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US Defense Chief Says ‘We Will Help Israel’ if Attacked as Washington Scrambles to Stave Off Hezbollah War
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testifies before a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on US President Joe Biden’s proposed budget request for the Department of Defense on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, April 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin vowed on Tuesday that the United States will come to Israel’s defense if the Jewish state is attacked by Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed terrorist organization based in Lebanon.
“We would like to see things resolved in a diplomatic fashion,” Austin told reporters after meetings in Manila with senior Philippine officials. “If Israel is attacked, yes, we will we help Israel defend itself. We’ve been clear about that from the very beginning.”
Austin’s comment came as tensions continued to escalate between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel on Tuesday targeted Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander, with an air strike in Beirut, Lebanon on Tuesday and reportedly believes it killed the long-time terrorist leader. The Algemeiner could not independently confirm Shukr’s current status.
The Israeli strike was a response to a Hezbollah rocket attack over the weekend on a soccer field in Majdal Shams, a small Druze town in the Golan Heights, a strategic region on Israel’s northern border previously controlled by Syria. The attack from southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah exerts major political and military influence, killed 12 children. The Jewish state vowed that Hezbollah would pay a “heavy price” for the strike.
Although many observers have expressed fear that the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could soon spiral out of control, Austin argued that a full-scale war was not inevitable.
“I don’t believe that a fight is inevitable,” Austin told reporters.
Austin’s comments echoed sentiments from the White House, which said that the likelihood of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah is “exaggerated.” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday that the Biden administration is “confident” that such a conflict full-scale war between the Jewish state and the Iran-backed terrorist group will be avoided.
Nonetheless, Hezbollah has indicated that it will retaliate after Israel’s defensive strike on Tuesday. The terrorist group has thus far reportedly rejected requests from international envoys not to respond to the Israeli operation.
“International envoys are indirectly raising with us the idea that we should not respond to the expected aggression under the pretext of the need to avoid escalation and sliding towards a comprehensive war,” a Hezbollah official said, according to Reuters. The official added that Hezbollah had “informed them of our explicit rejection of this request” and would respond.
Hezbollah has pummeled northern Israeli communities with a barrage of missiles, rockets, and drones in the months following the Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel perpetrated by Hamas, another Iran-backed terrorist group. Estimates suggest that Hezbollah, an Iranian-proxy terrorist organization, has fired between 100-200 missiles into northern Israel nearly every day since Oct. 7.
More than 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate Israel’s north in October due to the unrelenting attacks. The majority of those spent the past nine months residing in hotels in other areas of Israel.
Nevertheless, the US State Department said it’s working to find a diplomatic solution to avoid further escalation.
“We’re continuing to work toward a diplomatic resolution that would allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return to their homes and live in peace and security. We certainly want to avoid any kind of escalation,” State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a press briefing on Tuesday.
Patel added that American support for the Jewish state will remain “ironclad.”
“Israel has every right to defend itself,” Patel said, noting that the Jewish state “certainly faces threats like no other country does in that region of the world.”
During his address to a joint session of the US Congress last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that although he would prefer to reach a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Lebanese Hezbollah, the Jewish state is willing to use force to defend itself.
“We prefer to achieve this diplomatically. But let me be clear: Israel will do whatever it must do to restore security to our northern border and return our people safely to their homes,” Netanyahu said.
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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students
Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
The post Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
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Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
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