TEL AVIV: Thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government do more to secure the release of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip by Islamist group Hamas.
Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv.
One of them was Naama Weinberg, whose cousin Itai Svirsky was abducted during Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and, according to Israeli authorities, was killed in captivity. In a speech she referenced a video Hamas made public on Saturday, claiming that another of the Israeli captives had died.
“Soon, even those who managed to survive this long will no longer be among the living. They must be saved now,” Weinberg said.
As the evening progressed, some protesters blocked a main highway in the city before being dispersed by police, who used water cannons to push back the crowd. At least three people were arrested.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sparked the devastating war in Gaza, now raging for nearly seven months.
Protesters return to streets across Israel, demanding hostage release
https://arab.news/b9nq7
Protesters return to streets across Israel, demanding hostage release
- Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv
Does escalating tit for tat between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah make a full-scale war inevitable?
Does escalating tit for tat between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah make a full-scale war inevitable?
- In the absence of a diplomatic breakthrough, the violence has expanded both in scope and intensity in recent weeks
- Since October, at least 455 people have died in Lebanon, including 88 civilians, and at least 14 soldiers and 11 civilians in Israel
DUBAI: Tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia have continued to escalate since violence along the shared border first erupted in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that sparked the Gaza conflict.
In the absence of a diplomatic breakthrough, the low-intensity conflict has expanded both in scope and intensity in recent weeks, leading to fears of an imminent full-scale war.
The violence since early October has killed at least 455 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, at least 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to the army.
INNUMBERS
• 4,900 Attacks launched by Israel against southern Lebanon since Oct. 7.
• 1,100 Attacks by Hezbollah against Israel and Israeli occupied territories in Lebanon. Source: ACLED
Israel has carried out nearly 4,900 attacks in southern Lebanon since Oct. 7, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) Project.
ACLED says Hezbollah has launched around 1,100 attacks on Israel as well as territories it has occupied in Lebanon over the same period.
Israeli strikes have made the entire border area in southern Lebanon a no-go zone, leading to the displacement of some 90,000 people, according to the UN migration agency, IOM. The same is true in northern Israel, where Hezbollah attacks have displaced 80,000 residents.
Since the tit-for-tat attacks began, Lebanese officials and communities living along the border have been braced for a potential escalation into a conflict of a scale not seen since the 2006 war.
In recent months, influential Israeli officials have been calling on the government to mount a new military operation to push Hezbollah away from Israel’s northern border.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said on Tuesday that Israel is close to making a decision regarding Hezbollah’s daily attacks, according to the Times of Israel newspaper.
“We are approaching the point where a decision will have to be made, and the IDF is prepared and very ready for this decision,” Halevi said during an assessment with military officials and Fire Commissioner Eyal Caspi, at an army base in Kiryat Shmona.
“We have been attacking for eight months, and Hezbollah is paying a very, very high price. It has increased its strengths in recent days and we are prepared after a very good process of training … to move to an attack in the north.”
Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett tore into Benjamin Netanyahu’s government this week, claiming the north of Israel had been abandoned. “We must save the north,” he said in a statement. “The Galilee is going up in flames. The fire is spreading.
“Beautiful and flourishing places have turned into heaps of rubble. Some residents who were evacuated are already planning their lives elsewhere. This is a grave strategic event and can in no way be normalized.”
Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah, has said the militia’s campaign will continue as long as the war rages in Gaza.
In a speech last week, he said the attacks are “pressuring Israel,” and that while the battle concerns Palestine, it also concerns “the future of Lebanon and its water and oil resources.”
Should a full-scale war break out, Nasrallah said Hezbollah has “surprises” in store for Israel. Indeed, many region watchers expect any conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to be far more devastating and costly for both sides than the war in Gaza.
Nasrallah’s comments followed statements by Yaov Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, who warned Lebanon would “pay the price” for Hezbollah’s actions, saying “if you will continue, we will accelerate.”
Although both sides have raised the rhetorical ante, Israeli analyst Ori Goldberg believes an all-out war with Hezbollah would be a disastrous overreach for Israel.
