[🇧🇩] Monitoring Israel and Lebanon War

[Saif]

I have many Nepalis working here with me in my office. India, Nepal has visa less commutation. Only, both government has some issues. Basically, Nepalis and Indias are brothers with same culture. We love one other. I do not remember any conflict between Nepalis and Hindus ever like what I have seen between Hindus and Muslims and Among Differant groups of Muslims Themselves. Lucknow has a long history of Riots between Shias and Sunnis. In Kashmir, Wahabis did not spare any Sufi Shrine. Forget about Hindu temples. Security gus in our flat is a Nepali guy. The guy who cleans my car is a Nepali. They are very happy to work with Hindus in India. We have over 5 million Nepalis working in India. Infact, they are given preferential treatment over other locals.

Read the entire article below:

Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura: The border areas which stoked India-Nepal currency row

India reacted to the row, stating Nepal’s actions will not change the ground reality

www.theweek.in

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Read the entire article below:

Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura: The border areas which stoked India-Nepal currency row

India reacted to the row, stating Nepal’s actions will not change the ground reality

www.theweek.in

It proves nothing, This sort of Small issues keep happening and gets resolved. Haven't Muslims in BD have killed fellow Muslims of same country? Hindus and Nepalis have far better relations than what Sia -Sunnis have amongst themselves. Nepalis and Hindus have far superior relations than any Muslim groups have amongst themselves.

 

[Saif]

It proves nothing, This sort of Small issues keep happening and gets resolved. Haven't Muslims in BD have killed fellow Muslims of same country? Hindus and Nepalis have far better relations than what Sia -Sunnis have amongst themselves. Nepalis and Hindus have far superior relations than any Muslim groups have amongst themselves.

Small issue? You think territorial dispute is a small issue. Territorial dispute challenges your sovereignty.

 

[Saif]

1,552 killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since Sept 23

More than 1,550 people have been killed in bombardment by Israel since it intensified its air campaign on Lebanon last month, according to an AFP tally updated with...

www.newagebd.net

1,552 killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon since Sept 23
Agence France-Presse . Beirut, Lebanon 23 October, 2024, 01:39

More than 1,550 people have been killed in bombardment by Israel since it intensified its air campaign on Lebanon last month, according to an AFP tally updated with new figures released on Tuesday.

Lebanon’s health ministry reported 63 killed in ‘Israeli enemy strikes on Lebanon’ Monday, raising the death toll from an strike near a south Beirut hospital to 18. The real toll is likely to be higher due to data gaps.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken was in Israel Tuesday to push for a ceasefire in Gaza after his administration called for an end to the war in Lebanon ‘as soon as possible’.

It is his 11th trip to the Middle East since Hamas’s attack on Israel more than a year ago triggered the Gaza war, and his first since Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah escalated late last month.

He is due to meet prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials, as Israel weighs its response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack.

In Lebanon, Israel hit an area of south Beirut housing the country’s largest public health facility, killing 13 people, according to the health ministry.

The Rafic Hariri Hospital, located outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds, sustained minor damage in the strike which flattened four buildings in its vicinity, said an AFP correspondent in the area.

Previous US efforts to end the Gaza war and contain the regional fallout have failed, as did a bid spearheaded by president Joe Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron to secure a temporary ceasefire in Lebanon.

After Israel, Blinken will visit Jordan on Wednesday and discuss humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip, an official on the plane with him said.

Blinken also plans to speak to Israeli leaders about the expected strike on Iran and discourage any move that could massively escalate regional conflict, the official said.

On Monday, US envoy to Lebanon Amos Hochstein said his administration was seeking an end to the war ‘as soon as possible’ as he pushed for a ceasefire based on a UN resolution that had ended an earlier Israel-Hezbollah war.

Under resolution 1701, Hezbollah should have withdrawn from areas in south Lebanon near the Israeli border, leaving only the country’s weak military and UN peacekeepers deployed there.

But Hezbollah remained south of Lebanon’s Litani River, and in October last year began launching low-intensity cross-border strikes into Israel, in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.

After nearly a year of war in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to Lebanon, vowing to secure its northern border to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by the cross-border fire to return to their homes.

The strike on Monday night came as Israel targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs with heavy fire following evacuation warnings.

The densely populated Ouzai neighbourhood a few kilometres from the city centre was hit for the first time in the conflict, sparking an exodus of residents.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Hezbollah’s naval unit, and that it had issued an evacuation warning.

A Lebanese security official said that the country’s national airline had to switch landing strips after Israeli strikes near Beirut’s only international airport hit close to the main runway.

Hezbollah on Tuesday said it launched rockets targeting two positions in the suburbs of Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv, including an intelligence base.

It also said it targeted Israel’s ‘Stella Maris naval base’ near the northern city of Haifa, and that its militants had clashed with Israeli troops near a village at the border.

In a war-hit area along the Lebanese border, AFP footage showed huge clouds of smoke rising following Israeli strikes on the village of Khiam, as trails of smoke from Hezbollah rockets fired towards Israel could also be seen.

The wars in Gaza and Lebanon have also drawn in other Iran-aligned armed groups, including in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.

Iran on Tuesday said it had received assurances from its neighbours that they would not allow the use of their airspace for any attack against it, after Israel pledged to hit back against its October 1 missile attack.

In the Gaza Strip, Israel launched a major air and ground assault in northern Gaza earlier this month, vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping in the area.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said four Palestinians were killed in strikes on Monday, while several homes were blown up in the northern area of Jabalia, a focal point of the recent fighting.

A displaced resident said Jabalia ‘is being wiped out’.

‘If we don’t die from the bombing and gunfire, we will die of hunger,’ said 42-year-old Umm Firas Shamiyah, demanding aid be sent to the north.

Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have fled the assault on northern Gaza, and according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees around 4,00,000 people were trapped in the area last week.

The UN has warned of the risk of famine in Gaza, its figures showing that 396 aid trucks have entered the territory so far this month — far below the 3,003 seen in September.

The war was sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed 42,718 people, a majority civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, figures the UN considers reliable.​

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Small issue? You think territorial dispute is a small issue. Territorial dispute challenges your sovereignty.

Small issue for big and powerful country. May be big issue for small and weak country.

 

[Saif]

Small issue for big and powerful country. May be big issue for small and weak country.

I thought big and powerful countries were more serious about their territorial integrity and sovereignty. But as per your argument, India is the only big and powerful country which has no regards for its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

I thought big and powerful countries were more serious about their territorial integrity and sovereignty. But as per your argument, India is the only big and powerful country which has no regards for its territorial integrity and sovereignty.

We regard our as well as our neighbour's territorial integrity. Have we ever tried to take away BD land since 1971? Have we tried to grab the land of Bhutan? Did we try to capture Maldives? You are saying this because you don't have the experience of a neighbour like China. We always respected our neighbour's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

 

[Saif]

We regard our as well as our neighbour's territorial integrity. Have we ever tried to take away BD land since 1971? Have we tried to grab the land of Bhutan? Did we try to capture Maldives? You are saying this because you don't have the experience of a neighbour like China. We always respected our neighbour's territorial integrity and sovereignty.

If India didn't want to take its neighbors land, then why did India sponsor insurgency in Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh and in North Eastern part of Sri Lanka to create Tamil Elam by providing arms and training to Tamil Tigers?

 

[Krishna with Flute]

If India didn't want to take its neighbors land, then why did India sponsor insurgency in Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh and in North Eastern part of Sri Lanka to create Tamil Elam by providing arms and training to Tamil Tigers?

There is no remedy to false belief. We do not want to push any insurgency. Had we had any such design, we would have done it in 1971 or in few years post that.

So far as Tamil Elam is concern, it was India which helped SL to fight with Talim Elam. We send their peace keeping force because of which our PM assassinated. SL would have never defeated Talim Elam without the help of India. We sacrificed over 800 soldiers defending SL from Tamil Elam. Your country would not have got Independent without the Indian help and sacrifice of 4500 Indian soldier. Inspite of all these helps, our small neighbors have remained thankless. Not only they have remained thankless, but they have tried to act against Indian interest.

 

[Saif]

Israel & the violation of states' sovereignty

Israel's relentless pounding of Beirut raises the critical question of how powerful states in our times as also earlier have with impunity violated the sovereignty of weaker nations. The tragedy at this point is that Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist-dominated government in Tel Aviv are not bein

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel & the violation of states' sovereignty
Syed Badrul Ahsan
Published :
Oct 23, 2024 22:01
Updated :
Oct 23, 2024 22:01

Smoke billows following Israeli airstrikes in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon on October 19, 2024 Photo : Xinhua

Israel's relentless pounding of Beirut raises the critical question of how powerful states in our times as also earlier have with impunity violated the sovereignty of weaker nations. The tragedy at this point is that Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist-dominated government in Tel Aviv are not being forcefully persuaded by the world's influential powers into calling a halt to their aggressive acts. The genocide in Gaza goes on; influential leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have systematically been targeted and killed by Israeli forces; not even senior Iranian military figures have been spared.

And now it is Lebanon whose territorial integrity and sovereignty are under assault by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Israel's friends in the West have done little to convince Tel Aviv that its actions have now reached a point where a wider conflagration could be staring the world in the face. Israel now plans an assault on Iran in light of the latter's missile attack on the former earlier this month. Israel goes on bombing busy neighbourhoods in Beirut in search of Hezbollah, who along with Hamas have vowed to carry on with their military campaign against the Netanyahu government. The recent drone attack on Netanyahu's home is a reflection of how conditions are spiralling out of control of all the elements involved in the current crisis.

The brazenness of Israeli actions in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are once again a reminder of how nations have historically suffered through the aggressive designs of states that have had no qualms in violating the independence of other states. It is such actions which have belied the pious calls for peace to descend on the world. In real terms, peace has never been part of the global landscape for as long as one can remember. In our times, the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet forces in December 1979 was an early indication of the chaos that would descend on Kabul and keep it in its grip for decades. The Soviets were compelled to beat a retreat from Afghanistan in Gorbachev times, but that was no hint that the country, by then a state ravaged by war and internecine tribal conflict, would get back to being a normal state.

The entry of the United States (US), Britain and other western powers into Afghanistan in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York pushed Kabul into a new phase of instability and chaos that would last twenty years before President Biden announced a precipitate departure from the country in August 2021. Afghanistan simply fell like a ripe fruit back into the hands of the Taliban. The ramifications are today only too obvious: the Soviet and US-led invasions of Afghanistan have left the country a wasteland over which medieval barbarism rules in the shape of the Taliban. Kabul's sovereignty was crushed in those two invasions. And when one observes Iraq, whose sovereignty was brutally undercut by the US and Britain in 2003 on the basis of a lie about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction, it is a broken country riven by sectarian conflict which has not been able to reclaim its self-esteem.

In the course of the Second World War (WW2), Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler together engineered the destruction of the independent state of Poland, an act which reflected the impunity with which leaders of dominant states went into ruining lives in countries they intended to claim for themselves or destroy. Add to that the Nazi invasions of France and other countries in Europe, militarism which would eventually leave a world in ruins. When nations violate the sovereignty of other nations, it is the floodgates to larger disasters that are thrown open. One could speak here of the brutality with which the Soviet Union, in 1956, crushed Imre Nagy's rebellion in Hungary.

Budapest clearly wanted out of the communist system imposed on eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War, but Stalin's successors would have none of it. The Soviet action only added to a deepening of the Cold War. In conditions similar to 1956, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact powers sent in tanks and armoured vehicles into Prague to demolish Alexander Dubcek's Prague Spring in 1968. Gustav Husak, installed in office by Leonid Brezhnev, would be condemned to presiding over a Soviet vassal state until a movement more successful than Dubcek's, that led by Vaclav Havel, would send communism packing in Czechoslovakia.

There have been invasions that have aroused ridicule among observers of global politics around the world. Ronald Reagan's invasion of Granada, in alliance with six Caribbean countries, in 1983 did little to enhance respect for Washington, which had already paid a price for its policy in Vietnam and its invasion of Cambodia in the Nixon-Kissinger years. Any invasion of a sovereign country often leaves reputations in tatters. Henry Kissinger was never able to outlive the opprobrium associated with the Cambodia invasion in 1970.

The military in Indonesia, led by General Suharto, invaded East Timor in late 1975 and kept the country under brutal occupation till Jakarta was forced to relinquish its hold and have East Timor, today's Timor Leste, emerge once again as an independent state. The occupation of East Timor will be remembered as a dark moment in the history of the Indonesian military, which also must grapple with the record of the serious human rights violations it engaged in following the fall of President Ahmed Sukarno from power.

Turkey's invasion of Cyprus in 1974 effectively destroyed any chance of a resolution of the conflict on the island between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The island remains divided, with two administrations operating in their separate patches of territory. Closer to our times, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has caused a crisis which has affected almost the entire globe. While Moscow and Kyiv fight it out, it is the economies of nations dependent on oil and food imports and exports which take the brunt of the crisis. Vladimir Putin, for all his worries about Nato getting closer to his country's borders, clearly made a mistake when he decided to launch an assault on Ukraine. The crisis is now one where Putin cannot win and a situation where the West will not have Volodymyr Zelenskyy lose.

