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TUNIS — Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese said on Thursday a hotline would be established between Rome and Tunis to counter irregular migration, amid a spike in arrivals at Italy's Lampedusa Island.

Lamorgese and the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, on a visit to Tunisia, offered economic support to the North African nation, which is struggling to pay its debts, in return for tougher efforts to stop migrants coming into Europe.

Tunis confirmed its "willingness to activate immediately a 'dedicated hotline' for the exchange of information" about illegal departures from Tunisia, the Italian minister said, after a meeting with Tunisian Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, who is also serving as interim interior minister.

"Tunisian authorities have accepted the Italian request for greater flexibility on the rules of return" of people arriving in Europe irregularly, she added, according to a statement.

Johansson said the talks produced "very good political results" and welcomed the establishment of a hotline.

The European Union is "looking forward to cooperate on investments that will help Tunisia to recover from the economic consequences of the pandemic... create new job opportunities, new hope for young people", she added.

The goal is to "have a win-win situation, and a comprehensive approach on managing migration together, both legal migration and fighting irregular migration", she said.

Italy is one of the main points of entry into Europe for migrants from North Africa, mainly from Libya and Tunisia.

Global approach 

More than 13,350 people have arrived on Italian shores since January, three times more than in the same period a year earlier, according to Italy's interior ministry.

Fifteen per cent of those arrivals were Tunisian, who are the main nationality arriving in Italy by sea.

An economic crisis exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and paired with a protracted political crisis contributed to 2020 seeing the highest level of departures from Tunisia's coast towards Europe since 2011.

Tunisian President Kais Saied stressed the need to "adopt a global approach" and not just a security strategy to tackle the issue by examining "the root causes, poverty and unemployment", as well as supporting "development policies in the countries of departure".

Rome has called for help from EU nations to manage increasing numbers of migrants arriving on its shores.

Johansson told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper that talks were also already under way with Libya on a similar agreement to that proposed with Tunisia.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the issue of the distribution of migrants within the EU would be put on the agenda of a European summit this week.

The issue of "the relocation mechanism has been absent for some time from European debates, so I will raise it again at the European Council on Monday", he told reporters in Rome, adding "We absolutely need to find an agreement."

Gaza City, Palestinian Territories — US President Joe Biden told Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he was expecting "significant de-escalation" on Wednesday in the military confrontation with the Palestinians, amid intense efforts to reach a ceasefire.

Deafening air strikes and rocket fire once more shook Gaza in the conflict that has, since May 10, claimed 219 Palestinian lives according to the Gaza health ministry and killed 12 people in Israel according to Israeli forces.

"The president conveyed to the prime minister that he expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire," the White House said after a fourth phone call in a little over a week.

As diplomatic efforts intensified to stem the bloodshed, Germany said its top diplomat was heading to Israel for talks on Thursday.

Netanyahu earlier Wednesday issued a tough threat against the Gaza Strip's Islamist rulers Hamas, who Israel says has fired around 3,700 rockets at Israel since May 10.

"You can either conquer them, and that's always an open possibility, or you can deter them, and we are engaged right now in forceful deterrence," he told foreign ambassadors.

"But I have to say we don't rule out anything."

But an Israeli forces official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a separate briefing that Israel was assessing at what stage it may stop its military campaign.

“We are looking at when is the right moment for a ceasefire,” said the source.

Israel was evaluating whether its objective of degrading Hamas’ capabilities had been achieved, the military source said, and “whether Hamas understands the message” that its rocket barrages towards Israel cannot recur.

Warplanes hit Gaza City again in the pre-dawn hours, as the Israeli military kept targeting militant leaders and infrastructure in the crowded enclave which has been under Israeli blockade for nearly 15 years.

Gaza mother-of-seven Randa Abu Sultan, 45, recounted how her family crowded into one room to sit out another night of fear.

“We’re all terrified by the sound of explosions, missiles and fighter jets,” she said. “My four-year-old son tells me he’s scared that if he falls asleep, he’ll wake up to find us dead.”

Diplomatic flurry 

The United States, a key Israel ally, has repeatedly blocked adoption of a joint UN Security Council statement calling for a halt to hostilities.

A UN Security Council meeting broke up without issuing a statement late Tuesday, but France then said it had proposed a resolution calling for a ceasefire, in coordination with Egypt and Jordan.

