19/09/2024

THURSDAY | SEP 19, 2024

9 Hezbollah pagers explode, killing 12 and injuring 3,000

resolution that demands Israel end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months. Washington has long opposed unilateral measures that undermine the prospect of a two-state solution. The draft resolution aims to welcome a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements is illegal and should be withdrawn. The ICJ advisory opinion is not binding but carries weight under international law and may weaken support for Israel. The advisory opinion – by the highest United Nations court also known as the World Court – said this should be done “as rapidly as possible”, although the draft General Assembly resolution allows for a 12 month timeline. The draft resolution is the first to be formally put forward by the Palestinian Authority since it gained additional rights and privileges this month including a seat among UN members in the assembly hall and the right to propose draft resolutions. A General Assembly resolution also is not binding, but carries political weight. There is no veto power in the assembly. “Each country has a vote, and the world is watching us,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the General Assembly on Tuesday. “Please stand on the right side of history. With international law. With freedom. With peace.” ‘End single state veto at UN Security Council’ HELSINKI: Finland’s President Alexander Stubb has called for expansion of the UN Security Council, abolition of its single state veto power, and suspension of any member engaging in an “illegal war” such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Stubb, who leads the Nordic nation’s foreign policy, said he would add his voice to reform calls at next week’s UN General Assembly which is to discuss composition of the global body’s Security Council. Consisting of five permanent and 10 rotating member states, the council’s brief is to keep global peace, but geopolitical rivalries have deadlocked it on issues from Ukraine to Gaza. Stubb said on Tuesday he would propose the number of permanent members be expanded from five to 10, with one more from Latin America, two from Africa and two from Asia. “No single state should have veto power in the UN Security Council,” he said. The US, one of five veto-wielding nations with Russia, China, France and Britain, has also backed two permanent seats for Africa. He said any member engaging an illegal war should be kicked off. Moscow has justified its invasion of Ukraine by saying it is creating a buffer against Western aggression and taking territory that is historically Russia’s. – Reuters

EU court scraps €1.5 bil fine against Google BRUSSELS: An EU court yesterday scrapped a €1.49 billion (RM7 billion) fine imposed by Brussels against Google for an abuse of dominance over online advertising. “The General Court annuls the (European) Commission’s decision in its entirety,” the Luxembourg based court said, adding that the “institution committed errors in its assessment”. Brussels “failed to take into consideration all the relevant circumstances in its assessment of the duration of the contract clauses that the commission had deemed abusive”, the court said. The commission, the EU’s influential competition regulator, said it “takes note” and would “carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps”, which could include an appeal. The ruling will be a relief for Google after the EU’s highest court last week upheld a 2017 fine worth €2.42 billion for abusing its dominance by favouring its own comparison shopping service. As part of a major push to target big tech abuses, the EU slapped Google with fines worth a total of €8.2 billion between 2017 and 2019 over antitrust violations. The €1.49 billion fine is the third of those penalties, focused on Google’s AdSense service. Google is also challenging a €4.3 billion penalty Brussels levied on it for putting restrictions on Android smartphones to boost its internet search business. – AFP The explosions maimed many members, according to footage from hospitals reviewed by Reuters. Wounded men had injuries of varying degrees to the face, missing fingers and gaping wounds at the hip where the pagers were likely worn. – Reuters requests for comment. Images of destroyed pagers analysed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. Hezbollah was reeling from the attack, which left fighters and others bloodied, hospitalised or dead. One Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation was the group’s “biggest security breach” since the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct 7. In a televised speech on Feb 13, the group’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah sternly warned supporters that their phones were more dangerous than Israeli spies, saying they should break, bury or lock them in an iron box. Instead, the group opted to distribute pagers to Hezbollah members – from fighters to medics working in its relief services.

no involvement in the design or manufacturing of this product,” the statement said. Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, said two sources familiar with the group’s operations. But the senior Lebanese source said the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service “at the production level”. “The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner,” the source said. The source said 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives. Another security source said up to 3gm of explosives were hidden in the new pagers and had gone “undetected” by Hezbollah for months. Hsu said he did not know how the pagers could have been rigged to explode. Israeli officials did not immediately respond to Reuters

o Mossad planted explosives, say sources

BEIRUT: Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, said a senior Lebanese security source and another source. The operation was an unprecedented Hezbollah security breach that saw thousands of pagers detonate across Lebanon, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 3,000 others, including the group’s fighters and Iran’s envoy to Beirut. The Lebanese security source said the pagers were from Taiwan based Gold Apollo, but the company said in a statement it did not make the devices. It said they were made by a company called BAC which has a licence to use its brand, but gave no more details. Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel, whose military declined to comment on the blasts. The plot appears to have been many months in the making, several sources told Reuters. The senior Lebanese security

source said the group had ordered 5,000 beepers from Gold Apollo, which several sources say were brought into the country earlier this year. Gold Apollo founder Hsu Ching Kuang said the pagers used in the explosion were made by a company in Europe that had the right to use the firm’s brand, the name of which he could not immediately confirm. The company in a statement named BAC as the firm, but Hsu declined to comment on its location. “The product was not ours. It was only that it had our brand on it,” Hsu told reporters at the company’s offices in New Taipei yesterday. The senior Lebanese security source identified a photograph of the model of the pager, an AP924, which like other pagers wirelessly receive and display text messages but cannot make telephone calls. Gold Apollo said in a statement that the AR-924 model was produced and sold by BAC. “We only provide brand trademark authorisation and have

Vote against draft resolution, US urges countries NEW YORK: US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield yesterday urged countries to vote against a Palestinian-drafted

Palestinians search for survivors after a strike in the al-Daraj neighbourhood in Gaza City on Tuesday. – AFPPIC

voted to demand an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in December. A two-thirds majority of those present and voting – abstentions don’t count – is needed to pass the draft resolution. Mansour said on Monday that while he expected the draft text to be adopted, it would likely be with less support than received by the resolutions last year. The Palestinian Authority represents the Palestinian people at the UN, where it is a non-member observer state and the delegation is known as the State of Palestine. – Reuters

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. Since Oct 7, Israel’s military has levelled swathes of the Palestinian enclave, driving nearly all of its 2.3 million people from their homes, giving rise to deadly hunger and disease and killing more than 41,000 people. The General Assembly on Oct 27 called for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza with 120 votes in favour. Then in December, 153 countries

The action will isolate Israel days before world leaders travel to New York for their annual UN gathering. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to address the 193 member General Assembly on Sept 26, the same day as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon criticised the General Assembly on Tuesday for failing to condemn the Oct 7 attack. He rejected the draft Palestinian text. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem – areas