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UNRWA Says Attacks on Rafah 'Horrifying'

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike where displaced people were staying in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike where displaced people were staying in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
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UNRWA Says Attacks on Rafah 'Horrifying'

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike where displaced people were staying in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike where displaced people were staying in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Monday, May 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

The United Nations Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said on Monday that reports of attacks on families seeking shelter in Rafah in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip were "horrifying.”
"Information coming out of Rafah about further attacks on families seeking shelter is horrifying," UNRWA wrote on X.
"There are reports of mass casualties including children and women among those killed. Gaza is hell on earth. Images from last night are yet another testament to that."
Palestinian health and civil emergency service officials said on Sunday Israeli airstrikes killed at least 35 Palestinians and wounded dozens in an area in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah designated for the displaced.
The Israeli military said its air force struck a Hamas compound in Rafah, and that the incident was under review.

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Report: France Issues New Arrest Warrant for Syria's Assad

A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)
A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)
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Report: France Issues New Arrest Warrant for Syria's Assad

A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)
A damaged portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hangs in the city of Qamishli, as Syrian Kurds celebrate the fall of capital Damascus to anti-government fighters on December 8, 2024. (AFP)

Two French investigating magistrates have issued an arrest warrant against ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for suspected complicity in war crimes, the second such move by France's judicial authorities, a source said on Tuesday.

Assad, who was ousted late last year in a lightning offensive by opposition forces, is held responsible in the warrant issued on Monday as "commander-in-chief of the armed forces" for a bombing in the Syrian city of Daraa in 2017 that killed a civilian, a source close to the case, asking not to be named, told AFP.

This mandate was issued as part of an investigation into the case of Salah Abou Nabout, a 59-year-old Franco-Syrian national and former French teacher, who was killed on June 7, 2017 following the bombing of his home by Syrian army helicopters.

The French judiciary considers that Assad ordered and provided the means for this attack, according to the source.

Six senior Syrian army officials are already the target of French arrest warrants over the case in an investigation that began in 2018.

"This case represents the culmination of a long fight for justice, in which I and my family believed from the start," said Omar Abou Nabout, the victim's son, in a statement.

He expressed hope that "a trial will take place and that the perpetrators will be arrested and judged, wherever they are".

French authorities in November 2023 issued a first arrest warrant against Assad over chemical attacks in 2013 where more than a thousand people, according to American intelligence, were killed by sarin gas.

While considering Assad's participation in these attacks "likely", public prosecutors last year issued an appeal against the warrant on the grounds that Assad should have immunity as a head of state.

However, his ouster has now changed his status and potential immunity. Assad and his family fled to Russia after his fall, according to Russian authorities.