04/11/2025

TUESDAY | NOV 4, 2025

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Russian strikes in Ukraine kill six, cut power KYIV: Russia has fired a wave of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight, killing at least six people, including two children, and cutting power to tens of thousands, officials said on Sunday. The attacks show that Moscow is aiming to “inflict harm” on civilians, and Ukraine has beefed up its air defences in response, said President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia has rejected US calls to halt its nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine, instead pushing forward with its ground assault while renewing its campaign of strikes against Ukraine’s energy grid. Both countries claimed to have made gains in the fighting in the key eastern city of Pokrovsk, where Ukraine is under pressure from an intense Russian assault involving thousands of troops. “Russian forces attacked the Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions. Six people died, including two children,“ the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said. The children were two boys aged 11 and 14, said Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets. Russia’s attacks cut power to the entire eastern Donetsk region, as well as almost 58,000 households in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, the regions’ governors said. Kyiv says the strikes on energy infrastructure are aimed at wearing down the country’s civilian population, a charge Russia denies. The overnight attacks came a day after Ukraine’s top military commander Oleksandr Syrsky announced that he has deployed special forces to the eastern city of Pokrovsk. Hundreds of Russian soldiers have infiltrated the logistics hub, Kyiv said earlier this week. Zelensky, who has been pushing his allies for more air defences to hold off Russia’s attacks, announced on Sunday that Ukraine has strengthened its air defence network with Germany’s support. Without offering further details, he singled out Berlin and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for thanks. Ukraine has responded to Moscow’s attacks on its energy grid with retaliatory strikes on Russian oil and gas infrastructure. A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse on Sunday set an oil tanker ablaze and damaged port infrastructure, regional authorities said.

Israel may intensify attacks against Hezbollah: PM

Lebanon must be implemented. Maximum enforcement would continue and even intensify. We will not allow any threat to the residents of the north.” At a weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said: “We expect the Lebanese government to fulfil its commitment to disarm Hezbollah, but it is clear we will exercise our right of self-defence under the terms of ceasefire. “We will not allow Lebanon to become a renewed front against us, and we will act as necessary.” Thousands of Israelis living near the northern border with Lebanon were forced to evacuate their homes for months after Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel following the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023. That set off a more than year-long conflict that culminated in two months of open war before last year’s ceasefire was agreed upon. The militant group, which opposes Israel, has been badly weakened by the war but remains

armed and financially resilient. In September 2024, Israel killed the group’s longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, along with many other senior leaders over the course of the war. Since the ceasefire, the United States has increased pressure on Lebanese authorities to disarm the group, a move opposed by Hezbollah and its allies. The Lebanese government has drawn up a plan to impose a state monopoly on weapons, and said the army has begun implementing it, starting in the country’s south. Israel never stopped carrying out air strikes in Lebanon despite the truce, usually saying it is targeting Hezbollah positions, and has stepped up the attacks in recent days. On Thursday, Israeli ground troops carried out a deadly raid into southern Lebanon, prompting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to order the army to confront such incursions. Aoun had called for talks with Israel in mid-October, after US

energy partnerships and expanded collaboration in advanced technology and agriculture, TASS reported. Moscow views industrial and technological cooperation with Beijing as a more sustainable format for long-term cooperation, being less dependent on market conditions, according to Russian state media. – Reuters whose body was recovered by the Israeli army last year. That incident sparked outrage in Israel, which accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement by returning partial remains instead of a complete body of another hostage. “We call for the return of all deceased hostages who have not been returned to Israeli soil,“ said Inbal Bachar, aunt of Sahar Baruch, whose remains were handed over earlier this week. In Gaza, Palestinians have been hoping that an Israeli military withdrawal would follow the truce and bring an end to their ordeal. “We want the second phase of the agreement to begin so that we can return to our homes,“ said Naif al-Sulaibi, a resident of Jabalia in northern Gaza. “As long as the Yellow Line and the army remain here, life is impossible and conditions will stay unbearable,“ he added, referring to the de facto boundary marking Israeli military positions inside Gaza. The implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire plan has yet to be agreed upon, particularly as it concerns disarming Hamas, establishing a transitional authority and deploying an international stabilisation force in Gaza. – AFP President Donald Trump helped broker a ceasefire in Gaza. But Aoun later accused Israel of responding to his offer by intensifying its strikes, the latest of which killed four people in Nabatiyeh district on Saturday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The official Lebanese National News Agency reported that the Israeli army hit a car “with a guided missile”. The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it killed a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force in southern Lebanon. “The terrorist was involved in transferring weapons and in efforts to reestablish Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” the military said, adding that three other members of the group were also killed. The previous day, it announced the killing of a “Hezbollah maintenance official”, who it said was working to restore the movement’s infrastructure. – AFP

