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[🇧🇩] Israel and Hamas war in Gaza-----Can Bangladesh be a peace broker?
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Bangladesh Defense Forum
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- #257
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Hamas says chief Haniyeh killed in ‘Zionist’ strike in Tehran
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was “hit” and he was killed along with a bodyguard
en.prothomalo.com
Hamas says chief Haniyeh killed in 'Zionist' strike in Tehran
AFP
Published: 31 Jul 2024, 09: 57
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visits the Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon's top Sunni religious authority, in Beirut on 22 June, 2022AFP
Hamas said Wednesday its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he had been attending the inauguration of the country's new president.
"Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president," the movement said in a statement.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh's residence in Tehran was "hit" and he was killed along with a bodyguard.
"The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred," said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Sepah news website.
Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday's swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports of Haniyeh's death.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the October 7 attack, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
The launched by Hamas on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal, but was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year's parliamentary election.
Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and splits his time between Turkey and Qatar.
He had travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.
Haniyeh was said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.
He joined Hamas in 1987 when the militant group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
It has hailed Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel but denied any involvement.
AFP
Published: 31 Jul 2024, 09: 57
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh visits the Dar al-Fatwa, Lebanon's top Sunni religious authority, in Beirut on 22 June, 2022AFP
Hamas said Wednesday its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he had been attending the inauguration of the country's new president.
"Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president," the movement said in a statement.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh's residence in Tehran was "hit" and he was killed along with a bodyguard.
"The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred," said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's Sepah news website.
Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday's swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports of Haniyeh's death.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the October 7 attack, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
The launched by Hamas on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal, but was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year's parliamentary election.
Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and splits his time between Turkey and Qatar.
He had travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.
Haniyeh was said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.
He joined Hamas in 1987 when the militant group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.
Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
It has hailed Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel but denied any involvement.
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Israel used waterboarding to torture them: UN report
Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the offensive in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report.
Israel used waterboarding to torture them: UN report
Smoke billows from burning tyres as Israeli soldiers deploy in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron yesterday, following a demonstration by Palestinians denouncing the killing of the leader of the Hamas group. Photo: AFP
Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the offensive in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report.
The 23-page report, released yesterday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention. It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of detainees by soldiers.
Based primarily on interviews with released detainees and other victims from October 7 to June 30, the UN report found that since the offensive began, "thousands of Palestinians" including medical staff, have been "taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded".
As of the end of June, Israel's prison service held more than 9,400 "security detainees", the report said, adding that those detained have been "held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention" and without a lawyer.
"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities: report
"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities, it said. It also detailed "allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men".
The report was released during an investigation by the Israeli army, which is questioning nine soldiers over allegations of "substantial abuse" of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel, reports Al Jazeera online.
Last week, eight Palestinian prisoners who were released by the Israeli army said they experienced torture during their time in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.
Former Palestinian detainees told the UN that they were held in "cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers".
The documented abuse included food, sleep and water deprivation and being burned with cigarettes.
"Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence," the report said.
Smoke billows from burning tyres as Israeli soldiers deploy in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron yesterday, following a demonstration by Palestinians denouncing the killing of the leader of the Hamas group. Photo: AFP
Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the offensive in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a new report.
The 23-page report, released yesterday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention. It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of detainees by soldiers.
Based primarily on interviews with released detainees and other victims from October 7 to June 30, the UN report found that since the offensive began, "thousands of Palestinians" including medical staff, have been "taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded".
As of the end of June, Israel's prison service held more than 9,400 "security detainees", the report said, adding that those detained have been "held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention" and without a lawyer.
"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities: report
"At least 53 Palestinian detainees" are known to have died in Israeli detention facilities, it said. It also detailed "allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men".
The report was released during an investigation by the Israeli army, which is questioning nine soldiers over allegations of "substantial abuse" of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention camp in the Negev desert in southern Israel, reports Al Jazeera online.
Last week, eight Palestinian prisoners who were released by the Israeli army said they experienced torture during their time in Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.
Former Palestinian detainees told the UN that they were held in "cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers".
The documented abuse included food, sleep and water deprivation and being burned with cigarettes.
"Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence," the report said.
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Destruction of water wells deepens misery
Israel’s military blew up more than 30 water wells in Gaza this month, a municipality official and residents said, adding to the trauma of airstrikes that have turned much of the Palestinian enclave into a wasteland ravaged by a humanitarian crisis.
Destruction of water wells deepens misery
Israel's military blew up more than 30 water wells in Gaza this month, a municipality official and residents said, adding to the trauma of airstrikes that have turned much of the Palestinian enclave into a wasteland ravaged by a humanitarian crisis.
Salama Shurab, head of the water networks at Khan Younis municipality, said the wells were destroyed by Israeli forces between July 18-27 in the southern towns of Rafah and Khan Younis.
The Israeli military did not respond to the allegations that its soldiers destroyed the wells.
It is not only ever-present danger from Israeli bombardment or ground fighting that makes life a trial for Gaza's Palestinian civilians. It is also the daily slog to find bare necessities such as water, to drink or cook or wash with.
People have dug wells in bleak areas near the sea where the bombing has pushed them, or rely on salty tap water from Gaza's only aquifer, now contaminated with seawater and sewage.
Children walk long distances to line up at makeshift water collection points. Often not strong enough to carry the filled containers, they drag them home on wooden boards.
Gaza City has lost nearly all its water production capacity, with 88 percent of its water wells and 100 percent of its desalination plants damaged or destroyed, Oxfam said in a recent report.
Palestinians were already facing a severe water crisis as well as shortages of food, fuel and medicine before the destruction of the wells, which has deepened the anguish brought on by the Gaza offensive, now in its 10th month.
COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military that manages humanitarian activities, told Reuters it has coordinated water line repairs with international organizations and "dozens" were done in the last month including one to the northern Gaza Strip.
Other work including power repairs at a desalination plant and construction of additional lines was under way.
Hamas fighters "have been known to attack civilian infrastructures and humanitarian aid routes, adding to the complexity and danger of delivering much-needed humanitarian aid to the region," COGAT said.
All Gazans can do is wait in long lines to collect water since US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to secure a ceasefire from Israel and its arch-foe Hamas. Not only is there a shortage of water, much of it is also contaminated.
"We stand in the sun, my eye hurts because of the sun, because we stand for long (hours) to (secure) water," said Youssef El-Shenawy, a Gaza resident.
Israel's military blew up more than 30 water wells in Gaza this month, a municipality official and residents said, adding to the trauma of airstrikes that have turned much of the Palestinian enclave into a wasteland ravaged by a humanitarian crisis.
Salama Shurab, head of the water networks at Khan Younis municipality, said the wells were destroyed by Israeli forces between July 18-27 in the southern towns of Rafah and Khan Younis.
The Israeli military did not respond to the allegations that its soldiers destroyed the wells.
It is not only ever-present danger from Israeli bombardment or ground fighting that makes life a trial for Gaza's Palestinian civilians. It is also the daily slog to find bare necessities such as water, to drink or cook or wash with.
People have dug wells in bleak areas near the sea where the bombing has pushed them, or rely on salty tap water from Gaza's only aquifer, now contaminated with seawater and sewage.
Children walk long distances to line up at makeshift water collection points. Often not strong enough to carry the filled containers, they drag them home on wooden boards.
Gaza City has lost nearly all its water production capacity, with 88 percent of its water wells and 100 percent of its desalination plants damaged or destroyed, Oxfam said in a recent report.
Palestinians were already facing a severe water crisis as well as shortages of food, fuel and medicine before the destruction of the wells, which has deepened the anguish brought on by the Gaza offensive, now in its 10th month.
