Pager and walkie-talkie blasts targeting Hezbollah across Lebanon raise questions, stoke Middle East tensions

A man holds a walkie talkie device after he removed the battery during the funeral of persons killed when hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 18, 2024 (AFP)
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Updated 26 September 2024
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Pager and walkie-talkie blasts targeting Hezbollah across Lebanon raise questions, stoke Middle East tensions

  • Communication devices exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, killing at least 15 people and injuring thousands
  • Suspected Israeli attack represents an embarrassing security breach on such a scale that Hezbollah has almost no choice but to respond

LONDON: At precisely 3:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday, an estimated 3,000 pagers carried by Hezbollah members beeped several times before exploding simultaneously, killing at least 12 people and injuring thousands more across Lebanon and parts of Syria.

At least eight of the dead were reportedly members of Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the many wounded included Mojtaba Amini, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, who may have lost at least one eye.

But clips from security cameras in shops in Beirut and other locations, circulated on social media, illustrated the dangerously indiscriminate nature of the attack.

 

 

Many civilians going about their day also fell victim to the blasts as pagers exploded in supermarkets, on the streets, and in cars and homes. Among the dead were two children who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Fleets of ambulances ferried a reported 2,700 wounded to hospitals across Lebanon, where overwhelmed medics struggled to cope with multiple victims suffering serious wounds, mainly to their hips, where pagers are generally worn on belts, and to hands and eyes.

On Wednesday afternoon, further blasts were reported across Lebanon, this time reportedly involving hand-held radios, causing at least three further fatalities and a hundred more wounded, according to Lebanese state media.

 

 

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the attack. But on Wednesday a US official told AP that Israel had briefed Washington on the attack after it had been carried out and, with no other feasible suspect in the frame, there is little doubt that it was the handiwork of Mossad, Israel’s lethally inventive foreign intelligence agency.

It is also clear that, figuratively and literally, the pager attack was both designed and timed to send a message.

The opportunity to use pagers as an offensive weapon arose in February when Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah publicly warned members to stop using cell phones, which are easily bugged and traced and have been linked with many assassinations executed by missile attacks.

 

According to a senior Lebanese security source quoted by The Times of Israel, Hezbollah then ordered 5,000 pagers, which were imported into Lebanon earlier this year.

Initial speculation was that Israel had somehow infected the pagers with code designed to cause lithium batteries inside them to overheat and explode. However, it has since emerged that the pagers used only ordinary AAA batteries.

Besides, the near-instantaneous and synchronized detonations, apparently triggered by incoming messages, suggest the pagers had all been fitted with a small amount of explosive and a miniature electronic detonator.

On Tuesday, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters: “The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means, even with any device or scanner.”

On Wednesday, Gold Apollo, the Taiwanese firm whose brand name was found on the pagers used in the attack, denied involvement, saying the AR-924 models widely identified after the blasts had been made under license by a Budapest-based company, BAC Consulting KFT.




Hsu Ching-kuang, head of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, speaks to the media outside the company's office in New Taipei City on Sept. 18, 2024, saying his company had nothing to do with the pager explosion attack in Lebanon. (AFP)

In a statement issued at 1:40 p.m. Taiwan time on Wednesday, Gold Apollo said: “This model is produced and sold by BAC. Our company only provides the brand trademark authorization and is not involved in the design or manufacturing of this product.”

Images of BAC’s headquarters — a modest, semi-detached building on Szonyi Street in the north of Budapest — have spread on social media, but BAC has yet to comment. Its website went offline on Wednesday and the profile of its owner and managing director was deleted from LinkedIn.

It is, however, extremely unlikely that any genuine company would knowingly take part in such an operation, risking Hezbollah’s wrath, knowing full well that the devices would be easily traced back to it. This has provoked some speculation that BAC, established only in 2022, might have been a front company operated by Israeli intelligence.




Combo image showing a walkie-talkie (right frame) that was exploded inside a house in Baalbek, east Lebanon, on Sept. 17, 2024, and a man holding a walkie talkie device after he removed the battery following the pager explosions. (AP/AFP)

A more likely scenario is that the batch of pagers ordered by Hezbollah were intercepted en route to Lebanon by Israeli agents — most probably at a port or airport, where typical customs and shipping delays may have given agents, working with local collaborators, enough time to meddle with the devices.

Budapest, the capital of Hungary, is a major transport hub on the River Danube and is home to Csepel Freeport, the country’s principal port.

Wherever the devices were tampered with, “the use of pagers bears the hallmark of Israel weaponizing digital technology to achieve political ends,” Ibrahim Al-Marashi, associate professor in the Department of History at California State University San Marcos, told Arab News.




