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☆ Israeli Officials Believe International Court Is Preparing Arrest Warrants Over War
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Ronen Bergman | Patrick Kingsley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Israeli officials increasingly believe that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for senior government officials on charges related to the conflict with Hamas, according to five Israeli and foreign officials. The Israeli and foreign officials also believe the court is weighing arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas. If the court proceeds, the Israeli officials could potentially be accused of preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and pursuing an excessively harsh response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, according to two of the five officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. The Israeli officials, who are worried about the potential fallout from such a case, said they believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among those who might be named in a warrant. It is not clear who might be charged from Hamas or what crimes would be cited.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu Organizations: Gaza Locations: Israel

☆ Israeli Officials Believe I.C.C. Is Preparing Arrest Warrants Over War
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Ronen Bergman | Patrick Kingsley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu Organizations: Gaza Locations: Israel

☆ Israel Planned Bigger Attack on Iran, but Scaled It Back to Avoid War
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-22 | by ( Ronen Bergman | Patrick Kingsley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Israel abandoned plans for a much more extensive counterstrike on Iran after concerted diplomatic pressure from the United States and other foreign allies and because the brunt of an Iranian assault on Israel soil had been thwarted, according to three senior Israeli officials. Israeli leaders originally discussed bombarding several military targets across Iran last week, including near Tehran, the Iranian capital, in retaliation for the Iranian strike on April 13, said the officials, who spoke on the discussion of anonymity to describe the sensitive discussions. Such a broad and damaging attack would have been far harder for Iran to overlook, increasing the chances of a forceful Iranian counterattack that could have brought the Middle East to the brink of a major regional conflict. In the end — after President Biden, along with the British and German foreign ministers, urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent a wider war — Israel opted for a more limited strike on Friday that avoided significant damage, diminishing the likelihood of an escalation, at least for now.

Persons: Israel, Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu Locations: Iran, United States, Israel, Tehran

☆ Israeli Weapon Damaged Iranian Air Defenses Without Being Detected, Officials Say
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-20 | by ( Farnaz Fassihi | Ronen Bergman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +7 min

Some Democrats are fine sending defensive weapons to Israel, but want to see some limits on offensive weapons, which could be used against civilians in Gaza. But progressive Democrats estimated that 40 to 60 members of their party may oppose it on the House floor on Saturday. The legislation would allocate $5 billion to Israel’s defense capabilities and $9 billion for “worldwide humanitarian aid,” including for civilians in Gaza. “To give Netanyahu more offensive weapons at this stage, I believe, is to condone the destruction of Gaza that we’ve seen in the last six months. But they see a “no” vote as part of a strategy to pressure Mr. Biden to condition aid and halt future offensive weapons transfers.

Persons: Biden, ’, Pramila Jayapal, Joaquin Castro, We’re, Mr, Benjamin Netanyahu’s, ”, Ro Khanna, Netanyahu, Nancy Pelosi, Mike Johnson, —, Becca Balint, “, it’s, Lloyd Doggett, Doggett, Ms, Balint, Dan Kildee, Greg Casar Organizations: Democrats, Democratic, “, Congressional Progressive Caucus, ”, Democrat, Israel, Democratic Party, Republican, Republicans, Texas Democrat, White House, Michigan Democrat Locations: Israel, Gaza, Iraq, Washington, Texas, Ukraine, Taiwan, United States, Rafah, Iran, California, Yemen, Louisiana, Vermont, U.S, American

An Israeli airstrike on Iran on Friday damaged an air defense system, according to Western and Iranian officials, in an attack calculated to deliver a message that Israel could bypass Iran’s defensive systems undetected and paralyze them. The strike damaged a defensive battery near Natanz, a city in central Iran that is critical to the country’s nuclear weapons program, according to two Western officials and two Iranian officials. The attack — and the revelation on Saturday of its target — was in retaliation for Iran’s strike in Israel last week after Israel bombed its embassy compound in Damascus. But it used a fraction of the firepower Tehran deployed in launching hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel. But the relatively limited scope of Israel’s strike and the muted response from Iranian officials seem to have eased tensions.

