MAYS AL-JABAL, Lebanon: As Israeli excavators dug into the rocky hills along the frontier with a Lebanese village, a crowd of young Lebanese men gathered to watch.
The mood was light as the crowd observed what Israel says is a military operation — dubbed “Northern Shield” — aimed at destroying attack tunnels built by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The young men posed for selfies, with the Israeli crew in the background, as they burned fires and brewed tea to keep warm.
But Lebanese soldiers were visibly on high alert, deploying to new camouflaged posts behind sandbags and inside abandoned homes. About two dozen UN peacekeepers stood in a long line, just ahead of the blue line demarcating the frontier between the two countries technically still at war.
The scene highlights the palpable anxiety that any misstep could lead to a conflagration between Israel and Lebanon that no one seems to want.
Underscoring such jitters, shadowy figures appearing across the misty hills of the border village of Mays Al-Jabal last weekend sparked panic, and Israeli soldiers fired in the air to warn a Lebanese military intelligence patrol, according to Lebanese reports. Israel said it fired at Hezbollah members who came to the site to dismantle sensors installed to detect tunnels.
Israel’s tunnel search comes at a time when the civil war in neighboring Syria seems to be winding down. Hezbollah had sent hundreds of troops to Syria in 2013 to fight alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad. With Assad’s forces emerging victorious, attention now seems to be returning to the tense Israel-Lebanon border.
Israel said its troops have discovered at least three tunnels along the frontier — a tactic used by Hezbollah in previous wars — and called on the international community to impose new sanctions on Hezbollah.
The militant group, which fought a bruising but inconclusive war with Israel in 2006, has not commented on the Israeli operation or statements.
Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri said Thursday that neither Israel nor Lebanon wanted to go to war, but noted that Israel violates Lebanese airspace and international waters on a regular basis.
He said the Lebanese army “will deal with this issue” after receiving a full report from the UN peacekeeping force, but did not elaborate.
The peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL, has confirmed the presence of tunnels and said it is working with both sides to address the situation in line with UN Security Council resolutions.
In southern Lebanon on Thursday, Lebanese army soldiers observed the frontier in Mays Al-Jabal, taking photos of their Israeli counterparts operating only a few meters (yards) away. At times, the Lebanese soldiers asked the young men to move back, away from the frontier.
Lebanese homes and farms are nestled at the bottom of the hill where the operations run from daybreak until sundown. No civilian Israeli homes visible from that tense border.
Ali Jaber, a 21-year-old resident of Mays Al-Jabal, said he believes that Hezbollah is more popular after the Syria war, and that this is the reason Israel is now turning to it. “But whoever puts up a shield and is hiding and making fortifications must be scared,” he said.
Hussein Melhem, a 19-year old electrician from the village, came to watch. His cheeks ruddy on a cold but clear day, he covered his head with a tight hood. He alleged that Israel is trying to change the border.
“If they could occupy all of this, they would,” he said, in an apparent reference to Israel’s 18-year military occupation of southern Lebanon which ended in 2000. “But the resistance will prevent them.”
As a seven-year-old in 2006, Melhem and his family left Mays Al-Jabal when Israel invaded. His village was badly damaged but has since largely recovered and he said he found their home intact.
It is hard to forget about war in the villages and towns along the frontier. Pictures of Hezbollah fighters who died in the 2006 war, as well as the one raging in neighboring Syria, known locally as the “Sacred Defense,” are everywhere. Posts on town squares boast of defeating Israel or urge the locals to “know their enemy.”
During the Syrian civil war, Israel has frequently carried out airstrikes in Syria against Iranian-allied forces, particularly Hezbollah. Israel says it aims to prevent sophisticated weaponry from reaching Hezbollah, which it considers its most pressing security concern.
In Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warnings have raised suspicions that he is also using the tunnel operation as a diplomatic pressure card.
Netanyahu has called for more sanctions against Hezbollah. In a visit to the frontier earlier this week, he warned that if Hezbollah tries to disrupt the search for tunnels, “it will be hit in a way it cannot even imagine.”
In Israel, some newspaper commentators have been critical of the UN peacekeeping force, whose mandate Israel and the United States have unsuccessfully attempted to expand to include “intervention and deterrence.”
About 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the north from Mays Al-Jabal, Israeli soldiers are also operating along another frontier to uncover what they suspect is a tunnel location.
There, a high concrete wall separates them from the Lebanese village of Kfar Kela. Red-roofed Israeli homes on a hill overlook the diggers, who had cleared peach trees to make room for their work. Lebanese residences, some of them luxury summer homes, sat atop hills hundreds of meters from the wall.
UN peacekeepers and Lebanese army separately patrol the area. Israel began building the wall in 2012, and this section was completed weeks ago. While graffiti covers the older slabs of concrete, water has collected under the newer segment of the wall.
A UN peacekeeping force was working to clear the water after Lebanese residents complained it comes from irrigation drainage from the other side.
Lebanese wary as Israel destroys Hezbollah border tunnels
Lebanese wary as Israel destroys Hezbollah border tunnels
- Israel said its troops have discovered at least three tunnels along the frontier, calling on the international community to impose new sanctions on Hezbollah
- In Lebanon, Israeli PM's warnings have raised suspicions that he is also using the tunnel operation as a diplomatic pressure card
Israel to UN: Palestinian relief agency UNRWA must leave Jerusalem by Jan. 30
JERUSALEM: The UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA must “cease its operations in Jerusalem, and evacuate all premises in which it operates in the city” by Jan. 30, Israel’s UN envoy told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a letter on Friday.
A law banning UNRWA’s operation on Israeli land and contact with Israeli authorities takes effect on Jan. 30. Israel annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized abroad.
Hamas buries 2 leaders slain in Israel strike in Gaza months ago
- Hundreds of people attended the funerals of Rauhi Mushtaha and Sami Mohammad Odeh during Friday prayers
- The bodies, draped in the green flag of Hamas, were carried on stretchers from the mosque
GAZA CITY: Two senior Hamas members, whom Israel said it had killed months ago, were buried in Gaza on Friday after their remains were discovered under rubble during the truce, AFP journalists reported.
Hundreds of people attended the funerals of Rauhi Mushtaha and Sami Mohammad Odeh during Friday prayers in the courtyard of the Omari mosque, a historic landmark in the heart of Gaza City that has been heavily damaged by Israeli bombing.
The bodies, draped in the green flag of Hamas, were carried on stretchers from the mosque to their burial site, accompanied by around 16 masked members of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group.
The Israeli army announced in early October that it had “eliminated” Mushtaha and Odeh along with another Hamas leader “about three months earlier” during an air strike in the Gaza Strip.
Mushtaha, designated an “international terrorist” by the United States in 2015, was a member of Hamas’s political bureau in Gaza, responsible for finances.
Odeh was the head of Hamas’s internal security agency.
Hamas officially acknowledged their deaths in a statement on Sunday, saying that they had fallen as “martyrs.”
ADNOC shipping rules out quick return to Red Sea, CEO says
- Danish shipping company Maersk said on Friday it would continue to reroute around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope until safe passage through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden area was ensured for the longer term
DUBAI: Red Sea shipping remains risky despite the Gaza ceasefire and an announcement by Houthis to limit attacks, according to the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s logistics and shipping arm.
Shipping executives remain cautious about a return to the Red Sea, given the risk to seafarers, cargo, and their assets.
Houthis have carried out more than 100 attacks on ships since November 2023, resulting in most shipping companies diverting vessels away from the Suez Canal to use the longer route around southern Africa instead.
“As we speak today, we cannot say it’s almost completely gone, and it’s a go-ahead for all the fleet to go inside the Red Sea. As I said, there is a people side to it, so we cannot risk our people going there while there may be a fragile ceasefire now,” said ADNOC Logistics & Services CEO Abdulkareem Al-Masabi.
Danish shipping company Maersk said on Friday it would continue to reroute around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope until safe passage through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden area was ensured for the longer term.
The Houthis will limit their attacks on commercial vessels to Israel-linked ships provided the Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented.
However, they have conditioned their halt in attacks on US or UK-linked shipping with various provisos, which has added to caution on any return, shipping and insurance sources say.
The Houthis on Wednesday freed the crew of the Galaxy Leader, a vessel that the militia seized more than a year ago.
In another development, the UN has suspended all travel into areas held by Houthis after the militia detained more of their staff.
The Houthis have already detained UN staffers, as well as individuals associated with the once-open US Embassy in Sanaa and aid groups.
“Yesterday, the de facto authorities in Sanaa detained additional UN personnel working in areas under their control,” the UN statement read.
“To ensure the security and safety of all its staff, the United Nations has suspended all official movements into and within areas under the de facto authorities’ control.”
