BEIRUT: Israel launched a new wave of strikes on Lebanon in response to a rocket attack from across the border on Saturday, as militant group Hezbollah denied responsibility for the launch.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered “a second wave of strikes against dozens of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon,” the defense ministry said, in the largest escalation since a November 27 ceasefire.
It said the strikes were “a response to rocket fire toward Israel and a continuation of the first series of strikes carried out this morning” against southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported one girl among five people killed in an Israeli strike during the day on the southern town of Touline.
The agency later said three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the city of Tyre, targeted in the second wave of strikes on the south and east, with multiple injuries also reported.
Bilal Kachmar, spokesman for the Tyre Disaster Management Unit, told AFP two people were killed and two wounded when “an Israeli strike targeted an apartment in a residential building in the Al-Raml neighborhood of Tyre,” a key coastal city targeted for the first time since the ceasefire.
A security source told AFP that a Hezbollah official was targeted in the Tyre strike, without confirming whether he had been killed.
Israel’s military said six rockets, three of which were intercepted, were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel Saturday, setting off air raid sirens.
Hezbollah denied any involvement in the rocket attack, and called Israel’s accusations “pretexts for its continued attacks on Lebanon.”
Hezbollah said it stands “with the Lebanese state in addressing this dangerous Zionist escalation on Lebanon.”
While Hezbollah has long held sway over parts of Lebanon bordering Israel, other Lebanese and Palestinian groups have also carried out cross-border attacks.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned that renewed military operations on the southern border risked “dragging the country into a new war,” his office said.
Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi called for “pressure on Israel to stop the aggression and escalation and contain the dangerous situation on the southern borders.”
Israeli defense chiefs say they hold the Lebanese government responsible for all hostile fire from its territory, regardless of who launches it.
“We cannot allow fire from Lebanon on Galilee communities,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said of towns and villages in the north, many of which were evacuated after Hezbollah began firing at Israel in support of Hamas in October 2023.
“The Lebanese government is responsible for attacks from its territory. I have ordered the military to respond accordingly,” Katz said.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon said it was “alarmed by the possible escalation of violence” following Saturday morning’s rocket fire.
France, which helped broker the ceasefire, condemned the rocket fire and urged Israel to show “restraint,” while Jordan called for immediate international action to “stop the Israeli aggression against Lebanon.”
Hezbollah has long had strongholds in south and east Lebanon, as well as south Beirut, but the war with Israel dealt the group devastating blows, leaving it massively weakened.
Under the ceasefire, Hezbollah is supposed to pull its forces back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
Israel is supposed to withdraw its forces across the UN-demarcated Blue Line, the de facto border, but has missed two deadlines to do so and continues to hold five positions it deems “strategic.”
Israel has carried out repeated air strikes during the ceasefire, targeting what it said were Hezbollah military sites that violated the agreement.
The Lebanese army said it had dismantled three makeshift rocket batteries in an area north of the Litani on Saturday.
Saturday’s flare-up came five days into Israel’s renewed offensive against Hamas in Gaza, which shattered the relative calm since a January 19 ceasefire there.
On Saturday in Gaza City, Sameh Al-Mashharawi said “seven people were martyred” in a strike on his family’s house that killed his two brothers, their children and wives.
Katz said Friday he had ordered the army to “seize more territory in Gaza.”
“The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel,” he said.
When the first stage of the Gaza ceasefire expired early this month, Israel rejected negotiations on the promised second stage, calling instead for the return of all its remaining hostages under an extended first stage.
That would have meant delaying talks on a lasting ceasefire, and was rejected by Hamas as an attempt to renegotiate the original deal mediated by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
Israel launches more strikes on Lebanon after rocket fire
https://arab.news/pdv8k
Israel launches more strikes on Lebanon after rocket fire

- The agency later said three people were killed in an Israeli strike on the city of Tyre, targeted in the second wave of strikes on the south and east
- Hezbollah denied any involvement in the rocket attack, and called Israel’s accusations “pretexts for its continued attacks on Lebanon“
Gaza rescuers say Israeli air strikes kill 25

