International
With its top unheaded, Hamas seeks new leadership in the middle of the war in Gaza
“Sinwar’s death will not end the resistance or the cause,” Hamas assured by confirming that the top leader of the movement died last week in clashes with Israeli troops in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip.
The group then said that the Shura Council, its highest advisory body, would meet in the coming days to elect the new head of the political bureau to replace Sinwar, who in turn in August replaced In that position Ismail Haniyeh, eliminated in Tehran in an attack attributed to Israel.
However, Hamas sources have pointed out to EFE the possibility of postponing that decision to March, when internal elections are planned; and delegating the leadership to a five-member steering committee, which will assume the strategic political and military decisions.
“The next step is still under consultation in the direction of the movement. No decision has been made,” a source from the Hamas political bureau told EFE.
It is not the first time that Hamas has faced the assassination of its leaders, but its internal mechanisms are designed to make the movement survive above specific personalities.
The figures that follow in the first line are:
– Jaled Meshaal: One of the vice presidents of the Hamas political bureau, a body that he already led between 1996 and 2017, when he was succeeded in office by the head of the movement within the Strip, Ismail Haniyeh. That transfer marked the transfer of power from the leaders abroad to those inside Gaza (two years later Haniyeh moved to Qatar).
Born in the West Bank in 1956, he has lived in exile since 1967, when his family fled to Jordan in the Six-Day War. He then moved to Kuwait, where he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. A two-month tour in 1975 through Palestinian lands imbued him with patriotic feelings and he is one of the founders of Hamas in 1987.
He survived a poisoning assassination attempt in Amman by Mossad agents in 1997, by order of Benjamin Netanyahu. With Meshaal in a coma, the King of Jordan demanded the antidote under threat of breaking relations with Israel and trying his spies. Netanyahu had to give in after Bill Clinton’s intervention.
He has lived in Syria, Qatar and Turkey, and is the main representative of Hamas among the Palestinian exodus. With the murders of Haniyeh and the vice president of the political bureau, Saleh al Arouri – last January in Beirut – Meshaal remains the strongest figure of the group abroad.
–Jalil al Hayya: He was Sinwar’s right hand in the political branch within the Strip. After his appointment as president of the group in August, Al Hayya replaced him as head of Hamas in the enclave and occupies one of the three vice presidencies of the office, which corresponds to leaders from within Gaza.
In 2006 he led the Hamas bloc in the defunct Palestinian Legislative Council. He is a prominent supporter of the armed struggle against Israel and has survived several assassination attempts, the most serious in 2007, when an attack on his house in the northern Strip killed several of his relatives.
It was he who, the day after Israel announced Sinwar’s death, confirmed the news on behalf of Hamas, which can augur a prominent role.
– Mohamed Sinwar: He is the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar and a prominent commander of the al Qasam Brigades, the armed arm of Hamas. Before the death of several commanders during the war – including their military chief, Mohamed Deif, and his ‘number two’, Marwan Issa – he assumed military command of the southern half of the Strip, from Nuseirat to Rafah.
He grew up in the ranks of the Hamas military wing since the nineties, when he was a teenager, in the shadow of his brother. Although his leadership is on the military level, the current war context leaves him a wide margin of decision and autonomy. It is one of the “most sought after” by Israel.
– Musa Abu Marzouk: He is a member of the political bureau and, together with Haniyeh, promoted a pragmatic approach in negotiations with Israel for a ceasefire. In the 1990s, when he resided in the United States, he was arrested for raising funds for the armed wing of Hamas, and then remained in exile in Jordan, Egypt and Qatar.
– Izz ad Din al Haddad: He was the commander of the Gaza City Brigade when the war began, but now he holds military command of the entire northern part of the enclave. Together with the little Sinwar, he is in charge of continuing the “war of attrition” against Israel and co-directing military operations.
– Zaher Jabarin: He was from the circle close to Sinwar and Haniyeh. Handles the financial affairs of the group. Before he participated in military activities, so he was arrested by Israel and released in 2011 in the same exchange of more than a thousand prisoners for soldier Gilad Shalit, in which Sinwar was also released from prison.
International
At least 120 dead in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours from Israeli attacks
At least 120 Palestinians have died in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours from Israeli attacks and the death toll since the war began amounts to 44,176, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas.
In the case of the injured, the ministry confirmed 205 in the last two days and in total since the war began, on October 7, 2023, they total 104,473, according to that count.
In addition, it is estimated that there are 11,000 missing people under the rubble.
Offensive in Yabalia and Beit Lahia
Although fatalities have been recorded in different parts of the Strip, in the last 40 days Israel’s offensive has focused on the northern half, especially in the cities of Yabalia and Beit Lahia, with more than 2,300 dead since then, and more than 6,000 injured.
Kamal Adwan hospital has been attacked again after an Israeli drone destroyed the electric generator, water tank and oxygen tanks in the center yesterday, where 80 patients remain.
