Israel in deadly Lebanon strikes as West pushes to avoid all-out war

Israeli air strikes killed two people and injured three others in southern Lebanon on Monday morning, as world leaders rushed to de-escalate tensions and avoid another potential all-out war in the Middle East following Saturday’s deadly rocket attack in the occupied Golan Heights.

Israel has blamed the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group for the rocket attack that killed 12 children and teenagers on a football pitch, making it the deadliest attack on Israel since the 7 October Hamas rampage last year.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would give a strong response to the weekend strike on the Druze town of Majdal Shams, which he visited earlier on Monday. “The state of Israel will not and cannot let this pass. Our response will come, and it will be harsh,” he said according to a statement from his office released following the visit.

Overnight strikes early on Monday and by Israeli jets on Sunday against what the military called Hezbollah targets “deep inside Lebanese territory” did not appear to constitute that response, but rather part of routine exchanges of fire with Hezbollah that have been going on since October.

Foreign minister Israel Katz over the weekend raised the prospect of a full-scale conflict, saying: “We are approaching the moment of an all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon.”

Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant announced on Sunday that Hezbollah would “bear a heavy price for their actions”.

Hezbollah has strongly denied responsibility for Saturday’s rocket attack on Majdal Shams.

While Israel’s Western allies condemned the attack, world leaders also urged the Netanyahu administration to show restraint and prevent a war breaking out in the region alongside the ongoing Gaza conflict.

British foreign secretary David Lammy condemned the strike and said the UK was “deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation and destabilisation”. “We have been clear Hezbollah must cease their attacks,” he said in a post on X.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken in Tokyo highlighted Israel’s “right to defend its citizens and our determination to make sure that they’re able to do that”. However, he added that US officials “also don’t want to see the conflict escalate”.

Chuck Schumer, the US Democrats’ Senate majority leader, claimed that “Iran, through its surrogates, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, is really the real evil in this area”. But he told CBS that he did not think anyone wants a wider war.

“I hope there are moves to de-escalate,” he said.

Iran’s foreign ministry has warned Israel against new military “adventures” in Lebanon, which could lead to “unforeseen consequences and reactions to such stupid behaviour”.

“Any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region,” a spokesperson for the foreign ministry said.

France called for “everything to be done to avoid a new military escalation” as Egypt warned the attack could spill “into a comprehensive regional war”.

The Lebanese government has condemned “all acts of violence and attacks against all civilians” and called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts”. It said “targeting civilians is a flagrant violation of international law and contradicts the principles of humanity”

Two security sources told Reuters that Hezbollah was on high alert and had cleared some key sites in both Lebanon’s south and the eastern Bekaa Valley in case of an Israeli attack.

Lebanon has reportedly approached the US, Israel’s biggest backer both in terms of financial and military aid, to urge restraint. In return, the US asked the Lebanese government to pass on a message to Hezbollah to show restraint as well.

“The Middle East is on the brink; the world and the region cannot afford another open conflict,” cautioned Tor Wennesland, the UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process.

Israeli strikes have killed some 350 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and more than 100 civilians, including medics, children and journalists, according to Reuters.

Beijing tries to stop foreign politicians from attending Taiwan meet

Beijing is pressuring lawmakers from at least six countries not to attend a summit focused on China in Taiwan, participants told the Associated Press.

Politicians in Bolivia, Colombia, Slovakia, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and an Asian country that declined to be named, say they are getting texts, telephone calls and urgent requests for meetings that would conflict with their plans to travel to Taiwan, in what they describe as efforts to isolate the self-governed island.

The summit, which starts on Monday, is being organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of current and former lawmakers from 35 countries that describes itself as a platform for “addressing threats to the rules-based and human rights systems posed by the rise of China”.

AP spoke to the organisers and three politicians and reviewed texts and emails sent by Chinese diplomats asking whether they were planning to participate in the summit.

In some cases, politicians described vague enquiries about their plans to travel to Taiwan. In other cases the contact was more menacing: one lawmaker told AP that Chinese diplomats messaged the head of her party with a demand to stop her from going.

“They sent a direct message to the president of my party to stop me from travelling to Taiwan,” Sanela Klarić, a member of parliament in Bosnia and Herzegovina, claimed. “He showed me the message from them. He said, ‘I’ll advise you not to go, but I cannot stop you, it’s something you have to make a decision.’”