COGAT, the branch of the Israeli military that manages humanitarian activities, told Reuters it has coordinated water line repairs with international organizations and "dozens" were done in the last month including one to the northern Gaza Strip.
Other work including power repairs at a desalination plant and construction of additional lines was under way.
Hamas fighters "have been known to attack civilian infrastructures and humanitarian aid routes, adding to the complexity and danger of delivering much-needed humanitarian aid to the region," COGAT said.
All Gazans can do is wait in long lines to collect water since US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to secure a ceasefire from Israel and its arch-foe Hamas. Not only is there a shortage of water, much of it is also contaminated.
"We stand in the sun, my eye hurts because of the sun, because we stand for long (hours) to (secure) water," said Youssef El-Shenawy, a Gaza resident.
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Calls for revenge at Iran funeral for Hamas chief Haniyeh
Iran held a funeral ceremony on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on...
www.newagebd.net
Calls for revenge at Iran funeral for Hamas chief Haniyeh
Agence France-Presse . Tehran 01 August, 2024, 23:06
Iranians take part in a funeral procession for late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Thursday ahead of his burial in Qatar.. | AFP photo
Iran held a funeral ceremony on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on Israel.
Thousands of mourners paid respects to Haniyeh as the Israeli military confirmed that an air strike in Gaza last month killed the Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a 'harsh punishment' for his killing.
In Tehran's city centre, crowds, including women shrouded in black, carried posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags in a procession and ceremony that began at Tehran University, according to an AFP correspondent.
It came just hours after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in a retaliatory strike in the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut, raising fears of a wider regional conflict as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues.
Shukr is to be buried on Thursday.
Senior Iranian officials including President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, General Hossein Salami, attended the ceremony for Haniyeh, state TV showed.
Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas's foreign relations chief, vowed during the funeral ceremony that Haniyeh's message will live on and 'we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine'.
Pezeshkian later told Hayya that Iran 'will continue to support with firmer determination the Axis of Resistance', Iran-aligned regional groups that include Hamas, the official IRNA news agency said.
The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-decorated truck through city streets jammed with mourners cooled by water spray on a hot day.
The New York Times, citing Iranian officials, reported that Khamenei has ordered Iran to strike Israel directly.
The international community called for calm and a focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza—which Haniyeh had accused Israel of obstructing.
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a 'dangerous escalation'.
The UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting Wednesday at Iran's request to discuss the incident.
In a phone call, the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt blamed Israel for rising tensions and 'stressed the need to work on de-escalation to prevent the region from slipping into a comprehensive regional conflict', Jordan's official Petra news agency reported.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday reiterated appeals for an end to fighting. He said achieving peace 'starts with a ceasefire' and called on 'all parties' to 'stop escalatory actions'.
But the prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh's killing had thrown the whole Gaza war mediation process into doubt.
'How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?' Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on social media site X.
While Iran has blamed the attack on its arch-foe, Israel has declined to comment on Haniyeh's death. But it did claim the killing of Hezbollah commander Shukr, blaming him for a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The killings are the latest of several incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Yemen's Huthi rebels declared three days of mourning for Haniyeh. Earlier this month they claimed a drone strike on Tel Aviv, their first fatal attack in Israel, which retaliated against Yemen's rebel-controlled Hodeida port.
In April, after a strike killed Revolutionary Guards at its consulate in Damascus, Iran made its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles.
Explosions later hit central Iran, in what US media said was Israeli retaliation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Concern over the fate of those still held has grown among Israelis, who have demonstrated by the tens of thousands demanding a deal to free them.
Haniyeh's killing 'was a mistake as it threatens the possibility of having a hostage deal,' said Anat Noy, a resident of Haifa.
Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
An Israeli military statement said Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's armed wing, was killed by Israeli warplanes on July 13 in a strike in Gaza's Khan Yunis area.
Gazan health authorities said at the time that the strike killed more than 90 people but Hamas denied Deif was among them.
Agence France-Presse . Tehran 01 August, 2024, 23:06
Iranians take part in a funeral procession for late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Thursday ahead of his burial in Qatar.. | AFP photo
Iran held a funeral ceremony on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on Israel.
Thousands of mourners paid respects to Haniyeh as the Israeli military confirmed that an air strike in Gaza last month killed the Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a 'harsh punishment' for his killing.
In Tehran's city centre, crowds, including women shrouded in black, carried posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags in a procession and ceremony that began at Tehran University, according to an AFP correspondent.
It came just hours after Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in a retaliatory strike in the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut, raising fears of a wider regional conflict as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues.
Shukr is to be buried on Thursday.
Senior Iranian officials including President Masoud Pezeshkian and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, General Hossein Salami, attended the ceremony for Haniyeh, state TV showed.
Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas's foreign relations chief, vowed during the funeral ceremony that Haniyeh's message will live on and 'we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine'.
Pezeshkian later told Hayya that Iran 'will continue to support with firmer determination the Axis of Resistance', Iran-aligned regional groups that include Hamas, the official IRNA news agency said.
The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-decorated truck through city streets jammed with mourners cooled by water spray on a hot day.
The New York Times, citing Iranian officials, reported that Khamenei has ordered Iran to strike Israel directly.
The international community called for calm and a focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza—which Haniyeh had accused Israel of obstructing.
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a 'dangerous escalation'.
The UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting Wednesday at Iran's request to discuss the incident.
In a phone call, the foreign ministers of Jordan and Egypt blamed Israel for rising tensions and 'stressed the need to work on de-escalation to prevent the region from slipping into a comprehensive regional conflict', Jordan's official Petra news agency reported.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday reiterated appeals for an end to fighting. He said achieving peace 'starts with a ceasefire' and called on 'all parties' to 'stop escalatory actions'.
But the prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh's killing had thrown the whole Gaza war mediation process into doubt.
'How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?' Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on social media site X.
While Iran has blamed the attack on its arch-foe, Israel has declined to comment on Haniyeh's death. But it did claim the killing of Hezbollah commander Shukr, blaming him for a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The killings are the latest of several incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Yemen's Huthi rebels declared three days of mourning for Haniyeh. Earlier this month they claimed a drone strike on Tel Aviv, their first fatal attack in Israel, which retaliated against Yemen's rebel-controlled Hodeida port.
In April, after a strike killed Revolutionary Guards at its consulate in Damascus, Iran made its first ever direct attack on Israeli soil, firing a barrage of drones and missiles.
Explosions later hit central Iran, in what US media said was Israeli retaliation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Concern over the fate of those still held has grown among Israelis, who have demonstrated by the tens of thousands demanding a deal to free them.
Haniyeh's killing 'was a mistake as it threatens the possibility of having a hostage deal,' said Anat Noy, a resident of Haifa.
Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
An Israeli military statement said Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's armed wing, was killed by Israeli warplanes on July 13 in a strike in Gaza's Khan Yunis area.
Gazan health authorities said at the time that the strike killed more than 90 people but Hamas denied Deif was among them.
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Israel turned rogue state: Jordan
Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Thursday that Israel had turned ‘rogue’ state with its ‘assassination’ of the Hamas political leader and needed to be stopped...
www.newagebd.net
Israel turned rogue state: Jordan
Agence France-Presse . Amman/ Palestine 02 August, 2024, 00:05
Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Thursday that Israel had turned 'rogue' state with its 'assassination' of the Hamas political leader and needed to be stopped.
He said the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's lead negotiator in efforts for a truce and hostage release deal for Gaza, was a clear sign that Israel had decided to undermine the US-backed talks.
