Live: Over 200 Lebanese children killed in two months of Israeli attacks
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When Israel re-arrested Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank town of Dura, the detainees faced familiar treatment.
They were blindfolded, handcuffed, insulted and kept in inhumane conditions. More unusual was that each man had a number written on his forehead.
The Israeli army launched a massive arrest campaign in Dura, south of Hebron, on Thursday morning, targeting more than 20 former prisoners.
Among them were several prominent Hamas activists who Israel had previously detained after the outbreak of the war on Gaza and had released from prison a few months ago.
Osama Shaheen, who was released in August after 10 months of administrative detention, told Middle East Eye that soldiers brutally stormed his house, smashing his furniture.
READ MORE: Israel brands Palestinian detainees in West Bank with numbers on their foreheads
The UN's special coordinator for Lebanon on Friday said the country's cultural heritage was being endangered by Israeli strikes on the ancient Lebanese cities of Tyre and Baalbek, home to UNESCO-designated Roman ruins.
"Ancient Phoenician cities steeped in history are in deep peril of being left in ruins," Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said in a social media post, adding that "Lebanon's cultural heritage must not become yet another casualty in this devastating conflict".
Reporting by AFP
African-American writer and public intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates has said he doesn't "give a fuck" if he is sidelined in the media for calling Israel's war on Gaza a genocide.
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Middle East Eye, the award-winning author discussed his new book, The Message, his evolving views on Israel and Palestine and the 2024 US election, amongst other issues.
For several years, Coates - who established a wide readership at The Atlantic, where he wrote about racism against African Americans - considered himself a liberal Zionist. In 2008, he even published an essay praising Israel called "The Negro Sings of Zionism".
But after receiving criticism for his 2014 essay "The Case for Reparations", which called for America to pay reparations for slavery and racial discrimination, drawing an analogy with Germany paying Israel reparations for the Holocaust, Coates said that he started to read more about the issue and begun re-evaluating his views on Zionism.
READ MORE: Ta-Nehisi Coates says 'I don't give a fuck' about backlash for speaking on Palestine
The publisher of the Haaretz news outlet has come under fire from the Israeli government after he referred to Palestinian "freedom fighters" during a speech in London.
Amos Schocken was speaking at a conference in London on Sunday when he made the comments, which have provoked calls from government ministers to clamp down on the outlet's activities.
"The Netanyahu government doesn't care about imposing a cruel apartheid regime on the Palestinian population," he told attendees.
"It dismisses the costs of both sides for defending the settlements while fighting the Palestinian freedom fighters, that Israel calls terrorists."
Following outcry, Schocken clarified his remarks to indicate he did not consider Hamas to be "freedom fighters" and emphasised he supported freedom fighters who did not use "terrorism".
READ MORE: Israel targets Haaretz after publisher calls Palestinians 'freedom fighters'
The office of Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday denied a report by Reuters that said the US had asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire, after two sources told the agency that a US envoy had made the request to inject momentum into stalled talks on a deal to end hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel.
In a statement to Reuters, Mikati's office said the government's stance was clear on seeking a ceasefire from both sides and the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between the two foes in 2006.
Gaza's health ministry said that 55 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 43,259 since 7 October 2023.
Additionally, 101,827 have been wounded since the start of the war.
A German-flagged ship carrying explosive materials intended for the Israeli army docked in Egypt’s Alexandria this week and its contents have been unloaded at an Egyptian military pier, after being rejected by several countries, according to open source maritime data and rights groups.
German human rights lawyers on Tuesday said that the MV Kathrin is carrying eight shipping containers holding 150,000kg of RDX explosives for Israeli Military Industries, the munitions production arm of Israel’s largest military company Elbit Systems.
Portugal's foreign minister in September said he received information from the ship's owner that half of the cargo was dual-use material destined for an Israeli arms company.
According to ship-tracking website Marine Traffic and financial data firm LSEG Data & Analytics, the MV Kathrin docked in Alexandria port on Monday and was last seen there three days ago. It is set to depart on 5 November.
The Egyptian army issued a vague statement late on Thursday denying military assistance to Israel, but did not clarify or specifically deny reports that MV Kathrin is docked in Alexandria Port or that its cargo has been unloaded there.
