‘An eye for an eye’: Hezbollah targets two Israeli military bases in Safed

Smoke rises near the Israel-Lebanon border, after Hezbollah fired projectiles towards Israel from Lebanon, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in northern Israel, September 12, 2024. 9REUTERS)
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Updated 13 September 2024
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‘An eye for an eye’: Hezbollah targets two Israeli military bases in Safed

  • Lebanon Humanitarian Fund allocates $10 million to aid displaced people in southern Lebanon

BEIRUT: Hezbollah launched a swarm of assault drones on Filon Base — the headquarters of Israel’s 210th Division — and its warehouses in the southeast of Safed on Friday, the second attack on Safed in less than 12 hours.

Hezbollah said it had “targeted the positions and locations of the base’s soldiers and officers, striking them directly.”

Israeli media outlets confirmed the attack, stating that “20 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward Safad.”

FASTFACT

UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Imran Riza announced the allocation of $24 million as an aid package from the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund ‘to support the country’s most vulnerable groups.’

This came hours after Israeli raids on Friday morning that targeted several houses in Bint Jbeil, the largest city in the area of the Israel-Lebanon border. The impact of the explosions destroyed some residential buildings and caused damage to other structures.

The Israeli army also raided the outskirts of Yaroun and Aita Al-Shaab, with heavy artillery targeting the forests of Alma Al-Shaab and the outskirts of Kfarshouba.

Israeli forces also targeted two motorcycles in Nabatieh on Thursday night, killing three people, including a four-year-old child identified as Mehdi Mubarak, along with his father, Sadeq Mubarak from Markaba, and Sajed Mustafa, Hezbollah announced.

Hezbollah immediately responded by targeting a major air-defense base in Safad with dozens of Katyusha missiles, setting parts of it ablaze and leading to a complete power outage in Safad and nearby areas. Around 50,000 settlers fled to shelters after hearing the sound of sirens, according to Israeli media outlets.

European and US calls to prevent the expansion of war in Lebanon have yet to have any effect.

In his Friday sermon, the head of Hezbollah’s Shariah Council, Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek, said “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and the initiator is the aggressor.”

He added: “Hezbollah stands up to the Israeli enemy’s attacks, the monstrous and destructive bombing of houses, and killing of civilians, by launching rocket and drone operations against more settlements.”

Yazbek highlighted “the Israeli escalation,” and said that Hezbollah “is fully prepared to teach the enemy a lesson it hasn’t dreamed of, and won’t stop before the attack against Gaza stops.”

Israeli media outlets reported on Thursday night that the US presidential envoy to Lebanon and Israel, Amos Hochstein, will head to Israel with a message calling for it to avoid “carrying out an expanded military operation in Lebanon.”

The Lebanese authorities have yet to receive confirmation of whether Hochstein intends to visit Beirut.

According to Information International, the death toll from confrontations on the southern front between Oct. 8, 2023, and the morning of Sept. 13, 2024, was 626. Among them are 431 Hezbollah members and 97 civilians. A total of 2,050 homes have been completely destroyed, 1,800 homes have been partially destroyed, and around 8,000 homes have suffered minor damage, while more than 110,000 people have been displaced, with many losing their livelihoods.

Meanwhile, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Imran Riza issued a statement announcing the allocation of $24 million as an aid package from the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund “to support the country’s most vulnerable groups, and address the needs of those affected by the escalating hostilities in southern Lebanon.”

Riza said: “As the escalation of hostilities in south Lebanon drags on longer than we had hoped, it has led to further displacement and deepened the already critical needs. The long-term consequences on vulnerable groups are particularly worrying — schools are closing, healthcare services are under strain, and basic services are being stretched thin.”

He continued: “We are allocating these funds from the LHF at a time of unprecedented challenges. Lebanon is grappling with multiple crises, which have overwhelmed the country’s capacity to cope. Despite our best efforts, only 25 percent of our annual appeal has been met. We urgently call on the international community for more support.

