DUBAI: Lebanon’s Hezbollah published an almost 10-minute video on Tuesday showing footage of 17 military sites in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights which it said had been gathered by the armed group’s surveillance aircraft.
The video is the second episode in a series intended to show how far Hezbollah’s surveillance of Israel has reached as tensions mount over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and over frequent exchanges of fire across Lebanon’s border with Israel.
The Iran-aligned group published a more than nine-minute video in June of what it said was surveillance footage of locations in Israel, including the city of Haifa’s airport and sea ports.
“Publishing this video sends a clear message to the enemy and its army,” said Hezbollah media relations officer Muhammad Afif.
“The importance stems from demonstrating our technical and technological capabilities in the field of surveillance and obtaining necessary information we need in times of war,” Afif added.
Lebanese pro-Iranian television channel Al Mayadeen said in June, after the first video was published, that unmanned aircraft had bypassed Israel’s defense systems and returned to Lebanon without being detected or shot down.
Hezbollah has sent both surveillance and attack drones into Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war last October, and has said the drone launches are in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides say they wish to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent it.
The United States and France are working on a negotiated settlement to the hostilities along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.
Hezbollah releases video it says shows surveillance of Israeli-occupied Golan
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Hezbollah releases video it says shows surveillance of Israeli-occupied Golan
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- The video is the second episode in a series intended to show how far Hezbollah’s surveillance of Israel has reached
- The Iran-aligned group published a more than nine-minute video in June
Turkish, US top diplomats discuss Gaza ceasefire efforts in call, Ankara says
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ANKARA: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the latest state efforts to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in a phone call on Wednesday, Turkiye’s foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Spokesperson Oncu Keceli also said the call had taken place at the request of the US side, adding the two ministers also discussed regional developments. He did not provide any further details.
Vessel off Yemen ‘struck’ by three projectiles: UK agency
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- The attack saw men on small boats first open fire with small arms
Dubai: Three projectiles hit a merchant vessel off Yemen’s rebel-held port city of Hodeida on Wednesday, limiting the ship’s ability to maneuver, British maritime security agency UKMTO said.
The ship initially exchanged fire with two small vessels, one with three to five people onboard while the second carried around 10, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said.
The ship was later “struck by two unidentified projectiles before being hit by a third,” the agency, which is run by Britain’s Royal Navy, said.
It said there were no reports of casualties but “the vessel reports being not under command,” meaning it was limited in its ability to maneuver, likely because of damage.
Maritime security firm Ambrey also reported an incident off Hodeida but did not elaborate.
There was no immediate claim for the attack but it comes as the Iran-backed Houthi rebels keep up a nine-month-old campaign against international shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden that they say is in support of Gaza.
Their campaign of rocket and drone attacks has severely disrupted maritime traffic through the Red Sea, which normally accounts for up to 12 percent of world trade.
The United States and Britain have responded by striking Houthi targets in Yemen since January but the attacks have done little to deter the rebels.
Hezbollah fires more than 50 rockets, hitting Israeli-annexed Golan Heights
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- THezbollah said the attack was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night that killed one and injured 19.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah has launched more than 50 rockets, hitting a number of private homes in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The attack on Wednesday came a day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar as he pressed ahead with the latest diplomatic mission to secure a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, even as Hamas and Israel signaled that challenges remain.
Hamas in a new statement called the latest proposal presented to it a “reversal” of what it agreed to previously and accused the US of acquiescing to what it called “new conditions” from Israel. There was no immediate US response.
First responders in Golan Heights said they treated a 30-year-old man who was moderately wounded with shrapnel injuries in Wednesday’s attack. One house was engulfed in flames, and firefighters said they prevented a bigger tragedy by stopping a gas leak.
Hezbollah said the attack was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night that killed one and injured 19. On Tuesday, Hezbollah launched more than 200 projectiles toward Israel, after Israel targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the border, a significant increase in the daily skirmishes.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded near-daily strikes for more than 10 months against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Hezbollah’s ally, Hamas, in Gaza. The exchanges have killed more than 500 people in Lebanon — mostly militants but also including around 100 civilians and non-combatants — and 23 soldiers and 26 civilians in Israel.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed it, saying it needs the strategic plateau for its security. The United States is the only country to recognize Israel’s annexation, while the rest of the international community considers the Golan to be occupied Syrian territory.
Blinken wraps up Mideast tour with Gaza truce plea
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- Blinken met earlier in the day in Cairo with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi
- Top diplomat’s visit to the region also included meetings in Israel on Monday
DOHA: Top US diplomat Antony Blinken said Tuesday that “time is of the essence” to secure a Gaza truce as he wrapped up a Middle East tour with a plea for a deal.
The US secretary of state, on his ninth regional visit since the 10-month-old Israel-Hamas war began, made a brief stop in mediator Qatar but was unable to meet its emir.
