Israeli PM adamant on invading Rafah despite world pressure

Update Israeli PM adamant on invading Rafah despite world pressure
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People walk past the rubble of Al-Faruq Mosque in Rafah on the southern Gaza Strip that was destroyed during Israeli bombardment on March 17, 2024. (AFP)
Update A man finds his way amid the rubble of a Palestinian family home after it was destroyed in an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. (File/AFP)
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A man finds his way amid the rubble of a Palestinian family home after it was destroyed in an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. (File/AFP)
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Updated 18 March 2024
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Israeli PM adamant on invading Rafah despite world pressure

Israeli PM adamant on invading Rafah despite world pressure
  • UN World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel “in the name of humanity” not to launch a Rafah assault
  • US has said a Rafah invasion would be a “red line” without credible measures to protect civilians
  • German chancellor: ‘We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians risk starvation’

CAIRO/GAZA STRIP: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would keep on with the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, where aid agencies say famine is looming, while ceasefire talks were set to resume.
Netanyahu told a Cabinet meeting that Israel would push into Rafah, the last relatively safe place in the tiny, crowded Gaza enclave after more than five months of war, despite international pressure for Israel to avoid civilian casualties.
“We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen,” he said, without clarifying if he meant the assault would last for weeks or would begin in weeks.
“No amount of international pressure will stop us from realizing all the goals of the war,” he stressed.
He later said after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Jerusalem that Israel would not leave civilians trapped in Rafah when its forces begin their assault.
Israel’s allies have piled pressure on Netanyahu not to attack Rafah, where more than a million displaced people from other parts of the devastated enclave have sought shelter, without a plan to protect civilians.
US President Joe Biden, whose country provides Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, has said a Rafah invasion would be a “red line” without credible measures to protect civilians.
UN World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel “in the name of humanity” not to launch a Rafah assault, warning that “this humanitarian catastrophe must not be allowed to worsen.”

Ceasefire deal pressed
At a joint news conference on Sunday, Scholz said he had spoken with Netanyahu about the need to provide comprehensive humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza.
“We cannot stand by and watch Palestinians risk starvation,” Scholz said, echoing a call from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, visiting Egypt at the same time, for a ceasefire deal and more aid for Gaza.
“It is critical to achieve an agreement on a ceasefire rapidly now that frees (Israel’s) hostages and allows more humanitarian aid to reach Gaza,” von der Leyen said after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.




German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a press conference following his meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister in Jerusalem on March 17, 2024. (AFP)

Scholz voiced concern about what the Rafah offensive would mean for civilians.
“The military logic is one consideration, but there is a humanitarian logic as well. How should more than 1.5 million people be protected? Where should they go?”
Scholz called for a deal to free hostages held in Gaza accompanied by a “longer-lasting ceasefire,” as warring parties geared up for more talks.
“We need a hostage deal with a longer-lasting ceasefire,” Scholz said in Jerusalem.
“We understand the hostage families who say after more than five months, ‘The time has come for a comprehensive hostage deal for saving those who are still captive.’”

Talks in Qatar
Scholz’s visit came the same day Israeli officials were set to meet to discuss the “mandate” of a negotiations team expected to participate in a new round of talks in Qatar aimed at securing a new truce between Israel and Hamas.
A source familiar with truce talks in Qatar said the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency would join the delegation in attending the negotiations with Qatari, Egyptian, and US mediators.
A Hamas proposal calls for an Israeli withdrawal from “all cities and populated areas” in Gaza during a six-week truce and for more humanitarian aid, according to an official from the Palestinian group.
Israel plans to attend the talks, with cabinet members due to “decide on the mandate of the delegation in charge of the negotiations before its departure for Doha,” Netanyahu’s office said, without giving a date for when they would leave.

