Israeli army to call up reservists before planned offensive to take Gaza City, says military official
Good afternoon, Israel will call up around 60,000 reservists before a planned offensive to take Gaza City but most forces that would operate in the Gaza Strip’s largest urban centre would be active duty soldiers, an Israeli military official said on Wednesday. The call-up notices could be sent in the coming days, with reservists to report for duty in September, the military official said.
“Most of the troops that will be mobilised in this new stage will be active duty and not reservists,” said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
It comes as Israel is studying Hamas’ response to a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire and release of half the hostages still held in Gaza, two Israeli officials said on Tuesday, although one source reiterated that all Israeli captives must be freed for the war to end.
Elsewhere:
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Prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday that he treats leaders of other countries with respect after his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu attacked him over his decision to recognise a Palestinian state. “I don’t take these things personally, I engage with people diplomatically. He has had similar things to say about other leaders,” Albanese said during a media briefing.
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A 58% majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognise Palestine as a nation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, as Israel and Hamas considered a possible truce in the nearly two-year-long war. 33% of respondents did not agree that UN members should recognise a Palestinian state and 9% did not answer.
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German prosecutors have charged a Russian national they suspect of planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin and of trying to join militant organisation Islamic State, they said on Wednesday. Prosecutors believe the accused, identified only as Akhmad E. in line with German privacy rules, obtained instructions from the Internet on how to make explosives but the plan failed as he could not get the components he needed.
Key events
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on two judges and two prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, as Washington kept up its pressure on the war tribunal over its targeting of Israeli leaders.
Washington designated Nicolas Yann Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal, and Kimberly Prost of Canada, according to the US Treasury and State Department, Reuters reported.
ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defence chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict.
Guillou is an ICC judge who presided over a pre-trial panel that issued the arrest warrant for Netanyahu. Khan and Niang are the court’s two deputy prosecutors.
The move comes less than three months after the administration took the unprecedented step of slapping sanctions on four separate ICC judges, saying they have engaged in ICC’s “illegitimate and baseless actions” targeting the US and close ally Israel.
ICC, which had slammed the move in June, describing it as an attempt to undermine the independence of the judicial institution, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Syrian minister met Israel’s Dermer for talks on regional stability, sources say
Syria’s foreign minister met Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer in Paris on Tuesday to discuss security arrangements in southern Syria, two Syrian sources familiar with the meeting said.
Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting US-mediated talks on de-escalating conflict in southern Syria. A previous round of these talks was held in Paris in late July but ended without a final accord.
Syrian state news agency Sana said foreign minister Asaad al-Shibani met with an Israeli delegation on Tuesday, but did not mention Dermer.
The agency said the discussions focused on de-escalation, non-interference in Syrian domestic affairs and reactivating a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a UN buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
There was no public comment by the Israeli government on the meeting, Reuters reported.
Israel’s approval of West Bank settlement project undermines chance of two-state solution – Palestinian Authority
Israel’s approval of a key settlement project in the West Bank undermines the chances of a two-state solution, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has said in a statement.
The approval of the project in the area known as E1 “fragments… geographic and demographic unity, entrenching the division of the occupied West Bank into isolated areas and cantons that are disconnected from one another, turning them into something akin to real prisons,” the PA’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The approval of the E1 project, which would bisect the occupied West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem, was announced last week by sraeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and received final go-ahead from a defence ministry planning commission earlier today
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented on the E1 announcement.
An Israeli tank manoeuvres on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Israel, today.
Peter Beaumont
Israel is “killing all prospects” for peace in the Middle East, Jordan’s foreign minister has said amid escalating international outrage over Israel’s plans for a new large-scale offensive in Gaza City and plans to massively expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Ayman Safadi made his remarks during a visit to Moscow on the same day that the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, approved a plan to conquer Gaza City, an urban area home to hundreds of thousands of people in the north of the Palestinian territory.
Echoing the sentiment, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said that the proposed new Gaza offensive would lead to “true disaster” and drag the region into “permanent war”.
Katz’s announcement, which will lead to the mobilisation of an extra 60,000 Israeli troops, was also condemned by Germany, historically one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe, which said it “rejects the escalation” of Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that Israel’s “military offensive” to conquer Gaza City “can only lead to a complete disaster for both peoples,” after Israel’s defence minister authorised the call-up of around 60,000 reservists.
Israel’s plan “will drag the region into a permanent war,” the French president posted on social media, reiterating his call for an “international stabilisation mission”.
International aid groups say they have not yet been able to deliver shelter materials to Gaza despite Israeli authorities saying they have lifted restrictions on such supplies, and warn that further delays could cause more Palestinian deaths.
Aid organisations say Israel had in effect been blocking the delivery of materials for shelters for nearly six months, with tent poles previously listed among items Israeli authorities considered could have a military as well as civilian use.
With international concern over the plight of Palestinians mounting as the war in Gaza continues, Israel announced measures last month to let more aid into Gaza and said on Saturday that it would start allowing shelter materials in from the next day.
