Says troops to remain in some areas ‘for coming year’
Lebanese mourners attend the funeral of Hezbollah fighters on Saturday. Pic/AFP
Israel said on Sunday it was scaling up a weeks-long offensive in the occupied West Bank, sending in tanks to a militant stronghold and pledging to keep troops in place for the next year in areas where Palestinians have fled.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to prepare to remain in some of the West Bank’s refugee camps, from where he said some 40,000 Palestinians had fled, leaving the areas “emptied of residents”.
He said in a statement he had ordered the military to “prepare for an extended stay in the camps that were cleared for the coming year and to not allow the return of residents or for terror to grow again”.
Israel launched a new offensive on the city of Jenin on January 21—two days after the ceasefire that paused the war in Gaza took effect—and then deepened it to include other areas nearby, among them urban refugee camps that house the descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes in wars with Israel decades ago.
The military said on Sunday it was expanding the raid in the West Bank to other areas and was sending tanks to Jenin, long a bastion of armed struggle against Israel.
Hezbollah launchers struck
Israeli aircraft struck a Hezbollah site containing rocket launchers and other weapons on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed. According to Lebanese media reports, the strikes took place in the southern Lebanese area of Tyre. The IDF said some of the launchers it struck posed an “imminent threat” to
the country.
Hezbollah chief honoured
Thousands of people gathered in Beirut early on Sunday to attend the funeral of Hezbollah’s former leader, nearly five months after he was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital. Hassan Nasrallah was killed when Israel dropped over 80 bombs on the group’s main operations room.
Prisoner release delayed
Israel says the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners is delayed “until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies” at handovers of Israeli captives in Gaza. The statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office came early Sunday as vehicles apparently carrying prisoners left the open gates of Ofer prison, only to turn around and go back in.
Jan 19
Day ceasefire deal came into effect
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