What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?

Mourners gather during a funeral procession for Ismail Haniyeh, political leader of Hamas, who was killed during a visit to Tehran, on July 31. (AFP/Getty Image)
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Updated 07 August 2024
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What kind of future awaits Hamas after the killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran?

  • Experts discuss whether the Palestinian group can retain its influence and rebuild after the killing of its political bureau chief
  • The killing of Hamas leaders may represent a tactical victory for Israel, but seems to have limited strategic value, says analyst

LONDON: It has been 14 years since Israeli agents carried out one of Mossad’s most audacious, controversial and, perhaps, pointless assassinations.

On Jan. 19, 2010, Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, the man responsible for procuring weapons for Hamas, was murdered in a hotel bedroom in Dubai.

It was a big operation, with many moving parts, involving almost 30 Mossad operatives who entered Dubai on false passports.

It ended with Al-Mabhouh being overpowered in his room at the Al-Bustan Rotana and given a fatal dose of suxamethonium chloride, a drug used in anesthetic cocktails.




People take part in a march called by Palestinian and Lebanese youth organizations in the southern Lebanese city of Saida, on August 5, 2024, to protest against the assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. (AFP)

To avoid leaving a tell-tale needle mark, the drug was administered with a device that used ultrasound to deliver it through the skin. The drug causes paralysis and, still conscious but with his lungs unable to function, Al-Mabhouh asphyxiated to death.

The assassins put him to bed and left, using a Mossad-developed device for putting hotel-door security chains in place from the outside of the room, hoping that Al-Mabhouh’s death would be attributed to natural causes.

It might have been, but for the vigilance of Dubai’s police chief. He suspected foul play and, by having the comings and goings through Dubai airport before and after the hit analyzed, and days of hotel security-camera footage examined in detail, put together a damning portfolio of evidence.

At the time, the killing was big news. Images of two Mossad agents posing as tennis players, emerging from an elevator behind Al-Mabhouh, appeared on televisions and newspapers around the world.

Today, however, for few outside Hamas or Mossad will the name Al-Mabhouh have any resonance. Certainly, his killing failed to have any appreciable impact on the flow of arms to the group.




Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (R) meeting with Palestinian Hamas movement leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 30, 2024. (AFP)

This week, the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, chairman of the Hamas political bureau, is also big news — as was the killing on July 13 of Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif.

But soon, says Ahron Bregman, a former officer in the Israeli army and a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, the disruption caused by their deaths to the activities and ambitions of Hamas will disappear, as the ripples caused by a small pebble thrown into a large lake quickly vanish.

“The killing of Ismail Haniyeh will not change much as far as Hamas is concerned,” said Bregman, author of “The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs” and the memoir “The Spy Who Fell to Earth,” an account of his part in the exposure of an Egyptian alleged double agent.

“Hamas is more than rifles, rockets and even leaders. Hamas is an idea.

“If Israel wants to defeat it, it must offer the Palestinians a better idea — say, a Palestinian state.

“If such an idea is not put forward, then Hamas will remain in place and rebuild itself for future battles with Israel.”

KEY HAMAS FIGURES

  • Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ Gaza leader, has just been named Ismail Haniyeh’s successor.
  • Khaled Meshaal, a founding member, has mostly operated from the relative safety of exile.
  • Khalil Al-Hayya, Doha-based deputy leader of Hamas, is said to have the backing of Iran.
  • Musa Abu Marzouk lived for 14 years in the US before becoming deputy chairman of Hamas’ political bureau.

Hamas is an Islamist militant group that spun off from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1980s. It took over the Gaza Strip after defeating its rival political party, Fatah, in elections in 2006.

The sheer number of killings of key Hamas figures carried out by Israel over the past quarter-century, and the negligible impact of these killings on the organization’s capabilities or objectives, speaks of a policy being carried out despite a lack of success — or, perhaps, in accordance with a less obvious, and probably domestically focused agenda.

