Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue targeting Gaza with airstrikes, following overnight fighting with Hamas. The Israeli prime minister also instructed the IDF to increase its armored and artillery forces in the south.

Netanyahu, who held an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday, said the military mobilization was necessary to help protect Israel from further rocket attacks.

The Israeli leader promised to keep up “massive strikes” in response to hundreds of rockets fired at Israel from inside Gaza, AFP reported.

“I call on citizens to strictly adhere to the security regulations. We are working to restore peace and security to the residents of the south,” Netanyahu said.

On orders from Netanyahu, troops from the IDF’s 7th armored brigade have been moved south. The Israeli military said the forces “would be ready to act as an offensive force within the Gaza Division.”

His directives come hours after it was announced that bomb shelters in the municipality of Rishon LeTsiyon, a city just seven miles south of Tel Aviv, were opened to the public on Sunday as a precaution.

The flurry of developments strongly suggests that Israel is gearing up for a long-term escalation with Hamas, some analysts noted.

“Various indications that #Israel is at least planning for the latest #Gaza escalation to continue, including 1) sending an armored division to the south, 2) cancelation of school in the south, 3) opening public bomb shelters in more distant areas like Rishon LeTsion,” wrote security analyst Mirian Goldman Eps.

More than 400 rockets have so far been launched at Israel, with the IDF retaliating by striking targets in Gaza. Although the Israeli military insists that its airstrikes are aimed at Hamas, at least six Palestinian civilians have been killed in the latest flare-up, including a pregnant mother and her infant daughter. The IDF has denied any involvement in their deaths, claiming instead that the mother and daughter were killed by a rocket fired by Hamas, which exploded prematurely.

One Israeli has been killed by the rocket barrage, and several others were injured.

While no further attacks have been reported, the IDF announced on Sunday morning that air-raid sirens were sounding in southern Israel.

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The Venezuelan foreign minister is heading to Moscow for a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. The top diplomats are set to discuss recent developments after a failed coup attempt in Caracas.

The talks between Jorge Arreaza and Sergey Lavrov are expected to begin on Sunday after the Venezuelan minister arrives in Moscow. During the rare face-to-face discussion, they will seek a solution to the bitter political crisis that is crippling the Latin American nation, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Arreaza and Lavrov will also discuss “options for international mediation efforts to facilitate dialogue between the government and the opposition.” Finally, their meeting will touch upon trade, investment and military cooperation.

The meeting comes at a troubled time for Venezuela, which recently saw a massive effort by US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido to remove President Nicolas Maduro from power. During violent clashes in and around Caracas, Guaido called for an uprising against the government, but the army and security forces remained loyal to President Maduro.

The talks will also be held just one day before Lavrov meets with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Finland. Moscow and Washington are at odds over Venezuela, but the Russian Foreign Ministry said the timing of two meetings does not contain any message.

Pompeo himself had commented on the Venezuelan unrest, reiterating that “military action is possible.” President Maduro has urged the army to remain vigilant and ready should the US launch an offensive on Venezuela.

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A Venezuelan military helicopter has crashed, killing all seven people on board. The deceased include three captains, two majors and two lieutenant-colonels.

The Cougar Siglas helicopter was flying from Caracas to San Carlos, in the state of Cojedes. The helicopter crashed shortly after leaving the Venezuelan capital in a wooded area of the Caracas municipality of El Hatillo.

Nicolás Maduro has expressed his condolences to the relatives and friends of the “worthy officers of the country” who have lost their lives in the incident.

On Saturday Maduro was overseeing training exercises in El Pao, Cojedes state. He accused Washington and supporters of opposition leader Juan Guaido of conspiracy “to weaken, divide and destroy the Bolivarian Armed Forces from within” with lots of money. He urged the soldiers to say no to traitors.

Guaido called for the ouster of Maduro last Tuesday, claiming that the military was on his side, but that attempt failed after two days of protests as the army remained predominantly faithful to the elected president.

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At the height of the Israeli-Gazan cross-border flare-up, the IDF tweeted pictures of children playing with toy guns who, it claimed, attended a Hamas-run pre-school. The blunt propaganda wasn’t well received on social media.

“Hamas is robbing the children of Gaza of their future, and attempts to rob the children of Israel of theirs. We won’t let them. No country would,” the IDF said, releasing images of young Palestinians in green bandanas receiving what appears to be military training.

“While children in Israel ran for shelter from incoming rocket fire from Gaza, these children in Gaza graduated from kindergarten,” the tweet added.

The message, sent out as tensions spilled into Sunday after a weekend of heavy cross-border fire, immediately sparked controversy online, with many twitterattis reminding the IDF that Israel is just as guilty of indoctrinating its youth. “Maybe they wouldn’t need to do this if you stopped launching rockets at them,” one user said, while others began posting pictures of young Israelis being briefed on how to use guns.

Nurturing patriotism from a very early age seems important to both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, against the background of the unrelenting mutual animosity that has dragged on for the last seven decades.

Palestinians, who believe they are being oppressed by ‘Israeli occupation,’ believe it is necessary to train their youth to claim their right to the land which they believe they lost when the state of Israel was created in 1948. Hamas, which since 2007 has been the ruler in the Gaza Strip, regularly organized summer camps where teens undergo training in military drills.

