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
Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics
- Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire
- Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday
BEIRUT: Israeli strikes battered southern Lebanon and the outskirts of the capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least five medics, as ground troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south.
Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire.
US mediator Amos Hochstein said earlier this week in Beirut that a truce was “within our grasp.” He traveled on to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz before returning to Washington, according to the news outlet Axios.
His trip aimed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border, which escalated dramatically when Israel ramped up its strikes in late September and sent ground troops into Lebanon on Oct. 1.
Israeli troops have fought Hezbollah in a strip of towns all along the border and this week pushed deeper to the edges of Khiyam, a town some six km (four miles) from the border. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday.
Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israeli troops had also advanced in a string of villages to the west as well. They said Israel was most likely trying to isolate Khiyam ahead of a major attack on the town.
Israeli strikes on two other villages in southern Lebanon killed a total of five medics from a rescue force affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The more than 3,500 people killed by Israeli strikes over the last year include more than 200 medics, the health ministry said.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Israel’s north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which began firing across the border in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel also mounted more strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a once densely populated stronghold of Hezbollah.
It issued evacuation orders on the social media platform X for several buildings in the area on Friday. Reuters footage showed one of the strikes appearing to pierce the center of a multi-story building, sending the whole structure toppling in a massive cloud of smoke.
UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon
- “We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said
- Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment”
BEIRUT: Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hezbollah fighters on Friday in different areas in south Lebanon, including a coastal town that is home to the headquarters of UN peacekeepers.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL told The Associated Press that they are monitoring “heavy clashes” in the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the northeast.
UNIFIL’s headquarters are located in Naqoura in Lebanon’s southern edge close to the border with Israel.
“We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment.”
Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
The fighting came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and a Hamas military leader, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
The warrant marked the first time that a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global court of justice.
Israel’s war has caused heavy destruction across Gaza, decimated parts of the territory and driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million people from their homes, leaving most dependent on aid to survive.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel has also launched airstrikes against Lebanon after the Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack last October. A full-blown war erupted in September after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.
Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages
- All hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours“
GAZA: The Hamas government’s health ministry warned Friday all hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours” for lack of fuel, blaming Israel for blocking its entry.
“We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan Al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.
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
JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities will stop holding Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank under administrative detention, or incarceration without trial, the defense ministry announced Friday.
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.
