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Israel army levels high-rise in Gaza City offensive

The Israeli military destroyed a high-rise in Gaza City on Friday, shortly after announcing it would target tall buildings identified as being used by Hamas ahead of its planned seizure of the Palestinian territory’s biggest city.Despite mounting pressure at home and abroad to halt its nearly two-year offensive in Gaza, Israel has been calling up reservists, intensifying its bombardments and closing in on Gaza City.In a statement Friday, the military said it had “identified significant Hamas terrorist activity within a wide variety of infrastructure sites in Gaza City, and particularly in high-rise buildings”, adding it would target those sites “in the coming days”.Less than an hour later, it said it had struck one such high-rise, accusing Hamas of using it “to advance and execute attacks against troops in the area”.AFP footage showed the Mushtaha Tower in the city’s Al-Rimal neighbourhood collapsing after a massive explosion at its base, sending a thick cloud of smoke and dust billowing into the sky.AFP photographs of the aftermath showed Palestinians inspecting the rubble and debris of the collapsed building.The army said that before the strike, “precautionary measures were taken in order to mitigate harm to civilians”, including prior warnings.Arej Ahmed, a 50-year-old displaced Palestinian who lives in a tent in the southwest of Gaza City, told AFP that her husband “saw residents of the Mushtaha Tower throwing their belongings from the upper floors to take them and flee before the strike”.”Less than half an hour after the evacuation orders, the tower was bombed,” she said by telephone.- ‘No safe place’ -Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal accused Israel of carrying out “a policy of forced displacement against civilians” in its targeting of high-rise buildings.The agency said Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City killed at least 19 people, among at least 42 Palestinians killed across the territory on Friday.Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said it was unable to comment on those reports.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.”The news about Israel beginning to bomb towers and apartment buildings is terrifying,” said Ahmed Abu Wutfa, 45, who lives in his relatives’ partially destroyed fifth-floor apartment in western Gaza City.”My children are terrified, and so am I. There is no safe place — we only hope that death comes quickly.”A member of Hamas’s political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, said Israeli claims the militant group was operating in the high-rises were “nothing but flimsy pretexts and blatant lies.”The United Nations estimates that nearly one million people live in Gaza City and its surroundings, an area where it last month declared a famine.World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged Israel to stop the “catastrophe” of people starving to death in Gaza, where the health ministry says more than 370 people have died from malnutrition since the war began.Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot meanwhile told AFP that the European Union was “not living up to its responsibilities in this enormous humanitarian crisis”.- ‘Gates of hell’ -Defence Minister Israel Katz said “the bolt has now been removed from the gates of hell in Gaza,” vowing to intensify operations until Hamas accepts Israel’s terms to end the war.Israel expects its new offensive will displace around a million people towards the south.Seven hundred days after its attack on Israel that sparked the war, Hamas’s armed wing released footage purporting to show two hostages seized in the assault alive in Gaza City late last month.The video shows hostage Guy Gilboa-Dalal in a car calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to carry out the planned offensive on Gaza City.It later shows him meeting another captive, Alon Ohel — the first time he has been seen in a video since his abduction during the October 2023 attack.The prime minister’s office said Netanyahu had spoken with the families of both hostages.”No evil propaganda video will weaken us or divert us from our determination” to crush Hamas and free the hostages, Netanyahu said in comments released by his office.Relatives and supporters of the hostages rallied in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Friday to demand a deal to secure their release.Of the 251 hostages seized during the Hamas attack, 47 are still in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

US sanctions Palestinian rights groups over ICC probe

The United States has imposed sanctions on three leading Palestinian NGOs, accusing them of supporting International Criminal Court efforts to prosecute Israeli nationals. The move is the latest in Washington’s effort to hobble the ICC, which has sought arrest warrants for Israeli officials over alleged war crimes in Gaza. The court has also pursued cases against Hamas leaders.Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday designated Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights under an executive order targeting entities that assist ICC investigations into Israel.”These entities have directly engaged in efforts by the International Criminal Court to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals, without Israel’s consent,” Rubio said.In response, the three NGOS condemned the sanctions, saying in a joint statement that the United States had “chosen to safeguard and entrench Israel’s Zionist settler-colonial apartheid regime and its unlawful occupation.”They said the move was part of a “decades-long campaign by Israel and its allies to erase the Palestinian people and systematically deny their collective right to self-determination and return.”The United States, Russia and Israel are among the nations that reject the ICC.”We oppose the ICC’s politicized agenda, overreach, and disregard for the sovereignty of the United States and that of our allies,” Rubio said in a statement. Last month, the United States imposed sanctions on two ICC judges and two prosecutors, including ones from allies France and Canada. In June, Rubio sanctioned four judges from the court.”The United States will continue to respond with significant and tangible consequences to protect our troops, our sovereignty, and our allies from the ICC’s disregard for sovereignty,” Rubio warned.- ‘Completely unacceptable’ -UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk called the latest US move “completely unacceptable.””For decades now, these NGOs have been performing vital human rights work, particularly on accountability for human rights violations,” Turk said in a statement. “The sanctions will have a chilling effect not only on civil society in the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel, but potentially globally,” he added.Amnesty International also condemned the new sanctions as a “deeply troubling and shameful assault on human rights and the global pursuit of justice.””These organizations carry out vital and courageous work, meticulously documenting human rights violations under the most horrifying conditions,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, a senior director at Amnesty.She accused the Trump administration of seeking to “dismantle the very foundation of international justice and shield Israel from accountability for its crimes.”The ICC’s prosecution alleges Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel’s offensive in Gaza, including by intentionally targeting civilians and using starvation as a method of war. Israel launched the massive offensive in response to an unprecedented attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, in which mostly civilians were killed.The ICC has also sought the arrest of former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, who has since been confirmed killed by Israel.

