JEWISH KING JESUS IS COMING AT THE RAPTURE FOR US IN THE CLOUDS-DON'T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD.THE BIBLE TAKEN LITERALLY- WHEN THE PLAIN SENSE MAKES GOOD SENSE-SEEK NO OTHER SENSE-LEST YOU END UP IN NONSENSE.GET SAVED NOW- CALL ON JESUS TODAY.THE ONLY SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE EARTH - NO OTHER. 1 COR 15:23-JESUS THE FIRST FRUITS-CHRISTIANS RAPTURED TO JESUS-FIRST FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT-23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.ROMANS 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.(THE PRE-TRIB RAPTURE)
SLAM WANTS TO MARRY 9 YEAR OLD GIRLS.
HALF OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION.(THESE VERSES ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)
LUKE 17:34-37 (8 TOTAL BILLION - 4 BILLION DEAD IN TRIB = 4 BILLION TO JESUS KINGDOM) (HALF DIE DURING THE 7 YR TRIBULATION PERIOD JUST LIKE THE BIBLE SAYS)(GOD DOES NOT LIE)(AND NOTICE MOST DIE IN WAR AND DISEASES-NOT COMETS-ASTEROIDS-QUAKES OR TSUNAMIS)
34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other shall be left.(half earths population 4 billion die in the 7 yr trib)
35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.
37 And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.(Christians have new bodies,this is the people against Jerusalem during the 7 yr treaty)(Christians bodies are not being eaten by the birds).THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES.BECAUSE NOT HALF OF PEOPLE ON EARTH ARE CHRISTIANS.AND THE CONTEXT IN LUKE 17 IS THE 7 YEAR TRIBULATION OR 7 YR TREATY PERIOD.WHICH IS JUDGEMENT ON THE EARTH.NOT 50% RAPTURED TO HEAVEN.
MATTHEW 24:37-42 (THESE ARE JUDGEMENT SCRIPTURES-SURE NOT RAPTURE SCRIPTURES)(50% OF EARTHS POPULATION DIE)
37 But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
40 Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.(ON EARTH)
41 Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken,(IN WW3 JUDGEMENT) and the other left.(ON EARTH)
42 Watch therefore:(FOR THE LAST DAYS SIGNS HAPPENING) for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
ZECHARIAH 14:12-13
12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their eyes shall consume away in their holes,(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB) and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.(DISOLVED FROM ATOMIC BOMB)(BECAUSE NUKES HAVE BEEN USED ON ISRAELS ENEMIES)(GOD PROTECTS ISRAEL AND ALWAYS WILL)
13 And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult from the LORD shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour.(1/2-3 BILLION DIE IN WW3)(THIS IS AN ATOMIC BOMB EFFECT)
EZEKIEL 32:18-29 (NOTICE ALL THE COUNTRIES LAND PROMISED ISRAEL BY GOD ARE IN THE JORDAN VALLEY BURIED)
18 “Son of man, wail for the multitudes of Egypt, and consign her and the daughters of the mighty nations to the depths of the earth with those who descend to the Pit:
19 Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down and be placed with the uncircumcised! (IN HELL FIRES)
20 They will fall among those slain by the sword. The sword is appointed! Let them drag her away along with all her multitudes.
21 Mighty chiefs will speak from the midst of Sheol about Egypt and her allies: ‘They have come down and lie with the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.’
22 Assyria (SYRIA) is there with her whole company; her graves are all around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword.
23 Her graves are set in the depths of the Pit, and her company is all around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—those who once spread terror in the land of the living.
24 Elam (IRAN) is there with all her multitudes around her grave. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword—those who went down uncircumcised to the earth below, who once spread their terror in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit.
25 Among the slain they prepare a resting place for Elam with all her hordes, with her graves all around her. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, although their terror was once spread in the land of the living. They bear their disgrace with those who descend to the Pit. They are placed among the slain.
26 Meshech and Tubal (RUSSIA) are there with all their multitudes, with their graves all around them. All of them are uncircumcised, slain by the sword, because they spread their terror in the land of the living.
27 They do not lie down with the fallen warriors of old, who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were placed under their heads, whose shields rested on their bones, although the terror of the mighty was once in the land of the living.
28 But you too will be shattered and lie down among the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.
29 Edom (JORDAN) is there, and all her kings and princes, who despite their might are laid among those slain by the sword. They lie down with the uncircumcised, with those who descend to the Pit.THIS IS RIGHT FROM 93:
SECOND ANGEL: MIDDLE EAST
Then I saw that the second angel had a sickle in his hand, such as is used in harvesting.The second angel said: "Harvest time has come in Israel and the countries all the way to Iran."I saw those countries in a few split seconds."All of Turkey and those [inaudible] countries that have refused me and refused my message of love shall hate each other and kill one another."I saw the angel raise the sickle and come down on all the Middle East countries. I saw Iran, Persia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, all of Georgia - Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, all of Asia Minor - full of blood. I saw blood all over these countries. And I saw fire; Nuclear weapons used in many of those countries. Smoke rising from everywhere. Sudden destruction – men destroying one another. I heard these words:"Israel, Oh Israel, the great judgment has come." The angel said, "The chosen, the church, the remnant, shall be purified. The Spirit of God shall prepare the children of God."I saw fires rising to heaven.The angel said: "This is the final judgment. My church shall be purified, protected and ready for the final day. Men will die from thirst. Water shall be scarce all over the Middle East. Rivers shall dry up, and men will fight for water in those countries."The angel showed me that the United Nations shall be broken in pieces because of the crisis in the Middle East. There shall be no more United Nations. The angel with the sickle shall reap the harvest.
PSALMS 83:1-8 (GODS LAND PROMISED TO ISRAEL)
1 O God, do not remain silent;do not turn a deaf ear,do not stand aloof, O God.
2 See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads.
3 With cunning they (ARAB,MUSLIMS) conspire against your people;they plot against those you cherish.(ISRAELIS)
4 “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.”
5 With one mind they plot together;(TREATIES) they form an alliance against you—
6 the tents of Edom (JORDAN) and the Ishmaelites, (EGYPTIAN ARABS SO CALLED PALESTIANS) of Moab (JORDAN) and the Hagrites,(EGYPT)
7 Byblos,(HEZBOLLOH) Ammon (JORDAN) and Amalek,(SYRIAN ARABS IN THE SINAI) Philistia,(ARABS) with the people of Tyre (LEBANON).
8 Even Assyria (SYRIA) has joined them to reinforce Lot’s descendants.
And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE.
PEDOPHILE ISLAM IN IRAQ IS TRYING TO MARRY 9 YR OLD GIRLS.
Iraqi MPs to debate revised bill critics fear will allow 9-year-old girls to marry-Legislation allows people to choose religious law for family matters, communities to set own guidelines; MP says latest revised version sets the minimum marital age at 15-By AFP 1 December 2024, 11:23 pm
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq’s parliament postponed until Monday a vote on controversial legal amendments, including a reworked family law bill that had sparked civil outrage over fears of a resurgence in underage marriages, including allowing the marriage of girls as young as 9.A session devoted to the legislation scheduled for Sunday did not go ahead and would now be held the following day, parliament’s communications department said.The proposed amendments would let people choose between religious or state regulations for family matters, such as marriage, inheritance, divorce, and child custody.Critics fear the move could erode protections for Muslim women by lowering the legal age for marriage — currently set at 18, or 15 with the consent of legal guardians and a judge — and pave the way for the adoption of Islamic jurisprudence that could allow girls as young as 9 years old to marry.A revised version of the bill sets the minimum age at 15 with court approval and retains “current conditions,” according to MP Raed al-Maliki, who backs the new proposals.Couples could opt for Shiite Muslim or Sunni Muslim rules under the amendment.If passed, clerics and lawyers would have four months to establish community-specific regulations. Parliament would then vote again to finalize the changes.The draft law has already undergone two readings, with votes previously delayed.An earlier version faced a backlash from feminists and civil society groups.In October, Amnesty International warned that the amendments could legalize unregistered marriages — often used to bypass child marriage bans — and strip protections for divorced women.The London-based rights group also voiced concerns that the amendments would strip women and girls of protections regarding divorce and inheritance.The postponed parliamentary session had also been scheduled to include a vote on a general amnesty law.Excluded from the amnesty are convictions for around 20 offenses, including “terrorism,” rape, incest, human trafficking, and kidnapping, according to Maliki.For instance, the amnesty, which covers the period from 2016 to 2024, could apply to drug users, but not to traffickers, Maliki said.Cases based on evidence from “secret informants” may qualify for retrial.A previous 2016 amnesty reportedly covered 150,000 people.
Israeli jets block Iranian plane suspected of ferrying arms to Hezbollah over Syria-Israeli warplanes intercept flight, order it to turn around; incident comes amid efforts to prevent all weapons shipments to Lebanese terror group-By Emanuel Fabian-1 December 2024, 9:43 pm
An Iranian flight suspected to be ferrying arms to the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon was blocked by the Israeli Air Force over Syria overnight between Saturday and Sunday, The Times of Israel has learned.IAF fighter jets intercepted the Iranian plane over Syria and ordered it to turn around, and it did a short while later, a defense source said.The incident was first reported by Ynet, although the news site showed a screenshot of flight data from an unrelated Iranian Mahan Air plane that landed in Syria’s coastal city of Latakia in the afternoon hours of Saturday.The interception of the flight came as part of Israel’s efforts to prevent Iranian weapons from reaching the Lebanese terror group, during a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.In recent months, the Israel Defense Forces has forced several Iranian flights to make U-turns over Syrian or Iraqi airspace, after they were suspected of carrying weapons to Hezbollah.The IDF has said that, during the truce, it would continue to act to prevent all weapon deliveries to the Lebanese terror group, including by striking shipments anywhere in Lebanon or Syria.Last week, a senior military official said that the IDF would not just strike the weapon shipments, but Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime would pay for aiding Hezbollah.In the hours before the ceasefire early Wednesday, the IDF carried out strikes against Hezbollah’s smuggling routes.Three border crossings between northern Lebanon and Syria, which the military said were used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons, were destroyed. The IDF assessed that it would take time to repair the crossings, and during that time, Hezbollah would have limited routes to bring in weapons, which would be easier for Israel to monitor.On Saturday, during the ceasefire, IAF fighter jets struck infrastructure in Syria near the country’s border crossings with Lebanon, which the IDF said were being “actively” used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons.Thousands of trucks and hundreds of planes carrying missiles and other components for Hezbollah have traveled from Iran to Syria, and later to Lebanon, in recent years, according to the IDF.Reports of Israeli strikes on Hezbollah weapons shipments began to emerge in early 2013, with Israel officially keeping mum to avoid blowback from Damascus and its allies, in light of the civil war there.It has increasingly opened up in recent years about the sorties, which have complemented a longstanding aerial campaign aimed at keeping Iran from gaining a foothold near Syria’s border with Israel.
