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[VIDEOS] Hezbollah, resistance force from Lebanon: A decades-long conflict with Israel

Israeli strike kills senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon​


Hezbollah says one of its senior commanders has been killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon.

Mohammed Nimah Nasser is the latest senior member of the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group to be targeted by Israel during almost nine months of cross-border violence which have raised fears of an all-out war.

Hezbollah said it had launched 100 rockets and missiles at Israeli military positions “as part of the response to the assassination”. No injuries were reported.

The Israeli military said Nasser commanded a unit responsible for launching rockets from south-western Lebanon and accused him of directing a “large number of terror attacks”.

It also described him as “the counterpart” of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the commander of another unit whose killing last month prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 200 rockets and missiles into northern Israel in a single day.

Since then, there has been a flurry of diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions, with the UN and US warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a war that could also draw in Iran and other allied groups.

There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October.

Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Palestinian group that is also backed by Iran. Both are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.

So far, more than 400 people have been reported killed in Lebanon, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, and 25 people in Israel, mostly soldiers.

Tens of thousands from communities on both sides of the border have also been displaced.

 

Hezbollah fires over 200 rockets at Israeli military in retaliation for top commander​


Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched a big rocket and drone attack at Israel on Thursday and threatened to hit new targets in retaliation for the killing of a top commander, in the latest surge of violence in the steadily worsening conflict across the border.

Sparked by the Gaza war, the conflict between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides have indicated they want to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent.

As the latest violence played out in areas at or near the frontier - in keeping with the pattern of the last nine months - the sound of sonic booms rattled nerves for the second successive day in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon.

Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over several areas of the country, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.

Hezbollah said it launched more than 200 rockets and a swarm of drones at 10 Israeli military sites in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hezbollah commander Mohammed Nasser in the south on Wednesday. Nasser is one of the most senior Hezbollah commanders to be killed by Israel during the conflict.

The Israeli military said around "200 projectiles and over 20 suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory,” a number of which were intercepted by Israeli air defenses and fighter jets.

Israel’s ambulance service said no casualties were reported. The Israeli military said some of the drones and interceptor shrapnel set off fires.

The Israeli air force “struck Hezbollah military structures” in the areas of Ramyeh and Houla, it said, referring to two villages in south Lebanon.

Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine, speaking at an event in Beirut commemorating Nasser, indicated his group would widen its targeting.

“The series of responses continues in succession, and this series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit,” Safieddine said.

The United States has been leading diplomatic efforts to deescalate the fighting. Hezbollah has said it will not cease fire as long as Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The hostilities have inflicted a heavy toll on both sides of the frontier, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Amos Hochstein, a senior US official at the heart of the diplomacy, discussed French and American efforts to restore calm in meetings with French officials on Wednesday, a White House official said.

“France and the United States share the goal of resolving the current conflict across the Blue Line by diplomatic means, allowing Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return home with long-term assurances of safety and security,” the official said, referring to the demarcation line between the two neighbors.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday Israeli forces were hitting Hezbollah “very hard every day” and will be ready to take any action necessary against the group, though the preference is to reach a negotiated arrangement.

Hezbollah also launched rockets at Israel on Wednesday in retaliation for Nasser’s killing.

Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets along the border with Lebanon after its Palestinian ally Hams launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, declaring its support for the Palestinians.

Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters and some 90 civilians, according to Reuters tallies. Israel says fire from Lebanon has killed 18 soldiers and 10 civilians.

 

UK’s Starmer urges ‘caution’ on Israel-Lebanon border in call with Netanyahu​


British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday called on all sides to exercise “caution” on the border between Israel and Lebanon, in his first telephone conversation since he was elected with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Starmer told his counterpart the “situation on the northern border of Israel was very concerning, and it was crucial all parties acted with caution,” a spokesperson for his 10 Downing Street office said.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement on Sunday fired another 20 rockets at northern Israel, leaving one person injured there, the latest cross-border attacks launched in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Hezbollah has traded near daily fire with the Israeli army across Lebanon’s southern border since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel last year, triggering the war in Gaza.

Discussing the conflict, the prime minister reiterated his condolences for the mass loss of life during the October 7 attacks, the spokesperson said.

“He then set out the clear and urgent need for a ceasefire, the return of hostages and an immediate increase in the volume of humanitarian aid reaching civilians.”

In his conversation with Netanyahu, Starmer added that it was also “important to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution were in place, including ensuring the Palestinian Authority had the financial means to operate effectively.”

Efforts towards a truce are continuing with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators hoping to halt the worst-ever Gaza war, which has caused mass civilian casualties and devastated the coastal territory.

‘Undeniable right of Palestinians’

The spokesperson said the prime minister also spoke by phone to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Starmer told Abbas that his “longstanding policy on recognition to contribute to a peace process had not changed, and it was the undeniable right of Palestinians.”

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli tallies.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

In response, Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 38,153 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

 
Hezbollah wants war.

Israel should grant their wish.
 
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Two Israelis killed in Hezbollah retaliatory attack on Golan, police say

Two people were killed when Hezbollah fired dozens of rockets at the Golan Heights on Tuesday, Israeli police said, as the Lebanese militant group retaliated after a former bodyguard of its leader was killed in an Israeli strike.

One rocket hit a car in the Golan that instantly killed a man and woman, police said. Israel's ambulance service had initially said in a statement that paramedics had reported two casualties "in critical condition" after red-alert sirens went off in the Israeli-occupied Golan.

Police said firefighters continued to battle several fires that broke out as a result of rockets that fell to the ground.

Israel's military said its fighter jets had struck Hezbollah infrastructure in the area of Qabrikha from which the projectiles were launched toward the area of the Golan Heights. It added it also struck Hezbollah military structures in the area of Kfarkela in southern Lebanon.

Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike hit a vehicle in Syrian territory on the Damascus-Beirut highway, killing one of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's former bodyguards, who security sources said was recently involved in transporting weapons for the Iranian-backed group.

Hezbollah said that it had fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at the Golan Heights in retaliation. The Israeli military said 40 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into the Golan.

Hezbollah mourned former bodyguard Yasser Nimr Qarnabsh without elaborating on his role in the organisation. Two security sources said he had become a mid-ranking Hezbollah official involved in the transport of weapons.

Israel typically does not discuss attacks by its forces in Syria. When asked about the strike, an Israeli military spokesperson said: "We do not comment on reports in the foreign media."

Hezbollah began firing at Israeli targets along the border in support of Palestinians after its ally Hamas launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that precipitated the war in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Israelis and Lebanese have been forced to evacuate from areas around the border between the two countries.

SOURCE: https://www.reuters.com/world/middl...guard-hezbollah-leader-group-says-2024-07-09/
 

Is Israel-Hamas war strengthening or weakening Lebanon’s Hezbollah?​


After nine months of low-scale conflict, Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah are on the brink of a full-scale war.

Despite efforts by the United States and the international community to pursue diplomatic solutions, tensions remain high. If war erupts, Israel will confront a much stronger adversary in Hezbollah than it did with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Israel and the Lebanese militant group have been engaged in ongoing exchanges of fire since October 8, one day after Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel, which prompted Israeli retaliation against Gaza.

The recent spike in missile activity between the two and increasingly heated rhetoric have heightened fears of a full-fledged war. Cross-border violence is intensifying, and both parties are preparing for possible large-scale military confrontations.

Tens of thousands of people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have been displaced. Israeli strikes have killed more than 330 Hezbollah fighters and around 90 civilians in Lebanon, according to Reuters tallies. Israel says attacks from Lebanon have killed 21 soldiers and 10 civilians.

Many of Hezbollah’s casualties occurred during the almost daily clashes, which involved launching rockets and explosive drones into northern Israel.

These developments raise questions about whether the recent escalations have politically and militarily strengthened Hezbollah or otherwise weakened it.

Perceptions of Hezbollah’s regional influence

Hezbollah’s involvement in the Israel-Hamas war sparked varied reactions across the region. Traditionally seen as a powerful force against Israel, Hezbollah’s participation was perceived by some as a demonstration of strength and solidarity with Palestinian resistance. Others feared it could plunge Lebanon, already on its knees, into a deadly war and cause regional escalation.

Hezbollah, founded in 1982 during Lebanon’s civil war, initially aimed to end Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, which it achieved in 2000. The Shia Muslim group is part of the Axis of Resistance, a coalition of Iranian-backed armed groups.

In 2006, an all-out war broke out between Israel and Hezbollah when the latter’s fighters crossed the Israel-Lebanon border, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others. This led to a month-long conflict marked by intense fighting and widespread destruction. Israel launched a massive military campaign to weaken Hezbollah’s military capabilities, while the Lebanese group fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel.

After the 2006 war and prior to the outbreak of the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah’s military focus remained on Israel. Both sides, wary of another war, maintained a delicate balance akin to mutually assured devastation.

Over time, Hezbollah has evolved into Lebanon’s most powerful political actor and the most well-equipped military force supported by Iran in the Middle East. A 2018 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies called it “the world’s most heavily armed non-state actor.”

The group’s military capabilities have surged, and it played a significant role in the Syrian civil war, supporting President Bashar al-Assad. It has also helped train Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, as well as Yemen’s Houthis. Its actions often strained relations with other Arab states.

“Hezbollah has demonstrated advancements in military technology, showcasing precision-guided loitering munitions and anti-tank guided rockets that represent a significant leap forward in tactics and capabilities,” Oubai Shahbandar, American defense analyst and former Middle East policy advisor to the Pentagon, told Al Arabiya English.

“Hezbollah strategically aligns its actions in the conflict with Israel according to directives from Iran’s Quds Force leadership, maintaining a deeply rooted hierarchical structure. The organization’s measured attacks on Israel since October 7 are meticulously orchestrated based on Tehran’s strategic imperatives rather than broader Arab popularity.”

Impact of Israel’s targeted assassinations against Hezbollah

Israel has intensified its strategy of targeting senior Hezbollah commanders, aiming to cripple the organization’s leadership and operational capabilities. These targeted killings might have affected Hezbollah, but the extent to which they have weakened the organization remains a subject of debate. Hezbollah has historically shown resilience, often maintaining its operational tempo.

“In the short term, assassinations have an impact on Hezbollah’s operations and the morale of its fighters. Yet, being a highly adaptable and learning organization with a deep leadership bench, it will overcome these challenges,” Randa Slim, senior fellow and director of Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told Al Arabiya English.

Meanwhile, Shahbandar believes that “Israel’s strikes against senior Hezbollah operatives, who have been working hand in hand with Iran’s Quds Force commanders for decades, are taking a toll on the group.”

Several high-ranking Hezbollah commanders were killed in the hostilities, including Abbas Raad, Wissam al-Tawil, Taleb Abdallah and Mohammed Nasser, who were instrumental in directing operations in the south. Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas, was also killed while attending a meeting in Beirut.

