2024-10-07 12:08:52
Israel is sending more ground troops to Lebanon. Hezbollah repeatedly denies Israel’s right to exist. All developments in the news blog.
1:32 p.m.: On the anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel with around 1,200 deaths and the subsequent Gaza war, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz is calling for a ceasefire and a political process. “Dear friends in Israel, we feel for you (…), we stand by your side,” emphasized the SPD politician at the opening of the sustainability conference in Hamburg. At the same time, he also mentions the suffering of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip after a year of war. “The daily experience of violence and hunger is not a basis from which good things can arise,” he warns. People needed hope, perspectives.
“That’s why the federal government is calling for a ceasefire, for the hostages to be freed, for a political process, even if that is further away than ever,” says Scholz. For him, in the end there could only be a two-state solution in which “Israelis and Palestinians can live together in lasting peace.” But that only works if a wildfire in the region is prevented. Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran must stop their attacks, demands Scholz.
1:07 p.m.: Israel’s army sends more ground troops to Lebanon. The Israeli military said soldiers from the 91st Division had begun operations in the south of the country. The army releases a video that purports to show its soldiers in Lebanese territory. An Israeli army division can contain several thousand soldiers.
Israel is keeping the exact number of soldiers secret during its first invasion of Lebanon in decades, as well as during the ongoing operations in the Gaza Strip. In Lebanon, the army appears to be concentrating so far on an area near the towns of Udaissa and Kafr Kila in the southeast and around Bint Jubail in the south of Lebanon. There are apparently further clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli soldiers in the areas.
12:07 p.m.: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has rejected rumors of the death of a top-level general. “Many people ask us how General (Ismail) Ghani is doing. He is in good health and active,” Brigadier General Iraj Masjedi said at a press conference in Tehran. “Some say we should make a statement. Why a statement? There is no reason for such a measure,” Iranian Mehr Agency quoted him as saying.
Ghani is the commander of the so-called Al-Kuds Brigades, the overseas unit of the Revolutionary Guards. As a top-level general, he oversees Iran’s military and intelligence operations abroad, especially in the Middle East. You can read more about the case here.
10.40 a.m.: The Lebanese Hezbollah has again denied Israel’s right to exist on the anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7th. There is no place for Israel “in our region and in our social, cultural and human structure,” explains the terrorist organization. The Islamist Hamas, which, like Hezbollah, is supported by Iran, carried out a “heroic effort” with the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which will have “historic effects and strategic consequences” for the Middle East.
Hezbollah also comments on the decision to attack Israel again out of what it claims is solidarity with Hamas. With this decision, the militia is on the “side of truth, justice and complete humanity” and has also decided to defend Lebanon.
10:08 a.m.: Hamas said it fired rockets at Tel Aviv on the anniversary of its attack on Israel. The armed wing of the radical Islamic Palestinian organization said several rockets were fired at Israel’s second-largest city. The Israeli military says there is an air alert in Tel Aviv and throughout the center of the country.