Important Takeaways:
- With Hezbollah in Lebanon disabled and Hamas’ strength waning, Houthi rebels in Yemen have been launching missiles at Israel, and Israel is striking back.
- Israeli airstrikes pounded the rebel regime in Yemen early Thursday after the Houthis launched another missile at Israel – one of several fired at the Jewish state in recent days.
- Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to huddle with top officials to discuss a hostage deal that may be fast approaching.
- A Palestinian negotiator told the BBC the talks are in the final stage. Though issues remain, it may include a six-week ceasefire, during which Hamas would free 30 of the remaining 100 hostages.
- IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said from Gaza that Israeli troops continue to do their part there.
- “We are exerting pressure on Hamas daily, driving it into greater distress, to ensure the return of the 100 hostages,” Halevi said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah forces agreed to a ceasefire Tuesday in a deal brokered by the U.S. and France that could bring to an end more than a year’s worth of heavy fighting along the border between Israel and Lebanon.
- Under the deal, all fighting between Israel and the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement was to cease early Wednesday, President Biden said in remarks from the White House. He spoke just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorsed the agreement in a nationally televised address. Over the next 60 days, Israel will start to withdraw its troops from the region as Lebanon’s army moves in to assume control.
- Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials said punishing strikes in recent months had effectively decapitated Hezbollah and significantly weakened its force as a military threat to Israel.
- “This is not the same Hezbollah. Hezbollah chose to attack us from there on Oct. 8. We set it back decades,” Mr. Netanyahu said in his address. “We eliminated [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah. We eliminated all the senior officials of the organization and thousands of terrorists.”
- Biden said he hoped the 60-day accord would turn into a permanent halt to the war: “What is left of Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations will not be allowed, I emphasize, will not be allowed, to threaten the security of Israel again.
- One sticking point was uncertain: Israel’s demand that it be allowed to resume the military campaign if the ceasefire does not hold. The length of the ceasefire depends entirely on what happens in Lebanon, and Israel maintains complete freedom of military action, the prime minister said.
- The deal between Hezbollah and Israel does not affect the fight in the Gaza Strip with Palestinian Hamas militants. Months of U.S. efforts to negotiate a ceasefire with the release of dozens of hostages held by Hamas have failed to achieve a breakthrough.
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Important Takeaways:
- President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly tapped Massad Boulos, the Lebanese-American father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Tiffany, to lead U.S. negotiations with Lebanon to end the war between Hezbollah and Israel.
- The Boulos family has Christian Arab roots and is part of a global business empire.
- The Times of Israel reported:
- Lebanese-American businessman and Donald Trump surrogate Massad Boulos revealed in a recent interview days before the election that he will serve as the US point man for Lebanon in the incoming administration, tasked with negotiating with Beirut to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
- “I will be responsible for negotiating with the Lebanese side in order to reach an agreement, and Trump will appoint someone familiar with the Israeli file to negotiate with the Israelis,” Boulos told the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed in what appears to be one of the first revelations regarding now President-elect Trump’s personnel.
- Boulos joined the Trump inner circle after his son Michael married the former president’s daughter Tiffany in 2022. He helped Trump make significant inroads in the Arab American in yesterday’s election.
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Important Takeaways:
- As fighting continues in Lebanon and Hezbollah continues to launch rockets and UAVs at Israel, the Defense Ministry claims it has substantially reduced Hezbollah’s arsenal. This as the Knesset is under criticism for voting to ban UNRWA from operating in Israel.
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claims the Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s rocket supply has been reduced to just 20 percent of what it was before the October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack.
- That’s an especially important number because Hezbollah’s chief threat has been its ability to rain down tens of thousands of missiles on Israelis.
- Some in the Israel Defense Forces want to wrap up the invasion of Lebanon soon. Still, other Israelis want to see it continue until Hezbollah has been eliminated as a threat to Israel’s northern border communities. They’ve been largely evacuated for more than a year.
- After the killing of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and his successor, Hezbollah announced it has a new leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, who has been with the terror group since its start in 1982.
- He’s hiding out in Iran, hoping to avoid the fate of the two previous leaders who were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Beirut.
- As for the Iranian regime controlling the proxy wars from Tehran, it is threatening to respond to Israel’s retaliatory strike on some of the country’s military sites this past weekend, making clear the timing will be made by the Iranians.
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Important Takeaways:
- A drone that infiltrated from Lebanon struck a building in Caesarea on Saturday, was revealed on Tuesday to be the residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- Only hours earlier, a senior Hezbollah official had claimed responsibility for the drone strike.
- Until now, it had only been reported that the drone was launched toward his home, but it was not disclosed that it hit the structure. The Prime Minister and his wife were not present during the incident.
- The drone was tracked by a combat helicopter, which identified its infiltration from Lebanon until the moment of impact. As a result, alarms were triggered in Glilot and northern Tel Aviv, though the Home Front Command app did not issue any warnings.
- In response to Hezbollah’s drone attack, Netanyahu said on Saturday: “Iran’s proxies, who today attempted to assassinate me and my wife, made a grave mistake. This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing the war of resurgence against our enemies to secure our safety for generations to come.”
- He added: “I say to the Iranians and their partners in the axis of evil—anyone who harms Israeli citizens will pay a heavy price. We will continue to eliminate your terrorists, retrieve our hostages from Gaza, and restore security to our northern residents.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar had “settled the score with him,” but stressed that “the task before us [Israel] is not yet complete.”
