CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli strikes killed 77 Palestinians in Gaza in the past 24 hours, health authorities said on Sunday, as Egypt hosted an Israeli delegation for a new round of talks in a bid to secure a truce with Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
The Israeli military said it killed a senior Islamic Jihad militant in a strike on a command centre in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza. It did not mention his name or rank.
“The command centre and terrorists were struck precisely, the military said, adding it was intended to minimise “harm to uninvolved civilians in the area of the hospital”.
“The Al-Aqsa Hospital building was not damaged and its functioning was not affected.”
There was no immediate comment from Islamic Jihad, a militant group and ally of Hamas.
Palestinian health officials and Hamas media said the strike hit several tents inside the Al-Aqsa Hospital, killing four people and wounding several, including five journalists.
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the health authorities. Health officials say most of the fatalities are civilians, while Israel says at least a third are fighters.
The war erupted after Hamas militants broke through the border and rampaged through communities in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The two sides have stepped up negotiations, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, on a six-week suspension of Israel’s offensive in return for the proposed release of 40 of 130 hostages still held by Hamas militants in Gaza after their Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to keep up military pressure on Hamas, while showing flexibility in the talks, saying that only that combination would bring about the release of some 130 hostages still held incommunicado in Gaza.
Hamas says any deal must secure an end to the fighting and withdrawal of Israeli forces. Israel has ruled this out, saying it would eventually resume efforts to dismantle the governing and military capabilities of Hamas.
Hamas would not be present at the talks in Cairo, an official told Reuters on Sunday, as it waited to hear from mediators on whether a new Israeli offer was on the table.
In the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Israeli forces continued to blockade the two main hospitals, and tanks shelled areas in the middle and eastern areas of the territory.
Palestinian health officials said an Israeli air strike killed nine people in Bani Suhaila near Khan Younis, while another air strike killed four people in Al-Maghazi camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military said it killed 15 gunmen in the central Gaza Strip and several more in Khan Younis, including near Al-Amal hospital.
In Gaza City, Israeli forces continued to operate inside Al Shifa Hospital, the territory’s biggest, the health ministry said. Residents living nearby said residential districts had been destroyed by Israeli forces near Al Shifa.
“I went out looking to buy some medicine from a pharmacy and what I saw was heart-breaking. Complete streets with buildings that used to stand there had been destroyed,” said Abu Mustafa, 49.
“This is not war, this is genocide,” he told Reuters over the phone from Gaza City.
Facing fierce international pressure, Israel says it is doing all it can to minimize harm to civilians as it battles militants in an urban battlefield.
Netanyahu said that around 200 gunmen have so far been killed at Al Shifa hospital and that hundreds more had surrendered.
“No hospital in the world looks like this. This is what a house of terrorists looks like,” Netanyahu said at a news conference in Jerusalem.
Hamas denies having a military presence at the hospital and its spokespeople have said those killed there were civilians.
The Israeli military said that weapons were found at the hospital and that “Several compounds used to launch anti-tank missiles and where snipers operated were struck by IAF aircraft” in the Rimal neighbourhood near Shifa.
EASTER
At Gaza City’s The Holy Family Church some Christian Palestinians took part in a sombre Easter service.
“My wish is that they leave us alone and that we go back to our lands and children,” said Winnie Tarazzi, a Gaza woman praying at the church.
Gaza’s population comprises an estimated 1,000 Christians, most of whom are Greek Orthodox.
In the peace talks, Hamas also wants hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were displaced from Gaza City and surrounding areas southward during the first stage of the war to be allowed back north.
The World Court on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel, accused by South Africa of genocide in Gaza, to take all necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies to the population.
(Reporting and writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovtich and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Nick Macfie, Louise Heavens and Hugh Lawson)
People across Germany on Saturday joined the country’s traditional Easter marches that emerged from last century’s peace movement, with marchers this year calling for an end to fighting in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.
The marches against nuclear weapons and in favour of peace have been held over Easter for more than 60 years. The main day of action is Saturday, with around 70 events scheduled to take place across the country.
