At least 2 dead, nearly 70 injured when car plows into German Christmas market: Officials
(BERLIN) — A car plowed into people visiting a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring nearly 70 others, according to German officials.
German authorities are treating the incident as terrorism, U.S. law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Among those injured, at least 15 were seriously hurt, according to a local official.
People are still arriving at the hospital for treatment, a German security official said.
A suspect has been arrested in the attack that sent shoppers fleeing in panic, U.S. sources said.
The suspect is a doctor from Saudi Arabia who has lived in Germany since 2006, according to Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt Reiner Haseloff. A rental car was used in the attack, according to Haseloff.
The motive is unknown at this time, U.S. sources said.
Extensive police operations are underway at the Magdeburg Christmas market, which is now closed, local police said.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. “We stand by their side and by the side of the people of Magdeburg. My thanks go to the dedicated rescue workers in these anxious hours.”
Magdeburg is about a two-hour drive west of Berlin.
This incident comes nearly eight years to the day after a terror attack at a different German Christmas market. On Dec. 19, 2016, a man drove a truck into a crowd at a market in Berlin, killing 13 and injuring dozens.
The potential for vehicle-ramming attacks is an ongoing concern for U.S. law enforcement officials, especially ahead of New Year’s Eve. A joint threat assessment about New Year’s Eve in New York City’s Times Square noted the use of vehicle-ramming alone or in conjunction with other tactics “has become a recurring tactic employed by threat actors in the West.”
he NYPD, out of an abundance of caution, will surge resources to similar areas around the city, including Christmas markets, according to NYPD deputy commissioner for counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner.
“We know this is a very festive time, it is a busy time in the city, and we are going to make sure that all of our holiday markets, all of our holiday activities are protected by our counter weapons teams, by officers on patrol, all our counter-terrorism officers, our critical response command,” Weiner told ABC New York station WABC.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON) — The ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group.
The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza, particularly in the north of the devastated Palestinian territory.
Tensions also remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides.
Israeli drone strike injures Lebanon soldier, army says The Lebanese Armed Forces said on Monday that an Israeli drone “targeted an army bulldozer while it was carrying out fortification work” at a military center in the northeastern Hermel region close to the border with Syria.
The attack “resulted in one soldier being moderately injured,” the army wrote in a post to X.
The Israel Defense Forces has not yet commented on the alleged strike.
-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule
IDF confirms death of US-Israeli hostage
The Israel Defense Forces on Monday confirmed that missing U.S.-Israeli soldier Omer Maxim Neutra, 21, was among those killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel.
Neutra was believed taken into Gaza as a hostage by militants during the attack. But the IDF said Monday he was killed during the Oct. 7 assault and his body was taken by militants.
Neutra — originally from New York — was serving as a tank platoon commander in the 77th Battalion of the 7th Brigade at the time of the Hamas attack. He was among hundreds of security forces personnel killed during the assault.
Neutra’s parents have been campaigning for a hostage release deal in the U.S., their activity including public appearances at the White House and the Capitol.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
IDF reports ‘several operations’ against Hezbollah in Lebanon
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday it launched “several operations” targeting Hezbollah fighters that it claimed posed a direct threat to Israel “in violation of the ceasefire agreement.”
Among the operations was an attack on armed militants operating close to a church in southern Lebanon, the IDF said.
Those killed “were active in the ground defense, anti-tank and artillery formations in the sector, and took part in the fighting while using the church,” it wrote in a post to X.
The 60-day ceasefire that went into effect last week is holding despite continued sporadic fighting and Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon.
The deal stipulates that IDF troops will withdraw from their positions in Lebanon during the 60-day window and that Hezbollah forces will withdraw from the region south of the Litani River.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
Hostage Edan Alexander’s father makes an appeal to Biden, Trump and Netanyahu
The father of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander issued an emotional request on Sunday to President Biden, President-elect Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, telling the leaders to act now to bring the hostages home “before it’s too late.”
A day after seeing his son for the first time in a year in a propaganda video released by Hamas’ military wing, Adi Alexander of New Jersey spoke at a rally in New York City’s Central Park, saying, “No father should hear his child plead for his life like that.”
