Israeli army builds wall on Blue Line, reinstalls border cameras

Special Israeli army builds wall on Blue Line, reinstalls border cameras
Smoke billows from a fire that Lebanese media reported was lit by Israeli forces in the southern Lebanese village of Burj Al-Muluk, across from a UNIFIL base, left, Jan. 21, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 22 January 2025
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Israeli army builds wall on Blue Line, reinstalls border cameras

Israeli army builds wall on Blue Line, reinstalls border cameras
  • Israeli army is using the remaining time in the ceasefire deal with Hezbollah to establish control over the Lebanese border area
  • European Council approves $62m aid package for Lebanese Army ‘to carry out its sensitive mission’

BEIRUT: An Israeli force on Wednesday advanced into the Lebanese town of Taybeh, conducted extensive searches in the area up to Adchit Al-Qusayr and set fire to several homes.

Separately, an Israeli drone struck an area between Wadi Khansa and Al-Majidiya in the Hasbaya district.

The Israeli army is using the remaining time in the ceasefire deal with Hezbollah to establish control over the Lebanese border area.

A security source reported that the Israeli army reinstalled surveillance cameras and listening devices along the border.

The official National News Agency reported that the Israeli army “completed the construction of the concrete separation wall along the Blue Line from Yarin to Dahira.”

As the Lebanese army continues to establish positions in areas vacated by the Israeli army and prepares to enter the town of Hanine in the Bint Jbeil district, a number of residents from the towns of Al-Bayyadah, Shamaa, Alma Al-Shaab and Naqoura in the western sector were permitted to visit their hometowns.

Activists on social media circulated statements urging local populations to “prepare for Sunday, the date by which, according to the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli withdrawal from the border area should have occurred, allowing people to return to their towns.”

However, the Israeli army has continued to prohibit locals from entering the towns, using gunfire as a warning.

A statement issued to residents of Khiam urged caution and advised against hasty returns, “pending an official announcement from the relevant authorities to assess the security situation, as well as from the Lebanese Army, which is expected to clarify the situation on Saturday evening and determine whether a safe return is feasible.”

The statement said: “We are dealing with a treacherous enemy. Do not grant them the opportunity for betrayal, aggression, murder, bombardment and destruction once again.”

In support of the Lebanese Army, the European Council approved on Wednesday a third aid measure under the European Peace Facility, amounting to €60 million ($62 million) for the army.

The measure, according to a statement, “contributes to enhancing the capabilities of the Lebanese army to enable it — in line with Resolution 1701 — to redeploy and secure and maintain stability in the South Litani sector.

“This contributes to protecting the civilian population in the area, and works to enhance the operational capabilities and effectiveness of the Lebanese army, to contribute to national and regional security, thus allowing displaced civilians on both sides to return to their homes.”

Kaja Kallas, EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said: “This new assistance represents a significant increase in the EU’s support to the Lebanese Armed Forces within the framework of the European Peace Facility, at a crucial stage in the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel.

“The Lebanese Armed Forces are essential for regional and local stability, and deserve our full support in carrying out their sensitive mission. The EU and its member states remain strongly committed to supporting Lebanese state institutions and renewing the EU-Lebanon partnership.”

The resolution affirmed “the EU’s commitment to supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces’ capacity to redeploy in the South Litani sector, particularly following the 60-day ceasefire agreement.

“The Lebanese Armed Forces’ plan to redeploy in the South Litani sector is essential to accompany international efforts to achieve a permanent ceasefire and implement resolution 1701,” it said.

“The Lebanese Armed Forces is the main guarantor, alongside UNIFIL, to create the necessary security conditions to restore stability and security for the population on both sides of the border.”

Meanwhile, Sheikh Mohammed Khalil Hamadeh, a Hezbollah official in Western Bekaa, was shot in front of his home by unknown assailants on Tuesday evening. He was hit by six bullets and died in hospital.

It was the first assassination in Lebanese territory since a ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel went into effect 57 days ago.

An investigation has been launched to identify the perpetrators and the motives of the assassination, especially as Sheikh Hamadeh was a well-known figure in the region.

In a statement, Hezbollah mourned Hamadeh, describing him as “a leader and a warrior, who was martyred.”

Security information said that the gunmen who assassinated him were “driving a civilian car with tinted windows.”

Bekaa MP Ghassan Skaf did not rule out the potential involvement of Israeli spy agency Mossad, “which operates without being bound by any truce.”

He said: “The last war proved that the number of agents inside Lebanon, especially within the supportive environment of Hezbollah, was greater than even the party itself expected. Therefore, even if Israel were to withdraw completely from Lebanon, it would not halt its policy of assassinations.”

In another development, Layal Alekhtiar, Al Arabiya channel’s anchor, landed in Beirut on Wednesday and was accompanied by security forces from the airport to the Justice Palace in Beirut.

A search and arrest warrant was issued against her in November 2023 by the Lebanese Military Public Prosecution.

The warrant followed an inquiry initiated at the behest of individuals close to Hezbollah, following Alekhtiar’s live interview with Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on Al Arabiya.

Lebanese law forbids interactions with Israelis.

