Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure

Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure
Israeli soldiers take up position in Kfar Aza, south Israel, bordering the Gaza Strip on October 10, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 12 September 2024
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Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure

Israel intelligence unit chief quits over October 7 failure
  • Israeli army statement: ‘The commander of the 8200 unit, (Brig. General) Yossi Sariel, has informed his commanders and subordinates of his intention to end his position’
  • Public broadcaster Kan disclosed the existence of an intelligence brief prepared by Unit 8200 in Sept. 2023 that warned military officials of Hamas’s preparations for the attack

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Thursday that the head of an elite intelligence unit will resign over the failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7 attack.
“The commander of the 8200 unit, (Brig. General) Yossi Sariel, has informed his commanders and subordinates of his intention to end his position,” the army said in a statement.
“The officer will conclude his role in the near future.”
The prestigious and secretive Unit 8200 is in charge of decoding and analizing intercepts and other signals intelligence.
In the wake of October 7, Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate was thrown into a crisis that led to its commander, Major General Aharon Haliva, announcing his resignation in April 2024.
The army said then that Haliva had asked to be relieved of his duties for the directorate’s failure to foil the October 7 attack.
Israeli media on Thursday broadcast a copy of Sariel’s resignation letter in which he asked for “forgiveness” for “not fulfilling the mission we were entrusted with” on October 7.
In June, public broadcaster Kan disclosed the existence of an intelligence brief prepared by Unit 8200 in September 2023 that warned military officials of Hamas’s preparations for the attack.
Kan said the Unit 8200 document included details of elite Hamas fighters training for hostage-taking and plans for raids on military positions and Israeli communities in southern Israel.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of more than 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Included in that count are hostages who were killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 41,118 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly refused to open an official inquiry into October 7 until the war in Gaza is over.


Israel’s strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken in Washington

Israel’s strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken in Washington
Updated 8 sec ago
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Israel’s strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken in Washington

Israel’s strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken in Washington
WASHINGTON: Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday in Washington, the State Department said.
The meeting will take place at 1700 ET (2200 GMT) on Monday, according to the State Department’s public schedule.
The meeting will come amid hopes of a truce in Israel’s war in Gaza suffering a setback with Qatar suspending its mediation role in the negotiations. Israel separately said on Monday there was progress in talks about a ceasefire in its war in Lebanon.

Tunisian ex-presidential candidate’s jail time now 35 years

Tunisian ex-presidential candidate’s jail time now 35 years
Updated 8 min 18 sec ago
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Tunisian ex-presidential candidate’s jail time now 35 years

Tunisian ex-presidential candidate’s jail time now 35 years
  • Zammel, a former lawmaker, businessman and head of a small liberal party, received around seven percent of the presidential vote

TUNIS: Former Tunisian presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was sentenced on Monday to two years and eight months in prison, raising his cumulative jail time to 35 years following previous trials.
Zammel, one of only two candidates allowed to stand against President Kais Saied last month, was arrested in early September, on the same day that the electoral authorities had approved his candidacy.
A court in Marouba, near the capital Tunis, “increased by two years and eight months” his sentence, after he was convicted of falsifying endorsements to stand in the election, his lawyer Abdessatar Messaoudi said.
Zammel, 47, has now been handed down cumulative sentences of 35 years in jail, Messaoudi said, adding that the former candidate was being prosecuted in 37 different cases.
Each endorsement alleged to have been falsified is grounds for opening a new case, he added.
Zammel, a former lawmaker, businessman and head of a small liberal party, received around seven percent of the presidential vote, whereas Saied won more than 90 percent, according to the Tunisian election board, ISIE.
Saied was democratically elected president in 2019 but two years later staged a sweeping power grab, dissolved parliament and revised the constitution.


Lebanon PM urges global support for state, not factions

Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) upon his arrival in Riyadh. (AFP)
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) upon his arrival in Riyadh. (AFP)
Updated 7 min 10 sec ago
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Lebanon PM urges global support for state, not factions

Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (C) upon his arrival in Riyadh. (AFP)
  • “Lebanon is going through an unprecedented historical and existential crisis that threatens its present and future,” Mikati said

RIYADH: Lebanon’s prime minister on Monday urged the international community to support the state, not factions operating in the country, and in a thinly veiled swipe at Iran, urged countries to stop interfering in its affairs.
At a summit of Arab and Islamic countries, Prime Minister Najib Mikati demanded that countries stop “interfering in its internal affairs by supporting this or that group, but rather support Lebanon as a state and entity.”

He warned that his country was suffering an “unprecedented” crisis that threatens its existence, as Israel wages war on Hezbollah.
“Lebanon is going through an unprecedented historical and existential crisis that threatens its present and future,” he told the summit in Riyadh.


