Israeli defense chief says West Bank annexation 'will wait'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister Benny Gantz attend the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. (File/Reuters)
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Updated 29 June 2020
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Israeli defense chief says West Bank annexation 'will wait'

JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to begin annexing West Bank territory will have to wait due to the country’s coronavirus crisis.
Benny Gantz, who also holds the title of alternative prime minister, told his Blue and White Party on Monday that his top priority is helping the country navigate the health and economic crisis stemming from the coronavirus.
“Anything unrelated to the battle against the coronavirus will wait,” he said.
Netanyahu has said he wants to begin annexing occupied land as soon as this week.
The UN’s human rights chief on Monday said that Israel’s planned annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank would have “disastrous” consequences for the region, as US and Israeli officials were meeting in Jerusalem to try and finalize the move.
The warning by Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, added to the growing chorus of international voices urging Israel not to annex territory in line with President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan.
The UN secretary-general, the European Union and key Arab countries have all spoken out against annexation, saying it would violate international law and all but destroy any remaining hopes of establishing a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“The precise consequences of annexation cannot be predicted,” Bachelet said in a statement issued by her office in Geneva. “But they are likely to be disastrous for the Palestinians, for Israel itself, and for the wider region.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused Bachelet of politicizing her office and noted that it froze ties with her office early this year due to what it called her “one-sided” attitude.
“It is not surprising that she decided today to join the Palestinian campaign against the American peace plan, and to publish declarations before any decision has been made,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Trump plan, unveiled in January, envisions leaving some 30% of the West Bank under permanent Israeli control, while granting the Palestinians autonomy in the remainder of the area.
The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, for a fully independent state. Israel captured all three areas in the 1967 Mideast war, though it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, clearing the way for Hamas militants to seize control two years later.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a strong supporter of Trump, has been unswayed by the international criticism. He says the supportive Trump presidency has provided a rare opportunity to redraw the Mideast map and annex Israel’s scores of settlements, as well as the strategic Jordan Valley. He has pledged to move forward as soon as July 1, seeking to take action well before the US presidential election in November.
In a speech to evangelical Christian supporters of Israel late Sunday, Netanyahu said Trump’s plan “finally puts to rest the two-state illusion” and would “advance peace.”
“President Trump’s plan doesn’t really change the reality on the ground. It recognizes the reality on the ground,” he said.
Netanyahu’s coalition partner, Defense Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz, however, has appeared to be more cautious. Both Netanyahu and Gantz were meeting with White House envoy Avi Berkowitz and the US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to work on a final map outlining which areas will be annexed. The talks were continuing after a series of meetings in Washington last week ended inconclusively.
Gantz was quoted by Israeli media as saying that Netanyahu’s target date of this Wednesday is not “sacred.” The plan has also come under surprising criticism from West Bank settler leaders, who believe it does not go far enough and say that any plan that envisions even a watered-down Palestinian state must be opposed.
Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu is considering scaling back his plans and is expected to annex just a small number of settlements in a largely symbolic move.
But in her statement, Bachelet warned that even a small annexation would create a “highly combustible mix.”
She said deepening Israel’s control of West Bank land would likely harm Palestinian freedom of movement, turn Palestinian population centers into “enclaves” and clear the way for Israel to “illegally” expropriate Palestinian land.
“The shockwaves of annexation will last for decades, and will be extremely damaging to Israel, as well as to the Palestinians,” Bachelet warned. “However there is still time to reverse this decision.”
Dozens of Jewish legal scholars, meanwhile, sent a letter to the Israeli government urging Israel to drop the annexation plan.
The letter, sponsored by the Global Jewish Coalition, an umbrella group of liberal pro-Israel Jewish groups, said annexation would “fundamentally breach” international law and expose Israel to “new and grave dangers.”


Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

Updated 3 sec ago
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Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

  • The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
  • Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign
JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.

HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

Updated 21 min 15 sec ago
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HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Monday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a US-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review.”
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement.
HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack,” it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates,” the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.”
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions,” it added.
The watchdog said it contacted Boeing and Woodard but received no response.
In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.
In November last year, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.
Lebanese rights groups have said five more journalists and photographers working for local media have been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.


Boat carrying 31 tourists sinks near Egypt’s Marsa Alam: reports

Updated 32 min 24 sec ago
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Boat carrying 31 tourists sinks near Egypt’s Marsa Alam: reports

CAIRO: A boat carrying 31 tourists sank near Egypt's Marsa Alam, located on the western shore of the Red Sea, local media reported Monday. 

Red Sea Governor Major General Amr Hanafy said that an aircraft and naval units were able to transport several tourists to receive the necessary medical care.

Hanfy pointed out that the search operations are underway to save others. 

 

 


Iraq’s population reaches 45.4 million in first census in over 30 years

Updated 25 November 2024
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Iraq’s population reaches 45.4 million in first census in over 30 years

  • Prior to the census, the planning ministry estimated the population at 43 million
  • The last census, conducted in 1997, did not include the Iraqi Kurdistan region

BAGHDAD: Iraq’s population has risen to 45.4 million, according to preliminary results from a national census, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said on Monday.
The census, conducted on Nov. 20, was Iraq’s first nationwide survey in more than three decades, marking a crucial step for future planning and development.
Prior to the census, the planning ministry estimated the population at 43 million.
The last census, conducted in 1997, did not include the Iraqi Kurdistan region, which has been under Kurdish administration since the 1991 Gulf War.
It counted 19 million Iraqis and officials estimated there were another 3 million in the Kurdish north, according to official statistics.


Lebanon’s Shiite Muslims pay high price in war between Israel and Hezbollah

Updated 25 November 2024
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Lebanon’s Shiite Muslims pay high price in war between Israel and Hezbollah

  • Many Shiite Muslims believe they are being unfairly punished because they share a religious identity with Hezbollah and often live in the same areas

