Around five launches were detected crossing from the southern Gaza Strip toward Israel, the Israeli army said. 

Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, has claimed responsibility for the attack, Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

A projectile landed in the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council area in southern Israel, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement, noting that no injuries were reported.

Kan reported that the rockets were launched from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, which has recently been the focus of a prolonged military operation by the Israeli army in response to rocket fire.

Al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack in a brief statement.

“We fired a barrage of rockets towards Gan Yavne and Ashdod in response to the massacres committed against the Palestinian people and resistance leaders,” the Brigades said.

Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Sunday that during the past 24 hours, the Israeli army killed 33 Palestinians and wounded 118 others, bringing the total death toll to 39,583 and injuries to 91,398 since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict escalated in October 2023. AGENCIES

Three members of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting a motorcycle in the village of Bayt Lif in southern Lebanon, Lebanese military and medical sources said.

According to a statement issued on Sunday by the Lebanese Health Ministry, the airstrike seriously injured two people and left a third with minor injuries, Xinhua news agency reported.

All three were transferred by a civil defence vehicle to Bint Jbeil Governmental Hospital in the border area.

On Sunday afternoon, Israeli drones and warplanes conducted 15 airstrikes across 10 villages and towns in the border area of southern Lebanon, and three towns and villages in the Jezzine area.

Meanwhile, Israeli artillery shelled 13 towns and villages in the border area with about 50 shells, causing damage to buildings and igniting several fires, according to Lebanese military sources.

Hezbollah’s military wing, the Islamic Resistance, claimed on Sunday to have attacked Israeli sites, including Al-Manara, Birkat Risha, and Ramyah.

Tensions are high in Lebanon following Israel’s attack on Dahieh in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which resulted in the death of a senior Hezbollah military commander, Fouad Shokor, and seven civilians.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has threatened a definite and painful response to the Israeli raid at the appropriate time and place.

Tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border escalated on October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets at Israel in solidarity with Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7. In response, Israel fired heavy artillery into southeastern Lebanon. AGENCIES

Two persons died and another went missing in a migrant boat accident which took place two days ago, off the eastern coast of southern Italy’s Sicily, according to the country’s Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said on Sunday that it received a distress call from a boat located about 17 miles southeast of Syracuse carrying migrants, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Coast Guard dispatched a patrol boat and plane to the area, but the occupants of the vessel ended up in the water as the patrol boat approached, it said in a statement.

Although 34 people were recovered from the water, one died upon arrival and another after reaching the hospital.

The search at sea for the missing person who was on board the vessel, which later sank, is currently underway, according to local media reports. AGENCIES

Australia’s official terror threat level has been raised from “possible” to “probable,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced.

Speaking at a press conference in Canberra, Albanese said that the National Security Committee (NSC) decided to raise the threat level after being briefed by the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) at a meeting on Monday morning, Xinhua news agency reported.

He said that the decision was driven by increases in youth radicalisation, online radicalisation and the rise of new mixed ideologies.

“I want to reassure Australians probable does not mean inevitable and it does not mean there is intelligence about an imminent threat or danger but the advice that we’ve received is that more Australians are embracing a more diverse range of extreme ideologies and it is our responsibility to be vigilant,” he said.

Mike Burgess, director-general of ASIO, said the agency has disrupted eight possible terror incidents since April and warned that attacks are likely to be perpetrated by individuals or small cells of terrorists using simple tactics and weapons in crowded public places.

“More Australians are willing to use violence to advance their cause. This includes violent protest, riots, and attack on a politician or democratic institutions,” he said at Monday’s press conference.

Burgess said that the ongoing conflict in Gaza was not the cause for raising the terror threat level but that it was a significant factor.

The terrorism threat level was lowered to “possible” in November 2022 — eight years after it was last raised to “probable” in 2014 during the emergence of Islamic State (IS). AGENCIES

More than 28,000 residents of northeast China’s Liaoning Province have been evacuated following a new round of torrential rains, with water levels of six rivers exceeding warning levels.