Ms Klarić said the pressure was unpleasant but only steeled her determination to go on the trip.

“I really am fighting against countries or societies where the tool to manipulate and control peoples is fear,” said Ms Klarić, adding that it reminded her of threats and intimidation she faced during the Balkans war in the 1990s. “I really hate the feeling when somebody is frightening you.”

China is routinely accused of threatening retaliation against politicians and countries that show support for Taiwan, which has only informal relations with most countries.

China vehemently defends its claim to Taiwan, which it views as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.

Last week, Beijing criticised Taiwan over its annual Han Kuang military drills, saying the ruling Democratic Progressive Party was “carrying out provocations to seek independence”.

“Any attempt to whip up tensions and use force to seek independence or reject reunification is doomed to failure,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which aims to coordinate a response to perceived threats from Beijing, has long faced pressure from the Asian giant.

Some of its members have been sanctioned by Beijing, and the group was targeted by Chinese hackers in 2021, according to a US indictment unsealed earlier this year.

But Luke de Pulford, the group’s director, claims that the pressure from Chinese diplomats in the past few days has been unprecedented.

During past meetings in other places, the group’s lawmakers were approached by Chinese diplomats only after they concluded. This year, the pressure has sharply escalated and appears to be a coordinated attempt to stop participants from attending.

“This is gross foreign interference. This is not normal diplomacy,” de Pulford said.

“How would PRC officials feel if we tried to tell them about their travel plans, where they could and could not go? It’s absolutely outrageous that they think that they can interfere in the travel plans of foreign legislators,” he said, using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

The summit will see participation by politicians from 25 countries and feature meetings with top Taiwanese officials, according to a press release.

The Taiwanese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China has been peeling off Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, often with promises of development aid, in a competition between the two that has swung in Beijing’s favour in recent years. The Pacific island nation of Nauru switched recognition to Beijing earlier this year, a move that reduced Taiwan’s dwindling number of diplomatic allies to 12.

But China’s approach has also triggered a backlash.

In 2021, Beijing downgraded relations and blocked imports from Lithuania, a member of the EU and Nato, after the Baltic nation broke with diplomatic custom by agreeing that a Taiwanese representative office in its capital of Vilnius would bear the name Taiwan instead of Chinese Taipei, which other countries use to avoid offending Beijing.

The following year, the EU adopted a resolution criticising Beijing’s behaviour towards Taiwan and took action against China at the World Trade Organisation over the import restrictions.

Most of the politicians targeted appear to be from smaller countries, which de Pulford said was probably because Beijing “feels that they can get away with it”. But he said the coercive tactics have only made participants more determined to participate.

Miriam Lexmann, a Slovakian member of the European Parliament whose party head was approached by Chinese diplomats, said the pressure underscored her reason for coming to Taiwan.

We want to “exchange information, ways how to deal with those challenges and threats which China represents to the democratic part of the world, and of course, to support Taiwan”, she said.

28 killed as Pakistani tribes use mortars and rockets during clashes

At least 28 people have been killed and 145 injured in clashes sparked by a tribal land dispute in Pakistan’s Khurram, a volatile district near the border with Afghanistan.

The fighting between the tribes of Boshehra and Maleekhel erupted on Wednesday and was still ongoing on Sunday despite efforts by a jirga, a tribal assembly, to restore calm, The Tribune reported. The warring tribes have been using sophisticated weaponry, including mortar shells and rocket launchers, to target each other’s settlements, including in Parachinar and Sadda, the main cities in Kurram.

“We have 28 dead and another 145 wounded that had been brought or are being treated at the district’s hospitals,” Dr Mir Hassan Jan, head of the District Headquarters Hospital in Parachinar, told Arab News.

The fighting has closed the road from Parachinar to Peshawar, causing losses to traders and farmers who are angry with the government for failing to contain the situation.

Sajid Hussain Turi, a former federal minister from the area, said the violence is causing a shortage of food and essential medicines.

“The two sides are pounding each other and nearby villages with heavy and small weapons,” he said.

Ali Amin Gandapur, chief minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, earlier warned that “no one will be allowed to take the law into their hands or disturb the peace of the area”. He urged the tribes to “resolve the property issue through a jirga according to tribal traditions”.

