Tokyo (Reuters) – Japan’s ruling party faced mounting scrutiny on Thursday amid reports that lawmakers will be investigated over fundraising – a scandal that threatens to further dent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s sinking popularity.
Tokyo prosecutors will start investigating several dozen lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), including current ministers, next week over more than 100 million yen ($680,000) of fundraising proceeds that are not in official records, local media reported.
The investigation centres around money raised from ticket sales to party events – some of which was then given directly to lawmakers by the party and left off the books, according to the reports.
A spokesperson at the Tokyo Public Prosecutors Office said they were unable to answer questions on matters currently under investigation.
Kishida on Wednesday ordered his party to put a temporary halt to all such events and said he was tackling the issue “with a strong sense of crisis”.
But the popularity of Kishida’s administration has sunk to less than 30% in recent polls, due in part to voter worries over rising costs and looming tax hikes, and some analysts say Kishida may struggle to stay on even if a fractured opposition poses no immediate threat to his party’s grip on power.
“I don’t think he can hold on to power for that much longer…and that is in part because this scandal is big and we haven’t seen the end of it yet,” said Koichi Nakano, a professor specialising in Japanese politics at Tokyo’s Sophia University.
The LDP – which has held power for nearly all of Japan’s post-war era – is due to hold leadership elections in September with a general election due by October 2025 at the latest.
The probe focuses on funds raised by the biggest faction in the LDP which was once led by former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and both Trade Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno had overseen the faction’s bookkeeping in the past five years, according to the Yomiuri newspaper.
Matsuno, who holds daily press conferences, has declined to comment on the allegations despite multiple questions from the media including on Thursday. Nishimura has also declined comment.
The LDP’s secretary general, Toshimitsu Motegi, said this week that party leaders have been told to scrutinise their funding reports and make corrections if necessary.
Prosecutors plan to begin questioning lawmakers after the current session of parliament session ends on Dec. 13, the Yomiuri said.
Mumbai (Reuters) – A leading Indian trade body on Thursday suggested that the Group of Seven countries should offer greater flexibility in implementing a ban on indirect imports of Russian gems and provide specific details regarding the ban’s implementation.
The G7 on Wednesday announced a direct ban on Russian diamonds starting Jan. 1 followed by phased-in restrictions on indirect imports of Russian gems from around March 1.
The implementation of the decision will depend heavily on India, home to 90% of the world’s cutting and polishing of the rare gems.
“We are not happy with the announced timeline for implementation of restrictions,” Vipul Shah, chairman of the Gem Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) said in a statement.
“Recognising the diversity of our industry, we believe there should be more flexibility in these timelines,” he said.
The GJEPC said that it would collaborate closely with the World Diamond Council (WDC) and other stakeholders to minimize potential disruptions for small and marginal diamond units, which employ millions of people.
The Indian industry has already been facing tough times, with exports of cut and polished diamonds plummeting by 29% from a year ago to $9.96 billion during April to October, according to data compiled by GJEPC.
Indian diamond units stopped buying Russian diamonds long ago and are unlikely to face any challenges in complying with the G7 rules, said Colin Shah, managing director of Kama Jewellery.
Russia’s share in India’s rough diamond imports has decreased to a negligible level from around 30% a few years ago, he said.
Islamabad (Reuters) – An Islamabad court on Wednesday rejected former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s request to withdraw a key appeal so he could move it to a different court in the city of Lahore, his lawyer said, a possible setback in his efforts to overturn a decision set to prevent his running in elections next year.
Khan appealed last year in the Islamabad High Court against the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) finding that he had unlawfully sold state gifts.
However, in January, Khan sought to withdraw that appeal so that another appeal at the Lahore High Court could proceed.
Khan’s lawyer Naeem Panjutha said the Islamabad High Court on Wednesday turned down Khan’s request to withdraw his appeal.
The ECP inquiry in 2022 found Khan unlawfully sold state gifts during his tenure as prime minister from 2019 to 2022. Khan has denied his behaviour was unlawful.
The Islamabad court has not yet released a decision on whether the ECP’s decision on Khan should be overturned.
Khan’s lawyers had sought to withdraw the Islamabad court appeal so a later appeal they saw as more likely to legally undermine his electoral disqualification could proceed in the Lahore High Court.
An Islamabad district court also convicted Khan over the sale of state gifts in August, resulting in his arrest. Khan has appealed the decision and a court later suspended his sentence but he remained imprisoned in a separate case.
The 70-year-old cricket hero-turned-politician has been embroiled in a string of court cases since he was ousted in a parliamentary vote of confidence last year after having fallen out with the powerful military.
Pakistan’s general election is set to take place on Feb. 8.
Lahore (Reuters) – In the packed paediatric emergency room of a Lahore public hospital, parents holding sick children lined up for treatment this week, part of a surge of young patients caused by the air pollution crisis in Pakistan’s second most populous city.
“We are disturbed and tense,” said Mohamad Qadeer, holding a nebulizing device to his three-year-old daughter Rameen’s nose, engulfing her face in a billow of steam delivering medication to ease her congested airways.
She and her one-year-old sister Inaaya are among thousands of children suffering from pollution-related health problems. Health officials estimated there has been at least a 50% rise in paediatric patients due to respiratory issues exacerbated by poor air quality in the last month.
Lahore, known historically as a city of gardens, is now choking with toxic smog that placed it as the world’s worst for air quality last year.
As cooler temperatures took hold in November, air quality levels spiralled. Twenty-four of the last 30 days had ‘hazardous’ or ‘very unhealthy’ air quality, according to Swiss group IQAir.
“It has gotten a lot worse than the previous years and it is affecting the health of the children,” said Dr Maria Iftikhar, senior registrar at Sir Ganga Ram hospital’s paediatric department.
The city of 11 million, considered the cultural capital of Pakistan, has been blanketed in thick haze that partially blocks the sun and shrouds streets with fog at night. The problem becomes more severe in cooler months, as temperature inversion prevents a layer of warm air from rising and traps pollutants closer to the ground.
Mohamad and his wife, Shazma, had tried to keep Rameen and Inaaya safe with masks and limiting time outdoors but after days of coughing and fever the children stopped eating.
“We have been sleepless for three nights,” said Shazma, bouncing Inaaya on her knee as she held up the nebulizer to her face. More mothers and children waited nearby for their turn and a doctor rushed through the crowds with an infant in her arms, trailing a porter wheeling an oxygen canister pumping air to the baby.
“Inshallah (God willing), they will be better soon …,” Shazma said.
Children More Vulnerable
The U.N. children’s agency says globally outdoor air pollution contributed to 154,000 deaths of children aged below five in 2019. In Pakistan it is one of the top five causes of death among the entire population and young children are the most severely affected along with the elderly.
“Children are physiologically more vulnerable to air pollution than adults because their brains, lungs and other organs are still developing,” said UNICEF, adding children breath twice as fast as adults, increasing exposure.
“The government should take strong measures because small kids are suffering,” said Shazia, cradling her nine-month-old son Mohammad who spent four days admitted to Sir Ganga Ram’s packed wards for a chest infection. The bed was shared by one-month-old baby Noor, suffering from pneumonia, who cried through her oxygen tubes as her grandmother tried to sooth her.
Provincial health minister Dr Javed Akram said hospitals were on high alert with beds and ventilators set aside for extra emergency cases.
Four partial lock downs have taken place since the start of November as well campaigns to promote masks.
Crop burning, carried out by farmers to remove remnants of rice crops to make way for wheat, was a major contributor to the problem, he said, as well as poor quality fuel in vehicles and construction and industrial activity. Without prohibitively costly investments in specialized equipment for farmers, burning could not be fully curbed without risking food security.
The provincial government was researching cloud-seeding to make artificially induced rain to clear the skies. It has also reached out to authorities in nearby India, considered an arch-rival, via diplomatic channels on how to improve the quality of air blowing across the border and consulted with experts in China.
“We are always trying to look at more evidence-based approaches,” Akram said. “Our paediatric hospitals are overwhelmed with the burden from the respiratory issues … the most vulnerable are small children.”
