TOKYO: New Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on Wednesday named his new cabinet, with roughly half of the ministers carried over from those of predecessor Shinzo Abe in line with his pledge to continue Abe’s policies.

Taro Aso remained in his position as finance minister and Toshimitsu Motegi kept his job as foreign minister. Among new cabinet members was Defence Minister Nobuo Kishi, Abe’s younger brother.

New Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato announced the lineup at a news conference.

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JERUSALEM/GAZA: Militants in Gaza launched rockets into Israel and Israeli aircraft hit targets in the Palestinian enclave in an explosive backdrop to the signing of pacts for formal ties between Israel and two Gulf Arab countries.

The Israeli military said it launched about 10 air strikes in Hamas Islamist-run Gaza early on Wednesday and that 15 rockets had been fired from the territory at Israeli communities near the border, where sirens sounded before dawn.

On Tuesday, a rocket from Gaza struck the coastal Israeli city of Ashdod, wounding two people, at the same time as Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements at the White House to establish diplomatic relations.

“I’m not surprised that the Palestinian terrorists fired at Israel precisely during this historic ceremony,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said before his flight returning to Israel.

“They want to turn back the peace. In that, they will not succeed,” he told reporters. “We will strike at all those who raise a hand to harm us, and we will reach out to all those who extend the hand of peace to us.”

Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, view the U.S.-brokered deals as a betrayal of their cause.

No casualties were reported on either side of the Israel-Gaza frontier. The military said eight of the rockets launched on Wednesday were intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system.

In a statement, the military said targets in Gaza included a weapons and explosives manufacturing factory and a compound used by Hamas for training and rocket experiments.

Without naming specific factions, the Islamic Jihad group in Gaza said that in response to the air strikes, the “resistance” fired rocket salvoes at Israel.

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MELBOURNE: BHP Group said on Wednesday the destruction of a 43,000-year old Aboriginal rock shelter in Australia by fellow miner Rio Tinto had impacted the trust between Indigenous land owners and the resource industry.

It said it would halt work that could impact Aboriginal sacred sites while it consulted further with Indigenous groups and that Aboriginal owners of the land it mined were free to comment on its management of their cultural heritage.

BHP will appear before an Australian parliamentary inquiry into the Rio incident on Thursday,

Rio’s legal destruction of an ancient Aboriginal rock shelter at Juukan Gorge in May caused an outcry and saw its chief executive and iron ore boss step down.

BHP as recently as April pressed ahead with development at its South Flank iron ore mine in the Pilbara in Western Australia state that would impact sites sacred to the Banjima people, despite their stated opposition, before freezing the work in June amid outcry over the Rio blast.

“We recognise that what was lost at Juukan Gorge is not only the loss of a site of deep and unique living cultural heritage, but also a loss of trust, not just for the company involved, but with impacts for the entire resource industry,” BHP said in a statement.

BHP said it would not enforce any clauses in agreements with traditional owners that may appear to restrict their right to express their concerns over BHP’s management of their heritage.

“All people have the right to speak freely and publicly on matters relating to their culture and their cultural heritage including any concerns they have about impacts to cultural heritage.”

As was the case at Juukan Gorge, if new information about the significance of a site was uncovered, BHP said it would also commit not to undertake activities that would disturb the site without agreement with the traditional owners.

Where it had state government permission to damage significant sites, BHP said it had confirmed with traditional owner groups that it would not act without first undertaking further extensive consultation with them.

It was also engaged in a number of periodic contract reviews with the Aboriginal groups on whose land it mined, it said.

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