By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):
LEBANON
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened on Tuesday to attack Lebanese state targets if a cease-fire deal with Lebanon collapses, as Israel continues to violate ceasefire agreement with Lebanon.
“There will no longer be an exemption for the state of Lebanon,” Katz said during a visit to the border area with Lebanon.
Israeli forces have renewed attacks on southern Lebanon, killing at least 12 people and threatening a ceasefire with Hezbollah that went into effect last week.
In Lebanon, at least 3,961 people have been killed and 16,520 wounded in Israeli attacks since the war on Gaza began.
On Tuesday, at least 10 people were killed in overnight Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon despite a cease-fire deal between Tel Aviv and Beirut.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed that the army attacks targeted Hezbollah members and targets in southern Lebanon.
On Monday evening, Hezbollah said it fired rockets at the Israeli site of Ruwaisat Al-Alam in the Kfar Shuba hills, calling it a “preliminary defensive warning” against Israel’s continued violations of the cease-fire agreement.
“We will work with all our might to enforce all the understandings of the cease-fire agreement, and we show maximum response and zero tolerance,” Israeli Defense Minister Katz said.
“We reacted strongly and this is exactly what we will do, and we will not allow Hezbollah to return to the old methods they had,” he added.
There was no immediate comment from the Lebanese government on the Israeli threat.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Tuesday that diplomatic contacts are underway to halt Israeli violations of their cease-fire deal and ensure Israel’s withdrawal from border towns.
“In these contacts, we have emphasized the priority of stabilizing the situation to enable the displaced people to return to their towns and villages, and expand the army redeployment to the south,” Mikati added in a statement.
Early Tuesday, the Lebanese Defense Ministry said that it was looking for recruits to join the army.
“This move is part of the Cabinet decision to boost the army redeployment in the south,” Mikati said.
Implementation of the agreement is to be overseen by the US and France, but details on enforcement mechanisms remain unclear.
Lebanese army forces heavily redeployed in the southern city of Tyre on Tuesday, marking the start of its redeployment in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said the redeployment was meant to maintain security in the city and its surroundings.
“It signals the start of the army’s redeployment in the south, especially in the border villages,” it added.
GAZA
At least 36 more Palestinians were killed in indiscriminate Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, bringing the overall death toll since last year to 44,502, the Health Ministry in the enclave said on Tuesday.
A ministry statement added that some 105,454 others have been injured in the ongoing assault.
“Israeli forces killed 36 people and injured 96 others in two massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads, with rescuers unable to reach them,” it added.
An Israeli airstrike on Gaza City Tuesday evening killed five Palestinians and injured others, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that an Israeli fighter jet targeted a house belonging to the al-Khor family in the Sabra neighbourhood, south of the city, killing five civilians and injuring others.
He added that Israeli aircraft also pounded another house near Al-Sousi Mosque in Beach Camp, west of the city, resulting in a number of fatalities and casualties.
At least ten civilians were killed in Israeli airstrikes that targeted a school and a sports club housing displaced persons in Gaza City.
Local sources reported that Israel warplanes bombed the al-Falah school, which houses displaced persons in the Al-Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, resulting in the killing of six civilians and the injury of others.
They added that a drone bombed the al-Jazeera sports club, which shelters displaced persons in the center of Gaza City, resulting in the killing of two civilians.
Meanwhile, two women were killed, and others were injured in the Israel’s bombing of a gathering of citizens in the Al-Zeitoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.
Three civilians were also killed and others were injured in an Israeli drone shelling that targeted a group of Palestinians north of Rafah Governorate in the southern Strip.
Four civilians were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli targeting civilians in Gaza City and Jabalia town to the north of the city.
According to local sources, the Israeli army targeted civilians on Al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City, leading to the killing of a civilian and the wounding of several others.
An Israeli drone bombed the vicinity of a school near Al-Ghafri Junction, north of Gaza City, resulting in the killing of a citizen and the injury of others.
