JERUSALEM: About 30 rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon late Thursday into early Friday, following an Israeli drone strike that seriously wounded a commander of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army said.
“We can confirm that around 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon toward the areas of Ein Zeitim and Dalton in the north of Israel,” an army spokesperson told AFP, adding that initial reports suggested “no one was wounded” by the strikes.
Earlier Thursday evening, an Israeli drone strike on a car in south Lebanon seriously wounded a commander of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah on Thursday, sources on both sides of the border said.
The commander was “seriously wounded and a companion was also injured” in the strike, a Lebanese security source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli military said its aircraft struck a “Hezbollah commander” in south Lebanon, claiming he was involved in cross-border rocket attacks.
It claimed the target was “involved in a number of launches toward Kiryat Shmona and Metula” in northern Israel.
But a military spokesman was unable to say whether those included rocket and missile launches earlier on Thursday.
The strike took place on one of the main roads into the city of Nabatiyeh, some way from the border region that has seen almost daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war broke out last October.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the vehicle had caught fire after it was hit by a missile fired by an Israeli drone as it entered the city at around 4:15 p.m. (1415 GMT).
The Lebanese army closed off the main road where the strike took place, an AFP photographer reported.
Earlier, Hezbollah said it had targeted a brigade headquarters in the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona in the latest exchanges between the two sides.
It said it fighters “targeted the Meron air control base with a Falaq missile” in response to Israeli attacks “on villages and civilians.”
The Israeli military said it “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into northern Israel.”
It said it had carried out air strikes on Hezbollah targets, “including weapons inside a truck, a terrorist infrastructure and a military compound in the areas of Khiam and Kfar Hamam.”
Israeli air force chief Tomer Bar warned that if war breaks out on the Lebanese border, “there will be massive and significant blows, hundreds of targets will be attacked simultaneously deep in the country — as well as Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and the Bekaa (Valley).”
Since the day after Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, sparking the Gaza war, Hezbollah has targeted Israeli army positions along the border in support of the Palestinian Islamist movement.
Israel has repeatedly bombarded Lebanese border villages, killing 227 people, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 27 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, 15 people have been killed in the northern border area, including nine soldiers and six civilians, according to the Israeli army.
The exchanges have sparked fears of a repetition of the devastating 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah that Western governments have been scrambling to avoid.
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne visited Beirut this week hot on the heels of his British counterpart David Cameron.
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Israel says Lebanon fires rockets after Hezbollah commander hurt
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Israel says Lebanon fires rockets after Hezbollah commander hurt
- The official was “seriously wounded and a companion was also injured” in the strike
Death toll in Iran protests rises to more than 500, rights group says
DUBAI/JERUSALEM: Unrest in Iran has killed more than 500 people, a rights group said on Sunday, as Tehran threatened to target US military bases if President Donald Trump carries out threats to intervene on behalf of protesters.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
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