Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut targeted in intense Israeli bombing overnight

Update Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut targeted in intense Israeli bombing overnight
Fire and smoke rise at an area targeted by an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburb on October 6, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 06 October 2024
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Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut targeted in intense Israeli bombing overnight

Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut targeted in intense Israeli bombing overnight
  • Refugee camp deep in the north hit for the first time as strikes target both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters
  • Building housing studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel also targeted 

BEIRUT: Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.

A series of strong explosions were reported near midnight after Israel’s military called on residents to evacuate areas in Beirut’s Haret Hreik and Choueifat neighborhoods. Residents were also told to evacuate buildings in the areas of Al-Kafaat, Al-Laylaki, and the Madi neighborhood.

Blasts illuminated the skyline of the densely populated southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. They followed a day of sporadic strikes and the nearly continuous buzz of reconnaissance drones.

The strong explosions began near midnight and continued into Sunday after Israel’s military urged residents to evacuate areas in Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shiite collection of suburbs on Beirut’s southern edge.

A  building near a road leading to the Rarik Hariri International Airport was among those hit, triggering violent explosions followed by a massive fire. Social media reports claimed that one of the strikes hit an oxygen tank storage facility, but this was later denied by the owner of the company Khaled Kaddouha.

A building known to house studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel was also targeted in the strikes.

Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees from the Sabra and Shatila camps, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.

A video clip posted by LBCI Lebanon News on the X platform showed chaos and confusion along the streets as people rushed for their safety.

Israel’s military confirmed it was striking targets near Beirut and said about 30 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with some intercepted.

 

Shortly thereafter, Hezbollah claimed in a statement that it successfully targeted a group of Israeli soldiers near the Manara settlement in northern Israel “with a large rocket salvo, hitting them accurately.”

On Saturday, Israel’s attack on the northern Beddawi camp killed an official with Hamas’ military wing along with his wife and two young daughters, the Palestinian militant group said. Hamas later said another military wing member was killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. The aftermath showed smashed buildings, scattered bricks and stairways to nowhere.

Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began , in addition to most of the top leadership of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah as fighting has sharply escalated.

At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes in less than two weeks. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group away from shared borders so displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, calling it a show of support for the Palestinians. Hezbollah and Israel’s military have traded fire almost daily.

Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and others. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief war in 2006. Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground clashes that Israel says have killed 440 Hezbollah fighters.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Damascus that “we are trying to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and in Lebanon.” The minister said the unnamed countries putting forward initiatives include regional states and some outside the Middle East.

Araghchi spoke a day after the supreme leader of Iran praised its recent missile strikes on Israel and said it was ready to do it again if necessary.

On Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and respond to these attacks, and it will do so.” On Lebanon, he said ”we are not done yet.”

Fleeing Lebanon on foot

Israel’s military earlier Saturday said about 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Most were intercepted, but several fell in the northern Arab town of Deir Al-Asad, where police said three people were lightly injured.

At least six people in Lebanon were killed in more than a dozen Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday, according to the Lebanese state-run National News Agency.

Nearly 375,000 people have fled from Lebanon into Syria in less than two weeks, according to a Lebanese government committee.

Associated Press journalists saw hundreds continuing to cross the Masnaa Border Crossing on foot, crunching over the rubble after Israeli airstrikes left huge craters in the road leading to it on Thursday. Much of Hezbollah’s weaponry is believed to come from Iran through Syria.

“We were on the road for two days,” said Issa Hilal, one of many Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are now heading back. “The roads were very crowded … it was very difficult. We almost died getting here.” Some children whimpered or cried.

Other displaced families now shelter alongside Beirut’s famous seaside Corniche, their wind-flapped tents just steps from luxury homes. “We don’t care if we die, but we don’t want to die at the hands of Netanyahu,” said Om Ali Mcheik.

The Israeli military said special forces were carrying out ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. It said troops dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.

More evacuation orders in Gaza

Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the Health Ministry there, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. Almost 90 percent of Gaza’s residents are displaced, amid widespread destruction.

Palestinian medical officials said Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza on Saturday killed at least nine people. One in the northern town of Beit Hanoun killed at least five, including two children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four, Awda hospital said.

Israel’s military did not have any immediate comment but has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.

An Israeli airstrike killed two children in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood, according to the civil defense first responders’ group that operates under the Hamas-run government.

Israel’s military warned Palestinians to evacuate along the strategic Netzarim corridor in central Gaza that was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal. The military told people in parts of the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps to evacuate to Muwasi, a coastal area it has designated a humanitarian zone.

It’s unclear how many Palestinians are in those areas. Israeli forces have often returned to areas in Gaza to target Hamas fighters as they regroup.


