RT News - November 04 2023 LATE (with live updates)

Numbers update : Head of Gaza’s media office Salama Maarouf said at least 9,500 Palestinians have been killed since October 7, including 3,900 children. “These numbers mean … every 10 minutes, one child is killed”
He reported 24,158 injuries. Day 29

Disturbing images in video. Day "as it happened" below video description

Deadly earthquake in Nepal - report below updates.

In Gaza city an Israeli airstrike has killed two and wounded others near the children's hospital. An airstrike near another hospital, targeting ambulances 15 civilians were killed and 60 wounded. The IDF said it was targeting HAMAS

Gaza's main hospital is out of fuel entirely and is relying on back-up systems. A doctor (Ashraf Al-Qedra) says a catastrophe is on the horizon.

PM Netanyahu says Israel will not entertain a truce/ceasefire and will not allow fuel into Gaza, stating that there is fuel in the tunnels. PM Netanyahu also said he will not allow money to be transferred to Gaza.

People are still stuck at the Gaza/Egyptian border at Rafah, trying to leave. RT talks to some of waiting people and to a doctor from the Nasser hospital. Some wounded people have been allowed to cross the border via ambulances to hospitals in Egypt but thousands await treatment in Gaza.
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The UN reports 1.5 million Gazans are now displaced with nearly 600,000 staying in shelters. People who have decided to stay in their homes talk to RT.
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Amir Oren, a political analyst says Israel has two war aims; one is to get to the leader of HAMAS, capture or assassinate him and dismantle the HAMAS government in Gaza.
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In Israel protests continue to return the hostages captured on 7th October. Maria Finoshina reports from Tel-Aviv.
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In USA citizens could become traumatised from watching reports of the news re Gaza. Rachel Marsden gives commentary.
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King Charles of Britain has been visiting Kenya where people are demanding reparations long overdue from British colonial rule and the associated atrocities/massacres. Omondi Otieno reports. Local citizens tell of the struggles and pain of getting independence and the costs in human life. Bradley Ouna from a citizens group "Concern Citizens Kenya" says the King isn't welcome.
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In Donetsk, kids are learning life-skills to help with the effects of the proxy war, including first aid. Since the start of the conflict, 231 Donetsk children have been killed by Ukraine's bombing. Roman Kosarev reports and talks to the kids.
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Pres. Putin laid flowers at the monument Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square for National Unity Day. https://sputnikglobe.com/20231104/putin-lays-flowers-at-monument-to-minin-pozharsky-to-mark-russias-day-of-national-unity-1114712346.html
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Short take: The largest hospital in Gaza is on the brink of completely running out of fuel. It follows a deadly Israeli strike near the facility, with Benjamin Netanyahu saying none of the crucial energy supplies will be allowed in. The so-called National Day of the fight against Global Arrogance brings thousands out to streets of Iran to mark the takeover of the US embassy in 1979, as locals mark the occasion with solidarity of those in Palestine. In light of the British King's trip to Kenya this week, a member of the African country's parliament demands compensation for what's being called colonial crimes. We hear from locals who experienced them first hand.

=========== UPDATES "as they happened"

04 November 2023

20:55 GMT
More than 60 hostages are missing as a result of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades has said. Obeida added that the bodies of 23 Israeli hostages are trapped under rubble.

“It seems that we will never be able to reach them due to the continued brutal aggression of the occupation against Gaza,” he said.

Hamas fighters took around 240 hostages during their assault on Israel, according to the IDF. Five have been freed with the help of Qatari mediators, although Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on Saturday that Israel’s continued bombing of Gaza “complicates securing their release.”

20:08 GMT
Israeli forces will find Hamas’ Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, “and eliminate him,” Defense MInister Yoav Gallant said on Saturday. Gallant added that “if the residents of Gaza get there ahead of us, that will shorten the war.”

The IDF claimed on Friday that its air and ground forces have killed 10 Hamas field commanders since the war began, while several members of the organization’s political bureau have died in Israeli airstrikes.

