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Hezbollah releases video it says shows surveillance of Israeli-occupied Golan

Hezbollah releases video it says shows surveillance of Israeli-occupied Golan
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. (X/@TharayIsaac2)
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Updated 09 July 2024
Reuters
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Hezbollah releases video it says shows surveillance of Israeli-occupied Golan

Hezbollah releases video it says shows surveillance of Israeli-occupied Golan
  • 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
Updated 09 July 2024
Reuters
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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.

Topics: War on Gaza Hezbollah Israel Lebanon Golan Heights

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Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill 4 as Hezbollah unleashes rockets, drones

Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill 4 as Hezbollah unleashes rockets, drones
Updated 18 sec ago
AFP
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Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill 4 as Hezbollah unleashes rockets, drones

Lebanon says Israeli strikes kill 4 as Hezbollah unleashes rockets, drones
  • Lebanon’s health ministry said three emergency personnel from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were hurt when the Israeli military “targeted them” in south Lebanon, causing “significant damage to the ambulance they were traveling in”
Updated 18 sec ago
AFP

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Lebanon’s health ministry said four people were killed Tuesday in Israeli strikes in the country’s south, while Hezbollah said its militants launched barrages of rockets and drones at Israeli troops.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian armed group Hamas, has traded near daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces since the Gaza war began in October.
But fears of a major escalation have grown in recent weeks after the Israeli killing of a top Hezbollah commander.
On Tuesday, Lebanon’s health ministry said “Israeli enemy strikes on the village of Dhayra” killed four people and wounded two others, after earlier reporting three dead.
It did not say whether the casualties were civilians or fighters.
Hezbollah claimed a string of attacks on Israeli troops and positions, including sending barrages of Katyusha rockets at several north Israel military positions in stated retaliation for Israeli strikes, including in Dhayra.
The Shiite Muslim movement also said it launched “squadrons of explosive laden drones” and “intense rocket barrages” at several Israeli positions in the annexed Golan Heights in response to Israeli strikes deep in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley a day earlier.
The Israeli military in separate statements said a total of around 115 “projectiles” were identified crossing from Lebanon.
It also said that “numerous suspicious aerial targets were identified crossing from Lebanon,” with air defenses intercepting some of them.
No injuries were reported, though the military said the incidents sparked fires in some areas.
The military also said air forces struck projectile launchers and several “Hezbollah military” structures in south Lebanon.

Lebanon’s health ministry said three emergency personnel from the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Health Committee were hurt when the Israeli military “targeted them” in south Lebanon, causing “significant damage to the ambulance they were traveling in.”
The ministry “condemned in the strongest terms the repeated targeting of health workers in south Lebanon.”
Several militant groups in Lebanon operate health centers and emergency response operations, with at least 21 rescue workers killed since October, according to an AFP tally.
The violence has largely been restricted to the Lebanon-Israel border area, but fears of a major escalation have mounted since Hezbollah and Iran vowed to respond to twin killings blamed on Israel late last month.
An Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, shortly before an attack in Tehran blamed on Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The cross-border violence has killed some 589 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 128 civilians, according to AFP’s tally.
On the Israeli side, including in the annexed Golan Heights, 23 soldiers and 26 civilians have been killed, according to army figures.
 

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza Lebanon US Hezbollah

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Blinken hopes Sudan humanitarian progress brings broader deal

Blinken hopes Sudan humanitarian progress brings broader deal
Updated 21 min 54 sec ago
AFP
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Blinken hopes Sudan humanitarian progress brings broader deal

Blinken hopes Sudan humanitarian progress brings broader deal
Updated 21 min 54 sec ago
AFP

DOHA: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced hope Tuesday that an emerging humanitarian agreement in Sudan would build momentum for a broader deal to end the country’s devastating war.

Blinken, on visits to Egypt and Qatar mostly focused on bringing a ceasefire in the Gaza war, said he also consulted on the US-brokered talks on Sudan underway in Switzerland.

“With everything else going on in the world, the worst humanitarian situation in the world right now is in Sudan,” Blinken told reporters as he left Doha.

“There are more people in Sudan who are suffering from fighting, from violence, from lack of access to food and basic humanitarian assistance,” Blinken said.

The United States said Monday that the talks in Switzerland were finalizing ways to open three humanitarian routes for badly needed food, including a critical crossing from Chad.

“We obviously need to see that move forward, but that’s critical in bringing life-essential assistance to people who desperately need it,” Blinken said.

“As we’re doing that, of course, we’re working on trying to get a broader agreement on a cessation of hostilities,” he said.

