Palestinian president to visit Russia on Monday/node/2566686/middle-east
Palestinian president to visit Russia on Monday
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas on the sidelines of the Sixth Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana on October 13, 2022. (AFP file photo)
The two leaders will discuss events in Gaza since the October 7 attacks on Israel
Updated 12 August 2024
AFP
MOSCOW: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Moscow to discuss the Gaza war with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Palestinian envoy said.
Russia’s TASS news agency cited the Palestinian ambassador in Moscow as saying Abbas will arrive on Monday and meet Putin on Tuesday.
Abbas heads the Fatah Palestinian movement, a rival to Hamas.
Ambassador Abdel Hafiz Nofal said the two leaders would discuss events in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
“They will discuss Russia’s role and what can be done.”
He added: “We have a very difficult situation, and Russia is a country that is close to us. We need to consult each other.”
Moscow, for years, tried to balance relations with all major players in the Middle East — including Israel and the Palestinians.
But since the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s offensive on Ukraine, Putin has moved closer to Hamas and Iran.
The Kremlin has repeatedly criticized Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks and called for restraint.
Also on Sunday, Israeli emergency services and the army said a civilian was killed and another wounded in a shooting in the occupied West Bank.
Medical teams “pronounced a man in his 20s dead” while a 33-year-old man was evacuated by helicopter “with gunshot wounds to his lower limbs,” an emergency services statement said.
The army said the dead man was an Israeli civilian.
“Terrorists opened fire from a passing vehicle at a number of vehicles in the area,” an army statement said.
“As a result of the attack, an Israeli civilian was killed, and an additional Israeli civilian was injured and is currently receiving treatment from medical teams.
“Soldiers have begun pursuing the terrorists, blocking routes and conducting thorough searches in the area.”
The attack took place in the Jordan Valley in the northern West Bank.
As mobile phones became the world’s main communications tool, pagers, also known as beepers because of the sound they make to notify users about incoming messages, were largely rendered obsolete, with demand plunging from their 1990s heyday. But the tiny electronic devices remain a vital means of communication in some areas — such as health care and emergency services — thanks to their durability and long battery life. “It’s the cheapest and most efficient way to communicate to a large number of people about messages that don’t need responses,” said a senior surgeon at a major UK hospital, adding that pagers are commonly used by doctors and nurses across the country’s National Health Service (NHS). “It’s used to tell people where to go, when, and what for.” Pagers grabbed headlines on Tuesday when thousands used by members of militant group Hezbollah were detonated simultaneously across Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others. According to a senior Lebanese security source and another source, explosives inside the devices were planted by Israel’s Mossad spy agency. The UK’s NHS was using around 130,000 pagers in 2019, more than one in 10 of the world’s pagers, according to the government. More up-to-date figures were not available. Doctors working in hospital emergency departments carry them when they are on call. Many pagers can also send out a siren and then broadcast a voice message to groups so that whole medical teams are alerted simultaneously to an emergency, a senior doctor in the NHS said. That is not possible with a mobile phone. Britain’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) uses pagers to alert its crews, a source familiar with the lifeboat service told Reuters. The RNLI declined to comment.
Pagers hard to track Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters this year. Pagers can be harder to track than smartphones because they receive messages transmitted via radio signal, while mobile phones send information to the network to find the nearest cellular tower and stay connected, allowing it easier to trace. Pagers also lack more modern navigation technologies like the Global Positioning System, or GPS. These have made them a popular choice among criminals, especially drug dealers in the United States, in the past. But gangs are using mobile phones more these days, former FBI agent Ken Gray told Reuters. “I don’t know if anyone uses them (pagers),” he said. “They all went to cell phones, burner phones” which can be easily disposed of and replaced with another phone with a different number, making them difficult to trace. Gray, who served 24 years at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and now teaches criminal justice and homeland security at the University of New Haven, said that criminals changed with the times and newer technology. The global pagers market, once a major source of revenue for companies like Motorola, amounted to $1.6 billion in 2023, according to an April report by Cognitive Market Research. That amounts to a tiny fraction of the global smartphone market, which was estimated at around half a trillion US dollars as of end-2023. But demand for pagers is rising as a larger patient population creates more need for efficient communication in the health care sector, the report said, forecasting compound annual growth of 5.9 percent from 2023 to 2030. It said North America and Europe are the two biggest pager markets, generating $528 million and $496 million in revenue respectively.
