������Ƶ

BEIRUT: Lebanese President Joseph Aoun ruled out normalization between his country and Israel on Friday, while expressing hope for peaceful relations with Beirut’s southern neighbor, which still occupies parts of southern Lebanon.
Aoun’s statement is the first official reaction to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar’s statement last week in which he expressed his country’s interest in normalizing ties with Lebanon and Syria.
Aoun “distinguished between peace and normalization,” according to a statement shared by the presidency.
“Peace is the lack of a state of war, and this is what matters to us in Lebanon at the moment. As for the issue of normalization, it is not currently part of Lebanese foreign policy,” the president said in front of a delegation from an Arab think tank.
Lebanon and Syria have technically been in a state of war with Israel since 1948, with Damascus saying that talks of normalization were “premature.”
The president called on Israel to withdraw from the five points near the border it still occupies. Israel was required to fully withdraw from southern Lebanon under a November ceasefire seeking to end its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Aoun said that Israeli troops in Lebanon “obstruct the complete deployment of the army up to the internationally recognized borders.”
According to the ceasefire agreement, Hezbollah must pull its fighters north of the Litani River, around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border with Israel, leaving the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the area.
The United States has been calling on Lebanon to fully disarm Hezbollah, and Lebanese authorities sent their response to Washington’s demand this week.
The response was not made public, but Aoun stated that Beirut was determined to “hold the monopoly over weapons in the country.”
The implementation of this move “will take into account the interest of the state and its security stability to preserve civil peace on one hand, and national unity on the other,” hinting that Hezbollah’s disarmament will not be done through force.
Hezbollah, a powerful political force in Lebanon, is the only non-state actor to have officially retained its weaponry after the end of Lebanon’s 15-year civil war in 1990, as parts of southern Lebanon were still under Israeli occupation at the time.
The Lebanese group was heavily weakened following its year-long hostilities with Israel, which escalated into a two-month war in September.

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed 18 people on Friday, including 10 who were waiting for aid in the south of the war-ravaged territory.
The fresh deaths came as the United Nations said nearly 800 people had been killed trying to access food in Gaza since late May, when Israel began easing a more than two-month total blockade on supplies.
UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said most of the deaths occurred near facilities operated by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Gaza civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughayyir said that 10 people were shot by Israeli forces on Friday while waiting for supplies in the Al-Shakoush area northwest of Rafah, where there are regular reports of deadly fire on aid seekers.
The civil defense reported six more people killed in four separate Israeli air strikes in the area of Khan Yunis, in the south of the territory.
Two drone strikes around Gaza City in the north killed two more people, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
There was no immediate comment on the latest strikes from the Israeli military, which has recently expanded its operations across Gaza.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties.
A Palestinian speaking to AFP from southern Gaza on condition of anonymity reported ongoing attacks and widespread devastation, with Israeli tanks seen near Khan Yunis.
“The situation remains extremely difficult in the area — intense gunfire, intermittent air strikes, artillery shelling, and ongoing bulldozing and destruction of displacement camps and agricultural land to the south, west and north of Al-Maslakh,” an area to Khan Yunis’s south, said the witness.
Israel’s military said in a statement that its soldiers were operating in the area, dismantling “terrorist infrastructure sites, both above and below ground,” and seizing “weapons and military equipment.”
The civil defense also reported on Friday five people killed in an Israeli strike the previous night on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in Jabalia Al-Nazla, in northern Gaza.
Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been displaced at least once during the more than 21-month war, which has created dire humanitarian conditions for the more than two million people living there.
Many have sought shelter in school buildings, but these have repeatedly come under Israeli attack, with the military often saying they were targeting Hamas militants hiding among civilians.