Killing high-profile Hamas targets, and perpetuating the war in the process, makes it harder for Israelis inclined toward peace to criticize or plot to remove their wartime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Certainly, it is not difficult for Netanyahu’s critics to see the killing of Haniyeh as a deliberate tactic to derail peace talks.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani put it succinctly on X, writing: “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?”




A woman walks near a billboard displaying portraits of Hamas leader Mohammed Deif (R) and Ismail Haniyeh with the slogan “assassinated” reading in Hebrew, in Tel Aviv, on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Israel’s list of assassinations and attempted assassinations of Hamas leaders is a long one, and the killings have not always been as subtly carried out as the necessarily low-key Mossad hit on Al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

One of the first high-profile targets to be killed was Salah Shehadeh, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, who was targeted in Gaza on July 23, 2002, by an Israeli F-16 that dropped a massive bomb on his home.

Such was the cost in collateral damage — 14 others died, including Shehadeh’s wife and nine children — that 27 Israeli Air Force pilots had a fit of conscience, denouncing such attacks as “illegal and immoral” and “a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society.”

The soul-searching did not last long, however. The toll of senior Hamas leaders has continued more or less unabated ever since.

Those who have been killed include Ahmed Yassin, who founded Hamas in 1987. He died 20 years ago, on March 22, 2004, in a hail of missiles fired from Israeli helicopters as he returned home from morning prayers in Gaza.

He was succeeded by Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, who died in similar fashion just 26 days later.




Iranians take part in a funeral procession for late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, on August 1, 2024. (AFP)

Ahmed Al-Jabari, second-in-command of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades, was targeted unsuccessfully five times before succumbing in Gaza City in November 2012 to a missile fired from a drone.

This year, unsurprisingly, has been a particularly busy one in terms of Hamas assassinations carried out by Israel. Hamas deputy and Haniyeh’s right-hand man Salah Al-Arouri was killed on Jan. 7 in an airstrike in Lebanon that also claimed the lives of several other senior Hamas commanders.

On March 11, Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Al-Qassam Brigades and Hamas No. 3, died in an airstrike in Gaza.

But none of these deaths — individually or taken together — has managed to turn Hamas from its path or hamper its ability to continue doggedly pursuing its aims militarily.

Haniyeh’s death is likely to have no greater immediate impact on Hamas’ capabilities than the assassinations that have gone before, said John Jenkins, former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Iraq and a Middle East expert with the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University.

But it might signal a change of strategy that bodes ill for any hopes of an immediate end to conflict.




Smoke billows from burning tires behind an Israeli army vehicle in Hebron on July 31, 2024, following a demonstration by Palestinians denouncing the killing of Haniyeh. (AFP)

“In the past, decapitation hasn’t worked — not with Hamas, nor with Hezbollah, nor Iran,” he said. “Or, at least, it has disrupted rather than interrupted.”

Israel, he added, “undoubtedly knows that. But it’s also thought for two decades that ‘mowing the grass’ is the best way to manage the conflict.”

That policy of simply keeping a lid on the problem “is now over — it collapsed on Oct. 7, 2023.

“So, the game now is destruction — of Hamas’ offensive capabilities and its ability to function as a significant political actor within the occupied Palestinian territories.

“That doesn’t mean killing the idea; that’s not possible. It means killing the capability. That’s why a ceasefire is a long way off.

“Spectacular assassinations are now part of a wider strategy of dismantling tunnels, command and control functions, logistics, and so on. That’s the only context in which they make sense.”

It is, however, a very dangerous game, with the killings of Haniyeh and Deif in Tehran and Beirut condemned by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week as “a dangerous escalation.”




Yemenis wave flags and lift placards of Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh during a rally in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Instead of Israel rampaging around the region on a killing spree — let alone assassinating Hamas’ Qatar-based negotiators, such as Haniyeh — “all efforts should instead be leading to a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages, a massive increase of humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and a return to calm in Lebanon and across the Blue Line,” said Guterres.

“This endless cycle,” he added, “needs to stop.”

