Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members

Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members
Ultra-Orthodox protester sits on the ground during a protest on the first day Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men were requested to enlist for compulsory military service, outside the Tel Hashomer army base near Tel Aviv, August 5, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 05 November 2024
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Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members

Israel issues 7,000 new draft orders for ultra-Orthodox members

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued 7,000 additional army draft orders Monday for individuals from the country’s ultra-Orthodox community, historically exempted from mandatory service until a June Supreme Court decision.
Gallant approved the Israeli army’s “recommendation to issue an additional 7,000 orders for screening and evaluation processes for ultra-Orthodox draft-eligible individuals in the upcoming phase, which is expected to begin in the coming days,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
The order comes after a first round of 3,000 draft orders were sent out in July, sparking protests from the ultra-Orthodox community.
Monday’s orders come at a time when Israel is struggling to bolster troop numbers as it fights a multi-front war, with ground forces deployed to fight Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“The defense minister concluded that the war and the challenges we face underscore the (Israeli army’s) need for additional soldiers. This is a tangible operational need that requires broad national mobilization from all parts of society,” the ministry said.
In Israel, military service is mandatory for Jewish men for 32 months, and for 24 months for Jewish women.
The ultra-Orthodox account for 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, according to the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), representing about 1.3 million people.
About 66,000 of those of conscription age are exempted, according to the army.
Under a rule adopted at Israel’s creation in 1948, when it applied to only 400 people, the ultra-Orthodox have historically been exempted from military service if they dedicate themselves to the study of sacred Jewish texts.
In June, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the draft of yeshiva (seminary) students after deciding the government could not keep up the exemption “without an adequate legal framework.”
Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,374 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to Gaza health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
Since late September, Israel has broadened the focus of its war to Lebanon, where it intensified air strikes and later sent in ground troops, following nearly a year of tit-for-tat cross-border fire with Hezbollah.


Strikes on key bridge linking Syria’s Homs, Hama: war monitor

Strikes on key bridge linking Syria’s Homs, Hama: war monitor
Updated 59 min 7 sec ago
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Strikes on key bridge linking Syria’s Homs, Hama: war monitor

Strikes on key bridge linking Syria’s Homs, Hama: war monitor
  • Air strikes targeted a bridge on the highway linking the Syrian cities of Homs and Hama, a war monitor said Friday

BEIRUT: Air strikes targeted a bridge on the highway linking the Syrian cities of Homs and Hama, a war monitor said Friday, as government forces scramble to secure Homs after Islamist-led militants captured Hama and commercial hub Aleppo.
“Fighter jets executed several airstrikes, targeting Al-Rastan bridge on (the) Homs-Hama highway... as well as attacking positions around the bridge, attempting to cut off the road between Hama and Homs and secure Homs,” the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The militants led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) launched their offensive a little more than a week ago, just as a ceasefire in neighboring Lebanon took hold between Israel and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ally Hezbollah.
To slow the militants advance, the Observatory said Assad’s forces erected soil barriers on the highway north of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city which lies just 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hama.
Tens of thousands of members of Assad’s Alawite minority community were fleeing Homs on Thursday, for fear that the militants would keep up their advance, the Observatory said earlier.
The militants captured Hama on Thursday following street battles with government forces, announcing “the complete liberation of the city” in a message on their Telegram channel.
Militant fighters kissed the ground and let off volleys of celebratory gunfire as they entered Syria’s fourth-largest city.
Many residents turned out to welcome the militants. An AFP photographer saw some residents set fire to a giant poster of Assad on the facade of city hall.
The army admitted losing control of the city, strategically located between Aleppo and Assad’s seat of power in Damascus.
Defense Minister Ali Abbas insisted that the army’s withdrawal was a “temporary tactical measure.”
“Our forces are still in the vicinity,” he said in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency.


Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank, called the loss of Hama “a massive, massive blow to the Syrian government” because the army should have had an advantage there to reverse militants gains “and they couldn’t do it.”
He said HTS would now try to push on toward Homs, where many residents were already leaving on Thursday.
Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman reported a mass exodus from the city of members of Assad’s Alawite minority community.
He said tens of thousands were heading toward areas along Syria’s Mediterranean coast, where the Alawites, followers of an offshoot of Shiite Islam, form the majority.
“We are afraid and worried that what happened in Hama will be repeated in Homs,” said a civil servant, who gave his name only as Abbas.
“We fear they (the militants) will take revenge on us,” the 33-year-old said.
Until last week, the war in Syria had been mostly dormant for years, but analysts have said it was bound to resume as it was never truly resolved.
In a video posted online, HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani said his fighters had entered Hama to “cleanse the wound that has endured in Syria for 40 years,” referring to a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, which led to thousands of deaths.
In a later message on Telegram congratulating “the people of Hama on their victory,” he used his real name, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, instead of his nom de guerre for the first time.


The Observatory, which relies on a network of sources in Syria, said 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed in the country since the violence erupted last week.
It marks the most intense fighting since 2020 in the civil war sparked by the repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011.
Key to the militants’ successes since the start of the offensive last week was the takeover of Aleppo, which in more than a decade of war had never entirely fallen out of government hands.
While the advancing militants met little resistance earlier in their offensive, the fighting around Hama has been especially fierce.
Assad ordered a 50-percent raise in career soldiers’ pay, state news agency SANA reported Wednesday, as he seeks to bolster his forces for a counteroffensive.
Militants drove back the Syrian armed forces despite the fact that the government sent in “large military convoys,” the Observatory said.
The militants launched their offensive in northern Syria on November 27, the same day a ceasefire took effect in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Both Hezbollah and Russia have been crucial backers of Assad’s government, but have been mired in their own conflicts in recent years.
HTS is rooted in Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch.
The group has sought to moderate its image in recent years, but experts say it faces a challenge convincing Western governments it has fully renounced hard-line jihadism.
The United States maintains hundreds of troops in eastern Syria as part of a coalition formed against Daesh group jihadists.


Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal

Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal
Updated 06 December 2024
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Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal

Israel FM says ‘may have opportunity’ for Gaza hostage deal

JERUSALEM: Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday that Israel may have “an opportunity now” to secure a deal for the release of its hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Speaking in a video message from a meeting in Malta, he said: “We may have an opportunity now for a hostage deal. Israel is serious about reaching a hostage deal and I hope we can do this and do it as soon as possible.”


Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank

Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank
Updated 06 December 2024
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Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank

Palestinian security forces exchange gunfire with militants in West Bank

JENIN: Gunfights erupted in Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank on Thursday between militants and Palestinian security forces following the theft of vehicles belonging to the Palestinian Authority, according to AFP journalists in the city.
The intense exchanges of fire began around 9:30 PM (1930 GMT) and followed the deployment of members of the security forces around the Jenin refugee camp, which is adjacent to the city and a stronghold for armed groups in the territory, according to the journalist.
Witnesses reported that the Palestinian security forces set up roadblocks on routes leaving the camp.
Tensions were running high in Jenin earlier in the day after a group of armed men seized two vehicles belonging to the PA and paraded through the streets waving Islamic Jihad flags.
In a statement, General Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the security forces, said “a group of outlaws opened fire on the headquarters of the security services” and stole two vehicles.
He said the security forces would “recover the vehicles and hold accountable anyone who committed this act.”
Tensions between the PA and armed groups appear to have been exacerbated by recent arrests by the security forces.
At a press conference inside Jenin camp, Mahmud Abu Talal, spokesman for a collective of local armed groups, said the PA had “abandoned its people in the most difficult circumstances.”
He rejected the label of outlaws and accused the PA of “carrying out a continuous operation to undermine those who protect their people.”
Jenin has long been a bastion of Palestinian armed groups and was the focus of a major Israeli raid launched at the end of August.
Violence in the West Bank, already increasing, surged after the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.
Israel has occupied the territory since 1967.


Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance

Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance
Updated 06 December 2024
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Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance

Syria war monitor says tens of thousands flee Homs as rebels advance

BEIRUT: Tens of thousands of members of President Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority community were fleeing Syria’s third city Homs Thursday, for fear that Islamist-led rebels would keep up their advance, a war monitor said.
Homs lies just 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hama, which the rebels captured on Thursday.
Analysts said they expected the fighters led by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) to push on toward the city, a key link between Damascus and the Alawite heartland on the Mediterranean coast.
Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported “the mass exodus of Alawites from Homs neighborhoods, with tens of thousands heading toward the Syrian coast, fearing the rebel advance.”
Khaled, who lives on the city’s outskirts told AFP that “the road leading to (coastal) Tartus province was glowing... due to the lights of hundreds of cars on their way out.”
In April 2014, at least 100 people, mostly civilians, were killed in twin attacks in Homs that targeted a majority Alawite neighborhood.
The attacks were claimed by the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda which now HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani previously led.
Jolani announced his group had cut ties with the jihadists in 2016, and Al-Nusra was dissolved the following year, to be replaced by the key component of HTS.
Haidar, 37, who lives in an Alawite-majority neighborhood, told AFP by telephone that “fear is the umbrella that covers Homs now.”
“I’ve never seen this scene in my life. We are extremely afraid, we don’t know what is happening from one hour to the next,” he said.
He has managed to send his parents to Tartus, but has not found a car to take him and his wife “due to the high demand.”
“When we find a car, we’ll leave as fast as possible for Tartus.”
The province, which hosts a naval base operated by Assad ally Russia, has remained safe though 13 years of war.


Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced

Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced
Updated 06 December 2024
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Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced

Hezbollah leader says $77m allocated to Lebanon war displaced
  • “A total of $57 million has been paid,” covering 172,000 families, or some 75 percent of those registered, while the rest will receive a total of $20 million, Qassem added
  • He thanked Iran for “the generous support,” emphasising Hezbollah’s commitment to shelter and reconstruction

BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said Thursday that his group and its backer Iran had allocated $77 million so far to Lebanese displaced by its war with Israel, with more to come.
“In November, Hezbollah decided to give a monetary gift — a gift from the Iranian people and Hezbollah — of between $300 and $400 for each family,” out of more than 233,000 families who registered for its assistance, Qassem said.
“A total of $57 million has been paid,” covering 172,000 families, or some 75 percent of those registered, while the rest will receive a total of $20 million, he added in a televised address.
Qassem thanked Iran for “the generous support,” emphasising Hezbollah’s commitment to shelter and reconstruction.
Israel stepped up its campaign in south Lebanon in late September after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
In a report released last month, the World Bank provided estimates for damage between October 8, 2023, and October 27, 2024, saying “the conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses,” with damage to physical structures amounting to “at least $3.4 billion” on top of that.
It has also “damaged an estimated 99,209 housing units” — mainly in the south near the border with Israel — totalling $2.8 billion in damage, it said.
Eighty-one percent of damaged and destroyed houses are in the southern districts of Tyre, Nabatiyeh, Sidon, Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun, it said.
Qassem said that in addition to the $77 million already set aside, for “all those whose homes have been completely destroyed and cannot return to them” in Beirut and its southern suburbs, Hezbollah will pay “$14,000 over one year” to cover rent and furniture.
Those living in other areas will receive $12,000 for the same purpose, he added.
“Most of the amount will be offered in cash by the Islamic republic (of Iran) for shelter,,” Qassem said, calling on “brotherly Arab countries and friendly countries to contribute to the reconstruction.”
After Hezbollah and Israel went to war in 2006, Gulf countries led by Qatar helped with reconstruction, while Iran assisted with rebuilding bridges, roads and establishing service centers.