Situation between Israel and Hezbollah very concerning, German minister says ahead of Lebanon visit

Situation between Israel and Hezbollah very concerning, German minister says ahead of Lebanon visit
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. (Reuters)
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Updated 24 June 2024
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Situation between Israel and Hezbollah very concerning, German minister says ahead of Lebanon visit

Situation between Israel and Hezbollah very concerning, German minister says ahead of Lebanon visit
  • Sonic boom from Israeli warplanes disrupts students taking exams
  • Civil defense member injured in Israeli shelling

BEIRUT: The situation between Israel and Hezbollah is very concerning, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday, on the eve of her tour of Lebanon, Tel Aviv, and the West Bank.

Baerbock is scheduled to travel to Lebanon to engage in discussions with officials in Beirut in light of Israeli threats of an expanded conflict with Hezbollah.

Her remarks came as the Israeli media said the country’s army has enough ammunition to strike Hezbollah, but that its leadership is exercising caution.

The media reported on Monday that the Israeli military carried out a series of attacks on the Lebanese border area.

Warplanes repeatedly raided the towns of Taybeh, Aitaroun, Kfarkela, and Khiam. Artillery and phosphorus shelling were reported on the outskirts of the towns of Tayr Harfa, Rab El-Thalathine, and Odaisseh, causing fires.

Hezbollah’s Islamic Health Organization reported that the Israeli military “targeted a civil defense team in the town of Taybeh with an artillery shell while they were extinguishing a fire, resulting in one member being injured by shrapnel in his chest and transported to the hospital.”

Hezbollah carried out an ambush on Sunday night in the Metula settlement, targeting a troop transport vehicle, injuring six soldiers, including an officer.

The operation prompted intensified Israeli night raids on southern villages and towns.

A sonic boom caused by an Israeli warplane disrupted students taking exams in Nabatieh.

On the first day of the students’ official regular and vocational exams, the sound barrier was breached, and its echoes were heard in the coastal town of Ghazieh near Sidon.

Despite the unsettling experience, the 1,107 students continued their exams.

Israeli warplanes also broke the sound barrier in two waves over Nabatieh, causing another sonic boom.

The Ministry of Education had facilitated students displaced from the border region to take their exams at centers nearer to their temporary residences.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, targeted the Zebdine site and Zarit Barracks.

It was also reported that a fire broke out at the Margaliot military site following the launching of an anti-tank missile from Lebanon.

Clashes on Sunday culminated after Hezbollah said it carried out “an aerial attack with a squadron of assault drones on the headquarters of the 91st Division in ‘Ayelet Hashahar’ — northeast of Safed — targeting the positions and settlements of officers and soldiers, hitting them directly, killing and wounding them.”

Hezbollah also targeted the Metula site after observing a military vehicle moving in the vicinity of the site with guided missiles, “hitting it and leaving them dead or wounded.”

On Monday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the Middle East was close to the conflict expanding into Lebanon.

“The risk of this war affecting the south of Lebanon and spilling over is every day bigger,” Borrell said ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.

“We are on the eve of the war expanding,” Borrell said in a Reuters report.

He spoke as MP Mohammed Raad, the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, reiterated the party’s position on how to achieve a ceasefire in southern Lebanon.

He said the fate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depended on ongoing aggression in Gaza.

“Those seeking a way to stop the aggression are coming to Lebanon.

“The war in Lebanon has only been in solidarity and support for the oppressed in Gaza, so let the Israeli enemy stop its aggression on Gaza, and there is no need to discuss the matter with the Lebanese,” said Raad.


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Updated 22 sec ago
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Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

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

2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA
Updated 7 min 46 sec ago
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2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

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

Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike
Updated 45 min 5 sec ago
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Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

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.


HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’
Updated 25 November 2024
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HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Monday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a US-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review.”
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement.
HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack,” it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates,” the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.”
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions,” it added.
The watchdog said it contacted Boeing and Woodard but received no response.
In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.
In November last year, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.
Lebanese rights groups have said five more journalists and photographers working for local media have been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.


16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast

16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast
Updated 10 min 54 sec ago
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16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast

16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities rescued 16 people after a tourist boat sank off its Red Sea coast, three security sources told Reuters on Monday, as search operations continued for the remaining passengers and crew members.
The boat, Sea Story, was carrying 45 people, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 14 crew, on a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam, according to a statement by the Red Sea Governorate.
Governor Amr Hanafi said some survivors were rescued using a helicopter and have been taken to medical care. Efforts to locate more survivors were ongoing in coordination with the Egyptian navy and army.
The governorate said a distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) and that the boat had departed from Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday, with plans to return to Hurghada Marina on Nov. 29.
The Red Sea is a popular diving destination renowned for its coral reefs and marine life, key to Egypt’s vital tourism industry.