Amid Israel-Hezbollah strikes, Lebanon says only US can stop fighting

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib holds a press conference with his Iranian counterpart (unseen) in Beirut on February 10, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 25 September 2024
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Amid Israel-Hezbollah strikes, Lebanon says only US can stop fighting

  • "The United States is the only country that can really make a difference in the Middle East and with regard to Lebanon”

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: An Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Tuesday as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a full-fledged war in the Middle East and Lebanon said only Washington could help end the fighting.
Hezbollah early on Wednesday confirmed senior commander Ibrahim Qubaisi was killed by Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday on the Lebanese capital as Israel announced earlier. Israel said Qubaisi headed the group’s missile and rocket force.
Israel’s offensive since Monday morning has killed 569 people, including 50 children, and wounded 1,835 in Lebanon, Health Minister Firass Abiad told Al Jazeera Mubasher TV.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Israel kills Hezbollah commander in Beirut

• Lebanese health ministry says two-day death toll is 569

• UN Security Council to meet Wednesday

• Fears of a wider conflict are growing

The new offensive against Hezbollah has stoked fears that nearly a year of conflict between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza is escalating and could destabilize the Middle East. Britain urged its nationals to leave Lebanon and said it was moving 700 troops to Cyprus to help its citizens evacuate.
The UN Security Council said it would meet on Wednesday to discuss the conflict.
“Lebanon is at the brink. The people of Lebanon – the people of Israel – and the people of the world — cannot afford Lebanon to become another Gaza,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said.
At the UN, which is holding its General Assembly this week, US President Joe Biden made a plea for calm. “Full-scale war is not in anyone’s interest. Even if a situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible,” he said.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib criticized Biden’s address as “not strong, not promising” and said the US was the only country “that can really make a difference in the Middle East and with regard to Lebanon.” Washington is Israel’s longtime ally and biggest arms supplier.
The United States “is the key ... to our salvation,” he told an event in New York City hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In Beirut, thousands of displaced people who fled from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.
At the Technical Institute of Bir Hassan, volunteers brought water bottles, medicine and other supplies for the new arrivals.
In one classroom, 11-month-old Matila slept on a mattress while children elsewhere stood on chairs to pass time by scribbling on a whiteboard. Rima Ali Chahine, 50, said the shelter provided diapers, pastries and milk for the children.
“It’s a lot of pressure for grownups and children. They’re exhausted and stressed. They could not sleep,” she said. “The kids — they are living through terrible conditions.”
Early on Wednesday, an Israeli strike hit the seaside town of Jiyyeh, 75 km (46 miles) north of the border with Israel, two security sources said.
HEZBOLLAH WEAKENED, SAYS ISRAEL
Half a million people are estimated to have been displaced in Lebanon, said Bou Habib. He said Lebanon’s prime minister hoped to meet with US officials over the next two days.
The US and fellow mediators Qatar and Egypt have so far been unsuccessful in their efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the nearly year-old war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, a Hezbollah ally.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, whose country and Israel are arch-enemies, told the UN General Assembly the international community must “secure a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and bring an end to the desperate barbarism of Israel in Lebanon, before it engulfs the region and the world.”
Israel’s military said its airforce conducted “extensive strikes” on Tuesday on Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and dozens of launchers that were aimed at Israeli territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attacks had weakened Hezbollah and would continue. Hezbollah “has suffered a sequence of blows to its command and control, its fighters, and the means to fight. These are all severe blows,” he told Israeli troops.
He accused the UN of shirking its responsibility to prevent Hezbollah’s attacks into Israel.
Hezbollah said it launched rockets at the Dado military base in northern Israel and attacked the Atlit naval base south of Haifa with drones, among other targets.
Suspected Israeli missiles were also launched at the Syrian port city of Tartous and were intercepted by Syrian air defenses, Syrian army sources said. The Israeli military declined to comment on the report.
Since the Gaza war started in October, Israel has intensified a years-long air campaign targeting Iran-aligned armed groups and their weapons transfers in Syria.
Funerals were held on Tuesday for people killed in Lebanon by Israel’s bombardment. In the coastal city of Saksakiyeh, Mohammed Helal was defiant as he mourned his daughter Jouri.
“We are not afraid. Even if they kill, dissect and destroy us,” he said.

 

 

 


Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

Updated 4 sec ago
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Sudan files AU complaint against Chad over arms: minister

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 17 min 22 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 30 min 33 sec ago
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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.


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Updated 05 November 2024
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.