BEIRUT: The Lebanese civilians most devastated by the Israel- Hezbollah war are Shiite Muslims, and many of them believe they are being unfairly punished because they share a religious identity with Hezbollah militants and often live in the same areas.
“This is clear,” said Wael Murtada, a young Shiite man who anxiously watched paramedics search rubble after a recent Israeli airstrike destroyed his uncle’s two-story home and killed 10 people. “Who else is being attacked?”
Israel has concentrated its attacks on villages in southern and northeastern Lebanon and neighborhoods south of Beirut. This is where many Hezbollah militants operate from, and their families live side by side with large numbers of Shiites who aren’t members of the group.
Israel insists its war is with Hezbollah and not the Lebanese people – or the Shiite faith. It says it only targets members of the Iran-backed militant group to try to end their yearlong campaign of firing rockets over the border. But Israel’s stated objectives mean little to people like Murtada as growing numbers of Shiite civilians also die in a war that escalated sharply in recent months.
Shiites don’t just measure the suffering of their community in deaths and injuries. Entire blocks of the coastal city of Tyre have been flattened. Large parts of the historic market in the city of Nabatiyeh, which dates to the Ottoman era, have been destroyed. And in Baalbek, an airstrike damaged the city’s famed Hotel Palmyra, which opened in the late 19th century, and a home that dates to the Ottoman era.
“Lebanese Shias are being collectively punished. Their urban areas are being destroyed, and their cultural monuments and building are being destroyed,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
As Shiites flee their war-torn villages and neighborhoods, the conflict is increasingly following them to other parts of Lebanon, and this is fueling tensions.
Scores of people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes on Christian, Sunni and Druze areas where displaced Shiites had taken refuge. Many residents in these areas now think twice before providing shelter to displaced people out of fear they may have links to Hezbollah.
“The Israelis are targeting all of Lebanon,” said Wassef Harakeh, a lawyer from Beirut’s southern suburbs who in 2022 ran against Hezbollah in the country’s parliamentary elections and whose office was recently demolished by an Israeli airstrike. He believes part of Israel’s goal is to exacerbate frictions within the small Mediterranean country, which has a long history of sectarian fighting even though diverse groups live together peacefully these days.
Some Shiites say statements from the Israeli military over the years have only reinforced suspicions that their wider community is being targeted as a means to put pressure on Hezbollah.
One commonly cited example is the so-called Dahiyeh doctrine, which was first espoused by Israeli generals during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. It is a reference to the southern suburbs of Beirut where Hezbollah is headquartered and where entire residential blocks, bridges and shopping compounds were destroyed in both wars. Israel says Hezbollah hides weapons and fighters in such areas, turning them into legitimate military targets.
A video released by the Israeli military last month has been interpreted by Shiites as further proof that little distinction is being made between Hezbollah fighters and Shiite civilians.
Speaking from a southern Lebanese village he did not name, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari called it “a terror base. This is a Lebanese village, a Shiite village built by Hezbollah.” As he toured a house and showed stocks of hand grenades, rifles, night-vision goggles and other military equipment, Hagari said: “Every house is a terror base.”
Another army spokesperson disputed the notion that Israel tries to blur the line between combatants and civilians. “Our war is with the terror group Hezbollah and not with the Lebanese population, whatever its origin,” said Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. He denied that Israel was intentionally trying to disrupt the social fabric of Lebanon, and pointed to Israel’s evacuation warnings to civilians ahead of airstrikes as a step it takes to mitigate harm.
Many Lebanese, including some Shiites, blame Hezbollah for their suffering, while also decrying Israel’s bombardments. Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel last year the day after Hamas attacked Israel and started the war in Gaza; this went against the group’s promises to use its weapons only to defend Lebanon.
Since last October, more than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and women and children accounted for more than 900 of the dead, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1 million people have been displaced from their homes. Shiites, who make up a third of Lebanon’s 5 million people, have borne the brunt of this suffering. Israel says it has killed well over 2,000 Hezbollah members in the past year.
The death and destruction in Lebanon ramped up significantly in mid-September, when Israeli airstrikes began targeting Hezbollah’s leaders, and once again in early October, when Israeli ground troops invaded.
Early in the war, Israeli airstrikes killed about 500 Hezbollah members but caused very little collateral damage. But since late September, airstrikes have destroyed entire buildings and homes, and in some cases killed dozens of civilians when the intended target was one Hezbollah member or official.
On one particularly bloody day, Sept. 23, Israeli airstrikes killed almost 500 people and prompted hundreds of thousands of people – again, mostly Shiites — to flee their homes in panic.
Murtada’s relatives fled from Beirut’s southern suburbs in late September after entire blocks had been wiped out by airstrikes. They moved 22 kilometers (about 14 miles) east of the city, to the predominantly Druze mountain village of Baalchmay to stay in the home of Murtada’s uncle.
Then, on Nov. 12, the home where they sought refuge was destroyed without warning. The airstrike killed nine relatives — three men, three women and three children — and a domestic worker, Murtada said.
The Israeli army said the home was being used by Hezbollah. Murtada, who lost a grandmother and an aunt in the strike, said nobody in the home was connected to the militant group.
Hezbollah has long boasted about its ability to deter Israel, but the latest war has proven otherwise and taken a severe toll on its leadership.
Some Shiites fear the weakening of Hezbollah will lead to the entire community being sidelined politically once the war is over. But others believe it could offer a political opening for more diverse Shiite voices.
Ceasefire negotiations to end the Israel-Hezbollah appear to have gained momentum over the past week. Some critics of Hezbollah say the group could have accepted months ago the conditions currently under consideration.
This would have spared Lebanon “destruction, martyrs and losses worth billions (of dollars),” Lebanese legislator Waddah Sadek, who is Sunni Muslim, wrote on X.