Israel will not agree to a ceasefire even during talks on releasing the hostages held in the Gaza Strip, CNN reported quoting a senior Israeli official.
According to him, the ceasefire is not being considered even during the talks on releasing over 200 hostages because humanitarian efforts should not impact "the mission, which is to dismantle Hamas."
He also denied that the US is seeking a delay of Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza. "We deny this report. We have a close dialogue and consultations with the US administration. The US is not pressing Israel in regards to the ground operation," the official said.
Previously, CNN reported that Washington had been putting pressure on Israel to postpone its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and liberate the hostages held there.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told NBC that Israel should make an independent decision on launching a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip while Washington can only provide advice.
Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 when militants from the Gaza-based Palestinian radical group Hamas staged a surprise incursion into Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas described its attack as a response to the aggressive actions of Israeli authorities against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. In response, Israel has declared a state of war readiness; announced a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million Palestinians; and began delivering air strikes on the enclave and certain parts of Lebanon and Syria. Clashes are underway in the West Bank as well.
The 2S7 Malka is a self-propelled gun with a range of up to 37km, which is known for its precision and force. The 203mm howitzer is capable of destroying reinforced bunkers, fortified trenches and other heavily armored targets.
The Russian Ministry of Defense released footage of the combat work of the crews of 203mm Malka self-propelled artillery units.
Artillery units of the Zapad battle group continue to carry out fire missions to defeat Ukrainian artillery batteries, destroy defensive structures, suppress command posts, destroy enemy firepower, weapons and military equipment, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Target reconnaissance and artillery gun guidance are carried out by unmanned aerial vehicles during the day and night, the ministry added.
Russia Introducing Zippy Alabai All-Terrain Buggies to Special Op Zone
The buggies are joining a range of other highly mobile, nimble vehicles already on the frontlines taking part in missions ranging from tank hunting to troop transport and evacuation of the wounded.
Russian all-terrain vehicle manufacturer F-Motorsport is producing Alabai buggies for deployment in the special military operation zone.
The popular off-road vehicles, named after the Central Asian Shepherd breed of dogs, were first introduced in 2016, and have gained a reputation in Russia as a zippy, maneuverable, reliable, simple and affordable brand of buggies which can withstand difficult weather conditions in even highly remote, rural areas of the country.
The vehicles feature powerful motors and drive trains, with their 150 horsepower two-liter atmospheric engines enabling them to accelerate to up to 140 km per hour even in off-road conditions.
On the front, the Alabai’s missions include reconnaissance in otherwise impassable off-road conditions, with brackets for attachable 7.62 mm machine guns and AGS-30 grenade launchers turning them into light attack vehicles.
They can also be used as unarmored transports, sending soldiers to the front, delivering medical supplies, food and ammunition, and evacuating the wounded using an evacuation cart attached to the rear through a towbar. The Alabai has a reported carrying capacity of over 500 kilograms.
“This buggy is produced by a design bureau based near Moscow. We have received six of these vehicles, five of which are already in the area of the special military operation,” a representative of the All-Russian Popular Front, a political coalition created by Vladimir Putin in 2011, said.
The Popular Front has been fundraising for the purchase Alabai buggies on its website.
“The lightweight multipurpose Alabai appeared as a response to the realities of modern military operations, which require the mobility and maneuverability of vehicles with high impact capabilities. Specialists from Zubr SOBR [a Russian National Guard special police unit, ed.] have already tested this vehicle in the most difficult conditions,” F-Motorsport director Eduard Mymrin said.
Alabais join a range of other small, zippy vehicles that Russian forces previously deployed on the front, ranging from tank-hunting all-terrain utility vehicles equipped with anti-tank missile systems, to converted Niva 4x4s and UaZ SUVs and pickups, some of them operated by volunteers or Donbass People’s Militias.
The NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine has highlighted the importance of high mobility for troops, with the heavy saturation of drones, missiles other weapons on the frontlines, combined with advanced reconnaissance capabilities, meaning the difference between victory and defeat in battle can literally come down to which side’s troops, tanks and other equipment are faster on the draw and in maneuvers.
America is sleepwalking into a new global conflict because President Joe Biden has no idea where he is steering the country, his predecessor Donald Trump has said.
Writing on Truth Social on Saturday, the 45th US president stated that “we are heading to World War III because of grossly incompetent leadership, headed by a President that doesn’t have a clue.”
However, Trump mockingly praised Biden for joining Truth Social, a right-wing platform that he founded after he was banned on Facebook and Twitter (now known as X) in 2021 following the attack on the US Capitol in Washington. “Congratulations Joe, at least, on that!” he quipped.
The Biden presidential campaign opened a Truth Social account called Biden-Harris HQ with a banner image reading “Malarkey ends here” earlier this week. Writing on X, the president’s team said they did that “mostly because we thought it would be very funny.”
“Well. Let’s see how this goes. Converts welcome!” the campaign wrote in its first post on the platform.
Trump, who is considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, has repeatedly criticized Biden over his foreign policy decisions, most notably on Ukraine, warning that arms shipments to Kiev could trigger a global conflict.
Earlier this year, the ex-US president also suggested that if he “were president, the Russia/Ukraine war would never have happened.” He also argued that even if it did, he “would be able to negotiate an end to this horrible and rapidly escalating war within 24 hours.”
Commenting on these remarks, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that Trump was “not far away from the truth” in the sense that the US, which emerged as Kiev’s key backer, could have quickly put an end to the conflict.
The first trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip began to enter the exclave from Egypt through the Rafah border crossing, the Al-Arabiya broadcaster reported on Saturday.
The trucks are delivering medical supplies among other things, according to the report.
