Israel widens Lebanon strikes as troops fight Hezbollah along border

A person stands by damages at the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh on October 12, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 13 October 2024
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Israel widens Lebanon strikes as troops fight Hezbollah along border

  • Hezbollah says fighting Israeli troops near Ramiya village, southern Lebanon
  • Third UN peacekeeper wounded in Israeli strike in Lebanon

BEIRUT: Israel expanded its aerial bombardment of targets in Lebanon, hitting areas both in and outside traditional Hezbollah bastions, as its troops battled militants across the border on Sunday.
In areas where Hezbollah holds sway, Israeli warplanes hit a marketplace in the southern city of Nabatiyeh on Saturday, and then a 100-year-old mosque in a village near the border on Sunday, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA).
There have also been deadly strikes in other areas of Lebanon — one on a Shiite Muslim village in a mostly Christian mountain area, and another in north Lebanon, the health ministry said.
AFP footage shot from the northern Deir Billa area after the strike there showed rescuers and villagers digging with bare hands through rubble as smoke rose from the site.
The mayor of Kfar Tibnit, where the NNA said a strike destroyed a mosque, said he felt he had lost a beloved site that brought people together.
“It was a significant place because families used to gather in the square right next to it on special occasions,” Fuad Yassin told AFP, adding that the mosque was at least 100 years old.
Lebanon’s health ministry said strikes on three villages on Saturday killed 15 people.
Israel has alleged that militants use civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and Gaza to conduct operations — a claim the groups have denied.
The Israeli military said its 36th division continued “targeted and limited operational activity” in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.
In a statement, it said Israeli jets had hit “Hezbollah launchers, anti-tank missile posts, weapons storage facilities, and additional terror targets.”
On the ground, soldiers had “eliminated dozens of terrorists.”
According to the NNA, Israeli forces have “escalated their attacks” on southern Lebanon, with “successive air strikes from midnight until morning” pounding several border villages.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said it clashed with Israeli troops who tried to “infiltrate” twice into a border village, sparking an hour-long battle.
It later said it shelled Israeli soldiers gathered in Maroun Al-Ras village.
Early Sunday, Israel said it intercepted five more projectiles fired from Lebanon as air raid sirens sounded.
The military said Hezbollah launched about 320 projectiles into Israel over the weekend of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
It also said roughly 280 “terror targets” were attacked in Lebanon and Gaza over the same period.
Israel on Saturday told residents of south Lebanon not to return home, and issued new evacuation warnings for several villages.

Red Cross paramedics hit

The Lebanese Red Cross said its paramedics were hit by a strike on Sunday while attending the site of an earlier attack in the south, leaving them lightly injured.
“Following the air strike on a house in Sirbin... Lebanese Red Cross ambulance teams were dispatched to the scene in coordination with” UN peacekeepers, the Red Cross said in a statement.
“As the team was searching for casualties to rescue, the house was hit for a second time resulting in concussions to the volunteers and damage to the two ambulances,” it said, adding the paramedics had sustained light injuries.
Jagan Chapagain, who heads the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) called for rescuers to be protected.
“We have said it before and today we say it again: the Red Cross emblem must be respected under International Humanitarian Law,” he said in a statement shared on X.

Targetting peacekeepers
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his US counterpart Lloyd Austin that Israel will continue to take measures to avoid any harm to UN peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon, the defense ministry said Sunday.
“Minister Gallant emphasized ... the IDF (Israeli military) will continue to take measures to avoid harm to UNIFIL troops and peacekeeping positions” in southern Lebanon, the ministry said in a statement following overnight talks between the pair. At least five peacekeepers have been wounded in recent days as Israeli forces fight against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, has accused the Israeli military of “deliberately” firing on its positions.
UNIFIL said that, in recent days, its forces have repeatedly come under fire in the Lebanese town of Naqura where it is headquartered, as well as in other positions.
“Such actions must stop immediately and should be adequately investigated,” 40 nations that contribute to the force including Indonesia, Italy and India said in a joint statement on Saturday.
UNIFIL, which involves about 9,500 troops of some 50 nationalities, is tasked with, among other things, monitoring a ceasefire that ended the 33-day 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

