Egypt tells Iran recent events jeopardize regional stability

Update Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani (L) Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. (Supplied)
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Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani (L) Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. (Supplied)
Update Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. (Twitter @MfaEgypt)
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Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. (Twitter @MfaEgypt)
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Updated 04 August 2024
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Egypt tells Iran recent events jeopardize regional stability

Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani (L) Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. (Supplied)
  • On July 31, Palestinian militant group Hamas’ top leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran, an act both Hamas and Iran have accused Israel of carrying out and have pledged to retaliate against

CAIRO: Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has stressed in a phone call with Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s acting foreign minister, that recent developments in the region are “unprecedented, very dangerous” and threatening stability.

Abdelatty also expressed Egypt’s support for and solidarity with Lebanon in facing surrounding threats, in a separate phone call to Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.

Abdelatty highlighted Egypt’s intensive communications with all relevant and active parties to contain the ongoing escalation of conflict in the region and protect the interests of the Lebanese people.

Speaking to Bou Habib, Abdelatty expressed profound concern over the dangerously escalating tensions and their potential impact on Lebanon’s security and stability.

He called for a concerted effort to prevent a deterioration of the situation and avoid an expansion of confrontations which could lead to severe repercussions for the security and stability of the region.

The Lebanese minister expressed his gratitude for Abdelatty’s initiative to communicate, and for Egypt’s support of Lebanon’s security, stability, and the well-being of its people. 

He also underscored his commitment to ongoing coordination with Egypt concerning Lebanon’s sensitive situation.

The Lebanese minister noted the complete trust of all Lebanese parties in Egypt’s role and the earnest efforts being made by Cairo to safeguard Lebanon.

Separately, Abdelatty conducted a phone call with Iran’s acting foreign minister.

The Egyptian minister said that the call was part of Cairo’s efforts to engage with all relevant parties to help to contain the ongoing escalation and reduce regional tensions.

Abdelatty emphasized that the recent developments in the region were unprecedented and highly dangerous, and threatened to widen the conflict and endanger countries’ stability.

He stressed the need for all parties to exercise calm and restraint to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control.

Abdelatty reiterated Egypt’s position by calling for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, which he identified as the primary cause of increased tensions and confrontations in the region.

He stressed Egypt’s rejection of Israel’s policy of escalation, assassinations, and the violation of state sovereignty.

He pointed out that such policies would not serve the interests of any party and would only fuel the conflict in a way that made it difficult to contain the crisis.

Kani took the opportunity to thank Abdelatty for participating in the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president, which reflected Egypt’s interest in supporting Iran’s government and people in the significant event at a high ministerial level.


Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah says fighter killed in “Zionist attack” in Damascus

Updated 4 sec ago
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Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah says fighter killed in “Zionist attack” in Damascus

Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah says fighter killed in “Zionist attack” in Damascus
A fighter got killed in the “Zionist attack”

DUBAI: Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah armed group announced that one of its fighters was killed in what they called a “Zionist attack” in the Syrian capital Damascus, the group said in a statement on Telegram on Friday.


Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah armed group announced that one of its fighters was killed in what they called a “Zionist attack” in the Syrian capital Damascus, the group said in a statement.
(AFP/File)

Israeli public broadcaster says 150 rockets fired from Lebanon

Israeli public broadcaster says 150 rockets fired from Lebanon
Updated 16 min 39 sec ago
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Israeli public broadcaster says 150 rockets fired from Lebanon

Israeli public broadcaster says 150 rockets fired from Lebanon
  • Israeli ambulance service said there were no immediate reports of casualties

JERUSALEM: Israeli public broadcaster Kan said on Friday around 150 rockets were fired from Lebanon across the border.
Israeli ambulance service said there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah announced on Friday they launched seven separate attacks on Israeli targets with Katyusha rockets.


Israel says submits challenge to ICC arrest warrant request for Netanyahu

Israel says submits challenge to ICC arrest warrant request for Netanyahu
Updated 46 min 12 sec ago
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Israel says submits challenge to ICC arrest warrant request for Netanyahu

Israel says submits challenge to ICC arrest warrant request for Netanyahu

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Friday it had submitted an “official challenge” to a request from the International Criminal Court prosecutor for an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The State of Israel submitted today its official challenge to the ICC’s jurisdiction, as well as the legality of the prosecutor’s requests for arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister and minister of defense,” foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said on X.


Hezbollah handed out pagers hours before blasts — even after checks

Hezbollah handed out pagers hours before blasts — even after checks
Updated 46 min 30 sec ago
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Hezbollah handed out pagers hours before blasts — even after checks

Hezbollah handed out pagers hours before blasts — even after checks
  • Hezbollah had scanned, tested pagers for safety, sources say
  • Batteries of walkie-talkies laced with explosive known as PETN: source