Cairo (Reuters) – Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network said an Israeli bombardment on Wednesday killed 22 relatives of its Gaza correspondent Moamen Al-Sharafi and condemned the operation.
“The horrific event unfolded today at Jabalia Camp, where Moamen’s family sought refuge, leading to the killing of his father, mother, three siblings and his children,” the network said in a statement.
The journalist, who was elsewhere during the bombardment, later appeared live on Al Jazeera. The victims included 17 other members of his extended family.
The network said it “will pursue all legal steps to holding accountable all those responsible for this crime.”
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Jabalia is in the northern Gaza Strip.
On Oct. 25, an Israeli raid killed several family members of Wael Dahdouh, another Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza.
Riyadh (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed further cooperation on oil prices on Wednesday as members of OPEC+, a Kremlin spokesperson was quoted as saying.
A Saudi account of the meeting said the crown prince praised joint coordination between the two countries “that helped remove tensions in Middle East”.
Putin and the crown prince, de facto ruler of the world’s largest crude exporter, had the hastily arranged talks hours after the Kremlin leader visited Saudi Arabia’s Gulf neighbour, the United Arab Emirates.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, quoted by Russian news agencies, said cooperation would continue within OPEC+, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies led by Russia.
The meeting took place after a fall in oil prices despite an OPEC+ pledge to cut output further.
“We talked again about cooperation in OPEC+,” Interfax news agency quoted Peskov as saying. “The parties agree that our countries bear a great responsibility for interaction in order to maintain the international energy market at the proper level, in a stable, predictable state.”
Putin, who has rarely left Russia since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, had also been expected to discuss Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza.
The Saudi Press Agency quoted the crown prince as saying: “We share many interests and many files that we are working on together for the benefit of Russia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and the world as well.”
In remarks at the beginning of their talks, shown earlier on Russian television, Putin thanked MbS, as the crown prince is widely known, for his invitation. He had originally expected him to visit Moscow, “but there were changes to plans”.
Their next meeting should take place in Moscow, he said, and “Nothing can prevent the development of our friendly relations.”
Russia’s defence ministry had earlier shown the Kremlin chief’s Ilyushin-96 aircraft flanked by Sukhoi-35S fighter jets on its flight from Russia to the United Arab Emirates.
Putin’s delegation included top oil, economy, foreign affairs, space, nuclear energy officials and business leaders.
At his first stop in Abu Dhabi, President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan welcomed his “dear friend”, while a fly-past of UAE jets trailed the colours of the Russian flag.
“Our relations, largely due to your position, have reached an unprecedentedly high level,” Putin told him. “The UAE is Russia’s main trading partner in the Arab world.”
Putin said Russia and the UAE cooperated as part of OPEC+, whose members pump more than 40% of the world’s oil, adding that they would discuss the Israeli-Hamas conflict and Ukraine.
His first face-to-face talks with MbS since October 2019 came days after an OPEC+ meeting was delayed over disagreements – superseding what should have been an MbS visit to Moscow.
Putin’s last visit to the region was in July 2022, when he met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran. The Russian president was due to host his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi in Moscow on Thursday.
Close Relations
Putin and MbS, who together control one-fifth of the oil pumped each day, have long enjoyed close relations, though both have at times been ostracised by the West.
At a G20 summit in 2018, two months after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi consulate, Putin and MbS high-fived and shook hands with smiles.
MbS has sought to reassert Saudi Arabia as a regional power with less deference to the United States, which supplies Riyadh with most of its weapons.
Putin says Russia is locked in an existential battle with the West and has courted allies across the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia amid Western attempts to isolate Moscow.
Both MbS and Putin need high prices for oil, the lifeblood of their economies. The question is how much of the burden each should take on to keep prices aloft – and how to verify their contributions.
Last month, OPEC+ delayed a meeting by several days due to disagreements over production levels. The Saudi energy minister said OPEC+ also wanted more assurances from Moscow that it would make good on its pledge to reduce fuel exports.
Relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia in OPEC+ have been uneasy at times. A deal on cutting exports almost broke down in March 2020, but they managed to make up within weeks and OPEC+ agreed to record cuts of almost 10% of global demand.
