(LONDON) — The Nigerian Army mistakenly killed at least 88 people in a military drone strike on a religious festival in the country’s Kaduna State, local officials said.
Officials announced that what they described as an accidental strike had occurred on Sunday night in the village of Tudun Biri, Kaduna State, where civilians had gathered to observe a Muslim holiday celebrating the birthday of Prophet Muhammad, Mawlid al-Nabi.
“Following the two airstrikes, about 88 people died while no fewer than 68 people sustaining various degrees of injuries,” Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency announced in a statement. They called it a “tragic accident”.
“It is worthy of note that the casualties ranged from children, women and the elderly,” the agency said.
The victims were from four different communities, who had gathered in the village for the religious celebration.
An eyewitness to the incident described events to BBC Hausa, saying: “The aircraft dropped a bomb at the venue, it destroyed and killed our people including women and children.”
“The second bomb was dropped on some of us who went to bring dead bodies of the victims of the first blast. We lost about 34 people in my family, and we have 66 injured people in the hospital,” the eyewitness said.
The Nigerian Army “expressed regret” for the mistaken bombing, saying in a statement that troops “wrongly analysed and misinterpreted” activities.
“Troops were carrying out aerial patrols when they observed a group of people and wrongly analysed and misinterpreted their pattern of activities to be similar to that of the bandits, before the drone strike,” the army said.
Nigeria’s army said that in the recent past areas of Tudun Biri and villages nearby had been “infested with armed bandits who terrorised communities.”
On Tuesday, Nigeria’s chief of army staff paid a condolence visit to the affected Tudun Biri, to convey the army’s “sincere regrets and unreserved apologies” to the community.
Injured civilians have been evacuated to Barau Dikko Teaching Hospital, where they are receiving necessary medical attention, Kaduna State’s Governor Dr. Jadiza Balarabe announced.
Anger has mounted in Nigeria, with some Nigerians taking to social media questioning how the error could have occurred.
“How does the Nigerian Army keep murdering civilians with air strikes and later claiming it to be an error?” asked one user.
“This is hard to understand” wrote another.
In a statement issued by the Nigerian State House, President Bola Tinubu sent his condolences to the families of victims of the “bombing mishap,” describing the incident as “very unfortunate, disturbing and painful.”
“The president directs a thorough and full-fledged investigation into the incident and calls for calm while the authorities look diligently into the mishap,” the statement said.
According to research firm SB Morgen, Nigerian geopolitical intelligence platform, at least 300 people have been killed in accidental military strikes since 2017.
Kaduna State government has announced it has established a commission of enquiry to investigate the incident.
(NEW YORK) — The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended early Friday, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Dec 06, 5:32 AM EST
Gaza hospital receives scores of dead, wounded in past 24 hours
A hospital in the Middle Area of the Gaza Strip has seen an influx of dead and wounded arrive at its doors over the last day, according to Palestinian health officials.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Wednesday morning that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital has received 73 dead and 123 injured patients in the past 24 hours amid intense bombardment by the Israeli military.
Dec 05, 6:12 PM EST
Over 1,000 Americans and family members seeking to depart Gaza: State Department
More than 1,000 Americans and their family members are still stranded in Gaza, more than a month after the Rafah border crossing first opened to outbound traffic, according to the State Department.
“We know of approximately 1,050 individuals (about 350 U.S. citizens, plus lawful permanent residents and family members of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents) who we are in touch with and who are seeking to depart Gaza,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News, adding it “remains a fluid and quickly evolving situation.”
These figures come a day after State Department spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters that the number of American citizens trying to exit the area stood at 220, and that there were 750 individuals eligible to leave Gaza who had not yet been able to depart.
Dec 05, 3:48 PM EST
State Dept. imposes visa restrictions on individuals ‘undermining peace’ in West Bank
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new visa restriction policy on Tuesday “targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank.”
The policy includes those “committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said in a statement.
The State Department has already started pursuing initial action against individuals and will designate others “in the coming days,” spokesperson Matt Miller told reporters Tuesday.
The department expects the policy will impact “dozens of individuals and potential their family members,” he said.
During a visit to Israel last week, Blinken said he “made clear that the United States is ready to take action using our own authorities” and that Israel must “take additional measures to protect Palestinian civilians from extremist attacks.”
