JERUSALEM: The Israeli military published on Thursday the findings of a first probe into its own security failings during the devastating Oct. 7 Hamas attack, acknowledging it hadn’t protected the citizens of one of the worst hit communities, Kibbutz Be’eri.
More than 100 people were killed in the attack on Be’eri, a community of about 1,000 people, and 32 taken hostage to Gaza, 11 of whom are still there.
The probe examined the day’s chain of events, fighting and security forces’ conduct, the military said. Some of the details have already been revealed by Reuters and other media in the weeks after the attack.
While acknowledging its own failure in protecting the kibbutz civilians, the military hailed the bravery of Be’eri residents, including its rapid response team, who despite being vastly outnumbered, tried to repel the militants who invaded.
Israel’s military was unprepared for the scenario of a massive infiltration of militants into Israel, had inadequate forces in the area, did not have a clear picture of the events until noon, a few hours after the attack began, did not properly alert Be’eri’s residents and its fighting was uncoordinated, the investigation found.
The probe, however, did not find fault in tank fire toward a house where militants were holding some 15 people hostage, an incident that has drawn criticism in Israel for having put civilians in harms way.
“After shooting was heard from the house and the terrorists announced their intent to kill themselves and the hostages, the forces decided to storm it in order to save the hostages,” the military’s summary said.
“The team found that the civilians inside the house were not hurt by the tank shells,” the summary said, however, further investigation is needed to determine how hostages inside died, with signs pointing to them having been killed by the gunmen.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant On Thursday called for a state inquiry into the security failings of the Oct. 7 attack, which was Israel’s deadliest day and the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
He said the probe should investigate Gallant himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu has dismissed past calls to form a state inquiry.
The military presented its report to Be’eri’s residents, many of whom are among the tens of thousands of Israelis still displaced since the Oct. 7 attack, which precipitated Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza.
“I didn’t need all these details,” said Miri Gad Mesika, a kibbutz member. “What matters to me is why what happened happened, how we can prevent it from happening again, how we can bring back our hostages and how we can feel secure again.”
First Israeli military report on Oct. 7 attack finds army failed to protect civilians
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First Israeli military report on Oct. 7 attack finds army failed to protect civilians
- While acknowledging its own failure in protecting the kibbutz civilians, the military hailed the bravery of Be’eri residents, including its rapid response team
- Israel’s military was unprepared for the scenario of a massive infiltration of militants into Israel
Lebanon says four Syrians killed in Israeli strike on south
“The health ministry announces... four Syrian nationals were martyred” in an “Israeli strike” on the southern village of Shama, it said in a statement.
The ministry said the toll might rise once DNA tests had been carried out.
The strike also wounded five Lebanese nationals, it added.
Emergency services told AFP that the dead were farmer workers and part of the same family.
Plumes of smoke billowed from the site of the strike, which heavily damaged two nearby buildings and burnt a vehicle to a crisp, a photographer working with AFP reported.
Hezbollah has not claimed any new attacks since an Israel air strike killed its top commander Fuad Shukr on Tuesday evening, with leader Hassan Nasrallah saying operations will resume on Friday morning.
Nasrallah warned his group was bound to respond to the killing of Shukr.
His death was followed hours later Wednesday, by the killing of Hezbollah ally Hamas’s chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran, which Iran and Hamas have blamed on Israel. Israel has declined to comment on his killing.
The violence since October has killed at least 542 people on the Lebanese side, most of them fighters but also including 114 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
At least 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed on the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to army figures.
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Kuwait will not become launchpad for attacks on neighbors, officials say
- Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Hamad Al-Sager dismisses reports that suggest otherwise
KUWAIT: Kuwaiti authorities said on Thursday they will not allow the nation’s land or airspace to be used as launchpads for military attacks on neighboring countries.
Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Hamad Al-Sager dismissed reports that suggested otherwise, reported the Kuwait News Agency on Thursday.
