Panic and heartbreak: The devastating effect of an airstrike in Gaza

Published

5 months ago

December 8, 2023

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As Israel’s southern offensive continues, and thousands of Palestinians have been injured or killed, Khan Younis has been hit with an airstrike. Sky News’ chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay reports on the scenes in the city and the strike’s “devastating effect”.

It’s two months since Hamas crossed the border from Gaza, entered Israel and launched its bloodthirsty attack; killing, looting, and taking hostages.

Since then, Israel has launched its enormous response that started with airstrikes and artillery barrages and is now a full-on invasion of the whole of Gaza with soldiers and armoured vehicles fighting street to street.

In the process, much of the north of Gaza has been completely flattened. The Israel Defence Forces say hundreds of tunnel entrances have been found and a major proportion of the tunnel network destroyed.

Follow latest: ‘Hundreds’ killed in single day

Everybody in Gaza is affected by the Israeli invasion. Hundreds of thousands have been forced to move locations multiple times. Many of the two million odd population is now crammed into the south, where there is little aid and little safety.

There is no ceasefire and there appears to be little prospect of one. International aid agencies and the United Nations have called for a ceasefire, although countries like the UK and the US talk about targeted attacks, increased aid for Gaza, pauses in the fighting – but crucially not a ceasefire.

Israel is unrepentant and seems happy to ignore condemnation, particularly from Arab countries and the UN, while it works towards its two objectives: freeing the hostages and destroying Hamas.

The problem for them is that despite its overwhelming dominance of the battle space, no more hostages have been found and the Hamas leadership appear not to have been killed or captured.

Until they achieve something, this war will grind on and each day pictures of life and death in Gaza get worse and worse.

The latest images show the immediate aftermath of an airstrike in Khan Younis – and its devastating effect.

On a main road there are injured everywhere, dazed and covered in dust and blood, and panic everywhere as an ambulance pulls up.

A man calls for help and shouts at others to come and help dig through the rubble by hand.

Off the main road a house is on fire, much of it has been destroyed.

An injured survivor with blood covering his face stands in the rubble, unsure what to do next.

Two men approach, and one lifts him onto his back and carries him away.

There are children injured, too. Footage shows rescuers bringing a little girl to the edge of the smashed building, they lower her down. She’s followed by another little girl, and then another.

The rescuers, neighbours and friends search through the building, shifting rubble trying to find more survivors.

Another is trapped under rubble. A red scarf is placed near her head to try keep her comfortable as they frantically try to figure out how to extract her from the mass of concrete on top of her.

Survivors of this airstrike say there were about 50 people staying at this house, and that many of them had already been forced from their homes elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

Ashraf Abu Asif’s wife and two daughters were killed in this attack.

“I am a resident of Bena Sela, we got displaced and came to the house of Abu Faiz and Abu Salah. We came here to live in the safety of God. We saw nothing until a missile fell on us,” he said.

“God rescued me, but my children, my brother’s children, my in-laws, everyone was at this home,” he added, saying he was going to the hospital next to try find other family members.

The IDF is now operating across the entire Gaza Strip.

From central Gaza, our team sent us pictures showing the scene outside one of the main hospitals still operating there.

Rimah Murad Mansi is sheltering behind the al Aqsa Hospital with her children. Crucially, she’s not inside the compound, so she and her family are exposed.

“They have hit us with everything they had. They hit us with everything, they humiliated us,” she said, saying they have no food or water.

“We have seen too much, and it is enough. The whole world is just looking at us, it is enough! We have seen everything, enough with it. Stand with us, stop this insanity. Stop being silent.”

Among crowds outside the front of the hospital, a little boy is looking for his father.

“Here he is, here he is,” he cries, as he sees his father’s body wrapped in a white sheet.

He has just realised his father is dead.

He is utterly inconsolable. It’s the dawning realisation of his own loss that’s so heart-breaking.

And with no prospect of a ceasefire these scenes of the injured, the dead, and the mourning, will be repeated constantly.

World

President Raisi’s death a perilous moment for Iran regime – but don’t expect a change to foreign policy

Published

16 hours ago

May 20, 2024

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President Raisi's death a perilous moment for Iran regime - but don't expect a change to foreign policy

This is a delicate time for Iran. President Raisi was the second most important man in Iran, after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

His death, now confirmed, will have far-reaching consequences.

Although Khamenei has tried to reassure the country in recent hours, the regime will know this is a perilous moment that must be handled carefully.

Live updates – Iranian president killed in crash

There are mechanisms to protect the regime in events like this and the Revolutionary Guard, which was founded in 1979 precisely for that purpose, will be a major player in what comes next.

In the immediate term, vice-president Mohammed Mokhber will assume control and elections will be held within 50 days.

Mokhber isn’t as close to the supreme leader as Raisi was, and won’t enjoy his standing, but he has run much of Khamenei’s finances for years and is credited with helping Iran evade some of the many sanctions levied on it.

Raisi’s successor will most likely be the chosen candidate of the supreme leader and certainly another ultra-conservative hardliner – a shift back to the moderates is highly unlikely.

