Israeli prime minister says meeting with US secretary of state was ‘conducted in good spirit’ as Blinken says latest push for ceasefire is last opportunity
Benjamin Netanyahu’s three-hour meeting with Antony Blinken was “positive and conducted in a good spirit”, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office.
“The prime minister reiterated Israel’s commitment to the latest American proposal regarding the release of our hostages — taking into account Israel’s security needs, which he insists on firmly,” Netanyahu’s office said.
The Israeli army said Monday that one of its soldiers was killed in the country’s north, where cross-border fire with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has soared during the 10-month-old Gaza war.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s three-hour meeting with Antony Blinken was “positive and conducted in a good spirit”, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office.
Blinken said in Tel Aviv now is “probably the best, maybe the last” opportunity to get the hostages home and to get a ceasefire.
Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Monday that two of its fighters were killed and claimed attacks on northern Israel, including with drones, in the latest cross-border violence amid fears of full-blown war.
The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility on Monday for a bomb blast near a synagogue in Tel Aviv that Israeli police and the Shin Bet intelligence agency described as a terrorist attack.
The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza has said there have now been 40,139 Palestinians killed and 92,743 injured in Israel’s millitary offensive on Gaza since October 7.
Top US diplomat Antony Blinken spoke to Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant after he met one-on-one with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for 2 and a half hours on Monday.
Blinken will travel to Egypt on Tuesday for meetings in the Mediterranean city of el-Alamein after he wraps up his Israel stop.
Mediators will meet again this week in Cairo to try to cement a ceasefire.
The Israeli government has released footage of a person who it claims is the bomber who detonated explosives in Tel Aviv.
“Fortunately, only one person sustained moderate injuries when the bomb the terrorist was carrying detonated in his backpack, killing him instantly”, it said in a statement.
It said Israeli security agencies continue to maintain heightened security measures following the incident, which involved a “powerful explosive”.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for an attempted terror attack in Tel Aviv earlier this week involving a powerful explosive.
— Israel ישראל (@Israel) August 19, 2024
Fortunately, only one person sustained moderate injuries when the bomb the terrorist was carrying detonated in his backpack, killing him instantly.… pic.twitter.com/1CXw7NYEQi
A bomber in Tel Aviv failed to reach a more populated area because his explosives detonated, the Israeli government spokesman has commented.
Israeli police and the Shin Bet intelligence agency described the bomb blast near a synagogue in the city as a terrorist attack. The armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility on Monday.
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said the man was carrying a backpack loaded with explosives that detonated “before he managed to reach a more heavily populated area”.
Claims of Palestinians being tortured, left untreated in hospital and unable to escape constant bombardment have been submitted to the high court in London by lawyers seeking an order preventing the UK government continuing to grant arms export licences to British companies selling arms to Israel.
The 14 witness statements covering more than 100 pages come from Palestinian and western medical doctors working in Gaza’s hospitals, as well as from ambulance drivers, civil defence department workers and aid workers.
The graphic evidence is designed to support a request for a court order that the UK government has acted irrationally in refusing to ban the sale of arms, arguing there was not a clear risk the weapons would be used to commit breaches of international humanitarian law. This is the statutory test set for the government to decide whether to grant arms export licences. The Labour government is reviewing the policy.
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Israel is “flagrantly and regularly” committing war crimes in Gaza, according to a former British diplomat who recently resigned over ministers’ failure to ban arms sales to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Mark Smith, who resigned as a counter-terrorism official at the British embassy in Dublin after raising complaints about the sale of British weapons to Israel, told the BBC on Monday that he believed Israel to be in breach of international law.
Smith told Radio 4’s Today programme: “When you look at what constitutes a war crime, it’s actually quite clear, even from what you see in open source on the TV, that the state of Israel is perpetrating war crimes in plain sight.
“Anybody who has a kind of basic understanding of these things can see that there are war crimes being committed, not once, not twice, not a few times, but quite flagrantly and openly and regularly.”
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The Israeli army said Monday that one of its soldiers was killed in the country’s north, where cross-border fire with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has soared during the 10-month-old Gaza war.
