In an airstrike on a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of Gaza Strip, Israel killed at least 26 people and injured more than 60, according to Al-Awda Hospital.
According to civil defense agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal, the raid took place on Friday evening and “damaged several neighboring houses.”
As Beit Lahiya and the surrounding area in northern Gaza were under Israeli military siege for several deadly attacks over the past day.
Israeli forces opened fire on a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance, which was captured on video in a clip that was verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit.
Attacking a hospital
According to Dr. Eid Sabbah, the hospital’s director of nursing, Israeli forces stormed the Kamal Adwan Hospital on Friday under the cover of heavy artillery fire and airstrikes.
“People who we didn’t know were brought inside the hospital with weapons and speakers and uniforms,” said Sabbah.
“They sent a message to]hospital director] Dr Hussam Abu Safia and his colleagues… to evacuate the hospital, including patients and medical staff. They asked them to evacuate towards the tanks”, he said.
“This procedure resulted in the fatalities of four hospital staff members, among whom 30 were inside the hospital.” They were targeted and killed”.
Additionally, it’s said that Israeli soldiers used drones inside the hospital to attack Palestinians.
Medical facilities, their staff and vehicles are protected under the Geneva Convention.
Trapping frightened people
The Israeli military is using the medical facility as a “trap,” according to Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, who has extensive experience as an emergency surgeon in Gaza.
“This has been repeatedly happening. Israeli forces … attack the surroundings, then when people run to the hospital for help they attack the hospital”, Gilbert said.
“It therefore appears that the Israeli military is using Kamal Adwan as a means of capturing or killing those who want to.”
The Israeli military was charged with a war crime in Kamal Adwan by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza on Friday.
According to the World Health Organization, Israeli forces apparently did not give warning to the staff, bombing the facility.
To justify its actions, Israel claims Hamas fighters are using civilian buildings, including hospitals and schools, for operational cover throughout the 14-month Gaza war.
Hamas has refuted this, accusing Israel of arbitrary bombings and assaults.
The southern city, which President Bashar al-Assad’s forces have lost in a week, has been taken control of by opposition forces based in Damas, according to reports from the opposition.
Sources said the military has agreed to make an orderly withdrawal from Daraa under a deal giving army officials safe passage to the capital, Damascus, about 100km (60 miles) north.
After the government detained and tortured a group of boys for scribbling anti-Assad graffiti on their school walls in 2011, Daraa was nicknamed “the cradle of the revolution.” At the beginning of Syria’s war, the government repressed protests. In April of that year, regime forces besieged the city, a move seen as having militarised the revolution.
Local factions had taken control of more than 90% of Daraa province, including the eponymous city, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ monitor for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Friday evening.
The governor, the police and prison chiefs, and the leader of the local Baath Party had taken control of several checkpoints in neighboring Sweida, according to the Syrian Observatory and local media.
As the cost of living rose and tens of thousands of Druze men refused to take the oath of compulsion service, Sweida, Syria’s minority’s capital, has witnessed antigovernment demonstrations for more than a year.
Losing ground
In a statement released on Saturday by state media, the General Command of the Army and Armed Forces said that “our forces operating in Daraa and Sweida are redeploying, repositioning, and establishing a… security cordon in that direction.”
As Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reported from Lebanon that Syrian and Russian air strikes hit north Homs in the early hours of Saturday morning, the army added that it was “beginning toregain control in Homs and Hama provinces.”
Five days after taking Aleppo, the second-largest city, on Thursday, Hama fell to opposition fighters as they headed southward toward Homs.
Anti-regime factions continued their advance on Friday towards the strategically important Homs on the road leading to the capital, Damascus]İzettin Kasım/Anadolu Agency]
“]Opposition forces] are now at the gates of Homs”, said Khodr, who is following developments from the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon.
“They have repeated a call to government troops to surrender and avoid battle”, she reported. This might indicate that the government intends to fight back.
It’s not clear whether or not they can stay in Homs, a strategically important city between Damascus and the coast’s heartlands.
