Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon

Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon
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A smoke plume rises over athe southern Lebanese village of Kfar Kila during Israeli bombardment on May 16, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon
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Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked Gaza war. (File/AFP)
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Updated 17 May 2024
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Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon

Two killed in Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon
  • Hundreds of missile strikes and air raids as fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli army intensifies over past 48 hours
  • Hundreds of missile strikes and air raids as fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli army intensifies over past 48 hours

BEIRUT: Two people were killed in an Israeli strike on a car in southern Lebanon on Thursday afternoon. They were on their way to the funeral of a Hezbollah member when a drone targeted their vehicle on the Qana-to-Ramadiyeh road in Tyre.

Earlier in the day, Hezbollah said it launched “more than 60” Katyusha rockets toward Israeli military positions in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in retaliation for strikes on Wednesday that killed a member of the group.

It said it targeted an army base in Metula with S-5 missiles launched from a drone, and struck “the 210th Golan Division in Nafah, the Kilaa air defense base, and the Yoav artillery barracks with rockets.”

Hezbollah said it was using a new type of weapon — attack drones armed with missiles — and conducting several operations against Israeli military sites, including army outposts and a command center. The group also said its attacks had damaged surveillance equipment installed at the Ramyeh and Addir outposts.




A picture taken from southern Lebanon shows smoke rising above the northern Israeli town of Metula following a Hezbollah strike from the Lebanese side on May 16, 2024. (AFP) 

Israeli media said that an armor-piercing missile struck the Metula settlement, killing one person and seriously injuring two. Hezbollah also reportedly targeted the Zar’it barracks, including an equipment crane and newly deployed surveillance equipment, with guided weapons and artillery shells, and carried out a series of attacks on military outposts near the border, damaging surveillance equipment at Jal Al-Allam.

Sirens sounded repeatedly in several Israeli towns and cities, including Metula, Kiryat Shmona, Hurfeish and Peki’in, and in western Galilee and at Israeli military outposts in upper Galilee.

Israeli media reports described “the launching of dozens of rockets from Lebanon toward Meron and northern villages” in Israel, and the targeting of a military base at Mount Meron. Two missiles were fired from southern Lebanon toward Mattat in western Galilee, and 40 missiles targeted the Golan and the Galilee panhandle.

Hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli army have intensified over the past 48 hours along the southern Lebanese front, as both sides continue to cross red lines established over the past seven months and deploy ever-more advanced weapons.

Missiles fired by Hezbollah reached an area west of Tiberias, 50 kilometers from the border, while Israeli raids hit the village of Nabi Chit in Bekaa, 71 kilometers east of Beirut.

Hezbollah said its attacks on Thursday were in response to Israeli raids that targeted the Baalbek-Hermel region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Israeli warplanes carried out 10 raids on targets in the vicinity of Baalbek, and five raids on the outskirts of Nabi Chit. The attacks extended as far as a mountain range in eastern Lebanon between the villages of Brital and Khraibeh. Israeli airstrikes also targeted an evacuated Hezbollah training camp but no casualties were reported.




A picture taken from Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel shows an Israeli fighter jet firing a flare over southern Lebanon on May 16, 2024. (AFP)

Hezbollah had on Wednesday attacked the Ilaniya military base, west of Tiberias, with drones, targeting part of the Israeli Air Force’s comprehensive monitoring and detection systems.

Israeli Army Radio reported “the explosion of a Hezbollah drone at a security site in the Golani area” and said “technical teams were investigating the extent of the impact and damage to the site.”

This latest escalation of hostilities follows the assassination of a prominent Hezbollah field commander, Hussein Ibrahim Makki, and several other people in a drone attack on the Tyre road on Tuesday night.

The Israeli military had also targeted Lebanese border towns with dozens of missiles and airstrikes. In the Marjayoun plain, two shepherds were wounded by one of the attacks, which also struck Kfarkela, Aita Al-Shaab, Aitaroun, Mays Al-Jabal, Hula, Blida, Yarine, Ramyah, and the outskirts of Chihine and Wadi Zebqin. Some buildings in these towns have been razed as a result of such daily strikes.

Meanwhile, Moshe Davidovich, the head of the Mateh Asher Regional Council in Israel, said people evacuated from northern settlements are not expected to be able to return home until at least the end of the year.

In an interview with an Israeli radio station, he said the situation has reached “a stage of indifference” and criticized the Israeli government.

“There are no policies or plans in Gaza, or the abandoned security belt known as the Galilee, which is the front line,” he said.

“The government has lost its direction; it is absent in administration, the economy and security. Extending our evacuation period means we won’t be in our homes” until 2025, he added.

 


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

New Hezbollah chief open to truce with Israel if offer is made
Updated 1 min 2 sec ago
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New Hezbollah chief open to truce with Israel if offer is made

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
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.

US tracking nearly 500 incidents of civilian harm during Gaza war

US tracking nearly 500 incidents of civilian harm during Gaza war
Updated 33 min 35 sec ago
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US tracking nearly 500 incidents of civilian harm during Gaza war

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

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.


Mediators to propose Gaza truce amid deadly Israeli strikes

Mediators to propose Gaza truce amid deadly Israeli strikes
Updated 30 October 2024
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Mediators to propose Gaza truce amid deadly Israeli strikes

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’

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.


Iran appoints first Baluch governor in restive province

Iran appoints first Baluch governor in restive province
Updated 30 October 2024
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Iran appoints first Baluch governor in restive province

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

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.


KDP wins Iraqi Kurdish parliamentary election, commission says

KDP wins Iraqi Kurdish parliamentary election, commission says
Updated 30 October 2024
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KDP wins Iraqi Kurdish parliamentary election, commission says

KDP wins Iraqi Kurdish parliamentary election, commission says
  • Turnout among registered voters was reported at 72 percent

BAGHDAD: The ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) came first in a parliamentary election in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, winning 39 seats, the election commission said on Wednesday, positioning it to lead the next regional government.
The KDP’s historic rival and junior coalition partner in government, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), was second with 23 seats, the commission told a news conference.
It said turnout among registered voters was reported at 72 percent.
The Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament has 100 seats with five reserved for minority groups.
With opposition parties weak, the KDP and PUK, which have been sharing power since 1992, are likely to continue governing together, but the results suggest that Masoud Barzani’s KDP will take a dominant position.
Originally planned for 2022, the elections were repeatedly delayed by disputes between the KDP and PUK.
Unresolved disagreements between the two major political parties are expected to complicate the formation of a new government, analysts and regional officials expect.
The largest Kurdish opposition party, New Generation, was a distant third with 15 seats.