RSS
US Truce Efforts on Lebanon Fail Ahead of Election, Diplomatic Sources Say
Israeli tanks are being moved, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in the Golan Heights, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
American efforts to halt fighting between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah have failed after the US drafted an “unrealistic” ceasefire proposal and Israel‘s insistence on being able to enforce a truce directly, people briefed on the diplomacy told Reuters.
With no workable proposal on the table ahead of Tuesday’s US presidential election, the conflict could drag on for months, according to a Lebanese political source close to Hezbollah, two diplomats and a person briefed on the talks.
They all spoke on condition of anonymity. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to questions from Reuters.
A US official said talks between US envoys and Israeli officials on Thursday yielded better results than expected. A second US official described the meetings as “substantive” and “constructive” but said the US would not negotiate in public.
The State Department referred Reuters to comments by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said Israel and Lebanon were moving toward understandings on what was required to end the conflict but more work was needed.
Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire for a year in parallel with the Gaza war but fighting has escalated in recent weeks. Israel says it has uncovered Hezbollah tunnels and weapons stores in south Lebanon, and that the terrorist group had planned an incursion into Israel even larger than the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.
The US had drafted a 60-day truce proposal that would see Hezbollah pull back from Lebanon’s southern border, both sides cease attacks, and 10,000 Lebanese army troops deploy in the south, according to Israel‘s public broadcaster Kan.
But two diplomats told Reuters the diplomatic efforts had failed because that draft was not viable.
“It was totally unrealistic because of the onus it places on the Lebanese army to solve these problems,” a Western diplomat told Reuters.
A regional diplomat echoed those doubts, specifically pointing to elements of a “side letter” between the US and Israel published by Kan which gave Israel the right to take action against imminent threats to its security. The diplomat described this proposal as “unworkable.”
Lebanon’s government has not commented publicly on the draft, but officials told Reuters that Israel‘s insistence on “direct enforcement” of a deal would breach state sovereignty.
US envoys Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk, who were in Israel on Thursday to discuss a ceasefire with Israeli officials, did not continue on to Lebanon for talks.
“After Hochstein’s attempt yesterday, that’s it. It seems only the battlefield will decide,” the Lebanese political figure close to Hezbollah told Reuters.
The US has struggled to break the deadlock in talks.
This week, Hochstein asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire with Israel to make headway, two sources told Reuters — a claim denied by Lebanon’s premier and Hochstein.
Netanyahu is facing pressure in Israel from the tens of thousands evacuated from northern areas to make sure that Israel would be able to ensure that any agreement was respected and that Hezbollah and other militias would not be able to return.
“It is essential, therefore, that Israel insists on retaining security freedom of action to enforce an agreement in Lebanon,” the conservative Israel Hayom daily said.
Netanyahu’s office said he told Hochstein on Thursday that Israel‘s main concern was not “this or that agreement on paper but Israel‘s ability and determination to enforce the agreement and thwart any threat to its security from Lebanon.”
On Friday, Lebanese leaders blamed Israel for undermining any deal.
“Israeli statements and diplomatic signals that Lebanon received confirm Israel‘s stubbornness in rejecting the proposed solutions and insisting on the approach of killing and destruction,” Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati said.
Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah and the main diplomatic channel used to mediate with it, said Israel had “wasted more than one opportunity” to reach a ceasefire.
In comments to pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, Berri said Netanyahu had rejected a roadmap that Lebanon and Hochstein had been on board with, and said any diplomacy had been postponed until after Tuesday’s US presidential election.
“The most likely scenario now is that the Israelis will keep doing what they want to do — with no ceasefire,” the Western diplomat said.
The post US Truce Efforts on Lebanon Fail Ahead of Election, Diplomatic Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Fake Plan to Attack Australia Synagogue Fabricated by Organized Crime, Police Say
Car in New South Wales, Australia graffitied with antisemitic message. Photo: Screenshot
A fake plan to attack on a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives was fabricated by an organized crime network in order to divert police resources, Australian police said on Monday.
