Mikati: Lebanon committed to UNIFIL mission, de-escalation

Mikati: Lebanon committed to UNIFIL mission, de-escalation
UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) armoured vehicles patrol on the entrance of the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura near the border with Israel on June 17, 2024. (AFP/File)
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Updated 12 August 2024
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Mikati: Lebanon committed to UNIFIL mission, de-escalation

Mikati: Lebanon committed to UNIFIL mission, de-escalation
  • Lebanese military confirms continuation of joint patrols with UNIFIL following row

BEIRUT: Lebanon is committed to UNIFIL’s mission in the south, the country’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, reiterated on Monday.

He said cooperation between the Lebanese military and UNIFIL forces is crucial, and rejected claims of differences and discrepancies, adding that “any issues arising during task implementation are promptly resolved.”

Mikati’s remarks follow a dispute between the military and a UNIFIL patrol during a joint operation within UNIFIL’s area of operation.

According to security reports, “a patrol carrying members of the French unit insisted on entering an area outside UNIFIL’s jurisdiction in the town of Kfarhamam” — a village in the border district of Hasbaya in the Nabatiye Governorate.

Residents were displaced during the escalation of hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli military over the past few months.

The reports said the Lebanese troops refused to follow the patrol after the French unit insisted on entering an area considered private property.

Communications intensified after the Lebanese military threatened to suspend joint patrols, with efforts focusing on mending relations.

The developments prompted Lebanese Army Command to confirm in a statement that “military units continue to carry out joint tasks with UNIFIL, maintaining close cooperation and coordination within the framework of UN Resolution 1701, in light of the exceptional circumstances and developments in the country, particularly the ongoing Israeli assaults.”

The incident in Kfarhamam occurred shortly before the extension of UNIFIL’s mandate, which is scheduled for the end of this month, and amidst increasing hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.

Mikati said on Monday that Lebanon was in discussions with the relevant countries regarding the extension of UNIFIL forces’ presence.

Last week, Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib noted “slight changes to the text concerning the extension of UNIFIL forces (remaining in place).”

A security source said that Lebanon “demanded a comprehensive and ongoing coordination between UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army and that any Israeli attack on the Lebanese Army be condemned.”

Last week, the Lebanese government distributed a document to the heads of diplomatic missions outlining the principles to achieve long-term stability in southern Lebanon in connection with Resolution 1701.

Mikati said on Monday that the document “establishes clear foundations for a solution, the most significant of which is to reduce escalation to avoid a destructive cycle of violence.”

It also calls for the international community to play a decisive and immediate role in calming tensions and restraining the ongoing Israeli aggression against Lebanon, he said.

Mikati emphasized that “the main message that Lebanon underscores in all its diplomatic communications is the implementation of Resolution 1701, which serves as the cornerstone for ensuring stability and security in southern Lebanon.”

Retired Lebanese Army Maj. Gen. Abdul Rahman Chehaitli told Arab News on Monday: “The Army Command Operations Rooms determine the routes of the joint patrols, and therefore, an army route that is not agreed upon cannot be altered during the patrol.”

He continued: “There are stop points that no one can change, and this is not a matter of entering private property.”

A source close to UNIFIL said: “There is a constant issue of entering private property, which could be an orchard, a house, or an establishment.

“UNIFIL submits its schedule of operations in advance to the Army Command Operations Rooms, and the army only participates in eight percent of joint patrols due to its shortage of personnel and military capabilities.”

The source added: “Under Lebanese laws, the army cannot enter private property without permission from the Public Prosecution’s Office, and Hezbollah may have exploited this legal loophole in UNIFIL’s tasks and relied upon it to refuse UNIFIL’s access to private property on the pretext that the Lebanese Army is not entitled to do so.”

Hezbollah’s supporters have previously accused UNIFIL of “monitoring and tracking some of Hezbollah’s military sites, centers or movements.”
The suspicions have intensified during the recent months of confrontation on the southern border.

This is not the first such incident — UNIFIL patrols have faced confrontation with residents of towns over access to their internal streets before. The bloodiest took place at the end of 2022 in the town of Al-Aqabiya, outside UNIFIL’s area of operation, resulting in the killing of an Irish soldier and the wounding of three others.

