Shooting near Kansas City Super Bowl victory rally kills at least one, injures 21
CAIRO/JERUSALEM, (Reuters) - Israel will press ahead with an offensive against Hamas in Rafah, the last refuge for displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza, after allowing civilians to vacate the area, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday.
The Israeli leader, who is under growing international pressure to hold off on the planned assault, gave no indication as to when the offensive might take place or where the hundreds of thousands of people now crammed into Rafah might go. (Reuters) - A barrage of gunfire erupted yesterday in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, near an outdoor celebration of the NFL champion Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory, killing at least one person and wounding 21 others as throngs of fans scurried for safety.
Police Chief Stacey Graves told a news conference three people were detained “and under investigation” in connection with the bloodshed near the city’s landmark Union Station after a ticker-tape parade.
Graves said investigators had no known motive for the gun violence. Eleven of those hurt by gunfire or the ensuing chaos were children as young as 6.
At least 22 people were struck by gunfire, one of them fatally. KKFI radio identified the deceased as Lisa Lopez, one of its disc jockeys and host of the show Taste of Tejano.
Fifteen victims suffered life-threatening injuries, Fire Department Chief Ross Grundyson said at a late-afternoon news conference.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said the prevalence of guns and gun violence in the United States made it difficult to provide complete security for any public event, even with several hundred law enforcement officers on patrol for the Chiefs’ victory parade and rally.
“Parades, rallies, schools, movies - it seems like almost nothing is safe,”
His comments came a day after talks in Cairo on a possible ceasefire and the handover of hostages held by Hamas ended inconclusively, stoking fears among the displaced Palestinians that Israel would soon storm Rafah, which abuts Egypt.
“We will fight until complete victory and this includes a powerful action in Rafah as well, after we allow the civilian population to leave the battle zones,” Netanyahu said on his Telegram account.
Earlier, Netanyahu’s office said Hamas had presented no new offer for a hostage
Quinton, a Democrat, told reporters, recounting how he was among those who ran for cover at the sound of gunshots.
“We became part of a statistic of too many Americans, those who have experienced or been part of or connected to a mass shooting,” he said.
Hours after the violence, the precise circumstances remained unclear, and authorities were still determining the full extent of casualties and age range of the victims.
Children’s Mercy Kansas City treated a dozen people from the incident, 11 of them children ages 6 to 15. Nine of the 12 patients were gunshot victims, a hospital spokesperson said.
Graves said she was aware of reports that some fans may have participated in the pursuit and capture of at least one of the suspects, and investigators were reviewing video of the incident.
Some 800 law enforcement officers were at the rally and parade that preceded it, including agents of the FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
All of the Chiefs players, coaches and staff who attended the victory rally were accounted for and safe, the National Football League team said in a statement.
The barrage of gunshots, fired outside near a garage by the station, came at the end of the victory rally following a parade, according to police. deal in the Cairo talks and that Israel would not accept the militant group’s “ludicrous demands”.
“A change in Hamas’ positions will make it possible to move forward in the negotiations,” it said.
Relatives of Israeli hostages held by Hamas said they would barricade the Israeli defence headquarters on Wednesday in protest at what they said was a scandalous decision by Israel not to send negotiators to the next session of the Cairo talks.
The move “amounts to a death sentence” for the 134 hostages in Hamas’ tunnels, the group said, in a sign of growing domestic dissent in Israel after four months of the Gaza war.
The Israeli military says it wants to flush out Islamist militants from hideouts in Rafah and free hostages being held there after the Hamas rampage in Israel on Oct. 7, but has given no details of a proposed plan to evacuate civilians.
“We are now counting down the days before Israel sends in tanks. We hope they don’t but who can prevent them?” Said Jaber, a Gaza businessman who is sheltering in Rafah with his family, told Reuters via a chat app.
As night fell on Wednesday, more than
WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - The United States has told Congress and allies in Europe about new intelligence related to Russian nuclear capabilities that could pose an international threat, a source briefed on the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.
The new capabilities, related to Russian attempts to develop a space-based weapon, do not pose an urgent threat to the United States, the source said.