United Nations (Reuters) – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a rare move on Wednesday to formally warn the Security Council of a global threat from the Gaza war as Arab states seek to use this alert to push the council to call for a ceasefire within days.
The United Arab Emirates gave the council a brief draft resolution, seen by Reuters, that would act on the letter from Guterres by demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas.
Diplomats said the UAE aims to put the text to a vote on Friday when the council is due to be briefed by Guterres on Gaza. To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the five permanent members – the United States, Russia, China, France or Britain.
Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, said the United States does not support any further action by the Security Council at this time.
“However, we remain focused on the difficult and sensitive diplomacy geared to getting more hostages released, more aid flowing into Gaza, and better protection of civilians,” Wood told Reuters.
The United States and ally Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. Washington instead supports pauses to protect civilians and allow for the release of hostages taken by Hamas in a deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
“The UAE draft resolution has the support of the Arab and OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) group. This is a moral and humanitarian imperative and we urge all countries to support the call of the Secretary-General,” the UAE mission to the U.N. posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said Arab ministers would discuss the draft Security Council resolution with U.S. officials during a visit to Washington this week.
“On top of the agenda is this war has to stop,” he told reporters as Arab U.N. ambassadors stood with him. “A ceasefire has to take place and it has to take place immediately.”
‘New Moral Low’
The United States abstained last month to allow the Security Council to adopt a resolution calling for pauses in fighting. A seven-day pause – that saw Hamas release some hostages and an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza – expired on Dec. 1.
Guterres told the council in his letter that the war “may aggravate existing threats to international peace and security.”
He invoked Article 99 of the founding U.N. Charter that allows him to “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
The article has not been used for decades, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
“We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system,” Guterres wrote. The implications for Palestinians could be irreversible and for regional security, he said, again calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan accused Guterres of reaching a “new moral low” by sending the letter to the Security Council, adding: “The Secretary-General’s call for a ceasefire is actually a call to keep Hamas’ reign of terror in Gaza.”
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the conflict presented threats to regional and global security.
“We made quite clear that one of the things that we are trying to do is prevent this conflict from spreading,” he told reporters.
Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 240 people taken hostage during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. Israel has focused its retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, bombarding it from the air, imposing a siege and launching a ground assault.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says that so far 16,015 people have been killed in the enclave of 2.3 million.
Guterres told the Security Council in his letter that there was no effective protection of civilians and that “nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
Ramallah/Beirut (Reuters) – Israeli forces unleashed an aerial and ground blitz against Hamas in Gaza after a cross-border rampage by the enclave’s ruling Islamist group on Oct. 7. At least 16,015 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, while 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’ incursion into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Aid agencies warn that a humanitarian disaster in Gaza is worsening by the hour with most of its 2.3 million people homeless and trapped in a tiny, embattled coastal enclave, with little food, water, medical care, fuel or secure shelter.
With basic infrastructure devastated, phone and internet services frequently disrupted, and a number of health statisticians having been killed or gone missing, there is increasing concern that Gaza health authorities will be unable to continue keeping an accurate count of the casualty toll.
How Have Casualty Tolls Been Compiled So Far?
In the first six weeks of the war, hospital morgues across Gaza sent figures to the health ministry’s main collection centre at Al Shifa Hospital. Officials used Excel sheets to keep track of names, ages and ID card numbers of the dead and transmitted these to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah, part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) that exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
But Omar Hussein Ali, director of the Ramallah ministry’s emergency operations centre, said that of the four officials who ran the Shifa data centre, one died in an air strike that hit the hospital while the other three went missing when Israeli forces seized the premises as an alleged Hamas hideout.
“The kind of casualty recording required to understand what’s going on is getting harder. Information infrastructure, the health systems that existed, are being systematically destroyed,” said Hamit Dardagan of Iraq Body Count, set up during the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Since a one-week truce collapsed on Dec. 1, casualty updates that had generally been issued daily have become irregular. The last update from Gaza’s health ministry came on Monday from spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qidra, raising the death toll to 15,899.