Hezbollah began suspecting that Israel was targeting its fighters by tracking their cell phones and monitoring video feeds from security cameras installed on buildings in border communities, Reuters reported citing sources.

In a televised address on February 13, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah cautioned his supporters about the risks posed by their phones, suggesting they dispose of them by breaking, burying, or locking them in an iron box.

Yesterday, an Israeli strike in Syria killed a former personal bodyguard of Nasrallah.

Strategic postures

Hezbollah has repeatedly said that it will not stop its attacks unless a ceasefire is achieved in Gaza. It has labeled its campaign as a “support front” for the Palestinians.

Earlier this week, Gallant vowed that Israel would continue to fight Hezbollah in the north regardless of a ceasefire deal with Hamas in the strip, according to Israeli media. He insisted that the two arenas were “separate.”

Hopes for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage agreement diminished this week as Israel imposed conditions on the deal, and Hamas cautioned that ongoing Israeli actions in Gaza could threaten the negotiations.

Israeli forces pressed their offensive in north and central Gaza on Wednesday, hours after an airstrike on a tent encampment that killed more than two dozen people. The airstrike hit the tents of displaced families outside a school in the town of Abassan east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least 29 people, most of them women and children, Palestinian medical officials stated.

In its conflict with Hezbollah, Slim believes that Israel has not achieved escalation dominance.

“Israel’s communication strategy towards Hezbollah comprises two primary components: issuing threats of escalation into full-scale war and demonstrating a preference for diplomatic solutions to manage the hostilities,” she explained. “The objectives of this approach are threefold: to deter Hezbollah, to reassure their domestic constituencies that they are pursuing a resolution through both military and non-military means and to signal to Hezbollah their interest in achieving a political solution.”

Gallant mentioned that Israel prefers a diplomatic solution to the conflict with Hezbollah. Nasrallah similarly reiterated that he does not seek war, though he emphasized that he is prepared for and unafraid of one.

“So far, both Israel and Hezbollah have managed to calibrate their respective military responses just below the threshold of total war,” Shahbandar said. “They remain ensnared in a precarious cycle of low-intensity conflict. Despite neither side desiring full-scale conventional warfare, the prolonged duration of this ‘war between wars’ raises the risk of the worst-case scenario materializing.”

 
Washington refuses to hand over heavy bombs to Israel to prevent a war in Lebanon

Al-Arabiya
 
Smoke on the horizon - Israel and Hezbollah edge closer to all-out war

As the war in Gaza grinds on, there are growing fears another Middle East war may erupt - with devastating consequences for the region, and beyond.

Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah (backed by Iran) have been trading fire across their shared border for the past nine months. If this conflict escalates to all-out war, it could dwarf the destruction in Gaza, draw in Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and Yemen, spread embers around the Middle East and embroil the US. Iran itself could intervene directly.

The United Nations has warned of a “catastrophe beyond imagination”.

For now, a low-level war simmers in the summer heat, along a 120km (75 mile) stretch of border. One spark here could set the Middle East alight.

Over the lapping of the waves, and the thwack thwack of paddle games on the beach, a sound cuts through - a sudden deep boom.

Soon smoke billows from a hillside in the distance after an Israeli strike.

Around the pool in a resort hotel, a few sunbathers stand briefly to scan the horizon.

Others don’t move a tanned limb.

Explosions are part of the sound of summer 2024 in the ancient Lebanese city of Tyre, as Hezbollah and Israel exchange fire across the border 25 kilometres (15 miles) away.

“Another day, another bomb,” says Roland, 49, with a shrug, as he relaxes on a lilo. He lives abroad but is back home on holiday.

“We got used to it somehow over the months,” says his friend Mustafa, 39, “though children are still a little bit scared.” He nods towards his daughter Miral, 7, who is dripping wet from the pool.

“When she hears an explosion, she always asks, ‘will there be a bomb now?’” he says.

Earlier this month, there was a massive blast in his neighbourhood in Tyre, as his family of four were having a meal. Israel had assassinated a senior Hezbollah commander, Mohammed Nimah Nasser.

“We heard the noise,” Mustafa says, “and we carried on eating.”

But the sunbathers on the beach in Tyre may be on borrowed time. This city will be in the firing line in the event of all-out war, along with the rest of southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah stronghold.

We are now at the water’s edge of a potentially devastating war which both sides say they don’t want.

How did we get here?

The conflict is heating up

On 8 October last year - one day after Hamas gunmen stormed out of Gaza and killed about 1,200 Israelis as well as taking 251 others hostage - Hezbollah joined in, firing from Lebanon into Israel.

The Shia Islamist armed group said it was acting in support of Gaza.

Soon Israel was firing back.

Hezbollah, which is also a political party, is the most powerful force in Lebanon.

Like Hamas, it is classed as a terrorist organisation by many countries, including the UK and the US.

But unlike Hamas, Hezbollah has the firepower to seriously threaten Israel.

It is believed to have an arsenal of more than 150,000 rockets and missiles - some precision-guided - capable of inflicting heavy damage around the country.

Put simply Hezbollah - its English translation, the Party of God - has more arms than many countries.

Its backer Iran – which denies Israel’s right to exist – is happy to train and fund the enemies of the Jewish state.

The conflict has been heating up, with thousands of cross-border strikes.

Some countries have already told their nationals to leave Lebanon urgently, including Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and Saudi Arabia. The UK has advised against all travel to the country and is urging Britons who are here to leave - while they still can.

So far, both sides are mainly striking military targets, close to the border - staying within familiar red lines.

But here on the Lebanese side, we have seen destruction in civilian areas with scorched fields, flattened houses and abandoned villages.

And the current ***-for-tat has already driven tens of thousands from their homes - more than 90,000 in Lebanon and about 60,000 in Israel.

The Israeli army says Hezbollah has killed 21 of its soldiers. The civilian death toll is 12, according to government officials.

Lebanon’s losses are far higher at 466, according to the Ministry of Health here. Hezbollah says most of the dead were fighters.

Sally Skaiki was not.

'We can't forgive them'

“I never called her Sally,” says her father Hussein Abdul Hassan Skaiki. “I always called her ‘my life’ - she was everything for me.”

“She was the only girl in the house, and we spoiled her, me and her three brothers.”

Sally, 25, was a volunteer paramedic. She was killed by an Israeli strike after sunset on 14 June as she stood in the doorway of her building.

Her father wears the black of mourning, and the green scarf of the Shia Amal movement, which is allied to Hezbollah.

We meet in his village of Deir Qanoun En-Naher, 30km (18 miles) from the border. The main road is dotted with sun-bleached posters of fighters killed in battle against Israel - some in recent months, others back in 2006 when the two sides last went to war.

In that conflict, Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill but at huge cost to Lebanon and its people. There was massive destruction, and more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians were killed - according to official figures - along with an unconfirmed number of Hezbollah fighters.

Israel’s death toll was 160, according to the government, most of them soldiers.

By Hussein’s side there is a large poster of Sally, in her headscarf and paramedic uniform. He speaks of his daughter with pride and with anguish.

“She loved to help people,” he says. “Any problem that happened, she rushed there. She was well-loved in the village. She always had a smile on her face.”

As we speak there is a loud boom which rattles the windows.

Hussein says it is a normal, daily occurrence.

“Since a long time, Israel killed our people here,” he says.

“We can’t forgive them. There is no hope of peace with them.”

This time, there is no death or destruction. Instead, Israeli warplanes are breaking the sound barrier to spread fear.

And, since October, Israel has been spreading something else in southern Lebanon - choking, searing clumps of white phosphorus, contained in munitions.

The chemical substance ignites immediately on contact with oxygen. It sticks to skin and clothing and can burn through bone, according to the World Health Organization.

Moussa al-Moussa - a farmer stooped by his 77 years - knows only too well.

He says Israel fired white phosphorous shells at his land in the village of al-Bustan every day for over a month, robbing him of breath, and his livelihood.

“I had my scarf on, and I wrapped it around my mouth and nose until I was brought to the hospital,” he tells me, gesturing to the red and white keffiyeh – the traditional Arab scarf - on his head.

“We didn’t have any masks. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see a metre in front of me. And if you touch a fragment a week later it will ignite and burn again.”

The international campaign group, Human Rights Watch, has verified the use of white phosphorus over several populated areas in southern Lebanon, including al-Bustan.

It says Israel’s use of white phosphorus is “unlawfully indiscriminate in populated areas”.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) dispute this, saying the use of white phosphorus shells to create a smokescreen “is lawful under international law”. It says these shells are not used in densely populated areas “with certain exceptions”.

Like many farmers along the border, Moussa fears Israel has poisoned his tobacco crop and his olive groves.

“White phosphorous burns the ground, it burns people and the crops and buildings,” he says.

Even if he can return home, he is afraid to bring in a harvest in case it harms his family or his buyers.

He lives in limbo - in classroom 4B of a vocational school in Tyre. About 30 families who fled the border area are sheltering in the building. Washing is strung across the school yard. A lone little boy races up and down the empty corridors on a bicycle.

When I ask Moussa how many wars he has seen, he begins to laugh.

“We spent our lives in wars,” he says. “Only God knows if another one is coming.”

'We are not afraid'

As one of Hezbollah’s most senior commanders, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, was a wanted man. He fought Israel in 2006, and before, and went on to fight in Syria and Iraq. In recent months he “planned, led and supervised many military operations against the Israeli enemy”, according to Hezbollah.

Israel tracked him down in Tyre on 3 July. Death came from the sky in broad daylight, with an air strike which turned his car into a fireball.

In the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut, he was given a hero’s funeral, or rather a “martyr’s” one.

The event was carefully choreographed and strictly segregated - men in one area, women in another - including the press.

His coffin, draped in the yellow flag of Hezbollah, was carried by pall bearers in camouflage uniforms and red berets. Many more fighters stood to attention, lines deep. There was a brass band in spotless white uniforms, if not in perfect harmony.

It had the feel of a state funeral - in a country that lacks a functioning state.

Lebanon has no president, a caretaker government and a shattered economy. It is carved up by sect, and hollowed out by corruption, its citizens left to fend for themselves. Many Lebanese are weary. The last thing they want is another war.

Hezbollah sees things different.

As the funeral prayers concluded, the talk among mourners was of “martyrdom” not death, and of readiness for war, if it comes.

Hassan Hamieh, a 35-year-old nurse, told us he would fight. “We are not afraid,” he said.

“In fact, we are longing for an all-out war. Martyrdom is the shortest path to God. Young or old, we will all take part in this war, if it is forced upon us.”

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has stressed the armed group is ready, but not eager, for war. He says if there is a ceasefire agreed in Gaza, Hezbollah will cease fire too, immediately.

