Israel considers flooding Gaza tunnels with seawater – WSJ
Israel considers flooding Gaza tunnels with seawater – WSJ/node/2420361/middle-east
Israel considers flooding Gaza tunnels with seawater – WSJ
An Israeli soldier secures a tunnel underneath Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, amid the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the northern Gaza Strip, November 22, 2023. (REUTERS)
Israel considers flooding Gaza tunnels with seawater – WSJ
Israel first informed the United States of the option last month
Updated 05 December 2023
Reuters
WASHINGTON: Israel has assembled a large system of pumps that may be used to flood tunnels used by militant group Hamas under the Gaza strip in a bid to drive out fighters, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing US officials.
Around the middle of November, Israel’s army completed the set-up of at least five pumps about a mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp that could move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour, flooding the tunnels within weeks, the report said.
It was not clear whether Israel would consider using the pumps before all hostages were released, according to the story. Hamas has previously said it has hidden captives in “safe places and tunnels.”
Reuters could not verify the details of Monday’s report.
When asked about the story, a US official said it made sense for Israel to render the tunnels inoperable and that the country was exploring a range of ways to do that.
Israel’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Wall Street Journal said an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) official declined to comment on the flooding plan but was quoted as saying: “The IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas’s terror capabilities in various ways, using different military and technological tools.”
Israel first informed the United States of the option last month, the Wall Street Journal said, reporting that officials did not know how close Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was to carrying out the plan.
Israel has not made a final decision to go ahead or rule it out, the officials were cited as saying.
Hamas armed wing claims to fire rockets at southern Israel
Updated 13 sec ago
GAZA: The armed wing of Hamas claimed it fired rockets into southern Israel on Monday as the country marked the first anniversary of the attack the Palestinian group launched on this day last year. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that its fighters fired the projectiles at “enemy gatherings” at Rafah crossing, Kerem Shalom crossing and kibbutz Holit near the border with Gaza.
Israel intensifies bombardment of Gaza and southern Lebanon ahead of Oct. 7 anniversary
Updated 7 min 58 sec ago
AP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: A new round of airstrikes hit Beirut suburbs late Sunday as Israel intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza and southern Lebanon in a widening war with Iran-allied militant groups across the region. Palestinian officials said a strike on a mosque killed at least 19 people.
A year after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Israel has opened a new front in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has traded fire with Israel since the war in Gaza began.
Israel’s military confirmed a Hezbollah attack on the northern city of Haifa, though it was not immediately clear whether shrapnel from “fallen projectiles” was from rockets or interceptors. Hezbollah said it tried to hit a nearby naval base. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it treated 10 people, most of them hurt by shrapnel.
Israel also has vowed to strike Iran after a ballistic missile attack on Israel last week. The widening conflict risks further drawing in the United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel. Iran-allied militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have joined in with long-distance strikes on Israel.
Israel is on high alert ahead of memorial events for the Oct. 7 attack, while rallies continue around the world marking the anniversary. Israel bombards southern Beirut
Beirut’s skyline lit up again late Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh since it escalated its air campaign on Sept. 23. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties.
Israel confirmed the strikes and says it targets Hezbollah. The militant group, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, has called its months of firing rockets into Israel a show of support for the Palestinians.
A separate Israeli strike earlier Sunday in the town of Qamatiyeh southeast of Beirut killed six people, including three children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 30 strikes overnight into Sunday, while Israel’s military said about 130 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
“It was very difficult. All of us in Beirut could hear everything,” resident Haytham Al-Darazi said. Another resident, Maxime Jawad, called it “a night of terror.”
One strike killed three sisters and their aunt in the coastal village of Jiyyeh. “This is a civilian home, and the biggest evidence is those martyred are four women,” said a neighbor, Ali Al Hajj.
Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.
At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group from its border so tens of thousands of Israeli citizens can return home.
The Israeli military is now setting up a forward operating base close to a UN peacekeeping mission on the border in southern Lebanon, a UN official told The Associated Press. The base puts peacekeepers at risk, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
UNIFIL, created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion, refused the Israeli military’s request to vacate some of its positions ahead of the ground incursion. New evacuation orders in northern Gaza
An Israeli strike hit a mosque where displaced people sheltered near the main hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah. Another four were killed in a strike on a school-turned-shelter near the town. The military said both strikes targeted militants. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue.
