Defense chief says Israel doesn’t want war but warns Hezbollah; cites progress on resolving weapons rift with US

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US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stand during an honor cordon at the Pentagon on June 25, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 27 June 2024
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Defense chief says Israel doesn’t want war but warns Hezbollah; cites progress on resolving weapons rift with US

  • Israel ready to inflict “massive damage” on Hezbollah if diplomacy fails, says Yoav Gallant
  • US in “fairly intensive conversations” with Israel, Lebanon and other actors to avoid a “major escalation”
  • Also reassured that Israel was "committed to and firmly backing" Biden's deal to end the Gaza war

WASHINGTON: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on a visit to Washington that his country does not want war in Lebanon but was ready to inflict “massive damage” on Hezbollah if diplomacy fails.

“We do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario,” Gallant told reporters during the visit that ended Wednesday.“Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict massive damage in Lebanon if a war is launched,” he said.

Tensions have been rising, with growing skirmishes along the border between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia, since the October 7 attack by Hamas that prompted a relentless Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza.

Gallant said that Israel has killed more than 400 Hezbollah “terrorists” in recent months.




A damaged Israeli military position targeted by Hezbollah fighters is seen on the top of Mount Hermon in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, where the borders between Israel, Syria and Lebanon meet. (AP Photo)

The Israeli defense minister was in Washington for three days meeting with officials in a bid to quietly resolve a rift over US weapons shipments, drawing an implicit contrast to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s more confrontational approach.

“During the meetings we made significant progress, obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed,” Gallant said after meeting with Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser.

Gallant said the progress was on “a variety of issues” including “the topic of force build-up and munition supply that we must bring to the state of Israel.”

“I would like to thank the US administration and the American public for their enduring support for the state of Israel,” he said.

Netanyahu in recent days has publicly accused the Biden administration of slowing down weapons deliveries to Israel, which has been at war in Gaza since an October 7 attack by Hamas.

US officials have denied the accusations and showed annoyance, months before an election in which Biden’s support for Israel has become a liability with a left flank of his Democratic Party outraged by the heavy death toll among Palestinian civilians.

The US in early May froze a shipment that included 2,000-pound bombs and Biden warned of a further halt as he pressed Israel not to carry out a wide-scale military assault of Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than one million displaced Palestinians had sought shelter.

A senior US administration official said the United States has sent more than $6.5 billion in weapons to Israel since October 7, with nearly $3 billion alone in May.

“This is a massive, massive undertaking and nothing is paused other than one shipment,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

The official blamed the rift on misunderstandings of the “complex” US bureaucratic process. He said Gallant’s team and US experts went through “every single case.”

“There was real progress and a mutual understanding of where things stand, of prioritization of certain cases over others, so that we can make sure that we are moving things in ways that meet the needs of the Israelis,” he said.




A Lebanese civil defense member inspects the site of an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Khiam near the Lebanese border with northern Israeli on June 26, 2024. (AFP)

Biden — whose approach to Israel has drawn criticism both from progressives and the right — held off on curbing weapon deliveries after Israel carried out what US officials described as comparatively targeted operations in Rafah.

Netanyahu and Gallant have said the most intense phase of the fighting is over — with Israel set to shift forces toward the border with Lebanon after rising skirmishes with the Iranian-backed militant movement Hezbollah.

The US official said Washington remained in “fairly intensive conversations” with Israel, Lebanon and other actors and believed that no side sought a “major escalation.”

Gallant, who met twice in Washington with Amos Hochstein, the US pointman between Israel and Lebanon, reassured that his country was trying to avoid an all-out war with the Iran-backed Hezbolla militia of Lebanon.

“We do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario,” Gallant told reporters.

US officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken have voiced hope that a ceasefire in Gaza could lead to a reduction in tension over Lebanon as well.

Biden on May 31 laid out a plan for a temporary ceasefire and release of hostages, but Hamas came back with further demands.

