Page 20 - Israel

We expect over 12,000 Indian tourists in 2024: Israel Ministry of Tourism

Israel expects more than 12,000 Indian visitors, mainly in the pilgrim and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) segments, in 2024, according to a senior executive at the Israel Ministry of Tourism. The war-torn West Asian country has recorded 6,800 travellers from India till August this year. "Irrespective of the current scenario we are very positive. We're just waiting for the situation to calm down even more than what it used to be for us to see growth. We have welcomed 6,800 travellers, mostly pilgrims and business, from India and 6,72,400 globally in the January-August 2024 period, which was very organic," Israel Ministry of Tourism (IMOT) India Director of Marketing Amruta Bangera told PTI. Israel's Tourism Ministry expects to double the 6,800 tourist footfalls to over 12,000 in 2024, from India that it received in the first eight months of this year, she said. Among Asian peers, India contributes the second-highest number of tourist footfalls in Israel af

Israeli military asks Lebanon residents to stay away from Hezbollah posts

The Israeli military, meanwhile, launched its most widespread wave of airstrikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah

Israel-Hamas war: Air force launches dozens of strikes on south Lebanon

Israel's air force carried out dozens of airstrikes early Monday on southern Lebanon, state media and the Israeli military said. Residents of different villages in southern Lebanon posted photos on social media that they said showed their towns being struck. The state-run National News Agency also reported airstrikes in different areas. The Israeli military's Arab-language spokesperson said Israel's air force was attacking targets related to Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group. The spokesman said more details would be released later. The wave of airstrikes came after a tense day in which Hezbollah fired over 100 rockets into northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa. Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes as well. Hezbollah's rocket attack came after an Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb on Friday killed a top Hezbollah military commander and more than a dozen Hezbollah members, along with dozens of civilians including women and children. Last week, thousands of .

Israel raids, shuts down Al Jazeera's bureau in West Bank's Ramallah

Israeli troops raided the offices of the satellite news network Al Jazeera in the Israeli-occupied West Bank early Sunday, ordering the bureau to shut down amid a widening campaign by Israel targeting the Qatar-funded broadcaster as it covers the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. Al Jazeera aired footage of Israeli troops live on its Arabic-language channel ordering the office to be shut for 45 days. It follows an order issued in May that saw Israeli police raid Al Jazeera's broadcast position in East Jerusalem, seizing equipment there, preventing its broadcasts in Israel and blocking its websites. The move marked the first time Israel has ever shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in the country. However, Al Jazeera has continued operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, territories that the Palestinians hope to have for their future state. The Israeli military didn't respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Al Jazeera denounced the

Pager blasts: Police verify Keralite's background; BJP demands protection

Amid reports linking Rinson Jose, a Kerala native settled in Norway, to the probe into recent pager blasts in Lebanon, the Kerala police on Sunday confirmed a background check on his family, while a BJP leader referred to him as a "son of our nation" and demanded "protection." "There is no case or investigation. Our special branch officials have carried out a background check. There is nothing new in it; such checks are conducted whenever similar news reports emerge," a police officer told PTI. Another police official said that a "precautionary patrol" has been launched in the area near Mananthavady where his family resides following the reports. He said that his family has not requested police protection. Rinson, who went abroad for a job a decade ago, is now a Norwegian citizen. Meanwhile, BJP leader Sandeep G Varier called for protection for Rinson and his family. "He is the son of our nation. He is a Malayali. At any cost, we must provide protection to Rinson and his family,"

Hezbollah targets base near Haifa after Israeli strike in Beirut kills 37

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced that it fired a barrage of missiles at a military base deep inside Israel early Sunday following an Israeli airstrike more than a day earlier that killed at least 37 people, including one of the militant group's senior leaders as well as women and children. It was not immediately clear if any of the rockets had hit their target. Israel's emergency medical services reported that a man was lightly wounded by shrapnel from a missile that was intercepted in a village in the lower Galilee. Local media reported that rockets shot from Lebanon were intercepted in the areas of Haifa and Nazareth. The Israeli military said only that it had monitored the launch of about ten rockets from Lebanon, of which most were intercepted. Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles" - a new type of weapon the group had not used before - at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, "in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that .

UNSC meets for emergency session, says 'Lebanon on brink of catastrophe'

The meeting came amid an uptick in cross-border fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces

Weaponising ordinary devices violates international law: UN rights chief

Weaponising ordinary communication devices represents a new development in warfare, and targeting thousands of Lebanese people using pagers, two-way radios and electronic equipment without their knowledge is a violation of international human rights law, the United Nations human rights chief said Friday. Volker Turk told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council there must be an independent and transparent investigation of the two attacks in Lebanon on Tuesday and Wednesday where these devices exploded, reportedly killing 37 people and injuring more than 3,400 others. Those who ordered and carried out these attacks must be held to account, he said. Lebanon has blamed Israel for the attacks, which appeared to target Hezbollah militants but also saw many civilian casualties, including children. Hezbollah has fought many conflicts with Israel, including a war in 2006, and it has conducted near-daily strikes against Israel to support Hamas militants who attacked Israel on Oct. ...

