Kidnap or rescue: Was ‘Hezbollah operative’ taken by Israel a double agent?

Melanie Swan
Sun, November 3, 2024 

Imad Amhaz was extracted from a residential building in Batroun, Lebanon, by Israeli special forces - X

A Lebanese ship captain abducted by Israeli special forces may have been acting as a double agent.

Imad Ahmaz, described by the Israeli military as a “senior Hezbollah operative”, was extracted from a residential building in Batroun, 20 miles north of Beirut, in Lebanon, on Friday.

At least 12 naval commandos from Shayetet 13 – Israel’s version of the Royal Navy’s Special Boat Service (SBS) or the US Navy’s SEALs – were involved in the dramatic raid, which was launched from an unknown location in the Mediterranean sea.

The Israeli military said in a statement that the “operative” had been transferred to Israeli territory, where he was being investigated by a military unit.

However, intelligence experts have questioned whether Mr Ahmaz had been serving as a double agent given that the extraction was markedly different from recent operations on Hezbollah targets carried out by Israel.

The operation took place in a residential building just yards from the seafront, and just 400 metres from the Batroun Marina, a popular tourist destination.

The commandos, who were ferried on speedboats, reportedly told residents that they were Lebanese security forces, before breaking down the door to Mr Ahmaz’s apartment.

“I did not see their faces, just shadows and voices. They said they were from state security,” a resident told the New York Times.

A senior political figure in Lebanon, who opposes Hezbollah, told The Telegraph on the condition of anonymity that there were “signs pointing to the fact that [Mr Ahmaz] could have been a double agent”.

“But he was also believed to be deeply involved in sea smuggling routes and financing, which could make him a valuable asset to Israel, and it would be more valuable to keep him alive,” the official added.

Batroun is believed to be the furthest north Israeli forces have ventured during the latest military offensive against Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

While uncommon, it would not be the first time Israel had extracted and interrogated senior Hezbollah and Hamas operatives.

Dozens of high-level Hamas figures have been captured since Oct 7 2023, providing Israeli officials with intelligence that has led to the rescue of hostages being held by the terror group.

But Israel’s operations against Hezbollah have largely focused on taking out senior leaders and fighters in massive air strikes, primarily targeting the country’s southern stronghold, where the terror group is largely based.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s long-time leader, was killed in such a strike two months ago.

Days before his killing, over 1,500 Hezbollah members were taken out of action after an alleged Israeli operation saw pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to them explode.

Ronen Solomon, an Israeli defence and intelligence analyst who is an expert on Hezbollah operatives and operations, told The Telegraph that Friday’s abduction was highly unusual.

Some items found in Mr Ahmaz’s room included SIM cards from different countries, multiple passports, and an old-fashioned Nokia phone, which may indicate he had been working as a spy, according to Mr Solomon.

Mr Ahmaz could have been working as a senior operative in a Hezbollah unit that specialised in transporting weapons and electronics used in the fight against Israel, he suggested.

“But also, because of his position, he could also have been recruited as a double agent for Israel and the rescue was to get him to safety outside Lebanon,” Mr Solomon added.

Ahmaz’s family telecommunications business, Stars Group Holding based in Beirut, was sanctioned by the US in 2014.

The US Treasury department accused the business of “illicit activities” through the transportation of communications devices to Hezbollah factories in Lebanon, via countries such as China and the UAE.

“Ahmaz maybe recruited the family for this kind of operation,” Mr Solomon added.

An Israeli security source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, repeated Mr Solomon’s belief that the items found in Mr Ahmaz’s room were as interesting as the abduction itself.

“Things like USBs that were left with maybe critical data on which could have helped Israel. You have to ask why they were left behind when such operations in Gaza saw all pieces of intelligence retrieved at the same time,” the source said.

The source also said it was also unusual that the CCTV around Mr Ahmaz’s location had not been disabled “unless someone wanted it to be videoed”.

Ali Hamieh, Lebanon’s minister of public works and transport, said that Mr Ahmaz was a civilian ship captain taking a course at a maritime institute in Batroun.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said he had ordered the government to file a complaint to the UN Security Council over the abduction, citing the violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.


Israeli forces capture senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon, Israeli military official says

LUJAIN JO and BASSEM MROUE
Updated Sat, November 2, 2024 











A Lebanese man points to the beach in Batroun, northern Lebanon, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, where Lebanese officials say a group of armed men landed on a coast north of Beirut and took away a ship captain and they're investigating whether Israel was involved. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
ASSOCIATED PRESSMore


BATROUN, Lebanon (AP) — Israeli naval forces captured a senior Hezbollah operative in north Lebanon, an Israeli military official said Saturday, as the conflict between the Iran-backed group and Israel showed few signs of easing.

Earlier on Saturday, Lebanese authorities said it was investigating whether Israel was behind the capture of a Lebanese sea captain who was taken away by a group of armed men who had landed on the coast near the northern town of Batroun on Friday.

“The operative has been transferred to Israeli territory and is currently being investigated,” the military official said, without providing the name of the person in detention.

The operation marks the first time Israel has announced it deployed troops deep into northern Lebanon to take a senior Hezbollah operative captive since the conflict between the two sides escalated in late September. Since then, Israeli forces began a ground invasion of southern Lebanon and intensified its airstrikes across the country, including southern Beirut and the eastern Bekaa valley, killing most of Hezbollah's senior commanders.

Hezbollah issued a statement describing what happened as a “Zionist aggression in the Batroun area.” The statement did not give details or confirm whether a Hezbollah member was captured by Israel.