He added that the U.S. would also continue to engage with the Palestinian Authority to stress that it needed “to do more to curb Palestinian attacks against Israelis.”
ABC News’ Shannon K. Crawford
Dec 05, 3:26 PM EST
Netanyahu says Gaza must be demilitarized through ‘sheer force’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address Tuesday that Gaza must be demilitarized and that he is not ready to accept an international force being responsible for Gaza post-war.
“Gaza must be demilitarized and the only country that can do this and ensure it lasts is Israel,” Netanyahu said. “I’m not ready to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement.”
The prime minister said half of Hamas’ battalions have already been “destroyed.”
Netanyahu also said a tactic of sheer force made sense for bringing home the remaining hostages.
“The only way to bring home the rest of the hostages is through massive military force in Gaza and that’s what we are doing,” he said.
He also criticized those calling for a short war, saying, “I say to our friends who call for a short war, the only way for the war to end quickly is by applying sheer force. So I say stand with us. Stand with Israel. Stand with civilization.”
Dec 05, 1:14 PM EST
State Dept. imposes visa restrictions on individuals ‘undermining peace’ in West Bank
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new visa restriction policy on Tuesday “targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank.”
The policy includes those “committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said in a statement.
During a visit to Israel last week, Blinken said he “made clear that the United States is ready to take action using our own authorities” and that Israel must “take additional measures to protect Palestinian civilians from extremist attacks.”
He added that the U.S. would also continue to engage with the Palestinian Authority to stress that it needed “to do more to curb Palestinian attacks against Israelis.”
ABC News’ Shannon K. Crawford
Dec 05, 10:43 AM EST
IDF says it has ‘hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes’ from Oct. 7
Israeli authorities say they have collated “hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes” they claim was committed by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 terror attack.
A document from the Israel Defense Forces details allegations of sexual violence, with “almost all of the testimonies” coming from eyewitnesses and first responders who were present at the scene during or after atrocities, the document states. This is because “virtually all” of the victims of sexual violence were also murdered on Oct. 7, according to the document.
The IDF said the document offers “only a small part of an immense body of information of evidence of Hamas’ sex crimes” and said the evidence “proves beyond all doubt that Hamas and other … terrorists used rape and sexual violence systemically against Israeli women and children,” according to the IDF.
One IDF volunteer quoted in the document described seeing many young women “in bloody, shredded rags, or just in underwear.”
“Our team commander saw several (female) soldiers who were shot in the crotch and intimate areas,” the IDF volunteer said, according to the document.
The IDF alleges that some members of Hamas who were captured and then interrogated also gave testimony that women were sexually abused on Oct. 7.
An Israeli paramedic quoted in the document said they inspected the bodies of two teenage girls who had been murdered. One of the girls “had her pants pulled down towards her knees … and there’s the remains of semen on the lower part of her back,” the document states.
A survivor of the Oct. 7 attack, Gad Liebersohn, quoted in the document said that “for two hours I’m hiding and hearing people getting kidnapped and women getting raped … begging for their lives.”
Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has denied the allegations that its fighters committed sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attack on neighboring southern Israel.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the head of Israel’s Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, has described what she called “widespread rape evidence.”
ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge
Dec 05, 8:57 AM EST
At least two injured after rocket hits Israeli residential building, authorities say
Rocket fire struck a residential building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon, according to Israel’s emergency medical service MDA.
At least two people — a 67-year-old and a 60-year-old — were wounded by shrapnel while standing in the parking lot next to the building’s entrance, according to MDA, which said its staff provided treatment on site and transported the two victims to a nearby hospital.
Dec 05, 6:55 AM EST
Hospital in northern Gaza under siege, health ministry says
Another hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is under siege by Israeli troops, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Tuesday.
Israeli tanks and snipers have surrounded Kamal Adwan Hospital, where more than 7,000 displaced people are sheltering, according to the health ministry. Israeli troops are allegedly firing at “anyone who moves,” the health ministry said.
The power was also cut from the hospital, according to the health ministry.
Dozens of wounded people as well as the bodies of at least 108 who have died are currently inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to the health ministry.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
Just four hospitals remain operational in northern Gaza, according to the health ministry, as medical services in the besieged enclave struggle to deal with the mounting casualty toll.
Dec 05, 6:28 AM EST
At least 30 killed in airstrike on school in southern Gaza, hospital says
Dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted a school housing displaced families in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, according to local medical staff.
