Middle East crisis live: Israeli troops remain in five locations in Lebanon after deadline for withdrawal expires
Original deadline in late January extended to 18 February by both Israel and Lebanon as both sides claim the other has violated ceasefire agreementHello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of developments in the Middle East.Israel’s army has left southern Lebanese villages but remains in five positions, a Lebanese security source told Agence France-Presse (AFP), as a deadline for their withdrawal agreed to under a peace deal with Hezbollah expired.Itamar Ben-Gvir has suggested that the Egyptian government may have had a role to play in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. “They [Egypt] have a role in what happened on October 7,” the former national security minister, who resigned from Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet in protest over the Gaza ceasefire deal, said in comments carried by Israeli state radio. “There was probably some partnership, or at the very least, a willful blindness.”An alternative to Donald Trump’s proposal for the effective ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza is being prepared by Egypt, under which Hamas would be formally excluded from governance and control of the territory’s reconstruction. The process would be handed over on an interim basis to the control of a social or community support committee. No member of Hamas would sit on the committee (you can read more about the alternative plan here).The World Bank will release an assessment of damages to infrastructure in Gaza in coming days. It is expected to provide a fuller overview of damage done to the territory by Israeli airstrikes after an interim report in April showed it suffered $18.5bn in damages to critical infrastructure in the first four months of the war. Continue reading...
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Original deadline in late January extended to 18 February by both Israel and Lebanon as both sides claim the other has violated ceasefire agreement
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of developments in the Middle East.
Israel’s army has left southern Lebanese villages but remains in five positions, a Lebanese security source told Agence France-Presse (AFP), as a deadline for their withdrawal agreed to under a peace deal with Hezbollah expired.
Itamar Ben-Gvir has suggested that the Egyptian government may have had a role to play in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. “They [Egypt] have a role in what happened on October 7,” the former national security minister, who resigned from Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet in protest over the Gaza ceasefire deal, said in comments carried by Israeli state radio. “There was probably some partnership, or at the very least, a willful blindness.”
An alternative to Donald Trump’s proposal for the effective ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza is being prepared by Egypt, under which Hamas would be formally excluded from governance and control of the territory’s reconstruction. The process would be handed over on an interim basis to the control of a social or community support committee. No member of Hamas would sit on the committee (you can read more about the alternative plan here).
The World Bank will release an assessment of damages to infrastructure in Gaza in coming days. It is expected to provide a fuller overview of damage done to the territory by Israeli airstrikes after an interim report in April showed it suffered $18.5bn in damages to critical infrastructure in the first four months of the war. Continue reading...
