CAIRO: The Israeli army said on Saturday that it had eliminated the head of the Palestinian Hamas's network in southern Syria, whom it referred to as Ahmad Muhammad Fahd, overnight on Friday.
EU recommends airlines avoid Lebanese, Israeli airspace
PARIS: Airlines should avoid Lebanese and Israeli airspace for the coming month, the European Union said Saturday, amid an escalation in air strikes and rocket fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
The European Commission and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) warned in a statement of “an overall intensification of air strikes and degradation in the security situation.”
They issued an official recommendation “not to operate within the airspaces of Lebanon and Israel at all flight levels.”
Provisionally lasting until October 31, the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin (CZIB) “can be reviewed earlier and adapted or withdrawn,” the statement added.
“EASA will continue to closely monitor the situation, with a view to assess whether there is an increase or decrease of risks for EU aircraft operators as a result of the evolution of the threat,” the body said.
Israeli bombardment of the southern outskirts of Beirut on Friday hit its highest intensity since the state’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006.
The Israeli army claimed to have killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike, while the Iran-backed group said it had fired rockets toward a kibbutz and military targets in northern Israel.
The European Commission and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) warned in a statement of “an overall intensification of air strikes and degradation in the security situation.”
They issued an official recommendation “not to operate within the airspaces of Lebanon and Israel at all flight levels.”
Provisionally lasting until October 31, the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin (CZIB) “can be reviewed earlier and adapted or withdrawn,” the statement added.
“EASA will continue to closely monitor the situation, with a view to assess whether there is an increase or decrease of risks for EU aircraft operators as a result of the evolution of the threat,” the body said.
Israeli bombardment of the southern outskirts of Beirut on Friday hit its highest intensity since the state’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006.
The Israeli army claimed to have killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike, while the Iran-backed group said it had fired rockets toward a kibbutz and military targets in northern Israel.
Iranian leader Khamenei calls on Muslims to confront Israel
- He condemned Saturday what he described as Israel’s “short-sighted” policy after strikes on Lebanon that Israel said killed Nasrallah
TEHRAN: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Muslims on Saturday “to stand by the people of Lebanon and the proud Hezbollah with whatever means they have and assist them in confronting the ... wicked regime (of Israel).”
Khamenei, in a statement after the Israeli army said it had killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, said: “The fate of this region will be determined by the forces of resistance, with Hezbollah at the forefront,” state media reported.
He condemned Saturday what he described as Israel’s “short-sighted” policy after strikes on Lebanon that Israel said killed Nasrallah.
“The massacre of the defenseless people in Lebanon once again revealed the ferocity of the Zionist rabid dog to everyone, and proved the short-sighted and stupid policy of the leaders of the usurping regime,” Khamenei said in a statement, without mentioning Nasrallah’s fate which has not been confirmed by the group.
International community ‘unjustifiably, immorally silent’ about Palestinian suffering: Tunisian FM
- Mohamed Ali Nafti rejects foreign intervention in Libya, calls for ceasefire in Sudan
- UN bodies, particularly Security Council, should reform to ‘improve their performance, promote their credibility’
NEW YORK CITY: Tunisia’s foreign minister on Friday expressed “concern and disappointment” for Palestinians who have been subjected to “the most despicable war crimes” and “all forms of violations of human rights” by Israel.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Mohamed Ali Nafti called out the international community for its failure to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected.
“The international community remains unjustifiably and immorally silent,” he said. “Calling for human rights and humanitarian issues to take precedence disappears when it comes to the Palestinian people.”
The international community must treat all human beings equally, without discrimination or double standards, Nafti said, adding that Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza has jeopardized people’s trust in the UN and its ability to implement its own resolutions.
He said Tunisia “firmly and unconditionally” supports the rights of the Palestinian people, in particular their right to “self-determination” and “the establishment of an independent, sovereign state” with East Jerusalem as its capital. He added that Tunisia also supports Palestine’s bid to become a full UN member.
Nafti highlighted growing crises in the world such as conflicts, wars, extremism, terrorism, organized crime, and unprecedented levels of poverty, hunger and inequality.
