BEIRUT: An Israeli airstrike killed two civilians in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
Najib Halawi and Musa Suleiman were targeted by an Israeli drone while driving on the Khirbet Daoud Road, which connects Nabatieh to Marjayoun and is used by travelers heading to the Western Bekaa region.
An initial security report said that the two victims routinely drove their jeep to a water spring in the village of Kafr Kila on the border to collect water for their livestock.
Halawi and Suleiman were, respectively, the father and uncle of Hezbollah member Mohammed Halawi, who was killed at the start of Israel’s attacks in Lebanon’s south. According to the National News Agency, Suleiman was a local council member for Hezbollah allies the Amal Movement in the nearby village of Kfar Kila. The Amal Movement confirmed that one of its members, aged 60, had been killed.
A source close to Hezbollah stressed that both men were “civilians, not fighters.” Hezbollah vowed to respond to the killing of civilians.
Elsewhere on Saturday, Israeli forces targeted the outskirts of the border town of Rmeich with machine guns from their positions in Al-Raheb and Hermon, causing damage to several houses. Hezbollah, meanwhile, said that it targeted a group of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Mitat Barracks with missile weapons and “successfully hit them.”
Israeli sirens were activated in settlements opposite the town of Kafr Kila following the appearance of a series of drones, and three rockets reportedly fell near Kiryat Shmona in Upper Galilee.
The Lebanese Resistance Brigades, a non-sectarian group established by Hezbollah in 1997, issued a statement on Friday night announcing the execution of its first military action against Israeli forces during the current fighting.
“The martyrs Abdul Aal group in the Lebanese Resistance Brigades attacked the Roueisat Al-Qarn site in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms with rockets and directly hit it,” the statement read.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee said two suspicious aerial targets that were on their way toward Israeli territory were intercepted on Friday night. Alarms were activated in an industrial area near Eilat, where air defenses and warplanes intercepted the two targets. There were no injuries.
Al-Arabiya quoted an American source on Saturday saying that Washington is refusing to deliver heavy bombs to Israel in order to prevent a war in Lebanon, but added that US forces in the region were working on evacuation plans in case such a war breaks out.
The US source told Al-Arabiya: “Israel is capable of launching a massive attack on Lebanon and capable of destroying Beirut Airport and the buildings in its vicinity and in the southern suburbs.”
Hussein Hajj Hassan, head of Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel parliamentary bloc, warned Israel against an escalation of aggression against Lebanon.
“If Israel decides to commit this folly, the resistance is prepared and has many surprises regarding numbers, munitions, weapons, and quality and quantity of weapons,” he said, adding that the resistance front in southern Lebanon “is very strong and fully prepared for any scenario that the enemy may carry out.”
Israeli airstrike kills 2 civilians in southern Lebanon
https://arab.news/zz8hu
Israeli airstrike kills 2 civilians in southern Lebanon
- Hezbollah's retaliatory rocket attacks target border town of Kiryat Shmona in Upper Galilee
- The Amal Movement confirmed that one of its members, aged 60, had been killed
Fledgling radio station aims to be ‘voice of the people’ in Gaza
- The electricity crisis is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip, says Shereen Khalifa Broadcaster
DEIR EL-BALAH: From a small studio in the central city of Deir El-Balah, Sylvia Hassan’s voice echoes across the Gaza Strip, broadcast on one of the Palestinian territory’s first radio stations to hit the airwaves after two years of war.
Hassan, a radio host on fledgling station “Here Gaza,” delivers her broadcast from a well-lit room, as members of the technical team check levels and mix backing tracks on a sound deck. “This radio station was a dream we worked to achieve for many long months and sometimes without sleep,” Hassan said.
“It was a challenge for us, and a story of resilience.”
Hassan said the station would focus on social issues and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which remains grave in the territory despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas since October.
“The radio station’s goal is to be the voice of the people in the Gaza Strip and to express their problems and suffering, especially after the war,” said Shereen Khalifa, part of the broadcasting team.
“There are many issues that people need to voice.” Most of Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people were displaced at least once during the gruelling war.
Many still live in tents with little or no sanitation.
The war also decimated Gaza’s telecommunications and electricity infrastructure, compounding the challenges in reviving the territory’s local media landscape. “The electricity problem is one of the most serious and difficult problems in the Gaza Strip,” said Khalifa.
“We have solar power, but sometimes it doesn’t work well, so we have to rely on an external generator,” she added.
The station’s launch is funded by the EU and overseen by Filastiniyat, an organization that supports Palestinian women journalists, and the media center at the An-Najah National University in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The station plans to broadcast for two hours per day from Gaza and for longer from Nablus. It is available on FM and online.
Khalifa said that stable internet access had been one of the biggest obstacles in setting up the station, but that it was now broadcasting uninterrupted audio.
The Gaza Strip, a tiny territory surrounded by Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea, has been under Israeli blockade even before the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which sparked the war. Despite the ceasefire, Israel continues to strictly control the entry of all goods and people to the territory.
“Under the siege, it is natural that modern equipment necessary for radio broadcasting cannot enter, so we have made the most of what is available,” she said.
