Post Reply - WAR

At least 71 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes that designated a humanitarian area in the Gaza Strip on July 13, in an attack which Israel says targeted the top leader of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas Movement. 

More than 289 people were also wounded as a result of the attack, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said in a statement.

The strikes hit the al-Mawasi area near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, which the Israeli military has designated as a humanitarian zone.

The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas Movement, released on July 12 video footage showing its fighters ambushing a unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

The complex ambush took place in the Tell al-Hawa neighborhood near Gaza City. In the footage, Hamas fighters are seen rigging two buildings with explosive devices then setting up a number of cameras to monitor the situation. Once Israeli troops entered the kill zone, the fighters blew up the two buildings.

Following the second blast, mortars were fired at Israeli troops as they were evacuating casualties from the scene of the ambush.

An agreement had been reached with Syria and Turkey to hold a meeting between officials from the two countries in Baghdad, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein announced on July 12.

“There is communication at the level of the Iraqi leadership with the Syrian and Turkish sides, and the date will be determined after returning to Baghdad,” Hussein said in a statement from Washington.

Earlier in the day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he had instructed Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “to start restoring relations between the two countries.

Erdogan also said that “Fidan was authorized to organize a meeting with President Assad in a third country,” without elaborating.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani revealed last May that his government was working on reconciliation between Turkey and Syria, reviving talks which were launched by Russia around two years earlier.

Later in June the talks saw a breakthrough when Assad told Russia’s Syria envoy, Alexander Lavrentyev, that “Syria welcomes” all reconciliation initiatives with Turkey.