Ƶ

Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media

Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media
An Israeli air strike hit a car on the Damascus airport road on Tuesday, causing it to explode. (AP)
Short Url
Updated 03 December 2024

Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media

Israel strikes car on Damascus airport road: state media
  • An Israeli air strike hit a car on the Damascus airport road on Tuesday, causing it to explode

DAMASCUS: An Israeli air strike hit a car on the Damascus airport road on Tuesday, causing it to explode, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.
“A car exploded after it was targeted in an Israeli aggression on the road to Damascus International Airport,” SANA reported, citing a police source, without saying who was targeted or if there were any casualties.


Greece invites Libya to maritime zone talks to ease strained ties

Updated 27 sec ago

Greece invites Libya to maritime zone talks to ease strained ties

Greece invites Libya to maritime zone talks to ease strained ties
The move is aimed at mending relations between the two neighbors
Therefore, any communication with Libya was not easy, Mitsotakis said

ATHENS: Greece has invited Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli to start talks on demarcating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said late on Wednesday.

The move is aimed at mending relations between the two neighbors, strained by a controversial maritime deal signed in 2019 between the Libyan government and Turkiye, Greece’s long-standing foe, which mapped out a sea area close to the Greek island of Crete.

“We invite — and I think you may soon see progress in this area — we invite the Tripoli government to discuss with Greece the delimitation of a continental shelf and an exclusive economic zone,” Mitsotakis told local Skai television.

Greece this year launched a new tender to develop its hydrocarbon resources off Crete, a move that Libya has objected to, saying some of the blocks infringed its own maritime zones.

Law and order has been weak in Libya since a 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Qaddafi, with the country divided by factional conflict into eastern and western sections for over a decade.

Therefore, any communication with Libya was not easy, Mitsotakis said. He indicated that Greece was determined to continue talking to both the Tripoli-based government and a parallel administration based in Benghazi.

In recent months, Athens has sought closer cooperation with Libya to help stem a surge in migrant arrivals from the North African country to Greece’s southern islands of Gavdos and Crete and passed legislation banning migrants arriving from Libya by sea from requesting asylum.

In an incident earlier this month, the European Union migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece were denied entry to the eastern part of divided Libya, shortly after meeting the internationally recognized government that controls the west of Libya.

Israeli lawmakers pass symbolic motion on West Bank annexation

Israeli lawmakers pass symbolic motion on West Bank annexation
Updated 24 July 2025

Israeli lawmakers pass symbolic motion on West Bank annexation

Israeli lawmakers pass symbolic motion on West Bank annexation
  • The bill was passed by a vote of 71 to 13, with 36 other lawmakers absent in the Knesset
  • Some 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, which is home to around three million Palestinians

JERUSALEM: More than 70 Israeli lawmakers passed a motion on Wednesday urging the government to impose sovereignty over the West Bank, though the symbolic move does not affect the Palestinian territory’s legal status.
The non-binding vote in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, was backed by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, as well as some opposition lawmakers.
They said that annexing the West Bank “will strengthen the state of Israel, its security and prevent any questioning of the fundamental right of the Jewish people to peace and security in their homeland.”
“Sovereignty in Judea and Samaria” — the name Israel uses for the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967 — was “an integral part of the realization of Zionism and the national vision of the Jewish people,” the text stated.
It passed by a vote of 71 to 13, with 36 other lawmakers absent.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, deputy to Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas, said the motion was “a direct assault on the rights of the Palestinian people” that “undermines the prospects for peace, stability and the two-state solution.”
“These unilateral Israeli actions blatantly violate international law and the ongoing international consensus regarding the status of the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank,” he wrote on X.
Some 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which is home to around three million Palestinians.
Israeli settlement there is regularly condemned by the UN and is considered illegal under international law.
It is seen as one of the main obstacles — along with ongoing violence between the two sides — to a lasting peace agreement through the creation of a viable Palestinian state with authority over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.


Israeli military says eight soldiers wounded in car-ramming attack

Israeli military says eight soldiers wounded in car-ramming attack
Updated 24 July 2025

Israeli military says eight soldiers wounded in car-ramming attack

Israeli military says eight soldiers wounded in car-ramming attack
  • There has been a spate of violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank since the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza

KFAR YONA: The Israeli military said eight soldiers were wounded on Thursday when a driver deliberately rammed his car into a bus stop in what police called a “terror attack.”
The army said two soldiers were “moderately injured” and six “lightly injured” in the attack at the Beit Lid junction near Kfar Yona in central Israel.
“The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital to receive medical treatment and their families have been notified,” it said in a statement.
There has been a spate of violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank since the start of the war against Hamas in Gaza, triggered by the Palestinian militants’ attack on October 7, 2023.
A teenager died in March this year when police said a car driven by a Palestinian man deliberately plowed into civilians at a bus stop in northern Israel.
One witness to Thursday’s ramming said the driver cut her off the road near Kfar Yona, then “turned his wheel to the right, full gas, as fast as he could, and hit as many people as he could.”
Kineret Hanuka, 45, told AFP: “I saw only blood and heard them screaming: ‘It hurts!’... It was so hard for me to see this.”
Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) first responders said they received a report at 9:25 am (0625 GMT) that a vehicle had crashed into a bus stop near Kfar Yona.
They said that the wounded had chest, limb and head injuries.
Israeli police spokesman Dedan Elsdunne described the incident as a “terror attack, where a terrorist rammed his vehicle into individuals who were standing here waiting to catch the bus.”
“He (the attacker) then attempted to flee. He abandoned his vehicle and fled from that location. We had large police forces who immediately arrived here, set up a perimeter so that we can locate this individual.”
The car was later recovered and the driver is being hunted using helicopters, motorbikes and a specialist dog unit, police added.
The site of the crash was cordoned off as forensic investigators combed the scene, AFP journalists reported.
In Israel, at least 32 people, including soldiers, have died in attacks by Palestinians since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
In the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, at least 960 Palestinians, including many fighters but also civilians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to Palestinian Authority figures.
At the same time, at least 36 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, Israeli figures showed.


Explosion in northern Syria kills at least 6 people and injures dozens

Explosion in northern Syria kills at least 6 people and injures dozens
Updated 51 min 11 sec ago

Explosion in northern Syria kills at least 6 people and injures dozens

Explosion in northern Syria kills at least 6 people and injures dozens
  • The Syrian Civil Defense reported that at least six people were killed in the blast
  • Al-Saleh said on X that teams were transporting the wounded and dead

DAMASCUS: At least six people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion in northern Syria’s Idlib province, officials said Thursday.

There was no official statement on the cause of the blast.

The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, reported that at least six people were killed in the blast, which took place in the town of Maarat Misrin north of the city of Idlib on Thursday.

“This is the death toll only of those recovered by Syrian Civil Defense teams, who continue to search for those trapped under the rubble,” the White Helmets said in a statement.

Syrian Minister of Emergency and Disaster Management Raed Al-Saleh in a post on social media platform X that teams were transporting the wounded and dead despite “continued recurring explosions in the area, which are hampering response efforts.”

The state-run news agency, SANA, reported four people killed and 116 injured, citing health officials, without giving further details.

Syria is struggling to recover from a nearly 14-year civil war that ended with the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in a lightning rebel offensive. During the war, which killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of of 23 million, Idlib was an opposition-held enclave.

The country’s current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa formerly led Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an insurgent group based in Idlib that spearheaded the offensive that unseated Assad.


Greece to send salvage ship to Red Sea after latest Houthi attacks

Greece to send salvage ship to Red Sea after latest Houthi attacks
Updated 24 July 2025

Greece to send salvage ship to Red Sea after latest Houthi attacks

Greece to send salvage ship to Red Sea after latest Houthi attacks
  • Shipping Minister Vassilis Kikilias said the salvage vessel — called Giant and provided by the Hellenic Association of Tugboat Owners — would “support, protect and assist Greek-owned vessels and Greek

ATHENS: Greece will deploy a salvage vessel in the Red Sea to assist in maritime accidents and protect seafarers and global shipping, the shipping minister said on Thursday, following attacks on two Greek vessels by Yemen’s Houthi militants this month.
Two Liberia-flagged, Greek-operated cargo ships, Magic Seas and Eternity C, sank off Yemen after repeated attacks by the Iran-aligned militant group.
The strikes on the two vessels marked a resumption of attacks on shipping by the Houthis, who struck more than 100 ships between November 2023 and December 2024 in what they said was a show of solidarity with the Palestinians in the war in Gaza.
Shipping Minister Vassilis Kikilias said the salvage vessel — called Giant and provided by the Hellenic Association of Tugboat Owners — would “support, protect and assist Greek-owned vessels and Greek seafarers.”
All of the crew members from the Magic Seas were rescued by a passing ship.
The crew of the Eternity C had to abandon the ship. Ten were rescued by a privately led mission, but five more are feared dead and the Houthis are believed to be holding another 10 crew members, maritime security sources have said.
Aspides, the European Union naval mission protecting shipping in the Red Sea, did not have assets in the area at the time of the incidents.
Giant is manned by a specialist crew of 14 Greek sailors, has four engines with 16,000 horsepower, and can sail in the most adverse weather conditions, the Shipping Ministry said.
It can participate in search and rescue operations, with accommodation for 40 people, help prevent marine pollution and also has firefighting capacity.