Death Toll in Israeli Strikes in Central Gaza Rises to 25

01 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians check the damage following Israeli strikes in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy  Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
01 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians check the damage following Israeli strikes in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Death Toll in Israeli Strikes in Central Gaza Rises to 25

01 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians check the damage following Israeli strikes in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy  Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
01 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians check the damage following Israeli strikes in Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

The death toll from Israeli strikes in the central Gaza Strip rose to 25, including five children, as more bodies have been recovered.

Sixteen people had initially been reported killed in two strikes on Thursday on the Gaza Strip's central Nuseirat refugee camp, but officials from the Al-Aqsa hospital said bodies continued to be brought in.

Overall, the hospital said they had received 21 dead bodies from the strikes, including some transferred from the Awda hospital, where they had been brought the day before.

One of the strikes killed an 18-month-old and his 10-year-old sister — the children’s mother was missing as of Friday and the father was killed by an Israeli airstrike four months ago, the family told AP journalists at Aqsa hospital.

Strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and on a house in Deir al-Balah on Friday killed four more, the hospital officials said, bringing the overall toll to 25.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specific strikes but said it had killed armed militants in central and southern Gaza Thursday.

Israel’s blistering offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, say health officials inside Gaza. They say more than half of the dead are women and children.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Friday that a total of 55 people had been killed in the past 24 hours and that another 196 had been wounded.



Jailed Algeria Media Mogul Gets Presidential Pardon

El Kadi's arrest sparked a wave of solidarity among his colleagues and rights activists in both Algeria and Europe - AFP
El Kadi's arrest sparked a wave of solidarity among his colleagues and rights activists in both Algeria and Europe - AFP
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Jailed Algeria Media Mogul Gets Presidential Pardon

El Kadi's arrest sparked a wave of solidarity among his colleagues and rights activists in both Algeria and Europe - AFP
El Kadi's arrest sparked a wave of solidarity among his colleagues and rights activists in both Algeria and Europe - AFP

Prominent Algerian media boss Ihsane El Kadi was freed under presidential pardon Friday on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the independence war with France, lawyers said.

Also granted pardons were several activists from the pro-democracy Hirak movement.

El Kadi, 65, who heads Interface Medias which includes the Maghreb Emergent news website and Radio M, was jailed for seven years in June 2023.

The sentence came after he had appealed an initial five-year sentence for "foreign financing of his business".

His lawyer Noureddine Ahmine posted on Facebook: "What joy! Ihsane El Kadi is free!" alongside a picture of the freed man at home with his family.

Another lawyer, Nabila Smail, posted: "At last Ihsane El Kadi is back home with his loved ones. Freed on November 1. The end of a nightmare."

Seven years is the maximum penalty under an article in Algeria's penal code which criminalizes anyone who receives "funds, a grant or otherwise... to carry out acts capable of undermining state security".

His lawyers argued that funds had been sent by his London-based daughter Tin Hinane, a shareholder in his media group, to settle debts, AFP reported.

El Kadi's arrest sparked a wave of solidarity among his colleagues and rights activists in both Algeria and Europe.

A Reporters Without Borders (RSF) rights group petition attracted more than 10,000 signatures.

RSF on Friday expressed "immense relief" at El Kadi's release, saying it hoped this would "also signal a lifting of restrictions on press freedom".

Algeria ranks 139th out of 180 countries and territories on RSF's 2024 World Press Freedom Index -- three places lower than the previous year.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune signed two decrees pardoning more than 4,000 detainees to mark the anniversary of the 1956-1962 conflict that led to the North African country's independence.

Among the 2019 Hirak movement prisoners freed was Mohamed Tadjadit, 29, dubbed the "poet of the Hirak" for his recitations during the mass protests and for his posts on Facebook.

The Hirak movement erupted in February 2019, forcing long-time president Abdelaziz Bouteflika to quit two months later.

Tebboune was elected the following December, and oversaw a crackdown on the protests with ramped-up policing and the imprisonment of demonstrators.

In February, rights group Amnesty International said "Algerian authorities continue to clamp down on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly", and demanded the release of those arbitrarily detained.