On Friday, Sputnik correspondent reported that about 200 trucks with humanitarian aid were waiting to cross into the Gaza Strip .
The United Nations said the 20-truck convoy included life-saving supplies that would be received by the Palestinian Red Crescent, but the aid was a fraction of the quantity needed and it was unclear how much aid will be allowed to pass in coming days.
Rafah is the main route in and out of the Gaza Strip that is not controlled by Israel, and the focus of efforts to deliver relief to Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
U.N. officials say at least 100 trucks a day are required in Gaza to cover urgent needs, and that any delivery of aid should be sustained and at scale. Before the outbreak of conflict, an average of about 450 aid trucks were arriving there daily.
"The humanitarian situation in Gaza – already precarious – has reached catastrophic levels," U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said in a statement.
"I am confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies – including food, water, medicine and fuel," he said.
Israel imposed a total blockade and launched air strikes on Gaza in response to a deadly attack on Israeli soil by Hamas on Oct. 7. The Rafah crossing has been out of operation since shortly afterwards, and bombardments on the Gaza side damaged roads and buildings that needed repairs.
The U.N. has warned that food has been running out in Gaza and supplies of fuel needed to keep hospital back-up generators running have reached dangerously low levels.
Israel has said it will allow no aid to enter from its territory until Hamas releases the hostages it took during its attack, and that aid can enter through Egypt as long as it does not end up in the hands of Hamas.
International donors have been flying aid into Al Arish, about 45 km (28 miles) west of Rafah in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
No large-scale relief effort has been operated from Egypt during previous conflicts in Gaza, when aid passed through the Kerem Shalom crossing, controlled by Israel.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that aid entering Gaza did not include fuel and would only go to southern areas of the enclave, where Israel has urged civilians to congregate.
Many of Gaza's residents have crammed into southern areas to avoid air strikes in the north, though they also say that nowhere in the territory is safe.
"We have upped the logistical and operational abilities of the Red Crescent by adding more volunteers and cars. We have rented storages in Khan Younis and Rafah," said Mahmoud Abu Atta, of the Palestinian Red Crescent, as he entered the Rafah Crossing to receive aid.
Western states have been pushing to evacuate foreign passport holders from Gaza and the U.S. Embassy in Israel said any border opening on Saturday could enable foreigners to leave the territory.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the border on Friday in a push to get the aid in, saying a mechanism for inspection of the aid demanded by Israel was still being worked out and that delivery of relief should not be tied to the release of hostages or evacuation of foreigners.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refused to hold a phone call with US President Joe Biden during the latter’s visit to Israel on Wednesday, Israeli state media reported on Friday.
Citing a Palestinian source in the West Bank, the Kan news agency said that Biden’s team had attempted to arrange a conversation between the leaders, but Abbas rejected the request.
Biden and Abbas did speak by phone on Saturday, with the US president pledging to support efforts to “bring urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people,” according to a readout of the call provided by the White House.
The two leaders were set to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Jordan on Wednesday. However, the summit was canceled by the Jordanian side after a deadly explosion at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital hospital in Gaza the night before.
The Israelis and Palestinians blamed each other for the blast, which the Palestinian Health Ministry claimed killed around 500 people. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi sided with the Palestinians, accusing Israel of attacking the hospital in what he called “a heinous war crime.”
With the summit scrapped, Biden spent Wednesday in Israel, where he publicly endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that the hospital was hit by a wayward Palestinian rocket.
Egypt will host a summit in Cairo on Saturday to address the ongoing war. Abbas is expected to attend, along with multiple Gulf and European leaders, and representatives from the EU. American and Israeli officials will not attend the gathering.
Lavrov explains how truth about Gaza hospital strike can be established
The US could publish satellite images of Gaza taken during a deadly strike on one of its hospitals, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday. The high-profile tragedy that took place earlier this week saw Palestinian militant groups and the Israeli military trading blame for the incident. America could clear this situation up if it wanted to, the Russian diplomat believes.
“Now, when everyone is talking about the Gaza tragedy, in which a hospital was attacked and hundreds of people died … one could ask the Americans for the satellite data,” Lavrov told Russia 1, adding that Washington “must surely be monitoring this area with its satellites.”
“An attack like this could not have gone unnoticed,” the minister said, adding that a goodwill move on the part of the US could make the world a “calmer place.” Lavrov criticized US officials for focusing their attention on Moscow’s dealings with Pyongyang instead.
Earlier this week, US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby claimed that North Korea had supposedly sent around 1,000 containers of “equipment and munitions” to Russia between early September and early October.
A London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank published what it called satellite images allegedly proving Russia had received munitions from North Korea. According to RUSI, the photos were specifically taken by a US-based private company, Planet Labs, which owns a fleet of satellites equipped with powerful telescopes and cameras.
The same company pictured the Israeli heavy equipment deployed to Gaza’s northern border, according to several media reports published this week. AP reported on Friday that another US-based company, Maxar Technologies, had taken satellite images of the aftermath of the Israeli strikes on Gaza.
Iran’s Tasnim news outlet claimed in its exclusive report on Tuesday that the US and France had been helping the Israeli military by providing imagery taken by a total of 27 satellites monitoring Gaza from the early stages of West Jerusalem’s operation against Hamas.
The strike on the hospital in question took place late on Tuesday and killed around 500 people, according to Gaza health officials. Many Muslim nations, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Türkiye, and Jordan, have blamed the Israeli military for bombing the health facility.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has strongly denied responsibility, claiming the strike came from a failed rocket launched by Islamic Jihad. Washington supported West Jerusalem by also blaming Palestinian militants.
Russia has demanded a thorough and impartial investigation that would bring all those responsible to justice.
