Jerusalem:

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Tuesday the 2025 state budget will feature steep spending cuts as the government tries to balance fiscal responsibility with a need to finance Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.

The minister has been under pressure from the Bank of Israel and investors seeking clarity on fiscal policy for next year. The central bank has been calling for spending cuts and tax hikes or other ways to bring in more revenue. But Smotrich has said that during a war it was wrong to raise taxes.

Speaking at a news conference, Smotrich outlined only his main focus points while formulating the budget, which he said would be ready for a cabinet vote in early October and an initial parliamentary vote in mid-November. Full approval by lawmakers would be at the end of December, he said.

“We are in the longest and most expensive war in Israel’s history with expenses of 200 to 250 billion shekels ($54-$68 billion),” Smotrich said.

“We are not limiting war spending and we will support the war effort until victory,” he said. “Without victory, there will not be security and without security, there will be no economy.”

The war, triggered by Hamas attacks on Israel, has raged since October 7 with little signs of a near-term ceasefire.

To finance the war, Smotrich plans broad spending reductions of 35 billion shekels in 2025, along with a freeze in tax rates, benefits and wages. He sees a budget deficit of 4% of gross domestic product, down from a 6.6% of GDP target in 2024.

The deficit reached 8.1% in July and is expected to grow further in August but Smotrich said it will come back to its target by year end.

Three credit rating agencies lowered Israel’s credit rating this year and Smotrich has also been accused of not managing the economy well with scant growth of 1.2% in the second quarter.

Smotrich said the shekel was far stronger than prior to the war, the stock market was doing well and high tech investments have recovered, with the jobless rate at 2.8%.

A rise in inflation to 3.2% was temporary, and mainly due to supply factors stemming from the war, he said.

An economic plan accompanying the budget will include support for the high-tech sector, a streamlining of the public sector, measures to fight tax evasion and a diversification of capital sources.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Beirut, Lebanon:

The head of the Christian political party Lebanese Forces on Sunday accused Hezbollah of dragging the country into a war with Israel without consulting the people.

In a speech attacking the Shiite Muslim group, Samir Geagea, who heads the main Christian bloc in parliament, accused Hezbollah of “confiscating the Lebanese people’s decision on war and peace, as if there were no state”.

Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October, Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily cross-border fire with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally, which the Lebanese Forces and other parties oppose.

The clashes are “a war that the Lebanese people reject, but has been imposed on them”, Geagea said in a speech to supporters north of Beirut.

“It is a war that the Lebanese people do not want and over which the government has had no say. This war does not serve Lebanon, it has brought nothing to Gaza, nor alleviated its suffering one iota,” he added.

Iran-backed Hezbollah was the only Lebanese faction that did not disarm after the 1975-1990 civil war.

Its arsenal, reputed to be significantly larger than that of the Lebanese army, is touted by its supporters as a shield against Israel.

The movement’s critics call Hezbollah a “state within a state”.

“This war, in which Hezbollah is engaged, must stop before it brings about a major war that will spare no one,” Geagea said.

He called on the government to “urge” Hezbollah to stop its fight with Israel. 

Lebanon is without a president and the caretaker government is struggling to run a country gripped by a crippling financial crisis.

Tensions on the border appeared to have cooled since a major escalation last month. Analysts say both parties are showing restraint to avoid a regional escalation.

In the latest incident, one person was killed and 11 wounded in Israeli strikes on south Lebanon Sunday, the health ministry in Beirut said.

Hezbollah announced that one of its fighters had been killed by Israeli fire. 

The violence since October has killed some 607 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 132 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.

Tens of thousands of people remain displaced on both sides. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Paris:

After an escalation of hostilities Sunday amid over 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, here are the major eruptions of violence since their 2006 war.

The devastating month-long war in the summer of 2006 cost Lebanon more than 1,200 lives, mostly civilians, while some 160 Israelis were killed, mostly soldiers.

The following years saw sporadic attacks, which surged following the October 7 attack by Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas on Israel.