But officials from five aid groups, including UN agencies, told Reuters that shelter materials needed by large numbers of displaced Palestinians were still not reaching Gaza and blamed Israeli bureaucratic hurdles.
“The United Nations and our partners have…not been able to bring in shelter materials following the Israeli announcement,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spokesperson Jens Laerke said.
On the ground in Gaza City on Wednesday, Mustafa Qazzaat, head of the emergency committee in the Gaza municipality, described the situation as “catastrophic” as Israel’s defence minister approved a plan on Wednesday for the conquest of Gaza City.
He told AFP that “large numbers” of people were fleeing their neighbourhoods, with the majority of those displaced “on the roads and streets without shelter.”
Aida Abu Madi, a 48-year-old resident of Zeitoun, said she fled on Wednesday with her husband, children and three grandchildren to the home of relatives in western Gaza City.
“I didn’t hear about Israel’s decision, but I saw my neighbours fleeing, so I fled too,” she told AFP by telephone.
Anis Daloul, 64, said he fled Zeitoun with his family on Sunday for a neighbourhood northwest of Gaza City.
Jordan FM says Israel ‘killing all prospects’ for regional peace
Jordan’s foreign minister said Wednesday that Israel’s assault on Gaza had caused “massacres and starvation” and that its wider actions were “killing all prospects” for peace in the Middle East.
His comments came after Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz approved a plan to conquer Gaza City, an urban area home to hundreds of thousands of people in the north of the Palestinian territory.
Most of the territory’s population has been displaced since the war began, many repeatedly, according to the United Nations.
Addressing Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov at a meeting in Moscow, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said he hoped to discuss “efforts to end the aggression on Gaza, and the massacres and starvation that it is creating.”
A fire broke out near Iran’s Tabriz airport on Wednesday, with heavy smoke hanging in the city’s sky, Iran’s Fars news agency reported, adding operations to control the fire are ongoing.
Iran “cannot completely cut cooperation” with the UN nuclear watchdog but the return of its inspectors is up to the country’s security chiefs, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday.
The remarks come nearly two months after Iran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency following its 12-day war with Israel in June.
Iran has cited the IAEA’s failure to condemn Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear facilities as the reason for its decision, which saw the watchdog’s inspectors leave the country following the passing of new legislation by parliament.
“We cannot completely cut cooperation with the agency,” Araghchi said, noting that new fuel rods need to be installed at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant in the coming weeks which will require the presence of IAEA inspectors.
“Under the law passed by parliament, the return of inspectors will be possible through a decision of the Supreme National Security Council,” he told the official IRNA news agency in an interview published Wednesday, referring to Iran’s top security body.
The mayor of the nearby Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, Guy Yifrach, confirmed that Israel has approved a major settlement project on Wednesday in an area of the occupied West Bank that the international community has warned threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state.
“I am pleased to announce that just a short while ago, the civil administration approved the planning for the construction of the E1 neighbourhood,” Yifrach, said in a statement.
Israel gave final approval on Wednesday for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank that would effectively cut the territory in two, and that Palestinians and rights groups say could destroy hopes for a future Palestinian state.
Settlement development in E1, an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, has been under consideration for more than two decades, but was frozen due to U.S. pressure during previous administrations. The international community overwhelmingly considers Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, cast the approval as a rebuke to western countries that announced their plans to recognize a Palestinian state in recent weeks.
“The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions,” he said on Wednesday. “Every settlement, every neighborhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.”
Israeli army to call up reservists before planned offensive to take Gaza City, says military official
Good afternoon, Israel will call up around 60,000 reservists before a planned offensive to take Gaza City but most forces that would operate in the Gaza Strip’s largest urban centre would be active duty soldiers, an Israeli military official said on Wednesday. The call-up notices could be sent in the coming days, with reservists to report for duty in September, the military official said.
“Most of the troops that will be mobilised in this new stage will be active duty and not reservists,” said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
It comes as Israel is studying Hamas’ response to a proposal for a 60-day ceasefire and release of half the hostages still held in Gaza, two Israeli officials said on Tuesday, although one source reiterated that all Israeli captives must be freed for the war to end.
Elsewhere:
-
Prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday that he treats leaders of other countries with respect after his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu attacked him over his decision to recognise a Palestinian state. “I don’t take these things personally, I engage with people diplomatically. He has had similar things to say about other leaders,” Albanese said during a media briefing.
-
A 58% majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognise Palestine as a nation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, as Israel and Hamas considered a possible truce in the nearly two-year-long war. 33% of respondents did not agree that UN members should recognise a Palestinian state and 9% did not answer.
-
German prosecutors have charged a Russian national they suspect of planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin and of trying to join militant organisation Islamic State, they said on Wednesday. Prosecutors believe the accused, identified only as Akhmad E. in line with German privacy rules, obtained instructions from the Internet on how to make explosives but the plan failed as he could not get the components he needed.