BEIRUT: Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed eight members of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement on Saturday.
A civil defense paramedic also died of his wounds after being shot in the head by Israeli forces several days ago.
Burkan rockets launched by Hezbollah hit an Israeli military site in the Western Galilee region.
Israeli military reconnaissance aircraft flew over the villages of the western and central sectors throughout Friday night into Saturday, reaching the outskirts of the city of Tyre.
The Israeli army also fired flash bombs over the border villages adjacent to the Blue Line in the western and central sectors.
At dawn, Israeli forces fired weapons toward the outskirts of the towns of Ramyah and Aita Al-Shaab from their positions.
Saturday was marked by intensive Israeli airstrikes on targets in southern Lebanon.
Jets raided a courtyard near Beaufort Castle in the Nabatieh area, north of the Litani Line, targeting an abandoned room.
The town of Marjayoun was hit by Israeli airstrikes on Friday night for the first time since the start of hostilities on Oct. 8, targeting a center affiliated with the Amal Movement, a Hezbollah ally.
Hezbollah, a close ally of the Palestinian group Hamas, says its campaign aims to pressure Israel to end its war in Gaza.
The town of Khiam was hit by intense artillery and phosphorus shelling in the early morning.
Israeli jets also attacked a house in the town of Tayr Harfa, without causing casualties.
Another airstrike targeted the town of Labbouneh on the outskirts of Naqoura.
Lebanon’s civil defense crews worked throughout Friday night to recover the bodies of two victims from under the rubble of a destroyed home in Mays Al-Jabal, which was targeted by Israeli airstikes.
Israeli Army Radio said that warning sirens sounded in the town of Shlomi in the Western Galilee.
Hezbollah said that it targeted a group of Israeli soldiers near the military site of Ramya with artillery fire.
It also announced the targeting of the Israeli military site of Malikiya with “a precision missile strike.”
Hezbollah also targeted the Israeli site of Jal Al-Alam in the Western Galilee.
According to the government displacement crisis management committee in Lebanon, hostile operations have resulted in 331 deaths and about 1,000 injuries.
Additionally, 75 public and private schools in border and background towns have been closed since the start of the war.
About 790 hectares of agricultural land has been damaged and 340,000 livestock killed.
A recent government survey conducted in tandem with international organizations found that about 140,000 people have been displaced in Lebanese border towns.
Of these, about 93,000 have registered with municipalities while 60,000 remain in conflict areas.
8 Hezbollah, Amal fighters killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon
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8 Hezbollah, Amal fighters killed in Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon
- Israeli military reconnaissance aircraft flew over the villages of the western and central sectors throughout Friday night into Saturday
- At dawn, Israeli forces fired weapons toward the outskirts of the towns of Ramyah and Aita Al-Shaab from their positions
Video shows last moments for slain Gaza aid workers, Red Crescent says
GAZA: A video recovered from the cellphone of an aid worker killed in Gaza alongside other rescuers shows their final moments, according to the Palestine Red Crescent, with clearly marked ambulances and emergency lights flashing as heavy gunfire erupts.
The aid worker was among 15 humanitarian personnel who were killed on March 23 in an attack by Israeli forces, according to the United Nations and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
The Israeli military has said its soldiers “did not randomly attack” any ambulances, insisting they fired on “terrorists” approaching them in “suspicious vehicles.”
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said that troops opened fire on vehicles that had no prior clearance from Israeli authorities and had their lights off.
But the video released by PRCS on Saturday appears to contradict the Israeli military’s claims, showing ambulances traveling with their headlights and emergency lights clearly flashing.
The video, apparently filmed from inside a moving vehicle, captures a red firetruck and ambulances driving through the night.
The vehicles stop beside another on the roadside, and two uniformed men exit. Moments later, intense gunfire erupts.
In the video, the voices of two medics are heard — one saying, “the vehicle, the vehicle,” and another responding: “It seems to be an accident.”
Seconds later, a volley of gunfire breaks out, and the screen goes black.
PRCS said it had found the video on the phone of Rifat Radwan, one of the deceased aid workers.
“This video unequivocally refutes the occupation’s claims that Israeli forces did not randomly target ambulances, and that some vehicles had approached suspiciously without lights or emergency markings,” PRCS said in a statement.
“The footage exposes the truth and dismantles this false narrative.”
Those killed included eight PRCS staff, six members of the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA.
Their bodies were found buried near Rafah in what the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described as a mass grave.
ATTACK ON AID WORKERS
OCHA has said that the first team was targeted by Israeli forces at dawn on that day. In the hours that followed, additional rescue and aid teams searching for their colleagues were also struck in a series of successive attacks.
According to the PRCS, the convoy had been dispatched in response to emergency calls from civilians trapped under bombardment in Rafah.
In the video, a medic recording the scene can be heard reciting the Islamic declaration of faith, the shahada, which Muslims traditionally say in the face of death.
“There is no God but God, Mohammed is his messenger,” he says repeatedly, his voice trembling with fear as intense gunfire continues in the background.
He is also heard saying: “Forgive me mother because I chose this way, the way of helping people.”
He then says, “accept my martyrdom, God, and forgive me.” Just before the footage ends, he is heard saying, “The Jews are coming, the Jews are coming,” referring to Israeli soldiers.
The deaths of the aid workers has sparked international condemnation.
Jonathan Whittall, the head of OCHA in the Palestinian territories, said the bodies of the humanitarian workers were “in their uniforms, still wearing gloves” when they were found.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, condemned the attack, raising concerns over possible “war crimes” by the Israeli military.
