Israeli airstrikes overshadow French-US ceasefire push in Lebanon

An Israeli military helicopter approaches Haifa’s Rambam hospital before landing there on October 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 12 October 2024
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Israeli airstrikes overshadow French-US ceasefire push in Lebanon

  • Israeli planes target villages in Iqlim Al-Kharoub, and the districts of Jbeil and Batroun
  • Hezbollah targets Safed, Tiberias, settlements and military bases with rocket, drone strikes

BEIRUT: International diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon gathered pace on Saturday against a backdrop of destruction in southern border towns, the Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri received a phone call from French President Emmanuel Macron, while US presidential envoy to Lebanon Amos Hochstein called Prime Minister Najib Mikati to discuss the deadly Israel-Hezbollah confrontation.
Macron said that he is “making the necessary contacts” to prevent Israel from continuing its ground military operations, but said that “the Lebanese must take the necessary steps to cease fire, implement Resolution 1701, and quickly resolve the presidential election to reach a political and diplomatic solution,” according to Berri’s office.
Mikati’s media office said the discussion with Hochstein focused on “ways to achieve a ceasefire and stop the military confrontations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah in order to return to discussing a comprehensive political solution based on the implementation of Resolution 1701.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called both Mikati and Berri on Friday. During a 40-minute conversation with Berri, they agreed on three points: “Committing to international resolutions, particularly Resolution 1701, preventing the expansion of the war, and reaching a diplomatic solution,” according to Berri’s office.
Political efforts to mitigate the losses Lebanon is suffering as a result of Israel’s war on Hezbollah are barely heard amid the noise of airstrikes, Israeli artillery, and the immense destruction in southern towns, the Bekaa, Beirut’s southern suburbs, and the cries of people who have lost everything and now find themselves in shelters or on the street.
A closed national meeting was held under the title “In Defense of Lebanon: Proposing a Rescue Roadmap” at the residence of the head of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea in Maarab. The meeting brought together Lebanese figures opposing Hezbollah’s ongoing war.
Geagea said the Lebanese people “deserve to live a dignified life free from the specter of wars. It is essential to restore the state amid the collapse of the structure over everyone’s heads and the dominance over the decision of war in Lebanon.”
He noted that “the accumulation of half-measures will not lead to solutions or stability without the establishment of a state.
“The international and Arab communities do not trust the current ruling system that is poised against the state.
“There is an urgent need to first achieve a ceasefire. We must proceed to elect a president who commits in advance to implementing international resolutions 1559, 1680, and 1701, as well as adhering to the provisions of the Taif Agreement.
“The elected president must ensure that the strategic decision-making authority resides solely with the state and grant the Lebanese Army all necessary powers.
“It is essential that the president is detached from all failed policies and is recognized for integrity and patriotism. Following this, binding parliamentary consultations should take place, leading to the election of a prime minister and the formation of a government.”
On Saturday afternoon, for the first time, the Israeli raids targeted the entrance to the town of Barja in the Iqlim Al-Kharoub and the main road of Nahr Ibrahim toward Qartaba in the Jbeil region in northern Lebanon. They also targeted the town of Deir Billa in the Batroun district.
Amid these developments, Hezbollah’s media relations official, Mohammed Afif, urged “against rushing to conclusions” regarding the political outcomes of the war.
“The struggle against the enemy is still in its early stages and the Israeli ground incursion into Lebanese territory will not be a picnic,” he said.
On Saturday, there were no further Israeli attacks on UNIFIL forces in the border area, in contrast to incidents over the previous two days that drew a wave of international condemnation. UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said “Israel is violating Resolution 1701 by targeting our forces.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf arrived in Beirut after personally flying an Iranian aircraft to Rafic Hariri International Airport. Qalibaf said that his visit was made at the invitation of Berri, and that he brought “a message from the leader of the Islamic revolution, the president, and the Iranian people to the Lebanese people and the resistance.”
The Iranian official met Mikati and Berri, and inspected the site of the Israeli raid on the Basta area in the heart of Beirut, accompanied by a number of Hezbollah MPs.
He said: “We have always been on the side of the Lebanese people, their resistance and the Lebanese government. We extend our full assistance to the people and hope that they will be victorious. We will remain by their side in these challenging times. I will head from here to Geneva and I will carry with me the issues of the oppressed Lebanese and Palestinian peoples.”
However, the Iranian official heard from Mikati that “the government’s priorities at this stage are to work on a ceasefire, stop the Israeli aggression, preserve Lebanon’s security and the safety of its people, uphold Lebanon’s commitment to implementing Resolution 1701, strengthening the army’s presence in the southern region, and engage in necessary communications with influential countries and the UN to exert pressure on Israel for full compliance with the resolution.”
Israeli attacks continued on the south and Bekaa, while cautious calm prevailed in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The Israeli army claimed in a statement that “Hezbollah’s activities are forcing us to act against it.”
The Israeli army issued a new warning to the residents of 23 border towns and villages in the south to “evacuate and head north of the Awali River. It is forbidden to return to your homes until further notice.” Most residents of these towns left last year.
The most serious Israeli warning was directed at ambulances and Civil Defense vehicles, with the Israeli army claiming that “Hezbollah fighters are using them for transport.” The army warned that it would target the vehicles.
More than 25 devastating Israeli airstrikes were recorded on border towns, while Hezbollah reported “direct clashes with Israeli soldiers on the outskirts of the town of Dhayra, ambushing an Israeli force and blowing up an Israeli vehicle.”
The party counted “seven military operations carried out since dawn to counter incursion attempts.”
Lebanese Red Cross chief Georges Kettaneh said: “The movement of the Red Cross ambulances is carried out after informing the International Committee of the Red Cross and UNIFIL about our movements and missions, especially when traveling on the border, to ensure the protection of volunteers.”
In the Bekaa, the Israeli Air Force carried out airstrikes on Nabi Sheet, Saraain and Kfar Dan, killing one person and wounding three others. Two were wounded in Al-Kayyal, and four were killed in an airstrike on Boudai.
The Israeli army said that about 30 rockets were launched toward the Galilee panhandle. Israeli media reported “violent explosions” in the city of Safed, and others in Kiryat Shmona.
Hezbollah said it targeted “the occupied city of Tiberias with a salvo of rockets and targeted a military gathering on the outskirts of the town of Blida.”
It also targeted military gatherings in the Metula, Kfar Yuval, Khirbet Nafha, Kfar Giladi and Al-Manara settlements, and a communications base in Keren Naftali.
Hezbollah carried out a drone attack on Ein Margaliot, and another attack with assault drones on the air defense base in Kiryat Eliezer, west of Haifa.


Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

Updated 5 sec ago
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Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

  • Jake Wood says he accepted the role as head of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation "to help alleviate the suffering" in Gaza
  • But he is stepping down because “it had become clear that implementing the organization’s plan was not possible”

WASHINGTON: The head of a controversial US-backed group preparing to move aid into the Gaza Strip announced his abrupt resignation Sunday, adding fresh uncertainty over the effort’s future.
In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), executive director Jake Wood explained that he felt compelled to leave after determining the organization could not fulfil its mission in a way that adhered to “humanitarian principles.”
The foundation, which has been based in Geneva since February, has vowed to distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation.
But the United Nations and traditional aid agencies have already said they will not cooperate with the group, amid accusations it is working with Israel.
The GHF has emerged as international pressure mounts on Israel over the conditions in Gaza, where it has pursued a military onslaught in response to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.
A more than two-month total blockade on the territory only began to ease in recent days, as agencies warned of growing starvation risks.
“Two months ago, I was approached about leading GHF’s efforts because of my experience in humanitarian operations” Wood said.
“Like many others around the world, I was horrified and heartbroken at the hunger crisis in Gaza and, as a humanitarian leader, I was compelled to do whatever I could to help alleviate the suffering.”
Wood stressed that he was “proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.”
But, he said, it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,939, mostly civilians.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Wood called on Israel “to significantly expand the provision of aid into Gaza through all mechanisms” while also urging “all stakeholders to continue to explore innovative new methods for the delivery of aid, without delay, diversion, or discrimination.”

