Live: At least 22 Palestinians killed in strike on Gaza shelter, Hezbollah hits military base inside Israel

A United States military veteran was arrested by Israeli forces while accompanying a Palestinian farmer in a village in the West Bank, according to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

Michael Jacobsen was in the Palestinian village of Masafer Yatta in the Hebron governorate when he and other activists as well as Palestinian land owners were approached by Israeli soldiers on Thursday morning.

The ISM said the farmer Jacobsen was accompanying was facing "daily harassment, attacks, and invasions of his private land by Israeli settlers and occupation forces".

The soldiers demanded their identification and later Israeli police were called, who arrested Jacobsen and took him into custody at an interrogation centre.

Read more: US military veteran arrested by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank

The Biden administration has announced a new round of sanctions on Iran in response to the 1 October attack on Israel. 

The US Office of Foreign Assets Control, under the Department of the Treasury, designated 10 entities in multiple jurisdictions as well as 17 vessels as "blocked property".

The citation is their involvement in shipments for the already sanctioned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and Triliance Petrochemical Co Limited (Triliance), the Treasury said. 

The State Department is also designating six other entities and identifying six vessels as blocked property "for knowingly engaging in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport, or marketing of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran".

Among the sanctioned companies are the UAE-based Max Maritime Solutions FZE and Jazira Das International Oil Products Trading LLC, as well as Hong Kong-based Cathay Harvest Marine Ltd.

"This action intensifies financial pressure on Iran, limiting the regime’s ability to earn critical energy revenues to undermine stability in the region and attack US partners and allies," the US Treasury said in a statement. 

France, Italy and Spain on Friday condemned the targeting of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as Unifil, by the Israel military. A joint statement said such attacks were "unjustifiable" and should "immediately come to an end".

"We express our outrage after several peacekeepers were injured in Naqoura. These attacks constitute serious violation of the obligations of Israel under UNSCR (United Nations Security Council Resolution) 1701 and under humanitarian international law," the statement said.

"We recall that all peacekeepers must be protected and reiterate our praise for the continued and indispensable commitment of Unifil troops/personnel in this very challenging context," it added, as it called for "an immediate ceasefire".

Reporting by Reuters

The rhetoric about never-ending Sunni-Shia war and mayhem is never far from the minds of western political leaders, think tank inhabitants, Middle Eastern leaders allied with the West, media talking heads, poisoned social media users, and imperially appointed religious sermonisers. 

All are aiding and abetting the process of driving war, acting as merchants of death and destruction while claiming to work for peace. 

As developments in the British-designated Middle East heat up again, colonial and Orientalist practitioners, along with their handpicked post-colonial ruling elites, are jumping into the fray to add insult to multi-generational injury.

Read more: How western lies about the 'Sunni-Shia divide' have set the region ablaze

The US secretary of state held a phone call with Lebanon's speaker of parliament on Friday, according to Nabih Berri's office. 

Earlier in the day at a news conference in Laos, where Antony Blinken is currently on a visit, he said the US is "extremely focused" on reaching a "diplomatic understanding" between Israel and Lebanon, but did not suggest that the US has pivoted from its previously stated goal of eliminating Hezbollah alongside Israel. 

"Israel has a right to defend itself against terror attacks coming from Hezbollah, from Hamas, from anyone else.  But it’s also vitally important that in doing that, they focus on making sure that civilians are protected and, again, are not being caught in a terrible crossfire.  So that’s another area of concern," Blinken told reporters. 

He added that he has been in touch with Lebanese officials, and that the US believes that "the issue of the vacant presidency" in the country should be "resolved" in order for Lebanon to stand on its feet. 

US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin says he told his Israeli counterpart to ensure the safety of UN peacekeepers along the demarcation line between Israel and Lebanon. 

In his phone call with Yoav Gallant on Friday, Austin said he "urged ensuring the safety of UNIFIL forces and coordinating efforts to pivot from military operations to a diplomatic pathway as soon as feasible".

Austin and Gallant have convened regular phone calls over the past year, sometimes speaking several times a week. 

I called Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant last evening to discuss Israel's operations in Lebanon. I reaffirmed ironclad support for Israel's right to defend itself and reiterated U.S. commitment to a diplomatic arrangement that safely returns both Lebanese and Israeli…

— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) October 11, 2024

Lebanon's army has said that two people were killed and three others wounded after Israeli forces struck one of its military posts in southern Lebanon's Kafra.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it was conducting a thorough review after being notified of what it described as UN peacekeepers being "inadvertently" wounded in southern Lebanon.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) announced on Friday that two peacekeepers had been injured near the border with Israel.

A day earlier, two Indonesian peacekeepers were wounded after Israel fired on the Unifil headquarters. 

Dozens of Palestinians were wounded after an Israeli quadcopter fired at a school sheltering displaced people in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, according to Palestinian civil defence workers cited by Reuters. 

Civil defence crews transferred the wounded to a nearby hospital.

France has summoned Israel's ambassador to the country to seek an explanation after Israeli troops fired at positions held by UN peacekeepers, including at the Naqoura base, in southern Lebanon. 

"These attacks constitute serious violations of international law and must stop immediately," the French foreign ministry said on Friday.

France has around 700 troops as part of the Unifil mission. French troops have not been wounded. 

The foreign ministry said that all warring parties had an obligation to protect peacekeepers.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) announced Friday that two peacekeepers had been injured near the border with Israel.

Already on Thursday, two Indonesian peacekeepers had been injured after Israel fired on the Unifil headquarters, provoking an international outcry, with Italy going so far as to speak of possible "war crimes".

On Friday, "an Israeli army bulldozer knocked down sections of the protective wall" of a Unifil position, the force added.

Nearly a decade ago, a leading Israeli human rights activist divulged to me a private conversation he’d had a short time earlier with one of Europe’s ambassadors to Israel. He had clearly been shaken by the exchange.

The ambassador’s country was then widely seen as one of the most sympathetic in the West to the Palestinian people. The Israeli activist had expressed concerns about Europe’s inaction in the face of relentless Israeli attacks on Palestinian rights and systematic violations of international law. 

At the time, Israel was enforcing a lengthy siege on Gaza that had deprived more than two million people there of the essentials of life, and it had repeatedly bombed urban areas, killing hundreds of civilians. 

In the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel had intensified its expansion of illegal Jewish settlements, leading to a surge in violence from settler militias and the Israeli army. Palestinians were being killed and driven off their land.

The activist asked the ambassador a simple question: What would Israel need to do for his government to act against it? Where was the red line?

The ambassador paused as he thought hard. And then, with a shrug of the shoulders, he responded: there was nothing Israel could do. There was no red line.

A decade ago, that comment might have been interpreted as evasive. A year into Israel’s erasure of Gaza, it sounds utterly prophetic.

There is no red line. And more importantly, there never has been. 

Read more: Israel wants to finish the job Washington started after 9/11 By Jonathan Cook

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (Unrwa), said on Friday it has almost been an objective of the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza to get rid of the agency, adding that Unrwa will have clarity on funding from the United States in the beginning of 2025.

Reporting by Reuters

Israeli forces have killed at least 61 Palestinians and wounded 231 in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This brings the death toll since 7 October 2023 to 42,126, with more than 98,117 wounded and an estimated 10,000 still missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.

Health officials report that over 60 percent of the victims are children and women.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced what he said was an attack on the Unifil peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon on Friday as a crime.

He also said he had discussed efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Reporting by Reuters