Israeli authorities had caused a forced displacement of Palestinian people in Gaza to an extent that constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity, said Human Rights Watch in a report on Thursday.
Nearly 90 Democratic legislators urged US President Joe Biden to sanction members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank, according to a letter released on Thursday.
A senior Lebanese official has signalled that Hezbollah is ready to pull its forces away from the Lebanese-Israeli border in any ceasefire, while rejecting Israel’s demand for freedom to act against the Iran-backed group in Lebanon in the future.
Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of war crimes
Israeli authorities have caused a forced displacement of Palestinian people in Gaza to an extent that constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity, said Human Rights Watch in a report on Thursday.
Israel, in response, accused the organisation of using rhetoric that is “completely false and detached from reality”.
The report is the latest in a series from aid groups and international bodies warning about the dire humanitarian situation in the besieged enclave.
“Human Rights Watch found that forced displacement has been widespread, and the evidence shows it has been systematic and part of a state policy. Such acts also constitute crimes against humanity,” said the report.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein said that Israel’s efforts were “directed solely at dismantling Hamas’s terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza, unlike Hamas which uses civilians as human shields and embeds terror infrastructure within residential areas”.
“Israel views all civilian harm as a tragedy, while Hamas views all civilian harm as a strategy. Israel will continue to operate in accordance with the law of armed conflict,” said the spokesperson.
Hamas denies that it uses civilians as human shields or hides fighters and weapons in facilities such as hospitals and schools.
The law of armed conflict forbids the forcible displacement of civilian populations from occupied territory, unless necessary for the security of civilians or imperative military reasons.
Israel invaded the Gaza Strip last year after Hamas led an assault on communities in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities, and abducting more than 250 as hostages.
Since then, the Israeli campaign has killed more than 43,500 people, according to Gaza health authorities, and destroyed much of the enclave’s infrastructure, forcing most of the 2.3 million population to move several times.
For the past month, Israeli troops have moved tens of thousands of people from areas in the north of the enclave as they have sought to destroy Hamas forces the military says have been regrouping around the towns of Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun.
Human Rights Watch said the displacement of Palestinians “is likely planned to be permanent in the buffer zones and security corridors”, an action it said would amount to “ethnic cleansing”.
The Israeli military has denied seeking to create permanent buffer zones and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that Palestinians displaced from their homes in northern Gaza would be allowed to return at the end of the war.
Democrats urge Biden to sanction Israelis over West Bank violence
Nearly 90 Democratic legislators urged US President Joe Biden to sanction members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over anti-Palestinian violence in the West Bank, according to a letter released on Thursday.
Urging Biden to send a message to US partners before he leaves office, the members of Congress said Israeli Cabinet members Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had incited violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.
“We write to express our deep concern about the rise in settler violence, settlement expansion, and measures adopted to weaken the Palestinian Authority and otherwise destabilize the West Bank,” they said in the letter.
The letter, signed by 17 senators and 71 House members, said Israeli settlers had carried out more than 1,270 recorded attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, averaging more than three violent attacks per day.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen and Democratic House of Representatives members Rosa DeLauro and Sean Casten, who are leading the letter effort, told reporters that Biden has the authority to impose sanctions under an existing executive order.
Hezbollah ‘ready to pull fighters back from border’
A senior Lebanese official has signalled that Hezbollah is ready to pull its forces away from the Lebanese-Israeli border in any ceasefire, while rejecting Israel’s demand for freedom to act against the Iran-backed group in Lebanon in the future.
An Israeli minister indicated that a ceasefire was closer than at any point since the war began, though he said a sticking point was ensuring Israel retained the freedom to act inside Lebanon should any deal be violated.
Pressing its offensive against the Iran-backed group, Israel launched airstrikes on Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs on Thursday, keeping up its unusually intensive bombardment of the area for a third consecutive day.
Israel has dealt Hezbollah heavy blows since launching its offensive in late September, escalating the conflict that had rumbled on in parallel to the Gaza war for a year. Hezbollah has kept up rocket fire into Israel and its fighters have been battling Israeli troops on the ground in the south.
A World Bank report estimated the cost of physical damage and economic losses due to the conflict in Lebanon at $8.5-billion — a massive price for a country still suffering the effects of a financial collapse five years ago.
Senior Lebanese official Ali Hassan Khalil, speaking to Al Jazeera late on Wednesday, said Lebanon was ready to “precisely” implement UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Its terms require Hezbollah to remove fighters and weapons from areas between the border and the Litani River, which runs about 30km from Lebanon’s southern border.
Asked whether Hezbollah had informed him of a readiness to withdraw to the Litani, Khalil — a close Hezbollah ally and top aide to Lebanon’s parliament speaker — said the group had expressed its commitment to Resolution 1701.
The resolution, he added, “contained a clear set of provisions”. “Yes, the party is committed to what is stated in these texts,” he said, referring to Hezbollah.
The United States and other powers say a ceasefire must be based on Resolution 1701.
Israel long complained it was never implemented, pointing to Hezbollah weapons and fighters at the border. Lebanon in turn accused Israel of violating the resolution, with Israeli warplanes regularly violating its airspace.
Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security Cabinet, told Reuters: “I think we are at a point that we are closer to an arrangement than we have been since the start of the war.”
A key sticking point for Israel, he said, was ensuring it retained freedom of action should Hezbollah return to border areas. “We will be less forgiving than in the past over attempts to create strongholds in territory near Israel. That’s how we will be, and so that is certainly how we will act,” he said.
