German defense minister from Lebanon: Withdrawing UNIFIL would send wrong signal

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and German FM Annalena Baerbock talk prior to a meeting of the German security cabinet at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Oct. 18, 2023. (AP Photo)
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Updated 19 October 2023
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German defense minister from Lebanon: Withdrawing UNIFIL would send wrong signal

  • Beirut prepares for the possibility of war — hospitals receive emergency surgical supplies
  • Pistorius’s visit comes against the backdrop of the escalation between Israel and Hamas in Gaza

BEIRUT: Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has warned against withdrawing the long-running UN peacekeeping mission from the country, arguing that such a move would send the wrong signal at this time.

Pistorius was visiting German soldiers serving in the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

Berlin has deployed some 140 soldiers on a corvette off the Lebanese coast and at UNIFIL mission headquarters in southern Lebanon.

UNIFIL includes 9,994 peacekeepers from 49 countries.

Pistorius’s visit came against the backdrop of the escalation between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and clashes on the Blue Line between Hezbollah and Palestinian groups with the Israel Defense Forces.

Arab and foreign embassies have already urged their citizens to leave or avoid Lebanon on Thursday.

The countries include the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

The warnings came as Pierre Al-Ashkar, head of the Federation of Tourist Syndicates, said the recent events affected the tourism sector’s regular activity after the summer.

He added that European visitors canceled their reservations in Lebanon in October and November due to travel warnings from their countries.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib met on Thursday with Arab ambassadors to Lebanon.

He emphasized the importance of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, providing aid, rejecting displacement, ending Israeli occupation, and establishing a Palestinian state as the solution.

The World Health Organization has delivered medical aid to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

It includes medicines and supplies necessary for emergency surgical operations from WHO’s logistical hub in Dubai.

The aid will be distributed to government and private hospitals and those at risk, especially in Beirut and the south.

It aims to provide medical assistance to injured patients in the event of a military conflict to prevent any potential health crisis.

The WHO noted that Lebanon’s health system has been “crippled while there are severe shortages of specialized medical doctors and health workers, and medicines and medical equipment.”

Also on Thursday, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati met with officials of the UN humanitarian, development, and relief agencies operating in Lebanon.

The discussion centered on emergency plans drawn up by the UN to keep pace with developments in Lebanon in terms of services, humanitarian, health, and social aspects.

Maj. Gen. Mohammed Al-Mustafa, secretary-general of the Supreme Defense Council, and Imran Riza, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon, took part in the talks.

Caretaker ministers for health, interior, and environment were also present.

The protests that Lebanon witnessed on Wednesday in solidarity with the Gaza Strip turned into riots in the vicinity of the US Embassy in the Awkar area in Mount Lebanon.

Protesters assaulted neighboring buildings and set them on fire.

The protesters moved at night to the vicinity of the American University in Beirut, assaulted its walls, and smashed windows.

Police officers pursued the attackers, and strict security measures were implemented on Thursday morning.

Two missiles were fired from Lebanon on Thursday afternoon toward the settlements of Al-Manara and Misgav Am in the Upper Galilee, opposite the southern towns of Mays Al-Jabal and Hula.

IDF artillery targeted Lebanese border areas. Several villages in the western sector were subjected to direct Israeli bombardment in the early dawn.

Israeli warplanes raided the vicinity of the town of Naqoura, but no human casualties or material damages were recorded.


Iran Guards chief says Netanyahu ICC warrant ‘political death’ of Israel

Updated 58 min 32 sec ago
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Iran Guards chief says Netanyahu ICC warrant ‘political death’ of Israel

  • Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami calls the ICC warrant ‘a welcome move’
  • Salami adds it is a ‘great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements’

TEHRAN: The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Friday described the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former defense minister as the “end and political death” of Israel, in a speech.
“This means the end and political death of the Zionist regime, a regime that today lives in absolute political isolation in the world and its officials can no longer travel to other countries,” Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami said in the speech aired on state TV.
In the first official reaction by Iran, Salami called the ICC warrant “a welcome move” and a “great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements,” both supported by the Islamic republic.
Israel and its allies criticized the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant on Thursday for Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif.
The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant were issued in response to accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes during Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The move drew angry reactions from Netanyahu, who denounced it as antisemitic and from Israel’s closest allies, including the United States, but was welcomed by rights groups including Amnesty International.
The ICC’s move theoretically limits the movement of Netanyahu, as any of the court’s 124 national members would be obliged to arrest him on their territory.
The court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan urged the body’s members to act on the warrants, and for non-members to work together in “upholding international law.”


Israel armys say ‘eliminated’ five Hamas militants in north Gaza raid

Updated 22 November 2024
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Israel armys say ‘eliminated’ five Hamas militants in north Gaza raid

  • Israeli military: Slain militants had ‘led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim’

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Friday it had “eliminated” five Hamas militants, including two commanders, in an overnight raid in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia.
In a statement, the military and the Shin Bet security agency said they had “eliminated five Hamas terrorists, including a Nukhba (commando) company commander and an additional company commander who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre” that sparked the Gaza war last year, adding that the slain militants had “led the murders and kidnappings in the area of Mefalsim,” a kibbutz in southern Israel.


Strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs after Israeli evacuation call

Updated 22 November 2024
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Strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs after Israeli evacuation call

  • Latest raids follow intense Israeli attacks on south Beirut as well as other areas in Lebanon’s south and east

BEIRUT: Strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut, a bastion of Hezbollah militants, shortly after an Israeli evacuation warning early on Friday, according to Lebanese official media and AFPTV footage.

The state-run National News Agency said “enemy warplanes” had carried two raids on south Beirut, and that “thick smoke was seen rising from the vicinity of the Lebanese University” in the Hadath neighborhood.

Live AFPTV footage showed plumes of smoke over the area after the Israeli military called for the evacuation of three locations, warning on social media of imminent attacks.

The military later said in a statement its “fighter jets completed a new round of strikes” on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

The latest raids follow intense Israeli attacks on south Beirut as well as other areas in Lebanon’s south and east, where Israel says it has been targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants.

More than 11 months of cross-border fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the Gaza conflict escalated into all-out war in September, with Israel conducting an extensive bombing campaign, primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, and sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.

The Lebanese health ministry said at least 52 people were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, including some 40 dead in Lebanon’s east.

On Friday, the Israeli army also issued evacuation warnings for parts of the coastal city of Tyre and the nearby Burj Al-Shemali Palestinian refugee camp.

The pace of the strikes across Lebanon has increased since US envoy Amos Hochstein ended his visit to Beirut on Wednesday, seeking to broker an end to the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Thursday that at least 3,583 people had been killed in the violence since October 2023. Most of the deaths have been since September this year.


UN could meet with Israel PM despite warrant: UN

Updated 22 November 2024
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UN could meet with Israel PM despite warrant: UN

  • UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Netanyahu have not spoken since the war started
  • UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN policy on contacts with people facing arrest warrants dates back to a document issued in 2013

UNITED NATIONS: The arrest warrant issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza does not bar UN officials from meeting with him in the course of their work, the UN said Thursday.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Netanyahu have not spoken since the war started as a result of the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, although there have been contacts with the Israeli leader by UN officials in the region.
Guterres has been declared persona non grata by Israel, which accuses him of being biased in favor of the Palestinians. So talks between him and Netanyahu are very unlikely.
After the warrants issued Thursday by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN policy on contacts with people facing arrest warrants dates back to a document issued in 2013.
“The rule is that there should not be any contacts between UN officials and individuals subject to arrest warrants,” Dujarric said.
But limited contacts are allowed “to address fundamental issues, operational issues, and our ability to carry out our mandates,” he added.
In late October, at a summit of the BRICS countries in Russia, Guterres met with President Vladimir Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the ICP over the war in Ukraine.
That meeting, during which Guterres reiterated his condemnation of the Russian invasion, angered Ukraine.


Palestinians welcome ICC arrest warrants for Israeli PM and former defense minister

Updated 22 November 2024
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Palestinians welcome ICC arrest warrants for Israeli PM and former defense minister

  • Palestinian Authority calls on UN member states to ensure the warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, who are accused of war crimes, are acted upon
  • The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrel, says decision is ‘binding’ on all members of the International Criminal Court

LONDON: Palestinians welcomed the decision by the International Criminal Court on Thursday to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of defense, Yoav Gallant.

The Palestinian Authority said the court’s decision comes as Israeli forces continue to bomb Gaza in a conflict that has killed nearly 45,000 Palestinians since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, and it hopes the ruling will help to restore faith in international law, the official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported.

Netanyahu and Gallant are the first leading officials from a nation allied with the West against whom the ICC has issued arrest warrants since the court was established in July 2002. It also issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif, the head of the military wing of Hamas. Israeli authorities said in August he was killed by their forces in an attack the previous month, though Hamas have not confirmed this.

All three men are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their actions during the war in Gaza or the Oct. 7 attacks.

The PA said the decision to issue warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant was important because Palestinians “are being subjected to genocide and war crimes, represented by starvation as a method of warfare,” as well as mass displacement and collective punishment.

The PA, which signed up to the ICC in 2015, called on all UN member states to ensure the warrants are acted upon and to “cut off contact and meetings with the international wanted men, Netanyahu and Gallant.” Israel is not a member of the ICC.

The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrel, posted a message on social media platform X on Thursday in which he described the court’s decisions as “binding” on all those who have signed up to it.

“These decisions are binding on all states party to the Rome Statute (the treaty that established the ICC), which includes all EU member states,” he wrote.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister who has spent 17 years in office during three spells in charge since 1996, denounced the decision by the ICC to issue the warrant as “antisemitic.”

He said it would “have serious consequences for the court and those who will cooperate with it in this matter.”