'Yesterday, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh. He was the one who was negotiating the exchange deal. So how on earth is a country that wants to conclude a deal killing the main interlocutor in those negotiations?' Safadi told a news conference.
'So when Netanyahu decided and sent his missiles to assassinate Haniyeh in Iran in violation of the sovereignty of another country and bringing escalation to a very high level, is that somebody who wants the deal to work?
'And all the work that has been done by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to bring a deal that would have brought a ceasefire, that would have released the hostages, that would have released prisoners, Israel decided to undermine all that'.
Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's death, but both Iran and Hamas said it was the result of an Israeli air strike in Tehran before dawn on Wednesday.
Safadi demanded action by the international community to rein Israel in.
'The Security Council must not allow a state that has turned rogue to impose more wars and more destruction on the region.'
Earlier on the day, the Israeli military announced that Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif had been killed in a strike it carried out last month in Gaza's southern area of Khan Yunis.
The military's confirmation it had killed Deif comes a day after the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which was announced by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hamas.
'The IDF (Israeli army) announces that on July 13th, 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,' a military statement said.
'Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th massacre,' the military said of the Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the death of 1,197 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said at the time of the July 13 strike that it killed more than 90 people but Hamas denied Deif was among them.
The suspected 2,000-pound bomb (900 kilogrammes0 around the house where Deif was said to have taken refuge with one of his deputies had left a giant crater.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday that the group was bound to respond to Israel's killing of its top military commander, saying his death and that of the Hamas leader 'crossed' red lines.
'The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response,' he said in a speech broadcast at the funeral of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.
'You do not know what red lines you crossed,' he said, addressing Israel after separate strikes in Beirut and Tehran killed Shukr and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's killing, but it announced that it had 'eliminated' Shukr, describing him as Hezbollah's 'most senior military commander' and Nasrallah's 'right-hand man'.
Shukr, who used the nom de guerre Hajj Mohsen, led operations in south Lebanon, where the group says it has opened a 'support front', exchanging near-daily fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza in October.
'We, on all the support fronts, have entered a new phase,' Nasrallah said, referring to Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups that have targeted Israel in support of Hamas after the Palestinian group launched an October 7 attack on Israel, triggering the war.
Meanwhile, Hamas called for a 'day of furious rage' for Friday, coinciding with the burial of its leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar.
Hamas in a statement on Thursday encouraged an outpouring of public anger following Haniyeh's killing in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, as well as to protest the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
'Let roaring anger marches start from every mosque' following Friday prayers, the group said.
Haniyeh, who resided in exile in Qatar with other members of Hamas's political leadership, is to be buried in the Gulf state today after a public funeral held Thursday in the Iranian capital.
Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed Wednesday in a pre-dawn strike on their accommodation in Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said, in an attack that has stoked fears of a wider regional conflict.
Agence France-Presse . Amman/ Palestine 02 August, 2024, 00:05
Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said on Thursday that Israel had turned 'rogue' state with its 'assassination' of the Hamas political leader and needed to be stopped.
He said the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's lead negotiator in efforts for a truce and hostage release deal for Gaza, was a clear sign that Israel had decided to undermine the US-backed talks.
'Yesterday, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh. He was the one who was negotiating the exchange deal. So how on earth is a country that wants to conclude a deal killing the main interlocutor in those negotiations?' Safadi told a news conference.
'So when Netanyahu decided and sent his missiles to assassinate Haniyeh in Iran in violation of the sovereignty of another country and bringing escalation to a very high level, is that somebody who wants the deal to work?
'And all the work that has been done by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to bring a deal that would have brought a ceasefire, that would have released the hostages, that would have released prisoners, Israel decided to undermine all that'.
Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's death, but both Iran and Hamas said it was the result of an Israeli air strike in Tehran before dawn on Wednesday.
Safadi demanded action by the international community to rein Israel in.
'The Security Council must not allow a state that has turned rogue to impose more wars and more destruction on the region.'
Earlier on the day, the Israeli military announced that Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif had been killed in a strike it carried out last month in Gaza's southern area of Khan Yunis.
The military's confirmation it had killed Deif comes a day after the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which was announced by Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hamas.
'The IDF (Israeli army) announces that on July 13th, 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike,' a military statement said.
'Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th massacre,' the military said of the Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the death of 1,197 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza said at the time of the July 13 strike that it killed more than 90 people but Hamas denied Deif was among them.
The suspected 2,000-pound bomb (900 kilogrammes0 around the house where Deif was said to have taken refuge with one of his deputies had left a giant crater.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday that the group was bound to respond to Israel's killing of its top military commander, saying his death and that of the Hamas leader 'crossed' red lines.
'The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response,' he said in a speech broadcast at the funeral of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.
'You do not know what red lines you crossed,' he said, addressing Israel after separate strikes in Beirut and Tehran killed Shukr and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Israel has not commented on Haniyeh's killing, but it announced that it had 'eliminated' Shukr, describing him as Hezbollah's 'most senior military commander' and Nasrallah's 'right-hand man'.
Shukr, who used the nom de guerre Hajj Mohsen, led operations in south Lebanon, where the group says it has opened a 'support front', exchanging near-daily fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza in October.
'We, on all the support fronts, have entered a new phase,' Nasrallah said, referring to Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups that have targeted Israel in support of Hamas after the Palestinian group launched an October 7 attack on Israel, triggering the war.
Meanwhile, Hamas called for a 'day of furious rage' for Friday, coinciding with the burial of its leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar.
Hamas in a statement on Thursday encouraged an outpouring of public anger following Haniyeh's killing in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, as well as to protest the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
'Let roaring anger marches start from every mosque' following Friday prayers, the group said.
Haniyeh, who resided in exile in Qatar with other members of Hamas's political leadership, is to be buried in the Gulf state today after a public funeral held Thursday in the Iranian capital.
Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed Wednesday in a pre-dawn strike on their accommodation in Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said, in an attack that has stoked fears of a wider regional conflict.
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Turkey blocks NATO-Israel cooperation over Gaza war, sources say
Turkey has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said. Israel carries the status of NATO partner and has fostered
Turkey blocks NATO-Israel cooperation over Gaza war, sources say
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 01, 2024 20:22
Updated :
Aug 01, 2024 20:22
A journalist casts a shadow next to logos on the day of the NATO 75th Anniversary celebratory event in Washington, US, July 9, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
Turkey has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said.
Israel carries the status of NATO partner and has fostered close relations with the military alliance and some of its members, notably its biggest ally the United States.
Prior to Israel's offensive in Gaza - prompted by Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct 7 rampage - NATO member Turkey had been working to mend its long-strained ties with Israel.
Since then, Ankara has been fiercely critical of Israel's operation in Gaza, which it says amounts to a genocide, and has halted all bilateral trade. It has also slammed many Western allies for their support of Israel.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Turkey had vetoed all NATO engagement with Israel since October, including joint meetings and exercises, viewing Israel's "massacre" of Palestinians in Gaza as a violation of NATO's founding principles.
A UN inquiry in June found that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war. It said Israel's actions constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. Israel rejects this and says its operation in Gaza, which has killed nearly 40,000 people, aims to eradicate Hamas.
The sources said Turkey would maintain this block and not allow Israel to continue or advance its interaction with NATO until there was an end to the conflict, as it believes Israel's actions in Gaza violate international law and universal human rights.
After a NATO summit in Washington in July, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said it was not possible for NATO to continue its partnership with the Israeli administration.
Earlier this week, Israel's foreign minister urged the alliance to expel Turkey after Erdogan appeared to threaten to enter Israel, as it had Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 01, 2024 20:22
Updated :
Aug 01, 2024 20:22
A journalist casts a shadow next to logos on the day of the NATO 75th Anniversary celebratory event in Washington, US, July 9, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo
Turkey has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict, sources familiar with the process said.
