War Archive 2023 10/08 Monitoring the Israel and Lebanon War

[Saif]

Top Hezbollah commander among 14 killed in Israeli strike on Beirut

Hezbollah confirmed Aqil's death in a statement just after midnight that called him "one of its top leaders," without providing details of how he died.

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Top Hezbollah commander among 14 killed in Israeli strike on Beirut
Reuters
Beirut/Jerusalem
Published: 21 Sep 2024, 08: 47

Smoke rises from Beirut southern suburbs, Lebanon on 20 September 2024.Reuters

Israel killed a top Hezbollah commander and other senior figures in the Lebanese movement in an airstrike on Beirut on Friday, vowing to press on with a new military campaign until it is able to secure the area around the Lebanese border.

The Israeli military and a security source in Lebanon said Ibrahim Aqil had been killed with other senior members of an elite Hezbollah unit in the airstrike, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.

Hezbollah confirmed Aqil's death in a statement just after midnight that called him "one of its top leaders," without providing details of how he died.

In a later statement summarising Aqil's biography, Hezbollah said he was killed in Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh in what it called a "treacherous Israeli assassination".

Lebanon's health ministry said at least 14 people died in the strike and the toll was expected to climb as rescue teams worked through the night. It was not immediately known whether the toll included Aqil and other Hezbollah commanders.

Earlier, the ministry said at least 66 people were injured, nine of whom were in critical condition.

A second security source said at least six other Hezbollah commanders died when multiple missiles slammed into the opening of a building's garage. The explosion tore into the building's lower levels as Aqil met other commanders inside.

Witnesses reported hearing a loud whistling and several consecutive blasts at the time of the strike.

In a brief statement carried by Israeli media, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel's goals were clear and its actions spoke for themselves.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who said this week that Israel is launching a new phase of war on the northern border, posted on X: "The sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes."

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from homes on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Hezbollah began rocketing Israel in October in sympathy with Palestinians in the nearly year-old Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza.

Israel, which last fought an all-out war against Hezbollah 18 years ago, has said it will use force if necessary to ensure its citizens can return to northern Israel.

The Israeli military described Aqil as the acting commander of the Radwan special forces unit, and said it had killed him along with around 10 other senior commanders as they met. Aqil sat on Hezbollah's top military council, sources in Lebanon told Reuters.

The strike inflicted another blow on Hezbollah after two days of attacks in which pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded, killing 37 people and wounding thousands. Those attacks were widely believed to have been carried out by Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

Local broadcasters showed groups of people gathered near the site, and reported they were searching for missing people, most of them children. Drones were still flying over Beirut's southern suburbs hours after the strike.

"We are not afraid, but we want a solution. We cannot continue with the country like this," said Alain Feghali, a resident of Beirut who spoke to Reuters. "War? I don't know if it started or not, but nothing is reassuring. It is clear that the two sides will not stop."

The U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jeanine-Hennis Plasschaert, said Friday's strike in a densely populated area of Beirut's southern suburbs was part of "an extremely dangerous cycle of violence with devastating consequences. This must stop now."

The strike marked the second time in less than two months that Israel has targeted a leading Hezbollah military commander in Beirut. In July, an Israeli airstrike killed Fuad Shukr, the group's top military commander.

Aqil had a $7-million bounty on his head from the United States over his link to the deadly bombing of Marines in Lebanon in 1983, according to the U.S. State Department website.

The Israeli military said Aqil had been head of Hezbollah operations since 2004 and was responsible for a plan to launch a raid on northern Israel, similar to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that triggered the war in Gaza.

"The Hezbollah commanders we eliminated today had been planning their ‘October 7th’ on the northern border for years," Israeli army chief General Herzi Halevi said.

"We reached them, and we will reach anyone who threatens the security of Israel's citizens."

Rubble and burnt-out cars

The Israeli military reported warning sirens in northern Israel following the Beirut strike, and Israeli media reported heavy rocket fire there.

Hezbollah said it twice fired Katyusha rockets at what it described as the main intelligence headquarters in northern Israel "which is responsible for assassinations".

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said he was not aware of any Israeli notification to the United States before the Beirut strike, adding Americans were strongly urged not to travel to Lebanon, or to leave if they were there.

However he added that, "war is not inevitable ... and we're going to continue to do everything we can to try to prevent it."

The current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited by the Gaza war, has intensified significantly this week.

