SIDON: An Israeli airstrike hit two vehicles near a Lebanese army checkpoint in south Lebanon on Sunday, killing a Hezbollah member and wounding several other people, including civilians, Lebanese state media and health officials reported.
The strike appeared to be part of a shift in Israeli strategy toward targeted killings in Lebanon after more than three months of near-daily clashes with Hezbollah militants on the border against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah announced that one of its members, identified as Fadel Shaar, had been killed in the strike in the town of Kafra. Local civil defense and hospital officials said seven people were wounded, including two women, one of whom was in critical condition.
Video from the scene showed a passenger sedan in flames next to a small truck stopped in the middle of the road.
The Israeli military did not comment on the strike.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, Hezbollah forces have engaged in near-daily clashes with Israeli troops along the border.
While the clashes had previously been limited mainly to a narrow strip within a few kilometers (miles) from the border, Israel in recent weeks appears to have moved to a strategy of targeted killings of figures from Hezbollah and allied groups, sometimes hitting in areas relatively far from the border, as was the case in Sunday’s strike.
On Saturday, another strike near the Lebanese port city of Tyre killed two people in a car — one of them a Hezbollah commander — and two people in a nearby orchard. The commander, Ali Hudruj, was buried Sunday in south Lebanon. The other occupant of the car, tech sector businessman Mohammad Baqir Diab, was identified as a civilian and was buried in Beirut on Sunday.
On Jan. 2, a presumed Israeli airstrike killed a top Hamas official, Saleh Arouri, in a suburb of Beirut, the first such strike in Lebanon’s capital since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brutal one-month war in 2006.
Speaking at Hudruj’s funeral Sunday, Hezbollah Member of Parliament Hussein Jeshi said Israel had “resorted to the method of assassinating some members of the resistance" to compensate for being unable to reach a military victory against Hamas after more than 100 days of war in Gaza.
The Lebanese militant group said in a statement later Sunday that it had launched an attack against the town of Avivim in northern Israel in retaliation for a civilian woman killed in the Israeli strike in Kafra and for other “attacks that targeted Lebanese villages and civilians.”
It later modified the statement to remove the reference to the civilian death after hospital officials and family members said the woman was still alive.
Israel did not comment on the strike in Kafra but announced it had struck Hezbollah targets in several locations in Lebanon on Sunday. It later said that an anti-tank missile had hit a house in Avivim and no injuries were reported.
With dangers of a regional conflict flaring on multiple fronts, officials from the United States and Europe have engaged in a flurry of shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between Israel and Lebanon, attempting to head off an escalation of the conflict into a full-on war on the Lebanese front.
Strike kills Hezbollah official in Lebanon, amid apparent Israeli shift to targeted killings
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Strike kills Hezbollah official in Lebanon, amid apparent Israeli shift to targeted killings
- Hezbollah announced that one of its members, identified as Fadel Shaar, had been killed in the strike in the town of Kafra
UN, aid groups warn Gaza operations at risk from Israel impediments
- Dozens of international aid groups face de-registration by December 31, which then means they have to close operations within 60 days
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations and aid groups warned on Wednesday that humanitarian operations in the Palestinian territories, particularly Gaza, were at risk of collapse if Israel does not lift impediments that include a “vague, arbitrary, and highly politicized” registration process.
Dozens of international aid groups face de-registration by December 31, which then means they have to close operations within 60 days, said the UN and more than 200 local and international aid groups in a joint statement.
“The deregistration of INGOs (international aid groups) in Gaza will have a catastrophic impact on access to essential and basic services,” the statement read.
“INGOs run or support the majority of field hospitals, primary health care centers, emergency shelter responses, water and sanitation services, nutrition stabilization centers for children with acute malnutrition, and critical mine action activities,” it said.
SUPPLIES LEFT OUT OF REACH: GROUPS
While some international aid groups have been registered under the system that was introduced in March, “the ongoing re-registration process and other arbitrary hindrances to humanitarian operations have left millions of dollars’ worth of essential supplies — including food, medical items, hygiene materials, and shelter assistance — stuck outside of Gaza and unable to reach people in need,” the statement read.
Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the statement. Under the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, a fragile ceasefire in the two-year-old war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas began on October 10. Hamas released hostages, Israel freed detained Palestinians and more aid began flowing into the enclave where a global hunger monitor said in August famine had taken hold.
However, Hamas says fewer aid trucks are entering Gaza than was agreed. Aid agencies say there is far less aid than required, and that Israel is blocking many necessary items from coming in. Israel denies that and says it is abiding by its obligations under the truce.
“The UN will not be able to compensate for the collapse of INGOs’ operations if they are de-registered, and the humanitarian response cannot be replaced by alternative actors operating outside established humanitarian principles,” the statement by the UN and aid groups said.
The statement stressed “humanitarian access is not optional, conditional or political,” adding: “Lifesaving assistance must be allowed to reach Palestinians without further delay.”
