BEIRUT: The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah this week struck a military post in northern Israel using a drone that fired two missiles. The attack wounded three soldiers, one of them seriously, according to the Israeli military.
Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months, but the one on Thursday appears to have been the first successful missile airstrike it has launched from within Israeli airspace.
The group has stepped up its attacks on Israel in recent weeks, particularly since the Israeli incursion into the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. It has struck deeper inside Israel and introduced new and more advanced weaponry.
“This is a method of sending messages on the ground to the Israeli enemy, meaning that this is part of what we have, and if needed we can strike more,” said Lebanese political analyst Faisal Abdul-Sater who closely follows Hezbollah.
While the cross-border exchanges of fire have been ongoing since early October, “complex attacks” by Hezbollah began a few days after Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile barrage attack on Israel in mid-April.
In the past two weeks, Hezbollah has escalated further in response to the Israeli incursion into the city of southern Rafah in the Gaza Strip, a Lebanese official familiar with the group’s operations said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to detail military information to the media.
The Thursday afternoon attack by a drone carrying missiles came just days after Hezbollah launched three anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli military post that controlled a surveillance balloon flying over the border. They released camera footage afterward to show they had hit their mark. Hours later, the Israeli military confirmed that the spy balloon had been shot down over Lebanon.
The night before, Hezbollah had carried out its deepest attack in Israel to date using explosive drones to strike at a base in Ilaniya near the city of Tiberias about 35 kilometers from the Lebanon border. The Israeli military said the attack did not hurt anyone.
Abdul-Sater, the analyst, said the Iran-led coalition known as the axis of resistance, which includes the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has warned that if Israeli troops launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah in an attempt to go after Hamas, other fronts will also escalate.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed Wednesday that they attacked a US destroyer while Iran-backed militants in Iraq have said they fired a series of drones toward Israel in recent weeks after having gone relatively quiet since February.
Hezbollah’s use of more advanced weaponry, including drones capable of firing missiles, explosive drones and the small type of guided missile known as Almas, or Diamond, that was used to attack the base controlling the balloon has raised alarms within the Israeli military.
“Hezbollah has been escalating the situation in the north,” said military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “They’ve been firing more and more.”
In adapting its attacks, Hezbollah has also managed to reduce the numbers of fighters lost compared with the early weeks of the conflict.
The group has lost more than 250 fighters so far, compared with 15 Israeli troops since fighting broke out along the Lebanon-Israel border a day after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7.
According to a count by The Associated Press, Hezbollah lost 47 fighters in October and 35 in November, compared with 20 in April and 12 so far this month.
The official familiar with the group’s operations said Hezbollah had reduced the numbers of fighters along the border areas to bring down the numbers of casualties. While Hezbollah continues to fire Russian-made anti-tank Kornet missiles from areas close to the border, it has also shifted to firing drones and other types of rockets with heavy war heads — including Almas as well as Falaq and Burkan rockets — from areas several kilometers (miles) from the border.
Over the weekend, Hezbollah said it had launched a new rocket with a heavy warhead named Jihad Mughniyeh after a senior operative who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Syria in 2015.
Eva J. Koulouriotis, a political analyst specialized in the Middle East and jihadi groups wrote on the social media platform X that Hezbollah’s recent escalation likely has several goals, including raising the ceiling of the group’s demands in any future negotiations for a border deal, as well as raising military pressure on Israel’s military in light of the preparations for the battle in Rafah.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed in a speech last week that “we will stand, we will achieve our goals, we will hit Hamas, we will destroy Hezbollah, and we will bring security.”
On Monday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reiterated in a speech that there will be no end to the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border until Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip come to an end.
“The main goal of Lebanon’s front is to contribute to the pressure on the enemy to end the war on Gaza,” Nasrallah said.
His comments were a blow to attempts by foreign dignitaries, including US and French officials, who have visited Beirut t o try to put an end to the violence that has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
A day after Nasrallah spoke, Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly visited Beirut and told Lebanon’s private LBC TV station that she was pushing for a ceasefire.
