Can Iranian drone tech shift Middle East’s strategic balance of power?

Clockwise from left: Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of US Central Command; drones on display at an undisclosed location in central Iran; Iranian military officials inspecting drones on display. (AFP/Iranian Army website/File Photos)
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Updated 26 May 2021
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Can Iranian drone tech shift Middle East’s strategic balance of power?

  • Armed drones used by Iran-backed militias against US and partners constitute new form of asymmetric warfare
  • Iran’s drone program has identified chink in its opponents’ armor and is actively exploiting this vulnerability

IRBIL, IRAQ: The drone threat posed to US and coalition personnel by Iran-backed militias is growing, and defenses against such threats remain limited — particularly in the face of Tehran’s growing capabilities. That was the clear message delivered by the US military commander in the Middle East during his most recent visit to Iraq.

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie’s warning came in the wake of a rash of drone attacks launched by Iran’s proxies and allied groups in the region against coalition positions and regional partners of the US, a development viewed by many as a sign of a shift in the strategic balance of power.

“We’re working very hard to find technical fixes that would allow us to be more effective against drones,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) commander said. “We’re open to all kinds of things. The army is working it very hard. Still, I don’t think we’re where we want to be.”

Take the drone attack launched from Iraq in January that targeted Saudi Arabia. Or the explosives-laden drone strike in April that targeted the US troop base at Irbil International Airport inside the normally secure autonomous Kurdistan region, causing a large fire and damage to a building.

While the attacks did not cause major casualties, they nevertheless underscored the evolving nature of the threat, and Iran’s rapidly advancing drone capabilities.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has frequently used loitering munitions, also known as suicide drones, against Saudi Arabia’s civilian and military infrastructure, which appear to feature components based heavily on an Iranian design.

In the conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian group Hamas used kamikaze-type drones against Israel, which exhibited many similarities to the same Iranian design.

In what appears to be more than just a coincidence, a complex that houses a factory that makes Iranian drones suffered a major explosion just days after Israel claimed that Iran was providing drones to Hamas.

Sunday’s blast injured at least nine workers at the petrochemical factory in Isfahan. The Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company, which makes a variety of aircraft and drones for Iranian and pro-Iranian forces, is located in the complex, owned by Sepahan Nargostar Chemical Industries.




A handout picture provided by the Iranian Army's official website on September 11, 2020, shows an Iranian Simorgh drone during the second day of a military exercise in the Gulf, near the strategic strait of Hormuz. (AFP/Iranian Army website/File Photo)

There was no independent confirmation of the cause of the explosion or the precise factory affected. Analysts pointed out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had displayed on Thursday parts of a drone that he said were made by Iran and had flown over from Iraq or Syria.

A recent Reuters report suggests that Iran has changed its strategy in Iraq with regard to use of projectiles. Instead of relying on larger established Shiite militia groups to carry out proxy attacks against US and coalition forces, it is now relying on much smaller militia groups completely loyal to Tehran.

The regime reportedly took 250 of these fighters to Lebanon last year, where they were trained by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) advisers to fly drones and carry out rocket attacks. The result has been a spate of drone attacks, both within and originating from Iraq.

Weaponry of this kind can be difficult to defend against, even for US forces operating advanced air defense systems, according to experts.

“The use of weaponized drone systems in Yemen, or during the latest conflict in Gaza, is a blueprint for how drones will be used in conflict from this point forward,” Dr. James Rogers, of the Center for War Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, told Arab News.

“The ability to send multiple drones and missiles all at once means that even the most sophisticated defense systems can be saturated and overrun.”




An image grab taken from Kurdistan 24 TV channel on February 19, 2021 shows damage following a rocket attack two days ago targeting a military complex inside the Irbil airport that hosts foreign troops deployed as part of a US-led coalition. (AFP/Kurdistan 24/File Photo) 

Iran’s fingerprints are all over the recent proliferation of armed drones among non-state actors and militias throughout the Middle East. As Rogers notes, the distance and deniability afforded by the drone has made it “a valued tool” in Iran’s arsenal.

