Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire holds in first hours, Lebanese civilians start to return home

People clear debris and rubble from their apartment in Beirut’s southern suburbs after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (AFP)
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People clear debris and rubble from their apartment in Beirut’s southern suburbs after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. (AFP)
A driver waves the flag of Hezbollah while passing a building destroyed in recent Israeli strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs. (AFP)
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A driver waves the flag of Hezbollah while passing a building destroyed in recent Israeli strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs. (AFP)
Hezbollah supporters wave the yellow flag of the Lebanese militant group as they parade on motorbikes past buildings destroyed in recent Israeli strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs. (AFP)
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Hezbollah supporters wave the yellow flag of the Lebanese militant group as they parade on motorbikes past buildings destroyed in recent Israeli strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs. (AFP)
An Israeli soldier gestures from a military vehicle, after a ceasefire was agreed to by Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, near Israel's border with Lebanon in northern Israel, November 27, 2024. (Reuters)
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An Israeli soldier gestures from a military vehicle, after a ceasefire was agreed to by Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, near Israel's border with Lebanon in northern Israel, November 27, 2024. (Reuters)
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Updated 27 November 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire holds in first hours, Lebanese civilians start to return home

A driver waves the flag of Hezbollah while passing a building destroyed in recent Israeli strikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
  • Families return to their homes in the most heavily bombed ares of Lebanon
  • Lebanon’s army says it was preparing to deploy to the south of the country as part of ceasefire agreement

BEIRUT: A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah held on Wednesday after the two sides struck a deal brokered by the US and France, a rare feat of diplomacy in the Middle East wracked by two wars and several proxy conflicts for over a year.
The agreement ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years but Israel is still fighting its other arch foe the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Lebanon’s army, tasked with ensuring the ceasefire lasts, said it was preparing to deploy to the south of the country, a region Israel heavily bombarded in its battle against Hezbollah, along with eastern cities and towns and the armed group’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Cars and vans piled high with mattresses, suitcases and even furniture streamed through the heavily-bombed southern port city of Tyre, heading south. Fighting had escalated drastically over the past two months, forcing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from their homes.
Israel’s military said on Wednesday its forces were still on Lebanese territory and urged residents of southern Lebanese villages who had been ordered to evacuate in recent months to delay returning home until further notice from the Israeli military. Israeli troops have pushed around 6 km (4 miles) into Lebanon in a series of ground incursions launched in September.
Israel said it identified Hezbollah operatives returning to areas near the border and had opened fire to prevent them from coming closer. There were no immediate signs that the incident would undermine the ceasefire.
The agreement, which promises to end a conflict across the Israeli-Lebanese border that has killed thousands of people since it was ignited by the Gaza war last year, is a major achievement for the US in the waning days of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Diplomatic efforts will now turn to shattered Gaza, where Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israeli communities.
Israel has said its military aim in Lebanon had been to ensure the safe return of about 60,000 Israelis who fled from their communities along the northern border when Hezbollah started firing rockets at them in support of Hamas in Gaza.
In Lebanon, some cars flew national flags, others honked, and one woman could be seen flashing the victory sign with her fingers as people started to return to homes they had fled.
Many of the villages the people were likely returning to have been destroyed.
Hussam Arrout, a father of four said he was itching to return to his home.
“The Israelis haven’t withdrawn in full, they’re still on the edge. So we decided to wait until the army announces that we can go in. Then we’ll turn the cars on immediately and go to the village,” he said.
Announcing the ceasefire, Biden spoke at the White House on Tuesday shortly after Israel’s security cabinet approved the agreement in a 10-1 vote.
“This is designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities,” Biden said. “What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed to threaten the security of Israel again.”
Israel will gradually withdraw its forces over 60 days as Lebanon’s army takes control of territory near its border with Israel to ensure that Hezbollah does not rebuild its infrastructure there after a costly war, Biden said.
He said his administration was also pushing for an elusive ceasefire in Gaza.
Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the group “appreciates” Lebanon’s right to reach an agreement which protects its people, and hopes for a deal to end the Gaza war.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US would start its renewed push for a Gaza ceasefire on Wednesday.
But without a similar agreement yet in Gaza, many residents said they felt abandoned.
“We hope that all Arab and Western countries, and all people with merciful hearts and consciences...implement a truce here because we are tired,” said displaced Gazan Malak Abu Laila.
Egypt and Qatar, which along with the United States have tried unsuccessfully to mediate a ceasefire in Gaza, welcomed the Lebanon truce. Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday it hoped it would lead to a similar agreement to end the Gaza war.
Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the Houthis that have attacked Israel from Yemen, said it also welcomed the ceasefire.
Israel has dealt a series of blows to Hezbollah, notably the assassination of its veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday Israeli forces fired at several vehicles with suspects to prevent them from reaching a no-go zone in Lebanese territory and the suspects moved away.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said he instructed the military to “act firmly and without compromise” should it happen again.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah said that the militant Lebanese group would retain the right to defend itself if Israel attacked.
The ceasefire would give the Israeli army an opportunity to rest and replenish supplies, and isolate Hamas, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We have pushed them (Hezbollah) decades back. We eliminated Nasrallah, the axis of the axis. We have taken out the organization’s top leadership, we have destroyed most of their rockets and missiles,” he said.