Social media photo showing a pager battery that exploded during an apparent Israeli attack on Sept. 17, 2024 against users of the device in southern Lebanon. (AFP)

Israel has “form” in such warfare. In 2010, “a code known as Stuxnet, snuck into a USB drive, caused Iranian centrifuges to accelerate to the point that they destroyed themselves.”

In 1996, Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash was killed when explosives hidden inside his cell phone were triggered remotely by Israeli agents.

“The advantage of the most recent attack in Lebanon is that it allows Israel to strike from a distance while claiming plausible deniability, avoiding a US rebuke at a time when Washington has pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike Hezbollah,” said Al-Marashi.

But the pager attack, he warned, could lead to a dangerous escalation.




Ambulances are surrounded by people at the entrance of the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on Sept.17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon. (AFP)

“Hezbollah does have the ability to weaponize the digital in retaliation, raising the possibility that violent non-state actors might even pursue artificial intelligence to retaliate against their adversaries.”

Given the complexities of the operation, and the sheer workload involved in sabotaging thousands of devices, there is little doubt that the attack would have been weeks, if not months, in the planning.

But it is the timing of the attack that sends the most worrying signal.

The day after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, its ally Hezbollah began firing missiles into northern Israel — a near-daily bombardment that has increased steadily in intensity, forcing the evacuation of thousands of Israelis from the border region.




Lebanese army soldiers stand guard in Beirut on September 17, 2024, after an Israeli pager device attack against the Hezbollah in southern  Lebanon on September 17. (AFP

After a meeting of its Security Cabinet on Monday night, barely 12 hours before the pagers were detonated, Netanyahu’s office announced that “the Security Cabinet has updated the objectives of the war to include the following: Returning the residents of the north securely to their homes. Israel will continue to act to implement this objective.”

At the same time, reports suggested Netanyahu was on the brink of buckling to the extremist elements in his cabinet by sacking his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has criticized him for having no postwar plan for Gaza, and replacing him with Gideon Saar, leader of the New Hope — The United Right party.

On Wednesday, the day after the pager attack, reports in Israeli and other media, citing anonymous US and Israeli officials, suggested it had been planned originally as “an opening blow in an all-out war against Hezbollah.”





Relatives mourn Fatima Abdallah — a 10-year-old girl killed in Israel's pager device attack — during her funeral in the village of Saraain in the Bekaa valley on September 18, 2024. (AFP)
 

According to The Times of Israel, a Hezbollah operative “had come to suspect the devices had been tampered with.” He was killed before he could alert his superiors, but the decision was taken to detonate the pagers before the plot was uncovered.

The question now is whether Israel is poised to follow up the pager attack, perhaps as was planned, with an all-out assault against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“We have been teetering on the brink of a wider war for many months now,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, told Arab News.

“Hezbollah and Iran have made it clear they don’t want this broader conflict to erupt, but Israel cannot end the war in Gaza without addressing the security crisis on its northern borders with Iran, Lebanon and Syria.




Mourners carry the coffin of Mohammed Mahdi, son of Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar, who was killed Tuesday after his handheld pager exploded, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AP)

“In order to address this security imbalance, which puts at risk the safety of the broader population but also that of those displaced since the war began, Israel is trying to target and degrade the ‘Axis of Resistance’ to stave off further threats,” she said, referring to the loose network of Iranian proxies throughout the region.

“But this strategy could certainly push the groups and Iran to respond and eventually draw in regional states and above all the US.”

Most Israelis, said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer and founder of the nongovernmental organization Terrestrial Jerusalem, “will tell you that war with Hezbollah is inevitable, but a large percentage say: ‘Not now.’

“The priorities for many are a ceasefire in Gaza, release of the hostages and dialing down the tension in Lebanon. Hezbollah can wait,” he told Arab News.

“Hezbollah, actively backed by Iran, is a much greater threat to Israel than Hamas and the general perception is that there will eventually be a war with Hezbollah, but Israelis know this will be much different than what we have witnessed in the past. It would mean years of war and vast devastation.

“But Netanyahu has a vested interest in the perpetuation of the war, which would be good for Netanyahu but intolerable for Israel.”

 

 

What happens next, added Seidemann, “is not only an Israeli decision. Will the US provide the munitions and the rest of the world the legitimization to pursue a protracted war in Lebanon?

“The bottom line is that right now, anything can happen.”

For Al-Marashi, “there are a lot of variables in regard to further escalation that make predictions difficult, more difficult than at any time in analyzing systemic conflicts in the Middle East.

