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Blinken urges Israel to ‘capitalize’ on Sinwar death and reach Gaza truce

Blinken urges Israel to ‘capitalize’ on Sinwar death and reach Gaza truce
Israeli deplomat Gil Haskel (L) welcomes US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as he disembarks from his plane upon arrival at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Oct. 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 26 min 41 sec ago
AFP
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Blinken urges Israel to ‘capitalize’ on Sinwar death and reach Gaza truce

Blinken urges Israel to ‘capitalize’ on Sinwar death and reach Gaza truce
  • Blinken also pressed for more aid to be allowed into the Palestinian territory as concerns rise
  • The trip comes little more than a week after the United States threatened to withhold some US aid without progress in delivering assistance to Palestinians
Updated 26 min 41 sec ago
AFP
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JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday to seize on the killing of Hamas’s leader to work toward a Gaza ceasefire.
Blinken also pressed for more aid to be allowed into the Palestinian territory as concerns rise for tens of thousands of civilians trapped by fighting in the hard-to-reach north.
Blinken “underscored the need to capitalize on Israel’s successful action to bring Yahya Sinwar to justice by securing the release of all hostages and ending the conflict in Gaza in a way that provides lasting security for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said after the talks in Jerusalem.
Blinken also “emphasized the need for Israel to take additional steps to increase and sustain the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure that assistance reaches civilians throughout Gaza,” Miller said.
The trip comes little more than a week after the United States threatened to withhold some US aid without progress in delivering assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has described a catastrophic situation.
Blinken is paying his 11th visit to the region since the unprecedented October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas which prompted a relentless Israeli military operation in Gaza.
With the US election just two weeks away, President Joe Biden asked Blinken to return to press for progress, seeing new hope after Israel’s killing of Sinwar, the October 7 mastermind who was described by US officials as intransigent in negotiations.
Blinken on previous trips has sought to prevent the conflict from escalating into a regional war. But Israel since last month has been striking across Lebanon to destroy Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran’s clerical rulers.
Miller said Blinken again called for a “diplomatic resolution” in Lebanon and compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006 which called for the long-term disarmament of Hezbollah but also a withdrawal of Israeli forces from its northern neighbor.

Topics: War on Gaza US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken Yahya Al-Sinwar Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Hamas

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Lebanon needs $250m a month for displaced, minister says ahead of Paris summit

Lebanon needs $250m a month for displaced, minister says ahead of Paris summit
Updated 14 sec ago
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Lebanon needs $250m a month for displaced, minister says ahead of Paris summit

Lebanon needs $250m a month for displaced, minister says ahead of Paris summit
Updated 14 sec ago
BEIRUT: Lebanon will need $250 million a month to help more than a million people displaced by Israeli attacks, its minister in charge of responding to the crisis said on Tuesday, ahead of a conference on Thursday in Paris to rally support for Lebanon.
Nasser Yassin told Reuters the government response, helped by local initiatives and international aid, only covered 20 percent of the needs of some 1.3 million people uprooted from their homes and sheltering in public buildings or with relatives.
Those needs are likely to grow, as daily waves of airstrikes push more people out of their homes and leave Lebanon’s government scrambling to find ways to house them, Yassin said.
“We need $250 million a month” to cover basic food, water, sanitation and education services for the displaced, he said.
Schools, an old slaughterhouse, a fresh food market, an empty complex — all of them have been turned into collective shelters in recent days. “We’re transforming anything, any public building,” Yassin said. “There is a lot to be done.”
Yassin — whose official mandate as environment minister meant he was working on preventing forest fires before the current conflict broke out a year ago — now spends much of his time at government headquarters with a crisis team, including other Lebanese ministries, the United Nations Development Programme and the Lebanese Red Cross.
They are planning for relief operations on a timeline of four to six months — but Yassin hopes the spreading war will end sooner.
“We need to have a ceasefire today, and we need everybody in the international community, for once...to be brave enough to say what’s happening,” he told Reuters, a message he said he would stress in Paris.
“There is a member state of the UN waging war against a small nation in the most aggressive manner we’ve ever seen in the history of Lebanon. This should be the message,” he said.
Yassin said he estimated the damage to Lebanon to be in the billions of dollars.
“Full villages on the border were blown up in the last few days, but also public institutions...water establishments, pumping stations, hospitals, you name it. All of these need to be rebuilt.”
Lebanese authorities have yet to put a firm estimate on the scale of destruction across Lebanon and how much money it will take to rebuild. Nasser Saidi, a former economy minister, told Reuters last week that Israel’s bombing campaign has caused damage that will cost $25 billion to repair.
UNDP’s regional representative Blerta Aliko said on Tuesday the damage would be far-reaching and include “a drastic capital loss” — including to Lebanon’s ability to feed itself long-term.
“I’m not talking from the perspective of what is required in an immediate term, in the next month — I’m talking about the impact that has on the harvesting season ... being impacted in the south, being impacted in the east, which are very, very important for the country,” she said.

