Khalil al-Maqdah, a senior official in the Palestinian Fatah Movement, was reportedly killed by an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanon city of Sidon on Wednesday in the first direct attack on a Fatah member since the Gaza conflict first broke out in October. The attack will undoubtedly worsen the tension between Hezbollah and Israel.
Israel made a claim that al-Maqdah had been working with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in helping to transfer weapons and funds to militants in the West Bank. But senior Fatah member Tawfiq Tirawy criticized the attack as “further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full scale war in the region”, a US-based, anti-war outlet reported.
Esteban Carrillo, an Ecuadorian journalist and editor of The Cradle based in Beirut, spoke to Sputnik’s The Backstory on Thursday. Carrillo explained that the situation in Lebanon has not seemed to have shaken the confidence of the people living there, but may be causing the foreign embassies there to be fearful.
“This attack on Wednesday, [...] something that I feel wasn't being reported is that where they hit, it was a high-traffic highway, not too far from Beirut. So, obviously, the significance of them killing this member of the Fatah party and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of this Fatah party obviously rules the West Bank,” Carrillo explained.
“So, here in Lebanon, what is happening is [...] these attacks are becoming part of almost everyday life, and this is something kind of horrible to say, honestly. But, everything's in a holding pattern and Israel just keeps trying to poke, right? To poke at Hezbollah, to poke at Hamas, to poke at Fatah, which is, Fatah are their allies, essentially,” Carrillo explained. “The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, do fight against Israeli occupation. But the political side of Fatah, led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is very close to Israel. They have been for years now.”
“Even with the sonic booms that these Israeli warplanes do over the city on a daily basis, essentially trying to wage this type of psychological warfare. They just kind of become part of day to day. And I think this is one of the most honestly astonishing things about this country, about Lebanon that I've come to learn, is that the people are not afraid. You know, I wouldn't call anyone here in Lebanon afraid. And I'm sure people in the US embassy or the Canadian embassy, British embassy are kind of afraid,” the journalist explained.
Hostage deal negotiations between Israel and Hamas have come to a standstill after the new US proposal that was submitted last week showed too much favorability towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands, a US-based, anti-war outlet reported. However US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Netanyahu had accepted the US proposal and the ball was now in Hamas’ court to agree to.
Two Arab officials from a mediating country and another official involved in the talks said that the talks have reached a standstill, and that negotiators likely won’t convene in another meeting unless the US puts pressure on Israel to fall back on some of their demands. Israeli negotiators believe Netanyahu is trying to sabotage the ceasefire deal by refusing to back down from his demands, Israeli media reported.
“...let's remember, Hamas isn't even part of these talks. They said a couple of weeks ago, we are not going to return to ceasefire talks because they only provide cover for more massacres, for continued aggression against our people,” he added. “So this is why Hamas comes out and says enough is enough. We are ready to accept the deal that Biden presented on the 2nd of July. It's on the US to press Israel to accept, right. They are very unequivocal in these terms.”
“I don't see any hope for a [ceasefire] deal, honestly, because you need to take what both sides are saying, not what the US is trying to portray. Because for the US, this has really just become kind of a PR issue, right? A public relations thing. Just about optics. It's about the headlines,”
“Israel, for their part, is very clear in saying, ‘we don't want the war to stop. We don't want to withdraw from Gaza. We don't want to give up control of the Philadelphi corridor,’” the journalist continued. “It's like a petulant child that gets dessert after doing something like this, after going and killing someone in another capital. And then the US, what do they do? They approve a 20 million arms deal. They give them $3.5 billion in military assistance. [...] there's no consequences for Israel.”
“[Israel’s] objective is to wipe out the Palestinian population in Gaza. And they've done a pretty good job at it. …although the official death toll continues to stand around 40,000, that doesn't account for everyone who's under the rubble,” he added. “It doesn't account for the polio spreading in the street. That doesn't account for the famine, the malnourishment that these children are going to have to live with for the rest of their lives. So, I think they've done a really good job of making Gaza uninhabitable.”