Israel carries the status of NATO partner and has fostered close relations with the military alliance and some of its members, notably its biggest ally the United States.
Prior to Israel's offensive in Gaza - prompted by Palestinian militant group Hamas' Oct 7 rampage - NATO member Turkey had been working to mend its long-strained ties with Israel.
Since then, Ankara has been fiercely critical of Israel's operation in Gaza, which it says amounts to a genocide, and has halted all bilateral trade. It has also slammed many Western allies for their support of Israel.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said Turkey had vetoed all NATO engagement with Israel since October, including joint meetings and exercises, viewing Israel's "massacre" of Palestinians in Gaza as a violation of NATO's founding principles.
A UN inquiry in June found that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war. It said Israel's actions constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. Israel rejects this and says its operation in Gaza, which has killed nearly 40,000 people, aims to eradicate Hamas.
The sources said Turkey would maintain this block and not allow Israel to continue or advance its interaction with NATO until there was an end to the conflict, as it believes Israel's actions in Gaza violate international law and universal human rights.
After a NATO summit in Washington in July, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said it was not possible for NATO to continue its partnership with the Israeli administration.
Earlier this week, Israel's foreign minister urged the alliance to expel Turkey after Erdogan appeared to threaten to enter Israel, as it had Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.
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Thousands bid farewell as Hamas chief laid to rest
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday after his killing in Tehran, an attack blamed on Israel that has heightened regional tensions as the...
www.newagebd.net
Thousands bid farewell as Hamas chief laid to rest
Agence France-Presse . Doha 03 August, 2024, 01:19
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday after his killing in Tehran, an attack blamed on Israel that has heightened regional tensions as the Gaza war dragged on.
Haniyeh was laid to rest in Lusail, north of the capital Doha, following funeral prayers at the Gulf emirate's largest mosque attended by thousands of people.
Haniyeh, the Palestinian armed group's political chief, played a key role in mediated talks aimed at ending nearly 10 months of war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The burial was restricted to a small number of people including one of Haniyeh's daughters, Sara, who shared a video on social media showing her pouring holy water over a pebble-topped grave before lowering her head to kiss it.
'In this moment, I buried my soul under the dirt and I departed. I departed with all the pain of the world in my ribs,' she captioned the video uploaded on X.
Mourners earlier on Friday lined up inside Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque, where Haniyeh's casket, draped in a Palestinian flag, was briefly carried in to the shouts of angry mourners.
Others prayed on mats outside in temperatures that reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit).
'He was a symbol, a resistance leader... people are angry,' said Taher Adel, 25, a Jordanian student residing in the Qatari capital.
Haniyeh's predecessor Khaled Meshaal spoke at the ceremony, saying the slain leader had 'served his cause, his people... and never abandoned them'.
Turkey and Pakistan announced a day of mourning on Friday to honour Haniyeh, while Hamas called for a 'day of furious rage'.
Many mourners in Doha wore scarves that combined the Palestinian flag with a checkered keffiyeh pattern and the message in English: 'Free Palestine'.
Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn 'hit' on their accommodation in Tehran Wednesday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said. Haniyeh was in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian a day earlier.
Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.
The killing of Qatar-based Haniyeh is among several incidents since April that have sent regional tensions soaring during the Gaza war, which has drawn in Iran-backed armed groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Iranian officials met with representatives of these groups on Wednesday to discuss the next steps, either 'a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party', a source close to Lebanon's Hezbollah movement told AFP.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant met with his visiting British counterpart John Healey on Friday and stressed 'the importance of establishing a coalition' to support 'Israel's defence against Iran and its proxies', Gallant's office said.
Military chief Herzi Halevi told troops Israel would respond 'very strongly' to any attacks, an army statement said.
France urged its nationals visiting Iran to leave 'due to the increased risk of a military escalation'.
During the Gaza war, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire, and did so again on Friday.
In Gaza, the civil defence agency reported several people killed in the territory's north, and Israel's military said it had killed around 30 militants near Rafah, in the south.
Haniyeh's assassination came hours after Israel struck a southern suburb of Beirut, killing Fuad Shukr, the military commander of Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah.
Haniyeh's deputy, Saleh al-Aruri, was killed in Beirut early this year.
On Thursday Israel confirmed the death of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in a July strike in Gaza.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
The fighting has sparked a dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. On Friday, the UN Satellite Centre said nearly two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza, or 151,265 structures, have been damaged or destroyed during the war.
On Thursday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh in Tehran, having earlier threatened 'harsh punishment' for his killing.
The New York Times, citing Middle Eastern officials, has reported that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device planted weeks ago at a Tehran guesthouse.
Asked about the report, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told journalists 'there was no other Israeli aerial attack... in all the Middle East' on the night of Shukr's killing in Lebanon.
Israel said Shukr's assassination—for which Hezbollah said retaliation was 'inevitable'—was a response to rocket fire which killed 12 youths last week in the annexed Golan Heights.
Iranian news agency Fars said the US report was a 'lie', insisting that the Hamas leader was killed by a 'projectile'.
Analyst Hugh Lovatt said Haniyeh's killing 'will mean that a ceasefire deal with Israel is now totally off of the table'.
The White House said US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and affirmed his commitment to defend Israel's security 'against all threats from Iran'.
'We have the basis for a ceasefire (in Gaza)... They should move on it now,' Biden told reporters after the call.
Agence France-Presse . Doha 03 August, 2024, 01:19
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday after his killing in Tehran, an attack blamed on Israel that has heightened regional tensions as the Gaza war dragged on.
Haniyeh was laid to rest in Lusail, north of the capital Doha, following funeral prayers at the Gulf emirate's largest mosque attended by thousands of people.
Haniyeh, the Palestinian armed group's political chief, played a key role in mediated talks aimed at ending nearly 10 months of war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The burial was restricted to a small number of people including one of Haniyeh's daughters, Sara, who shared a video on social media showing her pouring holy water over a pebble-topped grave before lowering her head to kiss it.
'In this moment, I buried my soul under the dirt and I departed. I departed with all the pain of the world in my ribs,' she captioned the video uploaded on X.
Mourners earlier on Friday lined up inside Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque, where Haniyeh's casket, draped in a Palestinian flag, was briefly carried in to the shouts of angry mourners.
Others prayed on mats outside in temperatures that reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit).
'He was a symbol, a resistance leader... people are angry,' said Taher Adel, 25, a Jordanian student residing in the Qatari capital.
Haniyeh's predecessor Khaled Meshaal spoke at the ceremony, saying the slain leader had 'served his cause, his people... and never abandoned them'.
Turkey and Pakistan announced a day of mourning on Friday to honour Haniyeh, while Hamas called for a 'day of furious rage'.
Many mourners in Doha wore scarves that combined the Palestinian flag with a checkered keffiyeh pattern and the message in English: 'Free Palestine'.
Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn 'hit' on their accommodation in Tehran Wednesday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said. Haniyeh was in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian a day earlier.
Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.
The killing of Qatar-based Haniyeh is among several incidents since April that have sent regional tensions soaring during the Gaza war, which has drawn in Iran-backed armed groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Iranian officials met with representatives of these groups on Wednesday to discuss the next steps, either 'a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party', a source close to Lebanon's Hezbollah movement told AFP.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant met with his visiting British counterpart John Healey on Friday and stressed 'the importance of establishing a coalition' to support 'Israel's defence against Iran and its proxies', Gallant's office said.
Military chief Herzi Halevi told troops Israel would respond 'very strongly' to any attacks, an army statement said.