“The LHF has allowed us to support over 200,000 people, but this is still far from enough. Without sufficient funding, we are not only limited in addressing those immediate needs but also risk weakening our preparedness efforts and our capacity to address the other urgent crises Lebanon is currently facing.”

The LHF clarified that the new funding will “provide urgent support to those in need, including food, shelter, healthcare, WaSH and protection. Specifically, $10 million from the LHF will be directed toward emergency relief for those affected by the hostilities in south Lebanon. “Additionally, $13 million will be allocated to support vulnerable communities across Lebanon, and the remaining $1 million will be dedicated to empowering local NGOs, enhancing their ability to respond effectively to the multifaceted crisis.”

In November 2023, in response to the escalation of hostilities on Lebanon’s southern border, the LHF allocated $4.1 million to support advanced preparedness and immediate response efforts for those displaced and in need. This response was further bolstered in February, when the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund allocated an additional $9 million to address the urgent needs of vulnerable populations, particularly in southern Lebanon.

 


Hezbollah says launched drones at ‘sensitive military targets’ in Tel Aviv

Updated 8 sec ago
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Hezbollah says launched drones at ‘sensitive military targets’ in Tel Aviv

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it launched drones at “sensitive military targets” in Tel Aviv on Tuesday evening, after deadly Israeli strikes in Beirut and as news of a ceasefire deal was announced.
“In response to the targeting of the capital Beirut and the massacres committed by the Israeli enemy against civilians,” Hezbollah launched “drones at a group of sensitive military targets in the city of Tel Aviv and its suburbs,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.
 

 


What does the US-brokered truce ending Israel-Hezbollah fighting include?

Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024. (AP)
Updated 14 min 28 sec ago
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What does the US-brokered truce ending Israel-Hezbollah fighting include?

  • The Lebanese army would deploy troops to south of the Litani to have around 5,000 soldiers there, including at 33 posts along the border with Israel, a Lebanese security source told Reuters

BEIRUT: Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah are set to implement a ceasefire early on Wednesday as part of a US-proposed deal for a 60-day truce to end more than a year of hostilities.
The text of the deal has not been published and Reuters has not seen a draft.
US President Joe Biden announced the deal, saying it was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities. Israel’s security cabinet has approved it and it will be put to the whole cabinet for review. Lebanon Prime Minister Najib Mikati welcomed the deal, which Hezbollah approved last week.
The agreement, negotiated by US mediator Amos Hochstein, is five pages long and includes 13 sections, according to a senior Lebanese political source with direct knowledge of the matter.
Here is a summary of its key provisions.

HALT TO HOSTILITIES
The halt to hostilities is set to begin at 4 a.m local time (0200 GMT) on Wednesday, Biden announced, with both sides expected to cease fire by Wednesday morning.
The senior Lebanese source said Israel was expected to “stop carrying out any military operations against Lebanese territory, including against civilian and military targets, and Lebanese state institutions, through land, sea and air.”
All armed groups in Lebanon — meaning Hezbollah and its allies — would halt operations against Israel, the source said.

ISRAELI TROOPS WITHDRAW
Two Israeli officials said the Israeli military would withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days. Biden said the troops would gradually pull out and civilians on both sides would be able to return home.
Lebanon had earlier pushed for Israeli troops to withdraw as quickly as possible within the truce period, Lebanese officials told Reuters. They now expect Israeli troops to withdraw within the first month, the senior Lebanese political source said.
A Lebanese official told Reuters the deal included language that preserved both Lebanon’s and Israel’s rights to self-defense.

