Deadly Israeli strikes in Gaza and Lebanon, ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu

Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed dozens Thursday, the day when The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister, his former defense minister and the head of the Hamas army.

Benjamin Netanyahu, former minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the conflict triggered in Gaza by Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023.

Mr. Netanyahu denounced an “anti-Semitic” decision by the ICC, considering himself the victim of a new “Dreyfus trial” named after the French captain of Jewish faith convicted of espionage in the late 19th century before being exonerated and rehabilitated.

The Palestinian Islamist movement welcomed the indictment of Israeli leaders as an “important step towards justice”, without mentioning the arrest warrant announced simultaneously by the ICC against its military leader.

Israel also launched massive strikes on September 23 in Lebanon against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which had opened a “support front” for Hamas after October 7, by firing rockets into Israeli territory.

Israeli raids on the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold in the east of the country, killed 22 people, the Lebanese Health Ministry announced on Thursday, at a time when the special envoy of the American president, Amos Hochstein, is in Israel, after Beirut, to try to obtain a truce between the belligerents.

On another front, the Israeli army also carries out regular strikes in Syria against pro-Iranian groups, the latest of which, on Wednesday, in Palmyra, left 79 dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. They are “probably the deadliest” against Syria to date, the UN has worried.

– “Tattered bodies” –

In the Gaza Strip, the Civil Defense announced on Thursday the death of 22 people killed during the night by an Israeli strike in Gaza City (north).

Another night raid in the area of ​​Beit Lahia and Jabalia (north) left dozens dead or missing, according to medical sources.

“Bodies are arriving at the hospital in tatters,” Hossam Abou Safiyeh, director of the Kamal Adwan establishment, who was close to the strike, told AFP.

UN: Vetoes on Resolutions on Palestinian Territories © AFP – Corin FAIFE, Jean-Michel CORNU

The Hamas attack that triggered the war in the Palestinian territory resulted in the death of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, including hostages killed or killed in captivity.

That day, 251 people were kidnapped, 97 of whom remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.

The air and then ground offensive launched in retaliation by Israel has left at least 44,056 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.

Landscape of destruction in Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza Strip, targeted in the night by new Israeli strikes, October 21, 2024 © AFP – –

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The United States, an ally of Israel, blocked a draft UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire on Wednesday, despite international calls for an end to the conflict in the besieged and devastated territory, which is in the grip of a humanitarian disaster.

Washington then “categorically rejected” the ICC decision.

Displaced Palestinians gather around the remains of a tent destroyed by a strike, west of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, on November 21, 2024 © AFP – BASHAR TALEB

Yoav Gallant saw it as “a dangerous precedent” that “encourages terrorism”, with Israeli President Isaac Herzog denouncing it as a “black day for justice” and “humanity”.

The Palestinian Authority, for its part, welcomed a “sign of hope”.

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, called for the ICC warrants – which theoretically require the 124 member states of the court to arrest those they target – to be “respected and applied”.

The indictment of Mohammed Deif “means that the voices of the victims are being heard,” said a representative of the families of victims of the Hamas attack. Israel announced this summer that it had killed this military leader, considered one of its masterminds of October 7, but Hamas has not confirmed his death.

– “Total end to the aggression” –

Before going to Israel to meet Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday, the American envoy Amos Hochstein had judged Tuesday in Beirut that a solution was “within reach” for a ceasefire in Lebanon.

The 13-point American plan presented last week provides for a 60-day truce and the deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon, from which Israel says it wants to push Hezbollah away to allow the return of some 60,000 residents of the north of the country displaced by the movement's gunfire.

In Lebanon, tens of thousands of residents have also been displaced.

The US President's special envoy, Amos Hochstein, speaks to journalists in Beirut, November 20, 2024 © AFP – –

Israel “cannot impose its conditions on us,” Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Wednesday, while Israel says it will continue its military operations against the Shiite militia to prevent its attacks, even in the event of a truce.

In addition to the Bekaa Valley, the Israeli army also struck the southern suburbs of Beirut, another Hezbollah stronghold, again on Thursday after calls to evacuate.

The Lebanese movement claimed responsibility for missile strikes on an air base near Ashdod, its first attack in southern Israel, and seven attacks against Israeli soldiers in the Khiam sector, a southern Lebanese town near the Israeli border.

Smoke rises from the site of a strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on November 21, 2024 © AFP – IBRAHIM AMRO

Violence between Israel and Hezbollah has left at least 3,558 dead in Lebanon since October 2023, most since the launch of the Israeli bombing campaign, followed on September 30 by ground incursions in the south of the country. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians were killed in 13 months.

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