Two Lebanese military officials confirmed to The Associated Press that a naval force landed in Batroun, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Beirut, and abducted a Lebanese citizen. Neither gave the man’s identity or said whether he was thought to have links to Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. They did not confirm whether the armed men were an Israeli force.

Three Lebanese judicial officials told AP the operation took place at dawn Friday, adding that the captain might have links with Hezbollah. The officials said an investigation is looking into whether the man is linked to Hezbollah or working for an Israeli spy agency and an Israeli force came to rescue him.

Both the military and judicial officials spoke on the condition of anonymity as they were unauthorized to share details about the incident or the ongoing investigation.

Soon after Israel went public about the operation, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on Lebanon’s foreign minister to file a complaint against Israel at the U.N. Security Council.

Israel has carried out in the past commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap or kill Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.

Recounting the event, Lebanese residents from the apartment building where the man was seized said the armed group introduced themselves as state security.

“We were terrified. They were breaking into the apartment next to ours,” Hussein Delbani told The Associated Press near where the man was captured. “I thought a state agency was doing a security operation,” said Delbani, who was displaced from south Lebanon a month ago when the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted.

He said he saw from his balcony people down on the coast and they screamed again for him to go inside.

Hamie told Al-Jadeed the man was a captain of civilian ships. He graduated in 2022 and in late September joined the Batroun's Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute for additional courses. Hamie said that the man lived some 300 meters (980 feet) from the institute.

Hamie's remarks came shortly after two Lebanese journalists posted a video on social media showing what appeared to be about 20 armed men taking away a man from in front a house, his face covered with his shirt.

Kandice Ardiel, a spokesperson for the U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in south Lebanon, denied allegations by some local journalists who said that the peacekeepers helped the landing force in the operation. The U.N. mission, known as UNIFIL, has a maritime force that monitors the coast.

"Disinformation and false rumors are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk,” Ardiel said.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, drones and missiles from Lebanon into Israel in solidarity with Hamas immediately after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. The yearlong cross-border fighting boiled over to full-blown war on Oct. 1, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

___

Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Sally Abou Aljoud in Beirut and Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
View comments (462)


Lebanon sources say man seized on coast in suspected Israeli raid

AFP
Sat, November 2, 2024

Lebanese soldies inspect the beach at a reported landing site for a "naval commando force" which abducted a Lebanese mariner according to a military source, in the northern coastal town of Batroun on November 2, 2024. Lebanon's official National News agency said an "unidentified military force" landed on the shore of Batroun at dawn on November 1, adding it "went with all its weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, kidnapping a Lebanese man... and sailing away into the open sea on a speedboat", while a military source added that an investigation is underway to determine whether the operation was carried out by Israel. 

Ibrahim Chalhoub/AFP/AFP

A Lebanese military source said Saturday that unidentified naval commandos abducted a trainee mariner in the coastal city of Batroun, in an operation a judicial official said was likely carried out by Israel.

"A naval commando force kidnapped a civilian," the military source said on condition of anonymity, adding an investigation was underway to determine whether the operation was carried out by Israel.

A Lebanese judicial official said Israel was likely behind the "kidnapping operation", the first of its kind since the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted in September.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, the official said there was a "90 percent chance" that Israel was responsible.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said they were checking reports of the incident.

Lebanon's official National News agency said an "unidentified military force" carried out a "sea landing" on the shore of Batroun, south of Tripoli, at dawn on Friday.

The force "went with all its weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, kidnapping a Lebanese man... and sailing away into the open sea on a speedboat," the NNA said.

An acquaintance of the abductee identified him as a student at the Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute (MARSATI) in Batroun.

He was taken from student housing near the Batroun institute, but was a resident of the Shiite-majority town of Qmatiyeh further south, said the acquaintance who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security concerns.

He was completing courses to become a sea captain, the source told AFP, adding that the man was in his 30s and was well known by the teaching staff at the centre.

The Christian-majority city of Batroun has been relatively sheltered from the Israel-Hezbollah war that has pummelled south Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

The war since September 23 has killed more than 1,900 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of health ministry figures though the real number is likely higher due to data gaps.

bur-tgg/ho/dv


Israeli military captures alleged Hezbollah naval ops official in north Lebanon sea raid

Euronews
Sat, November 2, 2024 

Israeli naval forces have captured a senior Hezbollah operative in northern Lebanon as the conflict between the Iran-backed group and Israel showed few signs of easing.

An Israeli military official said in a statement that IDF forces captured a "senior operative of Hezbollah" and took him back to Israel for investigation by military intelligence.

The media outlet Axios cited Israeli sources as saying the captured man is called Imad Amhaz and is allegedly responsible for Hezbollah's naval operations.

Two Lebanese military officials confirmed that a naval force landed in Batroun, about 30 kilometres north of the capital Beirut, and abducted a Lebanese citizen.

CCTV shows the moment a man was arrested by Israeli troops in northern Lebanon, 2 November, 2024 - Screenshot from AP video 4530611

The operation marks the first time Israel has announced it deployed troops deep into northern Lebanon to take a senior Hezbollah operative captive since the conflict between the two sides escalated in late September.

Hezbollah issued a statement describing what happened as a "Zionist aggression in the Batroun area." The statement did not give details or confirm whether a Hezbollah member was captured by Israel.

Soon after Israel went public about the operation, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati called on Lebanon's foreign minister to file a complaint against Israel at the UN Security Council.

