Israel postpones again to withdraw from Lebanon breaking 900th ceasefire agreement & kills a Palestinian in Gaza
By Abdul Adil
(AA, Al Jazeera, Wafa, NNA, The Muslim News):
LEBANON
Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital Beirut and its southern suburbs on Wednesday evening, marking the first such incident since the Nov. 27 ceasefire agreement.
The escalation coincides with reports of Israel postponing the withdrawal of its army forces from southern Lebanon despite a Feb. 18 deadline.
According to the Lebanese state news agency NNA, Israeli fighter jets conducted low-altitude flights over Beirut, the Matn district in Mount Lebanon, and parts of the Bekaa region in eastern Lebanon.
Lebanese officials denied on Wednesday any agreement to extend the deadline for Israeli troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since Nov. 27, ending months of mutual shelling between Israel and Hezbollah that escalated into a full-scale conflict last September.
Under the ceasefire deal, Israel was supposed to complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon by Jan. 26, but the deadline was extended to Feb. 18 after Israel refused to comply.
Lebanon has reported nearly 900 Israeli ceasefire violations, killing and injuring dozens, including women and children, since Nov. 27.
Israel on Wednesday backed out of a deadline for withdrawing its forces from southern Lebanon for the second time in a row.
An Israeli military statement, however, said on Wednesday that the withdrawal deadline has been extended, without giving an exact date.
The Israeli public broadcaster KAN said that Tel Aviv had asked the ceasefire monitors to extend the deadline until Feb. 28, a request rejected by the Lebanese side.
The army did not clarify whether this extension was a unilateral decision or had been agreed upon with the Lebanese side.
The Lebanese president’s media office, for its part, denied reports about extending the deadline for Israeli troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
President Joseph Aoun “has repeatedly emphasized Lebanon’s insistence on the full withdrawal of the Israeli forces within the set deadline of Feb. 18,” the media office said in a statement.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s office also denied any agreement to extend the deadline for the Israeli withdrawal.
“This is pure fabrication and completely false,” the office said in a statement.
The US has authorised Israel to remain at several points in Lebanon beyond the agreed date for its full withdrawal, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan TV reports, quoting senior cabinet officials.
The date for the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon was extended to February 18 from the ceasefire’s initially agreed date of January 26.
The US helped to broker the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in November.
Meanwhile, Israeli army forces burnt down several homes and a farm in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, in the latest violation of a ceasefire agreement, local media said.
The Lebanese news agency NNA said that several houses were set ablaze by Israeli forces in the town of Al-Aadaissah.
Israeli forces also opened fire towards the outskirts of Bint Jbeil town and detonated a farm in the border area of Aita al-Shaab, the broadcaster said.
No injuries were reported.
GAZA
Palestinian medics and rescue teams recovered two more bodies from the rubble in the Gaza Strip, bringing the overall death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023 to 48,222, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
A ministry statement said that the toll also included one Palestinian killed by Israeli fire in the last 24 hours.
According to the ministry, nine injured people were also admitted to hospitals, taking the number of the injured to 111,674 in the Israeli onslaught.
“Many victims are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” the ministry said.
Gaza’s Government Media Office has updated the death toll to at least 61,709 people, saying thousands missing under the rubble are now presumed dead.
At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the October 7, 2023 attacks and more than 200 taken captive.
A ceasefire agreement has been in place in Gaza since Jan. 19, halting the Israeli war that has caused widespread destruction and left the Palestinian enclave in ruins.
A Palestinian was killed and another injured in an Israeli drone strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Wednesday despite a ceasefire agreement, a medical source said.
The source said the casualties occurred when a drone hit a group of people in eastern Rafah and they were transferred to the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.
According to witnesses, the Israeli drone fired a missile into a group of Palestinians inspecting their homes in the Abu Halawa area in Rafah.
The Israeli army confirmed targeting two Palestinians in southern Gaza for allegedly assembling a drone.
Meanwhile, the army blew up several Palestinian homes in Tel al-Sultan neighborhood in western Rafah, eyewitnesses said.
The area is close to the Philadelphi Corridor between Gaza and Egypt, where the Israeli army forces are deployed.
Under the ceasefire agreement, the Israeli army is scheduled to withdraw from the corridor on day 42 of the deal.
On Tuesday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said that 92 Palestinians were killed and 822 others injured in direct Israeli attacks since the ceasefire on Jan. 19.
An official Palestinian source also told Anadolu that Israel committed nearly 270 violations of the ceasefire agreement, including denying access to relief materials, including tents and caravans for displaced civilians.
WEST BANK
The Israeli army on Wednesday ordered Palestinian residents in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank to evacuate amid a military offensive in the area, witnesses said.
“The Israeli army, via loudspeakers, ordered Palestinians to leave their homes in the camp,” east of Tulkarem city, an eyewitness told Anadolu.
The army raided the camp on Sunday, in the latest escalation in the northern West Bank amid military operations that have killed more than 30 people and displaced thousands since Jan. 21.
Palestinians leaving the camp are searched and interrogated by Israeli forces before being allowed to depart, witnesses said.
