About 3,000 French citizens have left Lebanon since start of hostilities, says minister
About 3,000 French citizens have left Lebanon since fighting broke out between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, said French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot.
Barrot also told the French parliament’s foreign affairs committee that no decision had been taken regarding evacuations from Lebanon.
Overall, there were about 24,000 French citizens in Lebanon.
Netanyahu tells France’s Macron he opposes ‘unilateral ceasefire’ in Lebanon
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said he was opposed to agreeing to a “unilateral ceasefire” in Lebanon during a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to a statement released by his office.
“The prime minister said in the conversation that he is opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon, and which will only return it to the way it was,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement.
Israel kills at least 50 in Gaza, forces encircle northern Jabalia
Israeli military strikes killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip as Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in the north of the enclave on Tuesday, amid fierce battles with Hamas-led fighters.
Palestinian health officials said at least 17 people were killed by Israeli fire near Al-Falouja in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, while 10 others were killed in Bani Suhaila in eastern Khan Younis in the south when an Israeli missile struck a house.
Netanyahu ‘must not forget that his country was created by a UN decision’, Macron says
In a closed session of the Council of Ministers held this Tuesday, the French president said that, “Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created as a result of a resolution adopted by the United Nations,” referring to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
“Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN,” Macron added.
These remarks refer to the situation in southern Lebanon, a few days after the Israeli ambassador to France was summoned, and Israel repeatedly fired on UN peacekeepers. Four of them were killed.
Last Friday, Emmanuel Macron judged it “totally unacceptable” that this UN force should be “deliberately targeted by Israeli armed forces”, and warned that “France will not tolerate any further firing”.
Lebanon says 41 people killed in Israeli strikes Monday
Lebanon’s health ministry said on Tuesday that 41 people had been killed in Israeli strikes a day earlier, more than half of them in a northern Christian village outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds.
“41 people have been killed and 124 injured” the ministry said, in “Israeli strikes on Lebanon yesterday,” including 21 in the northern village of Aito. The newest figures bring the overall death toll since Israel on September 23 launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon to 1,356.
‘We have reached the limit of words’: Turkey urges ‘sanctions’ against Israel over Gaza conflict
Turkey’s foreign minister on Tuesday called for sanctions against Israel, urging the international community to cut support over the conflict in the Middle East.
“We have reached the limit of words, diplomacy and international politics. We must start with sanctions,” Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told ruling party delegates at a meeting about the future of the Palestinian state.
Fidan said Israel so far had not responded to calls to halt the Gaza war, meaning “the international community must now resort to legal action. Israel needs to be boycotted”, he said.
Israel was “not paying any price economically, politically or militarily” for its actions in Gaza, and the only way that would change was if the world “cut off support”.
“If we cannot, Israel will continue the genocide and massacre in Gaza,” he said.
Hezbollah says targeted Israeli bulldozers, tank near Lebanon border village
Hezbollah said its fighters targeted Israeli bulldozers and a tank near a south Lebanon border village on Tuesday, as the two sides face off at the frontier.
Hezbollah fighters targeted “three bulldozers and a Merkava tank on the outskirts of Ramia with guided missiles”, causing a fire and casualties, the Iran-backed group said in a statement.
Canada lists pro-Palestinian group Samidoun as a ‘terrorist’ entity
Canada, in coordination with the United States, on Tuesday designated the pro-Palestinian group Samidoun as a “terrorist entity” alleging that it had links with another terrorist-designated group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
“The listing of Samidoun as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code sends a strong message that Canada will not tolerate this type of activity, and will do everything in its power to counter the ongoing threat to Canada’s national security and all people in Canada,” Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said in a statement.
US sanctions pro-Palestinian group Samidoun, Treasury Dept posting shows
The United States has imposed terrorism-related sanctions on pro-Palestinian group Samidoun, according to a posting on Tuesday on the Treasury Department website.
Netanyahu mulls plan to empty northern Gaza of civilians and cut off aid
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is examining a plan to seal off humanitarian aid to northern Gaza in an attempt to starve out Hamas militants, a plan that, if implemented, could trap without food or water hundreds of thousands of Palestinians unwilling or unable to leave their homes.
The plan proposed to Netanyahu and the Israeli parliament by a group of retired generals would escalate the pressure, giving Palestinians a week to leave the northern third of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City, before declaring it a closed military zone.
The plan calls for Israel to maintain control over the north for an indefinite period to attempt to create a new administration without Hamas, splitting the Gaza Strip in two.
FRANCE 24’s International Affairs Commentator Douglas Herbert tells us more.
UN decries ‘worst restrictions ever seen’ on Gaza aid since start of war
Gaza appears to be facing the “worst restrictions on humanitarian aid” since the Israel-Hamas war began over a year ago, said James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, on Tuesday, lamenting the especially devastating impact on children.
