GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that a ceasefire deal in Gaza could deter Iran from attacking Israel in retaliation for the killing of a Hamas leader that sent regional tensions soaring.
His remarks came after Iran rejected Western calls to “stand down” its threat of reprisals.
The Islamic republic and its allies have blamed Israel for Ismail Haniyeh’s killing on July 31 during a visit to Tehran for the swearing-in of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Israel has not commented.
Iran has vowed to avenge the death, which came hours after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed a senior commander of Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon.
Asked if a truce between Israel and Hamas could stave off an Iranian assault, Biden said: “That’s my expectation.”
He told reporters in New Orleans that while negotiations were “getting hard” he was “not giving up.”
Western diplomats have scrambled to prevent a major conflagration in the Middle East, where tensions were already high due to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
“Ten months since the start of the war, the threat of further regional escalation is more palpable, and chilling, than ever,” said Rosemary DiCarlo, United Nations undersecretary general for political and peacebuilding affairs.
She called on all parties to “end all escalatory rhetoric and actions.”
In a statement on Monday, the United States and its European allies urged Iran to de-escalate.
The White House warned that a “significant set of attacks” by Iran and its allies was possible this week, saying Israel shared the same assessment.
The United States has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and a guided missile submarine to the region in support of Israel.
On Tuesday, Washington approved weapons sales of more than $20 billion to Israel including F-15 fighter-jets and nearly 33,000 tank cartridges.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani criticized the Western call for restraint.
“The declaration by France, Germany and Britain, which raised no objection to the international crimes of the Zionist regime, brazenly asks Iran to take no deterrent action against a regime which has violated its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said in a statement.
The United States and its European allies also called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with truce talks to resume on Thursday.
The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 39,929 people, according to a toll from the territory’s health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
Far-right parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition strongly oppose any ceasefire in Gaza, a point rammed home by firebrand National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on a visit to Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The visit was swiftly condemned by Al-Aqsa’s custodian Jordan, as well as world powers including the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
Defying longstanding rules that allow Jews and other non-Muslims to visit the compound but not to pray there, Ben Gvir led thousands of Israelis in singing Jewish hymns and performing Talmudic rituals.
In a video filmed inside the compound, Ben Gvir renewed his opposition to any let-up in the Gaza war.
“We must win and not go to the talks in Doha or Cairo,” the minister said, referring to the truce talks planned for Thursday.
US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel nonetheless said Washington remained hopeful that talks would move forward.
Netanyahu has already confirmed Israel’s participation and “our Qatari partners have assured us that they are working to ensure that there is Hamas representation as well,” Patel told reporters.
Hamas has urged mediators to implement a truce plan presented earlier by Biden instead of holding more talks.
Despite more than 10 months of fighting in Gaza, Hamas has still on occasion been able to fire rockets into Israel.
On Tuesday the militants said they had fired two rockets at Tel Aviv in their first attack on the city in months.
The Israeli army said a rocket from Gaza fell into the sea, while another was identified but “did not cross into Israeli territory.”
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin met Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas in Moscow and told him he was “concerned” about civilian deaths in Gaza.
Putin called for a ceasefire and the “creation of a fully-fledged Palestinian state,” according to images shown on Russian state television.
In the latest Gaza violence, an Israeli strike killed two parents and eight children in Abassan in the southern district of Khan Yunis, a medic from Nasser Hospital told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The sole survivor from the Abu Haya family was a three-month-old girl named Rim, he said.
“This little girl was pulled out of the rubble. Her whole family is dead. Who will take care of her now?” asked Ibrahim Barbakh, a resident of Khan Yunis, as he held the baby.
Biden says Gaza ceasefire could stop Iran attacking Israel
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Biden says Gaza ceasefire could stop Iran attacking Israel
- His remarks came after Iran rejected Western calls to “stand down” its threat of reprisals
- Asked if a truce between Israel and Hamas could stave off an Iranian assault, Biden said: “That’s my expectation“
Israel armys says ‘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 October 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.
Strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs after Israeli evacuation call
- The Israeli army also called overnight for the evacuation of several areas in the south of the country
BEIRUT: Strikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday shortly after the Israeli army called for the evacuation of certain neighborhoods, AFPTV footage showed.
In addition to the suburbs of the Lebanese capital, the Israeli army called overnight for the evacuation of several areas in the south of the country.
UN could meet with Israel PM despite warrant: UN
- UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Netanyahu have not spoken since the war started
- UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN policy on contacts with people facing arrest warrants dates back to a document issued in 2013
UNITED NATIONS: The arrest warrant issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the war in Gaza does not bar UN officials from meeting with him in the course of their work, the UN said Thursday.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Netanyahu have not spoken since the war started as a result of the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, although there have been contacts with the Israeli leader by UN officials in the region.
Guterres has been declared persona non grata by Israel, which accuses him of being biased in favor of the Palestinians. So talks between him and Netanyahu are very unlikely.
After the warrants issued Thursday by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said UN policy on contacts with people facing arrest warrants dates back to a document issued in 2013.
“The rule is that there should not be any contacts between UN officials and individuals subject to arrest warrants,” Dujarric said.
But limited contacts are allowed “to address fundamental issues, operational issues, and our ability to carry out our mandates,” he added.
In late October, at a summit of the BRICS countries in Russia, Guterres met with President Vladimir Putin, who faces an arrest warrant from the ICP over the war in Ukraine.
