Last weekend the New York Times published
a report that President Biden has been missing in action in recent
months when it comes to serious question-and-answer sessions with the
Washington press corps. The obvious reason for the lack of press conferences
is “to protect” the president from unscripted exchanges that often result in
missteps and confusion. Had I been writing the piece, I might have added that the
president is intent on not blurting out an unwanted truth. And he is not
alone in avoiding the press. The fact is that Secretary of State Tony Blinken
and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan have similarly disappeared in
recent months when it comes to give-and-take sessions with the White House
press corps. In their place we now have John Kirby, a retired admiral
who is a nice enough guy. He was a press guru at the Pentagon a decade or so
ago when I was writing lots of tough stuff on national security issues,
usually with no named sources, for the New Yorker. He made no
pretenses then about being a policy maker, and he is no different now. Yet it
was Kirby who was left to take a battering from a miffed press corps press
earlier this month when the administration released a blame-anybody-but-us
policy paper—distributed on just a few moments notice—dealing with the flawed
US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The senior officials who should have been explaining that
policy were Blinken and Sullivan—and perhaps even the president. In my view,
his decision to pull the American military out was a high point of his
diplomacy since taking office. It was bad luck that a terrorist bomb killed
thirteen US soldiers and at least sixty Afghans, eviscerating all that was
good in America’s change of policy. Yes, mistakes were made—the rush to get
American troops out of harm’s way led to the disastrous early shutting of the
vital Bagram airbase—but Biden did what he is being paid to do: he made a
tough decision. He has yet to do so about Ukraine, or China, or the recent
perhaps game-changing developments in Israel. And he has not addressed the
fact that under his administration signs have emerged that America may
no longer be the dominant global power in foreign policy, international
trade, and general esteem. At some point, if Biden wants to be re-elected, he
will have to face a press corps that will ask the questions about
subjects—such as his current low standing in the polls—that now seem to be
taboo. All of which brings me to tell you what I know about going
with the second string in dealing with the media. I was definitely below the
cut line during my five months as press secretary and sometime speech writer
for Senator Eugene McCarthy, a liberal Democrat from Minnesota who decided in
late 1967 to challenge fellow Democrat Lyndon Johnson for the presidential
nomination the next year. McCarthy had spent a decade in the House before
winning a Senate seat in 1958, and was far from a flame thrower when it came
to the Vietnam War. Nonetheless, he decided to do what Senator Robert
Kennedy, the all but inevitable heir to the throne, chose not to do in late
1967: take on an unpopular sitting president. I was not a political junkie and knew nothing about
McCarthy, a two-term senator whose contempt for the war turned out, to my
surprise, to be extreme. But I did know that the antiwar Democrats were
desperate to find someone credible to challenge Johnson and get him out of
office. Not likely, so I thought. In mid-December a neighbor of mine named
Mary McGrory, then the must-read columnist of the Washington Star,
a long gone daily, came over for a martini, which she often did, and told me
I needed to be McCarthy’s press secretary. Mary was a fixture in Washington’s
Irish mafia and since she had given up on Bobby making the run she decided it
was up to Gene to do it. The ambivalent McCarthy, she said, was willing to
take a flyer, but he needed help, lots of it. And I needed to be his press
secretary and write his speeches. I hated politics and all the compromising involved, but I
had resigned from the Associated Press’s Washington bureau earlier that
summer and just finished a book—any money coming from it was months away—and
I was anxious about being just another freelance, and thus broke, Washington
journalist. So it was arranged—the next day, if I recall it right—for me to
sit down with the senator and see if it could work. I had gotten to know
three or four senators since I hit Washington two years earlier, and I liked
their quickness and willingness to work. At his office, I got the
immediate sense that the Minnesotans working there were hostile to the notion
of a separate campaign office that would include none of them. McCarthy