Kurram is no stranger to deadly tribal and sectarian conflicts. A conflict that erupted in 2007 continued for four years before it was resolved with the help of a jirga.

Mudslide kills 12 as heavy rains from typhoon Gaemi lash China

At least 12 people were killed after a mudslide struck a house in southeastern China on Sunday as heavy rains from what remained of a tropical storm drenched the region, state media said.

Elsewhere in China, a delivery person on a scooter was killed Saturday after being hit by a falling tree in Shanghai, apparently because of storm-related winds, according to The Paper, a digital news outlet.

The deaths were the first in China that appear linked to typhoon Gaemi, which weakened to a tropical storm after making landfall on Thursday.

Before reaching China, the typhoon intensified monsoon rains in the Philippines, leaving at least 34 dead, and swept across the island of Taiwan, where the death toll has risen to 10, authorities said late Saturday.

The mudslide struck the house about 8am in Yuelin village, which falls under the jurisdiction of Hengyang city in Hunan province, state broadcaster CCTV said in a series of online reports.

An earlier report said 18 people were trapped by the mudslide, and that six injured people had been rescued. It wasn’t clear in the latest report if one other person remained missing. The reports didn’t say who was staying in the house, which was rented for temporary stays.

There was no information on whether the injuries were serious.

The reports said the mudslide was triggered by water rushing down the mountains from heavy rains. They didn’t mention Gaemi, but the China Meteorological Administration said rain tied to the tropical storm hit southeastern parts of Hunan province on Saturday.

In Shanghai, a photo posted by The Paper showed a delivery scooter on its side mostly covered by leafy branches near the still-standing barren trunk of a tree. It said that winds from the storm were the suspected cause, and that the investigation was continuing.

The wide arc of the tropical storm also was bringing heavy rain about 2,000km away to Liaoning province in China’s northeast.

Hundreds of chemical and mining companies suspended operations from Saturday as a precautionary measure and more than 30,000 people had been evacuated, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Nearly 40 trains were suspended through Thursday for safety reasons after steady rain in recent days created hazards and damaged tracks.

More than 800 people remained in shelters in Taiwan as of Saturday night, and more than 5,000 households were without power.

The typhoon caused nearly $51.8m in damage to crops including bananas, guavas and pears; chicken and other livestock farming and oyster and other fisheries, the Central News Agency said, citing figures from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Scholar gets university notice for citing Chomsky’s criticism of Modi

An “international university” in Delhi issued a notice to a scholar for citing Naom Chomsky’s criticism of prime minister Narendra Modi in his doctoral research proposal.

South Asian University, set up by member countries of the regional bloc South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, also initiated a disciplinary inquiry against the scholar’s supervisor, The Indian Express reported.

While the scholar tendered an apology “for hurting sentiments”, the supervisor, Sasanka Perera, a former vice president of the university and a founding member of its sociology department, resigned. The university confirmed initiating the inquiry to the daily but claimed that “no PhD proposal led to the resignation of a professor”.

The scholar, who wasn’t identified, received the notice in May for quoting from a 2021 interview of Chomsky in which the renowned American intellectual said that Mr Modi came from a “radical Hindutva tradition” and was trying to “dismantle Indian secular democracy” and “impose Hindu technocracy”.

The notice also asked the scholar to explain his choice of research topic, Kashmir’s ethnography and politics, the paper reported.

The university did not explain what it found objectionable about the proposal, submitted last November and approved by the supervisor, the Express said.

The politics of Kashmir, a Himalayan territory held in part by India and Pakistan but claimed in whole by both, is a touchy subject in the country, not least due to the long-running movement for independence which has, in the past three and a half decades, taken the form of an armed insurgency.

The university told The Independent the notice was issued due to “prima facie inconsistency with the Saarc intergovermental agreement”, without elaborating. It did not respond to a question about the resignation of Prof Perera. Asked if his departure was linked to the notice, a spokesperson for the university declared that “the query is falsely premised”.

Mr Modi’s critics accuse his Hindu nationalist party of turning India’s educational institutions into ideological battlegrounds amid concerns about declining academic freedom.

In August last year, an elite private university drew widespread criticism after a faculty member resigned due to a row over his research paper suggesting electoral manipulation during the 2019 general election.

Sabyasachi Das, assistant professor at Ashoka University, had faced intense backlash from the supporters of Mr Modi after he circulated his paper on social media.

