Hezbollah steps up attacks on Israeli military targets

Smoke rises in northern Israel, at the country's border with Lebanon, in Israel, October 31, 2023. (Reuters)
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Updated 31 October 2023
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Hezbollah steps up attacks on Israeli military targets

  • Israel responded by launching strikes on Lebanese villages and towns, reportedly using phosphorus shells that are banned in civilian areas under international law
  • An expert analyst in Beirut said: ‘Hezbollah perceives the ongoing battles as a crucial fight for survival’ and is aware ‘it will inevitably face similar circumstances following Hamas’ downfall’

BEIRUT: Hezbollah on Tuesday intensified its military operations against Israeli forces by targeting army positions across the southern border of Lebanon. It came as Israel stepped up its ground assault on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces responded to the Hezbollah activity by launching air and artillery strikes on Lebanese villages and towns, reportedly using phosphorus shells. The use of such weapons in civilian areas is prohibited under international law.

Abbas Hajj Hassan, Lebanon’s agriculture minister, said: “The Israeli army deliberately burned more than 40,000 old olive trees with internationally banned white phosphorus bombs.”

Hezbollah said it had targeted “an Israeli force positioned on Al-Khazzan Hill in the vicinity of the Israeli Orontes site. The attack involved the use of guided missiles, resulting in accurate hits on the Israeli force, and all of its members were killed or wounded.”

The group also claimed to have hit “the Israeli Al-Marj site in Wadi Hunin, opposite the Lebanese town of Markaba, with guided missiles,” and attacked “the Israeli site in Bayad Blida.”

Israeli forces targeted border towns and villages south of the Litani River, and the area around a Lebanese army base in Ras Naqoura, with shells and raids.

In addition, incendiary phosphorus shells reportedly were fired at the forests around the village of Alma Al-Shaab, and the Wadi Al-Aleq area between the towns of Marwahin and Al-Bustan.

In a message posted on social media site X, the Israeli army said: “Fighter aircraft attacked Hezbollah’s infrastructure on Lebanese territory. Among the infrastructure that was attacked, weapons, sites and places used by the organization were destroyed.”

Peacekeepers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon activated their sirens several times on Monday night as a result of bombing in the south of the country.

According to Amnesty International, the current deployment of phosphorous weapons by Israeli forces is not the only time they have used them recently.

The rights group said: “The Israeli army fired artillery shells containing white phosphorus during military operations along Lebanon’s southern border between Oct. 10 and 16.”

Aya Majzoub, the organization’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “The Israeli army’s use of white phosphorus in a way that does not distinguish between civilians and military personnel is a horrific act that violates international humanitarian law.

“The illegal use of white phosphorus in the town of Dhahira in Lebanon on Oct. 16 put the lives of civilians in extreme danger, as many of them were taken to hospitals. Village residents were forced to flee, and their homes and cars were burned.”

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to deliver a speech on Friday. In the meantime there is a clear sense of unease among the Lebanese people, with noticeably less activity at markets and on the roads, particularly in the south of the country and in Beirut and its southern suburbs, compared with the more normal daily bustle in the mountainous regions.

There are also signs that some people are making plans to move to the north of the country, should the fighting in the south get worse.

A real estate agent told Arab News: “All the apartments in the town of Faqra (in Mount Lebanon, northeast of Beirut), for example, and furnished apartments there are fully booked and clients have paid advance rents in anticipation of any possible Israeli escalation.”

Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said he has sent a message to Nasrallah in which he expressed the hope that “the country would not slide into war,” and added that Nasrallah “is aware of the suffering, I believe, and what is required is restraint.”

Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director for research at the Malcolm Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told Arab News: “Hezbollah perceives the ongoing battles as a crucial fight for survival. In the event of Hamas’ defeat there would be a notable shift in Israel’s security and military strategy, favoring preemptive strikes. Hezbollah is cognizant that it will inevitably face similar circumstances following Hamas’ downfall.

“Hezbollah is currently increasing the frequency of its strikes on Israeli military sites. Where it used to strike one or two sites, we now count 11 or 12 sites targeted by Hezbollah daily, and this will escalate as the attack on the Gaza Strip progresses.”

Ali said Hezbollah’s escalation will be limited to a specific geographical area and that Nasrallah’s speech on Friday is not expected to result in any deescalation.

In the meantime, he added, there are ongoing discussions in Israel about extending the battlefront at the northern border with Lebanon. Advocates of this approach argue that it is imperative to address the Hezbollah threat in the near future and that there are more feasible objectives that might be achieved on this northern front than in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We are working to effectively deter the northern front and I repeat to Hezbollah, you will make the mistake of your life if you decide to intervene comprehensively in the battle. You will receive a blow that you cannot even imagine.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “We continue to respond to every threat targeting us from the north, and whoever drags us into war will pay a heavy price.

“We are on the defensive on the Lebanon front and our forces are ready to respond to any aggression from the north. What is happening in Gaza is a message to Hezbollah.”

Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer warned that Israel “does not seek escalation in southern Lebanon but we must be prepared for that.”

Ali suggested that the best option for Hezbollah would be to adopt a more defensive strategy. He said that Nasrallah is likely, during his speech on Friday, to highlight the growing anger among Arabs about Israeli massacres of Palestinians. He predicted the speech would represent a significant moment for the wider Arab community, possibly encouraging many people to participate in demonstrations.

