PM Mikati, FM Bou Habib reject Israeli threats to Lebanon

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati smiles during an interview with AFP at his office in Beirut on Oct. 30, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 30 October 2023
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PM Mikati, FM Bou Habib reject Israeli threats to Lebanon

  • “If Lebanon enters the war, the whole region will be in a state of chaos, not just our country,” Mikati said
  • “Lebanon is in the eye of the storm,” he added

BEIRUT: Lebanese Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has demanded an end to “Israeli provocations” on the southern border.

Lebanon is “in the eye of the storm” amid the tensions in the region, he told Sky News on Monday.

“If Lebanon enters the war, the whole region will be in a state of chaos, not just our country,” he said, adding that “efforts are ongoing to spare Lebanon from war.”

Mikati also told Sky News that the decision to go to war “is up to Israel if it continues to violate the Lebanese southern borders.”

He said that the Lebanese state was cooperating with international organizations to develop a plan in the event of war.

Mikati visited Qatar on Sunday, meeting Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

The two sides discussed “the latest developments in the Palestinian territories and the region,” according to a statement issued after the meeting.

In a phone call with Australian Foreign Minister Penelope Wong, Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said that “Israeli threats to attack and destroy Lebanon are of no use.”

Military operations along Lebanon’s southern border have taken place since the early morning, including sporadic artillery shelling and airstrikes.

Israeli forces had fired flares and incendiary shells over southern villages adjacent to the Blue Line, resulting in forest fires.

The Israeli army on Monday also targeted the perimeter of the Al-Raheb Israeli outpost — at the border with the Aayta Al-Shaab village — with 12 missiles, including phosphorus missiles.

A missile fell in an empty region located between the villages of Aynata and Kunin for the first time since the start of military operations in southern Lebanon, which began simultaneously with Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

According to a military observer, the two villages remain within UNIFIL’s operational region.

The Israeli attack reached 5 km inside the Lebanese border, said the observer.

Israeli jets raided the outskirts of the Yater village, as well as the Aayta Al-Shaab village, targeting an empty house and the perimeter of the Shebaa Farms. Israeli artillery also targeted the Al-Labbouneh region, located in Naqoura, with dozens of artillery shells and flares, causing fires.

Maj. Gen. Raymond Khattar, director general of the Lebanese Civil Defense, said on Monday that “the fire danger index is high today and distinguishing fires is hard amid the ongoing bombardment and the presence of mines and cluster bombs.”

He added: “We are coordinating with the UNIFIL forces so they can intervene to avoid endangering our members.”

The Lebanese army announced on Monday that “21 missile platforms with an unlaunched rocket were found in Wadi Al-Khansaa and Al-Khraybeh — Hasbaya district — and in Al-Qlaileh – Tyre district,” adding that “they were dismantled by the competent units.”

The military observer told Arab News: “The bombing of the UNIFIL spots during the past weekend is Israel’s way of expressing its dissatisfaction with the UN.”

The observer said that the UNIFIL leadership was facing difficulty in communicating with the Israeli side amid claims by the latter that the peacekeeping force was “not fulfilling its duties consisting of preventing illegal weapons in its operational region.”

In other news, a Hezbollah member was killed during military operations carried out by the party on the southern front on Monday.

Although operations carried out by Palestinian factions in southern Lebanon against Israeli forces have subsided, a Lebanese military group called “Fajr Al-Jouroud” has emerged in recent days.

The group identifies itself as the military wing of the Jamaa Islamiya group and announced on Sunday it had “targeted many outposts of the Israeli enemy in the Kiryat Shmona settlement and its surroundings.”

The military observer said: “The operations of this group are carried out in full coordination with Hezbollah, as it doesn’t own the type of weapons used in its operations.”

He added: “The presence of the group is beneficial for Hezbollah in the Sunni border regions opposing the party, as the Islamic group is a political movement that has become one of Hezbollah’s allies after being against it in the past.”

The group organized a mass demonstration last Sunday, in coordination with Hamas, in downtown Beirut.

Buses carrying demonstrators – including Palestinian refugees and Lebanese – from Tripoli, Bekaa and Saida, were decorated with the Palestinian flag and the Hezbollah and Hamas banners. Members of Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Organization accompanied the demonstrators.

Hezbollah also announced that its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, will deliver a speech next Friday during a ceremony honoring fighters who died during operations.

It will be Nasrallah’s first public appearance since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was launched.

Pending Nasrallah’s statements, which Lebanese fear will be incendiary, Hezbollah Executive Council deputy head, Sheikh Ali Damoush, said that the party “is fully prepared and ready to face all the options and developments accurately, wisely and with the highest degree of national responsibility.”

Damoush added that “Hezbollah’s vision considers the requirements of conflict with the enemy, the interest of the resistance, national interest and people’s interests,” adding that “all our stances and actions are taken accordingly.”

