Have you missed the news a bit in the last two days? We summarize the main news for Saturday November 4 and Sunday November 5.
• Israel-Hamas: refugee camp bombed, calls for “humanitarian truce” and protests
Forty-five people, mostly children and women, were killed and around 100 others injured in an Israeli bombardment on Saturday evening against the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, according to the health ministry of the Gaza Strip, administered by Hamas.
Earlier on Saturday, a bombing hit a UN school sheltering displaced people in a refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, causing several casualties, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The Gaza Strip’s health ministry said fifteen people were killed in the bombing, which it also blamed on the IDF.
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called on Sunday for an “immediate, lasting and sustained humanitarian truce[, which] is absolutely necessary and [which] must be able to lead to a ceasefire,” following of a meeting in Doha with his Qatari counterpart, Mohammed Ben Abderrahmane Al Thani. She stressed that France was working to have a text to this effect adopted by the UN Security Council, which has been very divided on the subject since the start of the war. American President Joe Biden reported on Saturday progress in obtaining a humanitarian pause, an option currently rejected by Israel, which rules out this option without releasing the hostages held by Hamas.
For his part, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas linked a return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza at the end of the war between Israel and Hamas, mentioned by Washington, to a “political settlement” also including the West Bank and Occupied East Jerusalem.
Several peace demonstrations took place in France and around the world during the weekend. On Sunday in Marseille, 2,700 people marched in support of the Palestinian people, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, according to the police headquarters. On Saturday, in Paris, a procession of 19,000 people, according to the police, marched to demand an end to the bombings on Gaza. Around forty other gatherings had been announced throughout France. They brought together 5,000 people in Lyon and 1,500 in Strasbourg. Demonstrations also took place in Washington, London, Berlin and Tehran.
• Europe’s Jews ‘live in fear again,’ warns European Commission
Tags, attacks, demonstrations, desecration… the European Commission condemned on Sunday the “resurgence” of anti-Semitic acts since the outbreak of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, and is concerned about what “the Jews of Europe are experiencing today in fear again.” “The surge in anti-Semitic incidents across Europe in recent days has reached exceptionally high levels, reminiscent of some of the darkest periods in history,” denounces the European executive.
“In these difficult times, the EU stands with its Jewish communities. We condemn these despicable acts in the strongest possible terms. They go against everything that Europe stands for, our fundamental values, our way of life.” These acts are contrary to “the [European] model of society based on equality, inclusion and full respect for human rights”, underlines the European executive.
The Paris police chief, Laurent Nuñez, announced that there had been 257 anti-Semitic acts in the Paris metropolitan area and 90 arrests, out of 857 recorded throughout the country, since October 7, the start of the conflict between Hamas and Israel, “more than in an entire year.”
• After the Ciaran storm, the Domingos depression
A succession of storms in France, with a growing toll: an Enedis employee mobilized after storm Ciaran died of electrocution on Saturday evening in Brittany, while another depression, called Domingos, caused new damage to the facade Atlantic.
This storm caused extensive damage to the railway network in New Aquitaine and caused delays for two trains on the Paris-Orléans-Limoges-Toulouse (POLT) line, whose passengers had to spend the night at Brive station. “The signaling installations between Bordeaux and Hendaye were also heavily damaged,” according to SNCF.
The death by electrocution of a 46-year-old agent brings the death toll in France to at least three after the passage between Wednesday and Thursday of Ciaran, which also left forty-seven people injured. Domingos, presented as “less severe” but accompanied by very violent winds of up to 152 km/h in Gironde or 144 km/h in Charente, left five people injured.
• For Zelensky, the war with Russia is not at a “stalemate”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday disputed that his country’s war with Russia was at a “stalemate,” also denying any pressure from Western countries to begin negotiations with Russia.
His comments come after the chief of staff of the Ukrainian army, Valery Zaluzhny, claimed this week that the Russian and Ukrainian armies were trapped in a war of attrition and positions. “Just like in the First World War, we have reached a technological level such that we find ourselves in an impasse,” he told the British weekly. “There will probably be no magnificent and profound breakthrough,” he added, dashing the hopes of the Ukrainian counter-offensive launched at the beginning of June.
“No, the conflict is not at an impasse,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov had already reacted to journalists, affirming that “Russia [was] relentlessly continuing its special military operation” and that “all the objectives set [had] to be achieved.”
• Ethiopian Tamirat Tola wins New York marathon in less than 2 hours 5 minutes; Kenyan Hellen Obiri in 2 h 27 min
Ethiopian Tamirat Tola won the New York marathon on Sunday in 2 hours 4 minutes 58 seconds, a new American race record. Starting with the best time of the entrants after the withdrawals of the Kenyan favorites Evans Chebet and Geoffrey Kamworor, he took the lead to complete the second part of the race alone in the lead. He finished ahead of Kenyan Albert Korir (at 1:59), winner in New York in 2021, and Ethiopian Shura Kitata (at 2:13). Tola also beats the record for the most famous marathon in the world, which had stood since 2011.
On the women’s side, Kenyan Hellen Obiri won the last major marathon of the year, in 2:27:23. The women started off very slowly before suddenly accelerating at the 35th kilometer and it was finally Obiri who sprinted ahead of the Ethiopian Letesenbet Gidey (at 6 s) and the Kenyan Sharon Lokedi (at 10 s), who won in New York last year.
At 33, Obiri achieved his second marathon victory this year, a year after his debut in the distance and seven months after his victory in the Boston Marathon.
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