Hezbollah says fired ‘dozens’ of rockets at north Israel
Hezbollah said it “launched dozens of Katyusha rockets... in response to the Israeli enemy’s attack on... (the southern village of Shama) that killed a number of civilians“
The Israeli military said that shortly after the rocket fire, the air force “struck the Hezbollah launcher from which the projectiles were launched“
Updated 02 August 2024
AFP
BEIRUT: Hezbollah said it launched rockets at northern Israel Thursday “in response” to a deadly Israeli strike in south Lebanon — the group’s first attack after Israel killed a top commander earlier this week.
The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it “launched dozens of Katyusha rockets... in response to the Israeli enemy’s attack on... (the southern village of Shama) that killed a number of civilians.”
The Israeli military said that shortly after the rocket fire, the air force “struck the Hezbollah launcher from which the projectiles were launched.”
Earlier Thursday, the Lebanese health ministry said four Syrians were killed in an Israeli strike on the south, where Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire since the Gaza war began in October.
“The health ministry announces... four Syrian nationals were martyred” in an “Israeli strike” on the southern village of Shama, it said in a statement.
The ministry said the toll might rise once DNA tests had been carried out.
The strike also wounded five Lebanese nationals, it added.
Emergency services told AFP that the dead were farmer workers and part of the same family.
Plumes of smoke billowed from the site of the strike, which heavily damaged two nearby buildings and burnt a vehicle to a crisp, a photographer contributing to AFP reported.
The attack was Hezbollah’s first since an Israeli air strike killed its top commander Fuad Shukr on Tuesday evening, with leader Hassan Nasrallah saying operations would resume on Friday morning.
Nasrallah warned his group was bound to respond to the killing of Shukr.
His death was followed hours later Wednesday, by the killing of Hezbollah ally Hamas’s chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran, which Iran and Hamas have blamed on Israel. Israel has declined to comment on his killing.
The violence since October has killed at least 542 people on the Lebanese side, most of them fighters but also including 114 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
At least 22 soldiers and 25 civilians have been killed on the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, according to army figures.
A Libyan warlord is arrested in Italy on a warrant from the International Criminal Court
The Hague-based court has issued a handful of new warrants against Libyans in the past year after opening an investigation into Libya in 2011 at the request of the U.N. Security Council
The ICC says it currently has 11 arrest warrants, for which seven people are still at large
Updated 18 sec ago
AP
ROME: Italian police have arrested a Libyan warlord on a warrant from the International Criminal Court, the justice ministry, Italian news reports and a Libyan official said Tuesday.
Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force. The SDF acts as a military police unit combating high-profile crimes including kidnappings, murders as well as illegal migration.
Like many other militias in western Libya, the SDF has been implicated in atrocities in the civil war that followed the overthrow and killing of longtime Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Recently, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor issued arrest warrants over alleged crimes in Libya beyond the civil war, including in detention facilities where human rights groups have documented abuses.
Italian newspapers Avvenire and La Stampa reported that al-Masri was arrested in Turin on Sunday on an warrant from the Hague-based court after he attended a Juventus-Milan soccer match the night before. His lawyer Daniele Folino confirmed the arrest, but said he couldn’t provide details since he hadn’t been officially appointed.
The Justice Ministry said in a statement that the court had requested al-Masiri's arrest. “Given the complex correspondence, the minister is considering the formal transmission of the ICC request to the chief prosecutor's office in Rome,” a statement said.
Ali Omar, head of Libya Crimes Watch, a local watchdog, hailed Italy’s move as a “positive initiative” on the road to holding those behind atrocities against Libyans and migrants accountable, including al-Masri.
“This move will certainly contribute to reducing the systematic violations committed on a large scale in the prisons of eastern and western Libya,” he told The Associated Press.
He called on the Italian government to hand al-Masri to the ICC to face justice, since the Libya judiciary is “unwilling, unable and incapable of prosecuting those accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Abdel-Moaz Nouri Abu Arqoub, the head of the RRI center in the western town of Ain Zara, condemned the arrest as “an arbitrary detention.” A statement late Monday posted on the institution's Facebook page called on authorities to “bear their responsibility towards this (Italy’s) shameful position.”
A spokesman for the internationally recognized Libyan government in Tripoli didn’t answer calls seeking comment.
The Hague-based court has issued a handful of new warrants against Libyans in the past year after opening an investigation into Libya in 2011 at the request of the U.N. Security Council. In October, it unsealed arrest warrants against six men, but other warrants have remained sealed. Al-Masri's name doesn't appear on any of the public warrants.
The ICC says it currently has 11 arrest warrants, for which seven people are still at large. In a recent report, the ICC prosecutor's office said it expected to issue new warrants in 2025 related to crimes in detention facilities.
Libya has been divided for years between rival administrations in the east and west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. Currently, it is governed by Abdul-Hami Dbeibah’s government in Tripoli and by the administration of Prime Minister Ossama Hammad in the east.
Western Libya is controlled by an array of lawless militias allied with Dbeibah’s government, while forces of powerful military commander Khalifa Hifter control the east and south.