Before Friday, the UN had a total of 16 Yemeni staff in Houthi detention.
Staffers were trying to get a headcount across the UN agencies working in the country and had halted their work, which provides food, medicine, and other aid to the impoverished nation.
In June, the UN acknowledged the Houthis detained 11 Yemeni employees under unclear circumstances as the militia increasingly cracked down on areas under their control.
Several dozen others from aid agencies and other organizations are also held.
The UN added that it was “actively engaging with senior representatives” of the Houthis.
Sudan army breaks paramilitary siege on key base: military source
- “Our forces were able to lift the siege on the Signal Corps,” the source in the Sudanese army told AFP
- “This victory opens the way to link our forces in Bahri (Khartoum North) with our forces in the General Command“
PORT SUDAN: The Sudanese army broke a paramilitary siege on one of its key Khartoum-area bases on Friday, paving the way to also freeing the besieged military headquarters, a military source said.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) had since the outbreak of the war with Sudan’s army in April 2023 encircled both the Signal Corps in Khartoum North and the General Command of the Armed Forces, its headquarters just south across the Blue Nile river.
“Our forces were able to lift the siege on the Signal Corps,” the source in the Sudanese army told AFP.
With a months-long communications blackout in place, AFP was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground.
The RSF could not be immediately reached for comment.
“This victory opens the way to link our forces in Bahri (Khartoum North) with our forces in the General Command,” the military source said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
A military source had previously told AFP the army was advancing closer to Khartoum North following days of military operations aimed at dislodging the RSF from fortified positions in the city.
This comes around two weeks after the army reclaimed the Al-Jazira state capital Wad Madani, just south of Khartoum, securing a key crossroads between the capital and surrounding states.
The army and the RSF had seemed to be in a stalemate since the military nearly a year ago seized control of Omdurman — Khartoum’s twin city on the west bank of the Nile.
RSF has controlled Khartoum North on the east bank.
They have regularly exchanged artillery fire across the river, with civilians reporting bombs and shrapnel often hitting homes.
The military source said Friday’s advance “will secure Omdurman from the artillery shelling launched from Bahri.”
Seizing the General Command would signal a major shift for the army, securing its positions in all three districts of the capital.
Since the early days of the war, when the RSF quickly spread through the streets of Khartoum, the military has had to supply its forces inside the headquarters via airdrops.
Army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan was himself trapped inside for four months, before emerging in August 2023.
Khartoum and its surrounding state have been torn apart by the war, with 26,000 people killed between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Entire neighborhoods have been emptied out and taken over by fighters as at least 3.6 million people fled the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Across the northeast African country, the war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and uprooted more than 12 million people in what the United Nations calls the world’s largest internal displacement crisis.
Famine has been declared in parts of Sudan but the risk is spreading for millions more people, a UN-backed assessment said last month.
Before leaving office on Monday, the administration of United States president Joe Biden sanctioned Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using food deprivation as a weapon of war.
That designation came about one week after Washington sanctioned RSF leader Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo and said his forces had “committed genocide.”
Israeli refusal to fully withdraw from Lebanon sparks regional concerns
- President Aoun holds talks with US, French officials to urge Israel to meet ceasefire deal criteria
- GCC, Kuwaiti officials hold talks with Lebanese counterparts
BEIRUT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday Israeli troops would not withdraw from the border area of southern Lebanon in accordance with the time frame set in the ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, amid claims that the Lebanese Army has not fulfilled its obligations.
Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun held talks with France and the US to urge Israel to fully implement the agreement and withdraw within the stipulated timeframe to prevent the situation from deteriorating.
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati also called on the US to “intervene to ensure the implementation of Resolution 1701 and Israel’s withdrawal.”
On Friday, Netanyahu’s office said that “the gradual withdrawal from Lebanon will continue in full coordination with the US administration.”
However, the Israeli Cabinet decided that “the Israeli Army will remain in its current positions,” warning that “the Israeli Army is prepared for any scenario and will respond harshly and immediately to any violations by Hezbollah.”
Israeli media reports said “Israel is requesting an additional one-month delay in the withdrawal of its army from Lebanon and an extension of the ceasefire agreement.”
The Israeli Broadcasting Corporation said that “the political leadership has instructed the army to remain in the eastern sector of Lebanon,” noting that “the additional period before the complete withdrawal from southern Lebanon may range from days to weeks.”
The development accompanied continued Israeli operations in the border region, particularly in the eastern sector.