Beijing’s ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, told reporters his team had heard the French ceasefire proposal and China was “supportive”.

But the United States said on Wednesday it would not support the proposed resolution, saying it could undermine efforts to de-escalate the crisis.

“We’ve been clear and consistent that we are focused on intensive diplomatic efforts underway to bring an end to the violence and that we will not support actions that we believe undermine efforts to de-escalate,” a US spokesperson at the UN told AFP.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was to meet Israel’s foreign and defence ministers on Thursday and travel to Ramallah to hold talks with the Palestinian premier, his office said.

Humanitarian crisis 

Hamas has launched around 3,700 rockets at Israel since May 10, prompting many people living in communities near the border to hide in bomb shelters virtually around the clock.

Palestinian rocket fire has killed 12 people in Israel, including two children, one Indian and two Thai nationals, and injured 333, Israeli authorities said.

Overnight, armed groups fired 50 rockets towards southern Israel, 10 of which fell short and struck inside Gaza, the Israeli forces said.

Israeli forces meanwhile said it had attacked “40 underground Hamas targets” overnight in southern Gaza.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 219 people in Gaza, including 63 children, and wounded 1,530, according to health ministry figures.

In the enclave’s north, a journalist working for Hamas-linked Al Aqsa radio was killed when an Israeli strike hit his home, authorities said.

Israel’s bombing campaign has also left Gaza’s two million population desperate for relief.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed by patients, there are frequent blackouts and sewage from broken pipes has flooded some areas.

Some 72,000 civilians have fled their homes, seeking refuge in UN-run schools and other public buildings, the United Nations says.

‘Day of anger’ 

The latest escalation was sparked after clashes broke out at East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al Aqsa Mosque compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

This followed violence over the planned evictions of Palestinian families from homes in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah district.

The conflict has since sparked mob violence between Jews and Israeli Arabs, and sharply heightened tensions in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians clashed with police in multiple towns and in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fateh movement had called for a “day of anger”.

The Palestinian health ministry said a Palestinian woman was shot dead on Wednesday near Hebron, as the army said she had tried to attack Israeli forces.

The death brought to 25 the Palestinians killed in the West Bank since May 10.

In northern Israel, the army said it fired artillery shells toward southern Lebanon, in response four rockets launched at Israel from Lebanese territory, in the third such attack in less than a week.

BEIRU — Israel's deadly Gaza offensive has many eyes trained on the Lebanese border for a Hizbollah reaction, but observers argue the Iran-backed movement is unlikely to risk an all-out conflict.

Incidents at the border in recent days have raised the temperature but, with Lebanon already on its knees amid a deep political and economic crisis, the Shiite group seems intent on refraining from an escalation.

"There is nothing that currently suggests escalation," said Sadiq Al Nabulsi, a Lebanese academic close to Hizbollah.

"But the decision to go to war traditionally falls on Israel."

Hizbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, both designated as terrorist groups by Israel and much of the West, have mended fences after ending up on opposing sides of the Syrian war a decade ago.

Hizbollah, founded in the 1980s to fight Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, has grown into Iran's main regional proxy with operatives in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

The only Lebanese faction to have kept its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war, Hizbollah now has a more powerful arsenal than the Lebanese national army.

It justifies this by emphasising its role of "resistance" against the Israeli enemy, a theme that still occupies a central place in the rhetoric of the movement.

Six years after Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, Hizbollah and Israel fought a devastating 34-day war.

The two foes have since avoided all-out war, including during the previous wars in Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014.

Their simmering conflict has played out mostly in war-ravaged Syria, where Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Hizbollah and other pro-Iranian assets.

Minor border spats sporadically bring tensions to a boil but often wind up with a set of carefully choreographed face-saving salvos.

"Any minor incident can lead to an exchange that could snowball and any miscalculation could cause escalation," Nabulsi said.

Border tensions 

On Monday evening, rockets were fired from the Shebaa farms area in south Lebanon towards Israel but failed to fly past the border. The Israeli army responded with artillery fire.

It was the second time rockets were fired from Lebanese territory towards Israel since hostilities flared between Israel and armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip last week.

Last Thursday, three rockets were fired from near the Palestinian refugee camp of Rashidiyeh towards Israel. Israel’s forces said the rockets fell into the sea.