That meeting, during which Guterres reiterated his condemnation of the Russian invasion, angered Ukraine.
Palestinians welcome ICC arrest warrants for Israeli PM and former defense minister
- Palestinian Authority calls on UN member states to ensure the warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, who are accused of war crimes, are acted upon
- The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrel, says decision is ‘binding’ on all members of the International Criminal Court
LONDON: Palestinians welcomed the decision by the International Criminal Court on Thursday to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of defense, Yoav Gallant.
The Palestinian Authority said the court’s decision comes as Israeli forces continue to bomb Gaza in a conflict that has killed nearly 45,000 Palestinians since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, and it hopes the ruling will help to restore faith in international law, the official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported.
Netanyahu and Gallant are the first leading officials from a nation allied with the West against whom the ICC has issued arrest warrants since the court was established in July 2002. It also issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Deif, the head of the military wing of Hamas. Israeli authorities said in August he was killed by their forces in an attack the previous month, though Hamas have not confirmed this.
All three men are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their actions during the war in Gaza or the Oct. 7 attacks.
The PA said the decision to issue warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant was important because Palestinians “are being subjected to genocide and war crimes, represented by starvation as a method of warfare,” as well as mass displacement and collective punishment.
The PA, which signed up to the ICC in 2015, called on all UN member states to ensure the warrants are acted upon and to “cut off contact and meetings with the international wanted men, Netanyahu and Gallant.” Israel is not a member of the ICC.
The EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrel, posted a message on social media platform X on Thursday in which he described the court’s decisions as “binding” on all those who have signed up to it.
“These decisions are binding on all states party to the Rome Statute (the treaty that established the ICC), which includes all EU member states,” he wrote.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister who has spent 17 years in office during three spells in charge since 1996, denounced the decision by the ICC to issue the warrant as “antisemitic.”
He said it would “have serious consequences for the court and those who will cooperate with it in this matter.”
Between bomb craters: Taxis stuck on war-hit Lebanon-Syria border
MASNAA, Lebanon: Stuck in no man’s land on the war-hit Lebanon-Syria border, cab driver Fadi Slika now scrapes a living ferrying passengers between two deep craters left by Israeli air strikes.
The journey is just 2 km, but Slika has no other choice — his taxi is his only source of income.
“My car is stuck between craters: I can’t reach Lebanon or return to Syria. Meanwhile, we’re under threat of (Israeli) bombardment,” said the 56-year-old.
“I work and sleep here between the two holes,” he said.
A dual Lebanese-Syrian national, Slika has been living in his car, refusing to abandon it when it broke down until a mechanic brought a new engine.
His taxi is one of the few that has been operating between the two craters since Israeli strikes in October effectively blocked traffic on the Masnaa crossing.
The bombed area has become a boon for drivers of tuk-tuks, who can navigate the craters easily.
A makeshift stall, the Al-Joura (pit in Arabic) rest house, and a shop are set up nearby.
Slika went for 12 days without work while waiting for his taxi to be fixed. The car has become his home. A warm blanket covers its rear seats against eastern Lebanon’s cold winters, and a big bag of pita bread sits on the passenger side.
Before being stranded, Slika made about $100 for trips from Beirut to Damascus.
Now, an average fare between the craters is just $5.50 each way, though he said he charged more.
On Sept. 23, Israel intensified its aerial bombing of Lebanon and later sent in ground troops, nearly a year after Hezbollah initiated limited exchanges of fire in support of Hamas amid the Gaza war.
Since then, Israel has bombed several land crossings with Syria out of service.
It accuses Hezbollah of using what are key routes for people fleeing the war in Lebanon to transfer weapons from Syria.
Amid the hardship of the conflict, more than 610,000 people have fled from Lebanon to Syria, mostly Syrians, according to Lebanese authorities.
Undeterred by attacks, travelers still trickle through Masnaa, traversing the two craters that measure about 10 meters deep and 30 meters wide.
On the other side of the road, Khaled Khatib, 46, was fixing his taxi, its tires splattered with mud and hood coated in dust.
“After the first strike, I drove from Syria and parked my car before the crater. When the second strike hit, I got stuck between the two holes,” he said, sweat beading as he looked under the hood.
“We used to drive people from Damascus to Beirut. Now, we take them from one crater to another.”
Khatib doesn’t charge passengers facing tough times, he said, adding he had been displaced from southern Beirut, hammered by Israeli raids since September. He moved back to his hometown near the Masnaa crossing.
Despite harsh times, a sense of camaraderie reigns.
The drivers “became like brothers. We eat together at the small stall every day ... and we help each other fix our cars,” he said.
Mohamed Yassin moved his coffee stall from the Masnaa crossing closer to the pit after the strike, offering breakfast, lunch, and coffee. “We try to help people as much as possible,” he said.
Farther from the Lebanese border, travelers crossed the largest of the two crevasses, wearing plastic coverings on their shoes to avoid slipping in the mud.
A cab driver on a mound called out, “Taxi to Damascus!” while tuk-tuks and trucks ferried passengers, bags, and mattresses across.
Nearby, Aida Awda Mubarak, a Syrian mother of six, haggled with a tuk-tuk driver over the $1 fare.
The 52-year-old said she was out of work and needed to see her son after the east Lebanon town where he lives was hit by Israeli strikes.
“Sometimes we just can’t afford to pay for a tuk-tuk or a cab,” she said.
