World
Hamas had not planned to attack music festival, Israeli report says
First police investigation of Supernova festival also found Israeli forces responsible for some deaths.
Hamas fighters who attacked a music festival in Israel on October 7, killing hundreds, likely did not know in advance about the event and decided to target it on the spot, Israeli media has reported citing police and security sources.
According to a copy of the first Israeli police report into the attack, obtained this week by Israel’s Channel 12, Palestinian fighters had originally intended to attack nearby kibbutz Re’im as well as other villages near the Gaza border. They found out about the music festival with drones and from the air as they parachuted into Israel.
Some 4,400 people had reportedly been at the event that Saturday when Hamas broke through Israel’s high-security barrier – which includes radar system and underground sensors – and attacked military posts and villages in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities.
This Saturday, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the “growing assessment in Israel’s security establishment” based on the police investigation and on interrogations of captured Hamas members, is that the group had not planned to target the event.
While police found maps of the target locations on the bodies of killed Hamas members, none was of the festival location. An additional finding supporting the assessment, according to Haaretz, was that Hamas militants did not approach the festival from the direction of the border but from a nearby highway.
In addition, the event had originally been scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday, with Saturday added to the programme only on Tuesday that week.
The report also found that most of the festival goers had managed to leave the event by the time Hamas showed up and the massacre began.
“The large majority of [people who were at the event] managed to flee following the decision to disperse the event made four minutes after the rocket attack,” according to a senior police source quoted by Haaretz.
The police investigation also found that an Israeli military helicopter opened fire on the assailants but also hit some people attending the festival. No further details were provided, Haaretz reported.
“An investigation into the incident revealed an [Israeli military] combat helicopter that arrived at the scene from the Ramat David base fired at the terrorists and apparently also hit some of the revelers there,” the news report cited an unnamed police official as saying.
The police report also revised the death toll from the attack to 364, including 17 police officers, up from 270. It put the number of kidnapped festival-goers at 40.
In response to the Hamas attacks, Israel launched a ground and air assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 12,000 Palestinians, including 5,000 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Much of the Gaza Strip lies in ruins and a total blockade that Israel has imposed on the territory has left its residents unable to get enough food, water, fuel and medical supplies, all now at critically low levels.
World
A man who abused up to 3,500 girls online has been sentenced for crimes including manslaughter
A “relentless and cruel” online predator who blackmailed girls around the world was sentenced to at least 20 years in prison on Friday after being convicted of the manslaughter of a victim who took her own life.
Prosecutors say 26-year-old Alexander McCartney, from Newry in Northern Ireland, pretended to be a teenage girl and carried out catfishing attacks on 3,500 female victims he contacted on platforms including Snapchat.
MASS RAPE TRIAL LAYS BARE FRANCE’S DISTURBING CULTURE OF SEXUAL ASSAULT, CRITICS ALLEGE
Catfishing is using a fake online identity to deceive victims. Authorities said McCartney encouraged his victims to send intimate photos or engage in sex acts, then extorted them by threatening to share the images.
A 12-year-old in West Virginia killed herself in May 2018 during an online chat with McCartney as he demanded sex acts. The victim’s father died by suicide 18 months later.
Prosecutors said they believe this is the first time someone has been convicted of manslaughter in a case where victim and perpetrator never met.
“Working closely with police, the prosecution team was able to establish to the criminal standard that McCartney’s actions had caused the girl’s death, and he had a case to answer for manslaughter,” said Catherine Kieran, acting Head of the Northern Ireland Public Prosecution Service Serious Crime Unit.
Police have identified victims in 30 countries, including Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
McCartney, who carried out his crimes from the bedroom of his childhood home, pleaded guilty to 185 charges involving 70 children, including the manslaughter charge. At Belfast Crown Court, judge John O’Hara sentenced him to life with no chance of parole for 20 years.
“To my knowledge there has not been a case such as the present where a defendant has used social media on an industrial scale to inflict such terrible and catastrophic damage,” the judge said.
Detective Chief Superintendent Eamonn Corrigan of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said outside court that McCartney was a “relentless and cruel” pedophile.
“We cannot underestimate the devastation that he has caused and the childhoods he has stolen,” the officer said. “There was nothing that was going to stop him, apart from putting him in jail.”
World
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 976
As the war enters its 976th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Monday, October 28, 2024:
Fighting
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An elderly man from Ukraine’s port city of Kherson was killed after explosives were dropped on him from a drone, and another man was killed by artillery fire, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on the Telegram messaging app.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defence units destroyed 21 Ukrainian drones overnight targeting the border Belgorod region as well as Bryansk, Voronezh and Kursk regions.
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A drone attack sparked a fire at an unspecified industrial facility and injured one person, according to Alexander Gusev, governor of the Voronezh region in southern Russia. He said emergency services were dispatched to the fire.
- Two explosions were heard near an ethanol plant in the village of Krasnoye, according to the Baza news Telegram channel close to Russia’s security services.
Politics and diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Defence Ministry was working on different ways to respond if the United States and its NATO allies help Ukraine to strike deep into his country with long-range Western missiles.
- Putin’s Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said cooperation within the “Ukraine plus Northern Europe” format is gaining speed with more steps that can increase pressure on Russia expected in the coming week. The five Nordic countries – Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland – are now NATO countries and have all been staunch supporters of Ukraine.
- A high-level delegation from South Korea will brief NATO about North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia, the alliance said, after the US expressed grave concern over the possible use of the troops against Ukraine.
- Ukraine said it is investigating reports that Russian soldiers shot at civilians in the embattled front-line town of Selydove. A video posted on Telegram by “Ghost of Khortytsia”, a Ukrainian army unit, purported to show Russian forces opening fire on a civilian vehicle.
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