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Former war cabinet member Benny Gantz has said in Washington that Israel should shift its focus toward Hezbollah and the Lebanese border, warning that "we are late on this."
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading near-daily cross-border fire, with the Lebanese militant group saying it is acting in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in the ongoing war in Gaza.
Full StoryA senior Israeli security official told Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday that "the campaign in Lebanon is getting closer, although the exact timing has not yet been determined."
According to the security source, Israel faces two scenarios: “reaching a deal (with Hamas over a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange) or collapsing the negotiations and quickly entering a direct war against Hezbollah.”
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that he has instructed the army and security forces to prepare to change the situation on Lebanon’s border, where Israel has been engaged in near-daily clashes with Hezbollah since October 8 last year.
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Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday warned of a perceived attempt to take over "Christian state posts," calling on the political parties to cooperate with the efforts of the five-nation group for Lebanon regarding the presidential election file.
Full StoryHezbollah said Sunday that it staged two separate rocket attacks on Israel's Kiryat Shmona and a third on the Shamir settlement further north, in response to the "massacre" in the southern town of Froun that killed three Lebanese Civil Defense members and wounded two others.
On Saturday, Lebanon's health ministry said three emergency responders were killed and two others wounded, one of them critically, in an Israeli strike on Froun.
Full StoryHezbollah said Saturday that it fired volleys of Katyusha rockets at Israel’s Mount Neria military base in response to an overnight attack on the southern town of Froun, after the Israeli army said its warplanes attacked “over 15 rocket launchers” there.
“Fighter jets of the Air Force, under the direction of the Northern Command, attacked more than 15 launchers and military infrastructures of … Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the last hour,” the Israeli army said.
Full StoryThe charges against detained former Central Bank chief Riad Salameh will be focused on the file of the $40 million commissions, a media report said on Friday.
Opening all files “will lead to a years-long or perhaps decades-long trial that does not end, given the complicated details, in addition to the obstacles that will be put in the way and the pressures that will be practiced on the judiciary due to political interference,” Annahar newspaper reported.
Full StoryMount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun on Friday called for detained former Central Bank chief Riad Salameh to appear before her on Wednesday, holding State Prosecutor Judge Jammal al-Jarrah responsible should security forces fail to bring Salameh to the hearing session.
“I reiterate that the Optimum file has been open at the Public Prosecution Office of Mount Lebanon since the issuance of the Capital Markets Authority report around two years ago, and it is also based on the complaint stemming from the Alvarez & Marsal report,” Aoun said in an X post.
Full StoryLebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea insists on boycotting a presidential dialogue initiated by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, as Lebanon remains without a president since Michel Aoun's term ended in October 2022, almost two years ago.
"I am flexible," Geagea said in a radio interview on Thursday night. "But I cannot be flexible about Hezbollah's decision to start a war in south Lebanon," he added, as he dubbed Berri's dialogue anew "unconstitutional".
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The four MPs who have recently become outside the Free Patriotic Movement intend to form “a consultative parliamentary gathering, that would become a pressure group, not a bloc nor a party, and its current main mission would be to produce a solution for the presidential crises,” the four MPs’ sources told al-Jadeed TV.
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