Recounting the event, Lebanese residents from the apartment building where the man was seized said the armed group introduced themselves as state security.

"We were terrified. They were breaking into the apartment next to ours," Hussein Delbani said.

"I thought a state agency was doing a security operation."



Kandice Ardiel, a spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping force deployed in Lebanon, UNIFIL, denied allegations by some local journalists who said that the peacekeepers helped the Israeli landing force in the operation.

"Disinformation and false rumours are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk," Ardiel said.
Cross-border fire

Hezbollah and Israel have traded almost daily fire since the war in Gaza began in October last year.

Hezbollah is ideologically-aligned with the Gaza-based militant group Hamas and Hezbollah says its strikes on Israel are in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The year-long cross-border fighting, which has displaced tens of thousands on both sides of the border, erupted into full-blown war on 1 October when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon for the first time since 2006.

It is estimated that up to 15,000 IDF soldiers have been deployed to Lebanon.

ZIONIST WAR CRIMES

Israeli military dropped bombs in ‘lethal proximity’ of at least 19 Lebanese hospitals, CNN analysis finds

Allegra Goodwin and Tamara Qiblawi, CNN
Sat, November 2, 2024

The ground shook, windows shattered, and the cries of patients filled the air. An Israeli bomb had just struck Beirut’s southern suburbs in yet another near-nightly attack – this time hitting a building across the street from Lebanon’s biggest public hospital.

“I was treating a patient when the bomb went off. I fell over him from the shock of it,” said Mohammad Fouani, an emergency room nurse at Rafik Hariri University Hospital, recalling the aftermath of the October 21 attack. “The smoke was so thick; I could barely see my fellow colleagues.”

“Since the start of the war, every night has been difficult,” Fouani told CNN. “But this was the worst by far. It was the most painful.”

Israel said the strike hit a Hezbollah target, though the area was not covered in Israeli military evacuation orders for locations with alleged links to the Iran-backed group in the south of Beirut. At least 18 people, including four children, were killed and 60 injured in the residential building some 70 meters away from the hospital, Lebanon’s health ministry said.

Lebanon’s health sector has been in the thick of a ferocious Israeli air assault as Israel and Hezbollah trade fire in an ongoing war, with the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs hardest hit. In the first month of its all-out air offensive in Lebanon, which began on September 23, Israeli strikes damaged 34 hospitals, killed 111 emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and hit 107 ambulances, according to data compiled by the Lebanese health ministry.

Emergency workers and locals stand at the site of a demolished building after an Israeli strike near the Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, on October 22, 2024. - Yara Nardi/Reuters

Around 20% of all hospitals registered with the health ministry in Lebanon have been damaged in a month of attacks, with most strikes landing in their vicinity, according to data compiled by medical authorities.

The Lebanese health ministry data and CNN’s analysis of airstrikes show that the Israeli military has dropped bombs within dangerous proximity of hospitals, which are protected under international law.

Responding to CNN’s request for comment, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it operates in strict accordance with international law and accused Hezbollah of being deeply embedded in civilian areas. “Hezbollah strategically places its military assets in close proximity to medical facilities, such as hospitals and clinics, as part of its human shield strategy,” it said.

For a country that has been embroiled in many cycles of war and crises, the Lebanese healthcare sector has rarely been so vulnerable to firepower, the country’s health minister, Dr. Firass Abiad, told CNN. Abiad accused Israel of “weaponizing” access to healthcare and drew parallels to Gaza, where Israel has openly attacked hospitals, accusing them of links to Hamas.

“Health institutions are supposed to be sanctuaries,” said Abiad. “It’s clear that this is premeditated, that this is a state policy that Israel is following, whether in Gaza or in Lebanon.”

Lebanon's health minister, Dr. Firas Abiad, has accused Israel of "weaponizing" access to healthcare. - CNN

CNN has reviewed over 240 airstrikes in Lebanon and found that at least 24 hospitals were within a 500-meter danger zone – used by the Israeli military as its parameter for evacuation areas – of the bombs. Israel dropped munitions within what is known as a “lethal range” – 340 meters – of at least 19 hospitals, the analysis, which covered the first month of the war, showed.

CNN’s analysis only looked at airstrikes verified in publicly available imagery or declared in Israeli military evacuation orders between September 23 and October 23. That sample is smaller than the more than one thousand Israeli strikes estimated by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a crisis monitoring organization, to have hit Lebanon over the course of the month and so has likely produced a conservative estimate of hospitals within a dangerous or lethal range.

“Even a hospital that is not directly targeted can be damaged from the blast wave or fragmentation caused by a nearby strike,” Trevor Ball, a former senior explosive ordnance technician for the US military, told CNN. “Fragments can injure or kill people hundreds of meters away, meaning a strike hundreds of meters away could still injure or kill people that are not behind adequate protection.”

CNN shared with the IDF a list of coordinates for all 24 hospitals it assessed as having been within dangerous proximity of Israeli strikes, 16 of which were damaged according to data compiled by the Lebanese health ministry and medics. The IDF did not comment on CNN’s specific findings, but said it was only operating against Hezbollah, “not the Lebanese population or medical facilities” and took measures to mitigate harm to civilians.

Abiad, who is a veteran doctor and former hospital director, said the nearby strikes have had a devastating affect on healthcare. “Once you target so close to the area, it means that people are now afraid to come to the hospital,” Abiad told CNN. “Some people in the hospital would rather go home than receive treatment because they are worried that they will be targeted in hospitals.”

