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Hezbollah chief refutes extension of Israel’s withdrawal deadline from south Lebanon

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Lebanon War

Qassem made the statement during a televised address, saying that his group will not accept any further delay of the withdrawal process.

“The agreement’s deadline expired on Sunday, and there is no reason for any extension,” Qassem stated, referring to the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel.

“While Hezbollah adhered to the terms of the agreement, Israel violated it 1,350 times,” he added.

Qassem highlighted that despite these violations, Hezbollah initially refrained from retaliating.

“At one point, we considered responding to Israel’s aggressions, but the Lebanese authorities urged patience,” he explained.

“While the Israeli violations were painful, we decided to be patient, leaving the responsibility to the state, as it should be the primary authority in confronting Israel.”

The statements follow the White House’s Sunday announcement of a ceasefire extension between Lebanon and Israel until Feb. 18. The extension grants Israel additional time to withdraw from southern Lebanon, exceeding the original Jan. 26 deadline set under the 60-day withdrawal timeline agreed upon in November 2024.

Despite this timeline, Israel delayed its pullout, citing ambiguities in the agreement.

Since Sunday morning, displaced Lebanese civilians have been returning to their villages, which they had fled during Israeli attacks. Israeli forces, resisting withdrawal, opened fire on returning residents, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati stated Monday that Lebanon agreed to extend the ceasefire with Israel, while emphasizing the need for international pressure on Israel to end its violations and complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

The statement, released by the Lebanese Prime Minister’s Office, followed Mikati’s meeting with US Gen. Jasper Jeffers, head of the ceasefire monitoring committee, and US Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson.

“Lebanon has fulfilled its obligations under the ceasefire agreement, but Israel continues to stall implementation and persistently violates UN Resolution 1701,” Mikati asserted.

A fragile cease-fire has been in place since Nov. 27, ending a period of mutual shelling between Israel and the Hezbollah group that began on Oct. 8, 2023, and escalated into a full-scale conflict on Sept. 23 last year.

Under the ceasefire terms, Israel was required to withdraw its forces south of the Blue Line – a de facto border – in phases, while the Lebanese army was to deploy in southern Lebanon within 60 days.

Data from the Lebanese Health Ministry indicates that since Israel’s onslaught against Lebanon began on Oct. 8, 2023, at least 4,080 people have been killed, including women, children and health workers, while 16,753 have been injured.

Iran Leader: Resistance movement awakened Muslim nations

By
IFP Editorial Staff
-

Ayatollah Khamenei made the remarks on Tuesday in a meeting with a group of Iranian officials and ambassadors of Muslim countries to Tehran on the occasion of Eid al-Mab’ath, which marks Islam’s revered Prophet’s appointment as the final messenger of God.

The Leader highlighted that the resistance, which began in Islamic Iran, has awakened Muslim nations and made them aware of the oppressive global system.

He pointed to Gaza as a prime example of resistance, noting how the tiny blockaded region managed to bring the heavily armed and US-backed Israeli regime to its knees.

He attributed this success to faith, intelligence, and a strong belief in divine support.

Ayatollah Khamenei also mentioned the loss of prominent figures like Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah the late leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, acknowledging the significant impact of such losses.

However, he praised Hezbollah for not only surviving but also standing firm against the Israeli regime, demonstrating increased motivation and resilience.

Furthermore, the Leader warned about the ongoing threats from powerful global entities that seek to exploit natural resources, culture, and the national as well as Islamic identity of countries.

He identified the US as the epitome of modern colonialism and imperialism, influenced by powerful financial elites.

He stressed that these forces are actively working to undermine and control nations through various stages of colonialism.

“Today, we are experiencing all three stages of colonialism. The powerful, malevolent global entities are eyeing the natural resources of countries and nations with ill intent, as well as their culture, authentic culture, and their national and Islamic identity, aiming to destroy and seize them. Of course, they are not all the same; at the top of these entities is the US,” the Leader warned.

Israel kills two in south Lebanon as displaced people try to return

By
IFP Media Wire
-

The shootings came a day after 24 people were killed and more than 130 were wounded when Israeli troops opened fire on protesters who breached roadblocks set up along the border.

Under a United States-brokered ceasefire on November 27, Israeli forces were to withdraw from southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah was to move north of the Litani River, about 30km (20 miles) from the border, by January 26.

While the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers had already deployed in several villages before the deadline, Israeli soldiers remain in more than a dozen villages.

The US and Lebanon announced on Sunday that the deadline to meet the ceasefire terms had been extended to February 18.

Demonstrations resumed on Monday, particularly in eastern border villages where residents again attempted to return home.

Israeli troops opened fire, killing one person in the town of Odaisseh and wounding seven others across four southern villages, the Health Ministry reported.

The Israeli military has blamed Hezbollah for pushing people to protest and has said soldiers fired warning shots when demonstrators approached.

In the village of Aitaroun on Monday, scores of unarmed residents, some waving Hezbollah flags, marched hand in hand or rode motorcycles, escorted by ambulances, bulldozers and Lebanese army tanks. They approached the edge of the town but stopped short of Israeli positions, unable to enter.

“We are coming with our heads held high and crowned with victory to our village, Aitaroun,” Saleem Mrad, head of the municipality, told the Associated Press news agency.

“Our village is ours, and we will bring it back more beautiful than it was before. We are staying.”

Lebanon’s official state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported that Israel dropped a bomb at the entrance of the southern village of Yaroun to deter residents from proceeding further.

In the town of Bint Jbeil, Hezbollah members handed out flyers featuring slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli air strike in September, with the words: “Victory has arrived”. Some residents waved Hezbollah flags.

“They think they are scaring us with their bullets, but we lived under the bombing, and bullets don’t scare us,” Mona Bazzi told the AFP news agency in Bint Jbeil.

THe NNA reported on Monday that Lebanese “army reinforcements” had arrived near Meiss el-Jabal, a border town where residents had gathered to enter alongside the military.

The news agency added that Israeli forces “opened fire in the direction of the Lebanese army” near Meiss el-Jabal, though no casualties were reported.

“We waited in a long line for hours but couldn’t enter,” Mohammed Choukeir, 33, told AFP from Meiss el-Jabal, noting that Israeli troops were intermittently firing at civilians gathered at the town’s entrance.

In Hula, where the Health Ministry confirmed two injuries, the NNA reported that residents had managed to enter after the Lebanese army deployed across several neighbourhoods.

Both sides have traded accusations for delays in the implementation of the deal.

Israel blamed the Lebanese army for not deploying to the region fast enough, while the Lebanese military accused Israel of stalling its withdrawal, complicating its deployment efforts.

On Sunday, the Lebanese army confirmed it had entered several border areas, including Dhayra, Maroun al-Ras, and Aita al-Shaab.

Some family members who entered border villages on Sunday discovered the bodies of their relatives. Israeli attacks killed more than 4,000 people during the war.

Since the ceasefire began, Israel has conducted near-daily operations such as house demolitions, shelling and air attacks in southern Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of violating ceasefire terms by attempting to move weapons. Lebanon in turn has accused Israel of hundreds of ceasefire violations.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee reiterated on Monday his call for southern Lebanon residents to “wait” before returning.

Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, said that he did not expect a resurgence of major violence.

“Hezbollah no longer wants any further confrontation with Israel; its goal is to protect its achievements in Lebanon,” he told AFP.

UN experts warn Israel’s attacks in West Bank mark ‘dangerous escalation’

By
IFP Media Wire
-

In a statement, they urged the international community to take action to protect the human rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.

“We are dismayed by the escalation of deadly violence sweeping through Jenin and the rest of the occupied West Bank,” they said.

They noted that bombing Jenin, destroying vital infrastructure and essential services such as water and electricity and raiding hundreds of homes are only aggravating a deeply unstable situation in the West Bank.

“Israel’s repression seems to have no end in sight,” added the statement.

The experts also warned that such attacks only deepen suffering and violence, noting that an alarming number of civilians from the occupied West Bank and especially the Jenin refugee camp have been detained and at least 16 people killed.

“The Israeli government must instruct its military and security forces to immediately cease any use of excessive force and exercise restraint and withdraw its troops from the occupied West Bank, as ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July 2024,” they stressed.

They noted, however, that these “acts of aggression” are not new for Palestinians in the West Bank, as targeting refugee camps has been a feature of the Israeli assault on the territory since Oct. 7, 2023.

The statement added that the experts were gravely concerned about comments by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz that sought to justify the new onslaught as a response against “Palestinian terrorism.”

Referring to the timing of the attacks, the experts said they came in the wake of a US decision to lift limited sanctions on Israeli settlers and by Israeli authorities to remove administrative detention and other sanctions for Israeli settler violence.

This is “effectively offering a greenlight for more unchecked violence” against the Palestinian people, they stated

“The lack of intervention by states to protect Palestinians in line with international law is alarming and of catastrophic ramifications.”

“Like other indigenous peoples before them, the Palestinian people seem to have been abandoned to their fate. We cannot let it happen; this would be the greatest failure of the human rights system,” they continued.

Their observations came as the Israeli army continued a military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing at least 16 Palestinians and injuring 50 since last week.

Tensions have been running high across the occupied West Bank due to Israel’s war on Gaza, where more than 47,300 people have been killed and 111,500 injured since Oct. 7, 2023.

At least 880 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,700 injured by Israeli forces in the occupied territory, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

A ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement took effect in Gaza on Jan. 19, suspending Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave.

Last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Iran warns US, Israel against attacking nuclear facilities

By
IFP Editorial Staff
-
Abbas Araghchi

This statement was made by Iran’s Foreign Minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, in his first interview since Donald Trump’s inauguration, during an exclusive discussion with Sky News in Tehran.

He said, “We have made it clear that any attack on our nuclear facilities would be faced with an immediate and decisive response. But I don’t think they will do that crazy thing. This is really crazy. And this would turn the whole region into a very bad disaster.”

Referring to the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), which Trump abandoned in 2018, Araghchi expressed doubt about negotiating a new agreement with the US, citing the need for substantial actions to rebuild trust.

“The situation is different and much more difficult than the previous time,” he said.

He reiterated that Iran’s nuclear program is for civilian and peaceful purposes, despite Western governments’ concerns about uranium enrichment.

Araghchi criticized Trump’s proposal to “clean out” Palestinians from Gaza, suggesting instead of that Israelis be relocated to Greenland.

Addressing the state of Iran’s allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, Araghchi noted their efforts to rebuild despite the recent setbacks.

Officials say over 300k displaced Palestinians return north of Gaza

By
IFP Media Wire
-

“Today, more than 300,000 displaced Palestinians from the southern and central governorates returned to the Gaza and northern governorates via al-Rashid and Salah al-Din streets,” the Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip said on Monday.

“This comes after 470 days of the genocide committed by the Israeli occupation army,” it reminded, referring to the war that began in October 2023 and claimed the lives of at least 47,000 Palestinians and destroy the biggest part of the Palestinian territory.

The office stressed that the returnees as well as those, who were already in Gaza, “urgently” required 135,000 tents and caravans, “as the destruction inflicted by the Israeli occupation army in these areas has exceeded 90%.”

“We call on the international community, international and United Nations organizations, and Arab states to open the crossings and bring in essential supplies to shelter our dignified Palestinian people,” the body noted.

Despite the massive toll that the brutal Israeli military onslaught has taken on Gazans, the ceasefire agreement has been hailed as a victory by Palestinians and their supporters.

Those in favor of the deal stress that it came by amid the regime’s desperation in the face of interminable and successful anti-Israeli operations by the region’s resistance movements.

They also assert that the agreement was brought about, despite the regime’s falling short of realizing its wartime objectives, including “elimination” of Gaza’s resistance groups, enabling the return of the Zionists, who have been captured by the movements, and prompting forced exodus of Gaza’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.

2 Israeli reservists captured on suspicion of ‘espionage for Iran’

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Iron Dome

An Israeli police spokesman said in a statement on Monday that the primary suspect, Yuri Eliasfov, served in the Israeli army’s Iron Dome anti-air missile unit and passed along classified material obtained during his military service to Iranians.

Contact between Eliasfov and the Iranian agent started in September 2024, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz claimed.

Months later, Eliasfov purportedly recruited his friend, Georgi Andreyev, and put him in contact with the same Iranian handler.

Andreyev supposedly served in the Israeli military’s Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The pair allegedly spray-painted graffiti and hung pro-Iranian banners in Tel Aviv.

Police accuse the two 21-year-old suspects, both from the northern side of the occupied territories, of security offenses — transferring classified information and aiding Iran during wartime.

Prosecutors are expected to bring an indictment against them within the coming days.

Back on October 14 last year, Shin Bet and the Israeli police said they had arrested two settlers east of Tel Aviv on charges of espionage for Iran.

They claimed in a joint statement that 30-year-old Vladislav Viktorson, a resident of Ramat Gan, his 18-year-old partner Anna Bernstein and another unnamed Ramat Gan resident.

The trio purportedly carried out various acts of sabotage and vandalism, including spraying provocative graffiti and putting up posters, setting fire to cars near Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, and acts of arson in local forests, at the behest of an individual identified as “Mari Hossi”, who gave them instructions in Hebrew.

Later, Viktorson was allegedly asked to sabotage communication networks and ATMs and to set fire to forests. He was even tasked with locating homeless individuals for recruitment and photographing protesters during demonstrations.

Viktorson and Bernstein filmed some of the sabotage they engaged in and were paid $5,000.

