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Raided West Bank City Holds Funerals after Israeli Army Withdraws

Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
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Raided West Bank City Holds Funerals after Israeli Army Withdraws

Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)
Mourners carry the bodies of two of four Palestinians during their funeral following an Israeli operation at Nur Shams refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 13 September 2024. (EPA)

The families of Palestinians killed in an air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas held funerals on Friday after Israeli forces withdrew following their latest raid in the territory.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Wednesday that its forces were engaged in a "counter-terrorism operation" in the area of Tubas, in the northern West Bank.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said the military withdrew Thursday evening, allowing the funerals to go ahead.

The four men buried in Tubas on Friday were killed in an air strike at dawn on Wednesday, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.

A fifth fatality from the same strike was buried on Friday in Tamoun, also in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli military said in its Wednesday statement that Israeli aircraft had "struck and eliminated a terrorist cell consisting of five terrorists armed with explosives who posed a threat to (Israeli) forces".

On Friday morning, hundreds of people walked through the streets of Tubas alongside the four bodies hoisted on stretchers and wrapped in white cloth.

Some in the crowd waved the green flag of the Palestinian movement Hamas and gunfire punctuated the chants of the mourners.

"I woke up in the morning to the sound of an explosion," Ahmed Sawafta, father of one of the dead men, told AFP, describing the strike on Wednesday.

"My brothers came and told me that Yassin had been martyred," he said, referring to his son.

Osaid Kharaz, who identified himself as a Hamas activist, told AFP at the funeral that Israel "is attempting to impose a new reality and undermine the popular support for the resistance (to Israeli occupation) in the West Bank."

- 'Full strength' -

The military will use its "full strength" to strike Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on September 4, amid a large-scale operation in the north of the territory that killed dozens.

Israeli forces this week also carried out operations in the northern West Bank governorate of Tulkarem.

The Palestinian Red Crescent and the health ministry both reported that one volunteer paramedic and a young woman were killed during an Israeli raid there on Tuesday.

The health ministry also reported three killed near Tulkarem city on Wednesday "as a result of an Israeli air strike on a vehicle". The Palestinian Red Crescent gave the same toll.

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a statement that the three killed in the strike were its fighters.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday its air force had "conducted an aerial strike during the counter-terrorism operation" in Tulkarem, without specifying the target or reporting casualties.

Wafa reported that Israeli forces also withdrew from Tulkarem on Thursday and that funerals were held there on Friday.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has ramped up deadly raids in the territory since Hamas's October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked the war in Gaza.

According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 679 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military or settlers since October 7.

At least 24 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the territory during the same period, according to Israeli officials.

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Arab World

EU’s Borrell Urges Lebanon and Israel to Ease Tensions Along Their Border

European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell (L) and Lebanon's caretaker Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib (R) give a joint press conference, at the ministry's headquarters in Beirut on September 12, 2024. (AFP)
European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell (L) and Lebanon's caretaker Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib (R) give a joint press conference, at the ministry's headquarters in Beirut on September 12, 2024. (AFP)
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EU’s Borrell Urges Lebanon and Israel to Ease Tensions Along Their Border

European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell (L) and Lebanon's caretaker Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib (R) give a joint press conference, at the ministry's headquarters in Beirut on September 12, 2024. (AFP)
European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell (L) and Lebanon's caretaker Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib (R) give a joint press conference, at the ministry's headquarters in Beirut on September 12, 2024. (AFP)

The European Union’s top diplomat on Thursday urged Lebanon and Israel to work on deescalating tensions along the border, saying that since his last trip to the region in January “the drums of war have not stopped pounding.”

The comments of Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, came as members of the Hezbollah group and Israel’s military carried out cross border attacks along the tense frontier on Thursday.

Western and Arab officials have visited Beirut over the past year to try to reduce tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border, but Hezbollah officials have said they will only stop carrying out attacks along the border when Israel stops its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

“Since I lasted visited Lebanon in January the drums of war have not stopped pounding,” Borrell told reporters in Beirut during a joint press conference with Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib. “Since then, the fears I was outlining have been growing, more escalation, fears of a spillover of the war in Gaza and fears of more widespread human suffering.”

In late August, Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah pulled back after an exchange of heavy fire that briefly raised fears of an all-out war.

Borrell said that according to the United Nations more than 4,000 residential buildings have been completely destroyed in Lebanon and more than 110,000 Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes along the border. He said the same thing is happening on the Israeli side of the border.

The European official said that his message is that the European Union “stands on the side of the Lebanese people to help to overcome the threats and challenges as much as we can.”

This handout picture provided by the Lebanese Parliament Press Office shows European Union's top diplomat Josep Borrell (C) and his delegation meeting with Lebanese parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (R), in Beirut on September 12, 2024. (Lebanese Parliament / AFP)

Mikati and Berri

Borrell also met with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and parliament Speaker Nabih Berri during his visit.

Mikati expressed his appreciation for Borrell’s stances in support of Lebanon, calling for intensifying international and UN pressure on Israel to halt its attacks against Lebanon.

He also urged intensified cooperation between Lebanon and the EU to tackle the Syrian refugee file and its “current and future” dangers on the country, said a government statement.

Talks with Berri focused on local and regional developments.

The speaker hailed the EU official’s positions in support of Lebanon against Israel, adding that “Lebanon doesn’t want war, but it has the right to and is capable of defending itself.”

More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli strikes since Oct. 8, most of them fighters with Iran-backed Hezbollah and other armed groups but also more than 100 civilians. In northern Israel, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed by strikes from Lebanon.

“We need to deescalate military tensions and I use this opportunity to urge all sides to pursue this path,” said Borrell, who on Tuesday visited UN peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel.

He added that the “full and asymmetrical implementation” of UN Security Council resolution 1701 that ended the summer 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war should pave the way for a comprehensive settlement including land border demarcation and allowing the return of people and reconstruction in the affected border areas.

“The European Union is doing a lot, but we don’t have a magic wand,” he said.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (R) talks to European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell (L) during their meeting at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 12 September 2024. (EPA)

On Lebanese affairs, he urged officials to elect a president of the republic to end the nearly two-year vacancy in the country’s top post.

“There is no way for you to defend the Lebanese interests abroad - in the broader world - without being, in the first place, stable and united at home,” he said.

“You have to fix your economy, you have to reform your banking sector - this is crucial,” he added.

“The European Union is ready to continue supporting Lebanon, and Lebanon’s leaders to face the challenges of stability for the sake of the resilient Lebanese people - who, like many others in the region, have been kept away from peace and prosperity,” he remarked.

“But we can only assist, we can only [help] overcome the internal obstacles, if the Lebanese help themselves. Working for the interest of the Lebanese people, and no one else, is the way to go,” he stressed.

Borrell was set to travel to Israel but cancelled the trip after its Foreign Minister Israel Katz denied him entry over his statements that the EU should slap sanctions on extremist Ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich over their hate messages against Palestinians.