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UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon Say Israeli Forces Fired on Them Again
"Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire on a UNIFIL position."
Oct 16, 2024
The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon announced Wednesday that Israel Defense Forces troops fired on one of its positions in the southern part of the country in the latest of a string of attacks that the mission said have injured five of its personnel.
"This morning, peacekeepers at a position near Kafer Kela observed an IDF Merkava tank firing at their watchtower. Two cameras were destroyed, and the tower was damaged," the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement. "Yet again we see direct and apparently deliberate fire on a UNIFIL position."
"We remind the IDF and all actors of their obligations to ensure the safety and security of U.N. personnel and property and to respect the inviolability of U.N. premises at all times," the mission added.
The IDF said Wednesday that "UNIFIL infrastructure sites and forces are not a target."
Wednesday's reported incident follows other attacks by IDF troops on UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon. Last week, two Indonesian peacekeepers were injured when an IDF tank fired on an observation tower at UNIFIL's headquarters in Naquora. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the incident as "intolerable" and said that it "cannot be repeated."
On Sunday, two IDF tanks forced their way into a UNIFIL post in Ramyah to request personnel to turn off their lights. IDF troops reportedly remained there for 45 minutes and set off smoke bombs, sickening numerous peacekeepers. The IDF admitted to these actions, claiming they occurred during an attempt to rescue wounded Israeli soldiers under fire.
That same day, Israel asked UNIFIL to withdraw its troops from Lebanon's border with Israel in order to keep them "out of harm's way."
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for Guterres, replied that "peacekeepers remain in all positions and the U.N. flag continues to fly."
Djuarric noted that UNIFIL positions have been adversely affected 20 times by Israeli forces since the start of the IDF invasion of Lebanon earlier this month.
"Five peacekeepers have been injured during these incidents, including one peacekeeper who sustained a bullet wound," he said.
These incidents come amid Israel's escalation of its yearlong war on Gaza—which has left more than 150,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing and for which it is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice—into Lebanon, where Hezbollah has been launching rockets and other projectiles at Israel since immediately after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack.
Israel's invasion and bombardment of Lebanon—which has included the surprise detonation of thousands of pagers and other communication devices—has killed at least 2,350 people, wounded over 10,000 others, and forcibly displaced more than 1.3 million people since last October, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
On Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese city of Nabatieh's municipal headquarters killed at least 16 people, including Mayor Ahmad Kheil, who was leading a crisis response meeting, according toAl Jazeera. More than 50 others were wounded in the attack.
"The Israeli government has made it clear that it intends to expand its war across the region and resettle territories whose native populations they decimate," Council on American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad
said in response to the airstrike. "These are the actions of a rogue government that the Biden administration must stop enabling before more innocents are slaughtered and more chaos spreads."
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Swing State Polls Show Harris 'Must Change Course' on Climate and Gaza, Says Sunrise
"The polls we're seeing unfortunately tell the same story we're hearing from the 900,000 young swing state voters we've contacted in the past two months," said one organizer.
Oct 16, 2024
The youth-led climate action group Sunrise Movement said Wednesday that the latest polling numbers in swing states—showing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump leading Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in all but one—demonstrate what they've been hearing in their massive voter mobilization push, and reiterated their demand that Harris course-correct on key issues.
"The polls we're seeing unfortunately tell the same story we're hearing from the 900,000 young swing state voters we've contacted in the past two months," said Stevie O'Hanlon, communications director for Sunrise. "VP Harris is losing ground with young people. To win this election, VP Harris must change course. The campaign urgently needs to work to energize and turn out millions of young voters."
The RealClearPolitics polling average on Wednesday showed Trump pulling ahead in every swing state except Wisconsin, where Harris has 48.3% support compared to Trump's 48%.
Trump is beating Harris by one percentage point in Michigan—the state with the largest share of Arab American voters, where campaigners have been warning for months that Harris' support for continued arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza and Lebanon is a political liability. In Arizona, he is winning by 1.1 points, and in North Carolina by 1.2 points.
"We can look at the math. In every swing state, the number of young voters dwarfs the anticipated margins of victory," said O'Hanlon. "In my home state of Pennsylvania, [President] Joe Biden won the state by 80,000 votes in 2020. More than 80,000 people turn 18 in Pennsylvania and become newly eligible voters each year."
Sunrise has been contacting young voters in swing states since Harris was officially nominated to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate, and in mid-September, the group issued a warning about what they were hearing from voters.
"People are fired up and getting engaged with the election, but there is a sizable number of young people who don't want to get out the vote for Kamala Harris until she backs an arms embargo and puts forward a real climate plan," said Noah Foley-Beining, an organizer with the group, at the time.
A month later, said O'Hanlon, Harris appears to be "splitting hairs for a small fraction of the undecided middle-aged, white, conservative voter base" instead of "electrifying the Democratic base by talking about how she will take on big corporations, tackle the climate crisis, and end U.S. military support for Israel's assault on Gaza."
"VP Harris is losing ground with young people... The campaign urgently needs to work to energize and turn out millions of young voters."
Harris has won applause from progressives for speaking frankly and unequivocally about her support for abortion rights and for unveiling economic justice proposals like a federal ban on food industry price gouging and an expansion of Medicare to cover home healthcare, vision, and hearing care.
But as Israel has expanded its U.S.-backed military operations to Lebanon—killing more than 2,000 people—and cut off northern Gaza from humanitarian aid in what advocates warned appeared to be an ethnic cleansing campaign, the Harris campaign has refused to support an arms embargo on the Middle Eastern country.
Harris has also boasted about the Biden administration's expansion of oil production and her support for fracking.
In an op-ed at Common Dreams on Wednesday, Mitch Jones, managing director of policy and litigation for Food and Water Watch, wrote that the "conventional wisdom" among pundits that politicians must embrace fossil fuels is misinformed, as evidenced by polling in swing states including Pennsylvania.