He also spoke about the widening digital and development gap between countries in the Global North and South, and the inability of the international financial system to “respond to the development needs of the majority of states.”
These challenges indicate that “the current international system is no longer on track,” and requires joint efforts to “carry out the necessary reviews and reforms to address all the chaos, inequality and turmoil,” Nafti said.
Africa is the most affected by climate change, global crises, terrorism and instability, he added, asking for UN and international efforts to overcome these challenges.
“African solutions for African problems should be the approach for achieving the goal of silencing the guns by 2030,” he said.
Nafti called for the UN to help maintain stability and security in Libya while rejecting “all forms of foreign intervention in Libya’s internal affairs.”
He also urged parties in Sudan to stop fighting and engage in dialogue in order “to end the scourge of war and displacement causing suffering to its people.”
He emphasized Tunisia’s call for reform of the UN and its various bodies, particularly the Security Council, to “improve their performance and promote their credibility.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in Beirut strike, Israel’s military says
- Israel launches airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, other areas of Lebanon on Saturday
- Fate of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah remains unclear with group yet to issue statement
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Saturday that it killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah militant group, in a strike in Beirut on Friday.
The military said that it carried out a precise airstrike while Hezbollah leadership met at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.
Ali Karki, the Commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front, and additional Hezbollah commanders, were also killed in the attack, the Israeli military said. The Lebanese Health
Ministry said that 6 people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes on Friday, which leveled six apartment buildings.
Nasrallah has lead Hezbollah for more than three decades. There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.
Israel maintained a heavy barrage of airstrikes against Hezbollah on Saturday, as Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets toward Israel.
The Israeli military said it was mobilizing additional reserve soldiers as tensions escalate with Lebanon.
The military said Saturday morning it was activating three battalions of reserve soldiers, after earlier sending two brigades to northern Israel earlier in the week to train for a possible ground invasion.
On Saturday morning, the Israeli military carried out several strikes in southern Beirut and eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles across northern and central Israel and the Israel-occupied West Bank.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, smoke rose and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes. Shelters set up in the city center for displaced people were overflowing. Many families slept in public squares and beaches or in their cars. On the roads leading to the mountains above the capital, hundreds of people could be seen making an exodus on foot, holding infants and whatever belongings they could carry.
At least six people were killed and 91 were wounded in the strikes against the Hezbollah on Friday, Lebanon’s health ministry said. It was the biggest blast to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year and appeared likely to push the escalating conflict closer to full-fledged war. At least 720 people have been killed in Lebanon during the week, according to the Health Ministry.
The death toll is likely to rise significantly as teams comb through the rubble of six buildings. Israel launched a series of strikes on other areas of the southern suburbs following the initial blast.
Reuters journalists heard more than 20 airstrikes in Beirut before dawn on Saturday and more after sunrise. Smoke could be seen rising over the city’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs, known as the Dahiyeh.
Thousands of people have fled the area since Friday’s attack, congregating in squares, parks and sidewalks in downtown Beirut and seaside areas.
“They want to destroy Dahiyeh, they want to destroy all of us,” said Sari, a man in his 30s who gave only his first name, referring to the suburb he had fled after an Israeli evacuation order. Nearby, the newly displaced in Beirut’s Martyrs Square rolled mats onto the ground to try to sleep.
The Israeli military said a missile fired at central Israel on Saturday had struck an open area. Earlier, the military said about 10 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory and that some had been intercepted.
The Israeli military also said it was striking Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley, a region of eastern Lebanon at the Syrian border that it has pounded over the last week.
Israel’s five hours of continuous strikes on Beirut early on Saturday followed Friday’s attack, by far the most powerful by Israel on the city during the conflict with Hezbollah that has played out in parallel to the Gaza war for nearly a year.
The escalation has sharply increased fears the conflict could spiral out of control, potentially drawing in Iran, Hezbollah’s principal backer, as well as the United States.
There was no immediate confirmation of Nasrallah’s fate after Friday’s heavy strikes, but a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters he was not reachable.
Israel has not said whether it tried to hit Nasrallah, but a senior Israeli official said top Hezbollah commanders were targeted.