On Thursday night, the Israeli military carried out its most intensive airstrikes in southern Lebanon since the conflict erupted almost a year ago.

The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is the worst since they fought a war in 2006. Tens of thousands of people have had to leave homes on both sides of the border.

While the conflict has largely been contained to areas at or near the frontier, this week's escalation has heightened concerns that it could widen and further intensify.​

 

[Saif]

Israel says ‘landed blows’ on Hezbollah as Lebanon violence intensifies

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has dealt serious blows to Lebanese group Hezbollah, as rapidly escalating cross-border exchanges raised fears of an all-out war...

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Israel says ‘landed blows’ on Hezbollah as Lebanon violence intensifies
Agence France-Presse . Haifa, Israel 23 September, 2024, 00:15

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has dealt serious blows to Lebanese group Hezbollah, as rapidly escalating cross-border exchanges raised fears of an all-out war.

Netanyahu’s remarks follow a night of intense rocket fire at northern Israel that had sent hundreds of thousands of people to bomb shelters, according to the military, and caused damage in the area of Haifa, a major city.

‘No country can tolerate attacks on its citizens’, Netanyahu said in a statement nearly a year into the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and has drawn in Iran-backed groups across the region, including Hezbollah.

In his first detailed remarks since a Friday air strike on Beirut that killed Hezbollah commanders, and deadly blasts of communication devices across Lebanon earlier in the week, the prime minister said: ‘In recent days, we have landed a series of blows on Hezbollah that it could have never imagined.’

He did not directly mention the specific incidents.

‘I assure you it will get the message’, added Netanyahu, vowing to restore safety to the country’s north and allow displaced residents to return to the border area.

The overnight rocket fire reached Kiryat Bialik on the edge of north Israel’s biggest city Haifa, leaving a building in flames, another pockmarked with shrapnel, and vehicles incinerated.

‘This is not pleasant. This is war,’ said Sharon Hacmishvili, a resident of the area.

Israel has signalled its intention to turn its focus to Iran-backed Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border fire that began in October in what Hezbollah calls support for Hamas Palestinian militants fighting Israel.

An Israeli air strike on Friday killed the head of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil, in a densely-populated Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut, an attack that the Lebanese health ministry left 45 dead.

Aqil’s funeral in Beirut on Sunday is expected to draw large crowds.

The Radwan Force has spearheaded Hezbollah’s ground operations, and Israel has repeatedly called for its fighters to be pushed back from the border.

‘With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer,’ United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said on social media platform X.

The Israeli army said more than 150 rockets, missiles and drones had been fired at its territory during the night and early Sunday morning, most from Lebanon.

The military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the rocket fire and, according to spokesman Nadav Shoshani, ‘to prevent a larger-scale attack’.

Lebanon’s health ministry said three people were killed in separate Israeli strikes on southern areas, while Hezbollah announced two fighters had been killed.

Israel’s civil defence agency ordered all schools in the country’s north closed following the rocket fire.

‘It reminds me of October 7 when everybody stayed home,’ Haifa resident Patrice Wolff said, referring to the day the Hamas attack started the Gaza war.

Hezbollah said it had targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area after the communication device blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 39 and wounded almost 3,000.

‘In an initial response’ to the explosions of the pagers and two-way radios, which it blamed on Israel, Hezbollah ‘bombed the Rafael military industry complexes’ in northern Israel with ‘dozens’ of rockets, the group said.

It said it targeted Ramat David airbase with Fadi-1 and Fadi-2 rockets. The site is among the deepest inside Israeli territory so far targeted, and this appeared to be the group’s first use of that rocket type during the Gaza war.

The US State Department urged Americans in Lebanon to leave the country, and Jordan on Sunday urged its nationals to do the same.

On Saturday, an Israeli military statement said Israeli aircraft ‘struck thousands’ of rocket launchers ready to fire from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah said it targeted at least seven military positions in northern Israel and the annexed Golan Heights with rockets.

Amin Shoumer, a local official in Saksakiyeh near south Lebanon’s Sidon city, said there was a ‘heavy night of Israeli strikes’ that ‘terrified the children’ and other residents.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged that the communication device attack was an ‘unprecedented’ blow. He vowed that Israel — which has not commented on the blasts — would face retribution.

Months of near-daily exchanges have killed hundreds in Lebanon, mostly fighters, and dozens in Israel and the annexed Golan, forcing tens of thousands on both sides to flee their homes.

