Local media reported on Thursday evening that six Israeli shells fell near a site of the international UNIFIL forces on the outskirts of the town of Marwahin in the western sector, and another on the outskirts of the town of Ramia.
This came amid intense diplomatic movement to prevent the expansion of the war, Lebanese parliamentary sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.
They added that the foreign envoys “expressed their preference for calm” and, under pressure, “want to distance the Lebanese front from the repercussions of the war in Gaza and stability as a priority for all. “
These fears stem from the profound adjustments that have occurred recently, beyond Hezbollah’s involvement in the war over Gaza, which are reflected in adjustments to the mandate of foreign peacekeeping forces operating in the South (UNIFIL), specifically in two recent amendments that allow foreign forces to move around while being escorted by the Lebanese army.
– Implementation of UNSCR 1701
Washington has expressed fears about the expansion of the war. The U. S. Embassy The U. S. Ambassador to Beirut released a statement through the U. S. ambassador to Beirut. before the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, in X, in which she said: “We remain concerned about the possibility of further spread of this war. “In particular, the United States does not need to see a confrontation in Lebanon, where an escalation would have serious consequences for regional peace and security, as well as for the well-being of the Lebanese people. Restoring calm along the Israeli-Lebanese border is of paramount importance, and the full implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 is a key component of that effort. UNIFIL plays an important role along the Blue Line, and we expect all components to ensure the protection of peacekeepers.
The political forces opposed to Hezbollah, together with the Lebanese Forces, call for the implementation of Resolution 1701, the withdrawal of the border domain and the deployment of the Lebanese army along UNIFIL.
The Lebanese say Lebanon is committed to implementing Resolution 1701, but accuse Israel of consistently violating its terms since its adoption.
Meanwhile, fears of further army action have intensified in the south, when violent explosions were heard along the border on Thursday.
The National News Agency (NNA) reported loud noises at the southern border.
The Israeli military said it had “managed to intercept a suspicious air target crossing Israeli territory from Lebanon,” while neither side claimed responsibility for the attacks from the country.
A spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told Reuters that a release detected from Lebanon into Israel was followed by a retaliatory reaction by Israel.
Palestinian human rights teams refused to meet with International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan on Saturday, accusing him of prioritizing Israeli accusations of Palestinian rights abuses over long-standing Palestinian ones.
Khan traveled to Israel and the occupied West Bank at the request of an organization representing the families of the victims of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen, but he was also scheduled to meet with Palestinian officials in Ramallah.
However Palestinian activists said they would refuse to see him because of their objections to what they saw as unequal treatment of Israeli and Palestinian cases.
“As Palestinian human rights organizations, we should not meet with him,” said Ammar Al-Dwaik, director general of the Independent Human Rights Commission (IACHR).
“I think the way this visit has been handled shows that Mr. Khan is not handling his work in an independent and professional manner,” he said.
Allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses have been filed since Oct. 7, when Hamas gunmen overran several Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip, killing more than 1,200 Israelis and taking about 240 hostages, according to Israeli counts.
In response, Israel announced weeks of airstrikes on Gaza as an invasion of tanks and ground troops, killing more than 15,000 Gazans, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Khan in Israel following an invitation from the families of the Israeli hostages. He will meet with lawyers from the family organization and with members of the families themselves.
On Saturday, he also met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Abbas had urged Karim to investigate Israeli operations in Gaza as well as the occupied West Bank.
An Israeli airstrike on the town of Al-Faluja, 30 kilometers northeast of Gaza City, killed prominent Palestinian scientist Sufyan Tayeh and his family, the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education said on Saturday.
Tayeh, president of the Islamic University of Gaza, a leading researcher in implemented physics and mathematics.
Egypt is engaged in efforts to restore calm between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
“Cairo is lately trying to restore calm, truce and pave the way for the resumption of the peace process,” said an Egyptian security source.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Friday reviewed his country’s efforts to calm the situation and extend the humanitarian truce ahead of a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as Egyptian efforts to take in wounded Palestinians and evacuate foreigners.
During his meeting with world leaders on the sidelines of the 28th Session of Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Dubai, he underlined Egypt’s efforts to restore calm.
He pressed the need to provide cover for civilians, while striving to find the right political path to achieve a just and comprehensive solution to the Palestinian issue.
Sisi hosted several European officials in Cairo last week to discuss Gaza.
He met with the Hungarian President, Katalin Novák, and the Foreign Ministers of Slovakia and Portugal, as well as the Prime Ministers of Spain and Belgium.
According to official statements, the talks underscore the importance of achieving a permanent ceasefire and proposing political responses to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
During a meeting between Sisi and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the COP28 conference in Dubai, the leaders agreed on the vital importance of reaching urgent solutions to the ongoing crisis and taking action to ensure the access of humanitarian assistance.
They want to put in place a comprehensive political procedure aimed at achieving a just settlement of the conflict based on the two-State solution and in accordance with applicable foreign resolutions.
Sisi met with the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and they agreed on the seriousness of the existing scenario in the Gaza Strip, especially in light of the incalculable consequences of the confrontation on the stability of the region.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian security source said on Friday that “Egypt made urgent contacts with both the Israeli and Palestinian sides as soon as the Israeli attacks renewed on Gaza.”
According to German news firm dpa, the source said Egypt and Qatar coordinated after Israel resumed its attacks.
The source noted that the two countries have initiated contacts with all parties involved in implementing, monitoring and mediating the truce, basically the United States, which has joined Egypt and Qatar in helping negotiate the now-expired ceasefire.