himself was a handsome man who’d been a varsity athlete in college and looked
fit. He was totally diffident toward me, just as he was about the idea of
challenging a fellow Democrat who happened to be in the White House. I gave
him a sheaf of magazine stuff I’d written—slim pickings to be sure—and he
glanced at the pieces, looked over the young punk in front of him, and said,
“I guess you’ll do.” I don't think our meet and greet took more than ten
minutes. I called McGrory up and told her she’d thrown me to the
wolves. Stick it out, she said. Gene was giving a speech the next night in
New York City to an anti-Johnson Democrat group. She said it could lead to
some serious campaign money, and I should go listen. I did, and I heard the
senator, who I thought had been disdainful of the antiwar movement, give a
forceful and compelling denouncement of the Vietnam War as immoral and take a
step further by accusing Johnson of violating his oath of office. I’d been
obsessed about the war for years—it wasn’t an accident that I would pursue a
tip two years later and find the story of the My Lai massacre—and I had never
heard a national politician describe Vietnam as the moral horror it clearly
was, let alone suggest that Johnson was denigrating his office. And so I decided to give it a shot. A McCarthy campaign
press office had been set up in downtown Washington and I was suddenly in
charge of it. The young anti-war woman running it seemed terrific, and she
became my deputy. I needed one quickly because the senator and I were to fly
to Los Angeles the next day, and I was going to be his batman for the trip. I
spent the rest of the day and much of the night going through my collection
of antiwar tomes by authors such as Bernard Fall, then the leading expert on
Vietnam and the war, and various publications by church groups that had been
tracking the murderous war since the first American troops arrived. I put
together a collection of 40 pages of homework and gave it to McCarthy. He brought his poetry to read on the trip—he was
passionate about it—and wasn’t interested in his first class seatmate. But
one of the articles was about the trial of five antiwar activists, including
Dr Benjamin Spock, America’s favorite pediatrician, accused of aiding and
abetting draft dodgers. McCarthy, who had four children, was interested. When
we hit Los Angeles, the senator did a fund raiser or two with the Hollywood
crowd, but the big event for him was a long-scheduled speech at an
end-the-war rally at UCLA. It was a big audience—maybe seven or eight
thousand in all—and during the Q&A session he was asked about the Spock
trial. I learned about the genius of the senator as I listened to him put
what he had casually read on the plane into a strident and accurate defense
of what Spock and his colleagues had done. He was with them, he said to a
roar of applause. Most important, as we learned the next morning, the
senator’s defense of Spock and his co-defendants made national news, and I
had helped him do so. It was the high point of my tour as a press
secretary. Not being house-trained in public relations, I broke every taboo
of the trade. A few days after returning from Los Angeles I got a
telephone call from the candidate’s wife, Abigail, who told me to minimize
any public emphasis on the family’s Catholicism, which she thought would be a
disadvantage in southern New Hampshire. I told her I worked for her husband
and not for her. I learned quickly that Gene was deeply religious and had
spent time in a seminary after college but had moved back to the secular
world after less than a year of seclusion. His faith was his own business,
and no one else’s, and to pretend he wasn’t a Catholic was loony. Big
mistake. I did not know about “pillow talk,” the political phrase for the
power of a candidate’s wife. I had made her a pillow talk enemy by my second
week on the job. I was later exposed to the power of pillow talk in 1981.
Ronald Reagan had won the presidency and I was two years into a long book on
Henry Kissinger. Reagan’s national security adviser was Richard Allen, an
arms control expert who worked for Kissinger in the early Nixon
Administration days and was unafraid to tell me things I needed to know.
Allen was most puckish and he and I sometimes exchanged stupid and smutty
jokes when he was in the White House. Reagan adored this sort of thing, Allen
told me, and one afternoon after I came up with a a good one over the phone,
Allen said, “The President would love this one,” and he asked me to hang on.
I listened as Allen then called the Secret Service agent on duty outside
Reagan’s office and asked, “Is she there?” She being First Lady Nancy Reagan.
