Lebanon army makes plea for unity after Nasrallah’s killing

Lebanese army patrols in central Beirut, following the killing of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli air strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, September 29, 2024. (REUTERS)
Lebanese army patrols in central Beirut, following the killing of Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli air strike, in Beirut, Lebanon, September 29, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 29 September 2024
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Lebanon army makes plea for unity after Nasrallah’s killing

Lebanon army makes plea for unity after Nasrallah’s killing
  • Mikati sticks to diplomacy, says attacks may have forced up to 1m people to flee homes
  • Al-Rahi demands a president who will engage in peace negotiations

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army on Sunday warned the Lebanese against actions that would disturb public order in the country after Israel’s killing of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

The army statement called on citizens “to preserve national unity and not to be drawn into actions that may affect civil peace at this dangerous and delicate stage,” following the massive Friday strike that killed Nasrallah and as Israeli attacks continue.

Israel “is working to implement its destructive plans and sow division among Lebanese,” the statement added.

The army appeal came as dozens were killed and wounded on Sunday in Israeli air raids on the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa.

According to preliminary statistics from the Ministry of Health issued on Sunday evening, 21 civilians were killed and 47 were wounded in 40 Israeli raids on Baalbek-Hermel.

Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi, in his first comment on the assassination of Nasrallah, said that “the Lebanese paid a heavy price for their departure from the national charter, and Lebanon will not be able to carry out its mission except with positive neutrality.”

Al-Rahi reminded “the international community of the necessity of working to stop the cycle of war, killing and destruction.”

He said: “We all are losers in the war, so it is necessary to adopt negotiations. We hope that by electing a president for Lebanon, he will stop the fire and engage in peace negotiations.”

Amid the Israeli bombardment, the Lebanese ministerial emergency committee continued its discussions on how to manage the vast number of displaced people from the southern suburbs of Beirut, the south, and Bekaa, who had been made homeless.

Some of the displaced are still sleeping in the streets of Beirut, on its seafront, and in front of mosques, while others cannot afford to buy milk for their children or clothes to keep them warm.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said after Sunday’s meeting that the number of displaced people might reach 1 million and that “this current displacement is the largest in Lebanon’s history.”

Mikati said the state’s contributions are “within its capabilities, and we will ask donor countries to help us in these difficult circumstances.”

Regarding political solutions, Mikati stressed that “we have no choice but diplomacy. We demand a ceasefire on all fronts.”

According to official statistics, those who have died since Oct. 8, 2023 amount to 1,640, while the wounded amount to 8,408. The number of missing persons is unknown.

Israeli forces have not given Hezbollah a chance to catch its breath after the assassination of Nasrallah.

Warplanes launched 216 raids within the last 24 hours, including a violent raid on a building between Shiyah and Ghobeiry in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

According to Channel 14, “the target was the prominent leader in the party, Abu Ali Rida, the commander of the Badr Unit.”

Hezbollah denied the claim, saying that he was “well and healthy.”

Hezbollah officially mourned Nabil Qaouk, the deputy head of its executive council, who was killed in a drone attack on Saturday evening in the Chiyah area, indicating that Qaouk “held many organizational responsibilities in the party’s various units.”

It also officially mourned the death of prominent party leader Ali Karaki, whom Israel put on its target list.

Israel also included among its targets an official in the Islamic Group in Lebanon — an ally of Hezbollah in the confrontations in the south.

A warplane launched a raid on the town of Jab Janin in western Bekaa, the first time this town had been targeted, and hit a car carrying the group’s official, Mohammed Dahrouj, who was with his wife, killing them both.

Also on Sunday, Hezbollah’s civil defense personnel retrieved the bodies of Nasrallah and those with him in preparation for their funeral.

A paramedic told Arab News: “We kept digging deep to reach the bodies, and they were pulled out using cranes brought to the site.”

He said the bodies of the party’s secretary-general, Karaki, and two Iranian figures were found.

