Hezbollah confirms that top commander was killed in Israeli strike in Beirut

Update Hezbollah confirms that top commander was killed in Israeli strike in Beirut
Residents clear the rubble in a football field facing the building that was hit a day earlier in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, on July 31, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 01 August 2024
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Hezbollah confirms that top commander was killed in Israeli strike in Beirut

Hezbollah confirms that top commander was killed in Israeli strike in Beirut
  • Hezbollah’s announcement comes after an overnight strike in Tehran that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which Hamas and Iran blamed on Israel

BEIRUT: The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has confirmed that Israel killed a top commander after a rare strike in Beirut on Tuesday.
The Iran-backed group said earlier that Fouad Shukur was in the building during the attack, and they were searching for him in the rubble to determine his fate.
Hezbollah’s announcement comes after an overnight strike in Tehran that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which Hamas and Iran blamed on Israel.
Israel said late Tuesday it had killed Shukur, who it said was behind the weekend rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 youths. The United States also blames Shukur for staging and planning a bombing of a Marine Corps barrack in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 American service members.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least five civilians — two children and three women — died in the strike in a busy neighborhood where Hezbollah has political and security operations.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged fire since Oct. 8, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel and sparked the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
On Tuesday, Israeli carried out a rare strike on Beirut, which it said killed a top Hezbollah commander who was allegedly behind a weekend rocket attack that killed 12 young people in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Hezbollah didn’t immediately confirm the commander’s death. The strike came amid escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group. An Israeli official said the target was Shukur whom the US blames for planning and launching the deadly 1983 Marine bombing in the Lebanese capital.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the details of the strike with the media. Shukur is also suspected in other strikes that killed Israeli civilians.
Though Hezbollah issued a rare denial of involvement in the rocket attack Saturday in the town of Majdal Shams, Israel is holding the militant group responsible. “Hezbollah crossed a red line,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant posted on the platform X shortly after Tuesday’s strike.
The two sides have exchanged near-daily strikes for the past 10 months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, but they have previously kept the conflict at a low level that was unlikely to escalate into full-on war.
Lebanon’s public health ministry said Tuesday’s strike wounded 74 people, some of them seriously. The wounded were taken to nearby hospitals. Bahman Hospital near the site of the blast called for blood donations.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that the strike was carried out with a drone that launched three rockets.
“The Israeli enemy has committed a great stupid act in size, timing and circumstances by targeting an entirely civilian area,” Hezbollah official Ali Ammar told Al-Manar TV. “The Israeli enemy will pay a price for this sooner or later.”
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the Israeli attack, saying it hit a few meters from one of the largest hospitals in the capital.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately release a statement, but minutes after the strike sent a photo of the prime minister with his national security adviser and other officials.
The airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb of Haret Hreik — a crowded urban neighborhood where Hezbollah has political and security operations but which is also full of small shops and apartment buildings — damaged several buildings.
It was not immediately clear if any Hezbollah official was hit, a Hezbollah official said. A Lebanese military intelligence official said they had no information when asked by The Associated Press whether a senior Hezbollah security official had escaped the airstrike.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.
The strike hit an apartment building near to a hospital, collapsing half of the targeted building and severely damaging one next to it. The hospital sustained minor damages, while the surrounding streets were littered with debris and broken glass.
A forklift was in the middle of the street, reaching to the top floors of the destroyed building, while utility crews removed fallen power lines. Crowds gathered to inspect the damage and check on their families. Some of them chanted in support of Hezbollah.
Paramedics could be seen carrying several wounded people out of the damaged buildings.
A resident of the suburb whose home is about 200 meters (yards) away said that dust from the explosion “covered everything,” and that the glass in his son’s apartment was broken.
“Then people went down on the streets,” he said. “Everyone has family. They went to check on them. It was a lot of destruction.” He spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern about his security at a tense moment.
Hassan Noureddine said he was riding his motorcycle near the building when he heard the sound of two explosions. “It looked like a strike from a drone and not a jet,” Noureddine told the AP near the site of the attack.
Despite fears of escalation and a strike in recent days, Noureddine said that he and other people he knows in the area are not fazed and that their spirits are high.
Talal Hatoum, a local official with the Shiite Amal Movement, Hezbollah’s key political ally in Lebanon, said Tuesday’s attack marked a shift in the rules of engagement in the conflict because it caused a significant number of civilian casualties.
The last time Israel targeted Beirut was in January, when an airstrike killed a top Hamas official, Saleh Arouri. That strike was the first time Israel had hit Beirut since the 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006.
Israel had been expected to retaliate for the strike in Majdal Shams, but diplomats had said in recent days that they expected the response to stay within the boundaries of the ongoing low-level conflict between Hezbollah and Israel without provoking all-out war.
Many of them had not expected that Israel would hit Beirut, which might elicit a strike by Hezbollah on a major population center in Israel.
The United Nations’ special coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, said in a statement that she was “deeply concerned” by the strike and called for “calm to prevail.”
US Vice President Kamala Harris said Israel “has the right to defend itself against the terrorist organization,” referring to Hezbollah, but added, “We still must work on a diplomatic solution to end these attacks, and we will continue to do that work.”


Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

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Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre

Lebanon says three dead in Israel strikes on Tyre
The strikes targeted three buildings in the city
Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes

BEIRUT: The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and 30 others wounded on Friday in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre.
The official National News Agency said the strikes targeted three buildings in the city and caused heavy damage to neighboring apartment blocks.
It said Israel had issued no evacuation warning ahead of the strikes.
Israel has been at war with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah since late September, when it broadened its focus from fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip to securing its northern border, even as the Gaza war continues.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.

The Lebanese health ministry said at least three people were killed and 30 others wounded on Friday in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre. (X/@SawsanaMehanna)

What We Are Reading Today: Pandemic Politics

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Updated 13 min 35 sec ago
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What We Are Reading Today: Pandemic Politics

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  • Health is not an inherently polarizing issue, but the Trump administration’s partisan response to COVID-19 led ordinary citizens to prioritize what was good for their “team” rather than what was good for their country

Author: Shana Kushner Gadarian, Sara Wallace Goodman and Tomas B. Pepinsky

COVID-19 has killed more people than any war or public health crisis in American history, but the scale and grim human toll of the pandemic were not inevitable. Pandemic Politics examines how Donald Trump politicized COVID-19, shedding new light on how his administration tied the pandemic to the president’s political fate in an election year and chose partisanship over public health, with disastrous consequences for all of us.

Health is not an inherently polarizing issue, but the Trump administration’s partisan response to COVID-19 led ordinary citizens to prioritize what was good for their “team” rather than what was good for their country.

Democrats, in turn, viewed the crisis as evidence of Trump’s indifference to public well-being. At a time when solidarity and bipartisan unity were sorely needed, Americans came to see the pandemic in partisan terms, adopting behaviors and attitudes that continue to divide us today.

 


India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce

India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce
Updated 16 min 54 sec ago
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India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce

India’s Naga separatists threaten to resume violence after decades-long truce
  • “The violent confrontation between India and Nagalim shall be purely on account of the deliberate betrayal and breach of commitment by India and its leadership to honor the letter and spirit of Framework Agreement of 2015,” he said

GUWAHATI, India: An armed separatist group in a remote northeast Indian state on Friday threatened to “resume violent armed resistance” after nearly three decades of ceasefire, accusing New Delhi of failing to honor promises in earlier agreements.
The Naga insurgency, India’s oldest, is aimed at creating a separate homeland of Nagalim that unites parts of India’s mountainous northeast with areas of neighboring Myanmar for ethnic Naga people. About 20,000 people have died in the conflict since it began in 1947.
A ceasefire between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), a leading separatist group, and Indian security forces has held since it was enforced in 1997 and the group signed an agreement with New Delhi in 2015 toward striking a resolution on their demands.

BACKGROUND

A ceasefire between the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), a leading separatist group, and Indian security forces has held since it was enforced in 1997.

