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Israel’s military said it was conducting a “large-scale strike” on targets belonging to Hamas in Gaza today, but gave no details as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken headed to the region to meet leaders on both sides of the conflict.
Israeli jets have pounded Gazan targets for days in retribution for a weekend attack by Hamas militants who breached the border fence enclosing the enclave and rampaged through towns and villages, killing 1,300 people, injuring over 2,700, and taking scores of hostages, the Israeli military said.
Eyewitnesses reported Israeli aircraft heavily bombarding the Palestinian territory and authorities also reported an air strike on the Jabalia refuge camp in northern Gaza. The death toll in Gaza has risen to 1,200, with around 5,600 wounded, Palestinian media reported earlier, citing Gaza’s health ministry.
Blinken arrived in Israel today to show Washington’s enduring support, seek to secure the release of captives, including Americans, and prevent a wider war from erupting. He will also visit Jordan, but will not visit the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he ordinarily meets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Blinken and Abbas are reportedly scheduled to meet on Friday. Follow The Globe for live updates.
- Konrad Yakabuski: Hamas attack puts Biden in a difficult spot
People walk on rubble in the aftermath of a strike amid the conflict with Israel in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 12, 2023.IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/Reuters
Ottawa’s evacuation of Canadians from Israel to start by end of week
The federal government said yesterday the airlifting of Canadian citizens out of Israel could begin tonight or as late as tomorrow, nearly a week after Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians.
But, some Canadians, frustrated by a lack of answers and action from Ottawa, have taken matters into their own hands by chartering private flights to safety.
The first of these flights, a privately organized Dash 8 charter, took off from a small airport in the Israeli city of Haifa on Wednesday, carrying 27 passengers, mostly Canadians. It arrived an hour later in Larnaca, Cyprus. Two more flights, with as many as 267 passengers, are being privately arranged in the next two days.
- Campbell Clark: Quint’s statement highlights Canada’s lack of influence on global stage
- Federal Labour Minister calls out CUPE for what he calls ‘antisemitic’ Israel posts
- Senior federal public servant faces possible disciplinary action for anti-Israel remarks
Loved ones recount last moments before Canadian woman killed in home by Hamas
The last moments of Adi Vital-Kaploun’s life would have been horrible for her and her two sons.
Israeli military told Vital-Kaploun’s family that Hamas killed her in front of her young sons and then shoved her body under a bed after booby-trapping it so it would explode whenever someone tried to pull her out, Dina Zaslacski, a family friend said.
Until yesterday, friends and relatives believed the 33-year-old Canadian citizen was a hostage of Hamas, somewhere in the Gaza Strip. That faint hope that she could somehow survive disappeared when the military found her body in the family’s home in Holit, a tiny kibbutz in the Negev Desert. It had taken days to find her because of the number of booby-traps Hamas had laid in the house.
Also last night, the family of a Canadian woman confirmed that she is among the missing. Twenty-two-year-old Shir Georgy has not been heard from since she sent a message to her father early Saturday morning from the music festival near the Gaza border that was attacked by Hamas militants.
- In Kibbutz Be’eri, where at least 120 residents were killed by Hamas, Israeli officers survey aftermath of attack
- Opinion: Canada can help save the hostages in Gaza
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Also on our radar
No withdrawal of Canadian diplomats from India: Canada has not withdrawn any diplomats from India since New Delhi reportedly ordered Ottawa to repatriate about 41 diplomats by Oct. 10 and threatened to revoke the diplomatic immunity of those who remain after that deadline, a senior government source says. Relations between the two countries have been tense since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused New Delhi of being behind the murder of a Canadian citizen.
Ottawa faces growing deficit projections, economists say: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s fall update will show worsening projections for the federal debt and deficits over the coming years, economists say, leaving the Liberals with less fiscal room to deliver on spending promises, including responding to concerns over the cost of housing and prescription drugs.
Sexual-assault charges stayed against Canadian general: A historic sexual-assault charge against retired lieutenant-general Trevor Cadieu was stayed because of trial delays that the judge blamed in part on military police.
Signs of water, carbon revealed in asteroid sample: Scientists with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission have revealed that material from a distant asteroid known as Bennu is 5-per-cent carbon by weight, and also contains clay-like minerals that could only have formed in the presence of water, a sign of the crucial role that similar asteroids may have once played when the Earth was being formed.
NHL season kicks off for all Canadian teams: Auston Matthews scored a hat trick and the Toronto Maple Leafs came from behind twice for a 6-5 shootout victory against historic rivals the Montreal Canadiens in the season opener for both teams. In Vancouver, the Canucks routed the Edmonton Oilers 8-1 as Brock Boeser had his first career four-goal game and the Connor McDavid-led Oilers’ offence couldn’t get anything going. Andrew Mangiapane scored twice and had an assist for the Calgary Flames in a 5-3 win over the visiting Winnipeg Jets. The Ottawa Senators lost their season opener against the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 in a wild third period that saw the teams trade the lead back and forth.
- Cathal Kelly: Canadian hockey players can no longer succeed in Canada
Morning markets
Markets await U.S. inflation data: World shares rose and the U.S. dollar and bond market borrowing costs held steady on Thursday ahead of U.S. inflation data and European Central Bank meeting minutes that will add to the hotly-contested debate on where interest rates are heading. Just after 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 0.84 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.66 per cent and 0.59 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed up 1.75 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.93 per cent. New York futures were positive. The Canadian dollar was slightly higher at 73.58 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
David Parkinson: “Canada’s labour statistics for September showed that the country’s wage growth remains persistently strong. For workers, that’s a good thing. For central bankers trying to suppress inflation, it’s a headache. But is it a force that must be suppressed for the Bank of Canada to win its fight against inflation? Do higher wages necessarily mean higher inflation? The central bank’s former boss isn’t so sure.”
Editorial: “That points to an approach that would neither extinguish the history of the Waffen SS Galicia division, nor allow fanatics to exploit it: moving the monuments to a museum, with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg being the most obvious home. An exhibit in a professionally curated setting could put both the Galicia division, and its postwar veneration, into proper context.”
Today’s editorial cartoon
Illustration by David Parkins
Living better
How to endurance train like a Norwegian
The “Norwegian model” is a middle path between two common approaches to aerobic exercise: high-intensity interval training and 150 minutes of light exercise a week. The new model, used by many Norwegian track athletes, has a prime directive – keep your intensity at a medium level. And that just might be good advice for the rest of us.
Moment in time: Oct. 12, 1979
Scene from 2005 film, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is released
In the opening pages of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, an alien fleet blows up the Earth, leaving just one hapless human survivor meekly clutching a towel – what better premise for a comedy classic? Yet, faster than you can say Slartibartfast, Douglas Adams’s inimitable blend of wit and intelligence spawned a global sensation. Mr. Adams, born in 1952, first broke through as a writer for the final season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in 1974, then after a few years of unrewarded toil, sold the script of Hitchhikers to BBC Radio. On the basis of that script came much-rewarded toil, including a stint as a writer and script-editor on the TV series Doctor Who. The Hitchhiker’s novel, published on this date in 1979, was an instant bestseller, begetting a multimedia empire. Aside from the eventual five-book, increasingly inaccurately named “trilogy,” there was also a TV series, video games, comic books and a 2005 Hollywood film. Mr. Adams died in 2001, but his stories live on, and will no doubt survive even the eventual destruction of Earth, forcing the human race to venture among the stars. We’ll see you out there. Just don’t forget your towel. Ken Carriere
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