Hezbollah “still has many actions pending within its operational framework,” he said, adding that he fears the potential Israeli retaliation.


Israel records 160 launches fom Lebanon as Hezbollah targets Tel Aviv, south

Israeli security forces and people inspect a damaged house at a site hit by rockets fired from Lebanon in Rinatya village.
Updated 7 sec ago
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Israel records 160 launches fom Lebanon as Hezbollah targets Tel Aviv, south

  • Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition

JERUSALEM: Israel’s army said Hezbollah fired around 160 projectiles into its territory from Lebanon on Sunday, with the group saying its attacks had targeted the Tel Aviv area and Israel’s south.
The Iran-backed group said in a statement that it had “launched, for the first time, an aerial attack using a swarm of attack drones on the Ashdod naval base” in southern Israel.
Later, it said it fired “a barrage of advanced missiles and a swarm of attack drones” at a “military target” in Tel Aviv, and had also launched a volley of missiles at the Glilot army intelligence base in the city’s suburbs.
The Israeli military did not comment on the specific attack claims when contacted by AFP.
But it said earlier that air raid sirens had sounded in several locations in central and northern Israel, including in the greater Tel Aviv suburbs.
It later reported that “approximately 160 projectiles that were fired by the Hezbollah terrorist organization have crossed from Lebanon into Israel.”
Some of the projectiles were shot down.
Medical agencies reported that at least 11 people were wounded, including a man in a “moderate to serious” condition.
AFP images from Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv, showed several damaged and burned-out cars, and a house pockmarked by shrapnel.
The wave of projectiles follows at least four deadly Israeli strikes in central Beirut in the past week, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
In a speech on Wednesday, Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem had said the response to the recent strikes on the capital “must be expected on central Tel Aviv.”
The Lebanese army, meanwhile, said that a soldier was killed on Sunday and 18 others injured, “including some with severe wounds, as a result of an Israeli attack targeting a Lebanese army center in Amriyeh.”
Though the Lebanese army is not a party to the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli strikes have killed 19 Lebanese soldiers in the last two months, authorities have said.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops after nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack, which sparked the Gaza war.
Lebanon’s health ministry says at least 3,670 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them since September this year.


Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others

Updated 24 November 2024
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Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others

  • It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops
  • Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.

Lebanon’s army reflects the religious diversity of the country and is respected as a national institution, but it does not have the military capability to impose its will on Hezbollah or resist Israel’s invasion.


EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal

Updated 24 November 2024
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EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal

  • The EU’s foreign policy chief warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse”

BEIRUT: The European Union’s foreign policy chief called on Sunday during a visit to Beirut for pressure to be exerted on both the Israeli government and on Lebanon’s Hezbollah to accept a US ceasefire proposal.
Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, Josep Borell also urged Lebanese leaders to pick a president to end a two-year power vacuum in the country, and he pledged 200 million euros in support for Lebanon’s armed forces. 

Lebanon on 'brink of collapse'

The EU’s foreign policy chief warned that Lebanon was “on the brink of collapse” after Israel launched an intense air campaign two months ago following nearly a year of clashes with Hezbollah.
“Back in September I came and was still hoping we could prevent a full-fledged war of Israel attacking Lebanon. Two months later Lebanon is on the brink of collapse,” Josep Borrell told reporters in Beirut.


Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave

Updated 24 November 2024
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Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave

  • Israeli military blames Hamas rocket fire for renewed evacuation directive
  • Palestinians say hospitals in north Gaza barely functioning

CAIRO: The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern Gaza City suburb, setting off a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and a Gaza hospital director was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian medics said.
The new orders for the Shejaia suburb posted by the Israeli army spokesperson on X on Saturday night were blamed on Palestinian militants firing rockets from that heavily built-up district in the north of the Gaza Strip.
“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south,” the military’s post said. The rocket volley on Saturday was claimed by Hamas’ armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base over the border.
Footage circulated on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.
Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday’s early hours, residents and Palestinian media said — the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.
In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.
Hospital director wounded by gunfire
In north Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring its director Hussam Abu Safiya.
“This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this job at any cost,” Abu Safiya said in a video statement circulated by the health ministry on Sunday.
“We are being targeted daily. They targeted me a while ago but this will not deter us...,” he said from his hospital bed.
Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings including housing blocks, hospitals and schools for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminately targeting populated areas.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in north Gaza that are barely operational as the health ministry said the Israeli forces have detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical, food and fuel supplies from reaching them.
In the past few weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from north Gaza hospitals in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Residents in three embattled north Gaza towns — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.
Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.
The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.


Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports

Updated 24 November 2024
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Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports

  • A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday

DUBAI: Iran plans to hold talks about its disputed nuclear program with three European powers on Nov. 29 in Geneva, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, days after the UN atomic watchdog passed a resolution against Tehran.
Iran reacted to the resolution, which was proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, with what government officials called various measures such as activating numerous new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
Kyodo said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government was seeking a solution to the nuclear impasse ahead of the inauguration in January of US President-elect Donald Trump.
A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday, adding that “Tehran has always believed that the nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomacy. Iran has never left the talks.”
In 2018, the then-Trump administration exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact’s nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
Indirect talks between President Joe Biden’s administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said in his election campaign in September that “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.”