Beirut, Lebanon: Hezbollah vowed on Wednesday to punish Israel for a deadly attack in which hundreds of paging devices used by the militant group’s members exploded almost simultaneously across Lebanon.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the wave of explosions that killed nine people, including the 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member, and wounded around 2,800 others.
The attack came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks to include its fight against the Palestinian militant group’s ally Hezbollah along the country’s border with Lebanon.
“We hold the Israeli enemy fully responsible for this criminal aggression,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that Israel “will certainly receive its just punishment for this sinful aggression.”
On Wednesday, the group vowed in another statement on Telegram it would continue its fight in support of Gaza while reiterating it would avenge Tuesday’s blasts.
“This path is ongoing and separate from the difficult reckoning that the criminal enemy must await for its massacre on Tuesday,” the group said in a statement on Telegram.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will make a previously unscheduled speech at 5:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Thursday, the group said.
The wave of blasts killed nine people, including a girl, and wounded 2,800 others, 200 of them critically, Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said Tuesday.
“This was more than lithium batteries being forced into override,” said Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute.
“A small plastic explosive was almost certainly concealed alongside the battery, for remote detonation via a call or page.”
Israel’s spy agency “Mossad infiltrated the supply chain,” he said.
The influx of so many casualties all at once overwhelmed hospitals in Hezbollah strongholds.
At one hospital in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an AFP correspondent saw people being treated in a car park on thin mattresses, with medical gloves on the ground and ambulance stretchers covered in blood.
“In all my life I’ve never seen someone walking on the street... and then explode,” said Musa, a resident of the southern suburbs, requesting to be identified only by his first name.
The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, the family and a source close to the group said.
A son of Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar was also among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Tehran’s ambassador in Beirut was wounded but his injuries were not serious, Iranian state media reported.
The blasts hit Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon and dealt a heavy blow to the militant group, which already had concerns about the security of its communications after losing several key commanders to targeted air strikes in recent months.
A source close to Hezbollah, asking not to be identified, told AFP that “the pagers that exploded concern a shipment recently imported by Hezbollah of 1,000 devices” which appear to have been “sabotaged at source.”
After The New York Times reported the pagers had been ordered from Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo, the company denied any link to the products.
Early Tuesday, Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the Gaza war to include its fight against Hezbollah along its border with Lebanon.
To date, Israel’s objectives have been to crush Hamas and bring home the hostages seized by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attacks.
“The political-security cabinet updated the goals of the war” to include “the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Since October, the unabating exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Hamas ally Hezbollah in Lebanon have killed hundreds of mostly fighters in Lebanon, and dozens including soldiers on the Israeli side.
They have also forced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border to flee their homes.
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that failing a political solution, “military action” would be “the only way left to ensure the return” of displaced residents to the border area.
Major airlines Lufthansa and Air France on Tuesday announced suspensions of flights to Tel Aviv, Tehran and Beirut until Thursday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived back in the region at dawn on Wednesday to try to revive stalled ceasefire talks for the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
After months of mediated negotiations failed to pin down a ceasefire, Washington said it was still working with mediators Qatar and Egypt to finalize an agreement.
US officials have expressed increasing frustration with Israel as Netanyahu has publicly rejected US assessments that a deal is nearly complete and has insisted on an Israeli military presence on the Egypt-Gaza border.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,252 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
On Tuesday, UN member states were debating a draft resolution demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of all Palestinian territories within 12 months.
General Assembly resolutions are not binding, but Israel has already denounced the new text as “disgraceful.”
Hezbollah vows to punish Israel after deadly pager blasts
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Hezbollah vows to punish Israel after deadly pager blasts
- The attack came just hours after Israel announced it was broadening the aims of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attacks
- Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah will make a previously unscheduled speech at 5:00 p.m.
UN inquiry accuses Israel of crime of ‘extermination’ in destruction of Gaza health system
“Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay
GENEVA: A United Nations inquiry said on Thursday it found that Israel carried out a concerted policy of destroying Gaza’s health care system in the Gaza war, actions amounting to both war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination.
A statement by ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay released ahead of a full report accused Israel of “relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities” in the war, triggered by Hamas militants’ deadly cross-border attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“Children in particular have borne the brunt of these attacks, suffering both directly and indirectly from the collapse of the health system,” said Pillay, whose report will be presented to the UN General Assembly on Oct. 30.
Israel says that Gaza’s militants operate from the cover of built-up populated areas including private homes, schools and
hospitals
and that it will strike them wherever they emerge, while also trying to avoid harming civilians. Hamas denies hiding militants, weapons and command posts among civilians.
The UN inquiry’s statement also accused Israeli forces of deliberately killing and torturing medical personnel, targeting medical vehicles and restricting permits for patients to leave the besieged Gaza Strip.
As an example, it cited the death of a Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, in February along with family members and two medics who came to rescue her from under Israeli fire.
The World Health Organization says over 10,000 patients requiring urgent medical evacuation have been prevented from leaving Gaza since the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was shut in May. The Palestinian health ministry says nearly 1,000 medics have been killed in Gaza in the past year in what the WHO called “an irreplaceable loss and a massive blow to the health system.”
The statement said the treatment of both Palestinian detainees in Israel and hostages seized by Hamas fighters in the Oct. 7 attack had been investigated and it accused both sides of involvement in torture and sexual violence.
The Commission of Inquiry has a broad mandate to collect evidence and identify suspected perpetrators of international crimes committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. It bases its findings on a range of sources including interviews with victims and witnesses, submissions and satellite imagery.
The COI has previously alleged that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war, and that Israel’s actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. The term is reserved for the most serious international crimes knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against civilians.
Israel has not cooperated with the inquiry, which it says has an anti-Israel bias. The COI has accused Israel of obstructing its work and preventing investigators from accessing both Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Sometimes, the evidence gathered by such UN-mandated bodies has formed the basis for war crimes prosecutions and could be drawn on by the International Criminal Court.
Man wounded in Israel stabbing attack dies: hospital
- “Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the medical team, the injured person was pronounced dead,” said a statement
- Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the Hadera attack, calling it a “heroic stabbing operation“
JERUSALEM: A man wounded in a stabbing rampage in the Israeli town of Hadera has died of his wounds, the hospital where he was being treated said on Thursday.
Rafael Mordechai Fishof was one of the six people wounded in what police called a “terrorist attack” on Wednesday in four locations of Hadera, before the assailant was “neutralized.”
“Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the medical team, the injured person was pronounced dead,” said a statement from the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera, where Fishof had been admitted.
“Yesterday, at the hospital, we prayed for his recovery and now our hearts are broken by this difficult news,” Hadera mayor Nir Ben Haim said in a statement, referring to Fishof, 35, a father of six.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, with which Israeli forces are locked in a fierce war in Gaza, praised the Hadera attack, calling it a “heroic stabbing operation.”
Hamas also called for “more painful strikes against the occupation (Israel).”
Israeli authorities have not provided information about the suspect but Israeli media identified him as Ahmad Jabareen, 36, an Israeli citizen from the Arab town of Umm Al-Fahm.
The Hadera attack came more than a week after seven people were killed in a shooting and stabbing claimed by Hamas in the Israeli commercial hub Tel Aviv.
Palestinian militants have carried out several attacks on Israelis since October 7 last year, when Hamas attacked southern Israel, sparking war in Gaza.
Iraq repatriates 706 people from Syria camp
- Al-Hol houses relatives of suspected Daesh group militants alongside refugees
- The security source told AFP that “706 people, or 181 families, returned to Iraq from Al-Hol and were transferred to the Al-Jadaa“
BAGHDAD: Iraq repatriated 706 people from Syria’s Al-Hol camp, home to tens of thousands of people including family members of suspected militants, a security source said Thursday.
More than 43,000 Syrians, Iraqis and other foreigners from at least 45 countries are held in the squalid and overcrowded camp in Kurdish-controlled northeastern Syria.
Al-Hol houses relatives of suspected Daesh group militants alongside refugees.
The security source, who requested anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to the media, told AFP that “706 people, or 181 families, returned to Iraq from Al-Hol and were transferred to the Al-Jadaa,” a camp near the northern city of Mosul.
It is the fourth group of Iraqis brought back from Al-Hol in a year, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.
Repatriation of family members of suspected Daesh members has stirred controversy in Iraq, where the militant group seized large swathes of land before being defeated in late 2017.
To mitigate tensions, upon arrival in Iraq, authorities usually keep returnees from Al-Hol for weeks or even months at what officials describe as a “psychological rehabilitation” facility in Al-Jadaa camp, where they also undergo security checks before returning home.
Egypt, Somalia leaders visit Eritrea amid regional tensions
- Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia meet in Asmara
- Cairo has also long been at odds with Addis Ababa, particularly over the vast Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile
NAIROBI: The leaders of Egypt, Eritrea and Somalia were due to hold a three-way summit in Asmara on Thursday against a backdrop of heightened tensions in the Horn of Africa region.
Concerns about security and stability in the volatile area have mounted since Ethiopia in January signed a controversial deal with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, giving it long-sought access to the sea.
The maritime agreement infuriated Mogadishu and highlighted regional rivalries as relations soured between Ethiopia and Somalia.
The summit between Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia will focus on “bolstering the ties between the three countries as well as matters of regional security and stability,” Eritrea’s information ministry said on X.
Mohamud, who has already visited Eritrea several times, held separate talks with Isaias shortly after his arrival late Wednesday, the ministry said.
They spoke of the need to bolster cooperation “in the heavy tasks of the maintenance of the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence, and unity of Somalia; which remains a prerequisite for its development against the backdrop of enormous challenges in the past two decades,” it added.
El-Sisi — whose government is siding with Somalia in its standoff with Ethiopia — flew in on Thursday and will also meet Isaias before the tripartite summit, the ministry said.
The agreement between Addis Ababa and Somaliland would see Ethiopia, one of the biggest landlocked countries in the world, lease a stretch of coastline from Somaliland for a naval base and port.
But Mogadishu — which like the rest of the international community refuses to recognize Somaliland’s 1991 declaration of independence — has described it as an assault on its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Somalia reacted by growing closer to Ethiopian rival Egypt, with the two countries signing a major military deal in August and Cairo pledging troops for a new African Union mission against the Al-Shabab jihadist group.
Cairo has also long been at odds with Addis Ababa, particularly over the vast Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile which it says threatens its water supply.
El-Sisi’s office said his visit would focus on building relations with Eritrea and address “efforts to establish stability and security in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea in a manner that supports development and serves the interests of the peoples of the region.”
Relations between Addis Ababa and Asmara have also been deteriorating recently, even though troops from Asmara backed Ethiopian government forces in the brutal 2020-2022 war against Tigrayan rebels.
Last month Ethiopian Airlines said it was suspending flights to Asmara because of “difficult” operating conditions.
Dubbed the “North Korea” of Africa, Eritrea has been ruled with an iron fist by Isaias since it formally declared independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after three decades of war.
Dutch state sued over alleged failure to stop Israel’s violations of international law
- The case argues that the Netherlands has a legal obligation to do everything in its power to stop alleged violations of international law and the 1948 Genocide Convention by Israel
- The organizations seek a ban on all Dutch exports to Israel of weapons and goods that could have a military use
THE HAGUE: Palestinian and Dutch organizations on Thursday filed a legal complaint against the state of the Netherlands over its alleged failure to prevent Israel from committing possible genocide in Gaza and other violations of international law.
The case argues that the Netherlands has a legal obligation to do everything in its power to stop alleged violations of international law and the 1948 Genocide Convention by Israel.
It is backed by Palestinian human rights organizations, Dutch social justice NGOs and Jewish organizations, who do not support the Israeli government.
Israel denies committing war crimes or acts of genocide in its war in the Palestinian territory, which was triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas strikes on southern Israel.
Some 1,200 people were killed in the attacks and more than 250 taken hostage back to Gaza, Israel says.
The organizations seek a ban on all Dutch exports to Israel of weapons and goods that could have a military use, but also want judges to order the country to halt all business with Israel related to its presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, the NGOs’ lawyer Wout Albers told Reuters.
The case is expected to be heard in November.
Health authorities in Gaza say nearly 42,000 people have been killed so far during Israel’s retaliation in Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilian and combatants in its casualty reports. Health officials say most of the dead are civilians.
Israel, which says at least a third are fighters, says it makes efforts to reduce harm to civilians as it battles militants, who it says operate from schools and hospitals.
It is unclear how far the case will go, as the Dutch supreme court has dismissed several earlier attempts to hold the Netherlands to its obligations to prevent alleged violations of the Genocide Convention.
The Netherlands has historically been a close political ally of Israel. The legal case builds on the outcome of an earlier case against the Dutch state where a court in February ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law.