The US point man on Sudan who is leading negotiations, Tom Perriello, joined Blinken for his talks earlier Tuesday with the Egyptian leadership in the coastal city of El Alamein.

Perriello said he would also meet with a Sudanese government delegation in his latest bid to persuade Sudan’s army to take part in the talks.

War broke out in April last year between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), devastating what was already one of the world’s poorest nations.

More than 25 million people — over half of Sudan’s population — face acute hunger, according to UN agencies, with famine declared in a displacement camp in Darfur, which borders Chad.

The RSF has sent a delegation to Switzerland but the army has refused to join.

Perriello has consulted with the army remotely and Blinken has twice called army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan to press him to participate.

Topics: Sudan Unrest US US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken

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Crossing between a government and opposition-held area in Syria closes after violence

Crossing between a government and opposition-held area in Syria closes after violence
Updated 44 min 40 sec ago
AP
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Crossing between a government and opposition-held area in Syria closes after violence

Crossing between a government and opposition-held area in Syria closes after violence
  • A local activist and a war monitor said that opposition groups protested the reopening of the Abu Al-Zandin crossing in Aleppo province, which had been closed since 2020
Updated 44 min 40 sec ago
AP

IDLIB, Syria: A key crossing inside Syria between an area held by the government and one held by the opposition was closed again on Tuesday after violence followed its brief reopening this week.
A local activist and a war monitor said that opposition groups protested the reopening of the Abu Al-Zandin crossing in Aleppo province, which had been closed since 2020, and that it was twice hit by artillery shelling.
A few trucks on Sunday moved through the crossing in what appeared to be a trial reopening. The move was met by protests and the crossing was hit by artillery shelling from an unknown source on Monday and again on Tuesday.
Reports of an initial planned reopening in June were met with angry protests by residents of the opposition-controlled area who saw the move as a step toward normalization with the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Sunday’s trial reopening was followed again by protests and a sit-in at a tent erected by local activists.
The Britain-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the shelling. It was not clear who fired. The monitor also said that gunmen opposed to the opening of the crossing “forced a number of trucks to return” as they were headed into government-held territory.
An official with the Turkish-backed opposition government confirmed plans to reopen the crossing but denied it represented a step toward normalizing relations with Damascus. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly.
“The opening of crossings, whether commercial or humanitarian ... is not linked to reconciliation,” he said and also gave the example of function crossings in Syria between areas that Ankara controls and areas that are under the control of Syrian Kurdish local authorities.
The official declined to elaborate or comment on the shelling.
The anti-government uprising turned civil war in Syria, now in its 14th year, has killed nearly half a million people, displaced half of its prewar population of 23 million and crippled infrastructure in both government and opposition-held areas.
The conflict today is largely frozen. In June, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Assad both signalled that they are interested in restoring diplomatic ties that have been ruptured for more than a decade. Several previous reconciliation attempts did not succeed.

Topics: Syria Bashar Assad Abu Al-Zandin Aleppo

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Israel says bodies of six hostages retrieved from Gaza tunnel

(Clockwise) Nadav Popplewell, Yagev Buchshtab, Yoram Metzger and Avraham Munder. (Agencies)
(Clockwise) Nadav Popplewell, Yagev Buchshtab, Yoram Metzger and Avraham Munder. (Agencies)
Updated 20 August 2024
AFP
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Israel says bodies of six hostages retrieved from Gaza tunnel

(Clockwise) Nadav Popplewell, Yagev Buchshtab, Yoram Metzger and Avraham Munder. (Agencies)
  • Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement that the recovery of the hostages’ bodies “provides their families with necessary closure and grants eternal rest to the murdered”
Updated 20 August 2024
AFP

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had retrieved the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in Gaza’s southern area of Khan Yunis after a battle with Palestinian militants.
The hostages were Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell, Chaim Perry, previously announced dead, and Avraham Munder, whose kibbutz of Nir Oz near Gaza announced his death earlier Tuesday.
Their families had been informed following intelligence analysis, the military said in a statement, later adding that the bodies were found on Monday night in a tunnel.
“During the operation, the forces located a tunnel shaft about 10 meters (yards) deep leading to an underground tunnel route where the bodies of the hostages were found,” the military said.
“The rescue was carried out after prolonged combat in a built-up area and in multi-story buildings” against militants, some of whom were killed, it added.
Israeli officials had earlier said some of the hostages whose bodies were recovered on Tuesday died during Israeli military operations in southern Gaza.
In a statement on Tuesday night, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the six “were killed while our forces were operating in Khan Yunis.”
The exact circumstances would be investigated with the findings “presented to the families and the public,” Hagari said.

Campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement that the recovery of the hostages’ bodies “provides their families with necessary closure and grants eternal rest to the murdered.”
The forum called on the Israeli government to ensure that the remaining hostages are also returned to Israel in a negotiated deal.
“The Israeli government, with the assistance of mediators, must do everything in its power to finalize the deal currently on the table,” it said.
Mediators Egypt, Qatar and the United States have urged Israel and Hamas to agree a ceasefire deal that would help secure the release of remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli kibbutz community of Nir Oz, near the Gaza border, announced the death of Munder, 79, “in captivity in Gaza after suffering physical and mental torture for months.”
Metzger, Perry and Dancyg also hailed from Nir Oz, a community that was particularly hard hit in Hamas’s October 7 attack that triggered the war.
Palestinian militants had abducted Munder, his wife, daughter and grandson that day.
The other family members were released during a one-week truce — the only one of the war so far — in November.
Munder’s son was killed in the October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 105 are still being held hostage inside the Gaza Strip, including 34 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 40,173 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run 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.
 

 

Topics: War on Gaza Palestine Gaza US

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Death ‘the only certainty’ for Gazans, says UN official

Death ‘the only certainty’ for Gazans, says UN official
Updated 20 August 2024
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Death ‘the only certainty’ for Gazans, says UN official

Death ‘the only certainty’ for Gazans, says UN official
  • Louise Wateridge: ‘It does feel like people are waiting for death. Death seems to be the only certainty in this situation’
  • Wateridge: ‘Even a school is not anymore a safe place. It feels like you’re never more than a few blocks away from the front line now’
Updated 20 August 2024
AFP

JERUSALEM: In war-ravaged Gaza, death appears to be the “only certainty” for 2.4 million Palestinians with no way to escape Israel’s relentless bombardment, a UN official said Tuesday, recounting the growing desperation across the territory.
“It does feel like people are waiting for death. Death seems to be the only certainty in this situation,” Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, also known as UNRWA, told AFP from Gaza.
For the past two weeks, Wateridge has been in the Gaza Strip, witnessing the humanitarian crisis, fear of death and spread of disease as the war rages on.
“Nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe, absolutely nowhere is safe. It’s absolutely devastating,” Wateridge said from the Nuseirat area of central Gaza — a regular target of Israel’s aerial assaults.
Since fighting broke out in October, Israeli forces have pounded the besieged territory from the air, land and sea, reducing much of it to rubble.
Now in its eleventh month, the war has created an acute humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom have been displaced several times, running out of basic food and clean drinking water.
“We are facing unprecedented challenges when it comes to the spread of disease, when it comes to hygiene. Part of this is because of the Israeli imposed siege on the Gaza Strip,” Wateridge said.
The war began with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,173 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details of civilian and militant deaths.
Most of the dead in Gaza are women and children, according to the UN human rights office.
Tens of thousands of people have taken refuge in schools across the Gaza Strip, an increasingly regular target of Israeli missiles.
Israel’s military says these schools have been used as command and control centers by Hamas, a charge the group denies.
“Even a school is not anymore a safe place,” said Wateridge.
“It feels like you’re never more than a few blocks away from the front line now.”
Tired of reacting to the Israeli military’s “continuous” evacuation orders, more and more Gazans are reluctant to keep moving from place to place, Wateridge said.
“They feel like they’re being chased around in circles... It’s quite a lot to move in terms of the heat, young children, elderly, disabled,” she said.
Many Gazans AFP has interviewed say they no longer want to move their families, their tents and the few belongings they are still left with.
They have criticized what they describe as a lack of clarity in Israeli evacuation orders — including maps dropped from planes — and communications challenges given Gaza’s lack of regular Internet access, electricity and telecommunications coverage.
Those who are still moving say that wherever they go “there are rats, there are mice, there are scorpions, there are cockroaches,” Wateridge said, adding that insects “spread disease from shelter to shelter.”
Last week the Gaza health ministry said the territory had recorded its first polio case in 25 years.
Wateridge said that the UN was waiting for Israel’s green light to go from tent to tent and vaccinate children to prevent polio from spreading.
Though talks have been deadlocked for months, Wateridge said Gazans “always hope for a ceasefire” and “keep a close eye on the negotiations.”
In the coming days, international mediators the United States, Qatar and Egypt will hold a new round of talks in Cairo to again try to secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.

Topics: War on Gaza United Nations (UN) Louise Wateridge

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