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      in Elections

      For Families of Those Missing After Israeli Strike in Beirut, an Agonizing Wait

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      After a nightlong vigil, with an untold number of hours of waiting still ahead, Najwa Qubaisi pushed away every relative who tried to coax her from the concrete skeleton of the building that had once been home to her grandson and his family.“How can I leave? I can’t,” she said, her eyes puffy from hours of crying. “I want to stay until I get some kind of news.”A day after an Israeli strike razed two buildings in an attack that killed members of its regional foe, Hezbollah, in suburban Beirut, the relatives of those who lived there were anxiously waiting on Saturday to learn the fate of dozens of loved ones still unaccounted for.Desperate, dazed-looking family members huddled in crowds just beyond the remains of sidewalks that had been ripped away and torn apart by the force of the blast. The occasional screeches of ambulance sirens were audible as rescuers brought in heavy equipment to remove tons of concrete in search of the missing.The blasts on Friday were not only a painful military blow to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group that lost two top commanders and over a dozen members in what Israel described as a strike on a meeting held after a string of Israeli attacks this past week. They were also devastating to the largely Shiite Muslim community of Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has long held sway.The toll of the blast has risen to 37, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, with three children among the dead. And sorrow and rage emanated from those still awaiting news.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Senior Hezbollah Leader Is Killed in Beirut in Israeli Airstrike

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      The attack, which Lebanese officials said killed at least 14 and injured more than 60, stoked fears Israel is driving toward a full-blown war on its northern border, even as the fight in Gaza goes on.Israeli fighter jets bombed an apartment building in Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs on Friday in what the military called an attack on Hezbollah militants, including a senior commander who was wanted in the deadly 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the senior commander, Ibrahim Aqeel, had been killed, along with “around” 10 others from Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit, who were meeting underneath the residential building.In a statement, Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia backed by Iran, confirmed that Mr. Aqeel had been killed. The strike marked an escalation in Israel’s bloody conflict with the militia and fueled fears among Lebanese, Israelis and diplomats that Israel is driving closer to a full-blown war with Hezbollah, even as it continues to fight Hamas in Gaza.The strike on Friday came as Lebanon was still reeling from the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday — widely attributed to Israel — that blew up communication devices belonging to Hezbollah members, killing at least 37 people and injuring thousands, Lebanese health officials said. Hezbollah’s leader vowed on Thursday to retaliate against Israel for those blasts, but did not describe how or when.As with Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, the one on Friday in Lebanon led to destruction and death in a heavily residential area. Lebanese officials said that two apartment buildings had collapsed, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 60 others, including children. Residents described ambulances racing through the streets, a column of smoke rising above the skyline and rescuers frantically digging through rubble.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Rashida Tlaib condemns cartoonist for racist image of her with exploding pager

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      Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian American congresswoman, has accused a political cartoonist of racism after he depicted her next to a pager exploding days after such devices blew up across Lebanon in what the Arab country has said was an attack by Israel.A statement from the Democratic US House representative also expressed concern that the cartoon by Henry Payne would “incite more hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities”.“And it makes everyone less safe,” Tlaib said of the cartoon – published by the Republican-friendly National Review – which also showed her thinking how “odd” it was for the nearby pager to explode. Pagers had been a preferred method of Hezbollah members in conflict with Israel, before such devices exploded across Lebanon recently. “It’s disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism against our communities,” she said.The congresswoman’s statement about the publication of the cartoon “Tlaib Pager Hamas” came after many users on the social media platform X had condemned it as anti-Arab as well as Islamophobic. Among them was the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, Abdullah Hammoud, who wrote on X: “Absolutely disgusting. Anti-Arab bigotry & Islamophobia have become normalized in our media.”The mayor added: “At what point will people call this out?”Other users condemned Payne’s cartoon directly on his own X profile. One wrote: “You should be ashamed,” and another user said: “What the fuck does she have to do with the war crimes of Israel terrorizing the [Lebanese] people? It’s because she’s Arab you thought it was okay to draw this shit?”Payne is a political cartoonist for the Detroit News, one of two major daily newspapers in the city, which is Tlaib’s hometown. The Guardian sent him a request for comment on Friday.The slew of pager and walkie-talkie explosions to which the cartoon alludes have killed dozens of people while wounding thousands more, including children.The Lebanese government and Hezbollah have blamed Israel for the attacks.Israel has stopped short of claiming responsibility for the deadly attacks. However, in their wake, its defense minister complimented the Mossad – the Israeli intelligence agency – for its “great achievements”.The intensifying tensions across the Middle East come as Israel’s deadly war on Gaza approaches its first anniversary on 7 October. Israel launched that war after it was attacked by Hamas, who killed about 1,100 Israelis and took 200 more hostage.Israel in response has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians while leaving 2 million survivors forcibly displaced across the Gaza Strip amid a severe shortage of food, water and medical supplies inflicted by Israeli restrictions, according to Gaza’s health ministry.As the only Palestinian American federal lawmaker, Tlaib – who has since dealt with a string of anti-Arab and Islamophobic abuses – has been among the few voices in Congress condemning Israel for its deadly war across Gaza. Several United Nations human rights experts have decried the war as a genocide.Last November, the Republican-controlled US House censured Tlaib over her criticisms of Israel. In response, Tlaib said: “I will not be silenced,” adding: “I can’t believe I have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable.” More

