TIBERIAS, Israel: Yarden Gil opens a reinforced metal door to enter the northern Israeli kindergarten where she works, which doubles as an underground shelter against rockets fired by Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.
She is among tens of thousands displaced from the border area by the ever-present threat of Hezbollah attacks and, increasingly, the fear of an all-out war against the powerful Iran-backed militant group.
Gil, 36, and her family have left their home in Yiftah, a kibbutz community just a few hundred meters (yards) from the Lebanese border. She said there they lived so close to the border that they could often hear incoming rockets before the sirens started wailing.
They now live in a single room in a hotel 50 kilometers (30 miles) to the south, near the city of Tiberias on the shores of the lake known as the Sea of Galilee.
“We really don’t have independence here,” said Gil, charging that the Israeli government is “not doing enough for us to be able to go back to our home and be secure.”
Dozens of northern Israeli communities have been rendered ghost towns as the Israeli military and Hezbollah have traded near-daily cross-border fire, ending a period of relative calm since a 2006 war.
The spike in violence during the ongoing Gaza conflict has re-ignited fears of a wider war between long-term foes Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally.
The border clashes have killed at least 93 civilians in Lebanon and nearly 390 others, mostly fighters, according to an AFP tally.
Eleven civilians and 15 soldiers have been killed on the Israeli side, according to the military.
Israel said early last week it had approved military plans for an offensive in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah responded with a warning that nowhere in Israel would be safe in the event of war.
With Israel focused on the Gaza war after Hamas’s surprise October 7 attack, a return home is all that is on the minds of evacuees from northern communities languishing in hotels turned state-funded shelters, away from home.
The authorities have repeatedly extended accommodation arrangements, which are now set to expire in August.
Some evacuees have moved out of the hotels, to elsewhere in Israel or abroad.
“That’s our new reality: instability,” said Iris Amsalem, a 33-year-old mother of two from the border community of Shomera who is now staying in a Galilee hotel.
“We want peace. We want security.”
Only a few Israelis have remained on the border, defended by civilian units and military forces.
Deborah Fredericks, an 80-year-old retiree staying at a five-star hotel with hundreds of other evacuees, played the tile-based game of Rummikub next to a gleaming pool and palm trees in front of the lake.
“It’s really funny because I’m in the middle of a war but I’m on holiday,” she said.
“I want to go back, but it won’t be for a while. It’ll be when they say I can. You can’t do anything about it.”
Others feel they have been abandoned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as it prioritizes the Gaza war.
“No one communicates with us, no one! No one came to see us!” said Lili Dahn, a resident of the border town of Kiryat Shmona, in her 60s.
Gil, the kindergarten teacher, said parents had to set up their own schooling for their children after they fled their kibbutz, which has suffered damage from rockets and in fires caused by the strikes.
“The government is responsible for our security and I expect them to be more interested in what happened to us,” she said, adding that some of her fellow kibbutzniks have moved as far away as Canada and Thailand.
Netanyahu has pledged to return security, and civilians, to the north.
Some evacuees said they believe a war against Hezbollah is only a matter of time.
Sarit Zehavi, a former Israeli army intelligence official who lives near the border, said her greatest fear was that a potential ceasefire would allow Hezbollah “to preserve its capabilities and launch the next massacre,” like Hamas did.
Gil’s husband, Ewdward, 39, also said he feared a similar assault to the October 7 attack on southern Israel.
“It happened in the south,” he said. “Who’s telling me that now it won’t happen in the north?“
Helene Abergel, a 49-year-old Kiryat Shmona resident who is living at a Tel Aviv hotel, said: “A war must happen to push Hezbollah away from the border.”
In her family’s single room, Gil had a defiant message for Hezbollah.
“They can break our houses,” she said. “They can burn our fields. But they cannot kill our spirit.”
Away from home, Israeli evacuees wait as Hezbollah tensions spike
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Away from home, Israeli evacuees wait as Hezbollah tensions spike
- The spike in violence during the ongoing Gaza conflict has re-ignited fears of a wider war between long-term foes Israel and Hezbollah, a Hamas ally
Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers
- Practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court
- The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention
The practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court, and is often used against Palestinians who Israel deems security threats.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was “inappropriate” for Israel to employ administrative detention against settlers who “face severe Palestinian terror threats and unjustified international sanctions.”
But, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now, it is one of only few effective tools that Israeli authorities to prevent settler attacks against Palestinians, which have surged in the West Bank over the past year.
Katz said in a statement issued by his office that prosecution or “other preventive measures” would be used to deal with criminal acts in the West Bank.
B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, said authorities use administrative detention “extensively and routinely” to hold thousands of Palestinians for lengthy periods of time.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that eight settlers were held under the same practice in November.
Yonatan Mizrahi, director of settlement watch for Peace Now, said that although administrative detention was mostly used in the West Bank to detain Palestinians, it was one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence through detention.
“The cancelation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical... move that whitewashes and normalizes escalating Jewish terrorism under the cover of war,” the group said in a statement, referring to a spike in settler attacks throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past 13 months.
Western governments, including Israel’s ally and military backer the United States, have recently imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organizations over ties to violence against Palestinians.
On Monday, US authorities announced sanctions against Amana, a movement that backs settlement development, and others who have “ties to violent actors in the West Bank.”
“Amana is a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement and maintains ties to various persons previously sanctioned by the US government and its partners for perpetrating violence in the West Bank,” the US Treasury said.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank — which Israel has occupied since 1967 — is home to three million Palestinians as well as about 490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician
- Emily Thornberry: Britain has ‘obligation under Rome Convention’ to arrest Israeli PM if he enters country
- Court: ‘Reasonable grounds to believe’ Netanyahu responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity in Gaza
LONDON: The UK will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, a senior British politician has said.
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on Thursday for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, alongside his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, pertaining to the Gaza war.
Emily Thornberry — Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, and former shadow foreign secretary and shadow attorney general — told Sky News: “If Netanyahu comes to Britain, our obligation under the Rome Convention would be to arrest him under the warrant from the ICC.
“(It is) not really a question of should — we are required to, because we are members of the ICC.”
UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has refused to be drawn on whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on British soil, saying it “wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment.”
She told Sky: “We’ve always respected the importance of international law, but in the majority of the cases that they pursue, they don’t become part of the British legal process.
“What I can say is that obviously, the UK government’s position remains that we believe the focus should be on getting a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Netanyahu’s arrest warrant is the first to be issued against the premier of a major Western ally by an international court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
His office denounced the warrant as “anti-Semitic,” adding that Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.” Israel is not an ICC member and rejects the court’s jurisdiction.
US President Joe Biden called the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous,” adding: “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he plans to invite Netanyahu to visit Budapest, adding that the arrest warrant will “not be observed” by his government.
The Italian and French governments, however, have indicated that Netanyahu will be arrested if he visits either country.
The ICC said on Thursday it has “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
The court also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel says Al-Masri, believed to have been the mastermind behind the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, was killed in Gaza earlier this year.
The ICC said it issued the warrant for his arrest because of insufficient evidence to prove his death.
Monitor raises toll in Israel strikes on Syria’s Palmyra to 92
- Wednesday’s Israeli attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups
- Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country
BEIRUT: A Syria war monitor said on Friday that Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra this week killed 92 pro-Iran fighters, after a United Nations representative said they were likely the deadliest to date.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday’s attack targeted three sites in Palmyra, with one hitting a meeting of pro-Iranian groups that also involved commanders from Iraq’s Al-Nujaba group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The toll has risen to “92 dead: 61 Syrian pro-Iran fighters,” 11 of them working for Hezbollah, “and 27 foreign nationals mostly from Al-Nujaba, plus four from Hezbollah,” the Observatory said.
The Britain-based war monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had previously reported 82 dead, while the Syria defense ministry on Wednesday said 36 people were killed.
The UN deputy special envoy to Syria, Najat Rochdi, told the Security Council on Thursday that the raid was “likely the deadliest Israeli strike in Syria to date.”
The Observatory said the strikes also targeted “a weapons depot near the industrial area” in Palmyra, a modern city adjacent to globally renowned Greco-Roman ruins.
Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since almost a year of hostilities with Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September.
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
- 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.