A spokesperson for Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis told ABC News that it had received scores of patients from the scene, including 30 who had died and dozens who were injured.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
The strike came on the heels of the IDF’s announcement that it would be expanding its offensive on Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, across the entire strip.
Dec 05, 1:38 AM EST
‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza’: WHO
The World Health Organization painted a bleak picture of the situation in Gaza on Monday night and called for Israel “to take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as per the laws of war.”
According to the latest information from the WHO, there are only 18 functioning hospitals in Gaza, with three only providing first aid and the remainder just partial services.
With an increasing number of Palestinians displaced as the war continues, the WHO says, “syndromic surveillance has noted increases in infectious diseases, including acute respiratory infections, scabies, jaundice, diarrhoea, and bloody diarrhoea. Shelters in the south are also reporting cases of acute jaundice syndrome, a worrisome signal of hepatitis.”
The WHO previously said, “syndromic surveillance systems seek to use existing health data in real-time to provide immediate analysis and feedback to those charged with investigation and follow-up of potential outbreaks.”
The WHO warned thousands are likely to be cut off from health care services due to increased ground operations by Israel in southern Gaza. The open hospitals are operating beyond capacity, with the bed occupancy rate at 171% and intensive care units at 221%, the WHO said, based on data from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
WHO workers called the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis “catastrophic, with the building and hospital grounds grossly overcrowded with patients and displaced people seeking shelter.”
The WHO said in a statement Monday night it has recorded 203 “attacks on hospitals, ambulances, medical supplies, and the detention of health-care workers attacks on hospitals, ambulances medical supplies” between Oct. 7 and Nov. 28.
“This is unacceptable,” the WHO’s statement read. “There are means to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and they should be instituted.”
(NEW YORK) — Hospitals in central and southern Gaza are at a “breaking point” and struggling to care for the influx of patients amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, Doctors Without Borders and the World Health Organization say.
Two hospitals — Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza and Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza — are overwhelmed and are being forced to prioritize those with life-threatening conditions, according to Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which has staff working at both medical centers.
“We hear bombing around us, day and night,” Katrien Claeys, an MSF team leader in Gaza, said in a press release Monday. “In the last 48 hours, over 100 dead and over 400 injured people arrived at the emergency room of Al-Aqsa Hospital. Some patients were taken for surgery right away.”
“We see patients with signs of infection and necrotic tissue, as they have not received a change of wound dressing in days and sometimes weeks,” she said.
MSF said Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where many patients with trauma and burn injuries go, is facing a never-ending flow of patients and is “now at breaking point.”
“The hospital has been receiving multiple severely injured patients nearly every hour,” Chris Hook, MSF medical coordinator in Khan Younis, said in the press release. “There is no available space anymore — it really is a terrible situation. Everyone is genuinely worried about what will come next.”
The WHO said medical staff are caring for two to three times as many patients as the hospitals are designed to hold. The agency described a “catastrophic situation” at the Nasser Hospital with an overflowing emergency department, patients being treated on the floor and a shortage of health workers.
A temporary cease-fire between the Hamas terrorist organization and Israel ended early Friday, and Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza. The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Since Friday, Israeli forces have closed in around Khan Younis, and ground forces are now operating “in and around” the key southern Gaza city, an Israeli military official confirmed to ABC News.
Meanwhile, at least 16,248 people have been killed — including 1,240 since the temporary cease-fire ended Friday — and 42,000 have been injured since Oct. 7, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health and the Hamas government media office. In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, wrote Tuesday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the agency moved medical supplies to a warehouse in Rafah, which is located at the Egypt border crossing.
Tedros said this delayed the delivery of medication and other supplies to MSF and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) facilities, where they are caring for patients.
“The movement has already been delayed and will continue to challenge our deliveries to hospitals in Gaza, amid widespread armed conflict and limited staff on the ground,” he wrote. “We need a sustained and safe flow of medical aid to provide care to people in Gaza.”
This comes just one day after the WHO released a statement calling for the protection of health systems in Gaza, recalling what the WHO called a “dire and perilous” situation when the Al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals in the north were both forced to stop operations last month amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“We have seen what happened in northern Gaza. This cannot be the blueprint for the south. Gaza cannot afford to lose another hospital as health needs continue to soar,” the WHO statement from Monday read. “Intensifying military ground operations in southern Gaza, particularly in Khan Younis, are likely to cut thousands off from health care — especially from accessing Nasser Medical Complex and European Gaza Hospital, the two main hospitals in southern Gaza — as the number of wounded and sick increases.”