With no sign of a let-up in the violence, UN peacekeepers in Lebanon warned against a “catastrophic” regional conflict.
In an interview with AFP, Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, said he feared an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah could soon spiral “into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone.”
There is “no military solution,” Tenenti said.
Hamas sparked the year-long war in Gaza by launching the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 42,175 people, a majority civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there. The UN acknowledges these figures to be reliable.
In support for its ally Hamas, Hezbollah started firing into northern Israel in October last year, triggering a near-daily exchange of fire that even before the current escalation had led to the displacement of tens of thousands of people.
In September, Israel expanded its focus to Lebanon, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing to fight Hezbollah until Israelis displaced by the violence could return to their homes.
Since Israel began a wave of air strikes on targets around Lebanon and sent troops across the border, more than 1,200 people have been killed, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, and a million others have been displaced.
Efforts to negotiate an end to the Lebanon and Gaza wars have so far failed.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire.”
French President Emmanuel Macron repeated his call for a ceasefire and said Hezbollah must “immediately stop” attacking Israel.
In a show of support for Hezbollah — which Tehran arms and finances — the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, on Saturday visited the site of an earlier deadly Israeli strike.
A source close to Hezbollah said the strike had targeted the group’s security chief Wafiq Safa, something neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed.
Ghalibaf’s visit, a signal of Tehran’s defiance, came after Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s second-ever direct attack, after an earlier missile barrage in April.
Tehran said the barrage was retaliation for the killing of top militants and an Iranian general.

Deeping push in Gaza
In Gaza, Israeli forces have focused on an area around Jabalia in the north, causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted an evacuation warning on X on Saturday for an area near Jabalia, saying it was “considered a dangerous combat zone.”
“There is no safe place, neither in the south nor in the north — everyone is at risk of death,” Gaza resident Sami Asliya, 27, told AFP.


Egypt hosts Fatah-Hamas post-war Gaza talks as part of ceasefire efforts

Updated 3 sec ago
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Egypt hosts Fatah-Hamas post-war Gaza talks as part of ceasefire efforts

CAIRO: Senior officials of the rival Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas are meeting in Cairo to discuss forming a committee to manage Gaza’s post-war governance, an Egyptian security source was quoted as saying by Egypt’s Al-Qahera News TV on Saturday.
The talks are part of Egypt’s broader mediation efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and militant group Hamas and to expand humanitarian access to the enclave.
Leaders from Hamas and the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in Cairo last month to discuss forming the committee based on a proposal put forward by Egypt, but talks were adjourned for later discussion, sources close to the talks told Reuters.
The sources said the committee would be made up of independent Palestinian figures not aligned to a particular movement, addressing the question of who would run Gaza after the year-long war is over.
Israel rejects any role by Hamas in Gaza after the war is ended and has said it does not trust the rival Palestinian Authority of Abbas to run the enclave.
Mediators, including Egypt and Qatar with backing from the United States, have so far failed to secure a truce that would end the Gaza war and facilitate a release of Israeli and foreign hostages held by Hamas, along with thousands of Palestinians detained by Israel.
Hamas is pressing for an end to hostilities while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that the war will continue until Hamas is dismantled.
Hamas political official Izzat Al-Risheq dismissed proposals of limited or temporary truces as “smokescreens.”
“We are positively open to any proposals or ideas that ensure the cessation of aggression and the withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza,” Al-Risheq said in a statement.
The conflict continues to exact a heavy humanitarian toll, with medics reporting that five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza’s Bureij refugee camp on Saturday.
Palestinian health officials said at least 60 people had been killed by Israeli military strikes across Gaza Strip since Friday.
In the latest round of violence, Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group allied with Hamas, said it launched rockets at Sderot, Mefalsim and other Israeli territory near the Gaza border late on Saturday.
The Israeli military said two projectiles crossed from northern Gaza, landing in an open area but caused no injuries.
The war erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s retaliatory offensives have killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of Gaza to rubble.

Strike on Gaza polio vaccine center wounds four children: WHO

Updated 42 min 21 sec ago
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Strike on Gaza polio vaccine center wounds four children: WHO

  • Organization launched second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday

GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) said six people including four children were hurt Saturday in a strike on a polio vaccination center in northern Gaza.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a message on X, that the UN agency had received “an extremely concerning report” that the center “was struck today while parents were bringing their children to the life-saving polio vaccination” drive.
Without naming who carried out the strike, he said the Sheikh Radwan primary health care center was “in an area where a humanitarian pause was agreed to allow vaccination to proceed.”
“Six people, including four children, were injured,” he added.
The Israeli military has been pounding northern Gaza in recent weeks as part of its campaign to crush the Hamas militant movement in retaliation for the militants’ attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023.
The WHO launched a needed second round of child polio vaccinations in northern Gaza on Saturday after Israeli bombing halted the drive.
The vaccination drive began on September 1 with a successful first round, after the besieged Palestinian territory confirmed its first case of polio in 25 years.
“A WHO team was at the site just before” Saturday’s strike, Ghebreyesus said.
“This attack, during humanitarian pause, jeopardizes the sanctity of health protection for children and may deter parents from bringing their children for vaccination,” he added.
“These vital humanitarian-area-specific pauses must be absolutely respected,” he said, calling for a ceasefire in the territory.
The WHO says some 119,000 children in the north are awaiting a second dose, while 452,000 have been vaccinated in central and southern Gaza.
Typically spread through sewage and contaminated water, poliovirus is highly infectious.
It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal, mainly affecting children under the age of five.
Hamas’s 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 43,314 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the UN considers reliable.