HEZBOLLAH PULLS NORTH, LEBANESE ARMY DEPLOYS
Hezbollah fighters will leave their positions in southern Lebanon to move north of the Litani River, which runs about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of the border with Israel.
Their withdrawal will not be public, the senior Lebanese political source said. He said the group’s military facilities “will be dismantled” but it was not immediately clear whether the group would take them apart itself, or whether the fighters would take their weapons with them as they withdrew.
The Lebanese army would deploy troops to south of the Litani to have around 5,000 soldiers there, including at 33 posts along the border with Israel, a Lebanese security source told Reuters.
“The deployment is the first challenge — then how to deal with the locals that want to return home,” given the risks of unexploded ordnance, the source said.
More than 1.2 million people have been displaced by Israeli strikes on Lebanon, many of them from south Lebanon. Hezbollah sees the return of the displaced to their homes as a priority, Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters.
Tens of thousands displaced from northern Israel are also expected to return home.

MONITORING MECHANISM
One of the sticking points in the final days leading to the ceasefire’s conclusion was how it would be monitored, Lebanon’s deputy speaker of parliament Elias Bou Saab told Reuters.
A pre-existing tripartite mechanism between the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL), the Lebanese army and the Israeli army would be expanded to include the US and France, with the US chairing the group, Bou Saab said.
Israel would be expected to flag possible breaches to the monitoring mechanism, and France and the US together would determine whether a violation had taken place, an Israeli official and a Western diplomat told Reuters.
A joint statement by Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron said France and the US would work together to ensure the deal is applied fully.

UNILATERAL ISRAELI STRIKES
Israeli officials have insisted that the Israeli army would continue to strike Hezbollah if it identified threats to its security, including transfers of weapons and military equipment to the group.
An Israeli official told Reuters that US envoy Amos Hochstein, who negotiated the agreement, had given assurances directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel could carry out such strikes on Lebanon.
Netanyahu said in a televised address after the security cabinet met that Israel would strike Hezbollah if it violated the deal.
The official said Israel would use drones to monitor movements on the ground in Lebanon.
Lebanese officials say that provision is not in the deal that it agreed, and that it would oppose any violations of its sovereignty.

 


3 dead in Israel strikes on Syria border crossings with Lebanon: monitor, authorities

Updated 21 min 50 sec ago
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3 dead in Israel strikes on Syria border crossings with Lebanon: monitor, authorities

BEIRUT, Lebanon: A Syria war monitor said Israeli strikes on the Lebanon-Syria border late Tuesday killed two soldiers as Lebanon also reported one dead, the latest frontier raids amid news of a Hezbollah and Israel truce.
“Israeli warplanes targeted the Al-Arida crossing in Tartus province for the first time, and the Dabussiyeh and Jussiyeh crossings in Homs province,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reporting “two regime forces killed” at Dabussiyeh.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an “Israeli enemy strike” on the Al-Arida crossing killed “one person,” adding that the toll was provisional.
The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, also reported other strikes on unofficial crossings and bridges between the two countries.
State news agency SANA reported “Israeli aggression that targeted the Al-Arida and Dabussiyeh border crossings with Lebanon,” without reporting casualties.
On Monday, Israel also struck a crossing on the Syria-Lebanon border, the latest in a wave of attacks targeting such routes since September.
Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the border.
Israel’s military said strikes that day targeted “smuggling routes to transfer weapons” to Hezbollah, and followed other operations against “Syrian regime smuggling routes” in recent weeks.
Israel intensified its strikes against Syria from September 26, days after launching an intense bombing campaign mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, after almost a year of clashes with the group across the Lebanon border.
Since Syria’s war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting the army and groups including Hezbollah.
 

 


Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war

Updated 27 November 2024
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Israeli NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war

  • ACRI accuses Netanyahu govt. of “excessive, unrestrained and illegal use of force” in occupied territory in a new report
  • Says govt. is “implementing profound changes to all aspects of control, most of which are flying under the radar”

LONDON: On Oct. 12 last year, a group of armed settlers and Israeli soldiers drove into the West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq, 10 kilometers east of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.

There, they seized and handcuffed three Palestinian men, subjecting them to hours of abuse and violence, later compared by one of the victims to the treatment meted out by rogue US soldiers to prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003.

