NEW YORK: The US, France and other allies jointly called Wednesday for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire to allow for negotiations in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon in recent days.
The joint statement, negotiated on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, says the recent fighting is “intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation.”
“We call for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Lebanon-Israel border to provide space for diplomacy,” the statement reads. “We call on all parties, including the Governments of Israel and Lebanon, to endorse the temporary ceasefire immediately.”
The signatories include the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told the UN Security Council during a meeting that “we are counting on both parties to accept it without delay.”
Barrot said France, a former colonial power to Lebanon, and the US had consulted with the sides on “final parameters for a diplomatic way out of this crisis,” adding that “war is not unavoidable.”
US deputy ambassador to the UN Robert Wood encouraged the council to support the diplomatic efforts but didn’t offer specifics about the plan.
“We are working with other countries on a proposal that we hope will lead to calm and enable discussions to a diplomatic solution,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US administration was “intensely engaged with a number of partners to deescalate tensions in Lebanon and to work to get a ceasefire agreement that would have so many benefits for all concerned.”
Blinken and other advisers to President Joe Biden have spent the past three days at and on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting of world leaders in New York lobbying other countries to support the plan, according to US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.
Americans hope such a ceasefire could lead to longer-term stability along the border between Israel and Lebanon. Months of Israeli and Hezbollah exchanges of fire across the border drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border, and escalated attacks this week have rekindled fears of a broader war in the Middle East.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior advisers Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein have been meeting with Middle East allies in New York and have been in touch with Israeli officials about the proposal, one of the US officials said. McGurk and Hochstein have been the White House’s chief interlocutors with Israel and Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, another Iranian-backed militant group.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu has given the green light to pursue a possible deal, but only if it includes the return of Israeli civilians to their homes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati threw his support behind the French-US plan that “enjoys international support and which would put an end to this dirty war.”
He called on the Security Council “to guarantee the withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied Lebanese territories and the violations that are repeated on a daily basis.”
Israel’s UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, told journalists at the United Nations that Israel would like to see a ceasefire and the return of people to their homes near the border: “It will happen, either after a war or before a war. We hope it will be before.”
Addressing the Security Council later Wednesday night, he made no mention of negotiations on a temporary ceasefire but said Israel “does not seek a full-scale war.”
Both Danon and Mikati reffirmed their governments’ commitment to a Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war in Lebanon. Never fully implemented, it called for a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon to be replaced by Lebanese forces and UN peacekeepers, and the disarmament of all armed groups including Hezbollah.
Danon demanded that the resolution be enforced in full without delay: “I make this declaration here today, to remove any doubt: Never again. Never again will the Jewish people hide from the monsters whose purpose in life is to murder Jews.”
Earlier Wednesday, Biden warned in an appearance on ABC’s “The View” that “an all-out war is possible” but said he thinks the opportunity also exists “to have a settlement that can fundamentally change the whole region.”
Biden suggested that getting Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a ceasefire could help achieve a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. That war is approaching the one-year mark after Hamas raids in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Israel responded with an offensive that has since killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, who do not provide a breakdown of civilians and fighters in their count.
“It’s possible and I’m using every bit of energy I have with my team … to get this done,” Biden said. “There’s a desire to see change in the region.”
The US and other international mediators have tried and failed for months to broker a ceasefire in Gaza that also would release hostages held by Hamas.
The US government also raised the pressure with additional sanctions Wednesday targeting more than a dozen ships and other entities it says were involved in illicit shipments of Iranian petroleum for the financial benefit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, the chief of Israel’s army said Wednesday that the military is preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon as Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group’s deepest strike yet.
Blinken has been urging both Israel and Hezbollah to step back from their intensifying conflict, saying that all-out war would be disastrous for the region and that escalation was not the way to get people back to their homes on the Israel-Lebanon border.
“It would be through a diplomatic agreement that has forces pulled back from the border, create a secure environment, people return home,” Blinken told NBC News. “That’s what we’re driving toward because while there’s a very legitimate issue here, we don’t think that war is the solution.”
US, France and allies call for ‘immediate’ 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah
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US, France and allies call for ‘immediate’ 21-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah
- In a joint statement, the allies said the recent fighting is “intolerable and presents an unacceptable risk of a broader regional escalation”
- The signatories include Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia and Canada
After PKK move, healing Turkiye-Kurd ties needs ‘paradigm shift’: Ocalan
- Ocalan is unlikely to be freed, as his life would likely come under threat, but the conditions of his imprisonment are likely to be “eased,” officials say
ISTANBUL: A “major” shift is needed to repair broken ties between the Turkish state and the country’s Kurdish minority following the historic decision of the Kurdistan Workers Party to disarm, its jailed founder said Sunday.
