Israeli airstrike on southern Gaza hospital kills 15, hospital says
Deir al-Balah(Gaza Strip) (AP): An Israeli strike hit a southern Gaza's main hospital Monday, killing 15 people according to hospital records.
The victims on the fourth floor of Nasser Hospital were killed when one missile hit and was followed in the same spot by another missile moments later as rescue crews arrived, the ministry said.
Khan Younis' Nasser Hospital, the largest in southern Gaza, has withstood raids and bombardment throughout 22 months of war, with officials citing critical shortages of supplies and staff.
Among the 15 killed were four journalists including 33-year-old Mariam Dagga, a visual journalist who had worked for The Associated Press since the start of the war.
Dagga was a freelancer who recently reported on Nasser Hospital doctors struggling to save children with no prior health issues who were dying or wasting away from starvation. Al Jazeera and Reuters also confirmed their journalists and freelancers were among those killed.
The Israel-Hamas war has been one of the bloodiest conflicts for media workers, with a total of 192 journalists killed in Gaza in the 22-month conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Neither Israel's military nor the Prime Minister's office immediately responded to questions about the strike.
In addition to the 15 killed at Nasser Hospital, hospital officials in northern Gaza also reported deaths from strikes and gunfire along the route to aid sites. Three Palestinians, including a child, were killed in a strike on a neighbourhood in Gaza City, where Israel is preparing for a broader ground invasion in the coming days, Shifa Hospital said.
Al-Awda Hospital reported six aid-seekers trying to reach a distribution point in central Gaza were killed by Israeli gunfire in an incident that also wounded 15. Israel's military did not immediately respond to a question about the aid seekers.
Israeli strikes and raids on hospitals are not uncommon. Multiple hospitals have been struck or raided across the Gaza Strip, with Israel claiming its attacks had targeted Hamas operating inside the medical facilities, without providing evidence.
A June strike on Nasser Hospital killed three people and wounded 10, according to the health ministry. At the time, Israel's military said it had targeted Hamas operating from a command and control centre inside the hospital. A March strike on the hospital's surgical unit days after a ceasefire broke down killed two people.
The health ministry said Sunday that at least 62,686 Palestinians have been killed in the war. It does not distinguish between fighters and civillians but says around half have been women and children. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes its figures but has not provided its own.
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Ambani, Adani pledge USD 210 bn for India's AI push
New Delhi (PTI): Conglomerates run by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani committed USD 210 billion investment to creating infrastructure that will help India emerge as an AI development hub.
At the India AI Impact Summit, Ambani announced a Rs 10 lakh crore (about USD 110 billion) investment in artificial intelligence over the next seven years in gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar, leveraging up to 10 GW of green power surplus, and a nationwide edge-compute layer integrated with telecom and digital operator Jio's networks to deliver low-latency AI across India.
"Our resolve is clear: make intelligence as ubiquitous as connectivity," he said. "When compute becomes infrastructure, innovation will become inevitable."
Adani, on the other hand, unveiled a USD 100-billion investment to develop renewable-energy-powered, hyperscale AI-ready data centres by 2035 -- one of the world's largest integrated energy-compute commitments.
The initiative is expected to catalyse an additional USD 150 billion across server manufacturing, cloud platforms, and supporting industries, creating a projected USD 250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem in India.
India must architect its own artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure rather than rely on imports, Adani Group executive director Jeet Adani said on Thursday, warning that AI will redefine national sovereignty.
Other major investments announced at the Summit included USD 50 billion commitment by Microsoft by the end of the decade to expand artificial intelligence access across the Global South. "India, not surprisingly, is one of the largest," its vice chair and president, Brad Smith, said.
The firm had unveiled USD 17.5 billion investment in AI investments in India last year.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new subsea cable initiative to boost AI connectivity between India, the US and other locations, alongside partnerships for cloud infrastructure platform support to over 20 million public servants across 800 districts.
Yotta Data Services, backed by a real estate group headed by Niranjan Hiranandani, announced over USD 2 billion spend on Nvidia's latest chips in an artificial intelligence computing hub it is setting up just outside the national capital.
While Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) signed up ChatGPT parent OpenAI as its first customer for its data centre unit under the global AI infrastructure initiative Stargate, infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro announced a proposed venture with Nvidia to build AI-ready data centre infrastructure, advanced computing platforms, and ecosystem enablement required to support large-scale AI workloads.
