Browsing: Region
Supporters of the Houthi movement march in solidarity with Iran and Lebanon in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, yesterday. Source link
Lebanon is facing a food security crisis due to Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah group, which has disrupted supplies of goods and pushed up prices, the UN World Food Programme said yesterday. A fragile two-day-old ceasefire has halted the campaign of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, but it has not so far calmed the situation in Lebanon, where Israel began pounding the country, in particular the south, on March 2 after Hezbollah fired on it in support of its patron Iran. “What we’re witnessing is not just a displacement crisis, it is rapidly becoming a food security crisis,” said World Food Programme country director Allison Oman, speaking via video link from Beirut.She warned that food was becoming increasingly unaffordable due to rising prices and demand among displaced families. The Lebanese Ministry of Economy and Trade said in a statement that Lebanon’s food stocks on a national level are sufficient for three to four months, and supply chains and import-export operations are functioning normally at ports and land crossings. However, the price of vegetables has soared by more than 20% and bread prices have increased by 17% since March 2, the WFP said. “What we’re now seeing is a very worrying combination: prices are rising, incomes are disrupted and demand is increasing as displacement continues for many families,” Oman stated. Lebanon faces a two-layered crisis, in which some markets have fully collapsed — especially in the south, where more than 80% of markets are no longer functioning — while those in Beirut are under increasing strain, Oman said. While markets on a national level are broadly functioning, many traders in conflict-affected areas in southern parts of Lebanon are reporting less than one week of essential food stocks remaining, she added. The trade ministry said that strategic reserves of food and fuel are available. Delivering food aid into hard-to-reach areas in the south was also becoming increasingly difficult. Source link
An Israeli strike, one of multiple on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh yesterday, killed 13 State Security personnel, the agency said, as Lebanon prepared to start ceasefire talks with Israel.“This painful loss only strengthens our determination to achieve a ceasefire that will protect Lebanon and our people in the south,” Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said in a statement. President Joseph Aoun called on the international community to “assume its responsibilities in putting an end to the repeated Israeli aggressions”.Naim Qassem, head of Hezbollah, called yesterday for the Lebanese government to stop giving “free concessions” to Israel ahead of talks to try and end the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah that has left some 1,900 people in Lebanon dead. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said “enemy warplanes launched a series of heavy strikes” on Nabatiyeh yesterday and an AFP photographer saw extensive damage at the State Security office, where a fire was still raging.Israel, for its part, reported 30 rockets from Hezbollah into Israel yesterday. As the government prepared for talks with Israel, outside the auspices of the US-Iran talks in Islamabad, Qassem called on officials “to stop offering free concessions” and described Israel’s military campaign as a failure.A US official on Thursday said talks would take place in Washington next week.Hezbollah is represented in Lebanon’s cabinet and parliament. “The Israeli enemy has failed on the battlefield… It has been unable to carry out the ground invasion it repeatedly announced,” Qassem said, adding that “the resistance will continue until the last breath”. More than 300 people, mostly civilians according to a Lebanese military source, were killed in a wave of simultaneous Israeli strikes on Lebanon on Wednesday despite the announcement hours earlier of a truce between the United States and Iran, with Israel and the US saying it did not apply to Lebanon. Iran has insisted on including Lebanon in its ceasefire negotiations with the US.On Thursday afternoon, the Israeli military issued a warning of incoming strikes for large, densely populated areas of southern Beirut, but had not carried out the threat as of yesterday. A Western diplomat told AFP yesterday that European and Arab states are pressuring Israel to stop targeting Beirut. The Western diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss sensitive matters, said yesterday “there is ongoing diplomatic pressure from European states, regional states and Egypt on Israel to prevent renewed Israeli airstrikes on Beirut after ‘Black Wednesday’”. Thursday’s Israeli warning included areas home to major hospitals and the road to the country’s only international airport. Public Works and Transport Minister Fayez Rasamny said in a statement carried by the state-run National News Agency (NNA) on Thursday that he had “received assurances” from foreign diplomats that the airport and the road leading to it would be spared. Meanwhile, Mohammad Zaatari, director of the country’s largest public medical facility, Rafic Hariri Hospital, told AFP: “We have received assurances, including from the International Committee of the Red Cross that the hospital would not be targeted.” The World Health Organisation on Thursday called on Israel to cancel its evacuation warning for the Jnah district of Beirut because around 450 patients were in the Rafic Hariri and Al-Zahraa hospitals in the district, including 40 in intensive care. The Israeli military said on Friday it had “dismantled” more than 4,300 Hezbollah sites in Lebanon and killed “more than 1,400” Hezbollah fighters. Hezbollah, for its part, claimed several rocket launches on northern Israel, as well as attacks on Israeli troops advancing in the border area. Hezbollah also said it targeted a naval base in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod on Friday, far from the border, with missiles. Source link