The number of functioning hospitals in Gaza has fallen from 36 to 18, according to the WHO. Of those hospitals, the WHO said three are only providing basic first aid and the remaining 15 are providing partial services.
The list Forbes recently published about its 2023 100 Most Powerful Women is similar to its annual billionaire list.
Rihanna and Oprah Winfrey,who hold spots as the richest entertainers, are also now featured as some of the most influential.
Coming in at #31 is Winfrey, who’s recognized for her transition from reputable talk show host to media and business mogul.
Rihanna earns the #74 spot thanks to her influence in the music, beauty and fashion worlds.
Joining them is Beyoncé, who Forbesrecognized as one-half of the billionaire couple that’s her and husband, Jay-Z. She’s named one of the most powerful women for her record-breaking trek around the globe with the Renaissance World Tour and another feat as the most decorated Grammy winner.
Listed up high on the list is #3’s KamalaHarris. The vice president is recognized for her trailblazing achievement of becoming the first woman, Black person and first South Asian-American vice president.
Also named for her political advancements is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, minister of finance in Nigeria. In March 2021, she became the first woman and the first African to serve as director-general of the World Trade Organization, per Forbes.
The full list, which can be broken down into each woman’s categories, is available on Forbes.com.
(NEW YORK) — The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended early Friday, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Dec 05, 1:14 PM EST
State Dept. imposes visa restrictions on individuals ‘undermining peace’ in West Bank
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new visa restriction policy on Tuesday “targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security or stability in the West Bank.”
The policy includes those “committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Blinken said in a statement.
During a visit to Israel last week, Blinken said he “made clear that the United States is ready to take action using our own authorities” and that Israel must “take additional measures to protect Palestinian civilians from extremist attacks.”
He added that the U.S. would also continue to engage with the Palestinian Authority to stress that it needed “to do more to curb Palestinian attacks against Israelis.”
ABC News’ Shannon K. Crawford
Dec 05, 10:43 AM EST
IDF says it has ‘hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes’ from Oct. 7
Israeli authorities say they have collated “hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes” they claim was committed by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 terror attack.
A document from the Israel Defense Forces details allegations of sexual violence, with “almost all of the testimonies” coming from eyewitnesses and first responders who were present at the scene during or after atrocities, the document states. This is because “virtually all” of the victims of sexual violence were also murdered on Oct. 7, according to the document.
The IDF said the document offers “only a small part of an immense body of information of evidence of Hamas’ sex crimes” and said the evidence “proves beyond all doubt that Hamas and other … terrorists used rape and sexual violence systemically against Israeli women and children,” according to the IDF.
One IDF volunteer quoted in the document described seeing many young women “in bloody, shredded rags, or just in underwear.”
“Our team commander saw several (female) soldiers who were shot in the crotch and intimate areas,” the IDF volunteer said, according to the document.
The IDF alleges that some members of Hamas who were captured and then interrogated also gave testimony that women were sexually abused on Oct. 7.
An Israeli paramedic quoted in the document said they inspected the bodies of two teenage girls who had been murdered. One of the girls “had her pants pulled down towards her knees … and there’s the remains of semen on the lower part of her back,” the document states.
A survivor of the Oct. 7 attack, Gad Liebersohn, quoted in the document said that “for two hours I’m hiding and hearing people getting kidnapped and women getting raped … begging for their lives.”
Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has denied the allegations that its fighters committed sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attack on neighboring southern Israel.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the head of Israel’s Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, has described what she called “widespread rape evidence.”
ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge
Dec 05, 8:57 AM EST
At least two injured after rocket hits Israeli residential building, authorities say
Rocket fire struck a residential building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon, according to Israel’s emergency medical service MDA.
At least two people — a 67-year-old and a 60-year-old — were wounded by shrapnel while standing in the parking lot next to the building’s entrance, according to MDA, which said its staff provided treatment on site and transported the two victims to a nearby hospital.
Dec 05, 6:55 AM EST
Hospital in northern Gaza under siege, health ministry says
Another hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is under siege by Israeli troops, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Tuesday.
