JERUSALEM: Palestinians and Jewish settlers hurled stones, chairs and fireworks at each other overnight in a tense Jerusalem neighborhood where settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families, officials said Tuesday.
The threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last month’s 11-day Gaza war and pose a test for Israel’s new governing coalition, which includes three pro-settler parties but is hoping to sideline the Palestinian issue to avoid internal divisions.
Israeli police and border officials said they arrested four suspects in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. It was unclear who started the brawl. One woman was reportedly injured when she was hit in the back by a stone, police said.
The Red Crescent emergency service said its crews treated 20 Palestinians, including 16 suffering from pepper spray and tear gas and others wounded by rubber-coated bullets. Two other people were wounded, including an elderly man who was hit in the head, it said.
The Red Crescent said settlers threw stones at one of its ambulances and Israeli forces sprayed skunk water on a second ambulance belonging to the service.
The eruption of violence is the latest friction in Sheikh Jarrah, where weeks of unrest captured international attention ahead of the 11-day Israel-Hamas war last month. The cease-fire took effect on May 21, but the long-running campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families continues.
And so the cycle of tension endures, in a stark early test for Israel’s new coalition government, which is just over a week old.
At the helm under a rotation agreement is Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the right-wing Yamina party. In two years, he’ll be replaced by Yair Lapid, leader of centrist Yesh Atid. And leading the opposition is Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, ousted from the premiership after holding the post for 12 years.
An intervention by Israel’s attorney general at the height of the unrest has put the most imminent evictions on hold. But rights groups say evictions could still proceed in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed.
The settlers have been waging a decades-long campaign to evict the families from densely populated Palestinian neighborhoods in the so-called Holy Basin just outside the walls of the Old City, in one of the most sensitive parts of east Jerusalem.
Israel captured east Jerusalem, home to holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. Israel views the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
The settlers say the homes are built on land that was owned by Jews prior to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Israeli law allows Jews to reclaim such property, a right denied to Palestinians who lost lands and homes in the same conflict.
Palestinians, Jewish settlers clash in tense Jerusalem neighborhood
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Palestinians, Jewish settlers clash in tense Jerusalem neighborhood
- Settler groups are trying to evict several Palestinian families
- Threatened evictions fueled protests and clashes in the runup to last month’s 11-day Gaza war
Turkish foreign minister to visit Greece to discuss bilateral issues
- Neighbors Greece and Tukiye, both NATO allies but historic foes, have been at odds for decades over a range of issues from airspace to maritime jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean and ethnically split Cyprus
ISTANBUL: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will visit Greece to discuss and find solutions to bilateral issues, including maritime zones and airspace, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.
Erdogan, who was returning from a visit to Serbia, said that he believes the relations between two countries are advancing towards better days.
“It is important for both sides to have the will to define the problems, outline and present their content, and find solutions,” according to a presidency readout of an interview by Turkish media.
Neighbors Greece and Tukiye, both NATO allies but historic foes, have been at odds for decades over a range of issues from airspace to maritime jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean and ethnically split Cyprus.
“We have long wanted the maritime and airspace jurisdictions to be demarcated in accordance with international law. As countries in the region, we can only increase security and stability and reduce the risk of conflict through dialogue and cooperation.”
Lebanon Christian leader says ending political deadlock key to war truce
- “The urgency first and foremost is a ceasefire to end the catastrophe that our people are enduring,” said Samir Geagea
- “In the absence of serious international initiatives, our only option to reach a ceasefire is by electing a president”
BEIRUT: The head of a major Christian party in politically deadlocked Lebanon said Saturday that electing a new president was key to obtaining a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lebanon has been without a head of state for almost two years amid a crushing economic crisis and, now, as Israel heavily bombards the country saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites.
Hezbollah allies and their adversaries including the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) party have been deadlocked over the presidency, unable to reach a consensus.
“The urgency first and foremost is a ceasefire to end the catastrophe that our people are enduring,” said Samir Geagea, who heads the LF and parliament’s largest Christian bloc.
“In the absence of serious international initiatives, our only option to reach a ceasefire is by electing a president,” Geagea, who is close to the United States and Saudi Arabia, said in a press conference.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah unilaterally opened what it says is a “support front” for Gaza from Lebanon, launching cross-border attacks into Israel the day after Palestinian ally Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.
Early last month Geagea accused Hezbollah of dragging Lebanon into a war with Israel, “as if there were no state.”
Almost a year of cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah escalated into all-out war on September 23, with Israel heavily bombarding south and east Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying it is targeting Hezbollah sites.
Geagea called for “a credible president who commits clearly to implementing international resolutions, in particular resolutions 1559, 1680 and 1701, in all their provisions.”
Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1680 called for the disarmament of all non-state groups.
Adopted in 2006, Resolution 1701 led to a ceasefire in an Israel-Hezbollah war that year and said the Lebanese army and peacekeepers should be the only armed forces deployed in the country’s south.
Hezbollah is the lone group that refused to give up its weapons after Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, doing so in the name of “resistance” against Israel.
The group was founded after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982, and has since become a powerful domestic political player, though detractors have accused it of being a “state within a state.”
Geagea said a president would have to ensure that “strategic decisions belong solely to the state.”
