Three members of the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Lebanon UNIFIL were slightly wounded today by an explosion in southern Lebanon near the Israeli border, where Lebanese Hezbollah and Israeli forces exchange fire every day, the UN announced.
Sources in the UN mission told AFP that the explosion was likely the result of a nearby airstrike targeting the peacekeepers.
The Lebanese news agency ANI reported today that "Israeli enemy fighter planes" attacked the village of Dajra, one kilometer from the town of Jarine, and that there were wounded.
The Ministry of Health of Lebanon announced today that one person was killed and one was wounded "in an Israeli aerial attack" on the city of Cheba in the south of Lebanon.
The Lebanese Resistance Brigades, a group linked to Hezbollah, said one of its fighters had been "martyred," without specifying where. The Islamist movement said it had launched "kachusha" rockets at a military base in northern Israel in retaliation.
The head of the UN mission in Lebanon, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, assessed at the beginning of August that the role of the UN on the Israeli-Lebanese border is "more important than ever", and the fear of a general war in the Middle East is growing stronger.
Lacroix said the UN force is "the only channel of communication between the Israeli side and various components of the Lebanese side, like Hezbollah."
The mandate of the UNIFIL mission, which has 10.000 soldiers, expires at the end of August, but the UN Security Council should renew it.
During the war in the Gaza Strip, which Israel launched on October 7 in retaliation for a Hamas attack on Israeli soil the same day, cross-border firefights between Hezbollah and Israel are almost daily. The result is at least 582 dead in Lebanon, mostly fighters, but also at least 128 civilians, according to AFP data.
22 soldiers and 26 civilians were killed in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, Israeli authorities said.
(BETA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today called on the international community to put pressure on Hamas, and not on the Israeli side, for a ceasefire in Gaza, ahead of a meeting with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who arrived in Tel Aviv this evening.
Blinken, who is making his ninth visit to Israel since the Gaza war began on October 7, intends to push for an agreement to end more than a decade of devastating conflict and avoid prolonging it after threats of attacks by Iran and its allies against Israel.
He will meet with Netanyahu tomorrow morning and will also meet with his Defense Minister Yoav Galant and Israeli President Isaac Herzog before traveling to Cairo on Tuesday, a US official accompanying him said.
While deep differences remain between Israel and Hamas over the ceasefire, Netanyahu today called for "pressure to be put on Hamas" and not "on the Israeli government", condemning the Palestinian Islamist movement's "stubborn refusal" to conclude a Gaza ceasefire deal .
"There are things in which we can be flexible and in which we cannot be," added the Israeli prime minister, who is under growing pressure internationally and in his own country to end the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7.
"Therefore, in addition to the enormous efforts to return our hostages, we remain firm on the principles crucial to Israel's security," Netanyahu said.
Blinken said that "various blocking points that existed before could be overcome."
The US, which just approved a $20 billion arms sale to its Israeli ally, submitted a new compromise proposal on Friday after two days of talks in Doha between US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators with Israel.
Israeli negotiators said they were "moderately optimistic" at the end of the talks, which are due to resume next Sunday in Cairo.
But Hamas, which did not take part in the talks, accused Israel of adding "new conditions", including keeping its forces on Gaza's border with Egypt and "veto rights" over Palestinian prisoners likely to be exchanged for hostages in Gaza.
"The new American proposal accepts the terms of the (Israeli) occupier and does not lead to an agreement," an unnamed Hamas official told AFP.
The Palestinian movement refuses further negotiations and wants to implement the plan announced by US President Joseph Biden at the end of May.
That plan envisages, in the first phase, a six-week truce followed by the Israeli withdrawal from the densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of the hostages kidnapped on October 7, and in the second phase, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
(BETA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked today to put more pressure on the Palestinian movement Hamas, during the ceasefire negotiations in the Gaza Strip.
"Hamas has so far persisted in its refusal and has not even sent a representative to the Doha talks. Therefore, the pressure should be directed at Hamas and (its leader Yahya) Sinwar, not at the Israeli government," Netanyahu said.