Mediterranea Saving Humans, a humanitarian organization that has denounced the atrocities against migrants in Libyan detention centers, said al-Masri's arrest followed “years of complaints and testimonies from victims made to the International Criminal Court, which conducted a difficult investigation.”
The group has long condemned the Italian government's financial support of Libya's coast guard to stem migration, and noted that al-Masri was detained in Italy.
“He was hiding in Italy, of course, because here the traffickers feel safe,” the group said in a statement, suggesting that Italian authorities didn't want the information to be released but that it leaked out thanks to reporting by the Avvenire journalist Nello Scavo, who has long documented atrocities against migrants in Libya.
In a social media post, Scavo cited “dedicated sources” in reporting the arrest.
Six killed as Syria security forces launch sweep in Homs province
The Observatory later specified that among those killed, two were “armed individuals” who died during clashes with security forces, while the other four were “civilians executed by local gunmen who entered the town” alongside the security forces
Updated 9 min 32 sec ago
AFP
BEIRTU, Lebanon: Six people were killed on Tuesday in Syria’s central Homs province, a war monitor said, as security forces launched a sweep of the area.
The security forces were operating in the area around the village of Ghour Al-Gharbiya in western Homs “against the remaining militias supporting” ousted president Bashar Assad, the official news agency SANA reported.
The operation also targeted drug traffickers and smugglers, SANA said, citing a security source.
An “arms depot and munitions belonging to the ousted regime” were found, it added, reporting that violent clashes had broken out.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people had been killed in the Shiite-majority village, which lies close to the border with Lebanon.
The Observatory later specified that among those killed, two were “armed individuals” who died during clashes with security forces, while the other four were “civilians executed by local gunmen who entered the town” alongside the security forces.
Tanks were also deployed to the area, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that the village “hosted local groups close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” adding that those groups had left the area after the fall of Assad on December 8.
Hezbollah was one of Assad’s key backers in the nearly 14-year conflict that broke out with the former president’s violent repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.
The Observatory said dozens were arrested during the latest security sweep. Recent weeks have seen widespread arrests of those accused of loyalty to Assad.
Islamist-led rebels forced Assad from power last month after a lightning offensive that saw them capture swathes of the country in 11 days.
Rights groups have reported violations by the new security authorities, including summary executions and the seizure of people’s homes.
The new authorities, however, have sought to reassure minorities in particular that their rights will be safeguarded.
Israel launches ‘significant’ military operation in West Bank, at least eight Palestinians killed
“We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen,” Netanyahu said
The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin
Updated 21 January 2025
Reuters
JERUSALEM/RAMALLAH: Israeli security forces backed by helicopters raided the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least eight Palestinians in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “large-scale and significant military operation.”
The action, launched a day after US President Donald Trump declared he was lifting sanctions on ultranationalist Israeli settlers who attacked Palestinian villages, was announced by Netanyahu as a new offensive against Iranian-backed militants.
“We are acting systematically and resolutely against the Iranian axis wherever it extends its arms – in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said. Judea and Samaria are terms Israel uses for the occupied West Bank.
The move into Jenin, where the Israeli army has carried out multiple raids and large-scale incursions over recent years, comes only two days after the start of a ceasefire in Gaza and underscores the threat of more violence in the West Bank.
The military said soldiers, police and intelligence services had begun a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin. It follows a weeks-long operation by Palestinian security forces in self-rule areas of the West Bank to reassert control in the adjacent refugee camp, a major center of armed militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which get support from Iran.
Gaza-based Hamas, which has expanded its reach in the West Bank over recent years, called on Palestinians in the territory to escalate fighting against Israel.
As the operation began, Palestinian security forces withdrew from the refugee camp and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard in mobile phone footage shared on social media.
Palestinian health services said at least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 wounded as the Israeli raid began, a week after an Israeli air strike in the Jenin refugee camp killed at least three Palestinians and wounded scores more.
Since the October 2023 start of the war in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed in the West Bank and Israel and thousands of Palestinians have been detained in regular Israeli raids. “Protecting settlers”
Hard-line pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has responsibility for large parts of Israeli policy in the West Bank, said the operation was the start of a “strong and ongoing campaign” against militant groups “for the protection of settlements and settlers.”
Smotrich earlier welcomed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians and said he looked forward to cooperating with the new administration in expanding settlements.
Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land.
The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority has limited self-rule over some territory in the West Bank under Israeli military occupation.
In the days leading up to the Israeli military operation, Palestinians throughout the West Bank said multiple roadblocks had been set up throughout the territory, where violence has resurged since the start of the war in Gaza.
Late on Monday, bands of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property, near the village of Al-Funduq, an area where three Israelis were killed in a shooting earlier this month.
The military said it had opened an investigation into the incident, which it said involved dozens of Israeli civilians, some in masks.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the settler attack in Al-Funduq as well as the sudden appearance of multiple new barriers and roadblocks, which it said were aimed at “dismembering the West Bank.”
“We call on the new American administration to intervene to stop these crimes and Israeli policies that will not bring peace and security to anyone,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office said in a statement.
