International
Israel’s offensive is based on Yabalia and the Army orders the evacuation of more areas of Rafah
The Israeli military offensive continues to focus this Monday in Yabalia, a city in the north of the Gaza Strip where troops have resumed their activity in the face of the return of Hamas.
In addition, his artillery extends through the central and east neighborhoods of Rafah, at the southern end of the enclave, which Israel ordered to be evacuated two days ago.
Some 360,000 people have already fled Rafah since the first evacuation order issued by the Israeli Army, according to estimates by the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).
“People don’t know where to go. Everyone in Rafah, even in the areas where the evacuation has not yet been ordered, is leaving. On the street, they ask each other what is the best place to get around,” a displaced gazati in the Tal al Sultan neighborhood, in the west of the city, told EFE.
In Rafah, “fear and confusion” reign, since people are reluctant to travel to what Israel has designated as a “humanitarian zone” for them, in the coastal area of Mawasi, where hundreds of thousands of people live crowded in makeshift shops on the beach, without drinking water or sanitation.
This Monday, the evacuation orders have been extended to two new areas of the center of the population, already more in the western half of the city, where humanitarian aid has not entered for almost a week since Israel keeps the steps of Kerem Shalom and Rafah closed, which connects the enclave with Egypt.
In the last few hours, at least eight people have died in the city, one of them minor, whose lifeless bodies arrived at the Kuwaiti hospital of the Rafah governorate.
“There is no place to go. There is no security to move without a ceasefire,” UNRWA claimed.
In Yabalia, the attacks have reached homes both in the refugee camp and in the city, where ambulance services rescued at least twenty bodies and treated dozens of wounded.
“The occupation forces attacked the ambulances in the Yabalia camp, where we could not reach a large number of victims,” denounced the director of emergency services in northern Gaza.
For its part, the official Palestinian agency Wafa, citing testimonies from residents, indicated that Israeli forces “surrounded and assaulted” the shelter centers, forcing hundreds of people to move west of the city.
“The Israeli forces try to advance towards the center of the field and shoot everything that moves around them, while the gifts fly intensely over the area at a low altitude,” he explained.
After ordering the evacuation of two large neighborhoods of Yabalia on Saturday, the Israeli Army resumed its military offensive on that city in northern Gaza on Sunday, one of the first places it attacked harshly in October when the war began.
“The occupation forces are now trying to besiege and break into the six shelter centers located to the east of the camp. There are shots with drones and snipers, forcing the displaced to leave without knowing where to go,” a resident of Yabalia explained to EFE by phone, who did not want to give his name for safety.
The same source also reported strong armed clashes between Palestinian militias and Israeli troops inside the camp, so the Israeli Army has had to ask for reinforcements.
As has happened with Zeitun, a neighborhood of Gaza City, Israeli forces have resumed their military activity in those parts of the northern Gaza Strip, by detecting – according to information from the intelligence services – that Hamas troops have returned to the area and are being regrouped.
The Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip since October 7 has caused the death of 35,034 citizens, most of them children and women, in adde of 78,755 injured and 10,000 missing people who are estimated to be trapped under the rubble.
In the last 24 hours, the Israel Air Force attacked 120 military targets from Hamas in the Gaza Strip, while its ground troops operate in Rafah, in the south, and in Zeitun and Yabalia, in the north, the Army reported.
The 162ndª Division fights in the east of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, where they say they killed several Hamas fighters, located and confiscated weapons found in a school and destroyed military infrastructure.
“The Air Force attacked several Hamas targets, including underground sites and a building where the agents met,” the Army said.
Meanwhile, the 99th Division maintains its offensive activity in Zeitun, a southern neighborhood of Gaza City where Hamas was also regrouping, and where troops today “roaned a weapons depot at the home of a Palestinian operational.”
A foreign United Nations employee died today in Rafah in an Israeli attack against a humanitarian convoy, the Government of Hamas in the Gaza Strip said on Monday.
