MEZIESBLOG

The US has issued new Hezbollah-related sanctions.

The action targeted three people linked to Hezbollah’s finance arm and four Lebanon-based companies registered to conceal ties to the militant group, the Treasury said.

It said the companies had “generated millions of dollars in revenue for Hezbollah”. 

The US also sanctioned three individuals involved in the production and sale of the drug amphetamine, whom it said have funded the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and its allies, including Hezbollah. 

‘The situation is harrowing’: UN holds urgent meeting on Gaza

The United Nations Security Council is meeting now in New York.

Barbara Woodward, UK ambassador to the UN, says the UK supported the call for today’s meeting to discuss the “urgent steps” needed to address the “humanitarian tragedy in Gaza”.

“The situation in northern Gaza is harrowing,” she says.

“Approximately 400,000 Gazans have been ordered to evacuate the north and move southwards to the IDF-designated humanitarian zone. 

“Many of these people will already have been displaced, some many times over, and are desperately searching for refuge. But there are no safe places in Gaza.”

Ms Woodward describes the “horrifying” images after the Israeli strike on al Aqsa hospital, where at least four people were killed and dozens were injured.

“Those who decide to move face intimidation, active fighting zones and the threat of continued airstrikes,” she adds.

“Those who stay face extreme hunger and appalling conditions without access to basic services or health care.”

Ms Woodward says no food aid reached northern Gaza in the first half of October, accusing Israeli authorities of “denying or impeded the vast majority of humanitarian movements between north and south”.

She calls this “unconscionable” and reiterates the UK’s concern at Israeli proposals seeking to undermine the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which “is vital to the humanitarian response in Gaza”.

‘They do not scare me’: Israeli minister hits back over UK sanction threat

A far-right Israeli minister has hit back at Sir Keir Starmer after the UK prime minister threatened to sanction him and one of his colleagues for “abhorrent” comments about the war in Gaza.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister and a member of far-right ultranationalist parties, said the threats “do not scare me”.

Mr Ben-Gvir told local media: “I will continue to act in accordance with the supreme national interests of the state of Israel only and for the people of the country.”

Sir Keir told the Commons earlier that his government is also “looking at” sanctions against finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who, along with Mr Ben-Gvir, is a vocal supporter of settlements in the occupied West Bank.