International
Anger, grief in south Lebanon city, almost deserted after Israeli strikes
Anger, grief in south Lebanon city, almost deserted after Israeli strikes
Conversations in Tyre in southern Lebanon happen in a hurry now. It’s not wise to linger on the streets, and there are fewer and fewer people to talk to.
Chats can be cut short by the rumble of Israeli bombing, or the sound of outgoing rocket fire by Hezbollah – which can attract incoming fire.
Israeli drones buzz overhead.
You drive fast, but don’t speed, knowing there are eyes in the sky. Mostly you are the only car on an empty road – which can make you a target.
That knowledge is always with us, like the body armour we now wear.
But civilians here have no armour plating to shield them, and many Lebanese no longer have a roof over their heads. More than one million have been forced to flee, according to the Prime Minister, Najib Mikati.
War has created a vacuum here – sucking the life out of this ancient city proud of its Roman ruins, and golden sandy beach.
Streets are empty, and shops shuttered. The seashore is deserted. Windows rattle with Israeli air strikes.
The local civil defence headquarters lies abandoned – rescue teams were forced to evacuate – to save themselves after they got a telephone warning from Israel.
Israeli strikes are getting louder and closer to our hotel – in recent days several strikes on the hills opposite us appear to involve some of Israel’s most destructive bombs, weighing in at 1000lb.
And then there is the Hezbollah factor. Even as the armed group is trying to hold off invading Israeli troops on Lebanese soil, it is controlling the international media in the city of Tyre. It limits our movements, though it has no control over what we write or broadcast.
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In hospitals, doctors look weary and overwhelmed. Many no longer go home because it is too dangerous to travel.
Instead, they tend to patients like nine-year-old Mariam, whose left leg is in a cast, and whose arm is heavily bandaged. She lies sleeping in a bed in Hiram Hospital, dark hair framing her face.
“She came in as part of a family of nine,” said Dr Salman Aidibi, the hospital CEO.
“Five of them were also treated. We operated on Mariam, and she is doing much better. We hope to send her home today. Most casualties are given first aid here and stabilised before being sent to other centres, because this hospital is on the front line.”
He says the hospital receives about 30-35 injured women and children a day, and it is taking its toll on staff.
“We need to be positive while we’re working,” he said. “It’s when we stop and contemplate, remember, that’s when we get emotional.”
Asked about what may lie ahead his response comes with a sigh. “We are in a war,” he says. “A destructive war on Lebanon. We hope for peace, but we are prepared for all eventualities.”
Also prepared for the worst is Hassan Manna. He’s staying put in Tyre as war tightens its grip. And he is staying open for business at the small coffee shop he has run for the past 14 years. Locals still pass by for a chat and some reassurance in the form of small plastic cups of sweet coffee.
“I’m not leaving my country,” Hassan told me. “I’m not leaving my house. I’m staying in my place, with my children. I’m not afraid of them (the Israelis).
“The whole world is out on the streets. We don’t want to be humiliated like that.
“Let me die in my house.”
Five of his neighbours were killed in their home by an Israeli air strike last weekend. Hassan saw it happen and was thrown in the air by two incoming Israeli missiles.
He managed to walk away with just an injured arm.
Was there a Hezbollah target there? We don’t know. Hassan says the dead were all civilians and members of one family, including two women and a baby.
Israel says its targets are Hezbollah fighters and their facilities, and not the people of Lebanon. Many here say otherwise – including doctors, and witnesses like Hassan.
Israel says it is taking steps to minimise the risk of harming civilians – accusing Hezbollah of hiding its infrastructure among civilian populations.
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“There was nothing (no weapons) there,” Hassan insisted. “If there was, we would have left the area. There was nothing to be bombed. The woman was 75.”
After the strike he dug in the rubble for survivors until he collapsed and was taken to hospital himself.
When he speaks of his neighbours his voice breaks with anger and grief – and his eyes fill with tears.
“It’s unjust,” he said, “totally unjust. We know the people. They were born here. I swear I wish I had died with them.”
Ten days ago, we got the view in a Christian area, close to the border.
One local woman – who asked not to be named – told me everyone was living on their nerves.