Israel, which has mandatory military service, believes that training its youth in combat skills is essential to tackle Palestinian extremism and other possible forms of hostilities towards the Jewish State. While primary school children receive firearms training during summer camps, their elder peers are used to the attention of Israeli police and the army, which organize sporadic training courses, especially in settlers’ communities, to familiarize teens with the use of weapons and other combat means.

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Over a dozen Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed as well as scores injured on both sides in an ongoing spate of violence that saw hundreds of rockets launched by Gaza militants and massive air strikes by Israel.

At least 18 people were killed in Sunday’s Israeli assault on Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry said, adding that dozens more have been injured. A pregnant woman and her 14-month-old baby were among those killed.

Israel said it killed at least eight Palestinian militants, claiming it struck 320 militant targets in the strip, including tunnels, arms workshops and depots. It blamed the deaths of a Palestinian woman and her daughter on a faulty rocket launch by the militants.

It also claimed that a Palestinian man killed in the Gaza Strip on Sunday was a Hamas commander. Ahmed Abed Khudri, whose car was hit by an Israeli air strike, allegedly helped transfer funds from Iran to armed factions in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Hamas militant group that controls the Gaza Strip as well as another extremist organization called the Islamic Jihad fired as many as 600 rockets and mortar shells targeting the Israeli territory. At least four people in Israel were killed and at least 10 injured by shrapnel from rockets, missiles and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip.

One man was critically injured and later died from his wounds on Sunday after a rocket struck a factory in the southern city of Ashkelon, 50km south of Tel Aviv. Another man in Ashkelon died after his car was directly hit by a rocket.

The IDF also said that the militants hit a civilian van with an anti-tank missile near Kibbutz Erez, critically injuring the driver, who later died from his injuries. The Palestinian militants claimed it was a military vehicle transporting soldiers that they struck.

Both sides also said that many civilians were injured during the recent developments.The Israeli retaliation air strikes resulted in 125 Palestinians suffering various injuries, the Gaza Health Ministry said.

The mediation efforts taken by the UN and Egypt have yielded no results so far as none of the sides appeared to be ready to stop the violence. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue striking Gaza with “massive airstrikes” in response to the militants’ rocket launches.

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Rocket attacks on Israel continue into the night, even after the Israel Defense Forces launched airstrikes and tank bombardments against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the Gaza Strip.

Israel says over 430 rockets have been launched by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Sirens were ringing most of Saturday and through the early hours of Sunday in Eshkol, Ashkelon and other cities in proximity of the Gaza Strip.

One man was reported killed in Ashkelon when a rocket hit his home, and nine people were wounded.

Several hours earlier, sirens wailed and a rocket barrage rained down on the city of Be’er Sheva. The largest city in southern Israel, Be’er Sheva is usually out of range of all but Hamas’ longest-range projectiles.

Many of the rockets launched were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Shortly before Be’er Sheva was targeted, interceptions were observed over Ashdod, less than 30km up the coast from the border with Gaza.

Amid the ongoing standoff, the Islamic Jihad released a video vowing to strike nuclear research facility in Dimona and other strategic sites, including Ben-Gurion International Airport. Footage showed militants loading rockets into a launcher, followed by a list of targets which also included Ashdod port and refineries in Haifa. Hamas also noted that the “next step is to blow up Tel Aviv.”

Palestinian death toll higher

Israel pinned responsibility for the attacks on Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant groups, and launched airstrikes in response.

Israeli planes continued their raids into the Gaza Strip overnight, targeting various buildings, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Israeli tanks also pounded targets in Gaza, with the IDF claiming to have successfully hit Hamas weapons factories and intelligence headquarters, and destroyed Islamic Jihad “terror tunnels” used by terrorists to sneak into Israel.

The Israeli strikes claimed at least three Palestinian lives, including a 14-month-old baby and her pregnant mother, according to the Gaza health ministry. A 22-year-old man was also killed, although it is unclear whether he was a civilian or a Hamas operative.

At least eight Palestinians have died since tensions escalated on Friday, Palestinian News agency Wafa said, and at least 30 civilians sustained injuries. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli aggression on Gaza, noting that “the silence on Israel’s crimes and violations of international law encourages it to continue its crimes against the Palestinian people.”

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Health Minister Mai al-Kaila, called on the international community to urgently intervene and hold Israel responsible for “crimes” against the Palestinians. She also said that hospitals in Gaza are in urgent need of medicine and other supplies.

On the Israeli side of the border, an 80-year-old woman was severely wounded in a Palestinian rocket strike on the city of Kiryat Gat, and remains in “serious condition.” Another 49-year-old man in Ashkelon was moderately wounded, while a 15-year-old boy who failed to find cover in time managed to escape with mild injuries.

Violence resumed in Gaza this week after militants fired a rocket into Israel on Tuesday. Two Israeli troops patrolling near the Gaza border were then shot, triggering retaliatory IDF airstrikes. As the fighting escalated, Hamas promised a tit-for-tat response.