UN chief condemns ‘escalation’ between Yemen’s Houthis and Israel

UN chief condemns ‘escalation’ between Yemen’s Houthis and Israel
Updated 27 December 2024
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UN chief condemns ‘escalation’ between Yemen’s Houthis and Israel

UN chief condemns ‘escalation’ between Yemen’s Houthis and Israel

NEW YORK: The UN chief on Thursday denounced the “escalation” in hostilities between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Israel, terming strikes on the Sanaa airport “especially alarming.”
“The Secretary-General condemns the escalation between Yemen and Israel. Israeli airstrikes today on Sana’a International Airport, the Red Sea ports and power stations in Yemen are especially alarming,” said a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a statement.
Israeli air strikes pummelled Sanaa’s international airport and other targets in Yemen on Thursday, with Houthi rebel media reporting six deaths.
The attack came a day after the Houthis fired a missile and two drones at Israel.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media he was at the airport during the strike, with the UN saying that a member of its air crew was injured.
The United Nations put the death toll from the airport strikes at three, with “dozens more injured.”
UN chief Guterres expressed particular alarm at the threat that bombing transportation infrastructure posed to humanitarian aid operations in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is dependent on aid.
“The Secretary-General remains deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region and reiterates his call for all parties concerned to cease all military actions and exercise utmost restraint,” he said.
“He also warns that airstrikes on Red Sea ports and Sana’a airport pose grave risks to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people are in need of life-saving assistance.”
The UN chief condemned the Houthi rebels for “a year of escalatory actions... in the Red Sea and the region that threaten civilians, regional stability and freedom of maritime navigation.”
The Houthis are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” alliance against Israel.


Bodies of about 100 Kurdish women, children found in Iraq mass grave

Bodies of about 100 Kurdish women, children found in Iraq mass grave
Updated 27 December 2024
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Bodies of about 100 Kurdish women, children found in Iraq mass grave

Bodies of about 100 Kurdish women, children found in Iraq mass grave

TAL AL-SHAIKHIA, Iraq: Iraqi authorities are working to exhume the remains of around 100 Kurdish women and children thought to have been killed in the 1980s under former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, three officials said.
The grave was discovered in Tal Al-Shaikhia in the Muthanna province in southern Iraq, about 15-20 kilometers (10-12 miles) from the main road there, an AFP journalist said.
Specialized teams began exhuming the grave earlier this month after it was initially discovered in 2019, said Diaa Karim, the head of the Iraqi authority for mass graves, adding that it is the second such grave to be uncovered at the site.
“After removing the first layer of soil and the remains appearing clearly, it was discovered that they all belonged to women and children dressed in Kurdish springtime clothes,” Karim told AFP on Wednesday.
He added that they likely came from Kalar in the northern Sulaimaniyah province, part of what is now Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, estimating that there were “no less than 100” people buried in the grave.
Efforts to exhume all the bodies are ongoing, he said, adding that the numbers could change.
Following Iraq’s deadly war with Iran in the 1980s, Saddam’s government carried out the ruthless “Anfal Operation” between 1987 and 1988 in which it is thought to have killed around 180,000 Kurds.
Saddam was toppled in 2003 following a US-led invasion of Iraq and was hanged three years later, putting an end to Iraqi proceedings against him on charges of genocide over the Anfal campaign.
Karim said a large number of the victims found in the grave “were executed here with live shots to the head fired at short range.”
He suggested some of them may have been “buried alive” as there was no evidence of bullets in their remains.
Ahmed Qusai, the head of the excavation team for mass graves in Iraq, meanwhile pointed to “difficulties we are facing at this grave because the remains have become entangled as some of the mothers were holding their infants” when they were killed.
Durgham Kamel, part of the authority for exhuming mass graves, said another mass grave was found at the same time that they began exhuming the one at Tal Al-Shaikhia.
He said the burial site was located near the notorious Nugrat Al-Salman prison where Saddam’s authorities held dissidents.
The Iraqi government estimates that about 1.3 million people disappeared between 1980 and 1990 as a result of atrocities and other rights violations committed under Saddam.


Brother of suspected ‘terrorist’ stabs Tunisia National Guard officer

Brother of suspected ‘terrorist’ stabs Tunisia National Guard officer
Updated 27 December 2024
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Brother of suspected ‘terrorist’ stabs Tunisia National Guard officer

Brother of suspected ‘terrorist’ stabs Tunisia National Guard officer

TUNIS: The brother of a suspected “terrorist” on Thursday stabbed a Tunisian National Guard officer in the eastern Monastir governorate, a judicial source told AFP.
Earlier in the day, a National Guard unit attempted to arrest the suspect — accused by authorities of being a member of a “terrorist group” — at his home, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
During the arrest operation, his brother attacked the officer, the source added.
The source said the officer was hospitalized following the stabbing in his abdomen and was recovering after undergoing surgery.
An investigation was opened by the judicial division combatting terrorism, the source added.
Neither of the brothers, both of whom were taken into police custody, have been named, and the Tunisian interior ministry did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Tunisia saw a surge in jihadist groups after the 2011 revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Attacks claimed by jihadists in recent years have killed dozens of soldiers and police officers, as well as some civilians and foreign tourists.
Jihadist attacks in Sousse and the capital Tunis in 2015 killed dozens of tourists and police, but authorities say they have since made significant progress against extremism.


