Live blog: US believes Gaza truce deal unlikely in Biden's term — report

Friday, September 20, 2024

2238 GMT — US officials now believe that a ceasefire deal between Israel and Palestinian resistance group Hamas in Gaza is unlikely before President Joe Biden leaves office in January, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

The newspaper cited top-level officials in the White House, State Department and Pentagon without naming them. Those bodies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"I can tell you that we do not believe that deal is falling apart," Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters before the report was published.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other US officials have been saying for months that a ceasefire deal had been agreed upon.

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2200 GMT — Taiwan questions head of pager firm linked to Lebanon blasts

The president and founder of a Taiwanese pager company linked to the Israeli detonation of thousands of pagers in Lebanon has been questioned by prosecutors and then released.

Taiwan-based Gold Apollo's president and founder Hsu Ching-kuang has said it did not manufacture the devices used in the attack, and that they were made by a Budapest-based company BAC which has a licence to use its brand.

Images of destroyed pagers analysed by the Reuters news agency showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo.

Hsu declined to answer reporters questions as he left one of the Taipei offices of Taiwan prosecutors late on Thursday.

Calls to the prosecutors' office before office hours on Friday were not answered. Taipei prosecutors have not issued any statements so far about their investigations into Gold Apollo.

2215 GMT — Israel says Iran and Hezbollah sent texts to millions of Israelis

Israel has accused Iran and Hezbollah of bombarding millions of Israelis with threatening text messages as the conflict between the Israeli military and the Lebanese group escalated.

Israel's National Cyber Directorate said that a flood of Hebrew-language text messages popped up on cellphones nationwide, falsely purporting to be a communication from the Israeli Home Front Command.

The regime said roughly 5 million suspicious SMS texts were sent to Israelis late on Wednesday.

It determined that Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah hacked an Israeli mobile service provider and exploited its customer accounts. The Israeli regime did not say which provider. It was not immediately clear whether additional customer information was compromised.

"Say goodbye to your loved ones," read one of the messages seen by The Associated Press. "Don't worry, you will hug them in hell."

2030 GMT — Israel and Hezbollah trade missiles, rockets

Israel has heavily bombed several towns in southern Lebanon while Hezbollah group fired rockets on northern Israel in return as fears grow over a wider war in the Middle East.

The Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli warplanes "conducted a series of strikes on Mahmoudiyeh area near Aaichiyeh village and Kasarat al-Aroosh in the Jezzine area."

"Israeli enemy aircraft launched ten missiles toward the Birket Jabbour area," it said.

In a separate incident, four people were wounded in an Israeli air strike targeting the town of Hanniyeh in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry.

Israeli military claimed its fighter jets struck some100 rocket launchers consisting of about 1,000 barrels.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it targeted the Israeli military site of Metula in northern Israel with a barrage of Falaq rockets.

Following the attack, the mayor of Metula said the rockets launched from southern Lebanon resulted in several fires and caused significant damage to homes, according to Yedioth Ahronoth.

In another statement, the Lebanese group said it also struck the command headquarters of the Shomera Battalion in northern Israel with a salvo of Katyusha rockets.

2100 GMT — France, US urge all parties to avoid 'escalatory actions'

France and the US have called on all parties in the Middle East to avoid escalatory actions.

"France and the United States are united in calling for restraint, and urging de-escalation when it comes to the Middle East in general, and when it comes to Lebanon in particular," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a joint news conference after a meeting with his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne in Paris.

"We continue to work to get a cease-fire for Gaza over the finish line … We believe that remains both possible and necessary, but meanwhile, we do not want to see any escalatory actions by any party that makes that more difficult," Blinken added.

Outgoing French Foreign Minister Sejourne said, for his part, that they were "much worried" by the current situation in the Middle East, and reiterated the call for all parties to de-escalate tensions.

"Lebanon matters to France. Lebanon would not recover from a total war," Sejourne stressed, expressing support for the Lebanese people.

For our live updates from Thursday, September 19, 2024, click here.