Israel's battering of Lebanon raises the uncomfortable question: Are invasions and bombardments of sovereign nations by aggressor-states now fast acquiring legitimacy? The next question follows: Is a rules-based international order now obsolete, with entities like the United Nations (UN) as helpless as was the League of Nations prior to 1939?​

 

[Saif]

Israel army issues new evacuation call for south Lebanon city of Tyre

The Israeli army called on residents of parts of the south Lebanon city of Tyre to evacuate on Wednesday

en.prothomalo.com

Israel army issues new evacuation call for south Lebanon city of Tyre
AFP
Jerusalem
Published: 23 Oct 2024, 12: 06

Smokes rise, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Tyre, southern Lebanon on 23 September 2024.Reuters
The Israeli army called on residents of parts of the south Lebanon city of Tyre to evacuate on Wednesday ahead of military operations targeting Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The army’s Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee posted a map of the affected streets in Tyre on social media platform X, saying: “You must immediately move out of the area marked in red and head north of the Awali River.

Anyone who is near Hezbollah elements, facilities and combat equipment is putting his life in danger.”​

 

[Saif]

There is no remedy to false belief. We do not want to push any insurgency. Had we had any such design, we would have done it in 1971 or in few years post that.

So far as Tamil Elam is concern, it was India which helped SL to fight with Talim Elam. We send their peace keeping force because of which our PM assassinated. SL would have never defeated Talim Elam without the help of India. We sacrificed over 800 soldiers defending SL from Tamil Elam. Your country would not have got Independent without the Indian help and sacrifice of 4500 Indian soldier. Inspite of all these helps, our small neighbors have remained thankless. Not only they have remained thankless, but they have tried to act against Indian interest.

Shanti Bahini & India (Read all the posts in the thread below)

S

[🇧🇩] Thread 'Chittagong Hill Tracts----A Victim of Indian Intervention'

Feb 13, 2024

The CHT Problem and the Role of Army

Recently I had an opportunity to listen to a heated debate on the problem of Chittagong Hill Tracts - particularly on the role of Bangladesh Army. The issue was raised in a paper on "State, sub-State Nationalism and sub-Regionalism: A Retrieve from Beyond the Mask," by Dr Amena Mohsin at a seminar on 'South Asian Growth Quadrangle: Bangladesh Perspectives' organised by International Studies Association, Bangladesh. She was critical of 'militarisation' of Chittagong Hill Tracts, and, particularly of a scheme of taking selected...​

• Saif
• Replies: 61
• Forum: Bangladesh Strategic Affairs

• 

Tamil Tiger & India (Read the entire article below)

Indian intervention in the Sri Lankan civil war - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Saif]

$1b raised for Lebanon

A Paris conference on aid for conflict-stricken Lebanon raised around $1 billion yesterday but saw little diplomatic progress as fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah.

www.thedailystar.net

PARIS AID CONFERENCE
$1b raised for Lebanon

A Paris conference on aid for conflict-stricken Lebanon raised around $1 billion yesterday but saw little diplomatic progress as fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah.

"In total, we have jointly gathered $800 million in humanitarian aid," French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told participants as the conference closed.

He added that there was a further "$200 million for the security forces," bringing the total to "almost a billion, even more than a billion... with the latest contributions".

The total far outstrips both France's target of 500 million euros and the 400 million originally requested by the UN for Lebanon, where Barrot said over 2,500 people had been killed and "almost one million" displaced in fighting since late September.

Israel launched a ground offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon after a year of exchanging fire over the border following Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack.

But while there were repeated calls for a ceasefire, diplomatic progress in Paris was limited by the absence of key players Israel and Iran, while America was represented only by a deputy to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"We have risen to the occasion" with financial support, Barrot told participants, with major pledges including 100 million euros ($108 million) from France, 95 million from Germany and at least 15 million pounds ($20 million) from Britain.

Nevertheless, "we cannot limit ourselves to a humanitarian and security response... we have to bring about a diplomatic solution," he added.

BACK TO 2006?

France, which has historic ties to Lebanon and hosts a large Lebanese diaspora, is pushing alongside the US for a 21-day ceasefire to give space to find a more lasting truce.

Paris wants a a return to UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which sealed the end of the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.

"The war must end as soon as possible, there must be a ceasefire in Lebanon," President Emmanuel Macron said sitting alongside the country's Prime Minister Najib Mikati.

The Lebanese government chief in turn called on "the international community to hold together and support efforts... to implement an immediate ceasefire".

As well as stipulating that the only armed forces on Lebanon's border with Israel should be UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army, 1701 says no foreign forces should enter Lebanon without the government's consent.

That was why participants pledged support for Lebanese troops, with Macron saying Paris would "contribute to equipping the Lebanese army".

Speaking remotely, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also called on participants to "strengthen their support to (Lebanon's) state institutions, including the Lebanese armed forces".

A ceasefire can only be agreed with involvement from Israel and Hezbollah's backer Iran, neither of whom were invited Thursday.

Hezbollah must "stop its provocations... and indiscriminate strikes" against Israel, Macron said.

Although Israel has eliminated Hezbollah leaders over recent weeks, it "knows from experience that its military successes do not necessarily represent victory in Lebanon," Macron said.

'ACCOUNTABILITY'

"Anything that does not bring about an immediate end to the destruction and killing would make this summit a failure," Bachir Ayoub, aid group Oxfam's Lebanon chief, said before the conference ended.

Oxfam was among over 150 aid groups to denounce on Thursday "flagrant disregard for international law by the international community" over Israel's military actions in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

"Without accountability, there will be no red lines," they added.

UN Development Program chief Achim Steiner warned that Lebanon's economy was "beginning to collapse under the pressure of this conflict," predicting a contraction of more than nine percent this year if the war continues.

That could hamper efforts to build up Lebanon's institutions and especially its armed forces, "to preserve the country's unity, stability and sovereignty" as France's Barrot hoped.

"Resolution 1701... remains the cornerstone of stability and security in southern Lebanon," Mikati said, echoing France's view.

Conference participants may offer training, equipment and funding to keep the Lebanese army functioning and allow new recruitment so it is strong enough to do its job.​

 

[Saif]

Overnight raids rock Beirut

Israel conducted at least 17 raids overnight that levelled six buildings, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency, sending a huge ball of fire enveloped in a tower of smoke soaring into the night sky.

www.thedailystar.net

Overnight raids rock Beirut

3 Lebanese troops killed; residential complex levelled: Hezbollah fires rockets at north Israel

Israel conducted at least 17 raids overnight that levelled six buildings, according to Lebanon's official National News Agency, sending a huge ball of fire enveloped in a tower of smoke soaring into the night sky.

The Lebanese army said yesterday that three of its soldiers were killed by Israeli fire while carrying out a rescue operation in the south where Israel is fighting Hezbollah.