Netanyahu on Tuesday announced an expansion of the country’s war goals to include the return of northern Israeli residents.

International mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States have for months tried to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, which diplomats repeatedly said would help calm regional tensions.

Netanyahu’s critics in Israel have accused him of dragging out the war. Thousands again gathered in Tel Aviv Saturday night demanding a deal to free captives still held in Gaza.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,431 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has acknowledged the figures as reliable.

Civil defence rescuers in Gaza City said an Israeli strike Sunday on a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians killed at least seven people, the latest of numerous such incidents, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted Hamas militants.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli airstrikes kill 356 in Lebanon

Israel launched airstrikes against hundreds of Hezbollah targets yesterday, killing 356 people and sending tens of thousands fleeing for safety on Lebanon’s deadliest day in decades, according to authorities.

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Israeli airstrikes kill 356 in Lebanon
1,246 wounded; tens of thousands fleeing for safety

Smokes rise, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Tyre, southern Lebanon September 23, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher

Israel launched airstrikes against hundreds of Hezbollah targets yesterday, killing 356 people and sending tens of thousands fleeing for safety on Lebanon's deadliest day in decades, according to authorities.

After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since the hostilities flared last October, Israel warned people in Lebanon to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons.

Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and the like had been activated, with capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled "Israeli atrocities".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a short video statement addressed to the Lebanese people.

"Israel's war is not with you; it's with Hezbollah. For too long, Hezbollah has been using you as human shields," he said.

After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, also supported by Iran.

Israel's military said it had struck Hezbollah in Lebanon's south, east and north.

Lebanon's health ministry said 356 people had been killed, including 24 children and 42 women, and 1,246 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon's highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The Israeli air force said on X it had carried out about 650 strike missions in the past 24 hours, attacking more than 1,100 targets using more than 1,400 munitions, hitting buildings vehicles and other places where it said weapons were stored.

Hezbollah has not commented on Israeli claims that it hid weapons in houses, which Reuters could not independently verify, but it has said it does not place military infrastructure near civilians.

In response to the strikes, Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of missiles at a military base in northern Israel.

In New York, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel wanted to drag the Middle East into a full-blown war by provoking Iran to join the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

"It is Israel that seeks to create this all-out conflict," he told journalists after his arrival in New York to attend the UN General Assembly, saying the consequences of such instability would be irreversible.​

 

[Saif]

274 killed in Israeli strikes on Hezbollah

Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon on Monday killed 274 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry, in by far the deadliest cross-border escalation since...

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274 killed in Israeli strikes on Hezbollah
Agence France-Presse . Beirut, Lebanon 23 September, 2024, 23:31

A plume of flame and smoke from an Israeli air strike on the Marjayoun area in south Lebanon near the border. | AFP photo

Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon on Monday killed 274 people, according to the Lebanese health ministry, in by far the deadliest cross-border escalation since war erupted in Gaza on October 7.

The toll was ‘274 dead including 21 children and 39 women — that’s who we know about until now,’ Lebanese health minister Firass Abiad told a news conference, adding that ‘thousands of families from the targeted areas have been displaced’.

About 5,000 people had been wounded ‘in less than a week’ of Israeli attacks, he said, after Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies exploded and an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

War began when Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out the worst-ever attack on Israel, with Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups around the region drawn into the violence.

On Monday, Israel said it had hit more than 300 Hezbollah sites with dozens of strikes, while Hezbollah said it had targeted three sites in northern Israel.

World powers have implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply in recent days from Israel’s southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon.

‘We sleep and wake up to bombardment that’s what our life has become,’ said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the southern Lebanese village of Zawtar.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told people in Lebanon to avoid potential targets linked to Hezbollah as strikes would ‘go on for the near future’.

Hagari said Israel’s military ‘will engage in more extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon’.

He told civilians to ‘immediately move out of harm’s way for their own safety’.

The strikes sent hundreds of people fleeing their homes, according to Bilal Kachmar, an official in Tyre.

‘Hundreds of displaced people rushed’ to a school-turned-shelter in the southern city, he said, with many others ‘camping out in the streets’.

AFP correspondents saw rows of cars leaving the nearby city of Sidon.

The Israeli military also warned people living in the Bekaa valley, in eastern Lebanon, to flee their homes, as it announced it was ‘broadening’ the scope of its strikes.

Explosions around the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon triggered flashes of fire and sent smoke billowing into the sky.

