Middle East latest: Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza Strip

Human Rights Watch says Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including massive forced displacements that amount to ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza.

Palestinians have been killed while evacuating under Israeli orders and in Israeli-designated humanitarian zones, where hundreds of thousands are crammed into squalid tent camps, according to the report released Thursday by the New York-based rights watchdog. The report said the widespread, deliberate demolition of homes and civilian infrastructure throughout Gaza was likely to "permanently displace" many Palestinians.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the report, which comes as a major Israeli offensive in isolated northern Gaza has likely caused a new wave of displacement, and experts warn that famine is imminent or may already be happening there.

Israel says it does not deliberately target civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths, saying militants hide among civilians and operate in residential areas.

Israel’s blistering 13-month war in Gaza has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israel has also been striking deeper inside Lebanon since September as it escalates the war against Hezbollah. On Thursday, the World Bank estimated that Lebanon has been hit by $8.5 billion in physical damages and economic losses from 13 months of war. More than 3,200 people have been killed and more than 14,200 wounded, Lebanon's Health Ministry says.

The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Lebanon's Hezbollah group began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Since then, the fighting has left some 76 people dead in Israel, including 31 soldiers.

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Here's the latest:

ROME — A delegation of former Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and their relatives met Thursday with Pope Francis and expressed hope that the incoming and outgoing U.S. administrations would work together bring the remaining 101 hostages home.

The former hostages included Yelena Troufanov, who was released last November but whose son Sasha is still in Gaza and appeared in a video released Wednesday by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

“You see in the picture how my child has changed over the course of this year,” Yelena Troufanov told a press conference in Rome after the papal audience. “I am very worried about his condition, I see that he is not in a good mental state and not in a good physical state.”

She and the other former hostages and relatives renewed their calls for a deal to bring the remaining hostages home, especially with winter approaching. They said they hoped the incoming Trump administration would work with the Biden administration to push the process forward.

BEIRUT — The World Bank estimated Thursday that Lebanon has been hit by $8.5 billion in physical damages and economic losses from 13 months of Israel's war against the Hezbollah militant group.

Damages to physical infrastructure alone were valued at $3.4 billion, while economic losses totaled $5.1 billion, according to the World Bank’s assessment. Housing has borne the brunt of the destruction with nearly 100,000 units damaged, totaling $3.2 billion in destruction and losses.

Lebanon was already reeling from a severe economic crisis that has gripped the country since 2019. The war is expected to shrink Lebanon’s real GDP growth by at least 6.6% in 2024, worsening an already dire economic situation after five consecutive years of steep recession, the report said.

The World Bank’s report also said that approximately 166,000 individuals have lost their jobs, resulting in an estimated $168 million in lost earnings.

Other sectors have suffered as well, with commerce losses nearing $2 billion due to disrupted businesses and agricultural losses reaching $1.2 billion as crops, livestock, and farmers have been severely impacted, the report said.

In comparison, after the monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006, the World Bank had estimated damage from the hostilities at $2.8 billion, “with indirect damages accounting for another US$700-$500 million in losses.”

BEIRUT — United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said the U.N. remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon despite intense battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants.

UNIFIL has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah across the boundary known as the Blue Line despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border. UNIFIL has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.

Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip to Lebanon Thursday.

UNIFIL forces “continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere,” LaCroix said. He added that had UNIFIL vacated its positions, they might have been taken over by one of the warring parties.

“We have a responsibility to make sure that the U.N. continues to be seen as neutral and impartial,” he said.

BEIRUT — An Israeli airstrike hit a building in Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding five others, Lebanon’s state media said.

The strike on Baalbek came without warning. The Israeli military did not immediately comment and the target was not clear.

Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Thursday, targeting various areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre city and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.

Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs in a clear uptick in attacks on the area over the past two days, with the Israeli army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the suburbs.

The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centers.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the death toll in Lebanon since the war began on Oct. 8, 2023 has reached 3,365 while those wounded are 14,344. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon.

Before the war intensified on Sept. 23, Hezbollah had said that it had lost nearly 500 members but the group has stopped releasing statements about their killed fighters since

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s state news agency says Israel carried out two airstrikes on a western neighborhood Damascus and one of the capital’s suburbs, killing at least 15 people.

One of the strikes targeted an office of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. Sixteen people were also wounded in the airstrikes, state news agency SANA said, quoting an unnamed military official.

SANA said the airstrikes on the Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya northwest of the capital struck two buildings. An Associated Press journalist at the scene in Mazzeh said a five-story building was damaged by a missile that hit the basement.

An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said the strike in Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media about the group’s affairs.

SANA said Syria’s air defenses were activated against a “hostile target” south of the central city of Homs. It gave no further details.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.

— By Albert Aji

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s state news agency says Israel carried out two airstrikes on a western neighborhood of the capital Damascus and one of its suburbs. At least two people were killed.

State news agency SANA said the airstrikes on the Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya northwest of the capital struck two buildings. An Associated Press journalist at the scene said two bodies were removed from the five-story building.

SANA said the country’s air defenses were activated against a “hostile target” south of the central city of Homs. It gave no further details. The agency later reported an explosion near Damascus, adding that the cause of the blasts was not immediately clear.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top diplomat is proposing that the bloc suspend political dialogue with Israel over concerns about human rights abuses and breaches of international law in its war against Hamas.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell will put the proposal to foreign ministers from the 27 member countries at a meeting he will chair in Brussels on Monday.

Borrell “will ask ministers to consider whether Israel is violating human rights, whether Israel is respecting or not international humanitarian law, and he will invite the ministers to express their views on his proposal to suspend political dialogue,” his spokesman said.

