Israel presses ground offensive in southern Gaza, air strikes intensify
Intense Israeli air strikes hit the south of the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians
Operation has transformed much of the north, including large parts of Gaza City, into a rubble-filled wasteland
Updated 04 December 2023
Reuters
ntense Israeli air strikes hit the south of the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, including in areas where Israel had told people to seek shelter, residents and journalists on the ground said.
Israeli troops and tanks also pressed the ground campaign against Hamas militants in the south of the enclave after having largely gained control of the now-devastated north.
Early on Monday, Israel ordered Palestinians to leave parts of Gaza’s main southern city, Khan Younis. But residents said that areas which they had been told to go to were also coming under fire.
Israel’s military posted a map on social media platform X with around a quarter of Khan Younis marked off in yellow as territory that must be evacuated at once.
Three arrows pointed south and west, telling people to head toward the Mediterranean coast and toward Rafah, a major town near the Egyptian border.
Desperate Gazans in Khan Younis packed their belongings and headed toward Rafah. Most were on foot, walking past ruined buildings in a solemn and silent procession.
But the head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza (UNRWA), Thomas White, said people in Rafah were themselves being forced to flee.
“People are pleading for advice on where to find safety. We have nothing to tell them,” he said on X.
In the territory’s northern part, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said at least 50 people were killed in an Israeli air strike that hit two schools sheltering displaced people in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.
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The Gaza health ministry could not be reached for comment on the report and it was not immediately possible to verify it independently. A spokesperson for the Israeli army said it was looking into the report.
Separately, the health ministry said at least 15,899 Palestinians, 70 percent of them women or under 18s, have now been killed in Israeli bombardments of the Hamas-ruled enclave in eight weeks of warfare. Thousands more are missing and feared buried in rubble.
Israel launched its assault to wipe out Hamas in retaliation for an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by its gunmen. They killed 1,200 people and seized 240 hostages, according to Israeli tallies — the deadliest single day in Israel’s 75-year history.
BIG CRATER
Bombing at one site in Rafah overnight had torn a crater the size of a basketball court out of the earth. A dead toddler’s bare feet and black trousers poked out from under a pile of rubble. Men struggled with their bare hands to move a chunk of the concrete that had crushed the child.
Later they chanted “God is greatest” and wept as they marched through the ruins carrying the body in a bundle, and that of another small child wrapped in a blanket.
“We were asleep and safe,” said Salah Al-Arja, owner of one of the houses destroyed at the site. “There were children, women and martyrs,” he said. “They tell you it is a safe area, but there is no safe area in all of the Gaza Strip.”
Israel accuses Hamas of putting civilians in danger by operating from civilian areas, including in tunnels which can only be destroyed by large bombs. Hamas denies it does so.
As many as 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes in the Israeli bombing campaign that has reduced much of the crowded coastal strip to a desolate wasteland.
Israeli forces largely captured the northern half of Gaza in November, and since a week-long truce collapsed on Friday they have swiftly pushed deep into the southern half.
Tanks have driven into Gaza from the border fence and cut off the main north-south route, residents say. The Israeli military said the central road out of Khan Younis to the north “constitutes a battlefield” and was now shut.
Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli forces in northern Khan Younis overnight.
ISRAEL’S GOALS IN NORTH ALMOST MET
The commander of Israel’s armored corps, Brig.-General Hisham Ibrahim, told Army Radio the military had almost achieved its goals in northern Gaza.
“We are beginning to expand the ground maneuver to other parts of the Strip, with one goal — to topple the Hamas terrorist group,” he said.
The military released footage of troops patrolling in tanks and on foot, in fields and in badly damaged urban areas, and firing from weapons, without specifying the location in Gaza.
Israel says its evacuation orders are aimed at protecting civilians from harm, and called on international organizations to help encourage Gazans to move to the areas labelled safe on Israeli maps.
The United Nations said the areas in the south that Israel has ordered evacuated in the three days since the truce ended had housed over 350,000 people before the war — not counting the hundreds of thousands now sheltering there from other areas.
In Khan Younis, many of those taking flight on Monday were already displaced from other areas. Abu Mohammed told Reuters it was now the third time he had been forced to flee since abandoning his home in Gaza City in the north.
