Israel and the US, and other Middle East countries, CANNOT afford Iran to have nucler weapon capabilities….
Israel is moving to draft Orthodox Jews for the first time….
U.S. Muslim leaders who supported Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, Reuters reports.
…
Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up more than 12 percent of Israel’s population and have lent crucial backing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has promised them exemptions from military service. But Israel’s expanding wars have fueled demands from across the domestic political spectrum for a change to the status quo, with the issue threatening to topple Netanyahu’s fragile ruling coalition.
“Anyone required to enlist must receive an order. We are at war,” former army general Benny Gantz, who resigned from Netanyahu’s war cabinetearlier this year, wrote on X in a statement welcoming the move. Opposition leader Yair Lapid also offered his “respect” for the decision.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation notices Friday to residents in the southern suburbs of Beirut, as strikes continued to pummel the Lebanese capital. People living in the Burj al-Barajneh and Ghobeiry areas were instructed by the IDF to leave. The IDF warned that they were “located near Hezbollah facilities and interests, against which the IDF will operate in the near future.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that the Ghobeiry area had already come “under intense Israeli aerial bombardment” Friday, with buildings leveled and “significant devastation in the densely populated area.” Two Israeli missiles also struck Burj al-Barajneh, according to the NNA.
Here are other key developments
- Lebanese officials said an Israeli attack killed at least 12 people Thursday, when a civil defense center in northeast Beirut was completely destroyed while its personnel were still inside, waiting to be dispatched to help civilians. Another strike, also in the Baalbek area, killed eight members of a family, the NNA reported.
- State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel said the United States disagreed with “accusations of genocide” in a U.N. report released Thursday, which found that Israel’s warfare methods in Gaza were “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”
- At least 43,764 people have been killed in Gaza during the war and 103,490 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. At least 3,386 people have been killed and 14,417 injured in Lebanon, the country’s Health Ministry said. Neither agency distinguishes between civilians and combatants.
- Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, including more than 300 soldiers. It says 373 soldiers have been killed in its military operation in Gaza….
Nov 15, 2024 – ISW Press
Iran has very likely restarted its nuclear weapons research program in the past year. This assessment is based on publicly reported US and Israeli intelligence about Iranian research activity at the Parchin Military Complex outside Tehran in recent months.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.