A Lebanese security source said: “Alekhtiar was immediately referred to the first investigative judge in Beirut Fadi Sawan at the Justice Palace. Following the interrogation, Alekhtiar was released on bail for 50 million Lebanese pounds ($558).”

Two months after Hezbollah opened a front to support Hamas, Alekhtiar sparked outrage among Hezbollah supporters when she interviewed Adraee on Al Arabiya and addressed him as “ustaz” (mister) and thanked him as “the Israeli army spokesman.”

Alekhtiar had described the complaint against her on social media as “a blatant political persecution in the form of judicial repression,” adding that “this has nothing to do with truth and justice.”

She addressed those who filed the complaint, saying: “They are the ones who plundered the state, bankrupted the people, and gave up the nation’s sovereignty and wealth. They are now covering up their crimes with fabrications to suppress freedoms.”

She added: “You will never affect my freedom, my dignity and my convictions no matter what you do.”


Netanyahu says 6 more hostages to be freed next week

Netanyahu says 6 more hostages to be freed next week
Updated 5 sec ago
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Netanyahu says 6 more hostages to be freed next week

Netanyahu says 6 more hostages to be freed next week

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said late Sunday that another six hostages would be released in the coming week, after talks with Hamas.
Three would be released on Thursday and another three on Saturday, said a statement from his office, adding that Netanyahu would allow Palestinians to return to the north of Gaza from Monday.
 

 


Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally
Updated 22 min 33 sec ago
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Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally

Trump’s Palestinian refugee idea falls flat with Jordan and confounds a Senate ally
  • Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War
  • Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees

DORAL, Florida: President Donald Trump’s push to have Egypt and Jordan take in large numbers of Palestinian refugees from besieged Gaza fell flat with those countries’ governments and left a key congressional ally in Washington perplexed on Sunday.
Fighting that broke out in the territory after ruling Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023 is paused due to a fragile ceasefire, but much of Gaza’s population has been left largely homeless by an Israeli military campaign. Trump told reporters Saturday aboard Air Force One that moving some 1.5 million people away from Gaza might mean that “we just clean out that whole thing.”
Trump relayed what he told Jordan’s King Abdullah when the two held a call earlier Saturday: “I said to him, ‘I’d love for you to take on more because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now, and it’s a mess.’”
He said he was making a similar appeal to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during a conversation they were having while Trump was at his Doral resort in Florida on Sunday. Trump said he would “like Egypt to take people and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Egypt and Jordan, along with the Palestinians, worry that Israel would never allow them to return to Gaza once they have left. Both Egypt and Jordan also have perpetually struggling economies and their governments, as well as those of other Arab states, fear massive destabilization of their own countries and the region from any such influx of refugees.
Jordan already is home to more than 2 million Palestinian refugees. Egypt has warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza.
Trump suggested that resettling most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million could be temporary or long term.
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said Sunday that his country’s opposition to what Trump floated was “firm and unwavering.” Some Israel officials had raised the idea early in the war.
Egypt’s foreign minister issued a statement saying that the temporary or long-term transfer of Palestinians “risks expanding the conflict in the region.”
Trump does have leverage to wield over Jordan, which is a debt-strapped, but strategically important, US ally and is heavily dependent on foreign aid. The US is historically the single-largest provider of that aid, including more than $1.6 billion through the State Department in 2023.
Much of that comes as support for Jordan’s security forces and direct budget support.
Jordan in return has been a vital regional partner to the US in trying to help keep the region stable. Jordan hosts some 3,000 US troops. Yet, on Friday, new Secretary of State Marco Rubio exempted security assistance to Israel and Egypt but not to Jordan, when he laid out the details of a freeze on foreign assistance that Trump ordered on his first day in office.
Meantime, in the United States, even Trump loyalists tried to make sense of his words.
“I really don’t know,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, when asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” about what Trump meant by the ”clean out” remark. Graham, who is close to Trump, said the suggestion was not feasible.
“The idea that all the Palestinians are going to leave and go somewhere else, I don’t see that to be overly practical,” said Graham, R-S.C. He said Trump should keep talking to Mideast leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and officials in the United Arab Emirates.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about. But go talk to MBS, go talk to UAE, go talk to Egypt,” Graham said. “What is their plan for the Palestinians? Do they want them all to leave?”
Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, also announced Saturday that he had directed the US to release a supply of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. Former President Joe Biden had imposed a hold due to concerns about their effects on Gaza’s civilian population.
Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza’s population could make that impossible.
In making his case for such a massive population shift, Trump said Gaza is “literally a demolition site right now.”
“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location,” he said of people displaced in Gaza. “Where they can maybe live in peace for a change.”
 