UN official appeals for Lebanon’s ports and airport to be spared as Israel presses its offensive
- “What I have seen and heard today is devastating, but the sense is that this can get much worse still,” said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of WFP
- “We have huge concerns and there are many, but one of them is indeed that we need the ports and we need the supply routes to continue to be able to operate”
BEIRUT: A top United Nations official said during a visit to Beirut Saturday that he is concerned that Lebanon’s ports and airport might be taken out of service, with serious implications for getting food supplies into the county, as Israel continues its offensive against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
“What I have seen and heard today is devastating, but the sense is that this can get much worse still, and that needs to be avoided,” said Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the UN World Food Program, in an interview with The Associated Press.
He appealed for “all diplomatic efforts possible to try to find a political solution” to the war and for supply lines to remain open.
“We have huge concerns and there are many, but one of them is indeed that we need the ports and we need the supply routes to continue to be able to operate,” Skau said.
In Gaza, where Israel has been at war with Hamas since the Palestinian militant group launched a deadly incursion into southern Israel a year ago, hunger has skyrocketed as humanitarian organizations have complained of major obstacles to getting food and other supplies into the blockaded enclave.
Skau said he believes that Israeli authorities had given “commitments” that in Lebanon, the ports and airport would not be taken out of commission.
“But of course, this is a very changing environment. So we don’t take anything for granted,” he said.
In recent weeks, Israel has escalated its aerial bombardment and launched a ground invasion in Lebanon.
About 1.2 million people are displaced in Lebanon, according to government estimates, of whom some 200,000 are staying in collective shelters, where the WFP is supplying them with meals.
Skau noted that food prices have already increased as a result of the conflict, although Lebanon’s sole international airport and its main sea ports are still functioning. The WFP had stocked up enough food to supply 1 million people — about one-fifth of Lebanon’s population — for up to a month, he said, but now is trying to build up supplies that could feed that number through the end of the year.
“We will, of course, be having to restock, and for that, the ports will be critical and other supply lines,” he said.
For instance, the agency has been bringing food in from Jordan through Syria into Lebanon by land, he said. Earlier this month, an Israeli strike on the road to the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria cut off access to that crossing.
Since the Masnaa crossing was struck, people fleeing Lebanon have continued to cross on foot, while vehicles — including those bringing supplies for the WFP — have had to use another crossing in the far north of the country, making the journey more arduous and expensive.
Skau appealed for the Masnaa crossing to be reopened.
Lebanese General Security, which oversees border crossings, has recorded 320,184 Syrians and 117,727 Lebanese citizens crossing into Syria since Sept. 23, when the major escalation in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon started.
The influx comes at a time when the WFP has reduced its food assistance in Syria as a result of funding shortages.
“We’ve gone over the past two years from assisting some 6 million people to around 1.5 (million),” Skau said. “And with that, of course, our capacity has been tightened and now we need to scale up again.”
Israel army says Hezbollah fired about 320 projectiles into Israel over Yom Kippur
- The military said two projectiles were also identified crossing from northern Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said that Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired about 320 projectiles from Lebanon into Israel over Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day which ended at nightfall Saturday.
“Throughout the weekend of Yom Kippur, approximately 320 projectiles that were fired by the Hezbollah terrorist organization crossed from Lebanon into Israel,” the military said in a statement.
In a separate statement, the military said two projectiles were also identified crossing from northern Gaza, where Israel is fighting Palestinian militants, toward the city of Ashkelon but fell in an unpopulated area.
UN warns against ‘catastrophic’ regional conflict
- Israel has faced a fierce diplomatic backlash over incidents in south Lebanon that saw five Blue Helmets wounded
- UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti fears an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah in south Lebanon could soon spiral out of control “into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone“
BEIRUT: UN peacekeepers in Lebanon warned Saturday against a “catastrophic” regional conflict as Israeli forces battled Hezbollah and Hamas militants on two fronts, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
Israel has faced a fierce diplomatic backlash over incidents in south Lebanon that saw five Blue Helmets wounded.
On Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said Israeli air strikes on two villages located near the capital Beirut killed nine people.
Israel had earlier told residents of south Lebanon not to return home, as its troops fought Hezbollah militants in a war that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23, and forced more than a million others to flee their homes.
“For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice... Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.
Hezbollah said Saturday it launched missiles across the border into northern Israel, where air raid sirens sounded and the military said it had intercepted a projectile.
In an interview with AFP, UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP he feared an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah in south Lebanon could soon spiral out of control “into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone.”
The UN force said five peacekeepers have been wounded by fighting in south Lebanon in just two days, and Tenenti said “a lot of damage” had been caused to its posts there.
Around Israel, markets were closed and public transport halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed on Yom Kippur.
After the holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel’s expected retaliation against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.
Israel began pounding Gaza shortly after suffering its worst ever attacks from Iran-backed Hamas militants on October 7 last year, and it launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 30.
On Friday, Israel faced criticism from the UN, its Western allies and others over what it said was a “hit” on a UN peacekeeping position in Lebanon.
Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were hurt in the second such incident in two days, UNIFIL said Friday.
Israel’s military said soldiers had responded to “an immediate threat” around 50 meters (yards) from the UNIFIL base in Naqura, and has pledged to carry out a “thorough review.”
The Irish military’s chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was “not an accidental act,” and French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the peacekeepers had been “deliberately targeted.”
Both countries are major contributors to UNIFIL whose peacekeepers are on the front line of the Israel-Hezbollah war.
Efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire.”
Lebanon’s military said Friday an Israeli strike on one of its positions in south Lebanon killed two soldiers.