2007-2013: rocket fire and incursion

On June 17, 2007, two rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon hitting an industrial zone in the border town of Kiryat Shmona without causing casualties. Hezbollah denies responsibility.

In early August 2010, a move by Israeli troops to uproot trees in a disputed border area at Adaysseh sparks a deadly border battle in which two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist are killed along with a senior Israeli officer.

On August 7, 2013, four Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded in a blast claimed by Hezbollah 400 metres (yards) inside Lebanese territory.

2014-2015: Israeli strikes

On February 26, 2014, Hezbollah says Israeli warplanes had carried out an air raid on one of its positions at Lebanon’s border with Syria.

On October 7, Israel strikes two Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response to its bomb attack against Israeli troops on the ceasefire line on the Shebaa hills between the two countries that wounded two soldiers.

On January 28, 2015, two Israeli soldiers are killed in a Hezbollah ambush in the Shebaa hills.

The attack is carried out in retaliation for a raid blamed on Israel 10 days earlier on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights, which killed at least six members of Hezbollah and an Iranian general.

In retaliation, Israeli tanks and artillery bombarded several villages in southern Lebanon.

2019: drones and missiles strikes

On August 25, 2019, two explosive-laden drones hit the southern Beirut suburbs, causing material damage according to Hezbollah, which blames the attack on Israel.

The day before, an Israeli air strike in Syria had killed two Hezbollah members.

On September 1, the Israeli army and Hezbollah traded missile fire along the border.

2021: uptick in clashes

On August 4, 2021, three rockets were fired from Lebanon, of which two fell in Israel. The Israeli army responds with air strikes on southern Lebanon.

On August 6, Hezbollah fires more than 10 rockets at Israel, which responds with artillery fire.

2023-2024: October 7 attacks aftermath

Hezbollah has traded almost daily cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

In southern Lebanon, a Reuters video journalist was killed on October 13, and six other journalists from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera were wounded in a strike by an Israeli tank.

On January 2, 2024, Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri was killed in Beirut’s southern suburbs in a strike blamed on Israel.

On February 26, Israeli strikes Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in the first such raid on Lebanon’s east since fighting erupted in October.

July, August 2024: Hezbollah, Fatah chiefs killed

On July 27, a rocket strike killed 12 children aged 10-16 in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Israel blames the strike on Hezbollah, which denies the claim.

The Israeli army responds by striking Beirut’s southern suburbs on July 30, killing Hezbollah’s top commander in the south, Fuad Shukr.

In an August 21 strike, the Israeli military kills Khalil Maqdah, described by the Palestinian Fatah movement as “one of the leaders” of its armed wing in Lebanon.

August 2024: hostilities surge

On August 25, Hezbollah says it launched a barrage of hundreds of rockets and drones on Israel in response to the killing of Shukr. It says its operation “was completed and accomplished”.

But Israel says it has thwarted the attack, launching air strikes into Lebanon that the military says destroyed “thousands” of Hezbollah rocket launchers.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Dearborn, United States:

In key US swing state Michigan, Democratic voters of Arab and Middle Eastern heritage say Kamala Harris is going to have to win them back after they were alienated by President Joe Biden’s handling of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

The town of Dearborn, home to 110,000 people and a cultural hub for Arab Americans, could play a decisive role in deciding the fate of the battleground state in November’s presidential election.

Members of the community interviewed by AFP said they were willing to hear what the vice president had to say and weigh their options — a marked change from the outright hostility towards Biden.

“We are in a listening mode right now,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News.

Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at the party’s convention on Thursday, Harris pledged to get a Gaza ceasefire “done” and ensure Palestinians realize their right to “dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.”

But there was outrage among pro-Palestinian delegates that their request for a speaker spot at the convention was rejected. The group Muslim Women for Harris-Walz said the decision sent a “terrible message” and announced it was disbanding and withdrawing its support from the campaign.

Harris, who has vowed “not to be silent” about the suffering of Palestinians, recently met with members of the national “Uncommitted” movement that led the charge against Biden during the Democratic primary process. 

Although she made no firm promises, leaders said she impressed them with a show of empathy.

