Palestinian cause ‘foremost issue’ for regional peace, says Lebanese PM

Special Palestinian cause ‘foremost issue’ for regional peace, says Lebanese PM
US special envoy Amos Hochstein, left, meets with Lebanon’s PM Najib Mikati, Beirut, Mar. 4, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 05 March 2024
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Palestinian cause ‘foremost issue’ for regional peace, says Lebanese PM

Palestinian cause ‘foremost issue’ for regional peace, says Lebanese PM
  • Najib Mikati called on Israel to abide by international edicts, including Resolution 1701
  • Najib Mikati: ‘Situation poses great pressure on Lebanon and necessitates raising our voice to urge the international community to stop what is happening’

BEIRUT: Peace and development in the Middle East is contingent upon an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the Lebanese border, Lebanon’s prime minister has said.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, addressing the Arab Forum for Sustainable Development at the UN House in Beirut on Tuesday, called on Israel to abide by international edicts, including Resolution 1701.

He said that sustainable development and peace in the region “requires stopping the Israeli aggression against southern Lebanon and Gaza and moving toward the peaceful option.”

Mikati added: “The situation poses great pressure on Lebanon and necessitates raising our voice to urge the international community to stop what is happening, deter the Israeli enemy, and work to provide peaceful solutions to the region’s problems.”

He described the Palestinian cause as the “foremost” issue, adding that its “flame has not been extinguished” despite Israeli measures to “suppress it through killing, destruction and annihilation.”

The prime minister’s comments came a day after US envoy Amos Hochstein visited Lebanon and Tel Aviv.

During talks in Beirut, Hochstein warned that there is “no such thing as a limited war,” urging Hezbollah and Israel to avoid an escalation of violence that “is in no one’s interests.”

A diplomatic solution is the only way to resolve the 150-day limited conflict on Lebanon’s southern border, he added.

Any deal must enforce stability on both sides of the border and safeguard the return of displaced people in Lebanon and Israel, Hochstein said.

The day after the envoy’s visit, the head of the Hezbollah parliamentary bloc, MP Mohammed Raad, renewed his party’s position on the violence in the south.

Hezbollah “does not wish for war, nor does it seek it, but we are ready to confront it,” Raad said.

He added: “We are ready to confront the enemy if it miscalculates and seeks to deviate from the rules of deterrence that we have imposed on it.

“But, so far, we have been waiting so as to spare our country and our people the consequences of an open war in which there will be blood and losses — but the biggest and strategic loser will be the Zionist enemy.”

Raad said that Hezbollah is operating “according to precise calculations” and still maintains a considerable arsenal to fight Israel.

“We have not used all of our weapons, and we are yet to open the warehouses of the weapons of open war, and the enemy knows that,” he added.

The US plan for a settlement, relayed by Hochstein in Beirut and Tel Aviv, includes several conditions, the foremost of which being an immediate end to hostilities.

Washington also calls for Hezbollah’s withdrawal from south of the Litani River, a reinforcement of UNIFIL and Lebanese Army forces in the region, and the return of evacuated Israeli and Lebanese civilians to border settlements.

A second proposed phase will see negotiations between the Lebanese state and Israel to define land borders and resolve disputes over occupied zones in the Shebaa Farms and Kafr Shuba heights areas.

In 2022, Hochstein mediated indirect negotiations between Lebanon and Israel to demarcate maritime borders.

On Monday, he also met top officials in the Israeli government. Israeli Channel 12 highlighted “encouraging signs and initial indications” during Hochstein’s talks in Lebanon, raising hopes of a diplomatic solution to the hostilities.

The channel claimed that Hezbollah may have given tacit approval for further diplomatic efforts toward a settlement.

A TV report said Hochstein had discussed Washington’s plan for resolving the issue with Israeli officials, but was rebuffed.

He was told that Israel will continue military operations in southern Lebanon “until an agreement is reached to return about 90,000 Israelis to their homes,” the report added.

Israeli Security Minister Yoav Gallant said after meeting Hochstein: “Our commitment to our citizens is greater than any other commitment. We are ready to resolve the crisis politically, but we are also prepared for all eventualities.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah and Israel continued to trade strikes on the southern border.

The Lebanese militia said its fighters had destroyed an Israeli Merkava tank in the Natua settlement using a guided missile, injuring or killing its crew.

Hezbollah also attacked military sites in Israel’s Barkat Risha and Al-Raheb.

On Monday night, Israeli jets shelled the border town of Al-Adisa, targeting a Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Authority center, killing three volunteer paramedics.

Israel also struck Al-Sultaniya and Siddiqin, causing minor injuries to some residents and significant destruction to vehicles and properties.