- The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201
- Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18
Israel resumed its aerial and ground assault on Gaza on March 18, reigniting fighting after a two-month ceasefire that had paused more than 15 months of war in the coastal territory.
“Since dawn today, the occupation’s air strikes have killed 20 people and injured dozens more, including children and women across the Gaza Strip,” Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the civil defense agency told AFP.
In a separate statement later, the agency reported that five people were killed in an Israeli drone strike on a group of civilians in eastern Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday vowed to continue the war and bring home the remaining hostages held in Gaza without yielding to Hamas’s demands.
“We are at a critical stage of the campaign, and at this point, we need patience and determination to win,” Netanyahu said in a statement, rejecting calls from the militants to end the war and withdraw troops from Gaza.
Since Israel resumed its offensive last month, at least 1,827 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
The overall death toll in the Gaza war has reached 51,201, the majority of them civilians, according to the ministry, figures the UN considers reliable.
The war broke out after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel in October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
During that attack, Palestinian militants abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held hostage in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.
Syrian Airlines announces resumption of direct flights to the UAE

- Syrian Airlines said that it is working to expand its network as quickly as possible
DUBAI: Syrian Airlines on Sunday officially announced the resumption of direct flights between Syria and the UAE, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported.
The initial phase will include exceptional flights to Dubai and Sharjah.
According to a statement on the airline’s official Facebook page, four weekly flights will operate between Damascus and Dubai on Saturdays, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with plans to expand to daily services soon.
Flights to Sharjah will run on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays, with efforts underway to increase them to daily flights.
Damascus-Abu Dhabi routes will operate on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Syrian Airlines said that it is working to expand its network as quickly as possible, pending the necessary approvals from relevant authorities.
Travelers are encouraged to contact the airline’s offices inside or outside Syria for more information.
Yemen’s Houthis say two killed in US stikes on Sanaa area

- The Iran-backed group reported two deaths and 11 injured in the “US aggression on Sanaa”
SANAA: At least two people were killed in overnight US strikes in and around Yemen’s capital Sanaa, media controlled by the Houthi militants reported Sunday, in the latest such air raid.
The Iran-backed group’s Al-Masirah channel, citing the militants’ health ministry, reported two deaths and 11 injured in the “US aggression on Sanaa, the capital, and the governorate.”
The channel earlier said one person was killed in an air strike on the governorate’s Bani Matar area, where a deadly US raid was reported a week ago.
Beyond Sanaa, the Houthis said Sunday that air strikes also hit Yemen’s Marib and Amran provinces.
Earlier this week, the group said that US strikes on the fuel port of Ras Issa killed at least 80 people and wounded 150 in the deadliest attack of Washington’s 15-month campaign against the Houthis.
The US military has hammered the Yemeni Houthis with near-daily air strikes for the past month in a bid to stamp out their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
Claiming solidarity with Palestinians, the rebels began attacking the key maritime route and Israeli territory after the Gaza war began in October 2023.
The US strikes began in January 2024 but have multiplied under President Donald Trump, starting with an offensive that killed 53 people on March 15.
Houthi attacks on the Red Sea shipping route, which normally carries about 12 percent of global trade, have forced many companies into costly detours around the tip of southern Africa.
Lebanese authorities detain people they say were planning rockets attacks on Israel

- The army said it “detained several people who were involved in the operation.”
- The arrests are linked to other detentions announced earlier this week, it added
BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities have detained several people who they say were planning to launch rockets into Israel and confiscated the weapons they were intending to use, the military said Sunday.
The army said in a statement that the arrests are linked to other detentions announced earlier this week. It added that as military intelligence was investigating that case they got information that a new rocket attack was being planned.
The army said troops raided an apartment near the southern port city of Sidon and confiscated some of the rockets and the launchers and “detained several people who were involved in the operation.” it said the detainees were referred to judicial authorities.
On Wednesday, the army said in a statement that authorities detained several people, including a number of Palestinians, who were involved in firing rockets in two separate attacks toward Israel in late March that triggered intense Israeli airstrikes on parts of Lebanon. Lebanon’s Hezbollah group denied at the time that it was behind the firing of rockets.
Also Sunday, an Israeli drone strike on the southern Lebanese village of Kawthariet Al-Siyad killed one person, the state-run National News Agency said.
'I thought I'd died.' How land mines are continuing to claim lives in post-Assad Syria

