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France Pushes Efforts in Lebanon to Prevent War Between Hezbollah and Israel
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne checks ”Israeli attacks on Lebanon” map as he meets with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut, Lebanon April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
France’s foreign minister said on Sunday there had been progress in discussions with senior officials in Lebanon aimed at easing tensions between Hezbollah and Israel and preventing a war breaking out.
France has historical ties with Lebanon and earlier this year Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne proposed Hezbollah’s elite unit pull back 10 km (6 miles) from the Israeli border, while Israel would halt strikes in southern Lebanon.
The written proposal also looked at long-term border issues and had been discussed with partners including the United States, which has its own efforts to ease tensions and exerts the most influence on Israel.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded tit for tat strikes in recent months, but the exchanges have increased since Iran launched missiles on Israel in response to a presumed Israeli airstrike on April 1 that destroyed part of Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus killing several Iranian officers.
More Israeli strikes hit southern Lebanon overnight close to the United Nations’ peacekeeping force UNIFIL, according to military officials, just hours before Sejourne visited its headquarters in Naqoura in southern Lebanon.
“If I look at the situation today if there were not a war in Gaza, we could be talking about a war in southern Lebanon given the number of strikes and the impact on the area,” Sejourne said after speaking to UNIFIL commanders.
Speaking after meeting the influential speaker of parliament Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, and the head of the Lebanese army Joseph Aoun, Sejourne said there had been “a lot of progress” over the French proposals. He did not elaborate.
The UNIFIL mission, as well as unarmed technical observers known as UNTSO, are stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the demarcation line between Lebanon and Israel, known as the Blue Line. France has 700 troops who are part of the 10,000-strong UNIFIL.
Hezbollah has said it will not enter any concrete discussion until there is a ceasefire in Gaza, where the war between Israel and Islamist militant group Hamas is in its seventh month.
Israel has flagged a potential military operation along its northern front, saying it wants to restore calm on the border with Lebanon so that thousands of displaced Israelis can return to the area without fear of rocket attacks.
In a letter addressed to the French embassy in Beirut in March, Lebanon’s foreign ministry said Beirut believed the French initiative would be a significant step towards peace and security in Lebanon and the broader region.
Lebanese media had reported the government had provided feedback to the French on the proposal but French officials say the responses so far have been general and lack consensus among the Lebanese.
Sejourne will discuss Lebanon with Arab and Western states in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday before relaying the latest Lebanese positions in Israel later in the week.
The post France Pushes Efforts in Lebanon to Prevent War Between Hezbollah and Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism
Pope Francis waves after delivering his traditional Christmas Day Urbi et Orbi speech to the city and the world from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, December 25, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican’s various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” said the pope. “This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.”
The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope’s remarks amounted to a “trivialization” of the term genocide.
Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.
The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.
Israeli officials were not immediately reachable for comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The post Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile
Iranian-backed Yemeni terrorist leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – The Israeli military said on Saturday that while the investigation into the failure to intercept the missile that hit Tel Aviv early in the morning was still ongoing, some lessons were already being implemented. The ballistic missile, fired by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, landed at a playground in a residential area, leading to 16 people sustaining injuries from glass shards.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said that “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, in regards of both interception and early warning.”
The spokesperson added that “no further details regarding aerial defense activities and the alert system can be disclosed due to operational security considerations.”
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as “acts of solidarity” with Palestinians in Gaza.
The post IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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