4 Israeli hostages freed after raid in central Gaza, dozens of Palestinians killed
Israeli forces rescued four hostages from two separate locations during a raid in central Gaza on Saturday, according to the country’s military.
Heavy fighting raged in the area where the hostages were rescued. At least 94 dead Palestinians, including children, were brought to local hospitals, a health official said.
The four former hostages were taken by helicopter for medical checks and reunions with loved ones after 246 days in captivity.
“This morning, in a joint special operation held by the @IDF, ISA and the Israeli police, four Israeli hostages were rescued from Gaza,” Israel said on social media.
“The four were kidnapped by the Hamas terrorist organization from the ‘Nova’ music festival on Oct. 7. The hostages were rescued from two separate locations in the heart of Nuseirat.”
Operation planned for weeks
Hundreds of Israeli troops took part in the special operation, which had been planned for weeks, Israel’s chief military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The rescue operation unfolded under fire in the heart of a residential neighbourhood where hostages were being held in two houses, according to Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israeli military.
He told reporters in a televised news conference that Hamas had been hiding captives among Gaza civilians under guard by armed militants.
Israeli forces returned fire, including with airstrikes, he said. An Israeli special forces commander was killed during the operation, a police statement said.
The freed hostages include Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “Israel does not surrender to terrorism and acts with creativity and boldness that knows no bounds to bring home our abductees.” He vowed to continue the fighting until all are freed.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the operation was “daring in nature, planned brilliantly, and executed in an extraordinary fashion.”
The military action was the largest such hostage recovery operation since the war began. It comes as international pressure mounts on Israel to limit civilian bloodshed in its war in Gaza.
More than 36,700 Palestinians have been killed during the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people during the Oct. 7 attacks, according to Israel.
U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the hostages’ return.
“We won’t stop working until all the hostages come home and a ceasefire is reached,” he said at a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.
A U.S. hostage cell provided advice and support throughout the process of locating and rescuing the hostages, according to a Biden administration official. The official, who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity, declined to offer further detail on the American involvement. The hostage cells are multi-agency teams.
Seeking a breakthrough in the apparently stalled ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will return to the Middle East next week. Palestinians are facing widespread hunger because the war has largely cut off the flow of food, medicine and other supplies.
UN agencies say more than million in Gaza could experience the highest level of starvation by mid-July.
Saturday’s operation is the largest recovery of alive hostages since the war erupted, bringing the total of rescued captives to seven.
‘Thank you for this moment’
Israeli News 12 broadcast footage of newly released hostage Argamani being reunited with her father, showing her smiling and embracing him. Video of Argamani’s kidnapping had circulated soon after she was dragged into Gaza by gunmen on Oct. 7.
A video of Argamani receiving a telephone call from Israeli President Isaac Herzog was distributed by his office.
“I am so happy to be here. Thank you for everything, thank you for this moment,” said a smiling Argamani, sitting with her father in a hospital room.
Her mother, Liora, has stage four brain cancer and in April released a video pleading to see her daughter before she dies.
Luis Har and his family were taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7. He was rescued by the Israel Defence Forces more than four months later. Har says his 129 days as a hostage ‘changed everything … [we are] different people,’ and that he hopes to live in peace one day.
After eight months of war in Gaza, 116 of the approximately 250 hostages remain in the Palestinian enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
Two men were rescued in February when troops stormed a heavily guarded apartment in a densely packed town, and a woman was rescued in the aftermath of October’s attack. Israeli troops have so far recovered at least 16 bodies of hostages from Gaza, according to the government.
Israel said this week that of those who remain in captivity, it believes 43 to be dead. The estimate is based on various sources of information including intelligence tips, video evidence and forensic analysis.
Dozens of Palestinians dead
The bodies of nearly 100 Palestinians killed were taken to Al-ASA Hospital, along with another 100 people who were wounded, spokesperson Khalid Dega told The Associated Press.
AP reporters saw dozens of bodies, including a baby, brought from the Nuseirat and Dir al-Baath areas, as smoke rose in the distance and armoured vehicles rolled by.
Small children wailed, covered in blood. Bodies were placed on the ground outside, their feet bare, as more wounded were rushed in.
“My two cousins were killed, and two other cousins were seriously injured. They did not commit any sin. They were sitting at home,” one relative said in the chaos.
Published at Sat, 08 Jun 2024 11:25:50 +0000
Who will Donald Trump choose as his vice-presidential running mate?
With the Republican convention to formally nominate the party’s presidential candidate around the corner, Donald Trump will be making his vice-presidential running mate selection soon enough.
Trump, the 2016 outsider candidate who upended the party, chose Mike Pence then. That political alliance ended when Pence refused to heed Trump’s pleas to not officially certify Joe Biden’s 2020 win, despite being threatened by some Trump supporters during the Capitol insurrection.
Political scientists have long said that vice-presidential choices have rarely had an impact on voting behaviour.
But the choices are always debated. Ahead of the July 15 convention in Milwaukee, Reuters has heard several names repeated based on conversations with nine people who have talked with Trump or his team in recent weeks, including donors, lobbyists and campaign operatives.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump told Fox News he would be ‘OK’ with house arrest or jail time following his conviction, but he doesn’t think the public ‘would stand for it.’ Trump’s opponents considered the comments as being able to incite violence.