The message from Abdullah Ocalan was transmitted through a delegation of the pro-Kurdish DEM party who visited the Imrali prison island near Istanbul where Ocalan has been serving life in solitary confinement since 1999.
It was their first visit since the May 12 disarmament announcement, which sought to draw a line under conflict that began in 1984 when the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) took up arms. More than 40,000 people have died since.
“What we are doing involves a major paradigm shift,” wrote the 76-year-old former guerrilla.
“The Turkish-Kurdish relationship is like a brotherly relationship that is broken. Brothers and sisters fight, but they can’t exist without each other,” he said, calling for “a new agreement based on the concept of brotherhood.”
“We must clear away, one-by-one, all the traps and minefields that spoil this relationship, we must repair the broken roads and bridges.”
Only DEM lawmaker Pervin Buldan visited Ocalan this time, with lawyer Ozgur Erol, following the recent death of veteran Turkish peacemaker Sirri Sureyya Onder.
Onder, who was Turkiye’s deputy parliamentary speaker, died on May 3, after suffering a cardiac arrest and just days before the PKK’s historic decision.
He had spent years trying to end the conflict with Turkiye’s Kurdish minority in efforts that earned respect from across the political spectrum.
Since December, he had been part of a delegation that visited Ocalan several times, shuttling messages between him and Turkiye’s political establishment and paving the way for the PKK move.
“I had a hankering to speak to Sirri Sureyya Onder one last time,” Ocalan wrote, describing him as “a wise person for Turkiye” and saying he left behind “a cherished memory that we need to keep alive.”
The government has said it will carefully monitor the disarmament process and in turn, observers expect the government to show a new openness to the Kurds who make up about 20 percent of the 85 million population.
Ocalan is unlikely to be freed, as his life would likely come under threat, but the conditions of his imprisonment are likely to be “eased,” officials say.
Israel says it will allow a limited amount of aid into Gaza after nearly 3 months of blockade
- Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free hostages from Gaza but not necessarily end the war
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israel says it will allow a limited amount of humanitarian aid into Gaza after a nearly three-month blockade to avoid a “hunger crisis,” after global experts on food crises warned of famine.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his Cabinet approved a decision to allow a “basic” amount of food into the territory of over 2 million people. Israel imposed a complete blockade on humanitarian aid starting March 2.
Netanyahu said allowing some aid in would enable Israel to expand its new military operation, which began Saturday.
It was not immediately clear when aid would enter Gaza, or how. Netanyahu said Israel would work to ensure that Hamas will not control aid distribution and ensure the aid does not reach Hamas militants.
Earlier on Sunday, Israel launched “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza. Airstrikes in its new offensive killed at least 103 people, including dozens of children, overnight and into Sunday, hospitals and medics said. The bombardment forced northern Gaza’s main hospital to close as it reported direct strikes.
Israel began the offensive — the largest since it shattered a ceasefire in March — with the aim of seizing territory and displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Israel is pressuring Hamas to agree to a temporary ceasefire that would free hostages from Gaza but not necessarily end the war. Hamas says it wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and a path to ending the war as part of any deal.
“When the Jews want a truce, Hamas refuses, and when Hamas wants a truce, the Jews refuse it. Both sides agree to exterminate the Palestinian people,” said Jabaliya resident Abu Mohammad Yassin, who was among those fleeing the new offensive on foot or in donkey carts. “For God’s sake, have mercy on us. We are tired of displacement.”
Israel’s military, which recently called up tens of thousands of reservists, said the ground operations are throughout the Palestinian territory’s north and south. Israel’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, said that plans include “dissecting” the strip.
Before the announcement, airstrikes killed more than 48 people — including 18 children and 13 women — in and around the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital, which said it struggled to count the dead because of the condition of bodies.
In northern Gaza, a strike on a home in Jabaliya killed nine members of a family, according to the Gaza Health Ministry’s emergency services. Another strike on a residence there killed 10, including seven children and a woman, according to the civil defense, which operates under the Hamas-run government.