In divided Lebanon, large parts of the south and east of the country, as well as the southern suburbs of capital city Beirut, are seen as strongholds of Hezbollah, where the group has historically wielded influence and built up services for its Shiite Muslim support base.

The education minister said schools in targeted areas would close for two days.

The official National News Agency said Lebanese had received phone messages from Israel telling them to ‘quickly evacuate’.

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, says it is acting in its near-daily battle with Israeli troops along Lebanon’s border in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel was not waiting threats to emerge but was preempting them and was acting to change the ‘security balance’ in the north.

Hezbollah’s deputy chief, Naim Qassem, said the group was in a ‘new phase, namely an open reckoning’ with Israel, and ready for ‘all military possibilities’.

They spoke after Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel caused damage in the area of Haifa, a major city on Israel’s north coast.

On Sunday morning, hundreds of thousands of people in northern Israel fled to their bomb shelters as Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets across the border.

The attack came after an Israeli air strike in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold on Friday killed its elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, along with other commanders and civilians.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, coordinated communications device blasts that Hezbollah blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000.

On Sunday, Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area with rockets as ‘an initial response’.

On Monday the group said it had again fired rockets at military sites near Haifa.

‘No country can live like this,’ said Ofer Levy, 56, a customs officer, who lives on the edge of Haifa.

Since the cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began in October, tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled their homes.

An Israeli military official, who cannot be further identified under military rules, on Monday outlined the goals of the military operation.

It seeks to ‘degrade threats’ from Hezbollah, push them back from the border, and then to destroy infrastructure built near the frontier by Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, the official said.

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nation and world powers to deter what he called Israel’s ‘plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns’.

US president Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier, said his administration was ‘going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out’.

Ahead of the annual General Assembly in New York, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned of Lebanon becoming ‘another Gaza’ and said it was ‘clear that both sides are not interested in a ceasefire’ there.

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,431 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.​

 

[Saif]

182 killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on the south killed 182 people and wounded more than 700 Monday, in the worst toll by far in nearly a year

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182 killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon
AFP
Beirut, Lebanon
Published: 23 Sep 2024, 20: 05

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following Israeli strikes, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, southern Lebanon 23 September, 2024 Reuters

Lebanon's health ministry said Israeli strikes on the south killed 182 people and wounded more than 700 Monday, in the worst toll by far in nearly a year of cross-border clashes between Hezbollah and Israel.

"Israeli enemy strikes on southern towns and villages since this morning" have killed "182 people and wounded 727 others", the health ministry said, with casualties including "children, women and paramedics".

War began when Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out the worst-ever attack on Israel, with Iran-backed groups around the region, chiefly Hezbollah, increasingly drawn into the violence.

On Monday, Israel said it had hit more than 300 Hezbollah sites with dozens of strikes, while Hezbollah said that it had targeted three sites in northern Israel.

The strikes on Lebanon, which also wounded more than 400 people according to the health ministry, were the deadliest in nearly a year of violence along the border with Israel.

"Enemy raids on southern towns and villages since this morning... killed 100 and injured more than 400," the health ministry said in a statement, adding that "children, women and paramedics" were among the dead and wounded.

World powers have implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply from Israel's southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon in recent days.

"We sleep and wake up to bombardment... That's what our life has become," said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the south Lebanon village of Zawtar.

More to come

Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told people in Lebanon to avoid potential targets linked to Hezbollah as strikes would "go on for the near future".

Hagari said Israel's military "will engage in (more) extensive and precise strikes against terror targets which have been embedded widely throughout Lebanon".

He told civilians "to immediately move out of harm's way for their own safety".

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, says it is acting in its fight along Lebanon's southern border with Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.

In divided Lebanon, large parts of the south and east of the country, as well as the southern suburbs of capital city Beirut, are seen as strongholds of Hezbollah, where the group has historically wielded influence and built up services for its Shiite Muslim support base.

'Quickly evacuate'
Residents and local media said strikes also hit the outskirts of the coastal city Tyre.

NNA said Lebanese had received phone messages from Israel telling them "to quickly evacuate".

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel has dealt "a series of blows on Hezbollah that it could have never imagined", but Israeli leaders say they want their residents to return safely to border areas.

Hezbollah's deputy chief, Naim Qassem, said the group was in a "new phase, namely an open reckoning" with Israel, and ready for "all military possibilities".

