Lebanese mediator killed in fighting near Syrian border

Agencies

July 23, 2017

Lebanon, Jul 23: A Lebanese mediator was killed on Saturday in a second day of fighting between the powerful Hezbollah group and fighters near the border with Syria, the official news agency ANI said.

"Ahmad al-Fliti, who was mediating between fighters and Hezbollah...was wounded when his car was hit by shelling of unknown origin in Juruod Arsal," ANI said.

"He later succumbed to his wounds."

Lebanon's army said Fliti, who was the former deputy mayor of Arsal, was killed in shelling by "the terrorist organisation of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham", formerly known as the Nusra Front.

An escort of his was also injured in the attack, the army added.

Hezbollah on Friday said its fighters had begun an operation against fighters on both sides of the country's border with Syria.

On Saturday, Hezbollah announced several advances in the mountainous border area of Juruod Arsal.

Funerals were held on Saturday for 11 Hezbollah fighters killed in the clashes, nine in Beirut and two in Baalbek.

Lebanon's army has not officially announced its participation in the offensive, but said on Friday it had targeted "terrorists" in the area.

According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, an estimated 45,000 Syrian refugees live in informal camps in Juroud Arsal after having fled the six-year war in their home country.

But security in the area has also long been a concern, with Lebanese forces battling rebels in the area in 2014.

Hezbollah on Friday also announced fighting on the other side of the border in Syria's Qalamoun, where the Lebanese Shia group has fought for years alongside President Bashar al-Assad's army against rebels.

Syria's air force on Saturday carried out air strikes near the border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

More than a million refugees have flooded into Lebanon since the Syria conflict erupted with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Their presence has been largely tolerated despite testing the limited resources and ageing infrastructure of a country of just four million.

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Israel orders 100,000 Palestinians to evacuate eastern Rafah ahead of ground invasion

News Network

May 6,2024

The Israeli regime is forcibly evacuating Palestinians from the eastern part of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip amid the prospect of its widely-discouraged ground invasion.

“The estimate is around 100,000 people,” an Israeli military spokesman told journalists on Monday when asked how many people were being evacuated.

International organizations, including the United Nations, have repeatedly warned the regime against invading the city, citing its hosting around 1.5 million Palestinian refugees.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a ground assault on Rafah would “put the final nail in the coffin” for humanitarian aid operations in the Gaza Strip.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also said, “Any ground operation would mean more suffering and death,” with an official saying “It could be a slaughter of civilians.”

Multiple aid agencies, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, have likewise warned against a Rafah offensive.

The NRC said such an invasion “would profoundly exacerbate the already catastrophic levels of need and the humanitarian emergency for millions of civilians with nowhere left to go.”

The official alleged Hamas had killed three Israeli forces on Sunday, attacking them from Rafah.

The evacuation order came a sat least 22 people lost their lives in the regime’s airstrikes killed in Rafah earlier on Monday.

Rafah’s evacuation “is part of our plans to dismantle Hamas,” the Israeli spokesman added, referring to the Palestinian resistance movement that has been defending Gaza in the face of the war.

The Palestinians have fled there from the ravages of a war that the regime began waging against Gaza on October 7, following a retaliatory operation by the coastal sliver’s resistance groups.

At least 34,683 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 78,018 others injured so far during the brutal military onslaught.

On Friday, Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, said Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on carrying out a ground invasion of Rafah was a key stumbling block in negotiations aimed at a truce agreement.

The Israeli premier has said the regime would go ahead with invading the city “with or without” a truce.

Hamas has, however, asserted that the regime has failed to defeat the resistance during the war.

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