Downpours battered many parts of the province from 7 a.m. Sunday to 7 a.m. Monday, with the largest hourly rainfall reaching 81.9 mm in Xinglongtai District in the city of Panjin. The province’s average precipitation reached 25.4 mm during the 24 hours, Xinhua news agency reported.

To cope with this latest round of rainstorms, eight out of the province’s 14 prefectural-level cities activated Level III or Level IV emergency responses for flood control, including the provincial capital Shenyang, where a Level-III emergency response was issued, according to the provincial headquarters for flood control and drought relief.

China has a four-tier emergency response system for flood control, with Level I being the most urgent response.

The provincial water resources department has mobilised people for river patrol and reservoir inspection.

The provincial meteorological observatory said more rains are expected on Tuesday and Wednesday. AGENCIES

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov discussed on Sunday the recent escalation in the Middle East.

During a phone conversation, the two ministers discussed the efforts to be made to de-escalate the situation in a way that preserves the region’s security, stability and the interests of its people, reports Xinhua news agency, citing the Egyptian Foreign Ministry statement.

The two diplomats also discussed ways to avoid slipping into a vicious circle of regional confrontations, the statement said, adding that they also exchanged views on issues of common interest.

Concerns of possible regional escalation heightened following the assassination of Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh early Wednesday when his residence in Tehran was hit.

Additionally, an alleged Israeli attack on Dahieh in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which resulted in the deaths of a senior Hezbollah military commander, Fouad Shokor and seven civilians, is also cited as a possible reason for the escalation. AGENCIES

An aid group announced that it has been forced to reduce the number of malnourished children receiving treatment at one of the largest camps for the displaced in western Sudan’s Darfur region due to blockage of medical supplies imposed by the paramilitary group.

“There is only enough therapeutic food to treat malnourished children in the Zamzam camp for another two weeks. As a result, today, we have sadly been obliged to cap the number of children who can receive this treatment because the RSF (Rapid Support Forces) have blocked our supply trucks,” Doctors Without Borders said in a statement on Sunday.

“Our three trucks bringing life-saving medical supplies — including therapeutic food to Zamzam and El Fasher have been blocked in the town of Kabkabiya for over a month by the RSF,” it said.

According to the group, children with severe malnutrition without treatment are at risk of dying within 3-6 weeks, reports Xinhua news agency.

“In our field hospital in Zamzam, the bed occupancy rate of our malnutrition ward is at 126 per cent, indicating that many children are already in a critical condition,” it said, urging all warring parties to allow humanitarian aid to move across borders into Sudan and across front lines.

On Thursday, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, an analysis agency monitoring food security worldwide, announced in an alert that famine was ongoing in the Zamzam camp.

Meanwhile, the United Nations said famine was prevalent in some areas of war-torn Sudan and would continue through the next two months.

The country’s two warring parties, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF have traded accusations over the responsibility for the famine.

Since May 10, fierce clashes have been raging in El Fasher, the capital city of Sudan’s North Darfur State.

The World Food Program has previously warned that the ongoing war in Sudan between the SAF and the RSF “risks triggering the world’s largest hunger crisis.”

Sudan has been witnessing a deadly conflict between the SAF and the RSF since April 15, 2023, resulting in the loss of at least 16,650 lives. An estimated 10.7 million people are now internally displaced in Sudan, with approximately 2.2 million others seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, according to the UN data released on Monday. AGENCIES

Global markets were in the deep red on Monday as the US economic slowdown weighed heavily on the financial markets.

Heavy selling pressure was seen in all major Asian markets. Japan crashed by 10 per cent, Seoul tumbled over 8 per cent, Taipei fell by 4.43 per cent, Jakarta was down nearly 2 per cent, Hong Kong and Shanghai were down 1.43 per cent and 0.83 per cent) respectively.

South Korea’s news agency Yonhap reported that due to a crash trading in the local benchmark index KOSPI 200 index held for five minutes.

The US stocks fell for the second consecutive session on Friday last week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average sliding 1.51 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sinking 2.43 per cent.

