Friday, April 12, 2024

1147GMT — Two TRT Arabi journalists have been injured in a fresh Israeli attack on Friday afternoon at the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza. Cameraperson Sami Shehadeh was grievously injured as doctors ended up amputating his right foot.

According to eyewitness accounts, the Israeli army targeted a group of journalists, including the TRT Arabic team, who were reporting at the Nuseirat refugee camp. Some journalists were injured after being hit by the tank fire.

TRT Arabi correspondent Sami Berhum and other journalists were also injured in the attack.

According to the Gaza Media Office, at least 140 journalists have lost their lives in Israeli attacks in Gaza.

The Israeli army announced yesterday that it had launched a “surprise military operation” in central Gaza, which led to the killings of many Palestinians.

TRT’s Director General Zahid Sobaci condemned the attack, describing it as a “brutality” with “no moral, legal or humanitarian limits.”

1054 GMT — France has issued a travel advisory to its citizens, urging them to refrain travelling to Iran, Lebanon, Israel or Palestinian territories, citing a potential military escalation in “the coming days”.

Paris has also called on the families of French diplomats to leave Iran as soon as possible, according to the statement issued by Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephane Sejourne.

2130 GMT — The United States has restricted movements of diplomats in Israel over security fears, the embassy said, as concerns mount of Iranian retaliation over an Israeli strike on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus that left seven Iranians dead.

“Out of an abundance of caution, US government employees and their family members are restricted from personal travel” outside the Tel Aviv, West Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva areas “until further notice,” an embassy notice said.

The “imperative for Iran” to retaliate for the attack on its embassy compound in Damascus might have been avoided had the UN Security Council condemned the strike, Tehran’s mission to the United Nations said on Thursday.

“Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated,” the mission said on the social media platform X.

Iran uses the term “Zionist regime” to refer to Israel which destroyed Tehran’s consulate building in Damascus on April 1.

More updates👇

2119 GMT — No Security Council ‘consensus’ on Palestinian UN membership: presidency

Members of the UN Security Council failed to reach a consensus on a bid by Palestinians for full UN membership, according to the body’s chair.

“There was no consensus” during a closed-door meeting, said Maltese Ambassador Vanessa Frazier, who holds the council’s rotating presidency for April.

2126 GMT — Israelis protest against Netanyahu in Tel Aviv

Protesters have again taken to the streets in Tel Aviv to demonstrate against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and call for the release of dozens of captives held in Gaza.

Demonstrators carried large photos of captives as well as signs with slogans, some in English and some in Hebrew.