Japan firm says no longer makes radio reportedly used in Lebanon blasts
The IC-V82 is a handheld radio produced and exported in Japan from 2004 to October 2014
Updated 6 min 23 sec ago
AFP
Tokyo: Japanese firm Icom said Thursday that it had stopped producing the model of radios reportedly used in recent blasts in Lebanon around 10 years ago. “The IC-V82 is a handheld radio that was produced and exported, including to the Middle East, from 2004 to October 2014. It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company,” Icom said in a statement. “The production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit has also been discontinued, and a hologram seal to distinguish counterfeit products was not attached, so it is not possible to confirm whether the product shipped from our company,” it said. It added that products for overseas markets are sold exclusively through its authorized distributors, and that its export program is based on Japanese security trade control regulations. “All of our radios are manufactured at our production subsidiary, Wakayama Icom Inc., in Wakayama Prefecture, under a strict management system... so no parts other than those specified by our company are used in a product. In addition, all of our radios are manufactured at the same factory, and we do not manufacture them overseas,” the statement said. In the second wave of device explosions in as many days, 20 people died and more than 450 were wounded on Wednesday in Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, officials said. A source close to Hezbollah said walkie-talkies used by its members blew up in its Beirut stronghold, with state media reporting similar blasts in south and east Lebanon. They came a day after the simultaneous explosion of hundreds of paging devices used by Hezbollah killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded up to 2,800 others across Lebanon, in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel. There was no comment from Israel. The White House warned all sides against “an escalation of any kind.”
Pager and walkie-talkie blasts targeting Hezbollah across Lebanon raise questions, stoke Middle East tensions
Communication devices exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, killing at least 15 people and injuring thousands
Suspected Israeli attack represents an embarrassing security breach on such a scale that Hezbollah has almost no choice but to respond
Updated 19 September 2024
Jonathan Gornall
LONDON: At precisely 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, an estimated 3,000 pagers carried by Hezbollah members beeped several times before exploding simultaneously, killing at least 12 people and injuring thousands more across Lebanon and parts of Syria.
At least eight of the dead were reportedly members of Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the many wounded included Mojtaba Amini, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, who may have lost at least one eye.
But clips from security cameras in shops in Beirut and other locations, circulated on social media, illustrated the dangerously indiscriminate nature of the attack.
Many civilians going about their day also fell victim to the blasts as pagers exploded in supermarkets, on the streets, and in cars and homes. Among the dead were two children who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fleets of ambulances ferried a reported 2,700 wounded to hospitals across Lebanon, where overwhelmed medics struggled to cope with multiple victims suffering serious wounds, mainly to their hips, where pagers are generally worn on belts, and to hands and eyes.
On Wednesday afternoon, further blasts were reported across Lebanon, this time reportedly involving hand-held radios, causing at least three further fatalities and a hundred more wounded, according to Lebanese state media.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attack. But on Wednesday a US official told AP that Israel had briefed Washington on the attack after it had been carried out and, with no other feasible suspect in the frame, there is little doubt that it was the handiwork of Mossad, Israel’s lethally inventive foreign intelligence agency.
It is also clear that, figuratively and literally, the pager attack was both designed and timed to send a message.
The opportunity to use pagers as an offensive weapon arose in February when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah publicly warned members to stop using cell phones, which are easily bugged and traced and have been linked with many assassinations executed by missile attacks.
According to a senior Lebanese security source quoted by The Times of Israel, Hezbollah then ordered 5,000 pagers, which were imported into Lebanon earlier this year.
Initial speculation was that Israel had somehow infected the pagers with code designed to cause lithium batteries inside them to overheat and explode. However, it has since emerged that the pagers used only ordinary AAA batteries.
Besides, the near-instantaneous and synchronized detonations, apparently triggered by incoming messages, suggest the pagers had all been fitted with a small amount of explosive and a miniature electronic detonator.
On Tuesday, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters: “The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means, even with any device or scanner.”
