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Fears of Middle East War Grow After Hamas Leader's Killing

Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)
Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)
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Fears of Middle East War Grow After Hamas Leader's Killing

Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)
Smoke billows on the village of Meiss El-Jabal, along Lebanon's southern border with northern Israel following Israeli bombardment on December 20, 2023, with the Israeli Manara Kibbutz seen on the background, amid increasing cross-border tensions as fighting continues with Hamas militants in the southern Gaza Strip. (Photo by AFP)

Fears of a regional Middle East war grew on Saturday after the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, triggered vows of vengeance from Iran-backed Middle East groups.

The United States said it would move additional warships and fighter jets to the region as the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" readied its response to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.

The groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war in Gaza between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, according to AFP.

Iran on Saturday said it expects one of those groups, Lebanon's Hezbollah, to hit deeper inside Israel and to no longer be confined to military targets.

With such talk growing, the Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.

An aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln will replace one helmed by the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the region, the Pentagon said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also ordered additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Middle East and areas under United States European Command, as well as a new fighter squadron to the Middle East.

On Friday, thousands of people in Qatar attended funeral prayers for Haniyeh, who was buried north of the capital Doha two days after his death.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Saturday said he was killed by a "short-range projectile" fired "from outside the accommodation area" where he was staying.

Haniyeh had been in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.

Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.
The killing of the Qatar-based Haniyeh is among a series of tit-for-tat attacks since April that had already heightened fears of a regional conflagration.

His death came hours after Israel struck south Beirut, killing the Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.

Haniyeh's deputy was killed in south Beirut early this year in a strike which a US defence official said Israel carried out.

In another high-profile killing, Israel's army on Thursday confirmed that an air strike in July killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in Gaza.

Israel "delivered crushing blows to all our enemies", said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week.

"The risk that the situation on the ground could deteriorate rapidly is rising," British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with his visiting British counterpart John Healey on Friday and called for an international coalition to support "Israel's defense against Iran and its proxies", Gallant's office said.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack.

Hamas officials but also some analysts, and protesters in Israel, have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

Far-right members crucial to Netanyahu's ruling coalition oppose any truce.

The war in Gaza has caused widespread destruction and displaced almost the entire population of the territory where, the UN said on Friday, public health conditions "continue to deteriorate."

It said nearly 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, spread by contaminated food and water, have been reported since the war began.

Since October Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israeli forces, saying it is targeting military positions over the border in support of Hamas.

The strike on Shukr changed the calculus, Iran's mission to the United Nations said on Saturday.

"We expect... Hezbollah to choose more targets and (strike) deeper in its response," said the mission, quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

"Secondly, that it will not limit its response to military targets."

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media, said a Hezbollah member was killed in an "Israeli drone" strike on a vehicle in south Lebanon on Saturday.

Late on Friday, a source close to Hezbollah said Israel carried out strikes on a convoy of trucks entering Lebanon from Syria.

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Sudan's Famine-stricken Zamzam Camp Hit by Devastating Floods

A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
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Sudan's Famine-stricken Zamzam Camp Hit by Devastating Floods

A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A handout photograph, shot in January 2024, shows a woman and baby at the Zamzam displacement camp, close to El Fasher in North Darfur, Sudan. MSF/Mohamed Zakaria/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights

A famine-stricken camp in Sudan's conflict-torn Darfur region is facing a "significant" new influx of displaced people while floods threaten to contaminate water and sanitation facilities, according to satellite imagery published on Friday.

The findings from Yale Humanitarian Research Lab show that toilets and nine out of 13 water points have been inundated at the Zamzam camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in North Darfur, raising the risk of cholera and other diseases in an area already facing extreme levels of malnutrition.

The camp, hosting about 500,000 people, has become more crowded as people have fled recent fighting between Sudan's army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which broke out in April 2023.

The images analyzed by the Yale researchers show brown floodwaters submerging outdoor toilets and areas where people queue for water.

"We need water, food, healthcare, and for God to lift this curse from Sudan, nothing more than that," said Duria Abdelrahman, who told Reuters she had received no aid since arriving in the camp. Women were seen cleaning leaves to eat.

Zamzam is the largest IDP camp in Sudan, and some people have lived there for more than two decades.

On Thursday, the world’s global hunger monitor determined that Zamzam is experiencing famine, only the third such assessment since the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an international food security standard, was established two decades ago

“For humanitarians, our worst-case scenario, what we train for as the sum of all fears, is happening on the ground right now,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.

“A population already vulnerable due to being food and water deprived, on the move and under siege, now is surrounded by floodwaters that are contaminated with human and animal faeces.”

Zamzam is near al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur and the only significant holdout from the RSF across Darfur. At least 65 people were killed this week as the group besieges the city.

The main hospital is out of service after an RSF attack.

- DIRTY WATER

Zamzam and other areas where more than 300,000 people have fled are controlled by armed groups that are neutral or allied with the government and therefore offer some protection. But they have little food and few services because the army and RSF have prevented assistance from entering.

Residents say they cannot reach farms as RSF soldiers surround the area, while most have no money for the little food that enters markets. The IPC said the Abu Shouk and al-Salam camps in al-Fashir are likely facing similar conditions to Zamzam.

Residents have limited access to fresh water, the Yale researchers said.

“The water is unsafe because it mixes with all the dirt,” Zamzam resident Yahia Ali told Reuters, pointing to brown rainwater collected in a tarp. “And even though it’s dirty we are forced to drink it.”

The Yale researchers used satellite imagery to identify enough standing water at the camp to cover at least 125 soccer pitches. The researchers also documented submerged toilets at Al Salam School 36 for Adolescents and another school compound.

A Reuters eyewitness said newcomers from al-Fashir sheltering in a roofless school had water up to their knees.

In al-Fashir, the Yale researchers documented flooding of hospitals, food and water distribution sites, and markets. The Mawashi Market, where livestock is slaughtered and sold, was also inundated and the researchers called it “a particularly concerning vehicle of contamination”.

As of early July, Sudan had 11,000 cholera cases nationwide, according to the health ministry, although none had been recorded in North Darfur.

Waterborne disease outbreaks occurred in Darfur during a devastating conflict that began in 2003.

Zamzam is one of 14 locations across Sudan where the IPC has said famine is likely, most of them other displacement camps that have seen little aid enter since the latest war began.

“This is not just the situation in Zamzam, but the condition of all the other camps in Darfur, more than 171 camps suffering the same conditions,” said Adam Rojal, spokesman for the Displacement Camps Coordinating Committee, an activist network.