Gaza war damage cost likely now $14 bln to $20 bln, World Bank says
World Bank President Ajay Banga said on Tuesday that war damage from Israeli strikes on Gaza is now probably in the $14-20 billion range, and destruction from Israel’s bombing of southern Lebanon will add to that regional total.
Banga told a Reuters NEXT event in Washington that the war has had a relatively small impact on the global economy, but a significant widening of the conflict would draw in other countries that are larger contributors to global growth, including commodity exporters.
“First of all, I think this unbelievable loss of life – women, children, others, civilians, is just unconscionable on all sides,” Banga said. “The economic impact of this war, on the other hand, depends a great deal on how much this spreads.”
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-storey 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.
Middle East ‘conflagration’ to top agenda at first EU-Gulf summit
Avoiding a “general conflagration” in the Middle East will be top of the agenda when European Union and Gulf leaders meet in Brussels this week, European officials said on Tuesday.
Trade, energy and climate change are among the issues on the table in the Belgian capital.
But Israel’s conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, and the risk of a broader regional war, are expected to be “the main topic”, EU officials said.
“One of the objectives is to avoid a general conflagration,” one official said. “Both sides are worried about this.”
Hezbollah vows to expand attacks in Israel after deadly strike in northern Lebanon
One day after a deadly Israeli air strike in northern Lebanon – far from Hezbollah’s main area of influence in the south and east – the acting leader of the militant group, Naim Kassem, said it would aim rockets into more areas of Israel.
Kassem said Hezbollah is focused on “hurting the enemy,” and he signaled it would ramp up attacks further south in Israel, mentioning the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, which have already been targets of attacks.
His comments were made in a pre-recorded televised speech delivered on the same day the US said it sent a small team of troops to Israel to support an American-made missile-defence system.
Hezbollah has fired an estimated 13,000 rockets into Israel over the past year in support of Hamas’s war with Israel in Gaza.
Pentagon says letter about Gaza to Israel was ‘private correspondence’
The Pentagon said on Tuesday a letter co-authored by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to Israeli officials about the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “private correspondence” and declined to discuss it in detail.
Israel’s demining near Golan signals wider front against Hezbollah, sources say
In a sign Israel may expand its ground operations against Hezbollah while bolstering its own defences, its troops have cleared landmines and established new barriers on the frontier between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and a demilitarised strip bordering Syria, security sources and analysts said.
The move suggests Israel may seek to strike Hezbollah for the first time from further east along Lebanon’s border, at the same time creating a secure area from which it can freely reconnoitre the armed group and prevent infiltration, the sources said.
While demining activity has been reported, sources who spoke to Reuters – including a Syrian soldier stationed in south Syria, a Lebanese security official and a UN peacekeeping official – revealed additional unreported details that showed Israel was moving the fence separating the DMZ towards the Syrian side and digging more fortifications in the area.
Military action involving raids from the Israeli-occupied Golan and possibly from the demilitarised zone that separates it from Syrian territory could widen the conflict pitting Israel against Hezbollah and its ally Hamas that has already drawn in Iran and risks sucking in the US.
UN says deadly Israeli strike in northern Lebanon should be investigated
An Israeli air strike on an apartment building in northern Lebanon that killed at least 22 people needs to be independently investigated, the United Nations’ human rights office said Tuesday.
“We have real concerns with respect to … the laws of war,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for the UN’s human rights office in Geneva said a day after the strike, as rescue workers searching through the rubble found more bodies and remains. Laurence said the UN had received credible reports that a dozen women and children were among the dead.
The Israeli military said it “struck a target belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organisation” and that it would look into reports of civilian deaths.
The apartment building hit in the airstrike was in the small village of Aito, in the country’s Christian heartland and far from Hezbollah’s main areas of influence in Lebanon’s south and east. The strike was a shock to residents, and it exacerbated fears that Israel would expand its offensive deeper into Lebanon.
“I heard a loud noise, like a boom,” said Dany Alwan, who lives next door. “We ran outside, I saw the dust and the smoke and the rubble. There was a body here, another one there. It was a really ugly and painful scene.”
US warns Israel to boost humanitarian aid into Gaza or risk losing weapons funding
The Biden administration has warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to US weapons funding.
A senior defence official said Tuesday that Blinken and Austin sent a letter to their Israeli counterparts as they saw a recent decrease in assistance reaching Gaza.
The official said a similar letter sent by Blinken in April triggered a constructive response and “concrete measures from the Israelis”.
The letter, which restates US policy towards humanitarian aid and arms transfers, was sent amid deteriorating conditions in northern Gaza and reports Israel had conducted a strike on a hospital tent site in central Gaza that killed at least four people and ignited a fire that left more than two dozen with severe burns.
Israeli military says it arrests three members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces
The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had arrested three members of the Lebanese Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces, adding that they had been moved to Israel for investigation.
Netanyahu tells France’s Macron 1948 war victory created Israel, not UN ruling
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday hit back at comments made by French President Emmanuel Macron, saying the country’s founding was achieved by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, not a UN ruling.
“A reminder to the president of France: It was not the UN resolution that established the State of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the war of independence with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors – including from the Vichy regime in France,” Netanyahu said.
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-Noël 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.
“Forty-one 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.
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