Fatah official killed in Israeli strike in Lebanon

An Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon killed a Fatah official on Wednesday, a senior member of the Palestinian group that governs the occupied West Bank and the Israeli army both said. The news comes after Lebanon’s health ministry said early Wednesday that Israeli strikes in the country’s east killed at least one person and wounded 19. Follow our liveblog for all the latest developments.

Summary: 

• Lebanon‘s health ministry said early Wednesday that Israeli strikes in the country’s east killed at least one person, just over a day after similar strikes in the area and hours after it said four people were killed in the south.
• An Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon killed a Fatah official on Wednesday, a senior member of the Palestinian group and a security source said.
• Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched an attack with a swarm of drones on military posts in the kibbutz of Amiad in northern Israel, the armed group said in a statement on Wednesday.
• At least 40,223 Palestinians have been killed and 92,981 wounded in Israel‘s war in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run enclave. The Hamas-led October 7 attacks resulted in the deaths of more than 1,190 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures. Some 250 people were taken hostage, with about 120 remaining in Gaza. Many have been declared dead by Israeli authorities.
• Israeli army says it targeted Fatah commander, who ‘directed attacks’, in Lebanon strike
• Fatah official says Israel killed party member to ‘ignite regional war’
• A senior official from the Palestinian Fatah movement told AFP on Wednesday Israel killed a fellow party member in south Lebanon in order to start a regional 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, referring to the killing of Khalil Makdah in an air strike in Lebanon blamed on Israel.
• There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the attack.
• Lebanon’s Hezbollah says it launched a drone attack on military posts in northern Israel
• Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched an attack with a swarm of drones on military posts in the kibbutz of Amiad in northern Israel, the armed group said in a statement on Wednesday.
• The Israeli kibbutz is located approximately 22 kilometres (14 miles) from the Lebanese border. Israel’s military said it could not confirm the attack.
• Hezbollah said the attack was a retaliation for an Israeli strike on the Lebanese Bekaa region overnight.
• Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been locked in hostilities for the last 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has spread to several other fronts and prompted fears of an all-out Middle East conflict.
• Israeli banks refusing shekel cash transfers from the West Bank, Palestinian officials say
• Israeli banks are refusing shekel cash transfers from Palestinian banks in the occupied West Bank in a move that could soon prevent Palestinians from accessing vital goods and services, Palestinian officials said.
• The office of Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who in June extended a waiver that allows the country’s banks to cooperate with Palestinian banks in the West Bank, had no immediate comment.
• Israeli strike kills Fatah official in Lebanon
• An Israeli strike in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon killed a Fatah official on Wednesday, a senior member of the Palestinian group and a security source said.
• It marked the first such reported attack on Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement.
• “The Israeli strike in Sidon killed (Fatah) group official Khalil Makdah,” said Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior member of the group that rivals Gaza’s Palestinian Islamist rulers Hamas. 
• A Lebanese security source confirmed the report to AFP, saying the strike hit his car.
• Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 40,223
• The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Wednesday that at least 40,223 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory in more than 10 months of war with Israel.
• The toll includes 50 deaths over the past day, according to ministry figures, which also listed 92,981 people as wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants launched deadly attacks on Israel on October 7.
• Israel says it bombed Hezbollah arms depots in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley
• The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it bombed Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley overnight, its latest strike on arms depots in a major stronghold of the powerful Iranian-backed militia.
• The air attack came hours after Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that “attacking munitions warehouses in Lebanon is preparation for anything that might happen”.
• There was no immediate confirmation from security sources in Lebanon that weapons depots were targeted in the strike, Reuters reported. The sources said the strike was in a residential area near the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, an area populated mainly by Shiite Muslims from whom Hezbollah draws its support.
• The air strikes left at least two people dead and 19 injured, according to the security sources, but it was not immediately clear if those killed were civilians or fighters.
• Earlier Wednesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said that Israeli strikes in the Bekaa Valley around midnight killed at least one person and wounded 19 more, noting the toll was provisional and not saying if the dead were civilians or fighters.
• Top Turkish and US diplomats discuss Gaza ceasefire efforts in call, Ankara says
• Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the latest state efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in a phone call on Wednesday, Turkey’s foreign ministry spokesperson said.
• Spokesperson Oncu Keceli also said the call had taken place at the request of the US side, adding the two ministers also discussed regional developments. He did not provide any further details.
• Commercial ship ‘not under command’ after repeated attacks target it in the Red Sea, UK military says
• A commercial ship travelling through the Red Sea came under repeated attack Wednesday, leaving the vessel “not under command” in an assault suspected to have been carried out by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the British military said. 
• Details remained few about the attack, though it comes during the Houthis’ months-long campaign targeting ships over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
• The attack saw men on small boats first open fire with small arms, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre said. 
• The ship also was hit by three projectiles, it added.
