Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants holding after nearly three days of violence, Gaza's sole power plant resumed operations Monday and Israel began reopening crossings into the territory.
Israel also lifted security restrictions on southern Israeli communities after the Egyptian-mediated truce took effect late Sunday.
War-weary people in Gaza and Israel were left to pick up the pieces after another round of violence -- the worst since an 11-day war between Israel and the territory's militant Hamas rulers last year.
Since Friday, Israeli aircraft had pummeled targets in Gaza, while the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group fired hundreds of rockets at Israel.
Over three days of fighting, 44 Palestinians were killed, including 15 children and four women, and 311 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Twelve of those killed were Islamic Jihad militants, one was from a smaller armed group, and two were Hamas-affiliated policemen who were not taking part in the fighting, according to the armed factions.
Israel estimated a total of 47 Palestinians were killed, including 14 killed by misfired Islamic Jihad rockets. It said that 20 fighters and seven civilians died in Israeli airstrikes and that it is still investigating six deaths.
No Israelis were killed or seriously wounded in the fighting.
The violence had threatened to spiral into another all-out war but was contained because Hamas stayed on the sidelines, possibly because it fears Israeli reprisals and an unraveling of economic understandings with Israel, including the issuing of Israeli work permits that provide a vital source of income for thousands of Gaza residents.
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since the group overran the territory in 2007. The clashes have exacted a staggering toll on the impoverished territory's 2.3 million Palestinian residents.
The latest violence may have bolstered the political fortunes of Israel's caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, who lacked experience leading military operations. He unleashed the offensive less than three months before a general election in which he is campaigning to keep the job.
"All our goals were achieved," Lapid said Monday. "The entire senior military command of Islamic Jihad in Gaza was successfully targeted within three days."
Israel began to reopen crossings into Gaza for humanitarian needs and said it would fully open them if calm continued. Fuel trucks were seen entering the main cargo crossing and heading for the power plant, which shut down Saturday after Israel closed the crossings.
That added to the misery at the height of the summer heat in the territory, which is under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade and suffers from a chronic power crisis that leaves residents with only a few hours of electricity a day.
Life for hundreds of thousands of Israelis was disrupted during the violence, even as the country's sophisticated Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted many of the rockets.
Israel launched its operation with a strike Friday on an Islamic Jihad commander, saying there were "concrete threats" of an anti-tank missile attack against Israelis in response to the arrest last week of a senior Islamic Jihad member in the occupied West Bank. That arrest came after months of Israeli raids in the West Bank following a spate of Palestinian attacks.
Israel killed another Islamic Jihad leader in a strike on Saturday.
Both sides boasted of their successes. Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Sunday, Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah said the militant group remained strong, despite losing two commanders. "This is a victory for Islamic Jihad," he said.
Despite that claim, the group undoubtedly sustained a blow. Beyond losing the two leaders, it reduced its arsenal by firing hundreds of rockets.
Israel said some of the deaths in Gaza were caused by errant militant rocket fire, including in the Jebaliya refugee camp, where seven Palestinians were killed Saturday. The army said the deaths of five Palestinians in Jebaliya were still under investigation, apparently referring to five children killed in an explosion in a cemetery on Sunday.
The ceasefire deal contained a promise that Egypt would work for the release of two senior Islamic Jihad detainees held by Israel. The weekend fighting is also bound to complicate Islamic Jihad's relations with Hamas.
In the occupied West Bank on Monday, Israeli troops demolished the homes of two Palestinians suspected of carrying out a deadly attack against Israelis in the city of Elad in May. The soldiers faced a violent protest during the operation, the military said.
The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Monday on the latest round of fighting.
"We underscore our commitment to do all we can towards ending the ongoing escalation, ensuring the safety and security of the civilian population, and following up on the Palestinian prisoners file," the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, said in a statement.
The Israeli army said militants in Gaza fired about 1,100 rockets toward Israel, with about 200 landing inside the Palestinian enclave. The army said its air defenses intercepted 380, including two fired toward Jerusalem. The military did not specify what happened to the remainder, but they most likely fell in open areas or broke up in flight.
Islamic Jihad has fewer fighters and supporters than Hamas, and little is known about its arsenal. Both groups call for Israel's destruction, but have different priorities, with Hamas constrained by the demands of governing.
Over the past year, Israel and Hamas have reached tacit understandings based on trading calm for work permits and a slight easing of the border blockade, imposed by Israel and Egypt when Hamas overran the territory 15 years ago. Israel has issued 12,000 work permits to Gaza laborers and has held out the prospect of 2,000 more.
------
Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.