In Berlin, some 3,500 people joined this year’s Easter March, according to police estimates.
More than 1,000 marched for peace in the northern city of Bremen, while several hundred joined demonstrations in Cologne, Duisburg, Saarbrücken, Leipzig and Kassel.
Marchers called for negotiations and diplomatic solutions to the Ukraine war, started by Russia on February 24, 2022, and fighting in Gaza, as well as an end to weapons deliveries for Kiev and Israel.
Israel launched a military operation in the Palestinian coastal area following the October 7 massacres led by the Palestinian extremist organization Hamas.
Participants in Berlin carried placards with slogans like “Friendship with Russia – Viva Palestine,” and “Genocide in Gaza,” referring to the high number of civilian deaths caused by Israel’s military incursion.
Others criticized the government in Berlin and people waved Russian and Palestinian flags.
The Easter Marches emerged from last century’s pan-European peace movement calling for nuclear disarmament and protesting the arms race, with the first Easter march held in Britain in 1958.
This year, marchers in Germany are also demanding a more fundamental rejection of the logic of war and militarization.
Pro-Palestinian activists take part in a demonstration, as part of an Easter march with the slogan “Leipzig wants peace”. Sebastian Willnow/dpa
People take part in the traditional Easter march under the motto “Warlike – Never Again” with signs reading “The 180 Degree Greens, Plowshares to Tanks”, “Warmongers to the Front”. Fabian Sommer/dpa
People gather on Roncalliplatz for the Easter march under the slogan “For a civil turnaround – end wars, stop rearmament!”. Christian Knieps/dpa
Sabine Rosenbrock (L) holds a placard at Roncalliplatz during the Easter march under the motto “For a civil turnaround – end wars, stop rearmament!”. Christian Knieps/dpa
People holding Palestinian flags and flags with doves of peace gather on Roncalliplatz for the Easter march under the motto “For a civil turnaround – end wars, stop rearmament!”. Christian Knieps/dpa
Baltimore bridge collapse victim, father of three, was ‘fighting for us always,’ wife tells WJZ
Baltimore bridge collapse victim, father of three, was ‘fighting for us always,’ wife tells WJZ
02:49
BALTIMORE – Four construction workers are still missing after a cargo ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge Tuesday morning.
But crews paused the recovery mission because of the wreckage posing challenges.
WJZ’s Alexus Davila spoke exclusively with the wife of Jose Lopez, of one of the construction workers who remains missing.
Anxiety and pain haunt Isabel Franco every second that her husband is not in her arms.
Lopez was in a concrete mixer truck early Tuesday morning when a 985-foot cargo ship slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Four and a half hours later, she got a devastating call from the construction company.
“I feel bad,” Franco said in Spanish. “Only God knows how hard my heart aches. Maybe he was desperate, trying to escape.”
Franco said a coworker told her that the crew was told to pack up for the day and move out early because of weather conditions.
Later that night, police gave her sheets of PowerPoint slides mapping an overview of the search strategy with aerial maps and images of helicopters deployed. However, the update was not in Spanish, so she didn’t understand.
She said no local, state or national political leaders have reached out to her.
Her friend, Lilly Ordoñez, helped translate to us how the language barrier makes her feel.
“She’s desperate. She feels bad. She doesn’t see anything. She doesn’t know anything and, yeah, she’s desperate,” Ordoñez said.
Franco said Lopez moved to the United States 19 years ago from Guatemala.
They have one child together but he was a loving father to all three of her children.
“They are sad,” Franco said. “They loved Jose.”
“He had a good heart,” she added. “He was a hard worker. He was always worried about his family too. He died but he was fighting for us always.”
She said Lopez was good friends with the other Guatemalan coworker Dorlian Cabrera, whose body was recovered Wednesday morning.
“I feel bad,” she said. “They were always together.”
But now with the recovery mission on hold to finish the salvage operation, Franco only wants one thing.
“I feel bad a little bit still because I want the body,” she said. “His family is desperate to see him too.”
