Israel’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 163
Aid trucks moving from the south have arrived safely in the northern Gaza Strip without incident. Here’s how things stand on Sunday, March 17, 2024: Fighting and humanitarian crisis At least 92 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza in the last 24 hours, according to the Wafa news agency. Shelling on Sunday morning targeted areas in the south and northeast of Khan Younis as well as in the north of Rafah city. Late Saturday evening attacks in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza killed at least 12 people and wounded many more, including children, according to videos and witnesses. Several aid trucks arrived safely in Jabalia and Gaza City, marking the first convoys to travel from the south to the north of the Gaza Strip without incident in four months. Flour is now being distributed from at least six trucks secured at camps run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) A second aid ship will soon leave Cyprus for Gaza with tonnes of aid to join the Open Arms vessel which has started unloading 200 tonnes of aid cargo in Gaza. Diplomacy and regional tensions Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israeli troops would pursue a planned ground offensive in southern Gaza’s Rafah that has spurred fears of mass civilian casualties. Ceasefire talks could resume in Qatar as early as Sunday, with an Israeli delegation led by Mossad’s spy chief expected in Doha to discuss Hamas’s proposal for a three-stage plan to end the war. Amnesty International called on US President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire and stop arms sales to Israel, saying that US-made munitions have killed many of the more than 30,000 fatalities in Gaza. Human Rights Watch called on the the international community to impose sanctions on Israel for its failure to comply with the International Court of Justice’s order to take provisional measures in Gaza to prevent genocide of the Palestinian people. Violence in the occupied West Bank Israeli forces detained at least 25 Palestinians from the West Bank in overnight and early Sunday raids. A Gazan female awaiting cancer treatment, a child, and former prisoners were among those arrested in Hebron, Qalqilya, Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkarem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem, Wafa reports. An Israeli rights group, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) has called on the international community to sanction Israel over its abuse and torture of Palestinian detainees. Adblock test (Why?)
Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim Assembly polls: EC changes counting date from June 4 to…
Election Commission on Sunday advanced the date of the counting of votes for the Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim assembly polls.
Iceland in state of emergency after volcano erupts, fourth time in 3 months
Icelandic police declared a state of emergency on Saturday as lava spewed from a new volcanic fissure on the Reykjanes Peninsula, the fourth eruption to hit the area since December. A “volcanic eruption has started between Stori-Skogfell and Hagafell on the Reykjanes Peninsula,” said a statement from the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO). Live video images showed glowing lava and billowing smoke. Iceland’s Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management announced it had sent a helicopter to narrow down the exact location of the new fissure. The authority also said the police had declared a state of emergency due to the eruption. According to the IMO, it occurred close to the same location as a previous eruption on February 8. Lava appeared to flow south towards the dykes built to protect the fishing village Grindavik, it said. Just after 22:00 GMT, “the southern lava front was just 200 metres [656 feet] from the barriers on the eastern side of Grindavik and moving at a rate of about one km per hour”, it added. Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Blue Lagoon thermal spa, one of Iceland’s top tourist attractions, when the eruption began, national broadcaster RUV said. No flight disruptions were reported at nearby Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport. The eruption site is a few kilometres northeast of Grindavik, a coastal town of 3,800 people about 50km (30 miles) southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, that was evacuated before the initial eruption in December. A few residents who had returned to their homes were evacuated again on Saturday. Grindavik was evacuated in November when the Svartsengi volcanic system awakened after almost 800 years with a series of earthquakes that opened large cracks in the ground north of the town. The volcano eventually erupted on December 18, sending lava flowing away from Grindavik. A second eruption that began on January 14 sent lava towards the town. Defensive walls that had been bolstered after the first eruption stopped some of the flow, but several buildings were consumed by the lava. Both eruptions lasted only a matter of days. A third eruption began February 8. It petered out within hours, but not before a river of lava engulfed a pipeline, cutting off heat and hot water to thousands of people. RUV quoted geophysicist Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson as saying that the latest eruption is the most powerful so far. The IMO said some of the lava was flowing towards the defensive barriers around Grindavik. Iceland, which sits above a volcanic hot spot in the North Atlantic, sees regular eruptions and is highly experienced at dealing with them. The most disruptive in recent times was the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed huge clouds of ash into the atmosphere and led to widespread airspace closures over Europe. No confirmed deaths have been reported from any of the recent eruptions, but a workman was declared missing after falling into a fissure opened by the volcano. Adblock test (Why?)
Professor Jeffrey Sachs: ‘‘US is complicit in Israeli genocide’
Columbia University’s Jeffrey Sachs says the war in Gaza could end today if the United States stopped supplying weapons to Israel. “Does the United States want to be complicit in genocide?” This is the question that US leaders should be asking themselves as Israel’s war on Gaza continues, argues Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs tells host Steve Clemons that Israel could not continue “for one day” without US support, and the rhetoric from top Democrats criticising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “meaningless” because no action is taken to stop the war crimes. This has led to US isolation on the world stage, as Israel is allowed to continue “whatever they have in their minds… which will never lead to peace”. Adblock test (Why?)
