Several large airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early Thursday, including one on a site adjacent to Lebanon’s only international airport. The Israeli military had issued an evacuation notice for the site, saying there were Hezbollah facilities there, without giving more details.
Also Thursday, the Israeli military announced it expanded its month-old ground operation in northern Gaza to include part of Beit Lahiya, a town that has been heavily bombed since the earliest days of the war, where Israel says Hamas militants have regrouped.
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a speech aired Wednesday that the Lebanese militant group is open for cease-fire negotiations only once “the enemy stops its aggression.” His speech marked the 40-day mourning period since former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in Beirut.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip. Since the conflict erupted, more than 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,600 wounded in Lebanon, the Health Ministry reported.
The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others. Israel's military response in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of those killed were women and children.
Here’s the latest:
JERUSALEM — Israel says it has reached an agreement to purchase 25 advanced F-15 fighter jets from U.S. aerospace giant Boeing for $5.2 billion.
The Defense Ministry said the agreement, concluded Wednesday, was part of a broader aid package approved by the U.S. government earlier this year. Deliveries will begin in 2031, and there’s an option for the purchase of an additional 25 aircraft.
The United States has provided crucial military support to Israel as it has battled Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and traded fire with Iran.
The Biden administration recently warned Israel that if it did not facilitate the delivery of more aid to Gaza, U.S. laws may force the administration to curb some of its military support.
The State Department said this week that Israel had yet to sufficiently improve aid deliveries ahead of a mid-November deadline.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end the wars in the Middle East without saying how he plans to do it. He was a staunch supporter of Israel during his previous term but also cultivated close ties with Arab Gulf leaders.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The Al Jazeera news network says the Israeli military has extended the order shutting down its bureau in the occupied West Bank.
Walid al-Omari, the network’s bureau chief, said Israeli troops raided the office in Ramallah again early Thursday and posted a notice extending the closure for an additional 45 days.
Israel had previously raided the office and shut it down on Sept. 22. Earlier this year, authorities took the rare step of barring the Qatar-based network from operating in Israel.
Israel accuses Al Jazeera of serving as a mouthpiece for Hamas, an allegation denied by the network. Last month, Israel accused six Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza of being Palestinian militants, which the network also denied.
Al-Jazeera has provided near 24-hour coverage from inside Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, with a heavy focus on the war’s toll among Palestinian civilians. Several of its correspondents have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces.
It also routinely airs unedited Hamas videos showing attacks on Israeli forces and hostages speaking under duress.
Israel’s parliament passed a law early Thursday that would allow it to deport family members of Palestinian attackers, including the country’s own citizens, to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip or other locations.
The law, which was championed by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and his far-right allies, passed with a 61-41 vote but is likely to be challenged in court.
It would apply to Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of annexed east Jerusalem who knew about their family members’ attacks beforehand or who “express support or identification with the act of terrorism.”
Read the full story here.
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has expanded its month-old ground operation in northern Gaza to a town that has been heavily bombed since the earliest days of the war.
The military said in a statement Thursday that “troops started to operate” in the area of Beit Lahiya after intelligence indicated the presence of militants there. Hamas has repeatedly regrouped in areas where the military already conducted major operations.
The town in the northwestern corner of Gaza was among the first targets of the ground invasion launched over a year ago, after Hamas’ attack into southern Israel. The northern third of the territory has been encircled by Israeli forces since then.
Israel launched another major offensive in nearby Jabaliya, a decades-old urban refugee camp, in early October. It has sharply restricted the amount of aid entering northern Gaza and ordered a full evacuation. Tens of thousands have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest mass displacement of the war.
BEIRUT — Several large airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early Thursday, including one on a site adjacent to Lebanon’s only international airport.
The Israeli military had earlier issued an evacuation notice for the site, saying that there were Hezbollah facilities there, without giving more details.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Beirut’s airport has not been directly targeted in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, and national air carrier Middle East Airlines has continued to operate commercial flights.
For more Middle East news: https://apnews.com/hub/middle-east
Smoke and fire rise from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Israelis light a bonfire during a protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu near his residence in Jerusalem, a day after he dismissed his defence minister Yoav Gallant, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Smoke and fire rise from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Lebanon, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol denied wrongdoing Thursday in a burgeoning influence-peddling scandal involving him and his wife that’s severely hurting his approval ratings and providing political munition to his rivals.