The agent said yes and Dick told me he’d deliver my joke when she was not
around—not a good move. Allen would not last many more months as national
security adviser. But he did tell one story worth repeating. It was known
that Reagan did not want to be awakened even if the National Security Agency
came up with a hot intercept marked “Critic”—the designation meant the
message had to be on the president’s desk within minutes. One very early
morning Allen was informed that the Israeli air force had successfully
attacked and destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor outside Baghdad. This was
something that had to be shared with Reagan. He called the special telephone,
and the president answered, listened carefully to the message, and after a
long pause said, “Well, Dick, boys will be boys,” and went back to bed. (Dick
told the story in different ways over the years, but the punchline has
remained intact.) I thought my job was getting reporters to interview
McCarthy and generate publicity and perhaps a few more contributions to the
campaign, which needed money badly. Nope. McCarthy was not a fan of the
Washington press corps, especially because he was treated as an oddity by
reporters. I constantly urged and begged him to do more interviews, and
he—this was two months into the New Hampshire campaign—accused me of planting
reporters in the back seat and trunk of every car he was riding in. “The
reporters love you,” he said to me again and again, “but they’re supposed to
love me.” As McCarthy was gaining traction among moderate Republicans and the
working class in New Hampshire, Ward Just, a wonderful reporter for the Washington
Post (and later a prolific novelist), fresh from a long stint in
Vietnam, called me to say he wanted to come up to New Hampshire to see
firsthand how an avowedly anti-Vietnam War candidate was doing. I told the
senator about Ward’s plan and, to my surprise, he made a face and said, in
essence, No way. Why not? He gave me a sharp look and said, “Don’t you
remember what Ward wrote about me in Newsweek?’ I had to call
the Newsweek offices in Washington to find the quote: Ward
had written a small gossipy item six years earlier about McCarthy in a
section of the magazine called Periscope that was filled with little
oddities, and he depicted Gene as walking like a priest. The senator kept on
asking me for days if knew how a priest walked. Ward came, of course, and McCarthy
spent time with him, but he resented every minute of it. Most important in my demise were my constant attempts in
the speeches I occasionally drafted—the campaign had hired someone much more
gifted in the role—to get the candidate to include a call for a guaranteed
annual income of $12,000 for every American in need. My staff had been
pushing me to get the senator on board, but the operatives running the
campaign, most of whom were already measuring their White House offices,
thought the idea was political suicide. I finally got McCarthy to sign off on
the proposal, and it was included in a speech he was to give in early March,
when the polls were showing that President Johnson, who had hesitated about
running in New Hampshire and was a write-in candidate, was not going to win
big, if he won at all. By this late date—the primary was on March 12—McCarthy’s
surge was a great political story and my office was responsible
for chartering a commercial jet and billing the reporters on each leg as the
candidate gave speeches to constantly growing crowds. The job was getting
less and less fun for me, because with success came more reporters and more
demands for unwanted interviews, and less access to the man himself for me.
But the final draft of the speech included the call for a guaranteed annual
income and the press release I wrote for the forty or so journalists that
were following the campaign and traveling with us emphasized it. Some of the
old-timers asked me again and again whether the senator was really going to
do it. The speech was going to begin late and the reporters for morning
newspapers and the wires had to file early to make the first edition. I
assured them all that the commitment was in. But McCarthy dropped the commitment when he delivered the
speech. I was off stage and as the senator went by he asked me, “Whatcha
think?” I said D-minus. Wrong answer, as he and I knew. At the bar that
night, two or three of Gene’s old pals told me they had been upstairs in the
hotel having a drink with Gene and some of his wife’s money boys and I was
doomed. And so I was. I hung in past the primary, in which McCarthy came within
a few points of the president, who then announced that he would not run for
re-election. That would bring Bobby Kennedy into the race, and surely
undercut the McCarthy campaign. I had done the best I could, but I was never
inside the decision-making process of the campaign, just as John Kirby and
others in the press operation in the White House will never be, either. To pretend that President Biden is focused on trying to reach the American people by different means, and not avoiding the give-and-take of a news conference open to all, as a White House aide told the New York Times, is just horseshit. |
Comment
Two Israeli air strikes on buildings in Gaza City have killed at least 38 people and injured many more, Hamas says.
The Israeli military said warplanes had struck Hamas military infrastructure sites and it would provide more details later.
A spokesman for Gaza's civil defence said a residential block in the al-Shati area, one of Gaza's historic refugee camps, was hit several times. The other strike targeted houses in the al-Tuffah district, the Hamas-run government media office said.
Footage showed people carrying away the wounded and searching for survivors in the wreckage as dust filled the streets.
Earlier reports put the estimated death toll at 42.
Israeli media reported that the air strikes may have been targeting a senior Hamas official.
Hussein Muhaisen, a civil defence spokesman in Gaza City, told AFP that the impact from the strikes was "like an earthquake".
"The whole area was targeted, as you see homes were destroyed. There are still families under the rubble," he said.
"Some of the injured were transferred to the Baptist Hospital, and now we are rescuing others from under the rubble, and the situation is very, very difficult due to the lack of tools and fuel for ambulances."
Meanwhile the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the EU condemned Friday's shelling of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) offices in Gaza, which the ICRC said had killed 22 people who had sought shelter around its compound.
