BEIRUT: The residents of Nabatiyeh took to the streets on Saturday to hold funerals for the seven civilians who were killed on Wednesday when Israeli rockets struck a residential building in the southern city.
A representative of the speaker of the parliament attended the funerals, which were held in the courtyard of the city mosque.
Sheikh Abdel Hussein Sadiq, imam of Nabatiyeh, said during the funeral: “The innocent blood that was shed unjustly and savagely in a safe home in Nabatiyeh — which included a father, five women, and two children — proves the deliberate intention of the Israeli enemy to crush all human values and international conventions and laws.”
Elsewhere, hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli army continued on Saturday. Hezbollah announced the “targeting of the Baranit Barracks with a Falaq-1 missile, causing a direct hit.”
The Israeli Army carried out successive airstrikes on the outskirts of Beit Lif, Ramyah, and Aita Al-Shaab, and missile strikes on the outskirts of Aitaroun in the Bint Jbeil district. The Hamoul-Naqoura area and the outskirts of Alma Al-Shaab were subjected to artillery shelling.
A spokesman for the Israeli Army said its planes “attacked Hezbollah infrastructure in Jabal Blat and a military building in Bint Jbeil.”
Amos Hochstein, US envoy for energy affairs, said the US is trying to “keep the conflict in southern Lebanon at the lowest possible level.”
In a statement to CNBC, Hochstein stressed the “need for residents of southern border towns and villages to return to their homes, as well as residents on Israel’s northern border.”
Hochstein met with Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati during the ongoing Munich Security Conference.
“The situation on the border between the two countries changed after Oct. 7, and we will have to do a lot to support the Lebanese Army and build the economy in southern Lebanon. This will require international support from the Europeans and the Gulf states, and I hope to see their support in the coming phase,” Hochstein said.
Hochstein told Al-Arabiya TV: We are working quietly to end the conflict on the Lebanese border and prevent the war from expanding, which will not be in anyone’s interest.”
In other news, media reports stated that the French company Total had not signed contracts for gas and oil extraction in blocks 8 and 10 of Lebanese territorial waters. The signing deadline set by the Cabinet passed on Friday.
A source in Lebanon’s Ministry of Energy said: “The dispute with the consortium (which includes Qatar Energy and Italy’s Eni) is due to Total’s refusal to shorten the deadline for seismic surveys and drilling in Block 8 and Block 10. Total wants to continue this process until 2027, while the Lebanese side insists that this process be completed within a year and a half.”
Attorney Christina Abi Haidar told Arab News that those terms were “unjust to Lebanon because Total requested a year to determine if they would begin drilling an exploratory well.”
Abi Haidar said: “The Lebanese Cabinet requested better conditions for both parties before signing the contract. It is important to note that Total still holds the license to drill in Block 9. The company drilled one well, which was found to be non-commercial, and refused to drill a second one.”
Abi Haidar continued: “What happened is beneficial for Lebanon. Why should a French company be the sole owner of the licenses for all the blocks in our waters? Let others participate in the third licensing round.”
Israel-Hezbollah hostilities continue amid funerals for victims in Lebanon
https://arab.news/wac97
Israel-Hezbollah hostilities continue amid funerals for victims in Lebanon
- Hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli army continued on Saturday
- The Israeli Army carried out successive airstrikes on the outskirts of Beit Lif, Ramyah, and Aita Al-Shaab
Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu
- Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed US truce proposal to end Israel-Hezbollah war
- Israel insists any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in area bordering Israel
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
Defiant Lebanese harvest olives in the shadow of war
- A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon
KFEIR: On a mountain slope in south Lebanon, agricultural worker Assaad Al-Taqi is busy picking olives, undeterred by the roar of Israeli warplanes overhead.
This year, he is collecting the harvest against the backdrop of the raging Israel-Hezbollah war.
He works in the village of Kfeir, just a few kilometers (miles) from where Israeli bombardment has devastated much of south Lebanon since Israel escalated its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in September.
“But I’m not afraid of the shelling,” Taqi said, as he and other workers hit the tree branches with sticks, sending showers of olives tumbling down into jute bags.
“Our presence here is an act of defiance,” the 51-year-old said, but also noting that the olive “is the tree of peace.”
Kfeir is nine kilometers (six miles) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in the mixed Christian and Druze district of Hasbaya, which has largely been spared the violence that has wracked nearby Hezbollah strongholds.