Israeli tanks and snipers have surrounded Kamal Adwan Hospital, where more than 7,000 displaced people are sheltering, according to the health ministry. Israeli troops are allegedly firing at “anyone who moves,” the health ministry said.
The power was also cut from the hospital, according to the health ministry.
Dozens of wounded people as well as the bodies of at least 108 who have died are currently inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to the health ministry.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
Just four hospitals remain operational in northern Gaza, according to the health ministry, as medical services in the besieged enclave struggle to deal with the mounting casualty toll.
Dec 05, 6:28 AM EST
At least 30 killed in airstrike on school in southern Gaza, hospital says
Dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted a school housing displaced families in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, according to local medical staff.
A spokesperson for Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis told ABC News that it had received scores of patients from the scene, including 30 who had died and dozens who were injured.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
The strike came on the heels of the IDF’s announcement that it would be expanding its offensive on Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, across the entire strip.
Dec 05, 1:38 AM EST
‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza’: WHO
The World Health Organization painted a bleak picture of the situation in Gaza on Monday night and called for Israel “to take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as per the laws of war.”
According to the latest information from the WHO, there are only 18 functioning hospitals in Gaza, with three only providing first aid and the remainder just partial services.
With an increasing number of Palestinians displaced as the war continues, the WHO says, “syndromic surveillance has noted increases in infectious diseases, including acute respiratory infections, scabies, jaundice, diarrhoea, and bloody diarrhoea. Shelters in the south are also reporting cases of acute jaundice syndrome, a worrisome signal of hepatitis.”
The WHO previously said, “syndromic surveillance systems seek to use existing health data in real-time to provide immediate analysis and feedback to those charged with investigation and follow-up of potential outbreaks.”
The WHO warned thousands are likely to be cut off from health care services due to increased ground operations by Israel in southern Gaza. The open hospitals are operating beyond capacity, with the bed occupancy rate at 171% and intensive care units at 221%, the WHO said, based on data from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
WHO workers called the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis “catastrophic, with the building and hospital grounds grossly overcrowded with patients and displaced people seeking shelter.”
The WHO said in a statement Monday night it has recorded 203 “attacks on hospitals, ambulances, medical supplies, and the detention of health-care workers attacks on hospitals, ambulances medical supplies” between Oct. 7 and Nov. 28.
“This is unacceptable,” the WHO’s statement read. “There are means to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and they should be instituted.”
(NEW YORK) — The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended early Friday, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Dec 05, 10:43 AM EST
IDF says it has ‘hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes’ from Oct. 7
Israeli authorities say they have collated “hundreds of testimonies of rape and sex crimes” they claim was committed by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 terror attack.
A document from the Israel Defense Forces details allegations of sexual violence, with “almost all of the testimonies” coming from eyewitnesses and first responders who were present at the scene during or after atrocities, the document states. This is because “virtually all” of the victims of sexual violence were also murdered on Oct. 7, according to the document.
The IDF said the document offers “only a small part of an immense body of information of evidence of Hamas’ sex crimes” and said the evidence “proves beyond all doubt that Hamas and other … terrorists used rape and sexual violence systemically against Israeli women and children,” according to the IDF.
One IDF volunteer quoted in the document described seeing many young women “in bloody, shredded rags, or just in underwear.”
“Our team commander saw several (female) soldiers who were shot in the crotch and intimate areas,” the IDF volunteer said, according to the document.
The IDF alleges that some members of Hamas who were captured and then interrogated also gave testimony that women were sexually abused on Oct. 7.
An Israeli paramedic quoted in the document said they inspected the bodies of two teenage girls who had been murdered. One of the girls “had her pants pulled down towards her knees … and there’s the remains of semen on the lower part of her back,” the document states.
A survivor of the Oct. 7 attack, Gad Liebersohn, quoted in the document said that “for two hours I’m hiding and hearing people getting kidnapped and women getting raped … begging for their lives.”
Hamas, the militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has denied the allegations that its fighters committed sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attack on neighboring southern Israel.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the head of Israel’s Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, has described what she called “widespread rape evidence.”
ABC News’ Tom Soufi Burridge
Dec 05, 8:57 AM EST
At least two injured after rocket hits Israeli residential building, authorities say
Rocket fire struck a residential building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon on Tuesday afternoon, according to Israel’s emergency medical service MDA.