Both were speaking after Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel caused damage in the area of Haifa, a major city on Israel's north coast.

Since the cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began in October, tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled their homes.

An Israeli military official, who cannot be further identified under military rules, on Monday outlined the goals of the military operation.

It seeks to "degrade threats" from Hezbollah, push them back from the border, and then to destroy infrastructure built near the frontier by Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force, the official said.

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the UN and world powers to deter what he called Israel's "plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns".

'Wider war'
US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel's main ally and weapons supplier, said his administration was "going to do everything we can to keep a wider war from breaking out".

An Israeli air strike in Hezbollah's southern Beirut stronghold on Friday killed the Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, along with other commanders and civilians.

That followed coordinated communications device blasts on Tuesday and Wednesday that killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000. Hezbollah blamed Israel.

Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli military production facilities and an air base in the Haifa area with rockets as "an initial response" on Sunday.

On Monday the group said it had again rocketed the "Rafael defence industry complexes" near Haifa, as well as two military positions.

"No country can live like this," said Ofer Levy, 56, a customs officer, who lives on the edge of Haifa.

Hamas's 7-October attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,431 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.​

 

[Saif]

UN chief warns Lebanon on ‘brink’ as world leaders gather

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned world leaders on Tuesday that Lebanon was on ‘the brink’ as clashes escalated between Israel and Hezbollah...

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UN chief warns Lebanon on ‘brink’ as world leaders gather
Agence France-Presse . United Nations 24 September, 2024, 23:46

Antonio Guterres | AFP file photo

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres warned world leaders on Tuesday that Lebanon was on ‘the brink’ as clashes escalated between Israel and Hezbollah.

US president Joe Biden urged Israel and Hamas to finalise a months-old ceasefire proposal, telling the United Nations he was committed to ending the Gaza war.

‘Now is the time for the parties to finalise its terms,’ he said of the deal brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.

The deal will ‘bring the hostages home and secure security for Israel and Gaza free from Hamas’s grip, ease the suffering in Gaza and end this war,’ Biden told the UN General Assembly.


The gathering of dozens of world leaders, the high point of the diplomatic calendar, comes as Lebanese authorities say Israeli strikes killed 558 people — 50 of them children.

‘We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink,’ Guterres said.

The annual flurry of speeches and face-to-face diplomacy kicked off as Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati headed to New York after UN Security Council member France called for an emergency meeting on the crisis.

As the toll in Lebanon climbed and focus shifted away from the situation in Gaza, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian condemned ‘senseless and incomprehensible’ inaction by the UN against Israel.

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warned ‘we are almost in a full-fledged war.’

The United States, Israel’s closest ally, again warned against a full-blown ground invasion of Lebanon, with a senior US official promising to bring ‘concrete’ ideas for de-escalation to the UN this week.

It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon as efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, which Israel has relentlessly pounded since October 2023, have come to nothing.

Guterres cautioned against ‘the possibility of transforming Lebanon (into) another Gaza,’ calling the situation in the embattled Palestinian territory a ‘non-stop nightmare.’

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon hit back at the UN chief, calling the General Assembly debate an ‘annual charade of hypocrisy.’

‘When the UN secretary general speaks about the release of our hostages, the UN assembly is silent, but when he speaks about the suffering in Gaza, he receives thunderous applause,’ Danon said.

Since last year’s annual gathering, when Sudan’s civil war and Russia’s Ukraine invasion dominated, the world has faced an explosion of crises.

The October 7 attack by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Israel and the ensuing violence in the Middle East has exposed deep divisions in the global body.

Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group think tank said he expected many leaders to ‘warn that the UN will become irrelevant globally if it cannot help make peace.’

With Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas expected to address the General Assembly this week, there could be combustible moments.

Abbas took his seat alongside the Palestinian delegation in alphabetical order for the first time after the delegation received upgraded privileges in the assembly in May.

On Tuesday, representatives of Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Iran and Algeria are slated to take the podium to press for a Gaza ceasefire after nearly one year of war.

‘The level of impunity in the world is politically indefensible and morally intolerable,’ Guterres said in his speech to the General Assembly, adding that ‘a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to a ‘get out of jail free’ card.’

Ukraine will also be on the agenda Tuesday when president Volodymyr Zelensky addresses a UN Security Council meeting on Russia’s war on Ukraine.

‘I invite all leaders and nations to continue supporting our joint efforts for a just and peaceful future,’ Zelensky told the UN on Monday.