Carnage continues
The war meanwhile raged on, and overnight Israeli bombardment across the Hamas-ruled territory killed at least 61 Palestinians, the Gaza health ministry said.
The dead included 12 members of the same family whose house was hit in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza.
Palestinian girl Leen Thabit, retrieving a white dress from under the rubble of their flattened house, cried as she told AFP her cousin was killed in the strike.
“She’s dead. Only her dress is left,” Thabit said. “What do they want from us?“




Palestinians mourn at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah next to bodies of victims pulled from the rubble of the Tabatibi family home on March 16, 2024, following overnight Israeli bombardment west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in about 1,160 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 31,645 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry.
Shelling and clashes were reported in south Gaza’s main city of Khan Yunis and elsewhere, and the Israeli army said its forces had killed “approximately 18 terrorists” in central Gaza since Saturday.
More than five months of war and an Israeli siege have led to dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the UN has repeatedly warned of looming famine for the coastal territory’s 2.4 million people.

Aid reaches starving Gazans
As the flow of aid trucks into Gaza has slowed, a second ship was due to depart from Cyprus along a new maritime corridor to bring food and relief goods, said officials of the island-nation.
On Saturday the US charity World Central Kitchen said its team had finished unloading supplies from a barge towed by Spanish aid vessel Open Arms which had pioneered the sea route.
Jordan on Sunday announced the latest aid airdrop over northern Gaza together with German, US and Egyptian aircraft.




Relief goods on a pallet are dropped on March 16, 2024 over the Gaza Strip from a C-130 transport airplane of the German-French bi-national "Rhein" (Rhine) squadron as part of an air bridge operation initiated by Jordan. (German Armed Forces Bundeswehr/handout via AFP)

The United Nations has reported particular difficulty in accessing the north, where residents say they have resorted to eating animal fodder, and where some have stormed the few aid trucks that have made it through.
Palestinian militants seized about 250 Israeli and foreign hostages during the October 7 attack. Dozens were released during a week-long truce in November, and Israel believes about 130 remain in Gaza including 32 presumed dead.
Netanyahu has faced domestic pressure over the remaining captives, with protesters rallying in Tel Aviv on Saturday carrying banners urging a “hostage deal now.”
“The civilians... need to demand from their leaders to do the right thing,” said one demonstrator, Omer Keidar, 27.
In Rafah, the crisis has only grown worse, said medical staff at a clinic run by Palestinian volunteers that offers treatment for displaced Gazans.
“We’re facing shortages of medications,” said Dr. Samar Gregea, herself displaced from Gaza City in the north.
“There are a lot of patients in the camp, with all children suffering from malnutrition” and a spike in hepatitis A cases, she told AFP.
“Children require foods high in sugars, like dates, which are currently unavailable.”

(With AFP)


Israeli army discovers ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon

Israeli army discovers ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon
Updated 5 sec ago
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Israeli army discovers ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon

Israeli army discovers ‘Hezbollah training center’ near UNIFIL outpost as raids continue in Lebanon
  • Several videos showed residential houses and tourist, social and religious facilities being set with explosives and blown up remotely
  • Adraee also accused Hezbollah of “using ambulances to transport saboteurs and arms” and called on “medical personnel to avoid dealing and cooperating with Hezbollah members”