“Israel cannot afford a two-front war,” he told Arab News. “That is not sustainable. Hezbollah will be able to reach the Israeli heartland with its rockets. Israel is already imploding. More than 100,000 Israelis seem to have been permanently displaced.”
Nevertheless, if Prime Minister Netanyahu were to present a new war in Lebanon as the only viable option to allow displaced Israelis to return home, then “there is a good possibility that he can rally enough support,” said Goldberg.
“In a way, a war in Lebanon is something Israel’s professional warmongers have been pitching for years. Also, Israel is really hard up for solutions that would return people to the north. So popular support is there to be tapped.”
Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden for energy and investment, who brokered the maritime boundary agreement between Lebanon and Israel in late 2022, recently proposed a road map to peace between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I’m not expecting peace, everlasting peace, between Hezbollah and Israel,” Hochstein said in an interview with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March.
“But if we can reach a set of understandings and ... take away some of the impetus for conflict and establish for the first time ever, a recognized border between the two, I think that will go a long way.”
Hezbollah, however, has conditioned any agreement on a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing any deal would require the consent of both parties.
Michael Young, author and senior editor at Carnegie Middle East, believes that despite its continued provocations, Hezbollah does not want a full-scale war with Israel.
“Everything they’ve shown, up till now, proves that they are avoiding one at all costs,” Young told Arab News. “Sure, they have escalated in response to Israeli escalations, but clearly they are not looking for one.
“If there is war, I don’t think there will be support from large segments of Lebanese society, and Hezbollah knows this. Even though there is anger with Israel, they will not support one.
“There is criticism from outside the Shiite community. The reason why Hezbollah is careful not to engage in a full-scale war is that it knows support from society will dissolve very quickly.”
Hezbollah on Tuesday said one of its members who lived in the Naqoura area was killed in an Israeli strike, and that its fighters launched “a slew of explosive-laden drones” at Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights in retaliation for the attack on the coastal town.
It also claimed other attacks on Israeli troops and positions.
The Israeli army said in a statement that “fighter jets struck a Hezbollah terrorist” in Naqoura as well as hitting other sites.
Over the weekend, Hezbollah said its fighters had mounted a rocket attack against an Israeli army base in the border town of Kiryat Shmona, “scoring direct hits, igniting a fire and destroying parts of it,” according to militia statements.
The Israeli army confirmed the attack had taken place, with images of damaged infrastructure published by local media.
On Sunday night, the social media account of Green Southerners, a Lebanese civil society group dedicated to preserving national heritage, released videos purportedly showing massive fires around the border village of Al-Adisa.
The group claimed the fires were caused by Israel’s use of the incendiary weapon white phosphorus, and accused Israel of committing an act of “ecocide,” as the fires destroyed trees, farmland and animal habitats.
Twenty four hours later, massive fires were ignited by suspected Hezbollah attacks on the Israeli side of the border around Kiryat Shmona. Civilians were ordered to evacuate as firefighters battled the flames.
Israeli officials said more than 2,500 acres of land were affected by the fires, claiming it could take years for the land to recover.
On Monday, Hezbollah said it had fired Katyusha rockets toward Israeli bases in the occupied Golan Heights. For the first time since the outbreak of violence in October, the militia said it had launched a squadron of drones.
The Israeli military confirmed the attacks, stating it had intercepted one drone carrying explosives while two others fell in northern Israel.
For as long as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza rages and Hezbollah continues to pose a threat to the towns and villages of northern Israel, the potential for escalation remains high.
The consequences, however, would be severe for all parties.
“I think Hezbollah has demonstrated it is committed to tit for tat,” said Israeli analyst Goldberg. “If Israel invades — and invade it must, if it wants a war — I think Hezbollah will likely retaliate in kind.”
And although Hezbollah has the means to cause significant damage to Israeli cities with its arsenal of Iranian-supplied weapons, it is crisis-wracked Lebanon that has the most to lose in the event of a full-scale war.