Organizations: Israel Locations: Iran, Israel, Damascus, Tehran, Syria

Israel was mere moments away from an airstrike on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders at Iran’s embassy complex in Syria when it told the United States what was about to happen. Aides quickly alerted Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security adviser; Jon Finer, the deputy national security adviser; Brett McGurk, Mr. Biden’s Middle East coordinator; and others, who saw that the strike could have serious consequences, a U.S. official said. Publicly, U.S. officials voiced support for Israel, but privately, they expressed anger that it would take such aggressive action against Iran without consulting Washington. On Saturday, Iran launched a retaliatory barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, an unexpectedly large-scale response, if one that did minimal damage. The events made clear that the unwritten rules of engagement in the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Iran have changed drastically in recent months, making it harder than ever for each side to gauge the other’s intentions and reactions.

Persons: Israel, Jake Sullivan, Jon, Brett McGurk Organizations: U.S, Publicly, Israel, Washington Locations: Syria, United States, Biden’s, Iran, Israel

Persons: Israel, Jake Sullivan, Jon, Brett McGurk Organizations: U.S, Publicly, Israel, Washington Locations: Syria, United States, Biden’s, Iran, Israel

Iran’s attack on Israel, an immense barrage that included hundreds of ballistic missiles and exploding drones, changed the unspoken rules in the archrivals’ long-running shadow war. In that conflict, major airstrikes from one country’s territory directly against the other had been avoided. Given that change in precedent, the calculus by which Israel decides its next move has also changed, said the Israeli officials who requested anonymity to discuss Iran. “We cannot stand still from this kind of aggression,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the spokesman for Israel’s military said on Tuesday. Iran, he added, would not get off “scot-free with this aggression.”

Persons: Israel, Daniel Hagari, “ scot, ” Locations: Israel, Iran

A Palestinian man inspecting damage on Saturday after Israeli settlers attacked the village of Al Mughayir, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Israeli military announced on Saturday that it would bolster its forces in the West Bank with additional companies and police. Israeli settlers, some of them armed, entered the villages, the official added, and there were reports that they had opened fire. At one point, “rocks were hurled” at Israeli soldiers, leading them to open fire in response, the Israeli military said. Last February, an attack by Israeli settlers devastated the Palestinian town of Huwara in the northern West Bank.

Persons: Al Mughayir, Binyamin Achimair, Yesh Din, Abu Aliya —, Amin Abu Aliya, Binyamin’s, Naser Dawabsheh, “, ”, Na’asan Na’asan, Shaul Golan, Golan, Biden, Binyamin, Abu Aliya, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Yair Lapid, ” Mr, Na’asan Organizations: West Bank ., West Bank, United Nations, Duma Locations: Al, Palestinian, Ramallah, torching, East Jerusalem, Gaza, Al Mughayir, “, Israel, Huwara, West Bank

Iran is operating a clandestine smuggling route across the Middle East, employing intelligence operatives, militants and criminal gangs, to deliver weapons to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to officials from the United States, Israel and Iran. The goal, as described by three Iranian officials, is to foment unrest against Israel by flooding the enclave with as many weapons as it can. The covert operation is now heightening concerns that Tehran is seeking to turn the West Bank into the next flashpoint in the long-simmering shadow war between Israel and Iran. Many weapons smuggled to the West Bank largely travel along two paths from Iran through Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, the officials said. A key group in the operation, the Iranian officials and analysts said, are Bedouin smugglers who carry the weapons across the border from Jordan into Israel.

Organizations: West Bank Locations: Iran, United States, Israel, Tehran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan

U.S. officials in Washington and the Middle East said on Friday that they were bracing for possible Iranian retaliation for the Israeli airstrike on Monday in Damascus, Syria. U.S. military forces in the region have been placed on heightened alert. Israel has also placed its military on high alert, according to an Israeli official, canceled leave for combat units, recalled some reservists to air defense units and blocked GPS signals. Two Iranian officials who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly said that Iran had placed all its armed forces on full high alert and that a decision had been made that Iran must respond directly to the Damascus attack to create deterrence. “We warn that no act by any enemy against our holy system will go unanswered and the art of the Iranian nation is to break the power of empires.”

