The Israeli army mentioned Monday an Israeli American soldier who was believed to have been captured alive by Hamas in its Oct. 7, 2023, assault was killed that day and his physique taken into the Gaza Strip.
Hamas remains to be holding round 100 hostages inside Gaza, not less than a 3rd of whom are believed to be useless. The Biden administration says it’s making one other push for a ceasefire and the discharge of the remaining hostages, after almost a yr of oblique negotiations between Israel and Hamas repeatedly stalled.
Diplomats see a possible opening after final week’s ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, an ally of Hamas that started launching rocket assaults and buying and selling hearth with Israel the day after the October 2023 assault.
The fragile ceasefire has held regardless of repeated Israeli strikes which have angered Lebanese officers however not but triggered a response from Hezbollah. Israel says it has acted to thwart potential assaults.
The warfare in Gaza started when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 individuals, principally civilians, and taking round 250 individuals hostage. More than 100 hostages have been launched throughout a weeklong ceasefire in November 2023.
Israel’s ongoing retaliatory offensive has killed not less than 44,429 Palestinians, greater than half of them girls and kids, in keeping with Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t say how most of the useless have been combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, with out offering proof.
The warfare has destroyed huge areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90% of the inhabitants of two.3 million, usually a number of instances.
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Lebanon’s parliament speaker says Israel has violated the ceasefire with Hezbollah greater than 50 instances
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s parliament speaker on Monday accused Israel of committing 54 breaches of the ceasefire that ended the warfare between Hezbollah and Israel, demanding pressing intervention to halt what he referred to as “flagrant violations.”
Speaking to the Lebanese newspaper Al Joumhouria, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri condemned Israel’s “aggressive actions,” together with the alleged demolition of properties in border villages, the persistent overflight of Israeli reconnaissance drones, and airstrikes which have triggered casualties.
The Israeli army didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Berri’s assertions. Israel says it reserves the appropriate beneath the ceasefire deal to answer perceived ceasefire violations.
An Israeli drone strike on Monday hit a Lebanese military army bulldozer within the northeastern city of Hermel, wounding a soldier, the Lebanese military mentioned in a press release.
Also on Monday, an Israeli drone strike concentrating on a bike in Jdeidet Marjayoun in southern Lebanon killed one individual, the Lebanese Health Ministry mentioned. In Bint Jbeil province, a drone strike injured one individual, the state-run National News Agency mentioned.
On Saturday, two individuals have been killed in an airstrike on Marjayoun province, Lebanon’s state media mentioned.
Berri referred to as on the technical committee established to watch the ceasefire to take rapid motion, urging it to “oblige Israel to halt its violations and withdraw from Lebanese territories immediately.”
He mentioned that Lebanon and Hezbollah have absolutely adhered to the phrases of the ceasefire for the reason that early hours of Wednesday. Berri is the chief of the Shiite Amal motion, which is carefully allied with the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Israeli drone strikes reported in Lebanon days after fragile ceasefire
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency mentioned Monday one individual was killed in an Israeli drone strike that hit a bike, whereas the Lebanese military mentioned {that a} soldier was wounded in an Israeli strike on a army bulldozer at a military base.
The Israeli army mentioned that it carried out a sequence of strikes in Lebanon on Sunday and Monday, together with one in the identical space the place the soldier was mentioned to have been wounded. It mentioned it struck a number of army autos in Lebanon’s Bekaa province in addition to strikes on Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.
The incidents underscored the fragility of a ceasefire settlement between Israel and Hezbollah reached after almost 14 months of cross-border preventing.
Since the ceasefire went into impact on Wednesday, Israel has struck a number of instances in response to what it says have been ceasefire violations by Hezbollah. Lebanon has accused Israel of violating the deal however to this point Hezbollah has not resumed its rocket hearth.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Monday rejected accusations that Israel is violating the tenuous ceasefire settlement, saying it was responding to Hezbollah violations.
