JERUSALEM: Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid on Monday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of leading to a “total loss of Israeli deterrence” in the wake of an unprecedented Iranian attack.
In a scathing criticism posted on X, former premier Lapid also said that under Netanyahu, “Jewish terrorist violence” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank was “out of control.”
Netanyahu, who returned to power in late 2022 at the helm of a coalition with far-right parties, has brought “heaps of destruction from Beeri to Kiryat Shmona,” Lapid said, calling for early elections.
Beeri, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, came under attack when Hamas militants stormed the area on October 7, triggering the ongoing war, while the northern town of Kiryat Shmona has suffered during months of cross-border fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Lapid’s remarks came two days after Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — launched more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for a deadly strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Israel, the United States and other allies intercepted nearly all launches in the late Saturday aerial attack — the first direct Iranian military action against arch foe Israel.
Netanyahu’s cabinet has weighed Israel’s response to the Iranian attack, but the prime minister has not made any public comments.
In the West Bank, where violence has soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli settlers torched Palestinian homes and cars over the weekend, killing at least two people, after an Israeli teen was “murdered in a suspected terrorist attack,” according to the Israeli military.
Pointing to surging “terrorist” settler attacks, Lapid said: “If we don’t move this government, it will bring destruction upon us.”
The government, which includes hard-line settlers, has prioritized Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967.
Netanyahu has faced in recent months mass protests over the fate of hostages held in Gaza and pressure from a resurgent anti-government movement.
The prime minister’s Likud party responded to Lapid in a statement stressing Netanyahu’s part in “the global campaign” to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons — which Tehran denies it is seeking.
Netanyahu rival Lapid says Israel lost ‘deterrence’ against Iran
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Netanyahu rival Lapid says Israel lost ‘deterrence’ against Iran
- Former PM says ‘Jewish terrorist violence’ against Palestinians in West Bank was ‘out of control’ under Netanyahu
- Israeli settlers torched Palestinian homes, cars over weekend in West Bank, where violence has soared since Oct. 7
Palestinian security force kills Islamic Jihad gunman in rare internal clash
- Al-Foul was “treacherously ... targeted in his car” without provocation, the brigades said in a statement. “This crime is just like any assassination by Israeli special forces.”
Palestinian Authority security services spokesperson Talak Dweikat said a force sent to patrol Tulkarm overnight came under fire and shot back, hitting the gunman. He died from his wounds in hospital.
Videos circulated online, and which Reuters was not immediately able to confirm, showed a car being hit by gunfire.
A local armed group, the Tulkarm and Nour Shams Camp Brigades, claimed the dead man, Ahmed Abu Al-Foul, as its member with affiliation to the largely militant group Islamic Jihad.
Al-Foul was “treacherously ... targeted in his car” without provocation, the brigades said in a statement. “This crime is just like any assassination by Israeli special forces.”
President Mahmoud Abbas’ PA wields limited self-rule in the West Bank, and sometimes coordinates security with Israel.
Parts of the territory have drifted into chaos and poverty, with the PA and Israel trading blame, especially since ties have been further strained by Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
Hamas, an Islamic Jihad ally which rules the Gaza Strip and has chafed at Abbas’ strategy of seeking diplomatic accommodation with Israel, denounced “the attacks by the PA’s security forces on our people and our resistance fighters”.
Palestinian security forces and gunmen have exchanged gunfire several times in the last year, but deaths are rare.
EU offers 1 billion euros to support Lebanon
- The funds would be available from this year until 2027
BEIRUT: The EU has offered Lebanon a financial package of 1 billion euros, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday.
The funds would be available from this year until 2027, von der Leyen told a joint news conference with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides. She also said the EU would support Lebanon’s armed forces with equipment and training for border management.
Iran slaps sanctions on US, UK over Israel support
- Sanctions targeted seven Americans
- British officials and entities targeted include Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps
TEHRAN: Iran announced on Thursday sanctions on several American and British individuals and entities for supporting Israel in its war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The Islamic republic, the regional arch-foe of Israel, unveiled the punitive measures in a statement from its foreign ministry.
It said the sanctions targeted seven Americans, including General Bryan P. Fenton, commander of the US special operations command, and Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, a former commander of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
British officials and entities targeted include Secretary of State for Defense Grant Shapps, commander of the British army strategic command James Hockenhull and the UK Royal Navy in the Red Sea.
