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Hamas fighters received training in Iran: report
Hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters received “specialised combat training” in Iran before the October 7 attacks on Israel, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing intelligence, in an article datelined from Tel Aviv.
“Roughly 500 militants …participated in the exercises in September, which were led by officers of the Quds Force, the foreign-operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” the intelligence sources said.
Senior Palestinian officials and Iranian Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, the head of Quds Force, were also at the training, the unspecified intelligence sources told the Wall Street Journal.
This finding differs from the US intelligence assessment which suggests Iran had not engaged in mass training before the US attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Today’s headlines
Good morning. It’s Aisha Dow here. There have been some developments overnight in the conflict in Gaza and Israel. Here’s a summary of where things stand.
- It’s close to 11pm in the affected region.
- Israeli ground forces mounted their “biggest incursion yet” into Gaza overnight, blowing up buildings in preparation for a full ground invasion.
- Gaza’s health ministry said that 7028 Palestinians, including 2913 children, have now been killed in retaliatory air strikes, which continued yesterday.
- A spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said about 50 captives had been killed in Gaza due to Israeli strikes.
We’ll bring you more information as the morning progresses.
Gaza death toll grows
Gaza’s health ministry says that 7028 Palestinians have now been killed in retaliatory air strikes, including 2913 children, following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli communities, which are said to have killed some 1400 people.
The day before, US President Joe Biden cast doubt on the Palestinian casualty figures, which an Israeli military spokesman said could not be trusted.
However, the military has not provided any assessment of its own and Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra rejected the statements questioning the figures.
People search through buildings that were destroyed during Israeli air raids in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday in Khan Yunis, Gaza. Credit: Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Image
The Health Ministry published a 212 page document which it said contains the names of all the victims identified, with their ID numbers.
In Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, an Israeli air strike hit a house, killing a mother, her three daughters and a baby boy, whose father held his body in hospital.
“Did he kill? Did he wound someone? Did he capture someone? They were innocent children inside their house,” he said.
Reuters
Israeli troops raid Gaza
Israeli ground forces have mounted a big raid into Gaza overnight to attack Hamas targets.
The operation took place after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said its troops were still preparing for a full ground invasion.
There is growing anger across the Arab world over Israel’s relentless bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave, while the United States and other countries have urged Israel to delay a full ground invasion, fearing it could ignite hostilities on other fronts in the Middle East.
Military video show armoured vehicles crossing the fortified barrier from Israel, blowing up buildings.
“Tanks and infantry struck numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts,” it says.
Palestinians said Israeli air strikes had pounded the territory again overnight and people living in central Gaza, including near the Bureij refugee camp, reported intensive tank shelling all night.
Reuters
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