Israel slams UN expert over ‘eradication’ of Palestinians claim

UN rights expert Francesca Albanese wrote in a report that ‘the genocide of the Palestinians appears to be the means to an end.’ (AFP file photo)

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Updated 30 October 2024

AFP

October 30, 2024 09:57

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Israel slams UN expert over ‘eradication’ of Palestinians claim

UN rights expert Francesca Albanese said Israel was committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza
Israel’s mission in Geneva: ‘This distorted reality is a smokescreen to hide her hatred for Israel’

Updated 30 October 2024

AFP

October 30, 2024 09:57

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GENEVA: Outspoken UN rights expert Francesca Albanese is a “political activist” abusing her mandate “to hide her hatred for Israel,” the country’s mission in Geneva charged Wednesday.
Albanese, UN special rapporteur on rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, reiterated an allegation that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza, saying it is seeking the “eradication of Palestinians” from their land.
Albanese said the offensive Israel unleashed after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks was “part of a long-term international, systematic state-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians.”
Israel’s Geneva UN mission said in a statement: “According to her hate-filled paradigm, the state of Israel has no historic reason to exist, no right to defend its population, and both the attack of October 7 and the rescue of hostages are merely used by Israel as an excuse.
“This distorted reality is a smokescreen to hide her hatred for Israel.
“Francesca Albanese is nothing but a political activist who abuses an already discriminatory UN mandate. She is regularly spewing anti-Semitism, shielding and encouraging terrorism, and distorting the law.
“As a UN mandate holder, she has breached every possible rule of the UN code of conduct. She must immediately be held accountable for her continuous abuses.”
Albanese has long faced harsh criticism, allegations of anti-Semitism and demands for her removal, from Israel and some of its allies, over her relentless criticism and longstanding accusations of “genocide.”
UN special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the Human Rights Council. They do not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself.
On October 7 last year, Hamas militants attacked inside Israel resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN considers the figures reliable.
Albanese wrote in a report released Tuesday: “The genocide of the Palestinians appears to be the means to an end: the complete removal or eradication of Palestinians from the land so integral to their identity, and which is illegally and openly coveted by Israel.
“Since its establishment, Israel has treated the occupied people as a hated encumbrance and threat to be eradicated, subjecting millions of Palestinians, for generations, to everyday indignities, mass killing, mass incarceration, forced displacement, racial segregation and apartheid.”
Israel’s long-thorny relationship with the UN has also worsened since the Gaza war started.

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Topics: War on Gaza Gaza Israel Francesca Albanese

Houthis deploy hundreds of troops and weapons, including missiles, in Taiz province

Updated 10 sec ago

Saeed Al-Batati

October 30, 2024 19:58

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Houthis deploy hundreds of troops and weapons, including missiles, in Taiz province

Yemen’s internationally recognized government again appeals to international community for help to stabilize plummeting currency
Military official says Houthis are preparing to launch offensive in government-controlled areas and have installed ballistic missile systems in the mountains

Updated 10 sec ago

Saeed Al-Batati

October 30, 2024 19:58

AL-MUKALLA: The Houthis have deployed hundreds of fighters and military equipment in Yemen’s southern province of Taiz, the Yemeni army said on Wednesday.

It came as the country’s internationally recognized government repeated an appeal to the international community for financial assistance to stabilize the country’s declining currency.

Abdul Basit Al-Baher, a military official in Taiz, told Arab News that the Houthis deployed fighters equipped with various types of weapons, including drones, tanks, artillery and ballistic missiles, in areas under their control in the north, northeast and west of the province, primarily outside the besieged city of Taiz and areas near government-controlled towns on the Red Sea coast, such as Mocha.

He said he believes the Houthis are preparing to launch an offensive in these areas and have installed ballistic missile systems in underground facilities along the Auman and Al-Ula mountains.

“The goal of the Houthis’ mobilization of forces and weapons may not be Taiz but they will be participating in the battle of Iran, heading to Bab Al-Mandab and Mocha and possibly deploying weapons at the nearest point to the sea to threaten international navigation,” Al-Baher added.

Government troops repelled seven Houthi attacks on their positions in the past three days, he revealed.

The Houthis said they were staging military drills and training exercises, and deploying forces and military equipment in areas under their control as part of their campaign to “fight off Israel and the US.”

Yemeni government officials and critics of the militia have repeatedly accused the Houthis of exploiting the outrage in Yemen over the deaths of thousands of Palestinians as a result of Israel’s war in Gaza to recruit more fighters, deploy forces and weapons in contested areas, and divert attention from the growing public resentment over the Houthi control of parts of the country and their failure to pay salaries to public-sector workers.

Rashad Al-Alimi, chairperson of the nation’s Presidential Leadership Council, once again asked the international community to help his government stabilize Yemen’s currency after the riyal hit a new low against the dollar.