“Why did they eject us from our homes in Gaza (City) if they planned to kill us here?” he said.
Israel’s closest ally the United States has called on it to do more to safeguard civilians in the southern part of Gaza than in last month’s campaign in the north.
But about 900 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes since the truce ended on Friday, Gaza health authorities said.
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters: “All indications and reports suggest that the same pattern – of dropping heavy-duty bombs and using artillery in densely populated areas – is continuing.”
Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president
Updated 28 November 2024
AFP
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday announced who would replace him in an interim period when the post becomes vacant, effectively removing the Islamist movement Hamas from any involvement in a future transition.
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president.
Under current Palestinian law, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) takes over the Palestinian Authority in the event of a power vacuum.
But the PLC, where Hamas had a majority, no longer exists since Abbas officially dissolved it in 2018 after more than a decade of tensions between his secular party, Fatah, and Hamas, which ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
In a decree, Abbas said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant.
“If the position of the president of the national authority becomes vacant in the absence of the legislative council, the Palestinian National Council president shall assume the duties... temporarily,” it said.
The decree added that following the transition period, elections must be held within 90 days. This deadline can be extended in the event of a “force majeure,” it said.
The PNC is the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has over 700 members from the Palestinian territories and abroad.
Hamas, which does not belong to the PLO, has no representation on the council. The PNC deputies are not elected, but appointed.
The decree refers to the “delicate stage in the history of the homeland and the Palestinian cause” as war rages in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, after the latter’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October last year.
There are also persistent divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
The decree comes on the same day that a ceasefire entered into force in Lebanon after an agreement between Israel and Hamas’s ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Palestinian Authority appears weaker than ever, unable to pay its civil servants and threatened by Israeli far-right ministers’ calls to annex all or part of the occupied West Bank, an ambition increasingly less hidden by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli military says it downed drone smuggling weapons from Egypt
Updated 27 November 2024
Reuters
CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Wednesday it shot down a drone that was carrying weapons and crossed from Egypt to Israel.
When asked about the latest drone incident, Egyptian security sources said they had no knowledge of such an incident.
In two separate incidents in October, Israel also said it downed two drones smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory.
Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Palestinian militant group Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms.
However, Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
Will ceasefire deal to end Israel-Hezbollah war achieve lasting peace for Lebanon?
Iran welcomes “end of Israel’s aggression” despite terms requiring withdrawal and disarmament of its proxy Hezbollah
For Israel, the ceasefire is not necessarily an end to the war, but a pause in the fighting, according to analysts
Updated 28 November 2024
NAJIA HOUSSARI & ANAN TELLO
BEIRUT/LONDON: The world has largely welcomed a ceasefire deal which ends 13 months of fighting betrween Israel and Hezbollah that has claimed the lives of at least 3,700 Lebanese and more than 130 Israelis.
The deal between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, brokered by the US and France, came into effect on Wednesday at 4 a.m. local time.
From the Israeli army’s perspective, the war in Lebanon was coming to a point of diminishing returns. It has succeeded in weakening Hezbollah’s military standing and eliminating its top leadership but has been unable to wipe it out entirely. For its part, Hezbollah has been seriously debilitated in Lebanon; the war has eroded its military capabilities and left it rudderless.
Looking at it optimistically, the diplomatic breakthrough — which unfolded on Tuesday night as Israel unleashed a barrage of bombs on central Beirut — could be the beginning of the end of the long-standing “Israel-Iran shadow war,” as a new administration prepares to assume power in Washington.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military began to exchange cross-border fire on Oct. 8, 2023, one day after Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in retaliation for a deadly Hamas-led attack.
The conflict dramatically escalated on Sept. 23 this year, when Israel began heavily bombing several parts of Lebanon, including Hezbollah’s stronghold in the south. The airstrikes killed thousands of Lebanese, displaced some 1.2 million others, flattened residential buildings, and devastated 37 villages.
While the ceasefire deal calls for a 60-day halt in hostilities, President Joe Biden said that it “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” Negotiators have described it as laying the groundwork for a lasting truce.
