Israel has committed more than 4,500 violations since 2024 truce, Lebanese army says

Lebanon’s army says Israel has committed more than 4,500 violations since the cessation of hostilities agreement with Hezbollah went into effect in November after its assault on Lebanon.

In a statement, the military said Israel continues to attack civilians and villages in the south, including more strikes today that have killed and wounded residents, and accused Israel of repeated violations by land, sea, and air.

The army added that Israeli actions, including firing incendiary bombs and demolishing homes, are obstructing its deployment in the south and threaten to derail its plan to fully secure areas south of the Litani River.

During engineering sweeps in southern Lebanon, an army unit found and dismantled a camouflaged Israeli spy device in the Labbouneh area near Tyre. The army said it is coordinating with UNIFIL and the ceasefire monitoring committee to follow up on the violations.

Lebanon’s Meiss al-Jabal officials decry ‘cowardly’ Israeli attacks

The municipality of Meiss el-Jabal in southern Lebanon condemned a “cowardly aggression” after Israeli forces bombed two homes in the town earlier today, causing extensive damage, wounding a worker, and forcing the temporary evacuation of dozens of families, including children, women, and the elderly.

In a statement, the municipality said the repeated Israeli attacks are undermining security and obstructing civilian life.

“We place this ongoing aggression in the hands of Lebanon’s official authorities and the international mediators of the ceasefire agreement, which so far has only been implemented by Lebanon,” the statement read.

“Mere condemnations are no longer enough unless they are accompanied by serious national actions or binding international decisions.”


_{A fireball erupts amid Israeli strikes in the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Tibnit}

Israeli army carried out several attacks across southern Lebanon, destroying buildings

The Israeli air force carried out a number of strikes on six different locations in five villages in southern Lebanon, completely destroying those buildings.

The Israeli army, a short while ago, issued a statement saying that they targeted weapons depots belonging to Hezbollah. This is what the Israeli army repeatedly says when it targets Lebanon. It says it is trying to prevent Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.

Those strikes have now ended. They are being seen as a sort of message to Lebanese authorities … they are condemning these attacks, saying that they continue to violate Lebanon’s sovereignty.

There was a prior evacuation warning to the attacks; we saw mass evacuations, people leaving these villages. This time, Israel’s army was not hitting villages along the border, which have been depopulated – these are towns where people reside in.

Israel creating a ‘lifeless wasteland’ in swaths of Gaza City

The Israeli military is still expanding its ground operations in Gaza City and it is operating in key urban centres.

The campaign has been marked by the extreme use of firepower, where tanks backed up by infantry and bulldozers are moving into densely populated areas and forcing more and more families to flee to the south of the Gaza Strip.

This operation is casting its shadow over more than one million Palestinians. Tens of thousands are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe – but with no guarantee of safety – or at least for shelter.

But most families who have arrived in the south have not found space. That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky.

Human rights groups are calling the Israeli tactics completely indiscriminate, but Israel is determined to expand its offensive in Gaza City, which it says is intended to break the grip of Hamas over the city.

But the impact on civilians is grave and nothing short of a devastating campaign that is leaving all kinds of destruction and a lifeless wasteland where there was once a vibrant community.

Gaza City’s last lifelines collapsing as Israeli attacks intensify, OCHA warns

The last lifelines for civilians in Gaza City are collapsing as Israel escalates its military assault, the UN humanitarian office (OCHA) warns.

In five days, 11 UNRWA shelters housing 11,000 people were hit, OCHA said. More than one million people have been displaced since Israel broke the March ceasefire, including 200,000 in the last month and 56,000 since Sunday alone, OCHA added.

Aid agencies are delivering wheat flour, food parcels, and nearly 560,000 meals daily, but OCHA accused Israel of “systematically blocking” efforts, citing the closure of the Zikim crossing and bans on certain food items.

“Opportunities to support starving people are being systematically blocked. Every week, new restrictions are imposed,” the agency said.

Closure of Allenby crossing leaves Palestinians with few options

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed that the two people killed at the Allenby (King Hussein Bridge) border crossing with Jordan earlier in the day were actually two Israeli soldiers.

Subsequently, both sides of the border crossing were closed and the Israeli army conducted a raid and closed off all of the area surrounding the border crossing, meaning the occupied West Bank city of Jericho.

It’s worth mentioning that this border crossing is the only way both in and out for Palestinians in the occupied territory.

There’s no other way out for them. They cannot fly out of the airport in Tel Aviv because of the circumstances of life under occupation.

UN Security Council to vote on latest ceasefire resolution

The latest resolution is being introduced by Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Somalia.

A draft of the resolution, attained by Al Jazeera, points to UN findings that famine is occurring in Gaza City and is expected to expand to Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of September. It also comes amid Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza City.

The draft resolution:

Ceasefire resolutions send a ‘clear message’: Denmark ambassador

Christina Markus Lassen, Denmark’s ambassador to the UN, has presented the latest Gaza ceasefire draft resolution at the UN Security Council.

