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Israel and Hezbollah Trade Fire Across Lebanon Border, Blinken Calls for Urgent Resolution
A view shows damage at a site hit by an Israeli strike that killed a few journalists and wounded several others as they slept in guesthouses used by media, Lebanon’s health ministry and local media reported, in Hasbaya in southern Lebanon, October 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
An Israeli strike killed three journalists in southern Lebanon on Friday, Lebanese officials said, while Israel said Hezbollah killed two people in a strike in its north as Washington pressed for a ceasefire.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was an urgent need to get a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, a day after he said Washington did not want to see a protracted campaign in Lebanon by its ally Israel.
Israel launched its major offensive in Lebanon a month ago, saying it was targeting the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah group to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from the north due to cross-border rocket attacks.
Beirut authorities say Israel’s Lebanon offensive has killed more than 2,500 people and displaced more than 1.2 million, sparking a humanitarian crisis.
Friday’s strike killed two people in Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, according to Israeli media, and followed a statement from Hezbollah saying that it targeted the northern Israeli town of Karmiel with a large missile salvo.
“The world must stop Iran now – before it’s too late,” Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz said on X.
The conflict was sparked by the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered Israel’s offensive in Gaza, where Palestinian officials said Israeli strikes had killed at least 72 people since Thursday night.
The journalists killed in south Lebanon were Ghassan Najjar and Mohamed Reda of the pro-Iranian news outlet Al-Mayadeen and Wissam Qassem, who worked for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar, the outlets said in separate statements. Several others were wounded.
They had been staying at guesthouses in Hasbaya, a town not previously targeted, when it was hit around 3 a.m. (midnight GMT).
Five journalists have been killed in previous Israeli strikes while reporting on the conflict, including Reuters visual journalist Issam Abdallah on Oct. 13, 2023.
“This is a war crime,” Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said. At least 18 journalists from six media outlets, including Sky News and Al-Jazeera were using the guesthouses.
“We heard the airplane flying very low – that’s what woke us up – and then we heard the two missiles,” Muhammad Farhat, a reporter with Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed, said.
His footage showed overturned and damaged cars, some marked “Press.” There was no immediate comment from Israel, which in general denies deliberately attacking journalists.
The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon said Israeli forces had fired at their troops in an observation post in southern Dhayra on Tuesday, leading them to leave the post though they remained at the base.
Israel has denied deliberately targeting the force but says Hezbollah has built strongholds in close proximity to UNIFIL sites. Its previous strikes on UNIFIL posts have drawn international condemnation.
BORDER CROSSING STRUCK
Israel has used airstrikes to pound southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut’s southern suburbs, and has also sent ground forces into southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.
The military said it struck weapon production sites and Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Beirut as well as Hezbollah targets around the Jousieh border crossing in the northern Bekaa Valley.
It said Hezbollah used the crossing, controlled by the Syrian military, to transfer weapons into Lebanon.
Lebanon’s transport minister Ali Hamieh said the Israeli strike had knocked the Jousieh crossing out of service, leaving the northern route as the only way to Syria.
The UN refugee agency said the strikes were hindering refugees’ attempts to flee. UNHCR spokesperson Rula Amin said some 430,000 people have crossed to Syria since Israel’s campaign started. Lebanon has previously been a major destination for refugees from the Syrian civil war.
“The attacks on the border crossings are a major concern,” Amin said. “They are blocking the path to safety for people fleeing conflict.”
‘REAL URGENCY’
The Israeli campaign spiraled out of a year of cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah, which opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, a day after it launched the Oct. 7 attack.
“We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along border between Israel and Lebanon,” Blinken said in London.
He said it was important so “people at both sides of the border can have the confidence to… return to their homes”.
Hezbollah has kept fighting despite heavy blows, including the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel said five of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, after announcing on Thursday the deaths of five others.
The Israeli military said it had uncovered an underground command center in a village close to the border with Israel and a site concealed in wooded terrain where Kornet anti-tank missiles, launchers, hand grenades and rifles were stored.
Washington has expressed hope that the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attacks, could provide an impetus for an end to fighting.
Officials said on Thursday that US and Israeli negotiators will gather in Doha in the coming days to try and restart talks toward a deal for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in Gaza.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who met Blinken in London, said “ethnic cleansing” was taking place in northern Gaza. Israel denies such accusations, saying it is separating civilians from Hamas terrorists and moving them to safer areas.
Safadi said: “We are at the moment now where nothing justifies the continuation of the wars. Guns have to go silent.”
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
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