"The Israeli enemy targeted Lebanese army personnel in the vicinity of Yater village, in the Bint Jbeil area of the south, while carrying out an operation to evacuate wounded, which led to the deaths of three martyrs, including an officer," an army statement said.

Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported an unspecified number of dead in a strike "on a house in Yater". It said paramedics were wounded when the Israeli air force struck a second time as they tried "to rescue the casualties".

The NNA also reported "a new wave of Israeli attacks on villages" in the southern districts of Tyre and Bint Jbeil overnight.

The Israeli military said yesterday it hit Hezbollah weapons production facilities in the group's south Beirut bastion.

In south Lebanon, also a stronghold of Hezbollah, the group said its fighters were clashing at close range with Israeli troops in a border village.

Hezbollah earlier said it launched a "large rocket salvo" at the northern Israeli town of Safed, after vowing to keep firing into Israel until a ceasefire is reached not only in Lebanon but also in Gaza.

Hezbollah is Lebanon's only group that did not disarm following the 1975-1990 civil war.

After nearly a year of war with Hamas in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to Lebanon last month, vowing to secure its northern border under fire from Hezbollah. It ramped up air strikes on the group's strongholds and sent in ground troops.

At least 11 Lebanese soldiers have been killed by Israeli fire since September 23, according to an AFP tally of army announcements.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin expressed "deep concern" over the strikes on the Lebanese army in a call with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant on Wednesday.

He "emphasised the importance of taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of the Lebanese Armed Forces" and UN peacekeepers, Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said.

Thursday's strikes come as a donors' conference opens in Paris seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for Lebanon.​

 

[Saif]

Blinken warns Israel against protracted war

The United States does not want Israeli actions in Lebanon to lead to a protracted campaign, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, more than a month since Israel began a major offensive against Hezbollah in the country.

www.thedailystar.net

Blinken warns Israel against protracted war

Antony Blinken. File photo: Reuters

The United States does not want Israeli actions in Lebanon to lead to a protracted campaign, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday, more than a month since Israel began a major offensive against Hezbollah in the country.

Blinken also said he anticipated negotiators would meet in the coming days for discussions on a Gaza ceasefire deal, signalling a renewed bid to achieve a deal that diplomats have repeatedly failed to secure during more than a year of conflict.

Blinken has been on his first trip to the region since Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked conflict across the Middle East. Washington has expressed hope his death can provide an impetus for an end to the fighting.

Israel launched its Lebanon offensive with the declared aim of securing the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated in northern Israel during a year of cross-border rocket fire by Hezbollah.

Over the last month, Israel has pounded southern Lebanon, Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley and sent ground forces into areas near the border. The Israeli campaign has killed more than 2,500 people, displaced more than 1 million people and spawned a humanitarian crisis, Lebanon says.

"As Israel conducts operations to remove the threat to Israel and its people along the border with Lebanon, we have been very clear that this cannot lead, should not lead, to a protracted campaign," Blinken said, speaking in Doha alongside the prime minister of Qatar.

"Israel must take the necessary steps to avoid civilian casualties and not endanger UN peacekeepers or Lebanese armed forces," he added.

Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike killed three Lebanese soldiers as they were trying to evacuate wounded people from the village of Yater near the border, the Lebanese army said.

Blinken said the United States was "working intensely" on a diplomatic resolution which would allow civilians on both sides on the border to return to their homes.

Hezbollah opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its Palestinian allies in Gaza, prompting a conflict that had largely played out in areas at or near the border until Israel launched its major escalation.

Blinken said he anticipated the negotiations on Gaza would concern a return of hostages and a ceasefire. If Hamas cared about people of Gaza it would engage in negotiations and conclude an agreement, he said.

The United States was looking at "different options" that it could pursue when it comes to Gaza ceasefire talks, he added.

Israel's Gaza offensive has killed more than 42,000 people and laid waste to the territory, according to Gaza health authorities. The Hamas-led, Oct. 7 attack which sparked it killed 1,200 people and resulted in another 250 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies.

In Gaza, at least 16 Palestinians were killed, including children, in an Israeli strike on a school in Gaza's Nuseirat camp, Nuseirat's Al-Awda hospital said. It said 32 people were wounded.

The Israeli military said it had hit a Hamas command and control centre on Thursday housed in a compound formerly used as a school in the area of Nuseirat.​

 

[Saif]

Lebanon complains to UN over Israel strike on journalists

Lebanon said Monday it had submitted a complaint to the United Nations Security Council over an Israeli strike last week that killed three journalists in the country’s south...

www.newagebd.net

Lebanon complains to UN over Israel strike on journalists
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 28 October, 2024, 22:42

Lebanon said Monday it had submitted a complaint to the United Nations Security Council over an Israeli strike last week that killed three journalists in the country’s south.

The strike early Friday hit a complex in the Druze-majority town of Hasbaya in south Lebanon where more than a dozen journalists from Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.

The Israeli army said Friday that the strike was ‘under review’, maintaining it had targeted Hezbollah militants.

Lebanon submitted ‘a complaint to the Security Council regarding the latest Israeli attacks that targeted journalists and media facilities in Hasbaya in south Lebanon, and the Ouzai area’ in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a statement from the foreign ministry said on social media platform X.

‘The repeated Israeli targeting of media crews is a war crime’ and Israel must be ‘held to account and punished’, the statement added.

Cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen, and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television, were killed in the strike on the complex in Hasbaya, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints.

Prime minister Najib Mikati said the attack was deliberate and both he and Information Minister Ziad Makary labelled it a war crime.

Days earlier, Al-Mayadeen said an Israeli strike hit an office the broadcaster had vacated near Ouzai in south Beirut.

Israel launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon last month and later launched ground incursions following a year of cross-border clashes with the Iran-backed Hezbollah group over the Gaza war.

In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.

Last November, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.

Lebanese rights groups said five more journalists and photographers working for local media had been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.​

 

[Saif]

60 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley

Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley overnight killed more than 60 people across a dozen towns, the district governor said yesterday, the deadliest day yet in the area in more than a year of hostilities.

www.thedailystar.net

60 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley

Israeli strikes on Lebanon's Bekaa Valley overnight killed more than 60 people across a dozen towns, the district governor said yesterday, the deadliest day yet in the area in more than a year of hostilities.

Rescue workers were still pulling bodies out of the rubble yesterday morning.

Israel has ramped up its air strikes across Lebanon over the last month, saying it is targeting Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Lebanese officials, rights groups and residents of affected towns say the strikes are indiscriminate.

No evacuation orders were given for any of the towns struck overnight. District governor Bachir Khodor said 67 people had been killed and more than 120 wounded and the death toll was expected to rise.