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      How Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers

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      The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.The pagers began beeping just after 3:30 in the afternoon in Lebanon on Tuesday, alerting Hezbollah operatives to a message from their leadership in a chorus of chimes, melodies, and buzzes.But it wasn’t the militants’ leaders. The pages had been sent by Hezbollah’s archenemy, and within seconds the alerts were followed by the sounds of explosions and cries of pain and panic in streets, shops and homes across Lebanon.Powered by just a few ounces of an explosive compound concealed within the devices, the blasts sent grown men flying off motorcycles and slamming into walls, according to witnesses and video footage. People out shopping fell to the ground, writhing in agony, smoke snaking from their pockets.Mohammed Awada, 52, and his son were driving by one man whose pager exploded, he said. “My son went crazy and started to scream when he saw the man’s hand flying away from him,” he said.By the end of the day, at least a dozen people were dead and more than 2,700 were wounded, many of them maimed. And the following day, 20 more people were killed and hundreds wounded when walkie-talkies in Lebanon also began mysteriously exploding. Some of the dead and wounded were Hezbollah members, but others were not; four of the dead were children.Walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon on Wednesday, killing more than a dozen people and wounding hundreds, officials said. The Times verified footage from an explosion at a funeral that sent mourners fleeing for safety.Mohammad Zaatari/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Israel’s booby-trap war: illegal and unacceptable | Editorial

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      In the second world war, guerrilla forces scattered large quantities of booby-trapped objects likely to be attractive to civilians. The idea was to cause widescale and indiscriminate death. The Japanese manufactured a tobacco pipe with a charge detonated by a spring-loaded striker. The Italians produced a headset that blew up when it was plugged in. More than half a century later, a global treaty came into force which “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material”. Has anyone told Israel and its jubilant supporters that, as Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group points out, it is a signatory to the protocol?On Tuesday, pagers used by hundreds of members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria, killing at least 12 people – including two children and four hospital workers – and wounding thousands more. This situation is directly analogous to the historical practices that current global arms treaties explicitly prohibit. US media say Israel was behind the attack, and the country has the motive and the means to target its Iran-backed enemies. Israel’s leaders have a long history of carrying out sophisticated remote operations, ranging from cyber-attacks, suicide drone attacks and remote-controlled weapons to assassinate Iranian scientists. On Wednesday it was reported that Israel blew up thousands of two-way personal radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, killing nine and wounding hundreds.This week’s attacks were not, as Israel’s defenders claimed, “surgical” or a “precisely targeted anti-terrorist operation”. Israel and Hezbollah are sworn enemies. The current round of fighting has seen tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the Israel-Lebanon border because of the Shia militant group’s rocket and artillery attacks.However, the pager bombs were clearly intended to target individual civilians – diplomats and politicians – who were not directly participating in hostilities. The plan appeared to produce what lawyers might call “excessive incidental civilian harm”. Both these arguments have been levelled at Russia to claim Moscow was committing war crimes in Ukraine. It’s hard to say why the same reasoning is not applied to Israel – apart from that it is a western ally.Such disproportionate attacks, which seem illegal, are not only unprecedented but may also become normalised. If that is the case, the door is opened for other states to lethally test the laws of war. The US should step in and restrain its friend, but Joe Biden shows no sign of intervening to stop the bloodshed. The road to peace runs through Gaza, but Mr Biden’s ceasefire plan – and the release of hostages – has not found favour with either Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Hamas.The worry is that Israel’s actions lead to a disastrous all-out conflict that would pull the US into a regional fight. The world stands on the edge of chaos because Mr Netanyahu’s continuing hold on power and consequent insulation from corruption charges depend largely on his nation being at war. None of this is possible without US complicity and assistance. Perhaps it is only after its presidential election that the US will be able to say that the price of saving Mr Netanyahu’s skin should not be paid in the streets of Lebanon or by Palestinians in the occupied territories. Until then, the rules-based international order will continue to be undermined by the very countries that created the system. More

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      Houthis Launch Missile at Central Israel

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      The rare attack was an illustration of the evolving conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iranian proxies.The Houthi militia in Yemen claimed responsibility on Sunday for a rare missile attack on Israel, the second time in two months that the Iranian-backed group has successfully penetrated the skies over the central part of the country.The assault was the latest illustration of the evolving conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iranian proxies, which have mounted attacks on Israeli territory in what they have said is solidarity with Palestinians under bombardment in Gaza. It also demonstrated the military capabilities of the Houthis, based hundreds of miles from Israel on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.Air-raid sirens blared in dozens of towns and villages in central Israel around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, sending people rushing to fortified safe rooms and bomb shelters.The Israeli military initially said the Houthis had fired a surface-to-surface missile that landed in an “open area” and that no casualties were reported. In a follow-up statement, the military said an initial inquiry indicated the missile had “fragmented midair” and that it was reviewing its attempts to intercept the strike.Yahya Sarea, a Houthi military spokesman, said the armed group had fired a ballistic missile at what he claimed was a military target in central Israel. His claims could not be independently verified.“The enemy should expect more strikes and quality operations,” Mr. Sarea said in a televised statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More