Haryana govt order for athletes to deposit 1/3rd share of their earnings sparks a row

Hezbollah has launched a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv for the first time, triggering sirens in the city and elsewhere including Netanya, the Lebanese resistance group says. 

Warning sirens sounded in Israel’s economic capital Tel Aviv as a single surface-to-surface missile was intercepted by air defense systems after it was detected crossing from Lebanon, the Israeli military said.

There were no reports of damage or casualties and the military said there was no change to civil defense instructions for central Israel.

The Israeli military said that for the "first time ever" a missile fired by Hezbollah reached the Tel Aviv area. "It is the first time ever a Hezbollah missile reached Tel Aviv area."

Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging deadly fire since early October last year, shortly after the regime launched a genocidal war against the Gaza Strip following a surprise operation by Hamas.

Earlier, Hezbollah targeted the Israeli Ilaniya military base at the northern side of the occupied territories with a salvo of Fadi-1 rockets. 

The base is reportedly affiliated with the 146th Reserve Division of the Israeli military, which is part of the Northern Command.

The group announced in a brief statement that the operation was carried out in defense of Lebanon and its people. 

Hezbollah also said it targeted a military base near Safad twice with salvos of rockets.

The group stated that it targeted “the Dado base near Safad – the headquarters of the Israeli military’s Northern Command – with a total of 90 rockets in defense of Lebanon and its people.”

Hezbollah said in a separate statement that it unleashed a squadron of attack drones on the headquarters of the Israeli army’s Special Naval Task Force at the Alit Base.

The group said the attack on the Alit base, south of the major port city of Haifa, targeted “the locations of [Israeli] officers and soldiers” and achieved direct hits.

The Lebanese resistance movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory attacks as long as the Israeli regime continues its Gaza war, which has so far killed at least 41,467 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Hezbollah officials have repeatedly said they do not want a war with Israel while stressing that they are prepared in case it occurs.

Two Israeli wars waged against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006 were met with strong resistance from Hezbollah, resulting in the retreat of the regime in both conflicts.

The Israeli regime is recruiting African asylum seekers to kill Palestinians in the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in exchange for permanent residency status, according to a report.

The report, ran by the Israeli paper Haaretz on Sunday, revealed that the project is conducted in an organized manner, with the guidance of military establishment legal advisers.  

In Gaza, the death toll passes 41,200 with close to 100,000 more injured in almost a year since the Israeli regime forces launched their genocidal war. However, the continued violence is prompting some Jewish Israelis to leave the occupied Palestinian land.

To make up for the loss, Tel Aviv is offering the incentive of permanent residency status to asylum seekers who agree to join the Israeli regime forces ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Haaretz has learned that some people have expressed objections to the practice, arguing that it exploits people who have fled their countries due to war. However, according to those sources, these voices have been silenced.

“This is a very problematic matter,” one source was quoted as saying by Haaretz.

According to the report, there are currently some 30,000 African asylum seekers living in the occupied territories, most of them young men. Around 3,500 are Sudanese citizens with temporary status granted by the court because the regime has not processed and ruled on their applications.

Unnamed sources who spoke with Haaretz also revealed that while there were some inquiries about granting status to asylum seekers who assisted in the genocidal war in Gaza, none were actually given status.

Haaretz also learned that the Interior Ministry explored the possibility of drafting the children of asylum seekers, who were educated in schools in the occupied territories, into the Israeli military.

In the past, the regime allowed the children of foreign workers to serve in the military in exchange for granting status to their immediate family members.

African refugees, who came to the occupied territories seeking asylum, were previously kept in internment camps and deported without their own consent.

London: There will be no normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel until an independent Palestinian state is established, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, the former head of the Kingdom’s intelligence services, has warned. 

During a talk at London-based think tank Chatham House, the former Saudi ambassador to the US also discussed Washington’s role in the peace process as the Gaza war approaches its first anniversary, and how talks before the outbreak of hostilities had been broadly positive.

He said the US is keen on the resumption of talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia to strengthen regional security and to forge economic ties, but Riyadh’s position is that “if there’s a Palestinian state that Israel accepts to come (into) existence, then we can talk about normalization with Israel.”

The prince added: “Before Oct. 7 … talks not only progressed along those lines, but also the Kingdom invited a Palestinian delegation to come and talk directly to the Americans about what it is that might bring about a Palestinian state.

“I’m not privy to those talks so I don’t know what happened between the Palestinians and the Americans, but the Kingdom’s position has always been we won’t speak for the Palestinians. They have to do it for themselves. Unfortunately, of course, the Oct. 7 (Hamas attack against Israel) put an end to those talks.”

Prince Turki said the establishment of a Palestinian state is not only crucial for Israeli ties with Saudi Arabia but with the rest of the Muslim world as well.

“A Palestinian state is a primary condition for Saudi Arabia to have normalization with Israel, but … on the Israeli side, the whole government is saying no Palestinian state,” he added.

Prince Turki said for Saudi Arabia, an independent Palestine would encapsulate the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem.

He added that the Kingdom has led the way in trying to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict, citing the 1981 King Fahd Peace Plan and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative proposed by King Abdullah.

During the current Gaza war, “the Kingdom led the Muslim world, and not only summits with the Arabs but with the (rest of the) Muslim world, and also … the diplomatic missions that have been taking place to convince the world that there must be an end to the fighting, led by the Saudi foreign minister,” Prince Turki said.

“The Kingdom has been in the forefront of condemning the Israeli onslaught on the Palestinians, not just in Gaza but equally in the West Bank.”

He criticized the US and other Western nations for not applying more pressure on Israel to end the war, citing how the UK had only recently begun to suspend certain arms export licenses to Israel following the election of a new government in July.

“I’d like to see more done by the UK,” he said. “I think, for example, the UK … should recognize the state of Palestine. It’s long overdue.”

Prince Turki said the US could apply direct pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the actions of his government and military, and should address funding and lobbying by groups and individuals sympathetic to Israel.

“I think the US has enormous tools to affect Israel which it isn’t using, not just simply … denial of supply of weapons and material to the Israelis,” the prince added.

“A lot of financial help goes to Israel from the US. If some of the privileges that (the) Israeli lobby, for example, in America, enjoys — of tax-free contributions to Israel — can be withdrawn from those Israeli lobbyists, that will (put) great pressure on Israel.”

In the US, “you have to register as a lobbyist for a specific country, or be prosecuted, if you want to talk for that country, but a lot of organizations in America do that for Israel and still enjoy a tax-free status because they’re considered not representing Israel per se, but simply as philanthropic or humanitarian groupings,” he said.

“There are many tools that are available to the US, not simply harsh talk, which seems to have gotten us nowhere. But is America ready to do that? As I said, I’m not too optimistic about that.”