Commission of inquiry blames ‘arrogance’ of Israeli leaders for October 7 failings

An unofficial commission of inquiry set up by Israeli survivors of the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on Israel has slammed the Israeli Prime Minister and security establishment for failing to anticipate or prepare for the deadly incursion.

The commission published a report on Tuesday accusing Israeli leaders under Netanyahu of “arrogance and structural blindness” which “led directly to Israel’s unpreparedness and the failure to protect its citizens”, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reports.

In addition to Netanyahu, the 70-page report points blame at former Israeli prime ministers, police and military leaders and Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, according to Haaretz.

Chaired by former Tel Aviv District Court Judge Varda Alshech, the inquiry held months of hearings after the Netanyahu government refused to establish an official probe.

Four killed in Israeli strike on school shelter in Gaza City

Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that Israeli fighter planes have killed four people in an attack on the al-Tabin school shelter for displaced people in Gaza City. An unknown number of people are still missing and others have been injured, according to the report.

Al-Tabin shelter was the site of an Israeli attack in August the killed more than 100 people, many of whom were women and children.

The earlier Israeli attack on the school was found to have been carried out to inflict the greatest number of casualties as it was timed to coincide with dawn prayers, which was attended by many civilians sheltering at the school.

As the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire has just officially started, some videos

Israel’s Defenders Are Getting Desperate

With Natasha Hausdorff...

Blinken faces reality check from reporter on US being exploited by Netanyahu

A reporter on Tuesday finally told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken the truth, asking if Netanyahu was taking the US for a ride under the guise of a special relationship between the two countries.

US In MELTDOWN Over Netanyahu Arrest Warrants

This is what a rogue state looks like.

Ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah begins

It is now 4am local time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday in Lebanon and Israel where a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, announced by the United States and welcomed by Lebanon and world leaders, has now begun.

Ceasefire will hold if people of Israel, Lebanon treated as equals: analyst

Rami Khouri, a distinguished fellow at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera the ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon “has been worked on very carefully” and so should be expected to succeed, at least in the initial stages.

Whether the deal holds up in the longer term will depend on “if the Lebanese people and the Israeli people both feel, with evidence, that they’re treated as equals,” he added.

This will depend on whether the United States, France and the United Kingdom are willing to “drop their colonial ways and work to make sure that both Lebanese and Israelis are protected from each other… with diligent monitoring and diligent UN action on the border.”

In other words, it likely won't :/

Hezbollah couldn’t stop the genocide in Gaza – Marwan Bishara

Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara says that despite Hezbollah launching attacks on Israel since October 2023, the Lebanese armed group has not been able to reach its stated goal of ending Israel’s devastating war on the Gaza Strip.

“Regardless of Hezbollah’s intentions and planning and capacity to project power and to launch rockets, in the end of the day Hezbollah could not stop the genocide in Gaza,” he said.

The problem is the US' ironclad support for genocide. It could have worked without that. Yet all they did is funnel more US tax money to Israel.

Israeli military spokesman warns Lebanese civilians not to return home as ceasefire begins

Avichay Adraee has warned Lebanese civilians against returning home despite a ceasefire coming into effect, saying Israeli authorities “will inform you of the safe date to return”.

“With the ceasefire agreement coming into effect, and in accordance with its provisions, the [Israeli military] continues to be prepared in its positions in southern Lebanon,” the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman said.

“Do not move towards the villages that the [Israeli military] evacuated or towards [Israeli military] forces in the area. For your protection and the safety of your families, avoid reaching the area,” he added.


_{Displaced people who fled their homes due to Israeli evacuation orders sit along a road in Beirut, Lebanon, on November 26}

Israeli military says it remains deployed in southern Lebanon despite ceasefire

Earlier, we reported that the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman, Avichay Adraee, warned Lebanese civilians against returning home despite a ceasefire coming into effect, saying that Israeli authorities “will inform you of the safe date to return”.

In a post on X, Adraee has also said the Israeli military “remains deployed in its positions inside southern Lebanon”.

They have 60 days to withdraw, just like Hezbollah has 60 days to move north of the Litani River.

US envoy Hochstein says ‘there’s a lot to do in 60 days’

In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, US envoy Amos Hochstein has provided more detail about the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel.

Vehicles head towards southern Lebanon after start of ceasefire: Report


_{Vehicles drive towards southern Lebanon after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect early on Wednesday morning}

The Reuters news agency has reported that streams of cars carrying people displaced from southern Lebanon by Israeli air strikes have begun to travel south after the start of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Reporters with the news agency saw dozens of cars leaving the port city of Sidon, located south of Beirut, at about 4am local time (02:00 GMT) on Wednesday and heading deeper into southern Lebanon.