BEIRUT: The Israeli army on Friday continued to destroy houses in Lebanon’s southern border villages to establish a buffer zone. The latest bombing targeted the areas of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras in Bint Jbeil.
Several videos showed residential houses and tourist, social and religious facilities being set with explosives and blown up remotely.
In parallel with the deliberate destruction, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued “a new urgent warning to the residents of southern Lebanon,” instructing them “to refrain from returning to the south, or to their houses or olive fields,” describing the region as “a dangerous combat zone.”
Adraee also accused Hezbollah of “using ambulances to transport saboteurs and arms” and called on “medical personnel to avoid dealing and cooperating with Hezbollah members.”
The army will take the “necessary measures against any vehicle transporting armed members regardless of its type,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army claimed that “surveillance cameras of the Oded Brigade reservists captured a Hezbollah training center just 200 meters from a UNIFIL outpost.”
The army claimed that “the forces discovered the training facility, which was used by Hezbollah for training, studying, and storing large quantities of weapons.”
It said that “the facility contained missile launchers used for firing at Israeli settlements, as well as documents and instructional books detailing Hezbollah’s operational methods, maps of Israel, explanations of the Israeli army’s equipment, and additional weapons.” The army said “the weapons were confiscated and the compound was dismantled.”
The Israeli army resumed raids on the Baalbek-Hermel area, killing and injuring people and causing further destruction.
The Ministerial Emergency Committee estimated that, as of Thursday evening, Israel had conducted 121 raids, including 56 on Nabatieh, 24 on Baalbek and 23 in the south.
The committee said the number of people killed so far in Israeli attacks on Lebanon exceed 3,100, while 14,000 people have been injured.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced, with close to 200,000 staying in shelters, it added.
Lebanese observers believe this transitional phase, from now until US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, is the most dangerous period for Lebanon.
Raids on Kfar Tebnit killed two people after a building comprising residential apartments and commercial shops was destroyed.
A raid on Zebdine in Nabatieh killed Mohammed Fayez Mokaddam and his sons, Fayez and Hadi Mokaddem, after their building was destroyed.
Zaher Ibrahim Ataya, a medic with Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Committee from the southern town of Tair Harfa, was killed when Israeli forces struck a newly established medical center.
The strike was part of a broader Israeli aerial campaign that targeted more than 50 towns across the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts in the past 48 hours.
The Lebanese Red Cross chief Georges Kettaneh announced that rescue teams have returned to Wata Al-Khiyam to complete the recovery of victims from an incident on Oct. 27.
Working alongside UNIFIL forces and the Lebanese Army, teams recovered four bodies and remains, with efforts continuing to ensure the mission’s completion.
Earlier the Red Cross retrieved 17 bodies from the site where civilians, who had been tending to livestock, sought shelter in a building during an Israeli incursion.
The Israeli military initially stalled permission for the Lebanese Red Cross to recover the victims, eventually granting only a four-hour window for the operation.
The Israeli air campaign extended to Lebanon’s Bekaa region, with strikes hitting Hrabta town west of Baalbek and Hosh Al-Sayyed Ali near the Syrian border north of Hermel.
Sirens sounded across northern Israel, including Haifa, Nazareth, Kiryat Shmona and surrounding areas, as well as the Ramat Trump settlement in the Golan Heights and Israeli media reported approximately 30 rockets launched from Lebanon toward northern Israel and Haifa’s suburbs.
The Israeli military confirmed detecting about 20 rockets, with some being intercepted, and reported drone incursions in northern airspace, including one near Caesarea.
The Israeli military announced the death of a soldier from Battalion 8207, Alon Brigade (228), who succumbed to wounds sustained in southern Lebanon on Oct. 26, while Israeli army radio detailed a fierce battle in the border village of Aitaroun that claimed the lives of six Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah said on Friday it had launched “dozens of rockets reaching as far as Haifa and south of Nazareth.”
The group claimed strikes on several targets, including the Stella Maris naval base and Ramat David air base, northwest and southeast of Haifa, respectively, Kiryat Shmona settlement, and military gatherings in Misgav Am and Margaliot settlements.
In response to Israeli infiltration attempts, Hezbollah reported targeting Israeli forces south of Adaisseh with artillery fire. The group also claimed to have destroyed a military bulldozer and inflicting casualties on accompanying infantry forces trying to advance northwest of Kfarkila.


