The Garisenda tower in Italy’s Bologna, also known as the ‘leaning tower’, has been steady for nearly 1,000 years. But the tallest tower in the town is now at risk of collapsing due to excessive leaning, according to reports.  

The 150-foot tall tower has been leaning at an angle of 4 degrees since the 14th century when officials tried to remove the top of the building with the aim of stabilising it. The iconic Tower of Pisa leans at 5 degrees.

Over the years, Italy has done extensive work over the years to maintain the integrity of the tower.

But now the tower is leaning excessively and has forced city officials to bring into action a civil protection plan. According to CNN, the tower is at risk of a “sudden and unexpected collapse”.

A metal cordon will now be put up around the tower to contain the debris and reduce the vulnerability of surrounding buildings in case of a collapse.

A protective cordon will be erected to contain debris resulting from a possible collapse, to reduce the vulnerability of surrounding buildings and the exposure to the population, as well as blocking access to the off-limits areas,” the city council said in a statement.

The warning was issued by a scientific committee which has monitored the site since 2019. They have installed sensors that measure the movements of the ancient tower. The committee said that the readings in October 2023 triggered alarm bells, reports CNN.

The ‘high alert’ warning states that an “unexpected and accelerated trend” of “crushing compression” of the base tower has been observed. It adds that the cracks in the stones used in the base could expand to the bricks above.

As soon as the report came out, civic officials shut down the area around the tower and closed all roads leading to it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly wants to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Golda Meir and authorise an ‘Operation Wrath of God’-like mission — kill Israel’s enemies across countries, spanning continents — once its campaign in Gaza winds down.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Netanyahu has instructed Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, to streamline a plan to execute this task. Mossad is reportedly drawing up plans to neutralise high-value targets in Turkey, Lebanon and Qatar – the latter in particular as its capital plays host to a Hamas office. 

Hamas’s political office was “opened in Qatar in 2012 in coordination with the United States government, following a US request to open a communication channel”, news agency AFP quoted a Qatari official in October. 

The Targets 

Former Mossad Director Efraim Halevy has raised concerns about the operations, WSJ claims, warning that such actions could have unintended consequences and further destabilise the region. Halevy said eliminating Hamas targets across the globe would not necessarily eliminate threats to Israel.

“Pursuing Hamas on a worldwide scale and trying to systematically remove all its leaders from this world is a desire to exact revenge, not a desire to achieve a strategic aim,” Halevy was quoted as saying by WSJ.

Some of the big names that may feature in Mossad’s kill list are Ismail Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Khaled Mashal. 

Ismail Haniyeh

Haniyeh, 60, is a politician who is a former Palestinian prime minister. He was elected as the head of Hamas’ political bureau in 2017.  In 2006, while serving as the Palestinian PM, Haniyeh was the subject of an assassination plot using a poison-filled letter. 

Haniyeh lives in voluntary exile, splitting his time between Qatar and Turkey. 

Mohammed Deif

Deif heads Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzdine al-Qassam Brigades, and is Israel’s public enemy number one. Israeli authorities have tried to assassinate him at least six times, as per reports. He has also been on the US list of “international terrorists” since 2015.

The audio message at the start of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, dubbed the “Al-Aqsa Flood”, carried Deif’s voice. His current whereabouts are unknown but Israel believes he is fighting alongside Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip.

Yahya Sinwar

Sinwar, 61, is a former commander of the Ezzdine al-Qassam Brigades and was elected in 2017 as head of Hamas in Gaza. He has spent 23 years in Israeli jails before his release in 2011 in a prisoner exchange involving French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who was held captive by Hamas.

Some of the Israeli hostages taken to Gaza have spoken about encountering Sinwar during their captivity. 

Khaled Mashal

Mashal is a founding member of Hamas Politburo and was the chairman until 2017. His current whereabouts are believed to be in Qatar.

Mashal was at the centre of a sensational assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997 when Mossad agents, posing as Canadian tourists, sprayed a deadly toxin into one of his ears. The Mossad kill-team was captured and Mashal fell into a coma.

US President Bill Clinton had to intervene and the then Mossad chief Danny Yatom had to fly to Amman with an antidote. 

‘What Justice Demands’

Yoav Gallant. the Israeli defence minister, has mugshots of hundreds of Hams fighters and commanders on a poster that hangs on a wall of his Tel Aviv office. 

“They are living on borrowed time,” Gallant said last week, as quoted by Reuters. 

WSJ claims that some Israeli officials wanted to commence the killing campaign not long after the October 7 attacks. According to the WSJ, a retired Israeli general called Amos Yadlin said a targetted killing campaign “is what justice demands”. 
 

Two men and two women from Manipur were assaulted by a group of eight-nine people on a street at night in southeast Delhi’s Sunlight Colony. The incident that happened on Thursday was captured on mobile from a balcony across the street. The video has been shared widely on social media.

A first information report (FIR) was filed on Friday night against several unknown accused, a police officer at Sunlight Colony said. NDTV has seen a copy of the FIR. The charges include sexual assault.

The faces of two of the accused are clearly seen on CCTV footage, the complainant told reporters outside Sunlight Colony police station after filing the FIR late on Friday.

The mobile footage shows the four people – a man, his wife, his sister, and a family friend – being punched, kicked and dragged on the narrow street by the group.

“My wife and I and my sister were dropping a friend home after dinner at 11 pm when two men and a woman approached us, saying their mobile battery is dead, and they need help to book a cab to Munirka (in south Delhi),” said the man who has a black eye and swollen cheeks.

“We agreed to help. While booking the cab, the man who asked for help started passing lewd comments against my wife and sister. When we objected to their behaviour, they became aggressive, called some eight-nine of their friends and started beating us,” the man said, adding he has given details in the FIR that has been corroborated with the mobile video and CCTV footage.

His wife alleged the group pulled her hair, kicked her on the ground and tried to drag her. “I thought I was going to die, everyone was going to die as they did not stop beating us, no one stopped them too,” said the woman, showing bruises on her knees.

“We were walking when they asked for help to book a cab, and this is what they have done to us,” she added, and broke down in front of the police station.

In a statement, the police said they took the man to hospital, where doctors reported abrasion on the knees, redness and swelling in the eyes, and swelling on the forehead, indicating serious assault.

The police said they are working to catch all of them, and will start with the two men seen on the CCTV footage.