Jerusalem: The United States urged its ally Israel to avoid Gaza-like military action in Lebanon, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it could face “destruction” like the Palestinian territory.
Israel’s military chief, Herzi Halevi, vowed to keep bombing Hezbollah targets, a campaign that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23, “without allowing them any respite or recovery.”
The comments came after a phone call between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden, their first in seven weeks. The White House said Biden told Netanyahu to “minimize harm” to civilians in Lebanon, particularly in “densely populated areas of Beirut.”
“There should be no kind of military action in Lebanon that looks anything like Gaza and leaves a result anything like Gaza,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Netanyahu said in a video address to the people of Lebanon on Tuesday: “You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza.”
He added: “Free your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end.”
Biden and Netanyahu’s call had been expected to focus on Israel’s response to last week’s missile barrage by Iran.
Iran fired about 200 missiles at Israel in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Most were intercepted by Israel or its allies.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Our attack on Iran will be deadly, precise and surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened.”
Biden has cautioned Israel against attempting to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, which would risk major retaliation, and opposes striking oil installations.
A Lebanese government source told AFP that Hezbollah had accepted a ceasefire with Israel on September 27, the day Israel killed Nasrallah.
But they said Israel’s response had torpedoed the plan, backed by Washington and its allies, and the Lebanese government had “had no contact with Hezbollah” since his death.
Hezbollah said its fighters were locked in clashes with Israeli troops in southern Lebanon, using rocket-propelled weapons to repel attempts to breach the border.
Two people were killed by suspected Hezbollah rocket fire in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, while Israel intercepted two projectiles fired toward the coastal town of Caesarea, officials said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said at least four people were killed in an Israeli strike on a village southeast of Beirut, an area so far largely spared from Israeli bombing.
Lebanon’s state civil defense body said an Israeli strike killed five of its personnel in the southern village of Derdghaiya.
Israel has intensified air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon since September 23, uprooting more than a million people, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Its ground forces crossed into Lebanon on September 30 in response to Hezbollah rocket and artillery attacks over the past year that have forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes.
Israel’s military said Wednesday its troops “eliminated terrorists during close-quarter encounters and in aerial strikes” over the previous 24 hours, adding “100 Hezbollah terror targets were destroyed.”
Israeli operations have expanded from border areas in the interior to the southern section of Lebanon’s Mediterranean coast.
According to a toll from the Israeli army on Wednesday, 13 of its soldiers have died since ground operations inside Lebanon began.
Syrian state media reported an Israeli attack Thursday on the central provinces of Homs and Hama.
Off the coast of Yemen, a ship was struck and damaged by an “unknown projectile,” a British maritime agency said, following months of attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas allies, the Houthis.
Israel expanded an ongoing military operation around Jabalia in northern Gaza, where about 400,000 people are trapped, according to Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Lazzarini said on X there was “no end to hell” in the area and that “recent evacuation orders from the Israeli authorities are forcing people to flee again & again.”
The army surrounded Jabalia and its refugee camp at the weekend and shelled it on Wednesday, preventing the delivery of aid, Gaza’s civil defense agency said.
Washington said it was “incredibly concerned” about the humanitarian situation in north Gaza as Israel tightens its siege.
“We have been making clear to the government of Israel that they have an obligation under international humanitarian law to allow food and water and other needed humanitarian assistance to make it into all parts of Gaza,” said the State Department’s Miller.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 42,010 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations has described as reliable.
Israeli police said at least six people were wounded Wednesday, some seriously, in a stabbing rampage in the central Israeli town of Hadera.
In the occupied West Bank, Israeli border police killed at least four Palestinians in the northern city of Nablus, Palestinian health authorities and Israeli security forces said.
In Beirut, many people are sleeping out in the streets after Israeli air strikes.
Ahmad, a 77-year-old who did not want to give his family name for fear of reprisals, said he had a message for Hezbollah.
“If you can’t continue to fight, announce you are withdrawing and that you have lost. There is no shame in losing,” he said.
But Raed Ayyash, a displaced man from the south of the country, said he hoped Hezbollah would keep fighting.
“We hope for victory, and we will never give up.”
US warns Israel not to repeat Gaza destruction in Lebanon
https://arab.news/9nmzh
US warns Israel not to repeat Gaza destruction in Lebanon
- Biden and Netanyahu’s call had been expected to focus on Israel’s response to last week’s missile barrage by Iran
Blast in Syria coastal city kills three: state media
An image carried by SANA showed a large plume of smoke
DAMASCUS: A blast in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia killed at least three people and injured 12 on Saturday, state media reported, with the cause still unclear.
“The blast in the Al-Rimal neighborhood of Latakia city has so far resulted in three deaths and 12 injured,” state news agency SANA said citing provincial authorities.
It added that “civil defense teams and residents are still searching for others injured and missing.”
A resident of the city, Ward Jammoul, 32, told AFP that she heard a “loud blast,” adding that she “headed to the site and found a completely destroyed building.”
