Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told his American counterpart Lloyd Austin today that Israel will "continue to act decisively" against the Lebanese Hezbollah movement.
In a telephone conversation with Austin, Katz reiterated his country's commitment to "target Hezbollah's terrorist infrastructure and eliminate terrorist leaders" to allow the population of northern Israel, displaced by the Lebanese movement's rocket fire, to return safely to their homes.
In that conversation, Austin reiterated the US commitment to a diplomatic solution in Lebanon "that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the border," according to a statement from the US Department of Defense.
The Israeli authorities want to disable the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas, which has the support of Iran, after the attack of Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023. That attack started the war in the Gaza Strip.
(Beta)
Israel launched an attack on the Syrian-Lebanese border crossing in the Homs region, the Syrian state news agency announced today, as reported by the Reuters agency.
At least 30 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the south and east of Lebanon, the Ministry of Health announced this evening.
In the east, where the Hezbollah movement is active, at least 16 people, including four children, were killed, the ministry said.
In the south, another Hezbollah stronghold, at least 14 people were killed, including five in the coastal city of Tyre.
In support of the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel on October 8, 2023, targeting Israeli territory daily from southern Lebanon.
On September 23 of this year, those hostilities turned into an open war with intense Israeli attacks, supposedly only against the strongholds of the Lebanese movement, but still with many civilian casualties.
(Beta)
In Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip, at least 120 Palestinians were killed in the last 48 hours, and a hospital on the northern edge of the enclave was also hit, medical personnel were wounded and equipment was damaged, Palestinian doctors said today, Reuters reports.
Among the dead were seven members of a family whose house was hit overnight in Zaytun, a suburb on the outskirts of Gaza City, health officials said.
The rest were killed in separate Israeli strikes in central and southern Gaza.
At the same time, Israeli forces deepened their incursion and bombardment of the northern edge of the enclave.
A spokesman for the armed wing of the Hamas group said that an Israeli hostage in the group's custody was killed in a northern area under attack by Israeli forces.
"The life of another female prisoner who was with her remains in immediate danger," added spokesman Abu Ubaid, accusing the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
An Israeli military spokesman said they were investigating the Hamas report.
"We are unable to confirm or deny this at this time. Hamas continues to engage in psychological terrorism and act in a cruel manner," the spokesman said.
A group representing the families of the hostages did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to Reuters.
Fifteen people were killed in a heavy airstrike on downtown Beirut today, and 15 others were killed in attacks northeast of the Lebanese capital, the health ministry said, as Israel launched an offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, reports Reuters.
Eight victims, four of them children, were killed in the attack on the village of Chimstar, and five people were killed in the attack on the village of Bodai, the ministry announced. Both villages are in Balbek district.
In Beirut, an eight-story building was hit by four missiles, including bunker-busting types designed to hit underground targets, a Lebanese security source said.
Israel used bunker busting weapons to kill senior Hezbollah figures, including its veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah in an attack on southern Beirut in September.
At the site of the Israeli strike in downtown Beirut, Amin Chiri, a member of parliament representing Hezbollah, said there was no Hezbollah leader in the building that was hit. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Saturday's explosions rocked the capital around 4:XNUMX a.m. (three o'clock CET).
Beirut smelled strongly of explosives for hours afterwards.
Rescuers searched the ruins, in a part of the city known for its antique shops.
It was the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting the central Beirut area, unlike most Israeli attacks on the main region, which hit the southern suburbs controlled by Hezbollah.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed a Hezbollah official in the Ras al-Naba district of central Beirut. The Israeli air force also hit Hezbollah targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the group's stronghold, the Israeli military said.
In the announcement of Saturday's actions, there was no mention of the strike on central Beirut.
They accused Hezbollah of building its infrastructure in civilian areas and using the population as human shields, allegations that Hezbollah denies.
Sources close to the Lebanese security forces announced this evening that a "senior official" of the Lebanese, pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement was the target of Israeli attacks this morning on Beirut, where a residential neighborhood was hit.
"The target was a high official of Hezbollah. It is not possible to know for now whether he was killed," those sources told France Presse.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced the new balance of victims in the attack on Beirut. 15 people died and 63 people were injured in the attack in which a residential building was destroyed.
The ministry added that the search for survivors under the ruins continued.
Hezbollah official Amin Sheri denied that one of the leaders of the movement was the target of the attack.
In support of the Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel on October 8, 2023, targeting Israeli territory daily from southern Lebanon.
On September 23 of this year, those hostilities turned into an open war with intense Israeli attacks, supposedly only against the strongholds of the Lebanese movement, but still with many civilian casualties.
(Beta)
The armed wing of the Palestinian movement Hamas announced today that a hostage kidnapped during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli soil was killed in the combat zone in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.
The spokesman for that wing of Hamas, Abu Obeid, said that, after several weeks of breaking contact with the guards of the hostages, contact had now been established and that the guards said that a female hostage was killed during an operation by the Israeli army in the north of the Palestinian territory.
No details were given on the date and location, the identity of the victim and the circumstances of the death.
The Israeli military, contacted by AFP, said it was investigating the claims.