Hezbollah’s operations in northern Israel declined relatively on Sunday.

Hezbollah announced the bombing of the “Sonubar settlement” and “Ofek camp with a batch of Fadi 1 missiles.”

Minister Nasser Yassin, head of the emergency committee, said: “We have reached 740 shelters within a few days with more than 250,000 displaced people.

“The number of displaced persons since the day of Hassan Nasrallah’s assassination on Friday until Sunday morning was estimated at 1 million.”
 
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed that the raids carried out on the Hezbollah command headquarters led to “the elimination of more than 20 other members of different ranks.”

He alleged that they had gathered inside the underground headquarters and managed the fighting against Israel from there.

Adraee provided a list of names: “Ibrahim Hussein Jazini, the commander of Nasrallah’s security unit; Samir Tawfiq Deeb, Nasrallah’s advisor for many years; Abdul Amir Mohammed Sablini, the official responsible for building the force; and Ali Nayef Ayoub, the official responsible for managing the fire.”

An Israeli raid on the town of Al-Ain, adjacent to Baalbek, led to the killing of 11 civilians.

The army launched a raid on a house in the Marjhin area in the Hermel outskirts, causing the death of more than 10 people.

A raid on a building in the town of Zboud in the Bekaa resulted in the deaths of 17 civilians.

Raids focused on Al-Khader, Tamnin, Nabi Sheet, and Al-Kharibeh in northern Bekaa — areas that support Hezbollah.

The attacks included the town of Choueifat, south of Beirut, targeting hangars belonging to a businessperson from the Al-Moussawi family.

An Israeli raid on a building near a civil defense center affiliated with the Amal Movement, an ally of Hezbollah, resulted in the death of several volunteers in the southern town of Tayr Dibba.

The Lebanese Ministry of Health condemned “this attack and a similar attack on Houmin Al-Fawqa in the south, which led to the death of 14 paramedics in two days.”

The Israeli army claimed in a statement that “it struck hundreds of Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon in the past hours, including missile launch pads directed toward Israeli territory, weapons storage facilities, and additional terrorist infrastructure affiliated with Hezbollah.”

The army said that it will continue to work to “weaken and dismantle Hezbollah’s capabilities.”

Aircraft and drones remained in the skies of Beirut and its southern suburbs at a low level around the clock.

 


Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state

Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state
Updated 7 sec ago
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Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state

Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state
  • Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo's paramilitary RSF has been accused of killing people and "looting property including from markets and hospitals”
  • Amnesty International said the RSF had gone berserk in eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer defected to the national army

NEW HALFA, Sudan: Khadir Ali and his family managed to survive a harrowing paramilitary attack in war-torn Sudan. But by the time they got to safety, he realized that one person was missing.
“We escaped in total chaos — there was gunfire coming from every direction,” said the 47-year-old civil servant of the October 22 Rapid Support Forces attack on Rufaa in Al-Jazira state.
“But once we got out of the city, we noticed my nephew wasn’t with us,” he said.
Mohammed, 17, suffers from a congenital skin condition and “needs special care.”
The teenager is among scores of people reported missing as the RSF stages major attacks across eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer from the area defected to the army.
In retaliation, the RSF has been “killing people in their homes, in markets and on the streets, and looting property including from markets and hospitals,” rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
“Six days have passed, and we know nothing about him,” Ali said, speaking in New Halfa in Kassala state.
He and his family have taken refuge there after an arduous 150-kilometer (90-mile) journey.
At least 124 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the fighting in Al-Jazira state over the past 10 days, according to the United Nations.
The death toll for the whole month is at least 200.
War has raged in Sudan since April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The conflict has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than half the population — 25 million people — face acute hunger.

