Iran accuses Israel of ‘mass murder’ after pager explosions
Iran accuses Israel of ‘mass murder’ after pager explosions/node/2571851/middle-east
Iran accuses Israel of ‘mass murder’ after pager explosions
A person is carried on a stretcher outside American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) as people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded and killed when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon. (File/Reuters)
Iran accuses Israel of ‘mass murder’ after pager explosions
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was among the wounded
Iranian Red Crescent dispatches “rescue teams and eye surgeons” to Lebanon to treat the wounded
Updated 18 September 2024
AFP
TEHRAN: Iran accused Israel on Wednesday of “mass murder” after paging devices belonging to the Tehran-aligned Hezbollah group in Lebanon exploded, killing nine people and wounding nearly 3,000 others.
Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement he “condemned the terrorist act of the Zionist regime... as an example of mass murder.”
Among those wounded in the pager blasts on Tuesday was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani, with Iranian media reporting he suffered injuries “to the hand and the face.”
State television said that Amani was only lightly injured.
The Iranian Red Crescent said on Wednesday it had dispatched “rescue teams and eye surgeons” to Lebanon to treat the wounded.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the wave of explosions that killed nine people, including the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, and wounded around 2,800 others.
The blasts came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks to include its fight against the group’s ally Hezbollah along the country’s border with Lebanon.
In his statement, Kanani expressed solidarity with the families of those killed and wounded in the explosions including the Iranian ambassador.
“Combating the terrorist acts of the (Israeli) regime and the threats arising from them is an obvious necessity,” said Kanani.
“It is necessary for the international community to act quickly in order to counter the impunity of the Zionist criminal authorities.”
How a Lebanese researcher is using visual data to map Israeli military’s use of white phosphorus
White phosphorus is used to create smokescreens on battlefields, but its misuse has many public health implications
Ahmad Baydoun maps Israel’s use of the chemical compound in southern Lebanon to document its environmental impact
Updated 14 sec ago
Nadia Al-Faour
DUBAI: When Ahmad Baydoun left Lebanon in 2022 to pursue a PhD on weaponized environments in Amsterdam, he did not anticipate his research would soon become essential in documenting devastation in his homeland.
His work has gained significance in the wake of escalating violence in Lebanon’s south, where reports allege Israeli forces have used white phosphorus in populated areas with severe consequences for the environment and public health.
White phosphorus is an incendiary substance known for emitting bright light, intense burning and thick smoke.
A view of M825 and M825A1 artillery shells labeled D528, the US Department of Defense Identification Code for "white phosphorus-based munitions" in Sderot, Israel on October 09, 2023. (Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Although it is permissible under international law to use phosphorus to obscure military movements, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits deploying it near civilians.
Using geolocated visual data to trace the environmental impact of military tactics, Baydoun has been documenting Israel’s use of white phosphorus in southern Lebanon, both to bear witness and to demand accountability.
“Geolocation humanizes those affected and gives precision,” Baydoun told Arab News. “It’s hard to look away when you see the impact on people’s homes and landscapes.”
FASTFACTS
• White phosphorus is a chemical substance that ignites upon exposure to oxygen, creating intense, long-lasting flames and thick smoke.
• It is used militarily to obscure movement, mark targets and create smokescreens on battlefields.
• Contact with white phosphorus causes severe burns, respiratory damage and eye irritation, and it can be fatal if inhaled or absorbed.
Baydoun’s journey from academia to advocacy was unexpected. His fascination with architectural policies and conflict initially revolved around how built environments could be manipulated for control and exclusion during wartime.
However, when cross-border exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia began on Oct. 8, 2023, the situation demanded a response.
Wounded Lebanese child Haidar Hijazi, 5, rests at hospital in Sidon on September 27, 2024, after he was injured following an Israeli airstrike that targeted his home village of al-Sharkiyah in southern Lebanon. (AFP)
Hezbollah began firing rockets into populated areas of northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas, prompting Israel to retaliate.
In northern Israel, the conflict has forced some 96,000 people to leave their homes. To date, 68 Israeli security personnel and 43 civilians have been killed, according to official tallies.
Israel’s campaign of airstrikes and “limited” ground operations have displaced more than a million Lebanese from their homes, while the death toll has surpassed 3,000, according to health officials.