During the attack by members of Hamas on October 7, 2023, 251 people were kidnapped on Israeli soil. A total of 97 hostages remained in Gaza, 34 of whom were declared dead by the Israeli army.
(BETA)
US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin reiterated today the commitment of the US to a diplomatic solution in Lebanon, during a conversation with his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz.
Austin's statement comes at a time when the war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement continues and as the Israeli army carries out attacks on downtown Beirut where 11 people died today in a collapsed apartment building, according to the Lebanese authorities.
The Pentagon chief reiterated "the US commitment to a diplomatic solution in Lebanon that allows Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return safely to their homes on both sides of the border," the US Department of Defense said in a statement.
The Israeli authorities want to disable the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas, which has the support of Iran, after the attack of Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023. That attack started the war in the Gaza Strip.
The US, which politically and militarily supports Israel, claims that it wants to end these conflicts through diplomatic means. US authorities also reiterate their desire to see an improvement in the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
(BETA)
The Health Ministry of the Hamas government in Gaza announced today that 44.176 people have died in the Palestinian territory since the war with Israel began more than a year ago.
At least 120 people died in the last 48 hours, the Ministry announced.
As it is added, since the beginning of the war in Gaza started by the attack of Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, 104.473 people have been injured.
(BETA)
At least 11 people were killed and 63 were injured in an Israeli attack early this morning on a residential neighborhood in Beirut, the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced the new balance.
The ministry announced that the final balance will be determined after DNA analysis of the remains found on the ruins.
Earlier, the ministry reported that four people were killed in an Israeli attack at dawn on a building in downtown Beirut, and that this is a preliminary toll as rescuers continue to clear the rubble in search of bodies of victims and possible survivors.
The attacks took place at 4.00:XNUMX a.m. local time when an eight-story building was destroyed and a huge crater was made in the ground.
Also today, a drone attack killed one person and wounded another in the southern city of Tyre, the Lebanese state news agency NNA reported.
This was the fourth attack on the capital of Lebanon in less than a week, AP reports.
The escalation followed the arrival of US envoy Amos Hochstein to the region this week in an attempt to broker a ceasefire deal to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, which has escalated into full-scale war in the past two months.
After a year of cross-border conflicts, Israel began a full-scale war against the Lebanese Hezbollah on September 23 with an intensive bombardment of Lebanon.
The Israeli army frequently bombards the southern suburbs of Beirut, where the strongholds of the Hezbollah organization are located.
Hezbollah has been supporting the Palestinian extremist Hamas, which Israel has been fighting in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.
The Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced this morning that 19 people, including at least six children, were killed in overnight Israeli attacks and shelling in several places in the Palestinian territory.
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal told AFP that 19 Palestinians were killed and more than 40 wounded in three Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip between midnight and this morning, as well as in tank shelling in Rafah, in the south of the territory.
In one of the attacks, a house was targeted in Zejtun, a neighborhood in the city of Gaza, when seven people were killed, including three children, and ten were wounded, Basal said.
"What did these people do? They were sleeping at home, they are civilians who have nothing to do with Hamas or the resistance," Abdallah Shaldan, a family member whose house was completely destroyed, told AFP.
In the second attack, in Khan Younes, in the south of the territory, six people were killed, three of them children, and 26 were wounded. These are displaced people who lived in tents near the targeted building, Basal said.
In the Nuseirat camp in the center of the Gaza Strip, four more people were killed in an attack on a family home, and in Rafah, two young men were killed in tank shelling, he added.
The war was launched after a surprise attack by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. In that attack, more than 1.200 people (mostly Israeli civilians) were killed, and 251 people were kidnapped. A further 97 hostages are believed to be in Gaza, of whom the Israeli military has declared 34 dead.
More than 44,000 Palestinians were subsequently killed in Israel's military campaign of retaliation in the Gaza Strip.
(BETA)
At the upcoming meeting of the G7 group, Italy plans to consider the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni said.
"This government remains firm on one thing: the responsibility of the State of Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas cannot be equated," Prime Minister Meloni said in a statement, saying she would "examine the motives" of the ICC, reports DPA.
Italy, which currently chairs the G7 group, will host foreign ministers in Fuji, a city near Rome, on November 25.
On November 21, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and recently fired Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
Israel's allies criticized the decision.
ICC member states have generally pledged to enforce arrest warrants, although there is disagreement among these states on how to deal with Netanyahu, DPA reminds.
Hungary has already said it intends to ignore the arrest warrant.
The other members of the G7 are the United States, Canada, Britain, Japan, France and Germany.
The US, like Israel, is not recognized by the International Criminal Court.
(RSE)
The Israeli Air Force attacked the center of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, on Saturday as Israel continues its offensive against Hezbollah, security sources confirmed, Reuters writes.
At least four people were killed and 23 wounded in an attack in Beirut's Basta district, Hezbollah al-Manar television reported, citing information from the Lebanese Ministry of Health.
Hezbollah, the pro-Iranian movement in Lebanon, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States of America (USA), while the European Union (EU) blacklisted only its armed wing, but not the political party that is represented in Lebanon's parliament.
