KINGSTON — Hurricane Melissa churned north-east toward Cuba’s second-largest city on Tuesday as a powerful Category 4 storm, hours after making landfall in nearby Jamaica as the strongest-ever storm to hit the Caribbean island nation.

Melissa struck land near Jamaica’s southwestern town of New Hope, packing maximum sustained winds of 295 kilometers per hour (kph), the US National Hurricane Center said in an advisory, well above the minimum strength of a Category 5 storm, the most powerful level on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

In southwestern Jamaica, the parish of St. Elizabeth was left “underwater,” an official said, and over half a million residents were without power.

By 2100 GMT, Melissa had weakened to 233 kph, the NHC said, as it moved past the mountainous island, where highland communities are vulnerable to landslides and flooding.

It is now forecast to curve toward Santiago de Cuba, Cuba’s second-largest city.

“We should already be feeling its main influence this afternoon and evening,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a message published in state newspaper Granma, in which he called on citizens to heed evacuation orders.

“There will be a lot of work to do. We know that this cyclone will cause significant damage.”

Cuban authorities said they evacuated about 500,000 people. In the Bahamas, next in Melissa’s crosshairs, the government ordered further evacuations for people living in southern parts of the archipelago.

Nearby Haiti and the Dominican Republic have faced days of torrential downpours leading to at least four deaths, authorities there said.

Local media reported at least three deaths in Jamaica during storm preparations, and a disaster coordinator suffered a stroke while carrying out her duties in the onset of the storm and was rushed to hospital. Late Tuesday, many areas remained cut off.

JAMAICA’S ‘STORM OF THE CENTURY’
No stranger to hurricanes, Jamaica had never before taken a direct hit from a Category 4 or 5 storm.

The Jamaican government called for foreign aid as it prepared for the fallout of the strongest-ever storm to directly strike its shores.

Meteorologists at AccuWeather said Melissa was the third most intense hurricane observed in the Caribbean after Wilma in 2005 and Gilbert in 1988 – the last major storm to make landfall in Jamaica.

“It’s a catastrophic situation,” the World Meteorological Organization’s tropical cyclone specialist Anne-Claire Fontan told a press briefing, warning of storm surges up to four meters high. “For Jamaica, it will be the storm of the century for sure.”

Colin Bogle, an adviser to aid group Mercy Corps in Portmore, near Jamaica’s capital of Kingston, said he had heard a loud explosion in the morning, and then everything went dark. Sheltering with his grandmother, he heard relentless noise and saw trees violently tossed in the wind.

“People are scared. Memories of Hurricane Gilbert run deep, and there is frustration that Jamaica continues to face the worst consequences of a climate crisis we did not cause,” he said.

Scientists warn that storms are intensifying faster as a result of climate change warming ocean waters. Many Caribbean leaders have called on wealthy, heavy-polluting nations to provide reparations in the form of aid or debt relief.

Melissa’s size and strength ballooned as it moved over unusually tepid Caribbean waters, but forecasters warned that its slow movement could prove particularly destructive.

Food aid will be critical, Bogle said, as well as tools, vehicle parts and seeds for farmers. Like last year’s devastating Hurricane Beryl, Melissa crossed over some of Jamaica’s most productive agricultural zones.

On Monday, Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the government had an emergency budget of $33 million and insurance and credit provisions for damage a little greater than Beryl.

‘LIKE A ROARING LION’
Melissa made landfall in southwestern Jamaica, near the parish border between Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth, which was one of the areas worst-hit by Hurricane Beryl last year.

Authorities reported severe damages to public infrastructure including hospitals, and said that as of 4 p.m. (2100 GMT), over half a million residents were without power.

St. Elizabeth was “underwater”, local government minister Desmond McKenzie told a press briefing. Its only public hospital lost power and reported severe damage to one of its buildings, and several families were marooned in their homes.

Rescue teams were struggling to reach stranded families, McKenzie added, but had managed to reach one group marooned with four babies.

In Portland Cottage, some 150 kilometers away from where Melissa made landfall, 64-year-old retiree Collin Henry McDonald told Reuters as the storm advanced that his community was seeing strong rain and winds, but his concrete roof was holding steady.

“It’s like a roaring lion. It’s mad. Really mad,” he said.

Around 15,000 Jamaicans were in temporary shelters by late Tuesday, McKenzie said. The government had issued mandatory evacuation orders for 28,000 people, but many were reluctant to leave their homes.

The International Federation of the Red Cross said up to 1.5 million people in Jamaica were expected to be directly affected by the storm.

The NHC advised Jamaicans to remain in shelter overnight as winds and rains continue to batter the island.— Reuters

JERUSALEM/CAIRO — Israeli planes launched strikes in Gaza on Tuesday after Israel accused the militant group Hamas of violating a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory, the latest test of a fragile deal brokered earlier this month by US President Donald Trump.