Buried for 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler makes recovery

Buried for 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler makes recovery
Updated 11 min 18 sec ago
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Buried for 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler makes recovery

Buried for 14 hours after Israeli strike, Lebanese toddler makes recovery
SIDON, Lebanon: Rescuers did not expect to find two-year-old Ali Khalifeh alive after an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon killed his entire family and left him trapped under the rubble for 14 hours.
Amputated, bandaged and hooked to a respirator in a hospital bed that was way too big for him, “Ali is the sole survivor of his family,” said Hussein Khalifeh, his father’s uncle.
The toddler’s parents, sister and two grandmothers all perished in the strike on September 29, days after Israel intensified its attacks on Hezbollah militants.
The strike on Sarafand, some 15 kilometers (nine miles) south of the coastal city of Sidon, flattened an apartment complex and killed 15 people, many of them relatives, according to residents.
“Rescue workers had almost lost hope of finding anyone alive under the rubble,” 45-year-old Khalifeh told AFP from the hospital in Sidon where his two-year-old relative was being treated.
But then “Ali appeared among debris in the shovel of the bulldozer, after we all thought he had died,” he said.
“He emerged from the rubble, barely breathing, after 14 hours.”
Israel has been at war with Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its war focus from fighting Hamas militants in Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon.
An escalating Israeli air campaign, after nearly a year of low intensity cross-border fire, has killed more than 2,600 people across Lebanon since September 23, according to health ministry figures.
Signs of the violence were apparent even at the hospital in Sidon where Ali was rushed to following the strike on Sarafand.
The toddler, under a medically induced coma after doctors amputated his right hand, has since been transferred to a medical facility in the capital Beirut where he is due to undergo pre-prosthetic surgery.
“Ali was sleeping on the couch at home when the strike hit. He is still asleep today... were are waiting to complete his surgeries before waking him up,” said the relative Hussein Khalifeh.
Other family members were also fighting to stay alive after the Sarafand strike.
One of Khalifeh’s nieces, 32-year-old Zainab, was trapped under the rubble for two hours before being rescued and transferred to the nearest hospital, said the man.
It was there that she was later informed that her parents, her husband and three children, aged between three and seven, had all been killed.
The strike left her with only one, severely injured eye.
Zainab said she “did not hear the sounds of the missiles that rained down on her family’s home,” according to Khalifeh.
“She only saw darkness and heard deafening screams,” he said.
Ali Alaa El-Din, a doctor treating her, said that “the psychological scars that Zainab suffered are much greater than her physical injury.”
He has also tended Zainab’s sister Fatima, 30, who was wounded in the same strike.
Both had injuries “throughout their bodies, with fractures in the feet and damage to the lungs,” said the doctor.
Medically, he added, “Zainab and Fatima’s cases are not among the most difficult cases we have faced during the war, but they are the most severe from a psychological and human perspective.”

UN accuses Israel of ‘deliberate’ attack on peacekeeping position in Lebanon

UN accuses Israel of ‘deliberate’ attack on peacekeeping position in Lebanon
Updated 13 min 19 sec ago
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UN accuses Israel of ‘deliberate’ attack on peacekeeping position in Lebanon

UN accuses Israel of ‘deliberate’ attack on peacekeeping position in Lebanon
  • UN Interim Force in Lebanon cites ‘seven other similar incidents’
  • Accuses Israel of ‘flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701’

NEW YORK: The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon on Friday said two Israeli excavators and a bulldozer destroyed part of a fence and a concrete structure in one of its positions in Ras Naqoura in southern Lebanon.

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon added that in response to its “urgent protest,” the Israel Defense Forces denied any activity was taking place inside its position.

UNIFIL is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line with Israel, an area that has seen more than a year of fighting that turned into fierce clashes since last month between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters.

Israel claims that UN forces provide cover for Hezbollah, and has told UNIFIL to evacuate peacekeepers from southern Lebanon for their own safety.

But UNIFIL said the incident, which took place on Thursday, “like seven other similar incidents, is not a matter of peacekeepers getting caught in the crossfire, but of deliberate and direct actions by the IDF.”

UNIFIL issued a statement warning that “the IDF’s deliberate and direct destruction of clearly identifiable UNIFIL property is a flagrant violation of international law and resolution 1701.”

It called on the IDF and all other actors to honor “their obligation to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property and respect the inviolability of UN premises at all times.”