“The phone is constantly beeping,” she said. “We can never know when (Israeli) attacks are coming. It’s always tense. Many nights we can’t sleep.”
We were interrupted by the sound of an Israeli air strike, which sent smoke rising from distant hills.
She reeled off a list of villages nearer the border – now deserted and destroyed after the past year of tit for tat exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel.
She said the damage in these areas was already far greater than in the five-week war of 2006. “If people want to come back later”, she said, “there are no houses left to come back to.
“And there is no house that did not lose relatives,” she said, “either close or distant. All the men are Hezbollah.”
Before the war the armed group was always “bragging about its weapons, and saying it would fight Israel forever,” she told me. “Privately, even their followers are now shocked at the quality and quantity of attacks by Israel.”
Few here would dare to guess at the future. “We have entered a tunnel,” she said, “and until now we cannot see the light.”
From Tel Aviv, to Tehran, to Washington no one can be sure what is coming next, and what the Middle East will look like the day after.
Anger, grief in south Lebanon city, almost deserted after Israeli strikes
BBC
International
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
The last major functioning hospital in northern Gaza was forcibly evacuated by the Israeli military on Friday after dozens of people were reportedly killed in Israeli strikes targeting the area.
Medical staff, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, have also been detained, Gaza health officials said on Saturday.
The hospital director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, was among the first to report that about 50 people had been killed in Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital on Friday.
The IDF had said it was carrying out an operation in the area, alleging the hospital was a “Hamas terrorist stronghold”.
On Friday, patients at the hospital were forcibly moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital which doctors warn is damaged and unsuitable due to a lack of power generators and water.
Eid Sabbah, head of the nursing department at Kamal Adwan, told the BBC the military had ordered the evacuation around 07:00 on Friday, giving the hospital about 15 minutes to move patients and staff into the courtyard.
Israeli troops then entered the hospital and removed the remaining patients, he said.
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The IDF said it had “facilitated the secure evacuation of civilians, patients and medical personnel” before beginning the operation.
Seriously ill patients were moved to the nearby Indonesian Hospital, itself evacuated earlier in the week, which medics have described as non-functional.
“You can’t call it a hospital, it’s more of a shelter. It’s not equipped for patients,” Gaza’s deputy minister of health, Dr Abu-Al Rish, told the BBC on Friday.
Dr Sabbah, from Kamal Adwan Hospital, said: “It’s dangerous because there are patients in the ICU department in a coma and in need of ventilation machines and moving them will put them in danger.”
He had said critically ill patients needed to be moved in specialised vehicles.
The World Health Organization said the raid “has put this last major health facility in north Gaza out of service”.
“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” it posted on X on Friday.
Nadav Shoshani, international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said in a post on Friday evening on X that a “small fire broke out in an empty building inside the hospital that is under control”.
This was when IDF troops were not inside the hospital, he said, adding that “after preliminary examination, no connection was found between IDF activity to the fire”.
The director of Kamal Adwan hospital had said on Friday that approximately 50 people had been killed, including five medical staff, in a series of Israeli air strikes targeting the vicinity of the hospital.
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The statement from Dr Hussam Abu Safiya said a building opposite the hospital was targeted by Israeli warplanes, leading to the death of a paediatrician and a lab technician, as well as their families.
He said a third staff member who worked as a maintenance technician was targeted and killed as he rushed to the scene of the first strike.
Two of the hospital’s paramedics were 500m (1,640ft) away from the hospital when they were targeted and killed by another strike, the statement continued, with their bodies remaining in the street with no-one able to reach them.
The Israeli military said on Friday morning that it was “unaware of strikes in the area of Kamal Adwan hospital” and was looking into the reports that staff had been killed.
Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia has been under a tightening Israeli blockade imposed on parts of northern Gaza since October, when the military said it had launched an offensive to stop Hamas from regrouping there.
The UN has said the area is under a “near-total siege” as the Israeli military heavily restricts access of aid deliveries to an area where an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 people remain.
In recent days, the hospital’s administrators have issued desperate pleas appealing to be protected, as they say the facility has become a regular target for Israeli shelling and explosives.