“It seems that there are no limits to the cruelty inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza. For more than 40 days, the northern population is besieged: surrounded, bombed, deprived of the basic means of survival and forced to flee under threats,” denounced the head of the OCHA (UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs) office for Palestine, Jonathan Whittal.
Whittal said that his teams have been trying to access Yabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanun, the most affected cities, for more than a month, but that the Israeli authorities have rejected all his requests.
“The result? People are under the rubble without being rescued. The sick and the wounded cannot reach the hospitals. Drinking water and food have run out. Lives have been lost,” he said.
International
At least 10 people died at the hands of strangers in a mosque in northern Afghanistan
At least 10 people were killed in an attack by unidentified armed men in a mosque in Baghlan province, in northern Afghanistan, Taliban government sources confirmed to EFE this Saturday.
The attack in the Nahrin district of Baghlan, northern Afghanistan, took place on Thursday night, according to Taliban government deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat.
“Unfortunately, before last night (Thursday night) in a mosque and on a pilgrimage during the night, ten people who stayed for worship were killed by strangers,” he said.
Sufi communities in Afghanistan often spend nights in mosques as a worship practice.
Research to identify the authors
Fitrat assured that investigations are being carried out to identify and bring the perpetrators to justice for this “horrible incident,” for which no armed group has claimed authorship.
“The Islamic Emirate strongly condemns this terrible act and considers it an unforgivable crime,” added Fitrat, who blames extremist groups.
“This act was committed by those extremist groups that have no respect for the blood of other Muslims,” he condemned.
In the last three years, since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, ISIS-Khorasan, the Afghan branch of the jihadist group Islamic State- has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on minorities and members of the Taliban, becoming the country’s greatest security threat.
Minority groups such as the Hazara Shiite community and Sufi practitioners have been frequent targets of violence by extremist groups that try to impose a rigid interpretation of Islam.
The Taliban de facto government has insistently denied that the Islamic State is a security threat to Afghanistan or any other country, while the regime’s secrecy and iron controls on the press have cut off the flow of information on the country’s security situation.
International
Ukraine attacks the port of Berdyansk with missiles, according to pro-Russian authorities
The Ukrainian army attacked the port of Berdiansk, in the Sea of Azov, with missiles on Saturday, according to the pro-Russian authorities of the Zaporyy region today.
“The enemy perpetrated an attack with guided missiles against the port of Berdiansk. The fires caused by the impact have been suffocated,” reported the governor imposed by Moscow, Yevgueni Balitski, on his Telegram channel.
The governor, who was recently received in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin, stressed that the attack did not cause injuries among the civilian population and did not interrupt the work of the port facilities.
In turn, he assured that anti-aircraft defenses continue to be on maximum alert, since new Ukrainian attacks against the city are not ruled out.
At the end of October Kiev had already attacked the strategic port under Russian control since 2022 with a dead old woman.
The Russian army controls more than 70% of Zaporiyia and tries to take control of the rest of the region as it advances at forced marches in neighboring Donetsk.
North Korean soldiers in the Belgorod region, according to Ukraine
Ukraine claims that North Korean soldiers, who until now were only in the Russian region of Kursk, were also transferred to Belgorod, which borders the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv.
“Some soldiers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were transferred to the border of the Belgorod region,” the head of the Central Intelligence Department of the National Security and Defense Council, Andrí Kovalenko, wrote on Telegram.
The senior Ukrainian official stressed that “they are not in the Kharkiv region,” as some US media had reported based on Ukrainian sources.
The Kremlin rules out a second onde of mobilization
For its part, the Kremlin today ruled out a second wave of mobilization of reservists to fight in Ukraine with a view to the fourth year of fighting in the neighboring country.
“Our citizens very actively sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense,” Dmitri Peskov, presidential spokesman, told the official agency RIA Novosti.
Peskov stressed that volunteers carry out courses in which they are instructed “consciously,” so “now there is no need to talk about mobilization.”
“There are many, hundreds who sign contracts every day,” he added.
The Kremlin has refrained from declaring a new partial mobilization after the first one in September 2022 caused great popular discontent and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of military-age men.
1,000 days of combat
Fighting in Ukraine reached 1,000 days this week with Russian forces advancing in forced marches in the Donbas, although Moscow has not yet been able to expel Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region.
Ukraine hopes to slow down the current Russian offensive with Western authorization to use American and British long-range missiles against targets in Russian territory, which Kiev used against the Bryansk and Kursk regions.
Russia responded on Thursday by launching an Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile at an arms factory in the Ukrainian region of Dnipro.
In addition, on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that there will be more launches and announced the mass production of those new generation missiles capable of circumventing any Western missile shield.
At least 120 dead in the Gaza Strip in the last 48 hours from Israeli attacks
At least 10 people died at the hands of strangers in a mosque in northern Afghanistan
Ukraine attacks the port of Berdyansk with missiles, according to pro-Russian authorities
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