The government has steadily lost ground since Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)’s lightning offensive on November 27 began.
Kurdish-led forces announced on Friday that they had crossed the Euphrates River and had taken control of the area that had been vacated as the army and its Iranian-backed militia allies left Deir az Zor in eastern Syria.
Never before had al-Assad’s forces been able to recapture control of such large cities in such a short amount of time.
Diplomatic push
Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister of Turkiye, will meet with his counterparts in Russia and Iran in Doha on Saturday to discuss preventing chaos in Syria and preventing it from resuming fighting.
The three nations have been partners since 2017 in the Astana process, which also includes supporting opposing forces on the battlefield.
Moscow and Tehran both supported al-Assad in thwarting the opposition, while Ankara supported various rebel movements and views recent developments favorably.
According to Berkay Mandiraci, a senior Turkiye analyst at the International Crisis Group, “diplomacy now may focus on ensuring an orderly transition and finding an exit option for the regime,” Mandiraci said.
The unexpected rebel advances came at a time when Russia’s and Iran’s proxies, the regime’s main supporters, have been hampered by other conflict zones, Mandiraci continued.
On Friday, Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh met in Baghdad with his Iraqi and Iranian counterparts, warning that the offensive threatens regional stability.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein condemned the offensive, and said Iraq” cannot be part of any war”.
After more than five years of intensive reconstruction work, the historic landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral, which is situated on an island in Paris, France, is returning this weekend.
The 12th-century Gothic masterpiece, which was gutted by a fire in 2019, has now been masterfully restored and will reopen to the public on Sunday following a ceremony on Saturday, which will be attended by a lineup of heads of state and top-level delegates from around the world.
Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, made a pre-opening visit to the site on November 29 with his wife, first lady Brigitte Macron, who had promised to restore the cathedral within five years of the catastrophe. The building’s thousands of workers were appreciative of the president’s reconstruction.
“The inferno of Notre-Dame was a wound for the nation, … and you were its remedy”, the president said.
What we know about the nearly 900-year-old cultural icon’s reopening five years ago is as follows:
The top image shows a hole in the Parisian Notre-Dame Cathedral’s dome on April 16, 2019, the day after the fire, and the bottom image shows the cathedral’s restored interiors on November 29, 2024. [Christophe Petit Tesson/Pool via AP]
What caused the fire at Notre-Dame?
The blaze broke out on the evening of April 15, 2019, on the roof of the cathedral. As smoke poured out of the building, orange flames exploded into the sky. More than 400 firefighters battled to put an end to the fire, which lasted for 15 hours.
Authorities believe the fire was probably caused by an electrical fault or a burning cigarette, but it’s still undetermined what caused it. Security personnel rang the alarm and evacuated the cathedral, but no one was hurt. However, three security officials were injured.
The cathedral’s interior and roof were largely destroyed by the time the fire was extinguished the following day. Its wooden and metal spire, which had been undergoing reconstruction work, collapsed.
The intricate wooden beams that supported it burned away, leaving a gaping hole all over the structure as its lead roof melts.
Some of the building’s religious relics and the building’s exposed artwork suffered severe damage. The cathedral’s interior stone walls were severely damaged by the vaulted stone ceiling, which also served as a fire abutment.
The cathedral’s wooden frame was centuries-old, and authorities had long marked it as a possible fire hazard. Still, it was a painful period for the French nation. A somber Paris was doomed by toxic lead dust that spread across it. In a moving speech on April 17, 2019, Macron promised to restore the monument in five years and restore it to its former splendor. For the first time since 1803, Notre-Dame did not hold a Christmas Mass that year.
How was the cathedral rebuilt?
Hundreds of donors, including some of France’s richest businesspeople, contributed more than 840 million euros ($889m) to the medieval building’s restoration campaign, which was launched by Macron. About 150 countries, among them the United States and Saudi Arabia, also contributed.
The restoration involved the work of about 2, 000 people, including craftspeople, architects and other professionals.
