JERUSALEM: Israel on Saturday accused the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah of “provocative” activity along the Lebanese-Israeli frontier and said it would complain to the UN Security Council.
In a statement, Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Hezbollah of multiple attempts to breach the border Friday night.
He said Israel “thoroughly condemns” the incident and expects the Lebanese government to prevent such threats.
On Friday night, the Israeli military fired flares along the volatile frontier after signs of a possible border breach. It said it later found damage to the separation fence in three locations.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a month-long war in 2006 that ended in a stalemate. Under a UN-brokered truce, Hezbollah is barred from conducting military activity along the frontier.
There was no immediate comment from the Iranian-backed militant group.
Israel accuses Hezbollah of “provocative” activity
https://arab.news/2enq5
Israel accuses Hezbollah of “provocative” activity
- In a statement, Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Hezbollah of multiple attempts to breach the border Friday night
- Under a UN-brokered truce, Hezbollah is barred from conducting military activity along the frontier
Hopes rise on Sudan as Egypt pushes peace talks
- Al-Burhan government urged to ease demands over forum set for June
CAIRO: Egypt’s plans to host a conference in coming weeks that will bring together rival Sudanese political forces has raised hopes of restoring peace in the conflict-racked country, according to analysts.
The government of Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan has already welcomed the Egyptian initiative, according to Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Masad Faiez, an Egyptian political analyst, said the Sudanese statement tried to set “some conditions” for the participation of the state’s representative.
“I think these are tough conditions,” he told Arab News. “But from what I know, Egypt is currently trying to unify all parties to ensure lasting and ongoing peace.”
Faiez said Egypt “believes that the conflict is a Sudanese issue and is inviting all active national factions to participate in a future political process.”
Cairo will exert all possible efforts to help Sudan overcome the crisis it faces, and end the conflict’s damaging effects on the Sudanese people, and the security and stability of the region, he said.
According to the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the conference will seek to reach a consensus on building comprehensive and lasting peace in Sudan.
Regional and international partners will attend the forum, which will rely on “a national dialogue based on a purely Sudanese vision,” the ministry said.
The Sudanese statement specifically opposed the participation of three parties referred to as “patrons” of the Rapid Support Forces.
Sudan also claimed that regional and international organizations had remained silent about the “crimes of the Rapid Support Forces,” and insisted on the African Union’s non-participation unless steps were taken to lift the suspension of Sudan’s activities in the organization.
Akmal Ziyada, a political expert on African affairs, said the Sudanese regime will likely ease its demands in order to achieve peace and unity.
Egypt looks forward to “active participation from all Sudanese civil political forces, and concerned regional and international partners, working together to ensure the conference’s success in achieving the aspirations of the brotherly Sudanese people,” he said.
The Sudanese Unionist Democratic Party, led by Mohammed Osman Al-Mirghani, also welcomed the Egyptian initiative.
Hatem Al-Sir, a political adviser to Al-Mirghani, said the importance of the Egyptian initiative stems from the historical and fraternal ties between the two peoples, and a “firm belief that the solution to the Sudanese crisis must be purely Sudanese,” and include all national factions.
Hassan Al-Mir, a member of the Egyptian parliament, told Arab News that Egypt has a vision for “resolving the crisis in Sudan, primarily because the stability of this country and the African region is one of the mainstays of Egypt’s national security.”
Cairo had led many efforts to contain the Sudan crisis, he said.
Egypt “respects the will of the Sudanese people, opposes foreign interventions in Sudan’s crisis, emphasizes the protection of institutions, and coordinates with neighboring countries to lessen the humanitarian impact,” Al-Mir said.
Netanyahu: No end to Gaza war until Hamas capabilities destroyed
- Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday any notion that Israel would agree a permanent ceasefire before “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities” was “a non-starter“
- A senior Biden administration official, asked about a potential rift in the US and Israeli viewpoints on the future of Hamas, suggested this may be open to interpretation
JERUSALEM: Israel said on Saturday that the Gaza war would not end as long as Hamas retains power, raising questions of timing and interpretation over a truce offer that US President Joe Biden has advanced and the Palestinian militants have cautiously welcomed.
Biden said on Friday that Israel had proposed a deal involving an initial six-week ceasefire with a partial Israeli military withdrawal and the release of some hostages while “a permanent end to hostilities” is negotiated through mediators.
The proposal, Biden said, also “creates a better ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power.” He did not elaborate on how that might be achieved. The Iranian-backed Islamist group has given no indication it might step aside or disarm voluntarily.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday any notion that Israel would agree a permanent ceasefire before “the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities” was “a non-starter.”
Hamas said on Friday it was ready to engage “positively and in a constructive manner.” But senior official Mahmoud Mardawi said in a Qatari television interview that it had not yet received the details of the proposal.