At least two people — a 67-year-old and a 60-year-old — were wounded by shrapnel while standing in the parking lot next to the building’s entrance, according to MDA, which said its staff provided treatment on site and transported the two victims to a nearby hospital.
Dec 05, 6:55 AM EST
Hospital in northern Gaza under siege, health ministry says
Another hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is under siege by Israeli troops, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Tuesday.
Israeli tanks and snipers have surrounded Kamal Adwan Hospital, where more than 7,000 displaced people are sheltering, according to the health ministry. Israeli troops are allegedly firing at “anyone who moves,” the health ministry said.
The power was also cut from the hospital, according to the health ministry.
Dozens of wounded people as well as the bodies of at least 108 who have died are currently inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to the health ministry.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
Just four hospitals remain operational in northern Gaza, according to the health ministry, as medical services in the besieged enclave struggle to deal with the mounting casualty toll.
Dec 05, 6:28 AM EST
At least 30 killed in airstrike on school in southern Gaza, hospital says
Dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted a school housing displaced families in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, according to local medical staff.
A spokesperson for Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis told ABC News that it had received scores of patients from the scene, including 30 who had died and dozens who were injured.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
The strike came on the heels of the IDF’s announcement that it would be expanding its offensive on Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, across the entire strip.
Dec 05, 1:38 AM EST
‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza’: WHO
The World Health Organization painted a bleak picture of the situation in Gaza on Monday night and called for Israel “to take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as per the laws of war.”
According to the latest information from the WHO, there are only 18 functioning hospitals in Gaza, with three only providing first aid and the remainder just partial services.
With an increasing number of Palestinians displaced as the war continues, the WHO says, “syndromic surveillance has noted increases in infectious diseases, including acute respiratory infections, scabies, jaundice, diarrhoea, and bloody diarrhoea. Shelters in the south are also reporting cases of acute jaundice syndrome, a worrisome signal of hepatitis.”
The WHO previously said, “syndromic surveillance systems seek to use existing health data in real-time to provide immediate analysis and feedback to those charged with investigation and follow-up of potential outbreaks.”
The WHO warned thousands are likely to be cut off from health care services due to increased ground operations by Israel in southern Gaza. The open hospitals are operating beyond capacity, with the bed occupancy rate at 171% and intensive care units at 221%, the WHO said, based on data from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
WHO workers called the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis “catastrophic, with the building and hospital grounds grossly overcrowded with patients and displaced people seeking shelter.”
The WHO said in a statement Monday night it has recorded 203 “attacks on hospitals, ambulances, medical supplies, and the detention of health-care workers attacks on hospitals, ambulances medical supplies” between Oct. 7 and Nov. 28.
“This is unacceptable,” the WHO’s statement read. “There are means to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and they should be instituted.”
(NEW YORK) — The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended early Friday, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Dec 05, 6:55 AM EST
Hospital in northern Gaza under siege, health ministry says
Another hospital in the northern Gaza Strip is under siege by Israeli troops, Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health said Tuesday.
Israeli tanks and snipers have surrounded Kamal Adwan Hospital, where more than 7,000 displaced people are sheltering, according to the health ministry. Israeli troops are allegedly firing at “anyone who moves,” the health ministry said.
The power was also cut from the hospital, according to the health ministry.
Dozens of wounded people as well as the bodies of at least 108 who have died are currently inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to the health ministry.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
Just four hospitals remain operational in northern Gaza, according to the health ministry, as medical services in the besieged enclave struggle to deal with the mounting casualty toll.
Dec 05, 6:28 AM EST
At least 30 killed in airstrike on school in southern Gaza, hospital says
Dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike that allegedly targeted a school housing displaced families in the city of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, according to local medical staff.
A spokesperson for Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis told ABC News that it had received scores of patients from the scene, including 30 who had died and dozens who were injured.
There was no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
The strike came on the heels of the IDF’s announcement that it would be expanding its offensive on Gaza’s militant rulers, Hamas, across the entire strip.
Dec 05, 1:38 AM EST
‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza’: WHO
The World Health Organization painted a bleak picture of the situation in Gaza on Monday night and called for Israel “to take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as per the laws of war.”
According to the latest information from the WHO, there are only 18 functioning hospitals in Gaza, with three only providing first aid and the remainder just partial services.