Earlier today, Israeli forces used the loudspeakers of a mosque in the Al-Iyada neighborhood to order camp residents to leave their homes immediately.
Dozens of families, including women, children and the elderly, were seen fleeing the camp on foot, struggling through devastated streets in harsh winter weather while facing the looming threat of Israeli gunfire.
Israeli soldiers also obstructed the work of the Palestine Red Crescent Society teams, ramming a vehicle belonging to the organization’s Disaster Risk Management team and disrupting their efforts to evacuate elderly residents and children. Medical relief teams were also hindered from carrying out their humanitarian duties.
The head of the Popular Committee for Services in Nur Shams refugee camp, Nihad Al-Shawish, stated in a press release that the situation inside the camp is extremely dire amid the ongoing large-scale assault.
The occupation is firing at everything that moves inside the camp. Many families remain trapped in their homes, facing imminent danger, while essential services such as water and electricity have been cut off, he said, warning of a severe shortage of food, drinking water, medicine, and baby formula.
He stressed that the occupation is carrying out the most brutal forms of mistreatment against residents, storming their homes by force, firing live bullets and stun grenades inside, and threatening them to leave in an apparent effort to empty the camp of its residents.
Israeli army continues its devastating offensive in the areas of Jenin and Tulkarem, the northern West Bank, that started on Jan. 21, and has so far left over 30 people killed,
displaced thousands of people, and also caused wide-scale destruction.
The Israeli military says its soldiers engaged in a firefight with Palestinian fighters in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank, resulting in one fighter being killed
According to the Doctors Without Borders aid group, the Israeli onslaught in Jenin and Tulkarem in the northern West Bank has displaced over 38,000 Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Israeli army on Wednesday morning withdrew from the southern Tubas area in the northern occupied West Bank following an 11-day military operation.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that the Israeli army left all the locations in the Far’a refugee camp it seized, but leaving behind large scale of destruction.
A Palestinian youth Wednesday sustained an injury by Israeli army gunfire in al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, according to WAFA correspondent.
He said that Israeli occupying forces barged their way into the refugee camp, deploying on main streets and in the vicinity of civilians’ houses simultaneously while opening live ammunition.
The occupying forces broke into several houses, using them as military bases and sniping positions.
During ensuing confrontations, the gun-toting soldiers fired live ammunition and tear gas canisters toward local protestors, injuring a youth with a live round in the foot.
Meanwhile, the occupation forces conducted a raid in Osrin town, south of Nablus, and fired barrages of tear gas canisters, resulting in several suffocation cases.
According to WAFA correspondent, Israeli forces brought in additional military vehicles and heavy bulldozers before demolishing the house. Meanwhile, forces continued to wreak havoc on property along the road connecting Ash-Shuhada and Al-Mujahideen neighborhoods, where loud explosions and heavy gunfire were reported.
The demolition and destruction were accompanied by a strict siege on the camp and its surroundings, with Israeli forces turning the area into a military zone. They raided homes, ransacked them and violently forced residents to leave.
A Palestinian young man was injured by Israeli occupation bullets and a young man was assaulted in Jenin camp.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said that its crews dealt with two injuries in Jenin camp, a 50-year-old was struck by live bullets, while the other sustained an injury after being brutally assaulted by Israeli forces. They were transferred to a hospital in Jenin.
The unprecedented aggression of the occupation on Jenin camp and city continues for the 23rd consecutive day, which resulted in the killing of 25 civilians and causing several injuries.
Israeli occupation forces assaulted on Wednesday three Palestinian students from the town of Hawara, south of Nablus.
Head of the Hawara Council, Jihad Odeh, told WAFA that the occupation forces are present daily on a side road leading to Hawara Secondary School, obstructing students.
Earlier today, Israeli forces attacked and brutally assaulted three students while they were heading to school, causing them to suffer bruises.
Meanwhile, illegal Israeli settlers grazed their livestock on the lands surrounding the homes of Palestinians in the village of Fasayel, north of the city of Jericho.
The Al-Baidar Organization said that a group of armed Israeli settlers allowed their cows on the citizens’ agricultural lands near the homes in Fasayel, in a move to seize the pastoral lands, at a time when the residents are suffering from continuous attacks.
It pointed out that this comes within the policy of pastoral colonization, and requires the intervention of human rights organizations to protect the citizens and Bedouins north of Jericho from these attacks.
Meanwhile, settlers stormed the Ein Al-Auja waterfall complex north of Jericho, accompanied by their sheep, and spread out among the Bedouin homes.
The Bedouin Rights Defense Organization, Al-Baidar, said in a statement to WAFA that settlers grazed their sheep and emptied the Bedouin’s water tanks randomly onto the ground, which threatens the water resources that the Bedouins depend on mainly from the Al-Auja spring.
[Photo: Palestinians in the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood of Gaza City continue to live in makeshift tents amid the rubble of their houses that were destroyed by Israeli attacks during the cold weather, on February 12, 2025 in Gaza. Photojournalist: Ali Jadallah/AA]
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