Closing summary
This blog is now closing. Thank you for following along. Below is a roundup of today’s stories:
Israeli tanks returned to the southern Gaza City of Khan Younis on Friday, forcing thousands to evacuate along congested roadways, as Palestinian fighters continued to attack Israeli troops from the ruins. Families fled eastern Khan Younis in vehicles and on foot, belongings heaped on donkey carts and motorcycle rickshaws as they made their slow escape along congested roads. The Israeli military dropped leaflets ordering residents and displaced people sheltering in the city to evacuate from an area that has already seen repeated waves of fighting.
A crude oil tanker was struck four times in suspected attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea. The Houthis did not immediately claim the assaults, though they follow a months-long campaign by the rebels targeting shipping through the Red Sea corridor over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Dozens of countries, academics and rights groups have filed legal arguments either rejecting or supporting the international criminal court’s power to issue arrest warrants in its investigation into the war in Gaza and the 7 October attacks by Hamas in Israel. The slew of written submissions are likely to delay a decision by a panel of judges on whether to issue warrants and comes despite a 2021 ruling that the court has jurisdiction over territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war.
The US was among those filing legal arguments to the international criminal court. Most of the legal arguments focus largely on the issue of whether the court’s power to issue warrants for Israeli leaders is overruled by a provision of the 1993 Oslo Accords peace deal. As part of the deal, the Palestinians agreed that they don’t have criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals. The US argued that the Oslo Accords “preserved in Israel exclusive jurisdiction over acts committed by Israeli nationals. Therefore, the Palestinians could not have delegated to the Court jurisdiction they never had.”
Lebanon would struggle to meet even a fraction of its aid needs if full-scale war with Israel erupts, a senior official said, as it seeks increased donor support amid persistent border clashes. Nasser Yassin, the minister overseeing contingency planning for a wider conflict, told Reuters Lebanon would need $100m monthly for food, shelter, healthcare and other needs in a worst-case scenario.
Reuters spoke to residents living in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, who have been on edge since an Israeli airstrike on their neighbourhood last week killed the top military commander of Hezbollah, along with five civilians. As a result, many are looking to flee the area.
The same thing happened in 2006 when Israel and Hezbollah were at war and Israeli strikes flattened buildings in the suburb. Back then, Bilal Sahlab drove his family to a secluded mountain town, rented an apartment and waited out the bombing. Now, that is no longer an option. A five-year economic meltdown has devalued the local pound, cost him his savings, and brought his monthly salary down from more than $5,000 to barely $500.
So he sent his wife and children to live with his in-laws in the mountainous Aley region east of Beirut for their safety, while he stayed in Dahiyeh to keep working.
“It’s safer for them up there,” he told Reuters, breaking down into tears. “I can’t go up because I need to work to contribute to their expenses.”
After last week’s strike, residents of Dahiyeh told Reuters that they had begun searching for apartments either in Aley or further east in the Bekaa Valley.
But when demand rose, monthly rent prices in those areas spiked, sometimes reaching $1,000 – far too expensive for those of modest means.
Fatima Seifeddine, 53, found an apartment for $500 a month in the Bekaa. But her monthly salary of just $300 as a university janitor meant it was out of reach.
“Back in 2006, we moved from place to place until we ended up in a hotel hosting displaced families – but there are no options like that now,” she told Reuters by phone. Even staying with family has become a challenge.
The night of the strike, Majed Zeaiter, a 50-year-old man who drives a van taxi in Dahiyeh, drove his wife and five children more than 50 kilometres (30 miles) north to Afka to stay with his brother’s family in a small apartment.
“The situation scares me … it’s a crisis situation, and when you think about war you’re afraid for your children,” he told Reuters. “The bombing, the war – with every month that passes, the situation gets worse.”
All seven of them slept in one room for the night. But his brother wasn’t earning enough to host them, so early the next morning Zeaiter drove back to Dahiyeh to keep working.
