In brief: Israel hits Hamas site after rocket fired from Gaza
JERUSALEM – Israel’s military struck a Hamas site in the Gaza Strip early today in its first airstrike on the Palestinian territory since this summer’s war.
The Israeli military said the airstrike on what it called a “Hamas terror infrastructure site” in the southern Gaza Strip was in response to a rocket fired from Gaza into southern Israel on Friday. The rocket fire caused no injuries.
Palestinian residents reported hearing two explosions in the Khan Yunis region of Gaza, in an area that contains training sites for Palestinian militants. No injuries were immediately reported.
Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza, fought a 50-day war this summer. In that war, Hamas launched thousands of rockets and mortars toward Israel, which carried out an aerial campaign and a ground invasion.
Woman held in deaths of eight children
SYDNEY – Police have arrested a 37-year-old Australian woman in the deaths of eight children who were all discovered in her home Friday afternoon.
The woman, who has not been identified, is the mother of seven of the eight victims, who range in age from 18 months to 14 years, according to police. The eighth child who was killed was a niece who was visiting, police said. The woman has not been charged.
Several Australian media outlets reported that the children had been stabbed to death. Police have not confirmed the reports about how the children died, but said investigators had recovered “several” weapons, including knives.
The home is in the Cairns suburb of Manoora, in the country’s north.
The woman, who was found in the home suffering from “serious injuries,” was taken to a hospital where she later was arrested, police said. She is under guard there, police said.
Korean-American, 74, arrested in China
BEIJING – A Korean-American aid worker running a school in a Chinese city near North Korea has been arrested on charges of embezzlement and possession of fake invoices, his lawyer said Friday, in a sign that authorities are increasingly sensitive about activities by foreigners in the border region.
Shanghai-based lawyer Zhang Peihong said he was notified by prosecutors in China’s northeastern Yanbian prefecture of the arrest of Peter Hahn, a 74-year-old Christian who ran a vocational school for Chinese and Korean youth for more than a decade in the border town of Tumen.
The charges appear to be an excuse to incriminate the man, who also had provided food to North Korean children, Zhang said.