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ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
🔴 Live: Israeli forces battle Hamas in Rafah, launch strikes across Gaza
Israeli forces pounded several areas across Gaza on Wednesday, and residents reportedfierce fighting overnight in Rafah in the south of the Palestinian enclave. The assault came as Norway’s largest pension fund said it had divested from US industrial group Caterpillar because of the risk its equipment was being used by the Israeli army in Gaza. Follow our live blog for all the latest developments on Israel’s war on Hamas.
Issued on: 26/06/2024 – 07:21
Modified: 26/06/2024 – 10:09
1 min
A man pulls a cart loaded with water containers as he walks along an alley between tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on June 25, 2024.
A man pulls a cart loaded with water containers after filling up from a water truck as he walks along an alley between tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, June 25, 2024. © Eyad Baba, AFP
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FRANCE 24
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FRANCE 24
Summary:
Israeli forces pounded several areas across Gaza on Wednesday, and residents reported fierce fighting overnight in Rafah in the south of the Palestinian enclave.
Norway’s largest pension fund said Wednesday it had divested from US industrial group Caterpillar because of the risk its equipment was being used by the Israeli army in Gaza.
At least 37,718 Palestinians have been killed and 86,377 injured in Israel’s war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The Hamas-led October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures. Some 250 people were taken hostage, with about 120 remaining in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Many have been declared dead by Israeli authorities.
LIVE
3 hours ago
Summer heat brings new misery to Palestinians in Israel’s Gaza campaign
Sweltering summer weather is worsening conditions in Gaza where nearly all the 2.3 million inhabitants have been driven from their homes by Israel’s military campaign and where there is almost no electricity and little clean water.
Families living in tents, in crowded shelters in UN schools or crammed into private homes, face the rising summer temperatures without air condition, showers or a functioning health system amid rising rates of malnutrition and disease.
Temperatures in Gaza this week are forecast above 30 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) and recent years have brought a series of lethal heatwaves across the Mediterranean as the summer advances.
Gaza’s electricity was largely provided from Israel, but this was cut off as soon as the war began along with fuel for the territory’s only power station. Diesel to supply private generators was largely exhausted soon afterwards.
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3 hours ago
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 37,718
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday that at least 37,718 people have been killed during more than eight months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes at least 60 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 86,377 people had been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
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5 hours ago
Erdogan accuses West of backing Israeli ‘plans to spread war’ to Lebanon
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused Western powers of backing what he said were Israeli plans to attack Lebanon and “spread war” throughout the region.
“Israel is now setting its sights on Lebanon and we see that Western powers behind the scenes are patting Israel on the back and even supporting them,” he told lawmakers from his ruling AKP party.
Israeli Prime Minister “Netanyahu’s plans to spread the war to the region will lead to a great disaster,” he said.
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7 hours ago
Israeli forces pound north and south Gaza, battle Hamas in Rafah
Israeli forces pounded several areas across Gaza on Wednesday, and residents reported fierce fighting overnight in Rafah in the south of the Palestinian enclave.
Residents said fighting intensified in the Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood in western Rafah, where tanks were also trying to force their way north amid heavy clashes. The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said fighters attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs.
Since early May, ground fighting has focused on Rafah, abutting Egypt on Gaza’s southern edge, where around half of the enclave’s 2.3 million people had been sheltering after fleeing other areas. Most have since had to flee again.
Medics said two Palestinians were killed in one Israeli missile strike in Rafah earlier on Wednesday.
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8 hours ago
Gaza war looms over NY’s most expensive US House primary
A pro-Israeli candidate beat a pro-Palestinian rival in New York on Tuesday in the most expensive House primary ever, a vote which exposed the Democratic Party’s internal divisions over the war in Gaza.
George Latimer, backed by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, ousted incumbent Jamaal Bowman, who has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and advocated for a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.
Latimer, 70, is a supporter of Israel and has called for the return of hostages captured by Hamas before any eventual ceasefire.
The election for New York’s 16th district was also the most expensive House of Representatives primary in history, with an estimated $23 million spent on campaigning.
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9 hours ago
Suspected Houthi attack targets a ship in the Gulf of Aden
Suspected attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels early Wednesday targeted a ship in the Gulf of Aden, while a separate attack claimed by Iraqi militants allied with the rebels targeted the southern Israeli port city of Eilat, authorities said.
The attacks follow the departure of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower after an eight-month deployment in which the aircraft carrier led the American response to the Houthi assaults. Those attacks have reduced shipping drastically through the route crucial to Asian, Middle East and European markets in a campaign the Houthis say will continue as long as the Israel-Hamas war rages in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, the Houthis faced allegations they seized commercial aircraft that brought back pilgrims from the Hajj amid a widening economic dispute between the rebels and the country’s exiled government.
The ship attack happened off the coast of Aden, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.
The captain “of a merchant vessel reported a missile impacted the water in close proximity to the vessel,” the UKMTO said. “The crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call.”
The UKMTO did not say if the ship had been damaged.
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10 hours ago
Norwegian fund blacklists Caterpillar over Gaza fears
Norway’s largest pension fund said Wednesday it had divested from US industrial group Caterpillar because of the risk its equipment was being used by the Israeli army in Gaza.
“For a long time, Caterpillar has supplied bulldozers and other equipment that has been used to demolish Palestinian homes and infrastructure to clear the way for Israeli settlements,” Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP, said in a statement.
“It has also been alleged that the company’s equipment is being used by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in connection with its military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas attack on October 7 last year,” she added.
Because of this, there is a “risk that the US company may be contributing to human rights abuses and violation of international law in the West Bank and Gaza,” KLP said.
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Yesterday’s key developments:
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Israel not to open a second front against Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, saying the ongoing fighting could “easily become a regional war” as he met with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant at the Pentagon on Tuesday.
Israel’s Supreme Court Tuesday ruled that the military must begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men for military service, a ruling that could split Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
The Gaza civil defence agency said an Israeli air strike early on Tuesday killed 10 members of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s family. Israel’s military said its forces had targeted militants overnight in Gaza City who had been involved in the planning of attacks on Israel.
About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. For more on the health ministry’s casualty figures, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
