Israel strikes Iranian gas pipelines in covert attack: NYT

Flames leap into the air after a natural gas pipeline explodes outside the city of Boroujen in the western Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, Iran, on Feb. 14, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 17 February 2024
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Israel strikes Iranian gas pipelines in covert attack: NYT

  • Energy analyst: ‘We have never seen anything like this in scale and scope’
  • Security analyst: ‘It’s a major challenge and reputation blow for Iran’s intelligence and security agencies’

LONDON: Israel staged secret strikes on two major Iranian gas pipelines this week, threatening the supply of energy to millions of people across the country, the New York Times reported.
The attacks simultaneously hit several points along the two pipelines in the Fars and Chahar Mahal Bakhtiari provinces, with the disrupted natural gas flow affecting up to five provinces across the country.
It is unclear whether drones or explosives were used to carry out the strikes, but local collaborators appear to have been involved, experts said, adding that the Israel’s actions represented a major escalation in its strategy against Iran.
Shahin Modarres, a Rome-based security analyst, said: “This shows that the covert networks operating in Iran have expanded their target list and advanced beyond just military and nuclear sites. It’s a major challenge and reputation blow for Iran’s intelligence and security agencies.”
Israel has long waged a covert campaign against Iran based on attacking the country’s nuclear capabilities and oil infrastructure, involving assassinations of scientists and cyberattacks.
But the strikes on natural gas infrastructure were a deliberate plan to “stir domestic discontent,” said Iran’s Oil Minister Javad Owji.
“The enemy’s plan was to completely disrupt the flow of gas in winter to several main cities and provinces in our country” by using “sabotage and terrorist attacks,” he added, without directly blaming Israel.
Owji said his ministry had sent technical teams to assess and repair the damage, and service had been quickly restored.
One Western official told the New York Times that although the damage was repaired, the escalation served as a “symbolic” warning to Iran of Israel’s capabilities.
Experts believe that the attacks disabled about 15 percent of Iranian daily natural gas production.
The two pipelines — which run for about 1,200 km — carry gas from the south of the country to major urban centers further north, including Tehran, Isfahan and Astara, on the border with Azerbaijan.
Homayoun Falakshahi, a senior energy analyst at Kpler, said: “The level of impact was very high because these are two significant pipelines going south to north. We have never seen anything like this in scale and scope.”
One official from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, speaking on condition of anonymity, said patrols regularly scout the pipelines, taking allocated breaks.
The attackers would have required knowledge of break times to stage the attacks, suggesting the involvement of local collaborators, the official added.
No casualties were reported from the strikes. Social media posts showed locals rushing to the streets after the blasts early in the morning.
It comes amid rising tensions between Iran — and its network of allied militias in the region — and Israel and the US, both of which have carried out strikes on Tehran-backed groups in Syria and Iraq in recent months.


Israel calls ICC prosecutor’s bid for PM arrest warrant a ‘historical disgrace’

Updated 8 sec ago
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Israel calls ICC prosecutor’s bid for PM arrest warrant a ‘historical disgrace’

Katz denounced the move as a “scandalous decision” that amounted to “a frontal attack... on the victims of October 7“
The minister added that Israel would establish a special committee to fight the ICC prosecutor’s efforts to secure a warrant

JERUSALEM: Israel on Monday slammed as a “historical disgrace” an application by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The prosecutor, Karim Khan, applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as top Hamas leaders on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that Khan “in the same breath mentions the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense of the State of Israel alongside the abominable Nazi monsters of Hamas — a historical disgrace that will be remembered forever.”
The prosecutor said he was seeking warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes including “wilful killing,” “extermination and/or murder” and “starvation.”
Katz denounced the move as a “scandalous decision” that amounted to “a frontal attack... on the victims of October 7” when Hamas launched their attack on Israel, sparking the Gaza war.
The minister added that Israel would establish a special committee to fight the ICC prosecutor’s efforts to secure a warrant, and also embark on a diplomatic push against it.
Katz said he planned to “speak with foreign ministers in leading countries of the world so that they oppose the prosecutor’s decision and announce that, even if orders are issued, they do not intend to enforce them on the leaders of the State of Israel.”

35,562 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive since Oct. 7 — health ministry

Updated 20 May 2024
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35,562 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive since Oct. 7 — health ministry

  • 106 Palestinians were killed and 176 injured in the past 24 hours

DUBAI: More than 35,562 Palestinians have been killed and 79,652 injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Monday.
One hundred and six Palestinians were killed and 176 injured in the past 24 hours, the ministry added.


Source close to Hezbollah says 4 dead in Israeli strikes on Lebanon

Updated 20 May 2024
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Source close to Hezbollah says 4 dead in Israeli strikes on Lebanon

  • The source close to Hezbollah told AFP that “at least four Hezbollah fighters were killed in Israeli raids on two different sites in southern Lebanon“
  • The Israeli military said fighter jets struck “a Hezbollah terrorist cell”

BEIRUT: A source close to Hezbollah said four fighters were killed Monday in south Lebanon, with the Iran-backed group announcing two dead and a retaliatory attack, while Israel claimed strikes.
Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
The source close to Hezbollah told AFP that “at least four Hezbollah fighters were killed in Israeli raids on two different sites in southern Lebanon,” identifying the locations as Naqura on the coast and Mais Al-Jabal, a border village to the east.
The Shiite Muslim movement said two of its fighters, both from Naqura, had been killed, without providing further details.
The Israeli military said fighter jets struck “a Hezbollah terrorist cell” and a launch post in the Mais Al-Jabal area, while Israeli army “artillery fired to remove a threat” in the Naqura area.
Hezbollah said it launched a heavy rocket attack at an Israeli army barracks in the country’s north “in retaliation” for the Naqura strike, while also announcing other attacks on Israeli positions.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli strikes on Mais Al-Jabal and Naqura, where it said Israel fired near Hezbollah-affiliated rescue personnel and wounded a civilian.
The fighting has killed at least 423 people in Lebanon, mostly militants but also including 82 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.
The violence has raised fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which went to war in 2006.


War monitor says Israeli strikes kill six pro-Iran fighters in Syria

Updated 20 May 2024
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War monitor says Israeli strikes kill six pro-Iran fighters in Syria

  • A Hezbollah source said that at least one fighter from the group was killed in Israeli strikes in the Qusayr area

Beirut: A war monitor said at least six pro-Iran fighters were killed Monday in Israeli strikes in Syria near the Lebanese border, in an area where Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group holds sway.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “Israeli strikes targeted two positions of pro-Iran groups in the Homs region,” including “a Hezbollah site in the Qusayr area” near the border where “six Iran-backed fighters were killed.”
The Observatory did not specify their nationalities.
A Hezbollah source told AFP that at least one fighter from the group was killed in Israeli strikes in the Qusayr area.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow its arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence there.
On Saturday, the Observatory said an Israeli drone strike near the Lebanese border targeted a vehicle carrying “a Hezbollah commander and his companion,” without reporting casualties.
Hezbollah did not announce any deaths among its ranks on Saturday.
On May 9, Israeli strikes on Syria targeted facilities belonging to Iraq’s Al-Nujaba armed movement, the Observatory and the pro-Iran group said, with Damascus saying an unidentified building was attacked.
The Israeli military has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in its northern neighbor in 2011, mainly targeting army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.
But the strikes increased after Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7, when the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group launched an unprecedented attack against Israel.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions more since it erupted in 2011 after Damascus cracked down on anti-government protests.


ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrant for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

Updated 20 May 2024
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ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrant for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

  • Karim Khan believes Benjamin Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said Monday he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in connection with their actions during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas.

Karim Khan said that he believes Netanyahu, his defense minister Yoav Gallant and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

The prosecutor must request the warrants from a pre-trial panel of three judges, who take on average two months to consider the evidence and determine if the proceedings can move forward.

Israel is not a member of the court, and even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But Khan’s announcement deepens Israel’s isolation as it presses ahead with its war, and the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

Both Sinwar and Deif are believed to be hiding in Gaza as Israel tries to hunt them down. But Haniyeh, the supreme leader of the Islamic militant group, is based in Qatar and frequently travels across the region.

There was no immediate comment from either side.

Israel launched its war in response to an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage. The Israeli offensive has killed over 35,000 Palestinians, at least half of them women and children, according to the latest estimates by Gaza health officials. The Israeli offensive has also triggered a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, displacing roughly 80 percent of the population and leaving hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of starvation, according to UN officials.

Speaking of the Israeli actions, Khan said in a statement that “the effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known. ... They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children, and women.”

The United Nations and other aid agencies have repeatedly accused Israel of hindering aid deliveries throughout the war. Israel denies this, saying there are no restrictions on aid entering Gaza and accusing the United Nations of failing to distribute aid. The UN says aid workers have repeatedly come under Israeli fire, and also says ongoing fighting and a security vacuum have impeded deliveries.

Of the Hamas actions on Oct. 7, Khan, who visited the region in December, said that he saw for himself “the devastating scenes of these attacks and the profound impact of the unconscionable crimes charged in the applications filed today. Speaking with survivors, I heard how the love within a family, the deepest bonds between a parent and a child, were contorted to inflict unfathomable pain through calculated cruelty and extreme callousness. These acts demand accountability.”

After a brief period of international support for its war, Israel has faced increasing criticism as the war has dragged on and the death toll has climbed.

Israel is also facing a South African case in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. Israel denies those charges.