Israel vows to eliminate Hezbollah threat following commander's killing

IDF confirmed the killing of senior Hezbollah military figure Ibrahim Aqil

Hezbollah commander killed in Israeli airstrike was on US wanted list

The Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs Friday was one of the Lebanese militant group's top military officials, in charge of its elite forces, and had been on Washington's wanted list for years. Ibrahim Akil, 61, was the second top commander of Hezbollah to be killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburb of Beirut in as many months, dealing a severe blow to the group's command structure. The strike Friday came as the group was still reeling from a widely suspected Israeli attack targeting Hezbollah communications earlier this week when thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously. The attack killed 12 people, mostly Hezbollah members, and injured thousands. Akil was a member of Hezbollah's highest military body, the Jihad Council, since 2008, and the head of the elite Radwan Forces. The forces also fought in Syria gaining experience in urban warfare and counterinsurgency. Israel has been attempting to push the fighters back from th

Pager, walkie-talkie explosions hit Hezbollah: Israel declares ‘new phase’ in conflict

Taiwan, Bulgaria deny links to exploding pagers in Lebanon, probe underway

How or when the pagers were weaponised and remotely detonated remains a public mystery and the hunt for answers has involved Taiwan, Bulgaria, Norway and Romania

Thousands of exploding devices trigger Lebanon which has been on edge

Chris Knayzeh was in a town overlooking Lebanon's capital when he heard the rumbling aftershock of the 2020 Beirut port blast. Hundreds of tons of haphazardly stored ammonium nitrates had exploded, killing and injuring thousands of people. Already struggling with the country's economic collapse, the sight of the gigantic mushroom cloud unleashed by the blast was the last straw. Like many other Lebanese, he quit his job and booked a one-way ticket out of Lebanon. Knayzeh was in Lebanon visiting when news broke Tuesday that hundreds of handheld pagers had exploded across the country, killing 12, injuring thousands and setting off fires. Israel, local news reports said, was targeting the devices of the militant Hezbollah group. Stuck in Beirut traffic, Knayzeh started panicking that drivers around him could potentially be carrying devices that would explode. Within minutes, hospitals were flooded with patients, bringing back painful reminders of the port blast four years ago that kille

Israel warned US about operation in Lebanon but gave no details: Officials

Israel warned US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a call Tuesday that a military operation was going to take place in Lebanon but gave no details, US officials said Thursday. The same day of the call, in an attack widely blamed on Israel, thousands of pagers belonging to Hezbollah militants exploded. The call was one of four between Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week as attacks have spiked between Israel and Hezbollah, fuelling worries that they could escalate into a wider regional war. The two spoke again later Tuesday, and the US has acknowledged being briefed following the attack. There was another call Wednesday, and they also spoke Sunday, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private talks. The officials said the US did not get advance warning of the second wave of attacks, with walkie-talkie radios targeted Wednesday. At least 37 people were killed, including two children, and some 3,000 wounded in the two days of ...

Pagers' explosion in Lebanon sound global alarm for supply-chain security

Lebanese officials believe the gadgets were rigged with explosives as part of an elaborate attack allegedly by Israel

Hezbollah leader vows retaliation against Israel for attacks on devices

The leader of Hezbollah vowed on Thursday to keep up daily strikes on Israel despite this week's deadly sabotage of its members' communication devices, and said Israelis displaced from homes near the Lebanon border because of the fighting would not be able to return until the war in Gaza ends. Hezbollah and Israel launched fresh attacks across the border as Hassan Nasrallah spoke for the first time since the mass bombing of devices in Lebanon and Syria that he described as a severe blow and for which he promised to retaliate. The two days of attacks targeting thousands of Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies have been widely blamed on Israel, heightening fears that 11 months of near-daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel will escalate into all-out war. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the attacks. During Nasrallah's speech, Hezbollah struck at least four times in northern Israel, and two Israeli soldiers were killed in a strike earlier in the day.

How Israel built modern-day trojan horse equipped for exploding pagers

In Lebanon, as Israel picked off senior Hezbollah commandos with targeted assassinations, their leader came to a conclusion: If Israel was going high-tech, Hezbollah would go low

News updates: Report of MSP panel to be made public soon, says central govt

Latest news updates: Catch all the latest news developments from across the world here

Israel declares new phase of war, turns focus toward Lebanon, Hezbollah

Israel's defence minister has declared the start of a new phase of the war as Israel turns its focus toward the northern front against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. Two waves of explosive attacks hit Syria and Lebanon: an apparent Israeli attack targeting pagers used by Hezbollah that killed at least 12 and wounded nearly 3,000 on Tuesday, and exploding walkie-talkies and other electronics Wednesday across Lebanon that killed at least 20 people and injured 450 others. We are at the start of a new phase in the war - it requires courage, determination and perseverance, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops on Wednesday. The head of Hezbollah's Executive Council promised the group would respond to Tuesday's pager explosion attack with special punishment. Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas' October 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire daily, coming close to a full-blown war on several

Hezbollah fires volley at Israel as fears of greater war rise after bombing

Hezbollah fired a new barrage into northern Israel on Thursday, continuing its drumbeat of exchanges with the Israeli military as fears of a greater war rise after hundreds of electronic devices exploded in Lebanon, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than 3,000 others. The device explosions appeared to be the culmination of a monthslong operation by Israel to target as many Hezbollah members as possible all at once. Over two days, pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, wounding and even crippling some fighters, but also maiming civilians connected to the group's social branches and killing at least two children. It was unclear how the attack fit into warnings by Israeli leaders in recent weeks that they could launch a stepped-up military operation against Hezbollah, Lebanon's strongest armed force. The Israeli government has called it a war aim to end the Iranian-backed group's crossborder fire in order to allow tens of thousands of Israelis to return to ...