Shortly after the ceasefire took effect, Israel’s military warned displaced residents of southern Lebanon not to return to their homes. In a post on social media, Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee warned that people are “prohibited from heading towards the villages that the [Israel’s military] has ordered to be evacuated”, or moving towards areas where Israeli soldiers are deployed.

The spokesman said only that Lebanese people will be told when it is “safe to return home”. “For your safety and the safety of your family members, refrain from moving to the area,” he said.


_{A vehicle transporting mattresses in Damour drives along a highway towards Lebanon’s south}

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, celebrations in Lebanon

US President Joe Biden has announced that the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire to end their months of fighting.

Biden said the deal was designed to be what he called a “permanent cessation of hostilities” between the two sides who have fought for more than a year in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

_{A man smiles as he buys bread in Sidon, Lebanon, before heading back to the country’s south}

Scenes of celebration, defiance as ceasefire takes hold in Lebanon

_{Men gesture while holding Hezbollah flags, at the entrance of Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday morning}

_{People wave Lebanese and Amal Movement flags in Tyre, southern Lebanon}

At least 6 killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon-Syria border crossings

Earlier, we reported that Israeli warplanes had bombed all three of Lebanon’s border crossings with Syria overnight.

Syria’s state news agency SANA has now confirmed that four civilians and two government soldiers were killed in those attacks, which took place before the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah came into effect at 4am local time in Lebanon (02:00 GMT).

Twelve people were also wounded in the attacks, including children, women and workers from the Syrian Red Crescent.

The three border areas that were targeted are the Arida crossing, in Syria’s Tartous province, and the Dabussiyeh and Jussiyeh crossings, in Syria’s Homs province.

As we previously reported, the Syrian Red Crescent has confirmed one of its volunteers was killed and another injured in “the aggression that targeted Dabussiyeh and Arida crossings”.

Aftermath of Israeli attack on Lebanon-Syria border

Syria’s Defence Ministry says at least six people have been killed in Israeli strikes on border crossings with Lebanon just after midnight on November 27, hours before the Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire took effect.

_{The site of the Israeli attack on the Dabussiyeh border crossing}

Lebanese army says it is readying to move south

As the ceasefire holds, Lebanon’s army has said it is getting ready to move into the south of the country and “carry out its mission” under UN Resolution 1701. In a statement, the army called on people from front-line villages not to return home until after the Israeli military withdraws.

In other areas of the country, the army urged citizens to be on the lookout for “unexploded ordnance and suspicious objects left behind” by Israeli forces.

Lebanese residents return, survey the damage in war-torn Nabatieh

Thousands of people are returning to their homes, if indeed they have homes to return to.

We are in the old historic market of Nabatieh, a city that has come under a lot of bombardment in recent weeks. The market has been levelled to the ground. Many neighbourhoods in the city look like this, with destruction on every street corner.

For people here, this was part of a strategy of displacement. We have to remember that Lebanon before the war was already on the brink of collapse economically. So picking up the pieces is not going to be easy.

Translation: Haret Hreik area in the southern suburb after the ceasefire.

‘At any point, this war could start again’

Sami Nader, a Middle East analyst who is the director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs, predicts that the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah will not hold permanently.

Speaking from Beirut, Nader told Al Jazeera the agreement is “very fragile” because the underlying sources of conflict are still present – Israel and Lebanon have reached no final settlement and war in Gaza continues to rage. Nader also noted that Israel has asserted the right to intervene if it deems Hezbollah to be in violation of the truce.

“At any point in time this war could start again,” said Nader.

Israel says troops fired at vehicles in southern Lebanon, but ceasefire in effect

The military says on X that in the last hour, its troops “identified a number of vehicles in Lebanese territory with suspects in a restricted area”, and fired on them, without elaborating on what the people were suspected of.

The “suspects” then moved away, and the incident was finished, it said.

It also confirmed officially that the ceasefire went into effect this morning at 04:00 local time (06:00 GMT). Its “forces are drawn up in their positions in southern Lebanon”, according to the military.

Lebanon humanitarian crisis continues despite ceasefire: NRC

“After a violent night in which Israel’s aerial bombardment of Beirut spread yet more chaos and destruction, we now have a long-overdue ceasefire,” says Jan Egeland, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC)’s secretary-general.

“It will be a moment of relief for the families I met recently in Lebanon – and for millions around the country – but this relief must be lasting.”

Egeland urged that the ceasefire must ensure the end of displacement in the country, noting that many will have nowhere to return to.