Netanyahu convenes discussion on hostage negotiations with new ceasefire push-President Herzog tells hostage’s family that talks are happening ‘behind the scenes,’ but US, Israeli officials say deal still ‘not there yet’ and Hamas’s position is ‘nothing new’By ToI Staff and Agencies 1 December 2024, 9:15 pm
As Israel and mediating countries have been working to formulate a new framework for a potential hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was convening a security discussion on the issue on Sunday evening. The meeting was set to begin at 8:00 p.m.Egypt has been leading the recent negotiation efforts, and is currently hosting representatives from Hamas, who arrived in Cairo on Saturday for talks with its negotiators.The renewed talks came after a ceasefire went into effect on Wednesday between Israel and Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, culminating a longtime US-led effort to broker a truce to halt 14 months of cross-border attacks. Hezbollah said the campaign, which it launched unprovoked on October 8, 2023, a day after the Hamas invasion and slaughter in southern Israel, was in support of Palestinians in Gaza.Following the Lebanon deal, the United States announced a new diplomatic effort with Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023, massacre.The Hamas onslaught killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and the terror group abducted 251 hostages back to Gaza, where 97 remain in captivity, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.The only ceasefire so far, in November 2023, saw the release of 105 civilian hostages kidnapped by Hamas and its allies in exchange for 240 Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel.A senior official from the Palestinian terror group told AFP on Saturday that Hamas is open to discussing “all ideas and proposals” for a potential ceasefire deal.The terror group has “not received any new offer or proposal so far,” the Hamas official said, but added that the group was “open to discussing all ideas and proposals that lead to the end of the war, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced, the entry of humanitarian and relief aid, and a serious deal to exchange prisoners.”Netanyahu said on Thursday that he was “ready for a ceasefire” in the war in Gaza “when we think we can achieve the release of the hostages,” but would not end the war against Hamas — a core demand by the terror group — until it was destroyed militarily and in terms of its capacity to govern.President Isaac Herzog told the family of Edan Alexander, the American-Israeli hostage who was featured in a video released by Hamas on Saturday, that negotiations for a deal are taking place “behind the scenes.”“Now, with an agreement reached regarding the northern border with Lebanon, it is time to finalize a deal and bring the hostages home” from Gaza, said the president, according to his office. “We are negotiating with a bitter and cruel enemy whose sole purpose in releasing this video was to try to break our spirit. On the contrary — I believe this video has strengthened us.”“Now is the opportunity to bring about a meaningful change that will lead to a deal to free the hostages,” he said.Alexander’s mother Yael said in a speech at a rally on Saturday night that Netanyahu had told her “the conditions are ripe” for a hostage deal.The New York Times reported last week that Hamas had been showing increased flexibility in long-stalled talks for a deal and may agree to Israel forces temporarily remaining on the enclave’s border with Egypt.Jerusalem has insisted that troops remain in Gaza to prevent arms smuggling from Egypt and says it is prepared only for a temporary halt in its campaign to destroy Hamas.Nothing new-Despite the group’s reported flexibility, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel on Sunday that there is “nothing new” in regard to progress on a potential deal.“I haven’t seen any change, not even in Hamas terminology,” said the official.The official added that an Israeli pilot plan to use a private US company to hand out humanitarian aid in a small part of the northern Gaza Strip has not yet begun.The White House echoed the downbeat assessment on Sunday, with the US national security adviser telling NBC that the negotiations are “not there yet.”“We are working actively to try to make it happen. We are engaged deeply with the key players in the region, and there is activity even today,” said Jake Sullivan, according to a transcript released by the broadcaster.“There will be further conversations and consultations, and our hope is that we can generate a ceasefire and hostage deal, but we’re not there yet,” he added.Sullivan told NBC that US President Joe Biden has been closely coordinating with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try and promote a deal.“He also spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu that day (of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire), and Prime Minister Netanyahu told him he agreed, the time is right. The moment is now,” said Sullivan.National Unity chair Benny Gantz on Sunday slammed the government for its refusal to agree to previous proposals.Gantz estimated that around 30 hostages who have died or been killed in Gaza since they were abducted on October 7 last year would still be alive today had the government not chosen to forgo a hostage deal for “political reasons.”Speaking at a conference organized by the Israel Hayom daily, Gantz argued that if Israel was able to come to an agreement with Hezbollah in Lebanon, it should have also been able to make a deal with Hamas, which he said is “the most dismantled” of Israel’s enemies.“The return of the hostages is at the core of the values of the State of Israel,” he added. “It is the most important thing.”On Saturday, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir issued an ultimatum against a potential hostage-ceasefire deal, warning that the terms under discussion are not acceptable to him and that Netanyahu “very much” does not want him to bolt the government.“The terms that are currently being discussed are irrelevant as far as I am concerned, and the prime minister very much does not want Otzma Yehudit to leave the government,” Ben Gvir told Army Radio.Ben Gvir has long been a vocal opponent of a deal to bring the hostages home at the price of stopping the war, and has issued similar ultimatums during previous rounds of negotiations.
IDF drone strike near Jenin kills Hamas terrorist behind deadly Jordan Valley shooting-Another three gunmen killed in strike in town of Sir, northern West Bank; Wael Lahlouh murdered Yonatan Deutsch, wounded another man in August attack-By Emanuel Fabian-1 December 2024, 8:21 pm
An Israeli drone strike near the West Bank city of Jenin on Sunday morning killed four Palestinian gunmen including a Hamas terrorist responsible for a deadly shooting attack in the Jordan Valley in the summer, the military said.According to the Israel Defense Forces, the cell of four gunmen killed in the airstrike in the town of Sir, close to Jenin, was responsible for several shooting attacks against Israeli towns bordering the northern West Bank.The head of the cell, Wael Lahlouh, 31, from Qabatiya, carried out a shooting attack on August 11 at the Mehola Junction on Route 90, the main north-south artery in the Jordan Valley, killing Yonatan Deutsch, 23, and wounding Anas Jaramana, 32.Lahlouh and another Hamas terrorist managed to flee the scene of the attack. The terror group later released a video showing the shooting.The IDF said that, following the attack, Lahlouh worked to recruit additional terrorists in Jenin for “imminent” attacks.After the four gunmen were targeted in the drone strike, troops raided the site and seized three guns from their bodies, the military said.Additional weapon parts and military equipment were also captured, the army added.The Palestinian Authority health ministry said it was informed of the deaths of the four, indicating that their bodies are being held by Israeli authorities.The West Bank, which is controlled by Israeli security forces, has seen a sharp rise in violence since the Gaza war began on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.The onslaught was followed by sharp restrictions on Palestinian movement in the West Bank and wide-scale counterterrorism operations there. On Wednesday, the Shin Bet said it thwarted an arms shipment to the West Bank by Iran, Hamas’s benefactor.Since the Hamas onslaught, Israeli troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas.According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 716 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.During the same period, 41 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
Analysis-Rebels in Syria take advantage of Israel’s successes against a weakened Iran axis-Lightning advance on Aleppo by anti-Assad jihadist force could be start of wider uprising against Tehran and its proxies-By Lazar Berman-1 December 2024, 5:06 pm
Syrian rebels, led by the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, surprised the Bashar Assad regime as well as observers when they launched an offensive last week that saw them capture the city of Aleppo — second only to the capital Damascus in population — within 72 hours, after years of strategic stalemate.Perhaps they shouldn’t have been so shocked.There has been a recent uptick in confrontations between Syrian forces and opposition groups in the country’s northwest, which left civilians dead and were seen by rebels as a violation of the 2019 ceasefire agreement between Russia, which backs the Assad regime, and Turkey, which backs some of the rebel groups in the north.HTS had been building up its military capabilities for years in preparation for such an offensive.“The group operates a professionally staffed military academy run by defectors from the Syrian military, and it has restructured its armed wing into a conventional armed force structure,” wrote Charles Lister, Syria expert at the Middle East Institute. “In recent years, it has also developed ‘special forces’ units dedicated to covert operations, lightning raids behind enemy lines, and nighttime operations.”But the primary reason for the success of the rebel offensive and the collapse of the regime forces is the effectiveness of Israel’s military operations against Hezbollah and Iran since October 8, 2023.“The timing is not coincidental,” Carmit Valensi, head of the Northern Arena Program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told The Times of Israel.“They identify well the critical, even historical, weakness that the ‘Resistance Axis,’ primarily Hezbollah and Iran, find themselves in,” she continued.Some Hezbollah and Iran-backed Shiite militia fighters were moved from Syria to contend with the Israeli ground invasion in Lebanon in October. Thousands more were killed and wounded by Israeli air raids, ground forces, and special operations like the stunning attacks in September in which thousands of Hezbollah pagers exploded on their owners..Iran itself is in a defensive crouch, having lost its two most effective deterrent threats against Israel in Hamas and Hezbollah, and after suffering significant damage in the October 26 Israeli air raid on Iran, itself a response to the regime’s second ballistic missile attack on the Jewish state on October 1.To make matters worse for Assad’s government, while Hezbollah is diminished, so is Russia. Its focus has been on the long Ukraine fight for almost 3 years, with fewer troops and assets in Syria.What’s more, with the Donald Trump administration set to take office in a matter of weeks, Iran will likely face increased sanctions and stepped-up pressure on its battered economy.Speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, a rebel commander made no effort to hide the connection between the offensive and Israel’s military success.“We looked at the [ceasefire] agreement with Hezbollah and understood that this is the time to liberate our lands,” said the officer. “This operation was critical. We will not let Hezbollah fight in our areas and we will not let the Iranians take root there.”The rebel commander added that the goal is to topple the Assad regime and set up a government that has good relations with all its neighbors, including Israel.Still, it’s unlikely that this offensive will be enough in and of itself to bring Assad down. HTS will need other groups to attack as well, especially from southern Syria. And they will have to learn to cooperate, something they were unable to do at the height of the civil war almost a decade ago.Moreover, there is no guarantee that recent success will continue, especially if Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah wake up to the threat and find a way to throw real resources at the attack.“If so, we could see this end very quickly,” said Valensi.Seeing the Assad regime fade into history would be a massive and unexpected boon for Israel, the next pillar holding up the Iranian facade across the region to crumble. It would come as Israel shifts its focus in the north to preventing Hezbollah from replenishing its supply of arms, the bulk of which comes through Syria to Lebanon.Speaking to The Times of Israel, an Israel official wouldn’t say whether Israel saw the rebel success as a positive development, noting only that Israel is “paying close attention all the time to what is happening in Syria, and is ready for any scenario.”And there are potential risks, should the rebels succeed in bringing Assad down.“The fall of the regime could create chaos, and it’s not clear who would rule there,” said Valensi. “There won’t be an address that Israel likes, whom you can hold a conversation with through military force or other methods.”Israel, it is assessed, would likely only get involved directly if it sees Syrian chemical weapons falling into the wrong hands, or if the Golan Heights were threatened.Regardless of what happens next — whether Russia and Iran figure out a way to stem the rebel advance, or if HTS sparks a broad offensive against the regime — the timing and success of the attack shows how badly eroded the Iranian position has become. For years, it was the most aggressive force in the region, and attacks from its proxies spooked pro-Western Gulf states into opening diplomatic dialogue with Tehran.With its massive October 7 attack, Hamas thought it could inspire a flood of violence against Israel from the Iranian axis. Instead, Israel has moved to the strategic offensive against Iran, and it could be that Hamas inadvertently unleashed a flood against its patrons in Tehran.