Members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol the southern Lebanese Marjayoun district, near the border with Israel, on October 16, 2024. (AFP)
Baydoun shifted from theoretical work to real-time monitoring, using satellite imagery, social media, and data verification to map alleged phosphorus attacks on Lebanese villages.
The Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research estimates that 117 phosphoric bombs have been fired into southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold, since October 2023. Many of these have reportedly sparked fires, engulfing fields, forests and villages.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Environment has previously said some 462 hectares of forests and farmland were destroyed between October and November 2023. The Ministry of Health has also called on the international community to condemn the use of white phosphorus and to intervene.
The devastation and destruction of many villages along the Blue Line, and even beyond, is shocking, says Andrea Tenenti, UNIFIL spokesperson
Despite Israel’s insistence that its use of phosphorus serves only as a smokescreen to shield its soldiers’ movements, local Lebanese officials say the weapons are part of a larger strategy to render the area uninhabitable, pushing residents to evacuate en masse.
The use of white phosphorus in populated areas is not just a violation of international law, but a public health threat. When it comes into contact with the skin, it causes extreme, often fatal, burns. It also produces thick fumes that irritate the eyes and respiratory system.
Wounds caused by phosphorus burns can continue to inflict damage days after exposure, requiring extensive medical care — often unavailable in the midst of conflict.
Ahmad Baydoun. (Supplied)
Mental health issues also proliferate among survivors, with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and insomnia becoming prevalent. The persistent psychological impact, especially for children, is immense and underreported.
The environmental damage is equally far-reaching. When the chemical compound seeps into the soil, it contaminates vegetation and crops, potentially rendering large areas of farmland unusable.
Additionally, chemicals can leach into rivers and water systems, destroying biodiversity and threatening communities reliant on these resources.
People watch as a smoke cloud erupts after a rocket fired by an Israeli war plane hit a building in Beirut's southern suburb of Shayah on October 22, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah. (AFP)
“We’re not just talking about Lebanon,” said Baydoun. “If these areas aren’t detoxified, we’ll see consequences across the region. Lebanese agricultural exports could carry these toxins, affecting ecosystems and markets beyond our borders.”
Agriculture makes up a significant part of Lebanon’s economy. The contamination of farmland in Lebanon’s south — an area once responsible for much of the country’s crop production — could deal a severe blow to the local economy and food security.
Farmers in southern Lebanon, many already impoverished, face the loss of homes and livelihoods. The destruction of olive groves, citrus orchards and wheat fields reduces local sustenance and regional exports, deepening Lebanon’s economic crisis.
Fire sweep over the Marjayoun plain in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel after being hit by Israeli shelling on August 16, 2024, amid the ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
While Baydoun works from Amsterdam, his research methods allow him to follow developments closely.
He employs techniques such as geolocation, where he uses digital imagery and coordinates to pinpoint attacks, and chronolocation, a process of using environmental cues like shadow lengths to estimate times.
These tools help him cross-verify incidents with reliable satellite data, providing accurate, real-time assessments.
A farmer collects his dead livestock which was killed by Israeli bombardment that hit a farm along the hills of the village of Jezzine in southern Lebanon early on July 8, 2024 amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
“Verifying attacks can be complex given how rife misinformation and AI manipulation have become,” said Baydoun. “But every precise verification adds to a larger story — one that’s too compelling to ignore.”
He is not alone in his commitment to these methods. Collaborating with digital investigative platforms, Baydoun joins a global community of researchers dedicated to documenting environmental violence.
Together, they expose patterns of harm that may otherwise remain concealed.
Medical staff care for victims after the Israeli military struck a Beirut's southern suburb, on July 30, 2024, at Bahman hospital. (AFP)
Baydoun also works closely with Lebanese journalist-activists, who help him obtain localized information from remote areas that journalists can no longer access due to safety concerns.
“No one is there to report on what is happening in the south anymore,” said Baydoun. “There is only the UN Interim Force in Lebanon and satellite imagery as sources of information.
“I have previously worked on a map showing how close Israel was bombing near the UN peacekeepers in the area. The peacekeeping forces suffered from gastrointestinal complications, and skin irritations; both are unique effects of exposure to white phosphorus.”