Israeli commando unit abducts Lebanese maritime student

Updated 02 November 2024
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Israeli commando unit abducts Lebanese maritime student

  • According to a Lebanese military source and based on shared CCTV footage, the operation involved 20 to 25 commandos

BEIRUT: A Lebanese maritime student was abducted in Batroun, northern Lebanon, by Israeli commandos, authorities said on Saturday

Axios news portal reported that “the abductee was taken to be questioned on Hezbollah’s naval activities,” citing an Israeli official.

Leaked information identified the abductee as Imad Amhaz, a student at the Maritime Sciences and Technology Institute in Batroun, who was in his parents’ house at the time of the incident.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said an “unidentified military force carried out a sea landing on the shore of Batroun, went with all its weapons and equipment to a chalet near the beach, and kidnapped a Lebanese man.”

According to a Lebanese military source and based on shared CCTV footage, the operation involved 20 to 25 commandos.

Caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transportation Ali Hamieh said that “the sea is under supervision, and we are waiting for the outcome of the investigations.”

Hamieh added that the Lebanese government will contact UNIFIL to know whether the operation was carried out in cooperation with the UN peacekeeping force.

A UNIFIL spokesperson said the force “has not been involved in facilitating any kidnapping or other violation of Lebanese sovereignty. Disinformation and false rumors are irresponsible and put peacekeepers at risk.”

An Israeli official told Axios that “the Israeli Navy SEALs captured Imad Amhaz — a senior member of Hezbollah’s naval force — in an operation in northern Lebanon.”

Lebanon accused Israel of carrying out the operation and violating Lebanese territorial waters, despite the presence of a UNIFIL maritime task force.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said one person was killed and 15 others were wounded on Saturday in an Israeli strike on Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold.

The ministry announcement came as the official National News Agency said the “Israeli enemy launched a raid near Karout Mall ... in the southern suburbs of Beirut.”

A residential building was hit near the Galerie Semaan crossroads in Beirut’s southern suburb — an area struck for the first time.

Elsewhere, Israeli planes raided several buildings and apartments near the Imam Hussein Complex in Tyre, destroying them completely and injuring civilians.

Raids also targeted a house in Tebnine, near the governmental hospital, killing two people, severely injuring others, and significantly damaging the hospital and nearby buildings.

In Bekaa, the raids carried out by the Israeli military on Baalbek and its surroundings in the last 48 hours damaged the Roman wall outside the Temple of Baalbek, near the Gouraud Barracks, causing about 30 meters of the wall to collapse and severely damaging the historical monument.

Israel’s Channel 13 reported that “around 180 missiles have been launched from Lebanon toward the Galilee, Haifa and Acre since Saturday morning.”

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee claimed on X that Israel eliminated Mueen Moussa Ezzeddin, the commander of the coastal sector of Hezbollah, and Hassan Majid Dhiab, the artillery commander in the area, who was responsible for the launches toward the outskirts of Haifa on Thursday. He accused both of being “responsible for firing over 400 rocket shells toward Israeli territory over the past month.”

Adraee reported that “over the past 24 hours, (Israeli forces) targeted anti-tank missile launch sites, terrorists, military buildings, weapons depots, and Hezbollah command centers deep in and south of Lebanon.”

Israeli reconnaissance aircraft consistently operated in Lebanese airspace, particularly over Beirut, the southern suburbs, the southern region, Bekaa, and extending to the north.

The Israeli military reiterated its warnings to displaced individuals against returning to their homes.

The death toll resulting from Israeli attacks on Lebanon reached 2,897 with 13,150 injured as of Friday.

Additional raids targeted once again the Al-Qaa to Jousieh border crossing, which connects Lebanon to Syria, putting it completely out of service.

The crossing is among six legal crossings that connect Lebanon to Syria, and leads to the Al-Qusayr district in western Homs on the Syrian side.

The crossing had been previously put out of service about a week ago, when Israeli raids targeted it from the Syrian side, killing four members of the Syrian military intelligence.

Israel claims that it is bombing border crossings “because Hezbollah is using them to transport weapons from Syria to Lebanon.”