France urged its nationals visiting Iran to leave 'due to the increased risk of a military escalation'.
During the Gaza war, Hezbollah and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire, and did so again on Friday.
In Gaza, the civil defence agency reported several people killed in the territory's north, and Israel's military said it had killed around 30 militants near Rafah, in the south.
Haniyeh's assassination came hours after Israel struck a southern suburb of Beirut, killing Fuad Shukr, the military commander of Lebanese Hamas ally Hezbollah.
Haniyeh's deputy, Saleh al-Aruri, was killed in Beirut early this year.
On Thursday Israel confirmed the death of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in a July strike in Gaza.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its October 7 attack that ignited the war in Gaza.
The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel's retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
The fighting has sparked a dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. On Friday, the UN Satellite Centre said nearly two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza, or 151,265 structures, have been damaged or destroyed during the war.
On Thursday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh in Tehran, having earlier threatened 'harsh punishment' for his killing.
The New York Times, citing Middle Eastern officials, has reported that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device planted weeks ago at a Tehran guesthouse.
Asked about the report, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told journalists 'there was no other Israeli aerial attack... in all the Middle East' on the night of Shukr's killing in Lebanon.
Israel said Shukr's assassination—for which Hezbollah said retaliation was 'inevitable'—was a response to rocket fire which killed 12 youths last week in the annexed Golan Heights.
Iranian news agency Fars said the US report was a 'lie', insisting that the Hamas leader was killed by a 'projectile'.
Analyst Hugh Lovatt said Haniyeh's killing 'will mean that a ceasefire deal with Israel is now totally off of the table'.
The White House said US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and affirmed his commitment to defend Israel's security 'against all threats from Iran'.
'We have the basis for a ceasefire (in Gaza)... They should move on it now,' Biden told reporters after the call.
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Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif killed in Gaza in July, Israel says
Published :
Aug 01, 2024 16:59
Updated :
Aug 01, 2024 17:01
The Israeli military announced on Thursday that a strike last month in the southern Gaza area of Khan Yunis had killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
The announcement came a day after the militant group's political leader Isamil Haniyeh was assassinated in Teheran.
"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) announces that on July 13th, 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike," the military said.
Deif is believed to have been one of the planners of Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel, which started the Gaza war, now ongoing for 300 days.
"Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th massacre," the military statement added.
The announcement coincided with crowds gathering in Tehran for the funeral of Haniyeh.
One of the most influential figures in Hamas, Deif has advanced through the group's ranks over 30 years, building its tunnel network and improving its bomb-making skills, AFP reported. He has been at the top of Israel's most wanted list for many years, held responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.
Published :
Aug 01, 2024 16:59
Updated :
Aug 01, 2024 17:01
The Israeli military announced on Thursday that a strike last month in the southern Gaza area of Khan Yunis had killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
The announcement came a day after the militant group's political leader Isamil Haniyeh was assassinated in Teheran.
"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) announces that on July 13th, 2024, IDF fighter jets struck in the area of Khan Yunis, and following an intelligence assessment, it can be confirmed that Mohammed Deif was eliminated in the strike," the military said.
Deif is believed to have been one of the planners of Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel, which started the Gaza war, now ongoing for 300 days.
"Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th massacre," the military statement added.
The announcement coincided with crowds gathering in Tehran for the funeral of Haniyeh.
One of the most influential figures in Hamas, Deif has advanced through the group's ranks over 30 years, building its tunnel network and improving its bomb-making skills, AFP reported. He has been at the top of Israel's most wanted list for many years, held responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.
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- Thread starter
- #267
Even in Palestine, birds shall return
ON JULY 26, senior United Nations officials briefed the UN Security Council about the terrible situation in Gaza. ‘More than two million people in Gaza remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale’, said deputy commissioner general Antonia De Meo of the...
www.newagebd.net
Even in Palestine, birds shall return
Vijay Prashad 04 August, 2024, 00:00
Charles Khoury (Lebanon), Untitled, 2020. | Dissident Voice
ON JULY 26, senior United Nations officials briefed the UN Security Council about the terrible situation in Gaza. 'More than two million people in Gaza remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale', said deputy commissioner general Antonia De Meo of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Within Gaza, the UN officials wrote, 625,000 children are trapped, 'their futures at risk'. The World Health Organisation has recorded 'outbreaks of hepatitis A and myriad other preventable diseases' and warns that it is 'just a matter of time' before a polio outbreak spreads amongst children. In early July, a letter in The Lancet from three scientists working in Canada, Palestine, and the United Kingdom suggested that if they applied a 'conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza'.
Two days before the UN Security Council meeting, on July 24, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed both chambers of the US Congress. Two months before this appearance, the International Criminal Court said it had 'reasonable grounds to believe' that Netanyahu bears 'criminal responsibility for… war crimes and crimes against humanity'. This judgment was utterly set aside by elected US representatives, who welcomed Netanyahu as if he were a conquering hero. Netanyahu's language was chilling: 'give us the tools faster, and we'll finish the job faster'. What is the 'job' that Netanyahu wants the Israeli military to finish? In January, the International Court of Justice reported a 'plausible claim of genocidal acts' by the Israeli army. So, is the 'job' that Israel wants to complete its genocide of the Palestinian people, accelerated by the increased provision of arms and funding by the US?
Despite Netanyahu's complaint that the US has not been sending sufficient weapons, in April the US government approved the sale of 50 F-15 bombers to Israel, worth $18 billion, and in early July said it would send nearly two thousand 500-pound bombs to be used in Gaza. Netanyahu wanted more then, and he wants more now. He wants to 'finish the job'. This genocidal language is sanctified by the US government, whose representatives accompanied the call for mass murder with a standing ovation.
Outside the halls of government, tens of thousands of people protested Netanyahu's visit to Congress. They are part of the phalanx of young people who have been involved in a cycle of protests against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and against the US government's total support of the violence. Netanyahu called the protestors 'Iran's useful idiots', a strange statement made by a foreign guest of the citizens who were exercising their democratic rights in their own country. The police used pepper spray and other forms of violence to contain the protests, which were peaceful and righteous.
While Washington welcomed the accused war criminal, Beijing hosted representatives of fourteen Palestinian factions who came to discuss their differences and find a way to build political unity against the Israeli genocide and colonisation. Just before Netanyahu entered the Congressional chamber, the fourteen representatives posed for a photograph at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Their agreement, the Beijing Declaration, advanced their commitment to work together against the genocide and the occupation and recognised that their disunity has only helped Israel.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a range of national liberation movements, such as those in South Africa and Palestine, were enfeebled and forced to make significant concessions in order to end conflicts with their colonisers. After several false starts, the apartheid regime in South Africa joined the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum in April 1993, which was the site of concessions made by the liberation forces (undermined by the assassination of communist leader Chris Hani that same month and by attacks from the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging). The negotiated transfer of power through the interim constitution of November 1993 did not dismantle structures of white power in South Africa. Meanwhile, in 1993 and 1995, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (agreed to the Oslo Accords, in which the PLO recognised the state of Israel and agreed to build a state of Palestine in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. Edward Said called the Oslo Accords a 'Palestinian Versailles', a judgment that seemed harsh at the time but which, in retrospect, is accurate.
Israel used the Oslo Accords to press its advantage, mainly by building illegal settlements across Palestinian land and by denying Palestinians the right to free passage through the three non-contiguous territories. In 1994, leading groups in the PLO created the Palestinian National Authority to bring the factions together in the new state project, but the groups that had rejected the Oslo Accords did not want to manage the occupation on Israel's behalf. In January 2006, Hamas won the largest bloc in the Palestinian legislative elections, with 74 out of the 132 seats, and by June 2007 Fatah and Hamas broke relations and ended the attempt to build a new, post-Oslo Palestinian national project.
