You are here

  • Home
  • Elon Musk begins wartime visit to Israel, aviation tracker says
War on Gaza

Elon Musk begins wartime visit to Israel, aviation tracker says

Update Elon Musk. (AP)
Elon Musk. (AP)
Short Url

https://arab.news/9b7x6

Updated 27 November 2023
Reuters
Follow

Elon Musk begins wartime visit to Israel, aviation tracker says

Elon Musk. (AP)
  • Avi Scharf, an aviation expert, posted that a plane carrying the billionaire had touched down in Tel Aviv on Monday morning
Updated 27 November 2023
Reuters
Follow

JERUSALEM: Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk landed in Tel Aviv on Monday, an aviation tracker said, beginning a visit during which Israeli leaders plan to bring his attention to the plight of hostages held in war-torn Gaza and discuss rising antisemitism online.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s office announced on Sunday that Musk would be coming to meet the head of state. According to Israeli media, he will also meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Musk’s office had no immediate comment.

Avi Scharf, an aviation expert with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, posted on Musk’s media platform X – formerly known as Twitter – that a plane carrying the billionaire, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX, had touched down in the morning.

Netanyahu met Musk in California on Sept. 18 and urged him to strike a balance between protecting free expression and fighting hate speech after weeks of controversy over antisemitic content on X.

Musk responded by saying he was against antisemitism and against anything that “promotes hate and conflict,” repeating his previous statements that X would not promote hate speech.

Antisemitism and Islamophobia have risen in the United States and worldwide, including during the now seven-week-old war between Israel and the Islamist Palestinian faction Hamas.

The sides are currently in a truce under which Israel has been recovering some of the 240 people Hamas took hostage during a cross-border killing spree on Oct 7. In exchange, Israel has been freeing some Palestinians jailed on security grounds.

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza Israel US

Related

White House blasts Musk’s ‘hideous’ antisemitic lie, advertisers pause on X
World
White House blasts Musk’s ‘hideous’ antisemitic lie, advertisers pause on X
Elon Musk, under fire, threatens lawsuit against media watchdog
World
Elon Musk, under fire, threatens lawsuit against media watchdog

Iran Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets

Iran Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets
Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
Follow

Iran Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets

Iran Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets
  • ‘If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in Iran, we will strike you again painfully’
Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
TEHRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami warned Thursday of further retaliation against Israel if it attacks Iranian targets, which Israel has vowed to do after Iran’s missile attack on Oct 1.
“If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in Iran, we will strike you again painfully,” Salami said at the funeral of a Guards general killed in an Israeli strike alongside Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon last month.

Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis

Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis
Updated 17 October 2024
AP
Follow

Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis

Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis
  • Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stepped up the pressure on Israel at an emergency meeting on the escalating humanitarian emergency
Updated 17 October 2024
AP

