Israeli strike on Syria-Lebanon crossing ‘puts at risk main lifeline for people to escape conflict’, warns UN

More than half a million people, mostly Syrians, had crossed into Syrian territory since Israel began heavily striking Lebanon late last month, according to figures by the Lebanese authorities on Friday.
A statement from the country’s disaster management unit stated that since 23 September, Lebanon has “recorded the crossing of 348,237 Syrian citizens and 156,505 Lebanese citizens into Syrian territory”.
Meanwhile, as we reported earlier, Israeli bombing has reportedly put a second border crossing between Lebanon and Syria out of service, leaving just one official passage between the two nations operational.
The UN refugee agency (Unhcr) warned that Israel’s overnight airstrike on the Jousieh crossing in Lebanon’s northern Bekaa area jeopardised the main escape route for people fleeing the conflict in Lebanon in search of refuge in Syria.
Unhcr Middle East spokesperson Rula Amin, at a media briefing on Friday, said the crossing “is the only route these people have to escape Lebanon”, adding:
This is hindering and really putting at risk a main lifeline that people use to escape the conflict in Lebanon and cross into Syria.
Amin said the Jousieh strike hit within 500 metres (550 yards) of the immigration office, with no prior notification given.
It is the second such gateway hit by the Israeli army this month. The Israeli military confirmed that it had struck the Jousieh crossing, saying it was being used by Hezbollah to transfer weapons.
Israeli strikes have killed 38 people, many of them children, in Gaza as well as three journalists in Lebanon, as worries grow about supply shortages in Gaza and international pressure for a ceasefire increases.
The deaths reported by Gaza health officials were the latest in the southern Gaza City of Khan Younis, where people have in recent days lined up for bread outside the city’s only bakery in operation, AP reported.
They come a day after US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that Israel had accomplished its objective of “effectively dismantling” Hamas and implored both sides to revive negotiations.
Hours before Mr Blinken was set to meet with Arab leaders in London on Friday, an Israeli airstrike on guesthouses where journalists were staying in south-east Lebanon killed three members of staff.
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Two people were killed in a strike on Majd al-Krum in northern Israel, Israeli media said on Friday, following a statement from Hezbollah saying that it targeted the northern Israeli town of Karmiel with a large missile salvo.
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Lebanon has been placed on financial crime watchlist, international body says
Lebanon has been placed on a so-called ‘grey list’ of countries under special scrutiny by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the financial crime watchdog said on Friday, despite requests for leniency from Lebanese officials.
The FATF said Lebanon had made progress on several recommended actions and would continue to implement reforms, Reuters reported.
Lebanon has been in a financial crisis since 2019 and faces destruction from Israeli military operations against armed group Hezbollah. The grey-listing is likely to further deter investment and could affect the links between some Lebanese banks and the global financial system.
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The international criminal court (ICC) on Friday said it would replace one of its judges on health grounds, in a move that could further delay a decision on the prosecution’s request to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In May, prosecutors asked for warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant as well as three Hamas leaders, saying there were reasonable grounds that the men had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, Reuters reported.
The president of the ICC said the presiding judge in the case, Romanian magistrate Iulia Motoc, had asked to be replaced on health grounds on Friday and was immediately replaced with Slovenian ICC judge Beti Hohler.
The replacement is expected to further delay a decision on possible warrants in the case looking at the Gaza conflict as the new judge will need time to catch up on the filings.
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The Israeli military said on Friday that three of its soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza Strip.
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UN rights chief says ‘darkest moment’ of Israel’s war on Gaza is unfolding in the north
The UN rights chief, Volker Turk, has issued a statement in which he describes Israel’s renewed assault on northern Gaza as the “darkest moment” of the year-long war on the territory so far.
He said:
Unimaginably, the situation is getting worse by the day. The Israeli government’s policies and practices in northern Gaza risk emptying the area of all Palestinians.
We are facing what could amount to atrocity crimes, including potentially extending to crimes against humanity.
Turk said “more than 150,000 people are reportedly dead, wounded or missing in Gaza” since the war was launched last October.
“My gravest fear is, given the intensity, breadth, scale and blatant nature of the Israeli operation currently underway in North Gaza, that number will rise dramatically,” he said.
Israeli forces began the devastating offensive in the north about three weeks ago with the declared aim of preventing Hamas fighters from regrouping. Residents, however, say the troops have besieged shelters, levelled civilian infrastructure, forced displaced people to leave with nowhere safe to go, while killing many civilians in deadly airstrikes. Medics say at least 800 Palestinians have been killed in northern Gaza since the new offensive was launched.
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‘We stand at the brink of regional war’, Jordan’s foreign minister warns as Israeli attacks intensify
Patrick Wintour
Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, has called for pressure on Israel to end “ethnic cleansing”, as he met US secretary of state Antony Blinken in London.
Blinken stopped over in London to brief leaders from Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan after he had been unable to meet them on his recent tour of the Middle East. Blinken is still hoping the Gaza peace talks can be revived.
Deploring the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, Safadi told Blinken: “We do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop.”
He added:
We really stand at the brink of regional war now. The only path to save the region from that is for Israel to stop the aggressions on Gaza, on Lebanon, stop unilateral measures, illegal measures, in the West Bank, that is also pushing the situation to an abyss.
On 13 October, Blinken wrote jointly with the US defence secretary Lloyd Austin to Israel urging the country to increase the number of aid trucks entering Gaza to 350 per day within 30 days. But since then no day has seen the number of trucks exceed 114, whilst the number of trucks inside Gaza but unable to distribute aid has risen 470 to 700.
The amount of aid entering Gaza is at record low levels in October, and although Blinken in the Middle East claimed to have seen an improvement, Arab diplomatic sources said the figures are nowhere near the level the Biden administration previously said in its letter that would be required for the US administration to stop supplying Israel with arms.
Separately in talks with Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati, Blinken said: “We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN security council resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along the border between Israel and Lebanon.”
He said it was important so “people at both sides of the border can have the confidence to be able to return to their homes.”
His remarks stop short of a call for an immediate ceasefire, the position adopted by the French since the US believes that if Hezbollah can be weakened further the political deadlock that prevents the formation of a full government can be broken.
Resolution 1701, approved in 2006 after an earlier war, calls for the disarmament of non-state groups in Lebanon – including to the Hezbollah group, which effectively runs its own armed militia – and for a full Israeli withdrawal from the country.
One precondition for a full implementation of 1701 is strengthening the official Lebanese armed forces. On Thursday, at a Paris Conference, the international community pledged to pay €200m to strengthen the Lebanese army, in particular by recruiting soldiers. A further €800m was raised to help the humanitarian crisis.
Mitaki said his government’s priority is reaching “a ceasefire and deterring the Israeli aggression”. He added there are more than 1.4 million people who have been displaced from the areas that are being attacked by Israel. “Israel is also violating international law by attacking civilians, journalists and medical staff,” he said.
He said “what is required is a real commitment from Israel to a ceasefire, because the previous experience regarding the American-French call, supported by the Arabs and the international community, for a ceasefire affected everyone’s credibility.” Mitaki was referring to a proposal for an initial 21-day truce agreed at the UN general assembly in the false belief that it had the support of the Israelis.
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Israel’s military humanitarian unit, Cogat, which oversees aid and commercial shipments to Gaza, said earlier today it had allowed the transfer of 23 patients out of the Kamal Adwan hospital the previous night by Palestinian ambulances and UN vehicles.
Cogat said it had allowed the transfer of one fuel truck, “180 blood units and a truckload of medical equipment” donated by UN agencies.