Al Jazeera cameraman Ali al-Attar has been severely injured in an Israeli attack on a hospital in Gaza. Several of the network’s journalists have been wounded or killed covering Israel’s genocide against Palestinians there.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Lebanon it could face destruction “like Gaza”. Many Lebanese say it’s already happening.
Top European Union officials have slammed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban over democratic backsliding at home and his Russia-friendly stance that has blocked military and financial aid to Ukraine.
Orban, whose country currently holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, came under fire on Wednesday after warning officials gathered in Strasbourg, France, about the “migration crisis” and the war in Ukraine as he addressed the European Parliament.
Leading the charge against Orban, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took aim at Budapest’s stalling of EU support for Kyiv and refusal to join Western efforts to arm Ukraine to fight off Moscow.
“The world has witnessed the atrocities of Russia’s war. And yet, there are still some who blame this war not on the invader but the invaded,” said von der Leyen.
“There are still some who blame this war not on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s lust for power but on Ukraine’s thirst for freedom. ”
In July, Orban stoked controversy when he travelled on what the Hungarian government described as a “peace mission” to Moscow and Beijing without coordinating with EU partners.
Manfred Weber, the leader of the conservative European People’s Party, said he was shocked that Orban devoted not a “single sentence” to the plight of Ukraine in his speech, slamming his rogue diplomacy as a “big propaganda show for the autocrats”.
Lawmakers lined up to take aim at Orban, who has repeatedly clashed with Brussels over his curbing of civil rights at home since entering office in 2010, with Green co-leader Terry Reintke declaring: “You are not welcome here, this is the house of European democracy. ”
Von der Leyen also skewered Orban’s stance on migration, accusing his government of “throwing problems over your neighbour’s fence” with the early release of convicted people traffickers.
She took aim at a Hungarian visa scheme for Russian nationals, saying the lack of security checks posed “a … risk not only for Hungary but for all member states”.
The EU chief also criticised an agreement between Budapest and Beijing allowing Chinese police officers to patrol in Hungary together with their Hungarian counterparts.
“How can it be that the Hungarian government would allow Chinese police to operate within its territory? This is not defending Europe’s sovereignty, this is a backdoor for foreign interference,” she said.
Mainstream members of the European Parliament (MEPs) had promised to hold Orban to account with the Hungarian opposition leader-turned-MEP Peter Magyar among the speakers lined up to challenge him.
“No cash for corrupt,” read one banner held up by left-wing lawmakers, in a reference to the billions of euros in EU funds for Hungary currently frozen over rule-of-law concerns.
An Israeli offensive in northern Gaza has killed several dozen people and trapped thousands over the past 24 hours, while ongoing attacks on Lebanon have sent more people fleeing from the south.
The Israeli military claimed on Wednesday that its fighter jets had hit some 230 targets belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza’s Hamas as fighting intensified in both places. However, civilians have borne much of the brunt, with the latest casualties in Gaza pushing the death toll from the yearlong war in the enclave above 42,000, the Ministry of Health reported.
The Israeli air force attacked about 185 Hezbollah and 45 Hamas targets, including military buildings and infrastructure, observation posts, rocket launchers and operatives, the army said on X.
It also reported that three of its soldiers were severely injured on Tuesday and Wednesday during combat in southern Lebanon.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli soldiers near the Lebanese border village of Labbouneh with artillery shells and rockets on Wednesday, pushing the troops back.
The escalation in Lebanon, after a year of war in Gaza, has raised fears of a wider Middle East conflict that could suck in Iran and Israel’s iron-clad ally the United States.
Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has killed more than 2,100 people, most of them in the last two weeks.
It has also forced 1. 2 million people from their homes, officials have reported.
On Wednesday, the country’s disaster management authorities said at least 58,898 displaced people fleeing Israeli attacks in southern and eastern parts of the country have sought refuge in the northern districts.
At least 45 people were killed in Israeli military strikes on Gaza in the past 24 hours, Palestinian medics reported, as Israeli forces pressed on with a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in the enclave’s north.
The Israeli military says the raid, now in its fifth day, is intended to stop Hamas fighters staging further attacks from Jabalia and to prevent them regrouping.
