Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday in a post on X/Twitter that Macron was a disgrace to his nation in the latest part of the diplomatic spat that began earlier this week
"French President Macron’s actions are a disgrace to the French nation and the values of the free world
French President Macron’s actions are a disgrace to the French nation and the values of the free world
The decision to discriminate against Israeli defense industries in France a second time - aids Israel’s enemies during war
and is consistently implementing a hostile policy towards the Jewish people."
British Prime Minister Keir Strammer said during a debate in Parliament on Wednesday that the British government is considering imposing sanctions on Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir
Sanctions are being considered due to their positions regarding the war in Gaza and violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank
"They made disgusting statements," Starmer said.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday that Israel wants UNIFIL to operate in southern Lebanon after the war ends
"The State of Israel places great importance on the activities of UNIFIL and has no intention of harming the organization or its personnel.," Katz said in a post to X/Twitter
The State of Israel places great importance on the activities of @UNIFIL_ and has no intention of harming the organization or its personnel.Furthermore
Israel views UNIFIL as playing an important role in the "day after" following the war against Hezbollah.It is the Hezbollah…
Israel views UNIFIL as playing an important role in the "day after" following the war against Hezbollah."
"It is the Hezbollah terrorist organization that uses UNIFIL personnel as "human shields," deliberately firing at IDF soldiers from locations near UNIFIL positions in order to create friction."
"The State of Israel will continue to do what is necessary to restore the security to the citizens of Israel and the return of the residents of the north safely to their homes
and will continue to make every effort to avoid harming UNIFIL all while coordinating with UNIFIL commanders and in accordance with international law."
The US has issued new Hezbollah-related sanctions
according to a posting on Tuesday on the Treasury Department website
Israel "remains committed to working with our international partners to ensure aid reaches those who need it" in the Gaza Strip
Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday after the United States told its ally it must take steps in the next month to improve the humanitarian situation in the enclave
One minister and nine MKs in Israel's governing party, the Likud
will hold an event on Monday near the border with Gaza in support of resettling the territory
according to a flyer of the event published online
The event includes a tour of Kibbutz Nirim led by its civilian security coordinator
The Kibbutz said in a statement that neither it nor the security coordinator had received notice of the tour
"We are still waiting for the government and members of the coalition to take responsibility for the enormous failure and abandonment of the events of October 7 and for the bleeding wound in our hearts
Instead of holding political conferences to form settlement cells
it would be better for the government and its members to deal with bringing back 101 hostages and supporting and building the [Gaza] perimeter area towns and resurrecting them."
The Likud event is part of a larger event called "Preparing for Settlement of Gaza," scheduled for Sunday-Monday
including a "giant Sukkah city" encampment
settlement preparation workshops," and "meeting pioneers of the past."
The larger event is sponsored by a series of groups
including the coalition's two far-right parties
the Religious Zionist Party (RZP) and Otzma Yehudit
as well as other right-wing and settlement groups
OPPONENTS OF Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan face IDF troops as they secure the fence of Kfar Maimon in July 2005 after police blocked them from marching to the Gush Katif communities to protest against their demolition
the Likud event is scheduled to include a meeting with MKs and ministers
a panel with soldiers and family members of hostages
馃挜Whatever Netanyahu & Gallant tell the @WhiteHouse their @Likud_Party is "preparing for the settlement of Gaza," including a tour of the border area with ministers & legislators. The catch? Kibbutz Nirim, that they planned to use as their launchpad, wants nothing to do with them pic.twitter.com/s04RVTuwZC
Minister May Golan will host the Likud event
The MKs listed as hosts on the flyer are Avichai Boaron
The flyer was published on the day that Makor Rishon published an interview with Housing Minister Yizhak Goldknopf (UTJ)
in which he said that the government was acting to exempt all yeshiva students from IDF service
A number of MKs from the opposition criticized both the Likud event and Goldknopf's comments
National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz called the event "hypocritical" since settling Gaza would require increased military resources and manpower
which the coalition is not willing to provide
Gantz also noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
has said publicly that Israel would not settle Gaza
MK Gadi Eisenkot (also from National Unity) accused "large parts of the coalition" of acting to "shatter the large national consensus surrounding a just war" by acting to settle Gaza
which Eisenkot wrote was a "controversial topic in Israeli society."
whose son Gal died in battle in Gaza during the first months of the war
"This is not what our sons and daughters sacrificed their lives for
in direct opposition to the goals of the war and the prime minister's statements."