“Manipulation appears to take the form of targeted electoral discrimination against India’s largest minority group, Muslims, partly facilitated by weak monitoring by election observers. The results present a worrying development for the future of democracy,” read the abstract of the paper.

In 2021, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, renowned academic and critic of Mr Modi, had resigned from the university saying it was “abundantly clear” his association was a “political liability”.

14 killed and 180,000 displaced in Israeli offensive in Khan Younis

Nearly 182,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Khan Younis due to Israeli bombardment since Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

Hundreds of people are trapped as the Israeli military has “intensified hostilities” in the southern Gaza region, sparking a “new wave of internal displacement”, the UN agency said, according to AFP.

Palestinian authorities said Israeli attacks killed at least 14 people in Khan Younis since dawn on Saturday.

At least 12 Palestinians were also killed in an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced Palestinians in the Deir Al-Balah area of central Gaza, the local civil defence said.

The Israeli military on Saturday again ordered Palestinians to leave southern Khan Younis, which it had earlier designated as a humanitarian zone, so it could “forcefully operate” against Hamas fighters who were allegedly firing rockets from there.

It was the second evacuation order issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing Israel’s air and ground offensive in Gaza. Many of these displaced civilians have been uprooted more than once as Israel has expanded its war across the territory.

Khan Younis is part of a 60sqkm “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been ordering Palestinians to escape throughout the ongoing war. The area is blanketed with tent camps that lack basic facilities like sanitation and medical aid, UN and humanitarian groups say.

The Israeli military on Friday claimed to have battled Palestinian fighters and destroyed tunnels in the area.

The fighting, nine months into Israel’s invasion of Gaza, underlines the difficulty the military faces in putting down continued resistance from Hamas.

Israel’s latest war on Gaza has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly 90 per cent of the territory’s 2.2 million population, according to the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa.

The offensive came after Hamas attacked southern Israel last October, killing nearly 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage.

The Israeli military claimed on Saturday that its calls to evacuate were relayed to the displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis via several mediums in order to mitigate danger to civilians.

UN and humanitarian agencies accuse Israel of using disproportionate force, which it denies.

Israel accused Hamas of putting civilians in harm’s way by operating from densely populated neighbourhoods, an allegation the group denies.

Additional reporting by agencies.

Bangladesh PM accused of ‘crocodile tears’ over damaged metro station

Bangladesh’s prime minister Sheikh Hasina is under fire for “shedding crocodile tears” over damage caused to a railway station during a protest against her government that left more than 150 people dead.

Ms Hasina was seen wiping away tears in pictures taken during her visit to a metro station in Mirpur, as social media users lambasted her for what they saw as her apparent lack of empathy for the victims of violence.

Police fired rubber bullets, released teargas, and threw sound-grenades in an effort to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who came out onto the streets to rail against job quotas. The government denied that any live rounds had been fired, but hospital sources said dead and injured people had wounds from bullets and shotgun pellets.

Rights groups and critics accuse Ms Hasina of becoming increasingly autocratic during her 15 years in power. They say her time in office has been marked by mass arrests of political opponents and activists, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. She denies all of these charges.

“What kind of mentality leads them to destroy facilities that make people’s lives easier?” the leader was quoted as saying by the Business Standard during her visit to Mirpur.

“Dhaka city was clogged with traffic. The metro rail offered respite. I cannot accept the destruction of this transport facility made with modern technology,” she said of the station, where ticket vending machines and signalling control stations had been shattered.

The prime minister also toured a damaged section of Bangladesh Television (BTV), as she accused the protesters of trying to spoil “Bangladesh’s image abroad”.

Calling on the public to help the government find those responsible for the vandalism, she said: “Please help us find those who are involved, no matter what nook or cranny of the country they are in, and bring them to justice.”

Bangladeshi news portal BDNews24 quoted her as saying: “I say to citizens and Dhaka residents – those who are responsible for this suffering and destruction, who are today spoiling Bangladesh’s image abroad – I leave to you the responsibility of bringing them to justice.

“The people must be the ones to bring those who create obstacles to the livelihoods of the public to justice, because the only power in the country is the power of the people.”

Alleging that the protesters were spreading disinformation, she said: “Do not allow them to stir unrest by spreading fake propaganda. Everyone must know the truth. They are still making calls from London, trying to ruin the country’s honour and stir up expatriates around the world.”