Oxfam said that attempts by aid agencies to deliver supplies to the area since October had been unsuccessful because of “deliberate delays and systematic obstructions” by the Israeli military.
Additional reporting by Shaimaa Khalil
Israel ejects Gaza hospital, detains medical personnel
BBC
International
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
Trump asks Supreme Court to suspend law for TikTok ban
US President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief Friday urging the Supreme Court to pause a law that would ban TikTok the day before his January 20 inauguration if it is not sold by its Chinese owner ByteDance.
“In light of the novelty and difficulty of this case, the court should consider staying the statutory deadline to grant more breathing space to address these issues,” Trump’s legal team wrote, to give him “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution.”
Trump was fiercely opposed to TikTok during his 2017-21 first term, and tried in vain to ban the video app on national security grounds.
The Republican voiced concerns — echoed by political rivals — that the Chinese government might tap into US TikTok users’ data or manipulate what they see on the platform.
US officials had also voiced alarm over the popularity of the video-sharing app with young people, alleging that its parent company is subservient to Beijing and that the app is used to spread propaganda, claims denied by the company and the Chinese government.
Trump called for a US company to buy TikTok, with the government sharing in the sale price, and his successor Joe Biden went one stage further — signing a law to ban the app for the same reasons.
– Reversing course –
Trump has now, however, reversed course.
At a press conference last week, Trump said he has “a warm spot” for TikTok and that his administration would take a look at the app and the potential ban.
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Earlier this month, the president-elect met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Recently, Trump told Bloomberg he had changed his mind about the app: “Now (that) I’m thinking about it, I’m for TikTok, because you need competition.”
“If you don’t have TikTok, you have Facebook and Instagram — and that’s, you know, that’s Zuckerberg.”
International
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
Actress Olivia Hussey, who shot to international prominence as a teenager for her role in the acclaimed 1968 film version of Romeo and Juliet, has died aged 73.
The Argentinian-born actress, who grew up in London, died on Friday surrounded by her loved ones, a statement posted on her Instagram said.
Hussey won the best new actress Golden Globe for her part as Juliet, but decades later she sued Paramount Pictures for sexual abuse as she was aged just 15 when she filmed the movie’s nude scene.
Her other most notable screen role was as Mary, mother of Jesus, in 1977 TV miniseries Jesus of Nazareth.
“As we grieve this immense loss, we also celebrate Olivia’s enduring impact on our lives and the industry,” the statement said.
Hussey was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1951, before moving to London aged seven and studying at the Italia Conti Academy drama school.
1968’s Romeo and Juliet was nominated for best picture and director Oscars
She was 15 when Romeo and Juliet director Franco Zeffirelli discovered her onstage, playing opposite Vanessa Redgrave in the play The Prime of Miss Joan Brodie
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Zeffirelli was looking for someone who was young enough to be a convincing Juliet in what he intended to be the definitive cinematic version of the Shakespeare play.
He cast Hussey alongisde British 16-year-old Leonard Whiting as Romeo in the film.
The film was nominated for an Oscar for best picture and director. Hussey missed out on an Oscar nomination herself in a strong year in which Barbra Streisand won the main award for Funny Girl.
But at that year’s Golden Globes Hussey won the award for best new star.
Decades later, she and Whiting sued Paramount Pictures alleging Zeffirelli – who died in 2019 – had encouraged them to film nude scenes despite previous assurances they would not have to.
The pair sought damages of more than $500m (£417m), based on suffering they said they had experienced and the revenue brought in by the film since its release.
But last year a judge dismissed the case, finding the scene was not “sufficiently sexually suggestive”.
In 1977, Hussey had reunited with Zeffirelli for Jesus of Nazareth to play the Virgin Mary, before appearing in Death on the Nile a year later based on Agatha Christie’s novel.
Her roles in early slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and TV film Psycho IV: The Beginning earned her recognition as a scream queen. In the latter, she p[layed Norman Bates’s mother in a prequel storyline.
In later years she also took on work as a voice actress, appearing frequently in video games.
But she did have one final reunion with her former Romeo – as she and Whiting appeared together in the 2015 British film Social Suicide, which was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, albeit set in the social media era.
Romeo and Juliet actress Olivia Hussey dies at 73
BBC
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