With an increasing number of Palestinians displaced as the war continues, the WHO says, “syndromic surveillance has noted increases in infectious diseases, including acute respiratory infections, scabies, jaundice, diarrhoea, and bloody diarrhoea. Shelters in the south are also reporting cases of acute jaundice syndrome, a worrisome signal of hepatitis.”
The WHO previously said, “syndromic surveillance systems seek to use existing health data in real-time to provide immediate analysis and feedback to those charged with investigation and follow-up of potential outbreaks.”
The WHO warned thousands are likely to be cut off from health care services due to increased ground operations by Israel in southern Gaza. The open hospitals are operating beyond capacity, with the bed occupancy rate at 171% and intensive care units at 221%, the WHO said, based on data from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
WHO workers called the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis “catastrophic, with the building and hospital grounds grossly overcrowded with patients and displaced people seeking shelter.”
The WHO said in a statement Monday night it has recorded 203 “attacks on hospitals, ambulances, medical supplies, and the detention of health-care workers attacks on hospitals, ambulances medical supplies” between Oct. 7 and Nov. 28.
“This is unacceptable,” the WHO’s statement read. “There are means to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and they should be instituted.”
(NEW YORK) — After seven days without bombardments, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip woke up to the familiar sound of airstrikes in the early morning of Dec. 1.
“The war is back,” Shaimaa Ahmed, a 20-year-old engineering student, told ABC News.
“We woke up to the sound of gunfire. Ship fire. Tank fire. They’re firing from everywhere. It’s continuous and strong,” Ahmed, who had already fled her house on Oct. 31 following the orders of Israel to evacuate northern Gaza, said. “I feel like I’m being suffocated again.”
Israel resumed its retaliatory military operations in Gaza last week after the collapse of a temporary cease-fire as part of a broader hostage-prisoner exchange with Hamas. With thousands forced to flee again, some Palestinians told ABC News the war has resumed at an unprecedented pace and intensity.
New evacuation orders on Sunday left thousands to face another displacement in a desperate search for safety.
“The roads leading south towards Rafah [on the border with Egypt] are clogged with cars and donkey carts packed with people and their meager possessions,” the director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency Affairs, Thomas White, wrote on X.
Almost two months in, the Israel-Hamas war has left at least 15,899 killed and 42,000 wounded in the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health. In Israel, at least 1,200 have been killed and 6,900 injured, with 136 Israeli hostages still in Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
As the IDF moves forward with a ground operation in southern Gaza in what Israeli Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari defined “a new phase in our war against Hamas,” Palestinians said there is nowhere to go for safety. Some 1.9 million are currently displaced and moving across the Strip, according to UNRWA.
“What’s the next step? Is it Sinai or is it heaven? I have no idea,” 21-year-old Tala Herzallah told ABC News as she prepared to flee again on Saturday, after having evacuated her home in Gaza City a few weeks ago.
The IDF leaflets dropped in Khan Younis during the weekend warned people to leave the area and a QR code map showed the zones designated as safe by the IDF.
“We want civilians not to be in the area where we are fighting,” Israeli Lt. Col Jonathan Conricus told ABC News Monday. “We want to focus our firepower on Hamas and Hamas only.”
“Where to go after Khan Younis? There is only one place and it’s Rafah and it cannot include 2 million people,” 24-year-old Younes El-Hallaq told ABC News. “And more importantly, Rafah itself is being targeted.”
In the four days following the end of the cease-fire, 746 have been killed in the strikes, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, with victims in Rafah, too.
“Even in Rafah where people are being forced to flee the sound of airstrikes punctuate the day,” White wrote on X Monday.
While many have relocated over the weekend, others have decided to stay where they are either by choice or forced to do so by illnesses, disabilities or lack of accommodation and transport options.
“Since the beginning of the war, I have been displaced three times, and now I may go to another place,” Rasmiya Rabie, 51, from the town of Al-Qarara, north of Khan Yunis, told ABC News.
Rabie said her family received many calls from the Israeli army telling them to move to different areas.
“We are a large number and we cannot displace again,” she said.
Then, two days ago, a night of severe bombardment changed their mind.
“It was very difficult and that’s why we thought about moving for the third time. Now I am trying to find a place to go to,” Rabie said.
