Hezbollah attacks Israel with drones as fears of a widening war mount

Hezbollah attacks Israel with drones as fears of a widening war mount
Smoke billows from the site of an Israeli airstrike in the southern Lebanese village of Khiam near the border on Sept. 19, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 19 September 2024
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Hezbollah attacks Israel with drones as fears of a widening war mount

Hezbollah attacks Israel with drones as fears of a widening war mount
  • Hezbollah said early Thursday it had targeted three military positions in northern Israel near the border, two of them with drones
  • The Israeli military said the drones crashed near communities

BEIRUT: Hezbollah fired a new barrage into northern Israel on Thursday, continuing its drumbeat of exchanges with the Israeli military as fears of a greater war rise.
Hundreds of electronic devices used by Hezbollah exploded in Lebanon earlier this week, killing at least 37 people and wounding some 3,000 others.
The device explosions appeared to be the culmination of a monthslong operation by Israel to target as many Hezbollah members as possible all at once. Over two days, pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, wounding and even crippling some fighters, but also maiming civilians connected to the group’s social branches and killing at least two children.
It was unclear how the attack fit into warnings by Israeli leaders in recent weeks that they could launch a stepped-up military operation against Hezbollah, Lebanon’s strongest armed force.
The Israeli government has called it a war aim to end the Iranian-backed group’s cross-border fire in order to allow tens of thousands of Israelis to return to homes near the border.
Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.” He made no mention of the exploding devices but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying “the results are very impressive.”
Gallant said that after months of fighting Hamas in Gaza, “the center of gravity is shifting to the north by diverting resources and forces.”
Hezbollah said early Thursday it had targeted three military positions in northern Israel near the border, two of them with drones. The Israeli military said the drones crashed near communities. Hospitals reported they treated at least eight patients lightly or moderately injured. The military said early Thursday it had struck several militant sites in southern Lebanon overnight.
The volley of strikes was a signal by Hezbollah that it would continue its near daily fire, which it says is a show of support for Hamas. Israel’s 11-month-old war with Hamas in Gaza began after its militants led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Israel has responded to Hezbollah’s fire with strikes in southern Lebanon, and has struck senior figures from the group in the capital Beirut. The exchanges have killed hundreds in Lebanon and dozens in Israel and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of residents on each side of the border.
Israel and Hezbollah have repeatedly pulled back from an all-out war under heavy pressure from the United States, France and other countries.
But in their recent warnings, Israeli leaders have said they are determined to change the status quo dramatically.
Israel began moving more troops to its border with Lebanon on Wednesday as a precautionary measure, Israeli officials said. Israel’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said plans have been drawn up for additional action against Hezbollah, though media reported the government has not yet decided whether to launch a major offensive in Lebanon.
Lebanon is still reeling from the deadly device attacks of Tuesday and Wednesday.
The explosions have rattled anxious Lebanese fearing a full-scale war. The Lebanese Army said it has been locating and detonating suspicious pagers and communication devices, while the country’s civil aviation authorities banned pagers and walkie-talkies on all airplanes departing from Beirut’s international airport until further notice.
The attack was likely to severely disrupt Hezbollah’s internal communication as it scrambles to determine safe means to talk to each other. Hezbollah announced the death of five combatants Thursday, but didn’t specify if they were killed in the explosions or on the front lines.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was scheduled to speak later Thursday as the group vowed to retaliate against Israel.
The blasts went off wherever the holders of the pagers or walkie-talkies happened to be in multiple parts of Beirut and eastern and southern Lebanon — in homes and cars, grocery stores and cafes and on the street, even at a funeral for some killed in the bombings, often with family and other bystanders nearby.
Many suffered gaping wounds on their legs, abdomens and faces or were maimed in the hand. Tuesday’s pager blasts killed 12 people, including two children, and wounded some 2,300 others. The following day’s explosion killed 25 and wounded more than 600, Health Minister Firas Abiad said, giving updated figures.
Abiad told reporters that Wednesday’s injuries were more severe than the previous day as walkie-talkies that exploded were bigger than the pagers. He praised Lebanon’s hospitals, saying they had managed to deal with the flood of wounded within hours. “It was an indiscriminate attack. It was a war crime,” he said.


Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life

Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life
Updated 8 sec ago
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Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life

Gaza’s Islamic Jihad says Israeli hostage tried to take own life
DUBAI: An Israeli hostage held by Gaza’s Islamic Jihad militant group has tried to take his own life, the spokesperson for the movement’s armed wing said in a video posted on Telegram on Thursday.
One of the group’s medical teams intervened and prevented him from dying, the Al Quds Brigades spokesperson added, without going into any more detail on the hostage’s identity or current condition.
Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Militants led by Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement killed 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage in an attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies. Hamas ally Islamic Jihad also took part in the assault.
The military campaign that Israel launched in response has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians, according to health officials in the coastal enclave.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza said the hostage had tried to take his own life three days ago due to his psychological state, without going into more details.
Abu Hamza accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of setting new conditions that had led to “the failure and delay” of negotiations for the hostage’s release.
The man had been scheduled to be released with other hostages under the conditions of the first stage of an exchange deal with Israel, Abu Hamza said. He did not specify when the man had been scheduled to be released or under which deal.
Arab mediators’ efforts, backed by the United States, have so far failed to conclude a ceasefire in Gaza, under a possible deal that would also see the release of Israeli hostages in return for the freedom of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
Islamic Jihad’s armed wing had issued a decision to tighten the security and safety measures for the hostages, Abu Hamza added.
In July, Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said some Israeli hostages had tried to kill themselves after it started treating them in what it said was the same way that Israel treated Palestinian prisoners.
“We will keep treating Israeli hostages the same way Israel treats our prisoners,” Abu Hamza said at that time. Israel has dismissed accusations that it mistreats Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza
Updated 12 min 45 sec ago
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Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 16 in southern Gaza

At least 16 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday, according to medics.