During a meeting in Riyadh on Wednesday with Abda Sharif, the British ambassador to Yemen, Al-Alimi said he is seeking international financial assistance for his government’s plan to rescue the economy and halt the slide of the currency, the official state news agency reported.

In the past two weeks, the riyal has fallen to an all-time low of 2,050 against the dollar in government-controlled areas. It was trading at about 215 to the dollar in 2014 when the war broke out and the Houthis took control of the capital, Sanaa.

The depreciation of the currency has increased the costs of food, fuel and transportation, sparking angry protests. Public employees have said that their salaries are paid weeks late and have lost much of their value because of the high inflation.

The Yemeni government has said it has lost $6 billion in revenue since late 2022, when the Houthis attacked oil terminals in the provinces of Hadramout and Shabwa, halting oil exports.

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Topics: Yemen Taiz Houthis

New Hezbollah chief open to truce with Israel if offer is made

Updated 39 min 36 sec ago

AFP

October 30, 2024 16:17

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New Hezbollah chief open to truce with Israel if offer is made

Naim Qassem: ‘If the Israelis decide that they want to stop the aggression, we say we accept, but under the conditions that we see as appropriate and suitable’
Qassem insisted Hezbollah would not ‘beg for a ceasefire,’ however, and warned that it had not yet received a credible proposition

Updated 39 min 36 sec ago

AFP

October 30, 2024 16:17

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Hezbollah’s new leader says the beleaguered Lebanese militia could agree to a ceasefire under certain terms, as Israeli forces warn civilians to flee more cities as they expand their bombardment of the group’s bastions.
His statement came as Israel’s security cabinet met to discuss a possible truce, but also as Israel attacked the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek and said it had claimed the scalp of yet another senior Hezbollah commander.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem became leader of the Iran-backed armed movement on Tuesday, after the long-serving former chief Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated by Israel in a massive air strike last month.
In his first speech since taking over, Qassem insisted he would follow his slain predecessor’s “work program” and that Hezbollah could continue to resist Israel’s air and ground attacks inside Lebanon for months to come.
But he also opened the door to a negotiated truce, if presented with an Israeli offer.
“If the Israelis decide that they want to stop the aggression, we say we accept, but under the conditions that we see as appropriate and suitable,” he said.
Qassem insisted Hezbollah would not “beg for a ceasefire,” however, and warned that it had not yet received a credible proposition.
Meanwhile, in a sign of political machinations behind the scenes of the devastating military conflict, Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said the country’s security cabinet was meeting to discuss what terms it might offer to secure a truce.
“There are discussions, I think it will still take time,” Cohen told Israeli public radio.
According to Israel’s Channel 12 television, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks with ministers on Tuesday evening on Israel’s demands in return for a 60-day truce.
These include that Hezbollah withdraw to the north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli frontier, and that the Lebanese state’s army deploy along the border.
An international intervention mechanism would be established to enforce the truce, but Israel would demand a guarantee that it will maintain freedom of action in case of threats.
“Thanks to all the army’s operations these past months and particularly these past weeks ... Israel can come in a position of strength after the entire Hezbollah leadership was eliminated and over 2,000 Hezbollah terrorist infrastructures were hit,” said Cohen, a former intelligence minister.
According to Israeli media, US President Joe Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk and special envoy Amos Hochstein will head to the region Wednesday to meet Netanyahu and other Israeli officials to discuss conditions for a ceasefire with Hezbollah.
Their goal is to implement the deal prepared by Hochstein, which is reported to be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
Under the resolution, which ended Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006, only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL would be deployed in areas south of the Litani.
On the ground explosions rocked the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek shortly after Israel’s military warned residents it would “act forcefully against Hezbollah interests within your city and villages.”
Baalbek mayor Mustafa Al-Shall confirmed strikes hit in and around the city, while state media said “enemy warplanes launched a series of strikes on the Asira area of the city of Baalbek.”
The war in Lebanon began late last month, nearly a year after Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border fire into Israel in support of Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, although the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.
Israel’s military says it has lost 37 soldiers in Lebanon since ground operations began on September 30.
In the year-old parallel conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, there were more deadly strikes on Wednesday, as international mediators prepared to propose a short-term truce to free hostages and avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
News of a potential breakthrough in truce talks came a day after an Israeli strike on a single Gaza residential block killed nearly 100 people and triggered international revulsion.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have for months been trying to negotiate a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to allow a prisoner swap, humanitarian access and talks on a longer-term peace.
Israel’s Mossad spy chief David Barnea, CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani held their latest round of secretive talks on Sunday and Monday in Doha.
On Wednesday, a source close to the talks told AFP on condition of anonymity that the senior officials discussed proposing to the parties a “short-term” truce of “less than a month.”
The proposal included the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, and an increase in aid to Gaza, the source added.
“US officials believe that if a short-term deal can be reached, it could lead to a more permanent agreement,” the source said.
A Hamas official said the group would discuss any ideas for a Gaza ceasefire that included an Israeli withdrawal, but had not officially received any comprehensive proposals.
A strike Tuesday in the northern Gaza district of Beit Lahia collapsed a building and left at least 93 dead, including a large number of children, according to the territory’s civil defense agency.
The US State Department described the bombing as “a horrifying incident with a horrifying result” and a spokesman said Washington had asked Israel for an explanation.
The United Nations aid coordination agency UNOCHA said the strike was just one of at least seven mass casualty incidents over the past week in Gaza.
“Only two... out of 20 health service points and two hospitals, Kamal Adwan and Al Awda, remain functional, although partially, hampering the delivery of life-saving health services,” UNOCHA said.
“Across the Gaza Strip, October has seen very limited food distribution due to severe supply shortages,” it warned, adding that 1.7 million people, 80 percent of the population, did not receive rations.
Israel launched a renewed offensive against Palestinian fighters in northern Gaza in recent weeks, one year after the October 7, 2023 cross-border Hamas attack that left 1,206 Israelis dead.
Israel’s response has led to the deaths of 43,163 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, figures which the United Nations consider reliable.