On Wednesday, Gold Apollo, the Taiwanese firm whose brand name was found on the pagers used in the attack, denied involvement, saying the AR-924 models widely identified after the blasts had been made under license by a Budapest-based company, BAC Consulting KFT.
Hsu Ching-kuang, head of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, speaks to the media outside the company's office in New Taipei City on Sept. 18, 2024, saying his company had nothing to do with the pager explosion attack in Lebanon. (AFP)
In a statement issued at 1:40 p.m. Taiwan time on Wednesday, Gold Apollo said: “This model is produced and sold by BAC. Our company only provides the brand trademark authorization and is not involved in the design or manufacturing of this product.”
Images of BAC’s headquarters — a modest, semi-detached building on Szonyi Street in the north of Budapest — have spread on social media, but BAC has yet to comment. Its website went offline on Wednesday and the profile of its owner and managing director was deleted from LinkedIn.
It is, however, extremely unlikely that any genuine company would knowingly take part in such an operation, risking Hezbollah’s wrath, knowing full well that the devices would be easily traced back to it. This has provoked some speculation that BAC, established only in 2022, might have been a front company operated by Israeli intelligence.
Combo image showing a walkie-talkie (right frame) that was exploded inside a house in Baalbek, east Lebanon, on Sept. 17, 2024, and a man holding a walkie talkie device after he removed the battery following the pager explosions. (AP/AFP)
A more likely scenario is that the batch of pagers ordered by Hezbollah were intercepted en route to Lebanon by Israeli agents — most probably at a port or airport, where typical customs and shipping delays may have given agents, working with local collaborators, enough time to meddle with the devices.
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, is a major transport hub on the River Danube and is home to Csepel Freeport, the country’s principal port.
Wherever the devices were tampered with, “the use of pagers bears the hallmark of Israel weaponizing digital technology to achieve political ends,” Ibrahim Al-Marashi, associate professor in the Department of History at California State University San Marcos, told Arab News.
Social media photo showing a pager battery that exploded during an apparent Israeli attack on Sept. 17, 2024 against users of the device in southern Lebanon. (AFP)
Israel has “form” in such warfare. In 2010, “a code known as Stuxnet, snuck into a USB drive, caused Iranian centrifuges to accelerate to the point that they destroyed themselves.”
In 1996, Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash was killed when explosives hidden inside his cell phone were triggered remotely by Israeli agents.
“The advantage of the most recent attack in Lebanon is that it allows Israel to strike from a distance while claiming plausible deniability, avoiding a US rebuke at a time when Washington has pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike Hezbollah,” said Al-Marashi.
But the pager attack, he warned, could lead to a dangerous escalation.
Ambulances are surrounded by people at the entrance of the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on Sept.17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon. (AFP)
“Hezbollah does have the ability to weaponize the digital in retaliation, raising the possibility that violent non-state actors might even pursue artificial intelligence to retaliate against their adversaries.”
Given the complexities of the operation, and the sheer workload involved in sabotaging thousands of devices, there is little doubt that the attack would have been weeks, if not months, in the planning.
But it is the timing of the attack that sends the most worrying signal.
The day after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, its ally Hezbollah began firing missiles into northern Israel — a near-daily bombardment that has increased steadily in intensity, forcing the evacuation of thousands of Israelis from the border region.
Lebanese army soldiers stand guard in Beirut on September 17, 2024, after an Israeli pager device attack against the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on September 17. (AFP
After a meeting of its Security Cabinet on Monday night, barely 12 hours before the pagers were detonated, Netanyahu’s office announced that “the Security Cabinet has updated the objectives of the war to include the following: Returning the residents of the north securely to their homes. Israel will continue to act to implement this objective.”
At the same time, reports suggested Netanyahu was on the brink of buckling to the extremist elements in his cabinet by sacking his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has criticized him for having no postwar plan for Gaza, and replacing him with Gideon Saar, leader of the New Hope — The United Right party.
On Wednesday, the day after the pager attack, reports in Israeli and other media, citing anonymous US and Israeli officials, suggested it had been planned originally as “an opening blow in an all-out war against Hezbollah.”