The UN special coordinator for Lebanon said on October 25 that “first responders heeding the call to help, including healthcare personnel and paramedics, have also been hard hit,” and called the number of attacks impacting healthcare facilities and personnel “alarming.”

The attacks on the first responders, said Abiad, has sent “a very chilling message: if you’re injured, you’re going to die.”

Israel has repeatedly accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to transport weapons, though it has not provided evidence. Many of the ambulances hit and first-responders killed in Israeli strikes were affiliated with Hezbollah’s civilian infrastructure. At least 12 Lebanese Civil Defense first responders and 16 Lebanese Red Cross paramedics have been killed in strikes. The IDF did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on attacks that have killed paramedics and emergency workers.

Since September 23, Israeli strikes have killed eight people inside the premises of four hospitals, and eight facilities have been forced to close, according to the health ministry.

Hospitals and other medical establishments are protected civilian objects under international humanitarian law. It is illegal, with few exceptions, to attack hospitals, ambulances or other health facilities, or to otherwise prevent them from providing care. In a report released on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch referred to Israeli attacks on healthcare workers in Lebanon as “apparent war crimes.”

The threat to Lebanon’s healthcare sector was felt most acutely on the night of October 21. As well as the strike that hit the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, Israel also claimed that another major hospital in the south of Beirut, Al Sahel General Hospital, was located above a Hezbollah bunker. Hours later, hospital staff and patients evacuated the facility for fear it would be hit. The next day, journalists toured the premises and said they found no evidence to support the claim.

Israel published a 3D graphic to show what they claimed was a Hezbollah underground facility storing cash and gold beneath the hospital. Officials at Sahel General Hospital vehemently denied the accusation, and Israel has not struck the hospital.

For the Lebanese, the graphic was reminiscent of imagery released by the Israeli military last year alleging the presence of a Hamas “command-and-control” center under Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital. The hospital was later attacked by Israeli forces.

“For me, what’s really concerning is that the rhetoric from the Israelis is the same, especially when they talk about infrastructure beneath healthcare,” said Dr. Thaer Ahmad, an American physician who volunteered at Gaza’s Al Nasser hospital in Khan Younis earlier this year and is now working in Lebanon.

Ahmad said all healthcare workers he’s interacted with are “pessimistic,” and fear the health system will suffer the same fate as it has in Gaza.

“There are no red lines. There is no respect for international humanitarian law. We saw that in Gaza for the past 13 months and we’re seeing it in Lebanon,” Ahmad told CNN. “Are we heading in that same direction, are we actually going to see this repeat itself?”
Fragmentation zones

Israel’s air, ground and naval assault on Hezbollah in Lebanon has decimated the Iran-backed group’s military leadership and dealt harsh blows to its rank-and-file, as well as to its arsenal of weaponry. It has also killed hundreds of civilians, according to health authorities, and destroyed large swathes of civilian infrastructure.

Israel has regularly dropped 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound bombs on Lebanon, according to analysis of aftermath imagery by weapons experts, inflicting catastrophic damage to neighborhoods and towns. The Israeli military has argued that it has deployed these bombs as bunker busters to destroy Hezbollah’s underground infrastructure.

The weapons experts told CNN that Israel has also used the GBU-39, or small-diameter bomb, to take out single floors of multistorey buildings. The attacks have been concentrated in, though not restricted to, areas of Hezbollah dominance – namely the south and east of the country as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut.

The lethal fragmentation radius of these bombs puts nearby people and civilian structures, such as hospitals, at serious risk. When they are dropped, white-hot metal fragments can fly out in all directions, tearing through their surroundings. Known by experts as a “kill zone,” the area of exposure to injury or death around a target can range from 340 meters for small-diameter bombs, to 365 meters for 1,000 and 2,000 bombs, weapons experts say.

All eight hospitals in the southern suburbs of Beirut, known as Dahiyeh, fell within the lethal fragmentation zones of verified airstrikes. According to the health ministry, all of these healthcare facilities were damaged in the first month of Israel’s offensive since late September. Three hospitals on the edges of the area were also damaged, according to the ministry’s data.

Almost all of Hezbollah’s leadership were killed in Israeli strikes in Dahiyeh, the group’s seat of power. Several videos of attacks there have shown signs of secondary explosions – evidence that at least some of the targets were weapons depots.

Beirut’s southern suburbs, previously home to around a million people, were also a major flashpoint of Israeli attacks in the country’s last all-out war with Lebanon in 2006. Airstrikes there transformed large parts of the area into a seemingly endless stretch of rubble and detritus. Yet back then, the bombing campaign left hospitals in the south of Beirut comparatively unscathed.

Under international law, a hospital can lose its special protected status only if it is being used for military purposes. But the wounded and sick inside are still protected by the principle of proportionality, and time must be given for evacuation before an attack.

On October 1, an Israeli strike near al-Zahra University Hospital in Dahiyeh killed one person and injured two more inside the facility’s premises, according to the health ministry. Video of the attack analyzed by CNN found that the strike hit a building adjacent to the perimeter of the hospital, less than 50 meters away from the main building.

The analysis found that the weapon was likely a GBU-39.

The hardest-hit health facilities have been in the southernmost part of Lebanon, where the Israeli air assault has been the most intense and ground forces have been met with fierce resistance from Hezbollah fighters. It was in that region that the first of the country’s hospitals shuttered after the start of the all-out offensive.

