Israel’s far-right finance minister said on Monday he hoped Israel would extend sovereignty into the occupied West Bank in 2025 and that he would push the government to engage the incoming Trump administration to gain Washington’s support.
Israel said on Monday there was progress in talks about a Lebanon ceasefire and indicated Russia could play a part by stopping Hezbollah from rearming via Syria, although the Iran-backed group said it had not received any new truce proposals.
Israeli forces sent tanks into the western side of Gaza’s Nuseirat camp on Monday in a new incursion into the enclave’s central area, and Palestinian medics said Israeli military strikes had killed at least 30 people since Sunday night.
Far-right minister calls for Israeli sovereignty in West Bank in 2025
Israel’s far-right finance minister said on Monday he hoped Israel would extend sovereignty into the occupied West Bank in 2025 and that he would push the government to engage the incoming Trump administration to gain Washington’s support.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also wields a defence ministry supervisory role for settlers as part of his coalition deal with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said he hoped the Trump administration would recognise an Israeli sovereignty push.
Israel’s foreign minister said separately that while no decision was made, the issue could come up in talks with the future US administration in Washington.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said Smotrich’s remarks confirmed the Israeli government’s intention to annex the West Bank in defiance of international law.
“We hold the Israeli occupation authorities fully responsible for the repercussions of these dangerous policies,” he said. The US was also responsible for the continuous support it offered to Israel’s aggression, he said.
Smotrich has for years called for Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank, land Palestinians want for a future state.
At a meeting of his far-right faction in parliament on Monday, Smotrich said he had instructed Israeli authorities overseeing West Bank settlements “to begin professional and comprehensive staff work to prepare the necessary infrastructure” for extending sovereignty, according to a statement from his office.
He also said he would push the government to engage the incoming Trump administration to recognise such a move.
However, earlier on Monday, Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the government’s position on the issue of extending sovereignty into the West Bank had not yet been settled.
“A decision has not yet been made on the issue,” he told a news conference in Jerusalem.
“The last time we discussed this issue was in the first term of President Trump,” he said. “And so let’s say that if it will be relevant, it will be discussed again also with our friends in Washington.
“It is important to state that Israel sees what we call Judea and Samaria and others call the West Bank not as occupied territories but as disputed territories.”
The US has for decades backed a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians and has urged Israel not to expand settlements. In 2020, during Trump’s first term, discussions were held between Israel and Washington on plans to annex parts of the West Bank.
The West Bank is among territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and where Palestinians, with international support, seek statehood. Most world powers deem the settlements illegal. Israel disputes that, citing historical claims to the West Bank and describing it as a security bulwark.
Israel sees progress in Lebanon ceasefire talks
Israel said on Monday there was progress in talks about a Lebanon ceasefire and indicated Russia could play a part by stopping Hezbollah from rearming via Syria, although the Iran-backed group said it had not received any new truce proposals.
Pummelled by Israel’s offensive, Hezbollah said political contacts were under way involving its backers in Tehran, Washington and Moscow, while also saying it had enough weapons for a “long war” and keeping up rocket fire into Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Saar said Israel’s war against Hezbollah was not yet over. The main challenge facing any ceasefire deal would be enforcement, he said, though there was “a certain progress” in talks.
After previous rounds of fruitless, US-led diplomacy to secure a Lebanon truce, the comments indicate renewed focus as President Joe Biden prepares to leave office in January.
Hopes of a Gaza truce have meanwhile suffered a setback, with Qatar suspending its mediation role.
Ignited by the Gaza war, the conflict at the Lebanese-Israeli border had been rumbling for a year before Israel went on the offensive in September, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Saar, addressing a Jerusalem press conference, said Israel was working with the US on a ceasefire. Israel wants Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River — some 30 km from the border — and to be unable to rearm, he said.
Saar said a basic principle for any agreement had to be that Hezbollah would not be able to bring in weapons from Syria.
“And the Russians are, as you know, present in Syria. And if they are in agreement with this principle, I think they can contribute effectively to this objective.”
Israel’s new defence minister, Israel Katz, meeting for the first time with his general staff, said there would be no ceasefire in Lebanon until Israel achieved its goals.
“Israel will not agree to any arrangement that does not guarantee Israel’s right to enforce and prevent terrorism on its own, and meet the goals of the war in Lebanon — disarming Hezbollah and its withdrawal beyond the Litani River and returning the residents of the north safely to their homes.”
Russia deployed forces into Syria nearly a decade ago to support President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war there. Hezbollah also sent fighters to help Assad, and carved out influence alongside other Iran-backed groups.
Syria is widely seen as a major conduit for Iran to supply weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israel has struck targets in Syria regularly during the conflict.
An Israeli airstrike temporarily cut Syria’s main Homs-Damascus highway on Monday, reported Syrian media.
In Lebanon, relatives held funerals for 20 people killed in a strike on the town of Deir Qanoun-Ras al-Ain, including seven medics from rescue groups affiliated with Hezbollah and its Shi’ite ally Amal.
At least 14 people were killed and 15 others injured in an Israeli airstrike on the northern Lebanese town of Ain Yaaqoub on Monday, according to the town’s mayor.