Five people were killed and others wounded in a series of Israeli airstrikes on several villages and towns in southern Lebanon. The Lebanese National News Agency reported that one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike targeting the Al Mahdi Schools intersection in the town of Sharqiya. Israeli warplanes also launched an airstrike on the town of Hanawiya, killing one person and wounding another who was transferred to a hospital in Tyre. An Israeli drone also targeted the Al Samaiya area in southern Lebanon, killing two people, while another drone strike on the town of Al Shahabiya resulted in one death. The towns of Jebchit, Dbeibine, and Al Mansouri were subjected to a series of airstrikes and continuous artillery shelling. Israeli forces also demolished several houses in the town of Hanin in the Bint Jbeil district and the town of Aita Al Shaab in southern Lebanon. Source link
A total of 100,000 Muslim worshipers have performed the first Friday prayer at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, marking its reopening after a 40-day closure. A statement from the Jerusalem Waqf, which administers the mosque compound, said the worshipers from different age groups streamed into holy site amid heavy Israeli occupation measures. These included restricted access at checkpoints at the gates of the Old City and the detention of some young people. The Israeli occupation authorities imposed a complete closure of the mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, for much of the fasting month of Ramadan and the Eid Al Fitr festival, citing what they called the security concerns amid the US-Israeli war with Iran. The move triggered widespread condemnation from Arab and Muslim officials as well as regional and international bodies. Source link
Iranians react after a ceasefire announcement at the Enqelab square, in Tehran, yesterday.(AFP) While some Iranians in the capital Tehran fear the ceasefire with the United States will lead to nothing, others declared victory and most breathed a sigh of relief after weeks of war.“Everyone is at ease now, we are more relaxed,” Sakineh Mohammadi, a 50-year-old housewife, said, saying she was “proud” of her country. Just the day before, US President Donald Trump threatened to eradicate “a whole civilisation” in Iran if its leaders did not heed his ultimatum to accept Washington’s war demands.That was enough to cause a “nervous breakdown” for Simin, a 48-year-old English teacher, after more than a month of bombing. “I couldn’t feel my legs or arms anymore,” she said.“We were terrified to our very core… The shock and psychological pressure were so intense that even now, we don’t know whether to feel relieved by the truce or not.” That same evening, panicked residents of Tehran tried to flee north to the shores of the Caspian Sea, where many had sought refuge during the very first days of the war.For those who stayed, the night was long and anxious. Their eyes were glued to the latest developments on television until Trump announced the two-week truce, which came in the middle of the night for Iranians.Since the truce was declared, the bombs have fallen silent in Tehran, and the Iranian capital now has the air of a public holiday. Many shops were closed and outdoor cafes were packed in upscale neighbourhoods, as Tehran’s legendary traffic jams vanished yesterday.So did the checkpoints manned by armed men which had spread throughout the city in recent weeks, with only barriers and signs remaining on the roadside where they once stood. The smell of burning hangs from a closed airport and buildings that have been destroyed or gutted.On the facade of one building, giant portraits of the Islamic republic’s founder, R Khomeini, and his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed on the first day of the war, overlook a field of ruins. Despite thousands of people dead and widespread damage inflicted, Behrouz Ghahramani is “not afraid” of the American-Israeli enemy.If the war resumes, “we will attack them again”, he said.“We were the ones who imposed this ceasefire on the United States by demonstrating our military power,” the 67-year-old said, boasting of Iran’s millennia-long history. Source link
People stand at the site of an Israeli strike, in Al-Mazraa in Beirut, Lebanon, April 8, 2026. REUTERS/Yara Nardi * Israel launches heaviest Lebanon strikes despite Iran ceasefire* Lebanon’s Aoun and France’s Macron urge Lebanon’s inclusion in ceasefire Israel carried out its heaviest strikes on Lebanon since the conflict with Hezbollah broke out last month, killing more than 250 people yesterday even as the group paused its attacks under a two-week US-Iran ceasefire.The strikes raised questions about regional truce efforts, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian saying a ceasefire in Lebanon was an essential condition of his country’s agreement with the US. Yesterday afternoon, at least five consecutive strikes rocked the capital Beirut, sending columns of smoke into the sky as Israel’s military said it had launched the largest co-ordinated strike of the war. More than 100 Hezbollah command centres and military sites were