Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 30, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2024 A4 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS I WORLD Furious diplomatic efforts underway to prevent spiral into regional war Netanyahu vows retaliation against Hezbollah M AJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights — Israeli Prime Minister Ben- jamin Netanyahu on Monday vowed heavy retaliation against Hez- bollah amid furious diplomatic efforts to prevent a spiral into regional war following a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 children in the Israeli-con- trolled Golan Heights. Israel has blamed Hezbollah for Sat- urday evening’s rocket from Lebanon that slammed into a soccer field where the children were playing in the mainly Druze town of Majdal Shams. In an un- usual move, Hezbollah denied any role in the strike. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blink- en spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday, emphasizing the “importance of preventing escalation” and discussing efforts to reach a diplo- matic solution to months of conflict. Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah have exchanged fire almost daily over the border since the war in Gaza erupted in October. Each side has seemed intent on avoid- ing an escalation that would bring their full firepower against each other. But the exchanges have mounted, and the latest strike threatened reprisals and counter-reprisals that could spiral into full-fledged war. Early Monday, Israeli strikes hit a motorcycle in Lebanon near the border, killing two people and wounding three others, Lebanese state media said. The strikes, mirroring the pace of the daily cross-border fire, did not appear to be Israel’s retaliation for Saturday’s at- tack. Thousands of mourners laid to rest on Monday the 12th victim of the strike. The body of 11-year-old Gue- vara Ibrahim was carried through the streets of Majdal Shams in a procession of black-clad mourners. Netanyahu spoke as he visited the soccer field in Majdal Shams and met with leaders of the Druze community. “These children are our children, they are the children of all of us,” he said as officials laid a wreath on the field. “The state of Israel will not and cannot overlook this. Our response will come, and it will be severe,” he said, adding that the rocket was fired by Hezbollah. Nearby, around 300 friends, support- ers and relatives of the slain children protested against Netanyahu’s visit, shouting that he was exploiting the bloodshed for political gain and calling for an end to the violence. Some held up pictures of the children, saying they wanted no more deaths. After Netanyahu left, some rushed onto the soccer field and tore down the wreath. Weeping relatives held up toys left by the children on the field. The Druze of the Golan Heights have long had a fraught relationship with Is- rael since it captured the territory from Syria in the 1967 war and later annexed it. Some Druze have Israeli citizenship, and ties with Israeli society have grown over the years. But many still have sympathies for Syria and have rejected Israeli annexation. Earlier in the day, Defence Minis- ter Yoav Gallant also visited the town, saying Hezbollah will “pay a price” for the attack. He did not elaborate, say- ing only, “We will let actions speak for themselves.” Israel’s military says Hezbollah fired an Iranian-made Falaq rocket with a 53-kilogram warhead. Hezbollah has started moving preci- sion-guided missiles for use if needed, an official with a Lebanese group told The Associated Press, without elabor- ating on where they are being moved. The official said Hezbollah’s stance has not changed and it does not want a full-blown war with Israel, but if war breaks out it will fight without limits. The official spoke on condition of ano- nymity to discuss sensitive military activities. Israel and Hezbollah have been trad- ing fire since Oct. 8, a day after Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel. Hezbollah has said it is showing its sup- port for the Palestinian group. More than 500 people, including 90 civilians, have been killed in Lebanon, as have 22 soldiers and 25 civilians on the Israeli side. Tens of thousands have evacuated their homes on both sides of the border. The U.S. and France for months have pushed for a negotiated agreement be- tween Hezbollah and Israel to quiet- en the border and allow the return of residents. The White House National Security Council said it was speaking with Is- raeli and Lebanese counterparts and working on a diplomatic solution to “end all attacks once and for all” in the border area. Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser to U.S. President Joe Biden who fre- quently handles delicate negotiations in Lebanon, has been making a flurry of calls trying to contain the situation, a Lebanese diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorize to talk to the press on the issue. An outright war between Israel and Hezbollah could bring intense destruc- tion. Hezbollah has far superior fire- power than Hamas, with an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and missiles, including precision-guided missiles, according to Israeli estimates. The last time they went to war, in 2006, Israel inflicted massive damage in Lebanon with a bombing campaign in retaliation for a cross-border Hezbollah attack. The death and destruction were so great, Hezbollah has been under in- tense pressure from the Lebanese ever since not to trigger a repeated war with Israel. Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati spoke to British Foreign Secretary David Lammy. “We both agreed that widening of conflict in the region is in nobody’s interest,” Lammy said in a post on the social media site X. — The Associated Press LEO CORREA AND ALON BERNSTEIN LEO CORREA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS People light candles in memory of the children and teens killed in a rocket strike at a soccer field in the village of Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Sunday. Venezuelan opposition says it has proof its candidate won CARACAS, Venezuela — As thousands of people demonstrated across Vene- zuela, opposition candidate Edmundo González on Monday announced that his campaign has the proof it needs to show he won the country’s disputed election whose victory electoral au- thorities handed to President Nicolás Maduro. González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told reporters they have obtained more than 70 per cent of tally sheets from Sunday’s election, and they show González with more than double Maduro’s votes. Both called on people, some of whom protested in the hours after Maduro was declared win- ner, to remain calm and invited them to gather peacefully at 11 a.m. Tuesday to celebrate the results. “I speak to you with the calmness of the truth,” González said as dozens of supporters cheered outside campaign headquarters in the capital, Caracas. “We have in our hands the tally sheets that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory.” Their announcement came after the National Electoral Council, which is loyal to Maduro’s ruling Unites Social- ist Party of Venezuela, officially de- clared him the winner, handing him his third six-year term. In the capital, the protests were mostly peaceful, but when dozens of riot gear-clad national police officers blocked the caravan, a brawl broke. Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, some of whom threw stones and other objects at officers who had stationed themselves on a main avenue of an upper-class district. A man fired a gun as the protesters moved through the city’s financial dis- trict. No one suffered a gunshot wound. The demonstrations followed an elec- tion that was among the most peaceful in recent memory, reflecting hopes that Venezuela could avoid bloodshed and end 25 years of single-party rule. The winner was to take control of an economy recovering from collapse and a population desperate for change. “We have never been moved by hatred. On the contrary, we have al- ways been victims of the powerful,” Maduro said in a nationally televised ceremony. “An attempt is being made to impose a coup d’état in Venezuela again of a fascist and counterrevolutionary nature.” “We already know this movie, and this time, there will be no kind of weak- ness,” he added, saying that Venezuela’s “law will be respected.” Machado told reporters tally sheets show Maduro and Gonzalez received more than 2.7 million and roughly 6.2 million votes respectively. “A free people is one that is respected, and we are going to fight for our free- dom,” Gonzalez said. “Dear friends, I understand your indignation, but our response from the democratic sectors is of calmness and firmness.” Venezuelans vote using electronic machines, which record votes and pro- vide every voter a paper receipt that shows the candidate of their choice. Voters are supposed to deposit their re- ceipt at ballot boxes before exiting the polls. After polls close, each machine prints a tally sheet showing the candidates’ names and the votes they received. But the ruling party wields tight control over the voting system, both through a loyal five-member elector- al council and a network of longtime local party coordinators who get near unrestricted access to voting centers. Those coordinators, some of whom are responsible for handing out gov- ernment benefits including subsidized food, have blocked representatives of opposition parties from entering voting centers as allowed by law to witness the voting process, vote counting and, cru- cially, to obtain a copy of the machines’ final tally sheet. Electoral authorities had not yet re- leased the tally sheets for each of the 30,000 voting machines as of Monday evening. The electoral body’s website was down, and it remained unclear when the tallies would be available. The lack of tallies prompted an independent group of electoral observers and the European Union to publicly urge the entity to release them. In the capital’s impoverished Petare neighborhood, people started walk- ing and shouting against Maduro, and some masked young people tore down campaign posters of him hung on lamp- posts. Heavily armed security forces were standing just a few blocks away from the protest. “He has to go. One way or another,” said María Arráez, a 27-year-old hair- dresser, as she joined in the demonstra- tion. As the crowd marched through a dif- ferent neighbourhood, it was cheered on by retirees and office workers who banged on pots and recorded the pro- test in a show of support. There were some shouts of “freedom” and explet- ives directed at Maduro. Several foreign governments, includ- ing the U.S. and the EU, held off recog- nizing the election results. After failing to oust Maduro during three rounds of demonstrations since 2014, the opposition put its faith in the ballot box. The country sits atop the world’s lar- gest oil reserves and once boasted Lat- in America’s most advanced economy. But after Maduro took the helm, it tum- bled into a free fall marked by plum- meting oil prices, widespread short- ages of basic goods and hyperinflation of 130,000 per cent. U.S. oil sanctions sought to force Maduro from power after his 2018 reelection, which dozens of countries condemned as illegitimate. But the sanctions only accelerated the exodus of some 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled their crisis-stricken nation. Voters lined up as early as Saturday evening to cast ballots, boosting the op- position’s hopes it was about to break Maduro’s grip on power. The elector- al council’s results came as a shock to many who had celebrated, online and outside a few voting centres, what they believed was a landslide victory for González. Gabriel Boric, the leftist leader of Chile, called the results “difficult to believe,” while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had “serious concerns” that the announced tally did not reflect the actual votes or the will of the people. In response to criticism from other governments, Maduro’s foreign affairs ministry announced it would recall its diplomatic personnel from seven countries in the Americas, including Panama, Argentina and Chile. Foreign Minister Yvan Gil asked the govern- ments of those countries to do the same with their personnel in Venezuela. He did not explain what would happen to the staff of Machado’s, including her campaign manager, who have sheltered for months in the Argentinian embassy in Caracas after authorities issued ar- rest warrants against them. González was the unlikeliest of op- position standard bearers. The 74-year- old was unknown until he was tapped in April as a last-minute stand-in for opposition powerhouse Machado, who was blocked by the Maduro-controlled supreme court from running for any of- fice for 15 years. Authorities set Sunday’s election to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in the hands of Maduro. But Maduro and his United So- cialist Party of Venezuela, which con- trols all branches of government, are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for crush- ingly low wages that spurred hunger, crippled the oil industry and separated families due to migration. The president’s pitch this election was one of economic security, which he tried to sell with stories of entre- preneurship and references to a stable currency exchange and lower inflation rates. The International Monetary Fund forecasts the economy will grow four per cent this year — one of the fastest in Latin America — after shrinking 71 per cent from 2012 to 2020. But most Venezuelans have not seen any improvement in their quality of life. Many earn under US$200 a month, which means families struggle to af- ford essential items. Some work second and third jobs. A basket of food staples to feed a family of four for a month costs an estimated US$385. The opposition managed to line up behind a single candidate after years of intraparty divisions and election boy- cotts that torpedoed their ambitions to topple the ruling party. — The Associated Press JOSHUA GOODMAN AND REGINA GARCIA CANO MATIAS DELACROIX / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado (right) and presidential candidate Edmundo González speak in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday. ;