Israel's army has been told to call up reservists after the country struck Lebanon and Gaza on Thursday and Friday.
The strikes were in response to a barrage of more than 30 rockets fired into Israel from Lebanese territory. Israel blamed Palestinian militants for the rockets, saying it "struck targets, including terror infrastructures, belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in southern Lebanon".
On Friday Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi made the order to call up an unknown number of reservists to work in air defence units and as fighter pilots and drone operators.
Likud politician Etty Atia called for “comprehensive activity in the territories” in response to the rocket attacks.
Despite the call-up order, neither side seemed keen to intensify the fighting.
"Nobody wants an escalation right now," an Israeli army spokesman said. "Quiet will be answered with quiet, at this stage I think, at least in the coming hours."
One official with a Palestinian militant group told Reuters they were ready to keep the calm should Israel do the same, with the group having "made its point".
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fragile coalition government has been criticised for its response to the crisis. A spokesperson in National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party resigned in protest over its “weak security policy, which is costing us in blood”.
Israel's military said it undertook a number of ground actions overnight on Thursday, including the arrests of seven suspects in raids in the occupied West Bank, Al Ram and Beit Ummar. Charges against those arrested have not been shared.
The latest tensions arose after Israeli forces stormed Al Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday, followed by further invasions on Thursday and into Friday morning. Muslims were celebrating Ramadan at the mosque by praying overnight, something Israel has in the past allowed only during the last 10 days of the holy month.
Neighbouring Jordan is the custodian of the Al Aqsa compound, which is operated by an Islamic endowment known as the waqf. Only Muslims are allowed to pray at the mosque under rules established after the 1967 Middle East war in which Israel captured East Jerusalem, where the shrine is located, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel, Jordan and Muslim religious authorities helped to set the rules, known as the status quo. The complex also contains the Western Wall, which is the holiest site where Jews can pray.
During and after Friday prayers, the compound was calm, but some Palestinians chanted.
As tensions continued to rise, a shooting on Friday by suspected Palestinian attackers killed two women and critically injured a third from the same family in Hamra, in the Jordan Valley.
Later on Friday, the Israeli army said it shot down a drone that crossed into Israeli territory from the Lebanese side, near the town of Zarit.
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
War
Director: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Ashutosh Rana, Vaani Kapoor
Rating: Two out of five stars
India squad for fourth and fifth Tests
Kohli (c), Dhawan, Rahul, Shaw, Pujara, Rahane (vc), Karun, Karthik (wk), Pant (wk), Ashwin, Jadeja, Pandya, Ishant, Shami, Umesh, Bumrah, Thakur, Vihari
The 100 Best Novels in Translation
Boyd Tonkin, Galileo Press
NYBL PROFILE
Company name: Nybl
Date started: November 2018
Founder: Noor Alnahhas, Michael LeTan, Hafsa Yazdni, Sufyaan Abdul Haseeb, Waleed Rifaat, Mohammed Shono
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Software Technology / Artificial Intelligence
Initial investment: $500,000
Funding round: Series B (raising $5m)
Partners/Incubators: Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 4, Dubai Future Accelerators Cohort 6, AI Venture Labs Cohort 1, Microsoft Scale-up
Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
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