“President Biden, President Trump, Prime Minster Netanyahu, I call on all of you to act,” Alexander said. “This is not a moment for politics or hesitation. This is a moment of courage, collaboration and decisive action.”
He appealed to Biden to use the United States’ influence “to negotiate a deal before it’s too late.”
Directing his words to Trump, he said, “You do not have to wait until January to make an impact. The world is watching. Act now.”
To Netanyahu, Alexander said, “The fate of the hostages, including my son, rests in your hands. You have the power to bring them home. Don’t let this opportunity slip away.”
Edan Alexander, 20, was serving in the Israeli military and stationed near Gaza when he was taken captive by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023.
The White House issued a statement, saying, it has been in touch with the Alexander family and called the hostage video a “cruel reminder of Hamas’s terror against citizens of multiple countries, including our own.”
“The war in Gaza would stop tomorrow and the suffering of Gazans would end immediately– and would have ended months ago– if Hamas agreed to release the hostages,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said in a statement. “It has refused to do so, but as the President said last week, we have a critical opportunity to conclude the deal to release the hostages, stop the war, and surge humanitarian assistance into Gaza. This deal is on the table now.”
Netanyahu to hold meeting to discuss hostages, Lebanon, Syria tonight: Official
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold a security meeting Sunday night to discuss the issue of the hostages, as well as Lebanon and Syria, an Israeli official told ABC News.
-ABC News’ Jordana Miller
UN pauses aid deliveries to Gaza amid safety concerns
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini on Sunday announced a pause to Gaza aid deliveries via the strip’s main crossing point, citing serious threats to the safety of staff.
The road out of the Kerem Shalom crossing “has not been safe for months,” Lazzarini said in a post to X.
“This difficult decision comes at a time hunger is rapidly deepening,” Lazzarini said. “The delivery of humanitarian aid must never be dangerous or turn into an ordeal.”
The UNRWA chief said a “large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs” on Nov. 16, with several more aid trucks taken on Saturday.
Lazzarini also said that Israel’s “ongoing siege” of Gaza, “hurdles” put in place by Israeli authorities and “political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid” were among the other problems facing U.N. staff.
“The humanitarian operation has become unnecessarily impossible,” he wrote. “The responsibility of protection of aid workers [and] supplies is with the state of Israel as the occupying power.”
(BEIT LAHIA, Gaza) – Health officials in Gaza say there is only one hospital remaining that is providing humanitarian aid services in the northern part of the strip amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
In early October, Israel Defense Forces reportedly ordered evacuations of several regions in the north of Gaza, doctors at the hospitals told ABC News, including Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia, as they work to surround Hamas fighters who are allegedly in the area.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, said in a recorded message shared over the weekend on an X account by the director general of the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health that his hospital is “currently the only hospital still providing humanitarian services in northern Gaza.”
Between 50,000 and 75,000 residents are estimated to remain in northern Gaza, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
In additional comments Sunday, sent via a WhatsApp group the Gaza Ministry of Heath uses to share updates with the media, Safiya said there are currently 400 civilians inside Kamal Adwan Hospital, including babies in the neonatal unit who are in incubators and in need of oxygen. He further said that despite orders from the IDF to evacuate Kamal Adwan Hospital, there is no way to safely evacuate patients from the hospital.
“We have repeatedly requested assistance and have openly invited [Israeli forces] to see for themselves the internal workings of our hospitals so that we may continue to serve our population without fear of attack and death. These calls were rejected,” Safiya said in Sunday’s comments. “We also call on the world to witness, that if Kamal Adwan Hospital is decommissioned, there will be no way of preserving conditions of life to the remaining 75,000+ civilians in north Gaza.”
ABC News has not been able to confirm if and when Israeli forces were invited to enter Kamal Adwan Hospital, as Safiya claims, nor when the invitation was allegedly rejected.
Safiya also said that Kamal Adwan Hospital has been the target of IDF attacks as recently as Sunday.
