Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire begins — region waits to see if it will hold

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.

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.

Among those returning home Wednesday was Zahi Hijazi, a 67-year-old who originally hails from southern Lebanon but had been living in Beirut’s suburbs for decades.

“Our life savings… All this destruction,” said Hijazi, as he stepped into an apartment littered with shattered glass and broken furniture.

“I want to live. This is my house, it’s 40 years old. Every corner in the house, everything in this house, means something to me.”

The World Bank has said at least 100,000 housing units across Lebanon have been damaged or destroyed by the hostilities.

Mohammed Kaafarani, who was displaced from the Lebanese village of Bidias, near the southern port city of Tyre, has lived through multiple conflicts with Israel. But he says the past two months were the worst of them all.

“They were a nasty and ugly 60 days,” said Kaafarani. His home was badly damaged in the fighting.

Thousands of displaced people poured into the city Wednesday after a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. Kaafarani said he hopes his children and grandchildren will have a better future without wars because “our generation suffered and is still suffering.”

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 it took effect, 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.

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.

‘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.”

But some feared that Israel would be more heavy handed with Gaza now that its forces were freed up from the fighting against Hezbollah.

“The situation will be worse, because the pressure will be more on Gaza,” said Mamdouh Yonis, who currently lives in Khan Younis.

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.

Some 50,000 people have been displaced from a string of cities, towns and villages along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

Noy Friedman, who was displaced from the town of Shlomi to the city of Haifa, said she wouldn’t feel safe in her hometown. “I am also not ready for my family to return to Shlomi,” said Friedman.

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. 

Elise Stefanik, a Republican U.S. representative and Trump’s choice to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who is Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, both said in separate statements they had been the targets of bomb 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.

Swatting is the filing of false reports to police to induce a potentially heavy, armed response by officers at someone’s home. Law enforcement experts see it as a form of intimidation or harassment that is increasingly being used to target prominent figures.

“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 FBI spokesperson said.

Stefanik said in a statement on Wednesday that she, her husband and their three-year-old son were driving from Washington, D.C., to their family home in New York state when they were informed of the threat against their home.

Zeldin said he and his family also had been targeted.

“A pipe bomb threat targeting me and my family at our home today was sent in with a pro-Palestinian themed message,” Zeldin said in a statement posted on X. “My family and I were not home at the time and are safe. We are working with law enforcement to learn more as this situation develops.”

In Florida, the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office said the home of a family member of former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz had also been targeted with a bomb threat.

Gaetz, Trump’s first nominee to be U.S. attorney general, withdrew his name from consideration on Nov. 21 after he faced opposition from U.S. Senate Republicans over alleged past sexual misconduct, which he denies.

“The mailbox was cleared and no devices were located. The immediate area was also searched with negative results,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

A White House spokesperson said Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden had been briefed about the threats.

“Federal law enforcement’s response, alongside state and local authorities, remains ongoing. The president and the administration unequivocally condemn threats of political violence,” the spokesperson said.

Trump, who has been announcing picks for his cabinet and other high-ranking administration positions following his Nov. 5 election victory, has not commented on the threats.

They come months after Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in July. In a separate incident in September, a man was charged with attempted assassination 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