Speaking on the tarmac in Doha before heading back to Washington, Blinken reiterated his call for Hamas to accept a “bridging proposal” for a deal, which he said Israel had accepted, and asked both parties to work toward finalizing it.
“This needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead, and we will do everything possible to get it across the finish line,” he said.
Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7 attack triggered the war, said it was “keen to reach a ceasefire” agreement but protested “new conditions” from Israel in the latest US proposal.
Earlier Tuesday, Blinken flew from Israel to Egypt for talks with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who told him that “the time has come to end the ongoing war,” according to an official Egyptian statement.
El-Sisi warned of the consequences of “the conflict expanding regionally,” it said.
Blinken then traveled to Doha to meet with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, though a US official said the Qatari ruler was feeling unwell and the two will instead talk on the phone soon.
Mohammed bin Abdulaziz bin Saleh Al-Khulaifi, minister of state at the Qatari foreign ministry, met with Blinken to discuss “joint mediation efforts to end the war,” Doha said.
Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce, which diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that would stop the fighting, free Israeli hostages and allow vital humanitarian aid into the besieged Palestinian territory.
Medics and civil defense rescuers in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip said Israeli bombardment on Tuesday killed more than two dozen people, and Israel announced it had recovered the bodies of six hostages.
Mediators met last week with Israeli negotiators in Doha, and more truce talks are expected in Egypt this week.
One of the main sticking points has been Hamas’s long-standing demand for a “complete” withdrawal of Israeli troops from all parts of Gaza, which Israel has rejected.
Israeli media quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying Israel would insist on maintaining control of a strategic strip on the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphi corridor.
A US official traveling with Blinken, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said that “maximalist statements like this are not constructive to getting a ceasefire deal across the finish line.”
In Doha, Blinken said Washington opposes “any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel.”
Fears of a regional escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond after an attack last month, blamed on Israel, killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, shortly after an Israeli strike on Beirut killed a top Hezbollah commander.
Lebanon’s health ministry said four people were killed in Israeli strikes on Tuesday and Hezbollah claimed a string of attacks on Israeli troops, in the latest of the cross-border exchanges which have raged almost daily since the Gaza war began.
Hamas had called on the mediators to implement a framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.
The Biden plan would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.
Hamas said on Sunday that the current US proposal, which Washington had put forward after two days of meetings in Doha, “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions.”
And on Monday, in response to comments by Biden that it was “backing away” from a deal, the Iran-backed group said the “misleading claims... do not reflect the true position of the movement, which is keen to reach a ceasefire.”
Hamas officials as well as some analysts and critics in Israel have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political gain.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,173 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Most of the dead are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.
Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 105 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israeli army operations in Gaza have continued throughout the truce talks.
An Israeli strike on Tuesday hit a school in Gaza City where the civil defense agency said at least 12 Palestinians were killed and the military said a Hamas command center was based.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians had sought refuge in the facility, civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
AFP photos showed the Mustafa Hafiz school partly reduced to rubble, with Palestinians fleeing.
Elsewhere in Gaza, Bassal and medical sources reported at least 17 killed in four separate strikes.
The Israeli military said forces had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in the southern Gaza district of Khan Yunis.
The United Nations said parts of a north-south Gaza road that is “a crucial passage for humanitarian missions were included in the latest evacuation order” issued by the Israeli military on Saturday.
“This has made it nearly impossible for aid workers to move along this key route,” a UN statement said, preventing “critical supplies and services, such as water trucking” from reaching those in need.
Bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashes in Iran, killing at least 28 people
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- The pilgrims were on their way to Iraq to commemorate Arbaeen, which marks the 40th day following the death of a Shiite saint in the 7th century.
TEHRAN: A bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashed in central Iran, killing at least 28 people, an official said Wednesday.
The crash happened Tuesday night in the central Iranian province of Yazd, said Mohammad Ali Malekzadeh, a local emergency official, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Another 23 people suffered injuries in the crash, 14 of them serious, he added. He said all the bus passengers hailed from Pakistan.
There were 51 people on board at the time of the crash outside of the city of Taft, some 500 kilometers (310 miles) southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Iranian state television later blamed the crash on the bus brakes failing and a lack of attention by its driver.
In Pakistan, media reports quoted a local Shiite leader, Qamar Abbas, saying as many as 35 people had died in the crash. He described those on the bus as coming from the city of Larkana in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. Pakistan’s government offered no immediate comment.
Iran has one of the world’s worst traffic safety records with some 17,000 deaths annually. The grave toll is blamed on wide disregard for traffic laws, unsafe vehicles and inadequate emergency services in its vast rural areas.
The pilgrims had been on their way to Iraq to commemorate Arbaeen.
A separate bus crash early Wednesday in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province killed six people and injured 18, authorities said.