In the town of Bint Jbeil, Israel struck a mosque which it described as a command center within the compound of the Salah Ghandour hospital on October 4. Ten people inside the hospital were injured, according to the health ministry, forcing it to close.

That day, an Israeli airstrike hit the premises of Marjayoun governmental hospital in a southern Christian town of the same name.

Two people were killed outside of the hospital’s emergency room, according to health minister Abiad. CNN spoke to the director of the hospital hours after it was evacuated.

“We held on for as long as we could,” Dr. Mones Kalakish told CNN as he was departing the Marjayoun area, which had been surrounded by intensive bombardment for weeks. “But this morning, we came under fire, and we had to evacuate. We were panicked and we were terrified.”

The night that a nearby strike rocked Beirut’s Rafik Hariri University Hospital there was panicked discussion among the staff about whether to evacuate. “Because of Gaza and what happened to the hospitals in the south and the rest of the country, our initial thought was that the hospital itself was hit,” said Rafik Hariri University Hospital director Jihad Saadeh. “But when we saw that it wasn’t a direct hit, we were reassured. We continued our work.”

For Nurse Foany, merely considering the evacuation was a terrifying thought. “Can you imagine what that was like? Imagine evacuating Lebanon’s largest public hospital, not just its staff but its sick and its injured in a single night,” he said. “It was a horrific thought.”

CNN’s Rachel Wilson, Abeer Salman and Mohammad Tawfeeq contributed to this report. This story has been updated.

Israel investigates leaks that appear to have bolstered Netanyahu as Gaza truce talks

 stalled

TIA GOLDENBERG
Updated Sun, November 3, 2024 




Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for those killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and those who fell in the "Iron Sword" war, at the Knesset, the Parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024.

 (Debbie Hill, Pool Photo via AP)

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — An Israeli court on Sunday loosened a gag order on a case investigating leaks of classified information suspected to involve one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s media advisers. Critics say the leaks were aimed at giving Netanyahu political cover as Gaza cease-fire talks ground to a halt.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing, downplaying the affair and publicly calling for the gag order to be lifted. Netanyahu has said the person in question “never participated in security discussions, was not exposed to or received classified information, and did not take part in secret visits.”

On Sunday, an Israeli court allowed the publication of the name of the central suspect in the case, Eli Feldstein, whom Israeli media said was one of Netanyahu’s media advisers. Israeli media reports say the case concerns the leak of classified information to two European media outlets, allegedly by Feldstein, who may not have been formally employed and did not have security clearance. The media reported Feldstein joined Netanyahu as an adviser weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks and previously worked as an adviser to far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.


The court did not release the names of three other suspects who are also being investigated in connection with the leak.

The leaked documents are said to have formed the basis of a widely discredited article in the London-based Jewish Chronicle — which was later withdrawn — suggesting Hamas planned to spirit hostages out of Gaza through Egypt, and an article in Germany's Bild newspaper that said Hamas was drawing out the talks as a form of psychological warfare on Israel.

Israeli media and other observers expressed skepticism about the articles, which appeared to support Netanyahu's demands in the talks and absolve him of blame for their failure. Netanyahu made no mention of the case in a visit to Israel’s northern border with Israel Sunday, according to a video released by his office.

The articles came out as Netanyahu was calling for lasting Israeli control over the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, a demand that was first made public over the summer. Hamas rejected the demand and accused Netanyahu of deliberately sabotaging the talks, which have been mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.

The articles also seemed to provide political cover as Netanyahu faced intense criticism from the families of the hostages and much of the Israeli public, who blame him for the failure to reach a deal. The criticism reached a fever pitch in early September, with mass protests and calls for a general strike, after Hamas killed six hostages as Israeli troops closed in on them.

A court document confirmed that an investigation by police, the military and the Shin Bet internal security agency is underway and that a number of suspects have been arrested for questioning. It said the affair poses “a risk to sensitive information and sources" and “harms the achievement of the goals of the war in the Gaza Strip.”

The leak led to a scandal at the Jewish Chronicle, where prominent columnists resigned in protest over the discredited articles. The London-based newspaper removed the article in question and others by a freelance journalist, saying it was “not satisfied with some of his claims.”

The Bild article suggested Hamas was not serious about the negotiations and was using psychological warfare to stoke Israeli divisions. Netanyahu cited it in a meeting with his Cabinet after it was published.

He again defended the article in a statement released over the weekend, saying it had “exposed the Hamas methods of exerting psychological pressure from home and abroad on the Israeli government and public by blaming Israel for the failure of the talks to release the hostages.”

Netanyahu has sought to blame Hamas, whose Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel ignited the war, for the failure of the talks. Hamas, which is still holding scores of hostages, has said it will only release them in exchange for a lasting cease-fire, a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas says those demands have not changed following last month's killing of its top leader Yahya Sinwar, as the United States, Egypt and Qatar seek to restart the negotiations.

Netanyahu, often described by critics as image-obsessed, is on trial for corruption in three separate cases, two of which involve accusations that he gave favors to media moguls in exchange for positive coverage.

His office has downplayed the latest affair and accused the judiciary of bias, citing the many other leaks over the course of the war. It has also denied the leak in question had any impact on the cease-fire talks.

“The document only helped the effort to return the hostages, and certainly did not harm it,” Netanyahu's office said in a statement Saturday, adding that he only learned about the document when it was publicized.

His critics say the allegations are far more serious.

Yoav Limor, writing in the pro-Netanyahu daily Israel Hayom, called it “one of the gravest affairs Israel has ever known.”

