Israel PM vows to respond ‘firmly’ to Hezbollah in visit to Lebanon border

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attend a ceremony at an army base near Mitzpe Ramon, Israel. (File/Reuters)
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Updated 03 November 2024
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Israel PM vows to respond ‘firmly’ to Hezbollah in visit to Lebanon border

  • Israel’s military said more than 100 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory on Sunday
  • Hezbollah said it was acting in support of Palestinian militants Hamas

JERUSALEM: Lebanon said Sunday an air strike killed three people near Sidon in the south as more bombs hit the east and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited his country’s northern border.

The latest attacks on eastern Lebanon came after Israel warned it would again hit Hezbollah targets there.

Netanyahu’s office said the premier “visited the Lebanon border today,” his second such trip in a month.

He vowed to respond “firmly” to Hezbollah’s attacks and to prevent the group from rearming, his office said.

“I want to be clear: with or without an agreement, the key to restoring peace and security in the north, the key to bringing our northern residents back home safely, is first and foremost to push Hezbollah back beyond the Litani River, secondly to target any attempt to rearm, and thirdly to respond firmly to any action taken against us,” Netanyahu told soldiers at the border, according to a statement from his office.

It came as Israel’s military said more than 100 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory on Sunday.
Several were intercepted, and some fell in unpopulated areas.
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon have been at war since September 23, when Israel escalated cross-border air raids after a year of tit-for-tat exchanges of fire. A week later it sent in ground troops on “targeted raids.”
Hezbollah said it was acting in support of Palestinian militants Hamas, whose unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 last year triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.
“The Israeli enemy’s raid on Haret Saida resulted in an initial death toll of three people killed and nine others injured,” Lebanon’s health ministry said, referring to a densely populated area near Sidon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported another Israeli strike south of Sidon, on the town of Ghaziyeh.
That strike hit a residential building, according to an AFP correspondent, who said a child was rescued from the rubble.
NNA said other Israeli strikes hit near a hospital in Tebnine, a town in the south Lebanon district of Bint Jbeil. Tebnine’s major told AFP the hospital was significantly damaged.
Neither the Haret Saida strike nor those in Lebanon’s south were preceded by an Israeli evacuation warning.
Israel’s military did issue a warning for Lebanon’s Baalbek area, which includes east Lebanon’s main city and UNESCO-designated Roman ruins, saying it would be targeting Hezbollah-linked facilities.
An AFP correspondent later reported at least three strikes in the Baalbek area, where Hezbollah holds sway and which has seen heavy air raids in the past few days.
Also on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported the recovery of five bodies from the flashpoint southern town of Khiam.
They were among 21 bodies that have been trapped under rubble in Khiam for around one week, according to the NNA.
The war has killed more than 1,930 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
Israel’s military says 38 soldiers have been killed in the Lebanon campaign since it began ground operations.
Iran and Israel have recently attacked each other directly, heightening fears of even wider conflict.
But Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday said a potential ceasefire with its allies “could affect the intensity and type of our response.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had on Saturday warned Israel and the United States they “will definitely receive a tooth-breaking response.”
Israel has warned Iran against responding to its October 26 attack.
On Sunday demonstrators burned Israeli and US flags outside the former American embassy in Tehran to mark the anniversary of the 1979 hostage crisis that has shaped relations between Washington and Tehran ever since.
American B-52 bombers have arrived in the Middle East, the US military said on Saturday, as part of reinforcements being deployed in a warning to Iran.
In Gaza Israel’s military again reported “dozens” of militants killed in the northern Jabalia area where, Israeli forces have since October 6 carried out a major air and ground assault to stop Hamas from regrouping.
In central Gaza on Sunday, people crowded to receive sacks of flour from a distribution point of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Deir el-Balah.
Israel’s parliament last Monday banned UNRWA — the main aid agency in Gaza — from operating in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem, despite international objections.
If implemented, the ban would hit humanitarian work in Gaza, experts say.
The ban came after the United States on October 15 warned Israel it could withhold some of its billions of dollars in military assistance unless it improves aid delivery to Gaza within 30 days.
Also in Deir el-Balah on Sunday, relatives at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital mourned a father and son killed during Israeli bombardment.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s military response against Hamas has killed 43,341 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations consider to be reliable.


Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics

Updated 2 sec ago
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Israeli strikes batter Lebanon, killing five medics

Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire
Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes battered southern Lebanon and the outskirts of the capital Beirut on Friday, killing at least five medics, as ground troops clashed with Hezbollah fighters in the south.
Israel has pushed on with its intense military campaign against the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, tempering hopes that efforts by a US envoy could lead to an imminent ceasefire.
US mediator Amos Hochstein said earlier this week in Beirut that a truce was “within our grasp.” He traveled on to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz before returning to Washington, according to the news outlet Axios.
His trip aimed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border, which escalated dramatically when Israel ramped up its strikes in late September and sent ground troops into Lebanon on Oct. 1.
Israeli troops have fought Hezbollah in a strip of towns all along the border and this week pushed deeper to the edges of Khiyam, a town some six km (four miles) from the border. Hezbollah said it had fired rockets at Israeli troops east of Khiyam at least four times on Friday.
Lebanese security sources told Reuters that Israeli troops had also advanced in a string of villages to the west as well. They said Israel was most likely trying to isolate Khiyam ahead of a major attack on the town.
Israeli strikes on two other villages in southern Lebanon killed a total of five medics from a rescue force affiliated with Hezbollah, the Lebanese health ministry said.
The more than 3,500 people killed by Israeli strikes over the last year include more than 200 medics, the health ministry said.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from Israel’s north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which began firing across the border in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Israel also mounted more strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a once densely populated stronghold of Hezbollah.
It issued evacuation orders on the social media platform X for several buildings in the area on Friday. Reuters footage showed one of the strikes appearing to pierce the center of a multi-story building, sending the whole structure toppling in a massive cloud of smoke.

UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon

Updated 10 min 25 sec ago
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UN reports heavy clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah in south Lebanon

  • “We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said
  • Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment”

BEIRUT: Israeli troops fought fierce battles with Hezbollah fighters on Friday in different areas in south Lebanon, including a coastal town that is home to the headquarters of UN peacekeepers.
A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL told The Associated Press that they are monitoring “heavy clashes” in the coastal town of Naqoura and the village of Chamaa to the northeast.
UNIFIL’s headquarters are located in Naqoura in Lebanon’s southern edge close to the border with Israel.
“We are aware of heavy shelling in the vicinity of our bases,” UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. Asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters are safe, Tenenti said: “Yes for the moment.”
Several UNIFIL posts have been hit since Israel began its ground invasion of Lebanon on Oct. 1, leaving a number of peacekeepers wounded.
The fighting came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and a Hamas military leader, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity over their 13-month war in Gaza and the October 2023 attack on Israel respectively.
The warrant marked the first time that a sitting leader of a major Western ally has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity by a global court of justice.
Israel’s war has caused heavy destruction across Gaza, decimated parts of the territory and driven almost the entire population of 2.3 million people from their homes, leaving most dependent on aid to survive.
Israel launched its war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel has also launched airstrikes against Lebanon after the Hezbollah militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles into Israel the day after Hamas’ attack last October. A full-blown war erupted in September after nearly a year of lower-level conflict.


Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages

Updated 3 min 33 sec ago
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Gaza ministry: hospitals to cut or stop services ‘within 48 hours’ over fuel shortages

  • All hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours“

GAZA: The Hamas government’s health ministry warned Friday all hospitals in Gaza would have to stop or reduce services “within 48 hours” for lack of fuel, blaming Israel for blocking its entry.
“We raise an urgent warning as all hospitals in Gaza Strip will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation’s (Israel’s) obstruction of fuel entry,” Marwan Al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals, said during a press conference.


Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers

Updated 22 November 2024
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Israel says to end ‘administrative detention’ for West Bank settlers

  • Practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court
  • The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention

JERUSALEM: Israeli authorities will stop holding Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank under administrative detention, or incarceration without trial, the defense ministry announced Friday.
The practice allows for detainees to be held for long periods without being charged or appear in court, and is often used against Palestinians who Israel deems security threats.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was “inappropriate” for Israel to employ administrative detention against settlers who “face severe Palestinian terror threats and unjustified international sanctions.”
But, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now, it is one of only few effective tools that Israeli authorities to prevent settler attacks against Palestinians, which have surged in the West Bank over the past year.
Katz said in a statement issued by his office that prosecution or “other preventive measures” would be used to deal with criminal acts in the West Bank.
B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, said authorities use administrative detention “extensively and routinely” to hold thousands of Palestinians for lengthy periods of time.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club advocacy group said in August that 3,432 Palestinians were held in administrative detention.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that eight settlers were held under the same practice in November.
Yonatan Mizrahi, director of settlement watch for Peace Now, said that although administrative detention was mostly used in the West Bank to detain Palestinians, it was one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence through detention.
“The cancelation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical... move that whitewashes and normalizes escalating Jewish terrorism under the cover of war,” the group said in a statement, referring to a spike in settler attacks throughout the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past 13 months.
Western governments, including Israel’s ally and military backer the United States, have recently imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers and settler organizations over ties to violence against Palestinians.
On Monday, US authorities announced sanctions against Amana, a movement that backs settlement development, and others who have “ties to violent actors in the West Bank.”
“Amana is a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement and maintains ties to various persons previously sanctioned by the US government and its partners for perpetrating violence in the West Bank,” the US Treasury said.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the West Bank — which Israel has occupied since 1967 — is home to three million Palestinians as well as about 490,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.


UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician 

Updated 22 November 2024
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UK would arrest Netanyahu over ICC warrant: Senior politician 

  • Emily Thornberry: Britain has ‘obligation under Rome Convention’ to arrest Israeli PM if he enters country 
  • Court: ‘Reasonable grounds to believe’ Netanyahu responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity in Gaza

LONDON: The UK will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, a senior British politician has said.

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on Thursday for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, alongside his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, pertaining to the Gaza war.

Emily Thornberry — Labour chair of the foreign affairs committee, and former shadow foreign secretary and shadow attorney general — told Sky News: “If Netanyahu comes to Britain, our obligation under the Rome Convention would be to arrest him under the warrant from the ICC.

“(It is) not really a question of should — we are required to, because we are members of the ICC.”

UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has refused to be drawn on whether Netanyahu would be arrested if he set foot on British soil, saying it “wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment.”

She told Sky: “We’ve always respected the importance of international law, but in the majority of the cases that they pursue, they don’t become part of the British legal process.

“What I can say is that obviously, the UK government’s position remains that we believe the focus should be on getting a ceasefire in Gaza.”

Netanyahu’s arrest warrant is the first to be issued against the premier of a major Western ally by an international court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

His office denounced the warrant as “anti-Semitic,” adding that Israel “rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions.” Israel is not an ICC member and rejects the court’s jurisdiction.

US President Joe Biden called the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant “outrageous,” adding: “Whatever the ICC might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he plans to invite Netanyahu to visit Budapest, adding that the arrest warrant will “not be observed” by his government.

The Italian and French governments, however, have indicated that Netanyahu will be arrested if he visits either country.

The ICC said on Thursday it has “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility” for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

The court also issued a warrant for Hamas commander Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel says Al-Masri, believed to have been the mastermind behind the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, was killed in Gaza earlier this year.

The ICC said it issued the warrant for his arrest because of insufficient evidence to prove his death.