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Topics: Battlefield Lebanon Israel Hezbollah Naim Qassem

US tracking nearly 500 incidents of civilian harm during Gaza war

Updated 30 October 2024

Reuters

October 30, 2024 15:22

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US tracking nearly 500 incidents of civilian harm during Gaza war

US embassy in Jerusalem has raised a number of incidents with Israel under the guidance
Israel’s military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza

Updated 30 October 2024

Reuters

October 30, 2024 15:22

WASHINGTON: US State Department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter, said this week.
The incidents — some of which might have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources — have been recorded since Oct. 7, 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the State Department’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.
State Department officials gathered the incidents from public and non-public sources, including media reporting, civil society groups and foreign government contacts.
The mechanism, which was established in August 2023 to be applied to all countries that receive US arms, has three stages: incident analysis, policy impact assessment, and coordinated department action, according to a December internal State Department cable reviewed by Reuters.
None of the Gaza cases had yet reached the third stage of action, said a former US official familiar with the matter. Options, the former official said, could range from working with Israel’s government to help mitigate harm, to suspending existing arms export licenses or withholding future approvals.
The Washington Post first reported the nearly 500 incidents on Wednesday.
The State Department declined to comment on this story. In August, deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Washington was reviewing “very closely” reports of alleged violations of international law and listed the civilian harm process as one of the policies at the department’s disposal.
The administration of President Joe Biden has long said it is yet to definitively assess an incident in which Israel has violated international humanitarian law during its operation in Gaza.
John Ramming Chappell, advocacy and legal adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said the Biden administration “has consistently deferred to Israeli authorities and declined to do its own investigations.”
“The US government hasn’t done nearly enough to investigate how the Israeli military uses weapons made in the United States and paid for by US taxpayers,” he said.
Another US official told Reuters the US embassy in Jerusalem has raised a number of incidents with Israel under the guidance.
The process does not only look at potential violations of international law but at any incident where civilians are killed or injured and where US arms are implicated, and looks at whether this could have been avoided or reduced, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A review of an incident can lead to a recommendation that a unit needs more training or different equipment, as well as more severe consequences, the official said.
Israel’s military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health authorities.
The latest episode of bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.

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Topics: War on Gaza Palestinians United States of America (USA)

Mediators to propose Gaza truce amid deadly Israeli strikes

Updated 30 October 2024

AFP

October 30, 2024 10:48

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Mediators to propose Gaza truce amid deadly Israeli strikes

News of the potential breakthrough in truce talks came a day after a deadly Israeli strike
Senior officials discussed proposing to the parties a ‘short-term’ truce of ‘less than a month’