Will that satisfy Israel? Maybe not.

It sees Hezbollah as a permanent threat too close for comfort. At the very least, it wants its heavily armed enemy to pull back from the border.

There have been plenty of bellicose threats. Israel’s Education Minister, Yoav Kish, said Lebanon would be “annihilated”. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant chimed in, saying the country would be returned “to the stone age”.

The IDF approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” a month ago.

For now, no tanks are rolling over the border. There has been no political decision to attack. Israel is still waging war in Gaza and fighting on two fronts could overstretch the military.

But without a diplomatic solution between Israel and Hezbollah - two old enemies - all-out war may be coming, if not now, then later.

BBC
 
Spain, Germany arrest four people for supplying Hezbollah with parts to build drones

Three people were arrested in Spain and one more in Germany on suspicion of belonging to a network that supplied the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah with parts to build kamikaze drones that would have been used in attacks in northern Israel, Spanish authorities said Thursday.

The investigation began in Spain when the Guardia Civil detected “suspicious operations” by Spanish companies run by Lebanese nationals involving large quantities of materials and components to manufacture drones capable of carrying explosive charges of several kilograms, the statement said.

Authorities believe Hezbollah may have built several hundred drones with these components.

The Spanish companies, as others in Europe and around the world, purchased items including electronic guidance components, propulsion propellers, gasoline engines, more than 200 electric motors and materials for the fuselage, wings and other drone parts, according to investigators.

The parts acquired by the network, which has now been dismantled, were identified in drones used by Hezbollah militants in attacks against Israel after the start of the Gaza war, which was triggered by the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

Since then, Israeli air strikes on Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also more than 80 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed.

 

Germany bans ‘Hezbollah, Iran-linked’ group; Tehran summons Berlin envoy​


Germany on Wednesday banned the Hamburg Islamic Center, an association that has been under investigation for several months over its alleged support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and its links to Iran.

The interior ministry accused the center of presenting itself as a purely religious organization with no political agenda, but said its probe has found the contrary to be true.

In a statement, the ministry said that it “banned the Hamburg Islamic Center and its affiliated organizations throughout Germany to date, as it is an Islamist extremist organization pursuing anti-constitutional objectives.”

Iran responded by summoning the German ambassador.

“Following the action of the German police which closed a number of Islamic centers, the German ambassador was summoned today to the ministry of foreign affairs,” the ministry said in a statement on X.

Accusing the group of being a “direct representative of Iran’s supreme leader,” the German interior ministry said the center spreads Tehran’s ideology “in an aggressive and militant manner.”

It is allegedly seeking to “establish authoritarian, theocratic rule” in place of a democracy, said the ministry, accusing the center of backing the “military and political dimension” of organizations like Hezbollah.

It is also believed to propagate antisemitism, something that Germany has been battling to stem amid a jump in cases following Israel’s war on Gaza in response to the deadly attack by Hamas militants on Israeli soil.

Investigators raided 53 properties allegedly linked to the center across Germany on Wednesday, and the ban will also be imposed on several organizations related to the Hamburg center – including four Shia mosques.

“I want to make it very clear: We are not taking action against a religion,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

“We are drawing a clear distinction between the Islamist extremists that we are cracking down on and the many Muslims who belong to our country and live according to their faith.

“This ban absolutely does not apply to the peaceful practice of the Shia religion,” she stressed.

 
Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon after deadly football pitch attack

Israel's air force says it has hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, after 12 children and young adults were killed in a rocket attack while playing football in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israel has blamed the Lebanese militant group for Saturday's attack on the Druze town of Majdal Shams, but Hezbollah has strongly denied any involvement.

Early on Sunday, the IDF said it had conducted air strikes against seven Hezbollah targets "deep inside Lebanese territory". It is unclear whether there were any casualties.

The rising tensions have the potential to trigger an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, whose forces have regularly exchanged fire since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October.

Saturday's attack at the town's football pitch was the deadliest loss of life on Israel's northern border since the war began on 7 October.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had immediately vowed retaliation against Hezbollah, saying the group would "pay a heavy price".

Hours later, the Israeli Air Force said it had struck "terror targets" including "weapons caches and terrorist infrastructure" overnight.

A UN statement said "maximum restraint" was crucial by all parties, with the risk of a wider conflict that would "engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief".

Hezbollah spokesman Mohamad Afif denied responsibility for the attack, and the BBC is trying to verify reports that the militant group told the United Nations that the explosion was caused by an Israeli interceptor rocket.

Israeli authorities said all of those killed were between the ages of 10 and 20, although Israeli media reports that some were younger.

Verified video shows crowds of people on a football pitch and stretchers being rushed to waiting ambulances.

Majdal Shams is one of four villages in the Golan Heights, where about 25,000 members of the Arabic-speaking Druze religious and ethnic group live.

Before reports of the strike's impact emerged, Hezbollah had claimed responsibility for four other attacks.

One was on a nearby military compound on the slopes of Mt Hermon, which lies on the border between the Golan Heights and Lebanon. The base is around 3km (2 miles) from the football pitch.

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, who visited the scene of the attack, accused Hezbollah of "lying and denying responsibility for the incident."

He said that the rocket was an Iranian-made Falaq-1 "owned exclusively by Hezbollah".

"Our intelligence is clear. Hezbollah is responsible for the murder of innocent children," he said, adding that Israel was preparing to retaliate.

Although Israel and Hezbollah regularly trade fire and have both suffered casualties, since October, both sides have refrained from actions which could escalate into a broader war in southern Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was on a visit to the US, is returning home early.

In an angry statement, Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the leader of the Druze community in Israel, said the "horrific massacre" had crossed "every possible red line".

"A proper state cannot allow continuous harm to its citizens and residents. This has been the ongoing reality in the northern communities for the past nine months," he added.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz told Israel's Channel 12 news: “We are facing an all-out war.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the incident a "terrible and shocking disaster" and said that "the state of Israel will firmly defend its citizens and its sovereignty".

Lebanon's government also issued a rare statement in response, saying it "condemns all acts of violence and aggression against all civilians and calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts.

"Targeting civilians is a flagrant violation of international law and goes against the principles of humanity," the statement added.

The US and EU have also condemned the attack.

UN envoy Tor Wennesland denounced the incident and urged restraint from all sides.

"The Middle East is on the brink; the world and the region cannot afford another open conflict," he wrote on X.

Most Druze live in northern Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. In Israel, they have full citizenship rights and comprise about 1.5% of the population.

Those living in the Golan were offered Israeli citizenship when the region was annexed from Syria in 1981, but not everyone accepted.

Druze in the Golan can still study and work in Israel, though only those with citizenship can vote.

Male Israeli Druze are required to serve in the army. They are the largest non-Jewish group in the IDF.

The vast majority of the international community does not recognise Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights.

BBC
 
Hezbollah on 'high alert'

Hezbollah has cleared some key sites in eastern and southern Lebanon in case of possible Israeli escalation, according to a new report.

It is said to be on "high alert" after Israeli strikes "deep inside Lebanese territory" overnight.

Two security sources, cited by the Reuters news agency, said Hezbollah had cleared sites in both southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Israel's air strikes overnight appear to be in response to the killing of 12 children and teenagers in a rocket attack on a football pitch in the Golan Heights - something Hezbollah said it was not responsible for.

But both Israel and the United States have said the evidence suggests the Lebanon-based militant group was to blame.

Sky News
 

Blinken says ‘every indication’ Golan rocket fired by Hezbollah​


US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday that there was “every indication” that Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was behind a rocket strike in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 young people.

“Every indication is that indeed the rocket was from Hezbollah. We stand by Israel’s right to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks,” Blinken told reporters in Japan.

The Israeli military said the young people were struck on Saturday by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Iran-backed Hezbollah fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.

Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike.

“We are determined to bring the Gaza conflict to a close. It’s gone on for far too long. It’s cost far too many lives. We want to see Israelis, we want to see Palestinians, we want to see Lebanese live free from the threat of conflict and violence,” Blinken said.

“We’re in conversations with the government of Israel. And again, I emphasize its right to defend its citizens and our determination to make sure that they’re able to do that,” he said in Tokyo.

“But we also don’t want to see the conflict escalating. We don’t want to see a spread. That has been one of our goals from day one, from October 7 on, and we’ll continue to do that.

“But again, the best way to do that in a sustained way is to get the ceasefire in Gaza that we’re working so hard on virtually every minute of the day,” he said.

 

Lebanon says it asked US to urge restraint from Israel after Golan deaths​


The Lebanese government has asked the United States to urge restraint from Israel, Lebanon’s foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib told Reuters on Sunday, as tensions build following an attack blamed on Hezbollah that killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Bou Habib said the US had asked the Lebanese government to pass on a message to Hezbollah to show restraint as well. Hezbollah has denied involvement in the attack. Israel has vowed swift retaliation.

Separately, Lebanon on Sunday called for an international investigation into the strike.

The Israeli military said that an Iranian-made rocket that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired on Saturday hit a football field in Majdal Shams, a Druze Arab town, killing children and teenagers who were playing there.

In a statement on X, Bou Habib urged for an “international investigation or a meeting of the tripartite committee held through UNIFIL to know the truth” about who was responsible for the attack.

The tripartite committee refers to military officials from Lebanon and Israel, which are technically at war, together with peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).

Bou Habib, in a statement issued by the foreign ministry, said he “expected the Majdal Shams strike was carried out by other organizations or was an Israeli mistake or a mistake by Hezbollah.”

He insisted the Lebanese group targets “only military” positions and ruled out them carrying out an intentional attack on civilians in Majdal Shams.

The statement, carried by the state-run National News Agency, said that Bou Habib also “called for the complete and comprehensive application” of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701.

The resolution ended a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and called for the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to be the only armed forces deployed in south Lebanon.

“A large attack by Israel on Lebanon will lead to a deterioration of the regional situation and will spark regional war,” Bou Habib warned, according to the statement.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to “hit the enemy hard” following the Majdal Shams strike, while Iran warned Israel that any new military “adventures” in Lebanon could lead to “unforeseen consequences.”

Hezbollah says it has been acting in support of Gazans and ally Hamas with its cross-border strikes, which began the day after the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which sparked the war in Gaza.

The group on Sunday afternoon announced its first attack on an Israeli position since the day before, saying it also came “in response to enemy attacks” on south Lebanon villages and homes.

The cross-border violence since October has killed at least 527 people in Lebanon according to an AFP tally, most of them fighters but also including 104 civilians.

On the Israeli side, 22 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

 
Lebanon's foreign minister says don't give Israel 'licence to kill' after deadly football pitch attack

Lebanon's foreign minister has condemned a rocket attack on a football field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights – but said it does not give Israel a “licence to kill”.