“The Iranian drone program has innovated with sophisticated, indigenously produced drones, which it supplies to regional allies,” he said.

“This broad diffusion of Iranian drone technologies makes it almost impossible to tell who conducted a lethal drone strike in the region, and thus who should be held responsible and accountable. This is only going to get more difficult.”

The designs Iran supplies are very similar to Tehran’s own models, notably the Ababil series. Variants of these drones have appeared in the Houthi and Hamas arsenals, and in that of Iran’s main regional proxy, the Lebanese Hezbollah.

The technology has the added benefit of being easily disassembled for covert transport and reassembly at its destination.

For example, an anonymous Iraqi official told the Associated Press news agency that the drone that targeted Riyadh in January was delivered to Iraqi militiamen “in parts from Iran … assembled in Iraq, and launched from Iraq.”




Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami at Tehran's Islamic Revolution and Holy Defence museum during the unveiling of an exhibition of what Iran says are US and other drones captured in its territory, in the capital Tehran on September 21, 2019. (AFP/File Photo)

The efficacy of the weapons in question has been augmented by recent advancements in commercial drone technology.

“Now a number of non-state actors have Iranian designs. They are able to produce their own systems, fitted with commercially available technologies, which they can then supply to their allies,” Rogers said. “In essence, the drone is out of the bag, and the threat is spreading.”

Iran is well aware it has found a chink in its opponents’ armor — and is actively exploiting this vulnerability.

“Using suicide drones is a way for Iran to score a serious hit on the US presence (in Iraq) by potentially taking out a high-value asset, which is very hard to do with a spray of unguided long-range rockets, while also being more discriminate and avoiding the risk of a serious kinetic US response,” Alex Almeida, an Iraq security analyst at the energy consultancy Horizon Client Access, told Arab News.

“I think it’s very likely the militias will use these larger fixed-wing drones in the future — if they haven’t already — including potentially for longer-ranged strikes outside Iraq.”

Almeida believes that the US has the “tools” to adequately defend its bases and forces from this drone threat, “even if they don’t seem to have performed effectively in recent attacks” at Irbil or Al-Asad.

“The issue is that if these attacks become more frequent, all US points of presence in Iraq, Syria, and eventually other locales in the region are going to require their own layered counter-drone defenses,” he said. 

“Iran is deliberately presenting a multi-layered threat, from conventional ‘dumb’ mortar and rocket fire to small quadcopter and larger fixed-wing drones. These defensive requirements impose their own additional costs on the US presence, which the Iranians are no doubt aware of.”




An image grab taken from Kurdistan 24 TV channel on February 19, 2021 shows damage following a rocket attack two days ago targeting a military complex inside the Arbil airport that hosts foreign troops deployed as part of a US-led coalition. (AFP/Kurdistan 24/File Photo)

For her part, Kirsten Fontenrose, Middle East security director at the Atlantic Council, believes drone training, technologically complex drone components and the blueprints for locally manufacturing drones are all provided by the IRGC to the militias it directs or arms across the Middle East.

“For the US and its partners in the region, the proliferation of more sophisticated Iranian drone designs made with commercially available Chinese parts requires a reassessment of what the US force presence should look like, what kinds of systems we prioritize developing, and how we train together,” she told Arab News.

Fontenrose said there are three key factors in countering such drone attacks. First is the direction of attack. “Drone detection systems do not always have a 360-degree range of detection,” she said. “If you incorrectly predict the direction from which a drone attack will come, your defenses may be facing away and never see it coming.”

Second, there are the flight guidance enablers on the drone. “You must know whether a drone is guided by GPS, or using cellular signals, or know the frequency it operates on, for example,” she said. “If you target the wrong enabler, you will not defeat the drone.”

Finally, there is the drone’s payload.




