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🔴 Live: EU to impose new sanctions on Iranian drone and missile producers
European Union leaders have agreed to ramp up sanctions against Iran over its unprecedented weekend attack on Israel, EU council president Charles Michel announced late on Wednesday, adding that new sanctions would target companies that manufacture drones and missiles. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates on the situation in the Middle East.
Issued on: 18/04/2024 – 03:55
2 min
European Council President Charles Michel speaks to journalists at the end of the first day of a European Union summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels on April 18, 2024.
European Council President Charles Michel speaks to journalists at the end of the first day of a European Union summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels on April 18, 2024. © Kenzo Tribouillard, AFP
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FRANCE 24
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FRANCE 24
Summary:
European Union leaders agreed Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran’s drone and missile producers over Tehran’s unprecedented weekend attack on Israel.
Qatar is reassessing its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas after suffering criticism, its prime minister said on Wednesday. This comes as Western powers are seeking to dissuade Israel from escalating regional hostilities in its riposte to the Iranian attack.
The Security Council vote on the Palestinians’ bid to become a full member state of the United Nations is expected to occur Thursday or Friday, diplomats said, as discussions continued.
At least 33,000 Palestinians have been killed and an estimated 76,575 have been injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. Some 1,170 people were killed in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks that sparked the war and 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli figures, with 132 still missing.
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22 minutes ago
22 minutes ago
Hezbollah says two fighters killed in Israeli strikes
Lebanon’s Hezbollah said two of its fighters had been killed as Israel appeared to intensify strikes on south Lebanon following an attack by the Iran-backed group that wounded 14 Israeli soldiers.
The Shia militant group did not specify where or when they died.
The Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee, which has emergency responders in south Lebanon, told AFP two people were killed in the border village of Kafr Kila.
The Lebanese Risala Scout association, which also operates rescue teams in the south and is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement, told AFP an “Israeli drone” carried out the strike.
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an hour ago
Iran tells US it does not seek ‘expansion of tensions’
Iran’s top diplomat says his country has told the United States that it is not seeking escalation after its unprecedented attack on Israel.
The Islamic republic carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, firing drones and missiles at the weekend, in retaliation for an April 1 air strike on Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who is in New York to attend a UN Security Council meeting, said his country has “tried to tell the United States clearly” that Iran is “not looking for the expansion of tension in the region”, he said in a video posted by his ministry.
Amir-Abdollahian said Iran communicated with Washington “before and after” launching its attack on Israel, adding that it planned no further action.
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an hour ago
Image of Palestinian woman cradling dead niece wins World Press Photo award
A haunting image of a grieving Palestinian woman embracing her little niece, killed in an Israeli strike in war-torn Gaza, has won the 2024 World Press Photo of the Year Award.
The picture taken by Reuters news agency’s Mohammed Salem shows Inas Abu Maamar cradling the body of five-year-old Saly, who was killed with her mother and sister when a missile hit their home in Khan Younis in October.
Salem was in Khan Younis’ Nasser hospital on October 17 when he saw Maamar, 36, sobbing and tightly holding the wrapped body of her relative in the hospital’s morgue.
“It was a powerful and a sad moment and I felt the picture sums up the broader sense of what was happening in the Gaza Strip,” World Press Photo quoted Salem as saying.
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an hour ago
Lebanon says Israeli agents likely killed Hezbollah-linked currency exchanger near Beirut
Lebanon’s interior minister has alleged that the mysterious abduction and killing of a Hezbollah-linked currency exchanger in a villa on the edge of a quiet mountain resort town earlier this month was likely the work of Israeli intelligence operatives.
The killing of Mohammad Srour, 57, who was sanctioned by the US, was like something out of an international spy thriller, AP reports.
Pistols equipped with silencers and gloves were found in a bucket of water at the scene, along with chemicals apparently intended to remove fingerprints and other evidence, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi told AP.
Lebanon says Israeli agents likely killed Hezbollah-linked currency exchanger near Beirut
Medical gloves pictured outside the villa where money changer Mohammad Srour, 57, was found dead. Photo: Hassan Ammar, AP
Thousand of dollars in cash were left scattered around Srour’s body, as if to dispel any speculation that robbery was the motive.
“Lebanese security agencies have suspicion or accusations that Mossad was behind this operation,” Mawlawi said, referring to the Israeli spy agency. “The way the crime was carried out led to this suspicion.”
He provided no specific evidence for his allegations.
