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Israel Defense Chief to Discuss Gaza, Lebanon on U.S. Trip
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks during a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at Israel’s Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, Israel Photo: December 18, 2023. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura/File Photo
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant headed to Washington on Sunday to discuss the next phase of the Gaza war and escalating hostilities on the border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire with Hezbollah have stoked fears of wider conflict.
Iran-backed Hezbollah began attacking Israel shortly after Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault sparked the war in Gaza, and the sides have been trading blows in the months since then. Hezbollah has said it will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
“We are prepared for any action that may be required in Gaza, Lebanon, and in more areas,” Gallant said in a statement before setting off to Washington, where he said he would meet his counterpart Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Earlier in June, Hezbollah targeted Israeli towns and military sites with the largest volleys of rockets and drones in the hostilities so far, after an Israeli strike killed the most senior Hezbollah commander yet.
U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel and Lebanon last week in an attempt to cool tensions, amid an uptick in cross-border fire and an escalation in rhetoric on both sides. An Israeli soldier was severely wounded on Sunday by a drone strike, the military said.
Some Israeli officials have linked the ongoing Israeli push into Rafah – the southern area of Gaza where it says it is targeting the last battalions of militant Islamist group Hamas – to a potential focus on Lebanon.
Gallant appeared to make the same link in his statement.
“The transition to Phase C in Gaza is of great importance. I will discuss this transition with U.S. officials, how it may enable additional things and I know that we will achieve close cooperation with the U.S. on this issue as well,” Gallant said.
Scaling back Gaza operations would free up forces to take on Hezbollah, if Israel were to launch a ground offensive or step up its aerial bombardments.
POST-WAR PLAN
Officials have described the third and last phase of Israel’s Gaza offensive as winding down fighting while stepping up efforts to stabilize a post-Hamas rule and begin reconstruction in the enclave, much of which has been laid to waste.
Gallant, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, has sparred with the premier in the past few months, calling for a clearer post-war plan for Gaza that will not leave Israel in charge, a demand echoed by the White House.
Netanyahu has been walking a tightrope as he seeks to keep his government together by balancing the demands of the defense establishment, including ex-generals like Gallant, and far-right coalition partners who have resisted any post-Gaza strategy that could open the way to a future Palestinian state.
The head of Israel’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuli Edelstein, told Army Radio on Sunday that fighting Hezbollah would be complex either way, now or later.
“We are not in the right position to conduct fighting on both the southern front and the northern front. We will have to deploy differently in the south in order to fight in the north,” said Edelstein, also a Likud member.
Edelstein criticized a video by Netanyahu released last week in which the prime minister said the Biden administration was “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.” The video led to a spat with the White House.
President Joe Biden’s administration paused a shipment of 2,000 pound and 500-pound bombs in May over concerns about their impact if used in densely-populated areas of Gaza. Israel was still due to get billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry.
“I hope that in the discussions behind closed doors much more will be achieved than by attempts to create pressure with videos,” Edelstein said, referring to Gallant’s trip.
The post Israel Defense Chief to Discuss Gaza, Lebanon on U.S. Trip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister 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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