‘Putin has stolen much already, but he will never steal the world’s future.’

It is unclear if the grand diplomatic gathering can achieve anything for the millions mired in conflict, poverty and climate crisis globally.

‘Any real diplomacy to reduce tensions will take place behind the scenes,’ Gowan said.

‘This may be an opportunity for Western and Arab diplomats to have some quiet conversations with the Iranians about the need to stop the regional situation spinning out of control.’

Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has called for an urgent meeting of Arab leaders on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly over the crisis in Lebanon.​

 

[Saif]

Lebanese take refuge in shelters after long trips fleeing Israeli bombing

Hundreds of families woke up Tuesday morning in a hospitality training institute turned shelter in the Bir Hassan area of Beirut's southern suburbs after arduous journeys from the country's south the day before

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Lebanese take refuge in shelters after long trips fleeing Israeli bombing
AFP
Beirut, Lebanon
Published: 24 Sep 2024, 22: 52

Rescuers rush to the scene of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Abbasiyeh on 24 September, 2024 AFP

Ali Berri never imagined it would take almost 14 hours to reach Beirut from his home in south Lebanon after he and his family decided to flee heavy Israeli air strikes.

It took "from 10:00 am until midnight -- the traffic was totally jammed", said Berri, 55, who fled with his wife, son and elderly neighbour from the Tyre area on Monday.

The trip would normally take a couple of hours at most.

"We hope that the war will ease so we can return to our homes because what me and my family went through yesterday is really war," he told AFP.

Hundreds of families woke up Tuesday morning in a hospitality training institute turned shelter in the Bir Hassan area of Beirut's southern suburbs after arduous journeys from the country's south the day before.

Israeli airstrikes began pounding south Lebanon on Monday morning, sending tens of thousands fleeing their homes, according to the United Nations, while Lebanese authorities said the death toll had soared to 558, including 50 children.

An AFP photographer saw hundreds of vehicles crawling along the highway that links southern Lebanon with the capital Beirut. Many carried families with children and the elderly, along with whatever belongings they could take.

Berri, a farmer and garbage truck driver, expressed hope that "associations, the state and anyone else" would help.

"There is real suffering," he said, putting aside a bag of bread and canned food for the family.

'A year of war'

Some people "spent the night on the streets, like my sisters and my wife's sisters", he added.

It was not the first he and his family have fled their homes, but this time was different, he said.

"I was displaced for around 20 days" in 2006 when Israel and Hezbollah last went to war, he said, "but that war was short, while now it is long."

Hezbollah has been trading near daily fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war, but the violence has spiralled dramatically in the past week.

"We've had a year of war and we don't know now when it will end," Berri said.

The Bir Hassan institute is the largest of a number of educational facilities that have opened their doors in Beirut and its surroundings to receive the displaced.

AFP saw families spread across three floors of one of the institute's buildings, with people resting in some rooms, while one woman was busy cleaning dust off the ground.

Others sat near windows looking out over the building's courtyard, or in the corners of long dark corridors.

Many appeared exhausted and refused to speak to journalists.

"The bombing intensified on Monday... everyone was leaving," said Abbas Mohammed, a football coach from the southern village of Harouf, as his young daughter played nearby.

Hopes to return

"After they bombed a place nearby we decided to do the same thing and we had no choice except to get on the motorbike with my wife and daughter," he told AFP, adding that the trip took seven hours.

Dozens of meals and bottles of water began to arrive, with scouts and volunteers from the Amal movement, a Hezbollah ally, handing them out to families.

Rami Najem, an Amal media official who is also with the group's emergency committee, was watching as people registered the names and needs of the displaced.

"Around 6,000 people came to this centre between 6:00 pm last night and 6:00 am this morning," he told AFP.

The displaced, some of whom had simply gathered in the streets or squares, were being distributed across several centres and given mattresses, said Najem, adding that the needs were enormous.

He described "basic needs just so people can sit down and sleep -- like pillows, blankets, medicine, babies' milk, nappies, food and water".

Zeinab Diab, 32, from the Nabatiyeh area, said she fled with her husband and four children, the youngest of whom is under a year old, from the village of Ebba "for the children's sake".

"Almost all the village was damaged, we didn't know where the bombing was coming from. We feel as if they are more brutal this time," she said, referring to the Israeli military.

"I hope at this moment to return to my village even if my home is flattened. I'll live in a tent, it's better than being displaced," she said.

