Israel’s defense minister says his country insists on the right to attack Hezbollah in any agreement to end the war in Lebanon.
The Lebanese government would likely see any such demand as a violation of its sovereignty, undermining efforts to end more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that broke out in an all-out war in September.
The Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that “the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the protection of intelligence and the protection of the (Israeli army’s) right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah.”
Lebanese officials who mediate between Israel and Hezbollah have called for a return to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between the two sides.
It calls for the withdrawal of Hezbollah fighters and Israeli forces from the buffer zone in southern Lebanon occupied by UN peacekeepers and the Lebanese army.
The United States envoy, Amos Hochstein, who has spent months trying to end the fighting, held a second meeting on Wednesday with the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally who has been representing them.
Hochstein told reporters that the talks had made “more progress,” and that he would be traveling to Israel “to try to finish this, if we can.” He declined to say what the adhesives are.
Israeli strikes and fighting in Lebanon have killed more than 3,500 people and injured 15,000, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The war displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, 87 soldiers and 50 civilians, including some foreign workers, were killed in attacks that included rockets, drones and missiles. Hezbollah opened fire on Israel the day after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack sparked a war in Gaza.
That attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and another 250 were kidnapped. About 100 captives remain inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to have died. Israeli retaliation has killed at least 44,000 Palestinians, according to health officials.
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Here’s What’s New:
The Israeli bill targets the families of minors who have been convicted of security crimes
JERUSALEM — The Israeli parliament has passed a bill to withdraw insurance payments from the families of minors convicted of security crimes.
The rights group denounced the law as a form of collective punishment for the Palestinians.
The bill, which passed 29-8 late Monday, prohibits family members of minors convicted of security offenses from receiving child support, tuition fees, or other welfare benefits under Israel’s National Insurance program while the minor is in prison.
It was approved so that “parents can look after their children and make sure that they are not involved in terrorism,” according to a press release on the website of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
The legal group Adalah, which has called on Israel’s attorney general to repeal the law, said the real purpose of the law is “to impose punitive measures on the pretext of fighting terrorism and denying benefits.”
Adalah said that because the law applies only to those convicted of security crimes, who are mainly Palestinians, “it creates a difference on a national basis.”
It is the latest in a series of measures passed by the Knesset that have been criticized by rights groups as draconian.
A law passed earlier this month would allow Israel to deport family members of Palestinian militants to Gaza or other areas. In late October, the Knesset passed two laws prohibiting UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, from operating on Israeli soil.
The Lebanese army says one of its soldiers was killed by an Israeli airstrike
BEIRUT – A Lebanese army soldier was killed on Wednesday when an Israeli plane hit his car on the road connecting Burj al-Muluk and Qalaa in southern Lebanon, the army said in a statement. The Israeli army said it was looking into the report.
The day before, three soldiers were killed by a plane targeting a military base in the city of Sarafand, near the city of Saida.
Mr. Wissam Khalifa, a resident of Sarafand who lives near the military base and was injured in the strike, said he was very surprised that he was being targeted.
“It’s always a safe place. “There is nothing here at all” that would give a purpose, he said. “In the case of the soldiers who were killed, I don’t even know if there were guns among them. Why did this strike happen? We don’t know.”
The Lebanese army has not been participating in the Israeli army’s war with the Lebanese military group Hezbollah for the past 13 months, but more than 40 soldiers have been killed in the war.
In total, more than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 8, 2023, most of them in the last two months.
Injured Al Jazeera journalist to be flown to Jordan for treatment
AMMAN, Jordan: Israel has allowed an Al Jazeera journalist who was injured in an airstrike in Gaza last month to be flown to Jordan for treatment.
Jordan’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that Ali al-Attar was transferred to the kingdom with his sister in cooperation with the World Health Organization. There was no immediate response from Israel.
Al-Attar was wounded by shrapnel when Israeli forces struck checkpoints used by Hamas-run police outside a hospital in central Gaza in early Oct. 7. There were no police officers present at the time.
Israel banned Al-Jazeera earlier this year, accusing it of serving as a mouthpiece for Hamas. It also accused six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza of being fighters for Hamas and another armed group.
Al Jazeera has denied the allegations and accused Israel of trying to silence sensitive issues. The Qatar-based network has reported regularly from Gaza since the start of the war, with its correspondents in the field monitoring the civilian casualties in Israel’s war. Several Al Jazeera journalists were killed or injured.
Al Jazeera has regularly broadcast videos released by militant groups in Israel, including some showing Israeli prisoners speaking under duress.