It has repeatedly issued evacuation orders to residents of Jabalia and nearby areas, but Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe places to flee to in the Gaza Strip.
At least 400,000 people are “trapped” in northern Gaza following Israel’s evacuation orders, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, revealed.
Northern #Gaza: no end to hell.
At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area.Recent evacuation orders from the Israeli Authorities are forcing people to flee again & again, especially from Jabalia Camp.
Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere…
Residents of Jabalia said thousands of people have been trapped in their homes since the operation began on Sunday, as Israeli jets and drones buzz overhead and troops battle Palestinian fighters in the streets.
“The quadcopters are everywhere, and they fire at anyone. You can’t even open the window,” Mohamed Awda told The Associated Press news agency.
The Gaza Health Ministry said the Israeli army ordered three hospitals in the north to evacuate staff and patients.
Hussam Abu Safia, director at Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the facilities ordered to evacuate, told Al Jazeera he feared a repeat of the violence inflicted on Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital earlier in the war.
Beirut, Lebanon – On Monday, Israel killed 10 firefighters in a strike on the southern Lebanese town of Baraachit, near Bint Jbeil, in what rescue workers have described as a deliberate attack.
The killings pushed the number of rescue workers Israel has killed in Lebanon to more than 100 in the past year – most of them in the past two weeks.
“It’s a tragedy that shocked me,” said a Lebanese Civil Defense member from nearby Tebnine, who asked Al Jazeera to withhold his name for fear of reprisals.
“I knew them, they were all my friends,” he said, adding that while they were not from the same organisation, there was coordination between them.
Directly targeting rescue workers or medical staff is against international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime under the Geneva Conventions which Israel has ratified along with 195 other countries.
Since last October, at least 107 rescue workers have been killed by Israeli attacks, according to the Ministry of Public Health, with many in Lebanon expressing anger over Israel’s lack of accountability.
Israel’s Arabic language spokesperson has repeatedly claimed that Israel does not target civilians or rescue workers, and that the strikes have focused solely on “Hezbollah terrorist targets”.
However, Mahmoud Karaki, a spokesman for the Islamic Health Committee rescue unit, told Al Jazeera that 18 of the committee’s centres have been “directly targeted” by Israel in the past year.
“In all the centres that were targeted, there were no military targets next to them, or in them. The Israeli enemy always looks to find an excuse but it’s not true,” Karaki said.
The civil defence worker from Tebnine, a 30-minute drive from the southern border, said the increase in violence over the last couple of weeks had shaken him to his core.
“Listen to me, they targeted the Red Cross, civil defence and the fire brigade,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking at a frantic pace.
“They targeted Al-Risala and the Islamic Health Committee, meaning they can target anything without accountability … they are not afraid [of repercussions]. ”
Al-Risala and Islamic Health Committee are healthcare services affiliated with Lebanese political parties Haraket Amal and Hezbollah, respectively.
“I’ve been working for a year,” he said. “But now … I swear to God, it’s suicide. If there’s a fire … you’re going out there to kill yourself, not put it out, because it’s possible that a plane will strike you. ”
Lebanese conflict researcher Ahmad Baydoun told Al Jazeera that often after a strike, Israel will use its firepower to make sure help stays far away.
“[Israel] won’t let people go to specific sites,” Baydoun said. “They want to make sure everyone there is dead. ”
Last Friday, a video went viral of an excavator operator in Beirut’s southern suburbs being hit by an Israeli air strike.
In the 22-second video, taken by the man sitting inside the excavator cabin, the bucket of the excavator is visible.
A buzzing noise is followed by an explosion and the camera shakes and jerks upward, dust rising all around.
After a one-second pause, a man starts screaming, while another asks frantically: “What happened? ”
In another video of the same incident from a different angle, a man screams on the ground as another says: “A rocket hit us! ”
Baydoun said he had geolocated both videos to the location of an attack on assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s possible successor, the Hezbollah Executive Council head, Hachem Safieddine.
Safieddine has been missing since a violent Israeli air strike rocked Beirut on Thursday. Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Safieddine was likely killed in that attack.
Hezbollah told Reuters that Israel was blocking search and rescue efforts to find Safieddine – and that would include civilians and rescue workers.