“The damage it caused extends beyond the realm of national security and gives rise to suspicion that the prime minister’s bureau acted to scuttle a hostage deal, contrary to the war’s objectives.”


Israeli authorities probe suspected Gaza intelligence leak by Netanyahu aide

Updated Sun, November 3, 2024 


Court ruling on the lifting of a gag order on an ongoing investigation into the suspected leak of classified documents seized in Gaza by Israeli PM Netanyahu's circle, in Rishon Lezion


By Rami Amichay and Maayan Lubell

RISHON LE-ZION, Israel (Reuters) - A suspected leak of classified Gaza documents involving an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has jolted Israeli politics and outraged the families of hostages held by Hamas who have been pushing for a deal to get their loved ones home.

Details of the case have trickled out slowly because of a gag order.

But a magistrate's ruling partly lifting the order has provided an initial glimpse of the case that the court said had compromised security sources and may have harmed Israel's efforts to release the hostages.

"Classified and sensitive intelligence information was taken from IDF (Israel Defence Forces) systems and taken out illegally," a ruling by the Rishon Le-Zion Magistrates' Court said on Sunday, which may have caused "serious damage to the state's security and posed a risk to information sources".

In that, the court said, the leak could have hurt efforts to release the hostages.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing by his office staffers and said in a statement on Saturday that he was only made aware of the leaked document by the media.

The four suspects - one a spokesman from Netanyahu's circle and three of them members of the security establishment - could not be reached for comment.

Details from the document in question were published by the German Bild newspaper on Sept. 6, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, one of the media outlets that had appealed the court to lift the gag order.

The article, labelled as an exclusive, purportedly outlined the negotiation strategy of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militant group that Israel has been fighting in Gaza for more than a year.

Around that time, the United States, Qatar and Egypt were mediating ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, that were to include a deal to release hostages held in Gaza.

But the talks faltered with Israel and Hamas trading blame for the deadlock. The article in question largely corresponded with Netanyahu's allegations against Hamas over the impasse.

It was published days after six Israeli hostages were found executed in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza. Their killing sparked mass protests in Israel and outraged hostage families, who accused Netanyahu of torpedoing the ceasefire talks for political reasons.

On Saturday, some of the families joined the Israeli journalists' appeal to lift the gag order.

"These people have been living on a rollercoaster of rumours and half truths," said their lawyer, Dana Pugach.

"For the last year they have been waiting to hear any intelligence or any information about negotiations for the release of those hostages. If some of that information had been stolen from army sources then we think that the families have the right to learn about any relevant detail," she added.

In another session on Sunday about the investigation by the Shin Bet domestic security service, police and the military, the court ordered one suspect be released, while keeping others in remand, according to Haaretz.

Asked about the investigation, Bild said that it does not comment on its sources. "The authenticity of the document known to us was confirmed by the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) immediately after publication," it said.

The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's retaliatory offensives have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced much of Gaza to rubble.

(Additional reporting by Emily Rose in Jerusalem and Friederike Heine in Berlin; Editing by James Mackenzie, Christina Fincher and Barbara Lewis)

Israel has long wanted to dismantle the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency. The consequences could be disastrous for all

Mick Krever, CNN
Sun, November 3, 2024


Benjamin Netanyahu sat down for his regular cabinet meeting and had some words for a new ally – and an old enemy.

“Last week I met with US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley,” the Israeli prime minister told his colleagues. “I thanked her, on your behalf as well, for her decisive words in favor of the state of Israel – and against the anti-Israel obsession at the UN.”

“It is time UNRWA be dismantled,” he declared.

It was June 2017: the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency. The possibilities for Netanyahu – who once bunked in the childhood bed of Trump’s son-in-law – seemed endless. In a few months, the American president would buck decades of foreign policy precedent and move his country’s embassy to the disputed city of Jerusalem.

In the case of UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees – Netanyahu would not get his wish so quickly. It would take another eight years.

The Israeli parliament, or Knesset, on Monday voted through legislation to ban UNRWA from Israel and prohibit any contact between it and Israeli officials. The two laws do not mean the immediate end of the agency. Nor do they technically prevent it from working in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. But given the near-inextricable link between the agency’s ability to function there and the Israeli authorities, they almost certainly mean the end of UNRWA’s operation as we know it.

There are as many opinions on why UNRWA, which provides services and aid to millions of Palestinians across the Middle East, was banned as there are people to ask.

Many point to allegations by the Israel Defense Forces that a handful of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza participated in the October 7 massacre, which saw 1,200 people killed and around 250 taken hostage. In a country still reeling from the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, this has been a potent and impossible to ignore argument against UNRWA.

Others see the move as another step in the erosion of Palestinian rights and the removal of their distant but long-promised right to return to the villages, now in Israel, from which they and their ancestors were violently evicted when the Jewish state was created in 1948.

In any case, the head of UNRWA has said that the legislation “will only deepen the suffering of Palestinians, especially in Gaza where people have been going through more than a year of sheer hell.”
‘Low-hanging fruit’

Boaz Bismuth, a Likud member of Knesset, wrote one of the two bills to ban UNRWA, which passed 92 to 10. In the wake of October 7, he believed that dismantling the agency was urgent.

“I did not see December ’49,” when UNRWA was created, he insisted. Nor, he said, was he motivated by the claim that UNRWA perpetuates Palestinian refugee status. “All this is totally irrelevant for me. What was relevant for me in my bill was the fact that they participated on the 7th of October massacre, and this is why they will not work in Israel anymore.”