Israeli leaders applaud Trump pledge on hostages, Gazans fear the worse

Israeli leaders applaud Trump pledge on hostages, Gazans fear the worse
Updated 5 sec ago
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Israeli leaders applaud Trump pledge on hostages, Gazans fear the worse

Israeli leaders applaud Trump pledge on hostages, Gazans fear the worse
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “This is the way to bring back the hostages: by increasing the pressure and the costs for Hamas and its supporters“
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said simply on X: “Thank you President Trump“

JERUSALEM/CAIRO: Israeli leaders hailed on Tuesday a pledge by US President-elect Donald Trump that there would be “hell to pay” in the Middle East unless hostages held in the Gaza Strip were released ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration.
The reaction in Gaza was less enthusiastic.
Writing on Truth Social, and without naming any group, Trump said the hostages had to be freed by the time he was sworn in.
If his demand was not met, he said: “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.”
During their deadly 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas-led militants captured more than 250 people. Some have been released or freed but around half of them are still in Gaza, although at least a third of these are believed to be dead.
Israeli ministers lined up to thank Trump for his hard-hitting words.
“How refreshing it is to hear clear and morally sound statements that do not create a false equivalence or call for addressing ‘both sides’, but rather clarify who are the good and who are the bad,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“This is the way to bring back the hostages: by increasing the pressure and the costs for Hamas and its supporters, and defeating them, rather than giving in to their absurd demands.”
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said simply on X: “Thank you President Trump.”
Likewise the families of the missing hostages expressed their gratitude. “It is now evident to all: the time has come. We must bring them home NOW,” the families forum said.

NEGOTIATIONS STALLED
Israel and Hamas have held on-off negotiations since October 2023, but after an initial hostage release in November, little progress has been made with both sides blaming each other.
Responding to Trump’s post, senior Hamas official Basem Naim said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sabotaged all efforts to secure a deal that involved exchanging the hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
“Therefore, we understand (Trump’s) message is directed first at Netanyahu and his government to end this evil game,” he told Reuters.
Gaza political analyst Ramiz Moghani said Trump’s threat was directed at both Hamas and its backer Iran, and warned that it would embolden Israel to not expel Palestinians from swathes of Gaza but also annex the nearby, Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“These statements have serious implications for the Israeli war in Gaza and the West Bank,” he told Reuters.
Mohammed Dahlan, like hundreds of thousands of Gazans, has had to flee his house because of the fighting and is desperate for the war to end. But he said he was shocked by Trump.
“We were hoping that the new administration would bring with it a breakthrough .... but it seems (Trump) is in complete agreement with the Israeli administration and that there are apparently more punitive measures ahead,” he said.

Israel kills 23 people in north Gaza, orders evacuations in south

Israel kills 23 people in north Gaza, orders evacuations in south
Updated 18 min 36 sec ago
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Israel kills 23 people in north Gaza, orders evacuations in south

Israel kills 23 people in north Gaza, orders evacuations in south
  • Medics said eight people had been killed in a series of airstrikes in Beit Lahiya while four others were killed elsewhere in Gaza City
  • An Israeli airstrike later killed two people and wounded others in Jabalia