At the forefront of concerns are Israel’s 10 months of military operations in Gaza, which have devastated the Palestinian enclave since the war began in response to Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Growing influence 

Michigan, home to the “big three” automakers — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler — has long been an essential stop for White House aspirants.

Economic downturns in the 1970s led many to leave the so-called “Rust Belt” state, just as unrest in the Middle East brought new waves of Lebanese, Iraqi, Yemeni, and Palestinian immigrants.

“We’re a global city, where nearly 55 per cent of our residents are of Arab background,” said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud in a recent interview. “For many of us, when you talk about what’s happening in Gaza, these are our family and our friends.”

Famous as the birthplace of Henry Ford, Dearborn appears at first glance just like any small US city, with its wide thoroughfares and strip malls. 

But it is also home to the Islamic Center of America — the largest mosque in the country — and countless Middle Eastern supermarkets, eateries, and coffee shops.

When Siblani first started his newspaper in the mid-1980s, he remembers the then-mayor campaigned on a platform to address the “Arab problem.” 

But as the community’s numbers grew, and the children of blue-collar factory workers took up positions as lawyers, doctors, and businesspeople, so too did their political influence.

‘Lesser of two evils’ 

Historically socially conservative, Arab and Muslim Americans heavily favoured George W. Bush in the 2000 election. 

Years of the US “War on Terror” — which saw wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and Muslim American communities put under stricter law enforcement scrutiny — swung them firmly to the Democratic camp. 

In 2018, southeast Michiganders elected Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American in Congress — a milestone for the community. 

Three Arab-American mayors have also recently been elected in suburbs known for historic racism towards non-whites.

Angered by former president Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslim countries, support for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and more, Dearborn voters overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020, helping secure Michigan for the Democrats by a slim margin. 

Residents here are tired, however, of being asked to vote for the “lesser of two evils” and instead want candidates who will deliver on demands, such as a permanent ceasefire and an end to the supply of weapons to Israel.

“I think VP Harris has a window of opportunity,” said Faye Nemer, a community activist and CEO of the MENA American Chamber of Commerce. “She can either continue President Biden’s legacy or set her own agenda.”

Arab Americans in Dearborn have been impressed by Harris’s pick of Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz has taken a conciliatory approach to opponents of the war, unlike Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who took a hard line against college protesters.

But demands are hardening.

“We don’t want crumbs anymore,” declared Soujoud Hamade, a business lawyer and long-time Democrat, who vowed to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein if Harris did not deliver on the campaign trail. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel:

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US “bridging proposal” for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian operative group’s October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, was scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle in 1942, to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace.

Afterwards, he will head to a meeting with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in Doha, the scene of ceasefire talks last week.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month Gaza conflict.

Washington put forward the latest proposal last week after the talks in Doha.

Blinken said Monday he had “a very constructive meeting” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal”.

Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on the mediators to implement the framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions” and leaves him “fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators”.

Earlier on Monday, the US secretary of state had said: “This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security”.

Months of on-off negotiations with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“There is, I think, a real sense of urgency here, across the region, on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible,” Blinken said.

The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.

Biden said in his farewell speech to the convention that the protesters “have a point”, adding that “a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides”.

Permanent ceasefire

Israel and Hamas have traded blame for delays in reaching a truce deal.

Hamas insisted on “a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations within the territory.

Western ally Jordan, hostage supporters who protested in Tel Aviv during Blinken’s visit, and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu in order for an agreement to be reached.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s governing coalition oppose any truce.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,139 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and operative deaths.

Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that negotiators were aiming to “release a maximum number of living hostages” in the first phase of any ceasefire.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

US President Joe Biden said on Friday that no party in the Middle East should undermine efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal that he claimed was now in sight, but he warned that it was “far from over.”

KEY QUOTES

“No one in the region should take actions to undermine this process,” Biden wrote on social media.

He later told reporters he was optimistic about prospects for a ceasefire.

“As of an hour ago, it’s still in play. I’m optimistic. It’s far from over,” he said on Friday night. “There’s a couple more issues. I think we’ve got a shot,” he added, without elaborating.

