28/05/2026

THURSDAY | MAY 28, 2026 9 Palestinian killed in West Bank camp RAMALLAH: Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man inside the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, according to Israel’s military and the Palestinian health ministry. The military told AFP that its troops shot dead a man who had thrown stones at soldiers inside the camp. “The soldiers initiated a suspect arrest procedure, during which they fired toward the terrorist and eliminated him in order to remove the threat.” “A citizen was killed by Israeli fire in the Jenin camp, and ambulance crews transported his body to Jenin Government Hospital,“ the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement. Jenin Government Hospital director Wissam Baker identified the victim as Nasser al-Saadi, adding that that “he arrived dead at the hospital after being shot in the thigh”. “It appears he bled heavily after being injured before an ambulance was called to transport him to the hospital,“ Baker told AFP. The Palestinian Red Crescent had earlier announced that Israeli forces handed over the body of a 30-year-old from inside the Jenin refugee camp, which is adjacent to the city of Jenin. Israeli forces have occupied and barred access to the Jenin refugee camp since January 2025, when they launched a wide-ranging operation aimed at uprooting Palestinian militant groups from the West Bank’s densely populated refugee camps. The operation has caused the displacement of nearly 40,000 individuals from the camps, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. – AFP Putin gifts Kazakhstan four Amur tigers TOKYO: Russia has handed Kazakhstan four Amur tigers, two of them cubs, to help the country restore its numbers of the animals, President Vladimir Putin said in an article issued ahead of his visit to the Central Asian nation this week. Rich in energy resources and critical minerals, Kazakhstan shares a border with Russia and is a close ally of Moscow in a region where China and the United States are expanding their influence. The four animals captured in Russia’s eastern region of Khabarovsk were flown to Kazakhstan, Putin said on the Kremlin’s website on Tuesday, and are soon to be released into the wild. Putin is no stranger to using animals to advance diplomatic efforts. In 2022, Russia sent 30 grey thoroughbred horses to North Korea, as the nations have boosted ties since Ukraine’s invasion that year. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a keen horseman. Kazakhstan, which is trying to restore the tiger population in Central Asia, sees the Amur tiger as a close relative of the extinct Caspian species. – Reuters

Iran threatens retaliation after latest US strikes

o China urges both countries to respect truce

shipping route which Iran is seeking to control, would reopen “one way or the other”. The strikes threatened the ceasefire between the US and Iran that began on April 8, prompting China to express concern. “We urge the parties concerned to fulfil their ceasefire commitments, resolve disputes through peaceful means and promote the early restoration of peace,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. The Tasnim news agency said Tehran’s negotiators are seeking the release of frozen assets, with half to be made available once an initial memorandum of understanding is signed. “Iran’s frozen assets are to be released during the course of the negotiations, and this amount is estimated at US$24 billion in accordance with the 14-point memorandum of understanding.“ After nearly three months of blackout in Iran, internet connectivity saw a “partial restoration”, monitor NetBlocks said on Tuesday, calling it the “longest nationwide internet shutdown in modern history”. Iran’s vice-president later confirmed the “first step” had been taken towards restoring the internet for Iranians, adding that the demands of the public “will be fulfilled”. – AFP

It added that Tehran “will not leave any evil unanswered and will not hesitate to defend the Iranian nation”, without elaborating. Centcom spokesman Captain Tim Hawkins had announced the new American strikes on Iran overnight. “US forces conducted self-defence strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.” He gave few details of the attacks and said the targets included missile launch sites and boats trying to “emplace mines”. In a statement marking the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday, Tehran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei declared Washington was losing its influence in the Middle East and warned countries in the region to stop hosting bases from which the US could launch attacks. He said the US “in addition to no longer having any safe haven in the region for aggression and the establishment of military bases, is moving further and further away from its former position with each passing day”. Despite the new US strikes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday said a peace deal remained within reach, while insisting that the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil and gas

TEHRAN: Tehran on Tuesday accused Washington of breaching their ceasefire and warned it was ready to retaliate after overnight US strikes. The Brent benchmark oil price jumped up by more than 3% after US Central Command (Centcom) announced the new wave of bombings targeting Iranian missile sites and mine-laying boats, while China urged both sides to respect the truce and to resolve their dispute peacefully. Iranian state media reported overnight blasts in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, near the Strait of Hormuz, and the country’s Revolutionary Guards said its forces had downed a US drone entering its airspace and had fired at an F-35 fighter jet. “The US terrorist army, continuing its illegal and unjustified actions since the ceasefire has, in the past 48 hours, committed a gross violation of the ceasefire in the Hormozgan region,” the Iranian foreign ministry said.

EXCITED EXPRESSIONS ... Palestinian women react near a militant from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad on a street during Eid al-Adha in Gaza City. – REUTERSPIC

Lebanon heavily bombed as Israel expands ground operations TEL AVIV: Israel pounded Lebanon with more than 120 air strikes on Tuesday in one of the heaviest days of bombing in weeks, Lebanese security sources said, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his military was deepening its operations in the country. The bombing raids further strained a ceasefire announced on April 16 that was meant to halt fighting between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israeli strikes had hit across southern and eastern Lebanon on Tuesday. Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes in recent hours had killed 31 individuals and wounded 40, state news agency NNA reported yesterday. It added that 14 individuals were killed in the town of Burj al-Shamali in southern Lebanon, including two children and three women. Some strikes hit near the Beaufort Castle, a nearly 900-year-old fortress in southern Lebanon that Unesco has described as one of the best preserved examples of medieval castles in the region. At least three strikes also hit near Lebanon’s largest water reservoir at the Qaraoun Dam in east Lebanon, Lebanon’s National News Agency said. In a statement on Tuesday, Netanyahu said the Israeli military “is operating with large forces in the field and capturing and controlling areas”. “We are fortifying the security strip to protect the northern communities,” he said in a reference to a self-declared security zone occupied by Israeli troops several kilometres inside southern Lebanon. Two sources on Tuesday said the Israeli military had expanded its ground operations in southern Lebanon past the security zone but gave no further details on the extent of the advance beyond the so-called Yellow Line. That line, separate from the UN demarcated “Blue Line” marking the frontier between Lebanon and Israel after Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, forms part of a proposed buffer zone extending 5km to 10km into southern Lebanon. Israel’s military had ordered residents not to return to dozens of villages in the zone, and its troops have been destroying houses in the

area. An Israeli military official said the military was “operating in a targeted manner beyond the Forward Defense Line in order to remove direct threats to the citizens of the State of Israel” and Israeli soldiers, “in accordance with the directives of the political echelon.” Netanyahu on Monday said Israel would intensify its strikes against Hezbollah, while a US official said the Iran-backed group had ignored warnings to halt attacks that risked undermining negotiations to end the US-Israeli war on Iran. – Reuters