‘NDA government created unnecessary controversy over Manmohan Singh’s cremation, memorial’, alleges Ashok Gehlot
Former Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot on Saturday accused the NDA government of creating an “unnecessary controversy” over the cremation and memorial of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Top political gaffes of 2024
The presidential election generated numerous high-profile political gaffes this year, including President Biden’s widely-panned debate performance and him calling Trump supporters “garbage” in the closing days of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign. Here are six of the biggest political gaffes of 2024: A disastrous performance by President Biden during his debate with former President Trump on June 27 appeared to be the beginning of the end for Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign. He struggled with a raspy voice and delivered rambling answers during the debate in Atlanta, sparking doubts about his viability at the top of the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket. KARINE JEAN-PIERRE’S MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF 2024 Biden’s campaign blamed the hoarse voice on a cold and the 81-year-old admitted a week later that he “screwed up” and “had a bad night,” yet that didn’t stop a chorus of Democrats from making calls for him to drop out of the race. In a shocking move, Biden then pulled the plug on his campaign on July 21 and endorsed Harris, who would go on to lose to Trump in November. Biden appeared to galvanize Republicans when he called Trump supporters “garbage” less than a week before Election Day. Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City on Oct. 27 made headlines when a comedian mocked different ethnic groups, calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Then, during a conference call with the Voto Latino group on Oct. 30, Biden said, “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.” Biden and the White House then tried to clean up his words in the days afterward. However, the remark was quickly likened to Hillary Clinton’s labeling of half of Trump supporters as belonging in “a basket of deplorables” in 2016, a comment that was widely seen as undermining her campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris’ answer to a question during an Oct. 8 appearance on “The View” may have been a turning point in the 2024 presidential election. Co-host Sunny Hostin asked Harris, “If anything, would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years?” Harris paused for a moment and then said, “There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.” TOP POLITICAL COURTROOM MOMENTS OF 2024 Hostin had given Harris a clear opportunity to differentiate herself from Biden, but Harris instead effectively cut an ad for Trump’s campaign by allowing it to tie her directly to an unpopular administration. Harris’ running mate Tim Walz raised eyebrows during his vice presidential debate with Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, on Oct. 1, when he declared he had “become friends with school shooters.” The poorly timed mishap occurred when the Minnesota governor was asked about changing positions on banning assault weapons. “I sat in that office with those Sandy Hook parents. I’ve become friends with school shooters. I’ve seen it,” Walz said. Walz presumably meant he had become friendly with parents who lost children during horrific school shootings. Trump appeared to confuse then-Republican presidential primary opponent Nikki Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during a rally in New Hampshire on Jan. 20. Speaking in Concord, Trump said that Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, had been responsible for the collapse of Capitol Hill security during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Trump has previously blamed Pelosi for turning down National Guard support before the riot. “You know, by the way, they never report the crowd on January 6, you know, Nikki Haley. Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they — did you know they destroyed all the information and all of the evidence. Everything. Deleted and destroyed all of it, all of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard. So whatever they want, they turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people,” Trump said. Harris found herself in the headlines repeatedly this year for making confusing verbal statements. “I grew up understanding the children of the community are the children of the community, and we should all have a vested interest in ensuring that children can go grow up with the resources that they need to achieve their God-given potential,” the vice president once said in September. “We are here because we are fighting for a democracy. Fighting for a democracy. And understand the difference here, understand the difference here, moving forward, moving forward, understand the difference here,” she then said at a campaign event in November. The remarks drew criticism and ridicule from conservatives online. President Biden mistakenly introduced Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin” during a NATO conference in Washington, D.C., in July. “And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination,” Biden said, before starting to leave the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.” “He’s going to beat President Putin. President Zelenskyy. I’m so focused on beating Putin,” Biden then said, appearing to realize the verbal stumble. “We got to worry about it. Anyway, Mr. President.” Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser, Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Jacqui Heinrich, Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, David Rutz, Brian Flood and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
White House says 9th telecoms company has been hacked as part of Chinese espionage campaign
The White House said Friday that a ninth U.S. telecommunications company has been hacked as part of a Chinese espionage campaign that gave the country’s officials access to private texts and phone conversations of Americans. The Biden administration said earlier this month that at least eight telecommunications companies and dozens of nations had been impacted by the Chinese hacking operation known as Salt Typhoon. On Friday, deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger told reporters that a ninth victim had been identified after the administration released guidance to companies about how to locate Chinese hackers in their networks. The hackers compromised the networks of telecommunications companies to gather customer call records and access the private communications of a limited number of people, officials said. CHINA WARNS US TO STOP ARMING TAIWAN AFTER BIDEN APPROVES $571M IN MILITARY AID The FBI has not publicly identified any of the victims, but officials believe senior U.S. government officials and prominent political figures are among the victims whose communications were accessed. Neuberger said officials did not yet have a precise sense of how many Americans overall were targeted by Salt Typhoon, in part because the hackers were careful about their methods, but she said that a “large number” of the victims were in Washington, D.C., and Virginia. TRUMP SAYS FATE OF TIKTOK SHOULD BE IN HIS HANDS WHEN HE RETURNS TO WHITE HOUSE Officials said they believe the hackers wanted to identify who owned the devices and spy on their texts and phone calls if they were “government targets of interest,” Neuberger said. Most of the victims are “primarily involved in government or political activity,” the FBI said. Neuberger said the hacking showed the need for required cybersecurity practices in the telecommunications industry, which the Federal Communications Commission is set to look at during a meeting next month. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP She also said, without offering details, that the government was planning further action in the coming weeks in response to the hacking campaign, though she did not say what they were. “We know that voluntary cybersecurity practices are inadequate to protect against China, Russia and Iran hacking of our critical infrastructure,” she said. The Chinese government has denied responsibility for the hacking campaign.
Former Trump ambassador eyes Senate return, potentially setting up key swing state campaign rematch
RYE, N.H. – EXCLUSIVE – Scott Brown is on the move. The former senator from neighboring Massachusetts and 2014 Republican Senate nominee in New Hampshire, who later served four years as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand in President-elect Trump’s first administration, is seriously considering a 2026 run to return to Congress. If Brown moves ahead and launches a campaign in the months ahead, it would potentially set up a high-profile rematch with Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, in what would likely be a competitive and expensive Senate clash in a key swing state. The 65-year-old Brown, who competed in nine triathlons this year and who on average performs around 40–50 gigs a year as lead singer and guitarist with the rock band Scott Brown and the Diplomats, is doing more than just thinking about running to return to the Senate. TIM SCOTT AIMS TO EXPAND THE GOP SENATE MAJORITY IN THE 2026 MIDTERMS He’s been meeting in recent weeks with various Republican and conservative groups in New Hampshire. Brown, in a national exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, said he’s doing his “due diligence, meeting with anybody and everybody. So you’ll be seeing me a lot around, whether it’s parades, triathlons, my rock band, meeting and getting out and really learning.” DEMOCRATS’ HOUSE CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE CHAIR REVEALS PLAN TO WIN BACK MAJORITY IN 2026 And Brown is taking aim at New Hampshire’s all-Democrat congressional delegation. “The