Asked when a ceasefire deal would start if a deal is reached, Biden said: “That remains to be seen.”

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT

Israel has insisted that peace will only be possible if Palestinian Islamist group Hamas is destroyed, while Hamas has said it will only accept a permanent ceasefire, not a temporary one.

Ceasefire talks in Doha paused on Friday with negotiators to meet again next week. In a joint statement, the US, Qatar and Egypt said Washington presented a new proposal. Washington, Israel’s most important ally, says a ceasefire will reduce the rising threat of the widening of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Biden originally had laid out a three-phase ceasefire proposal in an address on May 31, but mediators have run into repeated obstacles.

CONTEXT

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, and has displaced nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Ankara:

Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas told a special session of the Turkish parliament on Thursday that he would travel to Gaza.

He was speaking as health ministry officials in the Hamas-run territory said the death count from Israel’s assault there had passed 40,000 people.

“I have decided to go to Gaza with other brothers from the Palestinian leadership,” Abbas said in an address applauded by Turkish lawmakers.

“I will do that. Even if this would cost my life. Our life is not more worthy than the life of a child,” he added.

Abbas, who added a visit to Turkey after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, said the Palestinian people would stand tall despite the Israeli strikes.

“Gaza is ours as a whole. We don’t accept any solution that would divide our territories,” he told the parliament.

“There cannot be a Palestinian state without Gaza. Our people will not surrender,” he promised.

Abbas, who heads the Fatah Palestinian movement, a rival to Hamas, had already visited Turkey at Erdogan’s invitation in early March.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Saturday an Israeli strike hit a school in Gaza City, killing 90-100 people, while the Israeli military said it had struck a Hamas command centre.

“Forty martyrs and dozens wounded after the Israeli bombing of the Al-Taba’een school in the Al-Sahaba area in Gaza City,” agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal said in a post on Telegram.

Basal described the incident as “a horrific massacre”, with some bodies catching fire.

“The crews are trying to control the fire to retrieve the bodies of the martyrs and rescue the wounded,” he said.

Israel’s army said Saturday it had “precisely struck Hamas terrorists operating within a Hamas command and control center embedded in the Al-Taba’een school”.

On Thursday, the agency said Israeli strikes had hit two schools in Gaza City, killing more than 18 people.

The Israeli military said at the time it had struck Hamas command centres.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Palestinian operatives seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 39 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,699 people, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Israel has vowed to destroy the Palestinian group in retaliation for its October attack, but during 10 months of war across the Gaza Strip, the military has found itself returning to some areas to fight the militants again.

Israel’s military on Friday said troops were operating around Khan Yunis, the southern Gaza city from which soldiers had withdrawn in April after months of fierce fighting with Hamas.

After the military issued an evacuation order for parts of Khan Yunis, AFPTV images showed a crowd of people flowing through dusty, damaged streets on foot or on donkeys and motorcycle carts piled with belongings.

By Friday, the United Nations Humanitarian Office OCHA estimated that “at least 60,000 Palestinians may have moved towards western Khan Yunis in the past 72 hours”, said UN spokeswoman Florencia Soto Nino.

The Gaza war has already pulled in Iran-aligned groups in the region, and fears of a broader Middle East war have surged following vows of vengeance for the killing of two senior militants, including Hamas’s political leader.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

By dusk, the streets of Khan Yunis stood completely deserted and eerily quiet. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Crowds fleeing Khan Yunis after an Israeli evacuation order gave way to empty streets on Friday as Palestinian residents tried to escape a new Israeli military operation in Gaza’s main southern area.

“They threw leaflets at us, ordering us to evacuate”, Reem Abu Hayya told AFP, referring to the flyers that Israeli forces drop from planes to order the evacuation of areas ahead of a military operation.

The Khan Yunis area had already seen evacuation orders in late July, and heavy fighting that devastated the area earlier this year.

