No ceasefire, no respite for Lebanon until demands met: Israel’s Katz

Israel’s new Defence Minister Israel Katz says he will not agree to any Lebanon ceasefire that does not ensure a disarmed Hezbollah withdraws north of Lebanon’s Litani River or allow the residents of northern Israel to return to their homes.

“We will not make any ceasefires, we will not take our foot off the pedal,” he said during his first visit to the Northern Command and the chief of staff.

“We will not allow any arrangement that does not include the achievement of the war’s objectives – and above all Israel’s right to enforce and act on its own against any terrorist activity,” Katz added.

“Terrorist infrastructure is collapsing in Beirut – we will continue to hurt Hezbollah everywhere,” he said.

Israeli politician threatens Lebanon’s government for ‘inaction’ against Hezbollah

The head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, Avigdor Lieberman, has accused the government of Lebanon of having “stood by and not taken any action against Hezbollah” for 403 days.

“Hezbollah’s incessant firing from Lebanon must be stopped,” he said.

Lieberman added that if the Lebanese army does not act against Hezbollah operating from its soil, “Israel will be obliged to severely damage the infrastructure of the state of Lebanon.”


France says Israel wants freedom to strike Lebanon even after ceasefire

France’s foreign minister said Israeli officials are insisting on maintaining a capacity to strike Lebanon at any moment as part of conditions to secure a ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Speaking to a parliamentary hearing after holding talks in Israel last week in Jerusalem, Jean-Noel Barrot said it was a condition increasingly voiced among Israeli officials.

“Today, we hear in Israel voices calling for it to keep a capacity to strike at any moment or even enter Lebanon, as is the case with its neighbour Syria,” said Barrot, who held talks with Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and new Defence Minister Israel Katz last week.

Earlier, Israel’s Defence Minister Katz said, “We will not allow any arrangement that does not include the achievement of the war’s objectives – and above all Israel’s right to enforce and act on its own against any terrorist activity.”

France, which has historical ties with Lebanon, has sought to play a role in trying to secure a ceasefire in the Middle Eastern country.

Smotrich hails incoming US envoy’s remarks on West Bank annexation

The far-right Israeli Finance Minister has praised the incoming US envoy to Israel Mike Huckabee for making remarks in apparent support of Israel’s potential annexation of the occupied West Bank.

“I congratulate Ambassador-designate Mike Huckabee for his words. I am convinced that we will be able to work closely together with President-elect Trump and with all members of the incoming administration … on the basis of recognition in the unshakable historical belonging of the entire land of Israel to the people of Israel,” Smotrich said on X.

In an interview with Israel’s Army Radio, Huckabee said “of course” annexation of the West Bank is a possibility but noted that he is not the one who sets policy. “I believe that the people of Israel deserve a safe state – anything I can do to help this will be a privilege for me,” Huckabee added.

The two are mutually exclusive, annexing the West Bank will not create a safe state.

Who is Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pro-settlement pick for Israel ambassador?

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/12/trump-picks-pro-settlement-mike-huckabee-as-us-ambassador-to-israel

Huckabee, Trump’s former rival in the Republican primary elections, has a long history of support for Israel and for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

“There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation,” he said on the news network CNN in 2017.

Earlier, in 2015, during his run for president, Huckabee attended a fundraiser for US citizens in the illegal Israeli settlement of Shiloh. There, he once again referred to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria”, the territory’s biblical name, and described it as a fundamental part of Israel.

Nominees like Huckabee hint at what some critics fear from a second Trump administration: That he will go further than President Biden in his support for Israel.

Israeli forces prep to stay in Gaza until at least end of 2025: Report

Israeli news outlet Haaretz reports that the army has distributed training and planning materials to personnel in recent weeks that show plans to occupy the Gaza Strip for at least the entirety of next year.

Also, Haaretz reports, the extent of Israel’s infrastructure construction and the destruction of buildings in Gaza suggests a long stay for combat troops.

“Wide roads are being built, cellular antennas are going up, water, sewage and electricity networks are going in and of course there are the buildings, some portable and others less so,” the report reads.

The US, under President Joe Biden, has repeatedly said that it does not want to see a prolonged Israeli security presence in Gaza after the end of the war.

It remains to be seen how incoming President Trump will view “the day after” in Gaza.