“Despite US sanctions on Iran, news emerged over the weekend that Iran has launched a satellite into space and allegedly has provided ballistic missiles to Russia.

“Second, the Houthis in Yemen have overcome a technical hurdle, launching a ballistic missile against Israel and having it hit Israeli soil, meaning Israel’s system that intercepts such missiles failed.




An Israeli firefighter works to put out a blaze after rockets were fired from Lebanon towards Israel, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Kiryat Shmona, Israel, on Sept. 18, 2024. (REUTERS)

“From that perspective, both Israeli adversaries have demonstrated they can overcome technical hurdles, signaling to Israel that it is not invulnerable.”

Were a regional war to escalate, he added, “it would put US positions in Bahrain and Iraq in the crosshairs of the Axis of Resistance. Biden, seeking to ensure a Kamala Harris victory in the US election, is most likely going to pressure Israel not to escalate matters prior to the election.

“At the same time, if war in the Middle East helped Donald Trump, that would work to the advantage of Netanyahu, who would prefer a Trump presidency.”

The Middle East, said Brian Katulis, senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, “has been teetering on the edge of a wider escalation for much of this past year, with the risk of nation-states going directly to war with one another growing.”




An armored personnel carrier of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrols along al-Khardali road along the Israel-Lebanon border on September 17, 2024. (PhotAFP)

It was, he told Arab News, important to keep in mind the two core drivers of events — “a regime in Iran that operates with a revolutionary ideology that seeks to upend the state order of the Middle East, and an increasingly right-wing Israeli government that rejects a two-state solution and is unable to see the historic opportunity it has in opening relations with key Arab states if it took steps to define a clear end to this war that leads to a State of Palestine.”

In this context, “the US and outside actors such as Europe, China, and Russia can play important roles in trying to shape the trajectory of events in the region, but the main drivers are the regional actors themselves.

“One interesting pivotal grouping is the Arab Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, who do not want to see a wider regional escalation with Iran but do want to advance a two-state solution.”

Right now, however, even as uncertainty remains about Israel’s next move, much depends on how Hezbollah will respond to the extraordinary blow it suffered on Tuesday.

The attack, described by a Hezbollah official as “the targeting of an entire nation,” has been condemned as “an extremely concerning escalation” by Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon.

 

 

In the past year, Hezbollah has suffered the loss of more than 400 fighters, including senior commander Fuad Shukr, to Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon.

But the pager attack represents an embarrassing security breach on such a scale that if it is to save face, Hezbollah’s leadership has almost no choice but to respond with more than the usual daily delivery of a handful of rockets.




Hashim Safieddine, a Shiite Muslim cleric and the head of Hezbollah's Executive Council, speaks during the funeral of persons killed after hundreds of paging devices exploded in a deadly wave across Lebanon the previous day, in Beirut's southern suburbs on September 18, 2024. (AFP)

After Israel’s multiple airstrikes in southern Lebanon last week and now the pager attack, “we are more on the precipice of a regional war than ever,” Kelly Petillo, program manager for Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Arab News.

“We will have to see how Hezbollah will retaliate now, and the level of that response will determine where this goes. But these episodes are an indication that things are heating up and we are close to the precipice.”

As for Netanyahu, after almost a year of fighting in Gaza, the fear now is that his answer to growing domestic criticism over the apparent absence of a postwar plan may be an even more nightmarish scenario — more war, only this time in Lebanon.

 


Escalating Sudan conflict likely to worsen humanitarian crisis

Children play on a street in Tokar in the Read Sea State on Thursday following recent heavy flooding in eastern Sudan. (AFP)
Updated 8 sec ago
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Escalating Sudan conflict likely to worsen humanitarian crisis

  • Army has advanced across bridges in capital
  • RSF expected to benefit from the dry season

DUBAI: After almost 18 months of war, fighting in Sudan is escalating as seasonal rains end with the army using intensified airstrikes and allied fighters to shore up its position ahead of a likely surge by the rival Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

An uptick in fighting will aggravate an already dire humanitarian crisis in which famine has been confirmed and over 10 million people — one-fifth of the population — are displaced, more than anywhere else in the world.
UN agencies have often been unable to deliver aid.
“There won’t be a decisive breakthrough,” said a senior Western diplomat in the region.
“What we expect to come into the fall more and more is much more fragmentation, to see more armed groups getting involved ... And this will make the situation in general much more difficult.”

BACKGROUND

The RSF has had the upper hand during much of the conflict but last week the army launched its biggest offensive yet in Khartoum, advancing across a key bridge over the Nile.