The cathedral’s lower stone walls were strewn with powerful vacuum cleaners and cleaning gels to remove the years of accumulated grime, dust, and soot. The intricate roof frame and spire were then rebuilt using hand-hewed giant oak beams. The roof’s roof was constructed using wood from about 2, 000 oak trees that were cut down.
Because the facade’s decorative features won’t be completely restored until the work is complete, scaffolding will cover some of the exterior for a few more years.
On the occasion of the cathedral’s second anniversary, on April 15, 2021, [Francois Mori/AP]
When is the reopening ceremony?
Notre-Dame is set to host a high-profile ceremony on Saturday with more than 50 heads of state and government, dignitaries and VIPs attending under tight security.
Donald Trump, the president-elect of the United States, will be one of them, making his first foreign trip to Paris since winning the election in November.
The president-elect stated in a post on his Truth Social platform on Monday that “President Emmanuel Macron has done a wonderful job ensuring Notre Dame has been restored to its full level of glory, and even more so.” It will be a very special day for everyone, the author declares!
Pope Francis will not be notably absent, but about 170 French bishops are expected to attend the ceremony.
The ceremony will be officially opened by Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich with a staff staff and then formally enters the cathedral’s closed-doors.
Three stages will be used to start the ceremony. The great organ, which is France’s largest, will be “awakened”. The organ is made of 8, 000 pipes and 115 stops. A series of psalms and prayers, including the Lord’s Prayer, will follow, after which Ulrich will give a final blessing.
The choir will sing Te Deum, a Latin hymn, to round off the service.
When is the cathedral’s public opening?
An inaugural Mass for dignitaries will begin at 10: 30am (09: 30 GMT) on Sunday. Macron is expected to be in the congregation.
The public can then purchase tickets for a second evening Mass on the same day using a first-come, first-served basis. Guests were able to book tickets, which are free of charge, online.
A general election is scheduled to take place in Ghana in an area rife with political unrest and coups.
Voting opened at 7am]07: 00 GMT] and will close at 5pm]17: 00 GMT] on Saturday, with early results expected on Sunday and full results for the presidential election likely by Tuesday.
A fiercely contested election is being led by opposition leader John Mahama and vice president Mahamudu Bawumia, who was previously the country’s central banker. The outcome of the election is now likely to depend on whether Bawumia and Mahama are from the historically underdeveloped northern region. This is a departure from previous elections, in which southern province voters had a greater influence.
After serving two terms that are permitted by law, President Nana Akufo-Addo will step down. Voters will also elect the country’s new parliament in these elections, with some 18.8 million people registered to vote in a nation of 34 million. Election turnout was roughly 70% in the past.
According to a statement from the interior ministry, Ghana’s government temporarily closed all land borders from Friday through Sunday to “ensure the integrity” of the vote.
With a history of political stability, Ghana’s two main parties, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), have alternated in power almost equally since 1992. Neither party, however, has ever managed to “break the eight” or win three consecutive presidential terms.
NPP hopes their candidate, Bawumia, can lead them to an unprecedented third term in office. But the party has struggled to shake off criticism of Akufo-Addo’s economic record.
After the West African producer of gold and cacao went through a debt default, high inflation, and negotiations for a $3 billion IMF bailout, Ghana’s struggling economy came out as the main electoral issue.
Bawumia, a United Kingdom-educated economist, has pledged to continue the government’s plans for digitalisation to ease business as well as free education and health programmes.
“I know what I want to do from day one in the presidency. At a final rally in Accra, he yelled, “Give me the chance to transform this country.”
Mahama, the opposition candidate, served as president from 2012 to 2017 and has since lost twice in presidential campaigns.
He said he will “reset” Ghana and introduce a “24-hour economy”, extending industrial hours to create jobs and increase production, and renegotiate parts of the country’s lending programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The illegal gold mining industry has also become a political hot button. Akufo-Addo promised to stop illegal mining, but it has expanded, poisoning rivers and impacting cacao farmlands, a major source of export income.