“This afternoon, the Israeli occupation army killed a foreign employee and injured another foreign employee in Rafah (southern Gaza Strip), where they were attacked while traveling in a vehicle with the United Nations flag and the United Nations badge,” Gaza authorities said in a statement.
The UN confirmed on Monday that one of its employees died and another was injured in Gaza when the vehicle they were in was hit by a projectile, allegedly Israeli, while they were on their way to the European Hospital this morning.
The two victims, whose nationality has not been confirmed, worked for the Department of Security and Protection (DSS), according to a statement from the organization.
The UN spokesman, Farhan Haq, said that he could not even relet his nationality although “they are international personnel,” and said that the first thing will be to inform their families and governments.
“As part of their daily work, they go to different places to verify the safety conditions,” and in this case it was the European Hospital of Rafah, stressed Haq, who added that the vehicle in which he was traveling was duly identified as belonging to the United Nations fleet.
The secretary general called for “a complete investigation” into what happened, and said that he “condemns all attacks” against UN personnel.
International
85% of Haiti’s capital has fallen into the power of gangs, according to UN reports
The power of criminal gangs in Haiti continues to grow and at the moment they control about 85% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to “certain estimates” that this Monday were cited in the UN Security Council by Miroslav Jenca, Undersecretary General for Europe, Asia and the Americas in the UN Political Affairs Department.
The gangs have begun to attack the places of “relative security” that remained in the capital, such as the Petionville neighborhood, where UN offices, embassies and foreign personnel are located. There, an attack recorded last Tuesday left “dozens dead,” he said.
In response, spontaneous groups of neighbors have begun to organize armed patrols, to set up unofficial road controls “and to take justice into their hands,” Jenca lamented.
The number of displaced people reaches 700,000
In the vast areas where gangs have control, the security and human rights of their inhabitants are in danger, and especially those of women, since gang members resort to all forms of violence, often sexual violence, to subjugate neighbors.
This situation has caused 700,000 Haitians to flee their homes and are now in a situation of “internally displaced people.”
Despite this, neighboring countries continue to deport Haitians (170,000 so far), mainly from the Dominican Republic, although Jenca did not cite this country.
What is the situation of the Multinational Mission to contain gangs in Haiti?
The Multinational Security Mission that was supposed to train the Haitian police has so far received only 400 agents of the 2,500 that it must gather, mainly due to lack of funds, and the prospects are so pessimistic that the Government of Haiti has already asked that the MMS be transformed into a classic mission of “blue helmets”.
However, this will not be easy because so far Russia and China oppose the deployment of a peace mission in Haiti arguing that the last mission of this type left the country among very serious accusations of sexual abuse and having caused and spread in 2010 a cholera epidemic that was fatal for the country, leaving thousands dead.
International
One-week preventive detention for Princess Mette-Marit’s son of Norway for rape
An Oslo court issued this Wednesday preventive detention of one week with a ban on visits for Marius Borg Høiby, son of Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, for two cases of rape of two different women.
Høiby, 27 years old and the result of a previous relationship with the princess, had been arrested on Monday night for the third time since August for an alleged rape, but the Prosecutor’s Office revealed today at the end of the hearing, held behind closed doors, that another case had been discovered during the investigation.
The young man, who is not part of the Royal House, is also being investigated for injuries and damages against three of his ex-girlfriends and for threats to a man.
Prison for two cases of rape in Norway
The hearing began at 14:00 local time (13:00 GMT) and ended two hours later, but Judge Anne-Lene Åvangen Hødnebø did not issue her opinion until after 22:00.
According to public television NRK, the police used as evidence recordings found on Høiby’s phone.
In both cases it is sexual intercourse without penetration, reported the Prosecutor’s Office, which had requested two weeks in prison.
“The reason we asked for two weeks is that we discovered another violation last night. It is a case of sexual relationship without intercourse with a woman unable to resist the act. We are investigating two rape cases,” prosecutor Andreas Kruszewski said at the end of the hearing.
HØiby’s lawyer, Øyvind Bratlien, stated that his defendant denies the accusations and described the allegations as a “catastrophic” error of judgment.