UNRWA pauses aid deliveries via key Israeli crossing due to looting inside Gaza-Head of UN agency says route via Kerem Shalom no longer safe, largely blames Israel; Jerusalem downplays announcement, says only 7% of aid via crossing is coordinated with UNRWA-By Agencies and ToI Staff 1 December 2024, 4:27 pmUpdated at 1:27 am
The UN agency for Palestinians said Sunday it was pausing the delivery of aid through the key Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip because of looting by armed gangs in the enclave, with Israel downplaying the claims and saying the vast majority of aid was entering without the agency’s involvement.It marked a further deterioration of ties between Israel and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which have crumbled amid the ongoing war in Gaza that was started last year by the Palestinian terror group Hamas.“We are pausing the delivery of aid through Kerem Shalom… The road out of this crossing has not been safe for months,” UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote in a post on social media platform X, blaming Israel.“On 16 November, a large convoy of aid trucks was stolen by armed gangs,” he recalled.“Yesterday, we tried to bring in a few food trucks on the same route. They were all taken,” Lazzarini added.“This difficult decision comes at a time hunger is rapidly deepening. The delivery of humanitarian aid must never be dangerous or turn into an ordeal,” he wrote.The UN official did not specify who is carrying out the looting.Lazzarini largely blamed Israel for the breakdown of humanitarian operations in Gaza, citing alleged “political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid,” lack of safety on aid routes, and Israel’s targeting of the Hamas-run police force, which had previously provided public security.The Israeli military has said that attacking convoys and stealing aid is an ongoing problem in Gaza. COGAT, the military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, has said convoys are attacked by Hamas terrorists and known crime families.Lazzarini said the humanitarian operation had become “unnecessarily impossible.”He called on Israel to ensure aid flowed to Gaza and said the country “must refrain from attacks on humanitarian workers.”In response, Israel’s COGAT sought to downplay the significance of UNRWA’s announcement by stating that almost all the aid wasn’t being coordinated with the UN agency.“Only 7% of the aid that came into the Gaza Strip in November was coordinated by UNRWA,” the Defense Ministry liaison body said on X.“There are dozens of humanitarian organizations operating in the Gaza Strip that continue to take a growing role in delivering humanitarian aid,” it added. “Last week, over 1,000 trucks carrying humanitarian aid were collected from the various crossings and distributed throughout the Gaza Strip.“We will continue to work with the international community to increase the amount of aid making its way into Gaza, through the Kerem Shalom Crossing as well as the other 4 crossings between Israel and Gaza,” it concluded.Israel has long argued that it allows enough aid into Gaza, blaiming UNRWA and other agencies for failing to deliver it. It accuses UNRWA of having allowed Hamas to deeply infiltrate its ranks, including dozens who actively took part in the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, and passed legislation to sever ties with the agency last month.During a press visit Thursday, the IDF showed aid shipments at the crossing and said they have waited at the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom for months.Kerem Shalom is the only crossing between Israel and Gaza that is designed for cargo shipments and has been the main artery for aid deliveries since the Rafah crossing with Egypt was shut down in May when Cairo refused to cooperate with the IDF on operating the gateway after it was captured. Last month, nearly two-thirds of all aid entering Gaza came through Kerem Shalom, and in previous months it accounted for an even larger amount, according to Israeli figures.The UNRWA move followed an Israeli strike on Saturday that killed three contractors of the US charity World Central Kitchen, including one who Israel’s military said was involved in Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that opened the war.The United Nations said last month that 333 aid workers had been killed since the start of the war in October of last year, 243 of them employees of UNRWA.The war in Gaza began when Hamas led a devastating attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw 251 taken as hostages to Gaza, on October 7, 2023. Israel declared war with the objectives of toppling Hamas, the terror group that rules the Strip, and securing the release of the hostages.Lazzarini reiterated his call for a ceasefire “that would also secure the delivery of safe and uninterrupted aid to people in need.”As mediators relaunch efforts to reach a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, a Hamas delegation was in Cairo for talks Saturday and an Egyptian team was reported to visit Israel in recent days, though there was no official confirmation for the latter trip.Ninety-seven of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF. Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.According to the Wall Street Journal, the talks included negotiations on reopening the Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Egypt shuttered once Israel took control of the border region. Arab negotiators told the Journal that an agreement could lead to the crossing’s reopening by early December.The report added that under the proposed deal, administrative control of the terminal would be given to the Palestinian Authority, and Israel would be given access to information on those crossing.
Ben Gvir: Netanyahu showing ‘some openness’ to encouraging Palestinian migration from Gaza-Far-right minister also calls on Israel to intensify fighting in Gaza, says terms of hostage deal being discussed are ‘unacceptable,’ threatens to bolt coalition-By ToI Staff 1 December 2024, 4:26 pm
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was showing “some openness” over the idea of “encouraging migration” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.“Ideas like settling in Gaza are welcome; the only times we defeated our enemies were when we took territory from them,” Ben Gvir told Army Radio in an interview on Sunday morning. “But that doesn’t satisfy me. I also want to encourage emigration [of Palestinians from Gaza].”“I am working hard to promote the encouragement of migration from Gaza with the prime minister, and I am beginning to discover some openness on the matter,” he said.When pushed, the minister would not definitively say whether the premier supports the so-called “transfer” of the Gaza population.The stance is shared by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, who said last week that Israel should resettle Gaza and that half of the roughly 2.2 million Palestinians who currently live there should be encouraged to leave within the next two years.Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 under the Disengagement Plan, uprooting some 9,000 people and demolishing 21 settlements.Ben Gvir also called for fighting to be intensified in Gaza.“We have a historic opportunity to collapse Hamas. We have a historic opportunity to restore deterrence, reoccupy the Gaza Strip and encourage voluntary emigration. This is what will bring peace to the south,” he said.The Israeli far right has been pushing for population transfer and “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza, and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in their place.Ultra-Orthodox Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf also called for Israelis to resettle Gaza as he toured the border last week with Daniella Weiss, the head of the Nachala Settlement Movement.Netanyahu has repeatedly said such actions are not the goal of the war, nor are they on the agenda.Former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon said on Saturday that Israel’s leadership, driven by far-right elements who seek to resettle Gaza, was taking the country down a path of ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip, and warned that Netanyahu’s government was leading the nation to “destruction.”Ben Gvir also issued an ultimatum over the renewed push for a hostage-ceasefire deal during his interview with Army Radio, warning that the terms under discussion were unacceptable to him.“The terms currently being discussed are irrelevant as far as I am concerned, and the prime minister very much does not want Otzma Yehudit to leave the government,” Ben Gvir said.Ben Gvir and Smtorich have repeatedly threatened to leave the coalition, thus toppling the government, in the last year as they strongly oppose a deal that would bring the hostages home in exchange for a ceasefire and Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners from its prisons.Supporters of such a deal have accused Netanyahu of failing to exert his control and authority over his government and allowing himself to be swayed by the more extreme ends of his coalition.Hamas representatives arrived in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian negotiators on a potential hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza as efforts for a second deal continue, as Israel marks a year since the first one saw 105 hostages returned home.It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.Other than the 105 hostages released in the last deal, four were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Iran ‘firmly supports’ Assad as top envoy travels to Damascus after rebel attacks-Islamist-led rebels seize Aleppo, airport and surrounding towns, kill Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps general-By AFP 1 December 2024, 1:27 pm
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi said Sunday he will leave Tehran for Damascus to deliver a message of support for Syria’s government and armed forces, state media said, after a lightning advance by rebels.Tehran has been a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad during the civil war that broke out in 2011. Iran maintains it does not have combat troops in Syria, only officers who provide military advice and training.Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah has for years fought on the side of the Syrian government.“I am going to Damascus to convey the message of the Islamic Republic to the Syrian government,” Araghchi said, emphasizing that Tehran would “firmly support the Syrian government and army,” the IRNA state news agency reported.Islamist-led rebels on Saturday seized Aleppo’s airport and dozens of nearby towns after overrunning most of Syria’s second city, Aleppo, a war monitor said.Syria’s army confirmed that the rebels had entered “large parts” of the city of around two million people and said “dozens of men from our armed forces were killed.”Araghchi again called the surprise rebel offensive a plot by the United States and Israel.“The Syrian army will once again beat these terrorist groups as in the past,” the foreign minister added.An Iranian news agency reported earlier that a general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in Syria on Thursday during the fighting.On Saturday, Iran’s foreign ministry said its consulate in Aleppo had come under attack, but staff members were safe.Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Araghchi will visit Ankara for consultations with Turkish officials after his stop in Damascus.Since 2020, the rebel enclave in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region has been subject to a Turkish- and Russian-brokered truce that has largely been holding despite repeated violations.But the insurgents’ launch on Wednesday of a surprise offensive against the city of Aleppo shattered the truce, the same day a fragile ceasefire took effect in neighboring Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.The Syrian government regained control of a large part of the country in 2015 with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies and in 2016 the entire city of Aleppo.
