موقع وجه أفريقيا موقع وجه أفريقيا هو موقع مهتم بمتابعة التطورات في القارة الأفريقية
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Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon hit branches of Hezbollah-linked bank
Israel carried out a series of airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley early on Monday morning, striking buildings belonging to the Hezbollah-run banking institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
At least 10 airstrikes were carried out in the southern suburbs of Beirut, with an entire building collapsing and a jet of fire streaming into the air in the Chiyah neighbourhood of greater Beirut. A building close to Lebanon’s only commercial airport was also struck, video footage showing a smoke plume billowing while a nearby airplane sat on the runway.
“They struck empty buildings in residential neighbourhoods, and destroyed those surrounding neighbourhoods. These weren’t military centres or weapons caches,” Ma’an Khalil, the mayor of Ghobeiry municipality in the southern suburbs of Beirut, said.
Flames and smoke rise form an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday.
Israel issued several warnings via X prior to the bombings, pinpointing buildings belonging to Al-Qard Al-Hassan in the southern suburbs of Beirut and across Lebanon, warning people to move at least 500 metres away from these buildings. Streets from the affected areas were soon choked with traffic as people fled in anticipation of Israeli bombing.
Al-Qard Al-Hassan has branches across Lebanon, with 15 in greater Beirut alone
French president Emmanuel Macron told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he sees the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a chance for a possible new phase of negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza, Macron’s office said on Monday.
Macron, whose government has had increasingly tense public exchanges with Israel over the past few weeks, also reiterated previous calls for ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza and condemnations of Israeli army action towards UN forces in Lebanon.
Macron also expressed solidarity with Netanyahu after a drone was launched towards the prime minister’s home, the French president’s office said.
US envoy Amos Hochstein said on Monday that a UN security council resolution that ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah conflict would be the basis of a new ceasefire, but would require more than just commitments from the warring parties.
“The commitment that we have is to resolve this conflict based on (UN Resolution) 1701 that is what the solution is going to have to look like,” Hochstein told reporters, adding that “both sides simply committing to 1701, is just not enough” after years of weak implementation.
Arab League secretary general Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Monday in Beirut that the league’s priority was to achieve an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, and he called for Israel’s prompt withdrawal from any Lebanese territories it has occupied or entered.
Aboul Gheit was also asked if Hezbollah could be destroyed, to
After they burned down his family home in northern Gaza, Israeli troops separated Ramez al-Skafi from his family and detained him. They had a particular job in mind for him, he said.
For the next 11 days in early July, the 30-year-old Palestinian said he was sent into one house after another in his home district, Shuja’iya, watched by his Israeli military minders. According to the account he gave the Guardian, they turned him into a human shield against booby-traps and Hamas gunmen.
“I tried to resist their proposal, but they started beating me and the officer told me it was not my choice to make and that I have to do whatever they want,” Skafi said. “He told me that my work would be searching the houses and telling them information about the homeowners. After some extreme pressure, I was left no choice.
“The next day I was told to go out on patrol with the Israeli soldiers, and I was very scared because of the tanks in front of me and the planes in the sky above me,” he continued. “When [his minders] noticed my fear, they assured me: ‘They know you are with us
Blinken heads for Israel hoping to kickstart ceasefire negotiations
US secretary of state Antony Blinken will depart for the Middle East on Monday, the state department said, as Washington is pushing to kickstart ceasefire negotiations to end the Gaza war after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The top US diplomat’s latest trip to the region, his eleventh since the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that triggered the Gaza war, comes even as Israel has intensified its military campaign in Gaza and in Lebanon against Iran-aligned militia Hezbollah.
Blinken will discuss with regional leaders the importance of ending the Gaza war, ways to chart a post-conflict plan for the Palestinian territory, as well as how to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the state department said in a statement.
The top diplomat’s trip will start with Israel, the state department said, but did not provide the other exact destinations.
“Throughout the region, secretary Blinken will discuss the importance of bringing the war in Gaza to an end, securing the release of all hostages, and alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people,” the state department said in a statement
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati said there was no alternative to UN Resolution 1701, but added that “new understandings” could be reached to implement it, a statement issued by his office cited him as saying on Monday.
A UN peacekeeping mission is mandated by Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, to help the Lebanese army keep its southern border area with Israel free of weapons or armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state.
sieged schools and shelters for displaced people on Monday as they deepened their operations in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, residents and medics said.
They also rounded up men and ordered women to leave the camp, they said.
Medics at the Indonesian hospital told Reuters that Israeli troops stormed a school and detained the men before setting the facility ablaze. The fire reached the hospital generators and caused a power outage, they added.
Health officials said they refused orders by the Israeli army, which began a new incursion into the north of the Palestinian territory over two weeks ago, to evacuate the three hospitals in the area or leave the patients unattended.
Troops remained outside the hospital but did not enter, they said. Medics at a second hospital, Kamal Adwan, reported heavy Israeli fire near the hospital at night.
“The army is burning the schools next to the hospital, and no one can enter or leave the hospital,” said one nurse at the Indonesian hospital, who asked not to be named.
Palestinian health officials said 18 people had been killed in Jabalia and eight elsewhere in Gaza in Israeli st
The Israeli military has apologised over a strike that killed three Lebanese soldiers in southern Lebanon the previous day, AP reported.
It said it is not battling the Lebanese military, and claimed its soldiers believed they were targeting a vehicle belonging to the Hezbollah militant group.
Last week, Hezbollah said it is entering a new phase in its fight against invading Israeli troops, as the region reckoned with the killing of top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in a battle with Israeli forces in Gaza
WHO to evacuate 1,000 Palestinian women and children for urgent medical care
Up to 1,000 women and children needing medical care will shortly be evacuated from Gaza to Europe, the head of the World Health Organization’s Europe branch said in comments published on Monday.
Israel, which is besieging the war-devastated Palestinian territory, “is committed to 1,000 more medical evacuations within the next months to the European Union,” Hans Kluge said in an interview with AFP.
He said the evacuations would be facilitated by the WHO – the United Nations health agency – and the European countries involved.
On Thursday, UN investigators said Israel was deliberately targeting health facilities in Gaza, and killing and torturing medical personnel there, accusing the country of “crimes against humanity”.
Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in May that about 10,000 people needed evacuating from Gaza for urgent medical care.
The WHO Europe has already facilitated 600 medical evacuations from Gaza to seven European countries since the latest war began there in October 2023.
“This would never have happened if we did not keep the dialogue [open],” Kluge said.
