, the troops deployed to Michoacan had seized 10 guns and two grenades.
Limes are an absolute staple of Mexican cuisine. The Michoacan state government had acknowledged the producers’ shutdowns in August, but claimed it was largely because growers were unhappy with the prices they were getting.
While limes might seem to be an odd target for drug cartels, they have been a source of income for the gangs for much of this century.
In 2013, lime growers founded and led Mexico’s biggest vigilante movement. Cartels at the time had taken control of distribution, manipulating domestic prices for crops like avocados and limes, telling growers when they could harvest and at what price they could sell their crops.
It’s not just limes; there is mounting evidence that drug cartels are distorting parts of Mexico’s economy, deciding who gets to sell a product and at what price — and in return they are apparently demanding sellers pass a percentage of sales revenue back to the cartel.
In July, the Femsa corporation, which operates Oxxo, Mexico’s largest chain of convenience stores, announced it was closing all of its 191 stores and seven gas stations in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, because of gang problems.
The company said it had long had to deal with cartel demands that its gas stations buy their fuel from certain distributors.
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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
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WASHINGTON — A hacking group tied to Russian intelligence tried to worm its way into the systems of dozens of Western think tanks, journalists and former military and intelligence officials, Microsoft and U.S. authorities said Thursday.
The group, known as Star Blizzard to cyberespionage experts, targeted its victims with emails that appeared to come from a trusted source — a tactic known as spear phishing. In fact, the emails sought access to the victims’ internal systems, as a way to steal information and disrupt their activities.
Star Blizzard’s actions were persistent and sophisticated, according to Microsoft, and the group often did detailed research on its targets before launching an attack. Star Blizzard also went after civil society groups, U.S. companies, American military contractors and the Department of Energy, which oversees many nuclear programs, the company said.
On Thursday, a U.S. court unsealed documents authorizing Microsoft and the Department of Justice to seize more than 100 website domain names associated with Star Blizzard. That action came after a lawsuit was filed against the network by Microsoft and the NGO-Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a nonprofit tech organization that investigated Star Blizzard.
Authorities haven’t gone into details about Star Blizzard’s effectiveness but said they expect Russia to keep deploying hacking and cyberattacks against the U.S. and its allies.
“The Russian government ran this scheme to steal Americans’ sensitive information, using seemingly legitimate email accounts to trick victims into revealing account credentials,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in announcing the U.S. actions against Star Blizzard. “With the continued support of our private sector partners, we will be relentless in exposing Russian actors and cybercriminals and depriving them of the tools of their illicit trade.”
Star Blizzard has been linked to Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB. Last year, British authorities accused the group of mounting a yearslong cyberespionage campaign against U.K. lawmakers. Microsoft said it has been tracking the group’s activities since 2017.
Microsoft said it observed Star Blizzard attempt dozens of hacking efforts targeting 30 different groups since January 2023. The tech giant’s cybersecurity experts say Star Blizzard has proven to be especially elusive.
“Star Blizzard’s ability to adapt and obfuscate its identity presents a continuing challenge for cybersecurity professionals,” the company wrote in a report on its findings.
U.S. authorities charged two Russian men last year in connection with Star Blizzard’s past actions. Both are believed to be in Russia.
Along with American targets, Star Blizzard went after people and groups throughout Europe and in other NATO countries. Many had supported Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.
A message left with the Russian Embassy in Washington was not immediately returned Thursday.
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