Israel’s military announced a new air and ground offensive in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, home to a refugee camp dating to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israel has carried out several operations there only to see militants regroup. The military said three soldiers were severely wounded in Sunday’s fighting in northern Gaza.
Israel reiterated its call for the complete evacuation of heavily destroyed northern Gaza, where up to 300,000 people are estimated to have remained.
“We are in a new phase of the war,” the military said in leaflets dropped over the area. “These areas are considered dangerous combat zones.” A later statement said three projectiles were identified crossing from northern Gaza into Israeli territory, with no injuries reported.
Frantic residents fled again. “Since Oct. 7 to the present day, this is the 12th time that I and my children, eight individuals, have been homeless and thrown into the streets and do not know where to go,” said one, Samia Khader.
The Civil Defense — first responders operating under the Hamas-run government — said it recovered three bodies, including a woman and a child, after a strike hit a home in the Shati refugee camp.
Residents mourned. Imad Alarabid said on Facebook an airstrike on his Jabaliya home killed a dozen family members, including his parents. Hassan Hamd, a freelance TV journalist whose footage had aired on Al Jazeera, was killed in shelling on his home in Jabaliya. Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif confirmed his death.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says a little over half were women and children.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack and took another 250 hostage. They still hold around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
UK advises against travel while France seeks partial arms embargo on Israel
The United Kingdom on Sunday advised its citizens against non-essential travel to Israel due to the violent clashes in the Mideast. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office also advised against all travel in parts of northern and southern Israel, most of the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Last week the UK advised its citizens against all travel to Lebanon.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday reiterated his call for a partial arms embargo on Israel, which had prompted an angry response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu had described such calls by Macron as a “disgrace.” Macron’s office insisted that “France is Israel’s unfailing friend” and called Netanyahu’s remarks “excessive.”
Later on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office said the two leaders had spoken and agreed to promote “a dialogue” on the matter. Macron’s office called the discussion “frank” and said both leaders “accepted their divergence of views.”
Israel intensifies bombardment of Gaza and southern Lebanon ahead of Oct. 7 anniversary
Beirut’s skyline lit up again late Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh
Israel’s military confirmed a Hezbollah attack on the northern city of Haifa
Updated 11 min 14 sec ago
AP
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: A new round of airstrikes hit Beirut suburbs late Sunday as Israel intensified its bombardment of northern Gaza and southern Lebanon in a widening war with Iran-allied militant groups across the region. Palestinian officials said a strike on a mosque killed at least 19 people.
A year after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Israel has opened a new front in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has traded fire with Israel since the war in Gaza began.
Israel’s military confirmed a Hezbollah attack on the northern city of Haifa, though it was not immediately clear whether shrapnel from “fallen projectiles” was from rockets or interceptors. Hezbollah said it tried to hit a nearby naval base. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it treated 10 people, most of them hurt by shrapnel.
Israel also has vowed to strike Iran after a ballistic missile attack on Israel last week. The widening conflict risks further drawing in the United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel. Iran-allied militant groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have joined in with long-distance strikes on Israel.
Israel is on high alert ahead of memorial events for the Oct. 7 attack, while rallies continue around the world marking the anniversary. Israel bombards southern Beirut
Beirut’s skyline lit up again late Sunday with new airstrikes, a day after Israel’s heaviest bombardment of the southern suburbs known as the Dahiyeh since it escalated its air campaign on Sept. 23. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties.
Israel confirmed the strikes and says it targets Hezbollah. The militant group, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, has called its months of firing rockets into Israel a show of support for the Palestinians.
A separate Israeli strike earlier Sunday in the town of Qamatiyeh southeast of Beirut killed six people, including three children, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 30 strikes overnight into Sunday, while Israel’s military said about 130 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
“It was very difficult. All of us in Beirut could hear everything,” resident Haytham Al-Darazi said. Another resident, Maxime Jawad, called it “a night of terror.”
One strike killed three sisters and their aunt in the coastal village of Jiyyeh. “This is a civilian home, and the biggest evidence is those martyred are four women,” said a neighbor, Ali Al Hajj.
Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his top commanders. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006.
At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group from its border so tens of thousands of Israeli citizens can return home.
The Israeli military is now setting up a forward operating base close to a UN peacekeeping mission on the border in southern Lebanon, a UN official told The Associated Press. The base puts peacekeepers at risk, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
UNIFIL, created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon after Israel’s 1978 invasion, refused the Israeli military’s request to vacate some of its positions ahead of the ground incursion. New evacuation orders in northern Gaza
An Israeli strike hit a mosque where displaced people sheltered near the main hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir Al-Balah. Another four were killed in a strike on a school-turned-shelter near the town. The military said both strikes targeted militants. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue.
Israel’s military announced a new air and ground offensive in Jabaliya in northern Gaza, home to a refugee camp dating to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israel has carried out several operations there only to see militants regroup. The military said three soldiers were severely wounded in Sunday’s fighting in northern Gaza.
Israel reiterated its call for the complete evacuation of heavily destroyed northern Gaza, where up to 300,000 people are estimated to have remained.
“We are in a new phase of the war,” the military said in leaflets dropped over the area. “These areas are considered dangerous combat zones.” A later statement said three projectiles were identified crossing from northern Gaza into Israeli territory, with no injuries reported.
Frantic residents fled again. “Since Oct. 7 to the present day, this is the 12th time that I and my children, eight individuals, have been homeless and thrown into the streets and do not know where to go,” said one, Samia Khader.
The Civil Defense — first responders operating under the Hamas-run government — said it recovered three bodies, including a woman and a child, after a strike hit a home in the Shati refugee camp.
Residents mourned. Imad Alarabid said on Facebook an airstrike on his Jabaliya home killed a dozen family members, including his parents. Hassan Hamd, a freelance TV journalist whose footage had aired on Al Jazeera, was killed in shelling on his home in Jabaliya. Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al-Sharif confirmed his death.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It does not say how many were fighters, but says a little over half were women and children.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack and took another 250 hostage. They still hold around 100 captives, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
UK advises against travel while France seeks partial arms embargo on Israel
The United Kingdom on Sunday advised its citizens against non-essential travel to Israel due to the violent clashes in the Mideast. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office also advised against all travel in parts of northern and southern Israel, most of the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.
Last week the UK advised its citizens against all travel to Lebanon.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday reiterated his call for a partial arms embargo on Israel, which had prompted an angry response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu had described such calls by Macron as a “disgrace.” Macron’s office insisted that “France is Israel’s unfailing friend” and called Netanyahu’s remarks “excessive.”
Later on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office said the two leaders had spoken and agreed to promote “a dialogue” on the matter. Macron’s office called the discussion “frank” and said both leaders “accepted their divergence of views.”
Iran air traffic resumes after suspension: state media
Iran on Tuesday launched around 200 missiles in its second direct attack on Israel, in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region, along with a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
Updated 07 October 2024
AFP
TEHRAN: Iranian authorities announced Monday the resumption of air traffic after flight cancelations at some airports over “operational restrictions,” state media reported, as Israel vowed to retaliate for an Iranian missile strike.
Flights have been operational again since 11:00 p.m. (1930 GMT) Sunday and were being “carried out in accordance with the flight schedule,” said Jafar Yazarloo, spokesman for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization, quoted by the IRNA state news agency.
Iran on Tuesday launched around 200 missiles in its second direct attack on Israel, in what it said was retaliation for the killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region, along with a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Ever since, Israel has said that it will respond to Iran’s attack.
Iran initially closed its airspace for less than two days, from Tuesday night until Thursday morning.
The aviation body announced then that both domestic and international flights were grounded for security reasons until the reopening.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has advised European airlines to avoid Iranian airspace until October 31, with the situation under ongoing review.
Worse than the Naksa and Nakba combined? One year on and no hope in sight
It was the horror of Deir Yassin that more than any other single incident symbolized the violent ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 that came to be known as the Nakba — “the catastrophe”
In the 12 months since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, echoes of Deir Yassin and traumatic memories of the Nakba, have surfaced afresh in the collective consciousness of the Arab world
Updated 07 October 2024
Jonathan Gornall
It would be wrong to say that the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, a settlement a few kilometers west of Jerusalem whose origins can be traced back to at least the 16th century, no longer exists.