“I think it’s too early to say... Sometimes they hide the fact when we succeed,” the Israeli official told reporters when asked if the strike on Friday had killed Nasrallah.
Earlier, a source close to Hezbollah told Reuters that Nasrallah was alive. Iran’s Tasnim news agency also reported he was safe. A senior Iranian security official told Reuters that Tehran was checking his status.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had killed the commander of Hezbollah’s missile unit, Muhammad Ali Ismail, and his deputy Hossein Ahmed Ismail.
Israel’s attacks in Lebanon have widened to new areas this week. On Saturday, an airstrike hit the Lebanese mountain town of Bhamdoun, southeast of Beirut, Lebanese lawmaker for the area Mark Daou told Reuters.
The mayor of Bhamdoun, Walid Khayrallah, told Reuters the strike hit a large empty lot and did not cause any casualties.
Death toll rises
Hours before the latest barrage, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the United Nations that his country had a right to continue the campaign.
“As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely,” he said.
Several delegations walked out as Netanyahu approached the lectern. He later cut short his New York trip to return to Israel.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television reported seven buildings were destroyed.
Hours later, the Israeli military told residents in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs to evacuate as it targeted missile launchers and weapons storage sites it said were under civilian housing.
Hezbollah denied any weapons or arms depots were located in buildings that were hit in the Beirut suburbs, the group’s media office said in a statement.
Alaa Al-Din Saeed, a resident of a neighborhood that Israel identified as a target, told Reuters he was fleeing with his wife and three children.
“We found out on the television. There was a huge commotion in the neighborhood,” he said. The family grabbed clothes, identification papers and some cash but were stuck in traffic with others trying to flee.
“We’re going to the mountains. We’ll see how to spend the night — and tomorrow we’ll see what we can do.”
Around 100,000 people in Lebanon have been displaced this week, increasing the number uprooted in the country to well over 200,000.
Israel’s government has said that returning some 70,000 Israeli evacuees to their homes is a war aim.
Fear the fighting will spread
Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets and missiles against targets in Israel, including Tel Aviv. The group said it fired rockets on Friday at the northern Israeli city of Safed, where a woman was treated for minor injuries.
Israel’s air defense systems have ensured the damage has so far been minimal.
Iran, which said Friday’s attack crossed “red lines,” accused Israel of using US-made “bunker-busting” bombs.
At the UN, where the annual General Assembly met this week, the intensification prompted expressions of concern including by France, which with the US has proposed a 21-day ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a New York press conference: “We believe the way forward is through diplomacy, not conflict... We will continue to work intentionally with all parties to urge them to choose that course.”
Hezbollah opened the latest bout in a decades-long conflict with a missile barrage against Israel immediately following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza last year.
Arab FMs in peace push at UN Security Council meet
- Guterres warns against ‘full-scale conflagration with unimaginable consequences’
- Palestinian PM decries ‘dehumanization’ of Gazans as war’s first anniversary approaches
NEW YORK CITY: Arab foreign ministers at the UN have called for an immediate end to Israeli strikes on Lebanon and a ceasefire in Gaza, with officials from countries around the world lending words of support to the Palestinian cause.
The appeal came during a special Security Council meeting convened by Algeria on Thursday, with the Palestinian prime minister delivering an impassioned message condemning the “dehumanization” of his people.
An Arab delegation spoke to the media before the meeting, with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi outlining the position of the two kingdoms on Israel’s latest escalation and a solution to the crisis.
“We address the Palestinian issue through what has been established in international law — the formation of a Palestinian state,” Prince Faisal said.
“And that will indeed open up the horizon, not just for normalization, but also for integration, for cooperation.”
Safadi called on the Security Council to “perform its duty” and “do what it has to do to protect regional, international peace.”
He said: “It is time to face the truth, and the truth is, unless Netanyahu is stopped, unless this (Israeli) government is stopped, war will encompass all of us.
“The real danger in the region are the policies of this government of Israel, are the actions of this government of Israel, and the failure of the international community to stop it and say enough.”