The Israeli forces have escalated their attacks on hospitals in the Gaza Strip, particularly targeting Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda Hospitals in the north. Israeli artillery shelled the Al-Awda hospital’s fifth floor, while drones dropped explosive bombs in its courtyards
Witnesses reported to Anadolu that an Israeli drone targeted a group of people in Beit Lahia town, northern Gaza, resulting in the deaths of three Palestinians and the injuries of several others.
The witnesses added that the Palestinians were on their way home to see the destruction following the previous Israeli airstrikes.
Sounds of explosions were also heard as Israeli forces continued to destroy and detonate more Palestinian homes in northern Gaza, the witnesses also said.
In Gaza City, a medical source told Anadolu that a Palestinian woman died from wounds she sustained in a previous Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced people in the western part of the city.
Separately, a Palestinian was killed and two others were injured in an Israeli airstrike on the town of Al-Nasr in northeastern Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, according to a medical source.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army blew up several buildings in the al-Jneinah neighborhood of the eastern Rafah city, as well as targeted some other areas with artillery shells.
The Israeli army also fired artillery shells in central Gaza, particularly in the northwestern areas of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Medics reported that eight people were killed in a series of overnight strikes in Beit Lahiya, while four others were killed in Gaza City. A further two people were killed in attacks in Jabalia, the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps in the northern part of the Strip.
Later, the Israeli army ordered residents in the districts of Khan Younis to flee, prompting a westward exodus in the early morning hours.
“For your own safety, you must evacuate the area immediately and move to the humanitarian zone,” the army said a statement on X, citing rocket launches by Palestinian groups.
The Palestinian Civil Defence said its operations in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoon have been halted for nearly four weeks due to Israeli attacks on their teams and fuel shortages.
On Tuesday, it said 88 of its members had been killed, 304 wounded, and 21 detained by Israel since the war started, while 13 of 27 vehicles in the central and southern Gaza Strip were out of operation due to fuel shortages.
WEST BANK
Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the West Bank city of Tubas on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said.
Witnesses said the deaths came from a strike targeting a car near the town of Aqaba in the northern West Bank.
Another Palestinian was injured in the attack.
The Israeli army confirmed the strike, saying it had targeted what it called an “armed cell” near Aqaba.
Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, years of regular Israeli military raids in the West Bank have escalated. Palestinians have also been violently attacked by illegal Israeli settlers.
At least 803 Palestinians have since been killed and over 6,450 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.
Israeli army detained at least 18 Palestinians in military raids in the occupied West Bank, according to prisoners’ affairs groups on Tuesday.
Children were among the detainees in the raids that targeted several towns in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Salfit, Nablus and Ramallah, the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement.
“The raids were marked by abuse, threats against detainees and their families, and acts of vandalism and destruction on citizens’ homes,” it added.
The new arrests brought the number of Palestinians detained by the Israeli army in the West Bank since October last year to over 11,900, including those who were released after being arrested, according to Palestinian figures.
The figure does not include those arrested from the Gaza Strip whose numbers are estimated to be in the thousands.
ISRAELI VIOLENCE ON PALESTINIANS
Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron are victims of brutal Israeli violence inflicted on them as they go about their daily affairs, an Israeli rights group said on Tuesday.
In a report, B’Tselem gathered testimonies of Palestinian residents, who were attacked by Israeli soldiers in the city in the period between May and August this year.
The victims were detained while going about their daily affairs and faced acts of violence, abuse and humiliation by soldiers aimed at men, women, teenagers, and children.
In many cases, the soldiers recorded the abuse and bragged about it openly, to further the humiliation of Palestinians or receive praise from their fellow soldiers and social circles.
In one case, an Israeli soldier pointed his finger at Hisham Abu Is’ifan, 54, a father of six, as he was on his way to work in central Hebron.
The Palestinian man tried to explain to the soldier that he was going to work at the Education Ministry, but the soldier kept yelling at him.
