World
Gaza war to last months, Israel says, as fears of conflict spread rise
Israel’s war on Hamas will last months, Israel’s military chief said, as a string of incidents outside the Gaza Strip highlighted the risk of the conflict spreading, Reuters reported.
Israel’s Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi told reporters in a televised statement on Tuesday from the Gaza border that the war would go on “for many months”.
“There are no magic solutions, there are no shortcuts in dismantling a terrorist organization, only determined and persistent fighting,” Halevi said. “We will reach Hamas’ leadership too, whether it takes a week or if it takes months.”
Israeli actions intensified around Christmas, particularly in a central area just south of the seasonal waterway that bisects the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army told civilians to leave the area, though many said there was no safe place left to go.
“We are gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of Middle Gaza by Israeli forces, which has claimed more than 100 Palestinian lives since Christmas Eve,” said U.N. Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango on Tuesday.
“Israeli forces must take all measures available to protect civilians. Warnings and evacuation orders do not absolve them of the full range of their international humanitarian law obligations.”
Israel is determined to destroy Hamas despite global calls for a ceasefire in the 11-week-old war.
Since Hamas killed 1,200 people and captured 240 hostages on Oct. 7 in the deadliest day in Israeli history, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded with an assault that has laid much of Hamas-ruled Gaza to waste.
Palestinian health authorities say nearly 21,000 people have been killed in Israeli strikes, with thousands more feared buried under rubble. Nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes, many several times.
Gaza authorities buried 80 unidentified Palestinians on Tuesday whose bodies were handed over by Israel through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the health ministry said.
According to the Islamic Waqf, or religious affairs ministry, the bodies were collected from the northern part of the Gaza Strip. They were buried in a long ditch at a Rafah cemetery in the south.
“Pictures are being taken to identify them later,” a representative of the Gaza Islamic Waqf said during the burials.
Israel says it is doing what it can to protect civilians, and blames Hamas for putting them in harm’s way by operating among them, which Hamas denies. But even Israel’s closest ally the United States has said it should do more to reduce civilian deaths from what President Joe Biden has called “indiscriminate bombing”.
Spread threat
There are growing signs the conflict is starting to spread.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Tuesday on a container ship in the Red Sea and for an attempt to attack Israel with drones.
The Houthis have been attacking ships they say have links to Israel in the entrance to the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The attacks are a response to Israel’s assault on Gaza, the militia says.
An Israeli airstrike killed a senior leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Syria on Monday, Reuters reported.
And on the Lebanon border on Tuesday, Israel said Hezbollah fired anti-tank missiles at a church, wounding nine Israeli soldiers and a civilian, after which it fired rockets from near a mosque, drawing retaliatory airstrikes.
In India, meanwhile, there was an explosion near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi. Authorities said no staff were hurt.
“We are in a multi-front war and are coming under attack from seven theatres: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told lawmakers on Tuesday, listing six places where Iran-backed militants are active, as well as Iran itself.
“We have already responded and taken action in six of these theatres,” he said, without specifying the one that had yet to see Israeli action.
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer was meeting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Washington on Tuesday for talks on the war and the return of hostages, the White House said.
The United States has openly pressed Israel in recent weeks to scale down its war to a more targeted operation of raids on Hamas leaders. But Washington is still seen in the region as a supporter of Israel and U.S. forces have been attacked by Iran-backed militants in the Middle East.
The U.S. military carried out retaliatory airstrikes on Kataib Hezbollah militants in Iraq on Monday after a drone attack on a U.S. base in Erbil left one U.S. service member in critical condition and wounded two.
World
Trump says he may go to Islamabad if Iran deal reached
Trump struck an optimistic tone about Iran as he spoke with reporters on the White House lawn on his way to a trip to Nevada and Arizona.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that if a deal with Iran to conclude the war is reached and signed in Islamabad, he might go, and that Iran has agreed to almost everything, Reuters reported.
Trump struck an optimistic tone about Iran as he spoke with reporters on the White House lawn on his way to a trip to Nevada and Arizona. He said he could extend a U.S.-Iran ceasefire set to expire next week, but may not need to do so.
“If a deal is signed in Islamabad I may go,” Trump said. “They want me.”
He also said without providing evidence that Iran has agreed to give up the enriched uranium believed buried from U.S.-Israeli airstrikes last year. Trump is pushing for a deal with Iran in which Tehran would give up its nuclear program.
World
White House denies U.S. requested ceasefire, says new talks may happen in Pakistan
Speaking at a White House press briefing, Leavitt said any fresh talks would likely be in Pakistan again as it has emerged as the “only mediator” in the effort to end the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Reports that the White House has requested a ceasefire in the Iran war are wrong, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday but added that discussions about a second round of talks with the Iranians were ongoing and productive, Reuters reported.