On Monday, artillery bombardment persisted on the periphery of Naqoura, Aita Al-Shaab Square, and Burj Al-Muluk.

Israeli aircraft conducted airstrikes over the town of Chihine in the west of the country.

Additionally, the forest surrounding Kounin was subjected to incendiary phosphorus bombs.

Meanwhile, in Israel, sirens sounded at dawn in the settlement of Nahariya and its surroundings, reaching the Krayot area.

Israeli media reported that air defenses intercepted 20 missiles fired by Hezbollah at Nahariya and surrounding towns, causing fires to break out in various areas of Western Galilee.

Over the past 48 hours, Hezbollah has conducted more than 10 attacks on military sites and gatherings of Israeli soldiers.

Israeli raids resulted in the death of a Hezbollah member and left five civilians injured in the areas of Taybeh, Kfar Kila, and Wazzani.

During a party event, MP Hassan Fadlallah, a member of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said that Hezbollah initiated actions on the southern front because “we had no other choice.”

Fadlallah said: “No person with a free conscience can observe the events unfolding in Gaza and choose to remain an onlooker.”

Regarding Hezbollah’s response to the assassination of prominent military leader Fouad Shukr, Fadlallah said: “We are currently in a phase of anticipation concerning the strategy and tactics that the resistance will employ in response.

“However, we must not allow the enemy to dictate our actions, as we remain on a supportive front, and the primary conflict continues to unfold in Gaza.”


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.


UN peacekeepers in Lebanon urge immediate de-escalation

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon urge immediate de-escalation
Updated 20 September 2024
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UN peacekeepers in Lebanon urge immediate de-escalation

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon urge immediate de-escalation
  • Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire for almost a year

BEIRUT: The UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon urged de-escalation on Friday after a big increase in hostilities at the Lebanese-Israeli border, where Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire for almost a year.
The UNIFIL force had witnessed “a heavy intensification of the hostilities across the Blue Line” and throughout its area of operations, spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Reuters.
“We are concerned at the increased escalation across the Blue Line and urge all actors to immediately de-escalate,” he said.
The Blue Line refers to the frontier between Lebanon and Israel.
Late on Thursday, Israeli warplanes carried out their most intense strikes on southern Lebanon of the conflict.
It followed attacks this week which blew up thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, killing at least 37 people and wounding thousands more.


Israel pounds Lebanon’s Hezbollah sites

Israel pounds Lebanon’s Hezbollah sites
Updated 20 September 2024
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Israel pounds Lebanon’s Hezbollah sites

Israel pounds Lebanon’s Hezbollah sites
  • Israeli fighter jets roared over Beirut, their sonic booms shaking buildings and sending residents scrambling for cover
  • Israel’s military said its jets hit “approximately 100 launchers and additional terrorist infrastructure sites