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “Israeli targets included most illegal land crossings to prevent the entry of supplies to Lebanon.

“There is ongoing Israeli aerial surveillance of crossings and the border area closely.”

The observatory said that since Sep. 26, “Israel has targeted the Syrian-Lebanese border with 31 raids, destroying many sites, putting several legal and illegal crossings out of service, and killing 28 people, including four Hezbollah members and four Syrians working with the militant party.”

It noted that “the Israeli raids put the main Masnaah-Jdeidet Yabous crossing between both countries out of service, as it was targeted twice,” adding that “the crossing is currently limited to pedestrians.”

Meanwhile, Hezbollah said the group targeted “the city of Safed and the Glilot base associated with Military Intelligence Unit 8200 in the outskirts of Tel Aviv, as well as the settlements of Dalton, Be’er Ya’akov, Sha’al, Yesud HaMa’ala, Bar Yohai (Safsaf), and the Kiryot area north of Haifa.”

Hezbollah announced that it launched “an aerial assault with a fleet of attack drones on the Palmachim Airbase, south of Tel Aviv.”

Additionally, it targeted “the Zevulon military industries base north of Haifa with qualitative missile salvo twice in a row, and it conducted an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the Shraga base north of the city of Acre.”

Sirens sounded in 20 towns in northern Israel following a missile barrage from southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military announced that it “detected 15 missile launches from southern Lebanon and successfully intercepted the majority of them.”

Meanwhile, Israeli media reported “explosions heard in Acre, Nahariya, the Haifa Bay, and several towns in Galilee.”

The Israeli Air Force said it was “pursuing several drones that breached the airspace from Lebanon.”

Israeli media reported that the “David’s Sling system was activated to intercept missiles launched from Lebanon toward the Tel Aviv area.”

Hezbollah rockets targeted a building in the Arab town of Al-Tira, located approximately 25 km northeast of Tel Aviv, resulting in injuries to 19 individuals on Friday night.


Lebanon says one dead, 15 wounded in Israel strike on south Beirut

Updated 02 November 2024
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Lebanon says one dead, 15 wounded in Israel strike on south Beirut

  • The strike was not preceded by an Israeli evacuation warning

BEIRUT: Lebanon's health ministry said one person was killed and 15 others were wounded Saturday in an Israeli strike on Hezbollah's south Beirut stronghold, which has been hard hit by the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The ministry announcement came as the official National News Agency said the "Israeli enemy launched a raid near Karout Mall... in the southern suburbs of Beirut".
The strike was not preceded by an Israeli evacuation warning.
According to an AFP photographer, the strike targeted an abandoned building, which includes a car dealership on the ground floor.
The area was cordoned of by the army and security forces.
Beirut's southern suburbs have been heavily bombed by Israel since its war with Hezbollah erupted in September.
The war has killed more than 1,900 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally based on figures from Lebanon's health ministry.


Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor

Updated 02 November 2024
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Archaeologists unearth an ancient Middle Kingdom Egyptian tomb in Luxor

  • Some items such as jewelry in women’s burials were found intact, including a finely crafted necklace with 30 amethyst beads

CAIRO: Archaeologists from Egypt and the United States unearthed an ancient tomb with 11 sealed burials near the famed city of Luxor, Egyptian authorities said.
Egypt’s Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said in a statement Friday the tomb, which dates back to the Middle Kingdom (1938 B.C.-1630 B.C.), was found in the South Asasif necropolis, next to the Temple of Hatshepsut on the Nile’s West Bank in Luxor.
The joint Egyptian-American mission excavating the necropolis found coffins for men, women and children, suggesting that it was a family tomb used for generations during the 12th Dynasty and the beginning of the 13th Dynasty, said Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt.
He said ancient floods destroyed most of the burials’ wooden coffins and linen wrappings.
However, some items such as jewelry in women’s burials were found intact, including a finely crafted necklace with 30 amethyst beads and two cylindrical agate beads framing a hippo-head amulet, according to the statement.
Catherine Blakeney, chief American archaeologist with the mission, said they found two copper mirrors, one with a lotus-shaped handle, and the second with a unique design of Hathor, goddess of the sky, women, fertility and love in ancient Egypt.
The discovery came as Egypt has doubled efforts to attract more tourists, a significant source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped North African country. Tourism, which depends heavily on Egypt’s rich Pharaonic artifacts, suffered a long downturn after the political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising.
Last month, the Grand Egyptian Museum, a mega project near the famed Giza Pyramids, opened 12 halls exhibiting Pharaonic artifacts for visitors as a trial ahead of the yet-unannounced official opening.