The Israeli government in January said that 12 UNRWA staff members in Gaza had participated in the Hamas-led attack on Israel, and later added more to that list. The agency immediately fired most of the individuals concerned. A UN investigation found that nine employees “may have” been involved in the October 7 attack.

Hamas' armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, on October 07, 2023. - Hani Alshaer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

The Washington Post in February obtained CCTV footage from Kibbutz Be’eri on October, which it said showed one of the UNRWA employees accused by Israel of involvement, carrying the corpse of an Israeli man killed by Hamas militants.

UNRWA to this day maintains that Israel never provided it with evidence against its former employees. The agency says it had regularly provided Israel with a full list of its staff members, and has accused Israel of detaining and torturing some of its staffers, coercing them into making false confessions about ties to Hamas.

But Bismuth said that “for me, UNRWA equals Hamas” – and his view is widespread in Israel. In a country where Netanyahu is politically ascendant against the odds, supporting his party’s legislation was plain old good politics.

“UNRWA was low-hanging fruit for this Israeli government,” said Aaron David Miller, a longtime American policymaker in the Middle East who was a key player in the last serious round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in 2000.
A long history

UNRWA is nearly as old as Israel itself. The violence surrounding the creation of Israel in 1948 displaced close to a million Arabs from their homes in what had been British-mandate Palestine – an event Palestinians call the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”

The UN General Assembly, which had consented to Israel’s creation, declared that all the displaced Arabs should be allowed to return “at the earliest practicable date.” A year later, it created UNRWA “to prevent conditions of starvation and distress.”

Palestinian Arabs fleeing their village near Jerusalem, in 1948. - AFP/Getty Images

The entrance to Aida Refugee Camp, near Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank. Above the entrance to the camp is a key, symbolizing the Palestinians' right to return to villages from which they were forced in 1948. - Mick Krever/CNN

To Israelis, UNRWA is an anachronism that represents the unrealistic and distant dream of millions of Palestinians to return to their homes in what is now Israel. That is what Netanyahu means when he says the agency “perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem.” Philippe Lazzarini, the Swiss commissioner-general of UNRWA, has made clear that even if his agency were dissolved, it “will not strip the Palestinians from their refugee status.”

Israelis have long accused UNRWA of perpetuating anti-Israel ideology in schools they run. A UN-commissioned inquiry found that examples in textbooks of anti-Israel bias were “marginal” but nonetheless constituted “a grave violation of neutrality.”

Israeli leaders believe that Palestinians do not deserve their own refugee agency and should permanently resettle where they now live – assisted, if need be, by the agency responsible for all other refugees in the world, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR.

“What makes Palestinian refugees different is that they’re not seeking refuge in a third country,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian human rights lawyer. “They want to go home.”
‘What more do they want?’

Saleh Shunnar, displaced from his home in Gaza by the year-long war, knows what it means to be a refugee.

“Israel has always wanted to do this,” he said, speaking from a tent encampment in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza. “If they shut down UNRWA, that means there is no Palestinian refugee cause. They took away the Palestinian cause.”

Those fears run deep for many Palestinians. But concerns about the impact on so-called final status negotiations are “tethered to a galaxy far, far away, rather than to the realities back here on planet earth,” said Miller, the former American negotiator.

“I can understand why the Palestinians would regard this as a systematic first step to undermine the right of return,” he said. But the issues facing any negotiations over a Palestinian state are so numerous and so fraught that the right of return is far down the long list of obstacles, he said.

Palestinians gather to receive aid outside an UNRWA warehouse in Gaza, in March. - Mahmoud Issa/Reuters

That is particularly the case when so many Palestinians face an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.

“These are the simplest of needs,” Deir Al-Balah resident Ghalia Abd Abu Amra said of the aid she receives. “What more do they want to take from us than what they already have? Our homes are gone, now they want to take UNRWA too?”

The massive tent camps for internally displaced Gazans have steadily become entrenched. Cloth walls become tarpaulin. Mud floors are replaced with wood. This transformation has been happening for decades across the 58 refugee camps run by UNRWA in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere in the region, as tent camps became residential blocks.

A tent camp for displaced Palestinians in Gaza City. - Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu/Getty Images

An UNRWA school in al-Am'ari Refugee Camp, in Ramallah, in the West Bank. The agency runs 706 schools in the Middle East. - Issam Rimawi/Anadolu/Getty Images

For millions of Palestinians, UNRWA functions as a parallel government. It is a vast organization that provides services that governments – whether in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza, or the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem – are unable or unwilling to provide. It educates half a million students. It employs 3,000 medical professionals. It helps feed nearly two million people.

“UNRWA has saved Israeli taxpayers billions of dollars over the last 57 years,” said Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer who sits on the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. “Israel, as the occupying power under the fourth Geneva Convention, is responsible for the care, protection, and the provision of services to persons under occupation.”

“The international community has been doing that by its financial support for UNRWA,” he told journalists in New York. “So if UNRWA is kicked out, the cost for the Israeli taxpayer is going to be ginormous. So this is a decision that is bad for the Palestinians and ridiculous for Israeli taxpayers.”

An UNRWA school in Nuseirat Refugee Camp in Gaza City, after an Israeli airstrike in September. - Anadolu/Anadolu/Anadolu via Getty Images

Bismuth, the Knesset member who authored the UNRWA legislation, said that Israel would step in.