The abuses in Wadi Al-Seeq were led by members of the IDF’s Sfar Hamidbar (Desert Frontier) unit, notorious for recruiting into its ranks violent “hilltop youth” from the illegal farming settlements that are proliferating in the West Bank with the blessing of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes, and is dependent on the support of, far-right parties.

“For hours,” as an Israeli newspaper reported on Oct. 21, 2023, the Palestinians “were severely beaten, stripped to their underwear, and photographed handcuffed.

“Their captors urinated on two of them and extinguished burning cigarettes on them. There was even an attempt to penetrate one of them with an object.”

Palestinians bound and stripped after being apprehended by IDF soldiers and settlers in the central West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq on October 12, 2023. (The Times of Israel)

Israeli human rights activists who arrived at the scene were also arrested, cuffed, beaten, threatened with death and, like the Palestinians, robbed.

At the time, many in Israel were shocked to read the reports of the joint operation between the IDF and settlers, exposed by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

But as a new report from an Israeli human rights group makes clear, such events have become commonplace as, under cover of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli government and its agencies have been pursuing the ultimate goal of “realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”

In the report, “One year of war: the collapse of human and civil rights in Israel and the West Bank,” the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) accuses the government of “excessive, unrestrained, and illegal use of force.”

Furthermore, it says, Netanyahu’s government is “demolishing the judicial system and the civil service with the aim of accumulating unlimited power; increasing the use of force in the West Bank and granting tacit permission for unrestrained settler violence; using force to limit freedom of expression and protest; and systematically violating the rights of detainees and prisoners.”

Israeli settlers march towards the outpost of Eviatar, near the Palestinian village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)

The list of charges levelled against the government is long, including institutionalized discrimination against Arab society, “unprecedented” infringement of the rights of suspects and prisoners, the “mass armament and creation of untrained forces” of settlers, the “destruction of democratic foundations,” attacks on freedom of expression and “normalization of citizen surveillance and disregard for privacy.”

Legislative steps are being taken with the aim of excluding certain parties from running for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Last month a controversial bill was passed to change the rules for banning individuals or parties from membership of the Knesset if they have “supported terror,” a definition which now includes visiting the family of someone accused of an act of terrorism.

Likud, Netanyahu’s party, has even accused Arab members of the Knesset of supporting terror simply on the ground of their support for Palestinian statehood.

“Depriving a population of the right to protest politically and the right to political representation” is “a very slippery slope,” said Noa Sattath, the CEO of ACRI.

“When there’s no political representation of a minority, then there's a radicalization of that minority.”

IN NUMBERS

  • 733 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023.
  • 40 Israelis killed during the same period.
  • 3,340 Palestinians in administrative detention as of last June.
  • 11,800 Palestinians arrested since current conflict erupted.

What the ACRI report exposes on a grand scale, says Sattath, is “the excessive use of power. Of course, we see it in Gaza, and in Lebanon now, but we also see it in the West Bank.

“We also see it being used against Israeli protesters. We’re also seeing it in the treatment of prisoners. In all walks of life, basically, the Israeli government has moved to using excessive power against the different players, rather than making more complicated decisions.”

The headline scandal of the past year is what ACRI describes as “the quiet coup” in the West Bank.

“With public attention focused elsewhere,” says the report, “the government is implementing profound changes to all aspects of control in the West Bank, most of which are flying under the radar.

“In the last two years, the government has made giant strides in advancing policies aimed at accelerating the annexation process of the West Bank, while establishing Jewish supremacy and marginalizing the Palestinian population, all in pursuit of realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”

A member of the Israeli security forces walks past a bulldozer demolishing a house belonging to Palestinians in the southern area of the occupied West Bank on November 6, 2024. (AFP)

The annexation of the West Bank has long been on the agenda, said Sattath, “but the war has given cover and enabled this to happen.