Likewise, we shouldn’t expect any significant change in Iran’s foreign activities or involvement with the war in Gaza. It will be business as usual, as much as possible.

However, after years of anti-government demonstrations following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, this might be a moment for the protest movement to rise up and take to the streets again.

Islamic State may seek to take advantage

There are also many dissident groups inside Iran, including an off-shoot of Islamic State – they might seek to take advantage of this situation.

Raisi became president in 2021 at the second time of asking and only with a turnout of 41%, the lowest since the 1979 revolution.

He was not a universally popular figure and many inside Iran will celebrate his death.

Consequences for supreme leader

Longer term, Raisi’s death will have consequences for the supreme leader.

He was considered one of the two frontrunners to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamanei on his death – the other being Khamanei’s son Mojtaba.

For religious and conservative Iranians, Raisi’s death will be mourned; for many though, it will be the passing of a man who had blood on his hands.

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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi confirmed dead in helicopter crash after charred wreckage found

Published

18 hours ago

May 20, 2024

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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi confirmed dead in helicopter crash after charred wreckage found

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has died after the helicopter he was travelling in crashed in a mountainous area of northwest Iran.

Rescuers found the burned remains of the aircraft on Monday morning after the president and his foreign minister had been missing for more than 12 hours.

“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Live updates – Iranian president killed in crash

Iran‘s Mehr news agency reported “all passengers of the helicopter carrying the Iranian president and foreign minister were martyred”.

State TV said images showed it had smashed into a mountain peak, although there was no official word on the cause of the crash.

“President Raisi’s helicopter was completely burned in the crash… unfortunately, all passengers are feared dead,” an official told Reuters.

As the sun rose, rescuers saw the wreckage from around 1.25 miles, the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society, Pir Hossein Kolivand, told state media.

Iranian news agency IRNA said the president was flying in an American-made Bell 212 helicopter.

Mr Raisi, 63, who was seen as a frontrunner to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader, was travelling back from Azerbaijan where he had opened a dam with the country’s president.

Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, also died in the crash.

The governor of East Azerbaijan province and other officials and bodyguards were also said to have been on board when the helicopter crashed in fog on Sunday.

Iranian media initially described it as a “hard landing”.

The chief of staff of Iran’s army had ordered all military resources and the Revolutionary Guard to be deployed in the search, which had been hampered by bad weather.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first to react to the news of Mr Raisi’s death.

“India stands with Iran in this time of sorrow,” he said in a post on X.

World

Ebrahim Raisi: Who is hardliner Iranian president?

Published

20 hours ago

May 20, 2024

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Ebrahim Raisi: Who is hardliner Iranian president?

A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashed during bad weather on Sunday.

But who is Ebrahim Raisi – a leader who faces sanctions from the US and other nations over his involvement in the mass execution of prisoners in 1988.

The president, 63, who was travelling alongside the foreign minister and two other key Iranian figures when their helicopter crashed, had been travelling across the far northwest of Iran following a visit to Azerbaijan.

Follow live: Rescuers search for president after helicopter crash

Mr Raisi is a hardliner and former head of the judiciary who some have suggested could one day replace Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Because of his part in the sentencing of thousands of prisoners of conscience to death back in the 1980s, he was nicknamed the Butcher of Tehran as he sat on the so-called Death Panel, for which he was then sanctioned by the US.

Both a revered and a controversial figure, Mr Raisi supported the country’s security services as they cracked down on all dissent, including in the aftermath of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini – the woman who died after she was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly – and the nationwide protests that followed.

The months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.

In March, a United Nations investigative panel found that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Ms Amini’s death after her arrest for not wearing a hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities.

The president also supported Iran’s unprecedented decision in April to launch a drone and missile attack on Israel amid its war with Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza responsible for the 7 October attacks which saw 1,200 people killed in southern Israel.

Involvement in mass executions

Mr Raisi is sanctioned by the US in part over his involvement in the mass execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 at the end of the bloody Iran-Iraq war.

Under the president, Iran now enriches uranium at nearly weapons-grade levels and hampers international inspections.

Iran has armed Russia in its war on Ukraine and has continued arming proxy groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

He successfully ran for the presidency back in August 2021 in a vote that got the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history as all of his potentially prominent opponents were barred from running under Iran’s vetting system.

A presidency run in 2017 saw him lose to Hassan Rouhani, the relatively moderate cleric who as president reached Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

‘Very involved in anything’

Alistair Bunkall, Sky News’s Middle East correspondent, said the president is “a major figure in Iranian political and religious society” but “he’s not universally popular by any means” as his administration has seen a series of protests in the past few years against his and the government’s “hardline attitude”.

Mr Raisi is nonetheless “considered one of the two frontrunners to potentially take over” the Iranian regime when the current supreme leader dies, Bunkall said.

He added the president would have been “instrumental” in many of Iran’s activities in the region as he “would’ve been very involved in anything particularly what has been happening in Israel and the surrounding areas like Lebanon and Gaza and the Houthis over the last seven and a bit months”.