In addition, conflicts in Niger and Burkinabe, where military rulers have been in power since the coup, are increasing in Ghana’s northern regions.
In a region rife with coups and insecurity, Ghana is frequently regarded as a model for political stability, but its parliament has recently displayed signs of unrest.
Just hours before a scheduled impeachment vote, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol publicly apologized for his attempted impose martial law this week but chose not to step down. He defied widespread pressure to do so, even from some in his own party.
Yoon declared in a televised address to the nation on Saturday that he would not attempt to avoid being held legally and politically responsible for declaring South Korea to be a first country to be declared martial there since 1980.
He said his decision was born of “desperation”.
Yoon apologized and said, “I’m very sorry and would like to sincerely apologize to the shocked people.” He added that there would be no further attempts.
After finishing his brief remarks in front of the South Korean flag and bowing, he said, “I leave it up to my party to take steps to stabilize the political situation in the future, including the issue of my term in office.”
The embattled leader’s first public appearance since reversing the martial law order on Wednesday, just six hours after it was declared, and after parliament defied an armed military raid and police cordons to vote against the decree, which forced the president to revoke his order.
After the speech, Han Dong-hoon, the leader of Yoon’s People Power Party, claimed that the president’s resignation was now necessary because he was no longer able to carry out his public duties.
On Friday, Han claimed Yoon should be removed from power because he was a threat to the nation. On Saturday, Han met with the country’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo to discuss the crisis, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Under the constitution, if Yoon resigns or is impeached then the prime minister, who was appointed by Yoon, becomes South Korea’s acting president.
The constitution mandates a presidential election within 60 days of Yoon’s resignation if his one-year term expires in May 2027.
Lawmakers are scheduled to vote at 5pm local time (08: 00 GMT) on the main opposition Democratic Party’s motion to impeach Yoon. The motion will be retaken on Wednesday, according to opposition leaders.
In addition to pursuing charges of insurrection and abuse of power, the police and the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials have launched investigations into Yoon and senior officials involved in the martial law decree.
The president’s shock announcement late on Tuesday night, which reportedly gave the military sweeping emergency powers to combat unspecified threats from “North Korean communist forces” and “to eradicate the shameless pro-North antistate forces,” is still pricking many South Koreans.
Yoon claimed that in order to impose martial law on the government, opposition members in the National Assembly must have done so in order to defuse an unprecedented number of impeachments against members of his administration, effectively paralysing key government functions, and handling the budget in a way that undermined the government’s fundamental duties, including public safety.
On Friday, a Russian attack in Zaporizhzhia, in southern Spain, claimed the lives of 24 people and injured at least 10 others. The city’s governor, Ivan Fedorov, said the attack had set a car garage and service station on fire in the blast.
Another attack on nearby Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, killed at least two people, according to the local governor.
Moscow gained ground in two crucial areas of the east Ukraine front line, including a village close to Pokrovsk’s troubled supply hub and a village close to Kurakhove’s industrial town, according to reports from Moscow.
On December 6, 2024, At the European Commission in Brussels, Lithuania’s Commissioner for Defense and Space Andrius Kubilius [Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP]
Military and diplomacy:
Zelenskyy criticized Putin after the attacks, saying in a Telegram post that “presidents of this war do not need real peace,” adding that “only through force can real peace be established.”
The EU’s first-ever defence commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, has called for a “big-bang approach” in spending and policy changes to strengthen the bloc’s defences, warning that Russia could be prepared for military aggression against the EU or NATO by 2030.
Ukraine unveiled a new domestically produced “rocket drone” called Peklo (Hell in Ukrainian) saying it can fly 700km (430 miles) – more than twice the longest range attributed to missiles supplied by Western allies.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in a broadcast interview that Moscow was ready to use “any means” to avoid defeat with the recent use of a hypersonic missile in the Ukraine conflict.
Zelenskyy plans to meet with US President-elect Donald Trump while he is in Paris this weekend to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his hope for the development of a “joint strategy” for Ukraine in an interview that was released on Saturday.