She said civil defense personnel and ambulances were present at the site, alongside “a large number of people who had gathered to look for those trapped under the rubble.”
An image carried by SANA showed a large plume of smoke rising over a populated neighborhood.
No other details could immediately be confirmed.
A screengrab taken from a video showing a blast in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia that reportedly killed at least three people and injured 12 on Saturday, according to state media reported. (X/@SaadAbedine)
Hamas says it will only release American-Israeli hostage if truce agreement is implemented
- A senior Hamas official said long-delayed talks over the ceasefire’s second phase would need to begin the day of the release and last no longer than 50 days
- Hamas would also demand the release of more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages
CAIRO: Hamas said Saturday it will only release an American-Israeli and the bodies of four other hostages if Israel implements their ceasefire agreement, calling it an “exceptional deal” aimed at getting the truce back on track.
A senior Hamas official said long-delayed talks over the ceasefire’s second phase would need to begin the day of the release and last no longer than 50 days. Israel would also need to stop barring the entry of humanitarian aid and withdraw from a strategic corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Hamas would also demand the release of more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for hostages, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks.
Edan Alexander, 21, who grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey, was abducted from his military base during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war, and is the last living American citizen held in Gaza. Hamas still has a total of 59 hostages, 35 of whom are believed to be dead.
Two Israeli airstrikes in the northern town of Beit Lahiya near the border killed at least nine people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Fares Awad, a local health official, identified one of the dead as local reporter Mahmoud Islim, who was operating a drone.
The Israeli military said it struck two people operating a drone that it said posed a threat to soldiers in the area. It said it launched another strike at a group of people who came to collect the drone equipment. The army identified all of those targeted as suspected militants, without providing evidence.
There has been no major fighting since the ceasefire took hold on Jan. 19, but Israeli strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians who the military said had entered unauthorized areas, engaged in militant activities or otherwise violated the truce.
Israel has cast doubt on Hamas’ offer
There was no immediate comment on Hamas’ offer from Israel, where government offices were closed for the weekly Sabbath. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Friday accused Hamas of “psychological warfare” after the initial offer, before the militant group spelled out the conditions.
The United States said it presented on Wednesday a proposal to extend the ceasefire a few more weeks as the sides negotiate a permanent truce. It said Hamas was claiming flexibility in public while privately making “entirely impractical” demands.
Negotiations continued in Egypt after senior Hamas leader Khalil Al-Hayya arrived in Cairo on Friday. Egypt and Qatar served as key mediators with Hamas in reaching the ceasefire and have continued to host talks aimed at getting it back on track.
Under the ceasefire agreement reached in January, Israel and Hamas were to begin negotiations over a second phase — in which Hamas would release all the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting truce — in early February, but so far only preparatory talks have been held.
After the first phase ended at the beginning of this month, Israel said it had agreed to a new US proposal in which Hamas would release half the remaining hostages in return for a vague commitment to negotiate a lasting ceasefire. Hamas rejected that offer, accusing Israel of backtracking on the signed agreement and trying to sabotage the truce.
Palestinian official says no fuel left for water wells
Israel has barred the delivery of food, fuel and other supplies to Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians, and cut electricity to the territory, to pressure Hamas to accept the new proposal.
The city of Rafah, on the Gaza-Egypt border, said it could no longer provide fuel needed to pump water from dozens of wells across the city.
Ahmed Al-Sufi, head of the municipality, said fuel shortages caused by the Israeli siege have forced it to “suspend essential services, threatening the lives of thousands and exacerbating the health and environmental crisis.”
The first phase of the truce saw the release of 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight more in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. Israeli forces pulled back to a buffer zone along Gaza’s border and allowed a surge of humanitarian aid.
An Israeli official said last month that Israel will not withdraw from the so-called Philadelphi corridor, along the Gaza-Egypt border, as called for in the ceasefire agreement. Israel has cited the need to combat weapons smuggling.
Israeli strike kills one in south Lebanon: ministry
BEIRUT: An Israeli strike targeting a vehicle killed one person in south Lebanon on Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said, according to state media.
“A strike by the Israeli enemy on a car in the town of Burj Al-Muluk (near the Israeli border) led to the death of one citizen,” the ministry’s emergency unit was quoted as saying by state news agency NNA.
A November 27 truce largely halted more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including two months of full-blown war in which Israel sent in ground troops.
Israel has continued to carry out periodic strikes on Lebanese territory since the agreement took effect.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it carried out an air strike in southern Lebanon that killed a senior Hezbollah militant who was reportedly responsible for a drone and rocket arsenal.
It came as Lebanon received four detainees who had been taken to Israel during fighting with Hezbollah, with a fifth detainee, a soldier, released on Thursday after he was taken earlier this month.
Israel had been due to withdraw from Lebanon by February 18 after missing a January deadline, but it has kept troops at five locations it deems “strategic.”
