China urges citizens in Israel to leave 'as soon as possible'

China has urged its citizens in Israel to leave "as soon as possible", as tensions between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah escalate.

"Currently, the situation along the Israel-Lebanon border is extremely tense, with frequent military conflicts," China's embassy in Israel said in a statement on Sunday.

"The security situation in Israel remains severe, complex, and unpredictable," the statement added.

The embassy urged Chinese citizens in Israel to "return home or relocate to safer areas as soon as possible".

Israel and Hezbollah threatened on Sunday to escalate their cross-border attacks despite international calls for both sides to step back from the brink of all-out war.

An Israeli air strike in a densely populated Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut Friday killed the head of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil.

It came after a series of coordinated communications device blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday across Lebanon that killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000, and which were blamed on Israel.

China last month asked its citizens in Lebanon to leave after an Israeli strike in the country killed a senior Palestinian militant.

Agence France-Presse

Puma to end kit deal with Israeli national football team

BERLIN, Germany -- German sportswear maker Puma said Tuesday it would end a sponsorship deal with the Israeli national football team in a decision made before the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Following a strategy review carried out at the end of 2022, Puma would stop outfitting the Israeli team from next year, the company said.

"While two newly signed national teams –- including a new statement team –- will be announced later this year and in 2024, the contracts of some federations such as Serbia and Israel will expire in 2024," a spokeswoman said in a statement.

"These decisions were taken in 2022 in line with the regular timelines for the design (and) development of the team jerseys," the spokeswoman said.

The deal with Israel, which was signed in 2018, prompted calls to boycott the sportswear brand.

Campaigners accused Puma of endorsing illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank through its deal with the Israeli FA, which includes teams from the occupied Palestinian territory.

The outbreak in October of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, has strengthened longstanding calls to boycott products which support Israel.

The war was triggered when Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 hostages -- 137 of whom remain in Gaza, Israeli officials say.

In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and began intense bombardments and a ground offensive in Gaza that has killed at least 18,200 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Agence France-Presse

Hamas shifts tactics in bitcoin fundraising, highlighting crypto risks - research

LONDON/JERUSALEM - The armed wing of Hamas is using increasingly complex methods of raising funds via bitcoin, researchers say, highlighting the difficulties regulators face in tracking cryptocurrency financing of outfits designated by some as terrorist groups.

The Gaza-based Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, which is proscribed by the United States and the European Union, has been calling on its supporters to donate using the digital currency in a fundraising campaign announced online in late January.

Originally, it asked donors to send bitcoin to a single digital address, or wallet.

However, according to research shared with Reuters by leading blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, in recent weeks it has changed the mechanism, with its website generating a new digital wallet with every transaction.

This makes it harder for companies around the world to keep tabs on the group's cryptocurrency financing, the researchers said. A single digital wallet can be red-flagged to cryptocurrency exchanges, in theory allowing them to prevent funds moving through their systems to that destination.

But a different wallet for each donation makes this so-called tagging far more complicated, Elliptic said.

Between March 26 and April 16, 0.6 bitcoin - worth around $3,300 - was sent to the website-created wallets, Elliptic's research found. All told, the four-month fundraising campaign has raised around $7,400, the firm said.

A spokesman for Hamas, which has ruled the Palestinian territory of Gaza since 2007, declined to comment on Elliptic's research.

Such funds are a fraction of the tens of millions of dollars in annual funding that Israel and the United States says Hamas receives from Iran. Yet the campaign gives insight into how a proscribed group has gone about bitcoin fundraising.

"They are still in experimentation stage - trying it out, seeing how much they can raise, and whether it works," said Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson.

Iran has not publicly detailed its funding of Hamas, though it has not denied its support for the group. Hamas has said Tehran is the biggest backer of the al-Qassam Brigades.

London-based Elliptic and U.S. rival Chainalysis are the most prominent blockchain analysis firms, and have gained traction as watchdogs, cryptocurrency companies and firms such as hedge funds seek tools to track digital coins.

Backed by investors including Banco Santander's venture capital arm, Elliptic's clients include financial firms, regulators and law enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States.

Since 2016 it has won contracts with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service and Drug Enforcement Administration, according to USAspending.gov, a database of U.S. government contracts.

Examples of cryptocurrency funding campaigns by proscribed groups are rare. But the research underscores headaches for companies in the emerging sector in identifying and stamping out exposure to potentially tainted digital coins, even as tools for tracking and tracing cryptocurrencies grow more sophisticated.