But even Hasbaya’s relative tranquillity was shattered last month when three journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on a complex where they were sleeping.
Israel and Hezbollah had previously exchanged cross-border fire for almost a year over the Gaza conflict.
The workers in Kfeir rest in the shade of the olive trees, some 900 meters (3,000 feet) above sea level on the slopes of Mount Hermon, which overlooks an area where Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli-held territory meet.
They have been toiling in relative peace since dawn, interrupted only by sonic booms from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier and the sight of smoke rising on the horizon from strikes on a south Lebanon border village.
Hassna Hammad, 48, who was among those picking olives, said the agricultural work was her livelihood.
“We aren’t afraid, we’re used to it,” she said of the war.
But “we are afraid for our brothers impacted by the conflict,” she added, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.
Elsewhere in south Lebanon, olive trees are bulging with fruit that nobody will pick, after villagers fled Israeli bombardment and the subsequent ground operation that began on September 30.
A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon.
It said 12 percent of olive groves in the conflict-affected areas it assessed had been destroyed.
Normally, the olive-picking season is highly anticipated in Lebanon, and some people return each year to their native villages and fields just for the harvest.
“Not everyone has the courage to come” this time, said Salim Kassab, who owns a traditional press where villagers bring their olives to extract the oil.
“Many people are absent... They sent workers to replace them,” said Kassab, 50.
“There is fear of the war of course,” he said, adding that he had come alone this year, without his wife and children.
Kassab said that before the conflict, he used to travel to the southern cities of Nabatiyeh and Sidon if he needed to fix his machines, but such trips are near impossible now because of the danger.
The World Bank report estimated that 12 months of agriculture sector losses have cost Lebanon $1.1 billion, in a country already going through a gruelling five-year economic crisis before the fighting erupted.
Areas near the southern border have sustained “the most significant damage and losses,” the report said.
It cited “the burning and abandonment of large areas of agricultural land” in both south and east Lebanon, “along with lost harvests due to the displacement of farmers.”
Elsewhere in Kfeir, Inaam Abu Rizk, 77, and her husband were busy washing olives they plan to either press for oil or jar to be served throughout the winter.
Abu Rizk has taken part in the olive harvest for decades, part of a tradition handed down the generations, and said that despite the war, this year was no different.
“Of course we’re afraid... there is the sound of planes and bombing,” she said.
But “we love the olive month — we are farmers and the land is our work.”
Iraqis face tough homecoming a decade after Daesh rampage
- Baghdad has been pushing for the closure of the displacement camps, with the country having attained a degree of comparative stability in recent years
HASSAN SHAMI: A decade after Daesh group extremists rampaged through northern Iraq, Moaz Fadhil and his eight children finally returned to their village after languishing for years in a displacement camp.
Their home, Hassan Shami, is just a stone’s throw from the tent city where they had been living, and it still bears the scars of the fight against Daesh.
The jihadists seized a third of Iraq, ruling their self-declared “caliphate” with an iron fist, before an international coalition wrestled control from them in 2017.
Seven years on, many of the village’s homes are still in ruins and lacking essential services, but Fadhil said he felt an “indescribable joy” upon moving back in August.
Iraq — marred by decades of war and turmoil even before the rise of Daesh — is home to more than a million internally displaced people.
Baghdad has been pushing for the closure of the displacement camps, with the country having attained a degree of comparative stability in recent years.
Most of the camps in federal Iraq have now been closed, but around 20 remain in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which according to the United Nations house more than 115,000 displaced people.
But for many, actually returning home can be a difficult task.
After getting the green light from Kurdish security forces to leave the camp, Fadhil moved his family into a friend’s damaged house because his own is a complete ruin.
“Water arrives by tanker trucks and there is no electricity,” said the 53-year-old.
Although the rubble has been cleared from the structure he now lives in, the cinder block walls and rough concrete floors remain bare.
Across Hassan Shami, half-collapsed houses sit next to concrete buildings under construction by those residents who can afford to rebuild.
Some have installed solar panels to power their new lives.
A small new mosque stands, starkly white, beside an asphalt road.
“I was born here, and before me my father and mother,” said Fadhil, an unemployed farmer.
“I have beautiful memories with my children, my parents.”
The family survives mainly on the modest income brought in by his eldest son, who works as a day laborer on building sites.
“Every four or five days he works a day” for about $8, said Fadhil.
In an effort to close the camps and facilitate returns, Iraqi authorities are offering families around $3,000 to go back to their places of origin.