The source confirmed that the talks were part of intensive negotiations held on Thursday night to extend the humanitarian ceasefire that lasted around seven days.
Cairo fears that Israel will continue its efforts to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, pushing them through Egyptian territory and other neighboring countries.
The Israel Hayom newspaper published an article this week according to which Israel has submitted a new initiative to the U. S. Congress calling for U. S. aid to Arab countries to be conditional on their willingness to accept refugees from Gaza.
The Israeli proposal, which reportedly has support from senior officials in Republican and Democratic parties, calls on the US to condition foreign aid to Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and Türkiye for accepting a certain number of refugees.
He said those countries would settle for a “voluntary and unforced” migration of Palestinians to their territories.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has already categorically rejected a relocation of Palestinians to his country.
He has expressed his country’s “rejection and denouncement of policies of displacement or attempts to eradicate the Palestinian cause at the expense of neighboring countries.”
Earlier this week, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said forced displacement remained a goal for Israel, “as it seeks to expel Palestinians from their lands making life in the Gaza Strip. “
At the beginning of the war in Gaza, the U. S. leadership announced that it would oppose the forced displacement of Gazans from the enclave.
On Friday, Israel Hayom said the Israeli proposal had been presented to key House and Senate figures from both parties. He says Rep. Joe Wilson was open, describing the proposal as “the only ethical solution to ensure that Egypt opens its borders and allows refugees to flee Hamas and Israeli control. “
Wilson said the U. S. government provides Egypt with about $1. 3 billion in foreign aid, and that budget can be allocated to Gaza refugees who will be allowed into Egypt.
He noted that Egypt should not shoulder the entire burden, but other regional countries should chip in.
“Iraq and Yemen get about $1 billion in U. S. foreign aid, and Turkey gets more than $150 million,” he said, adding that those countries get enough foreign aid and have a population giant enough to take in refugees. less than 1% of its population.
Former Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy described the proposal as a “political hallucination,” noting that Israelis have for years adopted a strategy aimed at decreasing the Palestinian populations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Fahmy told Asharq Al-Awsat that even if Washington adopts such a proposal, Egypt firmly rejects any measures aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause, the forced displacement of Gazans.
Last month, Cairo publicly condemned Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who said the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians is the “right humanitarian solution” for Gaza.
Smotrich comments on an op-ed written by Danny Danon and Ram Ben-Barak published last month in the Wall Street Journal, calling on “countries around the world to settle for a limited number of families from Gaza who have expressed a preference for relocating. “
On Friday, Rakha Ahmed Hassan, a member of Egypt’s foreign affairs committee and a former ambassador to Germany, called the new proposal through Israel Hayom “unrealistic. “
Hassan told Asharq Al-Awsat that the displacement of Palestinians may not be comparable to that of Syrian refugees through Egypt and other countries. “The Syrian crisis is transitory and displaced Syrians will return home. “
However, he added, expelling Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries means the total eradication of the Palestinian cause and the end of “any hope of an independent state. “
Egypt’s presidential election began on Friday with expatriate voters casting their ballots in a three-day process.
Elections in Egypt will be held on December 10 to 12. The results will be announced on December 18.
Three candidates are running against incumbent President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is expected to win a third term, lasting six years.
Expats cast their votes at 137 Egyptian embassies and consulates in 121 countries.
Authorities have not disclosed the number of expats eligible to vote, but Minister of Immigration and Egyptian Expatriates Affairs Suha al-Gendy said earlier this week that she was confident of a heavy turnout.
Egypt has around 14 million expats.
A 2021 report by Egypt’s Central Agency for Statistics and Public Mobilization found that most expats in Arab countries followed through North America.
The candidates competing against Sisi are head of the opposition Social Democratic Party Farid Zahran, head of the liberal Wafd Party Abdel-Sanad Yamama and head of the liberal People’s Republican Party Hazem Omar.
Egypt’s Middle East News Agency reported a large turnout on the first day of voting in the Arabian Gulf region.
Egypt’s grand mufti, Shawki Allam, called on Egyptians to vote in the elections, saying it was a national duty.
The last presidential election was held in 2018 with a turnout of 24. 3 million out of 59. 1 eligible voters.
The United Nations Security Council voted Friday to finalize its political blueprint of a few hundred people committed to ending Sudan’s civil war.
Russia abstained in the unanimous vote to finalize UNITAMS, the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan. The U. S. and U. K. ambassadors expressed dismay at the resolution to withdraw from Sudan, but said the move was inevitable, given the Sudanese government’s preference for ending the mission. presence.
While the United States voted in favor of this solution to allow an orderly withdrawal, Deputy US Ambassador Robert Wood said: “We are very concerned that a reduced foreign presence in Sudan would only serve to embolden the perpetrators of atrocities. ” .
A paramilitary organization known as the Rapid Support Forces has been at war with the Sudanese army since mid-April, when months of tension escalated into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and urban areas.
The fighting destroyed the country and forced more than 6 million people to flee their homes, either to safer spaces within Sudan or to neighboring countries.
United Nations officials say that the UN will keep trying to help Sudanese people with the continuing presence of various humanitarian agencies.
“What is clear and what should be clear to everyone is that the United Nations is not leaving Sudan,” UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters on Thursday.
But the end of UNITAMS removes a tool, albeit a flawed one, for trying to bring a measure of stability to Sudan, said Cameron Hudson, a former US official specializing in Africa and now a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“What we’re living through lately is potentially a protracted era where there won’t be a general U. N. presence in the country,” Hudson said Friday.