In a joint meeting held on Monday, the Saydet Al-Jabal Gathering and the National Council to End Iranian Occupation in Lebanon”recalled “Resolution 1701, which cost Lebanon 2,500 martyrs and billions of dollars in losses.”

They feared the international resolution, which aimed to bring an end to the 2006 war, was “being jeopardized today by an external decision,” accusing “Iran and its militias of using Lebanon and its people as ammunition to fuel the Iranian project in the region.”


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Updated 4 sec ago
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

Updated 27 min 1 sec ago
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Israeli airstrikes kill at least 30 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say

  • Airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 30, Palestinian medics and media say
  • Israeli military says it ‘eliminated terrorists’ in latest operations

CAIRO: Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 30 Palestinians since Monday night, Palestinian media and medics said on Tuesday, as the Israeli army tightened its siege on northern areas of the enclave.
An airstrike damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, where the army has carried out new operations since Oct. 5, and killed at least 20 people late on Monday, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said.
The Gaza health ministry did not immediately confirm the toll. Four other people were killed in the central Gazan town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics said.
Palestinian health officials said six people had also been killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah in the central area of the narrow enclave.
The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had “eliminated terrorists” in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been eliminated, it said.
Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for people to evacuate were aimed at emptying two northern Gaza towns and a refugee camp to create buffer zones.
Israel says its forces have killed hundreds of Palestinian gunmen and dismantled military infrastructure in Jabalia in the past month.
More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, the authorities in Gaza say, and much of the territory has been reduced to ruins.
The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.


Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Updated 37 min 54 sec ago
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Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed in the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, pro-democracy activists said on Tuesday, in an attack they blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Madani Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the country, said the RSF carried out the killings on Monday night in the village of Barborab, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital Wad Madani.


Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

Updated 05 November 2024
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Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms

  • Washington told Israel on Oct. 13 it had 30 days to take steps to address humanitarian crisis in Gaza
  • Israel on Monday announced cancelling agreement with UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA)

WASHINGTON: Israel has taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but has so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, as a deadline set by the US to improve the situation approaches.
The Biden administration told Israel in an Oct. 13 letter it had 30 days to take specific steps to address the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, which has been pummeled for more than a year by Israeli ground and air operations that Israel says are aimed at rooting out Hamas militants.
Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza.
“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around. We have seen an increase in some measurements. We’ve seen an increase in the number of crossings that are open. But just if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met,” Miller said.
Miller said the results so far were “not good enough” but stressed that the 30-day period had not elapsed.
He declined to say what consequences Israel would face if it failed to implement the recommendations.
“What I can tell you that we will do is we will follow the law,” he said.
Washington, Israel’s main supplier of weapons, has frequently pressed Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza since the war with Hamas began with the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
The Oct. 13 letter, sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said a failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing the measures on aid access may have implications for US policy and law.
Section 620i of the US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits military aid to countries that impede delivery of US humanitarian assistance.
Israel on Monday said it was canceling its agreement with the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), citing accusations that some UNRWA staff had Hamas links.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had scaled back the entry of aid trucks into the Gaza Strip to an average of 30 trucks a day, the lowest in a long time.
An Israeli government spokesman said no limit had been imposed on aid entering Gaza, with 47 aid trucks entering northern Gaza on Sunday alone.
Israeli statistics reviewed by Reuters last week showed that aid shipments allowed into Gaza in October remained at their lowest levels since October 2023.


Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members

Updated 05 November 2024
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Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued 7,000 additional army draft orders Monday for individuals from the country’s ultra-Orthodox community, historically exempted from mandatory service until a June Supreme Court decision.
Gallant approved the Israeli army’s “recommendation to issue an additional 7,000 orders for screening and evaluation processes for ultra-Orthodox draft-eligible individuals in the upcoming phase, which is expected to begin in the coming days,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
The order comes after a first round of 3,000 draft orders were sent out in July, sparking protests from the ultra-Orthodox community.
Monday’s orders come at a time when Israel is struggling to bolster troop numbers as it fights a multi-front war, with ground forces deployed to fight Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“The defense minister concluded that the war and the challenges we face underscore the (Israeli army’s) need for additional soldiers. This is a tangible operational need that requires broad national mobilization from all parts of society,” the ministry said.
In Israel, military service is mandatory for Jewish men for 32 months, and for 24 months for Jewish women.
The ultra-Orthodox account for 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, according to the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), representing about 1.3 million people.
About 66,000 of those of conscription age are exempted, according to the army.
Under a rule adopted at Israel’s creation in 1948, when it applied to only 400 people, the ultra-Orthodox have historically been exempted from military service if they dedicate themselves to the study of sacred Jewish texts.
In June, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the draft of yeshiva (seminary) students after deciding the government could not keep up the exemption “without an adequate legal framework.”
Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,374 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to Gaza health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
Since late September, Israel has broadened the focus of its war to Lebanon, where it intensified air strikes and later sent in ground troops, following nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire with Hezbollah.