Israeli military says it killed Hamas fighter in widely seen Oct. 7 video – The Denver Post

By Associated Press

The Israeli military said it has killed a Hamas fighter seen in a viral Oct. 7 video drinking a Coke bottle in front of two children injured in a grenade attack that killed their father.

The military on Tuesday identified the militant as Ahmed Fozi Wadia, a Hamas commando battalion commander and member of a paragliding unit. It said Wadia flew into the Netiv HaAsara community on a paraglider before launching an attack on civilians.

In a video of the attack on the Taasa family home, shown to journalists, diplomats and lawmakers around the world by Israeli officials, Gil Taasa can be seen running to a shelter with his two sons as a grenade is thrown. Taasa jumps on the grenade and is killed, while his sons are wounded. The fighter, identified by the military as Wadia, stands over the wounded boys and drinks a Coke from their refrigerator.

The military said a plane struck a compound in Gaza City where Hamas militants were operating on Saturday, killing eight fighters, including Wadia.

The military said the compound that was hit was near Al-Ahli Hospital, but said the hospital itself was not hit. The Gaza Health Ministry reported the attack on the hospital compound on Saturday and said three people were killed.

Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in an Oct. 7 attack that started the Gaza war, which is now in its 11th month and has claimed more than 40,000 lives, according to Gaza health officials.

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A brawl among fans interrupts a football match

TEL AVIV, Israel — An Arab soccer team in Israel said Tuesday that a brawl at a soccer match earlier this week could set a “dangerous precedent” for racism in Israeli soccer.

Israeli police said on Sunday they had arrested 12 fans who stormed the soccer field and started fighting during the playing of the Israeli national anthem during a match in southern Israel.

According to media reports, some fans of Bnei Sakhnin, a team from an Arab city in northern Israel, turned away during the anthem. That prompted dozens of Beersheba fans to storm the pitch with sticks and start fights with rival fans.

The Bnei Sakhnin players left the pitch and refused to start the game, which was scheduled because the country was reeling from the killing of six hostages held for nearly 11 months in the Gaza Strip and an attack in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that killed three police officers that same morning.

Bnei Sakhnin president Muhammad Abu Younes said during a news conference Tuesday that security guards should have prevented fans from entering the pitch and that his team did not want to play in a tense atmosphere.

Both teams are expected to be penalized by the Israel Football Association.

Hapoel Beersheba owner Alona Barkat told reporters that she was not excusing the behavior of her team’s fans, but that Sunday was an especially tense day and “everyone’s hearts were broken.” She said fans expected everyone in the stadium to respect the Israeli anthem “at least as a minimum.”

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Netanyahu criticizes UK government’s decision to suspend some arms exports to Israel

TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday sharply criticized the British government’s decision to suspend some arms exports to Israel, saying there was a risk they could be used to violate international law.

In a thread on his English-language account on the social media platform X, Netanyahu called the move “shameful” and said it “will not change Israel’s determination to defeat Hamas.”

“With or without British weapons support, Israel will win this war,” he wrote.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government announced the suspension on Monday, a move that has limited military impact but is intended to increase pressure from Israel’s frustrated allies to end the war in Gaza.

The UK is one of many long-time Israeli allies whose governments have come under increasing pressure to halt arms exports due to the toll of the nearly 11-month conflict in Gaza. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its casualties.

British companies sell relatively few weapons and components to Israel compared to major suppliers such as the US and Germany. But Britain is one of Israel’s closest allies, so the decision carries some symbolic significance.

Israel says it is strictly following international law in its campaign against Hamas, which carried out an Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages that sparked the war.

WHO reports that in two days, the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has covered a quarter of the children vaccinated

GENEVA — The World Health Organization says Gaza’s “extremely complex” polio vaccination campaign has already reached more than a quarter of all children vaccinated in Gaza in its first two days.

Dr Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, said more than 161,000 children have been vaccinated out of 640,000 covered by the humanitarian break “for a specific area” – the first phase is currently underway in central Gaza.

“We have exceeded the estimated target,” he told reporters at a U.N. news conference in Geneva via video conference from Gaza. “So far, everything is going well… It’s only the third day. We have at least 10 more days to go.”

Peeperkorn said more than 500 teams had fanned out across Gaza as part of a campaign against the outbreak of vaccine-induced polio in Gaza. The WHO said Israel had agreed to limited pauses in fighting to facilitate the campaign.

Lufthansa to resume flights to Tel Aviv at the end of this week

BERLIN — German airline Lufthansa will resume flights to Tel Aviv, Israel, later this week. The company announced Tuesday that it will offer flights to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport from Thursday.

Flights to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, will remain suspended until September 30 for all airlines of the Lufthansa Group, which also includes Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings.

Flights to Amman, Jordan, and Erbil, Iraq, resumed on August 27.

At the beginning of last month, Lufthansa canceled all flights due to rising tensions in the region.

Originally published: September 3, 2024 at 1:52 AM