Here’s a closer look at some potential VP candidates:
Doug Burgum
Burgum, 67, was little known outside his native North Dakota when he launched a quixotic campaign for president last year. The governor of the 47th most populous state in the U.S. since 2016, he gained attention for offering cash in exchange for donations in a brief campaign that involved spending at least $12 million US of his own money.
There a number of factors that could endear him to the nominee: he endorsed Trump right away after dropping out of the presidential campaign, he was among a small number of Republicans to travel to New York and protest Trump’s trial outside the courthouse and he is a real estate investor and billionaire who sold a software company to Microsoft in 2001.
Trivia: There has never been a VP from the Dakotas.
Tom Cotton
Cotton, 47, has been in the Senate since 2015, and prior to that put two years in as a House member. He serves on the judiciary, intelligence and armed services committees. Perhaps the candidate would like another face on those committees, as Cotton was not averse to occasionally voting against the first Trump administration.
Cotton received a law degree from Harvard and then enlisted in the U.S. army, seeing active combat duty but later encountering criticism for allegations he mischaracterized aspects of his deployment. His op-ed imploring the Trump administration to send in troops to quell 2020 protests over police brutality famously caused a rupture within the New York Times.
More recently, Cotton gave a stronger statement in supporting the results of the upcoming election compared to some other potential VP candidates.
Trivia: Cotton is six-foot-five. Would Trump pick a VP taller than he is?
Marco Rubio
Rubio, 53, ran for president in 2016 and found himself on the end of several Trump insults, but any hard feelings have long since been smoothed over. Rubio was a strong backer when Trump was president, voting against his two impeachments, and he compared Trump’s recent conviction to show trials in authoritarian countries. A Florida senator since 2010, he probably has the widest range of committee experience of any potential picks.
While going from being one of the most high-profile senators to a role that’s often overshadowed might seem like a step back, Rubio is no doubt mindful of history — Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush raised their profiles vice-presidents and landed in the Oval Office after previous failed presidential bids.
Trump has ignored history, tradition and, his critics say, the constitution before. He would probably be doing so again by picking Rubio, as the 12th Amendment seems to indicate that a president and vice-president can’t reside in the same state.
Trivia: Rubio would be the first Cuban American and Hispanic vice-president.
Tim Scott
Scott, 58, could be the first Black man to serve as vice-president. That’s more than just trivia, as Scott has been hailed within the party for his ability to raise money and provide outreach to minority voters.
He ran for president this cycle but didn’t make it to the first contest in Iowa. He criticized Trump on the campaign trail for not supporting a federal abortion ban like he has. That’s unlikely to bother the base, as many Republican-led states have banned the procedure in the aftermath of the momentous 2022 Dobbs court ruling, but it could upset undecided women voters.
As well, Scott voted alongside previous Trump administration positions more so than some other names on this list, according to an analysis.
He’s been a longtime politician — a senator for over 10 years, a House member for two before that and a municipal politician in the more distant past.
Trivia: He’s getting married in the summer, meaning he wouldn’t be the first unwed vice-president since Charles Curtis (1929-1933).
Elise Stefanik
Stefanik, 39, is arguably the person whose moved the furthest from Trump criticism and skepticism eight years ago to staunch supporter now, echoing his controversial language that many 2021 Capitol riot criminal defendants are “political prisoners.”
Stefanik has White House experience, serving in George W. Bush’s administration as a junior staffer and has risen to become the fourth-ranking House Republican after being first elected to the chamber in 2014.
Stefanik has made a name for herself in recent months by forceful questioning of university presidents in their efforts to deal with antisemitism and pro-Palestinian protests that have sprung up since the Oct. 7 attack in Israel by Hamas. She then celebrated when two of those campus leaders resigned after enduring a firestorm of criticism for their answers to Stefanik and her Republican colleagues.
Trivia: She would be the first woman to serve as VP for the Republicans. She’d be the youngest VP in modern times, and second only to 36-year-old John Breckinridge in the 1820s.
J.D. Vance
Vance, 39, ticks a lot of boxes on paper for an ideal political candidate: military experience, a Yale law degree, tech experience in Silicon Valley and his name on a book that crossed over into the mainstream: Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, later made into a movie.
Vance — who spoke to CBC in 2016 about his rural American upbringing — in the past criticized Trump for often offering easy, impractical answers to voters like his onetime neighbours, but he has been a full-throated supporter of the former president since launching his successful 2022 Senate bid.
Choosing Vance would lead to an expensive and potentially risky contest in what’s expected to be a razor-close 2024 U.S. Senate year. Ohio has leaned conservative in recent years, but is not as solidly Republican as the states of Cotton, Rubio and Scott.
Trivia: Vance has been bearded in recent years and that has been out of vogue for the top ticket since the early 1900s. Trump famously loathed former White House adviser John Bolton’s moustache.
Published at Fri, 07 Jun 2024 16:43:37 +0000