“He came over and pushed me, and then he ordered me to hand over my ID card and phone. Before I could give him the phone, he grabbed me by the back of the neck and shoved me to the ground,” he recalled.
“My back hurt a lot and I shouted. […] When I kept shouting in pain, the soldier sat on me and pressed both his knees hard into my chest, until felt I couldn’t breathe from the pain.”
Muhammad ‘Aref Jaber, 21, was also attacked by Israeli soldiers as he was hanging out with his friends in the city.
“We were seven guys there. We were chatting and drinking coffee to pass the time, because once the curfew is on, we can’t leave the neighborhood or do anything else,” he recalled.
As they were chatting, an Israeli soldier appeared in the area and pointed his gun at them.
“Then he ordered my friend Muhammad Abu Ramileh and me to get up and go over to him. We both got up immediately and walked over to him, and he ordered us to hold hands and walk ahead of him. He took us to the military observation point next to the Jaber checkpoint, walking behind us and pointing his gun at us the whole way”.
Rape
Muhammad Natsheh, 22, was one of the victims, who was threatened with rape by Israeli soldiers.
“The soldiers cursed me with humiliating swear words, and some of them stepped on my legs. It hurt a lot and I couldn’t say anything,” he said.
“One of them got an office chair and put it on my legs. He sat on it from time to time, which hurt a lot. They kept swearing at me the whole time, and one of them spat at me, too. It went on like that for about an hour, and then one of the soldiers said to me in Arabic: ‘We’ll rape you.’
“One of them grabbed my head, and another soldier tried to open my mouth and shove a rubber object in it. I made a huge effort not to open my mouth. I heard him say in Hebrew: ‘Film him, film him’.”
Then, an Israeli soldier who speaks Arabic came in and ordered the victim to get up.
“He grabbed me by the neck, lifted me up and made me stand facing the wall, and then he started pushing my head left and right violently with his hands, saying: ‘If I see you in this place again, I’ll rape you and kill you. I’ll do the same to anyone else I see here’.”
Vendetta
B’Tselem said the scope of violence and abuse against Palestinians can’t be explained only “as a personal vendetta by soldiers or a flaw in the system.”
“It shows that this violence is the outcome of a systematic, longstanding policy of oppression, expulsion and dispossession that is at the very core of the Israeli apartheid regime,” it said.
“This reality leaves Palestinians with two options: uproot themselves from their homes, land and communities, or live in constant fear of violence.”
Tension has escalated across the occupied West Bank over Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 44,400 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 105,000 others.
Nearly 800 Palestinians have since been killed and over 6,450 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.
YEMEN
Yemen’s Houthi [Ansarallah] group claimed Tuesday to have carried out three drone attacks against targets inside Israel in the last 48 hours.
Military spokesman Yahya Saree said several drones were fired at two targets in northern Israel, in cooperation with the Islamic Resistance. in Iraq, an Iran-backed militia group.
Another drone strike targeted a “vital target” in the southern city of Eilat, he said, adding that the attacks successfully hit their targets.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the Houthi claim.
In solidarity with the Gaza Strip, the Houthis have targeted Israeli sites, cargo ships, or those associated with Tel Aviv with missiles and drones, expressing their determination to continue operations until the end of the onslaught on the enclave.
A coalition led by the US has been conducting airstrikes since the beginning of 2024 that it said are targeting Houthi locations in parts of Yemen in response to attacks by the group on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The counterattacks have been occasionally met with retaliation from the group.
[Photo: Ritaj Mohammed Juha, who lost all her family members in the Israeli army attack on the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, is in Gaza City, Gaza on November 30, 2024. Juha trying to hold on to life on her own. While thousands of Palestinians have lost their lives in the Israeli attacks on Gaza, many others have lost limbs as a result of the attacks. Ritaj, who also lost a leg in the same attack, is waiting for a prosthetic leg by taking refuge at the Hurriyet School in the Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Photojournalist: Haneen Salem/AA]