Relatives mourn Fatima Abdallah — a 10-year-old girl killed in Israel's pager device attack — during her funeral in the village of Saraain in the Bekaa valley on September 18, 2024. (AFP)
According to The Times of Israel, a Hezbollah operative “had come to suspect the devices had been tampered with.” He was killed before he could alert his superiors, but the decision was taken to detonate the pagers before the plot was uncovered.
The question now is whether Israel is poised to follow up the pager attack, perhaps as was planned, with an all-out assault against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“We have been teetering on the brink of a wider war for many months now,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, told Arab News.
“Hezbollah and Iran have made it clear they don’t want this broader conflict to erupt, but Israel cannot end the war in Gaza without addressing the security crisis on its northern borders with Iran, Lebanon and Syria.
Mourners carry the coffin of Mohammed Mahdi, son of Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar, who was killed Tuesday after his handheld pager exploded, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP)
“In order to address this security imbalance, which puts at risk the safety of the broader population but also that of those displaced since the war began, Israel is trying to target and degrade the ‘Axis of Resistance’ to stave off further threats,” she said, referring to the loose network of Iranian proxies throughout the region.
“But this strategy could certainly push the groups and Iran to respond and eventually draw in regional states and above all the US.”
Most Israelis, said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and founder of the nongovernmental organization Terrestrial Jerusalem, “will tell you that war with Hezbollah is inevitable, but a large percentage say: ‘Not now.’
“The priorities for many are a ceasefire in Gaza, release of the hostages and dialing down the tension in Lebanon. Hezbollah can wait,” he told Arab News.
“Hezbollah, actively backed by Iran, is a much greater threat to Israel than Hamas and the general perception is that there will eventually be a war with Hezbollah, but Israelis know this will be much different than what we have witnessed in the past. It would mean years of war and vast devastation.
“But Netanyahu has a vested interest in the perpetuation of the war, which would be good for Netanyahu but intolerable for Israel.”
I'm saying: Netanyahu is the duly elected Israeli PM elected by means of a deeply flawed, but legitimate system.
He is also the greatest threat to the 3rd Jewish Commonwealth.
What happens next, added Seidemann, “is not only an Israeli decision. Will the US provide the munitions and the rest of the world the legitimization to pursue a protracted war in Lebanon?
“The bottom line is that right now, anything can happen.”
For Al-Marashi, “there are a lot of variables in regard to further escalation that make predictions difficult, more difficult than at any time in analyzing systemic conflicts in the Middle East.
“Despite US sanctions on Iran, news emerged over the weekend that Iran has launched a satellite into space and allegedly has provided ballistic missiles to Russia.
“Second, the Houthis in Yemen have overcome a technical hurdle, launching a ballistic missile against Israel and having it hit Israeli soil, meaning Israel’s system that intercepts such missiles failed.
An Israeli firefighter works to put out a blaze after rockets were fired from Lebanon towards Israel, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, on Sept. 18, 2024. (REUTERS)
“From that perspective, both Israeli adversaries have demonstrated they can overcome technical hurdles, signaling to Israel that it is not invulnerable.”
Were a regional war to escalate, he added, “it would put US positions in Bahrain and Iraq in the crosshairs of the Axis of Resistance. Biden, seeking to ensure a Kamala Harris victory in the US election, is most likely going to pressure Israel not to escalate matters prior to the election.
“At the same time, if war in the Middle East helped Donald Trump, that would work to the advantage of Netanyahu, who would prefer a Trump presidency.”
The Middle East, said Brian Katulis, senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, “has been teetering on the edge of a wider escalation for much of this past year, with the risk of nation-states going directly to war with one another growing.”
An armored personnel carrier of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrols along al-Khardali road along the Israel-Lebanon border on September 17, 2024. (PhotAFP)
It was, he told Arab News, important to keep in mind the two core drivers of events — “a regime in Iran that operates with a revolutionary ideology that seeks to upend the state order of the Middle East, and an increasingly right-wing Israeli government that rejects a two-state solution and is unable to see the historic opportunity it has in opening relations with key Arab states if it took steps to define a clear end to this war that leads to a State of Palestine.”
In this context, “the US and outside actors such as Europe, China, and Russia can play important roles in trying to shape the trajectory of events in the region, but the main drivers are the regional actors themselves.