IDF: Ballistic missile launched by Houthis from Yemen intercepted-Incoming projectile sets off sirens across central Israel; four lightly hurt as they scrambled to reach safe rooms; Iran-backed group takes responsibility-By Emanuel Fabian-and Agencies 1 December 2024, 10:45 amUpdated at 2:08 pm
A ballistic missile launched at Israel from Yemen was successfully intercepted by air defenses outside of Israel’s borders, the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday.Sirens were triggered across central Israel at around 6:30 a.m. Shrapnel from the interception reportedly fell within Israel. There were no reports of major damage.Four people were lightly injured as they ran for shelter during sirens, the Magen David Adom emergency service said.A fifth individual was treated for acute anxiety, MDA said.The surface-to-surface missile was shot down with the Arrow defense system, which is designed to take out ballistic missiles while they are still outside the atmosphere. According to an Israeli Air Force source, the missile was shot down at a “high altitude.”The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen later took responsibility for launching the missile.In a statement, the group claimed to have targeted a “vital target” in central Israel. The Houthis also vowed to continue attacks on Israel until “the aggression on the Gaza Strip stops.”Last week, Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi said the rebels will keep up their attacks regardless of the truce that halted 14 months of conflict initiated by Hezbollah in Lebanon. The terror group says it is acting in support of fellow Iran-backed proxy Hamas in the Gaza Strip, against which Israel is waging war; the Houthis say they are attacking Israel for the same reason.“The operations from the Yemeni front to support the Palestinian people with missiles and drones towards the Israeli enemy are continuing,” Al-Houthi said on the rebels’ Al-Masirah TV channel.Houthi rebels, part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, have fired over 220 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones at Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza war. That conflict began on October 7 last year when Hamas led a massive cross-border attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. The war in Gaza is still ongoing.Israel has twice bombed Houthi targets in retaliation for its ballistic missile and drone attacks, including one that killed a man in Tel Aviv.The Houthis have also waged a harassment campaign against shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, severely disrupting the vital trade route.“I hope everyone in the army and among the people is aware of our responsibility, and with God’s help will do more… against the Israeli enemy,” Al-Houthi said.“We at the Yemeni front are doing our utmost to support the Palestinian people,” he added.They have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started last October, including seizing one vessel and sinking two in a campaign that also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels.The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US, or the United Kingdom to force an end to Israel’s campaign against the Hamas terror group in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
Iran sees ceasefire as a chance to take stock and rebuild Hezbollah – report-Sources tell Washington Post terror group was disappointed by the lack of expected support from Tehran’s regional proxies as it was hammered by Israel-By ToI Staff and Agencies 1 December 2024, 9:15 am
Iran sees the four-day-old ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah as a chance to rebuild the Lebanon-based terror organization, according to sources close to the group quoted by the Washington Post on Saturday.The sources said that the truce gives Iran a chance to take stock of what was previously its strongest proxy in the region, rebuild, and try to restore deterrence.Hezbollah, which avowedly seeks Israel’s destruction, may have lost up to 4,000 people in the war, a source told Reuters last week, the vast majority of them during the last two months of intensified fighting.The Israel Defense Forces has estimated that Israeli forces killed some 3,000 Hezbollah operatives and that it dealt massive blows to Hezbollah’s infrastructure and resources. Around 100 members of other terror groups have also been reported killed in Lebanon.Hezbollah, unprovoked, began firing into Israel the day after the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, forcing the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.The sources quoted by the Washington Post said that Hezbollah expected more support from Iran’s other proxies in the region during Israel’s military campaign against its sites across Lebanon in recent months.Iran’s terror proxies in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen fired missiles and drones at the country, but almost all were intercepted before they reached Israeli airspace. On Sunday, the IDF said it downed another ballistic missile from Yemen.“Lebanon was at its most vulnerable during heavy bombings, yet support from other members of the resistance axis, including Yemen and Iraq, was minimal at best,” one of the sources close to Hezbollah was quoted as saying, referring to Iran’s regional proxies that its has aligned against Israel.“Tehran was unwilling to escalate the situation,” the source said.Israel dealt several devastating blows to Hezbollah during the war, including killing the group’s long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in September, as well as many other top-ranking officials.However, it was in October, after Israel retaliated to a direct Iranian missile barrage on the country with wide-ranging strikes on Iran’s air defenses and some military factories, that Tehran began to push Hezbollah to accept US-led ceasefire proposals.“We now know that those attacks were quite severe,” a Western diplomat told the Post of the Israeli strikes, referring to an assessment by their own government. “They were feeling the heat.”Iran, which also vows to destroy Israel, welcomed the ceasefire when it came into force on Wednesday, while also indicating that the development could influence its plans to avenge the October Israeli strike on the country. It has publicly presented the truce as a victory against Israel, though Jerusalem only ever made securing the border region from Hezbollah threats its war goal. That condition is written into the ceasefire that the terror group agreed to.Tehran has promised to help rebuild Hezbollah, which is a key part of of its deterrence strategy.“Iran is prepared to allocate funds for reconstruction and to ensure Hezbollah’s survival, as well as to maintain support within the Shiite community” said the source close to Hezbollah.Iran helped reestablish Hezbollah after a previous clash with Israel in 2006, but at the time the terror group suffered far fewer losses and it is unclear how much Iran can do now as its own economy has suffered due to years of US and international sanctions over its nuclear development program.Iran fired its first-ever missile barrage at Israel in April in retaliation for an alleged Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic installation in Damascus that killed top Iranian generals. After Iran’s second attack, in October, Israel struck military facilities across Iran, reportedly damaging a component of Iran’s nuclear program and disabling its air defenses.
Hamas says open to ‘all ideas and proposals’ ahead of hostage-truce talks in Cairo-As representatives arrive in Egypt for talks with negotiators, senior official says terror group hasn’t ‘received any new offer or proposal so far’ By Agencies and ToI Staff 1 December 2024, 4:33 am
Hamas is open to discussing “all ideas and proposals,” a senior official from the Palestinian terror group told AFP, as representatives arrived in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian negotiators on a possible hostage-ceasefire deal in Gaza.The terror group has “not received any new offer or proposal so far,” the Hamas official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.But he said that Hamas was “open to discussing all ideas and proposals that lead to the end of the war, Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced, the entry of humanitarian and relief aid, and a serious deal to exchange prisoners.”The New York Times reported last week that Hamas had been showing increased flexibility in long-stalled talks for a deal and may agree to Israel forces temporarily remaining on the enclave’s border with Egypt.Jerusalem has insisted that troops remain in Gaza to prevent arms smuggling from Egypt and says it is prepared only for a temporary halt in its campaign to destroy Hamas.The talks came after a ceasefire went into effect Wednesday between Israel and Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, after a US-led effort to broker a truce to halt 14 months of cross-border attacks. Hezbollah said the campaign, launched on October 8, 2023, was in support of Palestinians in Gaza.Following the Lebanon deal, the United States announced a new diplomatic effort with Qatar, Turkey and Egypt to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s brutal October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel that set off the ongoing war and the Hezbollah attacks.The Hamas onslaught saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.Vowing to destroy the terror group and free the hostages, Israel launched a wide-scale military campaign in Gaza that the Hamas-run health ministry says has killed more than 42,000 people in the Strip. That toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.The only ceasefire so far, in November 2023, saw the release of 105 civilian hostages kidnapped by Hamas and its allies in exchange for 240 Palestinian security prisoners held by Israel.The United States, Qatar and Egypt have led multiple failed efforts since the start of the year to reach a new ceasefire and hostage release.US President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to see a Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal before he re-enters the White House in January.Trump has confirmed having told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he wants Israel to win the war quickly, though he has not publicly given a timeline.It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.Four hostages were released before the weeklong truce in late November. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Russia says it carried out airstrikes on Syrian rebel groups-Syrian military says dozens of soldiers killed in major Islamist attack on Aleppo-Assad’s army says preparing response; intel chiefs reportedly tell Netanyahu rebels’ advances in Syria spell short-term benefits, potential trouble for Israel; US monitoring situation-By Agencies and ToI Staff 1 December 2024, 3:39 am
The Syrian army said on Saturday dozens of its soldiers had been killed in a major attack led by Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels who swept into the city of Aleppo, while Russia’s Defense Ministery reportedly said its air force had carried out strikes on Syrian rebels in support of the country’s army.The rebels’ assault, the boldest rebel for years in a civil war where the front lines had largely been frozen since 2020, forced the army to redeploy in the biggest challenge to President Bashar Assad in years.Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, once known as the Nusra Front, is designated a terrorist group by the US, Russia, Turkey and other states. Assad is a close Moscow ally.A spokesperson for the US State Department said earlier that the United States was monitoring the situation.Hebrew media reported on Saturday that Israel was watching the jihadist rebels’ advances in Syria with considerable wariness, with intelligence chiefs that the developments could ultimately spell trouble for Israel.The war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many millions, has ground on since 2011 with no formal end, although most major fighting halted years ago after Iran and Russia helped Assad’s government win control of most land and all major cities.Aleppo had been firmly held by the government since a 2016 victory there, one of the war’s major turning points, when Russian-backed Syrian forces besieged and laid waste to rebel-held eastern areas of what had been the country’s largest city.“I am a son of Aleppo, and was displaced from it eight years ago, in 2016. Thank God we just returned. It is an indescribable feeling,” said Ali Jumaa, a rebel fighter, in television footage filmed inside the city.Acknowledging the rebel advance, the Syrian army command said insurgents had entered much of Aleppo.After the army said it was preparing a counterattack, airstrikes targeted rebel gatherings and convoys in the city, the pro-Damascus newspaper al-Watan reported. One strike caused casualties in Aleppo’s Basel Square, a resident told Reuters.The state-run Russian Centre for the Reconciliation of the Enemy Parties in Syria said missile and bomb strikes against the rebels had targeted “militant concentrations, command posts, depots, and artillery positions” in Aleppo and Idlib provinces. It claimed about 300 rebel fighters had been killed in the attacks.Overnight, images from Aleppo showed a group of rebel fighters gathered in the city’s Saadallah al-Jabiri Square, with a billboard of Assad looming behind them.Images filmed on Saturday showed people posing for photos on a toppled statue of Bassil Assad, late brother of the president. Fighters zipped around the city in trucks and milled around in the streets. A man waved a Syrian opposition flag as he stood near Aleppo’s historic citadel.The Syrian military command said militants had attacked in large numbers and from multiple directions, prompting “our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers.”The rebels also took control of Aleppo airport, according to a statement by their operations room and a security source.Two rebel sources also said the insurgents had captured the city of Maraat al Numan in Idlib province, bringing all of that area under their control.The fighting revives the long-simmering Syrian conflict as the wider region is roiled by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, where a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday.Channel 12 News reported on Saturday that Israel was concerned the conflict could spill over the border, though a Syrian rebel fighter told the Kan broadcaster that Israelis had no reason to fear the anti-Assad groups.