Wednesday briefing: Israel attacks densely populated area | ET REALITY

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An Israeli strike targeting Hamas militants, including a commander who helped plan the Oct. 7 massacre, hit a densely populated Gaza neighborhood, leaving behind a huge crater and widespread damage.

Photographs taken yesterday showed the extent of the damage in the Jabaliya neighborhood, the largest of the eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. The medical director of the Indonesian hospital, which is near Jabaliya, said his facility was receiving hundreds of injured people and that dozens more had died.

The Israeli military said warplanes had targeted Ibrahim Biari, who it said was a key conspirator of the Hamas-led massacres in Israel on October 7, and “a large number of terrorists.” A Hamas spokesman denied that a Hamas commander had been in the area.

Israeli ground troops and tanks were inching closer to Gaza City, a fact made clear on satellite images, as humanitarian officials warned that two million Palestinian civilians faced a growing catastrophe. Gaza’s Interior Ministry said Israeli forces were seeking to “separate the northern Gaza Strip from the south.”

Here’s the latest.

Medical attention: The WHO said services had been “severely reduced” at the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, Gaza’s only cancer centre, after “extremely worrying reports of airstrikes” in its surroundings over the past two days.

Growing threats: Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, warned US lawmakers yesterday that the violence between Israel and Hamas has raised the potential for an attack against Americans to “a completely different level.” Threats to the Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities in the United States have been increasing since the war began on October 7.

Water: Gazans and international aid groups say Israel’s decision to cut off water and its insistence that no fuel be allowed into the territory have created a man-made drought.

A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, was arrested and brutally beaten, her husband said Monday.

She was one of several activists detained in Tehran at the funeral of Armita Geravand, a 16-year-old girl who died last week after what many people believe was a confrontation over not covering her hair on the Tehran subway, defying the law. imposed by the Shiite Islamic government.

Sotoudeh, 60, is famous for representing women in public who have not worn the hijab, the traditional headscarf, and for refusing to wear one. She has been jailed several times and was most recently convicted in a secret trial in 2019 of security-related offences. She was released in 2021 due to her health.

The Bank of Japan yesterday announced a policy that aims to increase government bond yields to combat rising inflation.

The country’s central bank is in a bind: Low interest rates, which have long been used to boost growth, are now far out of step with those of other major economies. That’s partly why the yen is weaker than it has been against the U.S. dollar in more than 30 years, threatening to inflict prolonged inflation.

By relaxing its bond purchases to allow yields to rise beyond a cap it had strictly enforced, the Bank of Japan is fighting inflation, improving the attractiveness of domestic debt and trying to shore up the yen.

Irish craftsman Patrick Brennan discovered knife making after a motorcycle accident in 2010 left him bedridden for two years. In a rehabilitation program, he learned to work with leather, which ultimately led to an award-winning career.

One of his specialties is making knives from Damascus steel, mixing darker, high-carbon steel with brighter, high-nickel varieties to form a pattern, which he describes as “magical.”

The Barenboim-Said Academy, a music conservatory in Berlin, was founded by renowned Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim with the intention of bringing together students from across the Middle East.

The academy, like other peace projects, has long had to deal with the volatility of the Middle East. But in an environment where Israelis, Palestinians, Iranians, Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese and others study and live together, the war between Israel and Hamas has really tested the program. Some students wondered if they should even play music with each other right now. Others say it has brought them closer.

“We will not bring peace and we will not solve the world’s problems, no matter how much we would like to,” said Katia Abdel Kader, 23, a Palestinian violinist. “But we created a space, and that is what is missing in the world, not just in the Middle East. “Places for people to be accepted by others.”

That’s all for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — Justin

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