thing that really ticks me off is how they’ve basically covered up for [President] Joe Biden for the last four years, what they’ve done or not done on the border, what they’ve done and not done in inflation, and they’re just completely out of touch with what we want here in New Hampshire. And the more I think about it, I think we can do better,” Brown argued. Brown made headlines in 2010 as the then-state senator in blue-state Massachusetts won a special U.S. Senate election to serve the remainder of the term of the late longtime Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. After losing re-election in 2012 to now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Brown eventually moved to New Hampshire, the state where he had spent the first years of his childhood and where his family had roots dating back to the colonial era. He launched a Senate campaign months later and narrowly lost to Shaheen in the 2014 election. After hosting nearly all the Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 cycle at speaking events he termed “No BS backyard BBQs,” Brown eventually endorsed Trump in the weeks ahead of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary. After Trump was elected president, he nominated Brown as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand, where the former senator served for four years. HOUSE GOP CAMPAIGN CHAIR TOUTS HOMEFIELD ADVANTAGE Returning to New Hampshire at the end of the first Trump administration, Brown supported his wife Gail, a former television news reporter and anchor, as she ran for Congress in 2022. And the Browns also stayed politically active in other ways, once again hosting many of the Republican presidential candidates, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., at their “Backyard BBQs” during the 2024 presidential cycle. Asked in May 2023 if he’d consider another Senate run, Brown told Fox News Digital “of course.” Now, as Brown considers another Senate run, time isn’t working against him. Brown jumped in late in the 2014 campaign, just seven months before Election Day. BROWN HOSTS 2024 GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES This time around, he emphasized, “I have a long runway. I didn’t have that obviously the first time, and I’m going to do what I have been doing for almost a decade now, going around, meeting with people participating in the process.” During his first Senate run, which came months after he changed his residency to New Hampshire, he repeatedly faced carpetbagger accusations. Last week, a progressive group in New Hampshire took aim at Brown. Amplify NH claimed in a release that “the gentleman from Massachusetts is clawing for another chance at power, framing himself once again as a Senate candidate for New Hampshire.” Brown says he’s not concerned. “We’ve had a house here for over three decades, and we’ve been fully engaged full-time here for over a decade. So now I think that’s old news.” And he argued that New Hampshire’s congressional delegation “votes 100% with Massachusetts.” While Shaheen cruised to re-election in 2020, winning by roughly 16 points, and Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan won re-election in 2022 by nearly nine points, Senate Republicans are eyeing New Hampshire in 2026 as they aim to expand their incoming 53-47 majority in the chamber. New Hampshire, along with Georgia and Michigan, will likely be heavily targeted by Senate Republicans. Trump lost New Hampshire last month, but he cut his deficit to just three points in his face-off with Vice President Kamala Harris, down from a seven-point loss to President Biden in the Granite State in 2020. VANCE TO LIKELY BE 2028 GOP PRESIDENTIAL FRONT-RUNNER, BUT RNC CHAIR ALSO LIKES PARTY’S ‘BENCH’ And the GOP kept an open gubernatorial seat in party hands – former Sen. Kelly Ayotte succeeded longtime Gov. Chris Sununu – while expanding their majorities in the New Hampshire state House and Senate. Asked if he’d like Trump to join him on the Granite State campaign trail if he decides to run, Brown said “if he’s got the time, of course.” And pointing to Trump, Brown said “not only did he help obviously, nationally, he helped here in New Hampshire.” Shaheen has yet to announce if she’ll seek another term in the Senate. That decision will likely come early in the new year. But Shaheen, a former three-term New Hampshire governor, is taking over next month as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the first woman to hold one of the top two positions on the powerful panel. Shaheen also turns 78 next month. Asked if age would be a factor in a potential Shaheen-Brown rematch, Brown said he likes Shaheen and really appreciated her support
Why Mukesh Ambani’s wife Nita Ambani often wears green gemstone? Reason is…
Gemstones are believed to bring positivity in terms of health, wealth and prosperity. Emerald, the green gemstone is also linked with bringing positivity to the wearer and is often seen around Nita Ambani’s neck and as her earrings.