“We need the people living in the south of Lebanon to be able to go back to their homes,” she said. “We need to make sure that the Israelis living in the northern part of Israel are able to get back to their homes also.”
Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Kassim warned Israel in a speech over the weekend against opening an all-out war.
“You have tried in the past and you were defeated and if you try again you will be defeated,” said Kassim, referring to the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah 34-day war that ended in a draw.
Hezbollah introduces new weapons and tactics against Israel as war in Gaza drags on
https://arab.news/m637v
Hezbollah introduces new weapons and tactics against Israel as war in Gaza drags on
- Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months
- Hezbollah said it had launched a new rocket with a heavy warhead named Jihad Mughniyeh
Israel-Hamas talks resume in Qatar as violence shows no let-up
- Israel’s defense chief says indirect negotiations with Hamas seek release of hostages
- Ninety-six Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 Israeli military says are dead
GAZA STRIP: Israel confirmed on Saturday that negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal had resumed in Qatar, as rescuers said more than 30 people had been killed in fresh bombardment of the territory.
The civil defense agency said a dawn air strike on the home of the Al-Ghoula family in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children.
AFP images from the neighborhood of Shujaiya showed residents combing through smoking rubble. Bodies including those of small children were lined up on the ground, shrouded in white sheets.
As the violence raged, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that indirect negotiations with Hamas had resumed in Qatar for the release of hostages seized in the October 2023 attacks.
The minister told relatives of one of the hostages, woman soldier Liri Albag, that “efforts are under way to free the hostages, notably the Israeli delegation which left yesterday (Friday) for negotiations in Qatar,” his office said.
Katz said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given “detailed instructions for the continued negotiations.”
He was speaking after Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of Albag in captivity in Gaza.
In the undated, three-and-half-minute recording that AFP has not been able to verify, the 19-year-old conscript called in Hebrew for the Israeli government to secure her release.
In response, her family issued an appeal to Netanyahu, saying: “It’s time to take decisions as if it were your own children there.”
A total of 96 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the latest video was “firm and incontestable proof of the urgency of bringing the hostages home.”
Hamas had said late on Friday that the negotiations were poised to resume.
The militant group, whose October 7, 2023, attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, said they would “focus on ensuring the agreement leads to a complete cessation of hostilities (and) the withdrawal of occupation forces.”
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged in months of effort that have failed to end nearly 15 months of war.
In December, Qatar expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following the US election of Donald Trump, who takes office in 16 days.
But Hamas and Israel then accused each other of setting new conditions and obstacles.
As the clock ticks down to the handover of power in Washington, the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden notified Congress of an $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a source familiar with the plan said on Saturday.
“The department has informally notified Congress of an $8 billion proposed sale of munitions to support Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defense capabilities,” the official said.
The United States is Israel’s largest military supplier.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the Ghoula home in Gaza City “was completely destroyed” by the dawn strike.
“It was a two-story building and several people are still under the rubble,” he said, adding Israeli drones had “also fired on ambulance staff.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.
“A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,” said neighbor Ahmed Mussa.
“It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.”
Elsewhere, the civil defense agency said an Israeli strike killed five security officers tasked with accompanying aid convoys as they drove through the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The Israeli army said the five had been “implicated in terrorist activities” and were not escorting aid trucks at the time of the strike.
Rescuers said strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed 10 other people.
AFP images showed Palestine Red Crescent paramedics in Gaza City moving the body of one of their colleagues, his green jacket laid over the blanket that covered his corpse.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a total of 136 people had been killed over the previous 48 hours.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen in the latest of a series of attacks.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been firing missiles and drones at Israel — as well as at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — in what they say is a solidarity campaign with Palestinians during the war in Gaza.
The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,717 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
Israel-Hamas talks resume in Qatar as violence shows no let-up
- Israel's defense chief says direct negotiations with Hamas seeks release of hostages
- PM Netanyahu had given “detailed instructions for the continued negotiations,” says Defense Minister Katz
- A total of 96 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead
GAZA STRIP: Israel confirmed on Saturday that negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal had resumed in Qatar, as rescuers said more than 30 people had been killed in fresh bombardment of the territory.
