Jerusalem, Oct 16 (AP) Israeli jets struck southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people including a city mayor, Lebanese officials said.
Hezbollah acting leader Sheikh Naim Kassem declared Tuesday that the Lebanese militant group will ramp up attacks on Israel in response to an Israeli airstrike Monday on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people. Israel said it struck a target belonging to Hezbollah, but the United Nations called Tuesday for an independent investigation.
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Israel has escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in recent weeks, after a year of near-daily exchanges of cross-border fire.
It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed in, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90 per cent of its population of 2.3 million people.
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In northern Gaza, Israel has been waging an air and ground campaign in Jabaliya for more than a week, leaving families trapped in their shelters.
US President Joe Biden’s administration warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza within the next 30 days or risk losing access to American weapons funding.
Here’s the latest:
UK considers sanctioning 2 ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers
LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer says the UK government is considering sanctioning two ultranationalist Israeli Cabinet ministers.
Starmer said “we are looking at” imposing sanctions on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. He said the pair had made “abhorrent” comments about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Britain, France and Algeria have called a meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday on the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, which Starmer called “dire.”
“Israel must take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes, and provide the UN humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively,” Starmer said in the House of Commons.
David Cameron, who was foreign secretary in the previous Conservative government until its defeat in the UK’s July election, said Tuesday that while in office he was working on a plan to sanction Smotrich and Ben-Gvir over their support for blocking aid from entering the Gaza Strip and expanding illegal Israeli settlements there and in the occupied West Bank.
The sanctions were not put in place before Britain’s snap election was called.
UN official says reports of a Lebanese mayor’s death in an airstrike are ‘alarming’
BEIRUT — UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called reports that the mayor of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a municipal building “alarming.”
“This attack follows other incidents in which civilians and civilian infrastructure have been targeted across Lebanon,” she said in a statement.
Hennis-Plasschaert called for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
“Military solutions will not and cannot bring safety or security to either side of the Blue Line,” she said, referring to the UN-drawn boundary between Lebanon and Israel.
Israeli military allows 50 aid trucks into northern Gaza
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military says it has allowed 50 trucks of humanitarian aid into northern Gaza, after the United States warned it to boost aid efforts or risk losing weapons funding.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza, said the delivery was made at the direction of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the “political echelon.”
Northern Gaza was the first target of Israel’s massive air and ground offensive after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack ignited the war. The region has suffered heavy destruction and has been completely encircled by Israeli forces for nearly a year.
No food entered northern Gaza for the first two weeks of this month, according to the World Food Program, as Israel launched another major military operation there. That raised fears that Israel planned to implement a plan by former generals to depopulate northern Gaza.
Israel began allowing food shipments in again on Monday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a letter to their Israeli counterparts on Sunday, said Israel had 30 days to increase the number of aid trucks getting into the strip daily to 350 — or the US would reconsider weapons shipments.
The US has spent a record of at least USD 17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project.
The aid entering the strip Wednesday travelled from Jordan into north Gaza after passing Israeli inspection and contained food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment, COGAT said.
Lebanon’s caretaker PM accuses Israel of deliberately targeting a meeting in Nabatiyeh
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati accused Israel of “intentionally targeting” a meeting of the municipal council of the southern city of Nabatiyeh on Wednesday convened to discuss the city’s service and relief situation.
The strike killed the mayor of the city along with four other people and destroyed a municipality building.
Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in a separate statement that the building was targeted during a meeting held to coordinate relief work and aid distribution for people who have remained in southern Lebanon. He said a civil defence member was killed and others injured in the strike.
Mikati accused the international community of being “deliberately silent” about Israeli strikes that have killed civilians and attacks on UN peacekeepers.
“What solution can be hoped for in light of this reality?” he said in a statement.
Israel has said that its increasing bombardment of many areas of Lebanon in the past month and the ground invasion it launched two weeks ago are aimed at pushing the Hezbollah militant group back from the border and destroying its weapons caches.
UNRWA head calls for international media access to Gaza
BERLIN — The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has called for access of international media organisations to Gaza to report about the situation on the ground.