Virginia Democrats ‘asking the wrong question’ amid outrage over DOGE federal workforce cuts, GOP leader says
Virginia’s top legislative Democrat sounded an alarm over President-elect Trump’s Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) plan to tell a portion of the federal workforce “you’re fired” for efficiency’s sake. The state Senate’s top Republican responded Thursday by saying the majority party is “asking the wrong question.” Earlier this week, House Speaker Don Scott Jr. wrote a letter to the commonwealth’s unemployment agency warning of the fallout from such a plan and a potential uptick in unemployment claims. “We should all be concerned about what these changes mean for the employees raising their families in Virginia, paying taxes in Virginia and calling Virginia home,” Scott wrote to Virginia Employment Commissioner Demetrios Melis in a letter reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. TOP DOGE SENATOR DEMANDS LAME-DUCK BIDEN AGENCIES HALT COSTLY TELEWORK, CITING VOTER MANDATE “Taking President-elect Trump at his word that he will immediately move to downsize the workforce and relocate agencies, we can safely assume that a large portion of our workforce that resides in the commonwealth will be negatively affected,” added Scott, D-Portsmouth. Scott reportedly said he believes Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area he represents would be hardest-hit. “I have concerns that, in the coming months, not only will our nation experience a mass increase in unemployment due to the proposed changes to our government. But, more importantly, those changes will have a detrimental effect on Virginians, our commonwealth’s unemployment rate and our economy overall,” he told the Times-Dispatch. However, Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, R-New Kent, said the concept of DOGE addresses a greater concern for Virginians and U.S. taxpayers when it comes to fiscally responsible governance. “That’s the wrong question,” McDougle said in an interview Thursday. YOUNGKIN ‘PERSONALLY INVITES’ NEW TRUMP ADMIN TO SETTLE IN VA OVER MD, DC “The question should be whether we are taking dollars that Virginians are earning and paying to the federal government and whether they are being spent wisely. “If the federal government is paying people to do jobs they shouldn’t be doing, then that’s spending taxpayer dollars unwisely.” Trump’s DOGE co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy, previously told Fox Business, “We expect mass reductions … [and] certain agencies to be deleted outright.” Ramaswamy’s counterpart, Elon Musk, has expressed similar sentiments, including a tweet stating, “Delete CFPB,” a reference to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Additionally, Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican seen as the top DOGE lawmaker in the upper chamber, is spearheading a bill to relocate about one-third of federal workers outside the District of Columbia-Maryland-Virginia area. The legislation proposed by Ernst has a lengthy acronym, the DRAIN THE SWAMP Act. Ernst also demanded answers from Biden agency heads about work-from-home policies their staffs enjoy. In his remarks Thursday, McDougle added that if Democrats were so concerned about the subject, they should have balked at plans to funnel Virginia taxpayer funds to the Washington-area Metro system to “subsidize” the lack of ridership from telework policies criticized by Ernst. “I didn’t feel our Democratic friends were as concerned with the millions of dollars going to fund Metro amid [federal workers not being required to] go into the office and having to subsidize them,” McDougle said. Virginia’s 2024 budget included about $144 million in Metro funding. Metro CEO Randy Clarke said in June the transit agency found an additional $50 million in efficiencies for its nearly $5 billion budget, according to multiple reports. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Earlier this month, a top Democrat on the state House Labor Committee, said she was “very disappointed” with a response from representatives for Gov. Glenn Youngkin when she voiced concerns about potential federal workforce cuts. State Delegate Candi Mundon King, D-Dumfries, noted in November that thousands of federal workers live in the state and in her district and called DOGE’s plan “disastrous” after the Virginia Republican Party touted the “streamlin[ing of] government bureaucracy” as “good for all Americans, including Virginians.” Mundon King’s district sits in the Washington exurb of Prince William County, which, for many years, was led by high-profile conservative Corey Stewart but has recently swung heavily Democratic. “No wonder Northern Virginia has lost faith in Virginia Republicans,” Mundon King said. Youngkin, a successful business executive before entering politics, previously said anyone who leaves the private sector to work in government will immediately recognize it needs drastic adjustments. “Whether it’s me coming into state government in Virginia or President Trump coming back into the federal government, [we] know it is inefficient. It does not work with the same efficiency you would expect out of a business,” he told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville. Government efficiency plans “may result in some job losses for the federal government. … The great thing about the Commonwealth of Virginia is we have nearly 300,000 jobs that are unfilled,” he added. Melis similarly told Scott Virginia is “well prepared” to adapt to changes in employment figures and reassured Mundon King earlier this month that some of the concerns voiced were premature, according to The Roanoke Times. Youngkin earlier this month invited workers in Trump’s incoming administration to choose Virginia as their place of residence over Maryland or the District of Columbia, citing, in part, lower taxes and better-ranked schools. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said Virginia’s economy was “stagnant” and the unemployment system “in shambles” when the Republican took office after eight years of Democratic governorship. “Commonsense policies to lower the cost of living and bring real business-like efficiency to government have helped fix both,” Martinez said. “The governor appreciates Speaker Scott’s recent commitments to support further tax relief, which, along with a roaring economy and over 300,000 open jobs, means Virginia is in a great position as the president works to shrink the bloated federal government.”