The two foreign ministers were joined by, among others, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa, who in the Security Council meeting condemned the “insanity” of the council’s inability to stop Israel’s war in Gaza.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened proceedings, delivering a speech in which he warned that “nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”
He said: “Monday was the bloodiest day in Lebanon since 2006. Shockwaves radiating from the unprecedented death and destruction in Gaza now threaten to push the entire region into the abyss: A full-scale conflagration with unimaginable consequences.”
The prime minister of Slovenia, which is heading the Security Council for September, warned that “facts on the ground” made the prospects of a two-state solution almost impossible.
Robert Golob said: “We need courage from leaders in the region and from this council to change the trajectory we are facing,” said Robert Golob.
Mustafa, who was appointed prime minister earlier this year, praised the Slovenian presidency for its “honorable positions.”
“We would also like to express our thanks and appreciation to the secretary-general of the UN for his wise leadership of this organization that has been the victim of attacks and unprecedented defamation by Israel,” he added.
“A whole year has passed since the beginning of the Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip — the Gaza strip that has been destroyed and sieged for 365 days and nights of terror, of killing, of displacement, of destruction, of disease, of pain, of hunger, of despair, of sadness, of need, of deprivation, and on top of all of that, they’ve dehumanized us and they took away our dignity.”
Mustafa questioned the commitment of UN member states to forcing an end to the Israeli war.
“We came to the UN and we felt solidarity, great solidarity, with our people and our just cause. But we leave the UN and we see that the Israeli massacres have not ended, and the Security Council, to this very day, did not put an end to the Israeli aggression, did not adopt measures that would put pressure to bear on the Israeli government,” he said.
As well as Gaza, Mustafa highlighted Israel’s latest actions in Lebanon, which he condemned as a violation of sovereignty, the UN Charter and international law.
“They are acting as a rogue state because they are convinced that they are above the law and they are entitled to things that other countries are not entitled to,” he added.
“So, how would they not repeat the same aggression in Lebanon if they were not held accountable for their crimes in Palestine? Will the Security Council continue with its traditional position where it calls for Israel to put an end to the war and expects Israel to comply?
“When will you activate your tools at the Security Council that will compel Israel to comply to maintain international peace and security? Are you waiting for a bigger catastrophe? Are you waiting for a larger war?”
Mustafa said a “free Palestine” was the “sole key” to unlocking a peaceful future for the Middle East, and that “everything else has been tried and failed.”
The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, said: “When the Middle East is unstable, the world is insecure.”
He signaled China’s “worry” at Israel’s escalation in Lebanon, calling for the country’s sovereignty to be upheld.
“We must not deviate from letting the Palestinian people govern Palestine and must work together for postwar governance,” Wang added. “Gaza used to be where diverse civilizations met, but today it is engulfed in fighting. The Security Council should support Palestine in becoming a full member of the UN and make new efforts for the two-state solution.”
Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf warned the council that “we cannot wash our hands of the responsibility” of ensuring Palestinian rights.
He said the UN body had become “paralyzed” and that the council “cannot even bring justice to the Palestinian people.”
Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s longtime foreign minister, warned that the Gaza war and Lebanon escalation was having consequences on the entire region.
“The root cause of these crises has been, and remains, the fact that the Palestinian issue remains unresolved,” he said.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, quoting US President Joe Biden, that “all-out war” was possible.
But she added it was not inevitable, highlighting the “opportunity” of a ceasefire in Gaza and a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
French Ambassador to the UN Nicolas de Riviere told the council: “The large-scale strikes which took place today in the south suburb of Beirut once again wrought devastation and claimed many casualties.
“This must be brought to an end immediately. France is determined to achieve a cessation of hostilities along the Blue Line in line with UN Resolution 1701.”
Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister, said in his address: “The Israeli government has not only killed Palestinian children, destroyed their homes, bombed their schools, deprived them from food, medicine and hope, it also demonized them.
“They have dehumanized them. They have educated their children to hate them. They educated their soldiers to target them, and they have educated their community to deny them the right to exist.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said: “Wisdom could have prevailed to stop this barbaric war in Gaza before it expands to the West Bank, Lebanon and beyond.
“It is so puzzling that certain international actors, which have the leverage to alter this horrific cause, decided deliberately to stay paralyzed, and they showed no reflexes whatsoever to take conclusive action.”
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