Israeli military has killed a senior militant from Fatah’s armed wing Wednesday in a strike on Lebanon, leading to accusations from the Palestinian movement that Israel is trying to ignite a regional war.
Fatah, which is based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, said Khalil Maqdah died in an attack near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.
The Israeli army said it targeted the brother of Mounir Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah’s armed wing.
It accused them both of “directing attacks and smuggling weapons” to the West Bank and collaborating with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Fatah, which is headed by Palestinian President, Mahmud Abbas and rivals the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers, Hamas, responded by accusing Israel of seeking to trigger a wider war.
Maqdah’s killing marks the first such attack on a senior Fatah member in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement during the Gaza war.
The “assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region,” Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah’s central committee, told AFP in Ramallah.
The strike came only hours after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken left apparently empty-handed after a tour of the Middle East aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Blinken appealed to Hamas to urgently accept a US-backed truce proposal while also publicly disagreeing with Israel over its future presence in the besieged Palestinian territory.
“Time is of the essence,” Blinken said before flying out of Doha after stops in Egypt and Israel.
“This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead,” he said of the truce proposal.
The United States has presented ideas to bridge gaps and, through Qatar and Egypt, pressed Hamas to return to talks this week in Cairo.
But a day after Blinken said US ally Israel was on board, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.
Netanyahu insisted Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli forces seized from Hamas, which Israel says relies on secret tunnels to bring in weapons.
– Call for flexibility –
Since the war began, it was made “very clear that the United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel”, Blinken said when asked about Netanyahu’s remarks.
But he added that Israel had already agreed on the “schedule and location” of troop withdrawals from Gaza in the talks. Details have not been made public.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, called Netanyahu’s “maximalist statements” unhelpful for reaching a truce.
Blinken acknowledged differences and called for “maximum flexibility” from both Israel and Hamas.
Hamas said it was “keen to reach a ceasefire” but protested “new conditions” from Israel in the latest US proposal.
On the ground, Gaza was again rocked by air strikes, according to AFP reporters, first responders, and witnesses.
The Israeli military said it struck about 30 targets throughout Gaza and that troops “eliminated dozens” of militants.
Gaza’s civil defence agency said two people were killed and 10 children injured in an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter.
The Israeli military said its air force had “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating inside a command and control centre” located in the school compound.
A UN official said death “seems to be the only certainty” for Gaza’s 2.4 million people, with no way to escape Israel’s bombardment.
“Absolutely nowhere is safe,” Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told AFP from Gaza.
As tensions escalated, Lebanon’s health ministry said earlier Israeli strikes in the country’s east killed one person and wounded 20, hours after four were killed in the south.
Cross-border skirmishes have taken place almost daily between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, but fears of a greater crisis soared when Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed on a visit to Tehran on July 31.
Iran has vowed retaliation, blaming Israel for the assassination, but has held off so far, with the United States sending additional forces and warning a wider war could destroy prospects for a Gaza ceasefire.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer urged the Lebanese to “rid themselves” of Hezbollah.
“Lebanon will be held responsible for the terrorism emanating, originating from its own territory, whether it controls Hezbollah or not,” he said.
– Hostage appeal –
Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in agreeing a deal to end fighting, free Israeli hostages, and allow vital humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Netanyahu has faced public protests in Israel urging him to accept a truce that would bring back hostages.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 105 are still being held hostage inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 the military says are dead.
A young Israeli woman freed in a special forces’ raid on Gaza in June called for the swift return of the remaining captives.
“We don’t want to lose more people than we already lost,” Noa Argamani said while visiting Japan.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,223 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