Dealing with illegal usage is seen as vital if cryptocurrencies are to grow from niche, speculative tokens to assets embraced by the mainstream. Most big financial firms have steered clear of bitcoin and its kin, with money laundering chief among concerns.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS

Hamas is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union. Others, including Britain, have proscribed only the al-Qassam Brigades.

Such a designation means that, in the United States for instance, it is illegal to provide money or training, with financial firms in control of related funds obliged to report them to the authorities.

A two-minute video on the al-Qassam Brigades website lays out step-by-step instructions in Arabic on how supporters can avoid the traditional financial system and donate cryptocurrency.

"How to support the Palestinian resistance via Bitcoin?" it asks.

With polished graphics and English subtitles, it explains how to send bitcoin directly, through a money-exchange office, or via a cryptocurrency exchange. "Use a public device so that the wallet is not linked to your IP address," it says.

Elliptic uses a database of information linking digital coin addresses to exchanges, darkweb marketplaces, and proscribed groups to track cryptocurrencies.

It pinpointed wallets created by the website by tracking patterns in their unique addresses. The firm monitored these addresses, later identifying multiple transactions that sent funds from the addresses to a major Asia-based cryptocurrency exchange.

Thirteen of the donations were made from a separate exchange, also from Asia, said Elliptic, which declined to give further details of the exchanges. It was not clear whether the bitcoin had since been converted to traditional currencies, the firm said.

PATCHY REGULATION

Hamas's finances are suffering. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi in 2013 closed hundreds of tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border, preventing the smuggling of weapons and goods from cows to cars, depriving Hamas of tax income.

Funding from Iran has also declined following Hamas's condemnation of the killing of Sunni Muslims in Syria's civil war, analysts say.

Bitcoin could provide respite in that cash squeeze.

"It makes it difficult for such funds to be tracked by financial authorities," said Lotem Finkelshtein, head of threat intelligence at Check Point Technologies, a cybersecurity firm in Tel Aviv.

"It's not so simple to link wallets to organisations."

Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency, defense ministry and military declined to comment.

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who is also a member of the national security cabinet, told the website Ynet TV this month he was unaware of the fundraising.

Regulators and law enforcement agencies have long worried about the potential of digital money - relatively anonymous and easily available online - to finance terrorism.

Cryptocurrency regulations vary from country to country. The global watchdog for money laundering, aware of gaps in rules, is due to bring in the first international standards on cryptocurrency oversight by June.

But with regulation still patchy, the risk of exposure to tainted coins has kept most big investors away.

Even indirect exposure to tainted cryptocurrencies would present problems for financial firms, said Kyle Phillips, a lawyer at Fieldfisher law firm.

"There are real issues with establishing the beneficial owners," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

This IT company aims to be Gaza's Google

GAZA - His company may not rival Google or German software maker SAP yet, but Gaza-based IT entrepreneur Saady Lozon has plans to change that.

In nine years, Lozon and his partner Ahmed Abu Shaban have transformed their firm, Unit One, from a tiny outfit in a single room in the blockaded Gaza Strip into a successful business with clients in Europe, the United States and the Arab world.

They can't leave Gaza easily, but they can develop applications for Web and mobile devices online and provide international clients with data-management services, competing with firms in India and elsewhere.

"We have managed to knock a hole in the wall of the blockade," Lozon, 33, said of the company, which will soon expand to more than 60 employees from 13, the majority women. "We deliver in time, just as the client wishes."

Lozon and Abu Shaban came up with the idea after graduating with degrees in computer science. Lozon worked briefly as an IT contractor for the United Nations and quickly realised he would rather run a company of his own.

They won their first client after making a pitch via Skype and offering a free trial. They borrowed money from friends to buy computers and slowly expanded. The firm now occupies two apartments on the 5th floor of a building in a smart district of Gaza overlooking the Mediterranean.

At the offices, dozens of women, most wearing headscarves, are busy at work, one group entering data on global trademarks for a company in the Netherlands.

GAZA'S GOOGLE

Initially Unit One was focused on software development and building apps for iPhone and Android, but now there is a larger unit handling data-processing.

Along the way there have been serious hurdles, including the war between Hamas and Israel last July and August which caused staffing and power disruptions, and the fact banks in Gaza cannot easily receive transfers from abroad.

"It was difficult at the beginning," said Lozon. "In 2006, when the blockade started, we had to open an account in the West Bank," he said, referring to the other Palestinian territory, which is not subject to the same restrictions.

Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist group Hamas won power in 2006. Both Egypt and Israel continue to impose tight controls on the movement of goods and people in and out of the enclave, where 1.8 million people live.