"That's only the people who've been removed from under the rubble and we still don't have the final toll. This is the most violent day for Baalbek in the last year," Khodor told Reuters.

Hezbollah elects Naim Qassem as head to succeed Nasrallah

The toll included nine people killed in Ram, its mayor Nazih Noun said, including a woman and her four children.

"It's quiet now, but we don't know how we can carry on with the funerals given the security situation," Noun told Reuters. Large swathes of the Bekaa Valley are Hezbollah strongholds.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said yesterday it had elected deputy head Naim Qassem to succeed Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air attack on Beirut's southern suburb over a month ago.

The group said in a written statement that its Shura Council had elected Qassem, 71, in accordance with its established mechanism for choosing a secretary general.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah attack kills five in Israel

A Hezbollah attack on northern Israel’s Metula killed five people including an Israeli farmer and four foreign workers, Israel’s Channel 12 reported yesterday as Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed six health workers in the country’s south.

www.thedailystar.net

Hezbollah attack kills five in Israel
Six health workers killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s south; US envoys push truce

A Hezbollah attack on northern Israel's Metula killed five people including an Israeli farmer and four foreign workers, Israel's Channel 12 reported yesterday as Lebanon said Israeli strikes killed six health workers in the country's south.

US envoys and Israeli officials were due to meet in Israel later to discuss efforts towards a ceasefire in both Lebanon, where Israeli forces are battling Iran-backed Hezbollah, and in Gaza, where they are fighting Hamas.

Israel issued an evacuation warning to residents of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon for a second consecutive day. On Wednesday it conducted heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in and around the city, which is famed for its Roman temples.

Dozens of cars could be seen speeding out of the area after yesterday's warning, with wafts of black smoke still visible emanating from the town of Douris, where an Israeli strike the previous day destroyed Hezbollah fuel stocks, according to the Israeli military and a Lebanese security source.

Thousands fleeing the violence have sought shelter in the nearby Christian-majority town Deir al-Ahmar, where local official Jean Fakhry said authorities were struggling to cover even a fraction of needs and some people had spent the night in their cars.

"We cannot continue this way," he said.

The killing of six Lebanese health workers and wounding of four others in three separate strikes across south Lebanon yesterday brought the total toll of health workers killed and wounded in over a year of Israeli strikes to 178 and 279 respectively, the Lebanese health ministry said.

Hezbollah said it had launched several rocket and artillery attacks against Israeli forces near the southern town of Khiyam yesterday. It marked the fourth straight day of fighting in and around the strategic hilltop town, which is home to one of the largest Shi'ite communities in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah aims to keep Israeli forces out of the town to prevent them detonating homes and buildings, as has happened on a large scale in other border towns, a source familiar with the group's thinking told Reuters.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah open to truce with Israel if offer made

Hezbollah’s new leader on Wednesday said the beleaguered Lebanese movement could agree to a ceasefire under certain terms, as Israeli forces expand their bombardment of the group’s bastions.

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Hezbollah open to truce with Israel if offer made
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 01 November, 2024, 00:41

Hezbollah’s new leader on Wednesday said the beleaguered Lebanese movement could agree to a ceasefire under certain terms, as Israeli forces expand their bombardment of the group’s bastions.

Naim Qassem’s statement came as Israel’s security cabinet met to discuss a possible truce, but also as Israel attacked the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek and said it had killed another senior Hezbollah commander.

Lebanon’s premier Najib Mikati said he was ‘cautiously optimistic’ about a ceasefire in ‘the coming hours or days’.

Speaking to broadcaster Al-Jadeed, Mikati said US envoy Amos Hochstein had suggested ‘that perhaps we could reach a ceasefire in the coming days, before the fifth’ of November, when the US election takes place.

Qassem became leader of the Iran-backed armed movement on Tuesday, following the assassination of his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah by Israel in a massive air strike last month.

In his first speech since taking over, he said Hezbollah could continue to resist Israeli air and ground attacks in Lebanon for months.

But he also opened the door to a negotiated truce, if presented with an Israeli offer.

‘If the Israelis decide that they want to stop the aggression, we say we accept, but under the conditions that we see as appropriate and suitable,’ he said.

Qassem however added that Hezbollah had not yet received a credible proposition.

Israeli energy minister Eli Cohen said the country’s security cabinet was meeting to discuss what terms it might offer to secure a truce.

‘There are discussions, I think it will still take time,’ Cohen, a former intelligence minister, told Israeli public radio.

According to Israel’s Channel 12, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met ministers late Tuesday to discuss Israel’s demands in return for a 60-day truce.

These include that Hezbollah withdraw north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometres from the Israeli frontier, and that the Lebanese state’s army deploy along the border.

An international intervention mechanism would be established to enforce the truce, but Israel would demand a guarantee that it maintain freedom of action in case of threats.

The US State Department said president Joe Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk and Hochstein were headed to Israel Wednesday to seek progress on deals to end both the Gaza and Lebanon wars.

They ‘are travelling to Israel to engage on issues including a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon, as well as how we get to an end to the conflict in Gaza,’ State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

On the ground, explosions rocked Lebanon’s eastern city of Baalbek shortly after Israel’s military warned residents it would ‘act forcefully against Hezbollah interests within your city and villages’.

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 19 people were killed in Israeli strikes on two areas in the Baalbek region.

The Israeli military said it struck Hezbollah ‘command and control centres and terrorist infrastructure’ in areas of Baalbek and Nabatiyeh.

Separately, Lebanon’s health ministry said 11 people were killed and 15 wounded in Israeli strikes on the town of Sohmor in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, said it had fired rockets and drones at three military positions in northern Israel, including near Haifa and Acre.

It later said it fired rockets at a military training camp southeast of Tel Aviv.

The war in Lebanon began late last month, nearly a year after Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border fire into Israel in support of Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

The war has killed at least 1,754 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures, although the real number is likely to be higher.

Israel’s military says it has lost 37 soldiers in Lebanon since ground operations began on September 30.

In Gaza, there were more deadly strikes Wednesday as international mediators prepared to propose a short-term truce to free hostages and avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

News of a potential breakthrough in truce talks came a day after an Israeli strike on a single Gaza residential block killed nearly 100 people and triggered international revulsion.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have been trying to negotiate a truce for months.

Israel’s Mossad spy chief David Barnea, CIA director Bill Burns and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani held their latest round of secretive talks on Sunday and Monday in Doha.

On Wednesday, a source close to the talks told AFP on condition of anonymity that the senior officials discussed proposing a ‘short-term’ truce of ‘less than a month’.

The proposal would include the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinians in Israeli prisons, and an increase in aid to Gaza.