Sources close to Hizbollah were quick to deny any involvement in either attack.

Also in the border area, protests have been held against Israel’s air campaign on Gaza, with a Hizbollah member killed by Israeli fire last week during a pro-Palestinian rally.

Hizbollah mourned the victim as a “martyr” but stopped short of calling for vengeance or retaliation.

Before the latest tensions, Hizbollah and Israel repeatedly signalled they were not interested in an escalation.

Hizbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech to mark Al-Quds (Jerusalem) day this month, said it was a responsibility for his movement to stand behind Palestinians.

“But the primary responsibility is on Palestinians” themselves, he said, before warning Israel that his group would respond firmly if provoked in Lebanon.

‘Defensive force’ 

In a statement this week, Hizbollah Deputy Chief Naim Qassem pledged unyielding support to Palestinian factions fighting Israeli forces in Gaza.

“We are with them, we will offer support and assistance in all ways and we will always carry out our duties as required during different steps and stages,” he said after meeting with representatives of these factions.

The group may consider sending financial, military and logistical support as it has done in the past, said political analyst Talal Atrissi of the Lebanese University.

But any direct attack on Israel would mean an all-out war on multiple fronts including neighbouring Syria.

“There is nothing to suggest that there is any intent for this kind of war,” he said.

Atrissi said domestic considerations further reduce the risk.

“Lebanon is on the brink of collapse because of the financial crisis and political divisions,” he said.

“There is no government, there is no lasting, durable or stable infrastructure that would even allow someone to consider an action of this kind.”

Israel this month announced one of its largest ever war games, including drills on the Lebanese border.

Hizbollah has doubled its arsenal of precision-guided missiles over the span of a year, according to Nasrallah, and is observing the performance of Hamas’ weapons keenly.

So far both sides have emphasised they are prepared, not preparing, for war.

“The Lebanese Resistance is a defensive force, we do not initiate aggression against Israel,” said lawmaker Mohammad Khawaja of the Amal Movement, Hizbollah’s main ally in Lebanon.

“Today, there is no attempt in Lebanon to open a front with Israel, but we will respond strongly to any Israeli aggression or provocation.”

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories — Heavy air strikes and rocket fire in the Israel-Gaza conflict claimed more lives on both sides on Tuesday as tensions flared in Palestinian "day of anger" protests in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The UN Security Council was to hold an emergency meeting amid a diplomatic push to end the fighting, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would continue its military onslaught on the coastal enclave "as long as necessary".

Israeli forces and protesters meanwhile clashed at multiple flashpoints across the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem, hospitalising scores after Palestinians took to the streets in solidarity with their besieged counterparts in Gaza.

Israel's intense bombing campaign on Gaza has killed 213 Palestinians, including 61 children, and wounded more than 1,400 people in Gaza in more than a week of fighting against Islamist group Hamas, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

The death toll on the Israeli side rose to 12 when a volley of rockets Hamas fired at the southern Eshkol region killed two Thai nationals working in a factory and wounded several others, police said.

Israeli strikes that again sent fireballs, debris and black smoke into the sky have levelled homes and multistorey towers, cratered roads and left 2 million Palestinians in Gaza desperate for reprieve.

“They destroyed our house but I don’t know why they targeted us,” said Nazmi Al Dahdouh, 70, of Gaza City who remained shocked by what he called “a terrifying, violent night”.

The humanitarian crisis deepened in the impoverished strip, from where Hamas has launched nearly 3,500 rockets at Israel since May 10, often forcing people living near Gaza into bomb shelters around the clock.

But a convoy of international aid trucks that started rolling into Gaza through a border crossing from Israel, Kerem Shalom, was halted when Israel quickly shuttered it again, citing a mortar attack on the area.

The UN Security Council session, the fourth since the conflict escalated, was called after the United States, a key Israel ally, blocked adoption of a joint statement calling for a halt to the violence on Monday for the third time in a week.

Crisis diplomacy 

France and Egypt are pushing for a ceasefire deal, while Qatar and Egypt are working through another channel, via the UN.

The conflict risks precipitating a humanitarian disaster, with the UN saying nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced and 2,500 have lost their homes.

A strike on Monday knocked out Gaza’s only COVID-19 testing laboratory, the health ministry said, and the Qatari Red Crescent said a strike damaged one of its offices in the enclave.