“Direct attacks on the hospitals began with no warnings and no civilian protection permitted by the occupation, in the way of normal procedures expected in a combat zone,” he said in the Sunday message to reporters. “[International Committee of the Red Cross] and other U.N. bodies were consistently denied access to intervene. As a result, significant harm and loss to civilian life and means of preserving life resulted in these attacks on hospitals.”
“Regarding Kamal Adwan Hospital, IDF forces are operating in its vicinity but not within its premises,” the IDF said Monday in response to an ABC News request for comment, adding that the IDF “is unaware of any evacuation order of the hospital.” The IDF response did not address whether they attacked the hospital.
Israel has claimed that Hamas uses hospitals, and networks of tunnels beneath them, as bases to conduct and promote terrorist activity, and U.S. officials have backed this claim. Hamas, however, has repeatedly denied it.
Israeli forces have also insisted that they have tried to limit civilian casualties as much as possible over the course of the war.
The latest update from the Gaza Ministry of Health comes as UNICEF says children in the most northern part of Gaza have been largely unable to receive humanitarian assistance for more than 10 weeks due to the ongoing siege.
More than 96% of women and children in Gaza are currently surviving on a diet of rationed flour, lentils, pasta and canned food, which does not meet their nutritional needs, according to UNICEF.
“Gaza must be one of the most heartbreaking places on earth for humanitarians. Every small effort to save a child’s life is undone by fierce devastation,” UNICEF Communication Specialist Rosalia Bollen said during a press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on Friday.
“For over 14 months, children have been at the sharp edge of this nightmare, with more than 14,500 children reportedly killed, thousands more injured,” she continued. “As we approach the end of the year, a time when the world strives to celebrate family, peace and togetherness, in Gaza the reality for over a million children is fear, utter deprivation and unimaginable suffering.”
Since Hamas launched its surprise terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, more than 1,700 Israelis have been killed and more than 8,700 have been injured, according to Israeli officials. In Gaza, more than 45,300 people have been killed, and more than 107,700 people have been injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
(LONDON) — A woman has been arrested after allegedly poisoning a 1-year-old girl over two months so she could post videos of the child online in order to solicit donations from the public, police said.
The Queensland Police in Australia said that the Morningside Child Protection and Investigation Unit (CPIU) has charged a woman with torture following “extensive investigations into allegations of an infant being poisoned,” according to a statement released on Thursday.
“It will be alleged between August 6 to October 15, 2024, a 34-year-old Sunshine Coast woman administered several unauthorised prescription and pharmacy medicines to a one-year-old girl, who was known to her, without medical approval,” authorities said. “It will be further alleged the woman, disregarding medical advice, went to lengths to obtain unauthorised medicines, including old medicines for a different person available in their home.”
Further investigations into the case allegedly revealed that the woman “carefully concealed her continued efforts to administer the unauthorised medicines until the matter was detected and reported to police by medical staff from a hospital in Brisbane’s south while the child was admitted.”
When announcing the charges against the unnamed woman, police said that the child was subjected to “immense distress and pain” while the woman filmed and posted videos of the child online.
“It is alleged the content produced exploited the child and was used to entice monetary donations and online followers,” police said.
Medical staff reported harm against the child to detectives on Oct. 15, 2024, which lead to police taking immediate action to protect the child during their investigation.
Testing for unauthorized medicines given to the child returned a positive result on Jan. 7, Australian authorities said.
“Morningside CPIU detectives travelled to an Underwood address to arrest the woman and subsequently charged her with five counts of administering poison with intent to harm, three counts of preparation to commit crimes with dangerous things, and one count each of torture, making child exploitation material and fraud,” police said.
She is expected to appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court tomorrow on Friday. Detective Inspector Paul Dalton said offences of this nature are abhorrent and CPIU detectives are committed to protecting children from harm and holding offenders to account.
“Working in CPIU we are too often faced with the worst offences against children,” he said. “We will do everything in our power to remove that child from harm’s way and hold any offender to account. There is no excuse for harming a child, especially not a one-year-old infant who is reliant on others for care and survival.”