Certainly, its name has been erased from the maps, and the Arabs and the generations of their forebears who once lived here are long gone, while the remains of the village’s derelict cemetery were bulldozed in the 1980s to make way for a new highway.
But some of the 144 stone buildings of Deir Yassin, including one of the two schools built by the villagers, can still be seen, glimpsed behind a security fence and incorporated into the sprawling campus of an Israeli hospital for the mentally ill.
Old Arab buildings remain from the village of Deir Yassin, now part of a mental hospital in Jerusalem, where irregular Jewish troops massacred over 100 Palestinians and drove out the remaining residents in 1948. (AFP/File)
The Kfar Shaul psychiatric hospital was built on the site of the village in 1951, with no apparent regard, ironic or otherwise, for the traumatic events that had taken place there just three years earlier.
On April 9, 1948, Zionist terrorists attacked Deir Yassin and, in the words of the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, carried out “the best known and perhaps bloodiest atrocity” of the civil war that broke out following the adoption by the UN of the controversial Partition Plan for Palestine.
Opinion
This section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)
Approximately 250 residents of Deir Yassin, including men, women and children, were massacred in cold blood by members of the Jewish paramilitary Irgun and Lehi organizations.
Just over a month after the massacre, part of the wave of Jewish terrorism designed to seize as much land as possible for the Zionist colonial enterprise, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel, on May 14, 1948.
What happened at Deir Yassin in 1948 was by no means unique.
Israeli nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu (3rd L) joins Palestinians in their memorial march on April 7, 2005 at the original site of their former village of Deir Yassin in Jerusalem. (AFP)
But it was the horror of Deir Yassin, news of which spread quickly, that more than any other single incident symbolized the violent ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948 that came to be known as the Nakba — “the catastrophe.”
In the 12 months since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, echoes of Deir Yassin and traumatic memories of the Nakba, and of the Naksa “setback,” the subsequent seizure by Israel of the remaining Palestinian territories in 1967, have surfaced afresh in the collective consciousness of the Arab world.
Caption
Over the past year in Gaza, more than 40,000 people, including over 10,000 children, have been killed by Israel’s forces, exacting indiscriminate and disproportionate vengeance for the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on Oct. 7 and the more than 40 hostages are thought to have died in captivity.
On Sept. 17 and 18, Israel began an extraordinary assault on Lebanon, when hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies boobytrapped by Israeli agents exploded in the hands of members of Hezbollah across Lebanon. More than 40 people were killed and thousands injured, including many civilian bystanders, children among them.
Days of airstrikes followed, aimed at killing Hezbollah leaders but inevitably claiming more civilian than combatant lives.
By Sept. 25 the Ministry of Health in Lebanon had already reported 558 killed, including 50 children, and more than 1,800 injured.
And then, early on Tuesday, Israeli troops invaded Lebanon.
Smoke rises over Dahiyeh in Beirut's southern suburbs, after Israeli air strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Sin El Fil, Lebanon, October 6, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Once again, Arabs fearing for their lives and those of their children at the hands of Israel are on the move, evoking fraught memories of the Nakba and the Naksa.
On Sept. 24 and 25, “following significant escalation in the armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the subsequent arrival of Palestine refugees from the south seeking shelter in safer areas,” UNRWA (the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) opened three emergency shelters in the vicinity of the city of Saida, on the coast.
UNRWA paints a picture tragically reminiscent of the scenes witnessed in 1948 and again in 1967.
Israeli soldiers operate at a location given as southern Lebanon in this image released on October 6, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS)
“The intensive airstrikes,” it reports, “have displaced tens of thousands of civilians, with many seeking shelter in the north. The city of Saida has reportedly experienced a large influx of displaced persons, leading to shortages of basic supplies such as bread and drinking water.”
As of Sept. 24, “around 200,000 people were estimated to be displaced in Lebanon,” with almost half on the move since the pager attacks on Sept. 17.
By now the situation is almost certainly even worse. Today, as the world looks on, apparently helpless or unwilling to intervene, history is repeating itself.