To do so, displaced people must also get security clearance — to ensure they are not wanted for jihadist crimes — and have their identity papers or property rights in order.
But of the 11,000 displaced people still living in six displacement camps near Hassan Shami, 600 are former prisoners, according to the UN.
They were released after serving up to five years for crimes related to membership of IS.
For them, going home can mean further complications.
There’s the risk of ostracism by neighbors or tribes for their perceived affiliation with Daesh atrocities, potential arrest at a checkpoint by federal forces or even a second trial.
Among them is 32-year-old Rashid, who asked that we use a pseudonym because of his previous imprisonment in Kurdistan for belonging to the jihadist group.
He said he hopes the camp next to Hassan Shami does not close.
“I have a certificate of release (from prison), everything is in order... But I can’t go back there,” he said of federal Iraq.
“If I go back it’s 20 years” in jail, he added, worried that he would be tried again in an Iraqi court.
Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s migration ministry, said that those who committed crimes may indeed face trial after they leave the camps.
“No one can prevent justice from doing its job,” he said, claiming that their families would not face repercussions.
The government is working to ensure that families who return have access to basic services, Abbas added.
In recent months, Baghdad has repeatedly tried to set deadlines for Kurdistan to close the camps, even suing leaders of the autonomous region before finally opting for cooperation over coercion.
Imrul Islam of the Norwegian Refugee Council said displacement camps by definition are supposed to be temporary, but warned against their hasty closure.
When people return, “you need schools. You need hospitals. You need roads. And you need working markets that provide opportunities for livelihoods,” he said.
Without these, he said, many families who try to resettle in their home towns would end up returning to the camps.
Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah: Netanyahu
- Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
Members of UN Security Council call for surge in assistance to Gaza
- “The situation is devastating, and frankly, beyond comprehension, and it’s getting worse, not better,” Lammy said
NEW YORK: Members of the United Nations Security Council called on Monday for a surge in assistance to reach people in need in Israeli-basieged Gaza, warning that the situation in the Palestinian enclave was getting worse.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said there needs to be a “huge, huge rise in aid” to Gaza, where most of the population of 2.3 million people has been displaced and health officials in the coastal enclave say that more than 43,922 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s 13-month-old offensive against Hamas.
“The situation is devastating, and frankly, beyond comprehension, and it’s getting worse, not better,” Lammy said. “Winter’s here. Famine is imminent, and 400 days into this war, it is totally unacceptable that it’s harder than ever to get aid into Gaza.”
The war erupted after Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel in October last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that Washington was closely watching Israel’s actions to improve the situation for Palestinians and engaging with the Israeli government every day.
“Israel must also urgently take additional steps to alleviate the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” she said.
President Joe Biden’s administration concluded this month that Israel was not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and therefore not violating US law, even as Washington acknowledged the humanitarian situation remained dire in the Palestinian enclave.
The assessment came after the US in an Oct. 13 letter gave Israel a list of steps to take within 30 days to address the deteriorating situation in Gaza, warning that failure to do so might have possible consequences on US military aid to Israel.
Thomas-Greenfield said Israel was working to implement 12 of the 15 steps.
“We need to see all steps fully implemented and sustained, and we need to see concrete improvement in the humanitarian situation on the ground,” she said, including Israel allowing commercial trucks to move into Gaza alongside humanitarian assistance, addressing persistent lawlessness and implementing pauses in fighting in large areas of Gaza to allow assistance to reach those in need.
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the US, said Israel had facilitated the entrance of hundreds of aid trucks a week but there had been a failure of aid agencies to collect that aid and Hamas had looted trucks. Hamas has denied the accusation.
“Not only must the UN step up its aid distribution obligations, but the focus must also shift to Hamas’ constant hijacking of humanitarian aid to feed the machine of terror and misery,” Danon said.
Two UN aid agencies told Reuters on Monday that nearly 100 trucks carrying food for Palestinians were violently looted on Nov. 16 after entering Gaza in one of the worst losses of aid during the war.
Tor Wennesland, the UN coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said humanitarian agencies face a challenging and dangerous operational environment in Gaza and access restrictions that hinder their work.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza, as winter begins, is catastrophic, particularly developments in the north of Gaza with a large-scale and near-total displacement of the population and widespread destruction and clearing of land, amidst what looks like a disturbing disregard for international humanitarian law,” Wennesland said.
“The current conditions are among the worst we’ve seen during the entire war and are not set to improve.”
