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Israel Expands War Aims to Include Returning Displaced Citizens to the North as Prospect of Hezbollah War Looms
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israel’s security cabinet has expanded its war goals to include returning displaced Israelis from the north back to their homes after they were forced to flee amid unrelenting fire from the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The decision, which was made in a late-night meeting on Monday that extended into the early hours of Tuesday morning, was announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Israel will continue to act to implement this goal,” Netanyahu said.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel — in which the Palestinian terrorist group murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages — the Jewish state’s war aims have been to return the hostages, destroy Hamas, and ensure Gaza cannot be used as a launching pad to attack Israel in the future.
On Oct. 8, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s war on Israel, pummeling northern Israeli communities almost daily with barrages of drones, rockets, and missiles from southern Lebanon, where it wields significant political and military influence. One such attack killed 12 children in the small Druze town of Majdal Shams.
About 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate Israel’s north during that time due to the unrelenting attacks. Most of them have spent the past 11 months living in hotels in other areas of the country.
Israeli leaders have said they seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon but are prepared to use large-scale military force if needed to ensure all displaced citizens can safely return to their homes. Efforts to make it safe for them to return have so far been unsuccessful, indicating a larger military conflict could be on the horizon.
“The possibility for an agreement is running out as Hezbollah continues to tie itself to Hamas, and refuses to end the conflict,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday in a meeting with White House Special envoy Amos Hochstein, according to a statement from his office. “Therefore, the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action.”
Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, the US has warned both sides to refrain from larger military action.
Hochstein, who was visiting Israel on Monday, told Netanyahu and Gallant in meetings that the US does not believe that a full confrontation with Lebanon will serve Israel’s interests or return the residents of the north to their homes, according to Israeli media reports. The US envoy also reportedly added that the risk of a regional war was real and that the diplomaitc resolution to ultimately end it would be similar to the ones being discussed now anyway.
However, tensions do not seem likely to lower in the near future.
On Tuesday, thousands of members of Hezbollah, including fighters and medics, were seriously when the pagers they use to communicate exploded.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the Iran-backed group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
Up to 2,750 people were injured in Lebanon due to exploding pagers, and at least eight people were killed, according to Lebanon’s minister of health.
Hezbollah blamed Israel for the explosions and vowed revenge, although the Jewish state has so far neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.
The post Israel Expands War Aims to Include Returning Displaced Citizens to the North as Prospect of Hezbollah War Looms first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Trump Is Lying When He Speaks of Peace
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with government officials in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Donald Trump on Saturday of lying when the US president said during his Gulf tour this week that he wanted peace in the region.
On the contrary, said Khamenei, the United States uses its power to give “10-ton bombs to the Zionist (Israeli) regime to drop on the heads of Gaza’s children.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after departing the United Arab Emirates on Friday that Iran had to move quickly on a US proposal for its nuclear program or “something bad’s going to happen.”
His remarks, said Khamenei, “aren’t even worth responding to.” They are an “embarrassment to the speaker and the American people,” Khamenei added.
“Undoubtedly, the source of corruption, war, and conflict in this region is the Zionist regime — a dangerous, deadly cancerous tumor that must be uprooted; it will be uprooted,” he said at an event at a religious center in Tehran, according to state media.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Trump speaks about peace while simultaneously making threats.
“Which should we believe?” Pezeshkian said at a naval event in Tehran. “On the one hand, he speaks of peace and on the other, he threatens with the most advanced tools of mass killing.”
Tehran would continue Iran-US nuclear talks but is not afraid of threats. “We are not seeking war,” Pezeshkian said.
While Trump said on Friday that Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a post on X said Tehran had not received any such proposal. “There is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to (uranium) enrichment for peaceful purposes…” he said.
Araqchi warned on Saturday that Washington’s constant change of stance prolongs nuclear talks, state TV reported.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that America repeatedly defines a new framework for negotiations that prolongs the process,” the broadcast quoted Araqchi as saying.
Pezeshkian said Iran would not “back down from our legitimate rights”.
“Because we refuse to bow to bullying, they say we are source of instability in the region,” he said.
A fourth round of Iran-U.S. talks ended in Oman last Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
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Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday
Doha, Qatar. Photo: StellarD via Wikimedia Commons.
A new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel is underway in Qatar’s Doha, Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters on Saturday.
He said the two sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions.”
Nono said Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success, adding there was “no certain offer on the table.”
The negotiations come despite Israel preparing to expand operations in the Gaza Strip as they seek “operational control” in some areas of the war-torn enclave.
The return to negotiations also comes after US President Donald Trump ended a Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire, although he acknowledged Gaza’s growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.
The post Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
i24 News – Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan has stepped down temporarily as an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct by United Nations investigators is nearing its final phase, Reuters reported on Friday citing sources from the international court.
Khan allegedly forced sexual intercourse upon a member of staff on multiple occasions, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, linking the allegations to Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.
A statement is expected later today announcing that Khan is going on administrative leave, according to a source in the prosecutor’s office.
The post Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.