“We have no information other than that this is part of the attacks on civilians,” Ali Tfayli, a Hezbollah spokesperson told Al Jazeera.
“The Israelis made a decision to leave the suburb empty so they can do whatever they want. ”
The latest bombardments are leading many rescue workers to now reassess their priorities.
“Citizens have the right to ask the Lebanese state for help,” Walid Hashash, 58, director-general of the civil defence in Beirut, told Al Jazeera.
“But at some point, we have to protect our lives. ”
On September 23, Israel expanded its conflict against Hezbollah by bombarding southern Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon with deadly air strikes.
Hezbollah and Israel have been trading cross-border attacks since October 8, 2023, with Israel killing nearly 2,100 people in Lebanon since. However, 1,250 of those deaths happened since September 23, more than in the entire monthlong war of 2006 between Hezbollah and Israel.
Most of the deaths before then were Hezbollah members, but in recent weeks, the death toll has spiked as civilians – including rescue workers and medics – increasingly come under Israeli fire.
During the first 11 months of the war, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon were confined mostly to southern Lebanon and parts of the Bekaa Valley in the east and northeast.
But on September 23, 2024, Israel intensified attacks on both areas, killing more than 550 people in a single day. On September 27, Israel assassinated Nasrallah in a devastating attack that took down at least six buildings in Haret Hreik, a neighbourhood in Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs and a few hours later began ordering the evacuation of certain parts of the suburbs.
Since the escalation on September 23, about a quarter of Lebanon’s population – or 1. 2 million people – have been displaced and the daily news in Lebanon is filled with images of shops and homes turned to dust and rubble.
Tfayli also said Israel has started targeting displaced civilians in new areas, including in Kayfoun and Qamatiyeh, in Lebanon’s Aley district, half an hour from Beirut by car.
Until September 23, “it was a bit more dangerous in south Lebanon”, Karaki told Al Jazeera. “But today, there’s no difference. It’s equally dangerous everywhere. ”
Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon, the village of Meiss el-Jabal was one of the worst affected by air attacks over the past year. On October 6, it faced more than 40 raids by the Israeli Air Force in just four hours. Only a few people remained in the village, most of them elderly or sick and the civil defence once provided aid and treatment for them. But there has been no communication for a week.
“Nobody knows anything about their situation,” the civil defence member from Tebnine said.
Wimbledon will break with tradition and replace line judges with electronic line calling from next year’s championships, the All England Club confirmed.
The sight of immaculately dressed line judges standing or crouching at the side and back of the grass courts has been a feature at the Grand Slam for 147 years.
Electronic line calling was first used as an experiment at the ATP Next Gen Finals in Milan in 2017 and was adopted more widely during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be used on all courts across ATP Tour events from 2025.
The Australian Open and US Open have already replaced line judges with electronic calling although the French Open still relies on the human eye.
Wimbledon said the Hawk Eye Live Electronic Line Calling (Live ELC) will also be used across the qualifying tournament.
“Having reviewed the results of the testing undertaken at The Championships this year, we consider the technology to be sufficiently robust and the time is right to take this important step in seeking maximum accuracy in our officiating,” All England Lawn Tennis Club chief executive Sally Bolton said in a statement on Wednesday.
“For the players, it will offer them the same conditions they have played under at a number of other events on tour. ”
While popular with players, the decision will sadden traditionalists and likely mean the end of the arguments over line calls that are part of Wimbledon folklore, largely because of the antics of former champion John McEnroe who famously railed against the officials.
It will also spell the end of the Hawk Eye challenges in which players can ask for a video review of a close call – also a popular feature with fans.
Chair umpires will be retained.
“We take our responsibility to balance tradition and innovation at Wimbledon very seriously,” Bolton added. “Line umpires have played a central role in our officiating at The Championships for many decades and we recognise their valuable contribution and thank them for their commitment and service. ”
The electronic system, which is powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), reacts within one tenth of a second of the ball landing and is regarded as more accurate than human line judges who are often seen ducking for cover to avoid being struck by a 160km/h (100mph) serve.
A simple computer-generated call of “out” or “fault” will now be the final word on line calls.
Next year’s Wimbledon takes place from June 30 until July 13.