The intelligence came to light after Representative Mike Turner, Republican chair of the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee, issued an unusual and cryptic statement on Wednesday warning of a “serious national security threat.”
Sources later said the warning was related to Russian capabilities in space, related to satellites. One of the sources said the issue is serious, but is not related to an active capability nor should it be a cause for panic.
“I am requesting that President Biden declassify all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat,” Turner said in the statement, providing no further information.
Citing a current and a former U.S. official, the New York Times reported earlier that the new intelligence was related to Russia’s attempts to develop a spacebased anti-satellite nuclear weapon. ABC News reported earlier that the intelligence had to do with such a capability. Current and former officials said the nuclear weapon was not in orbit.
Turner’s statement was released in the 2,000 Palestinians who had been sheltering in Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza arrived in Rafah after being ordered to evacuate by the Israeli army, residents and some witnesses said.
Richard Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization representative for Gaza and the West Bank, said an assault on Rafah would be “an unfathomable catastrophe... and would even further expand the humanitarian disaster beyond imagination.”
French President Emmanuel Macron raised similar concerns in a phone call on Wednesday with Netanyahu, the president’s office said, saying further forced displacements of people could also bring regional escalation.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said before talks with Netanyahu that people in Rafah with nowhere to go “cannot simply vanish into thin air.”
Israel says it takes steps to minimise civilian casualties and accuses Hamas fighters of hiding among civilians, including in hospitals and shelters - something the militant group denies. midst of debate in Congress over how the United States should be dealing with global threats from Russia and other rivals, with security hawks urging greater global involvement and some lawmakers most closely allied with Republican former President Donald Trump advocating for a more isolationist “America First” approach to world affairs.
Turner recently returned from leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to Ukraine, after which he warned fellow lawmakers that time was running out for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invaders.
The Biden administration has been ramping up its criticism of House Republicans for possibly blocking a $95 billion bill passed by the Senate that would supply aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Supporters of the bill argue that a major reason for the United States to back the government in Kyiv is to push back against threats from Russia that extend beyond Ukraine.
‘NOT A CAUSE FOR PANIC’
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a staunch Trump ally who says he will not rush to allow a vote on the Senate bill, told reporters at the Capitol there was no need for public alarm. “Steady hands are at the wheel. We’re working on it and there’s no need for alarm,” he said.
Senators Mark Warner and Marco Rubio, the Democratic chair and Republican vice chair, respectively, of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a joint statement saying their panel has the intelligence in question and has been “rigorously” tracking the issue.
On Wednesday Israel said it had approved the use of Starlink services - the satellite network of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk - to help communications at a field hospital in Gaza and in Israel itself for the first time.
Israeli forces shelled eastern areas of Rafah overnight, and pounded several areas of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, residents said.
The health ministry in the Hamas-governed enclave said Israeli forces were continuing to isolate the two main hospitals in Khan Younis, and that sniper fire at Nasser Hospital had killed and wounded many people in recent days.
An Israeli airstrike on a house in AlNusseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed six people, health officials said.
At least 28,576 Palestinians have been killed, including 103 in the past 24 hours, and 68,291 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza since Oct.7, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Many other people are believed to be buried under rubble of destroyed buildings across the densely populated Gaza Strip, much of which is in ruins. Supplies of food, water and other essentials are running out and diseases are spreading.
At least 1,200 Israelis were killed and around 250 were taken hostage in the Hamas raid on southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel has vowed to fight on until it eradicates Hamas and has made the return of the last hostages a priority. Hamas says Israel must commit to ending the war and withdrawing from Gaza.
Diplomacy is focused not just on halting the war and securing the hostages’ release but also on preventing the conflict from spreading across the region.
The armed Lebanese group Hezbollah, which backs the Palestinians, has frequently fired across the border into northern Israel since the war began in Gaza.
In the latest clashes on Wednesday, Israel said it had carried out retaliatory strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after rocket attacks which it said had killed an Israeli female soldier, struck a military base and wounded several other people.