South Korea blasts North with speaker propaganda
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SOUTH Korea yesterday resumed anti-North Korean propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas in retaliation for the North sending over 1,000 balloons filled with rubbish and manure over the last few weeks.
The move is certain to anger Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang and could trigger retaliatory military steps as tensions between the war-divided rivals rise while negotiations over the North’s nuclear ambitions remain stalemated.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the military conducted a loudspeaker broadcast yesterday afternoon. It didn’t specify the border area where it took place or what was played over the speakers.
Meeting FURY was growing last night at the huge human cost of an Israeli operation to rescue hostages — with at least 274 Palestinians said to be killed.
Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday paid tribute to “brave” Israeli forces who he said acted “creatively” in bringing home four hostages held in Gaza by Hamas.
However, Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least 274 Palestinians were killed and hundreds more were wounded — including many women and children — in the bloody special forces operation which saw fierce artillery firefights.
The ministry said that nearly 700 people were wounded in Saturday’s raid.
It did not say how many of the casualties were women and children, but Associated Press reporters saw several being treated at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah in the aftermath of the raid.
Chaos
In Gaza, medics described scenes of chaos after the raid as wounded people overwhelmed hospitals that were already struggling to treat the wounded from days of heavy Israeli strikes in the area.
“We had the gamut of war wounds, trauma wounds, from amputations to eviscerations to trauma, to TBIs (traumatic brain injuries), fractures, and obviously, big burns,” said Karin Huster of Doctors Without Borders, an international charity working in Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, one of the facilities that received dead and wounded.
Israelis, meanwhile, celebrated the return of hostages Noa Argamani (26), Almog Meir Jan (22), Andrei Kozlov (27) and Shlomi Ziv (41).
Nine-year-old IrishIsraeli schoolgirl Emily Hand has been “crying with joy” at the dramatic release of her fellow hostage Noa, her dad said yesterday.
Emily spent all of her 50 days of captivity with Noa after