The Israeli Prime Minister said this on the eve of another visit to Israel by the head of American diplomacy, Anthony Blinken.
(BETA)
The Saudi media Ashark published today supposedly new details of the latest proposal for a cease-fire agreement and the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza, which the US submitted on Friday in Doha, according to Israeli media.
Ashark cited an unnamed Hamas source and released details that differ slightly from those published last night in Israeli Hebrew-language media.
The American proposal, according to a Hamas source, includes a reduced presence of the Israeli army along the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, on the border of the Gaza Strip and Egypt, but not a withdrawal as previously hinted.
The Palestinian Authority, which now rules another Palestinian territory in the West Bank, would return to manage the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, with "Israeli supervision", although it was not specified what that supervision would be.
Israel will be able to monitor both the return of displaced people to their homes in northern Gaza and the crossing of the Netzarim Corridor. It did not say how that return would be monitored.
Based on the original May 27 proposal, Israel would have been required to withdraw from the Necarim area in the first six-week phase of the agreement.
A large number of Palestinian prisoners, released in exchange for Israeli hostages, would be deported abroad.
Israel would have the right to veto at least 100 Palestinian prisoners whose release Hamas is demanding.
That country will not be expected to withdraw from Gaza, as foreseen by the Hamas proposal from July 2.
A permanent truce would be discussed only in the second phase of the ceasefire, and if Hamas does not agree to Israel's terms, the Israeli army will resume military operations in Gaza.
In the second phase, the reconstruction of Gaza and the lifting of the blockade will also be discussed, depending on the outcome of the first, reports the Saudi media, as reported by the Times of Israel.
On Friday, after two days of talks by mediators in Doha, the capital of Qatar, the USA made a proposal to bridge the gap between Israel and Hamas in the cease-fire agreement, in the war that has been going on for more than ten months.
The Israeli delegation took part in the talks between the US, Egypt and host Qatar, but not Hamas.
Representatives of the Palestinian Islamist organization have been in contact with mediators, and Hamas officials suspect that an agreement is close.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office, however, expressed "cautious optimism" about the possibility of reaching an agreement.
(BETA)
The so-called humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian civilians are safe from the military operations of the Israeli army, has shrunk to only 11 percent of that Palestinian territory, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) announced today.
In a series of posts online, X UNRWA condemned the Israeli army's recent evacuation orders, saying they had caused "chaos and fear" among the displaced.
The size and location of the "safe areas" designated by the Israeli military (IDF) in Gaza are constantly changing depending on the expansion of military operations against extremist organizations.
UNRWA announced on Friday that the Israeli army has covered about 84 percent of the territory of Gaza with evacuation orders, since the start of the war against Hamas on October 7 last year.
The area of Gaza is 365 square kilometers, it is 41 kilometers long and six to 12 kilometers wide.
On Saturday, Israeli military spokesman Avihai Adrai called on civilians to evacuate the Mugazi refugee camp in central Gaza and move to what Israel has designated as a "safe zone" further south.
The order was issued after similar instructions on Friday for residents of the northern part of Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip and Deir al-Balah in the center, Israeli media remind.
Palestinians were ordered to evacuate neighborhoods previously considered humanitarian zones to other safe zones on the coast after intelligence reports that Hamas had developed a terrorist infrastructure in those neighborhoods.
(Beta)
Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip killed 19 people last night, including a woman and her six children, as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken travels to the region to try to broker a ceasefire agreement after months of negotiations.
Early this morning, an Israeli bombardment hit a house in the central city of Deir al-Balah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital announced.
In the northern city of Jabalija, two apartments in a residential building were hit and two men, a woman and her daughter were killed, the local Ministry of Health announced.
In another attack on central Gaza, four people were killed, Avda Hospital said.
Late last night, four people from the same family, including two women, were killed in an attack near the southern city of Khan Yunis, according to Naser Hospital.
Israel claims it only targets extremists and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because the extremist organization hides fighters, weapons, tunnel entrances and rockets in residential areas.
