42,847 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive since October 7, 2023, health ministry says
More than 42,847 Palestinians have been killed and 100,544 injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, the Gaza health ministry said on Thursday.
Germany pledges 96 million euros in aid for crisis-hit Lebanon
Germany pledged 96 million euros ($103 million) in additional aid to crisis-hit Lebanon at a Paris aid conference Thursday as conflict rages between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah.
“At today’s Lebanon Support Conference, Germany is pledging a total of 96 million euros in additional funds to help deal with the crisis in Lebanon,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Iran’s Pezeshkian slams UN ineffectiveness to ‘extinguish’ regional crisis
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday slammed the United Nations Security Council for failing to tackle the Middle East conflict.
“The fire of war is still raging in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Lebanese cities, and international institutions and assemblies, and at the top of it the United Nations Security Council, as drivers of international peace and security, lack the necessary efficiency to extinguish the fire of this crisis,” Pezeshkian told leaders from emerging economies at a summit in Russia.
Lebanon needs help to expand army and rebuild, caretaker PM tells Paris summit
International support will be needed to shore up and expand Lebanon’s army and rebuild the country’s destroyed infrastructure, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati told a Paris conference convened amid Israel’s assault on Hezbollah.
Mikati said the Lebanese government had decided to recruit more troops and could deploy 8,000 soldiers as part of a plan to implement a ceasefire and UN Security Council resolution, which calls for the army to be deployed in southern Lebanon.
Lebanese state media say Israeli strike targets car on highway outside Beirut
Lebanon’s official National News Agency said an Israeli strike targeted a car on a highway leading to the capital Beirut, as Israel and Hezbollah fight a month-old war.
“An enemy drone targeted a car on the Kahale road,” the NNA said, referring to a mountain area on the main highway between Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.
Rescuers say halting work in northern Gaza after Israel threats
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Thursday it could no longer provide first responder services in the north of the territory, accusing Israeli forces of threatening to “bomb and kill” its crews.
“We are unable to provide humanitarian services to citizens in the northern governorate of the Gaza Strip due to threats from Israeli occupation forces, who have threatened to kill and bomb our teams if they remain inside Jabalia camp”, the agency’s spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Bassal said that its first responders “have been targeted” on several occasions, leaving “several members injured, and others are left bleeding on the streets with no one able to rescue them”.
The Israeli army said Thursday that it was continuing operations in the Jabalia area and had “eliminated dozens of terrorists”.
China’s Xi urges Gaza ceasefire, stop to ‘spread of war in Lebanon’
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called for a ceasefire in Gaza and the prevention of further conflict in Lebanon, as he addressed leaders of the BRICS emerging economies.
“We need to continue to push for a ceasefire in Gaza, relaunch the two-State solution and stop the spread of war in Lebanon. There should be no more suffering and destruction in Palestine and Lebanon,” Xi told a summit in Russia.
Hezbollah says it launches ‘large rocket salvo’ at north Israeli town
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it launched a “large rocket salvo” at the northern Israeli town of Safed on Thursday.
Hezbollah fighters bombed “the town of Safed… with a large rocket salvo”, the group said in a statement, adding the launch came “in response to Israeli enemy attacks” on Lebanon.
Macron reiterates his call for a ceasefire in Lebanon
French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated his call for a ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday, adding he regretted that Iran had engaged Hezbollah against Israel but also criticising Israel’s operations in the southern part of the country.
Putin says Middle East is on the brink of full-scale war
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the Middle East was on the brink of a full-scale war as tensions rose sharply between Israel and Iran.
“The fighting that began a year ago in Gaza has now spread to Lebanon,” Putin, sitting beside Chinese President Xi Jinping, told a meeting of the BRICS+ group in the city of Kazan on the Volga.
“Other countries in the region were also affected. The degree of confrontation between Israel and Iran has sharply increased. All this resembles a chain reaction and puts the entire Middle East on the brink of a full-scale war.”
France to contribute 100 million euros in humanitarian aid to Lebanon, says Macron
France will provide a 100-million euro aid package to support Lebanon, French President Emmanuel Macron told an international conference Thursday in Paris.
