التصنيف: جديد

واس – واشنطن – القدس المحتلة:

رفضت الولايات المتحدة التصريحات الأخيرة الصادرة عن وزيرين من حكومة الاحتلال الإسرائيلية بتسلإيل سموتريش، وإيتمار بن غفير، والداعية إلى إعادة توطين الفلسطينيين خارج قطاع غزة.

وقال المتحدث باسم وزارة الخارجية الأمريكية ماثيو ميلر: إن هذه تصريحات تحريضية وغير مسؤولة، وقد أعربت لنا الحكومة الإسرائيلية -بما في ذلك على لسان رئيسها- مراراً وتكراراً، وبشكل متسق، أن هذه التصريحات لا تعكس سياسة الحكومة، وينبغي الكف عن الإدلاء بأي تصريحات مماثلة بشكل فوري. وأضاف: موقفنا واضح ومتسق، ولا لبس فيه إزاء، أن قطاع غزة هو أرض فلسطينية وسيبقى كذلك، هذا هو المستقبل الذي نسعى إلى تحقيقه بما فيه صالح الإسرائيليين والفلسطينيين والمنطقة المجاورة والعالم.

من جهة أخرى، قالت وزارة الصحة الفلسطينية: إن عدد القتلى جراء العدوان الإسرائيلي المستمر على قطاع غزة لليوم الـ89 على التوالي، ارتفع إلى 22313 قتيلاً، و57296 جريحًا. وأشارت إلى أن 128 فلسطينيًّا قتلوا، وأصيب 260 بجروح، خلال الساعات الـ24 الماضية، في عمليات القصف على خان يونس، ورفح، والنصيرات، والمغازي، وسط وجنوب قطاع غزة.

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since the conflict began in February 2022.

Ukrainian authorities said 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months on Wednesday.

Russia’s defence ministry said 248 Russian servicemen have been freed on the same day under the deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked the “warriors on the frontline who take the occupiers prisoner and replenish our exchange fund”.

He added: “The more Russians we take prisoner, the more effective negotiations on exchanges will be.”

The UAE’s foreign ministry attributed the swap on Wednesday to the “strong friendly relations between the UAE and both the Russian Federation and the Republic of Ukraine, which were supported by sustained calls at the highest levels”.

Follow latest: Live updates from the Ukraine war

The UAE has maintained close economic ties with Moscow despite Western sanctions and pressure on Russia after it launched its invasion.

Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said it was the 49th prisoner exchange during the war.

Some of the Ukrainians had been held since 2022. Among them were some of those who fought in milestone battles for Ukraine’s Snake Island and the city of Mariupol.

Russian officials offered no other details of the exchange.

The Russian military meanwhile said it had shot down 12 Ukrainian missiles over Russia’s southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the situation in the regional capital, also called Belgorod, “remains tense”.

The city came under two rounds of shelling on Wednesday, he wrote on Telegram.

“Air defence systems worked,” he said, promising more details about possible damage after inspecting the area later in the day.

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Belgorod, which has a population of around 340,000 people, is the biggest Russian city close to the Ukrainian border. It can be reached by relatively simple and movable weapons such as multiple rocket launchers.

On Saturday, shelling in Belgorod killed more than two dozen people.

The attack was one of the deadliest on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

On Monday, Mr Putin lashed out at the Belgorod attacks.

“They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country,” he said, promising to step up retaliatory strikes.

Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for strikes on Russian territory.

The pilot of a helicopter that crashed and killed a British couple in Australia had cocaine in his system, a report has found.

Ron Hughes, 65, and his wife Diane, 57, were on a sightseeing trip near Sea World in Queensland when their helicopter crashed midair with another on 2 January 2023.

The couple from Cheshire died at the scene, as did fellow passenger Vanessa Tadros, 36, from New South Wales, and pilot Ashley Jenkinson, 40.

A year on from the accident, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has released an interim report that notes a toxicology report for Mr Jenkinson shows a positive result for cocaine metabolites.

However, the report concludes that the “very low concentrations” means it was “unlikely” that this would have impaired his flying ability.

Chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said the metabolite levels suggest “exposure was not likely to have occurred in the 24 hours prior to the accident”.

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He added: “It is important to note while this is a substantive and comprehensive interim report, the ATSB is yet to make formal findings as to the contributing factors that led to this accident as we are continuing our analysis of that evidence.”

Mr Jenkinson’s family has welcomed the interim report, according to local media, but asked those who knew him to not let it “tarnish the memory” of the pilot.

They are also urging people to read the full report which found “multiple contributing factors to this terrible accident”.

The ATSB investigation has also found some of the passengers’ seatbelts were not fitted correctly, partly due to “interference from their lifejackets”.

Mr Mitchell said this was “not attributed to the tragic outcomes in this case”.

The crash saw two Eurocopter EC130 helicopters collide midair as one was on approach to land and another had just taken off from a separate helipad.