‘US officials believe that if a short-term deal can be reached, it could lead to a more permanent agreement,’ the source said.

A Hamas official said the group would discuss any ideas for a Gaza ceasefire that included an Israeli withdrawal, but had not officially received any comprehensive proposals.

However, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant told troops to continue exerting pressure ‘in order to create the conditions necessary to ensure the return of the hostages’.

Tuesday’s strike in the northern Gaza district of Beit Lahia collapsed a building and left at least 93 dead, including many children, according to the territory’s civil defence agency.

UN chief Antonio Guterres was ‘deeply shocked’ by the strike, his spokesman said.

US State Department spokesman Miller meanwhile said Israel was ‘not doing enough to get us the answers that we have requested’ over the strike.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.

Israel’s response has led to the deaths of 43,163 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, figures which the United Nations consider reliable.​

 

[Saif]

Lebanon says 52 killed in Israeli strikes in east

Lebanon's health ministry said 52 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on Friday in the country's east, attacks for which the Israeli army had not issued evacuation warnings

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Lebanon says 52 killed in Israeli strikes in east

A poster of slain Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah hangs near the smouldering rubble of a building in the aftermath of overnight Israeli airstrikes that targeted the neighbourhood of Kafaat in Beirut's southern suburbs on November 1, 2024. Photo: AFP

Lebanon's health ministry said 52 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on Friday in the country's east, attacks for which the Israeli army had not issued evacuation warnings.

The ministry reported "52 people killed and 72 wounded in an updated toll of today's Israeli enemy strikes on the Baalbek-Hermel region".

Twelve of the victims were killed in the village of Amhaz, it said, while nine others were killed in Yunin and eight in Bednayel.​

 

[Saif]

Lebanon accuses Israel of rejecting truce after Beirut strikes

Lebanon’s prime minister on Friday accused Israel of rejecting a ceasefire after the Israeli military bombed the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut for the first time this week.

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Lebanon accuses Israel of rejecting truce after Beirut strikes
Agence France-Presse . Beirut, Lebanon 02 November, 2024, 00:23

People check the devastation in the aftermath of Israeli strikes in the neighbourhood of Haret Hreik in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday, amid the on-going war between Israel and Hezbollah. | AFP photo

Lebanon’s prime minister on Friday accused Israel of rejecting a ceasefire after the Israeli military bombed the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut for the first time this week.

At least 10 strikes hit the southern suburbs before dawn after Israel issued evacuation warnings, with AFPTV footage showing explosions and clouds of smoke.

‘The raids left massive destruction in the targeted areas, as dozens of buildings were levelled to the ground, in addition to the outbreak of fires,’ Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

It said strikes also targeted Aley southeast of Beirut and Bint Jbeil in the south.

Israel’s military said it continued operations against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and its Palestinian ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The strikes came a day after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US officials to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon, ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election.

Prime minister Najib Mikati condemned the ‘expansion’ of Israel’s attacks, saying they signalled a refusal to engage in truce efforts.

‘The Israeli enemy’s renewed expansion and its renewed targeting of the southern suburbs of Beirut with destructive raids are all indicators that confirm the Israeli enemy’s rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire,’ he said.

The NNA later said Israeli warplanes hit the eastern city of Baalbek, home to UNESCO-designated Roman ruins, after strikes there killed six people on Thursday.

The UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, warned the war put Lebanon’s cultural heritage site in ‘deep peril’.

Analysts say Israel’s campaign in Lebanon has put it in a position of strength to reach a deal.

On Thursday, Netanyahu told US envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk that any ceasefire deal with Hezbollah must guarantee Israel’s long-term security. Both have since left for Washington, said a source familiar with the matter.

Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, who also met the Americans, emphasised ‘security arrangements’ related to Lebanon and efforts to ensure the return of 101 hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

A US-brokered plan reportedly under consideration would see Hezbollah withdraw 30 kilometres north to the northern side of the Litani river, with Israeli forces pulling back and the Lebanese army, supported by UN peacekeepers, taking over the border.

Lebanon would be responsible for preventing Hezbollah from rearming itself with imported weapons, and Israel would retain its rights under international law to act in self-defence. Cross-border fire from Lebanon killed seven Israelis on Thursday, including four Thai workers.

Since fighting in Lebanon escalated on September 23, after nearly a year of tit-for-tat exchanges which Hezbollah said were in support of Hamas, the war has killed at least 1,829 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures.

Israel’s military says 37 soldiers have been killed in Lebanon since ground operations began on September 30.

The World Health Organisation expressed deep concern about Israeli attacks on healthcare workers and facilities in Lebanon, stressing they are ‘not a target’.

Hezbollah’s new leader Naim Qassem — who took over after Israel killed his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah — has not explicitly linked a ceasefire to an end to Gaza fighting, the group’s previous position.

‘If the Israelis decide that they want to stop the aggression, we say we accept, but under the conditions that we see as appropriate and suitable,’ he said this week.

On the ground in north Gaza, the Israeli military said it ‘eliminated’ dozens of militants in Jabalia.

Gaza’s health ministry reported at least nine dead in overnight strikes on Jabalia and Nuseirat.

‘The morgue at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah is full’ of bodies, mostly women and children, after Israel’s attack in Nuseirat, said Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza’s field hospitals.

US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators have long been trying to secure a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in Israel’s war in Gaza.

Mediators seeking to broker a ceasefire are expected to propose a truce of ‘less than a month’ to Hamas, a source with knowledge of the talks has said.

The proposal involves exchanging Israeli hostages for Palestinians in Israeli prisons and increasing aid to the territory, the source added.

But on Thursday, senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu reiterated that the group rejected a short-term pause.

‘Hamas supports a permanent end to the war, not a temporary one,’ Nunu said.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel last year triggered the war and resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory bombardment and ground war have killed 43,259 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry, figures the United Nations considers reliable.

The WHO said meanwhile that a second round of child polio vaccinations would begin in northern Gaza on Saturday, after Israeli bombing halted the drive.​

 

[Saif]

When Israeli aggression claims a Bangladeshi life

For over a year now, parents in Palestine have mourned their children, families have grieved over their homes turned to dust, as thousands were killed by Israel's genocide on the Gaza Strip.

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When Israeli aggression claims a Bangladeshi life
Airstrike kills Nizam Uddin in Lebanon; family mourns; expats in fear

Mohammad Nizam Uddin

For over a year now, parents in Palestine have mourned their children, families have grieved over their homes turned to dust, as thousands were killed by Israel's genocide on the Gaza Strip.

This year, Lebanon has also become a target of relentless Israeli airstrikes, similar to the devastation in Gaza.

Now, for Bangladesh, this tragedy has hit home -- Mohammad Nizam Uddin, a migrant worker from Brahmanbaria, has fallen victim to the violence in Lebanon.

