Israel orders evacuations in northern Gaza as Trump calls for war to end

-
By Nidal Al-Mughrabi Reuters  The Israeli military ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza on Sunday before intensified fighting against  Hamas , as U.S. President Donald Trump called for an end to the  war  amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire. “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,”  Trump  posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel’s offensive. A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages. But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and U.N. offi...
Post a Comment

France rushes supplies to Mayotte, still reeling from deadly cyclone

-

By Tassilo Hummel Reuters

France ramped up its relief operations to its cyclone-devastated overseas territory of Mayotte, with 120 tonnes of food due to be distributed on Wednesday to a population at risk of hunger and disease.

The Indian Ocean archipelago, France’s poorest overseas territory, spent a first night under a curfew decreed in response to reported looting and lawlessness after Cyclone Chido struck over the weekend.

On Wednesday morning, residents of the capital Mamoudzou whose houses survived the storm hammered metal sheets to cover damaged roofs. Thousands of flimsier huts across the city’s shantytowns were razed entirely, leaving fields of dirt and debris.

Hundreds or even thousands could be dead from the cyclone, the strongest storm to hit Mayotte in 90 years, French officials have said. Chido also killed at least 34 people in Mozambique and another seven in Malawi after reaching continental Africa.

But only 22 fatalities recorded in hospital have been confirmed so far due as many areas are inaccessible and some victims could have been buried before their deaths were counted, officials have said.

The situation is made more difficult by uncertainty around the exact size of Mayotte’s population. Official statistics put it at 320,000 but many believe it is higher due to a surge of undocumented immigration, mainly from Comoros and Madagascar.The video player is currently playing an ad.00:04Oil coats Russia’s Black Sea coast as three ships suffer storm damage

Health workers say they are bracing for a surge of disease as dead bodies lie unrecovered and people struggle to access clean drinking water. The French government said on Tuesday evening there were no outbreaks at this point.

The government said it was sending in supplies via an air bridge from its other Indian Ocean territory, Reunion Island. Some 100 tons of food were due to be distributed on Wednesday on the larger island of Grande-Terre and another 20 tons on the smaller island of Petite-Terre.

President Emmanuel Macron will visit Mayotte on Thursday. Opposition politicians in France have criticised what they say is the government’s neglect of Mayotte and failure to prepare for natural disasters linked to climate change.

The ferry linking Mayotte’s two main islands resumed services on Wednesday for civilians, allowing some people caught out by the storm to return to their families.

“I haven’t heard a word from my employees in five days,” said a land owner taking the ferry, who declined to give his name. “It’s back to the Stone Age.”



from The Times Of Earth https://ift.tt/Q0IuOMU

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Israel-Hezbollah attacks continue despite international pressure for ceasefire

-
By Timour Azhari and James Mackenzie Reuters  Israel rejected global calls on Thursday for a ceasefire with the Hezbollah movement, defying its biggest ally in Washington and pressing ahead with strikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of an all-out regional war. Despite Israel’s stance, the U.S. and France sought to keep prospects alive for an  immediate 21-day  truce they proposed on Wednesday, and said negotiations continued, including on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York. An Israeli warplane struck the edges of the capital Beirut, killing two people and wounding 15, including a woman in critical condition, Lebanon’s health ministry said. That took deaths overnight and on Thursday to 28 and over 600 since Monday. The strike killed the head of one of Hezbollah’s air force units, Mohammad Surur, Hezbollah said, the latest senior Hezbollah commander to be targeted in days of assassinations among the group’s top ranks. On t...
Read more

Bolivia wildfires burn record area, scorching homes and farms

-
Image
By Monica Machicao and Daniel Ramos Reuters Wildfires in Bolivia have burned through more than 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) this year, mostly in the country’s tropical east, smashing records for its worst-ever fire season and scorching an area the size of Iceland or Cuba. The new figures released on Monday by non-governmental organization Tierra Foundation represent the equivalent of nearly 19 million American football fields. Fires in recent months have propelled Bolivia past devastating fire years in 2010 and 2019. Santa Cruz, a wealthy farming region in the country’s eastern lowlands near Brazil, has been the hardest hit, accounting for almost 7 million hectares of the total, followed by the nearby department of Beni, with 3 million hectares. “What’s happened in recent months in eastern Bolivia, and will continue to occur at least through October, is a disaster of a magnitude unprecedented in the country,” Juan Pablo Chumacero, researcher at the Tierra Foundation, to...
Read more