Three Hezbollah members killed in Israeli attacks

Hezbollah militants and supporters attend the funeral of one of the group’s members killed a day earlier in Israeli bombardment in the southern Lebanese village of Houla on March 6, 2024. (AFP/File)
Short Url
Updated 21 July 2024
Follow

Three Hezbollah members killed in Israeli attacks

  • Hezbollah fires rockets after deadly Israeli airstrike targets weapons depot 
  • Traffic rerouted after shrapnel reaches nearby villages, injuring civilians

BEIRUT: Hezbollah on Sunday said it fired Katyusha rockets at northern Israel in response to Israeli strikes that hit a weapons depot and other sites.

Two Hezbollah members were killed when an Israeli military drone targeted a house in the southern border village of Houla with a guided missile, 12 hours after a Hezbollah weapons and ammunition depot was targeted for the first time since the outset of hostilities nine months ago.

The strike on the depot, located in Adloun — a town between Saida and Tyre, 30 km from the Israeli border — killed another Hezbollah member and injured several other people, according to Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

The Israeli military confirmed on Sunday morning that it targeted two Hezbollah sites.

Hezbollah initially refused to comment on the attack on the Adloun depot in the immediate aftermath of the Israeli strike.

However, it later targeted the Israeli Dafna settlement with Katyusha missiles in response to the raid.

Hezbollah also targeted Al-Ramtha and Al-Semmaqah in the occupied Kfarshouba hills with missiles.

Israeli media outlets stated that the missiles landed in Dalton in Galilee. According to Israeli Army Radio, 45 missiles were launched from Lebanon towards northern Israel over the course of an hour, and a factory was directly hit in the settlement of Amir.

Hezbollah confirmed the deaths of Mustafa Hassan Fawaz, aged 49, from the Lebanese southern village of Debaal; Ahamd Ali Moussa, born in 1985, from Houla; and the youngest Hezbollah victim to date since the outbreak of hostilities, Yassin Hussein Hussein, born in 2006, from Houla.

Following the raid on Adloun, massive explosions were heard at the site as far as 20 km away in all directions.

Shrapnel from the explosions reached the nearby towns of Kharayeb and Ansarieh as well as damaging Adloun itself, shattering windows and injuring several people, including four women who were transferred to hospital.

The Kharayeb Municipality called on residents “to stay home because of the flying shrapnel resulting from the shelling targeting Adloun.”

Emergency medical and fire response units could not access the area, and there were repeated calls for the public to “avoid the area as much as possible due to its hazardous nature.”

Lebanese security forces closed off the Sidon-Tyre highway entirely, rerouting traffic away from the the explosions.

A report published last month by the Israeli Alma Research Center revealed that Hezbollah “possesses thousands of missiles and precision shells, out of a total of 75,000 missiles and shells, including hundreds of anti-aircraft missiles, coastal missiles, cruise weapons, and underwater precision weapons.”

Meanwhile Israeli artillery shelling reached the outskirts of the border village of Aitaroun on Sunday, causing a fire in the area. Artillery shelling also targeted Maroun Al-Ras.

Israeli drone strikes on Saturday hit the region between Taybeh and Deir Siriane in Marjayoun, destroying a car parked near tents for Syrian refugees in the vicinity of Qalaia. The attack resulted in injuries to several children.

Hezbollah’s retaliatory strikes on Israeli military installations, meanwhile, resulted in injuries to several of its members due to drone explosions in Katzrin, south of the Golan Heights.

Al-Qassam Brigades also announced in a statement on Saturday afternoon that “the headquarters of the 300th Brigade — Shumira in the western sector of Upper Galilee was targeted by a missile attack” from southern Lebanon.


US believes Israel, Lebanon have agreed terms to end Israel-Hezbollah conflict

Updated 40 min 32 sec ago
Follow

US believes Israel, Lebanon have agreed terms to end Israel-Hezbollah conflict

WASHINGTON: Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the terms of a deal to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Axios reported on Monday citing an unnamed senior US official.
Israel’s government on Monday said it was moving toward a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah but there were still outstanding issues.


Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

Updated 51 min 52 sec ago
Follow

Arrest Warrant: UK would follow ‘due process’ if Netanyahu were to visit – foreign minister

  • ICC issued arrest warrants on Thursday against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
  • Several EU states have said they will meet commitments under the statute if needed

FIUGGI: Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfil the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The ICC issued the warrants on Thursday against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri for alleged crimes against humanity.
Several EU states have said they will meet their commitments under the statute if needed, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has invited Netanyahu to visit his country, assuring him he would face no risks if he did so.
“The states that signed the Rome convention must implement the court’s decision. It’s not optional,” Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said during a visit to Cyprus for a workshop of Israeli and Palestinian peace activists.
Those same obligations were also binding on countries aspiring to join the EU, he said.

 

 


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.


2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

  • The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night

Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.


Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

Updated 25 November 2024
Follow

Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

  • The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
  • Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed 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 on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.