• Blinken presses Hamas to back Gaza truce but sees gaps with Israel
• Top US diplomat Antony Blinken appealed Tuesday to Hamas urgently to accept a ceasefire plan to ease suffering in Gaza but also entered a public spat with Israel as he capped a new round of shuttle diplomacy.
• The US secretary of state closed his ninth wartime trip to the region in which he warned that the US-backed truce proposal may be the “last chance” to broker an end to the conflict.
• “With every passing day, more bad things can happen to more good people who don’t deserve it,” he told reporters before flying out of the Qatari capital Doha.
• The US last week presented ideas to bridge gaps in the deal and, through Qatar and Egypt, has pressed heavily on Hamas to accept it and return to talks this week in Cairo.
• But a day after Blinken said that US ally Israel was on board, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted by Israeli media as disagreeing on a key sticking point.
• Netanyahu insisted that Israel maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between Gaza and Egypt that Israeli troops seized from Hamas.
• Blinken said that Israel had already agreed on the “schedule and location” of troop withdrawals from Gaza.
• Since the start of the conflict, 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.
• Lebanon says Israeli strikes in east kill at least one person and wound 19
• Lebanon’s health ministry said early Wednesday that Israeli strikes in the country’s east killed at least one person, just over a day after similar strikes in the area and hours after the ministry said four people were killed in Israeli strikes in the south.
• “Israeli enemy strikes on the Bekaa” valley killed one person “and wounded 19 others”, the health ministry said, noting the toll was provisional and without saying if the dead were civilians or fighters.
• The strikes around midnight came little more than a day after similar raids in the Bekaa region that Israel said targeted “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities”.
• They also came as Hezbollah said four of its fighters had been killed after the health ministry said Tuesday that four people were killed in Israeli strikes in the southern border village of Dhayra.
• Qatar committed to mediating Gaza ceasefire talks, prime minister tells Blinken
• Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani affirmed to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that his country is committed to its role as a mediator in the Gaza ceasefire talks, along with Egypt and the United States, the Qatari foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
• Qatar will continue efforts and communication to end the war, the ministry said in a statement
• Pro-Palestinian DNC delegates welcome Biden’s exit but want more from Harris
• Though there are only a handful of them among thousands of delegates in Chicago, the “Uncommitted Movement” delegates at the Democratic National Convention are among the most vocal.
• The delegates planned to voice their discontent with the war in Gaza at the event this week in Chicago, during which Vice President Kamala Harris will formally accept the Democratic Party’s nomination in the race for the White House.
• The 30 “Uncommitted Movement” delegates – “uncommitted” refers to how some voters filled out ballots in Democratic primaries to protest against President Joe Biden’s support for Israel – hail from eight different US states and claim to represent some 700,000 voters.
• Though they welcomed the news of Biden dropping out of the race on July 21, they have met Harris’s subsequent ascension with caution and skepticism.
• “The party needed change,” Minnesota delegate Asma Mohammed told AFP. “I don’t feel sad about someone who has unapologetically supported a genocidal regime in Israel.”
• Mohammed came to Chicago hoping to see a renewed perspective within her party, but she said she is disappointed that the convention has no pro-Palestinian voices on the speaker list.
• “I know she’s (Harris) more empathetic than Joe Biden, I’ve seen that,” Mohammed said. “But those words are not enough. That needs to be followed by policy.
• Pro-Palestinian protesters clash with police near Israeli consulate in Chicago on second night of DNC
• Pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested Tuesday after clashing with police during a protest that began outside the Israeli consulate in Chicago and spilled onto the surrounding streets on the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
• The confrontations with officers began minutes into the demonstration, after some protesters – many dressed in black, their faces covered – charged at a line of police that had blocked the group from marching. They eventually moved past the officers, but were penned in several times throughout the night by police in riot gear who did not allow protesters to disperse. 
• The Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, which provided legal observers for Tuesday’s protests, said at least 72 people were arrested. 
• A large portion of the arrests happened at the end of the night, as police penned the remaining demonstrators – some of whom said they were trying to get home – in a plaza and blocked them from leaving. Police Superintendent Larry Snelling denied that police had “kettled” protesters, a tactic that involves corralling demonstrators in a confined area, which is banned under a federal consent decree.
• Snelling, who has been present at all major demonstrations during the convention, praised his officers’ handling of the protests, calling the response proportional. “We have people who showed up here to commit acts of violence,” he told reporters late Tuesday. “They wanted chaos.” 
• US Senator Bernie Sanders calls for ‘immediate ceasefire’ in DNC speech
• The US senator from Vermont received applause and cheers from the audience as he briefly addressed the war in Gaza during a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
• “We must end this horrific war in Gaza,” Sanders said on the second night of the convention.
• “Bring home the hostages and demand an immediate ceasefire,” he added.
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• Yesterday’s key developments: 
• The Israeli army on Tuesday said it retrieved the bodies of six hostages from Gaza’s southern district of Khan Younis in a joint operation with internal security agency Shin Bet.
• An Israeli air strike Tuesday killed at least 12 people at a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City. The Palestinian civil defence agency said around 700 people had been sheltering at the Mustafa Hafez school.
• About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
• Gaza’s health ministry collects data from the enclave’s hospitals and the Palestinian Red Crescent. For more on the health ministry’s casualty figures, click here.
• (FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)