Lebanon's National News Agency reported that there were casualties in the attack, and that an eight-story building was destroyed.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon's Al Jadid station showed at least one building destroyed and several others badly damaged nearby.
The explosions rocked Bjerut around 4 am, witnesses confirmed to Reuters. Security sources say that at least four bombs were thrown in the attack.
It is the fourth Israeli airstrike this week targeting downtown Beirut, although most Israeli strikes have targeted the southern suburbs controlled by Hezbollah.
Several officials of Hezbollah, Tehran's most important ally in the region, were killed in air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs.
Israel launched a major offensive against Hezbollah in September, following nearly a year of cross-border hostilities sparked by the Gaza war.
The conflict began when Hezbollah opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, a group listed by the US and the EU as a terrorist organization that attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
US mediator Amos Hochstein traveled to Lebanon and Israel this week in an effort to secure a ceasefire.
(RSE)
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Friday evening that the so-called administrative detention regime, equivalent to almost unlimited police detention, will no longer apply to Israeli settlers, Jews in the West Bank.
While "Jewish settlements (in the West Bank) are subject to serious Palestinian terrorist threats (...) and unjustified international sanctions against settlers or companies working on colonization, it is not appropriate for the State of Israel to apply such a severe measure (administrative detention) against settlers," Kac said in a statement.
The Palestinian Authority responded in a message posted on Platform X that Israel encourages "extremist settlers to engage in terrorism against Palestinians, their land and property, while giving them a sense of impunity and protection."
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence in the Palestinian territory exploded with the start of Israel's war against the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza on October 7, 2023.
More than 770 Palestinians were killed there by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the Palestinian Authority. At the same time, according to official Israeli data, 24 Israelis, civilians or soldiers, were killed there in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids.
Faced with an increase in violence perpetrated by armed settlers, several Western countries - the US, Great Britain and Canada, as well as the European Union - have imposed sanctions over the past twelve months - asset freezes, travel bans on several settlers described as "extremists".
A few days ago, the US for the first time sanctioned an Israeli construction company that builds settlements in the West Bank.
Administrative detention is a procedure inherited from the legal arsenal of the British rule of Palestine (1920-1948), before the creation of Israel.
It allows the authorities to detain a suspect without indictment for up to several months, which can practically be extended indefinitely.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, an NGO that defends Palestinians detained by Israel, more than 3.430 Palestinians were in administrative detention at the end of August.
By comparison, only eight Jewish settlers have been detained that way to date, the left-wing Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday.
The announcement to end administrative detention for settlers comes a day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued international arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Galant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Netanyahu categorically rejected the Court's decision as a "moral failure" and a measure driven by "anti-Semitic hatred of Israel."
His Minister for National Security and far-right ally Itamar Ben Gvir demanded that the ICC decision be responded to by annexing the entire West Bank and expanding Jewish colonization.
The UN considers that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where 490.000 Israelis, Jews live, among three million Palestinians, are illegal under international law.
(BETA)
Residents of the Gaza Strip told Reuters on November 22 that the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli leaders do not give them hope that Israel will stop its attacks on the Palestinian territory, and the latest of them, according to health sources, at least 24 people were killed.
In the city of Gaza in the north of the Strip, eight people were killed in an Israeli attack on a house in Shejaya, medical services announced. Three others were killed in the attack near the bakery, and a fisherman was killed before he went out to sea.
In the central and southern parts of this enclave, 12 people were killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces have gone deeper into the northern part of the enclave, intensifying their bombardment of that part of the Strip, the main target of the offensive since last month.
The Israeli army claims it is trying to prevent the regrouping of Hamas fighters and their attacks from the area.
Residents, on the other hand, fear that the goal is to permanently remove the population from that part of the Strip so that it becomes a buffer zone, which Israel rejects.
Residents of the three besieged towns in the north of the enclave – Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanun – report that dozens of houses were blown up by Israeli forces. Gaza's health ministry reported that an Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahia's Kamal Advan hospital, one of three barely functioning in the area, injured six staff, three of them critically.
"In the attack, the hospital's main generator was also destroyed and the water tanks were damaged, as a result of which the hospital was left without water and oxygen and which endangers the lives of patients and staff inside it," it was announced.
There are currently 85 injured in the hospital, including children and women, and eight of them are in the intensive care unit.
The Ministry later announced on November 22 that all hospital services in the Belt will stop if fuel delivery is not made possible within 48 hours.
Israel claims that the blockade was imposed to prevent Hamas - a Palestinian organization that the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organization - from using the fuel.
On November 21, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, as well as for Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Gazans interpret the decision as an acknowledgment of the suffering they face, but those who waited for bread in the southern city of Khan Yunis on November 22 doubt its impact, Reuters writes.
"The decision will not be implemented because America protects Israel and can veto anything. Israel will not respond," said Saber Abu Gali.
"For more than 76 years, we have been listening to decisions that have not been implemented and have achieved nothing for us," said 75-year-old Said Abu Yusef.
During Israel's war in Gaza, 44.056 people were killed, and the entire population of that Palestinian territory had to move at least once.
The campaign was launched in retaliation after Hamas-led militants invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1.200 people and kidnapping more than 250 people.
(RSE)
Bonus video:
