BEIRUT: A day of tragedy occurred on the southern Lebanese front on Wednesday after Israeli airstrikes targeted several villages. There were some deaths, including a woman and two children, while at least nine others were injured. Some of the victims remained buried under rubble.
The Israeli warplanes initiated the series of airstrikes following an attack by Iran-backed Hezbollah on Israeli military sites — involving precise and long-range missiles — near the city of Safed.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, said: “We either initiate a full-scale war against Hezbollah or the Israeli public will be informed that there is no government.”
Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, said: “The red line turned into a white flag, and the War Cabinet surrendered to Hezbollah and lost the north.”
The mayor of Safed said that “Hezbollah missiles fell on military bases around the city and not inside it.”
The Iron Dome failed to intercept the last missile, and an Israeli spokesman said: “One person was killed in the bombing and seven were wounded, three seriously.”
Israeli media said that the wounded were “Israeli soldiers.”
Israeli fighter jets conducted multiple airstrikes on the town of Adshit in Nabatieh, targeting a three-story building.
One person was reportedly killed in the attack, while several were unaccounted for under the debris.
Ambulance teams were engaged in the rescue operation, working diligently to clear the rubble and search for survivors.
One of the raids also targeted a house in the town of Al-Sowanah, killing a Syrian woman, Rawaa Mohammed, and two of her stepchildren, Hassan Mohsen, 13, and his brother Amir, 2.
Israeli warplanes simultaneously targeted the towns of Basalia and Jbaa in Nabatieh, the outskirts of Zhalta in Jezzine, and a property in Kfardonin.
Airstrikes also targeted the area south of the coastal town of Naqoura, while the Israeli Iron Dome was activated to intercept missiles near the town of Marwahin.
Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli War Council, said: “The responsibility for launching rockets from Lebanon does not lie only with Hezbollah, but with the state of Lebanon as well. The response to targeting northern Israel will be strong.”
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday referenced those who threatened an expansion of the war, saying: “We threaten them with expansion as well, and whoever imagines that the resistance in Lebanon feels, even for a single moment, fear or confusion, is completely mistaken.”
Nasrallah said Hezbollah was “monitoring all developments in the region, and all possibilities are open. When the aggression against Gaza stops, the war in the south will stop.”
He added: “The enemy is fighting on the southern Lebanese front within limits and controls.”
Several killed, including 2 children, in Israeli raids on southern Lebanon following Hezbollah strike
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Several killed, including 2 children, in Israeli raids on southern Lebanon following Hezbollah strike
- The Israeli warplanes initiated the series of airstrikes following an attack by Iran-backed Hezbollah on Israeli military sites near Safed
- Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, said: “The red line turned into a white flag, and the War Cabinet surrendered to Hezbollah and lost the north”
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in Lebanon
- “The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said
- Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured
WASHINGTON: Several Democratic lawmakers called Thursday for the Israeli and US governments to fully investigate a deadly 2023 attack by the Israeli military on journalists in southern Lebanon.
The October 13, 2023 airstrike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, including two from AFP — video journalist Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg.
“We expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets the international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,” Senator Peter Welch told a news conference, with Collins by his side.
The lawmaker from Collins’s home state of Vermont said he had been pushing for answers for two years, first from the administration of Democratic president Joe Biden and now from the Republican White House of Donald Trump.
The Israeli government has “stonewalled at every single turn,” Welch added.
“With the Israeli government, we have been extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain answers and accountability,” he said.
“The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said, referring to the Israeli military, adding that it has told his office its investigation into the incident is closed.
Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured.
“But I’d also like them to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East, the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account,” he said, echoing the lawmakers who called the attack a “war crime.”
“We’re not letting it go,” Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint said. “It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us.”
AFP conducted an independent investigation which concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel.
The findings were corroborated by other international probes, including investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
Unlike Welch’s assertion Thursday that the Israeli probe was over, the IDF told AFP in October that “findings regarding the event have not yet been concluded.”