Israel’s military had no immediate comment. Its statement announcing the ground operations said preliminary strikes over the past week killed dozens of militants and struck more than 670 targets. Israel blames civilian casualties on Hamas because the militant group operates from civilian areas.
Shortly afterward, Israel’s military said that it intercepted a projectile from central Gaza and another fell in an open area, with no injuries reported.
Talks in Qatar
Israel had said it would wait until the end of US President Donald Trump’s visit to the Middle East before launching its offensive, saying it was giving ceasefire efforts a chance. Trump didn’t visit Israel on his trip that ended Friday.
Netanyahu’s office said his negotiating team in Qatar was “working to realize every chance for a deal,” including one that would end fighting in exchange for the release of all remaining 58 hostages, Hamas’ exile from Gaza and the disarmament of the territory.
Hamas has refused to leave Gaza or disarm.
Israel ended the previous eight-week ceasefire in March. Gaza’s Health Ministry has said almost 3,000 people have been killed since then.
Days before resuming the war, Israel cut off all food, medicine and other supplies to Gaza. The blockade is now in its third month, with global food security experts warning of famine across the territory.
Frustration in Israel has been rising. A small but growing number of Israelis are refusing to show up for military service, even risking imprisonment. Other Israelis have been displaying photos of children killed in Gaza during weekly rallies demanding a deal to free all hostages and end the war.
The war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
Hospital cites Israeli ‘siege’
Health officials said fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” prompted it to shut down. It was the main medical facility in the north after Israeli strikes last year forced the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoun hospitals to stop offering services.
“There is direct targeting on the hospital, including the intensive care unit,” Indonesian Hospital director Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan said in a statement, adding that no one could reach the facility that had about 30 patients and 15 medical staff inside.
Israel’s military said that troops were operating against militant infrastructure sites in northern Gaza, including the area “directly adjacent” to the hospital.
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals, accusing Hamas of being active in and around the facilities. Human rights groups and UN-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s health care system.
In northern Gaza, at least 43 people were killed in strikes, according to first responders from the Health Ministry and civil defense. Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said 15 children and 12 women were among the dead.
A drone strike Sunday afternoon killed at least seven Palestinians near a school sheltering displaced people northwest of Gaza City, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service.
Other strikes in central Gaza killed at least 12 people, hospitals said. One in Zweida town killed seven people, including two children and four women, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah.
In Gaza City, Um Mahmoud Al-Aloul lay across the shrouded body of her daughter, Nour Al-Aloul.
“You took my soul with you,” she cried. “I used to turn off my phone from how much you called.”
Egypt recovers antiquities smuggled to Australia: ministry
- Officials say Egypt has successfully retrieved around 30,000 smuggled artefacts over the past decade
CAIRO: Egypt’s antiquities ministry said Sunday it had retrieved 21 artefacts, including a funerary figurine and an eye of Horus amulet, that had been smuggled illegally to Australia.
Most of the items had been “on display at a renowned auction house in Australia, before it became clear that there were no proper ownership documents,” Supreme Council of Antiquities chief Mohamed Ismail Khaled said.
The collection, which also included a fragment of a wooden sarcophagus, was handed over to the Egyptian embassy in Canberra.
Officials did not say how or when the pieces had been smuggled out of the country.
Such thefts are not uncommon, however.
During the 2011 uprising that ousted Egypt’s longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak, looters ransacked museums and archaeological sites, spiriting away thousands of priceless pieces.
Many of the stolen artefacts later appeared on the international market or ended up in private collections.
Officials say Egypt has successfully retrieved around 30,000 smuggled artefacts over the past decade.
Six years ago, the country’s embassy in Australia also received a long-lost fourth and final part of a stone stela dating back to the fourth century BC.
The stela, or information slab, disappeared from an excavation site in Luxor in 1995.
Known as the Sheshn Nerfertem stela, it was smuggled in pieces to Switzerland, from where three pieces were repatriated in 2017.
The now-complete stela, and the artefacts repatriated from Australia, are now “at the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir for restoration in preparation for display in a temporary exhibition,” the antiquities ministry said.
Beirut’s choice: Prime minister urges citizens to shape their city’s future
- Fierce contest as Lebanon holds the third round of municipal and mayoral elections
BEIRUT: Lebanon held the third round of municipal and mayoral elections on Sunday.
Sunday’s vote was held in the governorates of Beirut, Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam inspected the central operations room overseeing the electoral process at the Ministry of Interior and across various electoral centers in Beirut.
Defense Minister Michel Menassa and Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar accompanied him.
