BEIRUT: Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon on Friday killed at least 10 Lebanese citizens, including a 10-year-old boy, before Hezbollah responded with artillery rounds and rockets across the border.
The intensified Israeli escalation coincided with a meeting between Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun and French Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations Gen. Thierry Garreta.
Both parties “discussed ways to enhance cooperation between the two armies and developments on the southern border,” said the Lebanese Army Command.
A security source said on Friday that the Israeli “focus seemed to be on targeting anything that moves in the field, whether on the front lines or the rear ones, regardless of the affiliations of those moving or their military positions in Hezbollah.”
The source also pointed to “the young ages of those targeted.”
At least eight Hezbollah members were killed in separate Israeli raids targeting the border area in southern Lebanon.
Some areas were targeted for the first time since the opening of the southern front and the beginning of hostilities between Hezbollah and the Israeli army on Oct. 8, 2023.
At 8 a.m., Hezbollah announced “the launching of salvos of rockets toward Mount Meron in the Upper Galilee, targeting the espionage equipment at the headquarters of the Air Monitoring and Operations Management Unit at the Meron base with appropriate weapons, hitting it directly, which resulted in destroying it.”
Israeli media reported that the alert level was raised in the north, noting “an interesting day ahead of us.”
It indicated damage to the Meron air base caused by two rockets
The Israeli army has opened an investigation into the incident.
Israeli Channel 12 quoted an army spokesman saying that the military observed the launching of five rockets from Lebanon on Meron and intercepted some of them, without any injuries.
Israeli warplanes raided Tayr Harfa in the western sector about 10 a.m., killing three Hezbollah members. They were Hassan Wissam Harqous, 19, and Qassem Saleh Harqous, 20, cousins from Toura in the south, and Aqeel Qassem Gharib, 34, from Tayr Harfa.
At noon, an Israeli drone launched an attack with two guided missiles on a car on the road to Ayta Al-Jabal in the Bint Jbeil district, killing a man called Mohammed Ahmed Najm, a Hezbollah member, and his 10-year-old nephew Zulfikar Fadi Radwan.
The child was running toward his uncle’s car to greet him when the missile struck.
Ayta Al-Jabal has been shelled for the first time since the start of the war on Oct. 8.
Israeli airstrikes hit the towns of Mays Al-Jabal and Dhour Kfarkela.
Artillery shelling targeted the outskirts of the towns of Kfarchouba and Kfarhamam.
The heavy machine gun fire from the Israeli army also hit the town of Aita Al-Shaab in the central sector.
A drone carried out an aerial attack on a motorcycle in Aitaroun in the Bint Jbeil district with a guided missile.
The Health Emergency Center of the Ministry of Health announced that two people were killed and three were injured in the airstrikes that targeted Mays Al-Jabal and Aitaroun.
Sirens sounded in the settlements of Al-Malikiyah and Shtula in Western Galilee.
Also on Friday, Hezbollah announced attacking the Israeli military site of Al-Malikiyah with artillery shells.
According to its consecutive statements, it also targeted “Israeli soldiers positioned in the vicinity of Khazzan Hill with artillery shells,” as well as “the Al-Abad military site.”
Israeli media reported “damage inside the Al-Malikiyah site due to Hezbollah’s rocket shelling.”
The Israeli website “Walla” counted 44 people killed in confrontations with Hezbollah since Oct. 8, 2023, including 24 civilians, 19 officers and soldiers, and one foreign worker.
According to the Israeli site, the number of wounded “reached 271 Israelis, including 141 soldiers and officers in the Israeli army.”
The site also counted “1,091 rockets launched from Lebanon toward Israel last month, indicating a threefold increase compared to the beginning of the year.”
Child among 10 killed in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon
https://arab.news/7n4x7
Child among 10 killed in Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon
- At least eight Hezbollah members were killed in separate Israeli raids targeting the border area in southern Lebanon
Saad Hariri pledges to contest May election
- Beirut rally draws large crowds on anniversary of his father’s assassination
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Saturday that his movement, which represents the majority of Lebanon’s Sunni community, would take part in upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May.
The Future Movement had suspended its political activities in 2022.
Hariri was addressing a large gathering of Future Movement supporters as Lebanon marked the 21st anniversary of the assassination of his father and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, at Martyrs’ Square in front of his tomb.
He said his movement remained committed to the approach of “moderation.”
A minute’s silence was observed by the crowd in Martyrs’ Square at the exact time when, in 2005, a suicide truck carrying about 1,000 kg of explosives detonated along Beirut’s seaside road as Rafik Hariri’s motorcade passed, killing him along with 21 others, including members of his security guards and civilians, and injuring 200 people.
Four members of Hezbollah were accused of carrying out the assassination and were tried in absentia by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The crowd waved Lebanese flags and banners of the Future Movement as they awaited Saad Hariri, who had returned to Beirut from the UAE, where he resides, specifically to commemorate the anniversary, as has been an annual tradition.
Hariri said that “after 21 years, the supporters of Hariri’s approach are still many,” denouncing the “rumors and intimidation” directed at him.
He added: “Moderation is not hesitation … and patience is not weakness. Rafik Hariri’s project is not a dream that will fade. He was the model of a statesman who believed, until martyrdom, that ‘no one is greater than their country.’ The proof is his enduring place in the minds, hearts and consciences of the Lebanese people.”
Hariri said he chose to withdraw from political life after “it became required that we cover up failure and compromise the state, so we said no and chose to step aside — because politics at the expense of the country’s dignity and the project of the state has no meaning.”
He said: “The Lebanese are weary, and after years of wars, divisions, alignments and armed bastions, they deserve a normal country with one constitution, one army, and one legitimate authority over weapons — because Lebanon is one and will remain one. Notions of division have collapsed in the face of reality, history and geography, and the illusions of annexation and hegemony have fallen with those who pursued them, who ultimately fled.”
Hariri said the Future Movement’s project is “One Lebanon, Lebanon first — a Lebanon that will neither slide back into sectarian strife or internal fighting, nor be allowed to do so.”
He added that the Taif Agreement is “the solution and must be implemented in full,” arguing that “political factions have treated it selectively by demanding only what suits them — leaving the agreement unfulfilled and the country’s crises unresolved.”
He said: “When we call for the full implementation of the Taif Agreement, we mean: weapons exclusively in the hands of the state, administrative decentralization, the abolition of political sectarianism, the establishment of a senate and full implementation of the truce agreement. All of this must be implemented — fully and immediately — so we can overcome our chronic problems and crises together.
“Harirism will continue to support any Arab rapprochement, and reject any Arab discord. Those who seek to sow discord between the Gulf and Arab countries will harm only themselves and their reputation.
“We want to maintain the best possible relations with all Arab countries, starting with our closest neighbor, Syria — the new Syria, the free Syria that has rid itself of the criminal and tyrannical regime that devastated it and Lebanon, and spread its poison in the Arab world.”
Hariri said he saluted “the efforts of unification, stabilization and reconstruction led by Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.”
When asked about the Future Movement’s participation in parliamentary elections following his withdrawal from politics, he said: “Tell me when parliamentary elections will be held, and I will tell you what the Future Movement will do. I promise you that, when the elections take place, they will hear our voices, and they will count our votes.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon shared a post announcing that Ambassador Michel Issa laid a wreath at the grave of Rafik Hariri.
Hariri’s legacy “to forge peace and prosperity continues to resonate years later with renewed significance,” the embassy said.
