Israel police say seven Israelis arrested for spying for Iran
Israeli police on Monday said it had dismantled a spy network of seven Israeli citizens who were gathering information on Israel’s military bases and energy infrastructure for Iranian intelligence.
The internal security agency and police “successfully dismantled a spy network involving seven Israeli citizens who were operating on behalf of Iranian intelligence,” the police said in a statement, adding that all seven had been arrested. “This network was engaged in gathering sensitive information on IDF (military) bases and energy infrastructure.”
UN agency says Israel still preventing aid from reaching northern Gaza
Israeli authorities are still preventing humanitarian missions from reaching areas of northern Gaza with critical supplies including medicine and food for people under siege, the head of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA said on Monday.
Hospitals have been hit and are without power while injured people are left without care, Philippe Lazzarini said on X.
“@UNRWA remaining shelters are so overcrowded, some displaced people are now forced to live in the toilets. According to reports, people attempting to flee are getting killed, their bodies left on the street. Missions to rescue people from under the rubble are also being denied,” he added.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the UNRWA statement.
US wants end to Israel-Hezbollah war ‘as soon as possible’
Visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein said Monday the basis of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was a 2006 United Nations resolution but that it would require more than just commitments from the warring parties.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in southern Lebanon, while demanding the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese territory.
“The commitment that we have is to resolve this conflict based on (UN Resolution) 1701 — that is what the solution is going to have to look like,” Hochstein said on his first visit to Beirut since the war started.
Resolution “1701 was successful at ending the war in 2006 but we must be honest that no one did anything to implement it,” he added, saying: “Both sides simply committing to 1701 is just not enough.”
“We have to know this is not just going to another round of conflict in a month or a year or two years,” he said.
Hezbollah says targeted Israeli troops in south Lebanon villages
Hezbollah said it repeatedly targeted Israeli troops in south Lebanon border villages over several hours on Monday, saying at least one of the attacks caused “certain casualties”.
Hezbollah fighters targeted “a gathering of Israeli enemy soldiers on the eastern outskirts of the village of Markaba” with three separate rocket salvos, it said, adding one of the attacks caused “certain casualties” and that its fighters also targeted Israeli troops attempting “to evacuate the dead and wounded”.
The group also said it targeted troops in an area near Markaba with rockets and fired “artillery shells” at soldiers near Kfar Kila.
Macron tells Netanyahu killing of Hamas leader opens way for new Gaza ceasefire talks
French President Emmanuel Macron told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he sees the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a chance for a possible new phase of negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza, Macron’s office said on Monday.
Macron, whose government has had increasingly tense public exchanges with Israel over the past few weeks, also reiterated previous calls for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza and condemnations of Israeli army action towards U.N. forces in Lebanon.
Lufthansa extends suspension of Tel Aviv flights to November 10
German airline group Lufthansa said Monday it was extending the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv to November 10 as Israel is at war in Gaza and Lebanon.
It added that the group’s Eurowings airline also “will extend the suspension of its flights to Tel Aviv up to and including November 30”.
Germany demands Israel probe all incidents involving UN in Lebanon
Germany on Monday demanded Israel “clarify every incident” involving the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon and urged it to investigate the destruction of a UNIFIL observation tower.
UN peacekeepers on Sunday said an Israeli “army bulldozer deliberately demolished” an observation tower and fence of a UN position in southern Lebanon, where the army is fighting Hezbollah.
FRANCE 24 report: Lebanon’s growing displacement crisis
As the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues, fears are rising over the burgeoning humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, where the government says more than a million people have been displaced by violence, many with nowhere to stay.
With state institutions unable to cope, charities, businesses and citizens have been stepping into help, but they told FRANCE 24’s team on the ground in Lebanon that resources risk drying up.
Lebanon state media says Israeli army dynamites houses in southern village
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said the Israeli army blew up houses in a south Lebanon border village on Monday, also reporting clashes between Israel and Hezbollah in the area.
“The enemy army blew up houses in the village of Aita al-Shaab,” the NNA said, reporting heavy clashes between Hezbollah and the Israeli army “which is trying to advance on the ground” in the area, while broadcaster Al Jazeera showed footage of Israeli tanks on the village’s outskirts.