Lozon said the Gaza war had been particularly problematic in an industry where success depends on quick delivery.

"We are trying to regain trust," he said. "We are telling everyone that Gaza can do the job regardless of the obstacles."

Asked about finances, Lozon declines to go into detail, but says the company is profitable and expanding. When he advertised for 10 new jobs, he got 400 applications.

"We are working to be like Google," he said with confidence. "I hope to make Unit One like Google for the people of Gaza, not only for business but also for entertainment."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Fresh bloodshed in Gaza as Hamas denies holding soldier

GAZA CITY - A fresh wave of violence killed dozens in Gaza after the collapse of a UN and US backed ceasefire, officials said Saturday, as Hamas denied it kidnapped an Israeli soldier.

A Palestinian delegation was due to arrive in Cairo for talks on the terms of a durable truce, however, even after the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire fell apart within hours starting on Friday.

But the chances of a new truce seemed remote after Israel said it believed militants captured Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, 23, in an attack near the southern Gaza city of Rafah that killed two other soldiers.

In the violence that ensued, at least 107 Palestinians were killed in Israel air strikes on the Gaza Strip, including 35 since midnight, officials said.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, a member of Israel's security cabinet which met till the early hours of Saturday, accused Hamas of being behind the soldier's disappearance and said the group would pay a high price.

US President Barack Obama called for the soldier to be "unconditionally" released, but also said more must be done to protect Gaza civilians.

But Hamas' armed wing denied any knowledge about the fate of the missing soldier.

"The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades has no information on this soldier. We have lost contact with one of our combatant groups, which was fighting in the sector where the soldier went missing and it is possible that our fighters and this soldier were killed," it said.

On Saturday, AFP correspondents said Israeli aerial strikes targeted a mosque at Jebaliya, in northern Gaza, and flattened houses in a beachside neighbourhood.

In Israel, the Iron Dome air defence system intercepted two rockets fired from Gaza over the Tel Aviv area and another over the southern city of Beersheba, the army said.

The Qassam Brigades said they had fired three rockets at Tel Aviv.

- Congress approves Israel funds -

The US Congress had meanwhile on Friday approved an emergency $225 million to restock the Iron Dome systems with interceptor missiles, in a measure that awaits Obama's signature.

Palestinian emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said at least 107 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza since the planned three-day ceasefire collapsed soon after it started at 0500 GMT on Friday.

Since the conflict broke out on July 8, a total of about 1,650 Palestinians have been killed in the violence, the vast majority of them civilians, Qudra said. On the Israeli side, 63 soldiers and three civilians have died.

The Israeli military said the two latest deaths among its forces occurred in the same incident in which the soldier went missing near Rafah.

"Our initial indications suggest a soldier has been abducted by terrorists in an incident where terrorists breached the ceasefire," said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner.

Israelis are highly sensitive about the kidnapping of their soldiers.

In 2006, Hamas militants from Gaza captured Israeli conscript Gilad Shalit and held him for five years before freeing him in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Obama said the United States "unequivocally condemned Hamas and the Palestinian factions that were responsible for killing two Israeli soldiers, and abducting a third almost minutes after a ceasefire had been announced".

"If they are serious about trying to trying to resolve this situation, that soldier needs to be unconditionally released, as soon as possible.

"We have also been clear that innocent civilians in Gaza caught in the crossfire have to weigh on our conscience and we have to do more to protect them," the US president added.

- Cairo talks 'still on' -

US Secretary of State John Kerry had said that once the ceasefire was under way, Israeli and Palestinian representatives, including from Hamas, would begin talks in Cairo on a more durable truce.

The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad later said Egypt was postponing the talks after news of the missing Israeli soldier, but Cairo said the invitation to talk was "still in place".

And Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said a joint delegation, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, would travel to Cairo on Saturday for talks despite the renewed fighting.

Before the truce, Israeli tank fire and aerial bombardment killed 14 Palestinians in Gaza, and the army said five soldiers died in mortar fire near the shared border.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office accused Hamas and other Gaza militants of "flagrantly violating" the ceasefire.

Hamas in turn said Israel "violated the ceasefire" and that "the Palestinian resistance acted based on... the right to self defence".

Israel launched "Operation Protective Edge" on July 8 to counter rocket fire from Gaza, and nine days later it sent ground troops into the Palestinian enclave to destroy tunnels used by militants to attack its territory.