o ‘We will not allow Lebanon to become renewed front against us’

yesterday that remains handed over by Hamas the day before belonged to three hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the Oct 7, 2023 attack. The remains were handed over as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal. “Following the completion of the identification process, representatives of the military informed the families of the hostages killed in action that their loved ones have been repatriated to Israel and identified,“ a statement by the government said. The remains are those of American-Israeli Captain Omer Neutra, 21 years old at the time of his abduction, Corporal Oz Daniel, 19, and Colonel Assaf Hamami, 40, the highest-ranking officer killed by Hamas. A fragile truce has held in Gaza since Oct 10 under a deal focused on the return of all Israeli hostages. “Israel has received, through the Red Cross, the coffins of three fallen hostages that were handed over to the military and Shin Bet forces inside the Gaza Strip,“ the prime minister’s office said. Hamas’s armed wing said it had found the remains on Sunday “along the route of one of the tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip”. Hamas had been holding 48 hostages in Gaza, including 20 meeting with Li in the city of Hangzhou yesterday, and will travel to Beijing today for talks with Xi, TASS agency reported, citing the Russian government’s press service. The Kremlin attached “very great” importance to Mishustin’s visit to China, the president’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, while declining to say whether President JERUSALEM: Israel on Sunday signalled that it could intensify operations in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused of rearming, urging Beirut to disarm the Iran-backed group. Despite a November 2024 ceasefire with the Lebanese militant group, Israel maintains troops in five areas in southern Lebanon and has kept up regular strikes. “Hezbollah is playing with fire and the president of Lebanon is dragging his feet,” said Defence Minister Israel Katz. “The Lebanese government’s commitment to disarm Hezbollah and remove it from southern

Returned bodies of three Gaza hostages identified JERUSALEM: Israel confirmed

Hamas militants on Sunday standing near an International Red Cross vehicle as a search for the bodies of killed Israeli hostages takes place in Gaza. – AFPPIC

Vladimir Putin would send a message to Xi via Mishustin, Interfax agency reported. Putin and Xi signed a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since then, Moscow has turned to Beijing to mitigate the impact of Western sanctions. However, China-Russia trade has confirmed alive, when the ceasefire was announced. Since the start of the truce, Hamas has released the surviving hostages and begun handing over the remains of 28 deceased captives. Of the latter, it has returned 20, including 18 Israelis, one Thai national and one Nepali. Israel has accused Hamas of dragging its feet in returning the bodies, while the Palestinian group says the process is slow because many remains are buried beneath

been declining in recent months, which Russian Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov attributed to “external” economic pressure and “market saturation” of Chinese products in Russia. Mishustin’s talks in China are expected to focus on trade and economic ties, transport and industrial cooperation, enhanced Gaza’s rubble. It has repeatedly called on mediators and the Red Cross to provide it with the necessary equipment and personnel to recover the bodies. Its spokesperson Hazem Qassem said the handover on Sunday shows that the group “was making every effort to return the bodies as quickly as possible”. In addition to returning the bodies of the hostages, Hamas has handed over partial remains of a hostage

A source in Ukraine’s SBU security services said the attack also damaged the Tuapse oil terminal, which belongs to Russian oil major Rosneft. – AFP PM visit to China ‘very important’, says Moscow

MOSCOW: Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin yesterday departed for a two-day visit to China, with planned talks with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang expected to centre on economic and technological cooperation despite pressure from the West. Mishustin was scheduled for a regular heads-of-government