Persons: Israel’s, Gen, Hossein Organizations: Quds Force, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Locations: Iran, Washington, Damascus, Syria, U.S, Israel, Tehran

At least three senior commanders and four officers overseeing Iran’s covert operations in the Middle East were killed on Monday when Israeli warplanes struck a building in Damascus that is part of the Iranian Embassy complex, according to Iranian and Syrian officials. The strike in Damascus, the Syrian capital, appeared to be among the deadliest attacks in a yearslong shadow war between Israel and Iran that has included the assassinations of Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists. That covert war has moved into the open as tensions between the countries have intensified over Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, the Iranian-backed militia that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Four Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters, confirmed that Israel had been behind the strike in Damascus, but denied that the building had diplomatic status.

Persons: Israel Organizations: Iranian Embassy, Hamas, Israel . Locations: Damascus, Iranian, Israel, Iran, Gaza

☆ Israeli Hostage Says She Was Sexually Assaulted and Tortured in Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Patrick Kingsley | Ronen Bergman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, was abducted from her home on Oct. 7, beaten and dragged into Gaza by at least 10 men, some armed. Several days into her captivity, she said, her guard began asking about her sex life. Sometimes, the guard would enter, sit beside her on the bed, lift her shirt and touch her, she said. Early that morning, she said, Muhammad unlocked her chain and left her in the bathroom. After she undressed and began washing herself in the bathtub, Muhammad returned and stood in the doorway, holding a pistol.

Persons: Amit Soussana, Soussana, Muhammad, undressed Locations: Gaza

☆ Middle East Crisis Israel Is Said to Change Strategy in Cease-Fire Talks
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-27 | by ( Ronen Bergman | Patrick Kingsley | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Families and supporters of Israeli hostages held since the Oct. 7 attacks gathered Saturday in Tel Aviv to call for their return. International efforts to reach a truce had stalled over Israel’s refusal to release Palestinians convicted of murder and to commit to a permanent cease-fire, two of the measures that Hamas is holding out for. They include five female Israeli soldiers and civilians, including sick, wounded and older people. It does not include male Israeli soldiers, whose release will be the subject of a separate negotiation, one of the officials said. For each of the five female Israeli soldiers in captivity, Israel would release three “heavy” prisoners — those believed responsible for major attacks — and 15 others.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Yahya Sinwar, Israel, —, Gilad Shalit, Julian E, Barnes Organizations: Hamas Locations: Tel Aviv, Israel, Gaza, U.S, Egypt, Qatar, United States, Paris, Washington

Israeli negotiators have offered a significant concession in cease-fire talks with Hamas, signaling that they might be open to releasing high-profile Palestinians jailed on terrorism charges in exchange for some Israeli hostages still being held in the Gaza Strip, according to two officials with knowledge of the talks. Mr. Netanyahu said that the Israeli military had presented a plan to the war cabinet to evacuate civilians from “areas of fighting” in Gaza. He appeared to be speaking of Israel’s long-expected invasion of Rafah, the southern city where more than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering, many in makeshift tents. On Sunday, he said an invasion could be “delayed somewhat” if Hamas agreed to release Israeli hostages. Speaking with reporters in New York on Monday, Mr. Biden sounded optimistic about a deal to pause the fighting.

Persons: Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu, “ We’re, ”, we’ll Locations: Gaza, Rafah, New York

Israel carried out covert attacks on two major natural gas pipelines inside Iran this week, disrupting the flow of heat and cooking gas to provinces with millions of people, according to two Western officials and a military strategist affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps. The strikes represent a notable shift in the shadow war that Israel and Iran have been waging by air, land, sea and cyberattack for years. Israel has long targeted military and nuclear sites inside Iran — and assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists and commanders — both inside and outside of the country. Israel has also waged cyberattacks to disable servers belonging to the oil ministry, causing turmoil at gas stations nationwide. But blowing up part of the country’s energy infrastructure, relied on by industries, factories and millions of civilians, marked an escalation in the covert war and appeared to open a new frontier, officials and analysts said.

Persons: Israel, Iran —, — Organizations: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps Locations: Iran, Israel

Israeli special forces were combing southern Gaza’s largest hospital in search of hostages’ remains on Friday, as Gazan officials announced that a power outage at the medical center had caused the deaths of five Palestinians in the critical care unit. Gaza’s Health Ministry said that electric generators had cut out and that all power was lost at the hospital but did not specify the reason. The ministry said on Facebook that the Israeli military was in control of the complex, which it entered early Thursday. The Israeli military said in a statement on Friday that during its search of the hospital, it had detained dozens of people for questioning. It also said its troops had found mortar shells and grenades belonging to Hamas in the area.

Persons: ’ Organizations: Nasser Medical Center, Gaza’s Health Ministry, Facebook, World Health Organization Locations: Gaza, Israel

Al-Shifa, Israeli officials have argued, is an example of Hamas’s willingness to use hospitals as cover and turn civilians into human shields. The portion of the tunnel visible in the Israeli military video is at least 350 feet long. But beyond accusing the Israeli military of planting evidence at hospitals, Hamas and Gazan officials have not directly refuted the evidence presented by Israel. The Israeli military declined to provide additional imagery to support its assertion that this was a tunnel entryway or part of a tunnel complex. Concrete sections of the Al-Shifa tunnel are visible in this still image from the video released by the Israeli military.

☆ U.N. Agency in Gaza Fought Hamas Infiltration; Not Hard Enough, Israel Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-10 | by ( Patrick Kingsley | Ronen Bergman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When the United Nations launched an investigation a decade ago into whether a handful of its employees in Gaza were members of Hamas, it was not long before a senior U.N. legal officer in the territory started receiving death threats. First there were emails, sent from anonymous accounts, according to three senior U.N. officials based in Gaza at that time. Then came a funeral bouquet, delivered to the main U.N. compound, labeled with the legal officer’s name. Finally there was a live grenade, sent to the compound with its pin still inside, according to two of the officials.

Organizations: United Nations Locations: Gaza

More than a fifth of the remaining hostages being held in Gaza are dead, according to an internal assessment conducted by the Israeli military. The families of the 32 hostages whose deaths are confirmed have been informed, according to four military officials who spoke anonymously in order to discuss a sensitive matter. The four officials said that officers were also assessing unconfirmed intelligence that indicated that at least 20 other hostages may have also been killed. The figure of 32 is higher than any previous number the Israeli authorities have publicly disclosed of hostages who are dead. In an answer to a request for comment, the Israeli military said that most of the dead were killed on Oct. 7.

Organizations: Hamas, The New York Times Locations: Gaza

☆ The 8 Days That Roiled the U.N.’s Top Agency in Gaza
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-03 | by ( Patrick Kingsley | Ronen Bergman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

When a senior U.S. diplomat called the Israeli military last week to request further details about Israeli allegations against a United Nations agency in Gaza, military leaders were so surprised that they ordered an internal inquiry about how the information had reached the ears of foreign officials. The allegations were grave: 12 employees of the organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, were accused of joining Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel or its aftermath. The claims reinforced Israel’s decades-old narrative about UNRWA: that it is biased against Israel and influenced by Hamas and other armed groups, charges that the agency strongly rejects. But while most Israeli officials oppose UNRWA, some military leaders did not want to see it shuttered amid a humanitarian disaster in Gaza. In fact, it was not the military that disclosed the information to the United States but UNRWA itself.

Persons: Israel Organizations: United, United Nations Relief, Works Agency, Hamas’s, UNRWA Locations: U.S, United Nations, Gaza, Israel, United States

☆ Opinion | Abolish the U.N.’s Palestinian Refugee Agency
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-30 | by ( Bret Stephens | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

United Nations agencies and officials are no strangers to scandal and infamy. In the 1980s, Kurt Waldheim, a former U.N. secretary general, was unmasked as a former Nazi. He was the same secretary general who denounced Israel’s 1976 rescue of Jewish hostages in Entebbe as “a serious violation” of Uganda’s national sovereignty. Now comes the latest scandal of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, better known as UNRWA. Last Friday, Israeli officials presented the U.S. government with an intelligence dossier detailing the involvement of 12 UNRWA employees, seven of them schoolteachers, in the massacre of Oct. 7.