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, most of them in the town of Beit Lahiya on the northern edge, medics said, as the army issued new evacuation orders in the south of the small enclave.
Medics said eight people had been killed in a series of airstrikes in Beit Lahiya while four others were killed elsewhere in Gaza City.
An Israeli airstrike later killed two people and wounded others in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, in the coastal enclave’s north, medics said.
Another air attack, on Al-Falah School sheltering displaced families in Gaza City’s Zeitoun suburb, killed six people and wounded others, medics said, while in Rafah in the far south, three women were killed by Israeli drone fire, they added.
The Israeli army has been operating in Jabalia and also in the towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun since October. Israeli forces have killed hundreds of militants in the three locations since the operation began, the army has said.
The army says it is targeting regrouping Hamas-led militants who often use civilian buildings including schools and hospitals for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminate bombardments.
Hamas and its smaller ally Islamic Jihad have said their fighters have killed several Israeli soldiers in guerrilla-style ambushes since October.
Palestinians have accused Israel’s army of trying to drive people from the northern edge of Gaza with forced evacuations and bombardments to create a buffer zone. The army denies this, saying it has returned there to prevent Hamas fighters from renewing operations in an area from which they had been cleared.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said its operations in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun had now been halted for nearly four weeks due to Israeli attacks on their teams as well as fuel shortages.
On Tuesday it said 13 of 27 vehicles in central and southern Gaza were also stuck for lack of fuel. It said 88 members of the Civil Emergency Service had been killed, 304 wounded and 21 detained by Israel since the
war began in October 2023.

EVACUATION ORDERS
The Israeli army issued evacuation orders on Tuesday to residents in northern districts of Khan Younis, a city in south Gaza, citing the firing of rockets by militants from those areas. The orders, the latest of many, prompted the hurried exodus of families, mostly before dawn, in a westerly direction.
“For your own safety, you must evacuate the area immediately and move to the humanitarian zone,” the army said in a statement on X.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been internally displaced, some as many as 10 times in all.
Israel launched its campaign in the densely populated enclave after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities across the border on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military campaign has since killed more than 44,400 Palestinians, injured many others, and reduced much of the enclave to rubble.


Retiring UN official laments lack of diplomatic focus on Palestinian state

Retiring UN official laments lack of diplomatic focus on Palestinian state
Updated 58 min 8 sec ago
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Retiring UN official laments lack of diplomatic focus on Palestinian state

Retiring UN official laments lack of diplomatic focus on Palestinian state
  • Tor Wennesland, special coordinator for Mideast peace process, criticizes short-term fixes
  • Warns against opponents of Palestinian sovereignty setting terms of debate

LONDON: World leaders have wrongly focused on short-term fixes at the expense of pushing for a Palestinian state, the UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process has said.

Tor Wennesland, who is retiring after a four-year tenure, told the New York Times that the international community had focused on improving Gaza’s economy and diplomatic deals between Israel and Arab states, but that these approaches have failed to solve the central issue driving the conflict: the lack of a permanent settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

“Politics failed. Diplomacy failed. The international community failed. And the parties failed,” he said. “What we have seen is the failure of dealing with the real conflict, the failure of politics and diplomacy.”

Western leaders have failed to convince Israel of the need for Palestinian sovereignty, having been distracted by migration crises, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Wennesland added.

“Politics is what ends war, and diplomacy is what ends war,” he said, adding that international attention has been shifting “toward dealing with the day-to-day humanitarian situation, and with less attention on the politics.”

The perceived decline in the viability of the two-state solution among Western officials risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as it allows opponents of Palestinian statehood to set the terms of debate, Wennesland said.

“The spoilers have been more effective, determined and fast moving than diplomats and politicians,” he added.


UN chief slams ‘systematic’ looting of Gaza humanitarian aid

UN chief slams ‘systematic’ looting of Gaza humanitarian aid
Updated 03 December 2024
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UN chief slams ‘systematic’ looting of Gaza humanitarian aid

UN chief slams ‘systematic’ looting of Gaza humanitarian aid
  • Aid distribution in Gaza is complicated by shortages of fuel, war-damaged roads and looting
  • On Monday, Gaza’s interior ministry said it had carried out a major operation targeting looters
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations chief on Tuesday denounced the “systematic” looting of humanitarian aid in Gaza, a day after the territory’s Hamas authorities said 20 people were killed in a security operation targeting such actions.
“Armed looting has become systematic and must end immediately. It is hindering life saving aid operations and further endangering the lives of our staff,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“However, the use of law enforcement operations must be lawful, necessary and proportionate.”
Israel imposed a total siege on Gaza in the early stages of the war last year, and the UN warned on November 9 that famine was looming in some areas due to a lack of aid.
Aid distribution in Gaza is complicated by shortages of fuel, war-damaged roads and looting, as well as fighting in densely populated areas and the repeated displacement of much of the territory’s 2.4 million people.
Several humanitarian officials have told AFP on condition of anonymity that almost half the aid that enters Gaza is looted, especially basic supplies.
On Monday, Gaza’s interior ministry said it had carried out a major operation targeting looters.
“More than 20 members of gangs involved in stealing aid trucks were killed in a security operation carried out by security forces in cooperation with tribal committees,” the ministry said in a statement.
It said the operation was “the beginning of a broad security campaign that has been long planned and will expand to include everyone involved in the theft of aid trucks.”
On Tuesday, the US-based Washington Post newspaper cited a UN memo as saying some of the gangs were receiving “passive if not active benevolence” or “protection” from the Israel Defense Forces.
Dujarric said he was unaware of the memo, but that the allegation was “fairly alarming” if true.
“The idea that the Israeli forces may be allowing looters or not doing enough to prevent it is frankly, fairly alarming, given the responsibilities of Israel as the occupying power to ensure that humanitarian aid is distributed safely,” he said.

