Officials lift brief evacuation order for Valemount, B.C., as fire risk eases

BEIRUT (AP) — A rare Israeli strike in central Beirut killed the Hezbollah militant group’s chief spokesman on Sunday, while an Israeli strike in northern Gaza ’s Beit Lahiya killed at least 30 people, the director of a hospital there told The Associated Press.

Mohammed Afif was killed in a strike on the Arab socialist Baath party’s office in Beirut, according to a Hezbollah official who was not authorized to brief reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity. Afif had been especially visible after all-out war erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in September.

It was the latest targeted killing of senior Hezbollah officials. On Sunday night, another strike in central Beirut hit a computer shop, killing two people and wounding 13, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The strikes occurred as Lebanese officials consider a United States-led cease-fire proposal. Israel also bombed several buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long been headquartered, after warning people to evacuate.

Screams in central Beirut

There was no Israeli evacuation warning before the strike near a busy intersection in central Beirut that killed Afif. An AP photographer there saw four bodies and four wounded people. There was no comment from the Israeli military.

“I was asleep and awoke from the sound of the strike, and people screaming, and cars and gunfire,” said witness Suheil Halabi. “I was startled, honestly. This is the first time I experience it so close.”

After the second strike in central Beirut on Sunday night, firefighters struggled to control the blaze in the busy residential neighborhood of Mar Elias. Small explosions could be heard in the shop. Bystanders said they heard a second explosion and a car nearby appeared to be hit.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack ignited the war in Gaza. Israel launched retaliatory airstrikes in Lebanon and the conflict steadily escalated.

Israeli forces invaded Lebanon on Oct. 1. On Sunday, Israel’s military said mobile artillery batteries had crossed into Lebanon and began attacking Hezbollah targets, the first time artillery was launched within Lebanese territory.

More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry, and over 1.2 million driven from their homes. It is not known how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters.

Hezbollah has fired dozens of projectiles into Israel daily. The attacks have killed at least 76 people, including 31 soldiers, and caused some 60,000 people to flee. Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said a teenager suffered blast injuries Sunday in Upper Galilee.

Lebanon’s army, largely on the sidelines, said an Israeli strike on Sunday hit a military center in southeastern Al-Mari, killing two soldiers and wounding two others. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

In Gaza, an escalation

Hosam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, said there were dozens of wounded after the Israeli strike there, and others likely were still under the rubble.

Fleeing residents told the AP that houses were hit.

An Israeli military statement earlier said it conducted several strikes on “terrorist targets” in Beit Lahiya. It said efforts to evacuate civilians from the “active war zone” there continued.

Israeli forces have again been on the offensive in northern Gaza, saying Hamas militants have regrouped there.

“Tonight we did not sleep at all,” said one fleeing Beit Lahiya resident, Dalal al-Bakri. “They destroyed all the houses around us. … There are many martyrs.”

A woman, Umm Hamza, said the bombing had escalated overnight. “It’s cold and we don’t know where to go,” she said.

Earlier, officials said Israeli strikes killed six people in Nuseirat and four in Bureij, two built-up refugee camps in central Gaza dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.

Two people were killed in a strike on Gaza’s main north-south highway, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah.

Israel’s military said two soldiers were killed in northern Gaza on Sunday.

The war between Israel and Hamas began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7. last year, killing about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting around 250 others. Around 100 hostages remain in Gaza, about a third believed to be dead.

On Sunday, Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said it held a joint meeting with the heads of the army and intelligence to discuss mediation efforts to release the hostages. It was the first public word of any such effort since Qatar announced it was suspending its mediation work earlier this month.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says around 43,800 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said women and children make up more than half the fatalities.

Around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians have been displaced, and large areas of the territory have been flattened by Israeli bombardment and ground operations.

Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide, according to excerpts released Sunday from an upcoming book.

3 arrested after flares fired at Netanyahu’s home

Israeli police arrested three suspects after two flares were fired overnight at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in the coastal city of Caesarea.

Netanyahu and his family were not there, authorities said. A drone launched by Hezbollah struck the residence last month, also when they were away.

The police did not provide details about the suspects, but officials pointed to domestic political critics of Netanyahu.

Netanyahu has faced months of mass protests. Critics blame him for the security and intelligence failures that allowed the Oct. 7 attack to happen and for not reaching a deal with Hamas to release hostages.