Drones during a ceremony in Iran's southern port city of Bandar Abbas. (AFP/Iran’s Revolutionary Guard via Sepah/File Photo)

“If you successfully counter and take over control of a drone that is flying at you, you must know whether it is carrying an explosive, a chemical agent, or a camera before you decide whether to bring it to you to investigate, land it in a populated area to prevent it reaching the target, or return it home possibly carrying sensitive information,” Fontenrose told Arab News.

The Biden team had signaled loudly even before it took office of its determination to find a pathway back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. This stated objective has since translated into indirect talks in Vienna.

Strategic and defense experts believe Iran has been testing the US administration with calculated provocations in multiple theaters, partly in an effort to take the measure of President Joe Biden, and partly as a way to gain leverage in the nuclear negotiations.

Nicholas Heras, senior analyst and program head for State Resilience and Fragility at the Newlines Institute, says Iran’s defense establishment is “leaning into a strategy of utilizing drone forces to present asymmetric challenges to more technologically advanced state actor competitors.

“Iran is building best-in-class capabilities with the concept of drone swarms in the air and at sea, which is a skill set that worries US defense and intelligence officials who are required to protect US forces deployed to the Middle East,” Heras told Arab News.

“The IRGC is the global leader in disseminating the tactics, techniques and procedures for drone warfare to non-state actors, who can then execute highly sensitive attacks against Iran’s opponents while giving Iran the ability to deny that it ordered the attacks.”




This handout photo provided by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official website via SEPAH News on May 22, 2021 shows new combat drones dubbed "Gaza" in tribute to Palestinians, unvailed in the capital Tehran, hours after a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian armed factions took effect. (AFP/Iran's Revolutionary Guard via Sepah News)

The IRGC’s preferred models of choice are kamikaze drones, which crash into their respective targets and explode on impact, since they are easy to assemble, easy to operate, easy to use for overwhelming swarm attacks, and very challenging to counter. Such drones are most likely what McKenzie has in mind.

“There is no one anti-air system that will work best against the drone warfare methods that the IRGC is teaching Iran’s partners and proxies,” Heras said.

“Countering Iran’s networked drone warfare requires active signals intelligence to identify operatives and drone manufacturing sites, and rapid reaction strikes to hit them before they get off the ground.”

The threat posed by drones to the US — and, by extension, to its regional partners — has become impossible to ignore even by an administration whose stated goal is to end America’s “forever wars” and focus on the threats from Russia and China.

“These small- and medium-sized (drones) present a new and complex threat to our forces and those of our partners and allies,” McKenzie told Congress in April.

“For the first time since the Korean War, we are operating without complete air superiority.”

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Twitter: @pauliddon


Two of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza encircled by Israeli forces

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Two of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza encircled by Israeli forces

