GENEVA: The Red Cross said Monday that its president had traveled to Qatar to meet with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh “to advance humanitarian issues related to the armed conflict in Israel and Gaza.”
“President Mirjana Spoljaric met with (Ismail) Haniyeh, Chair of Hamas’ Political Bureau, and separately with authorities of the state of Qatar,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement.

TEL AVIV: The families of Israeli children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza pleaded Monday for international voices to demand their release at a protest outside the UN children’s fund in Tel Aviv.
Several hundred demonstrators joined the protest on World Children’s Day, more than six weeks after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 others hostage.

BEIRUT: Hostilities carried out by Hezbollah against Israeli military outposts significantly escalated on Monday, with the group resorting to more developed destructive weapons.

Amid the qualitative military escalation on the southern front, Russian Ambassador to Lebanon Alexander Rudakov told Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib that “what was happening in the south is very dangerous and must be stopped.”

The Russian diplomat said, “Both parties mainly discussed the unfolding events in the region, especially in Gaza.”

DUBAI: The latest spike in border violence between Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Israel has prompted concern that the war in Gaza could still ignite a broader conflict in the Middle East.

On Saturday, Israel reportedly struck an aluminum factory in southern Lebanon some 15 km from the border, while Hezbollah claimed to have shot down an Israeli Hermes 450 drone and launched five other attacks.

JERUSALEM: An Israeli minister said the international community should not fund rebuilding of the war-devastated Gaza Strip and instead promote the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians from the territory around the globe.

Any suggestion of Palestinian dispersal is highly controversial in the Arab world as the war that led to Israel’s creation 75 years ago gave rise to the exodus or forced displacement of 760,000 Palestinians, an event known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe.”