READ MORE: German ship carrying explosives to Israel docks in Egypt's Alexandria
A US envoy this week asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire with Israel as part of an effort to help negotiations resolve the more than year-long conflict, a senior Lebanese political source and a senior diplomat told Reuters.
The sources said the effort was communicated by US envoy Amos Hochstein to Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
But such an announcement was seen as a non-starter in Lebanon, the sources said, where it would likely be equated with a surrender.
Dubbed Hezbollah’s second-in-command for over 33 years, Naim Qassem capped more than four decades of Shia political Islam activism with his election as the movement’s fourth secretary-general on Tuesday.
Taking place exactly one month after Israel killed his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah, Qassem’s election by Hezbollah’s Shura Council comes as the group experiences its most difficult phase since it came into existence in 1982.
In addition to Nasrallah, Israel has killed a string of shadowy top military commanders, along with Hachem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s presumed successor, while launching a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and pummelling the country with air strikes.
READ MORE: Naim Qassem: Hezbollah’s strategist, ideologue and now leader
Bint Jbeil's Toron Citadel had an entire wall destroyed by Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, the head of the town's cultural archives told L'Orient Today.
The fortress was built during the Crusades era.
🟥 [#LebanonWar] An entire wall of the Toron Citadel, a fortress built during the Crusader era in Tebnine (Bint Jbeil) in south Lebanon, was destroyed this week by Israeli strikes, Carmen Fawwaz, head of cultural activities in the village, confirmed to L'Orient Today. pic.twitter.com/UvSOtrfxyg
— L'Orient Today (@lorienttoday) November 1, 2024
Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Friday criticised Israel's "expansion" of its attacks on his country, saying they indicated a rejection of efforts to broker a truce after more than a month of war.
"The Israeli enemy's renewed expansion of the scope of its aggression on Lebanese regions, its repeated threats to the population to evacuate entire cities and villages, and its renewed targeting of the southern suburbs of Beirut with destructive raids are all indicators that confirm the Israeli enemy's rejection of all efforts being made to secure a ceasefire," Mikati said.
Reporting by AFP
These days, as we get closer to D-Day for the US presidential elections, The New York Times is publishing one article after another about Donald Trump and fascism.
"John Kelly, the Trump White House's longest-serving chief of staff, said that he believed that Donald Trump met the definition of a fascist," The Times reports.
"Is It Fascism?" asks another piece. Robert Paxton, a leading historian, once thought the label was overused but has now changed his mind in the face of "Trumpism".
Trump is a fascist, and given the opportunity, he will turn this country into Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, Franco's Spain - all European variations on this American pivot towards fascism.
Yet, in that same paper, you will not be able to find a single reference to the genocide that has unfolded in Palestine and Lebanon over the last 13 months - except to question and discredit this fact. And absent from any reports is that President Joe Biden, and by extension, his vice president, Kamala Harris, are chiefly responsible.
READ MORE: US elections: Why must voters choose between fascism and genocidal Zionism? Opinion by Hamid Dabashi
Lebanon's health ministry said that three people were killed in an overnight Israeli strike on Qamatiyeh, south of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
Five people were also wounded in the attack.
3 #شهداء و 5 #جرحى بسبب #غارة_العدو_الإسرائيلي على #القماطية ليلا
— Ministry of Public Health - Lebanon (@mophleb) November 1, 2024
صدر عن مركز عمليات طوارئ الصحة العامة التابع لوزارة الصحة العامة بيان أعلن أن غارة العدو الإسرائيلي على بلدة القماطية ليلا أدت إلى استشهاد ثلاثة أشخاص وإصابة خمسة آخرين بجروح. pic.twitter.com/M2wQUvUoMt
The Israeli army has sent reinforcements to the town of al-Yamoun near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, where it is reportedly carrying out a raid.
Al Jazeera says Israeli forces are raiding a house in the town.
Earlier today, the Israeli army said it killed three Palestinian gunmen in a drone strike on Tulkarm, occupied West Bank.
At least 47 Palestinians were killed in overnight Israeli strikes on central Gaza's Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat refugee camp and Zawayda, the Wafa news agency reports.
According to the agency, most of the victims were women and children.
Wafa says the majority of the victims were killed in Israel's bombing of several houses in Nuseirat.
The houses were hit a first time, then a second once people had gathered to help those hit.
