Israel's Military Lawyers Raise Concerns About New Plan to Move Hundreds of Thousands of Gazans
Now, the Israeli military's legal branch and some of the country's leading lawyers are raising concerns that the plan could expose Israel to accusations of forced displacement and internment of civilians, both illegal under international law.
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Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pro-Palestinian protester takes issue with Israeli team at Tour de France
TOULOUSE, France (AP) — A man protesting the participation of an Israel-based team in the Tour de France ran onto the course as the leaders raced for the finish line on Wednesday. Norwegian rider Jonas Abrahamsen won the 11th stage in a photo finish just ahead of Swiss rider Mauro Schmid, but their final sprint was accompanied by a man running alongside who wore a T-shirt saying, 'Israel out of the Tour,' and who waved a keffiyeh, the black-and-white checkered headscarf that has become a potent symbol of the Palestinian cause. A security guard ran out to apprehend the man. The Israel-Premier Tech team is racing at this year's Tour with eight team members from other countries. The team acquired the right to enter the Tour de France in 2020 when Israel Start-Up National took over Katusha's WorldTour license and has since claimed three stage victories, though none yet in this year's race. Team members previously faced protests because of the team's association with Israel, which has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians in 21 months of war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The war was sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel and Hamas are considering a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal that could pause the war. ___ AP sports:

USA Today
25 minutes ago
- USA Today
Israel launches heavy airstrikes in Damascus, vowing to protect Druze
DAMASCUS/JERUSALEM, July 16 (Reuters) - Israel launched powerful airstrikes in Damascus on Wednesday, blowing up part of the defence ministry and hitting near the presidential palace as it vowed to destroy government forces attacking Druze in southern Syria and demanded they withdraw. The attacks marked a significant Israeli escalation against the Islamist-led administration of interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and came despite his warming ties with the United States and his administration's evolving security contacts with Israel. Describing Syria's new rulers as barely disguised jihadists, Israel has said it won't let them move forces into southern Syria and vowed to shield the area's Druze community from attack, encouraged by calls from Israel's own Druze minority. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the situation as "complicated" but said it looked like a "misunderstanding". He said he thought progress towards de-escalation would be made within hours. Scores of people have been killed this week in violence in and around the predominantly Druze city of Sweida, pitting fighters from the Druze minority against government security forces and members of Bedouin tribes. Reuters reporters heard warplanes swoop low over the capital and unleash a series of massive strikes mid-afternoon. Columns of smoke rose from the area near the defence ministry. A section of the building was destroyed, the ground strewn with rubble. A Syrian medical source said the strikes on the defence ministry killed five members of the security forces. An Israeli military official said the Israeli military struck the entrance to the military headquarters in Damascus and a military target near the presidential palace. The Israeli official said Syrian forces were not acting to prevent attacks on Druze and were part of the problem. Defence Minister Israel Katz said the Israeli military would "continue to operate vigorously in Sweida to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze until they withdraw completely". Sharaa is facing major challenges to stitch Syria back together in the face of deep misgivings from groups that fear Islamist rule - mistrust exacerbated by mass killings of members of the Alawite minority in March. Syrian government troops were dispatched to the Sweida region on Monday to quell fighting between Druze fighters and Bedouin armed men but ended up clashing with the Druze militias. Late on Wednesday, the Syrian interior ministry and a Druze leader, Sheikh Yousef Jarbou, said a ceasefire had been reached. However, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari, another Druze leader, said fighting should continue until Sweida is "entirely liberated". A ceasefire that was announced on Tuesday collapsed. Sweida residents said they were holed up indoors. "We are surrounded and we hear the fighters screaming ... we're so scared," said a resident of Sweida who was reached by phone. The crack of gunfire interspersed by booms could be heard in the background. "We're trying to keep the children quiet so that no one can hear us," the man added, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals. The Syrian Network for Human Rights said 169 people had been killed in this week's violence. Security sources put the toll at 300. Reuters could not independently verify the tolls. Minority Druze are followers of a religion that is an offshoot of Islam and are spread between Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Following calls in Israel to help Druze in Syria, scores of Israeli Druze broke through the border fence on Wednesday, linking up with Druze on the Syrian side, a Reuters witness said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli military was working to save the Druze and urged Israeli Druze citizens not to cross the border. The Israeli military said it was working to safely return civilians who had crossed. U.S. Syria envoy Tom Barrack, who has praised Syria's new rulers and declared in May that peace was possible between Syria and Israel, condemned violence against civilians in Sweida. "All parties must step back and engage in meaningful dialogue that leads to a lasting ceasefire. Perpetrators need to be held accountable," he said. Israeli Druze man Faez Shkeir said he felt helpless watching the violence in Syria. "My family is in Syria - my wife is in Syria, my uncles are from Syria, and my family is in Syria, in Sweida, I don't like to see them being killed. They kicked them out of their homes, they robbed and burned their houses, but I can't do anything," he said. On Tuesday, a Reuters reporter said they had seen government forces looting and burning homes and stealing cars and furniture in Sweida. One man showed the reporter the body of his brother who had been shot in the head inside their home. A Syrian government statement on Wednesday said those responsible for lawlessness in Sweida would be held accountable. It said the government was committed to protecting the rights of the people in Sweida. Sharaa has repeatedly promised to protect minorities. (Reporting by Khalil Ashawi in Damascus, Maya Gebeily, Yamam al-Shaar and Laila Bassam in Beirut, Steven Scheer and Crispian Balmer, Emily Rose in Jerusalem; Tala Ramadan, Ahmed Elimam, Elwely Elwelly in Dubai, Nayera Abdallah; Siyabonga Sishi in Majdal Shams, Jonathan Spicer in Istanbul, Trevor Hunnicutt, Katharine Jackson in Washington; Writing by Maya Gebeily and Tom Perry; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Ros Russell)