Nizam, 38, went to Lebanon over a decade ago, leaving behind his family in Kharera village.

On the morning of his death, he had stopped at a small coffee shop on his way to work at Al Hayat Hospital in southern Beirut. It was a routine, an ordinary stop that, tragically, became his last.

Nearby, a motorbike shop was the intended target of an Israeli airstrike.

In seconds, everything nearby was reduced to rubble due to shockwaves from the blast, killing Nizam.

Back in Bangladesh, his elder sister, Saira Begum, now faces the painful reality of his loss. "He went to Lebanon 12 years ago to change our fate," she said, struggling through tears. "But that dream remained elusive. Now he is just a memory. How can we accept it?"

Anwar Hossain, first secretary at the Bangladeshi embassy in Beirut, confirmed the circumstances leading to his death.

The Bangladeshi community in Lebanon is struggling to process the loss of one of their own, he said.

A LIFE OF STRUGGLE

Nizam, son of the late Mohammad Abdul Quddus, was the youngest of two brothers and three sisters. Their father passed away when Nizam was only six. Their mother passed away five years ago.

He spent approximately Tk 7 lakh to migrate to Lebanon, but he struggled to secure regular employment. Lebanon's political and economic crises over the last few years, coupled with the impact of the pandemic, hindered his ability to earn a stable income.

Parul Begum, another elder sister of Nizam, said he could not earn a decent living because he lacked a fixed job and faced significant danger due to his lack of valid documentation.

"At home, he could build only a small tin shed house for his mother," she said.

Since their mother's death, the family had been eagerly waiting for Nizam's return. "Now, we are waiting for his body," Saira Begum sobbed.

A COMMUNITY IN FEAR

This marks the first casualty of a Bangladeshi since the Israeli attacks against Hezbollah began in late September, though some other Bangladeshis have been injured earlier.

"This death has created a sense of fear within our community," said Abdul Karim, president of the Lebanon Probashi Bangladeshi Sramik Union in Beirut.

Anwar Hossain, first secretary of the Bangladesh embassy in Lebanon, advised the Bangladeshi community to exercise caution when going out and to avoid areas at risk of being targeted by Israeli forces.

There are approximately 100,000 Bangladeshis in Lebanon.

Since September, around 3,000 have sought refuge in temporary shelters provided by Bangladeshi community organisations and Lebanese charities.

The Bangladeshi embassy is also supporting them with food supplies.

In the initial phase, about 1,800 Bangladeshis have registered for repatriation, and approximately 350 have already returned under a joint initiative by the Bangladesh government and the International Organization for Migration.

"Initially, we have arranged repatriation for those with all necessary travel documents. Eventually, we will also assist those without work permits or passports," Anwar Hossain said.

He said the Lebanese home ministry has waived fines for undocumented workers and halved exit visa fees.

NO LAST GOODBYES?

However, while repatriation efforts continue, Nizam's siblings may not be able to see his body one last time due to the suspension of flight operations at Beirut airport.

An official from the Bangladesh embassy in Beirut said Nizam had been living in Lebanon with his wife.

"We have informed her that repatriating his body to Bangladesh may not be possible," he said.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah says thousands ready to fight Israel

Hezbollah’s chief said on Wednesday his group had tens of thousands of combatants ready to fight, adding that nowhere in Israel was off-limits to attacks.

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Hezbollah says thousands ready to fight Israel
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 06 November, 2024, 23:57

Hezbollah’s chief said on Wednesday his group had tens of thousands of combatants ready to fight, adding that nowhere in Israel was off-limits to attacks.

‘We have tens of thousands of trained resistance combatants’ ready to fight, Naim Qassem said in a speech marking 40 days since his predecessor was killed.

He also said nowhere in Israel would be ‘off-limits’ to the group’s attacks.

He said the results of the US presidential election will have no impact on any possible ceasefire deal.

‘We don’t base our expectations for a halt of the aggression on political developments whether Kamala Harris wins or Donald Trump wins, it means nothing to us,’ he said in a pre-recorded speech before Trump’s win was announced.

‘What will stop this war is the battlefield’ he said, citing fighting in south Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks on Israel.

The speech was Qassem’s second since he was named Hezbollah secretary-general last week.

He replaced the group’s decades-long chief Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in a massive Israeli strike on the group’s south Beirut bastion.

Meanwhile, Lebanon said that it had filed a complaint with the United Nations’ labour agency over deadly attacks on communication devices across the country in September, which it blames on Israel.

Lebanese labour minister Mustafa Bayram called the attack an ‘egregious war against humanity, against technology, against work’, saying his country had filed the complaint with the International Labour Organisation in Geneva.

‘It’s a very dangerous precedent,’ he told journalists in the Swiss city at an event organised by the UN correspondents’ association ACANU.

The move comes after Israel escalated its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in south Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley on September 23, after nearly a year of cross-border fire, and a week later sent ground troops into southern Lebanon.

The escalation kicked off with sabotage attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, which killed dozens of people and injured thousands more across Lebanon.

Israel has not officially taken responsibility for those attacks, but Bayram said it was ‘widely accepted internationally that Israel was behind this heinous act’.

‘In a few minutes, more than 4,000 civilians fell, between martyrs and injured and maimed,’ he said, speaking through a translator.

Among the victims not killed, he said many people had ‘lost their fingers; some have totally lost their eyesight’.

‘We are in a situation where ordinary objects, objects you use in daily life, become dangerous and lethal,’ he said.

‘If left unchecked, this crime could become normalised,’ he said, adding that filing the complaint was meant ‘to prevent such crimes from happening in the future’.

‘I consider it a moral obligation to my country and to the world.’

Asked why Lebanon had chose to file the complaint with the ILO, Bayram pointed to all the workers who were on the job when pagers and walkie-talkies — tools they used to do their work — suddenly exploded.

‘We deemed it necessary to point out that this runs contrary to work environment, security and safety, contrary to decent work principles defended by the ILO,’ he said.

He added that Lebanese authorities could still file complaints over the pager attacks in other international forums, including the World Trade Organisation.

‘In more general terms, the Lebanese government wants to present a myriad of complaints’ against Israel over its operations in the country, he said, since ‘the amount of crimes is huge’.

More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since clashes between Hezbollah and Israel began in October 2023, according to the health ministry, including at least 1,964 since September 23, according to an AFP tally of official figures.

The war has also pushed more than a million people to flee their homes.​

 

[Saif]

UN peacekeepers wounded in Israeli strike in Lebanon

Four UN peacekeepers were wounded in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon on Thursday that also killed three civilians, the Lebanese army said.

