15/07/2025

TUESDAY | JULY 15, 2025

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Israeli missile hits children collecting water o Occupation force blames malfunction

NETANYAHU AIDE FACES INDICTMENT TEL AVIV: An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces indictment on security charges pending a hearing, Israel’s attorney general said on Sunday, for allegedly leaking top secret military information during Israel’s war in Gaza. Netanyahu’s close adviser, Jonatan Urich, has denied any wrongdoing in the case which legal authorities began investigating late last year. The prime minister has described probes against Urich and other aides as a witch-hunt. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said Urich and another aide had extracted secret information from the Israeli military and leaked it to German newspaper Bild . Their intent, she said, was to shape public opinion of Netanyahu and influence the discourse about the slaying of six hostages in late August 2024. – Reuters BLAST INJURES 7 IN IRANIAN CITY OF QOM DUBAI: An explosion at a residential building injured seven people in the Iranian city of Qom, media reported yesterday, with the fire department blaming a gas leak and Qom’s governor ruling out any “terrorist” action. Since the end of a 12-day air war last month between Iran and Israel, in which Israel and the United States attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities, several gas explosions have occurred in Iran, and the authorities have not blamed Israel. Qom Governor Akbar Behnamjoo said: “The cause of the explosion in a residential building of Pardisan was not terrorism.”The director of Qom’s fire department told Fars news agency four residential units were damaged in the blast in the Pardisan neighbourhood. “Initial assessments show that the cause of the incident was a gas leak,” the director said. – Reuters PANAMA MILITARY EXERCISES TAKE OFF PANAMA CITY: The United States military teamed with Panamanian police to conduct a series of exercises aimed at protecting the Panama Canal, amid tensions over alleged Chinese influence along the prized trade route. Michael Palacios, subcommissioner of Panama’s National Aeronaval Service said the exercises would prepare Panama’s forces, as well as countries in the region, against any threats to the security and defence of the canal. US soldiers conducted similar exercises in Panama a month ago, under an agreement that allows Washington to use Panamanian air and naval bases for training. The agreement sparked protests in the Central American country, and came amid pressure from President Donald Trump, who threatened to reclaim the canal. – AFP

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hospital consultant, Ahmad Qandil, Palestinian media reported. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack. Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that more than 58,000 people had been killed since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, with 139 people added to the death toll over the past 24 hours. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters in its tally, but says over half of those killed are women and children. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that he was “hopeful” on Gaza ceasefire negotiations underway in Qatar. He told reporters in Teterboro,

New Jersey, that he planned to meet senior Qatari officials on the sidelines of the FIFA Club World Cup final. However, negotiations aimed at securing a ceasefire have been stalling, with the two sides divided over the extent of an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian enclave, Palestinian and Israeli sources said at the weekend. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to convene ministers late on Sunday to discuss the latest developments in the talks, an Israeli official said. The indirect talks over a US proposal for a 60-day ceasefire are being held in Doha, but optimism that surfaced last week of a looming deal has largely faded, with both sides accusing each other of intransigence. Netanyahu in a video he posted on Telegram on Sunday said Israel would not back down from its core demands: releasing all the hostages still in Gaza, destroying Hamas and ensuring Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel. At least 20 of the remaining 50 hostages there are believed to still be alive. Families of hostages gathered outside Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem to call for a deal. “The overwhelming majority of the people of Israel have spoken loudly and clearly. We want to do a deal, even at the cost of ending this war, and we want to do it now,” said Jon Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin was held hostage in a Gaza tunnel and slain by his captors in August 2024. Netanyahu and his ministers were also set to discuss a plan on Sunday to move hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the southern area of Rafah, in what Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has described as a new “humanitarian city” but which would be likely to draw international criticism for forced displacement. – Reuters on the Korean Peninsula and the Iranian nuclear issue, China’s Foreign Ministry said. China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing, days before he sent troops into Ukraine. Putin describes China as an “ally”. The US casts China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest nation-state threat. – Reuters

TEL eight Palestinians, most of them children, were killed and more than a dozen were wounded in central Gaza when they went to collect water on Sunday, local officials said, in an Israeli strike which the military said missed its target. The Israeli military said the missile had intended to hit an Islamic Jihad gunman in the area but that a malfunction had caused it to fall “dozens of metres from the target”. “The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians,” it said in a statement, adding that the incident AVIV: At least

was under review. The strike hit a water distribution point in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing six children and injuring 17 others, said Ahmed Abu Saifan, an emergency physician at Al-Awda Hospital. Water shortages in Gaza have worsened sharply in recent weeks, with fuel shortages causing desalination and sanitation facilities to close, making people dependent on collection centres where they can fill up their plastic containers. Hours later, 12 people were killed by an Israeli strike on a market in Gaza City, including a prominent

Demonstrators with Palestinian flags gather next to the Freedom Flotilla ship Handala ahead of the boat’s departure for Gaza at a port in Syracuse, Sicily on Sunday. – AFPPIC

Russia, China discuss Ukraine war

MOSCOW: Russia and China’s foreign ministers on Sunday discussed their relations with the United States and the prospects for ending the war in Ukraine, China and Russia’s foreign ministries said in a statement. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing on Sunday. Lavrov is due to attend a meeting of the Shanghai

Council, the SCO, BRICS, the G20 and APEC, was emphasised,” the ministry said. The close contact between the two countries was to “promote the development and revitalisation of each other, and jointly respond to the challenges brought about by a turbulent and changing world”, China’s Foreign Ministry said. Both sides also exchanged views

Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) foreign ministers in China. “The parties also discussed relations with the United States and prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said. “The importance of strengthening close coordination between the two countries in the international arena, including in the United Nations and its Security

Trump to send Patriot missiles to Kyiv

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Sunday he will send Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine, saying they are necessary to defend the country because Russian President Vladimir Putin“talks nice but then he bombs everybody in the evening”. Trump did not give a number of

immediately verify the report. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked for more defensive capabilities to fend off a daily barrage of missile and drone attacks. “We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the

Trump is expected to announce a new plan to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons in a sharp departure from his earlier stance, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two sources familiar with the matter. The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters couldn’t

evening. But there’s a little bit of a problem there. I don’t like it,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington. “We are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated military equipment. They are going to pay us 100% for that, and that’s the way we want it,”Trump said. – Reuters

Patriots he plans to send to Ukraine, but he said the United States would be reimbursed for their cost by the European Union. The US president has grown increasingly disenchanted with Putin because the Russian leader has resisted Trump’s attempts to negotiate a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.