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Israeli PM tells Gaza City residents to ‘leave now’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told residents of Gaza City on Monday to evacuate, as the military ramped up its deadly assault on the Palestinian territory’s largest urban centre.Israel has been intensifying its bombardment of the city in preparation for an operation to conquer it, despite repeated entreaties from Western nations and aid agencies to stop.Gaza’s civil defence agency meanwhile said at least 39 people had been killed by Israel, including 25 in Gaza City, on Monday.The premier’s warning came hours after one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in Jerusalem since the start of the war, in which two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a bus, killing six people, according to Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.The two gunmen were killed by a security officer and an armed civilian, police said.Following the attack, Netanyahu said: “Let it be clear: these murders strengthen our determination to fight terrorism.”Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, had told Hamas earlier on Monday to lay down its arms or face annihilation.”This is a final warning to the Hamas murderers and rapists in Gaza and in luxury hotels abroad: Release the hostages and put down your weapons — or Gaza will be destroyed and you will be annihilated,” he said on X. – ‘Just a prelude’ -On Monday, Israeli forces targeted a fourth high-rise building in Gaza City in as many days, with AFP footage showing the Al-Ruya tower crashing to the ground moments after being struck.”All we hear are bombings and ambulances carrying martyrs,” Laila Saqr, a resident, told AFP by telephone.Saqr, 40, said she used to visit a gym in the tower twice a week, but now, “nothing is left”.”Israel destroys everything — even the memories. If they could, they would strip the very oxygen from the air.”Israel said Hamas had used the tower for intelligence gathering and planted explosives in it. It had earlier warned residents and those nearby to evacuate.”In two days we brought down 50 terror towers, and this is only the opening stage of the intensified ground manoeuvre in Gaza City. I say to the residents: you have been warned, leave now!” Netanyahu said in a video statement.”All of this is just a prelude, just the opening, to the main intensified operation — the ground manoeuvre of our forces, who are now organising and assembling to enter Gaza City,” he added.Separately, the military announced that four Israeli soldiers were killed when Palestinian militants threw an explosive device into their tank.Back in Gaza City, bereaved father Issa Suleiman carried the body of his one-year-old son, wrapped in a white shroud.”We were sleeping in the tent with my three children and my wife,” he told AFP, adding that five of his neighbours were killed and several seriously injured, including his wife and mother.Israel has faced mounting international pressure to halt its campaign in Gaza, with United Nations rights chief Volker Turk saying Monday he was “horrified by the open use of genocidal rhetoric… by senior Israeli officials”.- Ready to negotiate -US President Donald Trump said Sunday that “the Israelis have accepted my terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning”. Hamas said shortly after that it was ready to “immediately sit at the negotiating table” following what it described as “some ideas from the American side aimed at reaching a ceasefire agreement”.Hamas said it wanted “a clear declaration of the end of the war, a full withdrawal (of Israeli forces) from the Gaza Strip, and the formation of a committee of independent Palestinians to manage the Gaza Strip, which would begin its duties immediately”.US news outlet Axios reported that White House envoy Steve Witkoff sent a new proposal for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal to Hamas last week.The White House has not released any details about the proposal, but Trump said “you’ll be hearing about it pretty soon”.Hamas agreed last month to a ceasefire proposal that involved a 60-day truce and staggered hostage releases.Israel, however, has demanded the militant group release all the hostages at once, disarm and relinquish control of Gaza, among other conditions.The Israeli military says 47 hostages remain in Gaza, including 25 believed to be dead.Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,522 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

Palestinian gunmen shoot dead six people in east Jerusalem attack: foreign minister