“Basically, they’re creating a new reality on the ground, behind the scenes, without a lot of public scrutiny, without a lot of international discourse on this new reality that they’re manufacturing.”

The Israeli government has, in certain instances, issued statements that aim to distance itself from the violent actions of settlers in the West Bank. Netanyahu has occasionally called for calm and condemned settler attacks on Palestinians, especially after high-profile incidents.

However, ACRI fears that under the incoming US administration of Donald Trump, whose election has been welcomed so enthusiastically by far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, things are only going to get worse.

A member of the Israeli security forces scuffles with a protestor as Palestinian and Israeli peace activists demonstrate at the entrance of Huwara in the occupied West Bank, on March 3, 2023. (AFP)

“I think that the next years are going to be very difficult,” said Sattath.

“The US government is one of the only checks and balances on the behavior of the Israeli government behavior and, even if we would have liked them to be more forceful in the way that they do it, we're very worried that the disappearance of that will have grave implications for the lives of Palestinians, both in Gaza, where the US is currently so involved in the humanitarian aid efforts there, and in the West Bank.”

Disturbingly, she says, Israel is manoeuvring behind the scenes to end the status of the West Bank as an occupied territory under military occupation, which is how it has been defined by international law since the occupation of the West Bank by Israel in 1967.

A picture shows burnt cars, which were set ablaze by Israeli settlers, in the area of in Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank on June 21, 2023. (AFP)

“It seems a little strange that an organization like ACRI would be advocating for military occupation,” she said. 

“But under international conventions military occupation gives the protected citizens of that area many different rights and gives the occupiers obligations. 

“Residents in occupied territories cannot be moved. You cannot build on their territory and the occupying force has all sorts of obligations toward them, in terms of humanitarian aid. 

“Now, what the settler movement, through its ministers in the government, is trying to do is erase the military occupation, replacing it with government agencies and officials to facilitate the settlement enterprise.” 

A Palestinian man walks at the village of Khallet Al-Daba, in the occupied West Bank on October 26, 2023, after it was attacked by Israeli settlers. (AFP)

The process began in February 2023 when, despite disquiet among some members of Netanyahu’s government, authority over many civilian issues in the West Bank was stripped from Defense Ministry agency COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) and transferred to Bezalel Smotrich, the religious Zionism leader and finance minister. 

According to a Times of Israel report, the agreement “appears to give the ultranationalist leader sweeping powers over the territory, and allows him to advance his goal of thwarting Palestinian aspirations for a state in the West Bank by enabling the Israeli population there to substantially expand.”

Anti-settlement organizations denounced the agreement, with one, Breaking the Silence, saying it amounted to “legal, de jure annexation,” of the West Bank.

The importance of ACRI’s report, says Sattath, lies in the sheer breadth of abuses by the Israeli government it exposes.

Israeli security forces fire tear gas at Palestinians demonstrating in the village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)

ACRI, founded in 1972 and the oldest civil and human rights organization in Israel, has been publishing reports on the state of human rights in Israel and the West Bank for decades. But, she says, “we have never published a report showing such a severe and comprehensive deterioration as we have seen over the past year.”

ACRI says it hopes its report “will deepen the public’s understanding of the damage being done to human rights and democratic institutions, and that it will stir the public to action and resistance.”

It added: “Monitoring human rights violation processes is also critical for there to be any hope of correction under a different government and reality.”

 


Sirens sound in central, northern Israel after ceasefire announcement: army

Updated 26 November 2024
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Sirens sound in central, northern Israel after ceasefire announcement: army

  • Sirens sounded in a number of areas in central and northern Israel following projectiles that crossed from Lebanon

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said sirens sounded across central and northern Israel Tuesday, with three projectiles fired from Lebanon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his cabinet would vote for a ceasefire.
“Sirens sounded in a number of areas in central and northern Israel following projectiles that crossed from Lebanon,” the military said in a statement. “Three projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory were successfully intercepted by the IAF (Israeli air force).”