Three arrests since August
Høiby was arrested on Monday night when he was driving with his ex-girlfriend, the protagonist of the incident that led to the first arrest and which he is forbidden to contact.
His home in Skaugum, on the same property where Crown Princes Haakon and Mette-Marit reside, was searched by police officers.
According to Norwegian media, the first alleged rape occurred at the young woman’s home in March of this year; the other, in her residence in Skaugum a few weeks ago.
It is the third arrest of Høiby, who was arrested a few hours ago in early August after an incident in his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and was accused of injuries, damage and threats, in a case that was later expanded and that also includes two of his previous partners and another person.
Høiby admitted a few days after his arrest in August in a statement part of the accusations and admitted to having problems with alcohol and other drugs and suffering from mental problems.
The Royal House is reluctant to talk about the case
The Norwegian Royal House has been reluctant to comment on the case of the young Marius Borg Høiby, which has generated a lot of media attention in this Nordic country, and only Prince Haakon has made statements.
“I think Marius faces serious accusations. The judicial system must do its job,” Haakon said today from Jamaica, where he attended an event organized by the UN.
The heir to the Norwegian throne said that as “parents” they have tried to get the young man to receive “help.”
Høiby is the result of a previous relationship of Mette-Marit and has no official commitments to the Royal House, although he attends some celebrations such as the birthdays of his stepbrothers and has always maintained the relationship with both Haakon and Kings Harald V and Sonia.
International
The next attorney general Matt Gaetz manages to stop the report on his sex scandal
The Ethics Committee of the US House of Representatives did not make public this Wednesday due to lack of agreement the report of its investigation into Matt Gaetz, nominated by President-elect Donald Trump, to be the next attorney general and investigated for inappropriate sexual behavior and drug use.
The president of that commission, Republican Michael Guest, told the press at the end of the nearly two-hour meeting at the Capitol that there was no consensus among the members when making that document public.
That body was going to put its decision to a vote last Friday, but Gaetz’s resignation from his seat two days earlier, after being appointed by Trump, delayed that scrutiny and effectively ended the investigations into him.
Although with the departure of the Florida representative of Congress, the commission was left without jurisdiction to investigate him, the publication of the conclusions of his investigation opened in 2021 for alleged inappropriate sexual conduct, irregular use of campaign funds, acceptance of bribes and drug use was still in the air.
Committee interviews
The committee interviewed two women who testified that Gaetz, nominated for attorney general, paid them for having sex at a party in Florida, where prostitution is illegal.
According to the women’s lawyer to the NBC News channel, Joel Leppard, one of them also testified that she saw Gaetz having sex with a minor, although he said that he did not think he knew that he was 17 years old at the time.
Gaetz has denied those accusations and Trump’s transition team considers them unfounded and recalls that the Department of Justice closed a parallel investigation without charges.
Review of the report
Several senators, both Republicans and Democrats, had said that they wanted to review that report before the Judicial Committee of the Upper House examines Gaetz’s nomination next year and then the plenary of that hemicycle validates or stops it.
The authorization of the positions of the future cabinet depends on the Senate, but until then Gaetz has the support of Trump, who has stated that he does not question his own decision, and also of the future vice president, JD Vance, who accompanied him to Congress this Wednesday.
Report on Gaetz next attorney general has had leaks
However, although the House Committee on the House of Representatives stopped the dissemination of the report, there have already been leaks in the national press.
The lawyer of the two women indicated that they provided that committee with numerous photos related to the time they spent with the Republican, who according to that lawyer paid 6,000 dollars to one and 4,000 to another to sleep with them.
The leader of the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, had wanted to stay out of the committee’s decision, but at the same time he did not consider it appropriate for it to disseminate his investigation: “That would open Pandora’s box and I don’t think it’s something healthy for the institution,” he said.
85% of Haiti’s capital has fallen into the power of gangs, according to UN reports
One-week preventive detention for Princess Mette-Marit’s son of Norway for rape
The next attorney general Matt Gaetz manages to stop the report on his sex scandal
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