Israel and the US have blamed Hezbollah, but the Iranian-backed group has denied it was responsible for the strike which killed 12 children and teenagers and left 20 others wounded.

The Israeli military said the rocket fired from Lebanon that slammed into a football field in the town of Majdal Shams - about seven miles south of Lebanon and next to the Syrian border - on Saturday was the deadliest attack on civilians since the Hamas' attack on 7 October.

Speaking to Sky News' Alex Crawford, Lebanon's foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib called for a UN investigation but said there was "no logic" for Hezbollah to have been behind it.


news.sky.com

Lebanon's foreign minister says don't give Israel 'licence to kill' after deadly football pitch attack

Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the rocket strike in Israeli-controlled Golan Heights which killed 12 children and teenagers.
news.sky.com news.sky.com
 

Two killed, several injured in drone attack in Southern Lebanon: Civil defense​


An Israeli drone strike outside the southern Lebanese town of Shaqra on Monday killed two people and wounded three, including a child, Lebanese civil defense said.

This comes as tensions between Israel and armed political group Hezbollah are at an all-time high following a rocket strike in Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday.

Hezbollah had denied any responsibility for the attack in Majdal Shams, but Israel blamed the group for firing a Falaq-1 Iranian rocket.

Twelve teenagers and children were killed in the weekend attack, adding to concerns that Israel and the Iran-backed group could engage in a full-scale war.

Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday authorized the government to respond to the strike.

 
Western citizens urged to leave Lebanon as efforts to deter Israeli attack continue

A frantic diplomatic push to deter Israel from striking Beirut in response to a deadly rocket attack on the Golan Heights was under way on Monday, as the government of the UK, Germany, France and America issued travel warnings to their citizens, calling on them to leave Lebanon or avoid travel there.

British foreign secretary David Lammy said events were “fast-moving” and that British nationals were advised “to leave Lebanon and not to travel to the country.”

In its travel guidance, the UK Foreign Office warned events in the region could escalate with “little warning” and leave commercial routes out of Lebanon severely disrupted. “Do not rely on FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office] being able to evacuate you in an emergency,” it added.

Rena Bitter, the assistant secretary for consular affairs at the US embassy in Beirut used a video on X to tell Americans in Lebanon to “create a crisis plan of action and leave before the crisis begins”.

Some flights to and from Beirut’s international airport have been cancelled this week, with Jordan’s flag carrier, Royal Jordanian, becoming the latest on Monday, suspending flights until at least Tuesday.

Washington is racing to avert a full-blown war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah after the attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan killed 12 youths at the weekend. Israel and the US have blamed Hezbollah for the rocket strike, though the group has denied responsibility.

The US has reportedly focused its high-speed diplomacy on constraining Israel’s response by urging it against targeting densely populated Beirut, the southern suburbs of the city that form Hezbollah’s heartland, or key infrastructure like airports and bridges.

Lebanon’s deputy parliament speaker Elias Bou Saab, who said he had been in contact with US mediators since Saturday’s Golan attack, told Reuters that Israel could avert the threat of major escalation by sparing the capital and its environs.

“If they avoid civilians and they avoid Beirut and its suburbs, then their attack could be well calculated,” he said.

A spokesperson for the national security council told the Guardian that Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu had not spoken since the rocket attack but stressed that US officials had been in regular contact with both Lebanese and Israeli officials since the strike.

Lebanese foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib said the flurry of diplomatic activity has sought to contain the anticipated Israeli response, but an attack was expected.

“Israel will escalate in a limited way and Hezbollah will respond in a limited way … These are the assurances we’ve received,” Bou Habib said in an interview with local broadcaster Al-Jadeed.’

The Israeli calculation that it could conduct a large volume of strikes deeper into Lebanese territory, strike targets in Beirut or even hit facilities belonging to the Lebanese state rather than the militant group could prove to be high-risk strategies, Danny Citrinowicz, an analyst with Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said.

On Monday, Netanyahu, promised a “harsh” response to the rocket strike on the occupied Golan Heights, saying, “the state of Israel will not and cannot let this pass.

In a briefing to reporters, John Kirby, the White House national security council communications adviser, called warnings of all-out war “exaggerated”.

“Nobody wants a broader war, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to avoid such an outcome,” Kirby said. “I’ll let the Israelis speak to whatever their response is going to be.”

Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian, whose country supports Hezbollah and Hamas, warned Israel against attacking Lebanon, which he said would be “a great mistake with heavy consequences”.

Pezeshkian spoke with French president Emmanuel Macron on Monday, with the Élysée Palace saying Macron told his counterpart “all must be done to avoid a military escalation” and urging Tehran to “cease its support for destabilising actors”.

THE GUARDIAN
 
sweep_shot said:
Israel seems to want to prolong the war.

Psychopaths.
Click to expand...
Israel has support of other countries like usa etc. that is why israel wants more war.

Otherwise there is not real thing left in this war. Palestine has been destroyed and now they are up against hezbollah.
 
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The Israeli army said it carried out a “precision strike” on Beirut, targeting a Hezbollah commander.

The army said that this was retaliation for an attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday that killed 12 children and teenagers.

Al Jazeera
 
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US Vice-President Kamala Harris says she wants to be "very clear" that "Israel has a right to defend itself", speaking to reporters about Israel's targeted strike in Beirut.

As a reminder, Israel's army says it targeted the Hezbollah commander it believes was responsible for the attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday which killed 12 children and teenagers - Hezbollah denies involvement.

Harris says: "I unequivocally support Israel's right to remain secure and to defend the security of Israel. It has a right to defend itself against a terrorist organisation, which is exactly what Hezbollah is."

She adds that "we still must work on a diplomatic solution to end these attacks”.


BBC
 
Israel believes Hezbollah senior commander killed in Beirut strike, Israeli media report says

Israel believes its air strike on Beirut killed a senior commander of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on Tuesday, Israel's public broadcaster said, in retaliation for a cross-border rocket attack that killed 12 youngsters three days ago.

A loud blast was heard and a plume of smoke could be seen rising above Beirut's southern suburbs - a stronghold of the Iran-backed Hezbollah - at around 7:40 p.m. (1640 GMT), a Reuters witness said.

Two unidentified sources told Israeli public broadcaster Kan that Israel assessed that "the target of the strike" was killed.

The Israeli military earlier said the target was the Hezbollah militant responsible for a rocket strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday that killed 12 youth in a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams.

Two security sources in Lebanon earlier named the target as Muhsin Shukr, also known as Fuad Shukr, head of Hezbollah's operations centre. They said he was critically injured in the attack around Hezbollah's Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood.

Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad told Reuters that the strike also killed another person and injured 35, three critically.

Hezbollah has denied involvement in the Golan attack, but said the group fired rockets at a military target in the Golan Heights. The killing of the youths prompted a high-level Western diplomatic flurry to avert a major escalation that could inflame the wider Middle East.

The Israeli military said it had issued no new instructions for civil defence in Israel, a possible indication that Israel did not plan further strikes immediately. Channel 12 TV quoted an unnamed official as saying Israel did not want an all-out war.


 

Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs threatens de-escalation efforts: Mikati​


Israel’s attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs threatens to escalate the volatile situation between Lebanon and Israel, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Wednesday during an urgent Cabinet session.

During the meeting held to address Tuesday’s Israeli strike on Haret Hreik, a Hezbollah stronghold, Mikati warned that the development shifted the situation to a state of “open danger.”

“We raise the voice warning that things could get worse if the enemy continues its recklessness and murderous criminal madness,” he said, adding that he hoped that the “killing would stop.”

Mikati, according to a statement, expressed his fear “that the situation will worsen if the concerned countries and the entire international community do not hurry to curb this dangerous chaos.”

Denouncing the attack which targeted a Hezbollah senior commander, the premier said that it was a “strike to all well-intentioned initiatives and efforts to [ensure] that calm and understanding prevail.”

“We will continue to work to save our country and protect our society from any danger. We stress that Lebanon doesn’t want war, [and] will preserve the dignity of its people and [its] sovereignty…without any neglect of its rights.”

The Israeli strike targeted senior commander Fuad Shukr, who is close to Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah.

The attack came in response to a weekend strike on the annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 teenagers and children and that was blamed on Hezbollah, although it denied any involvement in the attack.

The Lebanese group confirmed on Wednesday that Shukr was in the building targeted but said that it is still awaiting information on his fate. The Israeli strike killed a woman and two children, according to media reports.

Mikati also called on the Lebanese to unite their ranks and condemn any attack that targets Lebanese areas, while calling on Israel to commit to UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

The targeting of Shukr marks the most senior Hezbollah commander believed to have been killed in nearly months-long of exchanges of fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, taking place in parallel with the Gaza War.

Speaking after the Cabinet session ended, Information Minister Ziad Makary said that the sessions will remain open ended underscoring that the government’s efforts are focused on reaching a diplomatic solution.

Makary, according to the National News Agency (NNA), added that Lebanon will file a complaint with the UN Security Council which has become “a tradition and a serious diplomatic effort to prevent things from getting worse.”

 

Lebanon’s Hezbollah confirms senior commander killed in Israeli strike​


Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that senior military commander Fuad Shukr had been killed, more than 24 hours after an Israeli strike hit a building in the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital that he was in.

The group said that its leader, Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, would make an address on the occasion of Shukr’s funeral on Thursday.

A source close to Hezbollah earlier told AFP that the body of top commander Fuad Shukr had been recovered.

The strike was followed by another, hours later, which killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, triggering fears the war in Gaza could escalate into a wider regional conflict.

The source, who requested anonymity, said “Shukr’s body has been found under the rubble of the targeted building,” after Israel’s military said it had killed the commander on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said its Tuesday evening strike had “eliminated” Shukr, who it blamed for carrying out a weekend rocket attack on the annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children in a Druze Arab town.

The Israeli army has described Shukr as Hezbollah’s “most senior military commander” and “right-hand man” to the group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah.

The raid on the Beirut suburb, an overcrowded residential area that is also a Hezbollah bastion, killed five civilians - three women and two children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.

 

Hezbollah resumes rocket, artillery attacks against Israel​


Hezbollah forces on Friday resumed rocket and artillery attacks against Israel, ending the lull along the border following Israel’s killing of the Lebanese group’s military commander in Beirut.

Hezbollah said it had fired a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli warplane flying in Lebanese airspace overnight and forced it to turn back. Its forces also carried out two artillery attacks and two rocket strikes at military positions in northern Israel, it said.

The Israeli military said in a statement it had successfully intercepted an aerial target coming from Lebanon into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire hit several villages in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to Lebanese state media, a day after an Israeli strike killed at least five Syrian migrant workers in southern Lebanon, according to medics.

The Israeli military also said it had hit two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an address on Thursday that he had ordered calm along the border following the Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday that killed military commander Fuad Shukr out of respect for the victims and to consider what the next steps should be.