“No agreement can be reached before the demand for the withdrawal of the occupation army and a ceasefire is met,” he said. Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction.
The talks, mediated by Egypt and Qatar with US backing, have stumbled for months over a clash in core positions. Israel has been willing only to suspend the war in exchange for hostages, saying it would then resume the campaign to eliminate the Hamas threat. Hamas wants any deal to entail concrete Israeli moves to end the war, like a full troop withdrawal.
A senior Biden administration official, asked about a potential rift in the US and Israeli viewpoints on the future of Hamas, suggested this may be open to interpretation and would come down to future Egyptian and Qatari sway over the movement.
“I have no doubt that the deal will be characterised by Israel and be characterised by Hamas,” the official told reporters.
“And I think the arrangements and some of the day-after planning, you know, helps ensure that — that Hamas’s military capacity to regenerate in a way that can threaten Israel would be very much foreclosed under this arrangement and, I think the president said in his speech, ensuring that Hamas cannot rearm.”
Iran announces the death of a high-ranking Revolutionary Guard general after a long illness
- Gen. Vajihollah Moradi was one of the commanders of the Guard’s foreign wing
TEHRAN: A high-ranking general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has died after an illness, Iran’s state TV reported Saturday.
Gen. Vajihollah Moradi was one of the commanders of the Guard’s foreign wing, TV said. He was also a comrade of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
State TV said a funeral ceremony will be held in the northern city of Babolsar on Sunday.
Iran occasionally holds funerals for its soldiers fallen in Syria though officials say Iranian forces are there only as advisers.
Iran is Syrian President Bashar Assad’s main regional supporter in the Arab nation’s lengthy civil war. Hundreds of Iranian forces have been killed in the war in Syria.
Gazans back in war-ravaged Jabalia ‘shocked’ by destruction
- Israeli forces carried out a massive bombardment campaign in Jabalia in recent weeks
- Men, women and children were walking through streets where their houses once stood, now full of grey concrete slabs
JABALIA, Palestinian Territories: Mohammed Al-Najjar, a 33-year-old Gazan, said Saturday he was “shocked” and feeling “lost” as he returned home, only to find much of Jabalia refugee camp in ruins after an Israeli offensive
“All the houses have been reduced to rubble,” Najjar told AFP in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
“You are lost, you do not know where exactly your house is in the middle of this massive destruction.”
Israeli forces carried out a massive bombardment campaign in Jabalia in recent weeks, part of a fierce ground offensive in northern Gaza — an area the military had previously said was out of the control of Hamas militants.
“I was shocked by the extent of the destruction in the latest aggression on Jabalia camp,” said Najjar.
In recent days, AFP correspondents have seen scores of Palestinians streaming into the area, trying to find their homes and salvage whatever belongings are left.
Men, women and children were walking through streets where their houses once stood, now full of grey concrete slabs.
Charred furniture, beds and mangled iron doors littered almost every street in the camp, an area once bustling with activity and home to more than 100,000 people, according to UN figures from before the war.
Many families carried their belongings on donkey carts, while others walked with beds and mattresses on their heads.
“We have no other place other than our homes,” said Suad Abu Salah, 47, who has also returned after having fled the area earlier on in the Israel-Hamas war, now nearing its eighth month.
But “Jabalia has been wiped off the map,” she said.
The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,189 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom remain in Gaza, including 37 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 36,379 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Despite the destruction, Najjar said people were “determined” to return to the neighborhoods they had left to avoid the fighting.
Residents were willing to “set up tents and temporary shelters in the middle of the rubble,” he said, even though “there’s fear, fear that the (Israeli) occupation might come back.”
“But we will stay on our land. We have nowhere else.”
On Friday the Israeli military announced it had completed its mission in eastern Jabalia, where it had previously said Hamas militants had regrouped.
On Saturday Jabalia residents said they could still hear constant gunfire and artillery shelling from the east.
Fresh fighting erupted in the north in early May, around the same time Israeli troops took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing, on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
During the latest operation, Israeli forces in Jabalia had retrieved the bodies of seven hostages, and last month the military reported “perhaps the fiercest” fighting there since the start of the war.
Mahmud Assaliyah, 50, said “houses have been torn apart and entire apartment blocks have been completely destroyed in Jabalia.”
“There’s not a single house that has not been targeted by the Israeli occupation army.”
He has returned to find his house, too, had been flattened.
“Cement pillars have fallen, walls have been destroyed, furniture has been scattered, burnt down and torn apart,” Assaliyah said.
Abu Salah said many residents are tired of being displaced and just want to stay put, whatever happens.
“We want to live like other people in the world,” she said.
“We need a solution and an end to this war, so that we can live in peace.”
