Free Republic

GAZA/WASHINGTON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Gaza officials said Israel launched air strikes on or near at least three hospitals on Friday, further stressing the Palestinian enclave's precarious health system as it struggles to cope with thousands of people wounded or displaced in Israel's war against Hamas militants. "The Israeli occupation launched simultaneous strikes on a number of hospitals during the past hours", Gaza Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra told Al Jazeera television. The medical facilities included Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa, where Israel said Hamas has hidden command centres and tunnels, allegations Hamas denies. Qidra said Israel targeted the...

The Israeli Ministry of Defense and the IDF notified the UN just before midnight local time to evacuate its staff and notify Palestinians living north of Wadi Gaza that they should evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip in the next 24 hours, two sources with direct knowledge. The big picture: More than 1 million Palestinians live in this area. The message could be a signal that the Israeli military is preparing for an imminent ground operation. The sources told Axios that the IDF's reason for the notification was in order for civilians not to be hurt by...

During a portion of an interview with ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz set to air on Sunday’s edition of “This Week,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley stated that he agrees with former CENTCOM Commander Gen. Frank McKenzie (Ret.) that it was a massive mistake to not evacuate American citizens and at-risk Afghans sooner. Raddatz asked, “Gen. McKenzie said it was a serious mistake not to begin to evacuate our embassy personnel, our American citizens, and at-risk Afghans earlier. Do you agree with that?” Milley answered, “Yeah, I agree with that, sure.

At midnight, the state is expected to submit its answer regarding the proposed evacuation of the Homesh community in Judea, which has become one of the sticking points threatening the future of the current Bennett-Lapid coalition. Channel 12 News received a draft of the government's reply to the Court on behalf of Defense Minister Benny Gantz, stating that the community will be evacuated - but not in the immediate future. According to the report, Gantz will be provided flexibility as far as the timing of the demolition, regardless of the political situation and cracks in the coalition. On Tuesday, Prime...

On Saturday, May, 14, it was reported that Russian troops stationed in Pidvysoke Ukraine are being relocated to Horokhovatka, Ukraine. “The Russian military began to relocate Russian troops in the Izyum direction. The Russian soldiers who were stationed in Pidvysoke, Ukraine, are being redeployed en masse to Horokhovatka. This is reported by the Borovka village council,” according to Torontovka news. “This is probably due to the displacement of the front line as a result of the AFU counterattack: loud explosions at night and in the morning were heard from the direction of Pidvysoke, Buhaivka, Kunie,” the report says. “It is...

Ukraine and Russia poured reinforcements into eastern Ukraine this weekend, preparing for what is likely to become the war’s biggest battles as refugees continued to flee the looming Russian assault. Russia’s main objective now is to seize the parts of the eastern Donbas region not yet controlled by Moscow. Unlike the first phase of the six-week-old conflict, that shift is forcing Ukraine into fighting conventional battles involving tanks, artillery and aircraft on flat, often barren terrain that allows Russia to leverage its superiority in military equipment.

The title of this essay takes the form of a question that many people are sometimes forced to ask themselves, "Should I Evacuate?". I'll go on here but let me get right to the point and say that if you're in a situation where you're wondering if you need to evacuate then GO. It is time to get out. What if you're wrong? Well, then you can go back to wherever you were after you feel safe to do so. But don't be worried that you might be wrong when you're in the moment, just act appropriately for your safety...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters Wednesday she hopes the Biden and Harris administration can evacuate all Americans from the deadly chaos at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan. “Hopefully, as many as those people [Afghans and Americans] will be evacuated as possible — hopefully all,” she reiterated. “But this is a tragic situation. I’ve been there eight or nine times to Afghanistan,” she continued about her inspection of women’s rights in the country. “We’ve changed Afghanistan in that respect in that women have seen the light of day, but now, that is under threat”:

Troops from NATO member states, including the U.S., U.K. and France, are all working in Kabul to remove citizens and Afghans eligible for resettlement out of the country. But there isn’t a coordinated effort between the allies to communicate with the Taliban or ensure people get to the Hamid Karzai International Airport safely, Pentagon officials acknowledged on Thursday.Taliban fighters have set up a series of checkpoints on roads leading up to the airport to the north of Kabul, where people eligible for safe passage under a deal worked out between the U.S. and Taliban leaders is not being honored, according...

