BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired a new barrage into northern Israel on Thursday, continuing its drumbeat of exchanges with the Israeli military as fears of a greater war rise.
Hundreds of electronic devices used by Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon earlier this week, killing at least 37 people and wounding some 3,000 others.
The device explosions appeared to be the culmination of a monthslong operation by Israel to target as many Hezbollah members as possible all at once. Over two days, pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, wounding and even crippling some fighters, but also maiming civilians connected to the group’s social branches and killing at least two children.
It was unclear how the attack fit into warnings by Israeli leaders in recent weeks that they could launch a stepped-up military operation against Hezbollah, Lebanon’s strongest armed force.
The Israeli government has called it a war aim to end the Iranian-backed group’s cross-border fire in order to allow tens of thousands of Israelis to return to homes near the border.
Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.” He made no mention of the exploding devices but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying “the results are very impressive.”
Gallant said that after months of fighting Hamas in Gaza, “the center of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces.”
Hezbollah said early Thursday it had targeted three military positions in northern Israel near the border, two of them with drones. The Israeli military said the drones crashed near communities. Hospitals reported they treated at least eight patients lightly or moderately injured. The military said early Thursday it had struck several militant sites in southern Lebanon overnight.
The volley of strikes was a signal by Hezbollah that it would continue its near daily fire, which it says is a show of support for Hamas. Israel’s 11-month-old war with Hamas in Gaza began after its militants led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Israel has responded to Hezbollah’s fire with strikes in southern Lebanon, and has struck senior figures from the group in the capital Beirut. The exchanges have killed hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents on each side of the border.
Israel and Hezbollah have repeatedly pulled back from an all-out war under heavy pressure from the United States, France and other countries.
But in their recent warnings, Israeli leaders have said they are determined to change the status quo dramatically.
Israel began moving more troops to its border with Lebanon on Wednesday as a precautionary measure, Israeli officials said. Israel’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said plans have been drawn up for additional action against Hezbollah, though media reported the government has not yet decided whether to launch a major offensive in Lebanon.
Lebanon is still reeling from the deadly device attacks of Tuesday and Wednesday.
The explosions have rattled anxious Lebanese fearing a full-scale war. The Lebanese Army said it has been locating and detonating suspicious pagers and communication devices, while the country’s civil aviation authorities banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all airplanes departing from Beirut’s international airport until further notice.
The attack was likely to severely disrupt Hezbollah’s internal communication as it scrambles to determine safe means to talk to each other. Hezbollah announced the death of five combatants Thursday, but didn’t specify if they were killed in the explosions or on the front lines.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was scheduled to speak later Thursday as the group vowed to retaliate against Israel.
The blasts went off wherever the holders of the pagers or walkie-talkies happened to be in multiple parts of Beirut and eastern and southern Lebanon — in homes and cars, grocery stores and cafes and on the street, even at a funeral for some killed in the bombings, often with family and other bystanders nearby.
Many suffered gaping wounds on their legs, abdomens and faces or were maimed in the hand. Tuesday’s pager blasts killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded some 2,300 others. The following day’s explosion killed 25 and wounded more than 600, Health Minister Firas Abiad said, giving updated figures.
Abiad told reporters that Wednesday’s injuries were more severe than the previous day as walkie-talkies that exploded were bigger than the pagers. He praised Lebanon’s hospitals, saying they had managed to deal with the flood of wounded within hours. “It was an indiscriminate attack. It was a war crime,” he said.
Hezbollah attacks Israel with drones as fears of a widening war mount
https://arab.news/5csz6
Hezbollah attacks Israel with drones as fears of a widening war mount
- Hezbollah said early Thursday it had targeted three military positions in northern Israel near the border, two of them with drones
- The Israeli military said the drones crashed near communities
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 42,010
- The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry
The toll includes 45 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 97,720 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Hamas, Fatah leaders to hold Palestinian unity talks in Cairo
- Hamas delegation led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar
CAIRO: Leaders from the Islamist group Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement will hold further unity talks in Cairo on Wednesday, a Hamas official told Reuters.
According to Taher Al-Nono, the media adviser of the Hamas political chief, the Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday. It was led by Khalil Al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and Hamas’ second-in-command, currently based in Qatar.
“The meeting will discuss the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, and the challenges facing the Palestinian cause,” Nono said.
There was no immediate comment from Fatah.
The meeting will be the first in months since the two groups held talks in the Chinese capital in July, agreeing on steps to form a unity government. Similar rounds in the past have so far failed to make progress.
The issue of the post-war Gaza administration is one of the thorniest issues facing the Palestinians, and both factions have said it was an internal affair, rejecting any Israeli conditions.
