IndustryStandard

At least four Palestinian journalists were killed in Israeli strikes targeting a group of media workers in Gaza City's al-Ahli Arab hospital's courtyard, local reporters told Middle East Eye.

According to local sources, the attack on Thursday morning came with no prior warning of the bombing.

The Israeli assault has so far claimed the lives of correspondent Suleiman Hajjaj and photographer Ismail Badah, who both worked for Palestine Today TV, alongside photographer Samir al-Rifai, who worked for the Shams News Agency.

Journalist Imad Daloul, who works for Palestine Today TV, and photographer Ahmed Qaljah, who worked for Al-Arabiya TV, were also critically injured in the Israeli attack and have been rushed to the intensive care unit.

A series of Israeli strikes have targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs on the eve of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, almost an hour after the Israeli army issued a forced evacuation order to residents in areas that it says held underground facilities used by the Lebanese group Hezbollah for drone production.

This is the fourth time Israel has attacked Beirut since a ceasefire with Hezbollah went into effect in November. It has carried out assassinations and announced strikes that it said targeted Hezbollah sites.

Israel has violated the ceasefire on a near-daily basis for seven months, according to the Lebanese government led by President Joseph Aoun, Arab nations, and rights groups. Aoun has appealed to the United States and France to rein Israel in.

Israel has been arming a criminal gang in the Gaza Strip as part of an effort to strengthen opposition to Hamas in the enclave, defense sources confirmed on Thursday following remarks on the matter by former defense minister Avigdor Liberman.

Liberman told the Kan public broadcaster on Thursday morning that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had unilaterally approved the transfer of weapons to the Abu Shabab clan, an armed gang or militia that is opposed to Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip.

“The Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with Islamic State, at the direction of the prime minister,” Liberman charged. “To my knowledge, this did not go through approval by the cabinet.”

The text, co-sponsored by Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia – collectively known as the E-10 – received 14 votes in favour, with the US casting the lone vote against.

As one of the council’s five permanent members, the US holds veto power – a negative vote that automatically blocks any resolution from going forward.

Had it been adopted, the draft would have demanded “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza” to be respected by all parties.

International views of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are much more negative than positive, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries conducted this spring.

International views of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are much more negative than positive, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries conducted this spring.

Gaza's civil defence agency said at least 31 people were killed and many more wounded, which it blamed on "Israeli gunfire" targeting civilians in Rafah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its hospital in Rafah received "a mass casualty influx" of people early in the morning on Sunday. It said 21 people were "declared dead upon arrival". It is unclear if the number of people killed reported by the ICRC is separate to the Gaza authorities' report.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its findings from an initial inquiry showed its forces had not fired at people while they were near or within the aid centre. The Israeli military said in a statement that "warning shots were fired toward several suspects who advanced toward" troops approximately 1km from the site.

A coalition of transparency and animal rights groups on Monday released that letter, along with a cache of government documents, to highlight the tight links between law enforcement and agriculture industry groups.

Activists say those documents show an unseemly relationship between the FBI and Big Ag. The government–industry fearmongering has accelerated with the spread of bird flu enabled by the industry’s own practices, they say.

The executive director of Property of the People, the nonprofit that obtained the documents via public records requests, said in a statement that the documents paint a damning picture.

“Factory farms are a nightmare for animals and public health. Yet, big ag lobbyists and their FBI allies are colluding to conceal this cruelty and rampant disease by shifting blame to the very activists working to alert the public,” Ryan Shapiro said. “Transparency is not terrorism, and the FBI should not be taking marching orders from industry flacks.”

Animal rights activists have long said that federal law enforcement seems determined to put them in the same category as Al Qaeda. In the 2000s, a wave of arrests of environmental and animal rights activists — who sometimes took aggressive actions such as burning down slaughterhouses and timber mills — was dubbed “the Green Scare.”