12/04/2025

SATURDAY | APR 12, 2025

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Hudson River helicopter crash kills six NEW YORK: A tourist helicopter plummeted upside down into New York City’s Hudson River on Thursday killing all six people on board, including a Spanish family with three children and the pilot. Agustin Escobar, an executive at Germany-based technology company Siemens, was among those killed, according to the New York Times , which cited unnamed law enforcement sources. Video of the crash showed what appeared to be a large object plunging into the river, followed seconds later by what appeared to be a helicopter blade. Afterwards, emergency and police boats were seen circling around a patch of river where the helicopter was submerged, with only what appeared to be the aircraft’s landing gear poking above the water’s surface. The Bell 206 chopper, operated by New York Helicopter Tours, departed from a helicopter pad and flew north over the Hudson River, New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. It turned south when it reached the George Washington Bridge and crashed minutes later, hitting the water upside down and sinking near Lower Manhattan, just off Hoboken, New Jersey. Dani Horbiak, a 29-year-old resident of Jersey City, New Jersey, said she witnessed the crash from her home. Horbiak said she called emergency services, which said it had already dispatched responders to the scene. Divers helped remove the victims from the water. Four were pronounced dead at the scene, while two others were taken to area hospitals, where they died. The airspace around Manhattan is crowded with helicopters offering tourists a bird’s-eye view of the sights, with at least two dozen operators listed on tour website Viator. Many of the operators also offer helicopter shuttle services to airports. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the tour helicopter was in a Special Flight Rules Area, which means no air traffic control services were being provided when it crashed. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash. – Reuters

UN: 36 strikes in Gaza killed ‘only women and children’

GENEVA: The United Nations said yesterday its analysis of 36 recent Israeli strikes in Gaza showed only women and children were killed and decried the human cost of the war. The UN rights office also warned that expanding Israeli evacuation orders were resulting in the “forcible transfer” of people into ever-shrinking spaces in the war ravaged Palestinian territory. Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani warned the military strikes across Gaza were “leaving nowhere safe”. “Between March 18 and April 9 there were some 224 incidents of Israeli strikes on residential buildings and tents for internally displaced people,” she told reporters in Geneva. “In some 36 strikes about which the UN Human Rights Office corroborated information, the fatalities recorded so far were only women and children,” she said. “Overall, a large percentage of fatalities are children and women, according to information recorded by our office.” Shamdasani cited an April 6 strike on a residential building of the Abu Issa family in Deir al Balah, which killed one girl, four women, and one four-year-old boy. She highlighted that even the areas where Palestinians were being instructed to go in the expanding number of Israeli “evacuation orders” were also being subjected to attacks. o ‘Evacuation orders are actually displacement orders’

Palestinians mourn their loss at the site of a strike in Shejaia, Gaza City, on Thursday. – REUTERSPIC

When contacted by AFP about the strike, the Israeli military said it was looking into the attack. Witnesses reported intensive tank fire in Khan Younis. The civil defence agency also reported two people killed in an Israeli strike that targeted a group of civilians in the Al-Atatra area in the northern city of Beit Lahia. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his pledge to bring back hostages held in Gaza. His comments came after US President Donald Trump suggested progress in hostage release talks, telling a Cabinet meeting on Thursday that “we’re getting close to getting them back”. Israeli media reported yesterday that Egypt and Israel had exchanged draft documents on a ceasefire-hostage deal. – AFP

displacement orders, leading to displacement of the population of Gaza into ever shrinking spaces,” Shamdasani said. “Permanently displacing the civilian population within occupied territories amounts to forcible transfer, which is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and it is a crime against humanity.” In Gaza City, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that a pre-dawn Israeli airstrike yesterday killed 10 members of a family, including seven children, in the southern city of Khan Younis. “Ten people, including seven children, were brought to the hospital as martyrs following an Israeli airstrike that targeted the al Farra family home in central Khan Younis,” said agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal.

“Despite Israeli military orders instructing civilians to relocate to the Al Mawasi area of Khan Younis, strikes continued on tents in that area housing displaced people, with at least 23 such incidents recorded since March 18,” she said. Shamdasani referred to a March 31 order by the Israeli military covering all of Rafah, the southernmost governorate in Gaza, followed by a ground offensive. Israel has said its troops are seizing “large areas” in Gaza and incorporating them into buffer zones cleared of their inhabitants. “Large areas are being seized and added to Israel’s security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated,” Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday. “Let us be clear, these evacuation orders are actually