He did not hold his regular news conference on Tuesday. He did not issue a statement for about 48 hours, until late on Wednesday, when he sent a WhatsApp message to journalists that did not include a daily casualty report but said Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza City was overwhelmed with casualties and “the wounded are bleeding to death”. Reuters was unable to immediately verify the report.
Only two ministry piecemeal reports adding to the death toll have been issued, based on the number of bodies brought to two hospitals – 43 on Tuesday, 73 on Wednesday.
Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila said on Tuesday Gaza’s health services were in a “disastrous” state, with over 250 staff killed and at least 30 arrested by Israeli forces.
Are The Published Casualty Numbers Comprehensive ?
No, experts told Reuters.
“Our monitoring suggests that the numbers provided by the Ministry of Health may be under-reporting as they do not include fatalities who did not reach hospitals or may be lost under the rubble,” the U.N. human rights office spokesperson said.
“It is a logical assumption that the numbers being reported are underestimated, are low,” said Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, who has worked on death counts in armed conflict and natural disasters for more than 20 years.
The PA’s Oct. 26 report said at least 1,000 bodies could not be recovered or brought to morgues, citing families interviewed by its Gaza staff – a clear and plausible example of the impact of war “on data capture and reporting”, the Lancet article read.
The number of bodies feared buried under the rubble now reaches into the thousands and much of the Gaza civil defence force’s digging equipment has been destroyed in air strikes, the PA’s health minister al-Kaila said on Tuesday.
Reuters Graphics
How Credible Are The Casualty Figures To Date?
Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics – from a 2017 census and more recent U.N. surveys – and well-functioning health information systems better than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters.
Oona Campbell, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said Palestinian health authorities have longstanding credibility with their methods of maintaining baseline statistics and tracking deaths in general, not just during times of war. U.N. agencies rely on them.
“Palestinian data collection capabilities are professional and many ministry staff have been trained in the United States. They work hard to ensure statistical fidelity,” said Yale University’s Raymond.
On Oct. 26 the PA Health Ministry published a 212-page report with the names, ages and ID numbers of 7,028 Palestinians it recorded as dead from air strikes – after U.S. President Joe Biden cast doubt on the casualty figures.
Campbell and two other academics analysed the data for a Lancet medical journal report on Nov. 26 and concluded there was no obvious reason to doubt their validity. “We consider it implausible that these patterns (of mortality rates) would arise from data fabrication,” the researchers wrote.
The PA Health Ministry has not issued a similar detailed report since, a reflection of fading communications with Gaza.
What Does Israel Say?
A senior Israeli official told journalists on Monday that around a third of those killed in Gaza so far were enemy combatants, estimating their number at less than 10,000 but more than 5,000, without detailing how the estimate was reached. The official said the total count of some 15,000 dead as of Monday given by Palestinian authorities, who do not break down the count between civilians and combatants, is “more or less” right.
Rights groups and researchers say the high civilian toll arises from heavy weapons used – including so-called “bunker buster” bombs aimed at destroying Hamas’ strategic tunnel network – and strikes on residential districts where Israel says Hamas has hidden militant bases, rocket launch pads and weaponry within and under apartment blocks and hospitals.
What’s The Breakdown Of Children Versus Adults Killed?
The United Nations, as well as Israeli and Palestinian law, define a child as someone under the age of 18, though some Hamas militants are believed to be teenagers.
The PA health ministry said on Tuesday about 70% of Gaza’s dead were women and children under 18, but it has released no breakdown of age categories since its Oct. 26 report.
The Lancet article said the ministry report’s data showed that 11.5% of the deaths recorded between Oct. 7-26 were children between ages 0 and 4, 11.5% between ages 5 and 9, 10.7% between 10-14 and 9.1% between 15 and 19.
“There was a distinct peak among men aged 30–34 years, possibly reflecting combatant or civilian exposures (e.g., first responders at bomb sites, journalists, and people going out to seek water and food for their families),” it said.
Reuters Graphics
Could Death Tolls Now Become A Casualty Of War?
The new phase of Israel’s offensive, expanding into Gaza’s southern half from Dec. 1, has further diminished the scope for collecting reliable death toll data, Richard Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s Gaza envoy, said on Tuesday.
