Jordan’s King Abdullah Warns of Dangers of Israel’s Planned Rafah Assault

 Aid is air-dropped over Gaza in cooperation with France in this handout picture released on February 26, 2024.(Jordan Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
Aid is air-dropped over Gaza in cooperation with France in this handout picture released on February 26, 2024.(Jordan Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
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Jordan’s King Abdullah Warns of Dangers of Israel’s Planned Rafah Assault

 Aid is air-dropped over Gaza in cooperation with France in this handout picture released on February 26, 2024.(Jordan Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
Aid is air-dropped over Gaza in cooperation with France in this handout picture released on February 26, 2024.(Jordan Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)

Jordan's King Abdullah warned on Monday of the dangers of a military operation planned by Israel in Rafah and reiterated his appeal for an immediate ceasefire to help protect civilians in Gaza and bring in aid, the royal palace said.

The king also said the only way to end the decades-old conflict was to find a "political horizon" for Palestinians that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state on territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, including east Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week the Israeli security cabinet would approve military plans for Rafah - including the evacuation of more than a million displaced Palestinian civilians who have been sheltering there, and whose fate worries world powers.

Almost 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, Gaza medical officials say. The Hamas raid of Oct. 7 killed 1,200 people in Israel, which has also lost 241 soldiers in Gaza ground fighting that followed, according to official tallies.

The Jordanian army also arranged on Monday the biggest air drop operation so far to deliver aid to Gaza where the mostly displaced population of 2.3 million is facing crisis levels of hunger, an army statement said.

The operation deployed four C-130 planes including one belonging to the French air force, army spokesperson Mustafa Hiyari said.

Aid was dropped to 11 sites along the Gaza coast from its northern edge to the south for civilians to collect, Hiyari told Reuters. Previous air drops that parachuted in medicines and humanitarian provisions were sent to hospitals the Jordanian army runs in Gaza.



Israel Warns Lebanese against Returning to Area at Border

 This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road on the outskirts of the village of Mais al-Jabal along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)
This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road on the outskirts of the village of Mais al-Jabal along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)
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Israel Warns Lebanese against Returning to Area at Border

 This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road on the outskirts of the village of Mais al-Jabal along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)
This picture taken from Lebanon's southern village of Shaqra on January 25, 2025 shows an Israeli army Merkava main battle tank moving along a road on the outskirts of the village of Mais al-Jabal along the border with Israel in south Lebanon. (AFP)

The Israeli army on Saturday warned residents of dozens of Lebanese villages near the border against returning until further notice, a day after Israel said its forces would remain in south Lebanon beyond a Sunday deadline for their departure.

A ceasefire that ended last year's war between Hezbollah and Israel stipulated that Israeli forces should withdraw as the Iran-backed group's weapons and fighters are removed from the south and the Lebanese army deploys. The deal, brokered by Washington and Paris, set a 60-day period which ends on Sunday.

But Israel said on Friday the terms had not been fully enforced by the Lebanese state, meaning Israeli troops would stay beyond Sunday, without saying for how long.

Lebanon's US-backed military on Saturday accused Israel of procrastinating in its withdrawal.

In a statement on social media platform X, the Israeli military posted a map showing an area of the south containing dozens of villages and reminding residents that until further notice they are forbidden from returning to their homes.

"Anyone who moves south of this line puts themselves in danger," the statement said.

The line stretches from Shebaa, less than 2 km (1.5 miles) from the border in the east, to Mansouri in the west - about 10 km (6 miles) from the border.

The ceasefire ended more than a year of hostilities which were triggered by the Gaza war and peaked in a major Israeli offensive against Hezbollah, which uprooted more than a million people in Lebanon and left the group badly weakened.

The Israeli military says it has been seizing Hezbollah weapons and dismantling its infrastructure in the south.

The White House said on Friday that a short, temporary ceasefire extension was urgently needed.

French President Emmanuel Macron told his Lebanese counterpart Joseph Aoun that he was making contacts to maintain the ceasefire and complete the implementation of the agreement, the Lebanese presidency said in a statement.

Aoun stressed to Macron the need to oblige Israel to implement the deal to preserve stability in the south.

Hezbollah, which suffered major blows in the war, said on Thursday that any delay of Israel's withdrawal would be an unacceptable breach of the deal and put the onus on the Lebanese state to act. Hezbollah said the Lebanese state would have to deal with such a violation "through all means and methods guaranteed by international charters".

Israel said its campaign against Hezbollah aimed to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people forced by Hezbollah rocket fire to leave their homes in northern Israel.

The Lebanese army, in a statement issued on Saturday, urged Lebanese residents to wait before heading into the border region, citing the presence of mines and unexploded Israeli ordnance.

The army said it had continued to implement the plan to strengthen its deployment south of the Litani River since the ceasefire came into effect.

"Delays occurred in a number of the phases as a result of procrastination in the withdrawal by the Israeli enemy, which complicated the mission of the army's deployment," the statement said. The army "maintains its readiness to complete its deployment as soon as the Israeli enemy withdraws".