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Unifil says it refused a request by Israel to leave its positions in south Lebanon
A spokesperson for UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Saturday said that Israel had requested it leave its positions in south Lebanon where Israel is clashing with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, but they had refused.
They asked us to withdraw “from the positions along the blue line … or up to five kilometers (three miles) from the blue line,” UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Agence France-Presse (AFP), using the term for the demarcation line between both countries. “But there was a unanimous decision to stay,” he said.
It comes after two Sri Lankan members of the Unifil were injured when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opened fire on Friday near the peacekeeper’s base in Naqoura. The Israeli army said that its soldiers had targeted what they believed to be a threat 50 metres from the base, adding that it would continue to “examine the circumstances of the incident”.
Key events
UN reports fifth peacekeeper wounded in Lebanon
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said on Saturday that unknown gunfire a day earlier hit a peacekeeper, the fifth wounded in south Lebanon near the Israeli border in just two days, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“Last night, a peacekeeper at Unifil’s headquarters” in Naqura “was hit by gunfire due to ongoing military activity nearby … We do not yet know the origin of the fire,” a statement said, adding that the peacekeeper was “stable”.
Unifil says it refused a request by Israel to leave its positions in south Lebanon
A spokesperson for UN peacekeepers in Lebanon on Saturday said that Israel had requested it leave its positions in south Lebanon where Israel is clashing with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, but they had refused.
They asked us to withdraw “from the positions along the blue line … or up to five kilometers (three miles) from the blue line,” UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Agence France-Presse (AFP), using the term for the demarcation line between both countries. “But there was a unanimous decision to stay,” he said.
It comes after two Sri Lankan members of the Unifil were injured when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) opened fire on Friday near the peacekeeper’s base in Naqoura. The Israeli army said that its soldiers had targeted what they believed to be a threat 50 metres from the base, adding that it would continue to “examine the circumstances of the incident”.
US forces have conducted airstrikes against multiple Islamic State (IS) group sites in Syria, the military said on Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
US forces “conducted a series of airstrikes against multiple known ISIS camps in Syria in the early morning of Oct. 11,” the US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement on X, using an acronym for the Islamist militant group.
“The strikes will disrupt the ability of ISIS to plan, organise, and conduct attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, and civilians throughout the region and beyond.”
The US military has about 900 troops in Syria as part of the international coalition against the IS group. The coalition was established in 2014 to help combat the armed group, which had taken over vast swaths of Iraq and Syria.
US forces have carried out multiple retaliatory strikes against militant factions in both Iraq and Syria.
In September, US forces conducted two separate strikes in Syria, killing 37 “terrorist operatives” including members of IS and al-Qaida affiliate Hurras al-Din.
US Central Command said Saturday that its damage assessments were under way and “do not indicate civilian casualties”.
Iran’s highest court has overturned the death sentence of a woman labour rights activist who was accused of links to an outlawed Kurdish group, local media reported on Saturday, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“The supreme court … has overturned the verdict against my client, Ms Sharifeh Mohammadi,” her lawyer Amir Raisian was quoted as saying by the reformist Shargh daily. He added that the case was referred for a re-trial.
Iran carries out the highest number of executions annually after China, according to rights groups including Amnesty International.
Mohammadi, 45, was sentenced to death in early July after her arrest in the northern city of Rasht, according to rights groups.
She has since been accused of being a member of the Komala party, an exiled Iraq-based Kurdish separatist group that Tehran considers to be a terrorist organisation.
The US has launched airstrikes targeting several camps run by the Islamic State group in Syria in an operation the US military said will disrupt the extremists from conducting attacks in the region and beyond, AP reports.
The US Central Command said the airstrikes were conducted yesterday, without specifying in which parts of Syria. About 900 US troops have been deployed in eastern Syria alongside the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that were instrumental in the fight against IS militants.
The US military said the strikes will disrupt the ability of the Islamic State group to plan, organise and conduct attacks against the United States, its allies and partners, and civilians throughout the region and beyond. Syria borders Israel via the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, as well as Lebanon.
The US said battle damage assessments were underway and there were no civilian casualties.
Iran has banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all flights, AFP reports, citing local media, weeks after deadly sabotage attacks in Lebanon which were blamed on Israel.
“The entry of any electronic communication device, except mobile phones, in flight cabins or … in non-accompanied cargo, has been banned,” ISNA news agency reported, quoting the spokesperson for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation, Jafar Yazerlo.
The decision came over three weeks since sabotage attacks targeting members of the Iran-allied Hezbollah group in Lebanon that saw pagers and walkie-talkies explode, killing at least 39 people.
Nearly 3,000 others were wounded in the attack, which Iran and Hezbollah blamed on Israel.
Earlier this month, Dubai-based airline Emirates banned pagers and walkie-talkies onboard its planes.
Hezbollah said on Saturday it had launched a drone attack on a military base in north Israel’s Haifa a day earlier, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Hezbollah fighters at 8pm local time (5pmGMT/6pm BST) on Friday launched “an air attack with a swarm of explosives-laden drones on an air defence base” in Haifa, a statement from the Iran-backed group said.
The IDF reported sirens sounding in the northern city of Haifa.
The military also said it identified about 30 projectiles crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory following sirens that sounded in the Upper Galilee area, which is north of Haifa, close to the border with Lebanon.
Reuters reports that Israeli strikes on Gaza overnight killed at least 19 Palestinians, while forces continued to push deeper into the Jabalia area, where international relief agencies say thousands of people are trapped.
Residents said Israeli forces continued to pound Jabalia, home to the largest of the enclave’s historic refugee camps.