“Many will have no homes to return to, no schools for their children, and livelihoods destroyed. The wellbeing of children and their families must be prioritised in what will be a long journey to recovery,” Egeland said.

He said the NRC will continue to work in the country as the humanitarian situation persists.

“It is now also far beyond time for the fighting in Gaza to cease too. The ceasefire in Lebanon must not lead to any further escalation there or elsewhere,” Egeland added.

10,000 Lebanese armed forces to deploy to the south: Lebanon’s defence minister

Speaking to our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic, Lebanon’s Defence Minister Maurice Sleem said the government is committed to implementing international resolutions and sending Lebanese forces to the country’s southern border, a development he said is crucial for national sovereignty.

He said the government will send 10,000 armed forces to the south, where Hezbollah is to pull back under the terms of the ceasefire deal.

_{Lebanese army heading south following ceasefire}


Lebanese return to scenes of destruction in southern Beirut after ceasefire


_{Cars drive past rubble from damaged buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect, on November 27}

Lebanese parliament speaker calls for immediate election of president

In a televised address, Nabih Berri says Lebanon needs “to elect a president as soon as possible”. “It should unify all of us. It is a test so that we can protect Lebanon from all the threats including Israeli threats,” the speaker said.

The country has been without a president since the term of former head of state Michel Aoun ended in October 2022. The parliament has repeatedly failed to elect a successor, deepening tensions in a country facing a severe economic and political crisis.

“The only thing which would keep us all together is to protect Lebanon, so we can overcome this challenge and be stronger,” Berri said. “And also to demonstrate and show to the world that it is a country that can coexist with its different spiritual components, in contradiction with the racism of Israel,” he added.

Berri calls for displaced Lebanese to ‘come back to your land’

He has called all displaced Lebanese, including those abroad, to return home. “I call you to come back to your country, come back to your towns and come back to the places where you were born,” he said.

“Come back to your land. Your land will be stronger with your presence. You should come back. You should protect the land that saw the blood of all the martyrs,” he said.

“Come back to your land and bring back life to all the neighbourhoods that the Israeli occupation and aggression tried to destroy. The victory of your land relies on you coming back.”

If Israel attacks, Hezbollah has right to defend itself: Politician

Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah says the Lebanese group would retain the right to defend itself if Israel attacked.

He was responding to a question from a reporter at Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed about his reaction to Netanyahu’s statements on Tuesday that Israel retained military freedom of action and would strike the group if it violated the ceasefire deal.

Celebrations and tears of relief in southern Beirut

Today has been a day of celebration here in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

We know that Hezbollah has endured a number of losses and heavy blows but from what we’ve seen of the celebrations, we wouldn’t be able to tell that this was perhaps not an all-out victory.

We’ve heard thousands of rounds of small arms fired not in combat but in celebration. There are crowds forming, flying flags and chanting. People are handing out cakes and sweets and there were also people in tears – tears of relief that the violence has ended.

But the road ahead is going to be incredibly challenging.

I’m standing in front of a building that has been levelled by an Israeli air strike. The air campaign has been absolutely indiscriminate and has devastated neighbourhoods across the capital, across the southern suburbs of Beirut.

And scenes like this are repeated block after block; there is scarcely a street, scarcely a neighbourhood that has not either experienced a building come down completely or that has not suffered some kind of damage from the blast wave of what were very strong bombs that Israel has been dropping.

Hezbollah planning ‘public’ and ‘official’ funeral for Nasrallah: Official

The deputy leader of Hezbollah’s political council Mahmoud Qmati says the group is preparing an official public funeral for former chief Hassan Nasrallah, killed two months ago in an Israeli strike on Beirut.

Hezbollah postponed the service “in order to organise a funeral. We are preparing for this funeral worthy” of Nasrallah, Qomati told a news conference in Beirut’s southern suburbs, adding that the service will be “public and official”.

Israeli soldiers fire at journalists in Lebanon’s Khiam

The head of the Syndicate of Lebanese Press Editors, Joseph al-Qassifi, has condemned the attack on journalists in the southern Lebanese town, which wounded two journalists – one working for The Associated Press and the other for Sputnik, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reports.

NNA said the journalists had to be evacuated to hospital for their injuries, and cited al-Qassifi as saying that this incident marks the first violation of the ceasefire agreed upon on Tuesday.

Al-Qassifi also said that this is a “continuation of the series of crimes perpetrated by Israel against journalists since 2023, which has resulted in the killing of at least 12 reporters and camerapeople, in addition to the tens who were disabled or severely wounded”.