In May 2006, from within Israel's harsh prisons, five Palestinians who represented the five main factions drafted the Prisoners' Document: Abdel Khaleq al-Natsh (Hamas), Abdel Raheem Malluh (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Bassam al-Saadi (Islamic Jihad), Marwan Barghouti (Fatah), and Mustafa Badarneh (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine). These five factions include two left formations, two Islamist formations, and the main national liberation platform. The eighteen-point document called upon various groups (including Hamas and Islamic Jihad) to reactivate the PLO as their joint platform, accept the Palestinian Authority as the 'nucleus of the future state', and retain the right to resist the occupation. In June, all parties signed a second draft of the document. Despite attempts to create unity, including during the Israeli assault on Gaza known as Operation Summer Rains (June to November 2006), no such convergence was possible. The animosity between the Palestinian factions remained.
This disunity has provided ample space for the Israeli occupation to deepen and for Palestinians to flounder without a central political project. Several attempts to bring Palestinian political groups into a serious dialogue have failed to provide any forward motion, including in Cairo in May 2011 and October 2017 and in Algiers in October 2022. Since last year, the Chinese government has worked with various regional states to invite the fourteen main Palestinian factions to Beijing for reconciliation talks. These factions are:
Vijay Prashad 04 August, 2024, 00:00
Charles Khoury (Lebanon), Untitled, 2020. | Dissident Voice
ON JULY 26, senior United Nations officials briefed the UN Security Council about the terrible situation in Gaza. 'More than two million people in Gaza remain trapped in an endless nightmare of death and destruction on a staggering scale', said deputy commissioner general Antonia De Meo of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Within Gaza, the UN officials wrote, 625,000 children are trapped, 'their futures at risk'. The World Health Organisation has recorded 'outbreaks of hepatitis A and myriad other preventable diseases' and warns that it is 'just a matter of time' before a polio outbreak spreads amongst children. In early July, a letter in The Lancet from three scientists working in Canada, Palestine, and the United Kingdom suggested that if they applied a 'conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza'.
Two days before the UN Security Council meeting, on July 24, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed both chambers of the US Congress. Two months before this appearance, the International Criminal Court said it had 'reasonable grounds to believe' that Netanyahu bears 'criminal responsibility for… war crimes and crimes against humanity'. This judgment was utterly set aside by elected US representatives, who welcomed Netanyahu as if he were a conquering hero. Netanyahu's language was chilling: 'give us the tools faster, and we'll finish the job faster'. What is the 'job' that Netanyahu wants the Israeli military to finish? In January, the International Court of Justice reported a 'plausible claim of genocidal acts' by the Israeli army. So, is the 'job' that Israel wants to complete its genocide of the Palestinian people, accelerated by the increased provision of arms and funding by the US?
Despite Netanyahu's complaint that the US has not been sending sufficient weapons, in April the US government approved the sale of 50 F-15 bombers to Israel, worth $18 billion, and in early July said it would send nearly two thousand 500-pound bombs to be used in Gaza. Netanyahu wanted more then, and he wants more now. He wants to 'finish the job'. This genocidal language is sanctified by the US government, whose representatives accompanied the call for mass murder with a standing ovation.
Outside the halls of government, tens of thousands of people protested Netanyahu's visit to Congress. They are part of the phalanx of young people who have been involved in a cycle of protests against the Israeli genocide of Palestinians and against the US government's total support of the violence. Netanyahu called the protestors 'Iran's useful idiots', a strange statement made by a foreign guest of the citizens who were exercising their democratic rights in their own country. The police used pepper spray and other forms of violence to contain the protests, which were peaceful and righteous.
While Washington welcomed the accused war criminal, Beijing hosted representatives of fourteen Palestinian factions who came to discuss their differences and find a way to build political unity against the Israeli genocide and colonisation. Just before Netanyahu entered the Congressional chamber, the fourteen representatives posed for a photograph at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Their agreement, the Beijing Declaration, advanced their commitment to work together against the genocide and the occupation and recognised that their disunity has only helped Israel.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a range of national liberation movements, such as those in South Africa and Palestine, were enfeebled and forced to make significant concessions in order to end conflicts with their colonisers. After several false starts, the apartheid regime in South Africa joined the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum in April 1993, which was the site of concessions made by the liberation forces (undermined by the assassination of communist leader Chris Hani that same month and by attacks from the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging). The negotiated transfer of power through the interim constitution of November 1993 did not dismantle structures of white power in South Africa. Meanwhile, in 1993 and 1995, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (agreed to the Oslo Accords, in which the PLO recognised the state of Israel and agreed to build a state of Palestine in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. Edward Said called the Oslo Accords a 'Palestinian Versailles', a judgment that seemed harsh at the time but which, in retrospect, is accurate.
Israel used the Oslo Accords to press its advantage, mainly by building illegal settlements across Palestinian land and by denying Palestinians the right to free passage through the three non-contiguous territories. In 1994, leading groups in the PLO created the Palestinian National Authority to bring the factions together in the new state project, but the groups that had rejected the Oslo Accords did not want to manage the occupation on Israel's behalf. In January 2006, Hamas won the largest bloc in the Palestinian legislative elections, with 74 out of the 132 seats, and by June 2007 Fatah and Hamas broke relations and ended the attempt to build a new, post-Oslo Palestinian national project.
In May 2006, from within Israel's harsh prisons, five Palestinians who represented the five main factions drafted the Prisoners' Document: Abdel Khaleq al-Natsh (Hamas), Abdel Raheem Malluh (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Bassam al-Saadi (Islamic Jihad), Marwan Barghouti (Fatah), and Mustafa Badarneh (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine). These five factions include two left formations, two Islamist formations, and the main national liberation platform. The eighteen-point document called upon various groups (including Hamas and Islamic Jihad) to reactivate the PLO as their joint platform, accept the Palestinian Authority as the 'nucleus of the future state', and retain the right to resist the occupation. In June, all parties signed a second draft of the document. Despite attempts to create unity, including during the Israeli assault on Gaza known as Operation Summer Rains (June to November 2006), no such convergence was possible. The animosity between the Palestinian factions remained.
This disunity has provided ample space for the Israeli occupation to deepen and for Palestinians to flounder without a central political project. Several attempts to bring Palestinian political groups into a serious dialogue have failed to provide any forward motion, including in Cairo in May 2011 and October 2017 and in Algiers in October 2022. Since last year, the Chinese government has worked with various regional states to invite the fourteen main Palestinian factions to Beijing for reconciliation talks. These factions are:
- Arab Liberation Front
- As-Sa'iqa
- Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- Fatah
- Hamas
- Islamic Jihad Movement
- Palestinian Arab Front
- Palestinian Democratic Union
- Palestinian Liberation Front
- Palestinian National Initiative
- Palestinian People's Party
- Palestinian Popular Struggle Front
- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (General Command)
The Beijing Declaration, repeating the formulations in the Prisoners' Document, called for a Palestinian state to be established, for Palestinians' right to resist the occupation to be respected, for Palestinian political groups to form an 'interim national consensus government', and for the PLO and its institutions to be strengthened in order to advance their role in the struggle against Israel. Though the declaration, of course, called for an immediate ceasefire and an end to settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, its main focus was on political unity.
Whether this Chinese-brokered process will yield results when Palestinians sit down with Israelis is to be seen. Yet it nonetheless marks an advance in this direction and a possible turning point in the collapse of a unified Palestinian project that began in the wake of the 1995 Oslo II agreement. The Beijing Declaration is diametrically opposed to the vehemence of Netanyahu's speech in the US Congress: the latter genocidal and dangerous, the former seeks peace in a complex world.