UNITED NATIONS: The top UN humanitarian official accused Israel on Wednesday of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, and the US ambassador demanded that its government step up efforts to tackle the Palestinian territory’s ”intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”
Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stepped up the pressure on Israel at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the escalating humanitarian emergency, especially in northern Gaza.
The council meeting, called by Algeria, the Arab representative on the council, followed a US warning to Israel to boost aid efforts dramatically or risk losing funding for weapons from its main supplier. The Biden administration gave Israel 30 days to take a number of actions, including sending 350 trucks with food and other aid into Gaza every day.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon insisted that his country’s humanitarian efforts remain “as comprehensive as ever” and criticized the council for focusing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians “are being targeted daily by those who seek our destruction.”
He said Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Danon accused the international community of missing the real issue — which he said was Hamas’ hijacking of aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.
“This makes it incredibly difficult to ensure that the aid reaches its intended recipients,” he said. But Israel remains committed to working with its partners to deliver aid, “even under these dangerous and morally reprehensible conditions.”
Msuya, the top UN aid official, painted a grim picture, telling the council that there is barely any food left in northern Gaza where an Israeli offensive is under way. No food entered the north from Oct. 2 to Oct. 15 “when a trickle was allowed in,” she said, and “most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel.”
Throughout Gaza, Msuya said, less than one-third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October “were facilitated without major incidents or delays.”
The level of suffering in Gaza worsens every day, she said, as Israeli bombs continue to fall, fierce fighting continues, and “supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.”
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, accused Israel of besieging, bombing and starving 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza as part of its all-out war against the Palestinian people.
“These are crimes,” he said. “This is genocide. They must be stopped — and they must be stopped now.”
Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador, pointed to some new Israeli commitments since the US warning and two dozen trucks entering northern Gaza for the first time in several weeks.
But she said Israel’s progress since last week is “insufficient” and stressed that it must follow through on its commitments, including opening more border crossings and routes and taking steps “to help secure delivery routes against armed gangs involved in violent looting.”
“A `policy of starvation’ in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and US law,” the US ambassador warned. “The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this commitment.”
At the council meeting, there were repeated calls by members for action by the UN’s most powerful body to end the more than yearlong war in Gaza.
Guyana’s UN Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett lamented that 47 Security Council meetings and four legally binding resolutions in the past year, including demands for a ceasefire, “have not had the expected results, and the situation in Gaza continues to worsen with each passing day.”
“We must not allow the shredding of the moral and legal thread that holds our organization together,” she said. “The most fundamental question then that this council faces is, what will we do to stop this tide?”
Thomas-Greenfield urged all council members to support the UN as it works with Israel to step up aid deliveries. She said the US focus in the coming months will be “getting humanitarian aid in, getting hostages out, and ending the conflict.”

Topics: Gaza Israel

US forces target underground Houthi weapons storage sites in Yemen

US forces target underground Houthi weapons storage sites in Yemen
Updated 17 October 2024
Arab News
Follow

US forces target underground Houthi weapons storage sites in Yemen

US forces target underground Houthi weapons storage sites in Yemen
  • Long-range B-2 stealth bombers used in precision strikes, says US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
  • The Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV earlier reported US-British air strikes targeted the capital city of Sanaa and the city of Saada
Updated 17 October 2024
Arab News

RIYADH: US military forces conducted precision strikes against five hardened underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said early Thursday morning.

In a statement posted on the US Defense Department's website, Austin also said long-range B-2 stealth bombers were used in the airstrikes targeting facilities "housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region."

"The employment of US Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrate US global strike capabilities to take action against these targets when necessary, anytime, anywhere," he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear what damage was done in the strikes. However, it is incredibly rare for the B-2 Spirit to be used in the strikes targeting the Houthis, who have been attacking ships for months in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

"At the direction of President Biden, I authorized these targeted strikes to further degrade the Houthis' capability to continue their destabilizing behavior and to protect and defend US forces and personnel in one of the world's most critical waterways," Austin further said.

His announcement followed a report by the Houthi-owned Al Masirah TV early Thursday claiming US-British air strikes targeted Houthi positions in Yemen.

Al Masirah TV said the strikes targeted the capital city of Sanaa and the city of Saada.

The Houthis said that the strikes targeted Sanaa, Dhamar, Hodeidah and Al-Bayda, with residents reporting thick smoke and explosions rocking military bases in targeted areas.

US and British forces have deployed in the Red Sea since the Iran-backed Houthi militia began a drone and missile campaign against commercial vessels passing through the Red Sea, in sympathy with Gazans under attack from Israel.

The attacks forced many shipping companies to avoid the Red Sea and take the longer sea lane passing through the coast of South Africa.