In an interview with a British newspaper over the weekend, Amjad Iraqi, an associate fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program, warned that Israel’s increasingly audacious killings were indeed edging the region dangerously close to a regional war.

“People are not understanding the gravity of what this is,” he told the Independent.

“There is a kind of egotistical, unstable dance that all these actors are making with missiles and with people’s lives, while trying to explain it as calibrated responses.”

Only a ceasefire could cool things down, but as things stand, “we are at a very, very dangerous point.”




Muslims pray during the final prayers for Ismail Haniyeh at his funeral in the Qatari capital Doha on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

The reality of imminent escalation, said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow for Middle East security at the Royal United Services Institute, “means that the ‘day after’ and the path to statehood seems even farther away now, with all sides focusing on the military outcome of the here and now, at the expense of immense civilian suffering and a viable political solution.”

For its part, Hamas, “to project resilience and the resolve of its leadership despite the assassination of Haniyeh, is trying to pivot quickly to appoint a new political bureau chief.”

A consultative process is under way “and, until a decision is made, such as the appointment of Khaled Mashal, for example, ceasefire negotiations cannot realistically recommence.”

As it has done many times before, in other words, Hamas will quickly grow a new limb to replace one that has been amputated.

But “a more urgent obstacle to restarting talks is that Hamas cannot be authorized to re-enter a diplomatic phase until Iran declares that the regime and its proxies have sufficiently retaliated against Israel for the series of high-profile assassinations, with much speculation around when that might happen.”




Mourners offer their condolences to senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal (L) during the funeral of Ismail Haniyeh, in the Qatari capital Doha on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

The killing of Haniyeh has, she believes, “cornered Hamas into a dilemma that will determine how the organization evolves over time.

“On the one hand, the loss of a recognizable political leader will trigger radicalization among some Hamas supporters and embolden hardliners among the military faction such as Yahya Sinwar, his brother and their inner circle.

“On the other, with Hamas fighters suffering losses inside Gaza and its military infrastructure downgraded, Hamas will be looking for a lull in the fighting to recoup and plan ahead.

“But for Hamas, this is a long game, and it is far from over — key figures inside and outside Gaza will continue to struggle to consolidate Hamas and its victory narrative and position it for a role in post-war Gaza.”




An Indonesian protester holds up a placard with the image of Ismail Haniyeh during a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Surabaya on August 6, 2024. (AFP)

Ahron Bregman agrees that the killing of Haniyeh “might lead to a regional war in which Iran and Hezbollah could become involved. If the latter happens, it will play straight into the hands of Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, whose dream has always been that his Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggers a regional war.”

The assassination will also “put on ice any hostage deal, as both leaders, Netanyahu and Sinwar, are not interested in such a deal at the moment.

“For Netanyahu, a deal could spell the end of his coalition government. As for Sinwar, he will wait to see if the assassination at the heart of Tehran, which humiliated Iran, could lead to a regional war.”




Yahia Sinwar addresses supporters during a rally in Gaza City, on April 14, 2023. (AFP)

It is true, Bregman added, that “in recent months, Israel has managed to assassinate many of the Hamas leaders. Sinwar is quite on his own now, and I’m sure he’s got very few of the old guard to consult with.

“But Hamas is bigger and larger than any leader or leaders. When this war is over, there will still be Hamas — battered, leaner, but still standing and able to send rockets into Israel.

“The assassinations are tactical victories for Israel, but there is nothing strategic in it, not even in the possible killing of Sinwar himself.”




Members of the Palestinian Joint Action Committee sit during a symbolic funeral for Ismail Haniyeh, in Beirut, on August 2, 2024. (AFP)

Ultimately, the cost of Israel’s campaign of assassinations could be borne by Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The details of the operation to kill Al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010 emerged in the book “Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations,” published by Israeli historian and investigative journalist Ronen Bergman in 2018.

Bergman concluded that, because Israel’s intelligence community had always “provided Israel’s leaders sooner or later with operational responses to every focused problem they were asked to solve,” that very success had “fostered the illusion among most of the nation’s leaders that covert operations could be a strategic and not just a tactical tool — that they could be used in place of real diplomacy to end the geographic, ethnic, religious, and national disputes in which Israel is mired.”

