The war between Israel and Hamas is entering its fourth month
With no sign of respite, the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas entered its fourth month on Sunday. Despite international pressure and calls for a ceasefire, Israel remains inflexible. “I have a clear message to our enemies: What happened on October 7 will never happen again,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
The Hamas Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday that an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinian journalists in Rafah: Moustafa Thuraya, a freelance videographer who has worked for AFP since 2019, and Hamza Waël Dahdouh, a journalist for Al-Jazeera channel .
On Saturday, the army, which launched its ground offensive in Palestinian territory on October 27, announced that it had “completed the dismantling of the Hamas military structure in the north.” “We are now concentrating on the center and the south,” said army spokesman Daniel Hagari, specifying, however, that Hamas elements in the north were still operating “without structure and without a commander.”
Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers Israel: Netanyahu's government struggles to define post-war Gaza
In this context, Antony Blinken, who began a new tour of Arab countries and Israel in Amman, called for avoiding a flare-up of the conflict at all costs and preventing “an endless cycle of violence.” Since October 7, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the Israel-Lebanese border. Attacks on US military bases have also increased in Syria and Iraq, while the Houthis in Yemen are disrupting global maritime traffic in the Red Sea by attacking ships there supporting the Palestinians.
War in Ukraine: Zelensky calls for international solidarity, the head of Japanese diplomacy visits Kiev
“We see that Russia's aggressive ambitions can only stop when there are enough forces to contain them (…),” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday at the annual Society and Defense Conference held in Sweden . For his part, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin met several families of soldiers who died in his war against Ukraine on the eve of Orthodox Christmas, the Kremlin said.
The head of Japanese diplomacy, Yoko Kamikawa, during a surprise visit to Kiev during a joint press conference held in an air raid shelter as a security measure, said that Japan remains “determined” to continue to help Ukraine confront Russia, “with this. “Peace is coming to this land.”
At the front in Kherson, eastern Ukraine, one person died and another was injured in several Russian bomb attacks, the head of the city's military administration wrote on Telegram on Sunday. The Ukrainian Air Force said it destroyed 21 of the 28 Shahed drones sent by Russia to the coast of the Sea of Azov from the Primorsko-Akhtarsk region of Russia on Saturday night. On Saturday, at least 11 people, including five children, were killed in a Russian attack on the city of Pokrovsk and its surroundings, also in Donetsk Oblast.
Read also: Live, war in Ukraine: the latest information
North Korea fires again near South Korean islands
North Korea conducted new live artillery exercises on its western coast near the maritime border with South Korea for the third straight day on Sunday, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said. According to them, these shells struck just north of the maritime border between the two countries, near Yeonpyeong, a remote South Korean island in the Yellow Sea near the North Korean coast, but no projectiles struck on the southern side. -Korean maritime demarcation line.
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On Friday, residents of Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong, another South Korean island near North Korea, were ordered to evacuate to shelters due to North Korean artillery fire in surrounding waters. According to Seoul, more than two hundred grenades were fired, and the army responded with a live-fire exercise a few hours later in Yeonpyeong. And on Saturday, the South Korean military announced that North Korea had fired 60 shells into the waters near Yeonpyeong, near the maritime demarcation line.
This military escalation in the Yellow Sea is one of the most serious on the peninsula since 2010, when the North bombed Yeonpyeong, killing four people, including two civilians. This follows a series of bellicose statements by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who in recent days has threatened in particular to “annihilate” South Korea and the United States.
Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers The year 2024 begins with high tension between the two Koreas
Earthquake in Japan: 195 people still missing, search continues
According to the latest count published on Sunday by local authorities, the earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale (up to 9) that devastated the Noto peninsula in the center of the country on January 1 caused at least 128 deaths, 560 were injured, 195 people are still missing. A ninety-year-old woman was found alive on Saturday after spending five days under the rubble of her collapsed home in Suzu, at the tip of the Sea of Japan peninsula.
Rescuers are continuing efforts to search for people missing or isolated due to roads damaged by the earthquake and to deliver food and equipment to victims. According to the Ishikawa department, about 29,000 people were staying in 404 government shelters as of Sunday.
The situation deteriorated further with deteriorating weather conditions on Sunday, which is expected to continue on Monday, with local rain and heavy snowfall expected. The Japanese Meteorological Agency has warned of the risk of hypothermia. New landslides due to rainfall are also feared, and the slippery conditions are expected to further complicate traffic on roads damaged by the earthquake.
Also read: Japan: The damage from the New Year's quake seen from the sky
Australian Open: Already injured, Rafael Nadal withdraws
Rafael Nadal is already injured a week after his return and will not take part in the Australian Open. The Spaniard withdrew on Sunday from the season's first Grand Slam, which begins in Melbourne in a week, because he suffered a “micro-torn muscle” in his return tournament two days earlier in Brisbane, his first in almost a year.
“I'm sad not to be able to play in front of the incredible crowd in Melbourne,” said he, who won two of his 22 Grand Slam titles in Australia in 2009 and 2022. But to add this setback straight away, it was “not too bad news” and he and his team remained “very positive about how the season went”.
On Friday in Brisbane, the Mallorcan lost in the third round to the Australian Jordan Thomson (55th in the world rankings) in a three-set match that lasted almost three and a half hours and ended with a sore left thigh.
Also read: Tennis: Injured again, Rafael Nadal withdraws from the Australian Open
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