Mahmood Amaria, a 45-year-old member of the Bedouin Trackers Unit, “fell during combat in northern Israel”, a military statement said.
In Gaza, a mother worries that her month-old son, Mohammed, could be infected with polio after the Palestinian health ministry confirmed the first case in the enclave on Friday, ending a 25 year period in which the Strip was polio-free.
Just three days after his birth, Ghada al-Ghandour’s son Mohammed started developing skin rashes.
“He had skin rashes as if he was burnt,” she told Reuters. A doctor told her there were no creams to treat her child.
She later brought him to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza to seek a diagnosis and treatment. The rash fueled his mother’s fears that other symptoms and diseases could follow due to a lack of hygiene and medical supplies in Gaza after more than 10 months of conflict.
The Israeli military said a soldier was killed on Monday and another severely wounded in northern Israel, a region that has come under near-daily rocket and drone attack from Hezbollah militants based in Lebanon.
The military said it had successfully intercepted multiple drone strikes on Israel’s north near the border with Lebanon, but that some of the drones had landed in the northern region of Ya’ara.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s three-hour meeting with Antony Blinken was “positive and conducted in a good spirit”, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office.
“The prime minister reiterated Israel’s commitment to the latest American proposal regarding the release of our hostages — taking into account Israel’s security needs, which he insists on firmly,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Lebanese group Hezbollah said on Monday that two of its fighters were killed and claimed attacks on northern Israel, including with drones, in the latest cross-border violence amid fears of full-blown war.
We had earlier (see post at 09.24BST) reported Lebanon’s health ministry saying that an Israeli strike killed two people in south Lebanon on Monday in the border village of Hula but without giving further details of their identities.
Now Agence France-Presse have reported Hezbollah said two of its fighters were “martyred on the road to Jerusalem”, the phrase the Iran-backed group has used to refer to members killed by Israeli fire since October.
The Israeli military said air forces struck “Hezbollah terrorists” in the Hula area and “Hezbollah military structures” elsewhere in south Lebanon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported Israeli shelling and raids on several southern areas, and said “enemy warplanes broke the sound barrier twice over Beirut and its suburbs... at low altitude”.
Hezbollah said it launched a “simultaneous air attack” with “explosive-laden drones” on two Israeli military positions - the Yaara barracks near the border, and a base near the coastal town of Acre, around 15 kilometres (10 miles) from the frontier.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “multiple suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon”.
Air defences “intercepted some of the targets, and others fell” in the Yaara area, the statement added.
Police in Istanbul have launched a large-scale investigation after a Palestinian was killed and two others were wounded in a shooting as they sat in a car, officials and media said Monday.
The killer dropped a handgun fitted with a silencer at the scene, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a brief statement, according to Associated Press.
The Demiroren news agency reported that the man sitting in the driver’s seat was killed and his friend seriously wounded in the shooting late Sunday. Another man, who the governor’s office described as the dead man’s bodyguard, was injured in the foot.
The identities of the victims were not disclosed beyond their initials. But the apparently professional nature of the attack led to widespread speculation in the Turkish media over whether Israel may have been involved. It was also suggested that the shooting may be related to business debts.
Turkey has for years provided haven for Hamas officials. In December, the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency said that his organisation was prepared to target Hamas anywhere, including in Turkey.
Claims of Palestinians being tortured, left untreated in hospital and unable to escape constant bombardment have been submitted to the high court in London by lawyers seeking an order preventing the UK government continuing to grant arms export licences to British companies selling arms to Israel.
The 14 witness statements covering more than 100 pages come from Palestinian and western medical doctors working in Gaza’s hospitals, as well as from ambulance drivers, civil defence department workers and aid workers.
The graphic evidence is designed to support a request for a court order that the UK government has acted irrationally in refusing to ban the sale of arms, arguing there was not a clear risk the weapons would be used to commit breaches of international humanitarian law. This is the statutory test set for the government to decide whether to grant arms export licences. The Labour government is reviewing the policy.
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