Penalties were also announced against US firms Lockheed Martin and Chevron and British counterparts Elbit Systems, Parker Meggitt and Rafael UK.
The ministry said the sanctions include “blocking of accounts and transactions in the Iranian financial and banking systems, blocking of assets within the jurisdiction of the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as prohibition of visa issuance and entry to the Iranian territory.”
The impact of these measures on the individuals or entities, as well as their assets or dealings with Iran, remains unclear.
The war in the Gaza Strip erupted after the October 7 attack by Palestinian militants on Israel which killed 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Iran backs Hamas but has denied any direct involvement in the attack.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has since killed at least 34,568 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
12-truck UAE aid convoy enters Gaza Strip
- UAE has also sent Palestinians food, water via sea, air
- Emirates has provided medical treatment for thousands
Al-ARISH: A UAE aid convoy entered the Gaza Strip on Wednesday via Egypt’s Rafah Crossing Point as a part of the country’s “Operation Chivalrous Knight 3” project to support the Palestinian people, UAE state news agency WAM reported on Thursday.
The 12-truck convoy is transporting over 264 tonnes of humanitarian aid including food, water and dates.
The latest convoy now brings to 440 the number of trucks that have been used for support efforts.
As of May 1, 2024, the UAE has now provided the Palestinians 22,436 tonnes of aid, which has included the deployment of 220 cargo planes and three cargo ships. The goods pass through Al-Arish Port and the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
These efforts are a part of the “Birds of Goodness” operation, which involves aerial drops of humanitarian supplies. By Wednesday, 43 drops have been conducted, delivering a total of 3,000 tonnes of food and relief materials to inaccessible and isolated areas in Gaza.
Since its establishment, medical staffers at the UAE’s field hospital in Gaza have treated more than 18,970 patients. An additional 152 patients were evacuated to the UAE’s Floating Hospital in Al-Arish Port, and 166 to the UAE for treatment.
The UAE has set up six desalination plants with a production capacity of 1.2 million gallons per day to support the people in Gaza.
Syrians accuse Russia of hitting hospital in new complaint filed with UN rights committee
- Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that it violated international law in Syria
BEIRUT: A Syrian man and an aid organization have accused Russia of violating international law by deliberately bombing a hospital in northern Syria in 2019, in a new complaint filed at the United Nations Human Rights Committee this week.
Russia, which intervened militarily in Syria’s conflict in 2015 to bolster the forces of its ally President Bashar Assad, has been accused by UN investigators of committing war crimes in Syria, but has not faced any international tribunal.
Moscow has repeatedly denied accusations that it violated international law in Syria.
The new complaint, filed on May 1 but made public on Thursday, accuses Russia’s Air Force of killing two civilians in a series of air strikes on the Kafr Nobol Surgical Hospital in the northwest province of Idlib on May 5, 2019.
It was brought to the committee by the cousin of those killed and by Hand in Hand for Aid and Development, an aid group that was supporting the hospital, which was in territory held by armed groups opposed to Assad.
The complaint relies on videos, eyewitness statements and audio recordings, including correspondence between a Russian pilot and ground control about dropping munitions.
“Syrians are looking to the Human Rights Committee to show us some measure of redress by acknowledging the truth of this brutal attack, and the suffering caused,” said Fadi Al-Dairi, the director of Hand in Hand.
The Geneva-based Human Rights Committee is a body of independent experts that monitors the status of political and civil rights around the world, and can receive complaints by states and individuals on alleged violations.
Individual complaints can lead to compensation payments, investigations or other measures.
While rights groups have accused both Syria and Russia of violating international law within Syria for years, neither country is party to the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute, and opportunities for accountability are rare.
Russia signed onto the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1991, meaning it accepts the Human Rights Committee’s ability to consider complaints from individuals against it.
“This complaint before a preeminent international human rights tribunal exposes the Russian government and armed forces’ deliberate strategy of targeting health care in clear violation of the laws of war,” said James A. Goldston, executive director of the Justice Initiative, whose lawyers are representing the applicants.
In 2019, the UN Human Rights Commission — a separate body — said strikes on medical facilities in Syria including the Kafr Nobol hospital “strongly” suggested that “government-affiliated forces conducting these strikes are, at least partly, if not wholly, deliberately striking health facilities.”
