Connect with us

Published

on

Israel has been warned of repercussions if its military launches a ground invasion in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, while Israel has suggested civilians could evacuate and find refuge in tent camps which are not yet built.

The warning came after Israeli air strikes killed at least 44 Palestinians, including more than a dozen children, in the city.

Lord David Cameron has said he is “deeply concerned” about the planned ground invasion of the city, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million population are taking refuge.

Israel says it is a hive of Hamas’s remaining strongholds.

Follow latest updates: Germany brands Rafah offensive plans ‘catastrophe in the making’

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Netanyahu orders evacuation of Rafah

“Deeply concerned about the prospect of a military offensive in Rafah – over half of Gaza’s population are sheltering in the area,” the foreign secretary wrote on X.

“The priority must be an immediate pause in the fighting to get aid in and hostages out, then progress towards a sustainable, permanent ceasefire.”

More on Israel

Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry said any Israeli ground offensive on Rafah would have “disastrous consequences” and asserted Israel aims to eventually force Palestinians out of their land. Egypt has warned any movement of Palestinians into its territory would threaten the four-decade-old peace treaty between it and Egypt.

Qatar also warned of disaster while Saudi Arabia warned of “very serious repercussions”.

Their remarks came after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signalled there would be an imminent invasion of Rafah, saying he had asked the military to prepare for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people there.

Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a tent camp in Rafah. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a tent camp in Rafah. Pic: Reuters

An Israeli government spokesperson suggested civilians could find refuge in tent camps which are yet to be built, and said the international community was “more than welcome” to send shelter equipment.

Eylon Levy told Sky News: “We want civilians to get out of harm’s way. We don’t want to come in all guns blazing because we understand how catastrophic that would be.”

Read more:
The scale of Rafah’s vast tent city

Inside Gaza’s tunnel network and hostage cell
Israel prepares for possible war with Lebanon

The site of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah.Pic: AP
Image:
The site of an Israeli airstrike in Rafah.Pic: AP

Asked where the more than one million civilians in Rafah should go, Mr Levy said: “That is part of the plan that the Israeli army will have to present [to] the prime minister because we take our obligations under international law to keep civilians protected very seriously.

“There are open spaces in Gaza, there are places where it is possible to set up tent encampments so that civilians can get out of harm’s way and not allow Hamas to use them as human shields.”

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Analysis: What’s happening in Rafah?

Netanyahu announcement causes panic

Mr Netanyahu did not say when the attack would begin, but his announcement triggered panic in the region.

Israel has carried out almost daily airstrikes on the city, which borders Egypt, even after the military told civilians to seek shelter there from current ground combat in Khan Younis to the north.

Around 80% of Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced and the territory is suffering a humanitarian crisis with shortages of food and medical services.

Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry has said over 28,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and more than 67,000 people wounded.

Israel declared war after several thousand Hamas militants assaulted southern Israel on 7 October, killing 1,300 and taking 250 hostage. Not all the hostages have survived.

Israel holds Hamas responsible for civilian deaths because it fights from within civilian areas, but US President Joe Biden said earlier this week that Israel’s response is “over the top”.

Continue Reading

World

Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

Published

on

By

Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.

Two men and two women from the Paris region were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.

Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.

They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded

The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.

Some of the French Crown Jewels, worth an estimated £76m, were stolen in the audacious October raid.

The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.

The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.

On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.

They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.

Read more:
Louvre director offers to resign
Gallery closed as structure in ‘dire state’

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Moment thieves escape Louvre in jewel heist

The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.

Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.

“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.

“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”

Continue Reading

World

Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump’s peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

Published

on

By

Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump's peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.

It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.

He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”

He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.

Ukraine latest: ‘Delicate’ deal details must be sorted, White House says

By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.

The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.

More on Donald Trump

In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know

“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.

Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.

He set a deadline of Thursday – Thanksgiving – for some sort of agreement on his plan.

We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.

Read more:
US hails ‘tremendous progress’ on Ukraine peace plan

In full: Europe’s 28-point counter proposal

My sense is that Zelenskyy will try to get to Mar-a-Lago as soon as he can. Before Thursday would be a push but would meet Trump’s deadline.

It will then be left for the Russians to state their position on the revised document.

All indications are that they will reject it. But maybe the secret Abu Dhabi talks will yield something.

Continue Reading

World

Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

Published

on

By

Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution group, has said it will permanently cease operations.

Set up as an alternative to United Nations aid programmes in May, GHF’s executive director John Acree said on Monday that it “succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”.

The foundation had already closed down aid distribution sites after US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan was agreed by Hamas and Israel in October.

The GHF which began operations in Gaza after an Israeli blockade of food deliveries, lasting nearly three months, was criticised by Palestinians, aid workers and health officials who said it forced people to risk their lives to reach the sites.

File pic: Reuters
Image:
File pic: Reuters

According to witnesses and videos posted to social media, Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire at the sites, killing hundreds. The IDF denied this, saying it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.

In July, analysis from Sky News’ Data and Forensics team found that aid distributions by GHF were associated with a significant increase in deaths.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open

MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said in a report in August that the GHF sites “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” and described scenes there as “orchestrated killing”.

More on Gaza

‘We are proud,’ says GHF director

Mr Acree said in a statement through the GHF’s website that “from the outset, GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need” and to hand over a successful aid operation to “the broader international community”.

The GHF would hand over its work to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.

“We are winding down our operations as we have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” Mr Acree said.

File pic: Reuters
Image:
File pic: Reuters

The GHF director added: “At a critical juncture, we are proud to have been the only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza, at scale and without diversion.

“From our very first day of operations, our mission was singular: feed civilians in desperate need. We built a new model that worked, saved lives, and restored dignity to civilians in Gaza.”

According to the GHF website, the group distributed more than three million food boxes, totalling 187 million meals, and supplied 1.1 million packs of Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) for malnourished children.

Read more:
Sky’s Adam Parsons sees Gaza destruction
Israel launches strikes on Gaza
Israel strikes Beirut for first time in months

Hamas welcomes GHF closure

In a statement, Hamas welcomed the closure of GHF and accused it of being a project that “engineered starvation” in partnership with Israel.

A Hamas spokesperson said: “Since its entry into the Gaza Strip, this foundation was part of the occupation’s security system, which adopted distribution mechanisms entirely disconnected from humanitarian principles, and created dangerous and degrading conditions for the dignity of the starving Palestinian people during their attempts to obtain a piece of bread, resulting in the killing and injury of thousands, through sniper operations and deliberate killing.”

They also called on international legal bodies to hold “this foundation and its officers accountable for their crimes against our people”.

US state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot also said on X that the aid group “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.

“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” he added.

Continue Reading

Trending