Today, the Israeli Air Force again attacked the southern suburbs of the capital of Lebanon, Beirut, a stronghold of the Hezbollah organization against which Israel is at war, the official Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) reported shortly after the Israeli army called for the evacuation of three neighborhoods.
In addition to the evacuation from the suburbs of Beirut, which are often bombed, the Israeli army during the night called for the evacuation of several areas in the south of Lebanon, where the ground offensive against Hezbollah fighters has been ongoing since September 30, France Press reported.
Five medics linked to Hezbollah died there, according to Lebanon's Ministry of Health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that almost 230 health workers have died in Lebanon since October 7 last year, when the war in Gaza began, and a day later the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. As stated, that number of victims is extremely worrying.
In the late afternoon, the NNA reported five new attacks, including on two neighborhoods in the southern suburbs that were mentioned in evacuation calls. The same source stated that the fires broke out after the attack and the demolition of the buildings.
The NNA reported this morning and early afternoon that five buildings were targeted, including two in the southern suburbs of the densely populated area of Shijah and Gobeira, where several shopping centers are located, also after calls for evacuation.
The call was made because "Hezbollah facilities and interests are nearby," Israeli military spokesman Avihai Adrae said.
In a video on social media that was not verified by AFP, civilians were seen rushing to leave a shopping center in the Hazmiyeh district after a warning was issued over loudspeakers.
A photo by France Press shows the rocket largely destroyed an 11-story building in the Shijah neighborhood. Many people fled to the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Ain el-Remaneh next door.
The Israeli military said it carried out a series of attacks on Hezbollah command centers in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
It also reportedly attacked Hezbollah "terrorist targets" in the southern city of Tire region, including command centers and weapons depots.
For the first time today, Israeli soldiers entered the village of Deir Mimas, about 2,5 kilometers inside Lebanon.
Surveillance drones flew over the largely deserted village, warning the remaining residents to stay indoors.
The Israeli army is trying to advance in several locations along the border, including Kiam, where Hezbollah claimed responsibility for several attacks today.
The frequency of Israeli attacks increased after the departure of US envoy Amos Hochstein, who was in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
After a year of cross-border conflicts, Israel began a full-scale war against Hezbollah on September 23 with intensive bombing of Lebanon.
(BETA)
The state prosecutor's office filed an indictment against Eli Feldstein, an associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for harming state security, Israeli media reported.
The indictment was filed this week after a scandal erupted over the release of security documents in the media.
Feldstein, who has worked closely with Netanyahu over the past year and is the prime suspect, is accused of passing classified information with intent to harm the state, for which he could be sentenced to life in prison.
In addition, he was charged with illegal possession of secret information and obstruction of justice.
The second suspect is also accused, among other things, of providing secret information, for which he could be sentenced to seven years in prison. He is an Army reservist and his name has not been released.
The Central District Court has not even published the full indictments yet.
Netanyahu himself is not a suspect in that case.
The documents, classified as top secret, were leaked to the German tabloid Bild in September.
They ostensibly detail Palestinian Hamas priorities and tactics in hostage negotiations, although it later became clear that the document was written by lower-ranking officials in the extremist organization and did not necessarily reflect the position of the leadership.
The document was allegedly illegally taken by a reservist non-commissioned officer from the Israeli military intelligence database and given to Feldstein, who then passed it on to Bild through an intermediary.
The state attorney's office said it would seek to keep the two suspects in custody pending criminal proceedings against them.
Another person, Jonatan Urlih, Netanyahu's second spokesman, has already been questioned twice about the security documents affair.
Urlih is reportedly being questioned on suspicion of instructing Feldstein to send secret documents to Srulik Einhorn, a former campaign adviser for Netanyahu's conservative Likud party who passed them on to Bild.
Einhorn is abroad, and the Haaretz newspaper states that he is in Serbia and that he is refraining from returning to Israel in order not to be questioned.
Investigators believe the release of the documents could potentially cause great harm to Israel's security, the Rishon Lezion court said, and the military concluded it harmed the military's goal of freeing the hostages.
Based on the information published by the court, one can also see the obvious motivation of Fedelstein's action to reduce public pressure and criticism against Netanyahu after the killing of six hostages in the captivity of Hamas at the end of August.
The killing of the hostages caused widespread grief in Israel and intensified protests against Netanyahu, who accused him of blocking a deal to release them.
The court hinted that Feldstein gave the document to Bild in order to influence the public discourse about the Israeli hostages in Gaza, to accuse then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar of stalling negotiations and to imply that the protests for their release benefited Hamas.
(BETA)
In the world, during this year, a record number of humanitarian workers were killed since the data were recorded, the United Nations (UN) Humanitarian Office announced, stating that most of them died in the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
As reported by Radio Free Europe, the Safety of Humanitarian Workers database, which has been recording such incidents since 1997, shows that 281 humanitarian workers have died so far this year.
The previous record number of aid worker deaths was last year when 280 were killed.
The database shows that 178 aid workers were killed in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip.
25 humanitarian workers were reportedly killed in Sudan.
The spokesperson of the UN Humanitarian Office, Jens Laerke, at a press conference in Geneva, said that humanitarian workers are doing "God's work", and then the answer, as he stated, is to be killed.
According to him, most of the dead are local staff of humanitarian organizations, while 13 of them are humanitarian workers who came from other countries.
Aid workers enjoy protection under international humanitarian law, but experts say there is little precedent for such cases going to trial, as obstacles to this include concerns about securing future access for humanitarian organizations and difficulties in proving intent.