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UN peacekeepers wounded in Israeli strike in Lebanon
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 08 November, 2024, 01:43

People inspect the damage at an area next to Beirut International airport on the southern outskirts of Beirut that was targeted by overnight Israeli airstrikes, on Thursday, amid the on-going war between Israel and Hezbollah. | AFP photo

Four UN peacekeepers were wounded in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon on Thursday that also killed three civilians, the Lebanese army said.

Israel launched a barrage of strikes Thursday after Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it carried out a missile attack targeting a military base near Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday, the health ministry said 40 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the Bekaa Valley and the densely populated ancient city of Baalbek in east Lebanon, where Hezbollah holds sway.

Hezbollah and Israel have been at war since late September, when Israel broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.

Rescuers in the Palestinian territory on Thursday said 12 people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter for displaced people in north Gaza, the latest incident of its kind.

Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel last year in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.

The raid in Sidon, the main city in southern Lebanon, struck near an army checkpoint.

‘The Israeli enemy targeted a car while it was passing through the Awali checkpoint in Sidon,’ the army said in a statement.

Three civilians inside the car were killed, the military said, and four members of the Malaysian contingent in the UN peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, were injured.

Three soldiers at the checkpoint were also hurt, it said.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports.

Israel launched raids across southern suburbs of Beirut overnight, with one hitting an area near the airport.

Taxi driver Abu Elie, who was at the airport when the strikes hit, said ‘the entire car park shook’.

‘People were carrying their suitcases on their shoulders and running,’ he said.

Officials said the raid had caused minor damage but the terminal building was safe and flights were running as normal.

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s US presidential election, some in Lebanon had been hopeful that new leadership might bring them a reprieve.

But Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a speech broadcast on Wednesday that the vote — won by Donald Trump — would have no bearing on the future of the war.

He warned that Hezbollah had tens of thousands of trained militants ready to fight, and that nowhere in Israel was ‘off-limits’.

Israel’s airports authority said Wednesday that operations at its main airport near commercial hub Tel Aviv were not affected after Hezbollah said it fired missiles at a military base nearby.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to keep fighting Hamas and Hezbollah until victory, spoke to Trump on Wednesday.

Netanyahu’s office said the conversation was ‘warm and cordial’ and he had congratulated Trump on his victory.

‘The two also discussed the Iranian threat,’ the office said.

Shortly afterwards, Israel’s defence ministry said it had signed a $5.2 billion agreement with Boeing to purchase 25 ‘next generation’ F-15 fighter jets, which would be financed by US military aid.

In Lebanon, the strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs were so intense many residents of the city were unable to sleep.

‘Death has become a matter of luck. We can either die or survive,’ said Ramzi Zaiter, a resident of south Beirut.

Since September 23, more than 2,600 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, according to health minister Firass Abiad.

Iran, which arms and finances Hezbollah, also dismissed the impact of the US vote.

‘It makes no difference to us who won the US election,’ president Masoud Pezeshkian was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Iran and the United States have been adversaries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which overthrew the Western-backed shah, but tensions peaked during Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021.

Tareq Hamad, a man displaced by the war from his south Lebanon village Kfar Kila, was cautious.

Trump ‘had said that if he wins, he would work towards a ceasefire. But these are just words,’ he said.

In Gaza, ravaged by 13 months of war since the deadliest attack in Israeli history, people were desperate for a solution.

‘We were displaced, killed there’s nothing left for us, we want peace,’ said Mamduh al-Jadba, who was displaced to Gaza City from Jabalia, where one month ago the Israel military began an air and ground assault, vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping.

The UN has described ‘apocalyptic’ conditions in Gaza’s north.

French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot, on a visit to Jerusalem, said Trump’s victory could yet provide a ‘window’ for peace because the US president-elect had a ‘wish to see the end of the Middle East’s endless wars’.

Hamas’s attack on Israel resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,469 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

In Israel, recent surveys have shown that a majority of people were hoping to see Trump return to the White House.

‘Now we just need him to give us weapons,’ said fruit vendor Yossi Mizrachi, 51, adding he believed Trump would be able to ‘bring an end to the war’.

In a cafe in Jerusalem, Yechiel Hajbi, 57, also said he was ‘very happy’ Trump had won and felt hopeful his return to power would ‘bring peace’.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah fires missiles at central Israel air base

Hezbollah said its fighters launched missiles at an air base in central Israel on Friday, the latest attack by the Iran-backed group in more than a month of war.

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Hezbollah fires missiles at central Israel air base
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 09 November, 2024, 01:26

Hezbollah said its fighters launched missiles at an air base in central Israel on Friday, the latest attack by the Iran-backed group in more than a month of war.

Hezbollah said it ‘targeted the Tel Nof Air Base, south of Tel Aviv with a salvo of advanced missiles.’

Lebanese state media said the Israeli army detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages that have been battered by the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Hezbollah says it is engaged in fighting Israeli forces in the area, more than a month into an Israeli ground invasion aimed at pushing the Iran-backed group away from the border.

‘Since this morning, the Israeli enemy’s army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area, with the aim of destroying residential homes there,’ the official National News Agency said.

Israeli forces also conducted a raid in the nearby town of Bint Jbeil, NNA said, after Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli troops in the flashpoint border region.

Hezbollah said on Thursday it had ‘ambushed’ Israeli ground forces attempting to infiltrate Yaroun.

The Iran-backed group has claimed eight operations since Wednesday targeting Israeli troops on the outskirts of Maroun al-Ras.

Friday’s explosions are the latest in a string of similar incidents that have impacted the border area.

According to NNA, Israeli troops blew up buildings in at least seven border villages last month.

Footage verified by AFP on Monday showed massive blasts that ripped through Mais al-Jabal and reduced homes to rubble.

Israel’s Channel 12 last month broadcast footage appearing to show one of its presenters blow up a building while embedded with soldiers in the village of Aita al-Shaab.

Israel has been at war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah since late September when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in Gaza to securing its northern border.

It escalated its air campaign and later sent in ground forces into the country’s south.

This came after a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah, which has said it was acting in support of Hamas Palestinian militants fighting Israel in Gaza.

Hezbollah said it targeted a naval base near the Israeli city of Haifa with missiles Friday, the second such attack in less than 24 hours.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group said it targeted the ‘Stella Maris’ naval base northwest of Haifa with a missile barrage, ‘in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the Israeli enemy.’

The group had on Thursday claimed another attack on the same area.

In a separate statement, the group claimed that it had also targeted the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, with missiles.

Israel has been at war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah since late September when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border.

It escalated its air campaign and later sent in ground forces into the country’s south.

This came after a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah, which has said it was acting in support of Hamas Palestinian militants fighting Israel in Gaza.

The war has killed more than 2,600 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to the Lebanese health ministry.​