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Indonesia receives bodies of peacekeepers killed in southern Lebanon

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Indonesia receives bodies of peacekeepers killed in southern Lebanon

Foreign Minister Sugiono told reporters that Indonesia wants a thorough UN investigation into the deaths of the peacekeepers.

Indonesia has received the bodies of three United Nations peacekeepers who were killed in southern Lebanon during Israel’s invasion of the country, amid the ongoing United States-Israel war on Iran.

The coffins of the killed soldiers arrived in Indonesia on Saturday. They were carried on the shoulders of uniformed officers for a ceremony attended by President Prabowo Subianto.

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After the ceremony, Foreign Minister Sugiono told reporters that Indonesia wants a thorough UN investigation into the deaths of the peacekeepers who were part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

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“This is a peacekeeping mission. Incidents such as this should not happen,” the minister told reporters at the airport.

“There must be a security guarantee for peacekeeping soldiers,” he added.

Last week, peacekeeper Farizal Rhomadhon, 28, was killed after a projectile exploded. A UN security source told the AFP news agency anonymously on Tuesday that fire from an Israeli tank was responsible for the attack.

A day later, two more Indonesian peacekeepers, Zulmi Aditya Iskandar, 33, and Muhammad Nur Ichwan, 26, were killed after an explosion struck a UNIFIL logistics convoy in southern Lebanon.

Iskandar’s father said he was shocked that peacekeepers were losing their lives in the conflict.

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“We were really sad and regretful, because this is a UN troop, a peacekeeping troop, not deployed for war,” Iskandarudin, 60, told reporters at his house in West Java province.

The three men are expected to be laid to rest on Sunday, and the government has promised financial support for the families.

On Friday, UNIFIL announced that three peacekeepers were wounded after a blast at a UN facility near Adeisse and were taken to hospital.

The UN information centre in Jakarta said the “origin of the explosion” was unknown, but identified the injured soldiers as Indonesian.

“Repeated attacks or incidents of this kind are unacceptable,” the Indonesian foreign ministry said in a statement.

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The government urged the UN Security Council “to immediately convene a meeting of troop-contributing countries to UNIFIL to conduct a review and take measures to enhance the protection of personnel serving with UNIFIL”.

The US-Israel war on Iran spread to Lebanon after Iran-aligned Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel, following the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war on February 28.

Israel has bombarded the country for weeks and launched an invasion, with Israeli officials saying the mission intends to set up a security zone extending 30km (18.6 miles) from the Israeli border.

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Nato ships in Hormuz if the Strait does not reopen by July

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Nato ships in Hormuz if the Strait does not reopen by July

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Re-open Hormuz and end the war in Iran. The fears of the G7 in Paris relate to the impact of the conflict on an already sluggish global economy given the fallout ‘on energy, food and fertiliser supply chains’. The imperative is therefore ‘a rapid return to free and safe movement across the Strait of Hormuz and a lasting solution to the conflict’. Trump, at the urging of the Gulf countries, suspends the resumption of hostilities and gives a new ultimatum to Tehran, ‘two or three days’. Additional time for negotiations desired by Qatar: ‘Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts need more time’

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Donald Trump summoned his national security advisers on Iran on Monday evening. Axios reports this, pointing out that the meeting was held just hours after the president announced that he had suspended the planned attack on Tuesday. The meeting also included a briefing on military options. According to reports by some officials, Trump had not decided to attack before announcing the suspension of the raid.

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Hezbollah grooms children for martyrdom through its scout movement, report claims

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Hezbollah grooms children for martyrdom through its scout movement, report claims

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The U.S.-designated Lebanon-based terrorist movement Hezbollah exploits children from its version of the scout movement to carry out jihadi missions that result in their deaths, according to a recent report on Lebanon’s MTV television network.

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The Lebanese network’s report — translated by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) — comes amid U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and Beirut.

The report claims that Hezbollah gives child fighters heroes’ funerals and publicly glorifies them before their peers in order to encourage other children to follow in their footsteps. The MTV report said Hezbollah believes that every drop of bloodshed by child soldiers brings victory closer.

ISRAEL POUNDS HEZBOLLAH TARGETS, DARING LEBANON TO RECLAIM SOVEREIGNTY FROM IRAN-BACKED TERROR PROXY

Hezbollah al-Mahdi scouts parade with large portraits of Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Khomeini and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during an event for Jerusalem Day in Nabatiyeh, Lebanon, on Aug. 1, 2013. (Hussein Malla/AP Photo)

It also claimed that Hezbollah uses its scout movements to cultivate an entire generation of obedient children prepared to die, through rhetoric that glorifies death and martyrdom. The MTV report, according to the MEMRI translation, said that “Hezbollah child soldiers have been used since the 1980s by this outlaw armed group. Not just as armed fighters but as Khomeini-loyal scouts.”

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The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, reportedly exploited the use of Iranian children during the country’s 1980-1988 war against Iraq.

Matthew Levitt, a leading scholar on Hezbollah from the Washington Institute, said that “Hezbollah’s recruitment and radicalization of youth through its Mahdi Scouts is long documented,” other experts talking to Fox News Digital concurred.

“Hezbollah has boy scouts, and they have been taught jihad, and it is a well-known thing in Lebanon,” Mideast expert Walid Phares told Fox News Digital.

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The Lebanon expert said they could be termed “children jihadists” who are preparing to become full Hezbollah fighters. Phares said they mostly assign them [the children of Hezbollah fighters] to spying and transporting ammunition. He argued if the scouts are getting funding from a ministry or national boy scouts association in Lebanon, they should be sanctioned if they have the evidence.

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Multiple Fox News Digital Emails and phone calls to the World Organization of the Scouting Movement (WOSM) were not immediately returned. The U.S. branch of WOSM referred Fox News Digital to WOSM, which is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

A Hezbollah expert from the Israel Alma Research and Education Center, Sarit Zehavi, called for action against the exploitation of children by the terror group.

“The only way to bring a change is to designate all of these allegedly civilian activities of Hezbollah and close the movement of its scouts, and enable the Shiites of Lebanon to have a different source of services, whether it is educational, formal or informal, which will be part of the Lebanese state, and not part of Hezbollah. The loyalty will be to the Lebanese state and not to Khomeini and the Islamic Republic.”

She added, “This is only something Lebanon can do with a lot of international pressure, of course, led by the United States.”

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An Israeli diplomat, Tammy Rahamimoff-Honig, posted on X: “Hezbollah sacrifices Lebanese children to further the ambitions of the Iranian regime. This isn’t ‘resistance’. It’s child abuse.”

Lebanon’s Ambassador to the U.S. declined to provide comment for this article.

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Video. Merkel warns Europe can no longer rely on old security certainties

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Video. Merkel warns Europe can no longer rely on old security certainties

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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was awarded the European Order of Merit on Tuesday. Merkel warned that Europe could no longer take peace and security for granted following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She also said changes in US security policy showed old certainties were fading.

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