Under the terms of the deal, Hezbollah will remove its fighters and arms from the region between the Blue Line and the Litani River, while Israeli troops will withdraw from Lebanese territory during the specified period.
Thousands of Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers will deploy to the region south of the Litani River. A US-led international panel will oversee compliance from all sides. However, uncertainty persists, as both Hezbollah and Israel have warned that they will resume fire if the other party breaches the agreement.
Lebanese army soldiers drive in Qana, southern Lebanon, on Nov. 27, 2024, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (Reuters)
Hezbollah stated it would give the ceasefire pact a chance, but Mahmoud Qamati, the deputy chair of the group’s political council, stressed that Hezbollah’s support for the deal depends on clear assurances that Israel will not resume its attacks.
Likewise, Israel said it would attack if Hezbollah violated the agreement. The army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, also urged residents of southern Lebanese villages — who had fled in recent months — to delay returning home until further notice from the Israeli military.
David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst with the International Crisis Group, believes that while the ceasefire is desperately needed, it “will almost certainly not bring Lebanon’s troubles to an end.
“Many of the country’s displaced may not be able to return home for months, as Israel has razed entire villages near the Blue Line border,” he said. “Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s domestic foes claim they will no longer accept the group’s dominance over Lebanese politics — a pledge that promises still more instability.”
United Nations peacekeepers patrol in the southern Lebanese village of Zibqin on Nov. 27, 2024, as people returned to check on their homes after a ceasefire between the warring sides took effect. (AFP)
Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, also cannot see this ceasefire bringing an end to Lebanon’s problems as the war has already triggered shifts in internal alliances.
Describing the deal as a “capitulation,” he said during an interview with the BBC that “the majority of the Lebanese people, including Hezbollah's own support base, did not want to see Lebanon dragged into this war.”
“After all this devastation, after Hezbollah having now to capitulate and withdraw away from that border north of the Litani River, having to accept an American-led mechanism led by a general who is part of CENTCOM in the region, this is going to be highly embarrassing,” he said. “And there's going to be a day of reckoning for Hezbollah in Lebanon once the ceasefire actually goes into effect.”
Israeli army forces stand outside a house that was hit by rockets fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon in the northern Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona on Nov. 26, 2024, hours before a ceasefire agreement took effect. (AFP)
He added that politically, this means that “the various Lebanese parties and the various also alliances that had been in place before this war are no longer going to be there.”
“We saw, for example, Hezbollah’s crucial Christian ally distance itself from the group now, very much moving towards the center or even in opposition to Hezbollah.”
Gebran Bassil, leader of the Maronite Free Patriotic Movement and a close ally of Hezbollah since 2006, said earlier this month that his party is “not in an alliance with Hezbollah.”
In an interview with Al-Arabiya TV, he added that Hezbollah “has weakened itself and exposed its military strength, leaving Lebanon as a whole vulnerable to Israeli attacks.”
A man celebrates carrying a picture of slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's Dahiyeh district following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024. (AP)l
Also acknowledging the toll on Hezbollah is Lebanese political analyst Ali Al-Amin. He expressed concern that, while the ceasefire deal is a positive development, its terms signal a significant shift for Hezbollah.
“People were happy at first glance about the ceasefire agreement, as it is a basic demand after a fierce, destructive war,” he told Arab News. “However, there are many (unanswered) questions, starting with the nature of the agreement and its content.
“In a first reading, I believe that Hezbollah’s function has ended. The prohibition of military operations and weapons, the necessity of destroying and dismantling weapons facilities, and the ban on the supply of weapons are all preludes to ending the party’s function.”
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Hezbollah’s main ally, Tehran, expressed support for the ceasefire. Esmaeil Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, welcomed the end of Israel’s “aggression against Lebanon.”
He also reaffirmed his country’s “firm support for the Lebanese government, nation and resistance.”
Before the Israeli cabinet approved the deal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire would allow his country to “intensify” pressure on the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and focus on the “Iranian threat.”
Residents who had fled the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa return to their homes following a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah on Nov. 27, 2024. (AFP)
Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israeli analyst with the ICG, believes that “for Israel, the ceasefire is not necessarily an end to the war, but a pause” in fighting.