So many persons missing
The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that more than 119,000 people have fled from Al-Jazira state amid the recent surge of violence.
Mohamed Al-Obaid from Al-Hajjilij village in the state told AFP his story.
“So far, we’ve counted 170 missing from our village. Entire families are unaccounted for,” he said from New Halfa, where some children arrive unaccompanied by family members.
Since February, communications networks and Internet services have been almost entirely severed in the state, making it practically impossible to check on someone’s whereabouts.
Activist Ali Bashir, who helps people get away from villages in eastern Al-Jazira, said “the communications blackouts are making the missing persons crisis even worse.”
Sudanese social media are filled with posts about missing persons, with activists sharing the pictures and names, many of them children or elderly.
Earlier this month, intense clashes between the army and the RSF spread to Al-Jazira’s Tamboul city.
Just hours after the army said it had taken control of Tamboul, witnesses reported that the paramilitaries were continuing to operate there, causing thousands of civilians to flee.
Among them was trader Osman Abdel Karim, who lost track of two of his sons during fighting on October 19.
“Two of my sons, one 15 and the other 13, were outside when the attack began that Saturday night, and we had to leave without them,” the 43-year-old said.
“Ten days have passed, and we don’t know if they’re dead or alive.”


Israel hits Beirut’s southern suburbs for first time in days

Israel hits Beirut’s southern suburbs for first time in days
Updated 53 min 34 sec ago
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Israel hits Beirut’s southern suburbs for first time in days

Israel hits Beirut’s southern suburbs for first time in days

BEIRUT: Israel carried out air strikes early on Friday on Beirut’s southern suburbs, Reuters witnesses said, the first strikes there in nearly a week.


At least 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, hospital hit, says Gaza ministry

At least 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, hospital hit, says Gaza ministry
Updated 01 November 2024
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At least 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, hospital hit, says Gaza ministry

At least 46 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, hospital hit, says Gaza ministry
  • Strike on hospital torches medical supplies, officials say
  • Israel says militants were hiding in hospital

CAIRO: At least 46 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.
Israel’s military has accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there. Health officials and Hamas deny the charge.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike on two houses in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, medics at Al-Awda Hospital in the camp told Reuters. The dead included a paramedic and two local journalists, they added.
Northern Gaza, where Israel said in January it had dismantled Hamas’ command structure, is currently the main focus of the military’s assault in the enclave. Earlier this month it sent tanks into Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya to flush out militants it said had regrouped.
Eid Sabbah, director of nursing at Kamal Adwan — which is in Beit Lahiya — told Reuters some staff suffered minor burns after the Israeli strike hit the third floor of the hospital.
There were no reports of any casualties at the hospital, which Israeli forces stormed and briefly occupied last week. Israel said it had captured around 100 suspected Hamas militants in that raid. Israeli tanks are still stationed nearby.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation.”
The Israeli military has said its forces are operating in the hospital area based on intelligence about the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure in the vicinity.
“During the operation, it was found that dozens of terrorists were hiding in the hospital, with some even posing as hospital staff,” said the military in a statement following Thursday’s strike.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained last Saturday by Israeli forces. It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who “are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities say.


Iraq tries to avoid regional fight as militias fire at Israel

Iraq tries to avoid regional fight as militias fire at Israel
Updated 01 November 2024
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Iraq tries to avoid regional fight as militias fire at Israel

Iraq tries to avoid regional fight as militias fire at Israel
  • Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of the armed factions, said Israel and the US would have to pay a price for Israel’s strikes on Iran last week