"A recent survey from the Ohio River Valley Institute showed that 74% of Pennsylvanians support stricter regulations on fracking due to concern about health risks, while 90% or more want expanded setbacks from schools and hospitals, stronger air monitoring, and more rigorous regulation on transportation of fracking waste. Ignoring these concerns and instead framing fracking as a virtue makes little political sense in the Keystone State," wrote Jones.
"Further, in Pennsylvania and beyond, Harris needs a groundswell of support from young and progressive voters—people most likely to care deeply about climate change and preventing it," Jones added. "In a recent survey of young people in swing states from the Environmental Voter Project, 40% said that 'a candidate must prioritize "addressing climate change" or else it is a "deal breaker."' More significantly, 16% said they would definitely not support a candidate that talks about 'increasing U.S. use of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal,' yet this is exactly what Harris has been bragging about. This election will be decided at the margins, and these are the type of hesitant voters we need to be motivated and engaged to put Harris over the line."
With just 20 days left until Election Day, said O'Hanlon, Sunrise Movement campaigners are "giving everything we've got to contact millions of people and turn out young voters to elect Harris."
"What we're asking," O'Hanlon said, "is that the Harris campaign help us do that."
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Biden Officials Who Quit Over Gaza Launch Effort for 'New Policy' in Middle East
"The past year has shown us just how deeply damaging our policy in the Middle East is—to the region, and to America."
Oct 16, 2024
Two Biden administration officials who resigned in protest over federal policy on Israel and the Gaza Strip launched an advocacy effort Wednesday to "seek change in U.S. policy towards the Middle East."
By creating both a lobbying arm and a political action committee, co-founders Josh Paul and Tariq Habash say their project, including A New Policy and its companion A New Policy PAC, aims to better "represent the majority of Americans" who disagree with the government's approach to Israel-Palestine as well as the broader Middle East.
Paul, who spent 11 years as director of congressional and public affairs for the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, resigned last October, and Habash, a Palestinian American who served as a policy adviser in the Education Department's Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, left his post in January.
"The past year has shown us just how deeply damaging our policy in the Middle East is—to the region, and to America," Paul said in a statement. "We've spent billions of taxpayer dollars while sacrificing national interests and global credibility, the safety of all people in the region has been compromised while Palestinians, in Gaza in particular, endure immeasurable suffering, and now we're on the brink of a regional war."
While U.S.-armed Israeli forces initially responded to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023 with a devastating assault on Gaza, which the Palestinian group has governed for nearly two decades, Israel has also killed at least 2,350 people in Lebanon over the past year, many of them with recent intensified bombings and a ground invasion.
"More than a policy problem, we have a political problem and until we address the politics, we won't make significant headway on the policy issues," asserted Paul, the first of several officials who have publicly resigned since last October. "A New Policy recognizes this dynamic, and is designed to address it head-on."
A New Policy—whose incoming board of directors includes former U.S. Ambassador to Syria and Algeria Robert Ford and corporate executive Jaleh Bisharat—plans to focus on "relationship-driven, policy-oriented lobbying" while the PAC "will direct financial support to political campaigns."
As the statement detailed, the groups are launching with the belief that U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine should:
- Advance American national security and foreign policy interests in the Middle East, and should contribute to peace and prosperity for all Americans;
- Reflect American values in our policy towards the Middle East, including freedom, equality, and human rights, and should enhance the health, security, welfare, and prosperity of all peoples; and
- Comply with American and international law, including laws, regulations, and policies governing the transfer of arms equally to all countries in the Middle East, including Israel.
Additionally, "A New Policy will work to oppose the enactment of laws or issuance of policies that run counter to American domestic interests," the statement said, pointing to "recent efforts to repress free speech, to prevent accountability, and to limit Americans' abilities to exercise their constitutional freedoms."
As HuffPostreported Wednesday:
The decision to launch A New Policy just weeks before the U.S. election is not lost on the former officials, who said they felt it was important to avoid appearing as if they formed the group in response to whoever wins the presidential race.
"Our effort, I think, transcends this one election, right? It is more than just what’s happening in November. This is an issue that continues to undermine our own national interests and our American values in a way that is dangerous in the long term," Habash said, with Paul echoing that the issue will persist regardless of who becomes president.
Early voting is already underway for the November 5 election. The contest for the White House is between former Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the party's nominee after President Joe Biden exited the race this summer.
During the Democratic primary, when Biden was still the presumed candidate, the Uncommitted National Movement formed to pressure the president to push harder for a cease-fire and stop giving Israel weapons to commit genocide. The movement said last month that although it cannot endorse Harris, it opposes the Republican, "whose agenda includes plans to accelerate the killing in Gaza while intensifying the suppression of anti-war organizing," and does not recommend a third-party vote, which "could help inadvertently deliver a Trump presidency given our country's broken Electoral College system."
The launch of A New Policy and its related PAC came just a day after reporters revealed a Sunday letter in which the Biden administration finally threatened to cut off weapons unless Israel takes certain actions to improve conditions in Gaza within 30 days. Critics of the Israeli assault responded by renewing calls for halting arms immediately, pointing over a year's worth of proof of war crimes.
As of Wednesday, officials in Gaza put the confirmed death toll at 42,409, with 99,153 others injured, though thousands more remain missing. The carnage has led to a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
"This past year has brought unimaginable pain and suffering to Palestinians in Gaza. For decades, elected officials have compromised American interests in favor of funding Israel's continued oppression of Palestinians," said Habash. "American voters are clear: They do not want to be complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe and a majority want an end to the transfer of lethal weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians. Elected officials have not kept up with the sea change in public opinion and A New Policy will work to close this gap."
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