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TEL AVIV — The Israeli military’s’ raid at Gaza’s main hospital has entered its second week, with the IDF saying it has killed over 170 militants and detained hundreds of others in an operation that has raised questions over the fate of civilians sheltering at the site — and over Hamas’ ability to retake areas that Israel said it had cleared.
Israeli forces launched what the Israel Defense Forces described as a “high-precision” raid at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City one week ago, alleging once again that the facility was being used as a Hamas hub, while fighting was also reported in recent days at two other medical facilities in the southern city of Khan Younis.
The IDF said all of those killed and around 500 people detained in the operation were Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, though they did not provide evidence to support those claims. They also said they had located weapons and “terror infrastructure” within the hospital.
The raid has left much of Al-Shifa in ruins, with some of the walls that remain intact spattered with blood and civilians describing mass arrests.
A Palestinian woman who had been sheltering at Al-Shifa hospital, holds her triplets as she evacuates towards southern parts of Gaza on Thursday.Ashraf Amra / Anadolu via Getty Images
Hamas said last week that displaced civilians sheltering at the facility were among those killed, without providing evidence, while the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said that at least five patients had died due to lack of food, water and health services. Others, it said, were in increasingly poor condition, “and worms began to emerge from their wounds.”
And one Western military analyst told NBC News that the renewed operation at Al-Shifa was likely an inevitable result of Israel’s shift in focus to the south, where it is preparing for an offensive the U.S. and international leaders have warned against.
Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said it would be the “least surprising surprise” if Hamas militants had been using Al-Shifa Hospital as a base in recent weeks, with Israel’s attention turned largely toward a possible ground invasion of Rafah in Gaza’s south.
Inside Al-Shifa
Much of what exactly has been happening on the ground at Al-Shifa and in the area of Al-Amal Hospital in southern Gaza remains unclear. NBC News’ crew on the ground has had limited access to both sites due to fighting and NBC News wasn’t able to reach medical workers at the hospitals or the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza over the past week.
Video captured by NBC News’ crew, including on-camera witness accounts, have provided a glimpse into the chaos that has unfolded at the hospital compound over the past week, however.
In footage captured by the crew on Saturday, buildings could be seen destroyed around the Al-Shifa medical complex as blasts rang out and smoke rose in the distance. Days earlier, video showed some of the destruction inside Al-Shifa, with several rooms blown out, their walls reduced to rubble and others riddled with bullet holes. In one room, what appeared to be a body shrouded in blankets lay on the floor.
Multiple witnesses on Saturday provided NBC News’ crew with similar descriptions of being ordered by Israeli forces to exit areas of the hospital. Some said they were forced to remove their clothes outside on the medical facility’s grounds. The IDF has previously said the removal of clothes is “often necessary” to ensure detainees are not carrying weapons or explosives.
Smoke billows from buildings in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Saturday.AFP via Getty Images
“It was raining on us and the cold was bitter,” said one man, who identified himself only as Mohamad and who NBC News has not identified further due to safety concerns. “They left us like that four to five hours.”
The man said soldiers then tied his hands and covered his eyes, before leading him and others into a room where they were left for hours before once again being taken outside. Some people were arrested, Mohamad, 36, said. “Some people were executed. Some people, of course, were released.” Asked to respond to his claim about people being “executed,” the IDF referred NBC News to a general statement about its operations at Al-Shifa Hospital.
Another witness, Abu Muhammad Alnajar, said patients and doctors were among those arrested. “I saw them with my own eyes. They arrested sick people as well as doctors,” he said.
The IDF said on Sunday that a large number of the people it apprehended were militants involved in the planning and execution of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, and accused Hamas militants of barricading themselves inside the wards of Al-Shifa and firing mortars at its forces, causing damage to the hospital’s buildings.
Hamas last week said it was targeting Israeli forces around the compound, sharing footage appearing to show its members blowing up an armored vehicle. NBC News was not able to independently verify the footage.
Separately, a witness described tanks and armored bulldozers plowing into the hospital courtyard, crushing ambulances and civilian vehicles — as well as the bodies of people killed in the raid, according to The Associated Press.
NBC News’ crew last week also encountered two boys running from the direction of Al-Shifa wearing only their underwear. They said they were ordered by what appeared to be a drone to remove their clothes before being allowed to flee the hospital area.
Despite emphasizing the “high-precision” nature of its raid, the IDF drew scrutiny when it shared a photo montage on Thursday of militants it said it had detained during the assault, before admitting a day later that the montage identified militants who had not yet been caught, but were believed to be operating in the area of the hospital. The IDF attributed the mistake to human error.
In a statement on Friday, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said his team had received reports from a doctor at Al-Shifa of at least 50 health workers and 143 medical patients being forced to remain in one building during the raid “with extremely limited food, water and only one nonfunctional toilet.”
Ghebreyesus condemned the conditions patients were living under as “utterly inhumane” and called for an “immediate end to the siege.”
The IDF acknowledged that patients were moved to a “designated compound” in the hospital in what it said was a bid to “prevent harm to them.” On Saturday, it announced that it had facilitated the entry of “trucks full” of medical equipment and about two tons of food and three tons of water into the hospital. Asked to respond to a request for comment on the Palestinian Health Ministry’s allegations of five patient deaths, the IDF referred NBC News to the same statement. A spokesperson said they had no further comment.
On Sunday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said the IDF had also stormed the Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis, with the PRCS reporting “intense shelling and heavy gunfire” around the two medical facilities. The following night, it said Al-Amal had gone “out of service” after medical workers and patients were forced to evacuate the facility.
The IDF has said it is operating in the area of Al-Amal, but not at the hospital directly. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment on PRCS’s allegations hospital workers and patients being forced to evacuate the hospital.
Palestinians took shelter in Al-Shifa Hospital in February. Omar Qattaa / Anadolu via Getty Images
The IDF’s assault on Al-Shifa comes after it first raided the medical facility in mid-November, in a dayslong operation that saw thousands of displaced civilians sheltering at the hospital flee, alongside some medical workers and patients, including some who were critically ill.
At least 31 babies who were receiving care at the hospital also had to be evacuated from the facility in November. And the decomposing bodies of several infants were found weeks later. The gruesome discovery was cited in South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
The IDF on Thursday acknowledged that its raid months ago had failed to lead to significant arrests of militant fighters, who it said had escaped, though it added its forces had found weapons and a tunnel system at the site.
An American intelligence assessment declassified in early January said the U.S. was confident militant groups used Al-Shifa Hospital to hold “at least a few” hostages seized during the Oct. 7 attack and to house command infrastructure, The Associated Press reported at the time.
“This time in a different way, we raided the complex by surprise,” IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday. He added that Israeli forces “used trickery” in its latest operation at the hospital, but did not expand on how.
Byman had warned early on in October that the war was likely to become an ongoing “game of cat and mouse” if Israeli troops were to sweep through the enclave, leaving cleared areas in Gaza’s north largely unattended.
Byman said the IDF did not appear to be deploying a “clear, hold, build” approach, a counter-insurgency method that sees some troops remain in cleared areas to prevent the resurgence of an enemy force. But he also said that if Israel wants to prevent Hamas “or any other group from coming back, you need someone to govern. Someone to provide law and order.”
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan appeared to offer similar criticism last week, saying that instead of focusing on stabilizing parts of Gaza that Israel has cleared to prevent Hamas from retaking territory, “the Israeli government is now talking about launching a major military operation in Rafah.”
Hagari said the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups were both “severely damaged” as a result of the latest operation at Al-Shifa. Senior Hamas officials understood “very well the significance of the operation,” he said, and “as the picture becomes clearer, the pressure on them will increase.”
As the U.S. 2024 presidential election gets underway, social media companies are caught in an unenviable position: trying to stop the spread of misinformation while also facing more and more allegations of censorship.
Claims of censorship online have, in some cases, stymied efforts to combat false election news shared online. The problem is not unique to the U.S.: high-stake elections are being held in dozens of countries around the world this year and some worry that misinformation could influence the results.
“Half of the world is voting this year and the world could stick with democracy or move toward authoritarianism,” Darrell West, a senior fellow of technology innovation at the Brookings Institution, said. “The danger is, disinformation could decide the elections in a number of different countries.”
How combating misinformation online has changed in recent years
Academic researchers began working closely with social media platforms after evidence surfaced of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Big tech companies have wrestled with keeping false and harmful information off their platforms for years. They’ve suspended and banned accounts. The companies have removed or labeled posts deemed “misinformation,” sometimes adding warnings.
Darrell West, a senior fellow of technology innovation at the Brookings Institution
60 Minutes
Fighting misinformation became a key tenet of the internet as the COVID-19 pandemic began. Robert Kennedy Jr. was temporarily banned from Instagram after posting false coronavirus vaccine claims. Over on Twitter, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was suspended after she claimed COVID vaccines and masks didn’t work.
Misinformation continued to spread online during the 2020 election.
“We were very specifically looking at misinformation about election processes, procedures and election results,” said Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington and a leader of the Election Integrity Partnership, a group she helped launch in 2020. “If we saw something about that, we would pass it along to the platforms if we thought it violated one of their policies.”
Researchers flagged a November 2020 tweet saying that election software in Michigan switched 6,000 votes from Trump to Biden. Twitter labeled the post with a warning.
Starbird said her research has found that more misinformation is spread by conservatives.
“Not just our research, research across the board looking at the 2020 election found that there was more misinformation spread by people that were supporters of Donald Trump or conservatives,” Starbird said. “And the events of January 6th kind of underscore this.”
Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington and head of the Center for an Informed Public
60 Minutes
But some researchers like Starbird, who says she received a death threat for her work on misinformation, have stopped communicating with social media platforms.
Confronted with criticism from conservatives, who claim their views were being censored, and because of cost-cutting, social media platforms began downsizing their fact-checking teams.
Why some in Congress say combating misinformation is stifling freedom of speech
House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, argues that tech companies shouldn’t remove most of what they call misinformation.
“I think you let the American people, respect the American people, their common sense, to figure out what’s accurate, what isn’t,” Jordan said in an interview.
While Jordan acknowledges there is misinformation online, he sees a bigger problem in what he views as an attack on First Amendment liberties. His committee last year produced a report that concluded there was a “censorship industrial complex” where the federal government and tech companies colluded with academic researchers to disproportionately silence conservatives — an allegation that Starbird vigorously denies.
Jordan said her group has unfairly flagged posts, such as one by Newt Gingrich, who in 2020 tweeted: “Pennsylvania democrats are methodically changing the rules so they can steal the election.”
Jordan also complains that government officials put pressure on social media companies directly.
Rep. Jim Jordan
60 Minutes
“You can’t have the government say, ‘Hey, we want you to do X,'” Jordan said. “Government who has the ability to regulate these private companies, government which has the ability to tax these private companies.”
Katie Harbath, who spent a decade at Facebook working on the company’s policies around election misinformation, said the platforms have their own First Amendment rights.
She said that while she was at Facebook, it was not unusual for the government to ask the company to remove content, something she said was appropriate as long as the government is not coercing.
“Conservatives are alleging that the platforms were taking down content at the behest of the government, which is not true,” Harbath said. “The platforms made their own decisions.”
Many times, the companies pushed back. In 2019, a doctored video of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was posted online, slowed down to make it seem as if she was slurring. The video stayed up because it didn’t violate Facebook’s policies, Harbath said.
“She was definitely not pleased,” Harbath said of Pelosi.
Court battles over misinformation, free speech online-
The conservatives’ campaign faced a setback at the Supreme Court on Monday when a majority of the justices seemed poised to reject their effort to limit attempts by the government to influence social media.
In other cases, the court will look at laws passed in Texas and Florida to determine whether tech companies are like news organizations —with a First Amendment right to control who and what information appears on their sites— or like telephone companies, entities merely transmitting speech.
If those state laws are upheld, the platforms could be forced to carry hate speech and false medical information, some warn. West, the senior fellow of technology innovation at the Brookings Institution, said the clash over what’s true is fraying our institutions and threatening democracies around the world.
“The toothpaste is out of the tube and we have to figure out how to deal with the resulting mess,” West said.