BAGHDAD: Nervously watching Israel’s destructive campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, Iraq is working to avoid being drawn into the growing regional conflict as Iran-backed armed groups launch attacks on Israel from Iraqi soil, sources familiar with the matter say.
Two decades after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq is experiencing relative stability with high revenue from oil sales funding a service-based agenda that has turned much of the country into a construction site.
Iraq does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani’s government is wary of regional conflicts that could affect its delicate balancing act between Washington and Tehran, both states it is allied with.
Spillover from regional conflict resulted in months of tit-for-tat attacks between Iran-backed armed groups and US forces stationed in Iraq and the region that only subsided after Iran intervened in February.
But Sudani’s government has not been successful in a push to convince the Islamic Resistance in Iraq — a coalition of Iran-backed armed groups — to stop firing rockets and drones at Israel, according to four sources in Iran-backed armed groups and two government advisers.
Two visits to Iran by Iraq’s top security officials in the past two months, seeking Tehran’s help to rein in its allied Iraqi factions, failed, the sources said.
“The Iraqi delegation received a cold reception in Tehran ... The answer was: those groups have their own decision and it is their call to decide how to support their brothers in Lebanon and Gaza,” said a senior Iraqi security official briefed on the visits.
Baghdad turned to Washington, asking US officials to intervene with Israel to prevent retaliation for the attacks, including one that killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded more than 20 on Oct. 4, the sources said, the first time such an attack has been reported to cause fatalities.
“Washington was understanding of the repercussions of possible Israeli strikes in Iraq and pledged to help,” said an Iraqi foreign ministry official.
A spokesperson for the US embassy in Baghdad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Four militia sources said the Kataib Hezbollah and Nujaba groups, which are leading the attacks on Israel, have warned the prime minister against pressuring them to halt their actions and vowed to continue their attacks as long as Israel continued its Gaza and Lebanon operations.
The issue has divided parties in Iraq’s ruling coalition, all of whom are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and view Israel as an enemy, though some differ over how involved Iraq should be in the regional confrontation.
Shiite leaders discussed the risk of repercussions from attacks on Israel and possible Israeli retaliation during two meetings in October, said Ahmed Kenani, a Shiite lawmaker from the ruling alliance.
Key players in the Shiite coalition view direct confrontation with Israel as counterproductive and potentially damaging to Iraq, according to four Shiite lawmakers.
“Those groups who have the rockets and drones should go to Gaza and Lebanon to fight Israel rather than pushing Iraq toward destruction,” said Iraqi PM adviser Abul Ameer Thuaiban.
Kataib Hezbollah, the most powerful of the armed factions, said Israel and the US would have to pay a price for Israel’s strikes on Iran last week.
Senior Iraqi security sources told Reuters ahead of that attack that any strike by Israel against Iran outside what the sources called the established rules of engagement could prompt pro-Iran armed groups to significantly expand their attacks on Israel and US assets in the region.


Blinken says ‘good progress’ made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal

Blinken says ‘good progress’ made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal
Updated 31 October 2024
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Blinken says ‘good progress’ made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal

Blinken says ‘good progress’ made toward Lebanon ceasefire deal
  • Said that Washington “working very hard” on concluding arrangements on a deal
  • US has stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon

WASHINGTON DC: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that negotiators have made “good progress” toward a deal that would bring a ceasefire in Israel’s offensive in Lebanon.
The top US diplomat said that Washington was “working very hard” on concluding arrangements on a deal that would include the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the border region with Israel.
“Based on my recent trip to the region, and the work that’s ongoing right now, we have made good progress on those understandings,” Blinken told reporters.
“We still have more work to do,” he said, calling for a “diplomatic resolution, including through a ceasefire.”
Two senior US officials, Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, met Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said that any deal on Lebanon must guarantee Israel’s security.
Unlike in the year-old war in Gaza, the US has stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and has largely backed Israeli strikes against Hezbollah, while voicing concern for the fate of civilians.
Blinken called again for implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, dating from 2006, which calls for the disarmament of non-state groups in Lebanon and a full Israeli withdrawal from the country.
“It’s important to make sure that we have clarity, both from Lebanon and from Israel, about what would be required under 1701 to get its effective implementation — the withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the border, the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces, the authorities under which they’d be acting, an appropriate enforcement mechanism,” Blinken said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking alongside Blinken and their South Korean counterparts, said there was an “opportunity” in Lebanon.
“We’re hopeful that we will see things transition in Lebanon in a not too distant future,” Austin said.