Speaking at a White House press briefing, Leavitt said any fresh talks would likely be in Pakistan again as it has emerged as the “only mediator” in the effort to end the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
“These conversations are productive and ongoing, and that’s where we are right now. I’ve also seen some reporting about the potentiality for in-person discussions. Again, those discussions are being had, but nothing is official until you hear it from us here at the White House, but we feel good about the prospects of a deal,” Leavitt said.
The talks last weekend broke down without an agreement to end the war, which President Donald Trump began alongside Israel on February 28, triggering Iranian attacks on Iran’s Gulf neighbors and reigniting a conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, read the report.
The war has led Iran to effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz – a vital artery for global crude and gas shipments – to ships other than its own, sharply reducing exports from the Gulf, particularly to Asia and Europe, and leaving energy importers scrambling for alternative supplies.
World
US hosts rare Israel-Lebanon talks, progress unclear
The U.S. State Department released a statement after the meeting saying the two sides had “productive discussions on steps toward launching direct negotiations.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in decades on Tuesday and both sides said they held positive discussions although it was not immediately clear if they agreed to a framework for peace, Reuters reported.
The meeting marked a rare encounter between representatives of governments that have technically been in a state of war since Israel was established in 1948. They entered the talks with conflicting agendas, with Israel ruling out discussion of a ceasefire in Lebanon and demanding Beirut disarm Hezbollah.
The U.S. State Department released a statement after the meeting saying the two sides had “productive discussions on steps toward launching direct negotiations.”
It set out each country’s positions but did not say they had reached any common ground. “All sides agreed to launch direct negotiations at a mutually agreed time and venue,” the statement said.
Speaking to reporters after the more than two-hour-long meeting in Washington, Yechiel Leiter, Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the Lebanese government made it clear during the talks that it will no longer be “occupied” by Iran-aligned Lebanese militia Hezbollah. He declined to say whether Israel would cease its attacks on Lebanon.
Lebanese ambassador Nada Moawad described the preliminary meeting as “constructive”. In a statement to Reuters, she said in the meeting she called for a ceasefire and the return of displaced people to their homes and measures to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon caused by the conflict.
The meeting comes at a critical juncture in the crisis in the Middle East, a week into a fragile ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran.
The wider conflict in the region began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28. Hezbollah opened fire in support of Tehran on March 2, sparking an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 2,000 people and forced 1.2 million from their homes, according to Lebanese authorities.
The presence of Rubio, President Donald Trump’s top diplomat and national security adviser, signalled Washington’s desire to see progress.
Trump has urged Israel to scale back attacks in Lebanon apparently to avoid undermining the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran. The Middle East conflict has led to the largest oil supply disruption in history, piling pressure on Trump to find an off-ramp, read the report.
Iran says Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any agreement to end the wider war in the Middle East, complicating talks mediated by Pakistan aimed at averting further economic fallout. Washington has pushed back, saying there is no link between the two sets of talks.
Speaking at the start of the meeting, Rubio acknowledged that Tuesday’s talks would not solve “all of the complexities” but he hoped they would help form a framework for peace.
Israeli ambassador Leiter later expressed hope but did not mention a concrete way forward.
“What gives me hope is the fact that the Lebanese Government made it very clear that they will no longer be occupied by Hezbollah… This is an opportunity. This is the first time our two countries are sitting together in over three decades,” Leiter said, adding that there may be further talks in the coming weeks.
The Lebanese government led by President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has called for negotiations with Israel despite objections from Hezbollah, reflecting worsening tensions between the Shi’ite Muslim group and its opponents.
The Lebanese state has been seeking to disarm Hezbollah peacefully since a war between the militia and Israel in 2024. Any move by Lebanon to disarm it by force risks igniting conflict in a country shattered by civil war from 1975 to 1990. Moves against Hezbollah by a Western-backed government in 2008 prompted a short civil war.
The current government banned Hezbollah’s military wing after it opened fire on Israel last month.
Lebanese officials have said Moawad only has authority to discuss a ceasefire in Tuesday’s meeting while Israeli government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian said Israel would not discuss a ceasefire, underscoring how at odds the two sides are.
In earlier remarks, Rubio said these talks were a process and not a one-off event. Leiter said there may be more talks soon but none of the participants mentioned a set time and a place.
“There were a few proposals, a few recommendations. We will of course bring these recommendations to our governments… and we will return in the next few weeks, we will continue to sit together. We will probably continue the talks in Washington,” Leiter said.
Rubio was hosting Tuesday’s talks amid questions over his lack of in-person participation in talks with Iran, with the Republican president sending Vice President JD Vance to Islamabad over the weekend to lead the U.S. negotiations, read the report.
Rubio was with Trump in Florida watching a mixed martial arts event as Vance announced in Pakistan that talks with the Iranians had concluded with no breakthrough.
State Department Counselor Michael Needham, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, and U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa, a personal friend of Trump, were also participating in the talks on Tuesday.
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