The town was the northernmost point in Lebanon hit by Israeli forces since hostilities began in October 2023. Israel hit a building where 30 people were residing, including Syrian refugees, said Mayor Majed Drbes, adding that some people were still trapped under the rubble.
The Israeli military said more than 150 rockets had been fired from Lebanon into Israel. Some set fire to parked cars and a building in a Haifa suburb. Three people suffered moderate and light wounds, said the national ambulance service.
Israel’s offensive has driven more than one million people from their homes in Lebanon in the last seven weeks. Since hostilities erupted a year ago, Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed 3,243 people and injured 14,134, the Lebanese health ministry said. Its figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Hezbollah attacks have killed roughly 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon over the last year.
Israeli fire kills 30 Palestinians as tanks roll into central Gaza camp
Israeli forces sent tanks into the western side of Gaza’s Nuseirat camp on Monday in a new incursion into the enclave’s central area, and Palestinian medics said Israeli military strikes had killed at least 30 people since Sunday night.
Residents said Israeli tanks opened fire as they rolled into that sector of the camp, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee sites, causing panic among the population and displaced families.
One resident, Zaik Mohammad, said the tanks’ advance was a complete surprise.
“Some people couldn’t leave and remained trapped inside their homes, appealing to be allowed out, while others rushed out with whatever they could carry as they fled,” Mohammad (25), who lives 1km away from the targeted area, told Reuters via a chat app.
With the war in Gaza now in its 14th month, Israel is focusing its operations in the north and centre in what it says is a campaign to stop Hamas militants waging attacks and to prevent them from regrouping.
Tens of thousands of Palestinian residents have been told to evacuate the areas, fuelling fears that they may never be allowed to return.
In attacks overnight and into Monday, health officials at Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat said 20 people were killed in a series of strikes from air and the ground, one that hit a tent encampment.
In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, where Israeli forces have operated since 5 October, medics said four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Others were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City
At Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, medics said Israeli fire from a drone wounded three medical workers in the facility.
The Israeli military said it killed a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, Mohammad Abu Skhail, in a strike on Saturday at a command centre inside a compound that previously served as a school in Gaza City. Palestinian medics said the attack killed six people.
Israeli forces have besieged the three hospitals in and around Jabalia for several weeks and hospital officials have refused orders to evacuate the facilities or leave their patients unattended despite the lack of food, medical, and fuel supplies.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas of exploiting Gaza’s civilian population for military purposes, a charge the militant group denies.
The army sent tanks into Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia camp in northern Gaza over a month ago. It said it had killed hundreds of militants in Jabalia and around it since the raids began.
The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters carried out ambushes, mortar fire, and anti-tank rocket attacks, claiming to have killed many Israeli soldiers in recent weeks.
On Monday, the Israeli military said it had expanded the “humanitarian zone” in the enclave. It also said it would allow more tents, shelter materials, food, water and medical supplies to enter.
Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, home to more than 2.1 million people and now largely in ruins.
The war erupted on 7 October 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing another 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel’s military campaign has levelled much of Gaza and killed around 43,500 Palestinians, say Gaza health officials.
US set to judge Israel’s progress on Gaza aid crisis this week
The US this week will decide whether Israel has made progress toward improving the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and how Washington will respond, said National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday as Israel began to make its case.
Biden’s administration told Israel in a 13 October letter signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that the longtime US ally must take steps within 30 days on a series of measures or risk restrictions on US military aid.
“This week we will make our judgments about what kind of progress they have made,” Sullivan told the CBS programme Face the Nation. “And then Secretary Austin, Secretary Blinken, the president will make judgments about what we do in response, and I’m not going to get ahead of that.”
Cogat, the Israeli military agency that deals with Palestinian civilian affairs, on Sunday published a list of Israel’s humanitarian efforts over the past six months, “highlighting recent initiatives and detailing plans to sustain support for Gaza as winter approaches”.
The US deadline is set to expire just days after global food security experts said there was a “strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas” of northern Gaza as Israel pursues a military offensive against Hamas militants there.
Israel began its wide military push in northern Gaza last month. The US has said it is watching to ensure that Israel’s actions on the ground show that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government does not have a “policy of starvation” in the north.
New EU sanctions on violent Israeli settlers ‘could happen soon’
France’s foreign minister said on Monday that a new round of sanctions targeting violent Israeli settlers could happen soon.
“We were instrumental in setting up the [EU] sanctions regime that was already activated two times, and that might be activated a third time soon,” Jean-Noel Barrot told the Paris Peace Forum.
“We believe that those violent settlers and these intensive settlement activities are illegal, that it should stop in the interest of Israel and its security.”
As much of the world’s attention has focused on the war in Gaza, growing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank and land grabs in the occupied territory have raised concern among some of Israel’s Western allies.
Netanyahu approved pager attacks against Hezbollah, says spokesperson
Netanyahu approved pager attacks that dealt a deadly blow to the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in September, said his spokesperson, Omer Dostri, on Monday.
The Israeli military, which has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, at first declined to respond to questions about the detonations.
On 17 September, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident was the “biggest security breach” for the group in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.
Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, Reuters witnesses saw, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation.
In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponised walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400.
Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters this year. A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays messages.
Israel followed up the pager detonations with the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike and launching incursions in south Lebanon. DM
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