Fadwa Tuqan (1917–2003), one of Palestine's most wondrous poets, wrote 'The Deluge and the Tree'. The fall of the tree, beaten down by the deluge, was not its end but a new beginning.
When the Tree rises up, the branches
shall flourish green and fresh in the sun,
the laughter of the Tree shall blossom
beneath the sun
and birds shall return.
Undoubtedly, the birds shall return.
The birds shall return.
The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (1962–2024) in Tehran (Iran) has made the situation deeply difficult, and will make it difficult for the birds to sing.
DissidentVoice.org, August 1. Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian and journalist, is author of 25 books, including The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South.
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Israeli airstrikes kill nine in West Bank, including a Hamas commander
An Israeli airstrike in the occupied West Bank killed a Hamas commander and four Islamic Jihad fighters on Saturday, the militant groups' media reported, and the Israeli military said it had killed four more gunmen in a separate strike. The Israeli military said the first airstrike hit a vehicle i
Israeli airstrikes kill nine in West Bank, including a Hamas commander
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 03, 2024 19:47
Updated :
Aug 03, 2024 19:47
Palestinians inspect a vehicle damaged in an Israeli airstrike, in Zeita, near Tulkarm, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 3, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
An Israeli airstrike in the occupied West Bank killed a Hamas commander and four Islamic Jihad fighters on Saturday, the militant groups' media reported, and the Israeli military said it had killed four more gunmen in a separate strike.
The Israeli military said the first airstrike hit a vehicle in a town near the city of Tulkarm, targeting a militant cell it said was on its way to carry out an attack. A Hamas media outlet said a vehicle carrying fighters had been struck and that one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkarm brigades.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups claimed the other four men as its fighters.
Hours later, a second strike targeted another group of armed militants who had fired on troops, Israel's military said, during what it described as a counter-terrorism operation in Tulkarm.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said five men had been killed in the first strike and WAFA said four people died in the second. It said their identities were not immediately clear.
Violence in the West Bank was on the rise before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and has risen since, with frequent Israeli raids in the territory, which is among those that the Palestinians seek for a state.
There has also been an increase in anti-Israeli street attacks by Palestinians.
GAZA STRIKES
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli airstrikes killed six people in a house in the southern area of Rafah on Saturday and two others in Gaza City, further north, Gaza health officials said.
At least 31 Palestinians were killed across the enclave on Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The Israeli military said its forces had struck militants and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in Rafah and elsewhere in the enclave.
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. The offensive was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted, according to Israeli tallies.
An Israeli delegation was due in Cairo over the weekend to discuss a possible hostage release and Gaza ceasefire deal.
Chances of a breakthrough appear low as regional tension has soared following the assassination of Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, a day after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a top military commander from Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Haniyeh's death was one in a series of killings of senior Hamas figures as the Gaza war nears its 11th month and concern grows that the conflict is spreading across the Middle East.
Hamas and Iran have both accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and have pledged to retaliate. Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the death.
Hezbollah, like Hamas, is backed by Iran and has also vowed revenge.
REUTERS
Published :
Aug 03, 2024 19:47
Updated :
Aug 03, 2024 19:47
Palestinians inspect a vehicle damaged in an Israeli airstrike, in Zeita, near Tulkarm, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 3, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta
An Israeli airstrike in the occupied West Bank killed a Hamas commander and four Islamic Jihad fighters on Saturday, the militant groups' media reported, and the Israeli military said it had killed four more gunmen in a separate strike.
The Israeli military said the first airstrike hit a vehicle in a town near the city of Tulkarm, targeting a militant cell it said was on its way to carry out an attack. A Hamas media outlet said a vehicle carrying fighters had been struck and that one of those killed was a commander of its Tulkarm brigades.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups claimed the other four men as its fighters.
Hours later, a second strike targeted another group of armed militants who had fired on troops, Israel's military said, during what it described as a counter-terrorism operation in Tulkarm.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said five men had been killed in the first strike and WAFA said four people died in the second. It said their identities were not immediately clear.
Violence in the West Bank was on the rise before the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and has risen since, with frequent Israeli raids in the territory, which is among those that the Palestinians seek for a state.
There has also been an increase in anti-Israeli street attacks by Palestinians.
GAZA STRIKES
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli airstrikes killed six people in a house in the southern area of Rafah on Saturday and two others in Gaza City, further north, Gaza health officials said.
At least 31 Palestinians were killed across the enclave on Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.
The Israeli military said its forces had struck militants and destroyed Hamas infrastructure in Rafah and elsewhere in the enclave.
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. The offensive was triggered by a Hamas attack on southern Israel on Oct 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 abducted, according to Israeli tallies.
An Israeli delegation was due in Cairo over the weekend to discuss a possible hostage release and Gaza ceasefire deal.
Chances of a breakthrough appear low as regional tension has soared following the assassination of Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday, a day after an Israeli strike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, a top military commander from Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Haniyeh's death was one in a series of killings of senior Hamas figures as the Gaza war nears its 11th month and concern grows that the conflict is spreading across the Middle East.
Hamas and Iran have both accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and have pledged to retaliate. Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the death.
Hezbollah, like Hamas, is backed by Iran and has also vowed revenge.
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Israel strike kills 17 at school compound: Gaza officials
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli bombardment of a school compound in Gaza City killed at least 17 people Saturday, as Israel's military reported it had hit a Hamas command centre.
en.prothomalo.com
Israel strike kills 17 at school compound: Gaza officials
AFP Gaza Strip
Published: 04 Aug 2024, 11: 31
Palestinians inspect the site of Israeli strikes on a school sheltering displaced people, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Gaza City, 4 August, 2024.Reuters
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli bombardment of a school compound in Gaza City killed at least 17 people Saturday, as Israel's military reported it had hit a Hamas command centre.
"There are 17 martyrs and several wounded due to Israeli shelling on Hamama school," the agency said in a statement, updating an earlier toll of 10 killed.
The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it had hit a Hamas command and control centre located inside the compound.
At least 30 dead in Gaza school airstrike, Israel says targeted militants
Earlier, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the compound was housing Palestinians displaced from their homes in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants.
Israel's military said the compound was being used by Hamas militants to manufacture weapons, adding it was a "hiding place for Hamas terrorists".
It has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilian facilities as command and control centres or to hide their commanders and militants. The Palestinian group denies the accusation.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October, which resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel's military campaign has killed at least 39,550 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
AFP Gaza Strip
Published: 04 Aug 2024, 11: 31
Palestinians inspect the site of Israeli strikes on a school sheltering displaced people, amid Israel-Hamas conflict, in Gaza City, 4 August, 2024.Reuters
Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli bombardment of a school compound in Gaza City killed at least 17 people Saturday, as Israel's military reported it had hit a Hamas command centre.
"There are 17 martyrs and several wounded due to Israeli shelling on Hamama school," the agency said in a statement, updating an earlier toll of 10 killed.
The Israeli military confirmed the strike, saying it had hit a Hamas command and control centre located inside the compound.
At least 30 dead in Gaza school airstrike, Israel says targeted militants
Earlier, civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the compound was housing Palestinians displaced from their homes in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants.
Israel's military said the compound was being used by Hamas militants to manufacture weapons, adding it was a "hiding place for Hamas terrorists".
It has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilian facilities as command and control centres or to hide their commanders and militants. The Palestinian group denies the accusation.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7 October, which resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 111 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel's military campaign has killed at least 39,550 people, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.