UNIFIL also expressed concern over the destruction and removal this week of two of the blue barrels that mark the UN-delineated line of withdrawal between Lebanon and Israel (the Blue Line). Peacekeepers said they directly observed the IDF removing one of them.

“Despite the unacceptable pressures being exerted on the mission through various channels, peacekeepers will continue to undertake our mandated monitoring and reporting tasks under resolution 1701,” UNIFIL said.


Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US

Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US
Updated 25 min 27 sec ago
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Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US

Netanyahu appoints Yechiel Leiter as new ambassador to US
  • His son was killed last year in Gaza war against Hamas
  • Leiter’s appointment came three days after Trump’s election to second term as US president

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed US-born Yechiel Leiter, an official who previously served as chief of staff in the finance ministry, as the next Israeli ambassador to the United States.
“Yechiel Leiter is a highly capable diplomat, an eloquent speaker, and possesses a deep understanding of American culture and politics,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
His appointment was also welcomed by Yisrael Ganz, the head of the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization representing councils of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a territory Palestinians want as part of a future state.
Ganz said Leiter, who lives in the Gush Etzion settlement area, as “a key partner in English-language advocacy for Judea and Samaria,” a name used by many Israelis for the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
Leiter’s appointment came three days after Donald Trump’s election to a second term as US president, celebrated by many Israelis because of his strong support for Israel.
As well as serving in the finance ministry, Leiter also held positions as deputy director general in the Education Ministry and acting chairman of the Israel Ports Company.
His son was killed last year in the Gaza war against Palestinian militant group Hamas while serving with the Israeli military.


Jordan’s King Abdullah returns home after meetings with King Charles, Keir Starmer during UK visit

Jordan’s King Abdullah returns home after meetings with King Charles, Keir Starmer during UK visit
Updated 44 min 49 sec ago
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Jordan’s King Abdullah returns home after meetings with King Charles, Keir Starmer during UK visit

Jordan’s King Abdullah returns home after meetings with King Charles, Keir Starmer during UK visit
  • King Abdullah met Starmer at Downing Street on Wednesday to discuss Middle East crises
  • Meeting with Charles III marked the Jordanian monarch’s silver jubilee — 25 years since ascending to the throne

LONDON: King Abdullah II of Jordan returned home on Friday following a working visit to the UK.

The visit this week featured key engagements with King Charles III and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Earlier in the visit, King Abdullah met Starmer at Downing Street on Wednesday, where discussions reinforced the close ties between the two kingdoms, Jordan News Agency reported.

They also called for an immediate ceasefire and stronger efforts for de-escalation and humanitarian aid in Gaza.

They warned that Israel’s ban on UNRWA activities could worsen the humanitarian crisis and highlighted the need to address violence in the West Bank.

The King emphasized the UK’s crucial role in seeking resolutions to regional conflicts and achieving a just, comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution, JNA added.

King Abdullah then met Charles at Windsor Castle on Thursday.

The occasion marked the Jordanian monarch’s silver jubilee — 25 years since ascending to the throne — and King Charles commemorated the milestone by presenting King Abdullah with a specially engraved silver beaker, featuring the ciphers of the king and queen.

The formal welcome at Windsor began with the Jordanian monarch receiving a royal salute, accompanied by the Jordanian national anthem.

Major Edward Emlyn-Williams, the captain of the guard, invited King Abdullah, in Arabic, to inspect the guard, followed by a military march-past.

The two kings exchanged conversation as they interacted with the guards before proceeding into the castle for tea.

The long-standing relationship between the two monarchs was highlighted by King Charles’s five visits to Jordan as Prince of Wales, most recently in 2021. King Abdullah’s last visit to Charles took place at Buckingham Palace in November 2022.

King Abdullah’s visit comes months after his son and heir, Crown Prince Hussein, and Crown Princess Rajwa welcomed their daughter, Princess Iman, in August.

Britain’s Prince and Princess of Wales attended the wedding of Hussein and Rajwa in June last year.