UNRWA’s Philippe Lazzarini told a news conference in Berlin on Wednesday that “most of the information that we are receiving is either by (…) local journalists or by organisations operating in Gaza.”
Lazzarini said because there are so many different types of narratives on the conflict, “it is of utmost importance … that we continue to ask for the presence and all the access of international journalists.”
Iran’s president urges Muslim countries to unite against Israel
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian urged Muslim countries to be united against Israel during a phone conversation with the ruler of Oman, the president’s website reported Wednesday.
The report quoted Pezeshkian as saying, “If we, Islamic countries, are united with each other, the Zionist regime will not dare to commit crimes so easily,” and the US and Western countries also could not support it.
Pezeshkian praised Oman’s stance regarding “Israeli crimes” in Gaza and Lebanon and demanded more pressure on those who are supporting Israel, the report said.
There was no immediate report in Omani state media on the call between Pezeshkian and Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. Oman long has served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.
A man arrested in Israel over an alleged Iranian plot against a scientist
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities say they have arrested a man who was involved in an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli scientist.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Shin Bet internal security agency said Iran paid 35-year-old Vladimir Verhovski USD 100,000 to kill an Israeli scientist. It did not provide evidence or name the target of the alleged plot.
Iran has accused Israel of being behind the targeted killing of scientists involved in its nuclear programme.
The Shin Bet said Verhovski had acquired a gun, cartridge and bullets, and agreed to flee to Russia afterwards. It said he had also gathered information at the direction of Iran.
It’s one of several alleged plots the Shin Bet says it has foiled in recent months that involved Israelis accused of having been recruited by Iran.
Israel and Iran have waged a shadow war for years that burst to the surface after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza. Israel and Iran exchanged fire directly for the first time in April, and Israel has vowed to retaliate after an Iranian ballistic missile attack earlier this month.
Iran supports armed groups across the region, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel must stop operations in Lebanon, French president tells Netanyahu
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron stressed “the absolute necessity of a cease-fire without further delay in Lebanon” and called for Israel to stop operations there in a phone call Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Macron urged Israel “to put an end to this unjustifiable targeting,” according to a statement from his office, which also said France would continue to work with troop contributors and alongside the United Nations Secretary-General to ensure the full implementation of the mission of the peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL.
Netanyahu said in a statement after the call that he was opposed to a unilateral cease-fire. He said he would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide security for residents of northern Israel and “does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.”
Iran is ready for Israeli retaliation, foreign minister tells UN
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran is ready for a retaliatory attack from Israel, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.
In a phone call Tuesday with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said his country is fully prepared to answer to any kind of “adventure-seeking.”
“Responsibility of consequences of spreading insecurity in the region will be on the regime and the United States as main supporter,” of Israel, he added.
He urged the UN to use its entire capacity for stopping “crimes and invasions,” as well as providing humanitarian aid to Lebanon and Gaza.
Iran launched some 180 missiles at Israel on October 1 in retaliation for the deaths of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel has threatened to strike back for the barrage.
Iran is the main backer of Lebanese Hezbollah and supports anti-Israeli groups in the region such as Palestinian Hamas.
EU official says calls for a cease-fire have not been heard
MANILA, Philippines — A European Union official expressed regret over the failure so far of efforts to forge a cease-fire in the Middle East, saying that fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah has made it more difficult to work for wide-ranging reforms in Lebanon and create conditions to draw international financial aid in.
EU Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic told The Associated Press in an interview late Tuesday in Manila that stalled reforms in Lebanon include the election of a new president, the establishment of a working government and the signing of a deal with the International Monetary Fund.
“It’s difficult to see that happening in these circumstances when Lebanon is under such a strain,” said Lenarcic, who flew to Manila to attend an Asia Pacific conference on disaster mitigation.
“That’s one of the reasons why we’re calling for a cease-fire, so as to allow Lebanon to organise itself so that it can benefit from all the funding which is out there,” he said. “I regret that we have not been heard.”
The EU was also extremely concerned over the killings of civilians in the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group. “This collateral damage is simply unacceptable,” Lenarcic said. (AP)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
