Gunman wounded after shots fired at US embassy in Lebanon
A gunman fired shots at the US embassy in Lebanon on Wednesday and was wounded in an exchange of fire with troops, the Lebanese army said.
In a statement, the Lebanese army said “Army units deployed around the US embassy in Awkar are conducting an inspection of the surrounding area and working to implement the necessary security measures to maintain the security of the area.”
تُجري وحدات الجيش المنتشرة في محيط السفارة الأميركية في عوكر عملية تفتيش للبقعة المحيطة، وتعمل على تنفيذ الإجراءات الأمنية اللازمة لحفظ أمن المنطقة.#الجيش_اللبناني #LebaneseArmy pic.twitter.com/D3pJ7OuIHr
— الجيش اللبناني (@LebarmyOfficial) June 5, 2024
The embassy said small arms fire was reported near its entrance in the morning. The facility and staff were safe, it added.
A security source told Reuters a member of the embassy’s security team was wounded in the attack and that Lebanese soldiers wounded an attacker in the stomach.
Lebanese army take security measures near the US embassy in Beirut, 5 June. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The embassy lies north of Beirut in a highly secured zone with multiple checkpoints along the route to the entrance. It moved there after a suicide attack in 1983 on a previous site which killed more than 60 people. In September, shots were fired near the embassy with no injuries reported.
Lebanese army soldiers gesture as they secure the area near the US embassy. Photograph: Mohamed Azakir/ReutersShare
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Al Jazeera is reporting that local sources have told it that 75 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli attacks in central Gaza in the last 24 hours. It reports “the attacks have hammered the densely populated Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps, as well as neighbourhoods east of Deir el-Balah.”
The Israeli government banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel in May.
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Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Gaza over the newswires.
Displaced civilians flee from the east of al-Bureij in the central Gaza Strip due to Israeli bombardment on the city on 5 June. Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty ImagesPalestinians pray at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah over the bodies of people killed in an Israeli strike on 5 June. Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty ImagesThe wife of Palestinian man Mohammed Abu Seif, who was killed in an Israeli strike, holds his hand as she sits between his body and the body of her son who was killed in the same strike in Deir Al-Balah, in central Gaza Strip, 5 June. Photograph: Doaa Rouqa/ReutersShare
Here are the fuller quotes from Benjamin Netanyahu, who was touring northern Israel near the UN-drawn blue line which has separated Lebanon and Israel since 2000. Earlier this week Israel’s military and emergency rescue teams fought large fires set of by rockets fired into Israel.
Reuters reports Netanyahu said:
Whoever thinks that they can harm us and we will sit idly by is making a big mistake. We are prepared for a very strong action in the north. In one way or another we will restore security to the north.
Israel has been almost constantly exchanging fire with anti-Israeli forces in southern Lebanon since 7 October. Tens of thousands of civilians in both countries have been displaced from their homes.
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Netanyahu: Israel prepared for ‘strong action’ in north near Lebanon
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the country’s northern boundary with Lebanon on Wednesday, and said that Israel was prepared for strong action in the north, Reuters reports.
More details soon …
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Gunman wounded after shots fired at US embassy in Lebanon
A gunman fired shots at the US embassy in Lebanon on Wednesday and was wounded in an exchange of fire with troops, the Lebanese army said.
In a statement, the Lebanese army said “Army units deployed around the US embassy in Awkar are conducting an inspection of the surrounding area and working to implement the necessary security measures to maintain the security of the area.”
تُجري وحدات الجيش المنتشرة في محيط السفارة الأميركية في عوكر عملية تفتيش للبقعة المحيطة، وتعمل على تنفيذ الإجراءات الأمنية اللازمة لحفظ أمن المنطقة.#الجيش_اللبناني #LebaneseArmy pic.twitter.com/D3pJ7OuIHr
— الجيش اللبناني (@LebarmyOfficial) June 5, 2024
The embassy said small arms fire was reported near its entrance in the morning. The facility and staff were safe, it added.
A security source told Reuters a member of the embassy’s security team was wounded in the attack and that Lebanese soldiers wounded an attacker in the stomach.
Lebanese army take security measures near the US embassy in Beirut, 5 June. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The embassy lies north of Beirut in a highly secured zone with multiple checkpoints along the route to the entrance. It moved there after a suicide attack in 1983 on a previous site which killed more than 60 people. In September, shots were fired near the embassy with no injuries reported.
Lebanese army soldiers gesture as they secure the area near the US embassy. Photograph: Mohamed Azakir/ReutersShare
Israel says it will end use of detainment camp at centre of human rights abuse claims
Israel is phasing out the use of a military-run detention camp for Palestinians captured during the Gaza war where rights groups alleged there has been abuse of inmates, justice officials said on Wednesday.
Reuters reports state attorneys told Israel’s supreme court that inmates held at the Sde Teiman site would be gradually transported to permanent holding facilities. The transfers have started and most prisoners would be relocated within a couple of weeks.
In late May, Lorenzo Tondo and Quique Kierszenbaum reported for the Guardian that whistleblowers had described harrowing treatment of detainees at the camp. The claims included inmates regularly being kept shackled to hospital beds, blindfolded and forced to wear nappies, and reports of a man having his limb amputated as a result of injuries sustained from constant handcuffing.