19:57 GMT
The Pentagon has announced that a second US aircraft carrier group has arrived in the Mediterranean. The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group consists of the eponymous carrier, two guided missile destroyers and a guided missile cruiser. Its deployment to the region follows that of the USS Gerald R. Ford, which was deployed immediately after Hamas’ attack on Israel.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that both carriers would “deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared on Friday that the American ships “do not and will never scare us,” and will “prove of no use” if the war expands and the Lebanese militants join the fight against Israel.

17:04 GMT
The Israeli airstrike on an ambulance convoy outside Gaza’s largest hospital on Friday was “a new low in an endless stream of unconscionable violence,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement. While the IDF claimed on Friday that one of the ambulances was being “used by a Hamas terrorist cell,” the Palestine Red Crescent Society said on Saturday that the vehicle had been carrying a 35-year-old woman with critical shrapnel wounds to her chest and leg. https://twitter.com/MSF_USA/status/1720840401614242057

16:53 GMT
Israel is committing “war crimes” in Gaza that will create “a sea of hatred that will define generations to come,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said after a meeting with his American and Egyptian counterparts, Antony Blinken and Sameh Shoukry.

Jordan has recognized Israel since 1994 and generally enjoys good relations with the Jewish state. However, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced earlier this week that it was recalling its ambassador to Israel in protest of what Safadi called “the Israeli war that is killing innocent people in Gaza.”

16:35 GMT
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Washington and Arab leaders agree that Hamas cannot be allowed to remain in control of Gaza.

Speaking after meeting the foreign ministers of Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Blinken broke with the Arabs by rejecting calls for a ceasefire, stating that such a decision by Israel would give Hamas militants time to regroup and rearm.

Blinken did not elaborate on how Gaza could be run after the conflict. However, he said earlier this week that the US and other countries are looking at "a variety of possible permutations" for the strip.

16:10 GMT
Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades have said that their fighters killed five Israeli soldiers in an assault on “a Zionist force holed up in a building northwest of Gaza City.” The IDF has not confirmed the Hamas claim, which if true, brings to 28 the number of Israelis killed since the IDF’s ground operation in the enclave began last weekend.

Counting the latest claims by Hamas, a total of 342 IDF troops have been killed since Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel on October 7.

13:45 GMT
Türkiye has decided to recall its ambassador from Tel Aviv for consultations, the Turkish Foreign Ministry has announced. It explained the move as a reaction to Israel’s “refusal of calls for a ceasefire and continuous and unhindered flow of humanitarian aid.”

Earlier in the day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is no longer someone we can talk to, we have crossed him out.” However, Erdogan stressed that Türkiye “is ready to act as a guarantor country for Gaza” once the fighting between Israel and Hamas ends.

10:10 GMT
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat has slammed Honduras for recalling its ambassador from the country, saying that by making the move the government in Tegucigalpa “ignores Israel’s right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorist organization, which is worse than ISIS (Islamic State, IS).”

The fight against Hamas will continue until the Palestinian armed group is “eliminated from the Gaza Strip,” Haiat reiterated. Israel expects Honduras “not to take decisions that provide support to Hamas’ terrorism” and condemn the group’s actions, he stressed.

Honduras is the latest in a number of Latin American countries to recall their envoys from Israel over what Tegucigalpa called the “serious humanitarian situation suffered by the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip” amid IDF attacks.

08:09 GMT
Hamas has claimed that Israel allows itself to perpetrate “a heinous crime every single hour” in Gaza because it knows it has the backing of Washington. “We hold the US administration and President Biden himself fully responsible for this series of massacres following his open support that emboldened Israel and gave it the green light to commit a genocidal war against our vulnerable people in the besieged enclave,” the Palestinian group said in a statement on Telegram.

The accusations followed an alleged Israeli strike on the UN-affiliated Osama bin Zaid School. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, at least 20 people were killed in the attack on the school, which currently hosts displaced Palestinian civilians.

04:34 GMT
French lawyer Francois Zimeray said on Friday that he was filing a genocide and war crimes complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on behalf of nine families of the victims of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. He also asked the ICC prosecutor to consider issuing an arrest warrant on Hamas leaders.

