Former Malaysian PM Najib arrested on graft charges
Kuala Lumpur, July 3 : Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was arrested on Tuesday by anti-corruption authorities in relation to state development fund 1MDB graft scandal.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said in a statement that Najib was arrested at around 2.35 p.m. (local time) from his private house over investigation linked to SRC International, a former unit of 1MDB, the BBC reported.
Najib has been accused of pocketing $700 million from the fund, set up by him in 2009. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for from the fund, authorities say.
MACC said Najib will be charged at the Kuala Lumpur court on Wednesday.
He has been under investigation since his shock election loss in May to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Najib denies wrongdoing.
Last week police said they had seized $225 million in luxury handbags, jewellery, cash and goods from six properties linked to the former leader as part of the investigation into the 1MDB scandal. He has been banned from leaving Malaysia.
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Israel detains director of one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals, Palestinians say
Deir al-Balah, Dec 28: Israel's army detained the director of one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals as overnight strikes in the territory killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.
Gaza's Health Ministry said Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested by Israeli forces Friday along with dozens of other staff and taken to an interrogation centre. The ministry said Israeli troops stormed the hospital and forced many staff and patients outside and told them to strip in winter weather, according to the ministry.
Israel's army didn't respond to questions about the director. On Friday, it denied it had entered or set fire to the hospital complex but acknowledged it had ordered people outside, and said it was conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and its members in the area.
The military repeated claims that Hamas group operate inside Kamal Adwan but provided no evidence. Hospital officials have denied that.
The hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive in largely isolated northern Gaza against Hamas fighters it says have regrouped. The health ministry said a strike on the hospital earlier this week killed five medical personnel.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organisation for which Abu Safiya worked, said Friday it was gravely concerned about him. It said the incident follows the October detention of five other staff, calling it an “alarming and egregious pattern of targeting medical personnel and spaces.”
Israel's nearly 15-month-old campaign of bombardment and ground offensives has devastated Gaza's health sector. The World Health Organisation has said the raid on Kamal Adwan has put northern Gaza's last major health facility “out of service" after growing restrictions on access, adding that “this horror must end and health care must be protected.”
The Health Ministry said conditions for Kamal Adwan patients who were relocated to the damaged Indonesian Hospital nearby — also raided in the past — were “extremely difficult.”
The war has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, and wounded more than 108,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since October, Israel's offensive has virtually sealed off the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and leveled large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced out but thousands are believed to remain in the area where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the groups Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which they killed around 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. Some 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, around a third believed to be dead.
Israel continued attacks across Gaza on Saturday. An overnight strike killed at least nine people in Maghazi, including women and children, according to staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were taken and an Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies.
Men cried as the bodies, wrapped in bloodied white plastic, lay on the floor of the morgue.
The Health Ministry said Saturday that 48 people had been killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli fire.
Meanwhile, Israel said its troops had begun operating in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence that fighters and Hamas infrastructure were in the area.
Strikes also continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded early Saturday and the military said it intercepted a missile fired by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Israeli warplanes bombed key infrastructure in Yemen again on Thursday. The Houthis also have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and say they won't stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