Turkiye pressing US to rethink Kurdish alliance in Syria

Turkiye pressing US to rethink Kurdish alliance in Syria
Updated 11 November 2024
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Turkiye pressing US to rethink Kurdish alliance in Syria

Turkiye pressing US to rethink Kurdish alliance in Syria

ANKARA: Turkiye is pressing the United States to reconsider its support for Kurdish militants in Syria, according to comments by its leaders including President Tayyip Erdogan, who has again floated the possibility of a new cross-border offensive.
“We are constantly reminding our American counterparts that they need to stop the cooperation they have with the terrorist organization in Syria,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was quoted on Monday as telling the Milliyet newspaper.
“Our contacts on this issue have increased. We see that the US side is keen on more talks and negotiations too,” he added.
On Sunday, Erdogan said Turkiye could mount a new offensive into northern Syria to create new safe zones along its border, after saying on Friday that he would discuss a possible US troop withdrawal from Syria with President-elect Donald Trump.
Strains in US-Turkiye ties include US support for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, Washington’s main ally against Islamic State in Syria. Ankara calls it a terrorist organization and extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which the United States also deems a terror group.
NATO member Turkiye has carried out several cross-border operations against the YPG in recent years and has since threatened more.
Erdogan said on Sunday these moves established safe zones in Syria that had “thwarted attempts to surround” it from the southern borders, and Turkiye was determined to “completely cut off contact between terrorist organizations.”
“God willing, we will complete the missing links of the safe zone we have established along our borders in coming period,” he said.
In recent months Erdogan has also made overtures to repair severed ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after a decade of animosity.
Ankara has complained that Damascus has not reciprocated its attempts at rapprochement, after Erdogan said in July he wanted to invite Assad for talks. Assad said those attempts have yielded no results and Damascus wants Turkish troops to withdraw from Syrian territories.


Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians as tanks roll into central Gaza camp

Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians as tanks roll into central Gaza camp
Updated 11 November 2024
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Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians as tanks roll into central Gaza camp

Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians as tanks roll into central Gaza camp
  • Overnight strikes kill at least 11, as Israeli tanks push into central Gaza
  • Israel is focusing its operations in the north and center

CAIRO: Israeli forces sent tanks into the western side of Gaza’s Nuseirat camp on Monday in a new incursion into the enclave’s central area, and Palestinian medics said Israeli military strikes had killed at least 11 people since Sunday night.
Residents said Israeli tanks opened fire as they rolled into that sector of the camp, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee sites, causing panic among the population and displaced families.
One resident, Zaik Mohammad, said the tanks’ advance was a complete surprise.
“Some people couldn’t leave and remained trapped inside their homes, appealing to be allowed out, while others rushed out with whatever they could carry as they fled,” Mohammad, 25, who lives one kilometer away from the targeted area, told Reuters via a chat app.
With the war in Gaza now in its 14th month, Israel is focusing its operations in the north and center in what it says is a campaign to stop Hamas militants waging attacks and to prevent them from regrouping.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian residents have been told to evacuate the areas, fueling fears that they may never be allowed to return.
The already slim chances of a ceasefire receded further at the weekend when mediator Qatar said it was suspending its efforts until both Israel and Hamas showed greater willingness to reach an agreement.
In attacks overnight and into Monday, medics said seven people were killed in Nuseirat in two separate Israeli airstrikes, one that hit a tent encampment.
In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, where Israeli forces have operated since Oct. 5, medics said four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
At Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, medics said Israeli fire from a drone wounded three medical workers in the facility.
There was no Israeli comment on Monday’s violence.
The Israeli military said it killed a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, Mohammad Abu Skhail, in a strike on Saturday at a command center inside a compound that previously served as a school in Gaza City. Palestinian medics said the attack killed six people.

Hospital Siege
Israeli forces have besieged the three hospitals in and around Jabalia for several weeks and hospital officials have refused orders to evacuate the facilities or leave their patients unattended despite the lack of food, medical, and fuel supplies.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of exploiting Gaza’s civilian population for military purposes, a charge the militant group denies.
The army sent tanks into Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia camp in northern Gaza over a month ago. It said it had killed hundreds of militants in Jabalia and around it since the raids began.
The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters carried out ambushes, mortar fire, and anti-tank rocket attacks, claiming to have killed many Israeli soldiers in recent weeks.
On Monday, the Israeli military said it had expanded the “humanitarian zone” in the enclave. It also said it would allow more tents, shelter materials, food, water, and medical supplies to enter.
Its forces “will continue to work to achieve the war’s objectives, including dismantling Hamas and returning all the abductees,” it said.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, home to more than 2.1 million people and now largely in ruins.
The war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing another 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel’s military campaign has leveled much of Gaza and killed around 43,500 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say.