The political firestorm coincides with South Korea facing a slew of critical foreign policy issues, such as Donald Trump’s election win to become the next president of the United States and North Korea’s reported entry into the Russia-Ukraine war.
The scandal centers around allegations that Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee exerted inappropriate influence on the ruling People Power Party to pick a certain candidate to run for a parliamentary by-election in 2022 at the request of Myung Tae-kyun, an election broker and founder of a polling agency who conducted free opinion surveys for Yoon before he became president.
For weeks, the scandal has been making headlines in South Korea as Myung's leaked phone conversations show he boasted of his influence over the presidential couple and other top ruling party officials.
Asked about his ties with Myung during a press conference Thursday, Yoon said, “I didn’t do anything inappropriate and have nothing to hide regarding Myung Tae-kyun.”
Yoon said he has never meddled in any candidate nomination processes at the PPP, and had never asked Myung to carry out surveys for him, though he acknowledged that Myung gave him some sort of help during his presidential primary campaign in 2021.
It’s unclear whether Yoon’s statement will ease his festering political strife with his political opponents. The main liberal opposition Democratic Party has demanded he apologize sincerely, reshuffle top officials and accept an independent investigation on his wife.
The Democratic Party recently shared what it said was an audio file of phone calls between Yoon and Myung on May 9, 2022 — a day before Yoon took office for a single five-year term. The opposition party alleges that the conversation proves Yoon provided Myung with political favors in return for free surveys.
In the audio file, Yoon can be heard telling Myung that he asked a PPP committee to pick senior party member Kim Young-sun to run for one of the parliamentary by-elections the following month. Kim Young-sun eventually obtained the party’s nomination and won the election.
In the file, Myung is heard saying, “I really won’t forget this favor for my entire life. Thank you!”
South Korea’s election law bars public servants, including the president, from meddling in elections, but has no related clauses on a president-elect, so it's unclear whether Yoon violated the law.
Recent surveys showed Yoon's approval rating fell below 20% for the first time since his inauguration. Kim Keon Hee has been grappling with others scandals, such as spy camera footage purportedly showing her accepting a luxury bag as a gift from a pastor.
Yoon apologized for causing public concerns about him and his wife, but stressed that many of the allegations raised were not consistent with the facts.
Some ruling party lawmakers have accused the Democratic Party of deliberately ramping up political attacks on Yoon and his wife in an effort to rescue its embattled leader, Lee Jae-myung, from legal troubles.
Lee, a firebrand lawmaker who narrowly lost to Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, is undergoing four separate trials over corruption and various other allegations. The first two district court rulings on Lee over his election law violation and perjury charges are set for Nov. 15 and Nov. 25. Prison sentences or a fine of more than 1 million won ($750) on the election law case would unseat Lee as a lawmaker and disqualify him from running in elections for five years, although he is likely to appeal any guilty verdict.
Surveys show Lee is the early favorite for the 2027 presidential race to succeed Yoon.
On foreign policy, Yoon — who has worked closely with Washington and Tokyo to solidify security cooperation in the face of North Korean threats — expressed optimism that the three-way partnership will continue to expand under Trump’s government. He said he wants to meet Trump and new Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba soon to coordinate policies.
During his previous presidency, Trump engaged in highly orchestrated nuclear summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Yoon noted that North Korea’s arsenal has significantly advanced since Trump’s diplomacy with Kim collapsed in 2019 due to disagreements over U.S.-led sanctions on the North.
Yoon said Trump “will be receiving comprehensive reports very soon about how North Korea’s nuclear technologies and capabilities have changed since then, including assets like reconnaissance satellites that are directly linked to intercontinental ballistic missiles technologies.”
“After he receives these reports, I think we can have more meaningful and in-depth discussions when we have the opportunity to meet," Yoon said.
When asked about concerns that Trump’s “America first” approach would damage South Korean interests in trade through increased tariffs and other measures, Yoon said Seoul was making “multifaceted efforts to minimize the losses to our people’s economy.”
“Things can’t be exactly the same as they were during the Biden administration,” he said, “but we have been preparing to hedge these risks for a long time."
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrives for a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol answers a reporters' question during a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol arrives for a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol answers a reporters' question during a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol answers a reporters' question during a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol answers a reporters' question during a news conference at the Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (Kim Hong-Ji/Pool Photo via AP)