“One interesting pivotal grouping is the Arab Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, who do not want to see a wider regional escalation with Iran but do want to advance a two-state solution.”
Right now, however, even as uncertainty remains about Israel’s next move, much depends on how Hezbollah will respond to the extraordinary blow it suffered on Tuesday.
The attack, described by a Hezbollah official as “the targeting of an entire nation,” has been condemned as “an extremely concerning escalation” by Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon.
Pained by casualties inflicted today due to more explosions of devices, I can only reiterate my appeal for restraint. Further escalatory actions risk devastating consequences. I again acknowledge the medical teams working under enormous stress to save lives and treat the wounded.
In the past year, Hezbollah has suffered the loss of more than 400 fighters, including senior commander Fuad Shukr, to Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.
But the pager attack represents an embarrassing security breach on such a scale that if it is to save face, Hezbollah’s leadership has almost no choice but to respond with more than the usual daily delivery of a handful of rockets.
Hashim Safieddine, a Shiite Muslim cleric and the head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, speaks during the funeral of persons killed after hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 18, 2024. (AFP)
After Israel’s multiple airstrikes in southern Lebanon last week and now the pager attack, “we are more on the precipice of a regional war than ever,” Kelly Petillo, program manager for Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Arab News.
“We will have to see how Hezbollah will retaliate now, and the level of that response will determine where this goes. But these episodes are an indication that things are heating up and we are close to the precipice.”
As for Netanyahu, after almost a year of fighting in Gaza, the fear now is that his answer to growing domestic criticism over the apparent absence of a postwar plan may be an even more nightmarish scenario — more war, only this time in Lebanon.
Tunisia presidential candidate gets prison term, still on ballot: lawyer
Updated 19 September 2024
AFP
TUNIS: Tunisian presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was handed a 20-month prison term for charges related to forging voter endorsements Wednesday but will still stand in next month’s election, his lawyer told AFP.
Zammel, a former lawmaker and head of a small liberal party, is one of only two candidates approved by Tunisia’s electoral authority ISIE to challenge President Kais Saied in the October 6 poll.
One of Zammel’s lawyers, Abdessatar Messaoudi, said a court in the northwestern city of Jendouba issued the sentence which the defense team “will appeal.”
Messaoudi said the ruling was not final and does not prevent 43-year-old Zammel from remaining on the presidential ballot.
“He is still a presidential candidate, and his team will keep campaigning,” the lawyer said.
“Nothing can put an end to his candidacy apart from death.”
In the 2019 election that brought Saied to power, businessman Nabil Karoui made it to the second round behind bars.
Zammel, a businessman who was little-known to the general public before his presidential bid, was arrested on September 2 on suspicion of forging endorsements.
He was released on September 6, but was almost immediately arrested again on similar accusations.
Saied, 66, the incumbent and frontrunner, was democratically elected but orchestrated a sweeping power grab in 2021 and has since ruled by decree.
ISIE earlier this month announced the final list of approved candidates: Saied, Zammel and former lawmaker Zouhair Maghzaoui, 59, who had supported the president’s power grab.
The election board dismissed the presidential bids of three other hopefuls despite court orders in their favor.
Human Rights Watch accused ISIE of having “intervened to skew the ballot in favor of Saied,” with at least eight prospective candidates prosecuted, convicted or imprisoned in the run-up to the election.
“Holding elections amid such repression makes a mockery of Tunisians’ right to participate in free and fair elections,” said the New York-based advocacy group.
The European Union has said Zammel’s arrest and the exclusion of the three candidates demonstrated “a continued limitation of the democratic space” in Tunisia.
A war with Hezbollah may be looming. Is Israel prepared?
Israeli media reported Wednesday that the government has not yet decided whether to launch a major offensive in Lebanon
Updated 19 September 2024
AP
JERUSALEM: With Israel’s defense minister announcing a “new phase” of the war and an apparent Israeli attack setting off explosions in electronic devices in Lebanon, the specter of all-out combat between Israel and Hezbollah seems closer than ever before.
Hopes for a diplomatic solution to the conflict appear to be fading quickly as Israel signals a desire to change the status quo in the country’s north, where it has exchanged cross-border fire with Hezbollah since the Lebanese militant group began attacking on Oct. 8, a day after the war’s opening salvo by Hamas.