As a result, Israel’s leaders “have elevated and sanctified the tactical method of combating terror and existential threats at the expense of the true vision, statesmanship, and genuine desire to reach a political solution that is necessary for peace to be attained.”

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Turkiye says will evacuate citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday

Updated 7 sec ago
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Turkiye says will evacuate citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday

ISTANBUL:Turkiye is sending ships to evacuate around 2,000 of its citizens from Lebanon on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said.
Two Turkish navy ships will leave a port in southern Turkish province of Mersin for Beirut on Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement.
Turkiye is estimated to have 14,000 citizens registered with its consulate in Lebanon.
Turkish officials said they had drawn up contingency plans to evacuate their citizens from Lebanon because of the deteriorating security situation on the ground.
Last week, the foreign ministry said guidelines for the evacuation of third countries’ citizens via Turkiye have also been determined, adding that necessary preparations were underway in cooperation with nearly 20 countries that have requested support.

Sudan’s warring sides target local aid volunteers fighting famine

Updated 8 min 38 sec ago
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Sudan’s warring sides target local aid volunteers fighting famine

  • Arrests and looting hinder Sudan’s community kitchens
  • Some have stopped serving meals for weeks in areas at risk of famine
  • Donors have ramped up support, but volunteers say this is making them a target for troops

KHARTOUM: Local volunteers who have helped to feed Sudan’s most destitute during 17 months of war say attacks against them by the opposing sides are making it difficult to provide life-saving aid amid the world’s biggest hunger crisis.
Many volunteers have fled under threat of arrest or violence, and communal kitchens they set up in a country where hundreds are estimated to be dying of starvation and hunger-related diseases each day have stopped serving meals for weeks at a time.
Reuters spoke with 24 volunteers who manage kitchens in Sudan’s central state of Khartoum, the western region of Darfur and parts of the east where millions of people have been driven from their homes since fighting erupted between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
International humanitarian agencies, which have been unable to get food aid to parts of Sudan at risk of famine, have ramped up support for such groups. But that has made them more of a target for RSF looters, 10 of the volunteers told Reuters by phone.
“We were safe when the RSF didn’t know about the funding,” said Gihad Salaheldin, a volunteer who left Khartoum city last year and spoke from Cairo. “They see our kitchens as a source of food.”
Both sides have also attacked or detained volunteers on suspicion of collaborating with their opponents, a dozen volunteers said.
Most of the volunteers spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
One volunteer in Bahri, a city that together with Khartoum and Omdurman makes up Sudan’s greater capital, said troops in RSF uniforms stole the phone he used to receive donations via a mobile banking app along with 3 million Sudanese pounds ($1,200) in cash intended for food in June.
It was one of five incidents this year in which he says he was attacked or harassed by paramilitary troops who control neighborhoods where he oversees 21 kitchens serving around 10,000 people.
Later that month, troops burst into a home housing one of the kitchens in the middle of the night and stole sacks of sorghum and beans. The volunteer, who had been sleeping there, said he was bound, gagged and whipped for hours by troops who wanted to know who was funding the group.
Reuters could not independently verify his account, but three other volunteers said that he reported the events to the rest of the group at the time.
The frequency of such incidents increased as international funding for communal kitchens picked up heading into the summer, according to eight volunteers from Khartoum state, which is mostly controlled by the RSF.
Many kitchens do not keep data on attacks, while others declined to provide details for fear of drawing more unwanted attention. However, volunteers described to Reuters 25 incidents targeting their kitchens or volunteers in the state since July alone, including more thefts and beatings and the detention of at least 52 people.
Groups that run kitchens there have announced the deaths of at least three volunteers in armed attacks, including one they said was shot and killed by RSF troops in Khartoum’s SHajjarah neighborhood in September. The identities of the other assailants were not immediately clear, and Reuters could not verify the accounts.
“Community kitchens in Sudan are a lifeline for people who are trapped in areas with ongoing conflict,” said Eddie Rowe, the UN World Food Programme’s country director in Sudan.
“By supporting them, WFP is able to get food into the hands of hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, even in the face of severe access constraints,” he told Reuters, saying the safety of aid workers must be guaranteed.
The RSF and Sudanese Armed Forces did not respond to questions for this article. However, the RSF has previously denied targeting aid workers and said any rogue elements who did so would be brought to justice.
The military has also said it does not target aid workers, but anyone who collaborates with the “rebellious” RSF is subject to arrest.