She said: “It will free up forces and resources to Israel’s other fronts in Gaza, the West Bank, and Iran, and is a chance to test out Israel’s ability to take military action to enforce the ceasefire, which is being sold as the main difference between the resolution that ended the 2006 war and this time around.”
Al-Amin believes Iran, Israel’s biggest adversary, has accepted this shift affecting its ally Hezbollah. However, he stressed that while the deal remains “subject to implementation,” it raises questions about the enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and Washington’s role in overseeing its execution.
Caption
Echoing Al-Amin’s concern, Heiko Wimmen, ICG project director for Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, said: “The ceasefire is based on the commitment of both Lebanon and Israel to finally implement Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“The challenges are the same as 18 years ago, namely, how to make sure that both parties comply in the long term and what to do with Hezbollah’s military capabilities, which constitute a threat to the security of Israel, and potentially other Lebanese, whether they are present on the border or a few kilometers away.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who welcomed the ceasefire deal, reiterated on Wednesday his government’s commitment to implementing Resolution 1701.
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati delivers a statement to the press in Beirut on Nov. 27, 2024, after a government meeting to discuss the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted to resolve the 2006 Lebanon war, called for a permanent ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, the establishment of a buffer zone free of armed personnel other than UN and Lebanese forces, Hezbollah’s disarmament and withdrawal from south of the Litani River, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.
However, Maksad of the Middle East Institute, emphasizes that implementing a ceasefire in Lebanon — US-led and otherwise — will demand more than just adhering to the deal’s terms, especially on the domestic front.
“There is a crucial need to rearrange the deck in Lebanon,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
“You need to elect a president in Lebanon, one that is a sovereign-minded president that would work with the Lebanese army and provide it with the political cover it needs to help and implement this resolution together with the UN troops that are there and also the international community.”
A displaced people make their way back to their homes in the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh on Nov. 27, 2024, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (AFP)
He added: “You also cannot begin the task — the mammoth task — of rebuilding, the reconstruction, the tune of billions of dollars if you don’t have a reform-minded government.”
And while the ceasefire brings a faint hope for Lebanon’s displaced population, many of those affected perceive its terms through the prism of personal loss, questioning what, if anything, had been gained from the war.
Nora Farhat, whose family home in Anqoun in Beirut’s southern suburbs was reduced to rubble, lamented that the agreement “will not restore our destroyed homes or bring back those who were killed — loved ones we have yet to bury.”
The scale of destruction in southern villages means return is not an option for many, who are left wondering about Hezbollah’s future and its ability to maintain its influence in the region.
Hezbollah supporters celebrate as they return to their destroyed homes in Beirut's southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect on Nov. 27, 2024. (Reuters)
Analyst Al-Amin believes that Hezbollah’s immediate focus will likely shift to managing the domestic narrative.
“Hezbollah’s priority now will be how to reverse the defeat into victory at home, and how to prevent the Lebanese from questioning what happened and why it happened,” he said.
Some of those displaced from Shiite-majority villages in the south expressed frustration at being caught in the crossfire of Hezbollah’s conflicts with Israel.
For Ahmad Ismail, who was displaced from his home in south Lebanon, the war and its aftermath seemed “futile.”
A resident who had fled the southern Lebanese border village of Shebaa unloads personal belongings upon returning to his home on Nov. 27, 2024. (AFP)
He told Arab News: “There was no need to open a southern front under the slogan of supporting Gaza, as those who sought this war sought to humiliate us.
“If only we had implemented the May 17 agreement in the 1980s with Israel, we would have been spared wars, killing and destruction, and the Shiite sect would not have reached the point of displacement, death, and frustration it has reached today.”
Ismail, who was previously imprisoned in Israel, believes the ceasefire is the only positive aspect of the US-brokered truce deal.
“It is a good initiative toward making this the last of the wars and a step toward disarming illegal weapons,” he said. “It also paves the way for restoring the state to its role, which Hezbollah undermined by monopolizing decisions of war and peace without consulting anyone.”
Despite the Israeli military’s warning, Lebanese people displaced from their homes in the south began flocking to their villages.
