BEIRUT: Hezbollah forces on Friday resumed rocket and artillery attacks against Israel, ending the lull along the border following Israel's killing of the Lebanese group's military commander in Beirut.
Hezbollah said it had fired a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli warplane flying in Lebanese airspace overnight and forced it to turn back. Its forces also carried out two artillery attacks and two rocket strikes at military positions in northern Israel, it said.
The Israeli military said in a statement it had successfully intercepted an aerial target coming from Lebanon into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire hit several villages in southern Lebanon on Friday, according to Lebanese state media, a day after an Israeli strike killed at least five Syrian migrant workers in southern Lebanon, according to medics.
The Israeli military also said it had hit two Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in an address on Thursday that he had ordered calm along the border following the Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Tuesday that killed military commander Fuad Shukr out of respect for the victims and to consider what the next steps should be.
The strike on the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahiyeh in Beirut's southern suburbs also killed an Iranian military adviser and five civilians.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah would retaliate but it would need to study what their response would be, and would otherwise resume its usual military operations against Israel.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been trading fire for nearly 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war, with exchanges mostly limited to the border area.
But strikes since last week have threatened to tip the conflict into a full-scale regional war.
Israel and the United States have accused Hezbollah of killing 12 youths in a July 27 rocket attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, a claim Hezbollah has denied.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, told Reuters on Friday it had not investigated the incident as the Israeli-occupied Golan is outside its mandated area of operations.
Hezbollah resumes steady rocket, artillery fire against Israel
https://arab.news/p2wjq
Hezbollah resumes steady rocket, artillery fire against Israel
- Hezbollah said it had fired a surface-to-air missile at an Israeli warplane flying in Lebanese airspace overnight and forced it to turn back
- Its forces also carried out two artillery attacks and two rocket strikes at military positions in northern Israel
US makes plans to reopen embassy in Syria after 14 years
- The administration has been considering re-opening the embassy since last year
- Trump told reporters on Friday that Al-Sharaa was “doing a phenomenal job” as president
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has informed Congress that it intends to proceed with planning for a potential re-opening of the US Embassy in Damascus, Syria, which was shuttered in 2012 during the country’s civil war.
A notice to congressional committees earlier this month, which was obtained by The Associated Press, informed lawmakers of the State Department’s “intent to implement a phased approach to potentially resume embassy operations in Syria.”
The Feb. 10 notification said that spending on the plans would begin in 15 days, or next week, although there was no timeline offered for when they would be complete or when US personnel might return to Damascus on a full-time basis.
The administration has been considering re-opening the embassy since last year, shortly after longtime strongman Bashar Assad was ousted in December 2024, and it has been a priority for President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Turkiye and special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack.
Barrack has pushed for a deep rapprochement with Syria and its new leadership under former rebel Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has successfully advocated for the lifting of US sanctions and a reintegration of Syria into the regional and international communities.
Trump told reporters on Friday that Al-Sharaa was “doing a phenomenal job” as president. “He’s a rough guy. He’s not a choir boy. A choir boy couldn’t do it,” Trump said. “But Syria’s coming together.”
Last May, Barrack visited Damascus and raised the US flag at the embassy compound, although the embassy was not yet re-opened.
The same day the congressional notification was sent, Barrack lauded Syria’s decision to participate in the coalition that is combating the Daesh militant group, even as the US military has withdrawn from a small, but important, base in the southeast and there remain significant issues between the government and the Kurdish minority.
“Regional solutions, shared responsibility. Syria’s participation in the D-Daesh Coalition meeting in Riyadh marks a new chapter in collective security,” Barrack said.
The embassy re-opening plans are classified and the State Department declined to comment on details beyond confirming that the congressional notification was sent.
However, the department has taken a similar “phased” approach in its plans to re-open the US Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, following the US military operation that ousted former President Nicolás Maduro in January, with the deployment of temporary staffers who would live in and work out of interim facilities.