 


Israeli strike kills 20 in Gaza school housing displaced people, health authorities say

Updated 28 sec ago
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Israeli strike kills 20 in Gaza school housing displaced people, health authorities say

  • Medics said the dozens of casualties in the strike on the school, in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, included women and children

GAZA CITY: An Israeli strike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza killed at least 20 people and injured dozens, local authorities told Reuters early on Monday.
Israel stepped up its military operations in the enclave in early May, saying it is seeking to eliminate Hamas' military and governing capabilities and bring back the remaining hostages who were seized in October 2023.
Medics said the dozens of casualties in the strike on the school, in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, included women and children.
Some of the bodies were badly burned according to images circulating on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.
Despite mounting international pressure that pushed Israel to lift a blockade on aid supplies in the face of warnings of looming famine, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that Israel would control the whole of Gaza.
Israel has taken control of around 77% of the enclave either through its ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardments that keep residents away from their homes, Gaza's media office said.
The Israeli campaign, triggered after Hamas Islamist militants attacked Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, has devastated Gaza and pushed nearly all of its two million residents from their homes.
The offensive has killed more than 53,000 people, many of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.

 


Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office

Updated 26 May 2025
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Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office

  • The visit comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with visiting US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Jerusalem on Sunday, his office said.
US and Israeli media reported that Trump had sent Noem to Jerusalem following the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington last week.
Noem was accompanied at her meeting with Netanyahu by US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement Sunday night.
The office added that during the meeting Noem “expressed her unreserved support for the prime minister and the State of Israel.”
The visit comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip in what it says is a renewed effort to destroy Hamas.
Earlier in the evening, Noem and Huckabee had visited the city’s Western Wall, where early celebrations for Monday’s “Jerusalem Day” holiday were taking place.
The holiday commemorates what Israel considers Jerusalem’s reunification under its authority after the city’s eastern sector was captured by its forces in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.


’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

Updated 26 May 2025
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’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

  • The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Alaa Al-Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been bombed in an Israeli air strike.
The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare.
“When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying,” said Ali Al-Najjar, the brother of Alaa’s husband.
Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives.
The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi Al-Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit.
Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital.
When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted.
The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected paediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock.
Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war.

The air strike on Friday afternoon was carried out without warning, relatives said.
Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure” near its troops, adding that claims of civilian harm were under review.
“I couldn’t recognize the children in the shrouds,” Alaa’s sister, Sahar Al-Najjar, said through tears. “Their features were gone.”
“It’s a huge loss. Alaa is broken,” said Mohammed, another close family member.
According to medical sources, Hamdi Al-Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital.
Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions.
Adam had one hand amputated and suffers from severe burns across his body.
“I found my brother’s house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath,” Ali Al-Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children’s bodies.
Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness.
“I don’t know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves.”
“There is no safe place in Gaza,” he added with a weary sigh. “Death is sometimes kinder than this torture.”
 

 


Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children

Updated 40 min 12 sec ago
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Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children

  • Local journalist and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday
  • Latest deaths resulted from Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in central Gaza Strip

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours killed at least 38 people in Gaza, including children, a local journalist and a senior rescue service official, local health officials said Sunday.

The latest deaths in the Israeli campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In Jabalia, they said local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday.
Another airstrike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory’s civil emergency service, and his wife in their house, medics added.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said that Abu Warda’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 220.
In a separate statement, the media office said Israeli forces were in control of 77 percent of the Gaza Strip, either through ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardment that keeps residents away from their homes.

The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said in separate statements on Sunday that fighters carried out several ambushes and attacks using bombs and anti-tank rockets against Israeli forces operating in several areas across Gaza.
On Friday the Israeli military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
Further details emerged of the Palestinian doctor who lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli strike on Friday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed since Israel ended a ceasefire in March.

Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza. Hamas has yet to release the 58 hostages it still holds.
The conflict has killed more than 53,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.
Israel also blocked all food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza for 2 1/2 months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts’ warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel’s top allies.
Israel is pursuing a new US-backed plan to control all aid to Gaza, but the American heading the effort unexpectedly resigned Sunday, saying it had become clear that his organization would not be allowed to operate independently.
The United Nations has rejected the plan. UN World Food Program executive director Cindy McCain told CBS she has not seen evidence to support Israel’s claims that Hamas is responsible for the looting of aid trucks. “These people are desperate, and they see a World Food Program truck coming in and they run for it,” she said.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing aid for Gaza, said 107 trucks of aid entered Sunday. The UN has called the rate far from enough. About 600 trucks a day entered during the ceasefire.
Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of its over 2 million population, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Israel on Sunday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.