January 23, 2024

At least four people have been killed and 11 wounded in an attack on Ukraine’s second largest of Kharkiv that destroyed a section of a multistorey residential building, officials say. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine says one person has been killed and another wounded in a Russian missile strike on Dnipropetrovsk region’s Pavlohrad city, while an attack on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, injured 20. Japan, US agree to maintain sanctions on Russia and support Ukraine Japan and the United States have said they will continue to work with each other in maintaining the sanctions against Russia and supporting Ukraine in line with an agreement the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations reached last year. The statements came during an hourlong meeting between visiting US Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo and Japan’s Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Masato Kanda. The G7, comprising Japan, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and the European Union, had pledged in May to restrict exports to Russia that could fund its war effort in Ukraine. Japan chaired the group in 2023. Click here to share on social media Living in peace with Russia in Ukrainians’ interest: Patriarch Kirill Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, who is seen as an ally of President Vladimir Putin, says attempts by “cynical political strategists” to drive a wedge into relations between the fraternal peoples of Russia and Ukraine “will be assessed in the court of world history”. “Today it is becoming increasingly clear that it is in the interests of the people of Ukraine to live in peace with Russia, to share a common history, culture and faith with it,” he said. The head of the Russian church was speaking at the Christmas parliamentary meetings in the Federation Council. He referred to Ukraine as “Little Russia”. Click here to share on social media EU to allow wider measures to control Ukraine grain imports The European Commission is looking into ways of allowing eastern EU member states to restrict farm imports from Ukraine as it extends trade liberalisation with Kyiv for a further year to June 2025. The EU has suspended import duties, quotas and trade defence measures for imports from Ukraine since June 2022 to support its economy after Russia’s invasion. However, cheap Ukrainian grain exports have sparked protests by governments, farmers and truckers in neighbouring countries such as Poland and Hungary. EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said the commission was about to present a proposal for the new period to June 2025, taking into account the sensitivities of farm sectors in eastern member states of the bloc. Click here to share on social media Russia does not hit civilians, unlike Ukraine: Kremlin spokesperson claims The Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and Kharkiv cannot be considered a response to “the terrorist act” of the Ukrainian air attack on the Donetsk market, Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Our military does not hit social facilities and residential areas and does not hit civilians, unlike the Kyiv regime,” the Kremlin spokesperson claimed, adding that this was what fundamentally distinguished the Russian military from the Ukrainian military. Click here to share on social media Russia says missile strikes targeted weapons factories The strikes that reportedly killed civilians and destroyed residential homes across Ukraine targeted the facilities that produce missiles, ammunition and explosives, Russia’s Defence Ministry has claimed. “This morning, the Russian Armed Forces carried out a group strike with high-precision, long-range air and ground-based weapons on facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine that produce missiles and components for them, ammunition, as well as explosives,” the ministry said. “The goal of the strike was achieved. All designated facilities were hit,” it added. Click here to share on social media Russia begins installing air defence systems around St Petersburg: Report Russian authorities have begun installing S-300 air defence systems around St Petersburg, according to the independent Astra Press news outlet. The news comes five days after Ukrainian drones successfully struck military targets in the surrounding Leningrad Oblast. Astra Press reports cited a video filmed by St Petersburg residents who noticed the deployment of the S-300 air defence missile system in the region. The video posted on the Telegram channel of Astra Press appeared to show a vehicle carrying one of the systems obstructing a roadway while attempting to manoeuvre. Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/23/russia-ukraine-war-live-at-least-3-killed-in-attack-on-kyiv-kharkiv

Israel’s military announces its deadliest single day for troops since the Gaza ground invasion began with 24 soldiers killed. Doctors Without Borders reports staff in Nasser Hospital say they can feel the “ground shaking” as Israeli bombardments close in. The US and the UK launch new air attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen, hitting capital Sanaa and other areas. At least 25,490 people killed and 63,000 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel from the October 7 Hamas attack stands at 1,139. Israeli public so far shielded from the real cost of war Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London’s School of Security Studies, spoke to Al Jazeera about how Israelis might respond to news that their army suffered the most casualties in a single day since the Gaza ground invasion began. Here is a summary of what he said: The Israeli public has so far been shielded from the real cost of this war. The burden of warfare has been shifted by the Israeli military onto the civilian population in Gaza. What we see now is that as this war is coming to a stalemate, it seems the Israeli armed forces are extremely vulnerable to targeting. It also shows that Hamas has not been defeated. A single incident such as this in a fairly small country like Israel will have quite a lot of impact on the collective psyche of Israelis and put pressure on the government to bring this war to an end and potentially accelerate negotiations. Click here to share on social media Over half a million Palestinians face ‘catastrophic hunger’ The United Nations Relief Works and Agency (UNRWA) says that more than half a million people in Gaza face catastrophic hunger. In the northern part of the besieged enclave, very little aid has reached residents and displaced families there, who have begun to grind animal feed into flour. UNRWA pointed out that intense fighting, communications blackouts and access restrictions have hindered the organisation’s ability to “safely and effectively deliver aid”. Latest on Nasser Medical Complex The Health Ministry in Gaza has provided some updates on the situation at the Nasser Medical Complex as Khan Younis comes under intense Israeli bombardment. It warned that the hospital’s buildings are exposed to shrapnel, which endangers the lives of patients, medical staff and displaced Palestinians. The ministry called for an “urgent intervention” to protect both Nasser and El Amal City hospitals as well as the movement of ambulances, warning that the medical facilities were facing “extreme danger”. Click here to share on social media Risk of having pockets of famine in Gaza remains: WFP The UN’s food agency warns that “very little” food assistance has made it beyond the southern part of the bombarded and besieged territory since the start of the war. “It’s difficult to get into the places where we need to get to in Gaza, especially in northern Gaza,” said Abeer Etefa, the World Food Programme’s spokesperson for the Middle East. “The risk of having pockets of famine in Gaza is very much still there,” she added. Etefa noted that there was a “systematic limitation on getting into the north of Gaza, not just for the WFP”. “This is why we’re seeing people becoming more desperate and being impatient to wait for food distributions, because it’s very sporadic,” she said. “They don’t get it frequently, and they have no trust or confidence that these convoys will come again.” Healthcare system in Gaza is being destroyed: MSF Leo Cans, the head of mission for Palestine for Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), has spoken to Al Jazeera about the state of the healthcare system in the Gaza Strip. Here is a summary: About 20 percent of healthcare workers are still working in the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. Most of them have had to flee because they were scared for their and their families’ lives. This is a strategy that has been used by the Israeli military to scare people, to terrorise the healthcare workers for them to leave without having to shut down the hospital. Hospitals have closed across the southern Gaza Strip, but the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis is still operating but is close to the front line. To get treatment is extremely complicated. Normally, five, six or seven operations are needed to stabilise a patient, but medical staff cannot do them now. So usually they do the first one, but then all the postoperative care is not there. Many patients’ conditions deteriorate during their stays in the European and Nasser hospitals, including by infection and not having the proper care. Source:https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/1/23/israels-war-on-gaza-ground-shaking-in-hospital-amid-israeli-attacks