Army spokesperson Avichay Adraee claimed Israeli forces “uncovered several underground tunnel routes belonging to Hezbollah in Wadi Saluki, intended for the party’s members to take shelter,” asserting that “these routes have been destroyed.”
Adraee spoke about “the discovery of a stockpile of weapons inside a mosque, as well as a vehicle loaded with weapons, and hundreds of mortar shells, improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and other military equipment.”
He said: “In another operation by the Golani Brigade, trucks loaded with heavy rocket launchers were found, along with weapons depots that contained large quantities of rocket shells, mortars shells, shoulder-launched rockets, improvised explosive devices and military equipment.”
Calls intensified from border area residents following Israel’s announcement to gather on Sunday and demand to be allowed to return to their villages.
On Thursday, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri was informed by US Gen. Jasper Jeffers, head of the international committee monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, of “Israel’s intention to extend the presence of its forces in several locations in southern Lebanon,” according to information distributed about the meeting. Berri told the general “that people will head to their villages on Sunday.”
In a statement, Hezbollah said that “Israel’s failure to adhere to the 60-day deadline is an attack on sovereignty that requires the state to act and address it, using all international means and conventions to reclaim Lebanese territories and liberate them from the grip of occupation.”
At the political level, Lebanon received further Gulf support for its new leadership.
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Abdullah Ali Al-Yahya and the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, along with a delegation from the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry and the GCC, held meetings with Lebanese leaders in Beirut on Friday.
This visit, along with the visit of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan less than 24 hours earlier to Beirut, where he met with Lebanese officials and emphasized the importance of implementing Resolution 1701, carry exceptional importance in light of the developments in Lebanon and the wider region.
During his meeting with Aoun, Al-Yahya reaffirmed Kuwait’s “support, endorsement and commitment to standing by Lebanon to provide all necessary aid in all fields.”
He stressed “activating the Lebanese-Kuwaiti joint committees to address the issues raised according to Lebanon’s needs” was of the utmost importance, recalling that Lebanon “was the first country to condemn the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait through the stance of late Prime Minister Salim Al-Hoss.”
Albudaiwi conveyed the GCC’s “unwavering support for Lebanon and its sovereignty,” emphasizing its commitment to “the non-interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs.”
He affirmed that “the GCC is moving toward helping Lebanon in terms of economic development projects after implementing the intended reforms,” noting that “a Gulf program for Lebanon is set to be developed in cooperation with the future Lebanese government.”
Aoun said he hoped “for Kuwaitis in particular and the Gulf people in general to come back and visit Lebanon,” stressing that “the Arab countries’ unity is the cornerstone for confronting current challenges.”
The president affirmed that “after forming the government, we will establish new foundations for cooperation with the Gulf countries,” adding that “the main titles of these new foundations were included in the inauguration speech, which set the rules for building the state.”
Both Gulf officials met with Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam, who affirmed “the importance of working to confront the internal challenges faced by Lebanon during this period.”
Salam stressed “the significance of restoring Lebanese-Gulf relations, which he sees as a priority in the near future.”
The Gulf officials also met with caretaker Mikati and Berri.
The Kuwaiti minister and the GCC secretary-general held a joint press conference with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habibi following a meeting.
Al-Yahya said: “We reaffirm our solidarity with Lebanon, and our firm commitment to supporting its sovereignty and territorial unity, as well as the importance of implementing the UN Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 1701, and the Taif Agreement.
“We look forward to building the best relations with Lebanon and strengthening security and stability in the region,” he added.
Al-Yahya affirmed that “the GCC had called for the full adherence to the ceasefire agreement and the cessation of Israeli hostilities against Lebanon and the UN peacekeeping forces,” pointing out “the importance of the role played by the army and the security forces to achieve security in the country.”
He said: “We encourage the implementation of the intended reforms. There’s a historical chance to overcome the past challenges and start the reconstruction and development process in a way that achieves the Lebanese people’s prosperity aspirations.”
Al-Budaiwi stated: “We are very pleased with what we heard from the Lebanese leadership and its keenness to achieve the needed reforms and the internationally-recommended programs to ensure the country’s stability.
“These reforms constitute the right path toward Lebanon’s recovery. We believe in the necessity to implement these mandatory reforms and the security council’s resolutions, namely Resolution 1701, and the Taif Agreement.”
He reiterated the final communique of the ministerial committee’s extraordinary meeting in regard to supporting the five-nation group on Lebanon.