“My message to the Israeli people is to worry about Iran and Hezbollah. We’re taking care of them. Brother, you should be afraid of Bashar al-Assad, Iran and Hezbollah (not us),” Suhail Mohammed Hamoud, known by his nom de guerre, Abu Tow, told Kan.Channel 12 said that intelligence officials told Netanyahu during a last-minute meeting on Friday evening with key figures in the defense establishment that “Iranian infrastructure in Syria has been harmed, and much of it has been captured by the rebels.”The prime minister was reportedly told that Hezbollah’s attention would now be shifted to Syria, and “so will its forces, to defend the Assad regime.”This, in turn, would bolster the likelihood of the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire holding, the prime minister was reportedly told.Regarding Syrian territory itself, where Israel has been working to prevent the transfer of weaponry to Hezbollah and to thwart direct threats from pro-Iranian forces, the intelligence chiefs were quoted as saying “freedom of military operation will apparently widen.”They also noted that “the latest developments appear to be positive,” according to the report, though they also warned, “the collapse of the Assad regime would likely create chaos in which military threats against Israel would develop.”Channel 12 further reported that concerns were raised at Friday’s security consultation that some of the “strategic capabilities” of the Assad regime could fall into the jihadists’ hands. The prime concern relates to “the remnants of chemical weapons,” the report said.The IDF is said to be preparing for a scenario where Israel would be required to act, Channel 12 reported without elaborating.Another scenario of concern to Israel, according to the report, is an assessment that Syria could open its gates to a significant number of Iranian forces in an effort to stabilize the country.Iran: ‘Terrorist elements’ attacked Tehran’s Aleppo consulate-Meanwhile, Iran said that “terrorist elements” had attacked its consulate in Aleppo amid the rebel offensive in the area.In a statement, Esmaeil Baghaei, the spokesman of the Iranian foreign ministry, “strongly condemned the attack” by “some armed terrorist elements” on the Iranian consulate, adding that all its staff members were safe.With Assad backed by Russia and Iran, and Turkey supporting some of the rebels in the northwest where it maintains troops, the offensive has brought into focus the conflict’s knotted geopolitics. Fighting in the northwest had largely abated since Turkey and Russia reached a de-escalation agreement in 2020.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, to discuss the situation in Syria, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.“Both sides expressed serious concerns at the dangerous development of the situation,” the ministry said. They agreed it was necessary to coordinate joint actions to stabilize the situation in the country.Turkish security officials had said on Thursday that Ankara had prevented operations that opposition groups wanted to organize, in order to avoid further tensions in the region.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Lavrov in a phone call that the rebel attacks were part of an Israeli-US plan to destabilize the region, Iranian state media said.The Syrian Civil Defense, a rescue service operating in opposition-held parts of Syria, said in a post on X that Syrian government and Russian aircraft carried out airstrikes on residential neighborhoods in rebel-held Idlib, killing four civilians and wounding six others.Two Syrian military sources said Russia has promised Damascus extra military aid that would start arriving in the next 72 hours.The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which spearheaded the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that control much of northeastern and eastern Syria and have long had a foothold in Aleppo, widened their control in the city as government troops left, a senior YPG source said.Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish al-Izza rebel brigade, said the rebels’ speedy advance had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower to support the government in the broader Aleppo province.
Iran plans new uranium-enrichment expansion with 6,000 more centrifuges — IAEA report-Tehran says the move is a response to a resolution passed against it by the nuclear watchdog’s Board of Governors last week-By Reuters and Agencies Today, 4:06 am-NOV 30,24
VIENNA — Iran has informed the UN nuclear watchdog that it plans to install more than 6,000 extra uranium-enriching centrifuges at its enrichment plants and bring more of those already in place online, a confidential report by the watchdog said on Thursday.The International Atomic Energy Agency report seen by Reuters details what Iran meant when it said it would add thousands of centrifuges in response to a resolution against it that the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed last week at the request of Britain, France, Germany and the United States.More enrichment capacity means Iran can enrich uranium more quickly, potentially increasing the nuclear proliferation risk. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, but Western powers say there is no civil explanation for enriching uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% that is weapons grade, which no other country has done without producing a nuclear bomb.The only enrichment level specified for new centrifuges was 5% purity, far from the 60% Iran is already producing. The lower purity, particularly at its Fordow site, could be seen as a conciliatory move by Iran as it seeks common ground with European powers before the return of US President-elect Donald Trump, though enrichment levels can be changed easily later.Iran already has well over 10,000 centrifuges operating at two underground plants at Natanz and Fordow and an above-ground pilot plant at Natanz. The report outlined plans to install 32 more cascades, or clusters, of more than 160 machines each and a massive cascade of up to 1,152 advanced IR-6 machines.At the same time, the number of cascades Iran plans to install vastly outnumbers those that are already installed and that Iran said it would now bring online by feeding them with uranium feedstock, which the IAEA verified it had yet to do.“The Agency has determined and shared with Iran the changes required to the intensity of its inspection activities at FFEP (Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant) following the commissioning of the cascades,” the report said, referring to Iran’s plan to bring eight recently installed IR-6 cascades there online.Fordow is particularly closely watched because it is dug into a mountain and Iran is currently enriching up to 60% there. The only other plant where it is doing that is the above-ground Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz.Just before last week’s quarterly meeting of the IAEA board, Iran offered to cap its stock of uranium enriched to up to 60%, but diplomats said it was conditional on the board not passing a resolution against Iran.Although the IAEA verified Iran was slowing enrichment at that highest level and called it “a concrete step in the right direction,” the board passed the resolution regardless, repeating a call on Iran to improve cooperation with the IAEA.Thursday’s report said Iran had finished installing the last two cascades of IR-2m centrifuges in a batch of 18 at its vast underground Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, and that it planned to bring all 18 online, though the IAEA verified on November 26 that no uranium had been fed into them.Iran also told the agency it intended to install 18 extra cascades of IR-4 centrifuges at that Natanz plant, each with 166 machines, the report said.At the above-ground pilot plant at Natanz, Iran informed the IAEA it planned to take various steps that suggested it would increase the number of full, rather than small or intermediate, cascades there, which could produce more enriched uranium.It also said it planned to install one cascade of up to 1,152 IR-6 centrifuges at that pilot plant, which could be the biggest cascade by far in Iran yet.British and French intelligence chiefs on Friday expressed concern over Iran’s nuclear program, as European officials met with senior diplomats from Tehran for talks on the matter.In a speech in Paris, the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence chief said Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose a major global security threat, even after setbacks dealt to its terror group allies Hamas and Hezbollah by Israel.“Iran’s allied militias across the Middle East have suffered serious blows,” said Secret Intelligence Service chief Richard Moore. “But the regime’s nuclear ambitions continue to threaten all of us.”Meanwhile, the head of France’s intelligence service said the risk of Iranian nuclear proliferation is a serious threat in the coming months and Britain and France are working out strategies to prepare for such an event.Meanwhile, Iran, Britain, France and Germany have agreed to continue diplomatic dialogue “in the near future,” the German foreign ministry and the high-level diplomats representing France and Britain and Iran said separately on X after Friday talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Russia said to pledge surge of military aid to Damascus-Syrian army admits Islamist rebels enter Aleppo, upending yearslong civil war stalemate-Military says dozens of troops killed, in its first acknowledgment of failure to prevent jihadists’ surprise seizure of metropolis held by Assad since 2016-By Agencies Today, 4:33 pm-NOV 30,24
The Syrian military said on Saturday that rebels had entered large parts of Aleppo city during an offensive in which dozens of soldiers were killed, forcing the army to redeploy — the biggest challenge in years to Syria’s President Bashar Assad.The Syrian army command’s statement was the military’s first public acknowledgment that rebels, led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), had entered Aleppo — Syria’s pre-war industrial hub and largest city. Aleppo had been under full state control since government forces, with the support of Russia and Iran, drove out rebels eight years ago.Russia was said to be providing air cover for Syrian government forces over recent days’ fighting in Aleppo, which Iran’s foreign minister blamed on Israel and the United States in a call with his Syrian counterpart on Friday.The Syrian army said it had redeployed “to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers and prepare for a counterattack.” The army added that its bombardments had prevented the rebels from establishing fixed positions, and that it would “expel them and restore the control of the state … over the entire city and its countryside.”Insurgents were filmed outside police headquarters, in the city center, and outside the Aleppo citadel. They tore down posters of Assad, stepping on some and burning others.The surprise takeover of Aleppo is a huge embarrassment for Assad, who managed to regain total control of the city in 2016, after expelling insurgents and thousands of civilians from its eastern neighborhoods following a grueling military campaign in which his forces were backed by Russia, Iran and the latter’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.The 2016 battle for Aleppo was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.Two rebel sources said that in their latest push, the insurgents had also captured the city of Maraat al Numan in Idlib province, bringing all of that province under their control, in what would be another significant blow to Assad.According to three Syrian military sources, local authorities have closed the Aleppo airport and roads to the city, and the army had been told to follow “safe withdrawal” orders from the main areas of the city that the rebels had entered.Two of the sources said Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted insurgents in an Aleppo suburb on Saturday, and that Russia had pledged additional military aid in the next 72 hours.The Syrian Civil Defense, a rescue service operating in opposition-held parts of Syria, also said in a post on X Friday that the Syrian government and Russian aircraft had carried out airstrikes on residential neighborhoods, a gas station and a school in rebel-held Idlib, killing four civilians and wounding 25 others, including women and children.Syrian regime-Russia warplanes targeted residential areas in the city of #Idlib, including Salah al-Din School and the Al-Andani fuel station. The attacks resulted in the deaths of 4 civilians and the injury of 25 others, including 8 children and 6 women. The airstrikes also… pic.twitter.com/wpLEwAlHz9— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) November 29, 2024-Syrian opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkey, which supports the rebels, had given a green light to the offensive in Idlib. Turkish officials were not immediately available to comment on Saturday.Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish al-Izza rebel brigade, said the anti-government forces’ speedy advance had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower to support the government in the broader Aleppo province.Iran’s client Hezbollah signed a ceasefire with Israel hours before the Syrian rebels infiltrated Aleppo. Israel has also carried out extensive strikes against Hezbollah and other pro-Iran fighters in Syria.The surprise attack on Aleppo has jolted the frontlines of the Syrian civil war, which have all but frozen since 2020. The Britain-based Syrian Human Rights Observatory said 311 people have been killed in the renewed fighting: 183 from HTS and allied factions, 100 soldiers and pro-government forces, as well as 28 civilians.HTS, a jihadist alliance led by al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swaths of the Idlib region in Syria’s northwest, as well as parts of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces. Allied Turkish-backed rebel factions have also been taking part in the offensive.The push into Aleppo followed weeks of simmering low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas. Turkey had failed in its diplomatic efforts to prevent the Syrian government attacks, which were seen as a violation of a 2019 agreement sponsored by Russia, Turkey and Iran to freeze the line of the conflict.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Moscow considers the rebel attack on Aleppo to be a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.“We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