Updated 30 October 2024

AFP

October 30, 2024 10:48

Israeli forces carried out new deadly bombings targeting Hamas in Gaza on Wednesday, as international mediators prepared to propose a short-term truce to free hostages and avert a humanitarian catastrophe.
News of the potential breakthrough in truce talks came a day after an Israeli strike on a single Gaza residential block killed nearly 100 people and triggered international revulsion.
US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have for months been trying to negotiate a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to allow a prisoner swap, humanitarian access and talks on a longer-term peace.
Israel’s Mossad spy chief David Barnea, CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani held their latest round of secretive talks on Sunday and Monday in Doha.
On Wednesday, a source close to the talks said on condition of anonymity that the senior officials discussed proposing to the parties a “short-term” truce of “less than a month.”
The proposal included the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, and an increase in aid to Gaza, the source added.
“US officials believe that if a short-term deal can be reached, it could lead to a more permanent agreement,” the source said.
A strike Tuesday in the northern Gaza district of Beit Lahia collapsed a building and left at least 93 dead, including a large number of children, according to the territory’s civil defense agency.
The US State Department described the bombing was “a horrifying incident with a horrifying result” and a spokesman said Washington had asked Israel for an explanation.
The United Nations aid coordination agency UNOCHA said the strike was only one of at least seven mass casualty incidents over the past week in the Palestinian territory.
“Only two... out of 20 health service points and two hospitals, Kamal Adwan and Al Awda, remain functional, although partially, hampering the delivery of life-saving health services,” UNOCHA said.
“Across the Gaza Strip, October has seen very limited food distribution due to severe supply shortages,” it warned, adding that 1.7 million people, 80 percent of the population, did not receive rations.
Israel launched a renewed offensive to root out Palestinian fighters in northern Gaza in recent weeks, one year after the October 7, 2023 cross-border Hamas attack that left 1,206 Israelis dead.
Israel’s response has led to the deaths of 43,061 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers reliable.
The violence continued on Wednesday.
The Israeli military said it had conducted a precision strike on Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters “conducting terrorist activity” in Khan Yunis, the south of Gaza.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said three people, including a girl and a woman, were killed in a strike on a house in Khan Yunis and two more died when a tent was hit in Deir el-Balah.
Fighting also continued in Lebanon, where Israel has launched an air and ground campaign to destroy the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, which has launched cross-border strikes and expressed solidarity with Hamas.
The Israeli military, which in recent days has hit targets in several southern Lebanese cities, issued a new evacuation call on Wednesday, warning Lebanese residents to flee the Baalbek region.
Military spokesman Avichay Adraee said in a social media post that included a map of the eastern Bekaa valley that the army would “act forcefully against Hezbollah interests within your city and villages.”
Meanwhile, a Lebanese security official said that an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah van carrying munitions near Beirut killed the driver.
An AFP correspondent saw a vehicle on fire and said the Kahhale road, which links Beirut to Damascus, had been blocked in both directions.
Israel targets key routes between Syria and Lebanon to disrupt Hezbollah’s supply lines for weapons and munitions from Iran.
Hezbollah said it launched a “squadron of attack drones” against an Israeli naval base new Haifa, and the Lebanese state news agency NNA said Israeli ground forces were assaulting the southern village of Khiam.
The NNA also said Israeli airstrikes had hit several villages in the south of the country.
The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, though the real number is likely to be higher due to gaps in the data.

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Topics: War on Gaza Gaza Israel

Iran appoints first Baluch governor in restive province

Updated 30 October 2024

AFP

October 30, 2024 13:51

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Iran appoints first Baluch governor in restive province

Mansour Bijar’s appointment follows attack in Sistan-Baluchistan that killed at least 10 policemen
Sistan-Baluchistan straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished areas

Updated 30 October 2024

AFP

October 30, 2024 13:51

TEHRAN: Iran’s government on Wednesday appointed the first governor from the Baluch minority in the country’s restive southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan.
“Mansour Bijar was chosen as the governor of Sistan-Baluchistan,” government spokeswoman Fatemeh MoHajjerani said after a cabinet meeting.
Bijar, 50, hails from the Baluch community, a mainly Sunni Muslim ethnic group in a majority Shiite country.
His appointment follows an attack in Sistan-Baluchistan that killed at least 10 policemen, later claimed by the jihadist group Jaish Al-Adl (Army of Justice).
Sistan-Baluchistan straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of the Islamic republic’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and other militants, and clashes between security forces and armed groups are common.
Jaish Al-Adl, which was formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, is considered a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
In September, Iran appointed the first Sunni governor for Kurdistan province since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In August, President Masoud Pezeshkian named Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh, a politician from the Sunni minority, as his vice president for rural development.
Lawmakers later blocked his appointment, with one of them, Mehrdad Lahouti, saying parliament had voted in favor of keeping Hosseinzadeh in the legislature due to “capabilities and experience.”
But they agreed to his resignation on Wednesday in a subsequent vote.
The parliament did not provide further details on the reason for the change.
Also last week, the government named Mohammad Reza Mavalizadeh as the first Arab governor for southwestern Khuzestan province, which has a large Arab minority.
Sunnis account for about 10 percent of Iran’s population. Shiite Islam is the official state religion.

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Topics: Sistan-Baluchistan Pakistan Iran border Tehran

Israel slams UN expert over ‘eradication’ of Palestinians claim

Israel slams UN expert over ‘eradication’ of Palestinians claim

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Israel slams UN expert over ‘eradication’ of Palestinians claim

Israel slams UN expert over ‘eradication’ of Palestinians claim

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