After casting his ballot in Beirut, Salam said that the elections provided an opportunity for citizens to express their true wishes for the city and voiced hope for a high voter turnout.
He stated that the people of Beirut should not miss the chance to decide what kind of city they want.
“I urge them to participate in the elections in large numbers.”
Salam affirmed that the people of Beirut “are capable of ensuring representation for everyone in the municipal council.”
He said that the new municipal council is not obligated to support the government’s efforts; instead, it is the government’s responsibility to meet all the needs of the people of Beirut.
He added: “This is a developmental choice par excellence.”
In an afternoon appeal, Salam repeated his call for voters to cast their ballots, stating that the voter turnout in Beirut remained low.
MPs supporting the parties’ list in Beirut expressed concern about the low turnout during the day.
Security and military forces deployed personnel to assure the safety of polling stations and the routes leading to them.
The Lebanese Army Command announced that an army unit in Baalbek and the Douris area arrested four people found in possession of combat pistols, a quantity of hashish, and captagon pills.
In an official statement, the Army Command warned citizens “against creating trouble, firing guns, and endangering the lives of others.”
It also suspended “all gun licenses in the governorates where elections are being held for 48 hours,” stressing that it “will not hesitate to pursue and arrest all those who disrupt security across all Lebanese territory.”
During the voting process, Israeli reconnaissance planes flew over Beirut.
As the southern governorates and Nabatieh prepare for the final round of parliamentary elections on Sunday, an Israeli drone targeted a Rapid car on Sunday on Beit Yahoun Road near a Lebanese army checkpoint, wounding the driver and a soldier manning the checkpoint.
Sunday’s elections were described as “fierce,” with intense competition between political party lists and civil society.
Voters extensively crossing out party candidates cast doubt on the parties’ ability to maintain public support and raised concerns over Beirut’s ability to uphold its model of coexistence.
For example, Sunni voters were striking off Shiite candidates affiliated with Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, as well as Christian candidates affiliated with the Lebanese Forces and their allies.
The capital experienced intense competition between two main lists: the “Beirut Unites Us” list, which includes candidates from political parties with significant discord, under the slogan “Preserving Equal Representation of Muslims and Christians,” and the “Beirut Madinati” list, supported by Change deputies.
The Forces of Change is a parliamentary bloc that comprises multiple reformist parties and independent MPs.
Other lists were also running in the electoral race.
They include a list of candidates affiliated with the Future Movement, which suspended its political activity, and candidates of the Islamic Group, as well as other civilian lists.
The civilian voter turnout remained low until 2 p.m., not exceeding 13 percent.
Voters affiliated with Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, and the Al-Ahbash Association were expected to arrive at polling centers in groups before voting concluded at 7 p.m., aiming to tip the balance in favor of their party list.
Abu Al-Abed Al-Nuri, a voter in one of the Al-Mazraa electoral centers, said that “he composed his list by himself, choosing only Sunni candidates.
“All parties have wronged Beirut and caused disastrous consequences; however, they have now united and insist on sharing the benefits while ignoring our demands and problems,” he added.
MP Fouad Makhzoumi said: “We are trying to impose equal representation in voting.”
MP Hagop Terzian from the Free Patriotic Movement bloc stated: “Parties are not from Mars; they are part of Beirut and have allied to ensure equal representation.”
Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri said: “We insist on equal representation. Cross-outs are Beirut’s enemy.”
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea urged voters in Beirut to support the parties’ list “because the elections in Beirut reflect on coexistence in Lebanon, as it is the capital that represents the country’s main face.”
Competition for municipal seats was also fierce in the Bekaa, particularly in Zahle and Baalbek, raising voter turnout to 30 and 40 percent during the day.
Several people, including two members of the Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch, were injured in Zahle during a raid conducted by a patrol from the branch, supported by a Lebanese Army unit, on a Hezbollah electoral office in the area on suspicion of bribery.
Around 15 young men were present at the site during the raid.
The permits of several representatives for the non-partisan Change list in the city of Baalbek disappeared.
It was revealed that the person who hid the permits — and who was arrested by the security forces — was working for the Hezbollah list in the area.
At least 3 killed in blast targeting police station in eastern Syria
CAIRO: At least three people were killed when a blast targeted a police station in the eastern Syrian town of Al-Mayadeen on Sunday, the state news agency said, citing a security source.
The explosion also injured several people, the report said, without providing further details.