“Congress didn’t even bother to…,” Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter condemns Congress after its request for Manmohan Singh’
Former president Pranab Mukherjee condemned Congress’ president Mallikarjun Kharge of asking for a memorial in honour of late former PM Manmohan Singh, who died on December 26, as she alleged that the party did not even care to call a condolence meeting of the CWC.
North Koreans die in droves even as Russia unleashes firepower on Ukraine
Ukrainian forces have killed or wounded more than 1,000 North Korean troops Russia has sent to fight them, according to Kyiv and officials in South Korea. “According to preliminary data, the number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region already exceeds 3,000 people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening address on December 23. South Korean intelligence put the North Korean dead and wounded at 1,100, and said the North was preparing to send more troops. North Korea sent 11,000 troops to fight in the Russian region of Kursk, which Ukraine counter-invaded in August. North Korean troops were evidently untrained in dealing with Ukrainian drones, which took a high toll. In one instance, Ukrainian drone operators recorded how a North Korean soldier accidentally shot his comrade as they tried to shoot down the drone that was filming them. They may have been trying to execute a tactic described in a notebook recovered from the body of a North Korean soldier. Advertisement “When detecting a drone, you need to create a trio, where the one who lures the drone keeps a distance of seven metres, and those who shoot it, 10-12 metres,” it read. “If the one who is luring stands still, the drone will also stop its movement. At this moment, the one who is shooting will eliminate the drone.” Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said on Telegram their 8th regiment had killed 77 North Koreans in Kursk and wounded 40 over three days, without specifying the location. A video collage released by the regiment showed drones bearing down on individual enemy troops. Their signal cuts out at point-blank range, indicating the moment when the drones detonate. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been embarrassed by the first capture of Russian land since World War II and had initially pledged to push Ukrainian forces out by October 1. As the deadline drew near, his spokesman changed the Kremlin position, saying Ukraine’s forces would be ejected “in a timely manner”. Putin reinforced that vagueness in an annual news conference on December 19. “I cannot and do not want to name a specific date when they will be knocked out,” he said. Some analysts suggested this could indicate a change in the Kremlin’s priorities, but Russia also seemed to make a concerted effort to improve its tactics on Christmas Eve. Oleg Chaus, a Ukrainian sergeant fighting in Kursk, said that whereas for the past month, the Russian assaults were “chaotic” and “disorganised”, three units attacked in an organised manner and with air support on December 24. Advertisement “All the servicemen of these three groups had very high-quality ammunition. Each of them had disposable grenade launchers, they had night vision devices, they had small assault backpacks with them,” said the sergeant of Ukraine’s 17th Heavy Mechanised Brigade. “If one of those three groups had not been destroyed, they would have continued moving.” It appeared that these units included North Korean troops. Russia creeps forward in Donetsk Ukraine’s other hot front – its eastern region of Donetsk – saw intensified fighting during the Christmas holiday. Russia launched 248 assaults on Ukrainian positions on December 24, said Ukraine’s general staff, an unusually high number, followed by more than 200 assaults on Christmas day. During this time, geolocated footage suggested Russian forces broke through to the western part of the city of Kurakhove, which they had first entered in late October, completing its conquest. Anastasia Bobovnikova, spokesperson for Luhansk Technical University, said fierce battles were also ongoing for the Central Mine in the city of Toretsk. The most intense fighting, however, appeared to take place around the town of Pokrovsk, where a quarter to a fifth of the Russian assaults took place. “Pokrovsk is a vital road and rail hub, facilitating the movement of troops and supplies across eastern Ukraine,” Demetries Andrew Grimes, a former US naval officer, aviator and diplomat, told Al Jazeera. “Capturing Pokrovsk would disrupt Ukrainian supply lines and enhance Russian operational capabilities in the transportation and distribution of supplies across the entire front line,” he said. Advertisement “The objective is likely to secure the rest of the Donbas and Zaporizhia,” said Michael Gjerstad, a land warfare research analyst for the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “This means possibly capturing Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which have industrial and economic sites that are important for Ukraine, possibly moving towards Zaporizhia along the N15 road from the Kurakhove pocket, which would also bypass a lot of the Ukrainian defences, which face south,” he told Al Jazeera. These assaults, while clawing away land, were also costly. Bobovnikova said Russian forces were losing a mechanised battalion a week and a brigade a month in Toretsk. In the 10 days between December 17 and December 26, Ukraine’s general staff estimates Russia lost 17,400 soldiers, which translates to 52,200 a month. Russian recruitment capacity is considered to be not more than 30,000 a month. Nonetheless, Putin sounded bullish in his news conference. “We are not talking about advancing 100, 200, 300 metres; our fighters are reclaiming territory in square kilometres,” he said. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, assessed that Russia had captured 3,306sq kilometres (1,276sq miles) of Ukrainian land during 2024. “The position of the front line is not going to be what determines this war,” said Keir Giles, a Eurasia expert for Chatham House. “In the economic and political domains, in Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure and the systems for keeping people alive through the winter, it is also a picture of Russia holding an advantage, particularly after the arrival of Donald Trump,” he told Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s win in the US presidential election in November. Trump has said that he wants to end the war immediately, and senior members of his team, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have suggested that Ukraine would need to concede territory currently held by Russia as part of a ceasefire. Advertisement Russia demonstrated its command of the air on December
‘This horror must end’: WHO condemns Israeli assault on key Gaza hospital
The World Health Organization has condemned Israel’s storming of a vital hospital in northern Gaza, saying assaults on medical facilities are a “death sentence” for thousands of Palestinians and that “this horror must end”. An Israeli military assault on the Kamal Adwan Hospital on Friday put the last major health facility in northern Gaza out of service, the WHO said. “Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burned and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said in a statement on X on Friday evening. The Israeli military said in a statement that it had launched a raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital as it “serves as a Hamas terrorist stronghold”, but failed to provide evidence. Hamas said it “categorically” denied the claims. As of Friday morning, the hospital housed about 350 people, including 75 patients, along with 180 medical staff. The WHO said 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition, including those on ventilators, reportedly remain in the hospital. Advertisement The patients in moderate to severe condition were forced to evacuate to the destroyed and non-functional Indonesian Hospital, the United Nations health agency said, adding that it was “deeply concerned for their safety”. The WHO reiterated its call for a ceasefire. “This raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital comes after escalating restrictions on access for WHO and partners, and repeated attacks on or near the facility since early October,” the WHO said. “Such hostilities and the raids are undoing all our efforts and support to keep the facility minimal functional. The systematic dismantling of the health system in Gaza is a death sentence for tens of thousands of Palestinians in need of healthcare. “This horror must end and healthcare must be protected.” This morning’s raid on Kamal Adwan Hospital has put this last major health facility in North #Gaza out of service. Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid. 60 health workers and 25 patients in critical condition,… pic.twitter.com/bD5eJgnVkR — World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) December 27, 2024 Israel’s military began a renewed ground offensive in northern Gaza in October and claimed, also without evidence, that the hospital had become “a key stronghold for terrorist organisations and continues to be used as a hideout for terrorist operatives”. Before initiating the latest attack on the hospital, the Israeli military said its soldiers had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients, and medical personnel”. Advertisement Hamas denied its fighters were present in the hospital, and urged the UN to set up an investigation committee “to examine the scale of crime being committed in northern Gaza”. “We categorically deny the presence of any military activity or resistance fighters in the hospital,” Hamas said in a statement. “The enemy’s lies about the hospital aim to justify the heinous crime committed by the occupation army today, involving the evacuation and burning of all hospital departments as part of a plan for extermination and forced displacement.” Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said the Israeli military has often accused Hamas fighters of operating from medical facilities, but has never proven these claims. “Most notable was the raid on al-Shifa Hospital back in 2023 when the military said Hamas was using al-Shifa as a command and control centre, claims that to this day have still never been proven,” she said, reporting from Amman, Jordan, because Al Jazeera has been banned from operating in Israel and the occupied West Bank. “Now, Kamal Adwan was the last functioning hospital in northern Gaza, but again, it was barely functioning because of the siege that was put forward by Israeli forces – a siege on food, water, and all other sorts of medical supplies.” Gaza health officials said on Saturday that Israeli forces had detained the director of the hospital. “The occupation forces have taken dozens of the medical staff from Kamal Adwan Hospital to a detention centre for interrogation, including the director, Hussam Abu Safia,” the Palestinian Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement. Advertisement The Gaza civil defence agency also reported that Abu Safia had been detained. The ministry had earlier quoted Abu Safia as saying that the military had “set on fire all surgery departments of the hospital”. Abu Safia said there were “a large number of injuries” among the medical team. On Thursday, Abu Safia said five staff members had been killed in an Israeli air attack. Israel’s assault has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians since October last year, mostly children and women, according to health officials in the enclave. The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of Gaza is in ruins. In recent days, Abu Safia has repeatedly raised concerns about the hospital’s situation. “The world must understand that our hospital is being targeted with the intent to kill and forcibly displace the people inside,” he said in a statement on Monday. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,038
Here are the key developments on the 1,038th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Here is the situation on Saturday, December 28: Fighting: Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Saturday it had foiled a plot by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill a high-ranking Russian officer and a war blogger, the Interfax news agency reported. Ukrainian forces have killed or wounded more than 1,000 North Korean soldiers Russia has sent to fight them, according to Ukraine and South Korea. “Their losses are significant, very significant. We see that neither the Russian military nor their North Korean overseers have any interest in ensuring the survival of these North Koreans,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Friday. United States National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, meanwhile, said a “human wave” of North Korean troops was being sent to their deaths in “hopeless” attacks by generals who saw them as expendable. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Friday that its forces had taken control of two eastern Ukrainian villages, Ivanivka in the Donetsk region and Zahryzove in the Kharkiv region, the RIA state news agency reported. RIA also cited the ministry as claiming it had downed four British-made Storm Shadow missiles in the past week. A North Korean soldier, who was fighting for Russia, has died in Ukrainian captivity due to severe wounds, according to South Korea’s spy agency. Ukrainian air defence shot down 13 out of 24 Russian drones launched in an overnight attack, the air force said on Friday. The air force said the other 11 Russian drones were “lost” without causing damage. Advertisement Deals and diplomacy: The administration of US President Joe Biden pledged to approve fresh military aid to Ukraine, including air defence systems. Kirby said the US security assistance package was expected to be announced “in the next couple of days”. “If someone wants to organise peace talks in Slovakia, we will be ready and hospitable,” said Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in a post on Facebook late on Friday. His remarks come after Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he was open to a Slovakian proposal to host peace talks with Ukraine. Ukraine received its first batch of liquefied natural gas from the US, a deal that Kyiv says is key to boost Ukrainian and European energy security as a major gas transit deal with Russia ends. “Dtek, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, has today taken delivery of its first cargo of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States,” the company said on Friday. Dissent: A Russian court sentenced Eduard Sharlot, 26, a singer who burned his passport in protest against Russia’s Ukraine war, to five and a half years in prison, according to Russian news agencies. Sharlot was found guilty of “publicly insulting” the religious feelings of believers and “rehabilitating Nazism” by a court in the Volga city of Samara in a case over videos he published online, the state news agency RIA Novosti reported. Adblock test (Why?)