The strike on the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh in Beirut’s southern suburbs also killed an Iranian military adviser and five civilians.

Nasrallah said Hezbollah would retaliate but it would need to study what their response would be, and would otherwise resume its usual military operations against Israel.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire for nearly 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war, with exchanges mostly limited to the border area.

But strikes since last week have threatened to tip the conflict into a full-scale regional war.

Israel and the United States have accused Hezbollah of killing 12 youths in a July 27 rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a claim Hezbollah has denied.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, told Reuters on Friday it had not investigated the incident as the Israeli-occupied Golan is outside its mandated area of operations.

 

Israeli drone strike kills two Hamas members in Lebanon’s Sidon: Sources​


An Israeli drone strike targeted a vehicle in Lebanon’s port city of Sidon on Friday, killing two members of the Palestinian group Hamas, sources told Al Arabiya.

The strike specifically targeted Samer al-Haj, a Hamas security official in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, according to the sources.

Israel has been carrying out strikes against Hezbollah and other armed groups that have been launching rockets into Israel from Lebanon.

 

Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel as threat of Iran attack looms​


Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets toward northern Israel on Sunday night, as Israeli forces remain on high alert for potential retaliation from Iran and its proxies following the assassination of a top Hamas leader last month.

Rocket fire toward Israel by Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon has become a near-daily occurrence since the outbreak of war in Gaza, as fears grow over the possibility of an Iranian attack that could escalate into a wider regional conflict.

The latest Hezbollah salvo was fired in support of the Palestinian people in Gaza and in retaliation for Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, the militant group said in a statement. It comes after Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike on the town of Ma’aroub, southern Lebanon, injured 12 people including six children.

About 30 rockets were launched from Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, adding that some fell into open areas and no injuries were reported.

Earlier Sunday, the IDF said its instructions to the public had not changed amid a possible military response from Iranian forces to the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.

“The IDF and the security establishment monitor our enemies and the developments in the Middle East, with an emphasis on Iran and Hezbollah, and constantly assess the situation,” IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said. “IDF forces are deployed and prepared in high readiness. If it becomes necessary to change the instructions, we will update about it in an orderly message on the official channels.”

Mediators in ceasefire-hostage talks between Israel and Hamas are making a renewed push to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table this week, as concerns grow that the conflict could spiral into a regional war.

On Sunday, CNN Political and Foreign Policy Analyst Barak Ravid reported that according to two sources, Israeli intelligence assessed Iranian forces could be planning an attack “within days, even before the August 15 hostage deal talks.”

A source privy to the details told Ravid the situation is “still fluid” and the internal debate in Iran continues. It is possible Iranian decision-making will still change.

Austin has ordered a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East and accelerated the arrival of a carrier strike group to the region ahead of an anticipated Iranian attack against Israel, the Pentagon said in a statement Sunday evening.

The announcement came in a readout of a call between the defense secretary and his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.

Ravid also reported that a source with knowledge of the call said Gallant told Austin that Iranian military preparations suggest Iran is getting ready for a large-scale attack.

As the threat of an attack from Iran and Iran-backed Hezbollah looms, the leaders of the United States, Qatar and Egypt said Thursday they may present what they called a “final bridging proposal” this week, urging Israel and Hamas to conclude a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Israel will send a delegation to the talks.

An Israeli source familiar with the matter told CNN over the weekend that Egyptian and Qatari mediators have conveyed to Israeli officials in recent days Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wants a ceasefire deal.

Hamas said Sunday it has asked mediators to implement a ceasefire plan based on previous talks such as those put forward by US President Joe Biden and the UN Security Council in July.

 
Hezbollah hits Israeli targets near border

The Lebanese armed group says it has shelled a military target in Asi with artillery shells, achieving a “direct hit”, and it has also shelled buildings used by Israeli soldiers in the settlement of Natu’a.

Hezbollah said it also attacked the headquarters of the armoured brigades in Rawya barracks with drones, causing “deaths and injuries among its officers and soldiers”.

Earlier, we reported that the Israeli army said its forces shelled areas in Leida and Kfar Kila in southern Lebanon.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
Fires spread in north Israel after Hezbollah rocket barrage

We’ve been reporting on a large barrage of rockets fired by Lebanon’s Hezbollah at targets in northern Israel.

Video posted by Israeli news outlet Ynet shows large fires spreading after the rockets made landfall.

Wildfires have been frequent occurrences during the daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, as the hot, dry summer continues along the border.

Al Jazeera
 
Israeli strike in Lebanon kills 10, health ministry says

An Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon has killed 10 people, Lebanese officials say, in one of the deadliest attacks in the current violence along the Lebanon-Israel border.

The building hit, in the city of Nabatieh, was housing Syrian refugees, the Lebanese Health Minister, Firass Abiad, told the BBC. Israel said it had targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot, which was denied by the owner of the facility.

In response Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia and political Lebanese group, fired a barrage of rockets, targeting a kibbutz in northern Israel and another on an Israeli military post.

There were no casualties as a result of the first attack, while two Israeli soldiers were injured in the second, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said.

Israel and Hezbollah have traded near daily fire across the border since the 7 October attack on Israel by Palestinian militants prompted an Israeli invasion of Gaza with the aim of eliminating Hamas.

Tensions have escalated further in recent weeks after Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has vowed to respond to the assassination.

It comes as international mediators have urged Israel and Hamas to agree a ceasefire deal in upcoming talks, amid fears the war in Gaza could spiral into a regional conflict.

Iran has dismissed calls from Western leaders to refrain from retaliating against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in its capital, Tehran, last month.

But there are indications that Iran may have decided to delay its response amid the efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Mr Abiad, however, said Israel's actions suggested it had no interest in a deal.

He also said that a woman and her two children were among the dead in Nabatieh, and that a further five people were in a critical condition.

Hossain Tohmaz, the owner of one of the buildings hit, said it was a “100% civilian facility”, where people worked and lived.

"This is a hangar used for manufacturing iron, and that is a warehouse where we park trucks for loading goods like solar panels. The workers live and sleep on the top floor," he said.

A few hours later, Hezbollah said it had fired Katyusha rockets at Ayelet HaShahar, a kibbutz north of the Sea of Galilee.

The IDF said it had it had detected 55 launches from Lebanon, some of which had fallen in "open areas".

"Multiple fires were ignited in the area and Israel Fire and Rescue Services are currently operating at the scene to extinguish them," it wrote in an update on Telegram.

A short while later, Hezbollah said it had attacked an Israeli military position in Marj.

The IDF said one soldier had been severely injured and another lightly injured as a result of a projectile launched from Lebanon that had fallen on Misgav Am, which sits next to the Israel-Lebanon border.

"The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment and their families have been notified," it added.

The strike is among the deadliest attacks in Lebanon in the current hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.

A few hours later, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing Katyusha rockets Ayelet HaShahar, a kibbutz north of the Sea of Galilee.

The IDF said it had it had detected 55 launches from Lebanon, some of which had fallen in "open areas".

"Multiple fires were ignited in the area and Israel Fire and Rescue Services are currently operating at the scene to extinguish them," it wrote in an update on Telegram.

A short while later, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for attacking an Israeli military position in Marj with "two suicide bombers".

The IDF said one soldier had been severely injured and another lightly injured as a result of a projectile launched from Lebanon that had fallen on Misgav Am, which sits next to the Israel-Lebanon border.

"The soldiers were evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment and their families have been notified," it added.

BBC
 

Three peacekeepers injured in explosion in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL says​


Three United Nations peacekeepers suffered light injuries Sunday, the UN said, after a blast near their vehicle close to Lebanon’s southern border, where Hezbollah and Israel have traded near-daily fire.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah group has exchanged cross-border fire with the Israeli army in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

“Earlier today, three peacekeepers on patrol were lightly injured when an explosion occurred near their clearly marked UN vehicle in the vicinity of Yarine, in south Lebanon,” the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement.

“All peacekeepers in the patrol returned safely to their base. We are looking into the incident,” it added.

Earlier Sunday, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency had reported that “Israeli enemy warplanes” struck the village of Dhayra, about one kilometer (0.6 miles) from Yarine, “resulting in injuries.”

A UNIFIL source told AFP the explosion that injured the peacekeepers was probably a nearby air strike, but “not a direct hit.”

Earlier in August, Under Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix told AFP that UNIFIL was today “more important than ever” amid the ongoing cross-border clashes, because it was “the only liaison channel between the Israeli side and the Lebanese side in all its components, such as Hezbollah.”

In April, a judicial official told AFP that an ongoing Lebanese army investigation determined that a land mine wounded three UN military observers and a translator the previous month, while Israel implicated Hezbollah.

UNIFIL’s mandate, which expires at the end of the month, is set to be renewed by the UN Security Council for another year.

The cross-border violence has killed 582 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but including at least 128 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 22 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

 

Algeria to supply Lebanon with fuel for power stations​


Algeria will immediately begin supplying Lebanon with fuel for its power plants, Algerian state radio said in a statement on Sunday, after Lebanon’s electricity company said the day before its supplies were exhausted.

Lebanon has not had round-the-clock power since the 1990s and cash transfers to Lebanon’s state electricity company, Electricite du Liban (EDL) to cover chronic losses have contributed tens of billions of dollars to the country’s huge public debt.

EDL on Saturday announced a complete nationwide power outage, including at critical facilities such as the airport.

It said then power supply would resume gradually once new fuel supplies were secured, either through a swap agreement with Iraq or other sources.

www.arabnews.pk

Algeria to supply Lebanon with fuel for power stations

CAIRO: Algeria will immediately begin supplying Lebanon with fuel for its power plants, Algerian state radio said in a statement on Sunday, after Lebanon’s electricity company said the day before its supplies were exhausted. Lebanon has not had round-the-clock power since the 1990s and cash...
www.arabnews.pk www.arabnews.pk
 
Came in response to Israel recent strike which killed 10 individuals inside Lebanon
====
Hezbollah claims missile attack on Israeli military site

The Lebanese group has claimed to have hit Israel’s Biyadh Blida military site near the Lebanon-Israel border with a Burkhan missile.

The group said in a statement on Telegram that the attack came at 1:35pm (10:35 GMT), without elaborating on the results.

We have reported earlier that Hezbollah announced the death of two of its members – Abbas Melhem and Muhammad Qaddouh – in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.

Source: Al Jazeera
 

Israeli army says targeted Fatah commander, who ‘directed attacks,’ in Lebanon strike​


Israel killed a senior member of the Palestinian movement Fatah in Lebanon on Wednesday, accusing him of orchestrating attacks in the West Bank.

In response, the slain militant’s Fatah party accused Israel of seeking to “ignite a regional war.”

Khalil al-Maqdah was killed in a strike on his car in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon, according to Fatah and a Lebanese security source.