Lebanon says army will begin implementing Hezbollah disarmament plan

The Lebanese military will begin implementing its plan to disarm Iran-backed Hezbollah, the government said on Friday following a cabinet meeting, amid opposition from the group and its allies.The cabinet discussed the plan on Friday despite a walkout by Shiite ministers in protest at the proposals.In August, the Lebanese government ordered the military to draw up plans to disarm the once-dominant militant group by the end of the year, having come under pressure from the United States and Israeli strikes.In a statement after Friday’s meeting, information minister Paul Morcos said that Beirut welcomed the army’s proposed measures “to extend the state’s authority through its own forces and to restrict the possession of weapons to legitimate authorities”.Responding to questions from journalists, Morcos said “the Lebanese army will begin implementing the plan, but in accordance with the available capabilities, which are limited in terms of logistics, material and human resources”.The cabinet decided to keep the details of the army’s plan confidential according to the statement, but Morcos said the military would “submit a monthly report on the matter to the cabinet”.Five Shiite ministers, including those from Hezbollah and its ally the Amal movement, walked out of the meeting, with the Lebanese armed group adamant it would hold onto its weapons.The walkout happened as Lebanon’s army chief entered the meeting to present a plan for disarming the group, local media reported.Hezbollah and Amal ministers have now walked out of cabinet meetings three times over the disarmament issue.Multi-confessional Lebanon has a sect-based power-sharing system in which legitimacy unofficially derives from consensus.The government says disarming Hezbollah is part of implementing the US-brokered ceasefire agreement from November that ended over a year of hostilities between the group and Israel. – Israeli strikes -The cabinet session came amid intensified Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon over the past two days, which killed at least five people, according to the health ministry and the state-run National News Agency.David Wood, a senior Lebanon analyst at the International Crisis Group, told AFP that “Israel is trying to send a message that only concrete action on disarmament, rather than pledges and words, will do the job”.In August, the government agreed to objectives outlined in a US paper presented by Washington’s envoy Tom Barrack. The paper included details on the timetable and mechanism for dismantling Hezbollah’s arsenal, and stipulated Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Beirut said at the time that “the Israeli side has not yet shown any commitment” to the contents of the American proposal and “has not taken corresponding steps” in exchange for Lebanon’s commitment. It insisted any progress in implementing the paper was conditional on other parties, primarily Israel.- Power shift -In late August, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said “the path of monopolising arms, extending state authority and monopolising decisions on war and peace is a path that has begun and there is no turning back”.Ahead of the session, posters depicting Salam and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun were put up in the streets of Beirut with the caption: “We are all with you. One army, one arsenal, one state. A new era for Lebanon”.Hezbollah was the most powerful political force in Lebanon before its most recent war with Israel, able to sway and disrupt governments. The balance of power has since shifted, with Hezbollah badly weakened by the war as well as the overthrow of its ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria.”A solution must be found, and it is preferable that it be done in a proper manner, and that disarmament be achieved through mutual understanding,” Abdul Rahman Trabulsi, a 60-year-old Beirut resident, said, adding that he believes Hezbollah’s role “has ended”.In contrast, Ali Khalil, a 20-year-old restaurant worker, said that “weapons will not be taken, it’s impossible,” adding, “let them go first and fix the government and the state, then think about the weapons”.”If they decide today to seize the weapons, there will be a confrontation,” he added.Hezbollah was the only group to keep its weapons after Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, doing so in the name of resistance against Israel, which occupied the south until 2000.

Gaza film at Venice targeted by hate campaign, director says

At its premiere, a powerful new Gaza film at the Venice Film Festival sparked 23 minutes of sustained applause. But the next day hate emails flooded in, the director said Friday.”The Voice of Hind Rajab” from French-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania is a strong contender for the festival’s Golden Lion to be awarded Saturday. It has already garnered the support of famous Hollywood names attached as executive producers. Between Wednesday night, after the film’s premiere, and Thursday, “my producers, including the well-known American names Brad Pitt and Joaquin Phoenix, had their mailboxes flooded with thousands and thousands” of intimidating messages, Ben Hania told AFP. The same message, sent over and over, was “super intimidating,” she added. The film covers the last minutes of the life of a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli fire last year while trying to escape Gaza with her family. It uses real-life recordings of the desperate telephone calls she made to the Red Crescent rescue service.Ben Hania procured the audio from the Red Crescent — with the permission of the Hind Rajab’s mother — but employed actors to portray the emergency workers who struggled to coordinate her rescue as Israeli tanks got ever closer. The director has said the dramatisation is “very close to what they experienced”.Ben Hania told AFP that, after hearing about Hind Rajab’s death in January 2024, she felt “a lot of anger, a lot of despair, but also a sense of ‘What can I do?'”Cast members told a press conference they felt it their “duty” to make the film. Regardless, “I didn’t make this film to keep people comfortable in their seats,” Ben Hania told AFP. “The Voice of Hind Rajab” received strong reviews, with critics citing its emotionally devastating audio recordings, although some pointed to a moral grey area in their use.   The Guardian said that, with her film, Ben Hania was “grabbing one of the most relevant issues of our time with both hands and finding a way to thrust it under our noses”. The movie, which will be released in Tunisia later this month, does not yet have a US distributor. Tunisia has already chosen the film as its entry for the 2026 Academy Awards. Next up for the film is the Toronto International Film Festival, then festivals in London, San Sebastian and Busan.The Venice premiere, the festival circuit, and a potential run for the Oscars, is “very important”, Ben Hania said. “For a film like this, it allows enormous visibility. And I want the film to be seen a little bit everywhere in the world.