Other MKs who criticized the event included Labor's Merav Michaeli and Gilad Kariv
Some 21 towns and approximately 8,000 Israeli settlers were removed from the Gaza Strip during the 2005 disengagement
Several people were wounded by shrapnel following rocket sirens that sounded across the Galilee on Wednesday
approximately 30 rockets were launched from Lebanon
One rocket directly hit a civilian home in the central Galilee town of Majd el-Kurum
including one major one at a construction site
讞讜讚砖讬诐 讜讛爪驻讜谉 谞诪爪讗 转讞转 讗砖. 讗讝注拽讜转, 谞驻讬诇讜转, 讜砖专讬驻讜转. 诪爪讬讗讜转 砖诇 诪诇讞诪讛 砖专拽 讛讜诇讻转 讜诪转注爪诪转, 讜讛诪诪砖诇讛 诪驻拽讬专讛 讗讜转谞讜 砖讜讘 讜砖讜讘. 讗讝专讞讬诐 诇诇讗 诪拽诇讟讬诐, 诇诇讗 诪讬讙讜谉 - 讗讱 讗转 讻诇 讝讛 讛诪诪砖诇讛 讬讚注讛 讻讘专 讘诪诇讞诪讛 讛拽讜讚诪转 注诐 诇讘谞讜谉 讘-2006.讗讝 谞讛专讙讜 砖谞讬 转讜砖讘讬 诪讙壮讚 讗诇讻专讜诐 诪讟讬诇 讞讬讝讘讗诇诇讛. 讜讛讬讜诐? 转专讗讜 讗转 讛住专讟讜谉 pic.twitter.com/42MdOlDjSq
Pictures and videos from the scene show serious damage to several buildings and vehicles
with shrapnel damage present across the area
馃毃 讘诪讟讞 讗讞专讜谉 诇讙诇讬诇 讛诪注专讘讬 讬讬专讜讟讬诐 讜谞驻讬诇讜转 讘讻驻专 诪讙'讚 讗诇讻专讜诐 诇讬讚 讻专诪讬讗诇. pic.twitter.com/S1UK6eNreB
MDA teams searched the areas and located several people who were injured by shrapnel from the hits
MDA located four wounded people with mild shrapnel wounds; all four were evacuated to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya
where they were treated for their injuries
The wounded people were three men and a woman around 50 years old each
A further ten people were treated for shock at the scene
we began hearing the explosions - the echoes of the explosions
It took a few seconds to realize that there were several falls inside the village," Ali Nasser
"There were two primary hits in the village - one at a house and the other at a school construction site
Thank God there were [only] four minor injuries
there were no fatalities; maybe in another attack
there would be fatalities and a severe and shocking disaster."