In a put up on X, Saar mentioned that he made that time in a name along with his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot. France, together with the U.S., helped dealer the deal and is a part of a global monitoring committee meant to make sure the edges uphold their commitments.
Israel says that it reserves the appropriate beneath the deal to answer perceived ceasefire violations.
Israeli American soldier thought to have been taken hostage is now presumed useless
TEL AVIV, Israel — The Israeli army mentioned Monday an Israeli American soldier who was believed to have been taken hostage alive on Oct. 7, 2023, is now presumed to have been killed throughout Hamas’ assault and his physique taken into Gaza.
Neutra, 21, was a New York native who enlisted within the Israeli army and was captured when Hamas attacked southern Israel. Neutra’s mother and father, Ronen and Orna, led a public marketing campaign whereas he was regarded as alive for his or her son’s freedom. They spoke at protests within the U.S. and Israel, addressed the Republican National Convention this yr and stored up ties with the Biden administration of their campaign to safe their son’s launch.
In a press release asserting the dying, the army didn’t say the way it got here to the conclusion over Neutra’s destiny. He was one in all seven American Israelis nonetheless held in Gaza, 4 of whom at the moment are mentioned to be useless. Hamas launched a video of 1, Edan Alexander, over the weekend, indicating he was nonetheless alive.
In late summer time, Israel mentioned Hamas killed Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one other distinguished Israeli American hostage, together with 5 different captives, whose our bodies the Israeli army recovered.
The warfare in Gaza started when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 individuals, principally civilians, and taking round 250 hostage. Some 100 captives are nonetheless held inside Gaza, round two-thirds believed to be alive.
Iranian-supported Iraqi militias again Syrian authorities’s counteroffensive in opposition to insurgents
Iraqi militias supported by Iran deployed in Syria on Monday to again the federal government’s counteroffensive in opposition to a shock advance by insurgents who seized the biggest metropolis of Aleppo, a militia official and a warfare monitor mentioned.
Insurgents led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged assault on Aleppo final week and the countryside round Idlib earlier than shifting towards neighboring Hama province. Government troops constructed a fortified line of defense in northern Hama in an try to stall the insurgents’ momentum whereas jets on Sunday pounded rebel-held traces.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus Sunday and introduced Tehran’s full assist for his authorities. He later arrived for talks in Ankara, Turkey, one of many rebels’ primary backers.
Iran has been of Assad’s principal political and army supporters and deployed army advisers and forces after 2011 protests in opposition to Assad’s rule become an all-out warfare.
Tehran-backed Iraqi militias already in Syria mobilized and extra forces crossed the border to assist them, mentioned the Iraqi militia official, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of he was not licensed to talk to the media.
According to Britain-based opposition warfare monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 200 Iraqi militiamen on pickups crossed into Syria in a single day by means of the strategic Bou Kamal. They have been anticipated to deploy in Aleppo to assist the Syrian military’s pushback in opposition to the insurgents, the monitor mentioned.
US Navy destroys Houthi missiles and drones concentrating on American ships in Gulf of Aden
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — U.S. Navy destroyers shot down seven missiles and drones fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on the warships and three American service provider vessels they have been escorting by means of the Gulf of Aden. No harm or accidents have been reported.
U.S. Central Command mentioned late Sunday that the destroyers USS Stockdale and USS O’Kane shot down and destroyed three anti-ship ballistic missiles, three drones and one anti-ship cruise missile. The service provider ships weren’t recognized.
The Houthis claimed duty for the assault in a press release and mentioned that they had focused the U.S. destroyers and “three provide ships belonging to the American military within the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden.”
Houthi assaults for months have focused transport by means of a waterway the place $1 trillion in items move yearly over the Israel-Hamas warfare in Gaza and Israel’s floor offensive in Lebanon. A ceasefire was introduced in Lebanon final week.
The USS Stockdale was concerned in an analogous assault on Nov. 12.
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Read extra of the AP’s protection of the Middle East wars: https://apnews.com/hub/mideast-wars