The RSF has had the upper hand during much of the conflict but last week the army, after shunning US-led talks in Switzerland, launched its biggest offensive yet in Khartoum, advancing across a key bridge over the Nile.
In Darfur, former rebel groups and volunteers from displacement camps have rallied to defend the densely populated city of Al-Fasher, the army’s last holdout in the western region, against waves of RSF attacks.
Two army sources said the army had worked for months to replenish weaponry, including drones and warplanes, and train new volunteers to strengthen its position on the ground before any negotiations.
Three residents in the capital, which is made up of Khartoum and its adjoining cities of Omdurman and Bahri, said that in recent days, the army had been carrying out more air bombardments with more drones and fighter jets than before.
While the army has used its superior air power at the end of the rainy season to pound RSF-held territory in the capital, Darfur and El Gezira state, the RSF’s more effective ground troops are expected to regain an edge as the dry season starts and roads become more passable.
On Monday, the RSF released a video with its fighters promising a “hot winter” for its rivals in Sennar, where the rains had slowed its progress earlier.
Witnesses there and in the capital reported heavy fighting on Thursday.
Both sides have reinforced militarily as the conflict in Africa’s third largest country by land area has deepened, drawing on material support from foreign backers, diplomats and analysts say.
The war began in April 2023 as the army and the RSF jostled to protect their power and wealth ahead of a planned political transition toward civilian rule and free elections.
The RSF, which has its roots in the so-called Janjaweed militias that helped the government crush a rebellion in Darfur in the early 2000s, quickly occupied much of the capital before consolidating its grip on Darfur and seizing El Gezira state, south of Khartoum.
Earlier this year, the army gained ground in Omdurman after acquiring Iranian drones.
But it showed little sign of building on the advance before the surprise offensive it began last week on the day that its commander, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, told the UN that the RSF had to withdraw and lay down its arms for there to be peace.
The army now has control of the capital’s Halfaya bridge, allowing it to build a foothold in Bahri from its bases in Omdurman.
It has also weathered heavy clashes and sniper fire to advance across another Nile bridge that leads to the heart of the capital, military sources and witnesses said.
For months, the RSF has besieged Al-Fasher, which is crammed with some 1.8 million residents and displaced people. Activists and diplomats have warned of ethnically charged bloodletting if the city falls after similar violence that was blamed on the RSF and its allies elsewhere in Darfur.
Two witnesses in Al-Fasher said that the RSF had been shelling large areas of the city as the army responded with air strikes.
The battle has dragged on as non-Arab former rebel groups and volunteers from displacement camps who are better equipped for ground combat than the army fight to protect themselves and their families, the witnesses said.
A local group representing displaced people in Darfur said this week that the fighting had exacerbated the humanitarian situation in two dozen camps across the Darfur region, “all of which suffer from a lack of the most basic daily necessities,” and that disease and starvation were spreading.
Aid workers and human rights activists say there has been little increase in humanitarian relief despite pledges by both sides to improve access to aid.
Sudan, often overlooked amid armed conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere, received some diplomatic attention at the UN General Assembly last week.
But USAID Deputy Administrator Isobel Coleman said there had been little progress getting outside players to stop fueling the war.
“Both of the actors in this conflict, both sides of this, have outside support which they believe is going to tip the scales to their advantage,” she said.

 


Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes

Updated 3 min 20 sec ago
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Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes

WASHINGTON: As Israel pounded northern Gaza with air strikes last October and ordered the evacuation of more than a million Palestinians from the area, a senior Pentagon official delivered a blunt warning to the White House.
The mass evacuation would be a humanitarian disaster and could violate international law, leading to war crime charges against Israel, Dana Stroul, then the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, wrote in an Oct. 13 email to senior aides to President Joe Biden. Stroul was relaying an assessment by the International Committee of the Red Cross that had left her “chilled to the bone,” she wrote.
As the Gaza war nears its first anniversary and the Middle East teeters on the brink of a wider war, Stroul’s email and other previously unreported communications show the Biden administration’s struggle to balance internal concerns over rising deaths in Gaza with its public support for Jerusalem following the Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people.
Reuters reviewed three sets of email exchanges between senior US administration officials, dated Oct. 11 to 14, just days into the crisis. The fighting has led to more than 40,000 deaths in Gaza and spurred US protests led by Arab-Americans and Muslim activists.
The emails, which haven’t been reported before, reveal alarm early on in the State Department and Pentagon that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and jeopardize US ties in the Arab world. The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
A ceasefire deal remains elusive, despite months of US-brokered negotiations. Much of Gaza is now a wasteland. And the risk of a regional war with Iran looms after Israel’s attacks on military targets in Lebanon and last week’s assassination of Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Top Biden administration officials say they believe White House pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in those early days made a difference, preventing an even worse disaster. In private talks, the White House asked Israel to delay its ground offensive to give more time for aid groups to prepare help for displaced people and to give Israel more time to strike a deal with Hamas, administration officials told reporters in background briefings at the time.
But Washington was slow to address the suffering of Palestinians, said three senior US officials involved in the decision-making process. And while the ground invasion was ultimately delayed by about 10 days, the three officials attributed the pause more to operational preparations by the Israeli military than US pressure.
After publication of this story, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said the emails show that “unfolding humanitarian disaster in Gaza was painfully clear from the earliest days of the war, with key experts warning that international standards were being violated” and that “valid concerns” were overridden by the White House.
In response to questions about the emails, the White House said, “The US has been leading international efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza” and “this is and will continue to be a top priority.” It added that before US “engagement, there was no food, water, or medicine getting into Gaza.”
Both Israeli and Hamas leaders are being investigated for alleged war crimes in the wake of the Hamas attacks. In June, a UN commission concluded there was credible evidence that Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups committed war crimes including torture and taking hostages. The commission also found evidence of Israeli war crimes from the country’s use of massive explosives in Gaza in the first months of the war.
The Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign remain caught between two powerful constituencies – pro-Israel Democrats and younger, pro-Palestinian progressives. Harris’ Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, says he would “settle” the war “fast” if he wins November’s presidential election, without detailing how. But foreign policy analysts say the election is unlikely to alter US policy toward Israel significantly, given both parties’ long support for the country.
The emails reviewed by Reuters show a scramble inside the Biden administration to warn the White House of the impending crisis – and the White House’s initial resistance to a ceasefire in the early, chaotic days of war. The three sets of email exchanges began on Oct. 11, during Israel’s fifth day of air strikes after the Hamas incursion.

“LOSING CREDIBILITY”
Early on, concerns grew inside the administration about America’s image with its Arab allies.
After Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza’s hospitals, schools and mosques, the US State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior State officials that Washington was “losing credibility among Arabic-speaking audiences” by not directly addressing the humanitarian crisis, according to an Oct. 11 email. Gaza’s health authorities reported that day a death toll of about 1,200.
As Israel defended the strikes, saying Hamas was using civilian buildings for military purposes, Russo wrote that US diplomats in the Middle East were monitoring Arab media reports that accused Israel of waging a “genocide” and Washington of complicity in war crimes.
“The US’s lack of response on the humanitarian conditions for Palestinians is not only ineffective and counterproductive, but we are also being accused of being complicit to potential war crimes by remaining silent on Israel’s actions against civilians,” Russo wrote.
At the time, emergency workers were struggling to save people buried under rubble from Israel airstrikes and the world’s sympathies were beginning to shift from murdered Israelis to besieged Palestinian civilians.
Addressing State Department leaders, Russo urged quick action to shift the administration’s public stance of unqualified support for Israel and its military operation in Gaza. “If this course is not quickly reversed by not only messaging, but action, it risks damaging our stance in the region for years to come,” he wrote. Russo resigned in March, citing personal reasons. He declined to comment.
The State Department’s top Middle East diplomat, Barbara Leaf, forwarded Russo’s email to White House officials including Brett McGurk, Biden’s top adviser for Middle East affairs. She warned that the relationship with Washington’s “otherwise would-be stalwart” Arab partners was at risk due to the kinds of concerns raised by Russo.
McGurk replied that if the question was whether the administration should call for a ceasefire, the answer was “No.” He added, however, that Washington was “100 pct” in favor of supporting humanitarian corridors and protecting civilians. McGurk and Leaf declined to comment for this story.
Following Russo’s email, the public US stance remained largely unchanged for the next two days, a review of public comments shows. US officials continued to emphasize Israel’s right to defend itself and plans to provide Jerusalem with military aid.