The ceasefire also required Hezbollah to pull back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and to dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israeli airstrike kills nine people in north Gaza town, medics say, amid ceasefire disputes
- Several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, health officials told Reuters
- The Israeli military said it had struck two individuals that it identified as “terrorists”
CAIRO: At least nine Palestinians were killed, including two local journalists, and others wounded on Saturday in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza’s northern Beit Lahiya town, Gaza’s health ministry said, as Hamas’ leaders hold Gaza ceasefire talks with mediators in Cairo.
Several were critically injured as the strike hit a car, with casualties inside and outside the vehicle, health officials told Reuters.
Witnesses and fellow journalists said the people in the car were on a mission for a charity called Al-Khair Foundation in Beit Lahiya, and they were accompanied by journalists and photographers when the strike hit them. At least three local journalists were among the dead, according to Palestinian media.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it had struck two individuals that it identified as “terrorists” operating a drone that it said posed a threat to forces in Beit Lahiya.
The military later struck several other suspects who it said had collected the drone equipment and entered a vehicle.
The military did not say how it had determined that the individuals it had struck were “terrorists” or provide detail on the threat that the done had posed to its soldiers.
The incident underscores the fragility of the January 19 ceasefire agreement that halted large-scale fighting in the Gaza Strip. Palestinian health officials say dozens of people have been killed by Israeli fire despite the truce.
Commenting on the latest deaths, the Islamist Hamas group accused Israel in a statement of attempting to renege on the ceasefire agreement, putting the number of Palestinians killed since January 19 at 150.
It urged mediators to compel Israel to move ahead with the implementation of the phased ceasefire deal, blaming Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the current impasse.
Responding to some of the incidents reported by Gaza medics, the Israeli military says its forces have intervened to thwart threats by “terrorists” approaching its forces or planting bombs on the ground near where forces operate.
Since a temporary first phase of the ceasefire expired on March 2, Israel has rejected opening the second phase of talks, which would require it to negotiate over a permanent end to the war, the main demand of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The incident coincided with a visit by Hamas’ exiled Gaza chief, Khalil Al-Hayya, to Cairo for further ceasefire talks aimed at resolving disputes with Israel that could risk a resumption of fighting in the enclave.
On Friday, Hamas said it had agreed to free an American-Israeli dual national if Israel begins the next phase of ceasefire talks toward a permanent end to the war, an offer Israel dismissed as “psychological warfare.”
Hamas said it had made the offer to release New Jersey native Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old soldier in the Israeli army, after receiving a proposal from mediators for negotiations on the second phase of a ceasefire deal.
Israel says it wants to extend the ceasefire’s temporary first phase, a proposal backed by US envoy Steve Witkoff. Hamas says it will resume freeing hostages only under the second phase.
The war began when Hamas carried out a cross-border raid into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and capturing 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and reduced much of the territory to rubble and led to accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.
Syrians commemorate uprising anniversary for first time since Assad’s fall
- Syrians were set to commemorate the 14th anniversary of their uprising on Saturday in public demonstrations in Damascus and other cities for the first time since president Bashar Assad was toppled
DAMASCUS: Syrians were set to commemorate the 14th anniversary of their uprising on Saturday in public demonstrations in Damascus and other cities for the first time since president Bashar Assad was toppled.
A demonstration will be held in Umayyad Square in the capital Damascus, the first after years of repression under Assad during which the square was the sole preserve of the toppled president’s supporters.
Activists also called on people to gather in Homs, Idlib and Hama at demonstrations raising the slogan “Syria is victorious.”
Qader Al-Sayed, 35, told AFP that “we always used to protest on the anniversary of the revolution in Idlib, but today we will celebrate victory in the heart of Damascus.”
“It’s a dream come true,” he added from Damascus.
Syria’s conflict began with peaceful demonstrations on March 15, 2011, in which thousands protested against Assad’s government, before it spiralled into civil war after his violent repression of the protests.
This year’s commemoration marks the first since Assad was toppled on December 8 by Islamist-led rebels.
Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who headed the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham which spearheaded the offensive, has since been named interim president.
On Thursday, Sharaa signed into force a constitutional declaration regulating a five-year transition period before a permanent constitution is to be put into place.
Analysts have criticized the declaration, saying it grants too much power to Sharaa and fails to provide sufficient protection to the country’s minorities.
It also came a week after Syria’s Mediterranean coast, the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority, was gripped by the worst wave of violence since his overthrow.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, security forces and allied groups killed at least 1,500 civilians, mainly Alawites, in the violence that erupted on March 6.
The United Nations’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said on Friday: “It is fourteen years since Syrians took to the streets in peaceful protest, demanding dignity, freedom and a better future.”
He added in a statement that despite the brutal civil war, “the resilience of Syrians and their pursuit of justice, dignity and peace endure. And they now deserve a transition that is worthy of this.”
He called for “an immediate end to all violence and for protection of civilians.”
