Israel today denied accusations by the Human Rights Watch (HRW) that it commits war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
In a report released today, the human rights organization said it had gathered evidence suggesting that Israel is using evacuation orders to deliberately and forcibly displace Palestinian civilians in Gaza, describing it as a "gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and a crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court ".
The spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, Oren Marmorstein, published a statement on Platform X that the repeated rhetoric of the Human Rights Watch about Israel's behavior in Gaza is completely wrong and has no connection with reality.
He claims that Israel's efforts are aimed "only at destroying Hamas' terrorist capabilities" and that Israel "remains fully committed to allowing humanitarian aid to continue to flow into Gaza."
"Israel will continue to act in accordance with the law of armed conflict," the spokesman added.
The US then announced that it does not agree with the UN committee's finding that Israel's war methods are consistent with genocide and HRW's accusations of crimes against humanity in Gaza.
A UN special committee report accused Israel of using starvation as a war tactic.
State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters that the US unequivocally disagreed.
"We think that way of expression and those kinds of accusations are certainly unfounded," he said, according to agencies.
"It is entirely consistent and acceptable to ask that civilians be evacuated from a certain area while they are conducting certain military operations and then be able to go home," Patel said, adding that the US has not seen any type of particularly forced displacement.
(BETA)
At least nine people were killed today and five were wounded in eastern Lebanon, when an Israeli airstrike hit a building in the town of Baalbek.
The Israeli army has not commented on the attack, which was carried out without warning. It is not yet known what the target of the attack was.
Israeli warplanes intensified attacks on Lebanon today, targeting various areas in the south and east of the country, including the outskirts of the city of Tire and Nabatieh province, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.
The southern suburbs of Beirut were also targeted by Israeli attacks, which have become more frequent in the past two days.
The Israeli army has issued evacuation warnings for several locations and for buildings in the suburbs of Beirut.
The military confirmed attacks on positions of the pro-Iranian Lebanese movement Hezbollah in the Dahiya area, including weapons depots and command centers.
According to today's data from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the number of dead since the beginning of the conflict with Israel on October 8, 2023 has reached 3.365, and 14.244 people have been wounded. Almost 1,2 million inhabitants were displaced.
(BETA)
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said today that Israel is closer to reaching a cease-fire agreement with Lebanon's Hezbollah than it has been since the start of the war.
Cohen, a member of Israel's cabinet in charge of security, however, said in a statement to Reuters that Israel must maintain freedom of action in Lebanon if any agreement is violated.
A key stumbling block for Israel, the minister said, is ensuring freedom of action if Hezbollah returns to border areas where it can pose a threat to Israeli communities.
"We will be less forgiving than before for attempts to create strongholds in the territories near Israel," Cohen said.
Israeli media reported that Lebanon's response to the cease-fire proposal sent to Beirut from the US could arrive within the next 24 hours.
Strategic Affairs Secretary Ron Dermer spoke in Washington this Sunday with US President Joseph Biden administration officials about the final details of the proposal, including written guarantees that Israel has freedom of action against Hezbollah threats in Lebanon.
Dermer also met with the newly elected US President Donald Trump.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar recently said that some progress has been made in efforts to reach a ceasefire in the conflict with Hezbollah.
A little later, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced that Israel would not withdraw until the goals of the war were achieved.
He reiterated that on Wednesday and stated that the goals are to disarm Hezbollah, to push the pro-Iranian organization across the Litani River and allow the residents of northern Israel to return safely to their homes.
The intensive bombing of Lebanon began on September 23, and the target is primarily Hezbollah strongholds. In October, a ground offensive against Lebanon was launched.
According to the data of the Lebanese authorities, more than 3.200 people, mostly civilians, have died since the start of the conflict between Israel and the heavily armed organization, a day after the start of the war in Gaza, on October 8 last year. Most have died since the end of September.
In Israel, 76 people died, including 31 soldiers, according to the Associated Press.