Two of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals have been encircled by Israeli troops, preventing anyone from leaving or entering the facilities, hospital staff and aid groups said this week, as Israel pursued its renewed offensive into the devastated Palestinian territory.
The Indonesian hospital and Al-Awda hospital are among the region’s only surviving medical centers. Both have come under fire this week, including shelling at Al-Awda that happened Wednesday as The Associated Press spoke to its director on the phone.
A third hospital, Kamal Adwan, is out of service, its director said, citing Israeli troops and drones in its vicinity.
Israeli authorities issued evacuation orders Friday for large parts of northern Gaza ahead of attacks intended to pressure the Hamas militant group to release more hostages. New evacuation orders followed Tuesday.
All three hospitals and three primary health care centers are within the evacuation zone. Israel has not ordered the evacuation of the facilities themselves. Another two hospitals and four primary care centers are within 1,000 meters (yards) of the zone, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization.
Israeli military operations and evacuation orders “are stretching the health system beyond the breaking point,” he said.
Hundreds of attacks on health facilities
Only 20 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functioning, serving the territory’s more than 2 million people, amid continued bombing, rising malnutrition rates, and dwindling medical supplies.
The WHO said hospitals in northern Gaza are “at a serious risk of shutting down completely.” The United Nations agency has documented nearly 700 attacks on health care facilities in Gaza since the start of Israel’s 19-month war against the Hamas militant group.
The Israeli military has raided or laid siege to hospitals throughout the war, accusing Hamas of using them as command centers and to hide fighters, though it has only provided evidence for some of its claims. Hamas security men have been seen in hospitals during the war, controlling access to certain areas, and in recent weeks Israel has targeted alleged militants inside health facilities.
Palestinians say the latest attacks on hospitals in the north are part of a larger plan to displace the population to the south and eventually drive them from Gaza.
Israel has vowed to facilitate what it refers to as the voluntary migration of much of Gaza’s population to other countries, which many Palestinians and others view as a plan for forcible expulsion.
Israel wants to “ensure the forced displacement of people from the area” by putting hospitals out of service, said Rami Shourafi, a board member of Al-Awda hospital.
The Indonesian hospital comes under attack
The Indonesian hospital, once the largest in northern Gaza, has been surrounded by Israeli troops, who were positioned about 500 meters (545 yards) away. Drones have hovered above, monitoring any movement, since Sunday, an aid group that supports the hospital said.
The Israeli military said its forces were operating around the hospital and targeting Hamas infrastructure but that troops had not entered the facility and ambulances were allowed to move.
Israeli bulldozers demolished a perimeter wall of the hospital, according to the aid group MERC-Indonesia and a hospital staff member who had since evacuated. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
On Tuesday, airstrikes targeted the hospital’s generators, sparking a fire and damaging its main power supply. The strikes also caused damage to the hospital’s water supply, according to a video posted by MERC-Indonesia. Large flames were seen rising from the area before daybreak. A speaker in the video said the fire was close to the hospital fuel supply, but firefighters controlled the flames.
At least one staff member was killed, according to WHO, which said those who remained in the hospital were in urgent need of water and food. The UN said it was working to transfer remaining patients to other facilities.
Military activity around the hospital also damaged ceilings, the hospital roof and some equipment. At least 20 doctors and staff members decided to stay in the building, said MERC-Indonesia, and most patients evacuated themselves after fighting intensified in the area starting Thursday.
Doctors and staffers at the hospital were not immediately reachable for comment. A video posted by MERC-Indonesia that was shot from the hospital windows showed an Israeli tank a few meters (several feet) away from the hospital.
Israeli strikes isolate Al-Awda hospital
Nearly a kilometer (about half a mile) away, Israeli drones fired Monday into the Al-Awda hospital courtyard, preventing movement, Shourafi said. On Wednesday, the hospital was shelled while its director was on the phone with The Associated Press. A large boom could be heard on the call.
“They are bombing the hospital,” said Dr. Mohammed Salha, the facility’s director. He later said one security guard was wounded. Patients were not near to the area hit, he said.
A video shared with AP showed damage to the roof and debris in the corridors, with dust still rising from the area.
On Tuesday, Israeli drones fired at two ambulances that transferred three patients to Gaza City as the crews tried to return to the hospital, spokesperson Khaled Alhelo said.
Alhelo himself was unable to return to the hospital Tuesday because of military activity. There are currently no ambulances or Internet lines at Al-Awda hospital, according to Shourafi and Alhelo.
Israeli troops are about 900 meters (about half a mile) away from the hospital, Alhelo said. But the real risk, he said, is from Israeli drones flying over the hospital and preventing any movement in or out.
“Anyone moving in the hospital is fired at. They are all keeping low inside the hospital,” he said.
The Israeli military had no comment when asked on the situation at Al-Awda and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday’s shelling.
About 47 patients, including nearly 20 children and several pregnant women, and some 140 doctors and medical staff members are still at the hospital, hospital board member Shourafi said.
He said the hospital board decided not to evacuate the hospital and called for supplies and the return of ambulances because there are still bombings and wounded people in the area.
“In light of the war, and conflict, it should remain functioning,” Shourafi said. He said the hospital has been besieged and raided several times since the war began in October 2023, but he called the current phase the “most critical.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
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Associated Press journalists Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

Lebanon says Israel strikes in south kill two

Updated 6 min 22 sec ago
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Lebanon says Israel strikes in south kill two

An “Israeli enemy drone” struck a car in the town of Ain Baal in the coastal district of Tyre
The Israeli army said its forces struck a Hezbollah operative

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed two people in the south on Wednesday, the latest attacks despite a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

An “Israeli enemy drone” struck a car in the town of Ain Baal in the coastal district of Tyre, the ministry said.

