Lebanese given conflicting information about whether they can return home, as Israeli army strikes cars and areas along boundary

Netanyahu reached a cease-fire with Hezbollah. Why not with Hamas? The cease-fire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel is being touted by right-wing admirers of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as evidence that Israel can use its superior military power to force its enemies to meet its demands without the kinds of compromises advocated by the supposedly wimpy Biden administration.

In truth, the agreement shows more nearly the opposite: While Israel can certainly inflict heavy losses on its foes, it cannot simply vanquish them and, instead, will have to live with adversaries on its borders in the hope that it can deter them from further hostilities in the near future. It is to Netanyahu’s credit that he recognized the limitations of Israeli military power in Lebanon. The question now: Will he ever recognize the limitations of military power in the Gaza Strip?

Netanyahu was able to conclude the Hezbollah cease-fire because it was not a make-or-break issue for Ben Gvir and Smotrich. They protested but did not threaten to leave the cabinet. The prime minister is unable to do anything except keep attacking in Gaza because, if he were to do otherwise, he would risk bringing down his government.

That is the vicious circle in which Israelis and Palestinians are now trapped. Perhaps President-elect Donald Trump can pressure Netanyahu into making peace in Gaza. President Joe Biden certainly could not.

• Israeli PM's speech was 'a declaration of war directed inside Israel'

• Netanyahu arrest warrant: Where can he still go in Europe?

• ICC issues arrest warrants for Israel's Netanyahu, Gallant and Hamas leader

  Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza. Israel has said it killed Al-Masri, also known as Mohammed Deif, in airstrike but Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied this.

• How Israel’s Army Uses Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza

  After Israeli soldiers found Mohammed Shubeir hiding with his family in early March, they detained him for roughly 10 days before releasing him without charge, he said.

  Mr. Shubeir, then 17, said he was forced to walk handcuffed through the empty ruins of his hometown, Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, searching for explosives set by Hamas. To avoid being blown up themselves, the soldiers made him go ahead, Mr. Shubeir said.

  An investigation by The New York Times found that Israeli soldiers and intelligence agents, throughout the war in Gaza, have regularly forced captured Palestinians like Mr. Shubeir to conduct life-threatening reconnaissance missions to avoid putting Israeli soldiers at risk on the battlefield

• Macron calls to halt arms deliveries to Israel in Gaza war

  "I think it is a mistake, including for the security of Israel," he said, adding that the conflict was leading to "hatred".

  

  Macron also said that avoiding an escalation in Lebanon was a "priority" and that "Lebanon cannot become a new Gaza".

  Netanyahu's office responded by saying that any country that did not stand with Israel was supporting Iran and its allies and proxies.

  Monday will mark the first anniversary of Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage. More than 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since then, the territory's Hamas-run health ministry says.

  Macron's office later said that France is a "steadfast friend of Israel", adding that Netanyahu's reaction was "excessive and detached from the friendship between France and Israel".

• How Americans Feel About The Growing Middle East Conflict One Year After Israel Was Attacked

  

  The U.S., which has about 40,000 troops stationed in the Middle East, will send a few thousand more troops to the region as Israel targets Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, where more than 2,000 people have been killed.

  About 4 in 10 Americans say the U.S. is spending too much on military aid for Israel, very consistent with polls in February and November, according to the Pearson and AP survey.

  And Republicans in September remained more likely than Democrats (25% vs. 13%) to say the U.S. should not be involved in the diplomatic resolution of the war, according to the Pew Research Center, a drop from the 32% of Republicans and 21% of Democrats who said in February there should be no U.S. involvement in the war’s resolution.

• Who was Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader killed by Israel?

  A long-time leader of the Iran-backed militia, Nasrallah was born in 1960 to an impoverished family in the north of Lebanon. He was the eldest of nine children and went on to briefly study theology in Iran in 1989.

  Nasrallah led his group into a war that pushed Israeli troops out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. His son, Hadi, was killed in fighting with the Israeli army in 1997 — the same year the U.S designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

  More than 1,000 killed in Lebanon this month, Health Ministry says

• Taiwan prosecutors say four questioned so far over exploding pagers

  Security sources said Israel was responsible for the pager explosions that raised the stakes in a growing conflict between the two sides. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

  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.