Mr Borrell called for an independent investigation and for those responsible to be held accountable.
On Saturday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an initial inquiry into the shooting in the al-Mawasi area of southern Gaza found there was "no direct attack carried out by the IDF against a Red Cross facility".
It said the incident would be "quickly examined" and the findings presented.
Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October, during which about 1,200 people - mostly civilians - were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
More than 37,551 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.
Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but it had reportedly identified 14,680 children, women and elderly people among the dead by the end of April.
(BBC)
Comment
Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud today said Bangladesh has sought
support from India to become a member of BRICS, a group of
emerging-market nations - the acronym stands for Brazil, Russia, India,
China and South Africa.
"If BRICS decides to take a new member or partner, we want to be a part
of the BRICS. We have sought support from India to this end (during the
delegation level talks),"he said.
He briefed media about Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's engagements on her
two-day state visit to India at the invitation of her Indian
counterpart Narendra Modi.
The foreign minister said the delegation level talks featured many
issues of bilateral interests that include joint management of 54 common
rivers and their water sharing, connectivity, trade, security, border
management, introduce of quota for Bangladesh to import essential
commodities from India, quick medical visas for Bangladeshis and
development of partnership.
During the meeting, both sides have expressed their satisfaction as the
bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India has been strengthening
and continuing to reach new height under the dynamic leadership of Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina for the last 15 years and Indian premier
Narendra Modi in last 10 years.
"Both sides have expressed their willingness to elevate further the relations," Dr Hasan said.
Replying to a question, he said that Bangladesh and India have shared 54 common rivers.
The matter of forming joint river management for the rivers has
prominently come to the delegation-level talks, the foreign minister
said.
"Joint river management is important as it can help us to fight together the adverse impact of the climate change," he said.
Replying to a query, Dr Hasan said Bangladesh is set to import
electricity from Bhutan and Nepal and Bangladesh has already signed an
agreement with Bhutan to this end.
He said Bangladesh has talked about the matter with India and "India gave a very positive response".
It is not enough to only produce electricity and it also requires a
transmission line to distribute the power, the minister said.
Hasan said India has been currently working to set up a transmission line for 3000mw power.
"India will facilitate Bangladesh from the transmission line to this end," he said.
About killings at boarder, the foreign minister said both Bangladesh and
India are politically committed to bring down the boarder killings to
zero level.
Both the countries have been working to decrease the killings in borders, he said.
He continued they have sought to introduce a quota for Bangladesh to
import essential commodities such as onion, oil, wheat, and sugar.
"We have sought a specific quota for this purpose as they don't stop exporting essential items to Bangladesh," he said.
Replying to a query, the foreign minister said Teesta project was also discussed during the bilateral meeting with India.
India has expressed its desire to assist Bangladesh in the
implementation of the Teesta project, he said, adding that other
countries have also expressed their willingness to this matter.
Technical committees of both the countries will sit together to pursue the matter, he continued.
Dr Hasan also said India has expressed no objection to China to this end.
The foreign minister said Bangladesh had sought help from India to send
back 12 lakh forcibly displaced Rohingyas to their motherland Myanmar.
Indian side said China has a role to play to this end, he said.
In reply, Bangladesh Prime Minister said she will bring the matter to Chinese government as she will visit China soon, he said.
In replying to a question, Mahmud said he himself brought the issue of
resolving the existing problem over Indian medical visa for Bangladeshis
by cutting the duration of issuing medical visas.
Bangladeshis are currently facing problem in getting medical visas as it takes a long time, he said.
The Indian Prime Minister already asked the authorities concerned to resolve the problem.
India has been working to update their software and issue e-visas to resolve the problem, he said.
Bangladesh High Commissioner to India M Mustafizur Rahman and PM's Press
Secretary M Nayeemul Islam Khan were present during the briefing.
(Source: BSS)
Comment
The flood situation in Assam persisted, affecting over 6 lakh people across 10 districts, officials said on Sunday.
Heavy rainfall across the state caused rivers such as Kopili, Barak, and Kushiyara to surpass their danger levels, which forcing prompte evacuations to affected people in many areas for safety, they said.
Among the affected districts are Hailakandi, Hojai, Morigaon, Karimganj, Nagaon, Cachar, Dibrugarh, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong West, and Dima Hasao, with a total of 6,01,642 people impacted by the floods.