Key priority is to deliver huge surge of aid into Gaza: UN’s relief chief
Delivering aid had become ‘almost impossible in the last few weeks,’ Fletcher said
OCHA needs funding and protection to deliver aid, he added
Updated 21 January 2025
Zaynab Khojji
DAVOS: Delivering a huge surge of aid into Gaza is a key priority for the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the agency’s head said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Tom Fletcher said that “millions are in need” in the war-torn territory and that the aid would partly support the ceasefire process.
Fletcher said: “The key priority for us on the humanitarian side now is to get a huge surge of aid into Gaza, partly to support the ceasefire process because it is dependent on this step by step, very complex approach, but more importantly because millions are in need.
“(Some) 600 trucks (entered) on Sunday, including 300 up to the north which needs it so badly, 900 on Monday and more today.”
A boy chases one of the trucks carrying UNRWA aid coming in from the Kerem Shalom border crossing and arriving in the southern Gaza Strip on January 21, 2025. (AFP)
He described how delivering aid had become “almost impossible in the last few weeks,” with convoys being looted and community organizers assisting the OCHA “taken out by Israeli drones.”
Fletcher said: “We lost 79 out of 80 trucks in one convoy. And then the community organizers who went in with us were then taken out by Israeli drones. So it was becoming almost impossible to deliver a fraction of what we needed to do. Now the ceasefire opens up this window and we’ve got to really show that we can deliver at that massive scale.”
However, he warned that the money would soon run out and that the UN agency needs funding and protection to deliver aid.
Fletcher said: “We’ll need the funding and the protection, which means member states have to start saying ‘Stop shooting at UN convoys.’
“Last year was the deadliest year to be a humanitarian on record and that was mainly because of Gaza.
“We can’t deliver all these convoys alone. So we need commercial traffic getting into Gaza. And we need innovation as well. You know, in the last 14 months Gaza has been a laboratory of war and testing new weapons. We now need it to be a laboratory of humanitarian support. You know, can we use as much ingenuity and innovation in saving lives as in killing people? And that’s a real test.”
Palestinians rush to collect aid, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, January 21, 2025. (Reuters)
The head of the OCHA said that the UN agency was launching a big cash aid initiative on Tuesday, adding: “We’re trying to get direct cash support to a million Palestinian families, mostly headed by women, so that they get to make the choices about where they spend the money.”
The Chairman of the Bank of Palestine Hashim Shawa said that the institution had been working with all development partners in mobilizing cash assistance programs for decades.
He said: “We’ve been the first to innovate in the digital space. We’ve bought in international investors to help the bank not only remain resilient, but grow.
“We’ve grown 100 branches all over the West Bank and Gaza. We’re now in the UAE, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We got a license in Cairo. We’re expanding in Cairo, obviously. The day after this war Egypt is going to play a strategic role in the development of Gaza.
The Chairman of the Bank of Palestine Hashim Shawa. (WEF)
“So we’ve left no stone unturned in terms of providing the international aid organizations (with) a trusted, well-vetted, high tech, bullet-proof platform, Bank of Palestine, to facilitate all this aid. Half a million beneficiaries a year receive much-needed cash assistance and other forms of aid through their phones, digitally.”
Sara Pantuliano, the chief executive of ODI Global, a global affairs think tank, said that recovery and reconstruction in Gaza was not just a matter of money and infrastructure, but death and destruction.
She said that colleagues and friends working in Gaza describe it as having a “sort of moon landscape.”
Palestinians search for their belongings under the rubble of destroyed homes a day after a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas took effect, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP)
She said: “The UNDP (UN Development Programme) estimates that there are 50 million tonnes of rubble to be removed. And this rubble is mixed with human remains and unexploded ordnance, which means it’s incredibly difficult to deal with it.
“There is an estimate if you had 100 trucks working day in, day out, to try and remove this rubble, making sure that you dispose and bury the bodies that are mixed with the rubble, and carefully so that you don’t detonate more of this unexploded ordnance, it would take 15 years to dispose of the rubble that’s been created to date.”
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says death toll at 47,107
The health ministry is finding more dead, as the truce has allowed people to comb the ruins
The bodies of 72 people “arrived at hospitals... over the past 24 hours,” the ministry said
Updated 21 January 2025
AFP
GAZA STRIP: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday that 47,107 people had been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, with the toll continuing to rise in spite of a ceasefire as new bodies were found under the rubble.
The ceasefire has held since going into effect on Sunday, bringing a halt to more than 15 months of fighting in the Palestinian territory.
But the health ministry is finding more dead, as the truce has allowed people to comb the ruins. Other people have died from wounds received before the fighting stopped, with the territory’s health system devastated by the war.
The bodies of 72 people “arrived at hospitals... over the past 24 hours,” the ministry said in a statement.
“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulances and civil protection teams are unable to reach them,” it added.
The ministry said the number of wounded had reached 111,147 since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.
The ministry called on the families of people killed or missing in the war to register online to aid in the identification of bodies and to compile a more accurate death toll.
Israel has regularly questioned the credibility of the ministry’s figures, although the United Nations deems them reliable.
A study in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet published in early January estimated that the number of deaths during the first month of the war was around 40 percent higher than the official ministry figure.