“The complaint states that the Hamas terrorists do not deny the crimes committed, which they have amply documented and broadcast, and that the … facts cannot therefore be disputed,” Zimeray said in a statement carried by Al Jazeera.

03:45 GMT
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Jordan on Friday evening. He will meet with Palestinian officials and the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE on Saturday.

The Arab states will reiterate the call for “an immediate ceasefire, delivering humanitarian aid and [finding] ways of ending the dangerous deterioration that threatens the security of the region,” the Jordanian Foreign Ministry said.

US President Joe Biden was due to attend a meeting with Palestinian and Arab officials in Amman on October 18. However, the event was abruptly cancelled following an explosion outside the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, for which the IDF and Hamas blamed each other.

03:30 GMT
The US asked Israel for an explanation of its first strike on the Jabalia refugee camp, which took place on Tuesday, according to Politico magazine. The report said that Washington urged its ally to “do more to avoid civilian casualties.”

According to the IDF, the strike eliminated a senior Hamas commander responsible for the planning of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel. Local doctors, meanwhile, said that the strike claimed the lives of more than 50 people

02:57 GMT
Tokyo will deliver $65 million in additional humanitarian aid to the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said during her trip to the Middle East on Friday.

“It is necessary for Israel and Palestine to be able to coexist peacefully in order to prevent the repeat of another tragic act of terrorism,” Kamikawa told reporters after visiting Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan.

01:57 GMT
Israel’s National Security Council issued a notice, recommending all citizens to re-evaluate “the necessity of foreign travel” and take extra precautions during trips abroad.

Officials cited the sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents overseas since Israel launched its retaliatory operation against Palestinians militants in Gaza. “Jewish communities, religious and community establishments (synagogues, Chabad centres, kosher restaurants and Israeli businesses), Israeli delegations, and airports with flights to and from Israel are key targets for protests and attacks by anti-Semitic groups,” the government said.

====== NEPAL EARTHQUAKE =======

This was reported on the early RT video news post

4 Nov, 2023 04:19

Over 140 people killed by earthquake in Nepal
The death toll is rising after a 6.4-magnitude quake struck the Himalayan country late Friday

At least 140 people have been killed and over 140 others injured after a 6.4-magnitude earthquake hit a remote pocket of Nepal, officials said on Saturday.

The epicentre of the quake, according to the National Earthquake Monitoring & Research Centre of Nepal, was recorded near the village of Ramidanda in the Jajarkot district, 500km (300 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu. Tremors were also felt in parts of northern India, including the capital, New Delhi.

Several urban centers in Nepal, including Bheri, Nalgad, Kushe, Barekot, and Chedagad, were hit particularly hard, ANI news agency reported. Chief District Officer Suresh Sunar said that all security forces in the district have been mobilized for search and rescue work.

Nepal’s prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, expressed his condolences over the loss of life, his office said. He mobilized all of the country’s security agencies for the immediate rescue and relief of the injured. On Saturday morning, he headed to the site of the incident.
https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1720629946140287124

The prime minister flew to the area with a 16-member army medical team to oversee search, rescue and relief, his office said. It also appealed to political parties, social workers and the public to donate funds to help arrange food, water, clothes and tents for the survivors. Rescue work has been slowed due to weather conditions, as emergency teams must first clear roads blocked by landslides in many places, Reuters reported. According to local journalist Saurabh Sharma, the Nepalese army has been deployed to airlift the injured to Kathmandu for treatment.
https://twitter.com/saurabhsherry/status/1720738521894580707

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday morning to express his grief over the disaster. “Deeply saddened by loss of lives and damage due to the earthquake in Nepal. India stands in solidarity with the people of Nepal and is ready to extend all possible assistance. Our thoughts are with the bereaved families and we wish the injured a quick recovery,” he wrote.

Nepal is particularly prone to earthquakes as it lies on the ridge between the Indian and the Eurasian tectonic plates, which are constantly shifting.

The country was hit by a devastating 7.8-magnitude quake in 2015, killing nearly 9,000 people and destroying more than half a million homes. Last year, six people died after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake struck Doti district, near Jajarkot.
https://www.rt.com/news/586551-massive-earthquake-nepal-death-toll/
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