(BETA)
The Israeli army announced today that in the past 48 hours it had hit "about 30 terrorist targets" in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, while the media reported new attacks on the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The aim of the attack is to "weaken Hezbollah's military capabilities", the army said, adding that it had "recently" targeted weapons depots, command centers and other infrastructure of the Islamist movement Hezbollah.
The Syrian news agency Sana reported that the Israeli army attacked the Maza district in Damascus, where the offices of the United Nations, embassies and the Syrian security services are located.
In recent Sundays, that neighborhood has already been the target of Israeli attacks.
(Beta)
Israeli forces today carried out airstrikes on Hezbollah-controlled areas in Beirut for the third day in a row, hitting locations in the southern suburbs of the capital early in the morning, after a night of heavy bombing, Reuters reports.
Clouds of smoke rose over Beirut as the attacks continued, while raids also reached Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, where airstrikes and artillery shelling overnight caused heavy damage to buildings and residential complexes, Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA) said.
Five people were killed in airstrikes on the towns of Bazurieh and Jumaijimah, NNA reported.
Israel launched a major air and ground offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in late September, after nearly a year of cross-border conflict alongside the Gaza war.
Lebanese authorities have not yet confirmed casualties from Thursday's attack on Beirut's southern suburbs, which have mostly been evacuated.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, at least 7 people have been killed and 3.365 wounded in Israeli attacks across Lebanon since October 14.344.
Ali Hassan Khalil, a political aide to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, said Wednesday that Lebanese negotiators had reached a preliminary agreement with US envoy Amos Hochstein on a ceasefire.
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday evening, Khalil said that this proposal was conveyed to the Israeli side through Hochstein, although Lebanon has not yet received any response or proposed amendment from Israel.
He said any potential deal must be firmly based on UN Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, to help the Lebanese army keep its southern border area with Israel free of weapons or armed personnel other than those in the Lebanese state.
Khalil said Lebanon has no objection to the participation of the US or France in monitoring the observance of the ceasefire.
Three Palestinians were killed and ten were wounded in an Israeli airstrike on Sheikh Radwan, a suburb of Gaza City, Reuters reports.
The Israeli army today called for the evacuation of the population in several areas south of Beirut where it is planning new attacks.
"You are in the vicinity of Hezbollah installations and interests, against which the Israeli military will conduct operations in the near future," a military spokesman told the X network.
Residents of areas south of Beirut are urged to evacuate immediately.
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The organization Human Rights Watch (Human Rights Watch-HRW) states in a new report that the Israeli army's evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip, which lead to the forced displacement of the population, constitute a war crime.
"HRW has gathered evidence that Israeli officials are committing the war crime of forcible displacement of civilians," according to the non-governmental organization's report published today.
The report said that "Israeli actions also appear to meet the definition of ethnic cleansing" in areas where the army has ordered Palestinians to leave and where they will not be able to return.
The Israeli authorities are calling on residents of entire parts of the territory to evacuate due to military operations, stressing that in this way they are contributing to the protection of civilians.
The United Nations estimated that there were 1,9 million displaced residents of the Gaza Strip in October. In total, there were about 2,4 million inhabitants in that territory at the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas.
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European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell proposed that the European Union (EU) end political dialogue with Israel, citing possible human rights violations in the war in the Gaza Strip as the reason, according to four diplomats and a letter seen by Reuters.
In a letter sent to EU foreign ministers on Wednesday ahead of their meeting on Monday, Borelj raised "serious concerns about possible violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza" and said that "Israel has so far not responded sufficiently to these concerns".
The political dialogue is contained in a broader agreement on relations between the EU and Israel, including extensive trade ties, which entered into force in June 2000.
"In the light of the above considerations, I will put forward a proposal that the EU should invoke the human rights clause to suspend the political dialogue with Israel," Borelj wrote.
A suspension would require the approval of all 27 EU countries, which diplomats said was unlikely.
Several countries objected when a senior EU official briefed ambassadors in Brussels on the proposal on Wednesday, said three diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Borelj's proposal is intended to send a strong signal of concern over Israel's conduct in the war, one diplomat said.
It will be discussed at the meeting of foreign ministers, the last one he will chair before the end of his five-year mandate.
(Radio Free Europe)
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