Day: October 2, 2024

Shafaq News/ Israel’s ground incursion into Lebanon to battle Hezbollah militants left eight Israeli soldiers dead Wednesday, while the region braced for further escalation as Israel vowed to retaliate for Iran’s ballistic missile attack a day earlier.

The Israeli military said seven soldiers were killed in two separate attacks, without elaborating. The assaults were among the deadliest against Israeli forces in months.

Another seven troops, including a combat medic, were wounded. Earlier, the military had announced that a 22-year-old captain in a commando brigade was killed in Lebanon, the first Israeli combat death since the start of the incursion.

The announcements came on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.

In Gaza, where the nearly yearlong war that triggered the widening conflict rages on with no end in sight, Israeli ground and air operations in a hard-hit city killed at least 51 people, including women and children, Palestinian medical officials said.

Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza nearly a year after October 7.

Shafaq News/ An Israeli air strike killed two people in Damascus Wednesday, a monitor said, in the second strike in two days on a neighbourhood that is home to security headquarters and embassies.

“An Israeli air strike targeted a residential building in the Mazzeh neighbourhood frequented by Hezbollah leaders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” killing at least two people whose identity was not immediately clear, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Yesterday, three civilians were killed and nine others wounded in Israeli strikes on the Syrian capital.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) earlier reported that its television anchor Safaa Ahmad was killed on Tuesday in “treacherous Israeli aggression” targeting Damascus.

Footage posted on social media appeared to show a car engulfed in flames on a street surrounded by apartment blocks.

Shafaq News/ Iraq is grappling with widespread power outages due to a massive drop in gas supplies from both domestic fields and Iran, the country’s Ministry of Electricity announced on Wednesday.

In a statement, the ministry attributed the power cuts to a loss of approximately 7,100 megawatts of electricity generation capacity. This shortfall was primarily caused by a reduction in gas supply to power plants, both from domestic fields undergoing seasonal maintenance and from Iran, which has cut its gas exports to Iraq.

“The reduction in Iranian gas supply from 30 million cubic meters per day to 23 million cubic meters has affected the production of power plants in the central region by another 1,500 megawatts,” the statement read.

The ministry cited planned maintenance on several power generation units as a contributing factor to the power shortages.

The ministry appealed to Iraqi citizens to conserve electricity during this period. “We urge citizens to understand these circumstances beyond the ministry’s control and to rationalize unnecessary consumption to control the load until maintenance work is completed,” the statement said.

Iraq has been struggling with chronic power shortages for decades, a problem exacerbated by years of war, sanctions, and underinvestment in the electricity sector. The country’s peak demand for electricity can reach up to 35-40 gigawatts, far exceeding its current generation capacity.

Shafaq News/ On Wednesday, the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity revealed that the decrease in national gas supplies and imports from Iran to power generation stations resulted in a loss of 7,100 megawatts, urging citizens to “understand the circumstances” and conserve energy.

The ministry’s media office stated, “The cessation of 450 million cubic meters (MCM) of national gas in the south, due to seasonal maintenance work for 21 days by the Ministry of Oil’s teams, has restricted the load of stations in the southern region and central Euphrates by 1,500 MW.”

“Meanwhile, the reduction of Iranian gas from 30 MCM daily to 23 MCM has impacted the stations’ production in the central region by another 1,500 MW,” it affirmed. “Additionally, the shutdown of the Iranian power transmission lines (Mirsad-Diyala, Sarpol-e Zahab- Khanaqin, Karkheh-Amarah, Khorramshahr-Basra) led to a loss of 1,100 MW in the system.”

The office explained, “Due to the initiation of maintenance on generation units and preparations for the upcoming summer peak loads, approximately 3,000 MW have been taken offline, resulting in a total of 7,100 MW of the system’s load being halted, which has somewhat affected supply hours.”

There has been a significant decrease in electricity supply across various Iraqi governorates since Tuesday, resulting in prolonged power outages.

Notably, Iraq is the second-largest oil producer in the OPEC cartel, but despite having immense oil and gas reserves, it remains dependent on imports to meet its energy needs. Neighboring Iran continues to supply nearly a third of its power requirements.

The country needs 35,000 to 40,000 MW to provide electricity 24 hours a day without interruption. It has been suffering from a chronic electricity shortage for decades due to sanctions and consecutive wars. Residents have protested for years against the frequent power outages, especially during the summer, when temperatures can reach 50 degrees Celsius.