What Hostages?
Israel hunting down Hezbollah senior military members…
Hezbollah has said one of its senior commanders was killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon, with the Iran-backed armed group retaliating with a barrage of rockets against Israel.
Mohammed Nimah Nasser is the latest senior member of Hezbollah to be targeted by Israel during almost nine months of cross-border violence which have raised fears of an all-out war.
Hezbollah said it had launched 100 rockets and missiles at Israeli military positions “as part of the response to the assassination”. The Israeli military said a number of projectiles which fell in open areas sparked fires, but no injuries were reported.
The military said Nasser commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit, which is responsible for launching rockets from south-western Lebanon, and accused him of directing a “large number of terror attacks”.
It also described him as “the counterpart” of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the commander of another unit whose killing last month prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 200 rockets and missiles into northern Israel in a single day.
Since then, there has been a flurry of diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions, with the UN and US warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a war that could also draw in Iran and other allied groups.
There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October.
Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Palestinian group that is also backed by Iran. Both groups are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.
In recent weeks, Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that they will use military force to restore security along the northern border if diplomacy fails…..
Updates…
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An Israeli soldier died after a stabbing attack in a shopping mall in the country’s north, the Israeli military said on Wednesday. The military identified the soldier as Sgt. Aleksandr Iakiminskyi, 19, and said that another soldier was severely injured in the attack, in the city of Karmiel. The Israeli police said the attacker died at the scene. Security footage posted on social media and in Israeli news media showed the soldiers walking in the mall with coffee cups in hand when someone approached from behind, then the soldiers throwing down their coffee cups and one firing repeatedly at the attacker. The Israeli military separately said that one soldier, Captain Elay Elisha Lugasi, 21, was killed in fighting in Gaza, on Wednesday. Israeli news media reported that security officials later identified the assailant as Jawwad Omar Rubia, an Israeli citizen from the nearby Palestinian town of Nahf, noting that Muhammad Zuri, the mayor of Nahf, condemned the attack.
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Israeli forces killed at least four Palestinians in a drone strike in the West Bank late Tuesday, according to the Israeli military and the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said in a statement that the dead were militants who were planting an explosive device in Nur Shams, a densely populated residential area. Once rare, Israel drone strikes in the West Bank have become increasingly common. A drone strike on Sunday killed a local Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander identified as Saeed Jaber, whom Israel blamed for attacks on troops and civilians.
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An evacuation order by the Israeli military this week covering roughly a third of the Gaza Strip came as people there are less and less equipped to handle repeated forced displacements, after nearly nine months of war that have left tens of thousands dead and injured and put the territory at risk of famine. “It’s an endless cycle of death and displacement,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, UNRWA, in voice messages from central Gaza on Wednesday. “People express here that they are losing hope. They are losing the willpower, faced with another forced displacement and absolutely no certainty of safety.”….
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Cease -Fire talks?
Mediators are working to revive indirect talks on a cease-fire in Gaza that collapsed last month, focusing on terms based on a proposal backed by the United Nations and the United States, officials said on Wednesday.
Qatar last week sent Hamas new potential amendments to the proposed deal, according to two senior officials from different countries involved in the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.
On Wednesday, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel had received Hamas’s response to the latest proposal, was examining it and would convey a response to mediators. He did not provide a timeline….
The two Iranian presidential candidates—ultraconservative Saeed Jalili and reformist Masoud Pezeshkian—discussed economic issues in their final debate before the upcoming runoff election. The debate occurred on July 2. Ultraconservative Saeed Jalili continued to downplay the importance of nuclear negotiations with the West. Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian tried to garner support from hardliners. The runoff election will occur on July 5.