Israel yesterday kept bombing Gaza after the army warned it is ready for “any scenario” following a drone strike in Lebanon that killed the deputy leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, stoking fears of a regional escalation.
Although Israel did not claim the Beirut assassination on Tuesday evening, it was widely assumed to be behind the killing of Saleh al-Aruri, 57, the political No. 2 of Hamas and one of the founders of the Islamist group’s military wing.
After al-Aruri and six other militants were killed in the attack, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military was in a “very high state of readiness in all arenas” and “highly prepared for any scenario.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Israeli armed forces again bombed Gaza targets overnight, including in the crowded southern city of Rafah where eyewitnesses said survivors flocked to Mohammed Yousef al-Najjar Hospital to mourn the dead, including a child.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the militant group’s bloody Oct. 7 attack and has launched a relentless military campaign in Gaza that has claimed more than 22,000 lives, the territory’s health ministry says.
Israel has labeled Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar a “dead man walking” and vowed to also kill other commanders of the Islamist movement considered a “terrorist” group by the US and the EU.
Amid the nearly three-month-old war, Israel has traded almost daily cross-border fire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed ally of Hamas, while so far avoiding a full-scale war.
Maha Yahya, director of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center think tank, said that although al-Aruri’s killing was “a significant escalation,” Hezbollah might not get involved.
“I don’t think Hezbollah will be willing to drag Lebanon into a major conflict at this particular moment and time given the situation regionally,” Yahya said.
Violence has also flared with other militant groups in the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance,” including in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, where Houthi rebels have attacked cargo vessels in the Red Sea, a key shipping lane for world trade.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian condemned the “cowardly” Beirut strike and said it proved that Israel “has not achieved any of its goals after weeks of war crimes, genocide and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine, despite the direct support of the White House.”
Hezbollah vowed that al-Aruri’s killing would not go unpunished, labeling it “a serious assault on Lebanon ... and a dangerous development.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati charged that the killing “aims to draw Lebanon” deeper into the war, while French President Emmanuel Macron urged Israel to “avoid any escalatory attitude, particularly in Lebanon.”
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS