Israel strikes Lebanon after Netanyahu vows no mercy for Hezbollah

Israel expanded operations in Lebanon nearly a year after Hezbollah began exchanging fire in support of its ally, Hamas, following the Palestinian group's deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. (File/AFP)
Short Url
Updated 15 October 2024
Follow

Israel strikes Lebanon after Netanyahu vows no mercy for Hezbollah

  • Hezbollah launched missiles at soldiers and a barrage of rockets at northern Israel

BEIRUT: Israel’s military launched strikes Tuesday on eastern Lebanon, official Lebanese media reported, as Hezbollah fought Israeli soldiers after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed no mercy for the militant group.
The premier’s pledge on Monday came a day after a drone attack by the Iran-backed Lebanese group on an Israeli base killed four soldiers, while volunteer rescuers said another 60 people were wounded.
“We will continue to mercilessly strike Hezbollah in all parts of Lebanon — including Beirut,” Netanyahu said on a visit to the base near Binyamina, south of Haifa.
Hezbollah said its “fighters clashed with” Israeli troops Tuesday who were trying to infiltrate on the outskirts of Rab Tlatin village.
The group also said it launched missiles at soldiers and a barrage of rockets at northern Israel, while the military reported sirens blaring near the border.
Israel’s military, meanwhile, said its “troops eliminated dozens of terrorists in close-quarters combat” and strikes over the past day.
Since Israel last month escalated its bombing in Lebanon before sending ground troops across the frontier, the war has killed at least 1,315 people, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
Israel launched multiple air strikes early Tuesday in the eastern Bekaa Valley, putting a hospital in Baalbek city out of service, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
The International Committee of the Red Cross’s regional director, Nicolas Von Arx, appealed Monday for the protection of ambulances and other health facilities and personnel, calling attacks on them “deeply worrying.”
Israeli strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds as well as other parts of Lebanon, including a northern Christian-majority village where at least 21 people were killed Monday, according to the health ministry.
Anis Abla, civil defense chief in the southern border town of Marjayoun, said rescuers were “exhausted.”
“Our rescue missions are becoming more and more difficult, because the strikes are never-ending and target us,” said Abla.

Independent probe

The UN called Tuesday for a “prompt, independent and thorough investigation” into an Israeli strike in the northern Lebanese village of Aito which it said had killed 22 people.
“What we’re hearing is that among the 22 people who were who were killed were 12 women and two children,” UN rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told reporters about Monday’s strike, adding that this raises “real concerns with respect to ... the laws of war and principles of distinction, proportion and proportionality.”
Fierce battles
Israel says it wants to push back Hezbollah in order to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely.
In Kfar Kara, a village in northern Israel, restaurant manager Yousef was shaken by the deadly Hezbollah strike on a nearby military base.
“Now they know where that base is, what if next time they fire and are slightly off target?” he said, declining to give his full name for safety reasons.
Hezbollah said it had launched the “squadron of attack drones” in response to Israeli attacks, including one last week that Lebanon’s health ministry said killed at least 22 people in central Beirut.
The group says its strikes are also in support of Palestinian militants Hamas who attacked Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the ongoing war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The war in Lebanon has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to verified figures last week from the International Organization for Migration.
Israel faced new criticism over injuries and damage sustained by the UN peacekeeping force which has been deployed in Lebanon since 1978, after a previous Israeli invasion.
The UN Security Council for the first time on Monday expressed “strong concerns” over peacekeepers being wounded.
UNIFIL has refused Netanyahu’s request for peacekeepers to “get out of harm’s way,” with UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix saying the blue helmets will stay in their positions.
War on Gaza
While deploying troops into Lebanon, Israel has kept up its bombardment of Gaza where it has been at war since the Hamas attack on southern Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures, including hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed 42,289 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
At a school-turned-shelter hit by an Israeli strike in the central Nuseirat camp, Fatima Al-Azab said “there is no safety anywhere” in Gaza.
“They are all children, sleeping in the covers, all burned and cut up, all burned,” she said following Sunday’s deadly strike.
In northern Gaza, the Israeli military announced it had effectively laid siege to the Jabalia area as it seeks to rout out Hamas fighters.
“The number of dead is high, and people are under the rubble, missing,” said Muhammad Abu Halima, a 40-year-old Jabalia resident.
Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Jabalia’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, confirmed “a blockade on food, medicine, medical supplies and even fuel.”
The Israeli military said it has “eliminated dozens of terrorists over the past day” in Jabalia.
Despite the violence, elsewhere in Gaza the second round of a polio vaccination campaign for hundreds of thousands of children began on Monday.
Since the Gaza war began Israeli forces or settlers have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with two more fatalities Monday in the northern city of Jenin.
Fears of regional war
With the war there and in Lebanon showing no sign of abating, fears of even wider regional conflict have seen Iran, which backs Hezbollah and Hamas, engage in diplomatic efforts with allies and other powers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met a senior official from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement in Oman, his latest stop on a regional diplomatic tour.
Jordan’s King Abdullah II warned of “a regional war that will be costly for everyone,” during a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday.
Israel is still weighing its response to an October 1 missile attack by Iran, launched in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Tehran-aligned militant leaders in the region, along with a general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
A counterattack would only target Iranian military sites, not nuclear or oil facilities, US media reported Monday citing US officials.


Egypt, Iran foreign ministers discuss rising Middle East tensions

Updated 55 min 30 sec ago
Follow

Egypt, Iran foreign ministers discuss rising Middle East tensions

CAIRO: Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty has reiterated to his Iranian counterpart the urgency of de-escalating Middle East tensions in order to avert a regional war.

During a phone call with Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, Abdelatty discussed his country’s concerns about the possibility of a full-scale regional war amid rising tensions.