His statement came as Iranian officials were due to meet regional allies from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen to discuss possible retaliation against Israel following the assassination of Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in an airstrike in Tehran on Wednesday.
There are growing fears of a wider regional conflict between Israel and Iran and its proxies following the killing of Haniyeh, and an Israeli strike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday that killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur.
Iran, allies plan joint but limited retaliation against Israel
- “Two scenarios were discussed: a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party,” the source said
- “There is a very strong likelihood that the response will be coordinated...,” said Amal Saad, a Hezbollah researcher and lecturer at Britain’s Cardiff University
BEIRUT: Iran and armed groups backed by it are preparing coordinated action meant to deter Israel but avert all-out war, sources and analysts said, after the killings of top Hamas and Hezbollah figures.
On Thursday, Iranian officials met in Tehran with representatives of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” — a loose alliance of Tehran-backed groups hostile to Israel — to discuss retaliation for the deaths of Hamas’s leader and Hezbollah’s top military commander, said a source close to Lebanese group.
“Two scenarios were discussed: a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party,” the source who had been briefed on the meeting told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened a “harsh punishment” for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which the group blamed on Israel, also vowing revenge.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday his group was bound to respond to Israel’s killing of top military commander Fuad Shukr, saying in a speech broadcast at the funeral that his death and that of Haniyeh “crossed” red lines.
Israel said it “eliminated” Shukr Tuesday in a strike on southern Beirut, describing him as Nasrallah’s “right-hand man.” He led operations in south Lebanon, where the group has exchanged near-daily fire with Israel since the Gaza war erupted.
“There is a very strong likelihood that the response will be coordinated... among other resistance actors,” said Amal Saad, a Hezbollah researcher and lecturer at Britain’s Cardiff University.
“It’s going to greatly deepen the tactical coordination between Iran” and the groups it supports across the region, she said, naming Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Yemen’s Houthi militants and Iraq’s Hashed Al-Shaabi force.
A leader of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a loose alliance of pro-Iran groups, told AFP that “Iran will lead the first response with the participation of Iraqi, Yemeni and Syrian factions, striking military targets, followed by a second response from Hezbollah.”
The Iraqi alliance has claimed attacks on US troops, most recently over the Gaza war, before suspending them in late January.
It has also claimed to have targeted Israel with drones and rockets.
The source, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said Hezbollah may target civilians to avenge the killing of three women and two children in the strike that killed Shukr in Beirut.
Iran and its allies are widely expected to respond militarily to the killings blamed on Israel, which has claimed responsibility only for Shukr’s death, though experts say the retaliation would be measured to avoid a wider conflagration.
“Iran and Hezbollah will not want to play into (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s hands and give him the bait or ammunition he needs to drag the US into a war,” Saad said.
“They will more than likely try to avert a war while also strongly deterring Israel from continuing with this new policy, this targeted shock and awe.”
The White House said the two killings hours apart “don’t help” regional tensions, though National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Washington saw “no signs that an escalation is imminent.”
Iranian analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi, who specializes in international relations, said “a stronger response is expected” from Tehran than during its last direct face-off with Israel in April.
Iran on April 13 made its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles after a strike blamed on Israel killed Revolutionary Guards at Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
The United States was in touch with Iran at the time, sending “a series of direct communications through the Swiss channel,” a senior administration official had told AFP.
Zeidabadi said that “a repeat of the previous operation wouldn’t make much sense, because the missiles and drones did not hit sensitive areas or have a deterrent effect.”
But he ruled out a “generalized, all-out and out-of-control war.”
According to Middle East analyst Rodger Shanahan, “regime survival” is a top priority for Tehran, “the same as Hezbollah.”
“They will put a lot of pressure on the Israelis on behalf of the Palestinians, but they are not going to risk an existential threat against them,” he told AFP.