On Thursday, as she toured the sites that had been damaged during the protest, lamenting the vandalism and the impact on public infrastructure, social media users expressed outrage over her comments.

“We lost 200+ students. Students who are called the future of a nation. Students who were only fighting for their own rights,” wrote a user on X/Twitter. “But PM Sheikh Hasina had the time to go watch and ‘cry’ for a metro rail, not for the people who won’t return ever again.”

“It was the funniest thing I saw yesterday! Lmao she deserves an award for acting this hard and shedding crocodile tears!!!!” wrote another user.

The protests began after students took to the streets demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.

The demonstrations began late last month, but tensions escalated last week when students at Dhaka University, the country’s largest university, clashed with police, and a counterprotest inflamed the situation. The students alleged that the protest was peaceful until the student wing of the ruling Awami League party attacked the protesters.

Badiul Alam Majumdar, the secretary of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik, a Dhaka-based civil society platform for good governance, said the protests were “just the tip of the iceberg” and that the use of force against students will breed further resentment against Ms Hasina’s government.

“People are being deprived of their basic rights, with a significant lack of human rights and justice. They can’t cast their votes freely,” he said. “This widespread frustration and anger among the people is evident in the protests.”

Race to avert ‘worst oil spill in Philippines history’

The Philippines coast guard is “racing against time” to prevent an environmental catastrophe as it attempts to contain the oil spill from a sunken tanker and stop it from reaching Manila’s shoreline.

The 65-metre-long (213ft) MT Terra Nova, which capsized on Thursday amid rough seas and heavy monsoon rains brought on by Typhoon Gaemi, was carrying around 1.4 million litres (370,000 gallons) of industrial fuel oil in watertight tanks.

It had departed from Bataan province and was heading to Iloilo in the central Philippines when it was hit by large waves and began taking on water. Despite efforts by the crew to steer back to port, the tanker sank shortly after midnight on Thursday.

An oil slick about 3.7km (2.3 miles) long was spotted near the area where the tanker sank, about 6km (3.7 miles) off the coast of Limay in Bataan province. According to the coast guard, there is no sign of a leak from the large amount of industrial fuel oil stored in the tanker. But a long oil spill, which stretches out over several kilometres and is growing rapidly, was spotted in an aerial survey.

The coast guard clarified that this slick had come from the fuel tank that powered the tanker, not from its cargo, which remains secured in watertight tanks.

The spill could reach the country’s capital, Manila, which is just 10km away from where the ship went down. The coast guard said it is making plans to siphon off the toxic oil using floating barriers and suction hoses in order to prevent a major spill that could affect the busy capital.

The oil spill could be the worst in the country’s history if it is not contained. The oil tanker is lying at a relatively shallow depth of 34 metres, based on an initial assessment.

The coast guard is “preparing for the worst”, said Rear Admiral Armand Balilo, its spokesperson. “We are talking about industrial fuel here … It will definitely affect the marine environment and could even reach us here in Manila,” he said.

The coast guard rescued 16 crew members, but one person drowned, according to Rear Admiral Balilo. “We’re racing against time to siphon off the oil to avoid an environmental catastrophe,” he told reporters, noting that bad weather could complicate their efforts.

Rear Admiral Balilo compared the potential oil spill to the one caused by the sinking of the MT Princess Empress, a Philippine oil tanker, in February last year off Oriental Mindoro province, south of Manila.

Although the Princess Empress was carrying much less fuel oil, it took about three months to contain the spill. The incident caused massive damage to coral reefs and mangroves in a region known for its rich biodiversity, and affected tens of thousands of fishermen and beach resorts.

Manila’s shoreline is a major ecology, tourism and business hub, adorned by upscale resorts, key buildings, and crucial flora and fauna.

Advocacy group Oceana has called on the Philippines government to assess the environmental impact of the oil spill, adding that “all those responsible for failing to prevent this tragedy – from concerned government agencies to private owners of the tanker – should be held accountable”.

The spill is believed to have been caused by the rough seas and adverse weather conditions. There have been days of monsoon rains, exacerbated by a passing offshore typhoon, that set off landslides and flooding across the Philippine archipelago, leaving at least 32 people dead and displacing more than 800,000.