 


Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days

Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days
Updated 45 min 13 sec ago
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Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days

Syria monitor says 35 people summarily executed in three days
  • Most of those executed are former officers in the toppled Assad government who had presented themselves in centers set up by the new authorities, according to the Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria

DAMASCUS: Fighters affiliated with Syria’s new Islamist leaders have carried out 35 summary executions over 72 hours, mostly of Assad-era officers, a war monitor said Sunday.
The authorities, installed by the rebel forces that toppled longtime president Bashar Assad last month, said they had carried out multiple arrests in the western Homs area over unspecified “violations.”
Official news agency SANA said the authorities on Friday accused members of a “criminal group” who used a security sweep to commit abuses against residents, “posing as members of the security services.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that “these arrests follow grave violations and summary executions that had cost the lives of 35 people over the past 72 hours.”
It also said that “members of religious minorities” had suffered “humiliations.”
Most of those executed are former officers in the toppled Assad government who had presented themselves in centers set up by the new authorities, according to the Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
“Dozens of members of local armed groups under the control of the new Sunni Islamist coalition in power who participated in the security operations” in the Homs area “have been arrested,” the Observatory said.
It added that these groups “carried out reprisals and settled old scores with members of the Alawite minority to which Bashar Assad belongs, taking advantage of the state of chaos, the proliferations of arms and their ties to the new authorities.”
The Observatory listed “mass arbitrary arrests, atrocious abuse, attacks against religious symbols, mutilations of corpses, summary and brutal executions targeting civilians,” which it said showed “an unprecedented level of cruelty and violence.”
Civil Peace Group, a civil society organization, said in a statement that there had been civilian victims in multiple villages in the Homs area during the security sweep.
The group “condemned the unjustified violations” including the killing of unarmed men.
Since seizing power, the new authorities have sought to reassure religious and ethnic minorities in Syria that their rights would be upheld.
Members of Assad’s Alawite minority have expressed fear of retaliation over abuses during his clan’s decades in power.
 

 


US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18

US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18
Updated 1 min 51 sec ago
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US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18

US says ceasefire agreement between Lebanon, Israel to continue until February 18
  • Lebanon confirms adhering to the extended ceasefire agreement, says Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati
  • Israeli forces killed 22 people in south Lebanon on Sunday as a deadline for their withdrawal passed

WASHINGTON: The US said on Sunday that the agreement between Lebanon and Israel would remain in effect until Feb. 18, after Israel said on Friday it would keep troops in the south beyond the Sunday deadline set out in a US-brokered ceasefire that halted last year’s war with Hezbollah.
“The arrangement between Lebanon and Israel, monitored by the United States, will continue to be in effect until February 18, 2025,” the White House said in a statement.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a statement early on Monday that Lebanon confirmed it will continue to adhere to the extended ceasefire agreement.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. (AFP)

Israeli forces killed 22 people in south Lebanon on Sunday as a deadline for their withdrawal passed and thousands of people tried to return to their homes in defiance of Israeli military orders, Lebanese authorities said.
Lebanon’s US-backed military, which reported one of its soldiers among those killed by Israeli forces on Sunday, has accused Israel of procrastinating in its withdrawal.
The Hezbollah-Israel conflict was fought in parallel with the Gaza war, and peaked in a major Israeli offensive that uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon and left the Iran-backed group badly weakened.
Israel has not said how long its forces would remain in the south, where the Israeli military says it has been seizing Hezbollah weapons and dismantling its infrastructure.
Israel said its offensive against Hezbollah aimed to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis who were forced to leave homes at the border by Hezbollah rocket fire.
Hezbollah opened fire in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza war on Oct. 8, 2023.
The White House on Sunday also said the governments of Lebanon, Israel and the US would begin negotiations for “the return of Lebanese prisoners captured after October 7, 2023.”

 

 


Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’

Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’
Updated 40 min 27 sec ago
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Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’

Arab League says any plan to uproot Palestinians from Gaza would be ‘ethnic cleansing’
  • The regional bloc was reacting to US President Trump's suggestion to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and move its population to Egypt and Jordan
  • Egyptian President El-Sisi has repeatedly warned that any planned displacement would threaten Egypt’s national security

CAIRO: The Arab League on Sunday warned against “attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land,” after US President Donald Trump suggested a plan to “clean out” the Gaza Strip and move its population to Egypt and Jordan.
“The forced displacement and eviction of people from their land can only be called ethnic cleansing,” the regional bloc’s general secretariat said in a statement.

“Attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land, whether by displacement, annexation or settlement expansion, have been proven to fail in the past,” the statement added.
Earlier Sunday, Egypt vehemently expressed its objection to Trump's suggestion.

Cairo’s foreign ministry in a statement expressed Egypt’s “continued support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people on their land.”
It “rejected any infringement on those inalienable rights, whether by settlement or annexation of land, or by the depopulation of that land of its people through displacement, encouraged transfer or the uprooting of Palestinians from their land, whether temporarily or long-term.”
After 15 months of war, Trump said Gaza had become a “demolition site” and he would “like Egypt to take people, and I’d like Jordan to take people.”
Moving Gaza’s inhabitants could be done “temporarily or could be long term,” he said.
Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023 both countries have warned of plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza into neighboring Egypt and from the West Bank into Jordan.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, with whom Trump said he would speak on Sunday, has repeatedly warned that said displacement would aim to “eradicate the cause for Palestinian statehood.”
El-Sisi has described the prospect as a “red line” that would threaten Egypt’s national security.
The Egyptian foreign ministry on Sunday urged the implementation of the “two-state solution,” which Cairo has said would become impossible if Palestinians were removed from their territories.