The Hill
25 minutes ago
- The Hill
An opening for Lebanon-Israel peace
A career in American diplomacy in the Middle East is a humbling affair. Whenever you heard well-meaning American officials speak of the birth pangs of a 'new Middle East,' you knew it was time to update the embassy's evacuation plans and re-stock its bunkers. And if anyone in charge spoke of peace in Lebanon of all places, you knew to supplement the evacuation plans with an IQ test for anyone so detached from reality. For the history of American-Lebanese relations is one strewn with inflated expectations and deflated ambition. And not a few corpses. This time, it could be different. I spent almost two weeks in Beirut and Jerusalem on the eve of the Israel-Iran '12-day war.' Compared to my previous 40 years visiting and living in those two cities, I sensed something new: an opportunity for true peace. Not just a cease-fire, not just an armistice, but the potential for a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon. Some people on both sides countered that I was crazy. But no one made a good case as to why it is impossible. After all, there is an old Lebanese adage, 'Lebanon will not be the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, but it will not be the last.' As the regimes in Syria and Iran took over Lebanese decision-making on such matters from the 1980s until just a few months ago, that concept became something of a joke. Iranian clerics and Syria's Assad family, through their Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, were the ones making life and death decisions of war and peace for all Lebanese. They were happy to stoke war with Israel in south Lebanon while they themselves stayed above the fray. For two decades after the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000 (verified by the UN), Hezbollah kept the military pressure on Israel to serve these foreign interests, while the Lebanese people bore the burden. Israel and America have changed that equation. Hezbollah as a fighting force has collapsed, the Assad family now graces Moscow not Damascus, and Tehran is in survival mode, unable to defend its own air space, let alone project power. The result is a once in a lifetime diplomatic opportunity for Lebanon and Israel. Timing can be crucial in statecraft and diplomacy; the moment to move toward peace between these two states is now. Lebanon is no longer held hostage to foreign interests and American influence is high. The emotional leap toward peace is daunting for some after so many decades of death and destruction. But the actual issues in play are not. There is no territorial dispute. Israelis seek security, not Lebanese soil. After the Israel Defense Forces withdrawal, Hezbollah distorted and exploited colonial-era border anomalies to keep alive the pretext of 'resistance to occupation,' anomalies which few in Lebanon take seriously today. The real issue is security. Full implementation of the 2024 cease-fire would help, but it may not happen in a political vacuum. The cease-fire calls for the complete disarmament of Hezbollah 'starting in' the area between the border with Israel and the Litani River, an 18-mile wide swath. During the first six months of the agreement, the Lebanese Armed Forces — equipped and trained by American counterparts for years to prepare for this moment — has progressed. But it has neither completed the task in the deep south nor begun elsewhere where Hezbollah maintains arms. If Lebanese officials do not keep their side of the cease-fire and disarm Hezbollah, the Israel Defense Forces will likely do it for them, at a price to the authority of the state and its leaders. It will not just be a humiliation to those leaders, but a tragedy for all concerned if they fail to grasp the opportunity to regain full sovereign control of their state. Yet the dilemma for the Lebanese is in part political. Even with the Iranians out of the equation, fear of reigniting sectarian tension and conflict has an almost paralytic effect on Lebanese decision-making. Having benefited for so long from Hezbollah's arms and state-within-a-state behavior, Lebanese Shia now fear payback, whether from Israelis or other Lebanese sectarian communities with whom there is uneasy coexistence. A context of peace — beyond the absence of war — can be instrumental. Few Lebanese I met could imagine a horizon with Israel beyond a return to the 1949 armistice. Yet that agreement was never suspended — nor did it ever prevent wars in Lebanon or violations of its sovereignty by Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians or Iranians. Others recoiled from a UAE-style normalization. Yet the nature of a peace agreement can be determined by the parties and need not be modeled on the Abraham Accords. A peace agreement will have the solidity to convince the people of south Lebanon that their future is in safe hands — those of an army upholding a peace treaty as durable as those of Egypt and Jordan with Israel. And to be honest, it is the only way to boost confidence and security sufficiently for the return of investments, expatriate deposits, and tourism not just to stabilize south Lebanon, but rebuild a nation suffering one of the worst financial crises of modern times. A moment exists for active, disciplined, persistent American diplomacy, not just to implement the cease-fire but to work toward real, formal peace and solidify the realignment of regional power that President Trump finalized with recent strikes in Iran. American diplomacy can help remove from contention the many regional problems Iran manipulated, not least of all those in Lebanon. That window of opportunity will not remain open indefinitely. David Hale is a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at the Middle East Institute. Hale previously served as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon, and Special Envoy for Middle East Peace.