The death toll from floods and storms since May 28 stands at 15. Nagaon remains the most severely affected district, with over 2.79 lakh people affected, followed by Hojai with 1,26,813 and Cachar with 1,12,265. Over 40,000 displaced individuals are seeking refuge in relief camps across various districts. Multiple agencies, including NDRF, SDRF, local administration, and volunteers, are conducting rescue and relief operations.
Furthermore, road and rail communications are disrupted in several parts of the state. Due to track damage and waterlogging, ten trains scheduled to depart from Saturday to Monday have been canceled, according to a spokesperson from Northeast Frontier Railway's Lumding division.
Comment
American and British forces carried out a fresh wave of strikes Saturday against 18 Huthi targets in Yemen, following weeks of unrelenting attacks on Red Sea shipping by the Iran-backed rebels.
The strikes "specifically targeted 18 Huthi targets across eight locations in Yemen" including weapons storage facilities, attack drones, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter, a joint statement said.
It was co-signed by Australia, Bahrain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and New Zealand, who gave unspecified "support" to the new round of strikes, the second this month and fourth since the rebels began their attacks on ships in the region.
"The Huthis' now more than 45 attacks on commercial and naval vessels since mid-November constitute a threat to the global economy, as well as regional security and stability, and demand an international response," the statement said.
Huthi-run Al-Masirah television reported "a series of raids on the capital Sanaa," while AFP correspondents in the rebel-controlled city in western Yemen said they heard several loud bangs.
"The United States will not hesitate to take action, as needed, to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world's most critical waterways," Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in a separate statement after the strikes.
"We will continue to make clear to the Huthis that they will bear the consequences if they do not stop their illegal attacks, which harm Middle Eastern economies, cause environmental damage, and disrupt the delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemen and other countries."
Huthi military spokesman Yahya Saree was defiant, vowing in a social media statement that the rebels would "confront the American-British escalation with more qualitative military operations against all hostile targets in the Red and Arab Seas."
The UK Ministry of Defence said four Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s targeted "several very long-range drones, used by the Houthis for both reconnaissance and attack missions," on Saturday, at a site north-east of Sanaa.
Saturday's operation comes after several merchant vessels were struck this week in the region, including the fertilizer-filled Rubymar, whose crew had to abandon ship after it was hit Sunday and began taking on water.
Apart from the joint operations with Britain, the United States has also carried out unilateral strikes against Huthi positions and weaponry in Yemen, and downed dozens of missiles and drones in the Red Sea.
- Anti-ship missile downed -
Earlier on Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that an American Navy ship had shot down an anti-ship ballistic missile "launched into the Gulf of Aden from Iranian-backed Huthi controlled areas of Yemen."
The missile "was likely targeting MV Torm Thor, a US-Flagged, owned, and operated chemical/oil tanker," CENTCOM said on X, formerly Twitter.
US forces on Friday also shot down three attack drones near commercial ships in the Red Sea and destroyed seven anti-ship cruise missiles on land, CENTCOM said.
The Huthis say they are targeting Israel-linked vessels in support of Palestinians in Gaza, which has been ravaged by the Israel-Hamas war.
Following previous US and UK strikes, the Huthis declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well.
The Huthis will "persist in upholding their religious, moral and humanitarian duties towards the Palestinian people, and their military operations will not stop unless the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted," military spokesman Saree said.
Anger over Israel's devastating campaign in Gaza -- which began after an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 -- has grown across the Middle East, stoking violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Comment
Israel launched air strikes Thursday on southern Gaza's Rafah after threatening to send troops into the city, where around 1.4 million Palestinians have sought shelter from around the territory.
Global powers trying to navigate a way to end the Israel-Hamas war have so far come up short, but a US envoy was expected in Israel on Thursday to try to secure a truce deal.
International concern has spiralled over the high civilian death toll and dire humanitarian crisis in the war sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack against Israel.
More than four months of relentless fighting and air strikes have flattened much of the Hamas-run coastal territory, pushing its population of around 2.4 million to the brink of famine, according to the UN.
International concern has in recent weeks centred on Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1.4 million people forced to flee their homes elsewhere in the territory are now living in crowded shelters and makeshift tents.
The last city untouched by Israeli ground troops, Rafah also serves as the main entry point via neighbouring Egypt for desperately needed relief supplies.
