JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was “prepared for a very intense operation” along the border with Lebanon, where Israeli troops have exchanged near-daily fire with Hezbollah fighters.
Almost eight months of exchanges between Israel and the Iran-backed movement, a Hamas ally, have intensified over the past week, with Israel striking deeper into Lebanese territory.
“We are prepared for a very intense operation in the north. One way or another, we will restore security to the north,” Netanyahu said during a visit to the border area.
Hezbollah said later it launched several attacks on Israeli positions during the day, including a “guided missile” strike on an “Iron Dome platform in the Ramot Naftali barracks.”
In past weeks, Israel has ramped up its targeting of Hezbollah fighters and allied Palestinian and Lebanese militants in cars and on motorbikes in Lebanon.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have both called in recent days for urgent action to restore security to northern Israel.
“They burn us here, all Hezbollah strongholds should also burn and be destroyed. WAR!” Ben Gvir said on Tuesday in a Telegram post.
Smotrich said on Monday: “We must move the security strip from inside Israeli territory in the Galilee to southern Lebanon, including a ground invasion, occupation of the territory and distancing Hezbollah terrorists and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese among whom Hezbollah hides to the other side of the Litani river,” nearly 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border.
The violence since early October has killed at least 455 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side, at least 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to the army.
Netanyahu says Israel ‘prepared for very intense operation’ on Lebanon border
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Netanyahu says Israel ‘prepared for very intense operation’ on Lebanon border
- “One way or another, we will restore security to the north,” Netanyahu said
- In past weeks, Israel has ramped up its targeting of Hezbollah fighters
UN rights chief shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
