French top diplomat calls for ‘immediate and durable’ Gaza truce

Update French top diplomat calls for ‘immediate and durable’ Gaza truce
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Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh (R) meets with the visiting French FM Catherine Colonna (L) at his headquarters in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on December 17, 2023. (AFP)
Update French top diplomat calls for ‘immediate and durable’ Gaza truce
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French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna (L) and spokesperson of the Israeli army Colonel Olivier Rafowitcz speak to the press as they visit the Shura army base near Ramle in Israel's central district on December 17, 2023. (AFP)
Update French top diplomat calls for ‘immediate and durable’ Gaza truce
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French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna (C) meets with Palestinian olive growers in a small village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on December 17, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 18 December 2023
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French top diplomat calls for ‘immediate and durable’ Gaza truce

French top diplomat calls for ‘immediate and durable’ Gaza truce
  • Warns that violent acts by settlers could “destabilize” the West Bank and “undermine” any chance of a two-state solution
  • Adds that France and its allies were weighing a response to attacks on ships in the Red Sea

TEL AVIV: French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Sunday pressed for an “immediate and durable” truce in the Gaza war, saying “too many civilians are being killed” in the Palestinian territory.

Israel has come under growing international pressure for a cease-fire in Gaza, where its war against Hamas militants has killed at least 18,800 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s Hamas government.
The offensive comes in response to Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attacks in southern Israel in which 1,139 people were killed, mostly civilians, and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures.
Meeting her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in Tel Aviv, before holding talks with Palestinian officials in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Colonna stressed that the victims of Hamas’s attacks must not be forgotten, including those subjected to sexual violence.
“Needless to say, France believes the word of these women victims... those who had to witness these rapes and mutilations, these desecrations,” she said in Tel Aviv.
She also addressed concerns that the war could spread.
There have been regular cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Cohen said Israel “has no intention to start another front on our northern border” and that France could play a “positive and significant role” in preventing an all-out war.
But he warned that ensuring the security of Israelis near the border meant pushing Hezbollah “north of the Litani River.”
“There are two ways to do that: either by diplomacy or by force,” Cohen said.
Colonna, who is due to visit Lebanon on Monday, called on all parties to “de-escalate” along the border.
“If things were to spiral out of control, I don’t think anyone would benefit, and I say this to Israel too,” she said.

Colonna also said France and its allies were weighing a response to attacks on ships in the Red Sea.
Major shipping firms have suspended passage following attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen aimed at pressuring Israel over the Gaza war.
“These attacks cannot go unanswered, and we are studying several solutions,” including a “defensive role to prevent this from happening again,” the minister said.
She later met separately with the families of French hostages still held in Gaza, and with senior Palestinian officials at the headquarters in Ramallah of the Palestinian Authority which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.
In a rural community near the West Bank city, the French foreign minister condemned violence in the West Bank. More than 290 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers since October 7, health officials in the territory say.
She said violent acts by settlers “are grave actions” that could “destabilize” the West Bank and “undermine” any chance of a two-state solution.
Colonna also met Palestinian olive growers who told her they had been threatened and chased from their land by settlers and were unable to harvest olives this year.
For Palestinians, the hardy olive trees, which thrives in tough conditions and can live for hundreds of years, is a symbol of their rootedness in the territory, where an estimated 10 million trees grow.


Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah
Updated 58 min 54 sec ago
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Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah
  • Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details
  • It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border

BEIRUT: At least two people were wounded by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to state media. The Israeli military said it had fired at people trying to return to certain areas on the second day of a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group.
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.


Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal
Updated 28 November 2024
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Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal
  • “The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said
  • The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release”

PARIS: Politicians, writers and activists have called for the release of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, whose arrest in Algeria is seen as the latest instance of the stifling of creative expression in the military-dominated North African country.
The 75-year-old author, who is an outspoken critic of Islamism and the Algerian regime, has not been heard from by friends, family or his French publisher since leaving Paris for Algiers earlier this month. He has not been seen near his home in his small town, Boumerdes, his neighbors told The Associated Press.
“The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Wednesday.
He added Sansal’s work “does honor to both his countries and to the values we cherish.”
The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release.”
Algerian authorities have not publicly announced charges against Sansal, but the APS state news service said he was arrested at the airport.
Though no longer censored, Sansal’s novels have in the past faced bans in Algeria. A professed admirer of French culture, his writings on Islam’s role in society, authoritarianism, freedom of expression and the civil war that ravaged Algeria throughout the 1990s have won him fans across the ideological spectrum in France, from far-right leader Marine Le Pen to President Emmanuel Macron, who attended his French naturalization ceremony in 2023.
But his work has provoked ire in Algeria, from both authorities and Islamists, who have issued death threats against him in the 1990s and afterward.
Though few garner such international attention, Sansal is among a long list of political prisoners incarcerated in Algeria, where the hopes of a protest movement that led to the ouster of the country’s then-82 year old president have been crushed under President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Human rights groups have decried the ongoing repression facing journalists, activists and writers. Amnesty International in September called it a “brutal crackdown on human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”
Algerian authorities have in recent months disrupted a book fair in Bejaia and excluded prominent authors from the country’s largest book fair in Algeria has in recent months, including this year’s Goncourt Prize winner Kamel Daoud,
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is no more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud wrote in an editorial signed by more than a dozen authors in Le Point this week.
Sansal has been a polarizing figure in Algeria for holding some pro-Israel views and for likening political Islam to Nazism and totalitarianism in his novels, including “The Oath of the Barbarians” and “2084: The End of the World.”
Despite the controversial subject matter, Sansal had never faced detention. His arrest comes as relations between France and Algeria face newfound strains. France in July backed Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, angering Algeria, which has long backed the independence Polisario Front and pushed for a referendum to determine the future of the coastal northwest African territory.
“A regime that thinks it has to stop its writers, whatever they think, is certainly a weak regime,” French-Algerian academic Ali Bensaad wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.


Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports
Updated 28 November 2024
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Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

DUBAI: Iranian Revolutionary Guards Brig. Gen. Kioumars Pourhashemi was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo by “terrorists” linked to Israel, Iran’s SNN news agency reported on Thursday without giving further details.
Rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham on Wednesday launched an incursion into a dozen towns and villages in northwest Aleppo province controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad.


Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief
Updated 28 November 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief
  • Richard Dearlove: Agreement suits both parties in ‘short to medium term’
  • Deal leaves Iran ‘exposed’ as its Lebanese ally is temporarily incapacitated

LONDON: The ceasefire deal struck this week between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to hold, a former head of MI6 has warned.

Richard Dearlove, who headed the British intelligence service from 1999 to 2004, told Sky News that the deal, which came into effect on Wednesday, is a “retreaded agreement from 2006.”

That initial deal was designed to keep Hezbollah away from the border region with Israel, overseen by the Lebanese military and the UN, but in effect it “did absolutely nothing,” he said.

This week’s deal suits both Israel and Hezbollah “in the short to medium term,” Dearlove said, adding: “The Israelis must know how much of the infrastructure of Hezbollah they’ve taken down … They haven’t taken it down completely, but maybe the Lebanese state can reassert some of its authority as the government of Lebanon and keep Hezbollah to an extent under control. We just have to wait and see what happens.”

He said the ceasefire deal will be a blow to Hezbollah’s backer Iran, leaving the latter “exposed” with one of its allies temporarily incapacitated.

But he warned that this could escalate into “direct” confrontation between Israel and Iran were the latter to launch another ballistic missile attack.


Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders
Updated 28 November 2024
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Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders
  • The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives”

PRAGUE: Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that the ICC had “no justification” for issuing arrests warrants for Israeli leaders, in a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar told Reuters Israel has appealed the decision and that it sets a dangerous precedent.
The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and ensuring the Iranian-backed group no longer controls the strip. Saar said Israel does not intend to control civilian life in Gaza and that he believes peace is “inevitable” but can’t be based on “illusions.”