Lesley Stahl
One of America’s most recognized and experienced broadcast journalists, Lesley Stahl has been a “60 Minutes” correspondent since 1991.
A senior Russian official said Tuesday that Russia is “strong enough” to defeat NATO countries who are assisting Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing military invasion. The official also reaffirmed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s commitment to conquerer Eastern Ukrainian territories.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation directly under Putin, accused NATO of “openly fighting” against Russia and vowed enemies of Russia would be “vanquished” in a post on Telegram Tuesday.
“The entire NATO system is almost openly fighting against us. We are strong enough to achieve all of the goals of the special military operation,” Putin’s deputy wrote according to a translation. He also compared the current occupation of Ukraine to Moscow’s invasion of neighboring Georgia in 2008.
He added, “Just like in August 2008, our enemies will be vanquished and Russia will secure peace on its own terms. Victory will be ours!”
UKRAINE SAYS RUSSIA HAS LOST 250K TROOPS SINCE PUTIN FIRST INVADED, ZELENSKYY SHARES TRIUMPHANT MESSAGE
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation directly under Putin, accused NATO of “openly fighting” against Russia.
NATO has 31 member countries, with Finland being added earlier this year. Some NATO members include the U.S., U.K., France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Poland and Portugal.
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Ukraine is seeking to join NATO and received a pathway to membership. Still, world leaders said the country would only be added after its war with Russia ends, as membership requires NATO countries to also declare war on Russia.
Medvedev’s comments come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced early Tuesday that he had a phone call with Prime Minister Mark Rutte of Netherlands, also a NATO member.
“I am grateful for the accession of the Netherlands to the G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine. We discussed future bilateral security guarantees in the framework of this declaration, which should be based on the key role of the Netherlands in the coalition of fighter jets,” Zelenskyy said.
US TROOPS IN UKRAINE ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE HAZARD PAY IN MOVE THAT MAY RILE PUTIN: EXPERT
He added, “I spoke about the situation on the battlefield and outlined the current defense needs, including artillery, armored vehicles, and air defense systems to protect the infrastructure of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.”
The comments also come as Russia launched a “double tap” missile strike into the downtown area of the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk Monday evening, leaving at least seven dead. The deceased included five civilians, one rescue worker and one soldier.
At least 39 victims were left injured in the attack.
The “double tap” attack — or striking an area twice within a short period — specifically targeted rescue workers in the war, Ukrainian officials said.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said a barrage of Iskander missiles struck the city. About 40 minutes later, another barrage struck as rescue workers were tending to the victims of the first attack.
“All of (the police) were there because they were needed, putting their efforts into rescuing people after the first strike,” Ivan Vyhivskyi, chief of Ukraine’s National Police, said Tuesday. “They knew that under the rubble were the injured — they needed to react, to dig, to retrieve, to save. And the enemy deliberately struck the second time.”
Russia’s military has used “double tap” attacks with missiles, drones or artillery throughout its invasion of Ukraine. It used the same tactic when fighting in Syria’s civil war.
The head of the Pokrovsk City Administration, Serhii Dobriak, described the attacks on Pokrovsk as “a typical Russian scenario: 30-40 minutes between missiles.”
“When rescuers come to save people’s lives, another rocket arrives. And the number of casualties increases,” he said in a video comment to local media.
Ukraine’s presidential office said Russia launched separate attacks overnight on the town of Kruhliakivka, leaving three civilians dead, and on a village near Kupiansk, killing two civilians.
Russia first invaded its neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The invasion crossed 530 days earlier this week.
Three people were killed after two helicopters dispatched to help fight a fire in California collided on Sunday, sending one crashing to the ground.
Firefighters were responding to a blaze in the Southern California community of Cabazon when it was reported that the fire had extended into vegetation, requiring a “full wildland fire dispatch,” including fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, CalFire Southern Region Chief David Fulcher said in a news conference.
Firefighters with both CalFire and the Riverside County Fire Department were involved in the response, he said.
While engaged in the firefight, two helicopters responding to the incident collided, Fulcher said.