Persons: Saddam Hussein, Kurt Waldheim, Ronen Bergman, Patrick Kingsley Organizations: Nations, Democratic, Iraq, Nazi, United Nations Relief, Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, “ Intelligence, Street Locations: Haiti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Entebbe, Gaza

☆ U.N. Agency for Palestinians Imperiled by Terrorism Charges
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-29 | by ( Patrick Kingsley | Ronen Bergman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Leaders of the largest United Nations agency in Gaza warned on Monday that it may soon run out of money as new allegations emerged about Hamas’s influence on the organization. As U.N. officials fretted over the future of UNRWA, the main aid agency for Palestinians, Israeli officials debated whether it made sense to publicly air accusations that a group of the agency’s workers were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attack. UNRWA plays a crucial role in Gaza — distributing food, water and medicine — and it is unclear who would fill the vacuum were it to collapse. Israel has charged that at least 12 employees of the agency — the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees — participated in the Oct. 7 attack and that as many 1,300 employees are members of the group. The Oct. 7 assault ended with roughly 1,200 people dead and another 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli estimates.

Persons: Works Agency for Palestine Refugees — Organizations: United Nations, UNRWA, United Nations Relief, Works Agency for Palestine Refugees Locations: Gaza, Israel

The Israeli military suffered the deadliest day of its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip on Monday when 24 soldiers were killed, about 20 of them in an explosion as they were preparing to level buildings to help create a buffer zone with the Palestinian enclave, Israeli officials said. Israelis leaders expressed heartbreak over the deaths, but declared that the fighting would continue until Hamas was defeated. “We need to learn the necessary lessons and do everything to preserve our soldiers’ lives,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement on Tuesday. With no end of the war in sight, and the United Nations reporting that more than half a million people in Gaza were facing “catastrophic hunger,” the Israeli military pressed ahead with its offensive. Many Gazans, seeking safety in Khan Younis, had fled their homes in other parts of the territory.

Persons: Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu, Israel, ’, ” Mr, Khan Younis Organizations: United Nations Locations: Gaza, Israel, Gaza’s

☆ U.S. Troops Are Injured in Attack on Air Base in Iraq
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-21 | by ( Eric Schmitt | Alissa J. Rubin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +7 min

Israel and Iran have been locked in a shadow war for years, long before the latest war in Gaza began. They have traded covert attacks by land, sea and air, as well as online. Israel has conducted targeted killings of key Iranian figures and strikes aimed at crippling Iran’s nuclear and military capabilities. Syria is a close ally of Iran and a conduit for Iranian weapons shipments to its proxies, especially Hezbollah. Iran and Pakistan Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza Clashes along Israel-Lebanon border Qatar Iranian strike targeting militants Saudi Arabia U.A.E.

Persons: Israel, Ebrahim Raisi, Israel —, SANA, Hojatallah Omidvar, Haj Sadegh Omidzade, General Omidvar, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, Ronen Bergman, Victoria Kim Organizations: Guards, Quds Force, Islamic, Hamas, Revolutionary Guards, Human Rights, SYria AFghanistan IRAQ Israel Iran Clashes, West Bank, Qatar, Qatar INdia Saudi Arabia U.A.E, Red Sea, TURKEY U.S, EGYPT Qatar Saudi Arabia U.A.E, SYria IRAQ Iran Israel Clashes, West Bank KUWAIT PAK, Qatar Iranian, Saudi Arabia U.A.E, Quds Forces, Brig, Senior Locations: Iran, Damascus, Israel, Gaza, Syria, Islamic Republic of Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza . Israel, Syrian, Britain, East TURKMENISTAN Syria, Iraq TURKEY Iran, SYria AFghanistan IRAQ Israel Iran, West, Gaza PAKISTAN KUWAIT Iran, Pakistan EGYPT, Qatar INdia Saudi Arabia, OMAN Red, YEMEN Sudan, Red, Red Sea U.S, Iraq TURKMENISTAN Iran, TURKEY, Gaza Iran, Pakistan KUWAIT PAKISTAN, EGYPT Qatar Saudi Arabia, Sudan YEMEN U.S, SYria IRAQ Iran Israel, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, OMAN, YEMEN, Iranian, Gen, Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq, Israeli, United States

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