- Netanyahu said Israel’s focus was on securing the return of the roughly 100 hostages still in Gaza, taken during Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack last year, of whom a third are believed to be dead.
- “This is an important moment in the war,” Netanyahu said to the families of the hostages, according to the Reuters news agency. “We will continue full force until the return home of all your loved ones, who are our loved ones, too. This is our supreme obligation. This is my supreme obligation.”
- President Biden said Sinwar’s death after almost two decades of Hamas rule in Gaza was good news, “for Israel, for the United States, and for the world.” Along with other senior U.S. officials, he indicated that it should bring new hope for a cease-fire in the year-long war.
- But Hamas did not mention any renewed push for a cease-fire agreement with Israel after the killing of its leader.
- Deputy Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya confirmed Sinwar’s death Friday in a televised speech, and said the group would continue on the same path it’s been on. Al-Hayya said Hamas would not release the remaining hostages without a cease-fire deal and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
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Important Takeaways:
- The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the attack that ignited the war in the Gaza Strip, marked a major triumph for Israel. But Israeli leaders are also seeking to lock in strategic gains that go beyond military victories – to reshape the regional landscape in Israel’s favor and shield its borders from any future attacks, sources familiar with their thinking say.
- By intensifying its military operations against Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel wants to ensure that its enemies and their chief patron, Iran, don’t regroup and threaten Israeli citizens again, according to Western diplomats, Lebanese and Israeli officials, and other regional sources.
- It is also planning a response to a ballistic-missile barrage carried out by Iran on Oct. 1, its second direct attack on Israel in six months.
- Israel informed several Arab states last year that it also wanted to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border. But it remains unclear how deep Israel would like it to be or how it would be enforced after the war ends.
- Israel has said it will not agree to a permanent ceasefire without guarantees that whoever runs postwar Gaza will be able to prevent the corridor from being used to smuggle weapons and supplies to Hamas.
- Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last week the response would be “lethal, precise, and, above all, unexpected”, although he has also said Israel was not looking to open new fronts.
- Iran has warned repeatedly that it will not hesitate to take military action again if Israel retaliates.
- For now, Netanyahu appears determined to redraw the map around Israel in his favor by purging its enemies from its borders.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah announced a “new and escalatory phase” in its war with Israel on Thursday – hours after the Israeli military confirmed its forces killed the leader of Hamas.
- In a statement, the Iran-backed terrorist organization said that their plan “will be reflected in the developments and events of the coming days” as hundreds of fighters are prepared to “counter any Israeli ground incursion into southern Lebanese villages.”
- Along with the two chiefs, the IDF’s airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Beirut have killed more than a dozen senior officials, including the top commanders of Hezbollah’s elite military and missile firing units.
- Hezbollah’s threat comes more than a week after it announced it was ready to engage in cease-fire talks with Israel and previously vowed that it would stop its attacks until it agreed to end the war in Gaza – despite firing missiles over the border nearly every day since Oct. 8.
- It remains unclear if Israel will accept a cease-fire deal with Hezbollah as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that the operations in Lebanon would not end until he is assured the terror group will no longer pose an active threat to northern Israel.
- The US and France have repeatedly urged the two sides to engage in a truce over fears the conflict would spark an all-out war in the Middle East.
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Important Takeaways:
- The US Embassy in Beirut is calling on Americans to leave Lebanon as soon as possible as the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensifies.
- “US citizens in Lebanon are strongly encouraged to depart now,” the embassy said in a notice to citizens on Monday. “US citizens who choose not to depart at this time should prepare contingency plans should the situation deteriorate further.”
- Just 1,100 of the estimated 86,000 Americans who live in Lebanon have fled the nation so far, with the US setting aside thousands of seats on flights out of Lebanon since Sept. 27, according to the State Department.
- The embassy, however, warned that the flights “will not continue indefinitely,” urging all Americans in Lebanon to make a decision sooner rather than later.
- Embassy officials stressed that any plans for those who choose not to leave “should not rely on the US government for assisted departure or evacuations.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The UNSC “emphasized the need for diplomatic endeavors that would bring a durable end to the conflict and allow civilians on both sides of the Blue Line to return safely to their homes.”
- The United States, which has typically blocked such measures, backed the statement. The carefully worded statement did not mention either Israel or Hezbollah, but rather referred to “the parties.”
- UNSC members expressed their “deep concern for civilian casualties and suffering the destruction of civilian infrastructure and the rising number of internally displaced people.,” Baeriswyl said. “They called on all parties to abide by international humanitarian law,” she added.
- Earlier in the day, Netanyahu said, “We will continue to strike Hezbollah without mercy everywhere in Lebanon – including Beirut. Everything is according to operational considerations.
- “We have proven this recently and we will continue to prove it in the coming days as well,” he stated prior to holding security consultations later that night in the Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.
- For the second day in a row, he also called on the United Nations to remove the peacekeepers from the border during the IDF operation to remove Hezbollah from that area.
- [Netanyahu] “Hezbollah uses UNIFIL facilities and positions as cover while it attacks Israeli cities and communities. These attacks have claimed the lives of many Israelis, including yesterday,” Netanyahu said as he referred to the Hezbollah drone that attacked an airbase in Israel, wounding 63 people and killing four.
- “Israel has every right to defend itself against Hezbollah and will continue to do so,” Netanyahu stated.
- “We regret any harm done to UNIFIL personnel and the IDF is doing its utmost to prevent such incidents,” he stressed.
- “But the best way to assure the safety of UNIFIL personnel is for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s request and to temporarily get out of harm’s way,” Netanyahu said.
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