The civil defense agency said a dawn air strike on the home of the Al-Ghoula family in Gaza City killed 11 people, seven of them children.
AFP images from the neighborhood of Shujaiya showed residents combing through smoking rubble. Bodies including those of small children were lined up on the ground, shrouded in white sheets.
As the violence raged, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed that indirect negotiations with Hamas had resumed in Qatar for the release of hostages seized in the October 2023 attacks.
The minister told relatives of one of the hostages, woman soldier Liri Albag, that “efforts are under way to free the hostages, notably the Israeli delegation which left yesterday (Friday) for negotiations in Qatar,” his office said.
Katz said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had given “detailed instructions for the continued negotiations.”
He was speaking after Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video of Albag in captivity in Gaza.
In the undated, three-and-half-minute recording that AFP has not been able to verify, the 19-year-old conscript called in Hebrew for the Israeli government to secure her release.
In response, her family issued an appeal to Netanyahu, saying: “It’s time to take decisions as if it were your own children there.”
A total of 96 Israeli hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the latest video was “firm and incontestable proof of the urgency of bringing the hostages home.”
Hamas had said late on Friday that the negotiations were poised to resume.
The militant group, whose October 7, 2023, attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war, said they would “focus on ensuring the agreement leads to a complete cessation of hostilities (and) the withdrawal of occupation forces.”
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged in months of effort that have failed to end nearly 15 months of war.
In December, Qatar expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following the US election of Donald Trump, who takes office in 16 days.
But Hamas and Israel then accused each other of setting new conditions and obstacles.
As the clock ticks down to the handover of power in Washington, the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden notified Congress of an $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a source familiar with the plan said on Saturday.
“The department has informally notified Congress of an $8 billion proposed sale of munitions to support Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defense capabilities,” the official said.
The United States is Israel’s largest military supplier.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said the Ghoula home in Gaza City “was completely destroyed” by the dawn strike.
“It was a two-story building and several people are still under the rubble,” he said, adding Israeli drones had “also fired on ambulance staff.”
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army did not immediately comment.
“A huge explosion woke us up. Everything was shaking,” said neighbor Ahmed Mussa.
“It was home to children, women. There wasn’t anyone wanted or who posed a threat.”
Elsewhere, the civil defense agency said an Israeli strike killed five security officers tasked with accompanying aid convoys as they drove through the southern city of Khan Yunis.
The Israeli army said the five had been “implicated in terrorist activities” and were not escorting aid trucks at the time of the strike.
Rescuers said strikes elsewhere in Gaza killed 10 other people.
AFP images showed Palestine Red Crescent paramedics in Gaza City moving the body of one of their colleagues, his green jacket laid over the blanket that covered his corpse.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said a total of 136 people had been killed over the previous 48 hours.
On Sunday, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen in the latest of a series of attacks.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been firing missiles and drones at Israel — as well as at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — in what they say is a solidarity campaign with Palestinians during the war in Gaza.
The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,717 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
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Israel military says it intercepted another missile fired by Houthis
- Yemen’s Houthi militia have been firing missiles and drones at Israel as well as at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden
- The militia said its campaign is in solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Sunday that it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen, shortly after sirens sounded.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in Talmei Elazar, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted prior to crossing into Israeli territory,” the military said in a statement posted to Telegram.
On Friday, Israel’s military said it shot down a drone launched from Yemen after it crossed into Israeli territory.
Yemen’s Houthi militia have been firing missiles and drones at Israel — as well as at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden — in what they say is a solidarity campaign with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The Houthis have stepped up their attacks since November’s ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel has also struck Yemen, including targeting Sanaa’s international airport at the end of December.
Elaborate military tunnel complex linked to Assad’s palace
- On the slopes of Mount Qasyun, secret tunnels links a military complex to the presidential palace
- During Assad’s rule, Qasyun was off limits to the people of Damascus
DAMASCUS: On the slopes of Mount Qasyun which overlooks Damascus, a network of tunnels links a military complex, tasked with defending the Syrian capital, to the presidential palace facing it.