But talks have stagnated since and in a statement Friday, the group’s chief, Thuingaleng Muivah, accused India of “betrayal of the letter and spirit” of the 2015 agreement.
India’s Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Muivah’s remarks.
In a statement, Muivah urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s federal government to “respect and honor” the 2015 agreement, which he said “officially recognized and acknowledged” the right to a sovereign flag and constitution for the separatists.
Muivah proposed a “third party intervention” to resolve the impasse, threatening that it would resume violence if “such a political initiative was rejected.”
“The violent confrontation between India and Nagalim shall be purely on account of the deliberate betrayal and breach of commitment by India and its leadership to honor the letter and spirit of Framework Agreement of 2015,” he said.
“India and its leadership shall be held responsible for the catastrophic and adverse situation that will arise out of the violent armed conflict between India and Nagalim,” he said.

 


Saudi Arabia’s urban planning on display at WUF

Saudi Arabia’s urban planning on display at WUF
Updated 28 min 8 sec ago
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Saudi Arabia’s urban planning on display at WUF

Saudi Arabia’s urban planning on display at WUF
  • The pavilion highlighted prominent Saudi infrastructure development initiatives, in line with international quality standards, that meet the needs of residents and visitors of Saudi cities

CAIRO: The Saudi pavilion at the World Urban Forum in Cairo this week hosted a series of workshops and bilateral meetings on the Kingdom’s strategies and projects in comprehensive urban planning.

The Saudi presence also underlined the positive effect of these strategies on achieving sustainable urban development and improving the quality of life in Saudi cities, in line with the goals of Vision 2030.

Through representatives and officials of the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and more than 30 national entities, the Saudi pavilion showed the Kingdom’s efforts to adopt and expand comprehensive urban planning practices focused on sustainability, and apply the requirement to study environmental impact in municipal and investment projects.

The meetings highlighted the concept of smart municipalities aimed at improving the quality of municipal services in Saudi regions and adopting modern technologies and enhanced municipal regulations for smart city policies, as well as the use of artificial intelligence technologies and data in improving the quality of life.

The pavilion highlighted prominent Saudi infrastructure development initiatives, in line with international quality standards, that meet the needs of residents and visitors of Saudi cities, the Saudi Press Agency reported, in addition to urban landscape development projects and visual distortion treatment projects.

 

 


Comoros arrests suspected key smuggler

Comoros Police officers and Comoros soldiers patrol in Moroni on January 17, 2024. (AFP)
Comoros Police officers and Comoros soldiers patrol in Moroni on January 17, 2024. (AFP)
Updated 31 min 57 sec ago
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Comoros arrests suspected key smuggler

Comoros Police officers and Comoros soldiers patrol in Moroni on January 17, 2024. (AFP)
  • The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that at least 25 people died after the boat was “deliberately capsized by traffickers”

MORONI, Comoros: Police in the Comoros said on Friday they had arrested the alleged leader of a smuggling network involved in the capsizing of a migrant boat that claimed around two dozen lives.
The boat sank on a well-known smuggling route between the Comoros island of Anjouan and the French Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte on Nov. 1.
“The smuggling ringleader who owned the capsized boat was arrested on Thursday in Anjouan,” Col. Tachfine Ahmed said.
“He admitted that he owned the boat and bought all the material needed for the trip,” he added, saying the 37-year-old suspect was a resident of Mayotte.
The International Organization for Migration said on Monday that at least 25 people died after the boat was “deliberately capsized by traffickers.”
The Comoros police said they knew of 17 deaths.
Fishermen rescued five survivors who said the boat was carrying around 30 people, including women and young children, the IOM said.
A survivor said the smugglers sank the vessel before fleeing on a speedboat.
Police confirmed the survivor’s account, saying the two smugglers escaped.
“We are actively looking for the two smugglers who got on another boat,” the colonel added.
In addition to homicide charges, the arrested suspect faces up to 10 years imprisonment for belonging to an organized criminal group as well as three years for illegal transport of passengers.
Anjouan is one of three islands in the nation of Comoros, located around 70 km northwest of Mayotte, which became a department of France in 2011.
Despite being France’s poorest department, Mayotte has French infrastructure and welfare, which makes it attractive to migrants from Comoros seeking a better life.
Many pay smugglers to make the dangerous sea crossing in rickety fishing boats known as “kwassa-kwassa.”