BEIRUT: Urgent calls for foreign nationals to leave Lebanon grew on Sunday with France warning of “a highly volatile” situation as Iran and its allies ready their response to high-profile killings blamed on Israel.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, which has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war broke out in October, announced its fighters had fired a barrage of rockets at Israel’s north overnight.
The Israeli military said 30 projectiles were launched from Lebanon, with most of them intercepted.
With Israel on high alert anticipating major military action from Tehran-aligned armed groups including Hezbollah and Hamas, medics and police said two people were killed on Sunday in a stabbing attack in a Tel Aviv suburb.
The assailant, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank, was “neutralized” by police and taken to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Israeli forces meanwhile kept bombarding the Gaza Strip, witnesses and officials in the besieged Hamas-ruled territory said, with no end in sight to the nearly 10-month Israeli agression on Gaza.
France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to issue calls for their citizens to leave Lebanon.
“In a highly volatile security context,” French nationals were “urgently asked” to avoid traveling to Lebanon, and those already in the country “to make their arrangements now to leave... as soon as possible,” the foreign ministry in Paris said.
The United States and Britain have issued similar warnings.
Several Western airlines have suspended flights to the region.
On Sunday Qatar Airways said that “in light of recent developments in Lebanon,” the Doha-Beirut route “will operate exclusively during daylight hours” at least until Monday.
The killing Wednesday of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, hours after the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah’s military chief in Beirut, has triggered vows of vengeance from Iran and the so-called “axis of resistance” of Tehran-backed armed groups.
Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack that killed Haniyeh, has not directly commented on it.
Israel’s agression on the Gaza strip has killed at least 39,550 people, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief, was the group’s lead negotiator in efforts to end the war.
His killing raised questions about the continued viability of efforts by Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators to broker a truce and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
On the ground in Gaza, fighting continued on Sunday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said eight bodies had been recovered from a residential building in north Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp after an Israeli air strike.
Medics at central Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital said at least five people were killed and 16 wounded in an Israeli drone strike on tents housing displaced Palestinians at the medical complex, with a separate attack on a house nearby in the same area killing three.
On Saturday, an Israeli strike on a school turned displacement shelter killed at least 17 people, the civil defense agency said. Israel claims the facility was used by militants.
An AFP correspondent reported Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling early Sunday in and around Gaza City, while witnesses said there was more shelling, gunfire and at least two air strikes on the territory’s south.
The Israeli military said its air forces had struck “approximately 50 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip” in the past 24 hours.
Israeli ally the United States said it would move warships and fighter jets to the region to protect US personnel and defend Israel.
Analysts have told AFP that a joint but measured action from Iran and its allies was likely, while Tehran said it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.
US President Joe Biden, asked by reporters if he thought Iran would stand down, said: “I hope so. I don’t know.”
On Sunday, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi will visit Tehran to meet his Iranian counterpart, his ministry said.
Haniyeh’s killing “has brought the Middle East to its moment of greatest peril in years,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank said in a report issued on Saturday.
“The risk of a spiralling conflagration is high,” with the potential for a miscalculation that would trigger a war “without constraints... likely greater now than it was in April,” it added.
On April 13, Iran launched its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles — most of which were intercepted — after a strike killed Revolutionary Guards at Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
The ICG said that securing “a long overdue ceasefire” in Gaza was “the best way of meaningfully reducing tensions in the region.”
Hamas officials but also some analysts as well as protesters in Israel have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war to safeguard his ruling hard-right coalition.
On Sunday, Netanyahu told his cabinet he was “making every effort” to return the hostages and was prepared “to go a long way” to do so.
Foreign nationals told to leave Lebanon
https://arab.news/bmxnw
Foreign nationals told to leave Lebanon
- France, Canada and Jordan were among the latest governments to issue calls for their citizens to leave Lebanon
- Several Western airlines have suspended flights to the region
STC announces dissolution
RIYADH: The Yemeni separatist group Southern Transitional Council (STC) has announced it will dissolve following talks in Saudi Arabia. Several STC members are in Riyadh for discussions on ending unrest in southern Yemen. The group praised Saudi Arabia’s efforts, while former STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi, now wanted by the Presidential Council for high treason, has fled Yemen and has not participated in the talks.
A Yemeni source told Arab News: “this announcement and ease shown in the televised video statement shows that in fact Al Zubaidi was the obstacle, and that most southerners are open to resolving their matter via dialogue and discussion”
The members of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen spoke during the Riyadh Southern Dialogue Conference on Friday.
During the meeting, the Council said military operations in Hadramout and Mahra harmed the Southern cause in Yemen.
The Council said they did not participate in the decision for the military operations in Hadramout and Mahra.
"We hope to reach a vision and concept for resolving the Southern issue at the Riyadh Conference,” said the Council.
The Council thanked Saudi Arabia for hosting the dialogue conference in Riyadh.
- Below is a full translation of the STC announcement as reported by the Arabic language Yemeni news agency (SABA):
Announcement of the Dissolution of the Southern Transitional Council
The Presidency of the Southern Transitional Council, the Supreme Executive Leadership, the General Secretariat, and the other affiliated bodies convened a meeting to assess the recent unfortunate events in the governorates of Hadramout and Al-Mahrah, and the subsequent rejection of all efforts toward de-escalation and resolution. These developments have led to serious and painful consequences. Referring to the statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia regarding its sponsorship of a southern dialogue to resolve the southern issue—and in order to safeguard the future of the southern cause and the right of the southern people to restore their state according to their will and aspirations, and to preserve peace and social security in the South and the broader region—we make the following declaration:
The Southern Transitional Council was established to carry the cause of the southern people, represent them, and lead them toward achieving their aspirations and restoring their state. We founded it with the belief that the goal was to achieve this mission—not to cling to it as a means of gaining power, monopolizing decision-making, or excluding others.
Since we were not involved in the decision to launch the military operation in Hadramout and Al-Mahrah—an operation that harmed southern unity and damaged relations with the coalition led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has made and continues to make great sacrifices and provide ongoing political, economic, and military support—the continued existence of the Council no longer serves the purpose for which it was created. In light of this and our historical responsibility toward the southern cause, we hereby announce the dissolution of the Southern Transitional Council, the disbanding of all its main and subsidiary bodies, and the closure of all its offices inside and outside the country. We will instead work to achieve our just southern goal by preparing for and participating in the comprehensive southern conference under the Kingdom’s sponsorship.
We commend the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its clear and explicit commitments and the sincere concern it has shown for our cause in seeking solutions that meet the aspirations and will of the southern people.
We call on all active southern figures and leaders to engage in the path of the comprehensive southern dialogue conference, hoping that the participants will reach a vision and framework to resolve the southern issue and fulfill the people’s aspirations through their free will, and to establish an inclusive southern framework.
From this platform, we call on the people of the South, our colleagues in the capital Aden, and all the governorates of our beloved South to recognize the gravity of this moment, the sensitivity of the current phase, and the importance of uniting efforts to preserve our gains and protect the South from chaos or instability.
We reaffirm our continued commitment to serving the just and legitimate cause of the southern people and achieving their aspirations according to their will. We also extend our gratitude to the leadership and people of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for hosting the comprehensive southern dialogue conference and for their support of the South, its cause, and its people across all fields and stages.