“We don’t know where we’re going, and we have sick and disabled people with us. Where can we go?” Reem Abu Hayya asked AFP as she stood on the street in front of a building reduced to a pile of rebar and broken concrete.

In a besieged territory that has been consistently bombed over the past 10 months and where supplies enter with great difficulty, people carried all they could as they fled on Thursday.

AFP journalists saw one young man carrying planks of wood loosely tied in bundles, to be used as shelter structure or fuel in the near future.

With petrol scarce, only the most fortunate drove, often with mattresses piled high on the car roof. The vast majority walked. They carried their belongings in plastic and garbage bags, on donkey-puled carts, bikes, strollers or wheelchairs.

By dusk, the streets of Khan Yunis stood completely deserted and eerily quiet, AFP journalists reported. Only the ruins of buildings damaged in earlier strikes still stood.

The flyers dropped Thursday ordered residents to leave eastern towns of Khan Yunis governorate including Al-Salqa, Al-Qarara, Bani Suheila, and neighbourhoods in the city of Khan Yunis.

“Hamas and terrorist organisations continue to launch rockets from your areas”, read the flyers which echoed past orders and warned that the Israeli army “will act forcefully against these elements”.

Late last month Philippe Lazzarini, who heads the United Nations agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, said on social media site X that only “14% of areas in Gaza” were not subject to evacuation orders.

On Friday, the military said it launched a new operation in Khan Yunis following “intelligence indicating the presence of terrorists and terror infrastructure” there.

“The troops are engaging in combat both above and below-ground to eliminate terrorists in the area while locating and dismantling weaponry and terrorist infrastructure,” the military said in a statement.

– ‘We are exhausted’ –

The military has often returned to Gaza to areas where it had previously completed major operations against Palestinian militants, only to find them resurfacing or to act on intelligence about the location of hostages.

“Enough! For both, the Jews and Hamas! Both of them should look at the people of Gaza, have mercy on us for God’s sake,” Ahmed al-Najjar, angry at the war and the prospect of yet another displacement, told AFP.

War in Gaza began when Hamas Palestinian militants on October 7 attacked southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 39,699 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details of civilian and militant deaths.

Mohammad al-Farra, from Sheikh Nasser in the east of Khan Yunis, also expressed frustration at the several displacements his family has lived through.

“We were the first to return to our home… as soon as the military operation in our area ended, to escape the heat, the displacement, and the hardship”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

“Then the occupation returned to drive us out again, making us suffer the tragedy multiple times over”, he said, referring to Israel. “We are exhausted. The war must end immediately so that we can feel human again, even just a little”.

Israeli military vehicles manoeuvre near the Israel-Gaza border, amid the conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Israel, on July 25, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Australia, New Zealand and Canada on Friday called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and asked Israel to respond to a United Nations court which last week ruled its occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there were illegal.

“Israel must listen to the concerns of the international community,” the leader’s statement said.

Also read | ‘I will not be silent’: Kamala Harris presses Netanyahu over humanitarian situation in Gaza

“The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas. It must end.”

The leaders also said Israel needed to hold extremist settlers accountable for ongoing acts of violence against Palestinians, reverse its settlement program in the West Bank and work towards a two-state solution.

Israel’s embassy in Australia on Thursday said it condemned acts of violence against Palestinian communities.

Last week, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and its settlements there are illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible, its strongest findings to date on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The leader’s statement called on Israel to “respond substantively” to the ICJ.

Israel’s foreign ministry last week rejected the ICJ opinion as “fundamentally wrong” and one-sided, and repeated its stance that a political settlement in the region can only be reached by negotiations.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem – areas of historic Palestine which the Palestinians want for a state – in the 1967 Middle East war and has since built settlements in the West Bank and steadily expanded them.

Israeli leaders argue the territories are not occupied in legal terms because they are on disputed lands, but the United Nations and most of the international community regard them as occupied territory.

The joint statement, the second since February, expressed concern about escalating violence between Israel and Hezbollah and said the risk of a wider regional war made a ceasefire in Gaza all the more urgent.

The statement came hours after U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister

Benjamin Netanyahu to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden.