(Saida) The Israeli army killed on Wednesday a leader of the armed wing of Fatah in a strike in Lebanon, the Palestinian movement, based in the occupied West Bank, accusing Israel of wanting an escalation in the region, in the midst of war in the Gaza Strip.
The attack comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just completed a tour of the region, with no visible breakthrough in a Gaza truce. He warned Israel and Hamas that the US proposal on the table could be the “last chance”.
It was his ninth tour of the region since the start of the war, triggered by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil.
The United States believes that a ceasefire in Gaza, ravaged, besieged and in the grip of a humanitarian disaster, could also help prevent a conflagration in the region, with the international community fearing a possible attack on Israel by Iran and its allies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in retaliation for the assassination of the Hamas leader on July 31 in Tehran, attributed to Israel.
Since October 8, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and Israel, which has eliminated many fighters and leaders of the Lebanese Islamist movement.
But on Wednesday, it was a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, the party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and rival of Hamas, that Israel targeted in Saida, in southern Lebanon.
Unprecedented attack
This is the first time since the start of the war in Gaza that a Fatah official has been killed by Israel.
The Israeli military accused Khalil Al-Maqdah, along with his brother Mounir Maqdah, of “acting on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and of being involved in “terrorist attacks” and “arms trafficking” to the occupied West Bank.
PHOTO MAHMOUD ZAYYAT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Lebanese firefighters put out a fire in a car after an Israeli attack killed a Fatah party official in the city of Sidon.
This “assassination” is “further proof that Israel wants to set the region ablaze,” accused a member of the Fatah Central Committee in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.
Earlier, the Lebanese Health Ministry announced that overnight Israeli strikes had killed at least one person and wounded 19 in the east of the country, hours after four people were killed in separate attacks in the south.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing Katyusha rockets at several military positions in northern Israel, with the Israeli army recording around a hundred projectiles fired from Lebanon at the area and the occupied Syrian Golan.
In this context, Mr. Blinken left Qatar during the night, where he had gone from Egypt – the two other mediating countries with the United States – after Israel, with a view to pushing for a truce.
New talks are expected in Egypt this week after Washington submitted a truce proposal on Friday during negotiations in Doha between Israel and mediators.
Blinken said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to the plan and on Tuesday called on Hamas to do the same.
PHOTO KEVIN MOHATT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Divergences
But according to Hamas and Israeli media, Mr Netanyahu insists that Israel retain control of the “Philadelphia corridor” along the Gaza-Egypt border.
A position that would not be “constructive” according to a senior American official. From the beginning, it has been said “very clearly that the United States does not accept a long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel,” Mr. Blinken said, questioned on this subject, affirming that Israel had already agreed to the “locations and the timetable for withdrawals” of troops.
Hamas said it was “desirous of reaching a ceasefire” but protested against the “new conditions” set by Israel.
The Palestinian movement is demanding the implementation of a plan announced on May 31 by US President Joe Biden, which he accepted in early July, first providing for a six-week truce accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages, then, in a second phase, a total Israeli withdrawal from the besieged territory.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly said he wants to continue the war until the destruction of Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza launched an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
“Dozens of terrorists eliminated”
Of the 251 people abducted that day, 105 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
The Israeli retaliatory offensive has left at least 40,223 dead, according to the Hamas government’s health ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilians and fighters killed. The UN says most of the dead are women and minors.
On Wednesday, three people, including a child, were killed in overnight shelling across the besieged and ravaged Gaza Strip, according to the Gaza Civil Defense.
Witnesses reported shelling in Khan Younis (south), Jabalia (north) and Deir el-Balah (center).
The Israeli army said on Wednesday that it had struck “around 30 terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip” over the past day and eliminated “dozens of armed terrorists in Rafah” (south).