It has vowed to press on with the offensive until the tunnels are demolished.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Gaza bloodshed deepens as airlines shun Israel

GAZA/JERUSALEM - Gaza fighting raged on Wednesday, displacing thousands more Palestinians in the battered territory as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said efforts to secure a truce between Israel and Hamas had made some progress.

In a blow to Israel's economy and image, American aviation authorities extended a ban on U.S. flights to Tel Aviv for a second day, spooked by rocket salvoes out of the Gaza Strip, with many other global airlines also avoiding the Jewish state.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, speaking in Qatar, praised the group's fighters, whom he said had made gains against Israel and said he supported a humanitarian truce but a ceasefire would only be acceptable in exchange for easing Gazans' plight.

"Let's agree first on the demands and on implementing them and then we can agree on the zero hour for a ceasefire... We will not accept any proposal that does not lift the blockade... We do not desire war and we do not want it to continue but we will not be broken by it," he said.

Adding to the pressure on Israel, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said there was "a strong possibility" that it was committing war crimes in Gaza, where 692 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.

She also condemned indiscriminate Islamist rocket fire out of Gaza and the United Nations Human Rights Council said it would launch an international inquiry into alleged violations.

Israel denied any wrongdoing. "Get lost," Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said on her Facebook page in response to the investigation.

Kerry met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a grim-faced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday. He later returned to Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza and has mediated with Islamist Hamas.

"We have certainly made some steps forward. There is still work to be done," said Kerry, on one of his most intensive regional visits since the peace negotiations he had brokered between Netanyahu and Abbas broke down in April.

An Egyptian official said he expected a humanitarian truce to go into effect by the weekend, in time for the Eid al-Fitr festival, Islam's biggest annual celebration that follows the fasting month of Ramadan.

However, a senior U.S. official played down the Egyptian official's confidence that there would be a truce during Eid, saying this was a U.S. hope but it was by no means locked in.

"It would not be accurate to say that we expect a ceasefire by the weekend," said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We are continuing to work on it, but it is not set at this point."

Kerry, who plans to stay in Cairo until Friday, has been working through Abbas, Egypt and other regional proxies because the United States, like Israel, shuns Hamas as a terrorist group. Hamas brushed off the U.S. diplomat's appeal, saying it would not hold fire without making gains.

"Our interest and that of our people is that no agreement should be made before the conditions of factions of resistance are met," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

Israel launched its offensive on July 8 to halt rocket salvoes by Hamas and its allies, which have struggled under an Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade on Gaza and been angered by a crackdown on their supporters in the nearby occupied West Bank.

After an aerial and naval bombardment failed to quell the outgunned guerrillas, Israel poured ground forces into the Gaza Strip last Thursday, looking to knock out Hamas's rocket stores and destroy a vast, underground network of tunnels.

"We are meeting resistance around the tunnels ... they are constantly trying to attack us around and in the tunnels. That is the trend," Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said on Wednesday.

MILITARY LOSSES RISE

Israel announced that three of its soldiers were killed by explosive devices on Wednesday, lifting the army death toll to 32. Three civilians have also been killed in rocket attacks out of Gaza, including a Thai labourer hit on Wednesday.

The military says one of its soldiers is also missing and believes he might be dead. Hamas says it has captured him, but has not released a picture of him in their hands.

Already hurt by mass tourist cancellations, Israel faced increased economic pressure after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) took the rare step on Tuesday of banning flights to Tel Aviv, renewing the order on Wednesday.

Many other foreign carriers, on heightened alert after a Malaysian airliner was shot down over a combat zone in Ukraine last week, followed suit. Israeli carriers continued to operate.

"Hamas's success in closing the Israeli air space is a great victory for the resistance, a terrible failure for Israel that wrecks the image of Israeli deterrence," said Hamas's Abu Zuhri.

The Tel Aviv stock exchange and shekel currency were flat, with traders showing little concern about the flight stoppages.

Clouds of black smoke hung over Gaza with the regular thud of artillery and tank shells filling the air, sending thousands of civilians fleeing from the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

"This is not war, this is annihilation," said 17-year-old Hamed Ayman. "I once dreamt of becoming a doctor. Today I am homeless. They should watch out for what I could become next."

Palestinian medics said two worshippers were killed and 30 wounded in an attack on a mosque in the heart of the densely populated Zeitoun neighbourhood in eastern Gaza City.

A Palestinian protester died after a confrontation with Israeli forces in the West Bank.

Israel named four commanders of Hamas ally Islamic Jihad that it said it had killed in recent days.