Israeli ‘recklessness threatens regional explosion,’ Arab League chief warns
- Targeted killings will not weaken Palestinians’ determination, Al-Azhar Al-Sharif says
CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit has accused Israel of reckless behavior that risks a dangerous escalation in the region.
Israel “is practicing a reckless policy without foreseeing the dire consequences that could affect the region as a result of its actions,” he said.
His remarks follow the killing of top Hamas and Hezbollah figures Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shukr in Israeli strikes this week.
The Arab League chief said that “assassinations are acts that violate international law, and carrying them out reveals a great disregard for international norms and an affront to the rules that regulate relations between states.”
Aboul Gheit said that “the international community must exert the necessary pressure on Israel to prevent an all-out regional explosion caused by the reckless policies of its leaders.”
Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, Sunni Islam’s oldest and foremost seat of learning, also condemned the killing of Haniyeh.
The Hamas leader spent his life defending his land, and the cause of the Arabs and Muslims, the cause of free Palestine, it said.
Al-Azhar said such assassinations will not undermine the determination of the struggling Palestinian people who have made, and continue to make, great sacrifices to restore their rights to establish the independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.
It offered condolences and sympathy to the Palestinian people and the Haniyeh family.
Joy in Yemen as UN lifts sanctions on former president, son
- A decade ago, the UN Security Council sanctioned Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years before being deposed in 2011 following Arab Spring-inspired protests, and his son
AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s internationally recognized Presidential Leadership Council and political parties have hailed a UN decision to lift sanctions against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his son.
The UN Security Council’s Yemen sanctions committee removed both men from its list of sanctioned individuals and businesses on Tuesday, sparking celebration among Yemenis, particularly the former president’s loyalists.
A decade ago, the UN Security Council sanctioned Saleh, who ruled Yemen for 33 years before being deposed in 2011 following Arab Spring-inspired protests, and his son Ahmed, commander of the elite Republic Guards and later Yemen’s ambassador to the UAE, for impeding political transition in Yemen and supporting the Houthis during their expansion across the country.
In late 2017, Saleh switched sides and launched a military uprising against the Houthis in Sanaa, which ended days after he was killed.
The Yemeni government recently asked the UN sanctions committee to waive sanctions on Saleh and his son, who lives in the UAE.
Yemeni government officials and political party leaders were among those who applauded the UN committee’s decision.
Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, the former president’s nephew and former commander of his bodyguards who is also a PLC member, praised the presidential council, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE for persuading the UN committee to lift its sanctions against the two individuals.
“I would like to express my gratitude to the (presidential) Leadership Council for all of their efforts, as well as to our brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” he said.
According to the official news agency, PLC member Othman Mujalli contacted Ahmed to congratulate him, as well as to express appreciation to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and to rally Yemenis to fight the Houthis.
Former Vice President Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmer, who backed anti-Saleh rallies in 2011, praised the UN decision in a post on X on Thursday.
Lt. Gen. Sagheer bin Aziz, chief of staff of the Yemeni army, and Sultan Al-Barakani, the parliamentary speaker, also expressed delight at the move.
This comes as the US Treasury Department on Wednesday announced sanctions on two people and four firms headquartered in China and Yemen for helping the Houthi militia acquire components for weapons used in its attacks on ships.
“The Houthis have sought to exploit key jurisdictions like the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and Hong Kong in order to source and transport the components necessary for their deadly weapons systems,” Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said in a statement.
Sanctions were imposed on Ahmed Khaled Yahya Al-Shahare and Maher Yahya Muhammad Mutahar Al-Kinai, while Al-Shahari United Corp. Ltd, Guangzhou Alshahari United Corp. Ltd, Hongkong Alshahari United Corp. Ltd, and Yemen Telecommunication Asset Co. for Information Technology were also blacklisted.
In response to Houthi attacks on ships in international shipping lanes, the US led a coalition of marine task forces to provide protection, designated the Houthi militia as a terrorist organization, imposed sanctions on firms and individuals who assisted the militia in obtaining weapons, and launched strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
