Israel destroys cross-border tunnel from Gaza
Jerusalem, April 15: The Israeli Army on Sunday claimed to have discovered and destroyed a tunnel allegedly extending tens of metres into Israel from Gaza and that belonged to the Islamist movement Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip.
Army spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus confirmed the destruction of the tunnel, the fifth such tunnel to have been found in the last five months, which the Army said started from Jabalia in northern Gaza and ended near the Israeli community of Nahal Oz, Efe news agency reported.
"The route of the terror tunnel was identified by security forces early on and monitored thereafter," the Israel Army said on Twitter.
Israeli Army also claimed that "violent riots that have been taking place in the area of the security fence are an attempt to mask the terror attacks intended to take place above and below ground".
Since March 30, thousands of peaceful Palestinian demonstrators have set up protest tent camps along the Gaza-Israel border, and the Israeli military has killed at least 33 demonstrators during marches that have taken place near the border each Friday.
According to the United Nations, over 3,700 Palestinians have been wounded by Israeli forces during the Friday marches; 969 Palestinians on April 13, another 1,350 people on April 6 and 1,416 people on March 30.
The protests are calling for the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants, who according to the United Nations make up around two thirds of Gaza's population, to return to their homeland inside what is now Israel.
The route of the terror tunnel was identified by security forces early on & monitored thereafter. In recent months & especially over the last two weeks, Hamas has turned the area near the security fence into an area of terror & fighting pic.twitter.com/6bJlbpgbmk
— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) April 15, 2018
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Delimitation will turn out to be 'political demonetisation': Tharoor slams govt
New Delhi (PTI): Delimitation will turn out to be "political demonetisation", senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said on Friday while slamming the government for linking women's reservation with the expansion of Parliament.
Participating in a debate in the Lok Sabha on the three bills introduced for amendments in the women's quota law and setting up a delimitation commission, Tharoor said linking women's reservation with delimitation is to hold the aspirations of Indian women hostage to "one of the most contentious and complex" administrative exercises in the country's history.
"Today we stand at a threshold where there is near unanimous political consensus in favour of women's reservation. Every major party realises that the time for tokenism is over and the era of collective partnership must begin and yet I am finding myself deeply perturbed by the legislative exercise before us," he said.
"The prime minister says he has brought 'nari shakti' the gift of justice but he has wrapped it in barbed wire, tethering the implementation of women's reservation to the expansion of Parliament, to numbers from the 2011 census and an exercise of delimitation... Why must we entangle a moral imperative with a demographic minefield, he asked.
Women's reservation, he said, is ready for harvest and can and should be implemented immediately based on existing parliamentary strength.
"Delimitation is not a mere bureaucratic rearranging of maps, it is a profound shift in political power that is intended....Any delimitation exercise is fraught with complications that could tear at the very fabric of our federalism," he said.
"You have proposed delimitation with such haste, the same haste that you showed on demonetisation. Unfortunately, we all know what damage that did to the country. Delimitation will turn out to be political demonetisation. Don't do it," Tharoor said.
The Constitution (131st Amendment) Bill to tweak the women's quota law was introduced in Lok Sabha on Thursday after a division of votes.
Two ordinary bills -- the Delimitation Bill and the Union Territories Laws (Amendment) Bill to implement the proposed amended women's quota law in Union territories of Delhi, Puducherry and Jammu and Kashmir -- were also introduced in the House.