A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike

A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike
Updated 31 October 2024
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A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike

A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike
  • Israel says it carries out precise strikes in Gaza targeting Palestinian militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. But the strikes often kill women and children

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza: A Palestinian ambulance worker made a horrifying discovery when the bloody sheet was lifted: The corpse on the stretcher was his own mother, killed by an Israeli airstrike Wednesday in central Gaza.
“Oh God, I swear- she’s my mother! I didn’t know it was her!” Abed Bardini sobbed as he leaned over his mother, Samira, cradling her head in his arms. Fellow Red Crescent medics tried to console him, without success.
Bardini had unknowingly sat in the ambulance beside her body, wrapped in a white sheet stained dark with blood, as the vehicle bounced across broken roads for about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) toward Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah.
Three people were killed and 10 wounded by the Israeli strike on a car in Maghazi refugee camp, according to Palestinian health officials and Associated Press journalists. Health officials at the hospital said two of the dead were men sitting in the vehicle, while the blast fatally injured 61-year-old Samira Bardini as she stood nearby.
Abed Bardini was in one of two ambulances dispatched to the scene. Back at the hospital, he unloaded the stretcher with practiced professionalism, squinting into the late afternoon sun as he wheeled the body across the hospital courtyard.
Inside, medical staff pulled back the blanket to check for signs of life, and Bardini’s strength collapsed.
Later, his tears exhausted, he sat in the morgue beside Samira’s body with his head in his hands, comforted by his Red Crescent colleagues. They held a funeral prayer over her body in the parking lot, then Bardini personally helped carry the body into an ambulance for burial.
A spokesperson for the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike. Israel says it carries out precise strikes in Gaza targeting Palestinian militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. But the strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250 in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war. Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Wednesday that 102 deaths were recorded over the past 24 hours.


UN mission in Lebanon targeted 30 times in October

UN mission in Lebanon targeted 30 times in October
Updated 31 October 2024
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UN mission in Lebanon targeted 30 times in October

UN mission in Lebanon targeted 30 times in October
  • Andrea Tenenti: ‘Peacekeepers performing their monitoring tasks, as well as our cameras, lighting and entire watchtowers, have been deliberately targeted by the IDF’
  • Tenenti: ‘To be clear, the actions of both the IDF and Hezbollah are putting peacekeepers in danger’

UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon recorded more than 30 incidents this month resulting in property damage or injury to peacekeepers, about 20 of them from Israeli fire or action, a spokesman said Wednesday.
The UN peacekeeping force has been deployed in Lebanon since Israel’s 1978 invasion of the country. More recently it has been thrust into the front lines of the new war between Israel and Hezbollah, with Israel repeatedly calling on peacekeepers to abandon their positions.
Of the 30 incidents this month, “about 20 of those we could attribute to IDF fire or actions, with seven being clearly deliberate,” Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for the force, known as UNIFIL, told a news conference held by video.
“What has been very concerning are incidents where peacekeepers performing their monitoring tasks, as well as our cameras, lighting and entire watchtowers, have been deliberately targeted by the IDF,” Tenenti said, referring to the Israeli military.
On Monday a rocket that was probably fired by Hezbollah or an affiliated group hit the headquarters of the UN mission in the Lebanese city of Naqoura, he said.
For about a dozen other incidents, the origin of fire could not be determined.
“To be clear, the actions of both the IDF and Hezbollah are putting peacekeepers in danger,” the spokesman added.


Lebanon PM says hopes for ceasefire with Israel in ‘coming hours or days’

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Updated 30 October 2024
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Lebanon PM says hopes for ceasefire with Israel in ‘coming hours or days’

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
  • Hochstein was heading to Israel on Wednesday to discuss conditions for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s prime minister said US envoy Amos Hochstein had signalled during a phone call Wednesday that a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war was possible before US elections are held on November 5.
“The call today with Hochstein suggested to me that perhaps we could reach a ceasefire in the coming days, before the fifth” of November, Najib Mikati said in a televised interview with Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed.
Hochstein was heading to Israel on Wednesday to discuss conditions for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.
Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem on Wednesday said the group would agree to a ceasefire with Israel under acceptable terms, but added that a viable deal has yet to be presented.
“We are doing our best... to have a ceasefire within the coming hours or days,” Mikati told Al-Jadeed, adding that he was “cautiously optimistic.”
Mikati said Hezbollah is no longer linking a ceasefire in Lebanon to a truce in Gaza, however criticizing the group over the “late” reversal.
Previously, Hezbollah had repeatedly declared that it would only stop its attacks on Israel if a ceasefire was reached in Gaza.
But Qassem on Wednesday said the group would accept a ceasefire under conditions deemed “appropriate and suitable,” without any mention of the Palestinian territory.
Mikati said a ceasefire would be linked to the implementation of a United Nations resolution that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in southern Lebanon, while demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.
“The Lebanese army is ready to strengthen its presence in southern Lebanon” and ensure that the only weapons and military infrastructure in the area are those controlled by the state, Mikati said.


Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help

Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help
Updated 31 October 2024
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Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help

Israel wages deadly Gaza strikes as northern areas plead for help
  • Fresh offensive has killed hundreds and helped choke aid supplies to their lowest level

CAIRO/GAZA: Israel pummeled the Gaza Strip with new bombardments that killed at least 20 people on Wednesday, Palestinian medics said, a day after one of the deadliest single strikes of the year-old war killed scores in the north of the enclave.

Eight of Wednesday’s victims were killed in a strike on the Salateen area of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza. The area is near where medics said at least 93 people were killed or missing on Tuesday in an Israeli strike Washington called “horrifying.”

The Israeli assault that has laid waste to the Gaza Strip and killed tens of thousands of people shows no signs of slowing as Israel wages a new war in Lebanon.

Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled militant group Hamas’ command structure, is currently the focus of the military’s assault. It sent tanks into Beit Lahiya and the neighboring towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia earlier this month to flush out Hamas militants who it said had regrouped in the area.

 

 

The new operation has killed hundreds of Palestinians, medical workers say, and has helped choke aid and food supplies to their lowest level since the beginning of the war.

Officials in Beit Lahiya issued a statement urging world powers and aid agencies to halt Israel’s attacks and bring in basic medical supplies, fuel and food, saying the latest military actions had left the area “without food, without water, without hospitals, without doctors.”

Dr. Eid Sabbah of Beit Lahiya’s Kamal Adwan hospital said that bodies and injured people remained trapped under rubble.

He said the destruction of hospitals and lack of medical supplies meant doctors and nurses mostly had no chance of saving people who came in with injuries from airstrikes and gunfire.

“Whoever is injured, just lies there on the ground and whoever is killed can’t be transported, except by mule-drawn cart,” he said.

Israel’s decision this week to ban the UN relief agency UNRWA from operating on its territory could have a disastrous impact on humanitarian efforts in Gaza, UN officials said.

Israel presses on with assaults on Gaza despite the killing this month of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks whose death was a key aim of the war. Several Israeli soldiers have been killed this month in northern Gaza, the military said on Tuesday.

As families fled the Beit Lahiya area last week, parents wheeled children in prams and wooden carts and dragged suitcases through the mud. Israel earlier in October told residents of northern Gaza to leave their homes or face missile strikes.

Dalia Al-Kharawat, a mother-of-five from Jabalia, begged locals in Gaza City to let her stay and now sleeps in the open-air car park of a destroyed building with her children.

“When we need to sleep, we go here in the rubble, the sand, the broken glass. There is no place at the school shelters,” she said.

Israel has bombed schools where homeless families are staying on a number of occasions, according to Palestinian hospital workers in Gaza.


Lebanon security source says one dead in strike on Hezbollah van

The wreckage of a vehicle lies on the Araya-Kahhale road on October 30, 2024, at the site of an Israeli strike. (AFP)
The wreckage of a vehicle lies on the Araya-Kahhale road on October 30, 2024, at the site of an Israeli strike. (AFP)
Updated 30 October 2024
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Lebanon security source says one dead in strike on Hezbollah van

The wreckage of a vehicle lies on the Araya-Kahhale road on October 30, 2024, at the site of an Israeli strike. (AFP)
  • “A van belonging to Hezbollah was targeted in an Israeli strike on the Kahhale road and its driver killed,” the official said

BEIRUT: A Lebanese security official told AFP that an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah van carrying munitions near Beirut killed the driver on Wednesday.
“A van belonging to Hezbollah was targeted in an Israeli strike on the Kahhale road and its driver killed,” the official said, adding that the vehicle was carrying munitions.
The official requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
An AFP correspondent saw a vehicle on fire and said the Kahhale road, which links Beirut to Damascus, had been blocked in both directions.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) earlier reported an “enemy drone strike” on a vehicle.
An Israeli strike on a four-wheel-drive vehicle in nearby Qmatiyeh, a village in the Aley district, killed another two people, said the security official, who did not identify the casualties.
Last week, the NNA said an Israeli strike targeting a car on the same highway killed two people.
In August 2023, two people were killed in clashes between Hezbollah members and residents of the Christian town of Kahhale, after a truck carrying munitions for the group overturned on the highway.
The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.