Palestinian officials say Israeli strike on Gaza shelter has killed at least 27 people
Deir al-Balah, Oct 10: An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in the Gaza Strip killed at least 27 people on Thursday, Palestinian medical officials said.
The Israeli military said it targeted Hamas group hiding among civilians, without providing evidence.
Israel has continued to strike at what it says are Hamas members targets across the Palestinian enclave even as attention has shifted to its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and rising tensions with Iran. The military launched a large-scale air and ground operation against Hamas in northern Gaza earlier this week.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were brought, said the strike in the central town of Deir al-Balah killed 27 people, including a child and seven women. It said several other people were wounded.
An Associated Press reporter saw ambulances streaming into the hospital and counted the bodies, many of which arrived in pieces.
“We appeal to the world. We are dying!” one man screamed.
The Israeli military said it carried out a precise strike targeting a Hamas command and control centre inside the school. Israel has repeatedly attacked schools that were turned into shelters in Gaza, accusing Hamas group of hiding out in them.
Witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons said the strike occurred while school managers were meeting with representatives of an aid group in a room normally used by Hamas-run police who provide security. They said there were no police in the room at the time.
The Hamas-run government operated a civilian police force numbering in the tens of thousands. They largely vanished from the streets after the start of the war as Israel targeted them with airstrikes, but plainclothes Hamas security personnel still exert control over most areas.
Hamas has continued to launch attacks on Israeli forces and fire occasional rockets into Israel more than a year after its October 7 attack ignited the war.
Hamas-led group stormed into Israel and rampaged through army bases and farming communities in that attack, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. They are still holding around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel's offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
The Hezbollah group in Lebanon began firing rockets into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in support of Hamas and the Palestinians, drawing Israeli airstrikes in retaliation.
The fighting steadily escalated, and eventually boiled over into all-out war in recent weeks, with Israel carrying out waves of heavy strikes across Lebanon and launching a ground invasion. Hezbollah has expanded its rocket fire to more populated areas deeper inside Israel, causing few casualties but disrupting daily life.
Iran supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups across the region that refer to themselves as the Axis of Resistance against Israel. Iran launched some 180 ballistic missiles at Israel last week in retaliation for the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that its response to the Iranian missile attack will be “lethal” and “surprising,” without providing further details, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with US President Joe Biden.
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Kumaraswamy says ‘caste for sake of a chair’ charge against CM Siddaramaiah was serious
Bengaluru (PTI): Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Sunday launched a sharp counterattack on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, asserting that his charge that the CM had “dragged caste into the picture for the sake of a chair” was made in all seriousness and not in jest.
Responding to Siddaramaiah’s media statement targeting the JD(S) leadership, Kumaraswamy in a post on X said, “When I said that Siddaramaiah has dragged caste into the picture for the sake of a chair, I did not say it jokingly; I said it seriously."
In his statement, Siddaramaiah had alleged that Kumaraswamy and his father, former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, were 'family-centric' and that "in the past, present and future, the top leaders of the Janata Dal (Secular) will be members of the Gowda family".
Reacting to this, the MP wrote, “Siddaramaiah, I do not speak in a roundabout manner. I will come straight to the point.”
Taking strong exception to Siddaramaiah’s remarks against his father, Kumaraswamy said, “You are not a champion of social justice but its destroyer. It is shocking that you are pointing fingers at Deve Gowda, who gave you political strength and life. The power you hold today and the attire of a social justice crusader you wear are all gifts of Deve Gowda. You too are a product and beneficiary of his social justice.”
He further contended that had Deve Gowda been guided solely by caste or family considerations, Siddaramaiah would not have risen in politics.
“Had he thought only about his own caste and family back then, you would not have become Finance Minister, nor would you have secured even the chairmanship of a corporation,” he said.
Referring to the Chief Minister’s listing of several Vokkaliga leaders who had left the JD(S), Kumaraswamy said, “Like you, they too enjoyed power and grew in stature because of Deve Gowda’s hard work and sacrifice, and later jumped the fence. As you claim, had Gowda believed that only family mattered, none of those on the list would have become MLAs, Ministers or MPs — including you! What do you say?”
He also objected to Siddaramaiah invoking senior Congress leaders in his defence.
“Do you possess even a mustard seed’s worth of worthiness or morality to utter S M Krishna’s name? The world knows how cruelly you betrayed Krishna, whom you once described before Sonia Gandhi as ‘an unpolished diamond’ and who paved your way into the Congress,” he wrote.
Kumaraswamy rejected the Chief Minister’s claim that the Congress alone had nurtured Vokkaliga leaders. “You say it is the Congress that nurtured Vokkaligas — sheer nonsense… If the Congress alone makes Vokkaligas Chief Ministers, should you not immediately vacate the chair? This is the right time to demonstrate your love for Vokkaligas!” he said.
He also raised questions about Siddaramaiah’s second term as Chief Minister and the reported power tussle between him and his deputy D K Shivakumar.
The JD(S) leader said he welcomed the generosity of the Congress in giving capable leadership to the Vokkaliga community.
He demanded that Siddaramaiah should also need to demonstrate that generosity by vacating the top post, paving the way for a 'Vokkaliga' -- an apparent reference to Shivakumar.
According to Kumaraswamy, before Siddaramaiah became the Chief Minister for a second term, there was an agreement between him and Shivakumar and he should now show the generosity to reveal it publicly. "I believe that Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretaries K C Venugopal and Randeep Singh Surjewala, who were witnesses to that agreement between the two of you in Delhi, have now understood the peak of your commitment to social justice and love for Vokkaligas. At least I believe their mental faculties are intact."
In a pointed remark on social justice, Kumaraswamy alleged that it is repulsive that the "destroyer of social justice" keeps speaking repeatedly about social justice.
"Your social justice has no conscience. If it had, Mallikarjun Kharge would have become Chief Minister before you,” the Union Minister said.
Concluding his post, he said if Siddaramaiah was truly a leader of AHINDA (an acronym for minorities, backward castes and Dalits) and a representative of social justice, he would not have dragged in the caste into which he was born at such a sensitive time.
He advised Siddaramaiah not to invoke the names of social reformers in future.