Authorities in January found explosives in a caravan, or trailer, that could have created a blast wave of 40 meters (130 feet), along with the address of a Sydney synagogue.
But police on Monday said the discovery was part of a “criminal con job,” with the ease with which the caravan was found along with the lack of a detonator suggesting there was never any intent to attack Jewish targets.
“The caravan was never going to cause a mass casualty event but instead was concocted by criminals who wanted to cause fear for personal benefit,” Krissy Barrett, the Australian Federal Police‘s Deputy Commissioner for National Security, told a news conference.
“Almost immediately, experienced investigators … believed that the caravan was part of a fabricated terrorism plot – essentially a criminal con job.”
Police are yet to make any arrests in relation to the planning of the fabricated plot but have gone public with the information in order to provide comfort to the Jewish community in Sydney, Dave Hudson, New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner, told the news conference.
“It was about causing chaos within the community, causing threat, causing angst, diverting police resources away from their day jobs, to have them focus on matters that would allow them to get up to or engage in other criminal activity,” Hudson said.
Police are investigating a suspect involved in an organized crime network, he added.
Australia has suffered a spate of antisemitic attacks in recent months, with homes, schools, synagogues, and vehicles targeted by vandalism and arson, drawing the ire of the country’s traditional ally Israel.
The post Fake Plan to Attack Australia Synagogue Fabricated by Organized Crime, Police Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Urging UN Agencies, Aid Groups to Replace UNRWA in Gaza, Envoy Says
A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Israel is actively encouraging UN agencies and other aid groups to take over the work of the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, Israel‘s ambassador said on Monday, after banning the agency on Israeli territory in January.
“We, the State of Israel, are working to find substitute to the act, to the work of UNRWA inside Gaza,” Daniel Meron, Israel‘s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told reporters.
He declined to give specifics but said Israel was “encouraging the UN agencies and NGOs to take over each one in its own field that they specialize in.”
The Israeli government and research organizations have publicized findings showing numerous UNRWA-employed staff, including teachers and school principals, are active Hamas members, some of whom were directly involved in the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, while many others openly celebrated it.
The post Israel Urging UN Agencies, Aid Groups to Replace UNRWA in Gaza, Envoy Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Man Who Scaled London’s ‘Big Ben’ Clock Tower With Palestinian Flag Appears in Court
A man with a Palestinian flag sits on the Elizabeth Tower, commonly known as Big Ben, next to Houses of Parliament, in London, Britain, March 8, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
A man who climbed part way up the “Big Ben” clock tower at London’s Palace of Westminster early on Saturday and stayed there all day as part of a pro-Palestinian protest appeared in court on Monday.
Clutching a Palestinian flag, Daniel Day, 29, scaled 25 meters (82 feet) up the building, officially known as the Elizabeth Tower, at about 7:20 am on Saturday, remaining there for 16 hours until agreeing to come down, his lawyer and prosecutors told London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
He was subsequently charged by police with climbing and remaining on the tower which created “a risk or caused serious harm to the public,” and also trespassing on a protected site.
Prosecutors said Day’s actions had led to serious disruption in that area of central London with roads closed and buses diverted, and the cancellation of parliamentary tours had cost 25,000 pounds ($32,300).
Day’s lawyer said he would plead not guilty to the first charge, saying his action was designed to spread awareness regarding the situation in Gaza and Britain’s response to it.
The second charge of trespass requires the authorization of the attorney general, and so the case was adjourned until March 17 for a decision to be made.
Day, from a seaside town in eastern England, was remanded in custody, with his supporters clapping and shouting “Hero” and “Free Palestine” as he was led away.
Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of parliament’s House of Commons, which is also located in the Palace of Westminster, said he had asked for a review of the incident.
($1 = 0.7745 pounds)
The post Man Who Scaled London’s ‘Big Ben’ Clock Tower With Palestinian Flag Appears in Court first appeared on Algemeiner.com.