At least 35 killed, 200 injured in bomb blast at JUI-F convention in Pakistan

News Network
July 30, 2023

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Islamabad, July 30: At least 35 people were killed and around 200 others injured on Sunday when a powerful bomb exploded at a Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) convention in a restive tribal district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province bordering Afghanistan.

KP caretaker Information Minister Firoz Shah Jamal confirmed the death toll and number of injuries in an interview with Geo News. On the other hand, AFP put the death toll at 35.

Jamal said hospitals across Bajaur and neighbouring areas had been put on high alert. “We are trying to move critical patients to Peshawar and other hospitals through helicopters.”

“Our utmost priority right now is to provide medical treatment to the injured. The blast site has been cordoned off. Pakistan Army and other institutions are assisting us in the operation,” Jamal added.

Meanwhile, Bajaur District Emergency Officer Saad Khan said that Maulana Ziaullah Jan, JUI-F amir in Khar tehsil, also passed away in the blast.

Separately, Bajaur District Health Officer Faisal Kamal said more than 150 injured people had been brought to the Bajaur District Headquarters Hospital while those in critical condition were being moved to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) in Peshawar.

Dawn.com’s correspondent, who was present at the blast site, said a local journalist was among those injured.

In a statement issued later in the day, KP Governor Haji Ghulam Ali said a helicopter had been sent to Bajaur for the transfer of injured people.

Footage of the site showed panic-stricken people gathering following the blast as ambulances arrived to move the injured to hospitals. Afterwards, a large police contingent cordoned off the area.

Rahim Shah, a witness, said that more than 500 people were attending the convention when the blast occurred. “We were listening to a bayan when a powerful explosion knocked me unconscious,” he said.

Shah narrated that when he regained consciousness, there was blood everywhere. “People were screaming and even shots were fired,” he added.

Condemnations

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, in a statement issued by the party’s media cell, expressed grief over the incident. He sought an inquiry into the attack from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the KP government.

“May Allah raise the ranks of martyrs,” Rehman said and prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured.

He also appealed to JUI-F workers to immediately reach hospitals and provide blood donations.

Earlier, JUI-F leader Hafiz Hamdullah said he was supposed to attend the convention today but could not because of some personal commitments.

“I strongly condemn the blast and want to give a message to the people behind it that this is not jihad but terrorism,” the JUI-F leader said while speaking to Geo News.

He asserted that today’s incident was an attack on humanity and Bajaur.

Hamdullah demanded that the blast should be probed, recalling that this was not the first that the JUI-F had been targetted. “This has happened before […] our workers have been targetted. We raised our voice over this in the Parliament but no action was taken.”

He also extended his condolences to grieving families and urged the provincial government to provide the best medical facilities to the injured.

In a statement on the PPP Media Cell, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari condemned the blast and extended condolences to the bereaved.

“The federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments should bring the patrons of terrorists to justice,” he said, stressing that terrorists and their planners should be eliminated.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari said terrorists were everyone’s enemies. “Like Swat, the entire country needs to be cleansed of the nurseries of terrorism,” he stated.

Jamaat-e-Islami Senator Mushtaq Ahmed also condemned the blast and extended his condolences over the deaths.

“The federal and provincial governments, forces, intelligence agencies and civil administration have completely failed to protect the people,” he tweeted.

“The return of terrorism proves that the government’s security plan/policy has failed and tribal districts of KP are in the middle of this fire,” the JI senator said and demanded that a joint in-camera session of the Parliament should be called to address the issue of rising terrorism.

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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News Network
November 13,2024

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Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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News Network
November 18,2024

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Mangaluru: The Ullal police have arrested Manohar, the owner of Vazco Beach Resort, and its manager Bharath in connection with the drowning of three college girls from Mysuru at the resort’s swimming pool on November 17.

City Commissioner of Police Anupam Agrawal confirmed the arrests, stating that a case has been registered under Section 106 of BNS. The bodies of the victims, all in their twenties, have been handed over to their parents. The women had arrived at the resort for a weekend getaway on November 16.

Following the tragic incident, the resort was sealed by officials led by Mangaluru Assistant Commissioner Harshavardhan. The trade license of the resort, issued on June 13, 2024, has been suspended, and the tourism department has temporarily revoked the resort's registration. These actions prohibit the resort from engaging in any tourism-related activities until further notice.

Someshwara TMC Chief Officer stated that the suspension was due to the resort's failure to implement adequate safety measures, which resulted in the loss of three lives. Further investigations are underway.

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