UNIFIL is a UN peacekeeping mission established in 1978 to administer the Blue Line demarking the border between Israel and Lebanon.
Despite spokesperson Andrea Tenenti previously saying that an investigation had found “possible traces of the use of white phosphorus” in close proximity to a UNIFIL base, a confidential report recently published by the Financial Times has been more damning.
The report mentions various incidents where Israeli forces have mounted attacks on or near UNIFIL bases in Lebanon. In one incident, the Israel Defense Forces reportedly used white phosphorus at close range, injuring 15 UN peacekeepers in the process.
The report details the attack of Oct. 13, in which two Israeli tanks breached the main gate of a UNIFIL base and remained inside for 45 minutes. Shortly after, the IDF fired shells approximately 100 meters north of the base, emitting “suspected white phosphorus smoke,” which injured UNIFIL personnel.
“Despite putting on protective masks, 15 peacekeepers suffered effects, including skin irritation and gastrointestinal reactions after the smoke entered the camp,” the report said.
Israel denied directly striking the compound and said the IDF was using the smokescreen for cover as it attempted to evacuate soldiers.
Israel had previously demanded the withdrawal of the UNIFIL peacekeepers from 31 of their bases along the Israeli-Lebanese border, as the areas had become “active combat zones.”
The international community has faced criticism for its muted response to Israel’s use of white phosphorus in Lebanon.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have condemned the use of white phosphorus in densely populated regions in previous conflicts, but statements from world leaders have yet to directly address the allegations in Lebanon.
For Baydoun, his work on the subject serves as both documentation and advocacy. His research could prove critical, providing an account of Lebanon’s suffering that would otherwise go unseen. But the toll is personal, too.
“I’ve had my share of sleepless nights,” he said. “Emotions run high when attacks happen close to loved ones. You’re working for your country, and it’s hard to stop.”
Gaza mother struggling to feed children says only death can end their suffering
Updated 6 min 48 sec ago
Reuters
GAZA: Itimad Al-Qanou, a Palestinian mother struggling to feed her seven children, feels abandoned by everyone.
She sometimes feels that death is the best way to end her family’s suffering after a year of war that has turned Gaza into a bombed-out wasteland gripped by hunger.
“Let them drop a nuclear bomb and end it. We don’t want this life we’re living; we are dying slowly. Have mercy on us. Look at these children,” said the mother of three boys and four girls aged between eight and 18.
Children in their town of Deir Al-Balah crowd at a charity site with empty pots, desperate for nourishment. Aid workers distribute lentil soup from a pot. But it is never enough to stave off hunger and ease widespread panic.
Qanou says her family faces the Israeli airstrikes that have killed tens of thousands of people and flattened much of Gaza on the one side, and hunger on the other.
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid were allowed through the Erez crossing into northern Gaza on Monday.
The US will decide this week on whether Israel has made progress toward improving the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and how Washington will respond.
Global food security experts said there is a “strong likelihood” that famine is imminent in parts of northern Gaza as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants there.
In response to the famine warning, the head of the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon.
Aside from the hunger, Gazans say they have no place to go that is safe after repeated evacuations left them living in tent encampments until they need to move again to escape more strikes.
Some say their plight is even worse than the 1948 “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were dispossessed of their homes.
With the war in Gaza now in its 14th month, Israel is focusing its operations in the north and centre in what it says is a campaign to stop Hamas militants waging attacks and to prevent them from regrouping.
Lebanon says Israeli strike on far north kills at least 8
“The Israeli enemy strike on Ain Yaacoub in Akkar killed eight people and injured 14 others,” the health ministry said in a statement
Local official Rony Al-Hage said “displaced people lived in the two-story house”
Updated 12 min 32 sec ago
AFP
BEIRUT: Lebanon said an Israeli strike on the northernmost Akkar region killed at least eight people Monday in one of the farthest attacks from the Israeli border since war erupted in September.
A security official told AFP the target of the strike was a Hezbollah member who was part of a displaced family from south Lebanon that had moved into the building.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Ain Yaacoub in Akkar killed eight people and injured 14 others,” the health ministry said in a statement, giving what it said was a preliminary toll.