Palestinian hospital director says Israeli strike kills 5 staff in Gaza

A woman and children react at the site of an Israeli strike in a residential area in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City
A woman and children react at the site of an Israeli strike in a residential area in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City
Updated 26 December 2024
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Palestinian hospital director says Israeli strike kills 5 staff in Gaza

A woman and children react at the site of an Israeli strike in a residential area in the Tuffah neighbourhood, east of Gaza City
  • WHO has described conditions at Kamal Adwan hospital as “appalling” and said it was operating at a “minimum” level

GAZA STRIP: Five staff at one of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals were killed by an Israeli strike on Thursday, the facility’s director said, more than two months into an Israeli operation in the area.
Hossam Abu Safiya, head of the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia, said “an Israeli strike resulted in five martyrs among the hospital staff.” The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel has been pressing a major offensive in northern Gaza since October 6, saying it aims to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.
At the other end of the Palestinian territory, the chief paediatric doctor at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis said three babies had died from a “severe temperature drop” this week as winter cold sets in.
Doctor Ahmed Al-Farra said the most recent case was a three-week-old girl who was “brought to the emergency room with a severe temperature drop, which led to her death.”
A three-day-old baby and another “less than a month old” died on Tuesday, he said.
Meanwhile, in central Gaza, a Palestinian TV channel affiliated with a militant group said five of its journalists were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike on their vehicle in Gaza, with Israel’s military saying it had targeted a “terrorist cell.”
Witnesses said a missile struck the van while it was parked outside Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat.
The three-week-old girl, Sila Al-Faseeh, was living in a tent in Al-Mawasi, an area designated a humanitarian safe zone by the Israeli military that is home to huge numbers of displaced Palestinians.
“The tents do not protect from the cold, and it gets very cold at night, with no way to keep warm,” said Farra.
He said many mothers were suffering from malnutrition which affected the quality of their breast milk and compounded the risks to newborns.
Sila’s father Mahmoud Al-Faseeh said it was “extremely cold, and the tent is not suitable for living. The children are always sick.”
The United Nations and other organizations have repeatedly decried the worsening humanitarian conditions in Gaza, particularly in the north, since Israel began its latest military offensive in early October.
The World Health Organization has described conditions at Kamal Adwan hospital as “appalling” and said it was operating at a “minimum” level.
Earlier on Thursday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said that five other people had been killed by Israeli strikes during the day in the north of Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said a 35-year-old soldier was killed in the central Gaza Strip. It brings to 390 the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in the Palestinian territory.


The journalists’ employer Al-Quds Today said in a statement that a missile hit their broadcast van while it was parked in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
The channel is affiliated with Islamic Jihad, whose militants have fought alongside Hamas in the Gaza Strip and took part in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.
The station identified the five staffers as Faisal Abu Al-Qumsan, Ayman Al-Jadi, Ibrahim Al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed Al-Ladaa.
They were killed “while performing their journalistic and humanitarian duty,” the statement said.
The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” and that those killed “were Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East arm said in a statement it was “devastated by the reports.”
“Journalists are civilians and must always be protected,” it added.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said last week that more than 190 journalists had been killed and at least 400 injured since the start of the war in Gaza.
The war was triggered by the Hamas-led October 7 attack last year, which resulted in 1,208 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 45,399 people in Gaza, a majority of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.


Israeli attorney general orders probe into report that alleged Netanyahu’s wife harassed opponents

Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu, from left, his wife Sara Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog.
Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu, from left, his wife Sara Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog.
Updated 26 December 2024
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Israeli attorney general orders probe into report that alleged Netanyahu’s wife harassed opponents

Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu, from left, his wife Sara Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog.
  • Program uncovered a trove of WhatsApp messages in which Mrs. Netanyahu appears to instruct a former aide to organize protests against political opponents

JERUSALEM: Israel’s attorney general has ordered police to open an investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife on suspicion of harassing political opponents and witnesses in the Israeli leader’s corruption trial.
The Israeli Justice Ministry made the announcement in a terse message late Thursday, saying the investigation would focus on the findings of a recent report by the “Uvda” investigative program into Sara Netanyahu.
The program uncovered a trove of WhatsApp messages in which Mrs. Netanyahu appears to instruct a former aide to organize protests against political opponents and to intimidate Hadas Klein, a key witness in the trial.
The announcement did not mention Mrs. Netanyahu by name, and the Justice Ministry declined further comment.
But in a video released earlier Thursday, Netanyahu listed what he said were the many kind and charitable acts by his wife and blasted the Uvda report as “lies.”
It was the latest in a long line of legal troubles for the Netanyahus — highlighted by the prime minister's ongoing corruption trial.
Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of cases alleging he exchanged favors with powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. Netanyahu denies the charges and says he is the victim of a “witch hunt” by overzealous prosecutors, police and the media.