The Israeli government criticizes Pope Francis. A US ship accidentally hits its own fighter plane. All developments in the news blog.
8.10 a.m.: Israel has rejected criticism from Pope Francis of its military actions in the Gaza Strip. The Pope’s comments are “particularly disappointing” because they have nothing to do with Israel’s “real” fight “against jihadist terrorism,” explains the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The Pope should stop “using double standards and holding the Jewish state and its people solely responsible.”
The Pope spoke at an audience on Saturday about an Israeli airstrike in the north of the Gaza Strip in which, according to the Hamas-controlled Civil Defense, ten members of a family were killed on Friday, including seven children. Israel’s army rejected the claims and said it hit “several terrorists operating in a military structure of the Hamas terrorist organization” in the attack.
The Pope said at the audience: “Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty, not an act of war.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded in response to the actions of the radical Islamic group Hamas: “Cruelty is when terrorists hide behind children when they try to murder Israeli children; cruelty is when terrorists hold 100 hostages, including a baby and children, for 442 days and abuse.” Unfortunately, the Pope decided to “ignore all of this.”
7:57 a.m.: According to the civil emergency service, six people were killed in an Israeli attack on a school in the Gaza Strip that was housing displaced people. This is reported by the Reuters news agency. Other people were injured.
In the north of the Gaza Strip, Israel bombed the Kamal Adwan Hospital, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. This is happening on an “unprecedented scale” and without warning, it continues. “The bombing is carried out with explosives and tank fire and is aimed directly at us while we are present in the hospital wards,” the ministry said. The hospital is one of only three barely functioning medical facilities on the northern edge of the enclave, where the Israeli army has been deployed since October.
6.55 a.m.: While operating off the coast of Yemen, the US military accidentally shot down its own fighter jet over the Red Sea. Both pilots were able to save themselves, one was slightly injured, the US Central Command Centcom announced on Saturday evening (local time). Read more about this here.
Saturday, December 21, 2024
6:42 a.m.: According to the Israeli military, a rocket from Yemen hit the Tel Aviv area. This is reported by the Reuters news agency. The Israeli rescue service Magen David Adom reports that 16 people were slightly injured by shards of glass from shattered windows.
The Houthi rebels from Yemen claim responsibility for the shelling of Israel. According to the company’s own information, a military target in the Jaffa region was targeted.
Attempts to intercept the aircraft had previously been unsuccessful, the Israeli army said. The Times of Israel published a video showing the rocket’s impact point in a park in Tel Aviv. Warning sirens sounded overnight in several areas in the center of the country.
6:16 a.m.: US diplomats met with representatives of the Islamist group Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) for the first time since the coup in Syria and lifted the million-dollar bounty on their leader. There were positive discussions in Damascus, said Barbara Leaf, the top diplomat responsible for the Middle East at the US State Department, afterwards. The leader of the HTS, Ahmed al-Sharaa, agreed that terrorist groups should not pose a threat either within Syria or abroad. The HTS took power in the country after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad at the beginning of December.
Syrians have the chance to “create a new, freer and inclusive society that takes its rightful place both in the region and on the world stage,” says Leaf. The US wanted to work with the Syrian people “to seize this historic opportunity.”