US files charges in leak of documents on Israel’s plans to attack Iran

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/13/man-charged-in-us-for-leaking-secret-documents-about-israeli-attack-on-iran

The US government has charged an employee in a case of leaked classified documents, The Associated Press reports. The FBI said in late October that it was investigating the unauthorised release of classified documents on Israel’s preparation for a potential attack on Iran.

The man, identified as Asif William Rahman, was arrested by the FBI this week in Cambodia and was due to make his first court appearance in Guam, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.

Rahman was indicted last week in US court in Virginia on two counts of disclosing national defence information under the Espionage Act, and could face a lengthy prison sentence. The New York Times reported that Rahman was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), adding that the CIA did not comment on the matter.

The leaked documents were prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which analyses images and information collected by US spy satellites, the newspaper reported. The NGA conducts work in support of secret US military operations.

Pro-Palestine demonstrations in Amsterdam

Pro-Palestine demonstrators rallied in central Amsterdam, defying a ban imposed after violence stemming from a football match between Ajax and Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv. Dozens of demonstrators, some with Palestinian flags, chanted “Amsterdam is saying no to genocide” and “Free Palestine”.

Police with expanded stop-and-search powers in the Dutch capital have detained or removed hundreds of demonstrators since last week’s clashes under emergency measures imposed until Thursday.

Israel pounds Gaza City as death toll rises

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic are reporting that Israeli forces have launched three raids on the northern city in recent hours. The attacks came as medical sources raised the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Tuesday to 64.

Deadly attacks in recent hours include on:

At least eight killed in second attack on southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi ‘safe zone’

There was another new attack in the so-called safe humanitarian area in al-Mawasi, in the western part of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis region, where Israeli forces just targeted the Abu Taha family home.

At least eight Palestinians were killed. According to the civil defence teams and the ambulances in that area, there are still people trapped under the rubble. There were dozens of Palestinians in this house.

People who are in this area are saying that this is the second air strike that took place in al-Mawasi today. Israeli forces targeted a tent there earlier.

_{Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on tents of displaced people, in Deir el-Balah, November 13}


Israeli attack on house kills 10 in northern Gaza’s Jabalia

At least 10 Palestinians, including children, have been killed in an Israeli air attack on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. That’s according to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic.

Long queues at Gaza City bakery as famine looms

Videos shared online show long queues in front of a bakery in Gaza City.

The northern part of Gaza has been under a deadly Israeli siege for more than a month. A review by the Famine Review Committee (FRC) last week found an “imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip”.

On Tuesday, rights groups issued a joint statement saying Israel had failed to meet a deadline set by the US to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza or face unspecified restrictions on military assistance.

Basic daily staples now ‘barely exist’ in Gaza, UN warns

United Nations humanitarians have warned that markets are “in decay” across Gaza where basic goods have run out.

“Fresh foods, eggs and meat barely exist and the prices of any food available have reached record highs,” the World Food Programme said on X, just days after UN-backed experts warned that famine thresholds may have already been crossed in northern Gaza.

The UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said so far this month every attempt by the UN to access besieged areas of north Gaza with food and medicines had failed, amid a continuing Israeli siege and relentless bombardment.

Fewer than half of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional, along with just 47 out of 133 primary health centres.


Israeli air strikes target displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza

Our colleagues on the ground are reporting an Israeli air strike on a tent housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis. Several people have been wounded in the attack.


Israeli strikes in Maghazi and Nuseirat kill seven people

An air raid targeting a group of Palestinians in the centre of the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza has killed at least five people, our colleagues on the ground are reporting. Two people were also killed in an Israeli strike on a tented encampment west of the Nuseirat camp, in central Gaza.

At least 33 people have been killed by Israeli attacks since dawn today, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

Israeli settlers torch Palestinian vehicles in Jerusalem: Report

Videos, verified by Al Jazeera, show a number of vehicles ablaze in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Al Qastal media outlet reported that Israeli settlers had set fire to the vehicles in predawn attacks.

Clashes near occupied West Bank’s Hebron after Israel demolishes Palestinian homes

Wafa news agency reports that several Palestinians have suffered tear gas inhalation after clashes broke out in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the West Bank.

The clashes between locals and Israeli security forces broke out at the entrance to the town after the forces demolished several Palestinian structures, including two homes. Israeli forces responded with live bullets and tear gas, Wafa reported.

