BEIRUT: An Israeli air strike in Lebanon about 30 kilometers from the border injured civilians on Saturday, Lebanese state media said, after Hezbollah and its Palestinian ally Hamas fired rockets and explosive-laden drones at Israeli positions.
Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli enemy launched a raid on the town of Adloun” in south Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency said, adding that “a number of civilians have been injured” and traffic on the highway interrupted in both directions.
Videos circulating online showed several big explosions in the coastal town.
“Shrapnel from the explosions flew to surrounding villages,” the NNA said.
Earlier Saturday, NNA said Syrian nationals, including children, had been injured after an “enemy drone targeted an empty four-wheel drive” near their tent, close to the border.
Doctor Mouenes Kalakesh, who heads the Marjayoun government hospital, said a woman and her three children, two of them minors, had been admitted for shrapnel injuries after the strike outside Burj Al-Muluk.
Among them was an 11-year-old boy in critical condition after he sustained shrapnel injuries and a head wound, Kalakesh told AFP.
Hezbollah said it launched “dozens of Katyusha rockets” on Dafna, an area in Israel’s north that the group said it was targeting for the first time, “in response to the attack on civilians.”
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said they also fired a rocket salvo from south Lebanon toward an Israeli military position in the Upper Galilee “in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip.”
Later on Saturday, the Iran-backed Hezbollah said it also had launched “explosive-laden drones” targeting “artillery and missile positions” and Israeli troops at a site in the Golan Heights as well as Iron Dome platforms.
Before the drone attack, the Israeli army said a total of 45 “projectiles” had been fired from Lebanon Saturday afternoon, toward the occupied Golan Heights and the Galilee, reporting no casualties.
The army said it struck “the launcher in southern Lebanon from which the projectiles were launched toward the Golan Heights,” also targeting “an additional Hezbollah launcher.”
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned that his Iran-backed group would hit new targets in Israel if more civilians were killed in Israeli strikes.
Israeli strikes on Thursday killed at least five people in Lebanon, including the commander of a Hamas-allied group, a security source and militant groups said.
The violence since October has killed at least 515 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.
Most of the dead have been fighters, but they have included at least 104 civilians.
On the Israeli side, 18 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
Lebanon state media says civilians injured in Israeli strike
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Lebanon state media says civilians injured in Israeli strike
- Hezbollah has traded near-daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas
Jordan condemns Israel’s seizure of planning powers at Ibrahimi Mosque
- Announcement on Wednesday by Israeli Civil Administration said it had transferred planning powers from Palestinian Authority-run Hebron Municipality to its own Supreme Planning Council
AMMAN: Jordan’s Ministry of Foreign and Expatriates Affairs on Friday strongly condemned Israel’s decision to revoke the planning and construction authorities of the Hebron Municipality at the Ibrahimi Mosque, the Jordan News Agency reported.
The ministry described the move as a blatant violation of international law and the historical and legal status quo at the holy site, JNA added.
The condemnation follows an announcement on Wednesday by the Israeli Civil Administration the body overseeing the occupied West Bank, that it had transferred planning powers from the Palestinian Authority-run Hebron Municipality to its own Supreme Planning Council.
The decision was accompanied by approval for a project to construct a roof over the mosque’s internal courtyard, a move that has drawn fierce Palestinian opposition.
The Hebron Municipality also condemned the Israeli decision, describing it as a “serious and illegal violation” and part of a systematic effort to alter the status quo at the mosque and weaken the authority of Palestinian institutions responsible for its management.
In a statement, the Jordanian ministry said Israel, as the occupying power, was acting unlawfully by unilaterally approving construction works at the Ibrahimi Mosque and stripping Palestinian authorities of their administrative powers, warning that the measures undermine the Islamic administration of the site.
The ministry’s official spokesperson, Fouad Al-Majali, affirmed Jordan’s “absolute rejection and severe condemnation” of Israel’s continued illegal unilateral measures in the occupied West Bank, most recently those targeting the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
Al-Majali added that the actions constituted clear violations of international law and international humanitarian law, including the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, as well as relevant United Nations resolutions.
He also pointed to UNESCO’s 2017 decision to inscribe Hebron’s Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
He called on the international community to shoulder its “legal and moral responsibilities” by compelling Israel to halt its illegal measures in the occupied Palestinian territory, protect the cultural and religious heritage of the Ibrahimi Mosque, and preserve its outstanding universal value, which he said is under increasing threat due to Israeli actions.
Al-Majali further emphasized that achieving security and a just and comprehensive peace would remain impossible without fulfilling the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state on 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