The Israeli military said an air force “aircraft struck the terrorist Khalil Hussein Khalil al-Maqdah in the area of Sidon in southern Lebanon.”

The military said al-Maqdah was the brother of Mounir al-Maqdah, who heads the Lebanese branch of Fatah’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and accused them both of “directing terror attacks and smuggling weapons” to the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

It alleged that the pair “collaborate on behalf of” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

The attack marks the first such reported attack on a senior member of Fatah, the movement led by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, in more than 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement following the Gaza war.

Fatah said al-Maqdah had been killed “in a cowardly assassination carried out by ... Zionist (Israeli) warplanes on Sidon,” describing him as “one of the leaders” of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Lebanon, the movement’s armed wing.

In a statement, it said al-Maqdah had “a central role” in “supporting the Palestinian people and its resistance” during the Gaza war and an “important role in supporting resistance cells” for years in the West Bank.

A senior Fatah official in the West Bank city of Ramallah accused Israel of killing him in order to spark a regional war.

The “assassination of a Fatah official is further proof that Israel wants to ignite a full-scale war in the region,” Tawfiq Tirawy, a member of Fatah’s central committee, told AFP in Ramallah.

Al-Maqdah was killed in a strike on a car, said Fathi Abu al-Aradat, a senior Lebanon-based member of the group that rivals Gaza’s Palestinian rulers Hamas.

A Lebanese security source and Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported the same information.

An AFP correspondent at the site of the attack said a car was struck near the Palestinian refugee camps of Ain al-Helweh and Mieh Mieh, adding that rescuers had pulled a body from the charred vehicle.

Dozens of angry Fatah supporters gathered inside the Ain al-Helweh camp, the AFP correspondent said, adding gunshots were fired in the air.

Hezbollah and its allies have exchanged regular fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

The violence has killed some 593 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 130 civilians, according to AFP’s tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.

Fatah has not announced any attacks on Israel from Lebanon since clashes began nor had it mourned members killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon.

Hamas and Fatah have been bitter rivals since Hamas fighters ejected Fatah from the Gaza Strip after deadly clashes that followed Hamas’s resounding victory in a 2006 election.

Fatah controls the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

 
Hezbollah rockets hit Golan Heights after Israel strikes deep in Lebanon

Hezbollah has launched dozens of rockets at the occupied Golan Heights after Israeli aircraft struck deep inside Lebanon, as fears of an all-out war grow.

The Israeli military said it hit Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the Bekaa Valley overnight. The Lebanese health ministry said one person was killed and 30 others injured.

In response, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, said it targeted Israeli military positions in the Golan with a rocket barrage. Israeli authorities said two homes were hit and one person was injured.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Fatah movement accused Israel of assassinating a senior member of its armed wing in Lebanon in an effort to ignite a regional conflict.


www.bbc.com

Hezbollah rockets hit Golan after Israel strikes deep in Lebanon

Fears are growing that the cross-border hostilities could escalate into an all-out war.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Israel launches airstrikes inside Lebanon as Hezbollah fires drones at Israel

Israel launched a series of intense airstrikes in southern Lebanon early Sunday in what it described as a pre-emptive move against the Hezbollah militant group, threatening to trigger a broader regionwide war that could torpedo efforts to forge a cease-fire in Gaza.

Soon after, Hezbollah announced early Sunday that it had launched its own attack on Israel with a large number of drones. The Iranian-backed group has been promising for weeks to retaliate for Israel's assassination of a top commander late last month.

"We have conducted precise strikes in Lebanon in order to thwart an imminent threat against the citizens of Israel," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement. "We are closely following developments in Beirut, and we are determined to use all the means at our disposal in order to defend our citizens."

Hezbollah said early Sunday its drone attack was targeting "a qualitative Israeli military target that will be announced later" as well as "targeting a number of enemy sites and barracks and Iron Dome platforms." It said the strikes were an initial response to the killing of Fuad Shukr, a top commander with the group.

In an earlier statement, Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, accused Hezbollah of "preparing to file missiles and rockets toward Israeli territory."

"In a self-defense act to remove these threats, the (Israeli military) is striking terror targets in Lebanon, from which Hezbollah was planning to launch their attacks on Israeli civilians," Hagari said, warning that "Hezbollah will soon fire rockets, and possibly missiles and UAVs, towards Israeli territory." Sirens sounded in northern Israel soon after the warning.

The Israel Airports Authority reported that it had temporarily suspended flights in and out of Ben Gurion International Airport. Flights that were already en route to Ben Gurion were being diverted to other airports.

Lebanese media reported strikes in the country's south without immediately providing more details. Social media footage showed what appeared to be strikes in southern Lebanon.

In his statement, Hagari said, "We can see that Hezbollah is preparing to launch an extensive attack on Israel, while endangering the Lebanese civilians."

Hagari didn't provide additional details on the intelligence he cited.

"We warn the civilians located in the areas where Hezbollah is operating to move out of harm's way immediately for their own safety," he said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted photos of Netanyahu and Gallant overseeing the operation from the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv.

Gallant's office also said in a statement that he had issued an emergency declaration that would enable Israel Defense Forces "to issue instructions to the citizens of Israel, including limiting gatherings and closing sites where it may be relevant." The IDF also said that it was imposing "partial restrictions" in certain areas, including portions of Galilee and the Golan Heights.

Gallant also said that he had spoken by phone to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to brief him on the strikes. Last week, Gallant said he was moving more troops toward the Lebanese border in anticipation of possible fighting with the Iranian-backed group.

The attack comes as delegations from the U.S., Israel, Qatar and Egypt are holding cease-fire talks in Cairo. A Hamas delegation was also expected to be in Cairo, but senior Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawy stressed to the Associated Press that the group will not take part directly in the Sunday talks, but instead will be briefed by Egypt and Qatar.

Fears have been high in recent weeks that the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip could escalate into a regional conflict after the Israeli strike which killed Hezbollah's Fuad Shukr, and a suspected Israeli assassination operation in Iran killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Earlier this month, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. was preparing for a possible attack by Iran and its proxies in retaliation for those assassinations.

The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier equipped with F-35 fighter jets, and the USS Georgia, a guided missile submarine, were recently deployed to the Middle East in response.

SOURCE:https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-launches-airstrikes-inside-lebanon-hezbollah-targets/
 

Israel attacks southern Lebanon, Hezbollah launches rockets at Israel​


Hezbollah says it has successfully completed the first phase of a retaliatory attack on Israel in response to the killing of commander Fuad Shukr at the end of July.

Earlier on Sunday, Israel said it had launched airstrikes on southern Lebanon in a “preemptive” attack when it detected Hezbollah’s preparation to attack northern Israel.

While Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging ***-for-tat attacks across the border with some intensity since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October, this marks a significant escalation.

Hezbollah’s “response” was anticipated, coming as it is weeks after targeted killings of senior commanders in Hezbollah and its ally Hamas that were blamed on Israel.

The Lebanese group said it fired more than 320 Katyusha rockets at 11 Israeli military bases and barracks, including the Meron base and four sites in the occupied Golan Heights.

The two sides have been exchanging ***-for-tat attacks for months, with Sunday’s attacks a marked escalation.

“Most of the Israeli strikes on Lebanon were in the border area, up to 5km [3 miles] deep along the 120km [74-mile] border,” said Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Lebanese town Marjayoun.

“The border area is now a military zone. It’s been evacuated … It’s been repeatedly hit by the Israeli army in recent months.”

Israel says 100 of its jets bombed thousands of Hezbollah launch sites in southern Lebanon half an hour before the planned Hezbollah launch, to protect Israelis from the planned attack.

Lebanon’s NNA news agency reported one person was critically injured in a later Israeli drone attack in Qasimia and an airstrike killed one person in the town of Khiam.

Israel’s Ben Gurion airport was temporarily closed in the early hours of the morning, while reports emerged of some injuries in northern Israel.

The Israeli army also announced a series of restrictions on civilians in northern Israel and the Golan Heights.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was “determined to do everything possible to defend” itself. “Whoever harms us – we harm him,” he said.

Following the attacks, Al Jazeera’s Khodr said that while Hezbollah is saying this is just the beginning of its promised retaliation, there is no indication to suggest that a second phase is imminent.

“But the messaging from Israel since the early hours of the morning is that the ball is now in Hezbollah’s court when it comes to further escalation because we heard the Israeli military spokesman say at least three times they acted in self-defence,” she said.

“This is, and has been, a very dangerous conflict, even though largely contained, there is a real concern that it could expand and spiral out of control.”

www.aljazeera.com

Israel attacks southern Lebanon, Hezbollah launches rockets at Israel

Israel says it attacked southern Lebanon to ‘preempt’ a Hezbollah attack on northern Israeli towns.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 

Israel, Hezbollah traded messages saying neither wants further escalation: Diplomats​


Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group exchanged messages via intermediaries on Sunday in order to prevent further escalation following one of the biggest exchanges of fire between the two foes in 10 months, Reuters reported, citing two diplomats.

The main message was that both sides considered that Sunday’s intense exchange of bombardment was “done” and that neither side wanted a full-scale war, one diplomat said. The diplomats spoke on condition they were not identified.

A Hezbollah official earlier said that the group “worked” to make sure its rocket and drone attack against Israel on Sunday in retaliation for a top commander’s killing last month would not trigger a full-scale war.

Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel early on Sunday, as Israel’s military said it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets to thwart a bigger attack, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare.

Three deaths were confirmed in Lebanon and none in Israel, where damage appeared to be limited. Hezbollah indicated it was not planning further strikes yet. Israel’s foreign minister said the country did not seek a full-scale war.

The Lebanese group said it had fired 320 Katyusha rockets towards Israel and hit 11 military targets in what it called the first phase of its retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Shukr.

Israel’s military said it had foiled a much larger attack with pre-emptive airstrikes after assessing that Hezbollah was preparing to launch the barrage, using 100 jets to strike more than 40 Hezbollah launch sites in southern Lebanon.

The strikes destroyed thousands of launcher barrels, aimed mostly at northern Israel but also targeting some central areas, Israel’s military said.

Hezbollah dismissed Israel’s statement that the group’s attack had been foiled with pre-emptive strikes, saying it had been able to launch its drones as planned and that the rest of its response to Shukr’s killing would take “some time.”

 
Israel says situation on Lebanon border 'not sustainable'

Israeli officials and media reacted with satisfaction on Monday after a long-expected missile attack by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement appeared to have been largely thwarted by pre-emptive Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon.

Both Hezbollah and Israel seemed content to let Sunday's attack, in retaliation for the killing of a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut last month, count as settled for the moment.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said Hezbollah had suffered a "crushing blow" from the Israeli strikes but that a longer lasting solution was still needed.