With a 75-year-old father and a 72-year-old mother, as well as two young children to care for, Nima Ashour, 43, said she could not leave even if she wanted to. Her family is also out of fuel and money, having evacuated from Al Rantisi Pediatric hospital two weeks ago. Ashour was in the hospital caring for cancer patients from newborns to 12 years old as a pediatric coordinator.
“What will we do? We will not do anything. My family has decided to stay at our place,” Ashour told ABC News.
“Even if you move, we do not believe that we are going to be safe. It’s the same situation we have faced in Gaza and now in Khan Younis. And for sure if we move anywhere, we’ll have the same destruction, the same bombing, the same targeting. At last, we have to face our destiny,” Ashour said.
With the reprisal of the bombing, a sense of fear and defeat has spread widely across the strip, where a severe humanitarian crisis is worsening by the day, representatives of Amnesty International, Save the Children and Doctors Without Borders told ABC News.
The aftermath of the end of the cease-fire also saw the first anti-government protest held in Tel Aviv since Oct. 7, shortly after the publication of a report by The New York Times claiming Israel partially knew about the plans for Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault more than a year before the terror attack but dismissed it as aspirational.
“For the last 57 days, we saw that the government has been doing exactly the opposite of what they need to do,” the organizer of the protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Moshe Radman, told ABC News.
“We understand this will be a long war, so we have to do it now, because every week that we are not protesting, Israel is becoming less and less attractive to its citizens,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended early Friday, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Here’s how the news is developing:
Dec 05, 1:38 AM EST
‘Nowhere is safe in Gaza’: WHO
The World Health Organization painted a bleak picture of the situation in Gaza on Monday night and called for Israel “to take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, as per the laws of war.”
According to the latest information from the WHO, there are only 18 functioning hospitals in Gaza, with three only providing first aid and the remainder just partial services.
With an increasing number of Palestinians displaced as the war continues, the WHO says, “syndromic surveillance has noted increases in infectious diseases, including acute respiratory infections, scabies, jaundice, diarrhoea, and bloody diarrhoea. Shelters in the south are also reporting cases of acute jaundice syndrome, a worrisome signal of hepatitis.”
The WHO previously said, “syndromic surveillance systems seek to use existing health data in real-time to provide immediate analysis and feedback to those charged with investigation and follow-up of potential outbreaks.”
The WHO warned thousands are likely to be cut off from health care services due to increased ground operations by Israel in southern Gaza. The open hospitals are operating beyond capacity, with the bed occupancy rate at 171% and intensive care units at 221%, the WHO said, based on data from the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
WHO workers called the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis “catastrophic, with the building and hospital grounds grossly overcrowded with patients and displaced people seeking shelter.”
The WHO said in a statement Monday night it has recorded 203 “attacks on hospitals, ambulances, medical supplies, and the detention of health-care workers attacks on hospitals, ambulances medical supplies” between Oct. 7 and Nov. 28.
“This is unacceptable,” the WHO’s statement read. “There are means to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, and they should be instituted.”
(NEW YORK) — A kangaroo that escaped from a zoo has been found and safely captured by authorities after a four-day search, police say.
Police officers for the Durham Regional Police in Ontario, Canada, were on what authorities called a “roo-tine” patrol when they received a report of a kangaroo sighting in Oshawa — approximately 43 miles northeast of Toronto.
The kangaroo initially went missing from a nearby zoo at the end of last week and the search for the missing marsupial continued through the weekend until authorities — ironically the same ones who initially received the missing kangaroo report — were deployed for the rescue mission after it was spotted, police said.
“Once officers located the kangaroo, they followed her to the area of Wilson Rd N and Winchester Rd E when it appeared the kangaroo stopped to take a little break,” said the Durham Regional Police in a statement following the animal rescue. “While doing so, the officers managed to sneak up behind her and grab her tail.”
The officers were briefed prior to the rescue on “safe kangaroo capture techniques” and were informed that the safest way to catch a kangaroo is to grab the animal by the tail.
“The kangaroo gave up and surrendered peacefully to police officers,” police said. “She then received a ride in one of our K9 kennels back to the zoo where she is being examined. Her four day adventure has come to an end and she will continue on with her journey to Quebec in the near future.”
The marsupial will be safely returned to her enclosure which will, most likely, have added security to prevent her from escaping again.
Said the Durham Regional Police: “Thank you to the community and all the volunteer networks that have come together over the last few days to bring this situation to a happy conclusion.”