Beirut: Israel said it pounded Lebanon’s Hezbollah, just hours after the group’s leader vowed retribution for deadly explosions that targeted its communication devices, killing 37 people and wounding thousands.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah blamed Israel for the explosion of thousands of its operatives’ pagers and radios in attacks that spanned two days this week. Israel has yet to comment on the attacks.
Speaking for the first time since the deadly device sabotage, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution.
Describing the attacks as a “massacre” and a possible “act of war,” Nasrallah said Israel would face “just punishment, where it expects it and where it does not.”
As he delivered his address, Israeli fighter jets roared over Beirut, their sonic booms shaking buildings and sending residents scrambling for cover.
Hours later, Israel’s military said its jets hit “approximately 100 launchers and additional terrorist infrastructure sites, consisting of approximately 1,000 barrels” set to be fired immediately.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israel struck the south at least 52 times. It was one of the heaviest Israeli bombardments of south Lebanon since the border exchanges erupted last October.
Hezbollah meanwhile said it launched at least 17 attacks on military sites in northern Israel.
The device blasts and Thursday’s barrage of air strikes came after Israel announced it was shifting its war objectives to its northern border with Lebanon where it has been trading fire with Hezbollah.
For nearly a year, Israel’s firepower has been focused on Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, but its troops have also been engaged in near-daily exchanges with Hezbollah militants.
International mediators have repeatedly tried to avert a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah and staunch the regional fallout of the war in Gaza, started by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
Hezbollah maintains its fight is in support of Hamas, and Nasrallah vowed the attacks on Israel will continue as long as the war in Gaza lasts.
The cross-border exchanges of fire have killed hundreds in Lebanon, most of them fighters, and dozens in Israel, including soldiers. Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border have been forced to flee their homes.
Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Hezbollah will pay an increasing price” as Israel tries to “ensure the safe return” of its citizens to areas near the border.
“We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” he said.
Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib said the “blatant assault on Lebanon’s sovereignty and security” was a dangerous development that could “signal a wider war.”
Speaking ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on the attacks set for Friday, he said Lebanon had filed a complaint against “Israel’s cyber-terrorist aggression that amounts to a war crime.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Israel faces “a crushing response from the resistance front” after the blasts, which wounded Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been scrambling to salvage efforts for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, called for restraint by all sides.
“We don’t want to see any escalatory actions by any party” that would endanger the goal of a ceasefire in Gaza, he said as he joined European foreign ministers in Paris to discuss the widening crisis.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden still believes a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah is “achievable.”
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, in Madrid, called for a new peace conference aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas’s October 7 attacks that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Out of 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures as reliable.
In the latest Gaza violence, the territory’s civil defense agency said an air strike on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp killed eight people. Another six people, including children, were killed in a separate strike on an apartment in Gaza city, it added.
In Lebanon, the influx of so many casualties following the blasts overwhelmed medics and triggered panic.
“What happened in the last two days is so frightening. It’s terrifying,” Lina Ismail told AFP by phone from the eastern city of Baalbek.
“I took away my daughter’s power bank and we even sleep with our mobile phones in a separate room,” she added in a trembling voice.
The preliminary findings of a Lebanese investigation found the pagers had been booby-trapped, a security official said.
The country’s mission to the United Nations concurred, saying in a letter that the probe showed “the targeted devices were professionally booby-trapped... before arriving in Lebanon, and were detonated by sending emails to the devices.”
A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, said the pagers were recently imported and appeared to have been “sabotaged at source.”
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the pagers that exploded were produced by the Hungary-based BAC Consulting on behalf of Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo. It cited intelligence officers as saying BAC was part of an Israeli front.
A government spokesman in Budapest said the company was “a trading intermediary, with no manufacturing or operational site in Hungary.”


Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term — report

Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term — report
Updated 20 September 2024
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Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term — report

Gaza ceasefire deal unlikely in Biden’s term — report
  • The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire in Gaza
  • The US has said a ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears of a wider conflict

WASHINGTON: US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza is unlikely before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The newspaper cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday before the report was published.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said two weeks ago that 90 percent of a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.
The United States and mediators Qatar and Egypt have for months attempted to secure a ceasefire but have failed to bring Israel and Hamas to a final agreement.
Two obstacles have been especially difficult: Israel’s demand to 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.
The United States has said a Gaza ceasefire deal could lower tensions across the Middle East amid fears the conflict could widen.
Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal on May 31 that he said at the time Israel agreed to. As the talks hit obstacles, officials have for weeks said a new proposal would soon be presented.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 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.


Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’

Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’
Updated 20 September 2024
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Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’

Trump says Fed’s rate cut was ‘political move’

WASHINGTON: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday the US Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by half of a percentage point was “a political move.”
“It really is a political move. Most people thought it was going to be half of that number, which probably would have been the right thing to do,” Trump said in an interview with Newsmax.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kicked off what is expected to be a series of interest rate cuts with an unusually large half-percentage-point reduction.
Trump said last month that US presidents should have a say over decisions made by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed chair and the other six members of its board of governors are nominated by the president, subject to confirmation by the Senate. The Fed enjoys substantial operational independence to make policy decisions that wield tremendous influence over the direction of the world’s largest economy and global asset markets.