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Gaza civil defence says Israeli fire kills 39 near two aid centres

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Saturday that Israeli fire killed 39 people and wounded more than 100 near two aid centres, in the latest deaths of Palestinians seeking food.Deaths of people waiting for handouts in huge crowds near food points in Gaza have become a regular occurrence, with the territory’s authorities frequently blaming Israeli fire.But the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which has replaced UN agencies as the main distributor of aid in the territory, has accused militant group Hamas of fomenting unrest and shooting at civilians.Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the deaths happened near a site southwest of Khan Yunis and another centre northwest of Rafah, both in southern Gaza, attributing the fatalities to “Israeli gunfire”.One witness said he headed to the Al-Tina area of Khan Yunis before dawn with five of his relatives to try to get food when “Israeli soldiers” started shooting.”My relatives and I were unable to get anything,” Abdul Aziz Abed, 37, told AFP. “Every day I go there and all we get is bullets and exhaustion instead of food.”Three other witnesses also accused troops of opening fire.- ‘Warning shots’ -In response, the Israeli military said it “identified suspects who approached them during operational activity in the Rafah area, posing a threat to the troops”.Soldiers called for them to turn back and “after they did not comply, the troops fired warning shots”, it said, adding that it was aware of the reports about casualties.”The incident is under review. The shots were fired approximately one kilometre (more than half a mile) away from the aid distribution site at nighttime when it’s not active,” it said in a statement.GHF said reports of deaths near its sites were “false”.”We have repeatedly warned aid-seekers not to travel to our sites overnight and early morning hours,” it wrote on X.Elsewhere, the civil defence agency reported that an Israeli strike on a house near Nuseirat, in central Gaza, killed 12 people, the latest in a series of deadly bombardments.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.The war in Gaza, sparked by militant group Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people who live in the coastal territory.Most people have been displaced at least once by the fighting, and doctors and aid agencies say they were seeing the physical and mental health effects of 21 months of war, including more acute malnutrition.The World Food Programme said nearly one in three people in Gaza were not eating for days at a stretch and “thousands” were “on the verge of catastrophic hunger”.The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, on Saturday said it had enough food for all of Gaza for more than three months but it was stockpiled in warehouses and blocked from being delivered.The free flow of aid into Gaza is a key demand of Hamas in indirect negotiations with Israel for a 60-day ceasefire in the war, alongside a full Israeli military withdrawal.- ‘Agitators’ -After a more than two-month Israeli aid blockade, GHF took over the running of aid distribution in late May, despite criticism from the United Nations which previously coordinated handouts, that it was designed to cater to Israeli military objectives.GHF acknowledged for the first time that 20 people died at its Khan Yunis site on Wednesday but blamed “agitators in the crowd… armed and affiliated with Hamas” for creating “a chaotic and dangerous surge” and firing at aid-seekers.The previous day, the UN said it had recorded 875 people killed in Gaza while trying to get food, including 674 “in the vicinity of GHF sites”, since it began operating.Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel led to the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory military action has killed 58,765 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

Sudan PM vows to rebuild Khartoum on first visit to war-torn capital

Sudan’s Prime Minister Kamil Idris on Saturday pledged to rebuild Khartoum, ravaged by more than two years of war, as he made his first visit to the capital since assuming office in May.Touring Khartoum’s destroyed infrastructure earlier, the new premier outlined mass repair projects in anticipation of the return of at least some of the over 3.5 million people who fled the violence.”Khartoum will return as a proud national capital,” Idris said, according to Sudan’s state news agency.Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who appointed Idris, landed Saturday at Khartoum’s airport, recaptured by the army in March after nearly two years of occupation by their rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The war between the Sudanese army and the RSF began in the heart of the capital in April 2023, quickly tearing the city apart.Tens of thousands are estimated to have been killed in the once-bustling capital, and reconstruction is expected to be a herculean feat, with the government putting the cost at $700 billion nationwide, with Khartoum alone accounting for around half of that.The army-aligned government, which moved to Port Sudan on the Red Sea early in the war and still operates from there, has begun to plan the return of ministries to Khartoum even as fighting rages on in other parts of the country.Authorities have begun operations to properly bury the bodies still missing around the city, clear thousands of unexploded ordinance and resume bureaucratic services.On a visit to Sudan’s largest oil refinery, the Al-Jaili plant just north of Khartoum, Idris promised that “national institutions will come back even better than they were before”.The refinery — now a blackened husk — was recaptured in January, but the facility which once processed 100,000 barrels a day will take years and at least $1.3 billion to rebuild, officials told AFP.- Cabinet stumbles -The UN expects some two million people will return to Khartoum this year, but those coming back have found an unrecognisable city.The scale of looting is unprecedented, aid workers say, with evidence of paramilitary fighters ripping copper wire out of power lines before they left.Vast areas of the city remain without power, and the damage to water infrastructure has caused a devastating cholera outbreak. Health authorities recorded up to 1,500 cases a day last month, according to the UN.”Water is the primary concern and obstacle delaying the return of citizens to their homes,” Idris said on Saturday.A career diplomat and former UN official, Idris is building a government that critics warn could put up a veneer of civilian rule, in addition to facing challenges within its own camp.In 2020, during a short-lived transition to civilian rule, the government in Khartoum signed a peace agreement with Sudanese armed groups, allocating a share of cabinet posts to signatories.All but three cabinet posts are now filled, and armed groups currently fighting alongside the army have retained their representation in Idris’s government.But reports that Idris had sought to appoint technocrats in their place have created tensions.Some of the armed groups, known together as the Joint Forces, have been integral in defending North Darfur state capital El-Fasher, which has been besieged by the paramilitaries since May of last year.If the RSF succeeds in taking El-Fasher, it will control all of the vast western region of Darfur, cementing the fragmentation of the country.Despite the army securing the capital, as well as the country’s north and east, war still rages in Sudan’s west and south, where the RSF is accused of killing hundreds of civilians in recent days.Sudan is suffering the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises, with nearly 25 million people in dire food insecurity and over 10 million internally displaced across the country.A further four million people have fled across borders.