The EU is deeply divided over Israel and the Palestinians and it’s unlikely that all the ministers would agree to halt the dialogue.

“Any kind of decisions regarding the political parts of this agreement are subject to unanimity of all the member states,” the spokesman, Peter Stano, told reporters on Thursday.

Under the pact, the dialogue covers “all subjects of common interest, and shall aim to open the way to new forms of cooperation with a view to common goals, in particular peace, security and democracy.” It’s meant to strengthen EU-Israeli relations.

JERUSALEM — Israeli police completed the demolition of the Arab Bedouin village of Umm Al-Hiran Thursday, ending a years-old legal battle.

Many in the minority community had seen the village as a symbol of their larger struggle against Israeli plans to relocate them.

On Thursday, Israeli bulldozers entered the 400-person village in the Negev Desert and demolished the last building left standing –- the mosque.

Residents had dismantled their makeshift homes earlier this week to avoid having to pay fees for the state to demolish them.

Israel says the hundreds of villagers were squatting on public land and has offered them plots in a nearby Bedouin township. The villagers accuse the authorities of forcibly displacing them so the land can be developed for Israel’s Jewish majority.

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated the move, posting on X that there has been a 400% increase in the issuance of such demolition orders so far this year.

“Proud to lead a strong policy of demolishing illegal houses in the Negev!” he wrote.

Or Hanoch, an Israeli activist who witnessed the demolition, said drones and helicopters hovered overhead as seven police bulldozers took down the mosque.

“After the mosque was demolished, the rest of the heavy machinery started re-destroying the rest of the houses, which were already demolished," Hanoch said.

Three members of the village council were arrested early Thursday before the demolition began, said Nati Yefet, the spokesperson for the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages in the Negev. The council has accused Israel of clearing the land for the construction of a Jewish community.

“The destruction of Umm al-Hiran to make way for the settlement of Dror is part of a systematic population replacement program in the Negev,” it said. Four other Bedouin villages have been demolished this year as part of a larger plan to raze unrecognized villages and build new Jewish communities in their place, it said.

Umm al-Hiran was founded in its current location in 1956, after the Israeli military relocated the village clan multiple times following the 1948 war that led to Israel’s creation.

Israel’s more than 200,000 Bedouin are the poorest members of the country’s Arab minority, which also includes Christian and Muslim urban communities. Israel’s Arab population, which makes up roughly 20% of the country’s 10 million people, are citizens with the right to vote but often suffer discrimination and tend to identify with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian state media are reporting explosions near the capital, Damascus, and the central city of Homs in what appeared to be Israeli airstrikes.

State news agency SANA said the country’s air defenses were activated against a “hostile target” south of Homs on Thursday. It gave no further details.

The agency later reported an explosion near Damascus, adding that the cause of the blasts was not immediately clear.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah and officials from Iranian-backed groups.

JERUSALEM — Israel says 15 trucks loaded with aid have been allowed into northern Gaza, where aid groups have warned that a monthlong offensive could cause a famine.

The military body handling aid deliveries into the territory, COGAT, said the 15 trucks entered Gaza on Wednesday with aid shipped in by sea by the United Arab Emirates. It said the aid consists of food and water, as well as hygiene, shelter and medical supplies.

U.N. agencies did not immediately confirm that the aid was delivered to its destination inside northern Gaza.

Over the past week, the U.N. says aid trucks have entered the north but have not reached their final destinations due to Israeli movement restrictions and hungry crowds taking items from the trucks.

Israel has scrambled to ramp up aid to Gaza after a monthlong stretch during which aid plunged to its lowest levels this year.

The U.S. Biden administration warned Israel to increase the aid last month, saying a failure to do so could lead to a reduction in military support. The White House backed down this week, citing some improvements and ruling out any reduction in arms supplies, even after international aid groups said Israel had fallen far short of the American demands.

JERUSALEM — Human Rights Watch says Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including massive forced displacements that amount to ethnic cleansing.

A report released by the New York-based rights group on Thursday says Israeli evacuation orders have often caused "grave harm" to civilians. People have been killed while evacuating and in Israeli-designated humanitarian zones, where hundreds of thousands are crammed into squalid tent camps.

"The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation," said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The report said the widespread, deliberate demolition of homes and civilian infrastructure in Gaza -– some of them to carve a new road bisecting the territory and establish a buffer zone along Israel’s border -– was likely to “permanently displace” many Palestinians.

“Such actions of the Israeli authorities amount to ethnic cleansing,” Human Rights Watch said.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Human Rights Watch called on governments to stop supplying weapons to Israel and to comply with a July opinion by the International Court of Justice saying Israel's presence in the Palestinian territories is unlawful and must end.

The group says its researchers interviewed 39 displaced Palestinians in Gaza, reviewed evacuation orders Israel has released throughout the war and analyzed satellite imagery and video of attacks along evacuation routes and in “safe zones.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military says it has conducted several days of strikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The strikes included U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy aircraft, including the Navy’s F-35C stealth fighter jet, it said Thursday.

The military also released video showing a strike by an MQ-9 Reaper drone on a mobile missile launcher placed on the back of what appeared to be a truck. A person standing next to the launcher is seen running away after the strike.

“This targeted operation was conducted in response to the Houthi’s repeated and unlawful attacks on international commercial shipping, as well as U.S., coalition and merchant vessels in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden,” the U.S. military’s Central Command said. “It also aimed to degrade the Houthi’s ability to threaten regional partners.”

The strikes happened Saturday and Sunday.

The Houthis launched an attack this week targeted two U.S. Navy destroyers entering the Red Sea. The Americans said they “engaged and defeated” eight bomb-carrying drones, five anti-ship ballistic missiles and four cruise missiles that the Houthis used to target the vessels.

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