The batteries inside the weaponized pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year
had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles' heel
The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray
according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers
and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters
To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product - they created fake online stores
pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence
The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story
shed light on the execution of a years-long operation
square sheet with six grams of white pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) plastic explosive was squeezed between two rectangular battery cells
according to the Lebanese source and photos
Ambulances arrive to American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) as more than 1,000 people
were wounded when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon
The remaining space between the battery cells could not be seen in the photos but was occupied by a strip of highly flammable material that acted as the detonator
This three-layer sandwich was inserted in a black plastic sleeve
and encapsulated in a metal casing roughly the size of a match box
The assembly was unusual because it did not rely on a standard miniaturised detonator
All three spoke on conditions of anonymity
the material used to trigger detonation had an edge: like the plastic explosives
Upon receiving the pagers in February, Hezbollah looked for the presence of explosives
putting them through airport security scanners to see if they triggered alarms
The devices were likely set up to generate a spark within the battery pack
to whom Reuters showed the pager-bomb design
Since explosives and wrapping took about a third of the volume
the battery pack carried a fraction of the power consistent with its 35 gram weight
"There is a significant amount of unaccounted-for mass," said Paul Christensen
an expert in lithium batteries at Britain’s Newcastle University
Hezbollah noticed the battery was draining faster than expected
the issue did not appear to raise major security concerns - the group was still handing its members the pagers hours before the attack
On September 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds
missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens
indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation
and a second on the following day that activated weaponized walkie-talkies
killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400
Two Western security sources said Israeli intelligence agency Mossad spearheaded the pager and walkie-talkie attacks
Reuters could not establish where the devices were manufactured
The office of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Israel has neither denied nor confirmed a role. The day after the attacks, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised Mossad's "very impressive" results in comments that were widely interpreted in Israel as a tacit acknowledgment of the agency's participation
US officials have said they were not informed of the operation in advance
the pager’s power source looked like a standard lithium-ion battery pack used in thousands of consumer electronics goods
Hezbollah has serious procurement procedures to check what they buy
who was not involved in the pager operation
or “legends,” for undercover agents has long been a core skill of spy agencies
What made the pager plot unusual is that those skills appear to have been applied to ubiquitous consumer electronics products
the agents deceived Hezbollah by selling the custom-created model
told reporters a day after the pager attack that he was approached about three years ago by a former employee
called Tom,” to discuss a license agreement
Hsu said he had scant information about Wu’s superior
but he granted them the right to design their own products and market them under the widely distributed Gold Apollo brand
Reuters could not establish the identity of the manager
nor whether the person or Wu knowingly worked with Israeli intelligence
The chairman said he was not impressed by the AR-924 when he saw it
but still added photos and a description of the product to his company’s website
helping give it both visibility and credibility
There was no way to directly buy the AR-924 from his website
Hsu said he knew nothing about the pagers’ lethal capabilities or the broader operation to attack Hezbollah
He described his company as a victim of the plot
Gold Apollo declined to provide further comment
Calls and messages sent to Wu went unanswered
She has not given a statement to the media since the attacks
webpages and images featuring the AR-924 and its battery were added to apollosystemshk.com
a website that said it had a licence to distribute Gold Apollo products
as well as the rugged pager and its bulky power source
according to a Reuters review of internet records and metadata
The website gave an address in Hong Kong for a company called Apollo Systems HK
No company by that name exists at the address or in Hong Kong Corporate records
on her Facebook page as well as in public incorporation records when she registered a company called Apollo Systems in Taipei earlier this year
A section of the apollosystemshk.com site devoted to the LI-BT783 put emphasis on the battery’s outstanding performance
Unlike the disposable batteries that powered older generation pagers
it boasted 85 days of autonomy and could be recharged via a USB cable
according to the website and a 90-second promotional video on YouTube
two battery stores came online with the LI-BT783 listed in their catalogues
And in two online forums devoted to batteries
despite its lack of commercial availability: "I know this product," a user with the handle Mikevog wrote in April 2023
"It’s got a great datasheet and a great performance."
Reuters could not establish the identity of Mikevog
and the forum discussions bear the hallmark of a deception effort
the former Israeli intelligence officer and two Western security officers told Reuters
The websites have been scrubbed from the web since the pager bombs wreaked havoc in Lebanon
but archived and cached copies are still viewable
Hezbollah leaders said they had launched internal investigations to understand how the security breach could happen and identify possible moles
The terror group had shifted to pagers at the start of the year after realizing that cellphone communications were compromised by Israeli eavesdropping
The salesperson who conveyed the offer made a very inexpensive proposition for the pagers
“and kept bringing the price down until he was pulled in,” one of the people familiar with the matter said
UNRWA is close to a possible breaking point for its operations in the Gaza Strip due to increasingly complicated conditions
"I will not hide the fact that we might reach a point that we won't be able anymore to operate," UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told journalists at a news conference in Berlin
"We are very near to a possible breaking point
The IDF reinforced troops operating in the Central Command ahead of the Sukkot holiday
the military said on Wednesday.