“PUMP THE BREAKS”
On Oct. 13, two days after Russo’s email, Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets over northern Gaza, warning one million residents to leave their homes. Netanyahu gave residents 24 hours to flee as Israeli troops backed by tanks began a ground assault inside the Hamas-run territory of 2.3 million people. He vowed to annihilate Hamas for its attack.
The evacuation order alarmed aid agencies and the United Nations. By then, Israel’s air strikes had razed entire districts. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva issued a statement saying Israel’s order was “not compatible with international humanitarian law” because it would cut off food, water and other basic needs in Gaza. Privately, in a phone conversation that day with Stroul, ICRC Middle East director Fabrizio Carboni was more pointed, the emails show.
“ICRC is not ready to say this in public, but is raising private alarm that Israel is close to committing war crimes,” Stroul said in her Oct. 13 email, describing the conversation. Her email was addressed to senior White House officials including McGurk, along with senior State and Pentagon officials. “Their main line is that it is impossible for one million civilians to move this fast,” Stroul wrote. One US official on the email chain said it would be impossible to carry out such an evacuation without creating a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
Asked about Carboni’s phone call with Stroul, the ICRC said it “constantly works with parties to armed conflicts and those who have influence with them to increase the respect for the laws of war in order to prevent civilian suffering in conflict. We consider such conversations to be strictly confidential.”
Publicly, the White House was expressing measured support for Israel’s plans. A White House spokesperson told reporters that such a huge evacuation was a “tall order” but that Washington would not second-guess Israel. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said US military aid would continue flowing to Israel.
Privately, some senior US officials were concerned there was no safe way out of densely populated Gaza, several senior US officials told Reuters. Israel had imposed a blockade. Its southern neighbor, Egypt, would not open its borders as part of its long-standing policy to prevent a mass resettlement of Palestinians. Some Palestinians who fled northern Gaza were killed when Israel bombed cars and trucks.
In an email replying to Stroul, McGurk said Washington might be able to persuade Israel to extend the deadline for Palestinians to evacuate beyond 24 hours, saying the administration “can buy some time.” But the Red Cross, the UN and aid agencies should work with Egypt and Israel to prepare for the evacuation, he wrote.
McGurk, a long-time Iraq expert, likened the situation to the US-led military operation against Daesh militants in Mosul from 2016 to 2017, an assault that left the Iraqi city in ruins. He said the military and humanitarian strategy in the Mosul assault had been planned hand in hand. Two officials on the email chain replied that it would be impossible to put in place the necessary infrastructure with so little time. One reminded McGurk that the Mosul operation was the result of much longer planning. Humanitarian groups had months to set up and provide support for displaced civilians.
“Our assessment is that there’s simply no way to have this scale of a displacement without creating a humanitarian catastrophe,” Paula Tufro, a senior White House official in charge of humanitarian response, wrote in the email. It would take “months” to get structures in place to provide “basic services” to more than a million people. She asked that the White House tell Israel to slow its offensive.
“We need GOI (Government of Israel) to pump the brakes in pushing people south,” Tufro wrote.
Andrew Miller, then the deputy assistant secretary at the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, urged his colleagues to act fast.
“If we’re inclined to weigh in with the Israelis to dissuade them from seeking mass evacuations, we will have to do it soon, at a high level and at multiple touch points,” Miller wrote. He resigned in June, citing family reasons.
Biden’s public comments on Gaza had largely given Netanyahu a free hand against Hamas. At the time, Biden faced only scattered protests from the left wing of the Democratic Party over his support for Israel’s counterattack. Israel’s likening of the Hamas assault to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington resonated widely in the US
The administration’s public stance began to change on Oct. 13. At a news conference in Doha, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the first time publicly recognized the “suffering of Palestinian families in Gaza.” Washington was in constant talks with the Israelis and aid groups to help civilians in Gaza, he said.
The next day, Oct. 14, Biden’s rhetoric shifted. He said in a speech that he was urgently prioritizing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and directed his team to help surge relief into the war zone. It is unclear if the emails by Russo and others influenced the statements from Blinken and Biden.
Although Israel began sending infantry into Gaza on Oct. 13, a large-scale ground invasion didn’t begin until Oct. 27. Sources familiar with the matter said at the time that Washington advised Israel to hold off, mainly to give time for diplomacy to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
From the early days of the conflict, the US stressed that Israel has a right to defend itself but that how it does so matters, a State Department spokesperson said in response to questions for this story. “Israel has a moral imperative to mitigate the harm of its operations to civilians, something we have emphasized both publicly and privately,” the spokesperson said.
Stroul and Tuffro declined to comment. In a statement, Miller said the administration was “concerned about the humanitarian implications of a mass evacuation.” He added that “Israeli military plans were very inchoate at that stage and we were trying to develop a better understanding” of Israel’s “strategy and objectives.”