IDF hits Hezbollah facility in Syria, strikes ‘ceasefire violations’ in Lebanon-Army says Hezbollah continues to try bring weapons into Lebanon via civilian border crossings, vows to punish any truce violations; drone said to fire at car heading toward troops-By Emanuel Fabian-and Agencies Today, 2:14 pm-NOV 30,24
Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck military infrastructure in Syria near border crossings with Lebanon on Saturday, which the IDF said were being “actively” used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons, testing the fragile, days-old ceasefire.The IDF also carried out several strikes in Lebanon, targeting threats it said violated the ceasefire agreement.The strike in Syria “was carried out following the identification of the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah from Syria to Lebanon, even after the ceasefire agreement, and constitutes a threat to the State of Israel, in violation of the terms of the ceasefire agreement,” the military said in a statement.Syria’s Sham FM radio reported that the strikes targeted the al-Qusayr area. No further details were given and the IDF did not specify what kind of military installation was hit.There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah also did not immediately comment.The IDF also accused Hezbollah, with the support of the Syrian regime, of using civilian border crossings to continue trying to bring weapons into Lebanon. Israel has vowed to prevent all weapon transfers to Hezbollah amid the ceasefire.“The IDF will continue to act to remove any threat to the State of Israel that violates the terms of the ceasefire agreement,” the military added.The Israeli strike inside Syria came as unrest spread across that country, with Syrian insurgents breaching the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added fresh uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars.The repeated bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold. While Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire, Lebanon has also accused Israel of the same in the days since it took effect.In southern Lebanon on Saturday, the military said it identified a group of gunmen as they loaded a car up with RPGs, ammunition boxes and other military equipment. A drone then targeted the vehicle.In another incident, a group of Hezbollah operatives were spotted at a building in southern Lebanon previously known to have been in use by the terror group. The IDF said troops struck the operatives, and later upon reaching the site found numerous weapons.Saturday also saw IAF fighter jets strike a Hezbollah facility near Sidon upon identifying activity there. According to the military, the site was used to store rocket launchers.Separately, the IDF said it carried out a drone strike “deep within Lebanon” against a vehicle that was operating at a Hezbollah missile manufacturing facility.Troops also worked to disperse suspects who approached a no-go zone in southern Lebanon, the IDF said without giving details.Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone attacked a car in the southern village of Majdal Zoun. Majdal Zoun, near the Mediterranean Sea, is close to where Israeli troops still have a presence.Lebanon’s health ministry said the strike wounded three people, including a child.Lebanese media also reported an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of the southern Lebanon village of Baisariyeh, south of Sidon.There was no immediate comment from the IDF.Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced in the conflict, were streaming south to their homes, despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas.The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, brokered by the United States and France, calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the terror group is to withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border.The US military’s CENTCOM announced late Friday that Major General Jasper Jeffers, Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT), would oversee the implementation and monitoring mechanism of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, alongside his co-chair, US Mideast envoy Amos Hochstein, who will fill the role until a permanent civilian US official is named.Jeffers arrived in Beirut in recent days to oversee the implementation, the announcement said, adding that the oversight mechanism will be led by the US and include the Lebanese and Israeli militaries, UN observers and France.Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations.The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday halted 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which began when the Iran-backed terror group, unprovoked, began firing into Israel on October 8, 2023, saying it was acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The relentless attacks forced the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel.Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before Israel ramped up its operations in Lebanon in mid-September, eventually launching a ground operation into Lebanese territory, that dismantled much of the terror group’s infrastructure throughout southern Lebanon.The offensive was launched with the aim of securing the return home of the 60,000 people evacuated from homes in the north of Israel due to the Hezbollah attacks and concerns it would carry out an invasion similar to the Hamas onslaught from the Gaza Strip on southern Israel. In that attack, 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken as hostages to Gaza.Hezbollah and Hamas are both avowedly committed to destroying Israel.Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel since October 2023 resulted in the deaths of 45 civilians. In addition, 76 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes, attacks on Israel, and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.The IDF said it had confirmed with high confidence the deaths of 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, though it estimated that number to be closer to 3,500. Around 100 members of other terror groups have also been reported killed in Lebanon.Images showed Hezbollah holding large funeral ceremonies Friday for dozens of their fighters killed over the past two months.According to data published by the Lebanese health ministry, 3,823 people have been killed in Israeli actions since October 8, 2023, a figure that does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
As truce takes effect, displaced Lebanese come home to find piles of rubble-World Bank estimates $3.2b in damages as some 100,000 housing units damaged in Israel’s offensive, launched in response to relentless Hezbollah attacks; ‘all the memories are gone’By AP and ToI Staff Today, 2:13 pm-NOV 30,24
HANOUIYEH, Lebanon (AP) — During their 37 years of marriage, Mariam Kourani and her husband ran a butcher shop in southern Lebanon, started a business selling serving containers and opened a small restaurant.An Israeli airstrike in late September destroyed it all.Walking through the rubble of what used to be her house and restaurant in the village of Hanouiyeh, Kourani, 56, watched as her son-in-law picked up some of his young daughter’s clothes and toys from the ruins.“This was my house, my dreams and my hard work,” she said, holding back tears. She pointed to one of the serving containers she used to sell and estimated her family’s total losses at $120,000.Kourani is among the tens of thousands of residents who have started streaming back into southern Lebanon to check on their homes after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, mediated by France and the United States, went into effect early Wednesday.Nearly 1.2 million Lebanese have been displaced over the past two months as Israel stepped up its bombing campaign in a bid to stem Hezbollah’s persistent, year-long rocket fire, which has prevented some 60,000 residents of northern Israel from returning home.Hezbollah-led forces, unprovoked, began attacking Israel on a near-daily basis on October 8, 2023 — a day after thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza. Fearing Hezbollah would mount a similar attack, and amid the relentless Hezbollah fire, Israel evacuated communities along the border with Lebanon.The Iran-backed terror group has said its rocket attacks, which later expanded to central Israel, were in support of Gaza amid the war there.Hezbollah, like Hamas, is avowedly committed to destroying Israel. It deployed its military infrastructure throughout southern Lebanon, including placing rockets in people’s homes.The Israeli strikes leveled entire buildings in eastern and southern Lebanon, and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are predominantly Shiite areas where the Iran-backed terror group enjoys solid support.Israel said it targeted buildings used by Hezbollah. In southern Lebanon many of the homes were used to store weapons or linked to a tunnel network.Like Kourani, many are returning to find that their homes are gone.The World Bank said earlier this month that housing has been the hardest-hit sector, with almost 100,000 units partially or fully damaged during the 14-month war, which intensified in late September. The bank estimated the damage at $3.2 billion.Who will pay for the reconstruction is unclear. Iran has offered to help, but it’s under Western sanctions and its economy has suffered. Kourani said Hezbollah members have told her those who lost a house during the war will be given a place to stay until their homes are rebuilt. After spending thousands of dollars in rent for the two months the family was displaced in the village of Qarnayel in Mount Lebanon, Kourani said her priority is to fix their butcher shop across the street so they can start earning money.“We are starting from below zero,” she said.A history of loss-Ali Saleh lost his home in 2006, during the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah. He was able to rebuild when the Gulf nation of Qatar funded the reconstruction of several areas in southern Lebanon.On Wednesday, Saleh drove to his hometown near the border with Israel, only to find that it had happened again: his two-story home was destroyed.“All the memories are gone,” he said, as he smoked a cigarette.The 59-year-old drove back with his wife and three of his six children, hoping to find a place to stay close to his hometown of Aita al-Shaab, a border village and Hezbollah stronghold that witnessed some of the most intense fighting.“It is a disaster-stricken village,” he said.In the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon, 34-year-old Souad al-Outa walked around what was left of her home, shocked.She knew her neighborhood had been badly hit like many other parts of this city, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site famous for its ancient Roman ruins. She was not prepared for the devastation she saw when she went back on Thursday.A strike earlier this month killed multiple people in the street nearby, she said, including several of her husband’s relatives.“I feel like my heart has come out of its place,” she said as she looked around what used to be her children’s bedroom.“We had a beautiful life here.”Homes can be rebuilt-About 170 kilometers (105 miles) southwest of Baalbek, in the village of Qana near the port city of Tyre, Abu Ahmad Salameh stood in what was left of several buildings that belonged to his family. He was able to pull two carpets from under the rubble.“All this damage can be rebuilt. This is our land and we will stay here no matter what,” Salameh said. “It is painful to see the destruction. These are the homes of my parents, grandparents, daughter and my house.”He said that when the area was struck about two weeks ago, Hezbollah fighters found a safe full of jewelry and cash in the rubble of his house, and returned it to his family.Back in Hanouiyeh, Kourani said she and her family left their home in the early afternoon on September 23, the day Israel invaded, and moved in with relatives a few miles away. Shortly after they got there, they received a call saying that their house had been destroyed.As the Israeli airstrikes increased, they fled north to Qarnayel, where they rented an apartment for $1,000 a month in addition to $250 for electricity and water.Once the ceasefire went into effect, she drove back home with her husband, son and her daughter’s family. They spent the night with relatives.Despite everything, Kourani said she is embarrassed to speak about her material losses at a time when thousands of people have been killed, including friends and relatives and Hezbollah fighters among them.“Israel has filled our land with blood. Our big loss is our men,” she said.The IDF estimates that some 3,500 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.Hezbollah’s attacks since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 45 civilians. In addition, 76 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes, attacks on Israel, and in the ensuing ground operation in southern Lebanon. Two soldiers have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.