  

  Taiwan-based Gold Apollo said last week it did not manufacture the devices used in the attack, and that Hungary-based company BAC to which the pagers were traced had a licence to use its brand. Taiwan's government also said the pagers were not made in Taiwan.

  A spokesperson for the Shilin District Prosecutors Office in Taipei, which has been leading the probe into Gold Apollo, said in addition to two people questioned last week it had also questioned one current and one former employee as witnesses.

  "We are processing this case expeditiously and seeking resolution as soon as possible," the spokesperson added, declining to name the people questioned or say whether prosecutors planned to question further people.

• Israel's Pager Bombs Have No Place in a Just War

  Israel's recent assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders requires a more complicated, but still critical, political and moral response. These were men actively supporting terrorist attacks on Israel, who certainly knew themselves to be targets - I would say legitimate targets - of assassins who could be operating from close up or far away. But when a government authorizes the killing of men it is directly or indirectly negotiating with, such as the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in July, we have to conclude that the government isn't committed to the negotiations' success. That is politically and morally wrong, not only from the standpoint of the large number of Israeli citizens (including my friends in Israel) who are strongly, even desperately, committed to ending the war and bringing the hostages home, but also from the standpoint of all the victims of the Gaza war.

• Israel’s Displaced Want to Go Home. But Will Attacks on Hezbollah Offer That Path?

  “The first thought on Oct. 7 was that could have been us,” she said. “It was absolutely terrifying.”

  Ms. Gavishi-Sotto is now among the roughly 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes in northern Israel, an evacuation prompted by Hezbollah attacks that began immediately after the Oct. 7 assault, and that have been followed by tit-for-tat exchanges of fire ever since. For most of the past year, she and her three daughters have lived outside Hanita, moving among a hotel, a rented apartment and another kibbutz.

• 'Old Donald', courting Jewish Republicans, predicts extinction for Israel if Harris is elected

  "Old Donald", noting that he received roughly a quarter of the Jewish vote in the 2020 presidential election, said he expected to receive about 50% in November because of actions he took while president, such as moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and negotiating the Abraham Accords, under which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recognized Israel’s right to exist. The agreement was later expanded to include Sudan and Morocco.

• Protesters block roads during strike in Israel to pressure on Israeli PM on Gaza cease-fire deal

  'We could have saved all of them' - cousin of hostage

  

  Tens of thousands of people rallied across Israel on Sunday after the bodies of six hostages were recovered by soldiers from Gaza

  Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza after Hamas's attack on 7 October in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. A total of 97 captives remain unaccounted for

• U.S. plans to present 'take it or leave it' Israel-Gaza cease-fire deal soon

  “You can’t keep negotiating this. This process has to be called at some point,” said the senior official, who said that the United States, Egypt and Qatar had been working on the final proposal before the six hostages were found dead in a tunnel beneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah. “Does it derail the deal? No. If anything, it should add additional urgency in this closing phase, which we were already in.”

• Netanyahu’s congressional visit was met with thousands of protesters gathering near Capitol Hill to demonstrate against Israeli abuses during its war in Gaza. Lawmakers were divided over whether he should have been invited to speak.

• Top UN court says Israel’s presence in occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and should end

  The court’s panel of 15 judges from around the world said Israel has abused its status as the occupying power in the West Bank and east Jerusalem by carrying out policies of annexing territory, imposing permanent control and building settlements. It said Israel must end settlement construction immediately.

  The international community considers all settlements to be illegal or obstacles to peace since they are built on lands sought by the Palestinians for their state.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line government is dominated by settlers and their political supporters. Netanyahu has given his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a former settler leader, unprecedented authority over settlement policy.

• Netanyahu's Dangerous Manipulation of the Trump Assassination Attempt

  While the entire world woke up in shock on Sunday and tried to process the dramatic news, Netanyahu was already in campaign mode

  It's too early to say how exactly the failed assassination attempt against former U.S. President Donald Trump will impact American politics and the 2024 election, but here in Israel, it's already clear how one man is trying to use it, cynically, for political purposes: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

• Israeli PM scraps war cabinet after key departures

• Israeli war cabinet votes to expand Rafah operation area, amid growing U.S. concerns

  Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved his six-member war cabinet, a widely expected decision that follows the departure of centrist opposition leader Benny Gantz and his ally Gadi Eisenkot.