“As we all know normally we get (data) from the Ministry of Health, and already for a number of days it is much more based on estimates, it’s much more difficult for them,” he said.
Experts said the fact that it was becoming near impossible for a previously efficient cohort of health technocrats to work was another harrowing indication of the toll of the war.
“It’s a terrible sign when you get to a point, like where Sudan is, where you don’t even have a death registry. That in itself shows to us aid workers that this is a worst-case scenario,” Yale University’s Raymond said.
Gaza/Cairo (Reuters) – Israeli troops battled Hamas in the heart of south Gaza’s biggest city and said they had surrounded the militant leader’s house as thousands of displaced civilians sought shelter near Egypt and in a desolate seaside area of the enclave.
Gazans crammed into Rafah on the border with Egypt on the basis of Israeli leaflets and messages saying that they would be safe in the city. But they remained fearful after an Israeli strike on a house there killed 15 on Wednesday, according to health officials in Rafah.
Israel’s military said it advanced into the heart of southern Gaza’s largest city, Khan Younis, for the first time. Hamas’ armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said combat was fierce.
Residents said Israeli bombing grew more intense, killing and wounding civilians, and tanks battled Palestinian militants north and east of Khan Younis.
In “targeted raids” in central Khan Younis, Israel said its soldiers “eliminated terrorists, destroyed terrorist infrastructure and located weapons.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces encircled the Khan Younis house of Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar.
“His house may not be his fortress and he can escape but it’s only a matter of time before we get him,” Netanyahu said in a video statement.
Khan Younis residents said Israeli tanks had neared Sinwar’s home but it was not known whether he was there. Israel has said it believes many Hamas leaders and fighters are holed up in underground tunnels.
Israeli warplanes also bombed targets across the densely populated coastal strip in one of the heaviest phases of the two-month-old war. WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, said at least 17 were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Maghazi in Central Gaza on Wednesday night
Qatar-based Al Jazeera Media Network said an Israeli bombardment of Jabalia Camp in northern Gaza killed 22 relatives of its Gaza correspondent Moamen Al-Sharafi, and it condemned the operation.
Hundreds of thousands of people made homeless in north Gaza during the war were desperately seeking shelter in the diminishing number of places in the south designated as safe by Israel.
The U.N. humanitarian office said in a report on Wednesday that most of the homeless people in Rafah, about 13 km (8 miles) south of Khan Younis, were sleeping rough due to a lack of tents although the U.N. had managed to distribute a few hundred.
The U.N. report said that while some aid had entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, the surge in hostilities since a week-long truce collapsed on Dec. 1 was hampering distribution.
Displaced civilians were also fleeing to the desolate area of Al Mawasi on Gaza’s southern Mediterranean coast, which Israel has said is safe.
The former Bedouin village lacks shelter, food and other necessities, according to refugee organisations.
“There are no bathrooms. We cannot even wash if we want to pray,” displaced Palestinian Enas Mosleh told Al Jazeera television. “It is a completely remote area.”
Another Palestinian who fled to Al Mawasi, Ibrahim Mahram, said five families were sharing a tent and he slept on a sidewalk.
“We suffered from the war of cannons and escaped it to arrive at the war of starvation,” he told the network.
“We divide one tomato between all of us.”
New Ceasefire Effort At UN
Israel unleashed its military campaign in response to a surprise Oct. 7 incursion by Hamas fighters who rampaged through Israeli towns, killing 1,200 people and seizing 240 hostages, according to Israel’s tally.
Figures from Gaza’s Health Ministry put the death toll in Gaza at 16,015, including 43 reported by one hospital on Tuesday and 73 by another on Wednesday. But since Monday the ministry has not released daily casualty updates for all of Gaza, leaving it unclear whether the new overall toll was comprehensive.
As Israel broadened its ground onslaught on Wednesday after largely taking control of north Gaza last month, Palestinian medics said Gaza’s hospitals were overflowing with dead and wounded, many of them women and children, and supplies were running out.