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2 hours ago
Looming UN vote revives decades-long quest for Palestinian statehood
The UN Security Council is scheduled to vote this week on a resolution that would give a green light for a Palestinian state to join the United Nations as a full member, a move opposed by the United States.
The vote was scheduled for Friday afternoon. But Arab nations are pressing for a vote Thursday, when the council is holding a ministerial meeting on the Palestinian Authority’s request for full U.N. membership.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered the application in 2011. That bid failed because the Palestinians did not get the required minimum support of nine of the Security Council’s 15 members.
FRANCE 24’s Shirli Sitbon looks back on the decades-long Palestinian quest for an independent state.
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3 hours ago
UNRWA chief warns against efforts to dismantle aid agency
The head of the UN agency that has helped millions of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank for decades urged the Security Council on Wednesday to ensure its survival as Israel again demanded its dissolution.
Israel has accused 12 of the roughly 13,000 people working in the Gaza Strip for UNRWA of participating in the October 7 Hamas attack that triggered the current war in Gaza. It also accuses the agency of being a front for Hamas, which controls Gaza.
UNRWA is a major provider of education as well as food to Palestinian refugees, defined as Palestinians who fled or were expelled around the time of Israel’s 1948 creation, or their descendants.
It is also the backbone of UN humanitarian operations in Gaza, its director Philippe Lazzarini told the UN Security Council, denouncing an “insidious campaign” to dismantle the agency.
“In the short-term, it will deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and accelerate the onset of famine,” Lazzarini said.
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4 hours ago
Lebanon’s Hezbollah targets Israel base, wounding 14 soldiers
Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said it attacked an Israeli army base near the border on Wednesday, with the latest in a series of tit-for-tat strikes wounding 14 soldiers, according to Israel’s military.
Israel and Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Hamas ally, have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering the current war in the Gaza Strip.
But Hezbollah strikes in the past few days have included a growing use of explosive drones and wounded people in Israel, which has struck increasingly deeper into Lebanon in recent weeks.
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5 hours ago
‘No need to go into full-scale war’ with Iran, says former Israeli PM Barak
Israeli former prime minister Ehud Barak has played down the likelihood of a war with Iran, telling FRANCE 24 that Tehran’s weekend attack was a “dramatic failure”.
“Israel will very probably respond on Iranian soil”, Barak predicted, but “in a way that will be calibrated in order to avoid it from deteriorating into full-scale war”.
Click on the player to watch the full interview.
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6 hours ago
Israel considered a retaliatory strike on Iran
Israel considered carrying out a strike on Iran in retaliation for last weekend’s unprecedented attack but then aborted the plan, according to Israeli and US media reports.
Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles against Israel over the weekend in an attack that caused little damage after most of the projectiles were intercepted.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to respond to the attack, prompting global powers, including main ally the United States, to call for restraint to avoid any further escalation or regional spillover from the months-long war in Gaza.
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8 hours ago
Algeria gives UNRWA $15 million as exceptional fund, state TV says
Algeria gave the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) a $15 million exceptional fund, Algerian state TV said early on Thursday.
UNRWA provides aid and essential services to Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and across the wider region.
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8 hours ago
EU to impose new sanctions on Iran drone, missile producers
European Union leaders agreed Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran’s drone and missile producers over Tehran’s unprecedented weekend attack on Israel, EU chief Charles Michel said.
“We have decided to put in place sanctions against Iran, it is a clear signal that we wanted to send,” the European Council president said at an EU summit in Brussels.
“The idea is to target the companies that are needed for the drones, for the missiles.”
Iran launched an unprecedented drone and missile onslaught over the weekend against Israel, which caused little damage after most of the projectiles were intercepted.
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Yesterday’s key developments:
Dismantling the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, as sought by Israel, would accelerate Gaza’s slide into famine and doom generations of children to despair, the organisation’s head warned Wednesday.
Lebanon’s interior minister alleged Wednesday that the mysterious abduction and killing of a Hezbollah-linked Lebanese currency exchanger in a villa on the edge of a quiet mountain resort town earlier this month was likely the work of Israeli operatives.
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank rallied Wednesday calling for the release of prisoners held by Israel without charge and for families to again be able to visit their incarcerated loved ones.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday accused Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of taking advantage of regional tensions “to stay in power”.
Iran celebrated the “success” of its weekend drone and missile attack on Israel as it staged an annual military parade on Wednesday.
About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”.
The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have cited the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.
In the aftermath of war, the UN humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records. The UN’s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza health ministry’s, with small discrepancies.
For more on the Gaza health ministry’s tolls, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)
