Turkiye reviews security of communication devices after Lebanon blasts, official says

Smoke billows from a house in Baalbek in east Lebanon after a reported explosion of a radio device, on Sept. 18, 2024. (AFP)
Short Url
Updated 19 September 2024
Follow

Turkiye reviews security of communication devices after Lebanon blasts, official says

  • The blasts appeared to throw Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, into disarray
  • “… measures are reviewed and new measures are being developed as part of the lessons learned following each development,” the official said

ANKARA: Turkiye is reviewing its measures to secure the communication devices used by its armed forces after the deadly blasts in Lebanon, a Turkish defense ministry official said on Thursday.
Hand-held radios used by armed group Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon’s south in the country’s deadliest day since cross-border fighting erupted between the group and Israel nearly a year ago, stoking tensions after similar explosions of the militants’ pagers the day before.
The blasts appeared to throw Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, into disarray, and occurred alongside Israel’s 11-month-old war against Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza and heightened fears of an escalation and regional war.
The Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkiye’s military exclusively used domestically-produced equipment but Ankara had additional control mechanisms in place if a third party is involved in procurement or production of devices.
“Whether in the operations we carry out, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and as with the Lebanon example, measures are reviewed and new measures are being developed as part of the lessons learned following each development,” the official said.
“In the context of this incident, we as the Defense Ministry are carrying out the necessary examinations,” the person added, without providing further detail.
In Tuesday’s explosions, sources said Israeli spies remotely detonated explosives they planted in a Hezbollah order of 5,000 pagers before they entered the country.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told state-owned Anadolu news agency that establishing an independent agency for cyber-security specifically was on the government’s agenda, and that President Tayyip Erdogan saw this as a necessity.


Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,010

Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,010

  • The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Wednesday that at least 42,010 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 97,720 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.

Hamas, Fatah leaders to hold Palestinian unity talks in Cairo

Updated 45 min 35 sec ago
Follow

Hamas, Fatah leaders to hold Palestinian unity talks in Cairo

  • Hamas delegation led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar

CAIRO: Leaders from the Islamist group Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement will hold further unity talks in Cairo on Wednesday, a Hamas official told Reuters.
According to Taher Al-Nono, the media adviser of the Hamas political chief, the Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday. It was led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar.
“The meeting will discuss the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, and the challenges facing the Palestinian cause,” Nono said.
There was no immediate comment from Fatah.
The meeting will be the first in months since the two groups held talks in the Chinese capital in July, agreeing on steps to form a unity government. Similar rounds in the past have so far failed to make progress.
The issue of the post-war Gaza administration is one of the thorniest issues facing the Palestinians, and both factions have said it was an internal affair, rejecting any Israeli conditions.
Israel vowed it would not accept any role for Hamas in post-war Gaza. It says it doesn’t trust the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority to do the job either.


Israel carries out new strikes in Gaza, UN chief says many trapped in north

Updated 09 October 2024
Follow

Israel carries out new strikes in Gaza, UN chief says many trapped in north

  • Israel says it is rooting our Hamas militants
  • Israel presses on with raid on Jabalia refugee camp

CAIRO: At least 18 people were killed in overnight military strikes on Gaza, Palestinian medics said on Wednesday, as Israeli forces pressed on with a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in the enclave’s north.
The Israeli military says the raid, now in its fifth day, is intended to stop Hamas fighters staging further attacks from Jabalia and to prevent them regrouping.
It has repeatedly issued evacuation orders to residents of Jabalia and nearby areas, but Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe places to flee to in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received unconfirmed reports that dozens of Palestinians may have been killed in Jabalia and other areas of northern Gaza, but is unable reach them because of Israeli bombardments.
“At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee Agency (UNRWA), posted on X on Wednesday.
“Recent evacuation orders from the Israeli Authorities are forcing people to flee again & again, especially from Jabalia Camp. Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere in #Gaza is safe.”
Lazzarini said some UNRWA shelters and services were being forced to shut down for the first time since the war began and that with almost no basic supplies available, hunger was spreading again in northern Gaza.
“This recent military operation also threatens the implementation of the second phase of the #polio vaccination campaign for children,” he said.
Israel did not immediately comment on Lazzarini’s remarks. Israeli authorities have previously said they facilitate food deliveries to Gaza despite challenging conditions.
Overnight strikes 
Israel’s military, which is also in conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, says Hamas militants use residential areas as cover in the densely populated territory, including schools and hospitals. Hamas denies this.
In one Israeli strike overnight on a house in Shejaia, a suburb of Gaza City, nine people of the same family were killed, medics said. The rest of the dead from the overnight strikes were killed in central areas of the Gaza Strip.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, the Gaza health ministry says. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the enclave has been laid to waste.


Iran rejects UK security official’s ‘accusations against Iran’, foreign ministry says

Updated 09 October 2024
Follow

Iran rejects UK security official’s ‘accusations against Iran’, foreign ministry says

DUBAI: Tehran rejects “accusations” put forward by a British security official, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Wednesday, a day after UK’s MI5 spy chief said 20 Iran-backed potentially lethal plots had been disrupted in Britain since January 2022.
In a wide-ranging speech on Tuesday outlining the current threat picture, Security Service (MI5) Director General Ken McCallum accused Iran of being behind “plot after plot” on British soil.
McCallum said state threat investigations were up 48 percent in the last year as Russia and Iran turned to criminals, drug traffickers and proxies to carry out their “dirty work.”
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson dismissed what he described in a statement as repetitive accusations over the last two years by the British security official, whom he did not name.
Baghaei accused the British of hosting “terrorist” groups that take advantage of free speech to promote violence, according to the statement and asked London to reconsider its policies toward “the nation of Iran and West Asia.”


Iran warns Israel not to attack its infrastructure

Updated 09 October 2024
Follow

Iran warns Israel not to attack its infrastructure

  • Israel said it was preparing a response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack on its arch-enemy
  • On Friday US President Joe Biden cautioned Israel against attacking oil installations in Iran

TEHRAN: Iran warned Israel on Tuesday against attacking any of its infrastructure amid fears of a possible Israeli assault on oil or nuclear sites following Iran’s missile barrage last week.
“Any attack against infrastructure in Iran will provoke an even stronger response,” state television quoted Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying.
He spoke after Israel said it was preparing a response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack on its arch-enemy, its second on the country in six months.
On Monday, an official statement quoted Araghchi as saying Iran did not seek war in the region.
On Friday US President Joe Biden cautioned Israel against attacking oil installations in Iran, one of the world’s top 10 producers of crude.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Rassul Sanairad warned Israel on Sunday any attack on nuclear or energy sites would cross a “red line.”
The Fars news agency quoted him as saying following the Israeli threat: “Some political leaders have spoken of a possible change in Iran’s nuclear policy.”
In 2022, after an official said Iran had the technical capability to produce a nuclear weapon, the country stressed there had been no change in its nuclear ambitions.
Last year Iran slowed the pace of its uranium enrichment, but then in late 2023 accelerated the production of 60 percent enriched uranium, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Enrichment levels of around 90 percent are required for military use.
Iran has always denied any ambition to develop a nuclear weapons capability, insisting its activities are entirely peaceful.
Any attack on Iranian nuclear sites “would have an impact on the kind of response by Iran,” General Sanairad said.
Tehran says its attack on Israel, when some 200 missiles were fired, was a response to the death in a Beirut air strike of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah, and of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Iran blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death, but Israel has not commented.