Hezbollah warns Israel will suffer more ‘pain’ unless it agrees to ceasefire

Published

9 months ago

October 15, 2024

admin

The deputy leader of Hezbollah has warned Israel it will continue to suffer from attacks unless it agrees to a ceasefire.

Naim Qassem said the group had adopted a new strategy in the past week centred around making Israel feel “pain” – and said it would continue if a deal to pause fighting in Lebanon and Gaza could not be reached.

While he did not provide details, it comes after a Hezbollah drone strike killed four Israeli soldiers at a military base in the town of Binyamina on Sunday.

Qassem, who is also the group’s acting leader following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah last month, said: “The solution is a ceasefire. We are not speaking from a position of weakness, if the Israelis do not want that, we will continue.”

He said Israel’s attacks across Lebanon gave Hezbollah the right to respond in equal measures, adding: “We will focus on targeting the Israeli military and its centres and barracks.”

Middle East latest: UK issues sanctions on Israeli settler outposts

The pre-recorded televised speech on Tuesday came as funerals took place across the region for those killed in the latest string of attacks.

In Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Palestinians gathered to mourn the deaths of at least 15 people who were killed in overnight Israeli strikes, including six children and two women, according to officials from the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

At least 10 people from the same family were reportedly killed in the bombing of a house in the town of Beni Suhaila. A camera operator for the news agency Associated Press counted the bodies at nearby Nasser Hospital.

Another five were killed in nearby Fakhari.

In Israel, funerals were held for several recently killed soldiers, including 19-year-old Sergeant Yoav Agmon, who died in Hezbollah’s attack on Sunday.

In the Iranian capital of Tehran, a service was also held for Iranian Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan – who was killed in the same Beirut airstrike that killed Hassan Nasrallah.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, work continued on Tuesday to clear the debris following an Israeli strike on the Christian-majority town of Aitou in the north of the country on Monday.

UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said at least 22 people had been killed in the bombing, and that many of the victims were women and children.

Mr Laurence added: “We understand it was a four-storey residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to IHL [International Humanitarian Law], so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality.”

The UN also said on Tuesday that Israel had ordered more than 25% of Lebanon’s territory to be evacuated, and that more than 400,000 children in the country had been displaced in the past three weeks alone.

In Yavne, near the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, a gunman killed a policeman and wounded four people after opening fire on cars on a motorway, according to Israeli police on Tuesday.

He was shot dead by a passer-by. There was no confirmation of the identity of the gunman, but Israeli officials described him as a “terrorist”.

World

Trump announces weapons deal with NATO to help Ukraine – as he gives Putin 50-day ultimatum

Published

11 hours ago

July 14, 2025

admin

Trump announces weapons deal with NATO to help Ukraine - as he gives Putin 50-day ultimatum

Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.

Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.

“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”

Follow the latest here

Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.

Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.

The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.

It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.

During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.

“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.

Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.

After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”

Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.

He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.

World

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

Published

23 hours ago

July 14, 2025

admin

At least 30 dead and 100 injured as armed groups clash in Syria, officials say

At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.

Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.

The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.

It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.

The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.

Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.

But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.

It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.

Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.

Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.

That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.

The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.

World

Meredith Kercher’s killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

Published

1 day ago

July 13, 2025

admin

Meredith Kercher's killer faces new trial over sexual assault allegations

The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.

Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.

He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.

Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.

Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.

Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.

The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.

Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.

The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.