“In the immediate term, massive aid is needed for the Lebanese population, both for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war and for the communities hosting them,” said Macron.
The war between Hezbollah militants and Israel has displaced a million people in the country, killed over 2,500 and deepened an economic crisis.
French organisers hope participants’ financial pledges of humanitarian aid will meet the $426 million the United Nations says is urgently needed.
Paris also seeks to help restore Lebanon’s sovereignty and strengthen its institutions.
Hezbollah says targeted Israeli military base near Haifa
Hezbollah said Thursday it targeted an Israeli military base near Haifa, the second time within 24 hours it has said it targeted the facility.
Hezbollah fighters “bombed” the “defence industry” base “north of the city of Haifa with a salvo of rockets”, a statement said, after claiming an attack Wednesday on the same site.
Follow live: France hosts Lebanon aid conference in Paris
French President Emmanuel Macron opened a conference on Thursday aimed at raising funds and mobilising humanitarian aid for Lebanon amid Israel and Hezbollah’s ongoing conflict.
France is also targetting diplomatic progress in the war-ravaged country.
Follow the live conference by clicking on the article below.
Blinken arrives in Qatar on Gaza mediation push
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Doha on Thursday for talks with Gaza mediator Qatar as part of a diplomatic effort aimed at heading off further escalation in the region.
The visit to the Gulf emirate, which hosts Palestinian militant group Hamas’s political office and has led mediation for a Gaza truce alongside the United States and Egypt, follows talks in Israel and Saudi Arabia on Blinken’s 11th visit to the region since the start of the war last year.
Israeli army says it hit Hezbollah arms factories in overnight Beirut strikes
The Israeli military said Thursday it hit several Hezbollah weapons production facilities in overnight strikes on the group’s south Beirut stronghold of Dahiyeh.
“Overnight, the IAF (air force) conducted intelligence-based strikes on several weapons storage and manufacturing facilities belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation in the area of Dahiyeh,” the military said in a statement. Lebanese state media reported that six buildings were levelled in at least 17 Israeli strikes during the night.
Hamas wants Russia to push Palestinian president towards unity government for post-war Gaza
Palestinian militant group Hamas wants Russia to push Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to begin negotiations on a national unity government for post-war Gaza, a senior Hamas official told the RIA state news agency after talks in Moscow.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas politburo member, met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow.
“We discussed issues related to Palestinian national unity and the creation of a government that should govern the Gaza Strip after the war,” Marzouk was quoted as saying by RIA.
Marzouk said that Hamas had asked Russia to encourage Abbas, who is attending the BRICS summit in Kazan, to start negotiations about a unity government, RIA reported.
Syrian state media says Israeli strikes kill soldier
Syrian state media said Israeli air strikes hit a residential area of Damascus and a military site in Homs Thursday, killing a soldier and wounding seven other people.
The Israeli army “launched an attack from the occupied Syrian Golan and from north Lebanon targeting two sites” in the Kafr Sousa district of Damascus and a military site near Homs, the official SANA news agency reported citing a military source.
SANA said a soldier was killed and seven others wounded in the strike in Homs, a central province which borders Lebanon, where Israeli troops are fighting Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Syrian state media made no mention of any casualties in the Damascus strike but the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights spoke of “human losses”.
Blinken heads to Hamas mediator Qatar on Gaza truce push
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads Thursday to key Hamas mediator Qatar as he seeks momentum to end the Gaza war following Israel’s killing of the group’s leader.
Two days after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Blinken was flying Thursday from Saudi Arabia to the Qatari capital Doha to hear assessments on where Hamas stands on a truce.
Blinken is paying his 11th trip to the region since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, after repeated disappointment as he seeks to end the devastating Israeli retaliatory campaign in the Gaza Strip.
Lebanese army says Israeli strike kills three soldiers in southern Lebanon
The Lebanese army said Thursday that three of its soldiers were killed by Israeli fire while carrying out a rescue operation in the south.
“The Israeli enemy targeted Lebanese army personnel in the vicinity of Yater village, in the Bint Jbeil area of the south, while carrying out an operation to evacuate wounded, which led to the deaths of three martyrs, including an officer,” an army statement said.
Leave a Comment