11 reported killed in Lebanon as Israeli forces remain after withdrawal deadline
Mays Al-Jabal (Lebanon), Jan 26 (AP): Israeli forces in southern Lebanon on Sunday opened fire on protesters demanding their withdrawal in line with a ceasefire agreement, killing at least 11 and injuring more than 80, Lebanese health officials reported.
The dead included two women and a Lebanese army soldier, the Health Ministry said in a statement. People were reported wounded in more than a dozen villages in the border area.
Demonstrators, some of them carrying Hezbollah flags, attempted to enter several villages to protest Israel's failure to withdraw from southern Lebanon by the 60-day deadline stipulated in a ceasefire agreement that halted the Israel-Hezbollah war in late November.
Israel has said that it needs to stay longer because the Lebanese army has not deployed to all areas of southern Lebanon to ensure that Hezbollah does not reestablish its presence in the area. The Lebanese army has said it cannot deploy until Israeli forces withdraw.
The Israeli army blamed Hezbollah for stirring up Sunday's protests.
It said in a statement that its troops fired warning shots to “remove threats in a number of areas where suspects were identified approaching”.
It added that a number of suspects in proximity to Israeli troops were apprehended and were being questioned.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said in a statement addressing the people of southern Lebanon on Sunday that “Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity are non-negotiable, and I am following up on this issue at the highest levels to ensure your rights and dignity”.
He urged them to “exercise self-restraint and trust in the Lebanese Armed Forces.” The Lebanese army, in a separate statement, said it was escorting civilians into some towns in the border area and called on residents to follow military instructions to ensure their safety.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, whose Amal Movement party is allied with Hezbollah and who served as an interlocutor between the Hezbollah group and the US during ceasefire negotiations, said that Sunday's bloodshed “is a clear and urgent call for the international community to act immediately and compel Israel to withdraw from occupied Lebanese territories”.
An Arabic-language spokesperson for the Israeli military, Avichay Adraee, posted on X that Hezbollah had sent “rioters” and is "trying to heat up the situation to cover up its situation and status in Lebanon and the Arab world”.
He called Sunday morning for residents of the border area not to attempt to return to their villages.
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and the head of mission of the UN peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL, Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro, called in a joint statement for both Israel and Lebanon to comply with their obligations under the ceasefire agreement.
“The fact is that the timelines envisaged in the November Understanding have not been met,” the statement said. “As seen tragically this morning, conditions are not yet in place for the safe return of citizens to their villages along the Blue Line.”
UNIFIL said that further violence risks undermining the fragile security situation in the area and "prospects for stability ushered in by the cessation of hostilities and the formation of a government in Lebanon”.
It called for the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, the removal of unauthorised weapons and assets south of the Litani River, the redeployment of the Lebanese army in all of south Lebanon and ensuring the safe and dignified return of displaced civilians on both sides of the Blue Line.
An AP team was stranded overnight at a UNIFIL base near Mays al-Jabal after the Israeli army erected roadblocks Saturday while they were joining a patrol by peacekeepers. The journalists reported hearing gunshots and booming sounds Sunday morning from the base, and peacekeepers said that dozens of protesters had gathered nearby.
In the village of Aita al Shaab, families wandered over flattened concrete structures looking for remnants of the homes they left behind. No Israeli forces were present.
“These are our houses,” said Hussein Bajouk, one of the returning residents. “However much they destroy, we will rebuild.”
Bajouk added that he is convinced that former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut's southern suburbs in September, is really still alive.
“I don't know how much we're going to wait, another month or two months... but the Sayyed will come out and speak,” he said using an honorific for Nasrallah.
Some 112,000 Lebanese remain displaced, out of over 1 million displaced during the war.
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Deaf and mute woman breaks 16-year silence, exposes serial sexual abuse, blackmail in Mumbai
Mumbai (PTI): A deaf and mute woman's complaint about a sexual assault that took place 16 years ago in Mumbai has unmasked a serial predator, revealing a disturbing pattern of abuse and blackmail he perpetrated on several women from the community.
The accused was arrested on December 13 after the survivor broke her silence recently following the suicide attempt by one of the women he allegedly sexually harassed.
Disturbed by the suicide attempt, she confided in her friends during a video call about the assault that occurred in 2009.
According to the police, the survivor, a resident of the western suburbs, communicated in sign language during a video call with her friends and colleagues, who were part of a WhatsApp group, that the accused had drugged and raped her when she was a minor.
She also took her husband into confidence, and with support from Thane Deaf Association president Vaibhav Ghaisis, activist Mohammed Farhan Khan, sign language interpreter Madhu Keni, and a retired officer from the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities Divyangjan, the survivor approached the police.
The survivor, her husband and a few of her friends went to the Kurar police station, where her statement was recorded in camera, with Keni as interpreter, and the accused, Mahesh Pawar, was arrested a few hours later from Virar, a suburb in Palghar district.
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Recalling the trauma she endured 16 years ago, the survivor said that a female friend had invited her to explore the city in July 2009 and took her to Pawar's home in Vakola, Santacruz, an official said.
The accused allegedly offered her samosas and some beverage to celebrate the female friend's birthday. The survivor said she was forced to have the drink, which Pawar had allegedly spiked, and after a while, her friend left her alone with him.
The accused allegedly overpowered and raped her, and later blackmailed her with the recorded video of the assault.
The trauma of assault stayed with her over the years, and the attempted suicide of another woman from the community, allegedly assaulted by Pawar, propelled her to come forward.
A probe has revealed that the accused had similarly drugged and assaulted speech and hearing impaired women and threatened them into silence by blackmailing them with obscene videos, a senior police officer said.
The accused allegedly shot obscene videos of several women, using which he blackmailed them and extorted money, gold and mobile phones, he said.
He allegedly forced women into participating in nude video calls with him and recorded these to threaten them, the official said.
"As per initial investigation so far, we have evidence of his abuse of seven women, but the number can increase to more than 24," the official told PTI.
While Pawar has been remanded in judicial custody, no other woman has come forward with a complaint against him as yet, he said.
Talking to PTI, Keni said all women who have survived abuse and harassment by Pawar want to lodge a complaint against him.
She claimed that the accused had extorted money from one of the women he abused, but did not return the sum even when she needed it for a medical emergency.