WEAPONS EXPEDITED
As US officials assessed the humanitarian crisis, Israel pressed Washington for more arms.
On Oct. 14, a senior Israeli Embassy official in Washington urged the State Department to accelerate shipment of 20,000 automatic rifles for the Israeli National Police, according to the emails.
Israeli senior defense adviser Ori Katzav apologized in an Oct. 14 email to his State Department counterpart for disturbing her on the weekend but said the rifle shipment was “very urgent” and needed US approval. Christine Minarich – an official at the State Department division that approves arms sales, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls – told Katzav the rifles would not be approved in the next 24 to 48 hours. Such large weapons shipments can take time, requiring State Department approval and notification to Congress.
Katzav and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment.
Jessica Lewis, then the assistant US secretary for political and military affairs, forwarded Minarich’s email and Israel’s request for the rifles to the State Department’s Democracy, Labor and Human Rights (DRL) bureau. DRL reviews potential US weapon sales to ensure they aren’t sent to militaries involved in rights abuses.
Lewis asked the bureau to expedite its review and “urgently” explain any opposition to specific arms packages for Israel, according to the emails. Lewis resigned in July.
Christopher Le Mon, deputy assistant secretary at DRL, recommended denying more than a dozen arms packages, including grenade launchers, gun parts, rifles and spare rifle parts. In a reply to Lewis, he cited concerns about the “conduct” of specific Israeli National Police units, including the elite Yamam border patrol unit.
Le Mon wrote that there were “numerous reports” of Yamam’s involvement in “gross violations of human rights.” DRL raised objections against 16 separate arms packages for Israel, according to the email and a source familiar with the matter. Nearly all the shipments went ahead despite the bureau’s objections, the source said. Yamam’s missions eventually included a June 8 rescue of four Israeli hostages that Gaza health officials say killed more than 200 Palestinians.
Minarich, Le Mon, Lewis and the Israeli Embassy declined to comment.
Washington has sent to Israel large numbers of munitions since the Gaza war began, according to several US officials with knowledge of the matter, including thousands of precision-guided missiles and 2,000-pound bombs that can devastate densely populated areas and have been used to collapse tunnels and bunkers.
Some rights groups blame the use of those weapons for civilian deaths. Amnesty International cited at least three incidents from Oct. 10 to January 2024 involving US-supplied weapons that it said killed civilians, including women and children, in “serious violations” of international humanitarian law. In July, it warned of US complicity in what it said was Israel’s unlawful use of US weapons to commit war crimes – an accusation the US has rejected.
A State Department report in May said Israel may be violating international law using US weapons, but said it could not say so definitively due to the chaos of war and challenges in collecting data.
An Israeli Embassy spokesperson rejected accusations that Israel has targeted civilians. “Israel is a democracy that adheres to international law,” the spokesperson said.


EU court backs scrapping Morocco trade deals over Western Sahara

Fishermen transport their catch after docking in the main port in Dakhla city, Western Sahara, Monday, Dec. 21, 2020. (AP)
Updated 4 min 57 sec ago
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EU court backs scrapping Morocco trade deals over Western Sahara

  • The court said consent from a people does not always need to be explicit “where the agreement confers on that people a specific, tangible, substantial and verifiable benefit”

LUXEMBOURG: The EU’s top court has confirmed an earlier ruling canceling trade deals allowing Morocco to export fish and farm products to the bloc from the disputed Western Sahara region.
The Court of Justice of the European Union, or CJEU, rejected all appeals against the 2021 verdict in a victory for the Western Saharan independence movement, the Polisario Front.
While the fish agreement has expired, the agricultural product deal is still active.
The court said the protocol should stay in place for another 12 months “because of the serious negative consequences which its immediate annulment would entail for the external action” of the EU.
Morocco, an important trading partner with the 27-nation EU, views the Western Sahara as an integral part of its territory, but the Polisario, recognized internationally as the representative of the Sahrawi people, has long sought independence there.
The EU’s Court of Justice affirmed that the deals allowing exports from the former Spanish colony and the rest of Morocco “was concluded in breach of the principles of self-determination.”
The court said consent from a people does not always need to be explicit “where the agreement confers on that people a specific, tangible, substantial and verifiable benefit.”
But it added that “as the agreements at issue manifestly do not provide for such a benefit,” the court confirmed the annulment of the deals.
Morocco controls around 80 percent of Western Sahara and has offered autonomy, while insisting it must retain sovereignty.
At stake are an overland route to West African markets, plentiful phosphate resources and rich Atlantic fisheries along the territory’s 1,100-kilometer (680-mile) coastline.
The 2021 court ruling had been hailed as a “great victory” by the Polisario movement and was welcomed by Morocco’s regional rival Algeria.
Replying to the latest verdict on Friday, Morocco’s Foreign Ministry decried what it said were “obvious legal errors” but added it was not “in any way concerned” by the decision, as it was not a party to the case.
It called on the EU to take the necessary measures to respect its international commitments.
It warned that Rabat did not subscribe to agreements that did not respect its territorial integrity — a reference to its claims over Western Sahara.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said the European Commission was analyzing the ruling and reiterated that the bloc highly valued its “long-standing, wide-ranging and deep” strategic partnership with Morocco.
“The EU firmly intends to preserve and continue strengthening close relations with Morocco,” she said in a joint statement with EU foreign affairs boss Josep Borrell.
The EU and Rabat signed an association deal in 1996, giving Morocco preferential tariffs, which was later extended in 2019 to include products from Western Sahara.
The main benefit for Rabat was lower costs of exporting agricultural goods to the bloc, while the EU received access to Atlantic fishing waters.
The fishing protocol had allowed up to 128 European ships to access Moroccan and Western Sahara fishing waters for four years.