Marauding troops
UN officials say more than half of Sudan’s population – 25.6 million people – are experiencing acute hunger and need urgent assistance. In the worst-hit areas, residents displaced by fighting or under siege in their homes have resorted to eating dirt and leaves.
Local volunteers founded hundreds of kitchens early in the war that served hot meals — typically a meagre porridge of sorghum, lentils or beans — once or twice a day. But as food prices soared and private donations dwindled, some had to close or reduce services to as little as five times a month.
In North Darfur state, a group that runs kitchens in a camp housing half a million people displaced by ethnically driven violence has repeatedly had to stop serving meals due to insufficient funds, a volunteer there said. A global authority on hunger crises said in August that the conflict and restrictions on aid deliveries have caused famine in the Zamzam camp.
Many communal kitchens are operated by a loose network of community groups known as emergency response rooms, which have tried to sustain basic services, such as water and power, and distribute food and medical supplies.
Both the army and RSF distrust these groups, in part because they include people who were members of grassroots “resistance committees” that led pro-democracy protests during the uprising that toppled former autocrat Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. The volunteers who spoke to Reuters said the objectives of the emergency response rooms are purely humanitarian.
The army joined forces with the RSF to derail the political transition that followed Bashir’s ouster by staging a military coup two years later, but rivalries between them erupted into open warfare in April 2023.
In the worst-hit areas, local volunteers said they were now being targeted weekly or every few days by marauding troops, compared to roughly once a month earlier in the year. Some have started hiding food supplies at different locations to avoid being cleaned out by a single raid.
Reuters spoke to nine volunteers who fled various parts of the country after being targeted by the warring sides.
“These attacks are having a huge negative impact on our work,” Salaheldin said from Cairo. “We are losing our volunteers who are serving their communities.”
In areas where the army retains control, six volunteers described arrests and surveillance that they said drove away people who had helped run kitchens, reducing their capacity to operate.
A UN fact-finding mission discovered that, of 65 cases tried by army-convened courts against alleged “commanders and employees” of the RSF as of June, 63 targeted activists and humanitarian workers. They included members of emergency response rooms, the mission said in its report.
Both sides have deployed siege-like tactics to prevent food and other supplies reaching their opponents, according to relief workers. The RSF and allied militias have also looted aid hubs and plundered harvests, they say.
The warring parties have traded blame for delays in the delivery of food relief, while the RSF has denied looting aid.
Military chief General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo both said in September that they were committed to facilitating the flow of aid.