Turkiye’s Halkbank not immune from US prosecution in Iran sanctions case

Turkiye’s Halkbank not immune from US prosecution in Iran sanctions case
Updated 22 October 2024
Reuters
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Turkiye’s Halkbank not immune from US prosecution in Iran sanctions case

Turkiye’s Halkbank not immune from US prosecution in Iran sanctions case
  • No basis in common law for a foreign state-owned corporation to be absolutely immune from US prosecution
Updated 22 October 2024
Reuters

NEW YORK: A US appeals court on Tuesday rejected a request by Turkiye’s state-owned Halkbank for immunity from US criminal charges that it helped Iran evade American sanctions.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said it found no basis in common law for a foreign state-owned corporation to be absolutely immune from US prosecution for alleged criminal conduct related to its commercial activities.

Topics: Turkiye Halkbank US court Iran

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Israel arrests seven Jerusalem residents over alleged Iran assassination plot

Israel arrests seven Jerusalem residents over alleged Iran assassination plot
Updated 22 October 2024
Reuters
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Israel arrests seven Jerusalem residents over alleged Iran assassination plot

Israel arrests seven Jerusalem residents over alleged Iran assassination plot
  • The incident is the fifth case involving attempted assassinations directed by Iranian intelligence that has been thwarted
  • The seven suspects are residents of the mainly Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa in Jerusalem
Updated 22 October 2024
Reuters

JERUSALEM: Israel’s security forces have arrested seven Jerusalem residents over allegations they were planning to assassinate Israeli officials and carry out other attacks on behalf of Iran’s intelligence service, the Shin Bet and police said on Tuesday.
The incident is the fifth case involving attempted assassinations directed by Iranian intelligence that has been thwarted by Israeli security services in the past month, a joint police and Shin Bet statement said.
The seven suspects, residents of the mainly Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa in Jerusalem, were planning to carry out the assassination of a senior Israeli scientist and the mayor of a major city in Israel which was not named, the statement said.
“Scientists and mayors, as well as senior members of the security establishment and other senior Israeli officials, are attack targets by Iranian elements,” a senior Shin Bet source said separately, citing information from the security services.
Iran’s foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.
The security services’ investigation also established that the suspects were also tasked with blowing up a police vehicle and throwing a grenade into a house with a promise of receiving 200,000 shekels, the statement said.
One of the suspects, a 23-year old, was in contact with a foreign entity. The individual subsequently recruited a ring of helpers who set fire to a vehicle in Jerusalem, sprayed graffiti at various locations and gathered intelligence in Israel at the direction of Iranian officials abroad.
During a search of the suspects’ homes, security forces found 50,000 shekels ($13,240) in cash, a fake police car license plate and various credit cards.
Their detention was extended until Oct. 24 and an indictment was expected to be served by the Jerusalem district prosecutor’s office for “serious security offenses,” the statement said.
On Monday, Israel’s security services said they had broken up a spy ring gathering information for Iranian intelligence, which followed a separate arrest in September of an Israeli citizen suspected of involvement in an Iran-backed assassination plot against prominent people including the prime minister.
Israel has a long history of intelligence operations in Iran, allegedly including the assassination in July of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in a Tehran state guesthouse. Israel has made no claim of responsibility for that killing.