Despite criticism of the proposal from some of Netanyahu’s far-right allies, Gallant said, “We are all committed to and firmly backing the president’s deal.”

“Hamas must accept it or bear the consequences,” he said.

The Gaza war began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized about 250 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, although the army says 42 are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,718 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.
 

 


UN records 613 killings in Gaza near humanitarian convoys or aid distribution points run by US group

Updated 04 July 2025
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UN records 613 killings in Gaza near humanitarian convoys or aid distribution points run by US group

  • Deaths near aid points run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near humanitarian convoys

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: The UN human rights office said Friday it has recorded 613 killings in Gaza near humanitarian convoys and at aid distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization since it first began operations in late May.

Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the rights office was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings. But she said “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

She said it was not immediately clear how many of those killings had taken place at GHF sites, and how many occurred near convoys.

Speaking to reporters at a regular briefing, Shamdasani said the figures covered the period from May 27 through June 27, and “there have been further incidents” since then. She said she was basing the information on an internal situation report at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Shamdasani said the figures, compiled through its standard vetting processes, were not likely to tell a complete picture, and “we will perhaps never be able to grasp the full scale of what’s happening here because of the lack of access” for UN teams to the areas.


Israeli military prepares plan to ensure Iran cannot threaten country, defense minister says

Updated 04 July 2025
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Israeli military prepares plan to ensure Iran cannot threaten country, defense minister says

  • Longtime enemies engaged in 12-day air war in June
  • Israel and Iran agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire on June 24

DUBAI: The Israeli military is preparing an enforcement plan to “ensure that Iran cannot return to threaten Israel,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told senior military officials.

He said the military must be prepared, both in intelligence and operations, to ensure Israel has air superiority and to prevent Tehran from reestablishing its previous capabilities.

He made his remarks following a 12-day air war between the longtime enemies in June, during which Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities, saying the aim was to prevent Tehran developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran denies seeking nuclear arms and that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes.

Israel and Iran agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire that ended hostilities on June 24.


Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

Updated 04 July 2025
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Trump expects Hamas decision in 24 hours on ‘final’ Gaza peace proposal

  • Israel has earlier agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Friday it would probably be known in 24 hours whether the Palestinian militant group Hamas has agreed to accept what he has called a “final proposal” for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza.

The president also said he had spoken to Saudi Arabia about expanding the Abraham Accords, the deal on normalization of ties that his administration negotiated between Israel and some Gulf countries during his first term.

Trump said on Tuesday Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalize a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war.

He was asked on Friday if Hamas had agreed to the latest ceasefire deal framework, and said: “We’ll see what happens, we are going to know over the next 24 hours.”

A source close to Hamas said on Thursday the Islamist group sought guarantees that the new US-backed ceasefire proposal would lead to the end of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Two Israeli officials said those details were still being worked out. Dozens of Palestinians were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza authorities.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.

Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed over 56,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza’s entire population and prompted accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Israel denies the accusations.

A previous two month ceasefire ended when Israeli strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians on March 18. Trump earlier this year proposed a US takeover of Gaza, which was condemned globally by rights experts, the UN and Palestinians as a proposal of “ethnic cleansing.”

Abraham Accords

Trump made the comments on the Abraham Accords when asked about US media reporting late on Thursday that he had met Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman at the White House.

“It’s one of the things we talked about,” Trump said. “I think a lot of people are going to be joining the Abraham accords,” he added, citing the predicted expansion to the damage faced by Iran from recent US and Israeli strikes.

Axios reported that after the meeting with Trump, the Saudi official spoke on the phone with Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.

Trump’s meeting with the Saudi official came ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

Updated 04 July 2025
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Darfur civilians ‘face mass atrocities and ethnic violence’

  • Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war

KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.

The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.
“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.


Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

Updated 04 July 2025
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Egypt on alert as giant dam in Ethiopia completed

ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.

“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.

“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.

Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.