His government also faces anger from the ultra-Orthodox community over military draft notices. Some protested Sunday in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv after the government said 7,000 new notices would be issued.

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Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press reporters Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb and Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed.

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WEST MILFORD, N.J. – Firefighters in New York said Sunday that a successful voluntary evacuation overnight helped them protect about 165 homes from a wildfire near the New Jersey border.

However, New York City’s fire department has taken the first-of-its-kind step of creating a brush fire task force to respond to what officials are calling a historic increase in brush fires occurring throughout the five boroughs, the FDNY commissioner announced. From Nov. 1 to Nov. 14, the FDNY responded to 271 brush fires across the city, marking the highest two-week period in New York’s history.

“Due to a significant lack of rainfall, the threat of fast-spreading brush fires fueled by dry vegetation and windy conditions have resulted in an historic increase of brush fires throughout New York City,” Commissioner Robert S. Tucker said in a statement.

Windy conditions renewed a wildfire Saturday that escaped a containment line and prompted emergency officials to enact a voluntary evacuation plan for a community near the border.

The evacuation enacted out of “an abundance of caution” impacted about 165 houses in Warwick, New York, as firefighters continued working to tame the Jennings Creek blaze, New York Parks Department spokesman Jeff Wernick said in an email Saturday night.

Firefighters’ efforts were successful and no structures were in danger as of early Sunday afternoon, Wernick said in a later email. The voluntary evacuation will remain in place at least until Monday, allowing firefighters to continue their work.

The evacuation came as communities in the Northeast and around the country dealt with a surge in late fall fires.

New England states were under red flag alerts for wildfires this weekend. The National Interagency Fire Center said fires in California, North Carolina and West Virginia were also concerning.

The New York City task force will be made up of fire marshals, fire inspectors, and tactical drone units in an effort to ensure rapid responses to brush fires and to help with investigations to determine their cause.

On Friday, the wildfire was 90% contained on the Passaic County, New Jersey, side of the border, and about 70% contained in Orange County, New York, officials said. New York increased the state’s percentage to 88% on Sunday morning.

The wildfire had burned 7 1/2 square miles (19.4 square kilometers) across the two states as of Friday, On Saturday, Wernick said New York Army National Guard helicopters dropped 21,000 gallons (79,493 liters) of water and a New York State Police helicopter dropped nearly 900 gallons (3,406 liters).

The fire was burning primarily in Sterling Forest State Park, where the visitor center, the lakefront area at Greenwood Lake and historic furnace area remained open but woodland activities including hunting were halted, Wernick said.

The blaze claimed the life of an 18-year-old New York parks employee who died when a tree fell on him as he helped fight the fire in Sterling Forest on Nov. 9. The fire’s cause remains under investigation.

In Massachusetts, which typically has about 15 wildland fires every October, there were about 200 this year. State officials said they were expected to continue because of weather conditions and dry surface fuels.

The National Weather Service in Boston warned Sunday that elevated fire risk continued across southern New England, given the continued gusty winds and dry conditions. Much-needed rain was predicted for Thursday in the region.

Southern New Hampshire was also at risk for fires due to dry conditions and the fire danger risk was “very high,” state officials said.

The Maine Forest Service said the southern part of the state also faced high fire danger conditions. Most of the state was abnormally dry or facing moderate drought conditions.

Some relief could be in sight in New York. The National Weather Service in Albany, New York, said Sunday that most of the region could see a “widespread soaking rain” of 0.5 to 1.5 inches beginning Wednesday night.

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OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government could have acted faster on reining in immigration programs, after blaming “bad actors” for gaming the system.

Trudeau released a nearly seven-minute video on YouTube Sunday talking about the recent reduction in permanent residents being admitted to Canada and changes to the temporary foreign worker program.

Over the next two years, the permanent residency stream is being reduced by about 20 per cent to 365,000 in 2027.

In the video, Trudeau talks about the need to increase immigration after pandemic lockdowns ended in order to boost the labour market, saying the move helped avoid a full-blown recession.

But after that, Trudeau says some “bad actors” took advantage of these programs, such as employers trying to avoid hiring Canadians, schools recruiting more international students for the higher tuition money, or scams promising bogus paths to citizenship.

Trudeau says that he and his team could have acted quicker once it became apparent businesses didn’t need the added labour help anymore.

Trudeau says the goal of the government’s immigration reduction is to help stabilize population growth while housing stocks catch up, and then to consider gradually increasing immigration rates once again.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.