(With agencies)

Topics: Houthi miliitia Red Sea Yemen

Related

US, UK jets strike Houthi-held Hodeidah for second day
Middle-East
US, UK jets strike Houthi-held Hodeidah for second day
US Central Command forces, alongside UK Armed Forces, conduct strikes on Houthi targets in militia-controlled areas of Yemen.
Middle-East
Houthis say US, UK jets hit Red Sea Al-Saleef district in Hodeidah

Israeli strike targets Syria’s Latakia, fires break out, state media reports

Israeli strike targets Syria’s Latakia, fires break out, state media reports
Updated 17 October 2024
Reuters
Follow

Israeli strike targets Syria’s Latakia, fires break out, state media reports

Israeli strike targets Syria’s Latakia, fires break out, state media reports
Updated 17 October 2024
Reuters

CAIRO: An Israeli strike targeting Syria’s Mediterranean port city of Latakia early on Thursday resulted in fires breaking out there, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.
Firefighters are working on extinguishing the fires, SANA added.
Syrian state television reported the country’s air defenses had confronted Israeli targets over Latakia.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years, but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by armed group Hamas on Israeli territory.

Google map showing the location of Latakia.

 

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Latakia

Netanyahu says ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons found in Lebanon

Netanyahu says ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons found in Lebanon
Updated 17 October 2024
AFP
Follow

Netanyahu says ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons found in Lebanon

Netanyahu says ‘state-of-the-art’ Russian weapons found in Lebanon
  • Israel says the aim of its military campaign against Hezbollah is to make the region safe so that about 60,000 evacuated residents of northern Israel can return to their homes
Updated 17 October 2024
AFP

PARIS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a French newspaper that Israeli forces had found “state-of-the-art” Russian weapons in searches of Hezbollah bases in south Lebanon.
Netanyahu highlighted to Le Figaro newspaper, in an interview released Wednesday, that under a 2006 UN Security Council resolution only the Lebanese army was allowed to have weapons south of the country’s key Litani river.
“However, in this area, Hezbollah has dug hundreds of tunnels and caches, where we have just found a quantity of state-of-the-art Russian weapons,” the French article quoted Netanyahu as saying.
The Washington Post, quoting Israeli officials, has reported that Russian and Chinese anti-tank weapons had been found in Israel’s raids inside Lebanon since it escalated its conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah last month.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to an AFP question about the prime minister’s comments.
Israel says the aim of its military campaign against Hezbollah is to make the region safe so that about 60,000 evacuated residents of northern Israel can return to their homes.
Many left their homes because of cross-border shelling between Israel and Hezbollah after the launch of the Gaza war on October 7 last year.
“A new civil war in Lebanon would be a tragedy. It is certainly not our aim to provoke one. Israel does not intend to interfere in Lebanon’s internal affairs,” Netanyahu told Le Figaro.
“Our only aim is to allow our citizens living along the Lebanon frontier to go home and feel safe,” he added.
Hezbollah and Israel fought a gradually mounting artillery duel after the Hamas attacks on Israel set off the Gaza war.
Since Israel started raids on Hezbollah, at least 1,373 people have died in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures. The real toll is likely higher.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Benjamin Netanyahu Russian weapons

Related

Netanyahu vows ‘no ceasefire’ in Lebanon after Hezbollah threats
Middle-East
Netanyahu vows ‘no ceasefire’ in Lebanon after Hezbollah threats
Update Israel strikes Lebanon after Netanyahu vows no mercy for Hezbollah
Middle-East
Israel strikes Lebanon after Netanyahu vows no mercy for Hezbollah

Latest updates

Zelensky in Brussels to defend ‘victory plan’ at EU and NATO
Zelensky in Brussels to defend ‘victory plan’ at EU and NATO
French cement maker Lafarge to face trial on terrorism funding charges
French cement maker Lafarge to face trial on terrorism funding charges
Cricket’s expanding global impact showcased by records, rumors, revelations
Cricket’s expanding global impact showcased by records, rumors, revelations
Iran Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets
Iran Guards chief warns will hit Israel ‘painfully’ if attacks Iranian targets
India flight from Frankfurt hit with latest fake bomb threat
India flight from Frankfurt hit with latest fake bomb threat

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2024 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.