“I am appalled by the recent killings of 15 medical personnel and humanitarian aid workers, which raise further concerns over the commission of war crimes by the Israeli military,” Volker Turk told the UN Security Council on Thursday.
Turk called for an “independent, prompt and thorough investigation” into the attack.
An Israeli military official said the bodies had been covered “in sand and cloth” to avoid damage until coordination with international organizations could be arranged for their retrieval.
The military said it was investigating the attack.
Iran president fires deputy over pricey Antarctica trip
- A photo shared on social media showed Dabiri posing near the Plancius cruise ship
- The government faced strong criticism after the photo was published
TEHRAN: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday dismissed his deputy for parliamentary affairs over a costly trip to Antarctica, as the country grapples with hyperinflation amid a biting economic crisis.
A photo shared on social media in recent days showed the now former vice president, Shahram Dabiri, alongside a woman identified as his wife, posing near the Plancius cruise ship.
The Dutch-flagged vessel has offered luxury expeditions to Antarctica since 2009, with one agency pricing an eight-day trip at 3,885 euros per person.
“In a context where economic pressure on the population remains high... expensive leisure trips by officials, even if paid out of their own pocket, are neither defensible nor justifiable,” the Iranian president wrote in a letter published Saturday by the official IRNA news agency, which noted that Dabiri was dismissed.
Dabiri, a 64-year-old physician by profession and a close confidant of Pezeshkian, had been appointed to the post in August.
The government faced strong criticism after the photo was published, and several of Pezeshkian’s supporters urged him to remove the official.
IRNA late last month cited a source in Dabiri’s office as saying that he had made the trip before he held a governmental position.
The controversy is another major blow for Pezeshkian, who was elected last year on a promise to revive the economy and improve the daily lives of his fellow citizens.
In early March, his Economy Minister Abdolnasser Hemmati was dismissed by parliament amid a sharp depreciation of the national currency against the dollar and soaring inflation.
Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria: Arab League chief
- Targeted assassinations in Lebanon an unacceptable breach of the ceasefire agreement Israel signed late last year, Aboul Gheit said
CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and Lebanon through military provocations, in “flagrant disregard for international legal norms.”
In a statement, Aboul Gheit said that global inaction had further emboldened Israel.
“(T)he wars waged by Israel on the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Syria have entered a new phase of complete recklessness, deliberately violating signed agreements, invading countries and killing more civilians,” said the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.
He said that Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon was an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year.
Aboul Gheit said that Israel’s actions were driven by narrow domestic agendas at the expense of civilian lives and regional peace.
“It seems that the Israeli war machine does not want to stop as long as the occupation leaders insist on facing their internal crises by exporting them abroad, and this situation has become clear to everyone,” he said.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health’s count last week, more than 50,000 people have been killed and more than 113,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories in retaliation against the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel.
In Lebanon, war monitors have said that at least 3,961 people were killed and 16,520 wounded in Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from Oct. 8, 2023 to Nov. 26, 2024.
Syria’s new government accused Israel on April 3 of mounting a deadly destabilization campaign after a wave of strikes on military targets, including an airport, and a ground incursion that killed 13 people in the southern province of Daraa.
Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres
Damascus: Syria’s government said late Friday it was “closely following” the findings of a new Amnesty International report urging an investigation into sectarian massacres last month.
Amnesty called on the Syrian government in a report on Thursday to ensure accountability for the massacres targeting the Alawite minority, saying they may constitute war crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those responsible.
In a statement on Friday, the government said it had been “following closely the Amnesty report” and its “preliminary findings.”
“It is up to the Independent National Commission for Investigation and Fact-Finding to evaluate them, in accordance with the mandate, independence, and broad powers granted to it by presidential decree,” it said.
The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.
The government on Friday complained the report failed to note “the broader context of the events.”
It said the violence began with a “premeditated assault” by the “remnants of the previous regime, targeting army and internal security personnel.”
In the ensuing chaos, “acts of retaliation and serious violations occurred,” it said, vowing that these would be investigated and a report issued within a month.
Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq
- Organization calls for greater effort to reduce contamination that spans 2,100 sq. km.
- More than 80 casualties recorded since 2023
LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to pose a severe threat in Iraq, contaminating an estimated 2,100 sq. km.
In a statement issued to coincide with the International Day for Mine Awareness, the organization said landmines from past conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War and the 2014–17 battle against Daesh, remained a major hazard.
The contamination had resulted in civilian casualties, forced displacement, restricted farmland access and slowed reconstruction efforts, it said.
Between 2023 and 2024, the ICRC recorded 78 casualties from landmines and remnants of war in Iraq. Earlier this year, three students were killed in an explosion in Abu Al-Khasib, Basra.
The ICRC has appealed for greater efforts to reduce contamination and support mine-affected communities. Clearance operations continue in cooperation with national authorities and humanitarian partners.
The call for action comes at a time when several NATO member states, namely Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, have signaled their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. They cited the growing military threat from Russia as the reason for reconsidering the ban.
Meanwhile, the US, previously the largest funder of global mine clearance efforts, has cut back support due to a foreign aid review under the Trump administration.
Washington had contributed over $300 million annually, covering 40 percent of total international mine action funding, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor report, which led to major clearance efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Laos.
A State Department official said last month that the US had restarted some global humanitarian demining programs but provided no details.