In war-battered Tyre, fishermen test the waters of the ceasefire-Israeli restrictions during fighting barred vessels from the sea near border; while many are waiting to see how the truce develops, others hope for a return to the ‘good old days’By AP and ToI Staff Today, 11:27 am-NOV 30,24
TYRE, Lebanon — The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah brought hope for normality back to many in southern Lebanon on Friday, including fishermen who have long launched their single-engine wooden boats into the Mediterranean at dawn.Israel, which sent troops into southern Lebanon during the last two months of its war with the Iran-backed terror group, carried out an intense bombing campaign against Hezbollah that kept hundreds of fishers at this ancient Phoenician port on shore, upending their lives and the industry.Hezbollah, unprovoked, had begun firing into Israel the day after Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, and its relentless attacks forced the displacement of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel. Hezbollah, like Hamas, is avowedly committed to destroying Israel.Amid the destruction and displacement as Israel struck back, the siege on Tyre’s port cut many people off from key ingredients for traditional Lebanese dishes like sayadiyeh — fish and rice boiled in fish sauce — or fried and grilled fish eaten with dips such as hummus and tabbouleh or fattoush salads.The loss damaged a deep association with home. Now, the possibility of renewed Lebanese fishing on the country’s southern coast is helping fuel hope for a brighter future.On Friday, a few boats went out close to the shore as fishers in the port worked on the nets of small boats painted white, blue or red.Hussein Sukmani, 55, said Friday that he was considering going to sea in the coming days but was waiting to see how things unfold.He hasn’t dared set sail since September 23, when Israel invaded Lebanon and stepped up airstrikes in the country after nearly a year of persistent rocket fire from Hezbollah.“They were days of fear and horror,” he said. “They were the most difficult days of our lives.”A week ago, a drone strike killed two young fishers in the city as they prepared their nets on the coast. Some fishermen said Friday that the Lebanese army had told them that if they head out it would be at their own risk.Among those who sailed near the coast on Friday was Walid Darwish, who returned to the port with two plastic boxes filled with mullet.“Today is the first time that we sail,” Darwish said, adding that fishers had missed the prime season in October and November.“We lost it,” he said.The IDF barred any boats from an area 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border in October and has not said whether the warning is still in effect.Sukmani said that most of the 700 fishers who work on the 270 boats at the port have not sailed out of concern since then.The area around the port is a predominantly Christian neighborhood that has been spared much of the airstrikes that leveled buildings in other parts of Tyre.In peaceful times, the port is a major tourist attraction, beloved by Lebanese and foreigners who come for the views, restaurants and beaches.On Friday, Mohammed Hammoud walked along the coast of Tyre carrying his fishing rod.“It is enough that someone is able to stand in this beautiful area,” he said, pointing to the white sands.“Fishing is everything for me,” added Hammoud, who went to fish several times in the area north of the city of Sidon that was not part under restrictions.In the old market of Tyre, Gilbert Spiridon watched from inside his shop as people came to buy freshly brought fish. Before the war, it took hours to sell all his fish to people from around Lebanon.“All I wish is that the war has ended and we are back on track to the old good days,” he said.Amid initial fears that Hezbollah would invade the north after it entered the fighting a day after Hamas’s invasion and massacre, and with the Lebanese terror group’s rocket fire battering communities all along the border, 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes for almost 14 months.Some 1.2 million Lebanese were displaced by Israel’s bombing campaign starting in September, when it stepped up its assault on Hezbollah. The campaign was launched after Israel added to its official war aims the secure return home of its displaced northern residents.Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 45 civilians. In addition, 76 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes, attacks on Israel, and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.Two soldiers have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries.The IDF estimates that some 3,500 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
Northerners are wary of returning to border communities: ‘The ceasefire is rubbish’Many residents of battered border kibbutz communities no longer have homes, others are fearful that Hezbollah will return to threaten them-By AP and ToI Staff Today, 10:16 am-NOV 30,24
KIBBUTZ MALKIYA — Dean Sweetland casts his gaze over a forlorn street in the northern community of Kibbutz Malkiya. Perched on a hill overlooking the border with Lebanon, the town stands mostly empty after residents were forced to evacuate a year ago.The daycare is closed. The homes are unkempt. Parts of the landscape are ashen from fires sparked by fallen Hezbollah rockets. Even after a tenuous Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, the mood here is far from celebratory.“The ceasefire is rubbish,” said Sweetland, a gardener and member of the kibbutz’s civilian security squad. “Do you expect me to ring up my friends and say, ‘All the families should come home?’ No.”Across the border, Lebanese civilians have jammed roads in a rush to return to homes in the country’s south, but most residents of northern Israel have met the ceasefire with suspicion and apprehension.“Hezbollah could still come back to the border, and who will protect us when they do?” Sweetland asked.Israel’s government seeks to bring the northern reaches of the country back to life, particularly the line of communities directly abutting Lebanon that have played a major role in staking out Israel’s border.But the fear of Hezbollah, a lack of trust in United Nations peacekeeping forces charged with upholding the ceasefire, deep anger at the government and some Israelis’ desire to keep rebuilding their lives elsewhere are keeping many from returning immediately.Some 60,000 northerners remain displaced following months of Hezbollah’s rocket fire. They were evacuated shortly after Hamas invaded the south on October 7, 2023 — killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages — out of fear Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack in the north, and amid persistent rocket and missile fire from Lebanon that began, unprovoked, a day after the Hamas massacre.The ceasefire, which took effect early Wednesday, came two months after Israel invaded Lebanon in a bid to curb Hezbollah’s attacks. The Iran-backed terror group has said its attacks were in support of Gaza amid the war sparked by the Hamas onslaught.During the truce’s initial 60-day phase, Hezbollah is supposed to remove its armed presence from a broad band of southern Lebanon where the IDF says the terror group had been digging in for years by gathering weapons and setting up rocket launch sites and other infrastructure.Under the ceasefire, United Nations observer force UNIFIL and a beefed-up Lebanese army presence are supposed to ensure Hezbollah doesn’t return.Many residents of northern Israel are skeptical that the peace will hold.Sarah Gould, who evacuated Kibbutz Malkiya at the start of the war with her three kids, said Hezbollah fired on the community up to and just past the minute when the ceasefire took effect early Wednesday.“So for the government to tell me that Hezbollah is neutralized,” she said, “it’s a perfect lie.”Residents fear for their safety in the far north-In Gaza, Israel’s counteroffensive to Hamas’s shock assault aims to eradicate the terror group. But in Lebanon, Israel’s aims were limited to pushing Hezbollah away from the border so northern residents could return home.Israeli critics say the government should have kept fighting to outright cripple Hezbollah or to clear out the border area, which is home to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese.“I won’t even begin to consider going home until I know there’s a dead zone for kilometers across the border,” the 46-year-old Gould said.Some wary Israelis trickled back home Thursday and Friday to areas farther from the border. But communities like Kibbutz Manara, set on a tiny slice of land between Lebanon and Syria, remained ghost towns.Orna Weinberg, 58, who was born and raised in Manara, said it was too early to tell whether the ceasefire would protect the community.Perched above all the other border villages, Manara was uniquely vulnerable to Hezbollah fire throughout the war. Three-quarters of its structures were damaged.In the kibbutz’s communal kitchen and dining hall, ceiling beams have collapsed. The uprooted floorboards are covered with ash from fires that also claimed much of the kibbutz’s cropland.Rocket fragments abound. The torso of a mannequin, a decoy dressed in army green, lies on the ground.Weinberg tried to stay in Manara during the war, but after anti-tank shrapnel damaged her home, soldiers told her to leave. On Thursday, she walked along her street, which looks out directly over a UNIFIL position separating the kibbutz from a line of Lebanese villages that have been decimated by Israeli bombardment and demolitions.Weinberg said UNIFIL hadn’t prevented Hezbollah’s build-up in the past, “so why would they be able to now?”“A ceasefire here just gives Hezbollah a chance to rebuild their power and come back to places that they were driven out of,” she said.The truce seemed fragile.Associated Press reporters heard sporadic bursts of gunfire — possibly Israeli troops firing at Lebanese attempting to enter the towns. The IDF says it is temporarily preventing Lebanese civilians from returning home to a line of towns closest to the border, until the Lebanese military can deploy there in force.Even in less battered communities, no one returns home-Though the atmosphere along the border was tense, Malkiya showed signs of peace. With Hezbollah’s rockets stopped, some residents returned briefly to the kibbutz to peer around cautiously.At a vista overlooking the border a group of around 30 soldiers gathered. Just days ago, they would have made easy targets for Hezbollah fire.Malkiya has sustained less damage than Manara. Still, residents said they would not return immediately. During a year of displacement, many have restarted their lives elsewhere, and the idea of going back to a front-line town on the border is daunting.The government paid for hotels for evacuees and helped accommodate children in new schools. Gould predicted residents would return to the kibbutz only when government subsidies for their lodging dried up — “not because they want to, but because they feel like they can’t afford an alternative.”“It’s not just a security issue,” Gould said. “We’ve spent more than a year rebuilding our lives wherever we landed. It’s a question of having to gather that up and move back somewhere else, somewhere that’s technically our old house but not a home. Nothing feels the same.”It’s unclear if schools in the border communities will have enough students to reopen, Gould said, and her children are already enrolled elsewhere. She’s enjoyed living farther from the border, away from an open war zone.There’s also a deep feeling that the communities were abandoned by the government, Sweetland said.Sweetland is one of roughly 25 civilian security volunteers who stayed throughout the war, braving continual rocket fire to keep the kibbutz afloat. They repaired damaged homes, put out blazes and helped replace the kibbutz generator when it was taken out by Hezbollah fire. They were on their own, with no firefighters or police willing to risk coming, he said.“We didn’t have any help for months and months and months, and we pleaded, ‘Please help us.’”Sweetland said he will keep watching over the hushed pathways of the once-vibrant community in hopes his neighbors will soon feel safe enough to return. But he predicted it would take months.Weinberg hopes to move back to Manara as soon as possible. On Thursday, she spotted a former neighbor who was about to leave after checking the damage to her home.Weinberg grasped her hand through the car window, asking how she was. The woman grimaced and began to cry. Their hands parted as the car slowly rolled out through the gates and drove away.Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel since October 2023 have resulted in the deaths of 45 civilians. In addition, 76 IDF soldiers and reservists have died in cross-border skirmishes, attacks on Israel, and in the ensuing ground operation launched in southern Lebanon in late September.Two soldiers have been killed in a drone attack from Iraq, and there have also been several attacks from Syria, without any injuries. The IDF estimates that some 3,500 Hezbollah operatives have been killed in the conflict. Around 100 members of other terror groups, along with hundreds of civilians, have also been reported killed in Lebanon.