Israel vowed it would not accept any role for Hamas in post-war Gaza. It says it doesn’t trust the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority to do the job either.
Israel carries out new strikes in Gaza, UN chief says many trapped in north
- Israel says it is rooting our Hamas militants
- Israel presses on with raid on Jabalia refugee camp
CAIRO: At least 18 people were killed in overnight military strikes on Gaza, Palestinian medics said on Wednesday, as Israeli forces pressed on with a raid on the Jabalia refugee camp in the enclave’s north.
The Israeli military says the raid, now in its fifth day, is intended to stop Hamas fighters staging further attacks from Jabalia and to prevent them regrouping.
It has repeatedly issued evacuation orders to residents of Jabalia and nearby areas, but Palestinian and UN officials say there are no safe places to flee to in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said it had received unconfirmed reports that dozens of Palestinians may have been killed in Jabalia and other areas of northern Gaza, but is unable reach them because of Israeli bombardments.
“At least 400,000 people are trapped in the area,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Palestinian refugee Agency (UNRWA), posted on X on Wednesday.
“Recent evacuation orders from the Israeli Authorities are forcing people to flee again & again, especially from Jabalia Camp. Many are refusing because they know too well that no place anywhere in #Gaza is safe.”
Lazzarini said some UNRWA shelters and services were being forced to shut down for the first time since the war began and that with almost no basic supplies available, hunger was spreading again in northern Gaza.
“This recent military operation also threatens the implementation of the second phase of the #polio vaccination campaign for children,” he said.
Israel did not immediately comment on Lazzarini’s remarks. Israeli authorities have previously said they facilitate food deliveries to Gaza despite challenging conditions.
Overnight strikes
Israel’s military, which is also in conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, says Hamas militants use residential areas as cover in the densely populated territory, including schools and hospitals. Hamas denies this.
In one Israeli strike overnight on a house in Shejaia, a suburb of Gaza City, nine people of the same family were killed, medics said. The rest of the dead from the overnight strikes were killed in central areas of the Gaza Strip.
Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, the Gaza health ministry says. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the enclave has been laid to waste.
Iran rejects UK security official’s ‘accusations against Iran’, foreign ministry says
DUBAI: Tehran rejects “accusations” put forward by a British security official, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Wednesday, a day after UK’s MI5 spy chief said 20 Iran-backed potentially lethal plots had been disrupted in Britain since January 2022.
In a wide-ranging speech on Tuesday outlining the current threat picture, Security Service (MI5) Director General Ken McCallum accused Iran of being behind “plot after plot” on British soil.
McCallum said state threat investigations were up 48 percent in the last year as Russia and Iran turned to criminals, drug traffickers and proxies to carry out their “dirty work.”
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson dismissed what he described in a statement as repetitive accusations over the last two years by the British security official, whom he did not name.
Baghaei accused the British of hosting “terrorist” groups that take advantage of free speech to promote violence, according to the statement and asked London to reconsider its policies toward “the nation of Iran and West Asia.”
Iran warns Israel not to attack its infrastructure
- Israel said it was preparing a response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack on its arch-enemy
- On Friday US President Joe Biden cautioned Israel against attacking oil installations in Iran
TEHRAN: Iran warned Israel on Tuesday against attacking any of its infrastructure amid fears of a possible Israeli assault on oil or nuclear sites following Iran’s missile barrage last week.
“Any attack against infrastructure in Iran will provoke an even stronger response,” state television quoted Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying.
He spoke after Israel said it was preparing a response to Iran’s October 1 missile attack on its arch-enemy, its second on the country in six months.
On Monday, an official statement quoted Araghchi as saying Iran did not seek war in the region.
On Friday US President Joe Biden cautioned Israel against attacking oil installations in Iran, one of the world’s top 10 producers of crude.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Rassul Sanairad warned Israel on Sunday any attack on nuclear or energy sites would cross a “red line.”
The Fars news agency quoted him as saying following the Israeli threat: “Some political leaders have spoken of a possible change in Iran’s nuclear policy.”
In 2022, after an official said Iran had the technical capability to produce a nuclear weapon, the country stressed there had been no change in its nuclear ambitions.
Last year Iran slowed the pace of its uranium enrichment, but then in late 2023 accelerated the production of 60 percent enriched uranium, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Enrichment levels of around 90 percent are required for military use.
Iran has always denied any ambition to develop a nuclear weapons capability, insisting its activities are entirely peaceful.
Any attack on Iranian nuclear sites “would have an impact on the kind of response by Iran,” General Sanairad said.
Tehran says its attack on Israel, when some 200 missiles were fired, was a response to the death in a Beirut air strike of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah, and of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Iran blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death, but Israel has not commented.