The rate of positive coronavirus tests in Gaza has been among the highest in the world, at 28 per cent.

Hospitals in the territory, which has been under Israeli blockade for almost 15 years, have been overwhelmed by patients and there are frequent power blackouts.

‘Day of anger’ 

Palestinians across the West Bank and in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem mobilised on Tuesday for protests and a general strike that shuttered non-essential businesses, in support of those under bombardment in Gaza.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh movement had called for a “day of anger”, a call echoed in Arab and ethnically mixed towns inside Israel.

“We are here to raise our voice and stand with the people in Gaza who are being bombed,” Ramallah protester Aya Dabour told AFP.

Israeli forces said they came under fire north of Ramallah. They said two soldiers suffered leg injuries and were taken to hospital.

In a separate incident, a 25-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces in Al Bireh, north of Ramallah, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The ministry reported 70 people hospitalised due to clashes with Israeli forces throughout the West Bank, five of them in a serious condition.

Earlier in the day, an assailant who attempted to attack soldiers in the West Bank city of Hebron was shot dead.

Tensions again flared in East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, where Palestinian protesters faced off against police, who used stun grenades and “skunk water” cannon to disperse protesters.

The Israel-Gaza conflict was sparked after clashes broke out at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al Aqsa Mosque compound — one of Islam’s holiest sites — after Israeli forces clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians on May 7.

This followed a crackdown against protests over planned evictions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem.

Israel has been trying to contain violence between Jews and Arab Israelis, as well as unrest in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinian authorities say Israeli forces have killed 22 Palestinians since May 10.

TUNIS — More than 50 people went missing and 33 were rescued, mostly from Bangladesh after their boat headed from Libya to Europe sank off Tunisia, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.

Defence Ministry spokesman Mohamed Zikri said the survivors of the shipwreck were picked up after clinging to an oil platform off the southern coast of Tunisia.

“There are 33 survivors, all apparently from Bangladesh,” Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration, told AFP.

“At least 50 are missing.”

The boat, crammed with over 90 passengers, left the Libyan port of Zuwara on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear what caused the boat to sink, but vessels leaving the North African coast for Europe are often heavily overloaded makeshift crafts, departing at night even in rough weather to avoid detection by the coast guard.

Tunisian rescuers were bringing the survivors to the port of Zarzis, some 100 kilometres northwest of Zuwara.

“We don’t know the nationality of the more than 50 who are missing,” Di Giacomo added.

Departures from Libya, a key gateway for Europe-bound migrants, have increased since the start of the year.

Neighbouring Tunisia regularly provides assistance to migrants in difficulty in the central Mediterranean, one of the deadliest migration routes, according to the United Nations.

The UN says more than 700 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean this year, compared to 1,400 for the whole of last year.

‘Reconsider’ support 

On Monday, the Tunisian navy said it had rescued more than 100 migrants, mainly from Bangladesh and Sudan, whose boat was “on the verge of sinking”.

That boat reportedly also departed on Sunday from Zuwara.

Several boats were also stopped by Libyan coastguards and brought back to shore overnight Sunday to Monday.

“Two days ago about 680 migrants were intercepted at sea and returned to Libya,” Di Giacomo said.

“Almost 9,000 people have been intercepted at sea and returned to Libya in 2021 so far,” he added.

Safa Msehli, IOM spokeswoman for the Geneva-based UN agency, said that support for search and rescue teams should depend on “no one being arbitrarily detained or subjected to human rights violations”.

The European Union has for several years supported Libyan forces to try to stem migration, despite often grim conditions in detention centres in Libya.

International agencies have repeatedly denounced the return to Libya of migrants intercepted at sea.

In Lisbon last week, Tunisia’s Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi repeated his country’s opposition to setting up migrant reception centres on Tunisian soil, amid attempts to find safe places for asylum seekers.

Italy’s interior minister is expected in Tunisia later this week, together with the EU commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, to discuss assistance and repatriations.

As at May 16, over 13,000 people had arrived in Italy illegally by sea this year, double the number over the same period last year, according to the UN. It says almost 9,000 of them departed from Libya.

According to the UN refugee agency, migrants from Bangladesh, Sudan and Guinea made up the largest groups of arrivals in the first three months of this year.