Donor reticence
As hunger spreads, emergency response rooms have set up 419 kitchens that aim to serve over 1 million people daily in Khartoum state alone, said Abdallah Gamar, a state organizer. But volunteers have struggled to secure the $1,175,000 needed every month. In September, they received around $614,000, Gamar told Reuters.
In the beginning, most of their support came from the Sudanese diaspora, but the resources of these donors have been depleted, Gamar said.
Aid workers said many foreign donors hesitated to fund kitchens because the groups running them are not registered with the government and often use personal bank accounts.
“There’s a lot of risk aversion when it comes to supporting unregistered platforms,” said Mathilde Vu, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s advocacy manager for Sudan.
Her organization began supporting local responders in Sudan last year, she said. “Now we have seen that a lot of NGOs, UN agencies and donors are starting to realize that we cannot do any humanitarian response — we can’t save lives — without them.”
Some donors are now working through registered intermediaries to get funding to communal kitchens. The WFP, for example, began partnering with local aid groups in July to help some 200 kitchens provide hot meals to up to 175,000 people daily in greater Khartoum, spending more than $2 million to date, said spokesperson Leni Kinzli.
Volunteers welcomed the support but said it can take weeks for money to filter down to kitchens through intermediaries. Cumbersome reporting requirements add to the delays, they said.
“The kitchens work in a sporadic way — there’s no consistent funding,” said Mohamed Abdallah, spokesperson for an emergency response room south of Khartoum. He said his group sometimes has only enough money to provide meals once a week, including in neighborhoods at risk of famine.
Justin Brady, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, said donors need safeguards to ensure funds are used for their intended purpose but have taken steps to simplify the process.
Meanwhile, needs continue to grow.
The arrival of the rainy season over the summer brought flash floods and a heightened risk of deadly diseases such as cholera and malaria, stretching resources even thinner, volunteers said.
Sudan’s currency has fallen around 300 percent against the dollar on the parallel market during the war, and food prices have risen by almost as much, according to WFP surveys.
“In neighborhoods where we had one kitchen, we now need three more,” said Hind Altayif, spokesperson for volunteers in Sharq Al-Nil, a district adjacent to Bahri where she said several people were dying of hunger each month. “As the war goes on, we’ll see more people reaching rock bottom.”
In one Bahri neighborhood, people line up twice a day with bowls and buckets to collect ladles of gruel prepared over a fire in the courtyard of a volunteer’s home. Standing among them are teachers, traders and others cut off from livelihoods.
“We don’t have any food at home because we don’t have the money,” said a 50-year-old housewife, who like others interviewed requested anonymity for safety. “We rely on the community kitchen ... We don’t have an alternative.”


Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Updated 08 October 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

  • Iran-backed Hezbollah says it targeted Israeli military base south of Haifa, launched another strike on Tiberias
  • Isael says air force is carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon as conflict rages on

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.

Smoke rises from destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike hit in Choueifat, southeast of Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 7, 2024. (AP)

Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.


Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

Updated 08 October 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah fighting intensifies, as memorials mark war anniversary

  • Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks
  • Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday
  • The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa, and Israel looked poised to expand its offensive into Lebanon on Monday, one year after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Israelis held ceremonies and protests to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack as the Gaza conflict has spread across the Middle East and raised fears of an all-out regional war.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally in Lebanon of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with “Fadi 1” missiles and launched another strike on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away.
The armed group later said it also targeted areas north of Haifa with missiles. Israel’s military said around 190 projectiles had entered Israeli territory on Monday. There were at least 12 injuries.
Israel’s military said the air force was carrying out extensive bombings of Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon and two Israeli soldiers were killed, taking the Israeli military death toll inside Lebanon to 11.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported dozens of deaths, including 10 firefighters killed in an airstrike on a municipal building in the border area. Around 2,000 Lebanese have been killed since Hezbollah began firing at Israel a year ago in solidarity with Hamas, most of them killed in the past few weeks.
The Israeli military has described its ground operation in Lebanon as “localized, limited and targeted,” but it has steadily increased in scale beginning last week.
Israel’s superpower ally, the United States, believes the Lebanon ground operation continues to be limited, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday.
On Monday, Democratic US President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in the Nov. 5 presidential election, all held events to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli soldiers have been moving into southern Lebanon. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) says their aim is to clear border areas where Hezbollah fighters have been embedded, with no plans to go deep into Lebanon.
On Monday, Israel within the space of an hour carried out air strikes on 120 targets in southern Lebanon, including against Radwan special forces units, Hezbollah’s missile force and its intelligence directorate.
“This operation follows a series of strikes aimed at degrading Hezbollah’s command, control and firing capabilities, as well as assisting ground forces in achieving their operational goals,” the military said in a statement.
The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing region.
Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel on Oct. 1. Israel has said it will retaliate and is weighing its options. Iran’s oil facilities are a possible target.

ROCKETS HIT HAIFA
An Israeli military statement said five rockets were launched toward Haifa, a major Mediterranean port, from Lebanon and interceptors were fired at them.
The statement said 15 other rockets were fired at Tiberias in northern Israel, some of which were shot down. Israeli media said five more rockets hit the area later.
A surface-to-air missile fired at central Israel from Yemen was also intercepted, the military said. The Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls northern Yemen, has attacked Israel during the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians under attack in Gaza.
Hamas, which triggered the Gaza war with its surprise attack on Israel one year ago, said it targeted Israel’s commercial capital, Tel Aviv, with a missile salvo, setting off sirens.
Many Israelis have regained confidence in their long-vaunted military and intelligence after deadly blows in recent weeks to the command structure of Iran’s proxy force Hezbollah.
“We are changing the security reality in our region, for our children’s sake, for our future, to ensure that what happened on Oct. 7 does not happen again,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem marking the Gaza war anniversary.

CONFLICT SPREADS
Israeli airstrikes have displaced 1.2 million people in Lebanon, and Israel’s intensified bombing campaign has left many Lebanese worried their country will experience the vast scale of destruction wrought on Gaza by Israel.
Israeli forces issued a warning in Arabic to beachgoers and boat users to avoid a stretch of the Lebanese coast, saying it would soon begin operations against Hezbollah from the sea.
The ceremonies in Israel on Monday included a memorial event for victims of the Nova Music Festival, where militants killed 364 people and kidnapped 44 partygoers and staff on Oct. 7 last year.
In a shock rampage through Israeli towns and kibbutz villages near the Gaza border a year ago, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli figures.
The huge security lapse led to the single deadliest day for Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.
The Hamas assault unleashed an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has largely flattened the densely populated enclave and killed almost 42,000 people, Palestinian health authorities say.

 

 


Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

Updated 08 October 2024
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Marking Oct. 7, Israel vows to fight for hostages, assails UN

  • When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response”
  • Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave

UNITED NATIONS: Israel hosted an event at the United Nations on Monday to mark one year since a deadly Hamas attack, vowing to fight until all hostages held in Gaza by the Palestinian militants are freed and assailing the world body for failing to condemn the massacre.
“The UN has failed in its most basic mandate to protect the innocent and condemn evil. The resolutions that the UN did pass were about the situation in Gaza,” said Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon, referring to action taken by the 15-member Security Council and the 193-member General Assembly.
During the shock Hamas rampage a year ago some 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli figures. More than 100 hostages remain held in Gaza by Hamas.
Israel’s ally the United States vetoed a draft Security Council resolution on Oct. 18, 2023, that would have condemned Hamas and urged Gaza aid access. The US had argued it needed more time to broker humanitarian access and was disappointed the text did not mention Israel’s right to self-defense.
“There are those in the Security Council, and outside, who fail to condemn Hamas’ atrocities or even say the word Hamas,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Oct. 7 commemorative event on Monday.
“There are those in the region who have sought to build on Hamas’ actions and are now pushing the Middle East to the precipice of a broader war — terrorist groups like the Houthis and Hezbollah,” she said, also accusing Iran of seeking to take advantage of the situation to advance a “destructive agenda.”
The Hamas attack triggered Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, sparking a humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave where authorities say more than 41,000 people have been killed. The conflict has raised fears of all-out regional war, pitting Israel against Iran and the militant groups that it backs.
In recent weeks Israel killed the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and began a ground assault against the Iran-backed militant group. Iran then attacked Israel in a missile strike.
When asked earlier on Monday if Israel had made a decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, Danon told reporters: “We are debating it. The cabinet met and will continue to meet. We will choose the exact location and the way of the response.”
Amid animosity between Israel’s government and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres — who was barred last week by Israel’s foreign minister from entering the country — UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said he did not believe any UN officials had been invited to Israel’s event at UN headquarters.
In a video released over the weekend to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel, Guterres said: “This is a day for the global community to repeat in the loudest voice our utter condemnation of the abhorrent acts of Hamas, including the taking of hostages.”