There has been no fresh Israeli comment but the military said in past days that forces operating in Jabalia and nearby areas killed dozens of militants, located weapons and dismantled military infrastructure.
Palestinian health officials put the number of people killed in Jabalia over the past week at around 150.
“The bombardment has not stopped. Every minute there are shells, rockets and fire on the buildings and everything that moves”, Areej Nasr, 35, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) after fleeing from Jabalia to Gaza City on Thursday.
On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in the area, including on schools being used as shelter by displaced people.
An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy artillery shelling, explosions and gunfire Saturday farther south in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
EU concerns over Israeli legislation that would ban Unrwa
The EU said on Saturday that it was deeply concerned about draft Israeli legislation that would ban the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) from operating in Israel and likely scale back aid distribution across war-ravaged Gaza, reports the Associated Press (AP).
According to the AP, earlier this week an Israeli parliamentary committee approved a pair of bills that would ban Unrwa from operating in Israeli territory and end all contact between the government and the UN agency. The bill needs final approval from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
“If adopted, (the bill) would have disastrous consequences, preventing the UN agency from continuing to provide its services and protection to Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza,” the EU said in an online statement, reports the AP.
Israel has alleged that some of Unrwa’s thousands of staff members participated in the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack. The UN has since fired more than a dozen staffers after internal investigations found they may have taken part in the attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel.
The UN agency has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to Palestinian civilians during the 12 month conflict in Gaza.
Concern about the Israeli bill was echoed by Unrwa’s commissioner general, Philippe Lazzarini, on Wednesday, who said all humanitarian operations in Gaza and the West Bank could “disintegrate” if the bill was implemented. Lazzarini has previously accused Israel of seeking to close down Unrwa.
No food has entered northern Gaza since 1 October, says UN
The United Nations food agency said on Saturday that no food aid had entered northern Gaza since 1 October, reports the Associated Press (AP).
The World Food Programme (WFP) said that the primary border crossing into the war-ravaged area had been closed for about two weeks, warning that Israel’s ongoing ground operation has a disastrous impact on food security for thousands of Palestinian families there.
Escalating violence in northern #Gaza is having a disastrous impact on food security.
No food aid has entered the north since 1 October.
It is unclear how long WFP’s remaining food supplies in the north, already distributed to shelters and health facilities, will last.
— World Food Programme (@WFP) October 12, 2024
“The north is basically cut off and we’re not able to operate there,” said Antoine Renard, the WFP country director of Palestinian territories, according to the AP.
The UN Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, has said that as many as 400,000 people are believed to be trapped by Israel’s latest Gaza offensive.
Concerns of a hunger crisis have risen in Gaza roughly a month after the UN’s independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians.
Israel has denied such allegations and insisted that it has allowed food and other aid into Gaza in significant quantities.
“Israel has not halted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip. As evidence, humanitarian aid coordinated by Cogat and international organisations will continue to enter the northern Gaza Strip in the coming day as well,” Cogat, the Israeli military body overseeing aid distribution, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The WFP said its food distribution points, as well as kitchens and bakeries in northern Gaza, have been forced to shut down due to airstrikes, military ground operations and evacuation orders, reports the AP. It said that the only functioning bakery in north Gaza, supported by WFP, caught fire after being hit by an explosive munition.
The WFP said its last remaining food supplies in the north – including canned food, wheat flour, high-energy biscuits, and nutrition supplements – have been distributed to shelters, health facilities and kitchens in Gaza City and three shelters in the northern areas. It is unclear how long these limited food supplies will last, said the WFP, warning that the consequences for fleeing families will be dire if the escalation continues.
The Israeli military on Saturday renewed its orders for Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip to leave their homes and shelters as troops press on a weeklong offensive against militants, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Military spokesperson Avichay Adraee told people to leave parts of Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood and other areas in and around Jabaliya, the urban refugee camp where Israeli forces carried out several major operations over the course of the war and then returned as militants regroup.
In a post on X, Adraee asked people to head south to Muwasi, a packed area in southern Gaza designed by the military as a humanitarian zone, reports the AP.
Most of the fighting in the past week was centered in and around Jabaliya that was pounded by Israeli war jets and artillery. The AP reports that residents said they have been trapped inside their homes and shelters. The military also ordered the three main hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate patients and medical staff.
Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf on Saturday visited the site of the deadliest Israeli strike on central Beirut in recent weeks, accompanied by two Hezbollah lawmakers, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer said.
According to AFP, a source close to Hezbollah has said that the air raid on Thursday night in the densely populated Basta area, which killed at least 22 people, had targeted the Iran-backed group’s security chief Wafiq Safa, but his fate remains unknown.
Israel orders Lebanese to evacuate north of Awali river
Further to the news that the Israeli military on Saturday warned residents of south Lebanon “not to return” to their homes as troops continued fighting Hezbollah militants in the area (see 9.38am BST), Reuters has some more detail on the specific area mentioned.
According to the news agency, the statement refers to 22 southern Lebanese villages whose residents have been ordered to evacuate to areas north of the Awali River.
🟡 بيان عاجل إلى سكان #جنوب_لبنان
إلى سكان القرى التالية:عيتا الشعب, رامية, ياطر, قوزح , بيت ليف, حنين , رشاف, عينتا, القليلة, الحوش, نبعة, تولين, التمرية , الخيام, الخربة, كفر حمام, عرب اللويزة, جسر ابو زبله, جبل العدس, ضهر برية جابر, كفرا, رمادية, زبقين.
إن نشاط حزب الله… pic.twitter.com/c5bQSgo2Db
— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) October 12, 2024