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah was still handing its members new Gold Apollo branded pagers hours before thousands blew up this week, two security sources said, indicating the group was confident the devices were safe despite an ongoing sweep of electronic kit to identify threats.
One member of the Iranian-backed militia received a new pager on Monday that exploded the next day while it was still in its box, said one of the sources.
A pager given to a senior member just days earlier injured a subordinate when it detonated, the second source said.
In an apparently coordinated attack the Gold Apollo branded devices detonated on Tuesday across Hezbollah’s strongholds of south Lebanon, Beirut’s suburbs and the eastern Bekaa valley.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Hezbollah walkie-talkies exploded. The consecutive attacks killed 37 people, including at least two children, and injured more than 3,000 people. The batteries of the walkie-talkies were laced with a highly explosive compound known as PETN, another Lebanese source familiar with the device’s components told Reuters on Friday. Up to three grams of explosives hidden in the pagers had gone undetected for months by Hezbollah, Reuters reported earlier this week.
One of the security sources said it was very hard to detect the explosives “with any device or scanner.” The source did not specify what type of scanners Hezbollah had run the pagers through.
Hezbollah examined the pagers after they were delivered to Lebanon, starting in 2022, including by traveling through airports with them to ensure they would not trigger alarms, two additional sources told Reuters. In total, Reuters spoke to six sources familiar with the details of the exploding devices for this story.
The sources did not specify the name of the airports where they conducted the tests.
Lebanon, Hezbollah and Western security sources say Israel was behind the attacks. Israel, which has since stepped up airstrikes on Lebanon, has neither denied or confirmed involvement.
Rather than a specific suspicion of the pagers, the checks had been part of a routine “sweep” of its equipment, including communications devices, to find any indications that they were laced with explosives or surveillance mechanisms, one of the security sources said. The attacks, and the distribution of the devices despite the routine sweep and checks for breaches, have struck at Hezbollah’s reputation as the most formidable of Iran’s allied ‘Axis of Resistance’ umbrella of anti-Israel irregular forces across the Middle East.
In a televised speech on Thursday, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said the attacks were “unprecedented in the history” of the group.
Hezbollah’s media office and Israel’s armed forces did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story. Taiwan-based Gold Apollo has said it did not manufacture the devices used in the attack, saying they were made by a company in Europe licensed to use the firm’s brand. Reuters has not been able to establish where they were made or at what point they were tampered with. A batch of 5,000 of the pagers were brought into Lebanon earlier this year. Reuters previously reported that Hezbollah turned to pagers in an attempt to evade Israeli surveillance of its mobile phones, following the killing of senior commanders in targeted airstrikes over the past year. Hezbollah’s conflict with Israel dates back decades but has flared up in the past year in parallel with the Gaza war, heightening worries of a full-blown regional war.
Too little, too late
After the pagers detonated on Tuesday, Hezbollah suspected more of its devices may have been compromised, two of the security sources, as well as an intelligence source, told Reuters.
In response, it intensified the sweep of its communications systems, carrying out careful examinations of all devices. It also began investigating the supply chains through which the pagers were brought in, the two security sources said.
But the review had not been concluded by Wednesday afternoon, when the hand-held radios exploded.
Hezbollah believes that Israel opted to detonate the group’s hand-held radios because it feared Hezbollah would soon find that the walkie-talkies were also rigged with explosives, one of the sources told Reuters.
The walkie-talkie explosions left 25 people dead and at least 650 injured, according to Lebanon’s health ministry — a much higher fatality rate than the previous day’s pager blasts, which killed 12 and wounded nearly 3,000.
That is because they carried a higher payload of explosives than the beepers, one of the security sources and the intelligence source said.
The group’s probe into precisely where, when and how the devices were laced with explosives is ongoing, three of the sources said. Nasrallah later said the same in the speech on Thursday.
One of the security sources said Hezbollah had foiled previous Israeli operations targeting devices imported from abroad by the group — from its private landline telephones to ventilation units in the group’s offices.
That includes suspected breaches in the past year.
“There are several electronic issues that we were able to discover — but not the pagers,” the source said. “They tricked us, hats off to the enemy.”


Israeli forces deepen raid in Rafah, kill 14 people across Gaza

Israeli forces deepen raid in Rafah, kill 14 people across Gaza
Updated 20 September 2024
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Israeli forces deepen raid in Rafah, kill 14 people across Gaza

Israeli forces deepen raid in Rafah, kill 14 people across Gaza
  • Israeli tanks, warplanes in action across Gaza
  • At least 14 Palestinians killed

CAIRO: Israeli forces killed at least 14 Palestinians in tank and air strikes on north and central areas of the Gaza Strip on Friday, medics said, as tanks advanced further into northwest Rafah near the border with Egypt.
The unrelenting fighting between the Israelis and Hamas militants in the enclave carried on even as a parallel conflict in the Lebanon-Israel border area involving Hamas’ allies Hezbollah intensified.
Meanwhile some Palestinians displaced by the Israeli assault on Gaza said they feared their temporary beachside camp would be inundated by high waves.
Palestinian health officials said shelling by Israeli tanks killed eight people and wounded several others in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central area of Gaza, and six others were killed in an airstrike on a house in Gaza City.
In the northern town of Beit Hanoun, an Israeli strike on a car killed and wounded several Palestinians, medics said.
It was not clear how many of the casualties were combatants and how many were civilians.
In the southern city of Rafah, where the Israeli army has been operating since May, tanks advanced further to the northwest area backed by aircraft, residents said.
They also reported heavy fire and explosions echoing in the eastern areas of the city, where Israeli forces blew up several houses, according to residents and Hamas media.
“Our fighters are engaged in fierce gunbattles against Israeli fores, who advanced into Tanour neighborhood in Rafah,” Hamas armed wing said in a statement.
The Israeli military has said that forces operating in Rafah had in past weeks killed hundreds of Palestinian militants, located tunnels and explosives and destroyed military infrastructure.
Israel’s demand to keep control of the southern border line between Rafah and Egypt has been the focus of an international effort to conclude a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a truce but have failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.
Two obstacles have been especially difficult — Israel’s demand that it keep forces in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt, and the specifics of an exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Encroaching Sea
In a new challenge to Palestinians displaced in the Al-Mawasi area in southern Gaza, many were concerned about the danger of high waves. Some tents put up close to the beach flooded last week.
“Enough, enough, enough. We were pushed by the occupation (Israel) to the sea, where we believed it was safe, last week the sea flooded and washed away some tents, and that could happen again, where would we go?” said Shaban, 47, an electrical engineer displaced from Gaza City.
This latest war in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered last Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Israel says it aims to eradicate the Iran-aligned Hamas, which it deems a threat to its own existence.