“So colleagues, let this resolution send a clear message, a message that the Security Council is not turning its back on starving civilians, on the hostages and the demand for a ceasefire,” she said.

“Let it say that we support humanitarian workers and health personnel struggling against impossible odds – that when a war is livestreamed around the world, daily and in graphic details, we have the decency to act. That international law matters, that humanitarian principles matter, that the principles of humanity in this UN Charter guide us.”

US vetoes ceasefire resolution

The US is the sole country to vote against today’s ceasefire resolution. Because it is a permanent member of the council, the vote means the resolution has been scuttled.

The US representative said the resolution “fails to condemn Hamas or recognise Israel’s right to defend itself, and it wrongly legitimises the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council”.

The US, a close ally of Israel, has repeatedly voted down UN Security Council resolutions on a ceasefire.

Algerian ambassador to UN says ‘we will not give up’

Amar Bendjama has been responding to the US vetoing the latest resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“Forgive us, in particular in Gaza, where fire consumes, where rubber suffocates, forgive us, because this council could not save your children,” Bendjama said.

“Because Israel is shielded, because it is immune. Immune, not by international law, but by the bias of this international system,” he said.

“Israel kills every day and nothing happens. Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happened.

“And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”

14 against 1 at the UNSC yet again, as US vetoes resolution on Gaza

The US veto certainly does not serve the people of Gaza. This is the sixth time the US have used their veto now in nearly two years at the Security Council, blocking what is vital for the people of Gaza – most notably a ceasefire, which was one of the very first things listed in this draft resolution.

It was a resolution drawn up by 10 out of 15 Security Council members; the 10 who are the non-permanent members but also supported by all of the permanent members – apart from one, the US.

So 14 against one, yet again, is the way it has has stacked up at the Security Council.

Morgan Ortagus, the deputy US envoy for the Middle East, was saying the US does not believe the international community on famine in Gaza. She says the IPC – the international body that is so cautious about its decisions and recommendations, but said that famine was occurring in Gaza – was “biased” and used faulty methodology.

And she says that a ceasefire and this resolution would actually help Hamas and lead to another October 7.

That’s her view and the view of the US administration, not the view that is shared by any of the rest of these ambassadors. But the way the system works and the UNSC was set up … was with the [five] powerful victors of World War II all given a veto.

That is what is stopping action on Palestine, that is what is stopping action on Gaza, and that is what is stopping any ceasefire for what the Danish representative described as this “abhorrent” war.

UN is useless, just a way to exert control on the world by the five veto members. WW3 is getting closer. 

Members of UNSC condemn US veto of ceasefire resolution

Members of the UNSC have been condemning the US’s veto of today’s ceasefire resolution, which all 14 other members voted in favour of. Here are some more reactions:

Somalia’s Abukar Osman: “Time and again, this council has been blocked from action, invoking, sometimes explicit, more often unspoken, dangerous language and dangerous logic that the suffering of some is more tolerable than the suffering of others and that the lives of certain people matter less. It’s a notion that has stained our history before and is one we must reject.”

Pakistan’s Asim Iftikhar Ahmad: “Today’s failure sends a dangerous message that the lives of 2 million besieged Palestinians are deemed expendable and can be subordinated to political considerations. Every hour of obstruction deepens the wound and aggravates the suffering of the people of Gaza.”

UK’s Barbara Woodward: “We need a ceasefire more than ever, and yet Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza.”

Palestinian Envoy UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour: "Images coming out of Gaza are filled with “pain and anguish” and should have moved anyone watching. “Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again … humanitarians and journalists targeted … while Israeli officials openly mocking all of this, the draft resolution represents the “bare minimum” that must be done. It is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”

‘Shameful failure’ as US once again vetoes Gaza ceasefire resolution

Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, says UN Security Council members have an “obligation” to demand an end to the genocide in Gaza.

The US wasted no time to outline “the same tired, old propaganda that the Israelis have been using to justify their actions in Gaza”, Rahman told Al Jazeera.

US is complicit in many ways.

US says UN commission’s finding of genocide in Gaza ‘slanderous’

Morgan Ortagus, deputy US envoy for the Middle East, has responded to a UN commission report earlier this week that for the first time said that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

Several UN Security Council members have cited the UN Human Rights Council’s findings in condemning the US veto of today’s ceasefire resolution. The commission had previously found that Israel had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, but stopped short of calling the war a genocide.

“To be clear, we consider this a slanderous report that lacks any credibility. This report presents lies and distortions to the benefit of Hamas,” Ortagus told the Security Council.

She claimed, without providing evidence, that investigators had “bias that are in violation of the United Nations’s own rules of impartiality”.

“This is a clear example of the Human Rights Council’s moral bankruptcy and why the United States ended its participation in this body. It is long overdue that the Commission of Inquiry be eliminated and that its anti-Semitic witch hunt be put to an end,” she said.