Topics: Israel Iran

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Hezbollah claims drone attack on Israeli PM’s residence

Hezbollah claims drone attack on Israeli PM’s residence
Updated 22 October 2024
AFP
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Hezbollah claims drone attack on Israeli PM’s residence

Hezbollah claims drone attack on Israeli PM’s residence
  • Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif made the remarks during a press conference in Beirut’s southern suburbs that was cut short following an Israeli evacuation warning
  • Hezbollah “declares its full, complete and exclusive responsibility for the Caesarea operation targeting... Netanyahu,” Afif said
Updated 22 October 2024
AFP

BEIRUT: Hezbollah claimed responsibility Tuesday for a drone attack last week targeting the home of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and acknowledged that some of its fighters have been take captive by the Israeli army.
Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif made the remarks during a press conference in Beirut’s southern suburbs that was cut short following an Israeli evacuation warning for the area.
An Israeli strike hit a target hundreds of meters (yards) away from the site of the conference just minutes after journalists left, an AFP video journalist said.
Hezbollah “declares its full, complete and exclusive responsibility for the Caesarea operation targeting... Netanyahu,” Afif said.
On Saturday, Netanyahu accused Hezbollah of attempting to assassinate him and his wife after a drone was launched toward his residence in the central town of Caesarea.
Afif also acknowledged that some of the group’s fighters were captured by the Israeli army without giving numbers.
“On the issue of captives currently held by the enemy, I say: I know that the enemy is not committed to the ethics of war and international conventions but it bears the responsibility of preserving the lives of the captives,” Afif said.
Previously, the Israeli army said it has captured a total of four Hezbollah fighters since the start of its ground offensive in Lebanon, and released video footage it said showed one of them answering questions.
Afif also said the group’s micro-financing firm Al-Qard Al-Hassan took all necessary precautions ahead of Israeli strikes last week, vowing to “fulfil its obligations” toward depositors.
The firm “had anticipated such... an aggression and has taken all precautions and will do everything that is necessary to fulfil its obligations toward depositors,” he said.

Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Hezbollah Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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Erdogan vows to pursue late cleric Gulen's followers

Erdogan vows to pursue late cleric Gulen's followers
Updated 22 October 2024
AFP
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Erdogan vows to pursue late cleric Gulen's followers

Erdogan vows to pursue late cleric Gulen's followers
  • "These traitors managed to escape Turkish justice thanks to the ones who protect them," Erdogan said
  • Erdogan accused Gulen of organising a failed 2016 coup against him
Updated 22 October 2024
AFP

ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday condemned late preacher Fethullah Gulen and his followers as traitors and vowed to pursue them globally, following the influential cleric's death in exile.
"These traitors managed to escape Turkish justice thanks to the ones who protect them. They left without being held to account for the martyrs' blood they shed. But they will not be able to escape divine justice," Erdogan said in a televised address.
Gulen was once a close ally of Erdogan but the two became bitter enemies.
Erdogan accused Gulen of organising a failed 2016 coup against him.
Gulen moved to Pennsylvania in 1999, ostensibly for health reasons, and from there ran his Hizmet movement, which once operated 4,000 schools in Turkey and 500 others around the world.
The charismatic preacher, who was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 2017, died in hospital on Sunday in the United States.
He fell out with Erdogan in 2013 and three years later the Turkish strongman accused him of masterminding the coup, dubbing Hizmet "the Fethullah Terror Organisation" (FETO).
"We will continue our fight against Feto," Erdogan said on Tuesday.
"Whether it is in Turkey or in the farthest corner of the world, we will be on the back of the FETO hyena pack".

Topics: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Fethullah Gulen

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