- Contamination from land mines and explosive remnants has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since Dec. 8
- Farming remains the main source of income for residents in rural Idlib, making the presence of mines a daily hazard
IDLIB: Suleiman Khalil was harvesting olives in a Syrian orchard with two friends four months ago, unaware the soil beneath them still hid deadly remnants of war.
The trio suddenly noticed a visible mine lying on the ground. Panicked, Khalil and his friends tried to leave, but he stepped on a land mine and it exploded. His friends, terrified, ran to find an ambulance, but Khalil, 21, thought they had abandoned him.
“I started crawling, then the second land mine exploded,” Khalil told The Associated Press. “At first, I thought I’d died. I didn’t think I would survive this.”
Khalil’s left leg was badly wounded in the first explosion, while his right leg was blown off from above the knee in the second. He used his shirt to tourniquet the stump and screamed for help until a soldier nearby heard him and rushed for his aid.
“There were days I didn’t want to live anymore,” Khalil said, sitting on a thin mattress, his amputated leg still wrapped in a white cloth four months after the incident. Khalil, who is from the village of Qaminas, in the southern part of Syria’s Idlib province, is engaged and dreams of a prosthetic limb so he can return to work and support his family again.
While the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war came to an end with the fall of Bashar Assad on Dec. 8, war remnants continue to kill and maim. Contamination from land mines and explosive remnants has killed at least 249 people, including 60 children, and injured another 379 since Dec. 8, according to INSO, an international organization which coordinates safety for aid workers.
Mines and explosive remnants — widely used since 2011 by Syrian government forces, its allies, and armed opposition groups — have contaminated vast areas, many of which only became accessible after the Assad government’s collapse, leading to a surge in the number of land mine casualties, according to a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report.
‘It will take ages to clear them all’
Prior to Dec. 8, land mines and explosive remnants of war also frequently injured or killed civilians returning home and accessing agricultural land.
“Without urgent, nationwide clearance efforts, more civilians returning home to reclaim critical rights, lives, livelihoods, and land will be injured and killed,” said Richard Weir, a senior crisis and conflict researcher at HRW.
Experts estimate that tens of thousands of land mines remain buried across Syria, particularly in former front-line regions like rural Idlib.
“We don’t even have an exact number,” said Ahmad Jomaa, a member of a demining unit under Syria’s defense ministry. “It will take ages to clear them all.”
Jomaa spoke while scanning farmland in a rural area east of Maarrat Al-Numan with a handheld detector, pointing at a visible anti-personnel mine nestled in dry soil.
“This one can take off a leg,” he said. “We have to detonate it manually.”
Psychological trauma and broader harm
Farming remains the main source of income for residents in rural Idlib, making the presence of mines a daily hazard. Days earlier a tractor exploded nearby, severely injuring several farm workers, Jomaa said. “Most of the mines here are meant for individuals and light vehicles, like the ones used by farmers,” he said.
Jomaa’s demining team began dismantling the mines immediately after the previous government was ousted. But their work comes at a steep cost.
“We’ve had 15 to 20 (deminers) lose limbs, and around a dozen of our brothers were killed doing this job,” he said. Advanced scanners, needed to detect buried or improvised devices, are in short supply, he said. Many land mines are still visible to the naked eye, but others are more sophisticated and harder to detect.
Land mines not only kill and maim but also cause long-term psychological trauma and broader harm, such as displacement, loss of property, and reduced access to essential services, HRW says.
The rights group has urged the transitional government to establish a civilian-led mine action authority in coordination with the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) to streamline and expand demining efforts.
Syria’s military under the Assad government laid explosives years ago to deter opposition fighters. Even after the government seized nearby territories, it made little effort to clear the mines it left behind.
‘Every day someone is dying’
Standing before his brother’s grave, Salah Sweid holds up a photo on his phone of Mohammad, smiling behind a pile of dismantled mines. “My mother, like any other mother would do, warned him against going,” Salah said. “But he told them, ‘If I don’t go and others don’t go, who will? Every day someone is dying.’”
Mohammad was 39 when he died on Jan. 12 while demining in a village in Idlib. A former Syrian Republican Guard member trained in planting and dismantling mines, he later joined the opposition during the uprising, scavenging weapon debris to make arms.
He worked with Turkish units in Azaz, a city in northwest Syria, using advanced equipment, but on the day he died, he was on his own. As he defused one mine, another hidden beneath it detonated. After Assad’s ouster, mines littered his village in rural Idlib. He had begun volunteering to clear them — often without proper equipment — responding to residents’ pleas for help, even on holidays when his demining team was off duty, his brother said.
For every mine cleared by people like Mohammad, many more remain.
In a nearby village, Jalal Al-Maarouf, 22, was tending to his goats three days after the Assad government’s collapse when he stepped on a mine. Fellow shepherds rushed him to a hospital, where doctors amputated his left leg.
He has added his name to a waiting list for a prosthetic, “but there’s nothing so far,” he said from his home, gently running a hand over the smooth edge of his stump. “As you can see, I can’t walk.” The cost of a prosthetic limb is in excess of $3,000 and far beyond his means.