Israeli forces storm shelters, detain men, as north Gaza raid deepens
Israeli forces blew up homes and besieged schools and shelters for displaced people on Monday as they deepened their operations in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, residents and medics said.
They also rounded up men and ordered women to leave the camp, they said.
Medics at the Indonesian Hospital told Reuters that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men before setting the facility ablaze. The fire reached the hospital generators and caused a power outage, they added.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army, which began a new incursion into the north of the Palestinian territory over two weeks ago, to evacuate the three hospitals in the area or leave the patients unattended.
Blinken back to Middle East to push for Gaza truce
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads back to the Middle East Monday on a new push for an elusive Gaza ceasefire two weeks before US elections, seeing a new opportunity from Israel’s killing of Hamas’s leader.
It will be the 11th trip to the Middle East by the top US diplomat since war broke out a year ago, with Blinken on his last visit to Israel in August warning it may have been the “last chance” for a US-led ceasefire plan.
No alternative to UN Resolution 1701, but ‘new understandings’ can be reached, says Lebanon PM
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said there was no alternative to UN Resolution 1701, but added that “new understandings” could be reached to implement it, a statement issued by his office cited him as saying on Monday.
A UN peacekeeping mission is mandated by Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, to help the Lebanese army keep its southern border area with Israel free of weapons or armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state.
Lebanon assesses damage after wave of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah-run financial institution
Lebanese were surveying the damage on Monday after overnight Israeli strikes hit nearly a dozen branches of a Hezbollah-run financial institution that Israel says is used to fund attacks but where many ordinary people keep their savings.
The strikes targeted Al-Qard Al-Hassan branches in the southern neighborhoods of Beirut, across southern Lebanon and in the Bekaa, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. One strike flattened a nine-story building with a branch inside it. Smoke was still rising from several locations on Monday and bulldozers were removing the debris.
The Israeli military had issued evacuation warnings ahead of the strikes, and there were no reports of casualties.
Iran rejects Lebanon’s accusation of interference in its affairs, FM spokesman says
Iran denied Monday an accusation from Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that it was interfering in Beirut’s internal affairs over remarks attributed to Tehran’s speaker of parliament.
On Thursday, France’s Le Figaro quoted Iran’s Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as saying that his government was ready to negotiate the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which is seen as a precondition for a ceasefire in the ongoing war between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah group, an ally of Iran.
The resolution calls for the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to be the only forces deployed to southern Lebanon.
US envoy in Beirut to meet PM, Hezbollah-allied speaker
US special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Beirut on Monday to meet Lebanon’s prime minister and Hezbollah-allied parliament speaker Nabih Berri as the Israel-Hezbollah war neared the one-month mark, an AFP correspondent said.
Before meeting Lebanon’s prime minister, Hochstein arrived at the Beirut residence of Berri, who is tasked with negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah amid diplomatic efforts to end the war.
Israeli military apologises for strike that killed Lebanese soldiers
The Israeli military has apologised for a strike in southern Lebanon that killed three Lebanese soldiers.
The military said it struck a truck on Sunday that had entered an area where it had previously targeted a Hezbollah truck transporting a launcher and missiles.
The military said soldiers were not aware that the second truck belonged to the Lebanese army.
The military said it is “not operating against the Lebanese Army and apologizes for these unwanted circumstances”.
WHO to evacuate 1,000 Gazan women, children for urgent medical care
One thousand women and children needing medical care will shortly be evacuated from Gaza to Europe, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe branch said in comments published on Monday.
Israel, which is besieging the war-devastated Palestinian territory, “is committed to 1,000 more medical evacuations within the next months to the European Union”, Hans Kluge said in an interview with AFP, adding that the evacuations would be facilitated by the WHO and the European countries involved.
Iran says it has warned UN nuclear watchdog about Israeli threats against its nuclear sites
Iran has warned the UN nuclear watchdog about Israel’s threats against its nuclear sites, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday at a weekly news conference.
THAAD anti-missile system ‘in place’ in Israel, US says
The US military has rushed its advanced anti-missile system to Israel and it is now “in place”, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said.
Austin declined to say whether the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD was operational. But he added: “We have the ability to put it into operation very quickly and we’re on pace with our expectations.”
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