targeted in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon within ten minutes, it said. A total of 254 people were killed and over 1,100 wounded across Lebanon, the country’s civil defence service said. The highest toll was in Beirut, where 91 people were killed. The health ministry gave a toll of 182 dead across the country and said it was not a final figure. It was the deadliest day of the war that erupted on March 2, when Hezbollah fired into Israel in support of Tehran after the US-Israeli attack on Iran two days earlier. Israel launched a fully fledged air and ground campaign in response. Reuters reporters saw civil defence workers guiding an older woman onto a crane to evacuate her from a building in a western part of Beirut. Half of the building had been sheared off in an Israeli strike, leaving residents on the upper floors trapped. Earlier, Reuters reporters saw people on motorcycles picking up the wounded and transporting them to hospitals because there were not enough ambulances to get to them in time. One of Beirut’s biggest medical facilities said it needed donations of all blood types. “The scale of the killing and destruction in Lebanon today is nothing short of horrific,” said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk. “Such carnage, within hours of agreeing to a ceasefire with Iran, defies belief.”Late yesterday evening, a strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, according to a Reuters live broadcast. In a televised address yesterday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Lebanon was not part of the ceasefire with Iran and the Israeli military was continuing to strike Hezbollah with force. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance also said that Lebanon was not included in the truce. “I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding. I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon, and it just didn’t,” Vance told reporters in Budapest.Earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, a key intermediary in the US-Iran ceasefire talks, had said the truce would include Lebanon. In a statement, Hezbollah condemned what it called Israel’s “barbaric aggression” and said the attacks underscored its right to respond. Hezbollah had stopped attacking Israeli targets early yesterday, three Lebanese sources close to the group told Reuters. The group’s last public statement on its military activity was posted at 1 a.m. (2200 GMT Tuesday), saying it had targeted Israeli troops inside Lebanon on Tuesday evening. “Hezbollah was informed that it is part of the ceasefire — so we abided by it, but Israel as usual has violated it and committed massacres all across Lebanon,” senior Hezbollah lawmaker Ibrahim al-Moussawi told Reuters. Another Hezbollah lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, told Reuters there would be “repercussions for the entire agreement” if Israel’s attacks continued.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned the US and Israel it would deliver a “regret-inducing response” if attacks on Lebanon did not stop. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned yesterday’s strikes and said French President Emmanuel Macron had told him he was ready to make a diplomatic push for Lebanon to be included in any ceasefire.A senior Lebanese official had earlier told Reuters that Lebanon had not taken part in correspondence leading up to the ceasefire.Most of yesterday’s strikes were in civilian-populated areas, Israel’s military said. Hours before the attacks, the military had issued warnings for some areas of southern Beirut and southern Lebanon. No such warning was given for central Beirut, which was also hit. Following the strikes, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X that Hezbollah had moved out of its traditional stronghold in southern Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighbourhood to religiously mixed areas elsewhere.He said Israel’s military would pursue Hezbollah wherever it was. Source link
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah discussed today, in a telephone call with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, the latest developments in the region and the efforts underway.The Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Sheikh Al-Sabah praised during the call the diplomatic efforts undertaken by Pakistan, which contributed to a ceasefire between the United States of America and Iran. Source link
Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud discussed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Jeddah the latest regional and international developments, particularly those in the region and their security and economic repercussions. The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported Thursday that the meeting emphasized support for all efforts aimed at strengthening regional security and stability, in addition to discussing several issues of mutual interest, including aspects of the strategic partnership. Source link
Medical sources in the Gaza Strip announced Thursday that the death toll from the Israeli occupation’s aggression against the Strip, since Oct. 7, 2023, has risen to 72,317, in addition ti 172,158 wounded.The same sources said that hospitals in the Gaza Strip received two bodies and 21 wounded individuals in the past 24 hours.The sources indicated that the total number of martyrs since the ceasefire on Oct. 11 has risen to 738, and the total number of wounded to 2,036, while 759 bodies have been recovered.A number of victims remain under the rubble and on the streets, as ambulance and rescue crews have been unable to reach them so far Source link