Israeli air force commander confirms ‘increase in readiness for any attack on Lebanon’

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An Israeli air force F-16 Jet fighter aircraft flies over the border area between northern Israel and southern Lebanon on June 25, 2024. (AFP)
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Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati meets with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in Beirut on Jun. 25, 2024. (AP Photo)
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Updated 25 June 2024
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Israeli air force commander confirms ‘increase in readiness for any attack on Lebanon’

  • German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrives in Beirut for talks following meetings in Tel Aviv and the West Bank
  • Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, holds talks at HQ of the Maronite Patriarchate focused on ‘finding solutions for Lebanon and its suffering people’

BEIRUT: Fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli army continued in regions along the border between Lebanon and Israel on Tuesday, with artillery exchanges and drone strikes in both directions.

During a meeting with Ori Gordin, the head of the Northern Command, Israeli Air Force Commander Tomer Bar confirmed “an increase in readiness for any attack on Lebanon,” Russia Today reported.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said it carried out “an attack with assault drones on a brigade headquarters in Nahal Gershom, targeting the positions and settlement of enemy officers and soldiers.” The group said it also attacked “the Bayad Blida and Birkat Risha sites.”

The Israeli army targeted the outskirts of the town of Khiam and the village of Blida with artillery and warplanes. In the Wazzani area, a Syrian driver was forced to jump from his truck for his life when the Israeli army opened fire on it with machine guns.

Israeli combat drones launched from Misgav Am dropped shells on the border town of Taybeh. No injuries were reported as the town, like many close to the border, has been abandoned by residents.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in Beirut on Tuesday evening following meetings in Tel Aviv on Monday and the West Bank on Tuesday. She was expected to meet Lebanese officials to discuss the situation in southern Lebanon and Israel’s threats of an expanded war against Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, the Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who is also visiting Lebanon, held talks at the headquarters of the Maronite Patriarchate that focused on “finding solutions for Lebanon and its suffering people.”

He said there is a deep political rift between Christians in Lebanon and Hezbollah over the latter’s decision to go to war without consulting the state, the group’s demands relating to the selection of a candidate to fill the post of president, which has been vacant since October 2022, and the disruptions it has caused during parliamentary sessions to discuss the election of a new president.

The vice president of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, Sheikh Ali Al-Khatib, declined an invitation to attend a lunch hosted by the Maronite Patriarchate in honor of Parolin, to which all Islamic and Christian spiritual authorities and the heads of Christian political parties in Lebanon were invited.

A council source said: “The sheikh did not take part in the meeting in protest against positions expressed by the Maronite patriarch, Bechara Al-Rahi, concerning the resistance.”

In his most recent Sunday sermon, Al-Rahi objected to the failure to elect “a president who negotiates according to constitutional powers, and asks the UN Security Council to implement its resolutions. This means that Lebanon will not go back to being a launching pad for terrorist actions that destabilize the region’s security and stability.”

Al-Khatib is considered a supporter of Hezbollah. His representative, Grand Jaafari Mufti Sheikh Ahmed Qabalan, criticized Al-Rahi’s sermon without naming him, saying: “There is no neutrality when it comes to what is right and there should be no bias toward what is wrong.” He also spoke of “the resistance’s role in protecting the church in Syria and Lebanon in the face of Daesh and Al-Nusra attacks.”

When Lebanon’s religious leaders met Parolin, Al-Rahi called on all Christians in the country “to consider next Sunday as a day of prayer for peace in southern Lebanon and Gaza.”

During a ceremony hosted by the Embassy of Malta, Parolin stressed the “importance of the church in Lebanon being a testament to coexistence, which is one of the most significant characteristics of the ‘Land of the Cedars.’”

He added: “Lebanon is suffering from a great vacuum and a diminishing Christian life,” as he called on officials “to elect a president as soon as possible to calm the situation and overcome the current difficulties.”


Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

Updated 4 sec ago
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Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 43,391

The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours

GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday that at least 43,391 people have been killed in the year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 17 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 102,347 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands

Updated 22 min 44 sec ago
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Greece says migrant arrivals rising in south-east islands

  • At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents
  • Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps

ATHENS: Some islands in the southeast of the Aegean sea, including Rhodes, are seeing an increase in migrants arriving by boat from Turkiye, Greek migration and asylum minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos said Tuesday.
“The southeast of the Aegean and the island of Rhodes are experiencing migratory pressure right now,” he said on public television station ERT, though he said the increase does not appear to be linked to rising tensions in the Middle East.
At the end of October, several hundred migrants set up tents and cardboard houses outside the local government offices of the city of Rhodes, sparking anger among residents and local authorities.
According to local media Rodiaki, more than 700 migrants arrived during the last week of October.
Rhodes mayor Alexandros Koliadis told Rodiaki that the island lacks the personnel, police officers and coast guard needed to register the arrivals before transferring them to camps on the mainland or in other islands.
Previously, Aegean islands further north such as Lesbos and Samos had received the brunt of migrants crossing from Turkish shores.
Crete, which has likewise seen an increase in arrivals from Libya, also needs to build facilities to process migrants.
Greece has seen a 25 percent increase this year in the number of people fleeing war and poverty, with a 30 percent increase alone to Rhodes and the south-east Aegean, according to the Migration Ministry.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says 48,158 arrivals have been recorded so far in 2024, of which around 42,000 arrived by boat and 6,000 by crossing the land frontier with Turkiye.
“The camps on the islands have an occupancy rate of 100 percent. But on the mainland they are only 55 percent full, which provides a margin in the event of an increase in arrivals on the islands,” Panagiotopoulos said.


Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

Updated 35 min 21 sec ago
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Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

  • Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army-backed government on Tuesday accused neighboring Chad of supplying arms to rebel militias, likely referring to the paramilitary forces it is battling.
The northeast African country has been engulfed by war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between the regular army, led by de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
Justice minister Muawiya Osman said Burhan’s administration had lodged the complaint against Chad at the African Union.
Speaking to reporters, including AFP, Osman said the government demanded compensation and accused Chad of “supplying arms to rebel militias” and causing “harm to Sudanese citizens.”
“We will present evidence to the relevant authorities,” he added from Port Sudan, where Burhan relocated after fighting spread to the capital, Khartoum.
Chad last month denied accusations that it was “amplifying the war in Sudan” by arming the RSF.
“We do not support any of the factions that are fighting on Sudanese territory — we are in favor of peace,” foreign minister and government spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said at the time.
The United Nations has been using the Adre border crossing between the two countries to deliver humanitarian aid.
Sudan had initially agreed to keep the crossing open for three months, a period set to expire on November 15. Authorities in Khartoum have yet to decide whether to extend the arrangement.
The Sudanese war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, including 3.1 million who are now sheltering beyond the country’s borders.


Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12

Updated 53 min 31 sec ago
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Explosion at Turkish oil refinery injures 12

  • The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations

ANKARA: An explosion at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkiye on Tuesday left at least 12 employees slightly injured, the company said. A fire at the facility was quickly brought under control.
The Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, TUPRAS, said a fire broke out at its facilities in Izmit, in Kocaeli province, during maintenance work on a compressor. The company’s emergency teams responded immediately to the incident, it said in a statement.
The 12 employees sustained slight injuries and were taken to a hospital for examinations, the company said.
The company said the unit where the incident occurred “was deactivated in a controlled manner” and that other operations at the refinery were “continuing as normal.”
Earlier, Tahir Buyukakin, the mayor for Kocaeli told private NTV television that the blast occurred during a drill. The fire was quickly brought under control by the company’s own crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery, which is one of Turkiye’s largest. Izmit is about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Istanbul.
The Borsa Istanbul stock exchange temporarily halted trading of TUPRAS shares, until the company provides a detailed explanation of the incident.


Israeli strikes hit south of Beirut and Lebanon’s Bekaa region

Updated 05 November 2024
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Israeli strikes hit south of Beirut and Lebanon’s Bekaa region

BEIRUT: At least one Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in a beach town south of Beirut on Tuesday, Lebanese state media said, as other deadly strikes hit scattered locations across the country and armed group Hezbollah launched rockets into Israel.
The attack on the beach town of Jiyyeh left a massive smoke column billowing out of an apartment building. It was not immediately clear if the strike was an assassination attempt, and no evacuation warning was given before it was carried out.
The Israeli military and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war, but hostilities have escalated over the last six weeks. More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them since late September, according to health authorities.
Israeli strikes on Tuesday also killed five people near the city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, including two killed in a strike on a car, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Lebanon’s state news agency said on Tuesday that it estimated Israeli air strikes and widespread detonation of homes had destroyed more than 40,000 housing units in the country’s border region.