“Day after day, the situation for children becomes worse than the day before,” said Elder.
Despite a desperate need to increase the amount of aid going in, Elder said that aid access was worsening, with “no commercial trucks whatsoever allowed to come in” for several days last week.
Northern Gaza “hasn’t had food, any food aid at all coming in all of October”, he added.
The dire lack of aid, coupled with the relentless strikes and the fact that around 85 percent of the Gaza Strip has been hit with some form of evacuation order, has made the territory “essentially unlivable”, Elder said.
Lebanon PM says ready to bolster army in south after any ceasefire
Lebanon is ready to bolster the army’s presence in the south after any ceasefire, adding that Israeli troops were making brief cross-border incursions, Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Tuesday.
“Currently we have 4,500 soldiers in south Lebanon, and we wish to increase them to between 7,000 and 11,000,” Mikati told AFP in an interview, adding that as soon as a ceasefire is reached, “we can move soldiers” from other parts of the country to the south.
“The information we have is that there are brief (Israeli) incursions” into south Lebanon, he added.
Beirut airport security tightened to ‘remove pretexts’ for Israel to attack, Lebanon PM says
Security has been tightened in Lebanon’s only airport in Beirut to remove any pretexts for an Israeli attack, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati told AFP in an interview Tuesday.
“The government is doing everything in its power to remove any pretexts from the Israelis’ hands,” he said, adding that “tightened security has been in place for a week at the airport”, which is located near Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold that has seen intense Israeli bombardment.
Gunman fatally wounds Israeli policeman near southern city of Ashdod in ‘terrorist’ attack, police say
An assailant shot dead an Israeli policeman and wounded five other people near the southern city of Ashdod on Tuesday in what police called a “terrorist” attack.
The gunman was killed during the attack at the Yavne interchange along the highway connecting Ashdod to Tel Aviv, the authorities said.
“A terrorist wounded five people, including a policeman who was critically injured and then died later,” a police spokesman said.
The attacker had approached the main road on foot, fatally wounding the policeman before going on a shooting rampage and wounding others.
An Israeli paramedic at the scene “shot the terrorist and neutralised him”, said Zaki Heller, a spokesman with emergency service provider Magen David Adom.
Hezbollah says it downed an Israeli drone
Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said it downed an Israeli drone on Tuesday, without saying where, as the Iran-backed group battles Israeli troops near the border and as Israel bombs south and east Lebanon.
Hezbollah fighters from the group’s “air defence units … downed an Israeli Hermes 450 drone” just after midnight, the armed movement said in a statement.
UN says it has ‘received reports’ that children and women comprised the majority of victims in Israeli air strike in north Lebanon
The UN human rights office said on Tuesday it had received reports that most of the 22 victims of an Israeli air strike on a building in northern Lebanon were women and children.
“What we are hearing is that amongst the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children,” UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing in response to a question about a strike on the village of Aitou on Monday.
“We understand it was a four-story residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL (International Humanitarian Law), so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction, proportion and proportionality,” he said, calling for an investigation into the incident.
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,344
At least 42,344 people in Gaza have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Tuesday.
The toll includes 55 deaths over the previous day, according to the ministry, which said 99,013 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants led a series of attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israeli strikes kill at least 28 in Gaza, health and emergency officials say
Israeli military strikes killed at least 28 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, as Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in the north of the enclave amid fierce battles with Hamas-led fighters.
Palestinian health officials said at least 11 people were killed by Israeli fire near Al-Falouja in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, while 10 others were killed in Bani Suhaila in eastern Khan Younis in the south when an Israeli missile struck a house.
Earlier on Tuesday, an Israeli air strike destroyed three houses in the Sabra suburb of Gaza City. The local civil emergency service said they recovered two bodies from the site, while the search continued for 12 other people who were believed to have been in the houses at the time of the strike.
Five others were killed when a house was struck in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for more than 10 days, with troops returning to areas of the north that came under heavy bombardment in the early months of the year-long war.
Qatari emir says Israel aiming to implement ‘pre-existing plans’ in the West Bank and Lebanon
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Tuesday accused Israel of choosing to expand the conflict in the Middle East to implement “pre-existing plans” for the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.
“The easiest and safest way to stop the escalation on the border with Lebanon would have been to stop the war of extermination on Gaza,” Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani told Qatar’s Shura Council.
“But Israel deliberately chose to expand the aggression to implement pre-existing plans in other locations such as the West Bank and Lebanon because it sees that the space is available for that,” he said in his annual address opening the Gulf emirate’s legislative body.
Qatar has played a key role in efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and has called for a truce in Lebanon, where Israel last month intensified military operations against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Israel launches air strikes in eastern Lebanon, putting hospital out of service, state media reports
Israel launched multiple air strikes early Tuesday in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, putting a hospital in Baalbek city out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
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