“You will not have a vacuum,” he said. “I feel good with my bill. Because all the services that they got – not only will they continue to get it, but we will even upgrade it.”

Indeed, UNRWA’s benefit to Israel had long been recognized by those in the government responsible for Palestinian affairs, said Nadav Tamir, a former diplomat who now serves as executive director of J Street Israel, a left-wing lobby group. He characterized their view as: “‘Of course UNRWA is problematic, but we don’t have another option, we need someone to take care of the issues.’” Before October 7, he explained, politicians could not overcome the “realpolitik” that UNRWA was an asset in taking a problem off Israel’s plate.

Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, after an Israeli raid in September. - Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

What that will look like remains a mystery to most. Miller is blunt: “Israelis don’t have a long-term solution.” In conversations with UNRWA staff members in the refugee camps around Jerusalem – who asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak with the media – confusion reigned.

No one knows whether, when the legislation fully go into effect in three months, schools will remain open or medicine will be delivered. Tens of thousands of Palestinians who work for the agency could soon be unemployed.

“Most Israelis don’t really know the facts,” Tamir said. “They don’t really understand that there is no alternative. They think, ‘Oh, we can just bring another organization, or we could somehow do it on our own.’”

Even if the Israeli leadership decides that it can cast aside the moral issue of providing for Palestinian civilians, shutting down services for millions poses a threat for Israel itself.

“It’s a strategic issue that will promote more terrorism and of course all kind of epidemics that are not stopping at the border,” Tamir said. “So people who really know the situation I think are concerned. But most people and most politicians don’t really care about the reality. It’s all about the perception.”

Zeena Saifi, Abeer Salman, Mohammed Al-Sawalhi, and Shira Gemer contributed to this report.


Israel officially informs UN of end to relations with Palestinian relief agency

Reuters
Sun, November 3, 2024 

Palestinians gather to inspect the damages at the headquarters of UNRWA in Gaza City


JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has officially notified the United Nations that it was cancelling the agreement that regulated its relations with the main U.N. relief organization for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) since 1967, the country's foreign ministry said on Monday.

Last month, the Israeli parliament passed legislation banning UNRWA from operating in Israel and stopping Israeli authorities from cooperating with the organization, which provides aid and education services to millions of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Israel has long been critical of UNRWA, set up in the wake of the 1948 war that broke out at the time of the creation of the state of Israel, accusing it of anti-Israel bias and saying it perpetuates the conflict by maintaining Palestinians in a permanent refugee status.

Since the start of the Gaza war in October last year, it has also said that the organization has been deeply infiltrated by Hamas in Gaza, accusing some of its staff of taking part in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The legislation has alarmed the United Nations and some of Israel's Western allies who fear it will further worsen the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where Israel has been fighting Hamas militants for a year. The ban does not refer to operations in the Palestinian territories or elsewhere.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement that despite the overwhelming evidence "we submitted to the U.N. highlighting how Hamas infiltrated UNRWA, the U.N. did nothing to address this reality".

The legislation does not directly outlaw UNRWA's operations in the West Bank and Gaza, both considered by international law to be outside the state of Israel but under Israeli occupation.

But it will severely impact its ability to work in those areas and there has been deep alarm among aid groups and many of Israel's partners.

The Israeli foreign ministry said activity by other international organizations would be expanded and "preparations will be made to end the connection with UNRWA and to boost alternatives to UNRWA".

(Reporting by Muhammad Al Gebaly and Nilutpal Timsina; Writing by Tala Ramadan Editing by Kim Coghill and Michael Perry)

Disappeared Doctors

by Visualizing Palestine / November 2nd, 2024

We are in some of the darkest days of this genocide. The Israeli military is currently carrying out a systemic extermination campaign in north Gaza, committing massacre after massacre while completely cutting off humanitarian aid and banning UNRWA.

On October 29, 2024, an Israeli airstrike killed 93 Palestinians in Beit Lahia, north Gaza. Those injured in the massacre have no access to medical care, because on October 26, 2024, Israeli forces attacked Kamal Adwan Hospital and abducted 44 of its 70 staff. Our latest visual highlights the continuous targeting of Palestinian healthcare workers and facilities by Israeli forces in Gaza, focusing on the enforced disappearance, torture, and murder of Dr. Iyad Rantisi, the director of the maternity department at Kamal Adwan Hospital.

Dr. Rantisi is one of at least three Palestinian doctors murdered in Israeli custody since October 2023. Israeli attacks on hospitals and health workers, which initially shocked and outraged the world in 2023, have now become a constant, routine feature of this genocide. By devastating the health system in Gaza, Israeli forces are “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” as described by the genocide convention. In these conditions, those who are not immediately killed by direct violence are more likely to die slowly due to lack of access to medical services, denial of humanitarian aid, mass starvation, untreated traumatic injuries, and disease.

This is the third visual in a series raising awareness about Israel’s practices of mass incommunicado detention and torture of Palestinians. Our first visual illustrates the testimony of Fadi Bakr, a law student from Gaza City, who was captured by Israeli soldiers in early January and spent more than 30 days in Sde Teiman, part of a network of Israeli torture camps. The second visual captures the testimony of Palestinian women from Gaza who were arbitrarily detained and held incommunicado by Israel.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Visualizing Palestine is the intersection of communication, social sciences, technology, design and urban studies for social justice. Visualizing Palestine uses creative visuals to describe a factual rights-based narrative of Palestine/Israel. Read other articles by Visualizing Palestine, or visit Visualizing Palestine's website.