Palestinian gunmen opened fire at a bus stop in east Jerusalem on Monday, killing six people and wounding others, according to Israel’s foreign minister, in one of the deadliest attacks on Israel since the start of the Gaza war.”Palestinian terrorists murdered six Israelis,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said, adding that one of the dead was a recent immigrant from Spain.Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom (MDA) had earlier reported 15 people wounded in the late morning attack at the Ramot Junction in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, with seven in serious condition. Police said the two gunmen were also killed.Four of the dead were ultra-Orthodox Israeli men, according to local media.Spain’s foreign ministry condemned the attack, affirming its “commitment to peace in the Middle East”.At the scene of the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “Let it be clear: these murders strengthen our determination to fight terrorism.””We are now engaged in pursuit and are cordoning off the villages from which the murderers came. We will apprehend whoever aided and dispatched them, and we will take even stronger steps.”Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir later said in a statement that he “ordered a full closure of the area from which the terrorists came”.”We will continue with a determined and ongoing operational and intelligence effort, we will pursue terror cells everywhere, and we will thwart terrorist infrastructure and its organizers,” he added.The Israeli military had earlier said troops were “encircling several areas on the outskirts of Ramallah” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in response to the attack.French President Emmanuel Macron “strongly condemned the terrorist attack”, as did the United Arab Emirates, while German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul described it as “cowardly”.- ‘Horrific’ -Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has been at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years, praised the attack, saying it was carried out by two Palestinian militants.”We affirm that this operation is a natural response to the crimes of the occupation and the genocide it is waging against our people,” Hamas said in a statement.Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich blamed the attack on the Palestinian Authority, which he claimed “raises and educates its children to murder Jews”.”The Palestinian Authority must disappear from the map, and the villages from which the attackers came should be reduced to the status of Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” he wrote on X, referring to cities in Gaza that have been devastated by Israeli air strikes.The Palestinian presidency in Ramallah said it “firmly rejected and condemned any targeting of Palestinian and Israeli civilians,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.The PA is a civilian ruling authority in areas of the West Bank, where about three million Palestinians live — as well as around half a million Israelis occupying settlements considered illegal under international law.Israeli paramedic Fadi Dekaidek, who was at the scene, called the attack “severe”.”The wounded were lying on the road and sidewalk near a bus stop, some of them unconscious,” he said in a statement issued by MDA.Police said the attackers opened fire towards the bus stop after arriving in a vehicle.”A security officer and a civilian at the scene responded immediately, returned fire, and neutralised the attackers,” they said in a statement.The shooting was one of the deadliest since the war in Gaza began after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.

Teen arrested after two Turkish police officers shot dead

Two officers were killed and two others wounded in a shooting attack on a police station near the Turkish city of Izmir on Monday, with a 16-year-old suspect arrested, officials said. Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the “heinous” attack on the police station in Balcova, just west of the resort city, left two officers dead and a third “seriously injured”. “The suspect in the incident, 16-year-old E.B., has been arrested and an investigation has been opened,” he wrote on X. Izmir’s Governor Suleyman Elban said the suspect lived on the same road as the police station and was injured during his arrest. “The murder suspect is a 16-year-old who lives on this street. He has no criminal record or previous arrests for any crime,” Elban told the private NTV television and other media at the scene. “We saw plenty of empty shotgun shells… and there were many cartridges” of unused ammunition, he added, saying the suspect had used “a shotgun his father bought 10 years ago”.The DHA news agency said the assailant had used “a long-barrelled gun” while NTV described the weapon as a “pump-action shotgun”. It was not immediately clear why the station was targeted, and the authorities later imposed a ban on the dissemination of images related to the attack. Before the ban, footage posted by the Gercek Gundem news website showed mobile phone video of a person in a balaclava, a black top and pale trousers jogging along the pavement carrying a rifle and then entering a building. – Covered with blood -Another widely published clip showed the alleged attacker lying on the pavement being treated by paramedics. He appeared to be conscious but the back of his trousers was covered with blood and multiple bullet cases were lying on the ground.A third clip showed a group of civilians helping to manhandle the suspect into a police van. Police immediately fanned out across the area, imposing tight security measures, media reports said.Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said Izmir’s chief public prosecutor had opened an investigation involving an eight-strong team of prosecutors in a post on X, where many ministers denounced the attack and sent condolences to the families of the victims.