Araghchi was in Cairo last month for the first visit to Egypt by a key Iranian official in around a decade. His trip was focused on efforts to de-escalate Israel’s conflicts with Gaza and Lebanon.


Two Iran Guards killed in helicopter crash in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 04 November 2024
Follow

Two Iran Guards killed in helicopter crash in province bordering Pakistan

  • “Ultra-light gyroplane” met accident while conducting combat operations in Sistan-Baluchestan
  • Province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and Baloch rebels

TEHRAN: An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general and pilot were killed in a helicopter crash during an anti-terror operation in the country’s restive southeast, state media reported on Monday.

The “ultra-light gyroplane” of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps “had an accident while conducting combat operations” in a border area, IRNA news agency said.

It said the crash happened in Sirkan, a city in Sistan-Baluchistan province, and identified the dead as General Hamid Mazandarani, the commander of the Nineveh Brigade of Golestan province, and Hamed Jandaghi, a pilot of the IRGC ground forces.

Iran’s armed forces have been mounting an operation in the region since October 26, when 10 police officers were killed in an attack claimed by Sunni Muslim militants.

They have killed several militants and arrested others during the operation, according to Iranian media outlets.

Sistan-Baluchistan borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, and is one of the most impoverished provinces in the Islamic republic.

It is home to a large number of the Baloch minority, an ethnic group spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan who practice Sunni Islam in contrast to the country’s predominantly Shiite population.

The province has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and rebels from the Baloch minority, radical Sunni groups and drug traffickers.

Helicopter accidents are a rare sight in Iran, but former president Ebrahim Raisi was killed when his helicopter crashed into a mountainside in May, triggering snap elections in the country.

The ultra-conservative president was accompanied by then foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six other people who were all killed.


Jordan, UN aid body discusses urgent needs in Palestinian refugee camps

Updated 04 November 2024
Follow

Jordan, UN aid body discusses urgent needs in Palestinian refugee camps

  • Israel’s actions against UN workers condemned by Jordan, other officials

AMMAN: Jordan’s Department of Palestinian Affairs and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East held talks on Sunday to address the growing needs and challenges of the displaced and vulnerable in camps across the country.

During the meeting, Department of Palestinian Affairs Director-General Rafiq Khirfan condemned what he described as a “systematic campaign and political assassination” aimed at weakening UNRWA’s role, according to reports.

He pointed to Tel Aviv’s recent actions, including a decision by the Israeli Knesset to restrict UNRWA activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, such as East Jerusalem, and to withdraw diplomatic privileges from its staff.

Khirfan said the measures were a violation of international law and an attempt to undermine UNRWA’s mission of supporting Palestinian refugees, advocating for their right to return, and compensation.

Despite these challenges, Khirfan underscored Jordan’s continued commitment to backing UNRWA at regional and international levels, recognizing the agency’s critical role in providing services and stability for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA’s Jordan Affairs Director Olaf Becker thanked Amman for the ongoing support of the agency’s work in the refugee camps.


Israel says top Hezbollah commander killed in Lebanon strike

Updated 04 November 2024
Follow

Israel says top Hezbollah commander killed in Lebanon strike

  • Abu Ali Rida, the Hezbollah commander of the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an air strike
  • Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed

BEIRUT: The Israeli military said on Monday it had killed a top Hezbollah commander it accused of overseeing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.
Abu Ali Rida, the Hezbollah commander of the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an air strike, the military said, without specifying when he was killed.
Rida “was responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF (military) troops and oversaw the terrorist activities of Hezbollah operatives in the area,” the military said in a statement.
Israel has continued to pound Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the war between the two sides broke out in late September.

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired rockets at the northern Israeli city of Safed on Monday, the latest attack in more than a month of war.
Hezbollah fighters launched a “big rocket salvo” at the city, the group said in a statement.

In recent weeks, Israel has killed several of the movement’s militant commanders and top leaders, including former chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The war began after nearly a year of cross-border skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, with the Lebanese group firing rockets into northern Israel almost daily in support of its ally in Gaza, Hamas.
Israel is fighting its deadliest war in Gaza against Hamas after the Palestinian militant group launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year.


Iran executes Jewish Iranian man in murder case: NGO

Updated 04 November 2024
Follow

Iran executes Jewish Iranian man in murder case: NGO

  • Arvin Ghahremani was hanged in prison in the western city of Kermanshah after being convicted of a murder during a street fight
  • Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, had asked for his life to be spared

PARIS: Iran on Monday executed a member of the country’s Jewish minority who had been convicted of murder, an NGO said, at a time of rising tensions with Israel.
Arvin Ghahremani was hanged in prison in the western city of Kermanshah after being convicted of a murder during a street fight, said the Norway-based Iran Human Rights group.
“In the midst of the threats of war with Israel, the Islamic republic executed Arvin Ghahremani, an Iranian Jewish citizen,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding the legal case had “significant flaws.”
“However, in addition to this, Arvin was a Jew, and the institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Islamic republic undoubtedly played a crucial role in the execution of his sentence,” Amiry-Moghaddam added.
The once sizeable Jewish community in Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran has dwindled since the 1979 Islamic Revolution but remains the largest in the Middle East outside Israel.
While Jewish Iranians were executed in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, the execution of a Jewish Iranian is unprecedented in recent years.
Ghahremani’s mother, Sonia Saadati, had asked for his life to be spared.
His family urged the victim’s relatives to accept blood money under Iran’s Islamic law of retribution (qesas), which permits this alternative.
The Mizan Online website of the Iranian judiciary confirmed Ghahremani’s execution, saying the victim’s family had “refused to give consent” to such a deal.
Iran and Israel have traded unprecedented air attacks this year following the outbreak of Israel’s wars with armed groups backed by the Islamic republic in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.