The statement said Hossi then asked Viktorson to kill a high-profile Israeli figure, whose identity remains unknown, by throwing a hand grenade into his house.

Viktorson agreed to do so and tried to purchase weapons, including sniper rifles, pistols, and grenades. Viktorson and Bernstein were indicted on security offenses.

Israel says 8 of 33 hostages on Hamas’s list to be freed are already dead

By
IFP Media Wire
-
Israel Hostages

Government spokesman David Mencer told journalists on Monday that Hamas said the other 25 are alive. Israel overnight announced it had received a list of information on the status of the captives from Hamas.

“The families have been informed of the situation of their relatives,” Mencer stated, without providing the names of the deceased.

Israel has noted the next release of captives will take place on Thursday, followed by another on Saturday.

Approximately 90 captives are still being held. Prior to this announcement, Israel believed at least 35 of them were dead.

The truce deal in the Israel-Hamas conflict, announced earlier in January after months of fruitless negotiations, took effect on January 19, bringing to a halt more than 15 months of devastating war on Gaza sparked by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks.

Under the first phase of the agreement, 33 captives held in Gaza are to be released in exchange for more than 1,900 Palestinians held by Israel.

Seven Israeli women have been released since the start of the truce, as have 290 Palestinian prisoners.

Two Israeli women, Arbel Yehud and Agam Berger, are to be released on Thursday along with a third unidentified captive, following negotiations between Hamas and Israel.

Their upcoming release was announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday night as part of the truce agreement with Hamas.

According to Israel, Arbel Yehud, as a woman and a civilian, should have been released last Saturday in the second prisoner exchange of the ceasefire deal.

When she did not appear, the Israeli government accused Hamas of violating the agreement and in retaliation prevented displaced Palestinians from returning to the north of Gaza.

Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire and stressed it had informed mediators that Yehud was alive and gave guarantees for her release.

On Monday, following Hamas’s pledge to release Yehud and other captives this week, the blockage was lifted.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza began to make the journey back to destroyed homes in the north of the Gaza Strip later on Monday for the first time since the devastating war began.

The United Nations said more than 200,000 people were observed moving north in Gaza on Monday morning alone.

According to UN data, about two-thirds of all buildings in Gaza were destroyed or severely damaged during the conflict, and approximately 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents were displaced.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reproted on Monday that the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza had reached 47,317, with numbers rising in spite of the ceasefire as new bodies are being found under the rubble.

The ministry added hospitals in the Gaza Strip had received 11 bodies in the past 24 hours – nine bodies recovered after the truce, and two new fatalities. It did not specify how the new deaths occurred.

The ministry noted Israeli attacks also wounded at least 111,494 people.

At least 1,200 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023 and 250 taken captive.

IRIB Chief: Iranian State TV Reporter Captured by Zionists in Gaza

By
IFP Media Wire
-

Peyman Jebelli, speaking to reporters about the situation of the detained IRIB reporter in Gaza, stated that based on the follow-ups conducted, this reporter has been captured by the Zionist regime and is still imprisoned within the occupied territories, and is not in Gaza now.

Jebelli added that the family of this reporter initially did not wish for the matter to be publicized.

He also pointed to the launch of the Press TV network in Turkish, stating that the opening of this network is a response to the widespread interest of the Muslim people of Turkey in the programs of Iran’s overseas broadcasting networks, especially the English-language Press TV and the Azerbaijani-language networks.

He added that recently Press TV issued a call for collaboration from Turkey, which received a very positive and widespread reception, and in response to this interest, efforts were made to initiate new activities in Turkish.

Dozens of Iranian MPs file complaint against VP Zarif over Davos comments

By
IFP Editorial Staff
-

Seraj stated that Zarif’s participation in the summit was “illegal” and that his comments during the speech and interview with CNN host Fareed Zakaria “insulted the revolution forces.”

The complaint, cites four articles of the Islamic Penal Code and demands swift action.

Zarif suggested in the interview that if principlist politician Saeed Jalili had been elected president instead of Masoud Pezeshkian last July, a major war might have been underway in the region.

According to Seraj, Zarif claimed that if President Pezeshkian had not won the election, he would not be able to walk freely in Tehran today, which Seraj considers an insult to the revolution forces.

He added, “Discussing internal matters abroad and portraying the revolution forces as violent only pleases the enemies.”

The letter accuses Zarif of undermining the position of the Islamic Republic and its revolution forces, and calls for legal action based on the cited articles of the Islamic Penal Code.

The MPs argue that Zarif’s actions have damaged the international reputation of the Islamic Republic and demand a decisive and urgent response.

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