Earlier, Lebanese state-run media said Israel struck a house in Ain Yaacoub, a village inhabited mostly by Sunni Muslims and Christians that is far from the Iran-backed Hezbollah’s traditional bastions.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its air campaign against Hezbollah, mainly targeting the group’s strongholds in Lebanon’s east and south and south Beirut, and very rarely in the north.
“An enemy strike targeted a house in the village of Ain Yaacoub,” some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Israel, said Lebanon’s official National News Agency.
Local official Rony Al-Hage told AFP that “displaced people lived in the two-story house,” and that it was the northernmost Israeli attack since the full-blown war erupted.
After Israel ramped up its campaign of air raids, it also sent ground troops into south Lebanon on September 30.
“Rescue and rubble-removing operations are still ongoing,” Hage said.
Residents of a nearby village heard a loud explosion and ambulance sirens.
A local Facebook page broadcast a live video feed it said was from the scene that showed a destroyed house, with people removing rubble with their bare hands and using their phones as flashlights.
The health ministry earlier said an Israeli strike on the southern town of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven people.
On Sunday, the ministry said an Israeli strike killed 23 people, including seven children, in the village of Almat north of the capital.
The Lebanon war erupted after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. That attack triggered the ongoing Gaza war.
More than 3,240 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border fire began last year, according to the health ministry, with most of the deaths coming since late September.
The OL-1 satellite, equipped with artificial intelligence technologies, was launched into space by the Chinese rocket manufacturer CAS Space
Updated 11 November 2024
Arab News
LONDON: Omani space startup Oman Lens launched the country’s first full-fledged satellite, which will enable Muscat to collect data and detailed images for urban planning, forestry monitoring, and disaster management.
The OL-1 satellite, equipped with artificial intelligence technologies, was launched into space by the Chinese rocket manufacturer CAS Space from the Gobi Desert on Monday and was registered under Oman’s name at the International Telecommunication Organization.
OL-1 is the country’s first advanced and locally developed optical satellite for artificial intelligence computing, specializing in remote sensing and earth observation capabilities, the Oman News Agency reported.
It is fully prepared to monitor Oman from space, capture high-resolution images in real time, collect detailed images of Oman’s landscapes, infrastructure and natural resources, and transmit data faster than traditional satellites.
The launch of the OL-1 satellite was the outcome of a strategic partnership between Star Vision, a Chinese aerospace company, and the Omani government-owned Mars Development and Investment Co., to serve public and private sectors in the country as part of Oman Vision 2040, which aims to diversify the economy.
Oman Lens is planning to launch a constellation of satellites over the next five years, develop new technologies for smart cities, and enhance data analysis in cooperation with its partners, ONA reported.
In November 2020, Oman pledged to launch its first satellite into space in 2024, saying that the private sector was to take the initiative to achieve this goal.
New Israel FM says Palestinian state not ‘realistic’
“I don’t think this position is realistic today and we must be realistic,” the newly appointed minister said
A Palestinian state would be “a Hamas state,” Saar added
Updated 11 November 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday rejected the establishment of a Palestinian state as a “realistic” goal, after Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas reiterated his commitment to a “sovereign” country.
“I don’t think this position is realistic today and we must be realistic,” the newly appointed minister said in response to a question about the creation of a Palestinian state in exchange for a normalization of ties between Israel and Arab countries.
The normalization drive was a part of the 2020 Abraham Accords overseen by Donald Trump, and the process could resume after the president-elect returns to the White House in January.
A Palestinian state would be “a Hamas state,” Saar added of the Palestinian militant group in Gaza with which Israel has been at war for more than a year.
Abbas, in comments carried by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, said Sunday that “security and stability” could only be achieved with the establishment of “sovereignty and independence on the land of the Palestinian state.”
The Palestinian Authority leader was speaking ahead of the 20th anniversary Monday of the death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Abbas also reaffirmed his push for “peace, and we will continue to work to achieve it.”
As Saar spoke in Jerusalem, Arab and Muslim leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia for a summit addressing the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is also fighting Hamas ally Hezbollah.
A draft resolution at the summit stressed “firm support” for “national rights” for the Palestinian people, “foremost among which is their right to freedom and to an independent, sovereign state.”
The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 43,603 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, began firing on Israel after the October 7 attack.
The regular cross-border exchanges escalated in late September when Israel intensified its air strikes and later sent ground troops into southern Lebanon.