The Israeli army said its forces struck a Hezbollah operative in the Tyre area, saying he was “responsible for establishing the necessary infrastructure for the production of precise surface-to-surface missiles in the area.”

The health ministry later said an Israeli strike on the southern town of Yater “killed one person and wounded another.”

An official from Yater said the strike killed a man who was using a bulldozer to remove debris from his home which was damaged during the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the state-run National News Agency reported.

It was the third consecutive day of Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Israel said it killed two Hezbollah members over the previous two days.

Israel has kept up strikes on its northern neighbor despite a November truce that sought to halt
more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah including two months of full-blown war.

Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to pull back its fighters north of Lebanon’s Litani River and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure to its south.

Israel was to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon, but it has kept troops in five areas that it deems “strategic.”

The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south as Israeli forces have withdrawn and has been dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure there.

The truce was based on a United Nations Security Council resolution that says Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only people to bear arms in south Lebanon, and calls for the disarmament of all non-state groups.

Lebanon has called on the international community to pressure Israel to end its attacks and withdraw its remaining troops.

US deputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus said on Tuesday that Lebanon still has “more” to do in disarming Hezbollah following the war.

Trump ‘frustrated’ by Gaza war expansion: Report

Updated 8 min 40 sec ago
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Trump ‘frustrated’ by Gaza war expansion: Report

  • US president said to be ‘upset’ at images of suffering Palestinian children
  • He reportedly told Israeli PM via aides that he wants war to be ‘wrapped up’

London: US President Donald Trump is “frustrated” by Israel’s expansion of the Gaza war and is “upset” at images of suffering Palestinian children, White House officials have reportedly said.

Two administration officials told Axios that Trump has relayed messages to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu via aides that he wants the war to be “wrapped up.”

One official told Axios: “The president is frustrated about what is happening in Gaza. He wants the war to end, he wants the hostages to come home, he wants aid to go in and he wants to start rebuilding Gaza.” 

Trump is said to be personally annoyed at Netanyahu, who “he doesn’t even like,” The Times was told.

It follows Trump’s high-profile tour of the Middle East, comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, which is mediating ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas.

During the trip, which notably lacked a stop in Israel, Trump “appeared genuinely concerned by the suffering of Gazans,” sources told The Times.

However, the White House is reluctant to openly criticize Tel Aviv’s actions, and officials from both countries deny that Trump is prepared to “abandon” support for Israel.

Trump last week said he wanted to help the “starving” people in Gaza. During talks with Arab leaders, he pledged to facilitate the entry of more aid to the Palestinian enclave.

His Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has presented plans for a ceasefire deal that would lead to the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

But Netanyahu’s decision to expand the Gaza war has frustrated hopes of a deal, despite his office saying he had agreed to a plan based on Witkoff’s proposals.

One Israeli official told Axios: “If the president wants a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza he needs to put much more pressure on both sides.”

A White House official told Axios that Trump believes the Gaza war is preventing him from enacting his plans for the region.

“The president sees a real chance for peace and prosperity in the region, but the war in Gaza is the last hot spot and he wants it to end,” the official said.