In hiding and desperate, two former Afghan interpreters have urged the UK to rescue them from what they see as a Taliban death sentence because they worked for British troops. Both men, named "N" and "W" to protect their identities, said they applied to a government scheme to be allowed to resettle in Britain, but were rejected because they had been sacked from their interpreting jobs for offences that they said they did not commit. They said they feared for their lives and for the lives of their families as the Taliban gains ground following a decision by the United...

In the wake of the unprecedented rainstorms across central China, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated on Thursday as officials raised the death toll to 33 for the Henan province, according to Reuters. Entire blocks of Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, are still submerged after “once in 5,000 years” rainstorms from Sunday to Tuesday devastated the metro area and other surrounding areas. Zhengzhou received eight months of rain within 24 hours earlier this week which triggered flash floods. State broadcaster CCTV said Thursday the death toll stands at 33, with eight people missing across Henan. So far,...

Levee fail county says to get out now. Retweeted by President Trump.

Houston-area officials on Monday defended the decision not to issue mandatory evacuations ahead of Harvey, which inundated the region with life-threatening floods. Five people were dead and 14 people injured with the number expected to rise sharply as search and rescue missions continued, officials said. Fifteen to 25 inches of additional rain were expected on the Texas coast and southwestern Louisiana. Officials released 5,000 cubic feet of water from Houston-area reservoirs Monday, hoping for relief from the storm's devastation. The plan was to increase that to 8,000 cubic feet by noon. “If they don’t release it, it will go around...

NEW YORK — The World Trade Center transit hub in Manhattan was closed Sunday afternoon as police investigated a suspicious package. The PATH train station issued an alert on their website: “Due to a police activity, service in to and out of WTC is suspended. Please use MTA for service uptown for PATH service in to New Jersey.”

The National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada is warning of an "imminent" dam break about 85 miles northeast of the Reno-Lake Tahoe area. The NWS is urging people to evacuate immediately. URGENT: Retention basin above East Dayton, NV failing! FLASH FLOOD WARNING UNTIL 6:40PM. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. #NVWx #DamFailure pic.twitter.com/frXe8qhyI5 — NWS Reno (@NWSReno) February 21, 2017 The area was already dealing with a Winter Storm Warni

The UN's special refugee agency for Palestinians, UNRWA, reported Sunday that about 4,000 residents of northern Gaza have fled their homes after the IDF told them to do so, starting last night. In addition, about 850 Palestinians with foreign nationalities are leaving Gaza through the Erez checkpoint. Three hundred of these had already done so by the early afternoon. Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on border areas in northern Gaza, calling on the citizens to evacuate their homes before noon Sunday as it prepared to bomb the area. The IDF warned that those who do not obey their instructions will be...

Three planeloads of American diplomats and contractors evacuated from northern Iraq amid growing fears as Al Qaeda uprising in the region spreads... Several hundred American contractors are still waiting to leave, although the State Department said on Thursday that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad continues to operate as usual.

ormer Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Friday that if talks he held with Palestinians in 2008 had produced a peace deal, it would have forced tens of thousands of Jewish settlers to leave their homes in the West Bank. If a deal had been reached at the time, it would also not have included an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, Olmert said. More than five years on, the fate of the Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley, along with recognition of Israel as the Jewish national homeland, are key sticking points in the ongoing Mideast peace talks brokered...

Post-tsunami reconstruction and radiation cleanup could take 10 years, but officials say something has been permanently lost Nearly three years after a major earthquake, tsunami and nuclear radiation leak devastated coastal and inland areas of Japan's Fukushima prefecture, 175 miles north-east of Tokyo, Namie has become a silent town of ghosts and absent lives. Namie's 21,000 residents remain evacuated because of continuing high radiation levels, the product of the March 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, six miles to the south. Homes, shops and streets are deserted except for the occasional police patrol or checkpoint.