In recent days, Israel has moved a powerful fighting force up to the northern border, officials have escalated their rhetoric, and the country’s security Cabinet has designated the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel an official war goal.
Here’s a look at how Israel is preparing for a war with Lebanon: Troops drawn from Gaza to the northern border
While the daily fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated on several occasions, the bitter enemies have been careful to avoid an all-out war.
That appears to be changing — especially after pagers, walkie-talkies, solar equipment and other devices exploded in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 20 and wounding thousands in a sophisticated attack Hezbollah blamed on Israel.
“You don’t do something like that, hit thousands of people, and think war is not coming,” said retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, who leads Israel Defense and Security Forum, a group of hawkish former military commanders. “Why didn’t we do it for 11 months? Because we were not willing to go to war yet. What’s happening now? Israel is ready for war.”
As fighting in Gaza has slowed, Israel has fortified forces along the border with Lebanon, including the arrival this week of a powerful army division that took part in some of the heaviest fighting in Gaza.
The 98th Division is believed to include thousands of troops, including paratrooper infantry units and artillery and elite commando forces specially trained for operations behind enemy lines. Their deployment was confirmed by an official with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements.
The division played a key role in Gaza, spearheading the army’s operations in the southern city of Khan Younis, a Hamas stronghold. The offensive inflicted heavy losses on Hamas fighters and tunnels, but also wreaked massive damage, sent thousands of Palestinians fleeing and resulted in scores of civilian deaths. Israel says Hamas endangers civilians by hiding in residential areas.
The military also said it staged a series of drills this week along the border.
“The mission is clear,” said Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, who heads Israel’s Northern Command. “We are determined to change the security reality as soon as possible.” A ‘new phase’ of war
The military movements have been accompanied by heightened rhetoric from Israel’s leaders, who say their patience is running thin.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday night declared the start of a ” new phase” of the war as Israel turns its focus toward Hezbollah. “The center of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces,” he said.
He spoke a day after Israel’s Cabinet made the return of displaced residents to their homes in northern Israel a formal goal of the war. The move was largely symbolic — Israeli leaders have long pledged to bring those residents home. But elevating the significance of the aim signaled a tougher stance.
After meeting Wednesday with top security officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “We will return the residents of the north securely to their homes.”
Netanyahu delivered a similarly tough message with a top US envoy sent to the region this week to soothe tensions.
An official with knowledge of the encounter told The Associated Press that the envoy, Amos Hochstein, told Netanyahu that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help return evacuated Israelis back home.
Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office, told Hochstein that residents cannot return without “a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The statement said that while Netanyahu “appreciates and respects” US support, Israel will “do what is necessary to safeguard its security.” Is war inevitable?
Israeli media reported Wednesday that the government has not yet decided whether to launch a major offensive in Lebanon.
Much, it seems, will depend on Hezbollah’s response. The group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is expected to deliver a major speech on Thursday.
But public sentiment in Israel seems to be supportive of tougher action against Hezbollah.
A recent poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, found that 67 percent of Jewish respondents thought Israel should intensify its response to Hezbollah. The majority believed Israel should launch a deep offensive that includes striking Lebanese infrastructure.
“There’s a lot of pressure from the society to go to war and win,” said Avivi, the retired general. “Unless Hezbollah tomorrow morning says, ‘OK, we got the message. We’re pulling out of south Lebanon,’ war is imminent.”
Such a war would almost certainly prove devastating to both sides.
Already, more than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes since Oct. 8, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and other armed groups but also more than 100 civilians. In northern Israel, at least 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed by strikes from Lebanon.
Israel inflicted heavy damage on Lebanon during a monthlong war against Hezbollah in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Israeli leaders have threatened even tougher action this time around, vowing to repeat the scenes of destruction from Gaza in Lebanon.
But Hezbollah also has built up its capabilities since 2006. Hezbollah has an estimated 150,000 rockets and missiles, some believed to have guidance systems that could threaten sensitive targets in Israel. It has also developed an increasingly sophisticated fleet of drones.
Capable of striking all parts of Israel, Hezbollah could bring life in Israel to a standstill and send hundreds of thousands of Israelis fleeing.