Gazans walk miles for bread and flour amid war shortages

Gazans walk miles for bread and flour amid war shortages
Updated 59 min 16 sec ago
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Gazans walk miles for bread and flour amid war shortages

Gazans walk miles for bread and flour amid war shortages
  • Every morning crowds form outside the few bakeries open in the Palestinian territory, as people desperately try to get a bag of bread at distribution points
  • Essential goods like water, fresh produce and medicines are also scarce

GAZA: Faced with major food shortages after nearly 14 months of war, Palestinians describe long days hunting for flour and bread in the conflict-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Every morning crowds form outside the few bakeries open in the Palestinian territory, as people desperately try to get a bag of bread at distribution points.
Since the outbreak of war in Gaza last year, charities and international aid organizations have repeatedly warned of crisis levels of hunger for nearly two million people.
A United Nations-backed assessment last month warned of famine looming in the northern Gaza Strip amid a near-halt in food aid after Israel launched an offensive in the area.
Essential goods like water, fresh produce and medicines are also scarce.
Gazans across the territory have told AFP in recent months how they wake up at the crack of dawn just to ensure they can get some flour or bread, with current availability reaching an all-time low.
In the southern city of Khan Yunis, AFP photographers saw dozens of people at a distribution point, bodies pressed against each other.
Over each other’s heads, everyone tries to reach out as far as possible to grab the round bread.
A small child, her face covered in tears, squeezes a coin between her fingers as she makes her way through the crowd of adults.
“I walked about eight kilometers (five miles) to get bread,” Hatem Kullab, a displaced Palestinian living in a neighborhood of makeshift tents, told AFP.
It was in the middle of one of these crowds that two women and a child were trampled to death in a stampede at a bakery in the central Gazan city of Deir el-Balah Friday.
“To get a loaf of bread you need a whole day of eight to 10 hours,” said the brother of one of the women killed, describing his sister’s ordeal as she tried to get bread to feed 10 family members.
“The suffering that my sister went through is suffered by all the Palestinian people,” Jameel Fayyad told AFP, criticizing what he described as poor management of the bakeries.
Fayyad’s anger was largely directed at Israel, but he also blamed the World Food Programme (WFP) and “traders who want to make money on the backs of people.”
Palestinians from across the Gaza Strip told AFP journalists that it is extremely difficult to find the 50-kilogram (110 pounds) bags of flour that would last them several weeks before the war.
“There is no flour, no food, no vegetables in the markets,” Nasser Al-Shawa, 56, said, who, like most residents, was forced to leave his home because of the bombings and lives with his children and grandchildren in central Gaza.
Shawa, who now lives in a friend’s house in Deir el-Balah, says a 50-kilogram bag costs between 500 and 700 shekels ($137 and $192).
Before the war, it cost around 100 shekels.
Inside Gaza where more than half of the buildings have been destroyed, the production is at an almost complete standstill. Flour mills, warehouses storing flour and industrial bakeries are unable to function because they have been so heavily damaged by strikes.
Humanitarian aid is trickling in but aid groups have repeatedly slammed the many constraints imposed on them by Israel, which the country denies.
In the latest blow, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) announced Sunday it was halting aid deliveries to Gaza via a key crossing point with Israel.
UNRWA said delivery had become impossible, partly due to looting by gangs.
For Layla Hamad, who lives in a tent with her husband and seven children in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi, UNRWA’s decision was “like a bullet to the head.”
She said her family had regularly received “a small quantity” of flour from UNRWA.
“Every day, I think we will not survive, either because we will be killed by Israeli bombing or by hunger,” she said. “There is no third option.”
The majority of private companies that Israel had in the past allowed to bring in food to Gaza say they are no longer able to do so.
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 44,502 deaths, also mostly civilians, according to data from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry that the UN considers reliable.