Elswhere in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers stormed a Bedouin community and began bulldozing lands, Wafa reported.

Areas around Ras Ain al-Auja were cleared by the settlers in what one local activist described as the prelude for their takeover.

The settlers, who were escorted by the Israeli army, entered the community, roamed its streets, and damaged and destroyed local property, according to Hassam Malihat, the general supervisor of Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, who spoke to Wafa.

Israeli attack targets Syria’s Homs countryside

Syrian state media said that Israel had carried out an air raid in a region near the border with Lebanon.

The SANA news agency said that “the Israeli aggression” on the Homs region had been met with a barrage of anti-aircraft fire.

Israel says it has been carrying out strikes to reduce the transfer of weapons from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which it said had spread to the town of al-Qusayr, near the Syrian-Lebanese border.

SANA news agency is reporting that Israeli planes targeted bridges along the Orontes river and roads around the border. It added that the attack on the Homs region had been met with a barrage of anti-aircraft fire.

The strikes caused “significant damage”, a military source cited by the agency said, putting some of the infrastructure out of action.

Israel says strikes targeted Syria-Lebanon smuggling route

The Israeli army said it struck smuggling routes between Syria and Lebanon to reduce the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah.

The military said in a statement that it launched an air raid on the border area as part of a “larger effort targeting the capabilities of Unit 4400, the Hezbollah unit responsible for smuggling weapons”.

It added that the Lebanese group continued to transfer weapons with the help of the Syrian regime.

US military reports strikes on Houthi sites in Yemen

US Central Command has said its forces struck multiple weapons storage facilities in Yemen on Saturday and Sunday.

“These facilities housed a variety of advanced conventional weapons used by the Iran-backed Houthis to target US and international military and civilian vessels navigating international waters in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden,” CENTCOM said in a statement today.

It added that the strikes were conducted in response to repeated Houthi attacks on “US and international military and civilian vessels navigating international waters in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden”.

The Houthis have pledged to attack ships in the waterways in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Israel issues new threats for southern Beirut

Israel’s military spokesman announced new warnings as its forces continue to bombard the southern suburbs of Beirut. He said that the Israeli military will soon operate in the areas of Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh.

Since early Wednesday, Israeli strikes have levelled half a dozen residential buildings in the Dahiyeh suburb, while killing at least eight people in Dawhet Aramoun, a village located to the south of Beirut.


_{Israeli air raids targeted Burj al-Barajneh and Haret Hreik in southern Beirut}

Israeli jets bomb commercial district in southern Beirut

Israeli warplanes have launched more attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut, targeting the commercial district of Haret Hreik and the Burj al-Barajneh neighbourhood, Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondent reports.

The latest attacks brought the number of attacks on south Beirut since last night to seven, AJA’s correspondent said.

As we reported earlier the Israeli military issued warnings it would target Haret Hreik and Burj al-Barajneh on Wednesday night.

Radio journalist, children killed in Israeli strike in Lebanon

The Union of Audiovisual Media Workers has confirmed that Sakina Mansour Kawtharani, who worked with al-Nour radio station, was killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.

Kawtharani was killed in a strike on Joun in the Chouf district, the union reported, without providing a date of the attack. Her two children and other members of her family were also killed in the attack, they said.

On Tuesday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said 12 people were killed in a strike in Joun, although it was not immediately clear if that is the same attack in which Kawtharani was killed.

The killing comes after three journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on a guesthouse in southeastern Lebanon on October 25.

Israel using starvation to empty northern Gaza: UN rapporteur

The UN special rapporteur on the right to food says Israel has been using famine as a weapon of war to empty out parts of the Gaza Strip.

“Israel announced its plan to starve the Palestinian population on October 9 and it’s done so,” Michael Fakhri told Al Jazeera, referring to the order by then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant of a “complete siege” on Gaza.

“What Israel has been trying to do over the past year is clear: Empty out the north,” he said. “When I say empty, I mean Israel has been using starvation as a tool to kill people and to forcibly displace people.”

Fakhri said Israel was denying aid, restricting aid and destroying the food system to deny the Palestinians the ability to feed themselves.

“Israel was able to do this because of a decades-long policy of siege, of blockade, of controlling every calory entering Gaza, so what they did in October 2023 was like flipping a switch,” he said.