Things are not calming down in southern Lebanon. Since the start of the war on October 7 between Israel and Hamas, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement. Since the start of cross-border violence on October 8, at least 312 people, most of them Hezbollah fighters and 53 civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.
Information to remember
⇒ In Lebanon, five dead, including three members of Hezbollah in a strike
⇒ 28 Houthi drones shot down in the Red Sea
⇒ Humanitarian aid ship ready to leave Cyprus for Gaza
Biden says Netanyahu is doing ‘more harm than good to Israel’
Joe Biden estimated on Saturday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “doing more harm than good to Israel” by his conduct of the war in Gaza, also making ambiguous remarks on the question of a “red line” that would set Americans. “He has the right to defend Israel, the right to continue to attack Hamas. But he must pay more attention to the innocent lives lost because of the actions taken,” demanded the American president in an interview with the MSNBC channel. , adding: “In my opinion, he is doing more harm than good to Israel.”
Asked about an offensive in Rafah, in the south of the enclave where a majority of Gazans are refugees, Joe Biden indicated that for him it was a “red line”. “I will never abandon Israel. Defending Israel remains of extreme importance. There is no red line where I want to completely stop arms deliveries” and the Israelis would then no longer be “protected by the Dome of iron”. And added: “There are red lines… It is not possible that 30,000 more Palestinians die.”
In Lebanon: five dead, including three members of Hezbollah in a strike
Five people, including three Hezbollah fighters and a woman, were killed Saturday by an Israeli strike on their home in southern Lebanon, and nine others were injured, the official Ani agency said. “The attack on a house in the town of Kherbet Selm killed a family of four”, a couple and their two children, as well as a fifth person, “and injured more than nine others”, indicated the Ani agency. Hezbollah later announced that the father and his two children were “martyred” party fighters.
Since the start of cross-border violence on October 8, at least 312 people, most of them Hezbollah fighters and 53 civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.
28 Houthi drones shot down in Red Sea
U.S. and allied forces shot down a total of 28 drones fired by Yemen’s Houthis in a “large-scale” attack in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the U.S. Middle East Command said Saturday (Centcom). The American army initially reported 15 devices destroyed, and then revised the number upwards. Centcom specified that these 28 drones had been shot down between 4 and 8 a.m. (local time), and assured that no ship, commercial or military, had suffered damage. The Houthis claimed responsibility for a large-scale attack, claiming to have fired missiles at an “American” commercial ship and launched drones at American warships.
It was one of the largest attacks by Yemeni rebels since they began a campaign of drone and missile strikes in November against ships transiting the Red Sea, a key artery for global trade.
A ship ready to leave Cyprus for Gaza
Two NGOs are soon “ready” to send a boat from Cyprus to Gaza loaded with 200 tonnes of food, the first cargo destined for this war-devastated territory via a maritime corridor that the European Commission hopes to see open this weekend . “Everything will be ready today to be able to leave,” Laura Lanuza, spokesperson for the Spanish NGO Open Arms, a partner in this project of the American NGO of the Spanish-American chef José, told AFP. Andrés, World Central Kitchen (WCK). “Everything will depend on the arrival of authorizations and permits, we do not know if it will be today or tomorrow,” she added.
She indicated that the Israeli authorities – who authorized the principle of this operation like the Cypriot authorities – were inspecting the cargo of “200 tonnes of food, rice, flour, cans of tuna”, in the port of Larnaca .
UNRWA chief ‘cautiously optimistic’ about resumption of international support
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the resumption of international financial support for the organization he heads, in an interview on Swiss television on Saturday RTS.
In recent weeks, around fifteen countries have suspended their aid to UNRWA, after accusations at the end of January from the Israeli authorities that some of its employees could have been involved in the bloody Hamas attack on October 7. Unrwa immediately separated itself from the accused employees and an internal investigation was launched. Canada and Sweden announced on Friday and Saturday the resumption of their funding to UNRWA, which they had suspended. Spain announced on Thursday additional aid of 20 million euros, following an initial aid of 3.5 million euros decided last week.
The Israeli government on Saturday accused Canada and Sweden of making a “serious mistake” by resuming their aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which Israel accuses of employing “more than 450 terrorists ” in Gaza.