 


Jordan, OIC condemn Israeli attack on Tulkarm refugee camp in West Bank

Updated 16 min 49 sec ago
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Jordan, OIC condemn Israeli attack on Tulkarm refugee camp in West Bank

  • Attack on Tulkarm resulted in 18 deaths and numerous injuries

LONDON: Jordan’s foreign ministry and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Friday condemned Israel’s escalating military action in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The organizations highlighted the attack on the Tulkarm refugee camp in the West Bank, describing it as a violation of international law and humanitarian principles.

Sufian Qudah, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said Israel was solely responsible for the violence in Tulkarm, which reflected its disregard for international efforts to achieve calm. He called on the international community, particularly the UN Security Council, to intervene to stop the assault and ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians.

The attack on Tulkarm resulted in 18 deaths and numerous injuries, while eight incidents in Gaza over the past 24 hours have killed 99 people and injured 169 others.

The OIC denounced the actions as war crimes and called for Israel to be held accountable in international courts.

It described the violence as part of a long history of Israeli violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and urged global institutions like the International Criminal Court to take swift action.

It also urged the UN Security Council to impose an immediate ceasefire to bring an end to the aggression.

Both the Jordanian ministry and the OIC said Israel’s attacks across Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank posed a serious threat to regional security and stability.


UN condemns Israel’s ‘unlawful air strike’ on West Bank camp which killed 18

Updated 04 October 2024
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UN condemns Israel’s ‘unlawful air strike’ on West Bank camp which killed 18

  • The Israeli army said the raid in Tulkarem had succeeded in killing “at least seven terrorists,” including a Hamas leader and an Islamic Jihad member
  • “The strike is part of a highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force by ISF during military-like operations in the West Bank,” the UN rights office said

TULKAREM, Palestinian Territories: The United Nations on Friday condemned what it called an “unlawful air strike” by Israel on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank that the Palestinian health ministry said killed 18 people the previous day.
Described as the deadliest air strike in over two decades in the West Bank, the Israeli army said the raid in Tulkarem had succeeded in killing “at least seven terrorists,” including a Hamas leader and an Islamic Jihad member, who were discussing an “imminent terror plan.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office slammed the strike, calling it “unlawful.”
“The strike is part of a highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force by ISF (Israeli security forces) during military-like operations in the West Bank that have caused widespread harm to Palestinians,” the UN rights office said in a statement.
“The levelling of an entire building filled with people via aerial bombing shows flagrant disregard for Israel’s obligations.”
On Friday, hundreds gathered for a public funeral in Tulkarem, where the bodies of the dead were carried through the streets as people waved flags and fired guns into the air.
Several armed fighters, masked and dressed in black, attended the funeral, an AFP journalist reported.
“We hope that all Palestinian people will join hands, as we have one cause,” Nasser Kharyoush, a father of one of the victims of the raid, told AFP.
Tulkarem was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a large-scale Israeli military operation in late August against militants based in the West Bank.
Violence in the West Bank has surged alongside the war in Gaza which began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.
Since the Hamas attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 701 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
At least 24 Israelis, including members of the security forces, have been killed in Palestinian militant attacks during the same period, Israeli officials say.
The United Nations rights office said Thursday’s strike came when there were “no clashes or confrontations” at the site.
“The air strike completely destroyed the targeted building and also damaged nearby houses,” it said.
“More fatalities may be trapped under the rubble, but recovery and identification are proving difficult in light of the massive impact of the blast.”
Major Israeli operations in the West Bank are sometimes occurring “at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades,” United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said last month.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and its forces regularly make incursions into Palestinian communities.
But the current raids as well as comments by Israeli officials mark an escalation.