ABC | 9 January 2024
Israel has killed a senior commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, according to security sources, in an attack on southern Lebanon observers say risks further inflaming the conflict initially sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
It came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued his tour of the Middle East, seeking to kickstart concerted peace efforts he says are necessary to prevent the violence from spreading to the wider region.
Pope Francis also weighed in on the conflict on Monday, comparing the violence in Israel and Gaza to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in that the world needs to realise striking civilian victims is a war crime that needs to be prevented.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization said it had had to cancel a mission to bring medical supplies to northern Gaza because it had failed to receive security guarantees from the Israeli military.
Israel kills Hezbollah commander in Lebanon strike
An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon on Monday killed a senior commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force, three security sources told the Reuters news agency.
The security sources identified him as Wissam al-Tawil, the deputy head of a unit within the Radwan force.
They said he and another Hezbollah fighter were killed when their car was hit in a strike on the Lebanese village of Majdal Selm.
“This is a very painful strike,” one of the security sources said. Another said: “Things will flare up now.”
Hezbollah has lost more than 130 fighters in Israeli shelling on southern Lebanon since cross-border bombardment began, in the aftermath of Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack on Israeli civilians.
Another 19 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in Syria.
Hezbollah’s secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel in two televised addresses last week not to launch a full-scale war on Lebanon.
“Whoever thinks of war with us — in one word, he will regret it,” Mr Nasrallah said.
Blinken seeks to head off wider war as violence continues
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks on Gaza in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Monday before heading on to Israel, seeking to kickstart concerted peace efforts he says are needed to avoid a wider conflagration.
Mr Blinken met Abu Dhabi’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in the United Arab Emirates and later on Monday held talks in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the oasis town of Al Ula.
He stressed to Sheikh Mohammed Washington’s commitment to “securing lasting regional peace that ensures Israel’s security and advances the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
Mr Blinken began his five-day Middle East diplomatic effort in Jordan and Qatar on Sunday, his fourth visit to the region since the October 7 attacks.
“This is a moment of profound tension for the region. This is a conflict that could easily metastasise, causing even more insecurity and suffering,” he said in Doha before heading to Abu Dhabi.
Hezbollah says it hit Israeli post with 62 rockets
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia fired dozens of rockets at northern Israel on Saturday as top US and EU diplomats visited the region.
Following earlier pressure from Washington, Israel has outlined a more focused approach to its war in Gaza ahead of the visit, but Palestinian health officials say it is still killing scores of people every day, reporting 249 dead in the past 24 hours.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the intensity of the offensive in Gaza signalled his country’s determination to end Hamas’s rule of the enclave and deter other potential adversaries, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, that are backed by Iran.
Iranian-backed militant groups have attacked Israeli forces on the border with Lebanon, US troops in Iraq and Syria, and commercial ships in the Red Sea.
“My basic view: We are fighting an axis, not a single enemy,” Mr Gallant told the Wall Street Journal.
“Iran is building up military power around Israel in order to use it.”
‘Indiscriminately striking’ civilians is a war crime, pope says
Pope Francis, tackling conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in his yearly address to diplomats, said on Monday that “indiscriminately striking” civilians is a war crime because it violates international humanitarian law.
Francis, 87, made his comments in a 45-minute address to Vatican-accredited envoys that is sometimes called his “state of the world” speech.
Expressing concern that the war between Israel and Hamas could spread to the wider Middle East, he called for a “ceasefire on every front, including Lebanon”.
He also condemned Hamas’s October 7 attack as an “atrocious” act of terrorism and extremism, and renewed a call for the immediate liberation of hostages still being held by Palestinian militants in Gaza.
In remarks linking the conflict with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Francis said modern warfare often does not distinguish between military and civilian objectives.
There is no conflict that does not end up in some way “indiscriminately striking” the civilian population, he said.
“The events in Ukraine and Gaza are clear proof of this. We must not forget that grave violations of international humanitarian law are war crimes, and that it is not sufficient to point them out, but also necessary to prevent them.
“There is a need for greater effort on the part of the international community to defend and implement humanitarian law, which seems to be the only way to ensure the defence of human dignity in situations of warfare.”
“Perhaps we need to realise more clearly that civilian victims are not ‘collateral damage’, but men and women, with names and surnames, who lose their lives,” he said elsewhere in the speech.
Israel’s military campaign in densely populated Gaza has so far killed 22,835 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials. Israel says 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s October 7 rampage, and around 240 were taken hostage.
Francis also said the recent resurgence of anti-Semitism since the start of the Gaza war was a “scourge” that must be eliminated from society.
WHO axes aid delivery to northern Gaza
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it had been compelled to cancel a mission to bring medical supplies to northern Gaza on Sunday because it had failed to receive security guarantees from the Israeli military.
It was the fourth time WHO has had to call off a planned mission to bring urgently needed medical supplies to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza since December 26, it said.
“It has now been 12 days since we were last able to reach northern Gaza,” the WHO office in the occupied Palestinian territories wrote on X.
“Heavy bombardment, movement restrictions, and interrupted communications are making it nearly impossible to deliver medical supplies regularly and safely across Gaza, particularly in the north.”
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said he did not have information on WHO’s assertion, referring questions to the Israel Defence Force (IDF).
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “shocked by the scale of health needs and devastation in northern Gaza”.
“Further delays will lead to more death and suffering for far too many people,” he wrote on X.
In separate comments, the International Rescue Committee aid group said its emergency medical team and the Medical Aid for Palestinians charity had been forced to withdraw and cease its activities at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza’s Middle Area due to increasing Israel military activity.