"The current situation is not sustainable," he told a briefing, referring to the tens of thousands evacuated from their homes in northern Israel, a situation mirrored on the other side of the border in southern Lebanon. "Israel will do its duty and return its population to our sovereign territory."

 
sweep_shot said:
India opened certain dams without notifying Bangladeshi authorities (was it because of removal of their puppet Hasina)?

Those openings of dams either caused and magnified the flood.

Shameful.

Anyway, I think Bangladesh should build their own dams now so that India can't do this again. Get China involved if needed (China actually offered to build dams before if I am not wrong).
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A serious question brother, let's say Hasina was Indian puppet. What does having a puppet like Bangladesh achieve? Aisa kya khoobi hai? :shakib
 
Hikaru said:
A serious question brother, let's say Hasina was Indian puppet. What does having a puppet like Bangladesh achieve? Aisa kya khoobi hai? :shakib
Click to expand...
Question is best asked to Modi who is wining and dining Hasina Bibi.
 

Netanyahu faces Israeli calls for broader strikes against Hezbollah​


Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a political backlash in Israel for the limited nature of Sunday’s airstrikes against Hezbollah, amid calls for a broader offensive in Lebanon.

Some of the fiercest criticism came from the far-right wing of the prime minister’s own fractious coalition, which is also increasingly divided over the status of Jerusalem’s holiest site.

Israel’s airstrikes and Hezbollah’s rocket and drone launches that followed soon after was the biggest cross-border engagement since the two sides fought a war in 2006 in terms of the number of aircraft sorties and munitions launched, though not in terms of casualties. Three Hezbollah and allied fighters were killed and one Israeli sailor, killed by fragments of an Israeli interceptor.

Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, claimed the pre-emptive strikes on Sunday morning prevented Hezbollah from launching up to two-thirds of the rockets it had intended to fire at Israel. Israel also claimed to have shot down almost all the incoming Hezbollah drones.
Netanyahu issued a warning that the airstrikes would not be “the end of the story”, but reports in the Israeli press cited military sources as saying there was no planned follow-up.

The prime minister was widely blamed on Monday, from both the centre and right of the political spectrum, for the limited goal of Sunday’s air raids, which disrupted Hezbollah’s planned aerial assault, but had done nothing, the critics said, to allow up to 80,000 residents of northern border towns, displaced from northern Israel since October, to return home.

Representatives of the displaced population, forced from their homes by bombing by Hezbollah in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, have said they would boycott meetings with government representatives, accusing the coalition of prioritising the defence of central Israel but not the north.

Ben Caspit, a columnist in the centre-right Maariv newspaper, wrote: “For nearly a year, the Galilee has been pulverised, ravaged and set on fire; tens of thousands of Israelis have been torn from their homes; and the entire country, which not long ago was considered to be a regional superpower, has been humiliated.” He said Netanyahu had chosen the most cautious of the military options presented to him by his generals.

“He prevented and disrupted one of Hezbollah’s operational plans, but he didn’t change our strategic situation in the northern theatre,” Caspit added, arguing that a broader aerial campaign would begin “to create the conditions to allow the residents of the Upper Galilee to return to their homes and to allow Israel to restore its sovereignty over swaths of its own territory”.

Benny Gantz, a retired general, former minister in Netanyahu’s coalition and one of his main rivals, described the airstrikes as “too little, too late”.

In a video statement during a visit to northern communities, he said: “We must keep up the advantage of the initiative that was taken and increase the political and military pressure to push Hezbollah away, to return northern residents to their homes safely.”
Netanyahu’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, joined in the criticism.

“Israel must not be content with a single, pre-emptive sortie. We must bring a decisive war against Hezbollah that will remove the threat in the north and allow the residents to return home safely,” Ben-Gvir said.

He singled out Gallant for recrimination. The national security and defence ministers are locked in a bitter public row over government policy, particularly over the status of the holy compound around the al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which Jews call the Temple Mount.

Ben-Gvir pressed ahead with his campaign to upend Israel’s policy on the site since it captured East Jerusalem in 1967, that only Muslims would be allowed to pray on the compound, while Jews would pray at the Western Wall.
Ben-Gvir violated that policy when he led Jewish prayers there last month and told army radio on Monday that Jews had equal status with Muslims.

“The policies on the Temple Mount allow prayer, period,” he said. “There is a directive that there should be equal law between Jews and Muslims.”

He added that if it were up to him, there would be an Israeli flag and a synagogue on Temple Mount.
The prime minister’s office issued a statement saying there had been no change in the status quo on the site, and other members of the coalition criticised Ben-Gvir for inflammatory rhetoric, which they warned was liable to trigger a revolt among Palestinians and outrage in the wider Arab world.

“Undermining the status quo on the Temple Mount is an unnecessary and irresponsible act,” Gallant said. “Ben-Gvir’s actions endanger Israel.”
The interior minister, Moshe Arbel, from the ultra-orthodox Shas party, called for Ben-Gvir to be stripped of his authority over the police, warning: “His lack of wisdom could cost lives.”

Source: The Guardian
 
Lebanon’s health ministry said three emergency personnel were killed on Saturday and two others wounded in an Israeli attack on a civil defense team putting out fires in south Lebanon

“Israeli enemy targeting of a Lebanese civil defense team that was putting out fires sparked by the recent Israeli strikes in the village of Froun led to the martyrdom of three emergency responders,” the health ministry said in a statement.

Two others were wounded, one of them critically, the statement said, adding however that the toll was provisional.

The health ministry “condemns this blatant Israeli attack that targeted a team from an official body of the Lebanese state,” the statement said.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group has exchanged near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in the Gaza Strip.

The cross-border violence has killed at least 614 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 138 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.
On Saturday, Hezbollah announced a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions near the border, including with Katyusha rockets, some in stated response to “Israeli enemy attacks” on south Lebanon.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said Israel carried out air strikes and shelling on several areas of the country’s south.
The Israeli military said it had identified “projectiles” crossing from Lebanon, intercepting some of them.

It said it struck “Hezbollah military infrastructure and a launcher” in the Qabrikha area of southern Lebanon, as well as striking the Aita Al-Shaab and Kfarshuba areas.

Source : Arab News
 

Israel’s military focus needs to shift to Lebanon: Gantz​


Former war cabinet member Benny Gantz on Sunday said Israel should shift its focus toward Hezbollah and the Lebanese border, warning that “we are late on this.”

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading near-daily cross-border fire, with the Lebanese militant group saying it is acting in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in the ongoing war in Gaza.

“We have enough forces to deal with Gaza and we should concentrate on what is going on in the north,” Gantz said, speaking in Washington at a Middle East forum where he also said Iran and its proxies were “the real issue.”

“The time of the north has come and actually I think we are late on this,” the former army chief and centrist politician added.

Gantz said Israel had made a mistake in evacuating much of the north of the country as hostilities with Hezbollah flared following the October 7 Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war.

“In Gaza, we have crossed a decisive point of the campaign,” he said. “We can conduct anything we want in Gaza.”

“We should seek to have a deal to get out our hostages but if we cannot in the coming time, a few days or few weeks, or whatever it is, we should go up north.”

“We are capable of... hitting the state of Lebanon if needed,” he said.

“The story of Hamas is old news,” he added, saying instead that “the story of Iran and its proxies all around the area and what they are trying to do is the real issue.”

Gantz left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in June over its lack of a post-war plan for Gaza.

The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, official Israeli figures show.

Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 40,972 people, according to the health ministry in the territory.

The UN human rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also referred to the situation on the Lebanese border Sunday during a tour of the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza, telling troops “we are preparing for anything that may happen in the north.”

“The shift of the center of gravity can happen quickly and can also involve you in a short period of time,” Gallant said, according to a statement issued by his office.

 

Israel says it killed Hezbollah commander during air strikes across Lebanon

The Israeli army’s warplanes carried out a series of overnight strikes across southern Lebanon, claiming to have killed a Hezbollah commander.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that Israeli fighter jets bombed the forest areas surrounding the southern Lebanon towns of Zibqine, Chaaitiyeh, and Qlaileh 17 times.

However, the Israeli army claimed to have targeted 30 Hezbollah rocket launching sites and military infrastructure in southern Lebanon in the overnight raids, according to the Times of Israel.

Mohammed Qassem Al-Shaer, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was killed in a strike on the village of Qaraoun in the western Beqaa district yesterday, according to the Israeli occupation army.

It said Al-Shaer had “advanced numerous terrorist activities against the state of Israel” and his “elimination” would impair the group’s ability to launch attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon.

One person was also killed and another injured in an Israeli air strike that targeted the border town of Mays Al-Jabal, according to the Ministry of Health. The victim was not named.

The state-run National News Agency said a motorcycle was the target of the Israeli strike.

Hezbollah, for its part, claimed rocket attacks against the military sites of Metula and Ruwaisat Al-Qarn in northern Israel and a deployment of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Raheb military post and Zibdin barracks in southern Lebanon.

Source: Middle East Monitor
 

US sanctions Lebanese network over alleged oil, LPG smuggling for Hezbollah​


The Biden administration on Wednesday issued sanctions on a Lebanese network it accused of smuggling oil and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to help fund the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

The sanctions target three people, five companies and two vessels that the US Treasury Department said were overseen by a senior leader of Hezbollah’s finance team and used profits from illicit LPG shipments to Syria to aid generate revenue for the group.

Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley Smith, in a statement, said Hezbollah “continues to launch rockets into Israel and fuel regional instability, choosing to prioritize funding violence over taking care of the people it claims to care about, including the tens of thousands displaced in southern Lebanon.”

 
Israel launches multiple airstrikes on southern Lebanon, killing Hezbollah special forces commander

Israel has launched multiple strikes on southern Lebanon over the last day, including one which killed a senior Hezbollah commander.

Mohammed Qassem Al-Shaer, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was killed in a strike on the village of Qaraoun in the western Beqaa district on Tuesday, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The IDF said Al-Shaer had “advanced numerous terrorist activities against the state of Israel” and his “elimination” would impair the Iran-backed militant group’s ability to launch attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah confirmed Al-Shaer had been killed and said it responded to his killing by launching “dozens” of Katyusha rockets and several drones toward two locations in northern Israel.

No casualties were reported, according to the IDF, which said some of the “projectiles” were intercepted and others fell in an open area. The IDF said it responded by striking Hezbollah launchers “in the areas of Mansouri and At Tiri,” which had been used in the attacks.

On Wednesday, the IDF said it struck overnight 30 Hezbollah launchers and “terrorist infrastructure sites” in areas of southern Lebanon which “posed a threat to Israeli civilians.”

Lebanese state media NNA reported multiple Israeli strikes overnight on several areas, some of which caused “extensive damage” to property, crops, and buildings in the town of Al-Qlaileh.