HAMAS DEMANDS

Egypt has tried to get both sides to hold fire and then negotiate terms for protracted calm in Gaza, which has been rocked by regular bouts of violence since Israel unilaterally pulled out of the territory in 2005.

Hamas, which rejects Israel's right to exist, has balked at Cairo's original proposal, wanting its conditions to be met in full before any end to the conflict.

These demands include the release of hundreds of Hamas supporters recently arrested in the nearby West Bank and an end to the Egyptian-Israeli blockade of Gaza, which has stymied the economy and made it near impossible for anyone to travel abroad.

The war is extracting a heavy toll on impoverished Gaza, with Palestinian officials saying that at least 475 houses had been totally destroyed by Israeli fire and 2,644 partially damaged. Some 46 schools, 56 mosques and seven hospitals had also suffered varying degrees of destruction.

"There seems to be a strong possibility that international humanitarian law has been violated, in a manner that could amount to war crimes," the U.N.'s Pillay told an emergency session at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva.

Netanyahu reacted furiously to news of the planned U.N. investigation, aware of the damning report into Israel's 2008/09 Gaza operation, which killed more than 1,000 Palestinians.

"The decision today by the HRC is a travesty," he said in a statement. "The HRC should be launching an investigation into Hamas's decision to turn hospitals into military command centres, use schools as weapons depots and place missile batteries next to playgrounds, private homes and mosques."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Swine flu kills 24 in Middle East

Twenty-four people have died of the swine flu in the last month in the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Israel, officials said.

Assad al-Ramlawi, director general of the Healthcare Department in the Palestinian Ministry of Health, said four Palestinians died after contracting the H1N1 virus in the West Bank and Gaza in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 21 since the start of winter, the Saudi Gazette reported.

Ramlawi said 600 people, 30 of them in the Gaza Strip, have been diagnosed with the virus. Most of those who died because of the flu had a weak immune system or an existing illness, he said.

In Jordan, two people died of swine virus this month and 95 cases have been registered with authorities, Ammon News, citing Health Minister Abdullatif Wreikat, reported during the weekend.

In Israel, a 3-year-old boy died of the flu last week and at least four people with the virus, some listed in serious condition, have been hospitalized, an unnamed Health Ministry official told the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz. The boy suffered from a chronic illness before he contracted the virus, the official said.

source: upi.com

Pinay caregivers stand by wards amid Gaza strikes

ISRAEL - Filipina caregivers at the Israeli-Gaza border will remain loyal to their wards should ceasefire breaks down and hostilities begin anew.

For the first time, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) rapid response team and ABS-CBN Middle East were able to talk to the caregivers living at the border.

From Tel Aviv, it took the team more than two hours to reach the Kibbutz Community Center near the Gaza border.

With the ceasefire on, the DFA rapid response team took the opportunity to visit six Filipina caregivers based at the house for the old within the gated Kibbutz Village.

A native of Ilocos Sur, Sinamar Jimenez has been working as a caregiver for the past 15 years in Israel.

She lamented having seen and witnessed so many bombings and armed conflicts in the past including the Iran-Iraq war in the late 90s.

But Jimenez readily admits the recent bombings at the Gaza border were the most life-threatening and perilous.

“Super po yung ingay,” she said.

Bicolana Rosalinda Remiter has been a caregiver for nine years whose ward is already 90.

Remiter showed the visiting team some cracks on the wall inside their room brought about by powerful explosions.

She can only manage to embrace her ward once the siren wails and followed by loud explosions.

“Sabi ng anak iwanan mo na nanay ko pag ganyan na. Sabi ko di ko maiwan, niyakap ko na lang. Sabi ko bahala na yakapin ko na lang di ko mabuhat. Sabi ko bahala na ang panginoon kung kami ay matatamaan,” she said.

At the height of the bombings, relatives in Manila would not stop calling and texting both Jimenez and Remiter, urging them to leave the border.

With limited space inside the bunker room, they had to carry and lift their wards to safety.

Should the ceasefire break down and hostilities resume, Jimenez and Remiter will remain with their wards.

“Babantayan ko pa rin po siya kasi di naman kami pinapabayaan ng mga amo naming,” said Jimenez.

Kibbutz is barely two kilometers away from Gaza which received 1,500 air missile attacks from Israel.

Many structures inside the community center were hit by mortar fire and some animals flat dead.

Near Kibbutz is the Erez border which Israel army just opened to motorists to allow entry into Gaza.

The DFA response team also visited Richon-le Zion where a Hamas rocket missile found its way into a residential condominium building, but fortunately no one was killed or injured.

source: abs-cbnnews.com