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Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned Israel for hitting the office of Anadolu Agency during its airstrikes in Gaza, saying that it won’t prevent Turkey from reporting on atrocities committed by the Jewish state.

“Turkey and the Anadolu Agency will continue to tell the world about Israeli terrorism and atrocities in Gaza and other parts of Palestine, despite such attacks,” Erdogan vowed on Twitter.

The Turkish news agency shared a video on Saturday, purportedly showing rescuers combing through the rubble of the ruined building which had hosted its bureau.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu described the alleged attack as a “new example of Israel’s unrestrained aggression.”

The ministry called on the international community to “to act swiftly in order to reduce the tension in the region with Israel’s disproportionate actions.”

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Statues made of high-quality limestone, picturesque wooden masks and intact colorful sarcophagi have been found at a newly-discovered burial site near the pyramids at Giza. Researchers have said the find dates back to 2,500 BC.

One of the oldest tombs contains the remains of two men who lived during the so-called Old Kingdom or the age of the pyramid builders.

“The two false doors that we found inside are really in a very good quality of limestone. To get a very good quality of limestone that came from Tora, you need to get permission from the King himself, and I believe that those guys even got very good titles to be able to ask the King for this good quality limestone,” said Mostafa Waziri, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.

According to the inscriptions inside the tombs one of the men was called Behnui-Ka. He was a priest and judge who served under several kings including Khafre, the pharaoh who ordered the construction of one of the Giza Pyramids. The other was Nwi, whose titles included “chief of the great state,” “the overseer of the new settlements” and “the purifier of King Khafre.”
Archaeologists believe that their mummified remains may be found in the sarcophagi, and suggest that some statues and masks depict them and their family members.

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Three days after clashing with police at May Day demonstrations, Yellow Vests protesters marched in Paris and across France, in the 25th straight weekend of anti-government anger.

According to the Interior Ministry, 18,900 demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday, the lowest turnout since the movement began as a protest against a planned fuel tax hike in November. However, the Yellow Vests have regularly disputed the figures released by the ministry, accusing officials of downplaying the scale of the protests.

In Paris, protesters demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. Castaner had accused Yellow Vests protesters of staging an “attack” on a hospital in the city during Wednesday’s May Day protests. Social media footage told a different story, with the protesters seeking refuge in the hospital to avoid police batons and tear gas.

Droves of protesters beat drums and chanted “Liar Castaner.”

Protesters in Toulouse also jeered at Castaner and demanded his resignation. The march in Toulouse quickly became violent, however, and clashes broke out between the Yellow Vests and police. Tear gas was deployed, and riot police at one point violently charged protesters.

Tear gas was also used by police in La Roche-sur-Yon, while protesters in Lyon joined a more peaceful youth march against global warming.

Although turnout on the streets was lower than on previous weekends, many Yellow Vests have not been pacified by President Macron’s promise of tax breaks, with one dismissing the president’s offering as “rubbish” last week.

In the wake of Castaner’s hospital “attack” claim, 1,400 French artists, celebrities and creatives –including movie stars Juliette Binoche and Emmanuelle Beart– signed an open letter of support for the Yellow Vests, printed in left-wing newspaper Libération on Saturday. In it, they slammed the French government and media for attempting to “discredit” the “citizens’ movement.”

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Ecuador traded Julian Assange for a loan from the International Monetary Fund, which can only be handed out with the approval of Washington, John Shipton, the WikiLeaks co-founder’s father, has said.

“Ecuador doesn’t have its own currency. It uses the US dollar,” Shipton told 60 Minutes Australia. 

In late February, Ecuador has reached a $4.2 billion staff-level financing deal with the IMF to keep its struggling economy afloat. 

Less than two months later, Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno revoked Assange’s political asylum. The publisher and journalist was detained by the UK police, which dragged him out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He had been holed up there for almost seven years fearing extradition to the US for publishing evidence of its war crimes and shady policies on his whistleblowing project WikiLeaks.

RT’s Ruptly video agency was the only outlet present to capture the arrest on video. Shipton commented on the footage describing the “terrible” effect that the pressure has had on his son. “I’m 74, he looks as old as me. He’s 47.”

Assange’s father said his main fear now was that Britain will deport the whistleblower to the US. Formally, the Americans want to prosecute the publisher for an alleged cyber-conspiracy with former US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who passed thousands of classified US military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010. But many believe the number of charges will pile up once the US gets hold of Assange.

“The US was determined to ruin his life, for whatever reason. They want to demonstrate that publishers and whistleblowers will be destroyed,” Shipton said.

He also laughed at the claims that his son was working with the Kremlin, which were first voiced by the Hillary Clinton camp. “Oh for god’s sake, Russian asset, spare me,” the father said.

Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential vote in the US not because the WikiLeaks published the emails of the Democratic National Committee, but because Clinton as Secretary of State “destroyed Libya and giggled like a madwoman seeing a bayonet that’s stuffed up Gaddafi’s a**hole,” he argued.

Shipton parted ways with Assange’s mother Christine Ann Hawkins when she was pregnant with Julian, but he kept in touch with his son and reportedly last visited him in the Ecuadorian embassy on Christmas.

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