Members of a displaced Lebanese family return to their village in Zibqin, southern Lebanon, on Nov. 27, 2024, to find their home demolished by Israeli strikes. (Reuters)
Ismail believes “people are currently in shock. Some still cannot believe that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, and many have not yet seen what happened to their homes and villages.
“When they wake up from the trauma, we will see the repercussions.”
Ismail added: “A disaster has befallen the Lebanese people, and Hezbollah must be held accountable. Hezbollah is no longer able to mobilize the people through the power of weapons, excess force, and money.”
As Lebanon begins to pick up the pieces, many still wonder if this ceasefire will offer more than just a temporary reprieve — or if it will be the beginning of an uncertain future.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah vows to continue resistance after ceasefire
The group made no direct mention of the ceasefire deal
Fighters would continue to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces
Updated 27 November 2024
Reuters
CAIRO: Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Wednesday vowed to continue its resistance and support Palestinians, including fighters, a day after a ceasefire deal between the group and Israel was announced.
In the first statement by Hezbollah’s operations center since the deal was announced, the group made no direct mention of the ceasefire deal.
“The Islamic resistance’s operations room affirms that its fighters in all military disciplines will remain fully equipped to deal with the aspirations and assaults of the Israeli enemy,” the group said.
It added that its fighters would continue to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces beyond the Lebanese borders “with their hands on the trigger.”
The ceasefire deal includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days, Israeli officials said.
The deal, brokered by the US and France, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years. Israel is still fighting the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
Former ICC chief prosecutor tells of ‘threats to family’ during Israel-Palestine war crimes probe
Fatou Bensouda says she was subjected to ‘thug-style tactics’ while working on cases related to Israel and Palestine, and the war in Afghanistan
A newspaper investigation previously alleged she was threatened by the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad
Updated 27 November 2024
Arab News
LONDON: The former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has told how she received “direct threats” to herself and her family while working there.
Fatou Bensouda’s comments about her experiences came six months after a newspaper report alleged that the head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had threatened her in an attempt to get her to drop an investigation into accusations of war crimes in occupied Palestinian territories.
Appearing at a legal event in London on Tuesday, Bensouda did not mention any specific threats but said she was subjected to “unacceptable, thug-style tactics” while doing her job.
She said that while working on some of the court’s toughest cases, including those related to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and the war in Afghanistan, she received “direct threats to my person and family and some of my closest professional advisors.”
Bensouda was the ICC’s chief prosecutor from 2012 until 2021. The Guardian newspaper reported in May that Israel’s foreign intelligence services put pressure on Bensouda after she opened a preliminary investigation in 2015 into the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The newspaper, sighting several Israeli sources, alleged that Yossi Cohen, the director of Mossad at the time, threatened Bensouda during a series of secret meetings and warned her not to proceed with a case related to alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
Israeli authorities denied the allegations of threats and intimidation, and Bensouda opened a full criminal investigation into Israel’s actions in 2021, shortly before she left her post.
Last week, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and the military chief of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
The warrants were requested six months ago by Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, as part of an extension of the investigation that his predecessor initiated. Khan accelerated the case after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza.
During her lecture at the Bar Council on Wednesday, Bensouda, who is now Gambia’s high commissioner to the UK, said the arrest warrants issued last week focused exclusively on the events of Oct. 7 and those that followed, and did not include aspects of the wider conflict between Israel and Palestine that formed the basis of the investigation she initiated.
She said her initial probe focused on whether Hamas, other Palestinian armed groups or the Israeli military had committed war crimes in relation to hostilities that took place during 2014, and its scope included illegal Israeli settlements and the displacement of populations into the occupied West Bank.
“It will be important to ensure that the full extent of criminality in the context of this devastating … conflict is fully investigated and accountability is finally had for the benefit of its many victims on all sides of the conflict,” she said.
During her time as chief prosecutor, Bensouda also came under pressure from the US. Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on her in 2020 after the ICC began investigating allegations of US war crimes in Afghanistan.
The sanctions were lifted by President Joe Biden. However, last week he described the ICC decision to issue an arrest warrant for Netanyahu as “outrageous” and said there was no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
Neither the US nor Israel are members of the ICC. However, the 124 states that have signed up to it are obliged to act on warrants it issues if the accused visit their countries.