Plumes of smoke rose over the southern Beirut suburbs known as Dahiyeh, where Israel’s latest strikes destroyed five buildings, sources familiar with the damage said. Israeli raids on the area have largely been taking place at night but this week have been happening in the morning too.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets carried out a series of attacks in the southern Beirut area, targeting weapons warehouses, military headquarters and other infrastructures used by Hezbollah.
“We say God help us ... because it seems that things are developing, it is getting worse, and I don’t even know if there is a solution now,” said Ayat, a 33-year-old Lebanese woman.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said five people were killed in airstrikes on the towns of Bazourieh and Jmaijmeh in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike in Baalbek killed another three people.
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,365 people and wounded 14,344 across Lebanon since 7 October 2023.
Hezbollah attacks have killed about 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon over the last year, according to Israel.
Israel ‘will attack any attempt to bring arms to Hezbollah from Syria’
Israel will attack any attempt to bring weapons to Hezbollah from Syria, said Israel’s military spokesperson on Thursday.
“We are identifying rockets and other weapons that Hezbollah is launching at Israeli territory that were manufactured in Syria,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters. “We will attack every attempt to bring weapons from Syria to Hezbollah. And we will attack all infrastructure we identify in Syria whose purpose is to produce weapons for Hezbollah.”
He added that the military has been carrying out air strikes from Beirut suburb and Hezbollah stronghold Dahiyeh to Damascus.
He was speaking shortly after Syria’s state news agency reported what it said was an Israeli air strike that hit a bridge in Syria near the border with northern Lebanon.
US hands Lebanon draft truce proposal, say two sources
The US ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon’s speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, on Thursday to halt fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, two political sources told Reuters, without revealing details.
The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but efforts have yet to yield a result. Israel launched a stepped-up air and ground campaign in late September after cross-border clashes in parallel with the Gaza war.
US ambassador Lisa Johnson met with Berri, a Hezbollah ally and the typical conduit for diplomacy with the group, on Thursday to submit Washington’s first written proposal in at least several weeks, said two senior Lebanese political sources.
“It is a draft to get observations from the Lebanese side,” one of the sources told Reuters. Neither source could provide details on the contents of the proposal.
There was no immediate comment from the US embassy in Beirut.
Israeli minister expects Trump to take a hard line on Iran
Israel expected the incoming Trump administration to take a hard line against Iran and its nuclear ambitions, which would create an opportunity for more peace deals with Arab neighbours, said a senior member of Israel’s security Cabinet.
Energy Minister Eli Cohen, in an interview with Reuters, said that incoming US President Donald Trump has been appointing senior staff who “certainly support determined action against Iran”.
“The period of Trump’s previous administration was characterised by greater regional stability,” he said. “Towards the end of his presidency, the sanctions on Iran were close to making Iran change its behaviour on the nuclear issue.
“So we certainly hope and believe that the Trump administration’s policy will continue that, and first and foremost, we see the most central issue is acting assertively against Iran.”
Trump has tapped Senator Marco Rubio, an advocate of muscular foreign policy on Iran, for secretary of state. Mike Waltz, who is slated to become national security adviser, has also pushed for a tougher stance.
UN to bolster Unifil for post-truce support in Lebanon
The United Nations intended to bolster its peacekeeping mission in Lebanon to better support the Lebanese army once a truce was agreed upon, but would not directly enforce a ceasefire, said UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix on Thursday.
The peacekeeping mission, known as Unifil, is deployed in southern Lebanon to monitor the demarcation line with Israel, an area that has seen more than a year of hostilities between Israeli troops and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.
Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting have centred on UN Resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between the two heavily armed foes in 2006 and requires Hezbollah to remove fighters and weapons from areas between the border and the Litani River.
Israel has for years accused Unifil of failing to implement the resolution, and now says peacekeepers must get out of the way as Israeli troops fight Hezbollah. Unifil troops have refused to leave their posts, despite repeated Israeli attacks that have wounded peacekeepers.
“I think that has to be very clear. Implementing the 1701 is the responsibility of the parties,” said Lacroix, speaking to reporters on a three-day visit to Lebanon. “Unifil has a supportive role, and there is a lot of substance in that supporting role.”
Lacroix said the peacekeeping mission would work with the Lebanese army to “support the implementation of a settlement” and was already in discussions with contributing nations to assess Unifil’s needs, including with advanced technology, without necessarily increasing troop numbers.
Following a truce, Unifil’s capacities could be expanded to include clearing explosive devices and reopening roads.
Families of Israeli hostages call on Trump, Biden to work together
Families of Israeli hostages taken captive to Gaza by Hamas urged US President Joe Biden and Trump on Thursday to work on a deal to free those still being held before winter.
A delegation of former hostages and hostages’ relatives were visiting Rome for meetings including with the local Jewish community and Pope Francis.
During a press conference, they told reporters a deal was swiftly needed to bring back all the hostages still being held after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel that triggered the Gaza war, and said Biden and Trump should work together.
“We hope Biden and Trump work together now to get the hostages back, before the winter ... it has been so tough for them, they cannot be expected to wait another winter,” said Sharon Lifshitz.
Lifshitz’s mother, Yocheved, was freed in October last year while her father, Oded, is still captive.
“This is not about the left and right, all people should come together,” she said.
Norberto Louis Har, who was freed in February by the Israeli armed forces, told reporters he did not care about the political camps but only that those still held were released.
So far, 117 hostages have returned home alive, including four released at the start of the war. Thirty-seven have been dead. That leaves 101 hostages still in Gaza by Israeli tallies, at least half of whom Israeli authorities believe are still alive. DM
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