82 killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as desperately needed aid fails to reach Palestinians

Updated 13 min 53 sec ago
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82 killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza as desperately needed aid fails to reach Palestinians

  • UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Gaza staff still waiting to receive aid
  • Many women and one-week old baby and 14 members of the same family among latest killed as Israel prepares further onslaught

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza: Israeli strikes continued to pound the Gaza Strip Wednesday, despite a surge in international anger at Israel’s widening offensive, killing at least 82 people, including several women and a week-old infant, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and area hospitals.
Israel began allowing dozens of humanitarian trucks into Gaza on Tuesday, but the aid has not yet reached Palestinians in desperate need.
Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the UN’s humanitarian agency, said no trucks were picked up from the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom, the Israeli border crossing with southern Gaza.
UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Tuesday evening that although the aid had entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.
The Israeli defense body that oversees humanitarian aid to Gaza said trucks were entering Gaza on Wednesday morning, but it was unclear if that aid would be able to continue deeper into Gaza for distribution. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said its staff had waited several hours to collect aid from the border crossing in order to begin distribution but were unable to do so on Tuesday.
A few dozen Israeli activists opposed to Israel’s decision to allow aid into Gaza while Hamas still holds Israeli hostages attempted to block the trucks carrying the aid on Wednesday morning, but were kept back by Israeli police.
Diplomats come under fire in Jenin
A group of diplomats came under fire while visiting Jenin, a city in the Israel-occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Authority. The diplomats were on official mission to observe the humanitarian situation in Jenin when shots rang out.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the shooting.
An aid worker, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said a delegation of about 20 diplomats was being briefed about the situation in Jenin by the Palestinian Authority. The group of regional, European and Western diplomats were standing near the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp when they heard gunshots just before 2 p.m., though it was unclear where the shots came from, she said. No one was injured, she added.
Footage shows a number of diplomats giving media interviews as rapid shots ring out close to the group, forcing them to run for cover.
Jenin has been the site of Israel’s widespread crackdown against West Bank militants since earlier this year.
On Jan. 21 — just two days after its ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza — Israeli forces descended on Jenin as they have dozens of times since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The fighting displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians, one of the largest West Bank displacements in years.
International pressure increases against Israel
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom. suspended free trade talks with Israel over its intensifying assault, a step that came a day after the UK, Canada and France promised concrete steps to prompt Israel to halt the war. Separately, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was reviewing an EU pact governing trade ties with Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza.
Israel says it is prepared to stop the war once all the hostages taken by Hamas return home and Hamas is defeated, or is exiled and disarmed. Hamas says it is prepared to release the hostages in exchange for a full Israeli withdrawal from the territory and an end to the war. It rejects demands for exile and disarmament.
Negotiations stalled as Israeli operation widens
Israel called back its senior negotiating team from ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha on Tuesday, saying it would leave lower-level officials in place instead. Qatari leaders, who are mediating negotiations, said there was a large gap between the two sides that they had been unable to bridge.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continued across Gaza. In the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel recently ordered new evacuations pending an expected expanded offensive, 24 people were killed, 14 of them from the same family. A week-old infant was killed in central Gaza.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes, but has said it is targeting Hamas infrastructure and accused Hamas militants of operating from civilian areas.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday urged world leaders to take immediate action to end Israel’s siege on Gaza, issuing the appeal in a written statement during a visit to Beirut, where he is expected to discuss the disarmament of Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s refugee camps.
“I call on world leaders to take urgent and decisive measures to break the siege on our people in the Gaza Strip,” Abbas said, demanding the immediate entry of aid, an end to the Israeli offensive, the release of detainees, and a full withdrawal from Gaza.
“It is time to end the war of extermination against the Palestinian people. I reiterate that we will not leave, and we will remain here on the land of our homeland, Palestine,” Abbas said.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.


Lebanese, Palestinian presidents say era of weapons ‘outside Lebanese state control’ over

Updated 48 min 7 sec ago
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Lebanese, Palestinian presidents say era of weapons ‘outside Lebanese state control’ over

  • Joint statement says two leaders expressed commitment to the principle that arms should be exclusively ‘in the hands of the Lebanese state’

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and his Palestinian counterpart Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday that weapons should be under Lebanese state control, meeting in Beirut to discuss disarming Palestinian refugee camps in the country.
A joint statement released by the Lebanese presidency said the two leaders share the “belief that the era of weapons outside Lebanese state control has ended,” adding that both had expressed commitment to the principle that arms should be exclusively “in the hands of the Lebanese state.”