The first helicopter was able to land safely nearby, but the second crashed, killing all three people onboard, he said. The three killed were identified only as a CalFire division chief, a CalFire captain and a contracted pilot.
Fulcher said the crash also caused an additional four-acre fire, which firefighters were able to extinguish.
“This was a tragic loss for the community, the fire service committee and Cal Fire Riverside County Fire Department,” Fulcher said.
He said the cause of the collision was still under investigation, with the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the crash.
The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a post on X, the social media platform formally known as Twitter, that it was in “close coordination” with CalFire after the helicopter crash.
Chantal Da Silva
Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London.
CABAZON, Calif. (AP) — A firefighting helicopter crashed in Southern California on Sunday while fighting a blaze in Riverside County, emergency officials said.
The helicopter was performing work under contract with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, fire captain and spokesman Richard Cordova said.
Sheriff’s deputies responded at 7:20 p.m. PDT to an air emergency in the area of Pipeline Road and Apache trail as crews were battling the Broadway fire near Cabazon, according to a post by the Riverside County Sheriff’s office on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The department is still investigating the crash and whether other aircraft were involved, Cordova said.
Details were not immediately available on the number of injuries or fatalities.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The conflict in Sudan has left 24 million people — half the country’s population — in need of food and other assistance, but only 2.5 million have received aid because of vicious fighting and a lack of funding, two senior U.N. officials said Friday.
Eden Worsornu, director of operations for the U.N. humanitarian agency, and Ted Chaiban, deputy executive director of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, who just returned from Sudan, painted a dire picture of devastation and upheaval in Sudan, with no peace talks in sight.
Worsornu said hotspots, such as the capital of Khartoum and the southern Kordofan and western Darfur regions, “have been shattered by relentless violence.” Nearly 4 million people have fled the fighting, facing scorching heat up to 48 degrees Celsius (118 F), and threats of attacks, sexual violence and death, she said.
The now nearly four-month conflict has killed more than 3,000 people and wounded over 6,000 others, according to the last government figures, released in June. But the true tally is likely much higher, doctors and activists say.
“Before the war erupted on the 15th of April, Sudan was already grappling with a humanitarian crisis,” Chaiban said. “Now, more than 110 days of brutal fighting have turned the crisis into a catastrophe, threatening the lives and futures of a generation of children and young people who make up over 70% of the population.”
The fighting pits forces loyal to top army Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan against his rival, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Worsornu and Chaiban, who previously worked in Sudan, said ethnic violence has returned to Darfur, where attacks two decades ago by the notorious Janjaweed Arab militias on people of Central or East African ethnicities became synonymous with genocide and war crimes.
Now “it is worse than it was in 2004,” Worsornu said.
The statistics are grim: 24 million people need food and other humanitarian aid, including 14 million children, a number equivalent to every single child in Colombia, France, Germany and Thailand, Chaiban said.
The U.N. has been trying to get aid to 18 million Sudanese, but 93 of its humanitarian partners were able to reach only 2.5 million between April and June because of the severe fighting and difficulties getting to those in need.
“Right now, Sudan is one of the most dangerous places to operate,” Chaiban said. “So, to do 2.5 million people, 780 trucks, mobilizing and negotiating to get in, has been no small feat.”
Worsornu said 18 aid workers had been killed so far in Sudan.
But, she added, “Humanitarian aid is just a band aid. Basic social services have completely broken down, banking systems do not work and schools have collapsed.”
After the conflict erupted, the U.N. increased its humanitarian appeal to $2.6 billion. Woorsornu said the appeal had received just $625 million, barely 25%. “We cannot do more without funding,” she said.
Chaiban said 3 million children under age 5 are malnourished, “with 700,000 at risk of severe acute malnutrition and mortality.” He said UNICEF has gotten life-saving treatment to 107,000, but that is only about 15% of those who need it.
Sudan borders seven nations — Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Libya and Egypt — and most of them would be vulnerable to upheaval if the conflict should spill over.
“We need to be careful that if the situation in Sudan is not contained, it will have a devastating impact on the region,” Worsornu said.