Local health authorities said the strikes killed at least 26 people, including five in a house hit in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, four in a building in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood, and five in a car in Khan Younis. The attacks by Israeli planes continued into early Wednesday across the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, the latest violence in a three-week-old ceasefire and which followed a statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying he had ordered immediate “powerful attacks.”

The statement did not give a specific reason for the attacks but an Israeli military official said Hamas had violated the ceasefire by carrying out an attack against Israeli forces in an area of the enclave that is under Israeli control.

“This is yet another blatant violation of the ceasefire,” the official said.

The US-backed ceasefire agreement went into effect on October 10, halting two years of war triggered by deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Both sides have accused each other of ceasefire violations.

US Vice President JD Vance, part of a parade of Trump administration officials who visited Israel last week, said that despite the latest flare-up, “the ceasefire is holding.”

“That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “We know that Hamas or somebody else within Gaza attacked an (Israeli) soldier. We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite that.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli media reported an exchange of fire between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on the reports.

Hamas denied responsibility for an attack on Israeli forces in Rafah. The group also said in a statement that it remained committed to the ceasefire deal in Gaza.

Tuesday’s strikes on Gaza City followed what Israel called a “targeted strike” on Saturday on a person in central Gaza who it said was planning to attack Israeli troops.

NETANYAHU ACCUSES HAMAS OF VIOLATING CEASEFIRE
Netanyahu said earlier on Tuesday that Hamas had violated the ceasefire by turning over some wrong remains in a process of returning the bodies of hostages to Israel.

Netanyahu said the remains handed over on Monday belonged to Ofir Tzarfati, an Israeli killed during Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. Tzarfati’s remains had already been partially retrieved by Israeli troops during the war.

Hamas initially said in response to this that it would hand over to Israel on Tuesday the body of a missing hostage found in a tunnel in Gaza. However, Hamas’ armed wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, said later it would postpone the planned handover, citing what it said were Israel’s violations of the ceasefire.

Late on Tuesday, Al-Qassam issued a statement saying it had recovered the bodies of two Israeli hostages, Amiram Cooper and Sahar Baruch, during search operations in Gaza.

Hamas said Netanyahu was looking for excuses to back away from Israel’s obligations.

Under the ceasefire terms, Hamas released all living hostages in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees, while Israel pulled back its troops and halted its offensive.

SEARCH FOR HOSTAGE BODIES
Hamas has also agreed to hand over the remains of all dead hostages yet to be recovered, but has said it will take time to locate and retrieve the bodies amid Gaza’s ruins. Israel says the militant group can access the remains of most of the hostages.

The issue has become one of the main sticking points in the ceasefire, which Trump says he is watching closely. He has touted the truce and hostage-prisoner exchange deal as one of the top foreign policy achievements of his second term, and he and his top aides have sought to keep the ceasefire intact.

The White House did not immediately respond to a question on whether Israel notified the US before carrying out the Gaza strikes.

In Gaza City, an Israeli strike that killed four people hit a residential building near Shifa hospital, the largest operational hospital in northern Gaza. The hospital itself was also hit, according to Gaza officials, witnesses and Hamas media. Two people were wounded in an attack on a tent in Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip, according to local health authorities.

The search for hostage bodies stepped up over the past few days after the arrival of heavy machinery from Egypt. Bulldozers were working in Khan Younis on Tuesday, in the southern Gaza Strip, and further north in Nuseirat, as Hamas fighters deployed around them.

Some of the bodies are believed to be in Hamas’ network of tunnels running below Gaza.

Witnesses in Khan Younis said the Egyptian teams, working with armed Hamas fighters, were digging deep near the Qatari-funded Hamad Housing City in the western side of Khan Younis, reaching tunnel shafts.

Reuters images showed an excavation a dozen or so meters below the surface, with Hamas men at the bottom of the trench next to a tunnel opening in an apparent search for bodies.

Gaza health authorities say 68,000 people are confirmed killed in the Israeli strikes and thousands more are missing. Israel launched the war after Hamas-led fighters stormed through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and bringing 251 hostages back to Gaza.— Reuters

TOKYO — US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is set to hold talks with his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Koizumi in Tokyo on Wednesday, as Japan strives to fortify its defense posture and strengthen its decades-old alliance with the United States.

The meeting comes a day after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told visiting US President Donald Trump that she was determined to bolster Japan’s defense capabilities and expressed her desire to realize a “new golden age” of the alliance.

Japan already hosts the largest concentration of US forces overseas, including an aircraft carrier, a Marine expeditionary unit, and dozens of fighter jets.

Takaichi said in her policy speech last week that the government plans to raise Japan’s defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product in the current fiscal year to March 2026, from about 1.8% currently.

That would be two years earlier than originally planned, but the level falls short of NATO’s new defense investment pledge of 5% of GDP by 2035.

Japan regards the security environment surrounding the country as the gravest since the end of World War Two due to destabilizing factors in the region including China’s military expansion and North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.

Koizumi, son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, ran in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election this month, but lost to Takaichi, who then went on to become Japan’s first female prime minister. — Reuters