One strike targeted the Hamas-run interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis, killing six people. Another airstrike hit a tent encampment in Al-Mawasi, a designated humanitarian zone for displaced civilians, killing at least 10 people, including women and children, and injuring 15 others.

Among the dead in the Al-Mawasi strike were Mahmoud Salah, Gaza's police chief, and his aide Hussam Shahwan, the head of Hamas security forces in southern Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry. The ministry condemned the attack, accusing Israel of seeking to deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

The Israeli military described the strike in Al-Mawasi as intelligence-based, targeting Shahwan but did not acknowledge Salah's death.

The Gaza health ministry reports over 45,500 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, with most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents displaced and large portions of the territory in ruins. The conflict, now in its 15th month, began after Hamas’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.


27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence

27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence
Updated 27 min 52 sec ago
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27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence

27 migrants die off Tunisia, 83 rescued, in shipwrecks: civil defence

TUNIS: Twenty-seven migrants, including women and children, died after two boats capsized off central Tunisia, with 83 people rescued, a civil defense official told AFP Thursday.
The rescued and dead passengers, who were found off the Kerkennah Islands off central Tunisia, were aiming to reach Europe and were all from sub-Saharan African countries, said Zied Sdiri, head of civil defense in the city of Sfax.


Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media

Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media
Updated 02 January 2025
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Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media

Syria forces launch security sweep in Homs city: state media
  • Syrian security forces are conducting a security sweep in the city of Homs, state media reported on Thursday

DAMASCUS: Syrian security forces are conducting a security sweep in the city of Homs, state media reported on Thursday, with a monitor saying targets include protest organizers from the Alawite minority of the former president.
“The Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the Military Operations Department, begins a wide-scale combing operation in the neighborhoods of Homs city,” state news agency SANA said quoting a security official.
The statement said the targets were “war criminals and those involved in crimes who refused to hand over their weapons and go to the settlement centers” but also “fugitives from justice, in addition to hidden ammunition and weapons.”
Since Islamist-led rebels seized power in a lightning offensive last month, the transitional government has been registering former conscripts and soldiers and asking them to hand over their weapons.
“The Ministry of Interior calls on the residents of the neighborhoods of Wadi Al-Dhahab, Akrama not to go out to the streets, remain home, and fully cooperate with our forces,” the statement said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, told AFP the two districts are majority-Alawite — the community from which ousted President Bashar Assad hails.
“The ongoing campaign aims to search for former Shabiha and those who organized or participated in the Alawite demonstrations last week, which the administration considered as incitement against” its authority, he said.
Shabiha were notorious pro-government militias tasked with helping to crush dissent under Assad.
On December 25, thousands protested in several areas of Syria after a video circulated showing an attack on an Alawite shrine in the country’s north.
AFP was unable to independently verify the footage or the date of the incident but the interior ministry said the video was “old and dates to the time of the liberation” of Aleppo in December.
Since seizing power, Syria’s new leadership has repeatedly tried to reassure minorities that they will not be harmed.
Alawites fear backlash against their community both as a religious minority and because of its long association with the Assad family.
Last week, security forces launched an operation against pro-Assad fighters in the western province of Tartus, in the Alawite heartland, state media had said, a day after 14 security personnel of the new authorities and three gunmen were killed in clashes there.


Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily

Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily
Updated 02 January 2025
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Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily

Palestinian Authority suspends broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily
  • The authority accuses the broadcaster of sowing division in the Middle East and Palestine
  • The authority says Al-Jazeera was airing 'inciting material' from Jenin camp in the West Bank

CAIRO: The Palestinian Authority suspended the broadcast of Qatar’s Al-Jazeera TV temporarily over “inciting material,” Palestinian official news agency WAFA reported on Wednesday.
A ministerial committee that includes the culture, interior and communications ministries decided to suspend the broadcaster’s operations over what they described as broadcasting “inciting material and reports that were deceiving and stirring strife” in the country.
The decision isn’t expected to be implemented in Hamas-run Gaza where the Palestinian Authority does not exercise power.
Al-Jazeera TV last week came under criticism by the Palestinian Authority over its coverage of the weeks-long standoff between Palestinian security forces and militant fighters in the Jenin camp in the occupied West Bank.
Fatah, the faction which controls the Palestinian Authority, said the broadcaster was sowing division in “our Arab homeland in general and in Palestine in particular.” It encouraged Palestinians not to cooperate with the network.
Israeli forces in September issued Al-Jazeera with a military order to shut down operations, after they raided the outlet’s bureau in the West Bank city of Ramallah.