The tunnels, seen by an AFP correspondent, are among secrets of president Bashar Assad’s rule exposed since rebels toppled him on December 8.
“We entered this enormous barracks of the Republican Guard after the liberation” of Damascus sent Assad fleeing to Moscow, said Mohammad Abu Salim, a military official from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the dominant Islamist group in the alliance that overthrew Assad.
“We found a vast network of tunnels which lead to the presidential palace” on a neighboring hill, Salim said.
During Assad’s rule, Qasyun was off limits to the people of Damascus because it was an ideal location for snipers — the great view includes the presidential palaces and other government buildings.
It was also from this mountain that artillery units for years pounded rebel-held areas at the gates of the capital.
An AFP correspondent entered the Guard complex of two bunkers containing vast rooms reserved for its soldiers. The bunkers were equipped with telecommunications gear, electricity, a ventilation system and weapons supplies.
Other simpler tunnels were dug out of the rock to hold ammunition.
Despite such elaborate facilities, Syria’s army collapsed, with troops abandoning tanks and other gear as rebels advanced from their northern stronghold to the capital in less than two weeks,.
On the grounds of the Guard complex a statue of the president’s brother Bassel Assad, atop a horse, has been toppled and Bassel’s head severed.
Bassel Assad died in a 1994 road accident. He had been the presumed successor to his father Hafez Assad who set up the paranoid, secretive, repressive system of government that Bashar inherited when his father died in 2000.
In the immense Guard camp now, former rebel fighters use pictures of Bashar Assad and his father for target practice.
Tanks and heavy weapons still sit under arched stone shelters.
Resembling a macabre outdoor art installation, large empty rusted barrels with attached fins pointing skyward are lined up on the ground, their explosives further away.
“The regime used these barrels to bomb civilians in the north of Syria,” Abu Salim said.
The United Nations denounced Bashar’s use of such weapons dropped from helicopters or airplanes against civilian areas held by Assad’s opponents during Syria’s years-long civil war that began in 2011.
UNIFIL accuses Israeli army of deliberately destroying property in southern Lebanon
- Alleged that Israeli army bulldozer destroyed blue barrel marking withdrawal line between Lebanon and Israel
LONDON: The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on Saturday accused the Israeli army of deliberately destroying its property and critical infrastructure in southern Lebanon, marking a serious escalation in tensions along the border.
In a statement issued on Saturday, UNIFIL said: “This morning, peacekeepers witnessed an Israeli army bulldozer destroying a blue barrel marking the withdrawal line between Lebanon and Israel in Al-Labbouneh, as well as a watchtower belonging to the Lebanese Armed Forces adjacent to a UNIFIL site in the area.”
The blue barrels, which serve as markers for the withdrawal line — commonly referred to as the Blue Line — are crucial in delineating the boundary established following Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
UNIFIL condemned the actions, describing them as a “deliberate and direct destruction” of its property and infrastructure clearly identifiable as belonging to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). The statement further characterized the incident as “a blatant violation of (UN Security Council) Resolution 1701 and international law.”
Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 to end hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War, calls for respect for Lebanon’s territorial integrity and the cessation of all aggressive actions in the area.
UNIFIL also urged all parties to exercise restraint and avoid any actions that could jeopardize the fragile cessation of hostilities.
“We urge all parties to refrain from any actions, including the destruction of property and civilian infrastructure, that could jeopardize the cessation of hostilities,” the statement added.
The incident comes amid heightened tensions along the Lebanon-Israel border, with several exchanges of fire reported in recent weeks.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, the Lebanese army is to deploy alongside UN peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdraws over a 60-day period.
Hezbollah is to withdraw its forces north of the Litani River — some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.
In late December, the UN peacekeeping force expressed concern at the “continuing” damage being done by the Israeli military in south Lebanon.
Detailing its latest air strikes in Lebanon on Thursday, the Israeli military said it was acting to remove any threat to Israel “in accordance with the ceasefire understandings.”
