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Harris Says Won’t Give Up Pushing for End to Israel-Gaza War
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks before participating in a bilateral meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building near the White House in Washington, U.S., May 21, 2021. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger
US Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday repeated her call for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza and said it was important to seize the opportunity provided by the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack.
Harris acknowledged challenges ahead but told reporters she would continue to push for an end to the conflict.
“This creates an opening that I believe we must take full advantage of – to dedicate ourselves to ending this war and bringing the hostages home,” she said.
“As it relates to the issues in the Middle East and in particular in that region, it has never been easy. But that doesn’t mean we give up. It’s always going to be difficult. We can’t give up.”
Harris dodged a question on whether Arab American and Muslim anger over US support for Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza and more recently in Lebanon could cost her the election in the battleground state of Michigan, but said she would continue speaking out about the tragic loss of innocent lives.
“I speak publicly all the time about the fact that there are so many tragic stories coming from Gaza,” Harris said, also referencing the initial Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
“What’s critically important as we look at this moment, is … acknowledging the tragedy of what has happened in Gaza, in terms of the extraordinary number of innocent Palestinians that have been killed, and taking that seriously and speaking truth about that,” she said.
Harris and Trump are essentially tied in the most competitive states like Michigan, with just 17 days until the Nov. 5 election.
Harris will need strong results in the majority non-white cities of Detroit and Atlanta and their surrounding suburbs – both of which have large Arab American and Muslim populations – to repeat US President Joe Biden’s 2020 wins in Michigan and Georgia. Trump won Michigan by 11,000 votes in 2016. In 2020, Biden beat Trump by 155,000 votes.
Harris on Friday won the endorsements of 50 prominent Lebanese-Americans, who said the US had been “unrelenting” in its support for Lebanon under the Biden administration and that they expect additional backing if Harris wins in November.
The endorsement came amid ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon that have killed at least 2,350 people over the last year, according to the Lebanese health ministry, with more than 1.2 million people displaced. Hezbollah attacks have killed 50 Israeli soldiers and civilians, according to Israel.
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Netanyahu: ‘The Agents of Iran Who Tried to Assassinate Me and My Wife Today Made a Grave Mistake’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Feb. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The private residence of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, came under attack early on Saturday from Hezbollah drone, a brief statement from the leader’s office stated:
The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake. This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing our just war against our enemies in order to secure our future. I say to Iran and its proxies in its axis of evil: Anyone who tries to harm Israel’s citizens will pay a heavy price. We will continue to eliminate the terrorists and those who dispatch them. We will bring our hostages home from Gaza. And we will return our citizens who live on our Northern border safely to their homes. Israel is determined to achieve all our war objectives and change the security reality in our region for generations to come. Together, we will fight, and with God’s help – together, we will win.
Netanyahu and his wife Sara were not at the residence at the time of the attack, and no one was hurt, the statement added. The extent of damage caused was not clear.
The post Netanyahu: ‘The Agents of Iran Who Tried to Assassinate Me and My Wife Today Made a Grave Mistake’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran FM Meets with Hamas Delegation Headed by Muhammad Darwish
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Photo: Reuters/Raheb Homavandi.
i24 News – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday met with a Hamas delegation in İstanbul, followed by a meeting with his Turkish counterpart.
The Hamas delegation was headed by Muhammad Ismail Darwish, the Head of Hamas Shura Council and included members of the jihadist group’s politburo. A well-placed source told i24NEWS Darwish was the strongest man in Hamas following the assassination of the group’s leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza.
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Hezbollah Rockets Hit Israel’s North as Israel Strikes Beirut Suburbs
Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Hadath, Lebanon October 19, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Israeli strikes pummeled Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday as Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah fired salvos of rockets at northern Israel, with one drone directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday home, his spokesman said.
Pledges from Israel and its enemies Hamas and Hezbollah to keep fighting in Gaza and Lebanon have dashed hopes that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar might hasten an end to more than a year of escalating war in the Middle East.
Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the Gaza war, was killed by Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian enclave on Wednesday.
Israel has been pounding Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps, in what it says is an effort to stop Hamas fighters regrouping.
On Saturday afternoon, Israel carried out heavy strikes on several locations in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, leaving thick plumes of smoke wafting over the city horizon throughout the evening.
It issued evacuation orders for four separate neighborhoods within the suburbs, urging residents to get 500 meters (yards) away, but carried out strikes in other parts as well, Reuters witnesses said.
Tens of thousands of people have fled the southern suburbs – once a densely populated zone that also housed Hezbollah offices and underground installations – since Israel began regularly targeting the zone approximately three weeks ago.
An Israeli air attack there on Sept. 27 killed Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, and other strikes in the zone have killed other top figures within the Iran-backed group.
NEW AREA STRUCK
An Israeli strike on Saturday killed two people as they were traveling on Lebanon’s main highway near the Christian-majority town of Jounieh – the first such attack on the area. A spokesperson for Israel’s military said it was looking into it.
Witnesses described passengers running from a car after a blast, then seeing the charred remains of one passenger after a second blast.
Another strike killed at least four people in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, health authorities said. One of them was the mayor of a nearby town, making him the second mayor of a Lebanese town to be killed this week.
Separately, the Israeli military said it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander of the Bint Jbeil area on Friday and that its troops had seized weapons including anti-tank missiles.
Hezbollah by Saturday evening had claimed at least 20 attacks on Israeli military targets that day, all of them with salvos of rockets. There was no immediate comment from it on any drone attacks or attacks targeting Netanyahu’s home.
In northern Israel, some of the rockets were intercepted but one hit a residential building, police said.
One person was killed and at least nine people were injured in different locations, the Israeli ambulance service said. Air raid sirens sent people running to shelters.
Netanyahu’s spokesman said the prime minister was not in the vicinity of his holiday home in Caesarea and there were no casualties.
Later, Israeli media published a video of Netanyahu walking in a park. “Nothing will deter us, we will keep going until victory,” he said in the video filmed by one of his aides.
STALLED TALKS
Iran-backed Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel since the war between Israel and Palestinian terror group Hamas began in Gaza last October.
Nearly three weeks ago, Israel launched a ground assault inside Lebanon in an attempt to stabilize the border region for its citizens who had fled the fighting.
More than 2,400 people have been killed in Lebanon, most of them in the last month, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, while 59 people have been killed in northern Israel and the Golan Heights, according to Israeli authorities.
More than 10,000 packages of food and medical supplies were airdropped into Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday in coordination with the United Arab Emirates, the Israeli military said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that oversees administration in the Palestinian Territories, has stepped up deliveries of aid into Gaza amid international pressure to ease a dire humanitarian crisis.
Western leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have said Sinwar’s death offered a chance for a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages.
Negotiations for such a deal have been stalled for weeks.
Biden said on Friday that there was a possibility of working towards a ceasefire in Lebanon but it would be harder in Gaza.
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