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- #270
Fears of Middle East war grow after Hamas leader's killing
US would move warships and fighter jets to the region, while Western governments called on their citizens to leave Lebanon
en.prothomalo.com
Fears of Middle East war grow after Hamas leader's killing
AFP Beirut
Updated: 04 Aug 2024, 09: 21
Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system over the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel, on 4 August, 2024.AFP
Middle East tensions soared Saturday as Iran and its allies readied their response to the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, spurring fears of a regional war.
Israel ally the United States said it would move warships and fighter jets to the region, while Western governments called on their citizens to leave Lebanon -- where the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement is based -- and airlines cancelled flights.
The killing this week of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, hours after the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah's military chief in Beirut, has triggered vows of vengeance from Iran and the so-called "axis of resistance".
Iran-backed groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
Israel on Saturday again traded fire with Hezbollah, carried out a deadly raid in the occupied West Bank, and struck a school compound in Gaza City in an attack that the Hamas-ruled territory's civil defence agency said killed at least 17 people.
Numerous schools turned into displacement shelters have been hit across Gaza in recent weeks, with Israel insisting the facilities had been used by militants. Hamas denied using civilian infrastructure for military activities.
Haniyeh was buried on Friday in Qatar, where he had been based. Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack, has not directly commented on it.
Iran said on Saturday it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.
The Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.
It said an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln would be deployed, as well as additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers and a new fighter squadron.
US President Joe Biden, at his beach home in Delaware, was asked by reporters if he thought Iran would stand down.
"I hope so," he said. "I don't know."
Soon after, Hezbollah announced it had fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at the northern Israeli settlement of Beit Hillel.
They said it was in response to an Israeli attack on Kfar Kela and Deir Siriane in southern Lebanon which, it said, had injured civilians.
Earlier Saturday, Hezbollah announced the deaths of two of its fighters, including a 17-year-old from Deir Siriane.
Take 'any ticket available'
In Beirut, 20-year-old student Diana Abu Aasel told AFP she feared "something bad will happen to my family and friends.
"If there is war, I don't think I will be able to bear staying" in Lebanon, she said.
Crowds of thousands rallied Saturday in Morocco, Jordan and Turkey to denounce Haniyeh's killing and show solidarity with Palestinians, AFP correspondents reported.
Haniyeh's killing is among a series of attacks since April that have heightened fears of a regional conflagration.
His death came hours after Israel struck south Beirut, killing Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.
Both Britain and the United States on Satuday urged their citizens in Lebanon to leave immediately.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its unprecedented 7 October attack which triggered war in Gaza and resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel's campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,550 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Haniyeh was Hamas's lead negotiator in efforts to end the war. His killing raised questions about the continued viability of efforts by Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators to broker a truce and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Hamas officials but also some analysts and protesters in Israel have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war to safeguard his ruling hard-right coalition.
Protesters in several Israeli cities Saturday renewed their calls for a hostage-release deal.
Disease spreading in Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately with his French and British counterparts on Saturday about the situation in the Middle East, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Blinken, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne all agreed on the need for restraint on all sides in the region, Miller said in a statement.
Violence has also surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian official sources said two Israeli air strikes killed nine people in the north of the territory Saturday.
The military said it had "eliminated terrorist cells".
The war in Gaza has caused widespread destruction and displaced almost the entire population of the territory where, the UN said on Friday, public health conditions "continue to deteriorate".
It said nearly 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, spread by contaminated food and water, have been reported since the war began.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since October, saying it is acting in support of Hamas.
Several airlines have suspended flights to Beirut and Tel Aviv.
Flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain halted until at least Tuesday, their parent company said Saturday.
Turkish Airlines on Saturday cancelled its night-time flights to Tehran for the second night running, AFP correspondents noted.
AFP Beirut
Updated: 04 Aug 2024, 09: 21
Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system over the Upper Galilee region in northern Israel, on 4 August, 2024.AFP
Middle East tensions soared Saturday as Iran and its allies readied their response to the assassination of Hamas's political leader, blamed on Israel, spurring fears of a regional war.
Israel ally the United States said it would move warships and fighter jets to the region, while Western governments called on their citizens to leave Lebanon -- where the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement is based -- and airlines cancelled flights.
The killing this week of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, hours after the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah's military chief in Beirut, has triggered vows of vengeance from Iran and the so-called "axis of resistance".
Iran-backed groups from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria have already been drawn into the nearly 10-month war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
Israel on Saturday again traded fire with Hezbollah, carried out a deadly raid in the occupied West Bank, and struck a school compound in Gaza City in an attack that the Hamas-ruled territory's civil defence agency said killed at least 17 people.
Numerous schools turned into displacement shelters have been hit across Gaza in recent weeks, with Israel insisting the facilities had been used by militants. Hamas denied using civilian infrastructure for military activities.
Haniyeh was buried on Friday in Qatar, where he had been based. Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack, has not directly commented on it.
Iran said on Saturday it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.
The Pentagon said it was bolstering its military presence in the Middle East to protect US personnel and defend Israel.
It said an aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln would be deployed, as well as additional ballistic missile defence-capable cruisers and destroyers and a new fighter squadron.
US President Joe Biden, at his beach home in Delaware, was asked by reporters if he thought Iran would stand down.
"I hope so," he said. "I don't know."
Soon after, Hezbollah announced it had fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at the northern Israeli settlement of Beit Hillel.
They said it was in response to an Israeli attack on Kfar Kela and Deir Siriane in southern Lebanon which, it said, had injured civilians.
Earlier Saturday, Hezbollah announced the deaths of two of its fighters, including a 17-year-old from Deir Siriane.
Take 'any ticket available'
In Beirut, 20-year-old student Diana Abu Aasel told AFP she feared "something bad will happen to my family and friends.
"If there is war, I don't think I will be able to bear staying" in Lebanon, she said.
Crowds of thousands rallied Saturday in Morocco, Jordan and Turkey to denounce Haniyeh's killing and show solidarity with Palestinians, AFP correspondents reported.
Haniyeh's killing is among a series of attacks since April that have heightened fears of a regional conflagration.
His death came hours after Israel struck south Beirut, killing Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr.
Both Britain and the United States on Satuday urged their citizens in Lebanon to leave immediately.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for its unprecedented 7 October attack which triggered war in Gaza and resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel's campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,550 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Haniyeh was Hamas's lead negotiator in efforts to end the war. His killing raised questions about the continued viability of efforts by Qatari, Egyptian and US mediators to broker a truce and exchange of hostages and prisoners.
Hamas officials but also some analysts and protesters in Israel have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war to safeguard his ruling hard-right coalition.
Protesters in several Israeli cities Saturday renewed their calls for a hostage-release deal.
Disease spreading in Gaza
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke separately with his French and British counterparts on Saturday about the situation in the Middle East, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Blinken, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne all agreed on the need for restraint on all sides in the region, Miller said in a statement.
Violence has also surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian official sources said two Israeli air strikes killed nine people in the north of the territory Saturday.
The military said it had "eliminated terrorist cells".
The war in Gaza has caused widespread destruction and displaced almost the entire population of the territory where, the UN said on Friday, public health conditions "continue to deteriorate".
It said nearly 40,000 cases of Hepatitis A, spread by contaminated food and water, have been reported since the war began.
Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since October, saying it is acting in support of Hamas.
Several airlines have suspended flights to Beirut and Tel Aviv.
Flights to Beirut by Air France and low-cost carrier Transavia France will remain halted until at least Tuesday, their parent company said Saturday.
Turkish Airlines on Saturday cancelled its night-time flights to Tehran for the second night running, AFP correspondents noted.
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