Indeed, the 2019 financial crisis and the failure to establish a new government has plunged much of the population into poverty, left public services and infrastructure in tatters, and even risked reopening old sectarian wounds.
“Should there be a war, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to put Lebanon back together as it was or even as it is today,” said Young of Carnegie Middle East.
“Already the sectarian social contract is falling apart. How do you do this after a very destructive war?”
Gaza war death toll reaches 36,586
Hamas’s Health Ministry in Gaza said on Wednesday that at least 36,586 people have been killed in the territory during more than seven months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes at least 36 deaths over the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 83,074 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
The Gaza Strip faces unprecedented disease outbreaks this summer caused by piles of uncollected waste rotting in the heat, fueling further misery for residents already suffering from food shortages.
Fenia Diamanti, project coordinator of emergencies at the non-governmental organization, said that managing rubbish is one of its main concerns, since it can’t be removed from the war-torn territory and nor do inhabitants have access to dumps.
“This amount of solid waste all over the strip causes multiple hygiene and sanitation problems,” Diamanti said.
“We fear diseases that never appeared in the strip before are going to appear and that will affect the entire population, especially in the summer when temperatures are going to rise.”
Israel has laid waste to much of the Gaza Strip.
Last month was the warmest May ever globally, marking the 12th consecutive month of record average temperatures, the European Commission-backed weather monitoring service Copernicus said.
Last summer, a heatwave in Gaza sent temperatures soaring to 38 degrees Celsius, causing 12-hour power cuts.
Thousands of Israel nationalists march on flashpoint Jerusalem Day
- Flag day march takes place as the war in Gaza approaches the start of its ninth month, adding to concerns of wider violence
- Palestinians see the march as a blatant provocation aimed at undermining their claim to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state
JERUSALEM: Waving flags and many chanting anti-Arab slogans, thousands of Israeli nationalists marched through annexed east Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday, with main streets empty of Palestinians fearing attacks.
The so-called Jerusalem Day flag march commemorates the Israeli army’s capture of the city’s eastern sector in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, home to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest site, which Jews call the Temple Mount.
Thousands of Jewish nationalists, including far-right activists, marched through predominantly Arab neighborhoods of the Old City, waving Israeli flags, dancing and occasionally shouting inflammatory or racist slogans.
“This is my country. I am the owner here. I’m the boss here, there is no Palestine,” screamed one marcher.
From early on Wednesday, police set up barriers near Damascus Gate, deploying more than 3,000 officers.
Most shops in the Old City were closed before the march, as streets emptied of Palestinians and filled with young Israelis, some carrying weapons.
“If you wander the streets, you will see how they (nationalist boys marching) work to provoke people, beat and break people,” Jalal Saman, a shopkeeper at the Old City told AFP before the march.
“Every year the same problems and events, but year after year they increase. The problems, the hatred has become greater,” the grocer said.
Moments later, a large group of boys insulted and threw garbage at Saman, prompting security forces to disperse the crowd before moving on to break up another clash.
One altercation began when stones were thrown from a roof, an AFP correspondent reported. Police said 18 people suspected of various offenses, including assault, had been arrested.
Outside the Old City, families and youth stopped near the city hall in west Jerusalem to sing along to live music and dance in an atmosphere void of tensions and violence.
The march commemorates Jerusalem’s reunification under Israeli rule after it captured the city’s eastern half — home to the historic Old City and its sites holy to three Abrahamic religions — in the 1967 war.
For many Palestinians, the route through predominantly Arab neighborhoods is seen as a deliberate provocation. Palestinians claim the city’s eastern sector as the capital of their future state.
By the time the march officially began, all shops on the route had been shuttered, and the worst clashes had passed.
Marching down the narrow streets of the Old City, some chanted “The people of Israel will live” or “The eternal people aren’t scared.”
Others entoned racist slogans such as “We will burn your villages” or “All Arabs can suck it.”
“Most of the people in the homes stayed home so as not to cause any friction with the settlers,” 62 year old guide Nasser Moussa told AFP toward the end of the march.
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said at the march: “We send a message to Hamas. Jerusalem is ours. Damascus gate is ours. The Temple Mount is ours.”
“With the help of God, the full victory is ours,” he said, as crowds cheered.
Elie Duran, 64, said the celebration had taken on greater meaning after the war in Gaza.
“We celebrate every year with so much fervor, maybe a little more this year because I lost my son in Gaza this year, so there’s something more emotional for me,” he told AFP.
Police said they deployed officers throughout the city to “maintain public order, safety and secure property, as well as direct traffic” during the march.
As tight streets became packed with religious youth groups entering the Old City in waves, police had little space to prevent acts of petty vandalism on Arab businesses.
The march ended Wednesday evening at its normal terminus, the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray.
In 2021, Hamas launched a barrage of rockets toward Jerusalem as the march began, triggering a 12-day conflict with Israel.
On Wednesday, Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh condemned the event.
“The rampage of settlers in Jerusalem confirms that Jerusalem is the focus of the conflict, and our people will not rest until the occupation ends and an independent Palestinian state is established with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said in a statement.
This year’s march comes nearly eight months after Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 36,586 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
UN nuclear agency’s board votes to censure Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the watchdog
- The vote by the 35-member board at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna sets the stage for a likely further escalation of tensions between the agency and Iran
- Twenty members voted for the resolution, while Russia and China opposed it, 12 abstained and one did not vote
VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog’s board on Wednesday censured Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the agency, diplomats said, calling on Tehran to provide answers in a long-running investigation and reverse its decision to bar several experienced UN inspectors.
The development comes just over a week after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran has further increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, he latest in Tehran’s attempts to steadily exert pressure on the international community.
The vote by the 35-member board at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna sets the stage for a likely further escalation of tensions between the agency and Iran, which has reacted strongly to similar previous resolutions.
Twenty members voted for the resolution, while Russia and China opposed it, 12 abstained and one did not vote, according to diplomats. They spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of the closed-doors vote. The resolution was put forward by France, Germany and Britain.
Censure resolutions by the IAEA board are not legally binding but send a strong political and diplomatic message.
The resolution, a draft of which was seen by The Associated Press, called on Tehran to implement a joint statement between Iran and the IAEA from March 2023. In that statement, Iran pledged to resolve issues surrounding sites where inspectors have questions about possible undeclared nuclear activity, and to allow the IAEA to “implement further appropriate verification and monitoring activities.”
Inspectors have said two sites near Tehran bore traces of processed uranium. The IAEA has urged Iran to provide “technically credible” answers about the origin and current location of the nuclear material in order for it “to be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.”
While the number of sites about which the IAEA has questions has been reduced from four to two since 2019, those lingering questions have been a persistent source of tensions.
The IAEA has identified the sites as Turquzabad and Varamin. The IAEA has said inspectors believe Iran used the Varamin site from 1999 until 2003 as a pilot project to process uranium ore and convert it into a gas form. The IAEA said buildings at the site had been demolished in 2004.
Tehran insists its program is peaceful, though the West and the IAEA say Iran had an organized military nuclear program until 2003.
Turquzabad is where the IAEA believes Iran took some of the material at Varamin amid the demolition, though it has said that alone cannot “explain the presence of the multiple types of isotopically altered particles” found there.
In an apparent attempt to raise the pressure on Tehran, the resolution approved Wednesday states that IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi may need to prepare a “comprehensive and updated assessment” on unresolved issues surrounding Iran’s nuclear program, if there is “a continued failure by Iran to provide the necessary, full and unambiguous co-operation” to resolve the unanswered questions.
The IAEA board last censured Iran in November 2022. Iran retaliated by beginning to enrich uranium to 60 percent purity at its Fordo nuclear plant. Uranium enriched at 60 percent purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.
Iran responded to a previous resolution in June 2022 by removing IAEA cameras and monitoring equipment from its nuclear sites.
Iran in September barred several experienced UN inspectors from monitoring the country’s nuclear program. Grossi said at the time that the decision constituted “a very serious blow” to the agency’s ability to do its job “to the best possible level.”
Under a 2015 deal with world powers, Tehran agreed to limit enrichment of uranium to levels necessary for generating nuclear power in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. At the time, UN inspectors were tasked with monitoring the program.
However, tensions steadily grew between Iran and the IAEA since 2018, when then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its program and quickly stepped up enrichment.
US dismisses Houthi claims of Eisenhower carrier damage
- US-funded Voice of America quoted US Central Command source that neither USS Eisenhower nor any other US Navy ship targeted by the Houthis
AL-MUKALLA: The US military has denied the Houthis’ claim that their most recent missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea struck and damaged the US aircraft carrier Eisenhower.
The US-funded Voice of America quoted a US Central Command source on Wednesday as saying that neither the USS Eisenhower nor any other US Navy ship was targeted by the Houthis, accusing the Houthis of employing misinformation propaganda to back up their allegations.
“There is no truth to the Houthi claim of striking the USS Eisenhower or any US Navy vessel. This is an ongoing disinformation campaign that the Houthis have been conducting for months,” the US Central Command told the VOA.
Yemen’s Houthi militia has claimed responsibility for targeting the Eisenhower carrier in the Red Sea twice in less than a week in reaction to US and UK bombings that killed at least 16 people in the Houthi-held Hodeidah, western Yemen, on Thursday.
The Houthis claimed that their missiles and drones “precisely” targeted the US carrier, and they posted photographs of the damaged ship on social media to support their claim.
In a post on X, Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi asked that the US military permit journalists to visit the US carrier to disprove their allegations, promising not to target US Navy ships during the visit.
“We asked you to allow a media mission and identify when it will visit the American warships. We pledge not to conduct any bombing operations during the visit,” Al-Houthi said.
At the same time, the US Central Command reported on Tuesday night that the Houthis launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles into the Red Sea from regions under their control in Yemen in the previous 24 hours, but none of them struck any navy or commercial ships.
Over the last eight months, the Houthis have seized one commercial ship, destroyed another, and launched hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones at commercial and navy ships in the international sea lanes off Yemen, as well as the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean.
The Houthis claim they exclusively target ships connected or traveling to Israel in order to push Israel to cease its assault in Gaza, and they attacked the US and US ships after the two countries struck Yemen.
Meanwhile, five Yemeni troops were killed on Wednesday morning while repelling a Houthi assault in the southern province of Lahj, local media and officials said.
Mohammed Al-Naqeeb, a spokesperson for pro-independence southern forces, told Arab News that the Houthis assaulted his men in the Kirsh district of Lahj on Wednesday morning, resulting in three hours of severe battle that killed five separatist forces and an unknown number of Houthis.
“This demonstrates that any peace plan cannot work in light of the Houthi militia’s ongoing military aggression on many fronts,” Al-Naqeeb said.
The Houthis’ attack on Wednesday is the latest in a series of deadly military actions by the Houthis aimed against government soldiers and pro-independence southerners in various areas.
On Sunday, two Yemeni troops were killed in a Houthi strike in northern Dhale province.
The Houthi military escalation comes as foreign mediators and diplomats continue diplomatic shuttles between Yemen and other regional countries in an attempt to restart peace talks to end the war in Yemen.
A number of EU ambassadors to Yemen concluded on Wednesday a visit to Yemen’s port city of Aden, the country’s temporary capital, after meeting with Aidarous Al-Zubaidi, a member of the Presidential Leadership Council, ministers, the governor of the central bank, and other officials.
The ambassadors said they urged the Yemeni government and the PLC to work together to solve economic difficulties such as increasing revenues and improving public services, and they also voiced support for UN-brokered peace talks.
“They underscored the importance of ensuring respect for fundamental rights and a conducive operating environment for humanitarian and development actors helping Yemenis,” the EU ambassadors to Yemen said in a statement.
