Saturday, Sep 28th
Last update06:55:34 AM GMT
International Glance
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday it is not possible for NATO to continue its partnership with the Israeli administration.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded Thursday that Israel retain control of key Gaza territory along the border with Egypt as part of any accord to suspend the war with Hamas.
The condition conflicts with Hamas's position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.
Speaking after the return of Israeli negotiators from talks with mediators in Qatar, Netanyahu said Israel needed control to stop weapons reaching Hamas from Egypt -- one of four conditions for a deal with the Palestinian militants.
He did not say if the measure would be permanent. But it is the first time Israel has insisted on retaining control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt and the so-called Philadelphi corridor along the border.
US intelligence services have foiled a Russian plot to assassinate the chief executive of Germany’s leading arms manufacturer, which was an apparent attempt at retaliation over the company’s role in providing a large amount of armaments for Ukraine, according to reports on Thursday.
The plot to murder Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall, was one of several Russian government plans to kill defence industry executives in several countries in Europe who have been supporting Ukraine’s war effort, unidentified US and western officials told CNN.
The plans to kill Papperger were in the most advanced stages of any of the plots, the investigators reportedly said.
US authorities had immediately informed their German counterparts, according to the report, and security around Papperger and Rheinmetall had been stepped up accordingly.
The first batch of United States-built F-16 fighter jets are being transferred to Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says, as world leaders pledge continued support for Kyiv at a NATO summit in Washington, DC.
Speaking on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday, Blinken said the F-16s were being transferred from Denmark and the Netherlands.
“And those jets … will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression,” the top US diplomat said.
The Biden administration will resume shipping 500lb bombs to Israel but will continue to hold back on supplying 2,000lb bombs over concerns about their use in densely populated Gaza, according to a a US official.
The US in May paused a shipment of 2,000lb and 500lb bombs due to concern over the impact they could have in Gaza during the war that began with Hamas’ deadly 7 October cross-border raid.
The administration’s particular concern had been use of such large bombs in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had taken refuge.
“We’ve been clear that our concern has been on the end-use of the 2,000lb bombs, particularly for Israel’s Rafah campaign, which they have announced they are concluding,” a US official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
At least 29 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the strike, according to Palestinian officials, which took place as spectators crowded the school grounds in Abassan, east of the city of Khan Younis, and hawkers sold smoothies and biscuits.
"They were watching a football match. There were injuries and martyrs. I witnessed this...people thrown around and body parts scattered, blood," a young woman, Ghazzal Nasser, told Reuters in Abassan.
"Everything was normal. People were playing, others were buying and selling" food and drinks, she said. "There was no sound of planes or anything."
Social media footage appeared to show rising clouds of black smoke in the Voronezh region while loud explosions could be heard in succession.
Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said that falling wreckage triggered the “detonation of explosive objects.” No casualties were reported, but residents of a nearby village in the Podgorensky district were evacuated, he said. Roads were also closed with emergency services, military and government officials working at the scene.
A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that a strike had been carried out on a warehouse storing ammunition in the village of Serhiivka in the Voronezh region.
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