In the midst of ceasefire talks in Gaza, with more at stake than ever and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his way to Tel Aviv, the Israeli army has killed 10 people, all Syrian civilians, in a cement factory in the industrial zone of Wadi al Kfur, in southern Lebanon, according to health services. It is one of its deadliest air strikes in the low-intensity war it maintains with Hezbollah, generally dozens of kilometers from the border on both sides and in parallel to the invasion of Gaza, which does not experience a day of respite. In just 48 hours, it has registered its first case of polio in 25 years, due to the terrible humanitarian conditions caused; Israel has reduced the so-called “humanitarian zone” to 11% of the territory, has killed 15 members of the same family (nine of them children) in a warehouse that housed displaced people and has ordered new displacements, which have become almost a weekly routine.
The dead in Lebanon include the factory janitor, his wife and two children, as well as Syrian civil defence and ambulance workers, according to the state news agency. There are also five wounded, two of them in critical condition. An emergency services volunteer described the scene to the Lebanese newspaper. The East – The Day The site was described as “horrifying” and “screams came from the rubble” until early Saturday morning, when the removal of the stones and metal was almost complete. The Israeli army claimed in a statement that it was a “weapons storage facility” for Hezbollah.
The attack came as the White House tried to inspire optimism after two days of negotiations in Doha, the capital of Qatar, for a ceasefire in Gaza that would put a phased end to the 10-month invasion. The talks – which will continue next week in Cairo and have the US, Egypt and Qatar as mediators – are now more about calming the waters to defuse the announced reprisals against Israel by Iran and Hezbollah for a double assassination of leaders on their soil than about saving Palestinian lives. Those of the 98% who remain alive, as the dead have exceeded 40,000 this week, out of a population of 2.3 million.
The 10 deaths in Lebanon in the early hours of the morning have already had consequences at midday, with the launching of some 55 projectiles from the south of the country into Israeli territory, according to the army. They have not caused injuries, only fires in the area (one of the greenest in the country) captured on mobile phones. Another Hezbollah attack has caused injuries (two soldiers, one of them seriously), due to the impact of a drone with explosives or an anti-tank projectile near the border. The Upper Galilee Regional Council has closed public swimming pools and called on residents to stay close to protected areas and avoid unnecessary meetings and travel. The Israeli Air Force has also killed, with a drone, a commander of Radwan, the elite force of Hezbollah, when he was riding a motorcycle near the city of Tyre.
An immense tunnel
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It is a particularly delicate moment for an escalation on what Israel calls the “northern front,” precisely because the ceasefire negotiations in Gaza are — along with Western diplomatic pressure — the main dam holding back the response that Iran and its ally Hezbollah promised at the beginning of the month. The leader of the Lebanese group, Hassan Nasrallah, warned last week that the retaliation “will undoubtedly come” at the “right time” and will be “strong,” but will be preceded by a “wait that is part of the punishment.” The Lebanese militia has also just released a propaganda video that is more important than usual. It shows an immense tunnel that can even accommodate trucks to transport projectiles. It is the most explicit video so far about its underground network and is part of the pulse of threats it maintains with Hezbollah.
The turning point in the tension was a rocket launched from Lebanon almost a month ago. It killed 12 Druze minors playing football in the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory occupied by Israel. It was apparently a mistake by Hezbollah (which denies it) in targeting a nearby military base. Israel then shot almost to the top, killing the militia’s number two, Fuad Shukr, and in his fiefdom in Beirut, Dahiya. An added humiliation that showed its vulnerability in the face of Israeli intelligence services. The next day, Ismail Haniya, Hamas’ political leader, was assassinated in Tehran and everyone also pointed the finger at Mossad, the Israeli secret services abroad.
Threats of retaliation from Tehran and Beirut (and the consequent risk that the Gaza war would definitely become an open regional war with many actors) mobilized the mediators. They called the meeting in Doha to finalize a ceasefire agreement that they have been negotiating since December and, on the last day, this Friday, they presented a draft proposal that could be “implemented quickly.”
The US has been sending almost triumphalist messages for two days now. From President Joe Biden, repeating a phrase he had already said months ago (“We are closer than we have ever been, much closer than three days ago”) to a senior member of his team, who anonymously described the negotiations as “the most constructive in months”. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been the main obstacle to an agreement for months, has expressed his “hope” that the mediators – citing in particular his great ally, the US – will “pressure” Hamas to accept an agreement.
Hamas, however, insists that it is sticking to what was agreed before Netanyahu decided to add “impossible conditions” to the draft. It accuses Washington of giving it “cover and the green light” to continue the invasion, by talking about a “positive atmosphere” in the Qatari capital and supporting its position, instead of forcing it to comply with previous commitments, as the head of its National Relations Office, Hussam Badran, told Al Jazeera television.
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