Author: Steven Sahiounie

War monitor reports Israeli forces killed two people in a strike on a military facility near Syrian capital as they targeted Hezbollah members. Syria’s state-run SANA broadcaster also reported injuries to two Syrian soldiers, adding the country’s military shot down several missiles fired by Israeli fighter jets from over the Golan Heights. Israel has struck Syrian territory 34 times since October 7, according to the observatory, including air strikes and ground assaults with rocket-propelled grenades. The attacks have killed 14 members of the Syrians army, along with 17 Hezbollah members, and two members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, it said.…

Israel’s army said Sunday it had found a vast Hamas tunnel as it pressed its offensive in Gaza despite growing international calls for a ceasefire and pleas from relatives to bring home the remaining hostages. Israel’s army said it had uncovered the biggest Hamas tunnel so far near the border crossing at Erez — large enough for small vehicles to use, an AFP photographer reported.Israel said the tunnel cost millions of dollars and took years to construct, featuring rails, electricity, drainage and a communications network. The Gaza war started when Hamas militants burst through Gaza’s high-security border fence on October…

An Israeli hostage mistakenly killed by soldiers in the Gaza Strip was buried on Sunday, with his brother accusing the army of having “abandoned” and “murdered” him. Alon Shamriz, 26, was one of the three Israeli hostages shot dead Friday by soldiers during combat in the Gaza City district of Shejaiya, even as they carried a white flag and cried for help in Hebrew. Shamriz, Yotam Haim and Samer El-Talalqa were killed when troops mistook them for a threat and opened fire, the army said.“Those who abandoned you also murdered you after all that you did right,” Ido, Shamriz’s brother,…

The United Nations Security Council will vote Monday on a new resolution calling for an “urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, as Washington exhibits growing impatience with key ally Israel. The vote comes days after the United States blocked a previous Security Council resolution that would have called for a “humanitarian ceasefire” in the battered Palestinian territory, where Israel continues its deadly strikes in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7. But in the General Assembly, the UN’s 193 members voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, with 153 in favor — exceeding the 140 or so countries that…

 For the tenth week in a row, thousands of demonstrators marched in the southeastern Australian city of Melbourne on Sunday to express solidarity with Palestinians and demand ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Footage shows activists marching with flags and banners through the city’s central business district while chanting “Palestine will be free” and “Ceasefire now!” “We are for freedom. We want ceasefire. So that’s our main course and the reason why we are here today. We’ve been here for 10 weeks every Sunday. We won’t stop until it ends,” said a demonstrator. “It’s been going on for 75 years plus and what…

The World Health Organization has sounded the alarm about Israel’s destruction of a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip amid reports that the regime’s forces buried Palestinians alive at the facility’s courtyard during the operation. WHO’s Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the comment in a Sunday post on X social media platform concerning an Israeli operation targeting the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the city of Beit Lahia. Ghebreyesus said the Israeli military’s attack on the facility had rendered it non-functional and resulted in the killing of at least eight patients and detention of many health workers. “We learned that many patients had to self-evacuate…

The Palestinian Health Ministry says women and children comprise 70 percent of nearly 18,800 people killed in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s bloody aggression against the besieged territory. In a statement on Sunday, the Ramallah-based ministry said the death toll covers a period of 70 days between October 7 and December 15. More than 300 health sector workers, 86 journalists, 135 employees of the UN agency for the Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and approximately 35 civil defense workers are among the death toll, it added. The ministry also said that over 51,100 Palestinians have been wounded in the Israeli onslaught on Gaza,…

France’s Foreign Ministry has condemned an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that led to the death of one of its diplomatic staff in Rafah. The man, whose name has not been revealed, was taking cover at a colleague’s house when the building came under attack on Wednesday. Following her arrival on an official visit to Israel on Sunday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called for an “immediate and durable” truce. The diplomat also expressed concern over the rising civilian death toll in Gaza amid the ongoing Israeli military operation in the Palestinian enclave. In a statement released on Saturday, the Foreign…

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and the UK called on Israel to stop bombing Gaza on Sunday in a joint editorial published in the Sunday Times and Welt am Sonntag. Their French counterpart echoed the demand during a news conference with the Israeli foreign minister later that day. “Too many civilians have been killed,” UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote. “The Israeli government should do more to discriminate sufficiently between terrorists and civilians, ensuring its campaign targets Hamas leaders and operatives.” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna urged an “immediate truce” so as to…

The Gaza Strip should be completely leveled and transformed into an empty museum like the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, discouraging the Palestinians from ever trying to live there again, the head of a town council in northern Israel has argued. “A security strip should be established from the sea to the Gaza border fence, completely empty, as a reminder of what was once there,” Metula council chief David Azoulai said in an interview with Tel Aviv’s Radio 103FM. “It should resemble the Auschwitz concentration camp.” Rather than advising Gazans to flee southward as Israel’s war against Hamas rages on, the Palestinians should be…