Israel's Paranoia
Live Reporting
Lebanon PM cancels trip to UN, says stopping Israel a priority
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has cancelled a trip to the United Nations General Assembly after deadly attacks in the past week, which he decried as “horrific massacres”, Al Jazeera reports.
Mikati said in a statement that he cancelled his trip “in light of the developments linked to the Israeli aggression on Lebanon”, after an Israeli raid on Beirut’s southern suburbs and attacks on Hezbollah devices blamed on Israel.
He said that no priority was higher than stopping Israel’s “massacres” and the various conflicts it is waging and called on the international community to take a stand against such actions.
Germany says ‘urgent need’ for measures in Middle East
Germany has said there is an “urgent need” for measures to calm tensions in the Middle East as Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza threatened to spread to Lebanon, AFP reports.
“We have an urgent need for concrete measures in the Middle East to defuse the situation and avoid more civilian victims,” the German foreign ministry wrote on X.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has been in contact with her Israeli and Lebanese counterparts to discuss the next steps, it added.
Israel once again carrying out attacks like a terrorist group: Turkish president
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday condemned Israel’s attacks in Lebanon, asserting that these attacks have proven Turkiye’s concerns about Israel’s ambitions to extend conflict throughout the region, Anadolu reports.
Speaking to the media in Istanbul ahead of his departure to New York, where he will address the UN General Assembly, Erdogan said that Israel is carrying out attacks like a terrorist group.
“With this attack (the pager explosions in Lebanon), Israel demonstrated it has no civilian sensitivities, it can use any means to achieve its hateful ambitions,” he said.
Peace impossible as long as Palestine ‘groans’ under Israeli occupation: official
Mahmoud al-Habbash, the Palestinian Authority’s chief justice and adviser to President Abbas, says, “There will be no peace in the world as long as Palestine is groaning under the yoke of Israeli occupation,” Al Jazeera reports.
He made the remarks during the 20th World Islamic Forum in Moscow.
The Wafa news agency quoted him as saying that the Palestinian people in Gaza have been subjected to the destruction of infrastructure, homes, mosques, churches and schools.
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinians are being subjected to “a barbaric Israeli aggression, a war of extermination and ethnic cleansing”, al-Habbash said.
Palestinians say Israeli strike kills 22 in shelter
Palestinians have said an Israeli strike has killed at least 22 people in a school sheltering displaced people in southern Gaza City, while the Israeli military said the attack targeted a Hamas command centre, Reuters reports.
The Gaza health ministry said most of those killed were women and children.
Palestinian media office said 13 children, including a three-month-old baby, and six women were among the dead.
The military said it hit a Hamas command centre embedded in the compound that previously served as a school, repeating an accusation that Hamas uses civilian facilities for military purposes — a charge that Hamas denies.
Israel is committing ‘shameless crimes’ against children: Iran’s Supreme Leader
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that Israel is committing “shameless crimes” against children, not combatants, Reuters reports.
Khamenei said Israel was not even hiding its different forms of “shameless crimes” in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.
It is not combating “fighting men, but ordinary people,” Khamenei told a group of envoys from Muslim countries in Tehran in remarks broadcast on state TV.
Past 72 hours; Israel killed 119 Palestinians in Gaza
At least 119 people have been killed and 209 wounded in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the last 72 hours, according to the enclave’s health ministry.
This brings the total toll to 41,391. At least 95,760 have also been wounded since October last year, the ministry said.
Israeli forces targeted 20 locations, killing a key Hamas fighter
Israel’s Air Force said it attacked 20 targets in Gaza over the past day, including military buildings and fighters, adding that it killed key Hamas fighter Muhammad Mansour and a number of other Hamas members.
Medics in the line of fire: Israel kills five Palestinian health ministry workers
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said five of its workers were killed and a number of others injured following an Israeli attack on the ministry’s warehouses in the Musbah area in the southern Gaza strip.
Ambulance crews cannot reach those killed, nor treat the wounded, the ministry said.
“The Ministry of Health appeals to all international organizations and concerned parties to intervene in order to protect and rescue the wounded from the scene,” it said in a post on its Telegram.
Bodies desecrated by Israeli forces
Israeli forces are facing mounting criticism for allegedly abusing the bodies of dead Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with eyewitnesses claiming that soldiers used military bulldozers to remove the bodies of four people killed in a deadly raid in Qabatiya.
Gaza bloodshed continues: 13 dead in Israeli strikes
At least 13 people have been killed in reported heavy fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces, which destroyed two residential homes.
Israeli military attacks have continued to pound the Gaza Strip, including the city of Rafah.
Hezbollah confirms heavyweight falls in Israeli strike
Hezbollah has confirmed that Ibrahim Aqil, “one of its top leaders”, was among 14 killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Friday.
Israel media say new Gaza deal mooted to free hostages, give Sinwar safe passage
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli media reported on Thursday (Sep 19) that Israel has proposed a new deal that would see hostages released from Gaza in exchange for safe passage for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the cessation of fighting.
Public broadcaster Kan reported that the proposal would also call for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a new governance system in Gaza, though no details were provided.
Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says
GENEVA (Reuters) - A UN committee on Thursday (Sep 19) accused Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children's rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had a catastrophic impact on them and are among the worst violations in recent history.
Palestinian health authorities say 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas on Oct 7 where 1,200 were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
UN rights chief sounds alarm on Gaza's humanitarian crisis
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has addressed the Security Council regarding the "tragic" events in the Middle East, highlighting the "catastrophic" humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Who is Ibrahim Aqil, the top Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli strike?
BEIRUT (Agencies) - Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah operations commander killed in an Israeli strike on Friday (Sep 20), had a US$7 million bounty on his head for two 1983 Beirut truck bombings that killed more than 300 people at the American embassy and a US Marin barracks.
He headed the Hezbollah group's elite Radwan Force and had been in a meeting of the unit when he was killed in an airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs. Radwan Force fighters spearhead Hezbollah's operations on the ground.
Top Hezbollah commander among 14 killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an airstrike on Beirut on Friday (Sep 20), vowing to press on with a new military campaign until it is able to secure the area around the Lebanese border.
Hezbollah confirmed in the early hours of Saturday that its top military commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed, calling him "one of its top leaders", without providing further details on his killing.
