India-UAE travel: How much cash NRIs and tourists allowed to carry?

The Israeli regime's top spy agencies reportedly seek to “assassinate” Hamas leaders around the world after its brutal war on the Gaza Strip that has already killed more than 15,000 Palestinians ends. 

With orders from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the regime’s top spy agencies, including Mossad, are working on plans to assassinate Hamas leaders living in Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar, and other Persian Gulf countries, The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed Israeli officials on Thursday. 

"The question now for Israeli leaders isn't about whether to try to kill Hamas leaders elsewhere in the world, but where—and how, the officials said," wrote the newspaper.

The report claimed that there had been calls to immediately assassinate Khaled Meshaal, one of the top Hamas leaders, after the Palestinian resistance group launched the Al-Aqsa Storm Operation against the regime on October 7.

Israel’s prime minister hinted at the regime’s plans for assassinations abroad in an address in late November, when he said that he had “instructed the Mossad to act against the heads of Hamas wherever they are.”

Israel has a long history of conducting assassination operations outside its borders in violation of international law, sovereignty of other countries, and human rights.

Israel’s minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant also threatened Hamas leaders back then, saying, “The struggle is worldwide.”

Efraim Halevy, a former Mossad director, however, told the Journal that the regime’s plan “is not supported by everyone.”

"Pursuing Hamas on a worldwide scale and trying to systematically remove all its leaders from this world is a desire to exact revenge, not a desire to achieve a strategic aim."

After Israel was caught off guard by Hamas operation on the occupied territories, it started a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip. The regime has so far killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, about 40 percent of whom are children. 

Some of the big names that may feature in Mossad's kill list are Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Khaled Mashal. 

Ismail Haniyeh

Haniyeh, 60, is a politician who is a former Palestinian prime minister. He was elected as the head of Hamas' political bureau in 2017.  In 2006, while serving as the Palestinian PM, Haniyeh was the subject of an assassination plot using a poison-filled letter. 

Haniyeh lives in voluntary exile, splitting his time between Qatar and Turkey. 

Mohammed Deif

Deif heads Hamas' military wing, the Ezzdine al-Qassam Brigades, and is Israel's public enemy number one. Israeli authorities have tried to assassinate him at least six times, as per reports. He has also been on the US list of "international terrorists" since 2015.

The audio message at the start of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, dubbed the "Al-Aqsa Flood", carried Deif's voice. His current whereabouts are unknown but Israel believes he is fighting alongside Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip.

Yahya Sinwar

Sinwar, 61, is a former commander of the Ezzdine al-Qassam Brigades and was elected in 2017 as head of Hamas in Gaza. He has spent 23 years in Israeli jails before his release in 2011 in a prisoner exchange involving French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was held captive by Hamas.

Some of the Israeli hostages taken to Gaza have spoken about encountering Sinwar during their captivity. 

Khaled Mashal

Mashal is a founding member of Hamas Politburo and was the chairman until 2017. His current whereabouts are believed to be in Qatar.

Mashal was at the centre of a sensational assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997 when Mossad agents, posing as Canadian tourists, sprayed a deadly toxin into one of his ears. The Mossad kill-team was captured and Mashal fell into a coma.

US President Bill Clinton had to intervene and the then Mossad chief Danny Yatom had to fly to Amman with an antidote.

Kuala Lumpur, Nov 27: Malaysia will scrap entry visa requirements for citizens of India and China visiting the nation beginning Dec. 1, according to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Chinese and Indian nationals may stay for up to 30 days visa-free, Anwar said in a speech at his People’s Justice Party’s annual congress in Putrajaya on Sunday. This would be subject to security screening, he added.

Malaysia is counting on extra tourist arrivals — and their spending — to support economic growth. Anwar last month announced plans to improve visa facilities next year to encourage the entry of tourists and investors, “especially from India and China.”

China on Friday said it would allow citizens of six countries including Malaysia to enter the country without a visa. The move takes effect from Dec. 1 and will last until Nov. 30 of next year, and will allow leisure, business and family travelers from those nations to stay in China for up to 15 days visa-free.

At least nine Palestinians have been killed and several others injured after the Israeli regime carried out airstrikes on two refugee camps in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that the victims, including children, were killed as a result of Israeli occupation air raids on a house in the Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza early on Wednesday.

Sources also told Wafa that several people lost their lives in another Israeli strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in northeastern Gaza.

Israelis kill five Palestinians in West Bank

The Israeli military also killed five Palestinians in a drone missile attack on the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm.

The occupation forces stormed the Tulkarm refugee camp and bombed a house and a gathering of Palestinian residents in the area with a drone, leaving at least three Palestinians inured, according to WAFA.

The Israeli regime forces also imposed a siege on Thabet Hospital in the city of Tulkarm and surrounded the entrances to the hospital with their vehicles, which hindered the arrival of the injured at the medical facility to receive treatment.

“The occupation army chased the ambulances that were traveling in the city of Tulkarm, obstructed their work and prevented them from moving freely,” WAFA cite eyewitnesses as saying.

Palestine’s Shehab news agency said the occupation forces also arrested one of the wounded after storming the emergency department at Thabet Hospital.

The latest casualties came hot on the heels of an agreed-upon ceasefire deal that would bring about a halt in a 47-day-long Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Israel waged the bloody war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Storm in the occupied territories in retaliation for the Tel Aviv regime’s incessant crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Since the start of the aggression, the Tel Aviv regime has killed 14,128 Palestinians, including 5,840 children and 3,920 women, and injured at least 33,000 others.

The illegal entity has also imposed a “complete siege” on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.