Israel has warned it will expand its ground operations into Rafah if Hamas does not free the remaining hostages held in Gaza by next month's start of the Muslim holy month Ramadan.
- 'My daughter' -
The war started when Hamas launched its attack on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Hamas militants also took about 250 hostages -- 130 of whom remain in Gaza, including 30 presumed dead, according to Israel.
Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 29,313 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest count by the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory.
War cabinet member Benny Gantz said Israel's operation in Rafah would begin "after the evacuation of the population", although his government has not offered any details on where civilians would be evacuated to.
In the early hours of Thursday, AFP reporters heard multiple air strikes on Rafah, particularly in the Al-Shaboura neighbourhood.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said early Thursday that 99 people had been killed around Gaza during the night, most of them women, children and elderly people.
Abdel Rahman Mohamed Jumaa said he lost his family in recent strikes on Rafah.
"I found my wife lying in the street," he told AFP. "Then I saw a man carrying a girl and I ran towards him and.... picked her up, realising she was really my daughter."
He was holding a small shrouded corpse in his arms.
- 'Possibility of progress' -
Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, was expected to arrive in Israel Thursday -- his second stop in the region after Egypt as part of US efforts to advance a hostage deal and broker a truce.
Hamas's chief Ismail Haniyeh was in Cairo for talks as well, according to the group.
Israel's Gantz said there were efforts to "promote a new plan for the return of the hostages".
"We are seeing the first signs that indicate the possibility of progress in this direction."
Matthew Miller, US State Department spokesman, said Washington was hoping for an "agreement that secures a temporary ceasefire where we can get the hostages out and get humanitarian assistance", but declined to give details on ongoing negotiations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the army will keep fighting until it has destroyed Hamas and freed the remaining hostages.
Israel's parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a proposal by Netanyahu to oppose any unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.
The vote came days after the Washington Post reported that US President Joe Biden's administration and a small group of Arab nations were working out a comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
It included a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the report said.
Separately, a report by an Israeli group that fights sexual violence said Hamas's October 7 attack also involved systematic sexual assaults on civilians, based on witness testimonies, public and classified information, and interviews.
The report came the same week UN rights experts called for an independent probe into alleged Israeli abuses against Palestinian women and girls -- which Israel rejected as "despicable and unfounded claims".
Israeli officials have repeatedly alleged the militants committed violent sexual assaults during the attack -- something Hamas has denied.
- 'Waiting for death' -
Combat and chaos have stalled sporadic aid deliveries for civilians in Gaza, while in Khan Yunis -- a city just north of Rafah -- medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said an Israeli tank had fired on a house sheltering their employees and families.
Two relatives of MSF staff were killed and six others injured, it said, condemning the strike in the "strongest possible terms".
When contacted by AFP about the incident, the Israeli army said its forces had "fired at a building that was identified as a building where terror activity is occurring", adding that it "regrets" harm to civilians.
In the same town, the Palestinian Red Crescent said another hospital was also hit by "artillery shelling".
Israel has repeatedly said Hamas militants use civilian infrastructure including hospitals as operational bases -- claims that Hamas has denied.
Comment
Two Israeli air strikes on buildings in Gaza City have killed at least 38 people and injured many more, Hamas says.
Foreign Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud today said Bangladesh has sought support from India to become a member of BRICS, a group of emerging-market nations - the acronym stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The flood situation in Assam persisted, affecting over 6 lakh people across 10 districts, officials said on Sunday. Heavy rainfall across the state caused rivers such as Kopili, Barak, and Kushiyara to surpass their danger levels, which forcing prompte evacuations to affected people in many areas for safety, they said. Among the affected districts are Hailakandi, Hojai, Morigaon, Karimganj, Nagaon, Cachar, Dibrugarh, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong West, and Dima Hasao, with a total of 6,01,642 people impacted by the floods.
American and British forces carried out a fresh wave of strikes Saturday against 18 Huthi targets in Yemen, following weeks of unrelenting attacks on Red Sea shipping by the Iran-backed rebels. The strikes "specifically targeted 18 Huthi targets across eight locations in Yemen" including weapons storage facilities, attack drones, air defense systems, radars, and a helicopter, a joint statement said.
Israel launched air strikes Thursday on southern Gaza's Rafah after threatening to send troops into the city, where around 1.4 million Palestinians have sought shelter from around the territory.