In Geneva, the U.N. human rights chief said the situation was “apocalyptic” with the risk that serious rights violations were being committed by both sides.
Leaders of the Group of Seven nations including Israel’s close ally the United States called for further humanitarian truces “to address the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza and minimise civilian casualties”.
The United Nations Security Council received a UAE-drafted resolution on Wednesday that demanded an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” with a vote sought on Friday.
Warning of a “severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday invoked rarely used Article 99 of the founding U.N. Charter to push for a ceasefire in a letter to the Security Council.
The United States and ally Israel oppose a ceasefire because they believe it would only benefit Hamas. Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan denounced Guterres’ move: “The Secretary-General’s call for a ceasefire is actually a call to keep Hamas’ reign of terror in Gaza.”
The U.S. has called on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians and increase the flow of aid to Gaza. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN that Israel was taking some “important steps” such as designating safe areas and notifying neighborhoods when civilians need to move.
New Delhi (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focussed on combating Sikh separatism, despite its scant support among the country’s small religious minority, due to security and political concerns, officials and experts say.
The movement for a Sikh homeland in northern India, crushed decades ago, has burst onto the global stage in recent months as the United States and Canada accused Indian officials of involvement in assassination plots against Sikh separatist leaders in North America.
New Delhi denies any connection to a June murder in a Vancouver suburb but has announced an investigation into U.S. concerns about an alleged plot in New York. It says such plots were not government policy and it is not hunting down Sikh separatists abroad.
The diplomatic dust-ups with normally friendly Washington and Ottawa highlight the outsized role Sikh separatism plays in the political calculus of Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, which is in a strong position to win national elections next year.
Indian security officials say they must crack down on what they call Sikh connections to crime overseas linked to the Sikh heartland of Punjab. Sikh nationalists reject that claim, saying Modi is trying to destroy their leadership and mobilise his Hindu base.
Other Modi critics say he is exploiting the issue for political gain after Sikh farmers dealt his government one of its biggest blows by forcing a rollback of agricultural reforms.
Sikh separatists demand that a homeland called Khalistan – “the land of the pure” – be carved out of Punjab, where their religion was founded around the end of the 15th century, and the only Indian state where they form a majority. Sikhs comprise fewer than 2% of India’s 1.4 billion people.
A Khalistan insurgency killed tens of thousands in the 1980s and 1990s before it was put down by New Delhi and ceased to be a significant issue domestically.
Dead Horse Or Mad Dog?
“Khalistan has no ground support in Punjab today,” said a senior Indian security official, but some prominent separatist leaders abroad “are involved in drugs, gun-running, crime syndicates and have links to Punjab too”.
A recently retired top Indian security official called Khalistan a “dead horse” but insisted “you have to act to pre-empt” as they are raising money abroad, training people and agitating for India’s division.
India “has to be careful”, he said, because issues are “boiling under the surface”, including unemployment and rampant drug use in Punjab, which borders on India’s archrival Pakistan.
Both officials asked not to be named given the current sensitivity of the issue.
India has not publicly released any recent evidence of Sikh separatist involvement with overseas crime, but New Delhi says it has repeatedly shared such evidence with foreign capitals.
An aggressive national security posture is an important element of Modi’s cultivated strongman image, built on actions including air strikes against Pakistan, ending special privileges for the disputed Kashmir region and targeting left-wing activists the government says are linked to Maoist militants.
Kanwarpal Singh, political secretary of the Punjab-based Dal Khalsa group, which lobbies for a separate Khalistan, rejected links to drugs or crime. Modi’s government is seeking to “defame, isolate and eliminate” Sikh separatist leaders, he said.
The policy is to “call the dog mad and shoot him”, he said.
Other critics of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has failed to make political inroads among Sikhs, accuse it of exaggerating the Khalistan problem for political gain.
“It is exploiting whatever limited Khalistani element there is in the country or in the diaspora to mobilise the Hindu population,” said security expert Ajai Sahni.
Dal Khalsa’s Singh said that after the yearlong 2021 farm protests by mostly Sikh farmers and activists bruised the BJP politically, “they are taking revenge on the Sikh community”.