A disappointing jobs report spurred investor fears that the world’s largest economy is headed toward a recession, the report said

Indian stock markets also opened in the deep red on Monday. At 11 a.m., the Sensex was at 78,798, down 2,183 points or 2.70 per cent, and the Nifty was at 24,061, down 657 points or 2.66 per cent.

Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart said, “The global market is reeling as bears enter with a cocktail of bad news. The fear of a reverse Yen carry trade, following an interest rate hike in Japan, was the initial catalyst. This was compounded by fears of a recession in the USA after extremely poor job data, which spooked market sentiment.”

“The rally in the global stock markets has been driven mainly by consensus expectations of a soft landing for the US economy. This expectation is now under threat with the fall in the US job creation in July and the sharp rise in the US unemployment rate to 4.3 per cent. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East also are a contributing factor,” other experts said.

G7 FMs urge efforts to avoid further escalation of Middle East conflict

The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) countries urged all actors involved in the current Middle East crisis to refrain from any step that could possibly escalate the conflict further.

“We call on the parties concerned to desist from any initiative that could hinder the path of dialogue and moderation and encourage a new escalation,” the G7 Italian presidency said in a statement on Sunday.

After discussing the latest developments in a videoconference, the ministers expressed “strong concern about recent events that threaten to lead to a regionalisation of the crisis, starting with Lebanon,” according to Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

The G7 extraordinary meeting was called after a recent escalation in the crisis, reports Xinhua news agency.

Tensions escalated after the assassinations of Lebanese group Hezbollah’s senior military commander, Fouad Shokor, in Beirut and Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in the Iranian capital Tehran on July 31.

A few days earlier, a rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights had killed 12 children and teens.

Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah blamed Israel for the killings and threatened to retaliate. Israel claimed responsibility for Shokor’s death, saying it was in retaliation to the strike in the Golan, but it did not confirm involvement in the killing of Haniyeh.

Since then, the exchange of fire and rockets ongoing across the Israel-Lebanon border has intensified, and so have the diplomatic efforts to contain the crisis.

“We reaffirmed the priority of a successful conclusion of negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages and confirmed our commitment to intensify humanitarian aid to the populations of the Strip,” the G7 presidency stressed.

Also on Sunday, Italy’s Foreign Minister called on all Italians temporarily in Lebanon to leave the country as soon as possible due to “the worsening situation” and to all citizens to avoid travelling there. Earlier, many other governments, including those of France, the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Jordan also issued advisories.

The G7 comprises Canada, the US, France, the UK, Italy, Germany and Japan. AGENCIES

At least eight people were shot dead when a group of unidentified gunmen attacked a local community in Nigeria’s southern state of Imo, police said.

The eight deceased were identified as village heads in the Umucheke community of Onuimo Local Government Area, Aboki Danjuma, Imo State police commissioner, told the media during an on-the-spot assessment of the incident on Sunday morning, reports Xinhua news agency.

Danjuma said at least six gunmen, who rode on three motorcycles, stormed the community to wreak havoc late Saturday. They identified the homes of the deceased, perpetrated the killings, and fled through a bush path.

Alleging that members of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra/Eastern Security Network, an armed group in the southern part of the country, were responsible for the attack, Danjuma said security agencies are currently combing nearby forests in search of the perpetrators of the “dastardly act.” AGENCIES

Three people were killed in a building collapse in the city of Shebin El-Kom in Menoufia Governorate, northern Egypt, according to a statement by local authorities.

Civil protection and ambulance teams were dispatched to the site for rescue and search operations on Sunday, reports Xinhua news agency, citing the statement.

A security cordon was imposed around the area, and adjacent houses were evacuated in preparation for the removal of the rubble.

The Governor of Menoufia, Ibrahim Abu Limon, stated that a restoration order had been issued for the building, but the owner did not carry out the necessary work.

This led the governorate to issue a removal order, which was also not implemented by the landlord.

Further details are awaited. AGENCIES