Israeli Strikes Kill 20 Palestinians in Gaza, Medics Say

29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)
29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)
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Israeli Strikes Kill 20 Palestinians in Gaza, Medics Say

29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)
29 October 2024, Palestinian Territories, Beit Lahia: A Palestinian inspects the Abu Nasr family home after an Israeli airstrike in Beit Lahia, amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. (Quds Net News via ZUMA Press/dpa)

A series of Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 20 people on Wednesday, medics said.

Eight people were killed in a strike in the Salateen area of Beit Lahia in the north, close to where the Gaza health ministry said at least 93 were killed or missing in an Israeli airstrike that struck a multi-floor house on Tuesday.

The United States called that attack "horrifying".

There was no immediate Israeli comment on either strike.

Gaza's emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the more than three-week Israeli assault into northern Gaza. Israel says its campaign is to destroy Palestinian armed group Hamas, whose fighters had regrouped to the area in the year-long war.

The Israeli army sent tanks into Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of Gaza's eight historic camps and the focus of the new military offensive.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes in southern and central Gaza killed at least seven Palestinians earlier on Wednesday, medics said. In Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, an Israeli strike killed five people and wounded others near a clinic, medics and residents said.

Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel killed 1,200 people and more than 250 hostages were captured and taken into Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

The death toll from Israel's retaliatory air and ground onslaught in Gaza has exceeded 43,000, the Gaza health ministry says.



Sudan’s Ruling Council Reshuffles Cabinet amid Brutal Conflict

A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)
A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)
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Sudan’s Ruling Council Reshuffles Cabinet amid Brutal Conflict

A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)
A damaged building in Omdurman, Sudan, 01 November 2024 (issued 04 November 2024). (EPA)

Sudan's army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, at war with paramilitaries, has announced a cabinet reshuffle that replaces four ministers including those for foreign affairs and the media.

The late Sunday announcement comes with the northeast African country gripped by the world's worst displacement crisis, threatened by famine and desperate for aid, according to the UN.

In a post on its official Facebook page, Sudan's ruling sovereignty council said Burhan had approved replacement of the ministers of foreign affairs, the media, religious affairs and trade.

The civil war that began in April 2023 pits Burhan's military against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries under the command of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

Since then, the army-aligned Sudanese government has been operating from the eastern city of Port Sudan, which has largely remained shielded from the violence.

But the Sudanese state "is completely absent from the scene" in all sectors, economist Haitham Fathy told AFP earlier this year.

The council did not disclose reasons behind the reshuffle but it coincides with rising violence in al-Gezira, south of the capital Khartoum, and North Darfur in Sudan's far west bordering Chad.

On Friday the spokesman for United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said he condemned attacks by the RSF on Gezira, after the United States made a similar call over the violence against civilians.

Among the key government changes, Ambassador Ali Youssef al-Sharif, a retired diplomat who previously served as Sudan's ambassador to China and South Africa, was appointed foreign minister.

He replaces Hussein Awad Ali who had held the role for seven months.

Journalist and TV presenter Khalid Ali Aleisir, based in London, was named minister of culture and media.

The reshuffle also saw Omar Banfir assigned to the trade ministry and Omar Bakhit appointed to the ministry of religious affairs.

Over the past two weeks, the RSF increased attacks on civilians in Gezira following the army's announcement that an RSF commander had defected.

According to an AFP tally based on medical and activist sources, at least 200 people were killed in Gezira last month alone. The UN reports that the violence has forced around 120,000 people from their homes.

In total, Sudan hosts more than 11 million displaced people, while another 3.1 million are now sheltering beyond its borders, according to the International Organization for Migration.