Need any more proof the US is nothing but Israel's lackey?

Israeli ambassador thanks US for ‘moral conviction’

Israel’s ambassador Danny Danon has responded to the US veto at the UN Security Council, thanking the close ally for what he called its “moral conviction”.

The US has continued to stand by Israel, including in shielding it from UNSC resolutions, even as it has grown increasingly isolated in the West.

“First, we would like to thank the United States for showing leadership and moral conviction by vetoing this biased resolution,” said Danon, as he accused Security Council members of being influenced by both Algeria, and in turn, Hamas.

He said the war in Gaza needs no justification.

“Israel had even been asked to justify what needs no justification, bringing our hostages home and confronting Hamas to prove that there is no immunity for terrorists,” he said.

‘Division and anger’ as US vetoes UNSC Gaza resolution

I think you can see the division and the anger in the room. Normally, in a Security Council meeting, everyone speaks and the meeting ends – but we have a back and forth going on between various council members who are no longer scripted.

The Algerian ambassador asking to speak again, the Israeli ambassador … the Danish ambassador, asking to speak again. They’re all unhappy with what’s been said by the Israeli ambassador.

Algeria is the only Arab member of the group that drafted this resolution. Israeli ambassador Danny Danon took it out on Algeria, and that is why the Algerian ambassador is so angry and speaking in the council.

This was a resolution to try and stop the war in Gaza … try to get aid into Gaza, to condemn that there is now famine in Gaza, to condemn the expansion of the Israeli operation in Gaza.

All of that has been blocked … the US stopping that resolution from being passed again.

It's all up to the common people

Italian port blocks arms for Israel as worker protests mount

Italy’s Adriatic port of Ravenna has refused entry to two trucks said to be carrying arms to Israel, as protests mount among Italian dockworkers and other labour groups against the war in Gaza.

The centre-left mayor of Ravenna, Alessandro Barattoni, told reporters the port authority had accepted the request from him and the regional government to deny access to the lorries carrying explosives en route to the Israeli port of Haifa.

“The Italian state says it has blocked the sale of arms to Israel, but it is unacceptable that, thanks to bureaucratic loopholes, they can pass through Italy from other countries,” Barattoni said in a statement.

He did not provide details on where the containers had come from or provide evidence of their contents.

Similar action to block arms shipments to Israel has been taken by dockworkers in other European countries such as France, Sweden and Greece.

Ravenna’s decision reflects growing mobilisation in Italy against Israel’s assault and in support of an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to the Palestinians.

On Friday, Italy’s largest trade union body, the CGIL, will hold a national half-day strike and marches in Rome and other cities, while on September 22, two other unions will halt work and try to block activity in the large ports of Genoa and Livorno.

The CGIL said its protests were aimed at generating pressure on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government “to suspend all commercial and military cooperation agreements with Israel, lift the humanitarian embargo, and recognise the State of Palestine”.

Israel Foreign Ministry calls Global Sumud Flotilla ‘jihadist initiative serving terror group’

The latest Israeli condemnation comes as many ships in the Global Sumud Flotilla have left Sicily bound for Gaza.

The flotilla hopes to break Israel’s blockade, with several high-profile activists and more than 50 ships taking part. Israel has in the past intercepted flotillas, sometimes with deadly consequences.

In a post on X, Israel called the Sumud “a jihadist initiative serving the terror group’s agenda”, referring to Hamas, which has voiced support for the flotilla’s efforts.

Main events on September 18th 

• The UN’s OCHA has warned that the lifelines for civilians in Gaza City are collapsing as Israel escalates its military assault.
• The US has again vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, despite all other 14 members voting in favour.
• Israel launched a series of strikes on southern Lebanon, in a move decried by local officials as another violation of a ceasefire reached in November.
• Two Israeli soldiers were killed in an attack at the Allenby crossing by a man driving an aid truck. The attack led to the closure of the crossing, which connects the occupied West Bank and Jordan.

Amidst fear of Netanyahu, Trump’s rare praise for Starmer for Hamas criticism

When Donald Trump and Keir Starmer addressed the media in England on Thursday, both appeared visibly nervous in criticising Benjamin Netanyahu. When asked to comment on the appalling Gaza situation, both Trump and Starmer chose to criticise Hamas as they refused to name Netanyahu for their criticism. In an extraordinary development, when Starmer criticised Hamas, Trump patted his back in appreciation of his statement for the Palestinian resistance group. Rifat Jawaid looks at the fear for Netanyahu gripping both Trump and Starmer and asks why!!

Javier Bardem DESTROYS Israel Genocide Deniers

Aid Flotilla Has Israeli Leadership Worried

Host of the Colonial Outcasts Podcast, Greg Stoker joins us live from the Global Sumud Flotilla somewhere in the Mediterranean. Live-streamed on September 4