The facility, located approximately 18 miles from the Gaza border, included an enclosure where up to 200 Palestinian detainees from Gaza were said to be confined under severe physical restrictions inside cages.
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Haaretz reports that nine Israeli soldiers were wounded, two seriously, when ammunition stored at a base in southern Israel exploded. It reports the IDF is investigating the incident.
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A demonstration is being held in Tel Aviv in Israel in favour of a peace deal that would free Israeli hostages being held captive in Gaza.
People demonstrate in support of the latest ceasefire and hostage deal during morning rush hour traffic near the Ayalon freeway on 5 June in Tel Aviv. Photograph: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty ImagesShare
The IDF has reported that aircraft infiltration sirens that sounded in northern Israel this morning were a false alarm.
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Incident involving gunfire at US embassy in Lebanon
There is some breaking news that small arms fire has been reported at the US embassy in Lebanon. A suspect has been taken to hospital after forces opened fire. There are no reports of casualties among embassy staff.
More details soon …
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Updated at 04.05 EDT
The Palestine Red Crescent Society says it retrieved six bodies from a Palestinian house east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, after, it claimed, Israeli forces “targeted several houses with artillery shells.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
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Welcome and opening summary
Hello, welcome to our latest live blog on the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis. I’m Martin Belam and I’ll be with you for the next while.
Israel says it is ready for an offensive along the northern border with Lebanon and is nearing a decision, the chief of staff said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
It is as the Hezbollah movement said it was not seeking to widen the conflict but was ready to fight any war imposed on it.
Israeli military chief of general staff Herzi Halevi said in a recorded statement:
We are prepared after a very good process of training up to the level of a General Staff exercise to move to an offensive in the north,” he said in a recorded statement … We are approaching a decision point.
Hezbollah deputy leader sheikh Naim Qassem told broadcaster Al Jazeera that the group’s decision was not to widen the war but that it would fight one if it was imposed on it. Qassem said the Lebanon front would not stop until the Gaza war stops, Al Jazeera quoted him as saying.
The IDF says it struck two Hezbollah launchers in southern Lebanon overnight, as well as hitting three military structures.
The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which has been fought in parallel to the Gaza war, has intensified in recent days, adding to concerns that an even wider confrontation could break out between the heavily armed sides.
Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden is appearing to tone down his criticism of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after saying that there is “every reason” to draw the conclusion that Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation. Biden made the remarks in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday morning. Later on Tuesday, Biden was asked whether Netanyahu was “playing politics with the war”, and Biden said: “I don’t think so. He’s trying to work out a serious problem he has.”
More on that in a moment but first, a summary of the latest developments:
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is facing growing pressure at home and internationally to support a new ceasefire plan for Gaza, a move he is resisting over fears it will collapse his government.
The Israeli prime minister said that Biden, in advancing a plan to wind down the war in Gaza, had published only some of the details. “The war will be stopped for the purpose of returning hostages and then we will proceed with other discussions,” David Mencer, an Israeli government spokesperson, quoted Netanyahu as saying.
The Rafah border crossing critical to aid deliveries into Gaza from Egypt can not operate again unless Israel relinquishes control and hands it back to Palestinians on the Gaza side, Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry said. “It is difficult for the Rafah crossing to continue operating without a Palestinian administration,” he said in a press conference with his Spanish counterpart in Madrid.
About 55% of all structures in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, damaged or possibly damaged since the war erupted in October, according to preliminary satellite analysis by the UN. The analysis showed more than 137,000 buildings affected, according to Unosat, the UN satellite analysis agency.
Some people in Gaza are now reduced to drinking sewage water and eating animal feed, the WHO’s regional chief said Tuesday, pleading for increased aid access immediately to the besieged territory. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean regional director, also warned that the war between Israel and Hamas had a knock-on impact on healthcare across the wider region. The child health expert spoke to Agence France-Presse in an interview at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. Inside Gaza, “there are people who are now eating animal food, eating grass, they’re drinking sewage water,” she said. Children are barely able to eat, while the trucks are standing outside of Rafah.”
France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday told Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Palestinian Authority should “ensure the governance” of the Gaza Strip, the presidential office said. Macron in phone talks backed the proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal presented by US President Joe Biden, reports Agence France-Presse. “This deal should reopen a credible perspective for the implementation of a two-state solution, the only one able to provide Israel with the necessary security guarantees and to respond to the legitimate aspirations of Palestinians,” he said.
Slovenia recognised a Palestinian state on Tuesday after its parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the move, reports Associated Press. “Dear people of Palestine, today’s final decision of Slovenia is a message of hope and peace,” Slovenia’s Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon said on the social media platform X. “We believe that only a two-state solution can lead to a lasting peace in the Middle East. Slovenia will tirelessly continue to work on the security of both nations, Palestinians and Israelis.” Slovenia’s decision came days after Spain, Norway and Ireland recognised a Palestinian state, a move that was condemned by Israel.
A group of UN experts has called for all countries to recognise a Palestinian state to ensure peace in the Middle East. The experts, including the UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recognition of a Palestinian state was an important acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle towards freedom and independence.
The US House of Representatives voted Tuesday to advance a largely symbolic bill calling for sanctions on the international criminal court after its prosecutor applied for an arrest warrant against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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