In the months-long Israeli bombardment, entire families were killed and thousands of children were left without parents.
The war has so far killed more than 40.000 Palestinians, displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2,3 million inhabitants and caused a humanitarian disaster. Now there are warnings of famine and outbreaks of polio.
The attack on southern Israel on October 7, which triggered the war, killed about 1.200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 251 hostages, of whom about 110 are still being held in Gaza.
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The strike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr on July 30 was preceded by a phone call to come up from his office on the second floor of the seventh floor, where he lived and where he was an easier target.
This was announced by the Wall Street Journal, citing an official of the pro-Iranian extremist organization.
The official told the US paper that Hezbollah is working with Iran to investigate security breaches and believes that Israel's superior technological capabilities have outsmarted the surveillance system.
The Wall Street Journal estimated that Sukr lived and worked in the same building, in order to spend as little time outside as possible.
He has been in hiding since he helped plan the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 from Athens to the US in 1985.
Neighbors said they had heard his name but never seen him and that he was like a ghost.
In an Israeli attack on the penultimate day of July, Shukr, his wife, two other women and two children were killed.
It was a response to the deadly rocket attack by Hezbollah on the town of Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan, in which 12 children and young people were killed, Israeli media remind.
A few hours after Shukr's murder, Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an explosion in Tehran.
Both Hezbollah and Iran have threatened to retaliate against Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in Haniyeh's murder.
Shukr helped lead a cross-border attack in northern Israel in 2006 that killed eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapped two, sparking a month-long war in Lebanon.
After that war, Shukr is believed to have organized the expansion of Hezbollah's missile arsenal from 15.000 to 150.000, making the organization the best armed in the region.
The American newspaper writes that Shukr's life was so secret that the Lebanese media reported on his death by publishing photos of the wrong man.
Shukr is wanted in the US for masterminding a bombing that killed 241 US security forces at a US Marine barracks in Beirut in 1982, before Hezbollah was officially founded.
(Beta)
Tens of thousands of people have rallied across Israel in demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in the Hamas-Israeli war and new elections as hopes have been raised that a deal is within reach.
In Tel Aviv last night, demonstrators, including relatives of hostages held in the Gaza Strip, gathered in the so-called Hostage Square to demand the return of their family members and for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his negotiating team to reach an agreement before it is too late.
Speaking at the demonstration, Ilaj David, whose brother, 23-year-old Eviatar David, is being held hostage in Gaza, told Netanyahu and the negotiators that the time had come to ensure the immediate return of every hostage.
Some demonstrators highlighted their demands for a deal with provocations such as a person wearing a Netanyahu mask leaning over another person posing as a dead and bloodied hostage with a banner reading "I added clauses, the hostage is dead. I'm sorry." .
This was an allusion to the new demands that Netanyahu made during the negotiations, which delayed the agreement.
A senior official in the administration of US President Joseph Biden told reporters on Friday that mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt believe that the final proposal presented by Washington at talks in the Qatari capital Doha bridges any remaining gap between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist organization.
Mor Shaham, whose brother Tal Shaham remained imprisoned after the release of six other members of his family, recalled the Jewish tradition that "he who saves one life, is as if he saved the whole world."
He emphasized the need for urgency and said that not a single Israeli citizen believes that the hostages still have time and that an agreement must be reached now.
"'Now' is not a slogan like 'total victory', it is an action plan, the only one that exists. Netanyahu, sign the agreement now," said the brother of one of the hostages.
It is believed that 111 of the 251 hostages taken by Hamas in an attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year are still being held in Gaza, including 39 that the Israeli military has confirmed are no longer alive.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a seven-day truce in late November, and four were released before then.
Seven of the living were freed by Israeli soldiers, and 24 bodies of those killed were recovered, including three abductees mistakenly shot by the army while trying to escape from their captors.
Public opinion polls show that 63 percent of Israelis support the hostage agreement, while only 12 percent oppose it.
(Beta)
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