Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire begins — region waits to see if it will hold
A ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah appeared to be holding Wednesday, as residents in cars heaped with belongings streamed back toward southern Lebanon despite warnings from the Israeli and Lebanese military that they stay away from certain areas.
If it holds, the ceasefire would bring an end to nearly 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which escalated in mid-September into all-out war and threatened to pull Hezbollah’s patron Iran and Israel into a broader conflagration. It could give some reprieve to the 1.2 million Lebanese displaced by the fighting and the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along the border with Lebanon.
The U.S.- and France-brokered deal, approved by Israel late Tuesday, calls for an initial two-month halt to fighting and requires Hezbollah to end its armed presence in southern Lebanon, while Israeli troops are to return to their side of the border.
Thousands of additional Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers would deploy in the south, and an international panel headed by the United States would monitor compliance.
Israel says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah should it violate the terms of the deal.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon in the past 13 months, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The bombardment has driven 1.2 million people from their homes.
A woman who returned from Beirut to her home in Qana, in Lebanon’s south, says her family plans to stay after a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hezbollah. ‘Even if they gave me a castle in Beirut, I wouldn’t give up my house here.’
Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, in support of the Palestinian militant group. Fighting escalated in September, with massive Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon and an Israeli ground invasion of the country’s south.
The deal would not address the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, but U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday said his administration would make another push in the coming days to try to renew efforts for a deal there.
Quiet takes hold
Hours before the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon took effect, Israel launched broad strikes that shook the Lebanese capital Beirut and a volley of rockets from Hezbollah set off air raid sirens across a large swath of northern Israel.
But after the ceasefire took effect early Wednesday, quiet appeared to take hold, prompting waves of Lebanese to head home.
Israel’s Arabic military spokesperson Avichay Adraee warned displaced Lebanese not to return to their villages in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese military asked the displaced returning to southern Lebanon to avoid front-line villages and towns near the border where Israeli troops are still present until they withdraw.
But some videos circulating on social media show displaced Lebanese defying these calls and returning to villages in the south near the coastal city of Tyre. Israeli troops were still present in parts of southern Lebanon after Israel launched a ground invasion in October.
Traffic gridlocked
On the highway linking Beirut with south Lebanon, thousands of people drove south with their belongings and mattresses tied on top of their cars. Traffic was gridlocked at the northern entrance of the port city of Sidon.
Residents will return to vast destruction wrought by the Israeli military during its campaign, which flattened villages where the military said it found vast weapons caches and infrastructure it says was meant to launch an Oct. 7-style attack on northern Israel.
Sporadic celebratory gunfire was heard at a main roundabout in the city, as returnees honked automobile horns and residents cheered.
In the southern Lebanese border villages of Bint Jbeil and Ainata, where fierce fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants took place, rescuers used excavators to search for bodies under the rubble.
A woman in Ainata cried as she held a portrait of her grandson, a Hezbollah fighter, who was killed in the fighting. She was waiting for rescuers to recover his body from a destroyed home.
The smell of death filled the air, and several dead bodies could be seen inside houses and between trees. In the town of Kfar Hammam, rescuers recovered four bodies, according to Lebanese state media.
‘Warms my heart,’ says man in Gaza
In Gaza, Palestinians said they were happy to hear about the ceasefire in Lebanon, with many optimistic that it could lead to a ceasefire in their homeland.
“I feel happy for them … it was overwhelming for me and heartbreaking that people in Lebanon they went back to their homes safely,” Ghada Al-Kurd told CBC News Wednesday in Deir El-Balah in central Gaza.
Another resident echoed the same sentiment.
“We really don’t want anyone across the globe to feel this sort of pain and misery that they have been going through,” Bakr Abed said.
“We hope that this will usher a ceasefire deal here for us and that all of those people who have been internally displaced for the past 14 months will be able to go back to their houses and that they can re-gain a sort of life that they have been deprived of.”
Palestinians in central Gaza expressed happiness for their neighbours in Lebanon Wednesday as they returned to their homes in the south, just hours after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. Some say they’re optimistic the same could happen in Gaza after more than 13 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon was “the first ray of hope” in the regional conflict after months of escalation. He reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“It is essential that those who signed the ceasefire commitment respect it in full,” he said in a short televised statement during a visit to his native Lisbon, adding that the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon was ready to monitor the ceasefire.
“I received an auspicious sign yesterday, the first ray of hope for peace amid the darkness of the past months,” he said, referring to the agreement. “It is a moment of great importance, especially for civilians who were paying an enormous price of this spreading conflict.”
Some Israelis concerned about deal
In Israel, the mood was far more subdued, with displaced Israelis concerned that the deal did not go far enough to rein in Hezbollah and that it did not address Gaza and the hostages still held there.
“I think it is still not safe to return to our homes because Hezbollah is still close to us,” said Eliyahu Maman, an Israeli displaced from the northern Israeli city of Kyriat Shmona, which is not far from the border with Lebanon and was hit hard by the months of fighting.
U.S. President Joe Biden says Israel and Hezbollah have approved a ceasefire deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the truce will allow Israel to replenish supplies, focus on Iran, and intensify its campaign against Hamas in Gaza, but warns any violation of the deal will warrant an immediate attack in response.
The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel, more than half civilians, as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
A significant return of the displaced to their communities, many of which have suffered extensive damage from rocket fire, could take months.
Israel to appeal ICC arrest warrants over Gaza warfare
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel has informed the International Criminal Court that it will appeal against arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant over their conduct of the Gaza war.
Netanyahu also said that U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had updated him “on a series of measures he is promoting in the U.S. Congress against the International Criminal Court and against countries that would co-operate with it,” Netanyahu said.
The ICC issued arrest warrants last Thursday for Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas military leader Ibrahim Al-Masri, known as Mohammed Deif, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in its war in Gaza.
Published at Tue, 17 Sep 2024 18:38:40 +0000
Several Trump cabinet picks targeted with bomb threats and ‘swatting’
Several of Donald Trump’s cabinet and administration picks have been targeted since Tuesday evening with actions including bomb threats and “swatting,” a spokesperson for the U.S.-president elect said on Wednesday.
The threats were made Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, and law enforcement acted quickly to ensure the safety of targeted individuals, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Swatting is when someone calls in a false report with the intention of eliciting a large police presence.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is Trump’s pick to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement on Wednesday that her family home had been the target of a bomb threat.
Stefanik said she, her husband and their three-year-old son were driving from Washington, D.C., to Saratoga County in New York state when they were informed of the threat.
“New York State, county law enforcement and U.S. Capitol Police responded immediately with the highest levels of professionalism,” Stefanik said.
Leavitt did not say who else was targeted, and did not elaborate on the nature of the apparent threats.
An FBI spokesperson said the agency is aware of numerous bomb threats and swatting incidents targeting incoming administration nominees and appointees, and is working with its law enforcement partners.
“We take all potential threats seriously, and as always, encourage members of the public to immediately report anything they consider suspicious to law enforcement,” the spokesperson said.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Leavitt said the attacks “ranged from bomb threats to ‘swatting'” – when a false crime is reported to induce a heavy, armed police response at someone’s home.
Trump has been announcing picks for his cabinet and other high-ranking administration positions following his Nov. 5 election victory.
The president-elect has not commented on the apparent threats but spokesperson Leavitt noted: “With president Trump as our example, dangerous acts of intimidation and violence will not deter us.”
The threats come months after Trump was wounded in a July assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
In a separate incident, a man was charged with attempted assassination in September after allegedly positioning himself with a rifle outside one of Trump’s Florida golf courses.
Published at Wed, 27 Nov 2024 19:46:27 +0000