(MINE)
The German government's position on arms deliveries to Israel remains unchanged after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister, a German government spokesman said on Friday.
"Weapons deliveries to Israel are always assessed on a case-by-case basis, and that remains the rule now. Our position on Israel remains unchanged," the spokesman said.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, about 30 percent of global arms exports to Israel come from Germany. Deliveries include portable anti-tank systems and ammunition for automatic or semi-automatic weapons.
Berlin considers support for the Jewish state a matter of "state reason" (Staatsräson), due to its responsibility for the Holocaust, the Guardian reports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban for showing "moral clarity" after inviting him to visit despite an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"In the face of the shameful weakness of those who support the scandalous decision against the right of the State of Israel to defend itself, Hungary stands on the side of justice and truth," Netanyahu said in a statement, a day after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Netanyahu's office also published a letter they say Orban sent him on Friday, in which he expresses disbelief at the "shameful" decision of the ICC.
On Friday, Israeli troops engaged in heavy fighting with Hezbollah fighters in various areas of southern Lebanon, including the coastal city of Nakuru, where UN peacekeepers are headquartered.
A spokesman for the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission told The Associated Press that they were monitoring "severe clashes" in Nakura and the northeast village of Chama.
"We are aware of the intense shelling near our bases," UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said. When asked if the peacekeepers and staff at the headquarters were safe, he replied: "For now, yes."
Since the start of the Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon on October 1, several UNIFIL posts have been hit, injuring several peacekeepers.
The Italian Ministry of Defense confirmed that four Italian soldiers were slightly injured after the explosion of two rockets that hit the UNP 2-3 base in the town of Shamma, in southern Lebanon. This base hosts the Italian contingent and the UNIFIL Western Sector Command.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the attack was likely carried out by Hezbollah.
"It is unacceptable that the UNIFIL base has been hit once again," Defense Minister Giulio Croceto said, adding that he had contacted his Lebanese counterpart to reiterate that the Italian UNIFIL contingent would remain in southern Lebanon "to provide an opportunity for peace and not may become a hostage to militia attacks".
He also stated that he would try to get in touch with his Israeli counterpart, which he says "has been impossible since his appointment", to ask him "not to use the UNIFIL bases as a shield".
"The presence of terrorists in the south of Lebanon who threaten the safety of peacekeepers and the civilian population is even more unacceptable," Crosetto emphasized.
According to initial estimates, two rockets hit a bunker in the base and a room near the international military police, causing damage to the surrounding infrastructure. As a result of the explosion, the glass was broken, injuring four soldiers.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni expressed her "deep indignation" over the "new attacks" on UNIFIL, in which, as she stated, "soldiers participating in a peacekeeping mission were injured", reports the Guardian.
"Once again, I emphasize that these kinds of attacks are unacceptable and I again appeal to the parties on the ground to guarantee the safety of UNIFIL soldiers at all times and to cooperate in order to quickly identify those responsible," Meloni added.
Tajani blamed Hezbollah for the attack.
"According to what we know right now, it appears that the rockets were fired by Hezbollah. What is happening is again unacceptable," he told reporters in Turin.
Neither the Ministry of Defense nor Prime Minister Meloni commented on who was responsible for the attack.
The Israeli authorities are ending the practice of administrative detention of Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, i.e. detention without trial, the Ministry of Defense announced on Friday.
The practice allows detainees to be held for long periods of time without charge or trial, and is often used against Palestinians whom Israel considers a security threat.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said it was "inappropriate" for administrative detention to be used against settlers who face "severe Palestinian terrorist threats and unjustified international sanctions."
However, according to the Israeli organization Peace Now, this is one of the few effective tools Israeli authorities are using to prevent settler attacks on Palestinians, which have increased significantly in the West Bank in the past year.
In a statement issued by his office, Katz said that prosecution or "other preventive measures" will be used to solve crimes in the West Bank.
The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem alleges that the authorities "intensively and routinely" use administrative detention to hold thousands of Palestinians for long periods of time.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, 3.432 Palestinians were detained under this practice in August. The Haaretz newspaper reported on Friday that eight Jewish settlers were detained in the same manner during November.
Jonathan Mizrahi, director of Peace Now, told AFP that while administrative detention is mostly used against Palestinians in the West Bank, it is one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence through detention.
"The lifting of administrative detention orders only for settlers is a cynical move ... that justifies and normalizes growing Jewish terrorism under the pretext of war," the organization said in a statement, citing a rise in settler attacks during the Israel-Hamas conflict over the past 13 months.
Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon killed five medics, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said.
Fighting between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters has intensified, including attacks on the coastal city of Nakuru, where the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL is based.
Multiple UNIFIL bases have been hit since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon began on October 1, with peacekeepers injured.
The Israeli army announced today that it "eliminated five terrorists" of Hamas, including two commanders, during a raid in the area of Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza Strip.
The military and Israeli intelligence said the slain Hamas commanders took part in the massacre on October 7 last year and ordered killings and kidnappings in the Mefalsim area, a kibbutz in southern Israel.
The army carried out the operation in the night between Wednesday and Thursday, it was announced today.
(BETA)
This morning, the Israeli army carried out new attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut, where the strongholds of the Lebanese Hezbollah are located.
As reported by Agence France-Presse, the Israeli army carried out the strikes after calling on the population to evacuate.
In addition to the suburbs of Beirut, an appeal for evacuation was also sent to several areas of southern Lebanon.
(BETA)
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