Hamas to attend Cairo talks; GOP’s Graham says Trump wants Gaza deal before inauguration-President-elect’s ally says he is ‘focused on hostages issue’; argues Palestinian reform, enabled by Arab countries, is best defense against Hamas, not Israeli reoccupation of Gaza-By ToI Staff and Agencies Today, 3:06 am-NOV 30,24
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who was in Israel this week and met with top officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Friday that US President-elect Donald Trump wants to see a Gaza hostage-ceasefire deal before he re-enters the White House in January.He spoke as a Hamas delegation was set to arrive in Cairo on Saturday for talks with Egyptian officials on a possible ceasefire.“Trump is more determined than ever to release the hostages and supports a ceasefire that includes a hostage deal. He wants to see it happening now,” Graham, an ally of the incoming president, told the Axios news site.“I want people in Israel and in the region to know that Trump is focused on the hostages issue. He wants the killing to stop and the fighting to end,” he said. “I hope President Trump and the Biden administration will work together during the transition period to release the hostages and get a ceasefire.”With the new ceasefire in Lebanon this week, US President Joe Biden has shifted attention to Gaza, launching a fresh push to end the 14 months of fighting with a deal that will see the return of 101 hostages still held by terrorists there.Graham’s comments were in line with those Trump made to Netanyahu days before the US election. Two sources familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel last month that if he won, Trump wanted the Gaza war wrapped up before he returned to office.Trump has confirmed having told Netanyahu that he wants Israel to win the war quickly, though he has not publicly given a timeline. He warned at the Republican National Convention in July that those holding American hostages abroad will “pay a very big price” if they aren’t released before he assumes office.Complicating matters, Netanyahu’s coalition includes far-right elements who have opposed hostage deal proposals conditioned on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and who have voiced their desire to reoccupy the Strip permanently and rebuild Jewish settlements.“The best insurance policy against Hamas is not an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza but a reform in the Palestinian society. The only ones who can do that are the Arab countries” – Lindsey Graham-Graham pushed back against comments by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that Trump’s election victory offers an opportunity to encourage what he termed the “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza so that half of the Strip’s 2.2 million residents might be encouraged to leave within two years.“I think he should talk to Trump and hear what he wants. If you haven’t spoken to him, I wouldn’t put words in his mouth,” said Graham, who also voiced opposition to far-right calls to occupy Gaza indefinitely.The US senator also met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman during his recent Mideast visit, and touched on the subject of normalization with Israel, which he said would have to include a “Palestinian component.”“The best insurance policy against Hamas is not an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza but a reform in the Palestinian society. The only ones who can do that are the Arab countries,” Graham said.The New York Times reported Thursday that Hamas is displaying increased flexibility in long-stalled talks for a deal and may agree to the Israel Defense Forces temporarily remaining on the enclave’s border with Egypt.Citing unnamed US officials, the report said the terror group could give up on core demands and accept a ceasefire deal that Israel could back.According to the outlet, even before a ceasefire was reached between Hezbollah and Israel this week, both Palestinian and US officials had said they thought Hamas was ready to give up on the strategy professed by slain leader Yahya Sinwar and move toward a deal.Citing two people familiar with the terror group’s thinking, the report said leaders of the terror group have been discussing allowing Israel to maintain a temporary presence in the Philadelphi Corridor, the strategic border area between Egypt and Gaza that Israel’s leadership has pledged not to withdraw from.Jerusalem has insisted that troops remain in Gaza to prevent arms smuggling from Egypt and says it is prepared only for a temporary halt in its campaign to destroy Hamas.Netanyahu said in an interview on Thursday that he would agree to a pause in the fighting in Gaza “when we think we can achieve the release of the hostages,” but not accept an end to the war.According to The New York Times report, “reality started to sink in” for Hamas after Sinwar’s death in October, as it became clear that Iran was not looking to open a direct conflict with Israel, and Hezbollah was being hit hard by the IDF. Hamas had hoped its allies in the Iranian axis would remain in the fight and force Israel to accept a ceasefire on Hamas’s terms.Hamas leaders are split over the role it should have after the war and over the compromises it should make to achieve a ceasefire, according to the paper.According to a report in The Wall Street Journal Thursday, Egyptian officials have been in contact with Trump’s staff to gauge whether he could make inroads on softening Israel’s positions in the negotiations, namely regarding control of the Gaza-Egypt border and the creation of a buffer zone between Israel and the Strip.Egyptian officials have also seemingly sought to soften Hamas’s stance, the paper reported, conveying to the group that its negotiating position had weakened since being “isolated” by the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The officials told the group it would unlikely be able to continue insisting on a full Israeli withdrawal, according to the report.Indirect talks aimed at a deal freeing the 101 hostages held in Gaza and ending some 14 months of fighting there have stalled since the summer after multiple rounds of negotiations mediated by the US, Egypt and Qatar failed to bring the sides together.Hamas has demanded that any agreement bring a complete end to the war in Gaza, along with a full Israeli withdrawal from the enclave. It also seeks the release of large numbers of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages, who were among 251 kidnapped during the terror group’s October 7, 2023, rampage in southern Israel; some 1,200 people were killed during the attack, which prompted the war.Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
Netanyahu holds assessment on Syria as jihadists enter Aleppo in lightning assault-Alliance led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch takes control of some 50 towns and villages, in Assad regime’s biggest loss of territory in years-By AFP 29 November 2024, 7:17 pmUpdated at 1:04 am
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a special security discussion Friday evening with the heads of the defense establishment to discuss new internal fighting in Syria and the ceasefire in Lebanon that halted more than 13 months of fighting with Hezbollah.Syrian rebel jihadists opposed to President Bashar Assad launched a surprise offensive through government-held towns in recent days. The opposition fighters, led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, launched an incursion on Wednesday into a dozen towns and villages in the northern province of Aleppo.On Friday they said they’d reached the center of the city of Aleppo itself, as they pressed their lightning offensive against forces of the Iranian- and Russian-backed government. Assad and his allies Russia, Iran and regional Shi’ite militias had retaken all of Aleppo city in late 2016, with insurgents agreeing to withdraw after months of bombardment and siege in a battle that turned the tide against the opposition.Channel 12 news reported that Jerusalem was concerned about the potential spillover ramifications of chaotic developments in Syria, as well as the possibility of unspecified Syrian strategic weapons falling into the wrong hands.An unnamed Israeli official told Ynet: “This is something we need to closely monitor and see how it develops.”They added, “It doesn’t necessarily affect us, especially not in the short term, but any erosion of stability in a neighboring country could also impact us. It seems here that there are also opportunities for change.”The fighting is some of the deadliest in years, with 255 people killed, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Most of the dead have been combatants, but the toll also includes 24 civilians, most killed in Russian air strikes.SOHR, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria and is of unclear funding, has been accused in the past of inflating regime losses.Rebel commander in the Jaish al-Izza rebel brigade Mustafa Abdul Jaber said the speedy advance was due to insufficient Iran-backed manpower in the broader province. Iran’s allies in the region have suffered a series of blows at the hands of Israel as the Gaza war expanded to the Middle East.Opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkey had given a green light to the offensive. But Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said Turkey sought to avoid greater instability in the region and had warned that recent attacks undermined de-escalation agreements.The attack was the biggest since March 2020, when Russia and Turkey agreed to a deal to de-escalate the conflict.Syrian state television denied rebels had reached Aleppo and said Russia was providing Syria’s military with air support.The Syrian military said it continued to confront the attack, saying in a statement it had inflicted heavy losses on the insurgents in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib.David Carden, UN Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, said: “We’re deeply alarmed by the situation unfolding in northwest Syria.”“Relentless attacks over the past three days have claimed the lives of at least 27 civilians, including children as young as eight years old,” he told Reuters. “Civilians and civilian infrastructure are not targets and must be protected under International Humanitarian Law.”Syrian state news agency SANA said four civilians including two students were killed on Friday in Aleppo by insurgent shelling of university student dormitories. It was not clear if they were among the 27 dead reported by the UN official.Russian and Syrian warplanes bombed the area near the border with Turkey on Thursday to try to push back the insurgent offensive.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow regarded the rebel attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty and wanted the authorities to act fast to regain control.The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people –- nearly half are children — have been displaced” by the violence.Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pledged “continued support for the government, nation and army of Syria,” in a phone call with his Syrian counterpart Bassam al-Sabbagh, according to a statement.The Idlib area has been subject to a Turkish- and Russian-brokered truce since 2020. The ceasefire has been repeatedly violated but had largely held.An AFP correspondent in the rebel enclave saw jihadists advancing in tanks as intense exchanges of fire took place in an area just seven kilometers (a little over four miles) from Aleppo. AFP images showed abandoned army tanks and other military vehicles.The correspondent said the jihadists and their Turkey-backed allies took orders from a joint operations command.Analyst Nick Heras, of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, said the fighters were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo.” According to Heras, the Syrian government and its key backer Russia had been preparing for such a campaign.Russia intervened in Syria in 2015, turning the tide of the civil war that broke out four years earlier in favor of the government, whose forces at the time had lost control of most of the country.Other interests are also at stake.As well as Russia, Syrian President Assad has been propped up by Iran and allied groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.Iran-backed militias have a heavy presence in the Aleppo region after providing crucial ground support to the army in its recapture of rebel-held areas of the city in 2016.Heras said anti-government forces are “in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon.”Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