 
Cricket Warrior said:
Israel launches multiple airstrikes on southern Lebanon, killing Hezbollah special forces commander

Israel has launched multiple strikes on southern Lebanon over the last day, including one which killed a senior Hezbollah commander.

Mohammed Qassem Al-Shaer, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was killed in a strike on the village of Qaraoun in the western Beqaa district on Tuesday, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The IDF said Al-Shaer had “advanced numerous terrorist activities against the state of Israel” and his “elimination” would impair the Iran-backed militant group’s ability to launch attacks against Israel from southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah confirmed Al-Shaer had been killed and said it responded to his killing by launching “dozens” of Katyusha rockets and several drones toward two locations in northern Israel.

No casualties were reported, according to the IDF, which said some of the “projectiles” were intercepted and others fell in an open area. The IDF said it responded by striking Hezbollah launchers “in the areas of Mansouri and At Tiri,” which had been used in the attacks.

On Wednesday, the IDF said it struck overnight 30 Hezbollah launchers and “terrorist infrastructure sites” in areas of southern Lebanon which “posed a threat to Israeli civilians.”

Lebanese state media NNA reported multiple Israeli strikes overnight on several areas, some of which caused “extensive damage” to property, crops, and buildings in the town of Al-Qlaileh.


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Well done Besties!

Wishing you the best in removing all terrorism from Middle East. A common enemy of both Yahudi & Sanatan dharma.
 
Bhaijaan said:
Well done Besties!

Wishing you the best in removing all terrorism from Middle East. A common enemy of both Yahudi & Sanatan dharma.
Click to expand...
India has a personal problem with Lebanon as well or is it just the Muslim hate overall?
 
BouncerGuy said:
India has a personal problem with Lebanon as well or is it just the Muslim hate overall?
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We do not hate Muslims. It’s a generalization and a propaganda against us by Pakistan and Congress.

Saudis, Emiratis are our best friends. Ask them how much we love pure Arab Muslims bro.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Bhaijaan said:
We do not hate Muslims. It’s a generalization and a propaganda against us by Pakistan and Congress.

Saudis, Emiratis are our best friends. Ask them how much we love pure Arab Muslims bro.
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Then why are you happy at israel attacking public of lebanon??
 
BouncerGuy said:
Then why are you happy at israel attacking public of lebanon??
Click to expand...

Lebanon are supporters of Hamas and have harboured Aatanki Hezbollites. Thereby making them a fair target for nationalist Yahoodi qaum.

A enemy of Yahoodi is an enemy of Sanatan and vice versa.
This is our brotherly pact with Israel.
 

Hezbollah warns Israel against Lebanon border flare-up​


Hezbollah’s second-in-command warned on Saturday that an all-out war by Israel aimed at returning 100,000 displaced people to their homes in areas near the Lebanon border would displace “hundreds of thousands” more.

Naim Qassem, number two in the Iran-backed Lebanese group, was speaking after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel was determined to restore security to its northern front.

Gallant told Israeli troops last week that “we are preparing for anything that may happen in the north.”

In a speech in Beirut, Qassem said: “We have no intention of going to war, as we consider that this would not be useful.

“However, if Israel does unleash a war, we will face up to it -- and there will be large losses on both sides,” he said.

“If they think such a war would allow the 100,000 displaced people to return home ... we issue this warning: Prepare to deal with hundreds of thousands more displaced.”

Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

Thousands of people living in the border area of both countries have been displaced by the fighting.

On Saturday evening, the Israeli military said its air force had struck suspected Hezbollah weapons storage facilities at two locations in Lebanon’s eastern Beqaa Valley, as well as in six locations in the south.

Three children were among four people wounded in an Israeli strike in the northern Beqaa’s Hermel district, some 140 kilometers (85 miles) from the Israeli border, the Lebanese health ministry said.

A source close to Hezbollah said the strike targeted a farm in the area, a stronghold of the militant group.

A second strike on the village of Serine, near Baalbek, targeted “warehouses storing food products,” the source added.

The cross-border violence since early October has killed 623 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including at least 142 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, authorities have announced the deaths of at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.

 

​

Hezbollah members wounded in Lebanon when pagers explode​


BEIRUT, Sept 17 (Reuters) - More than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah fighters and medics, were wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded across Lebanon, security sources told Reuters.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the "biggest security breach" the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza conflict erupted last October, the worst such escalation in years.

The Israeli military declined to comment on Reuters enquiries about the detonations.
Iran's Mehr news agency said the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was injured by one of the blasts. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.
The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources said.

At Mt. Lebanon hospital, a Reuters reporter saw motorcycles rushing to the emergency room, where people with their hands bloodied were screaming in pain.
The head of the Nabatieh public hospital in the south of the country, Hassan Wazni, told Reuters that around 40 wounded people were being treated at his facility. The wounds included injuries to the face, eyes and limbs.
The wave of explosions lasted around an hour after the initial detonations, which took place about 3:45 p.m. local time (1345 GMT). It was not immediately clear how the devices were detonated.
 
Lebanon’s health minister says 8 killed, 2,750 wounded by exploding pagers

At least eight people were killed and about 2,750 were wounded by exploding handheld pagers across Lebanon, the country’s health minister has said.

Firass Abiad said more than 200 people are in critical condition after the communication devices exploded on Tuesday, and more than 150 hospitals are treating the victims, with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands and stomach.

Hezbollah said in an earlier statement on Tuesday that two of its fighters and a girl were killed as “pagers belonging to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions exploded”, and said it was carrying out an investigation to determine the causes of the blasts.

A Hezbollah official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the explosion of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group has experienced in nearly a year of almost daily cross-border fire with Israel.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those injured by the pager explosions, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.

Source: Al Jazeera
 
It’s a bit like the movie four lions.

The jews control everything even the car battery was made in Israel as brother barry stated.

We are close to end of times the way Israel is attacking.
 
Iranians and hezbollah have literally had their pants pulled down and spanked

They pushed hamas into this war and are complicit with israel In the destruction of gaza , chickened out against confronting israel and now israel is constantly targeting them asking for them to fight and toying with then.
 
aboveandbeyond said:
The zionests and their sympathizers will pay a very heavy price in the long run. No doubt about it.
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Without actions these are only words, since 1990s I have been seeing these words, I’m sure before that as well but Zionists have grown stronger because they are scientific and greedy , they definitely have control on tech supplies across the world after fall of Soviet.
 
The Bald Eagle said:
Lebanon’s health minister says 8 killed, 2,750 wounded by exploding pagers

At least eight people were killed and about 2,750 were wounded by exploding handheld pagers across Lebanon, the country’s health minister has said.
Click to expand...

Quite amazing what Israel is capable of. Any idea how they blew up those pagers ?
 
RexRex said:
Quite amazing what Israel is capable of. Any idea how they blew up those pagers ?
Click to expand...
No information yet, and seeing how dumb Lebanese are we have to wait for Iranian intelligence as Iranian Ambassador got injured as well.

It’s one thing to blow one up but blow em all is really shocking and Indian agencies need to immediately get an idea as to what such tech could exist and where the supply chain issue could exist.
 
JaDed said:
No information yet, and seeing how dumb Lebanese are we have to wait for Iranian intelligence as Iranian Ambassador got injured as well.

It’s one thing to blow one up but blow em all is really shocking and Indian agencies need to immediately get an idea as to what such tech could exist and where the supply chain issue could exist.
Click to expand...

Maybe India already have that technology, I'm sure a couple of IIT graduates working for DRDO can figure it out.
 
RexRex said:
Maybe India already have that technology, I'm sure a couple of IIT graduates working for DRDO can figure it out.
Click to expand...
Have you met people of DRDO, I have they were below average up until 2010..I had one family member working for them up until 2017 for 2 years, they were absolutely useless, believe it or not one can make it into DRDO with influence.
 
Now that Hamas lost the war, Israel has every right to annex the Gaza territory. (y)

Whether they do it or not, it is their choice.
 
JaDed said:
Have you met people of DRDO, I have they were below average up until 2010..I had one family member working for them up until 2017 for 2 years, they were absolutely useless, believe it or not one can make it into DRDO with influence.
Click to expand...
I have seen first hand the tech capabilities of our intelligence and it is scarily good. :shh
Can always be better though
 

AP-900: This what we know about one of the pagers that exploded in Lebanon​

The recent explosion incidents involving the Apollo pagers have led to increased scrutiny, though these devices' use of standard AAA alkaline batteries are unlikely to be the cause.

In a recent series of deadly pager explosions across Lebanon, a device from Apollo Pagers, a Taiwanese company established in the 1980s, has emerged as a central piece of evidence.

The Alphanumeric Pager (AP-900) produced by Gold Apollo Co., Ltd. has been identified as one of the devices that exploded, killing and injuring scores in Lebanon.

At least nine people have been killed and over 2,750 others, including Hezbollah militants and medics, were injured when their paging devices exploded across Lebanon.

Speculation has emerged surrounding how the devices could have exploded and caused such high casualties, especially a pager like the AP-900 that operates on AAA alkaline batteries.

Initial investigations suggest that the pager's standard battery configuration is unlikely to be the cause of the explosions.

Instead, authorities are leaning towards the possibility that the devices were intentionally rigged with explosive materials.

If explosives were rigged inside the device before it reached Hezbollah members, it could cause such significant damage when detonated by signal.

What is the AP-900?
The AP-900, popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, was designed to receive and display text messages, making it an essential communication tool in various professional and emergency settings.
Despite its simplicity, the AP-900 operates on a sophisticated system that ensures messages are delivered promptly and accurately.
A message transmission starts at a central paging terminal, which encodes the message into a signal format like FLEX or POCSAG.
This signal is sent over a specific frequency band, and the AP-900 pager, scanning for signals that match its unique identifier, receives it through its antenna.
The pager then decodes and displays the message on its screen, alerting the user with vibration, sound, or both.
Additionally, the AP-900 can store multiple messages for later review.
Can the AP-900 Be Hacked?
Theoretically, yes, the AP-900 can be hacked, but it would require specialised knowledge and equipment, information from open sources show.
The most straightforward method of compromise would involve intercepting and decoding the radio signals.
Since pagers receive messages over radio frequencies, these signals can be intercepted by anyone with the right equipment.
Although the messages are encoded, they are not typically encrypted, meaning that an intercepted message can be easily decoded.
More sophisticated attacks could involve compromising the messaging infrastructure or physically tampering with the devices during distribution.

While the AP-900 alphanumeric pager is a reliable and efficient communication tool, it is not without its potential vulnerabilities.
Users, particularly those in sensitive roles, should be aware of the risks and take appropriate precautions, such as using secure communication channels and monitoring for unusual activity.
As the situation unfolds, experts are focusing their efforts on uncovering the full extent of the pre-rigging and its implications for the ongoing security situation in the region.
 
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