Election Commission makes fresh electoral bonds data public
These details are believed to be pertaining to the period before April 12, 2019. Electoral bond details after this date was made public by the poll panel last week.
FIR against former CM Bhupesh Baghel in Mahadev betting app case
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in Chhattisgarh has registered a case against former Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and others in the alleged Mahadev online betting scam based on a probe report submitted by the ED, officials said on Sunday.
US man suspected of killing three family members arrested after manhunt
An ‘extremely dangerous’ suspect has been taken into custody in New Jersey following an hours-long effort to detain him. A suspect has been taken into custody in New Jersey after allegedly shooting dead three family members, authorities have said, following an hours-long effort to detain him. Andre Gordon, 26, “surrendered peacefully”, Trenton Police Department spokeswoman Lisette Rios told the AFP news agency on Saturday, after a trail of violence that triggered shelter-in-place orders in two states. Authorities said Gordon, who is believed to be homeless, began the day by carjacking a vehicle in Trenton before driving some 65km (40 miles) to the northern Philadelphia suburb of Levittown. There, police said, the suspect killed two people – identified as his 52-year-old stepmother and his 13-year-old sister. Three others, including a minor, managed to hide “as he went through the house searching for them”, Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said in a briefing. The suspect then drove to a nearby residence where he broke in before shooting and killing a 25-year-old woman – who Schorn said was the mother of his two children – before bludgeoning her mother with the butt of his rifle. Driving to a nearby discount store, the suspect carjacked a 44-year-old man before fleeing. The man was not injured, according to Falls Township Sheriff Nelson Whitney. The suspect then drove across the state line back to Trenton, where police believed he had barricaded himself in a three-storey house. Whitney had said the suspect was believed to be armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and police described him as “extremely dangerous”. For several hours they appealed to him to surrender, after SWAT officers evacuated people in the home through a second-storey window. “Andre, get away from the windows. We know you’re inside, if you’d like to surrender, dial 911 now,” police said over a loudspeaker. “You’re a young man, you have too much to live for.” Later on Saturday Gordon was “located at another location in Trenton”, police spokeswoman Rios said. Trenton Police Director Steve Wilson said Gordon was uninjured and walking along a street when a patrol officer approached him. Gordon had apparently slipped out of the house before police had completed setting up a perimeter, Wilson said. Because the suspect crossed state lines, federal authorities – including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives – were working the case, along with local, county and state police. Officials said they could not yet speak to a motive for the attacks. While Gordon had had some minor brushes with the law, they were “nothing that would indicate that anything like this would happen”, Whitney, the Sheriff said at a news conference. The mayhem forced the cancellation of a St Patrick’s Day parade and shut down a Sesame Street-themed amusement park. Adblock test (Why?)
Iceland volcano erupts forcing residents to evacuate
NewsFeed Sirens blared as a volcano erupted in Iceland for the fourth time since December. Residents were ordered to leave their homes as lava spewed out of an almost 3km-long fissure in Reykjanes Peninsula. Published On 17 Mar 202417 Mar 2024 Adblock test (Why?)
Six-time Miami Open champ Novak Djokovic pulls out, cites scheduling issues
Djokovic’s announcement follows his shock defeat last week to world number 123 Luca Nardi at Indian Wells. Top-ranked Novak Djokovic will skip the Miami Open saying, less than a week after a surprise loss at Indian Wells, that he needs to balance his “private and professional schedule”. Djokovic’s announcement Saturday on his social media accounts follows his 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 defeat to unheralded Luca Nardi on Monday in the third round of the BNP Paribas Open. “At this stage of my career, I’m balancing my private and professional schedule. I’m sorry that I won’t experience some of the best and most passionate fans in the world,” Djokovic wrote. Nardi, who is ranked number 123, became the lowest-ranked player to beat Djokovic in a Grand Slam or ATP Masters 1000 level event, surpassing number 122 Kevin Anderson in 2008 in Miami. The 20-year-old Italian got into the field as a “lucky loser”, a player who stumbled on the final hurdle in qualifying but made it into the main draw as a replacement for an injured player who pulled out before the first round. The 36-year-old Djokovic is a six-time champion in Miami. The men’s hardcourt tournament begins on March 20. Djokovic, a record 24-time Grand Slam champion, is 8-2 on the season but is yet to win a title in 2024. Adblock test (Why?)
Gujarat: Foreign students attacked for offering namaz at university, 5 injured
The students have claimed that shortly after, a mob carrying knives and sticks broke into the hostel, attacked the residents, and vandalised their rooms. The students claim that the hostel’s security guard attempted to disperse the crowd, but failed.