"When you leave your home, you feel as if you are leaving your soul."​

 

[Saif]

Israeli airstrikes kill nearly 500 in Lebanon

Israel's military said it launched airstrikes against Hezbollah sites in Lebanon on Monday, which Lebanese authorities said had killed 492 people

en.prothomalo.com

Israeli airstrikes kill nearly 500 in Lebanon
Reuters
Jerusalem/Beirut
Published: 24 Sep 2024, 08: 59

Smokes rise, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Tyre, southern Lebanon on 23 September 2024. Reuters

Israel's military said it launched airstrikes against Hezbollah sites in Lebanon on Monday, which Lebanese authorities said had killed 492 people and sent tens of thousands fleeing for safety in the country's deadliest day in decades.

After some of the heaviest cross-border exchanges of fire since hostilities flared in October, Israel warned people in Lebanon to evacuate areas where it said the armed movement was storing weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a short video statement addressed to the Lebanese people.

"Israel's war is not with you, it's with Hezbollah. For too long Hezbollah has been using you as human shields," he said.

Families from south Lebanon loaded cars, vans and trucks with belongings and people, sometimes multiple generations in one vehicle. As bombs rained down, children crammed onto parents' laps and suitcases were tied to car roofs.

Highways north were gridlocked. "I grabbed all the important papers and we got out. Strikes all around us. It was terrifying," said Abed Afou, who was with his family, including three sons aged 6 to 13 and several other relatives. They sat in traffic as it crawled north.

They did not know where they would stay, he said, but just wanted to reach Beirut.

Some people escaped on foot. People carrying small bundles of belongings trekked northward on the beach near the Lebanese town of Tyre.

Nasser Yassin, the Lebanese minister coordinating the crisis response, told Reuters 89 temporary shelters in schools and other facilities had been activated, with capacity for more than 26,000 people as civilians fled "Israeli atrocities".

After almost a year of war against Hamas in Gaza on its southern border, Israel is shifting its focus to the northern frontier, where Iran-backed Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas, also backed by Iran.

Israel's military said it struck Hezbollah in Lebanon's south, east and north, including "launchers, command posts and terrorist infrastructure." The Israeli Air Force struck approximately 1,600 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, it said.

Lebanon's health ministry said at least 492 people had been killed, including 35 children, and 1,645 wounded. One Lebanese official said it was Lebanon's highest daily death toll from violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The fighting has raised fears that the U.S., Israel's close ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war.

Saudi Arabia expressed deep concern on Monday and urged all parties to exercise restraint, state news agency SPA reported.

A senior U.S. State Department official said the United States does not support a cross-border escalation between Israel and Hezbollah and that Washington was going to discuss "concrete ideas" with allies and partners to prevent the war from broadening.

Israeli officials have said the recent uptick in airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon is designed to force the Iran-aligned group to agree to a diplomatic solution.

The U.S. official, briefing reporters in New York on condition of anonymity, pushed back on the Israeli position, saying the Biden administration was focused on "reducing tensions ... and breaking the cycle of strike-counterstrike."

Conflict 'peak'

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Monday marked a "significant peak" in the nearly year-long conflict.

"On this day we have taken out of order tens of thousands of rockets and precise munition. What Hezbollah has built over a period of 20 years since the second Lebanon War is in fact being destroyed by the IDF," he said in a statement, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

On Monday evening Israel launched a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs aimed at senior Hezbollah leader Ali Karaki, the head of the southern front. Hezbollah later said he was safe and had moved to a secure location.

But Hamas' armed wing said its field commander in southern Lebanon, Mahmoud al Nader, was killed in an Israeli air strike.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement that Israeli strikes had hit long-range cruise missiles, heavyweight rockets, short-range rockets and explosive drones.

In response, Hezbollah said it launched dozens of missiles at a military base in northern Israel.

Sirens warning of Hezbollah rocket fire sounded across northern Israel, including in the port city of Haifa, and in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, the military said.

About 60,000 people have been evacuated from northern Israel because of the cross-border fighting. Gallant said the campaign would continue until the residents had returned to their homes. Hezbollah for its part has vowed to fight until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

Hagari said Hezbollah put weaponry "inside Lebanese villages and civilian homes, and intended to fire them toward civilians in Israel while endangering the Lebanese civilian population."

Hezbollah has not commented on the assertion that it has hidden weapons in houses, which Reuters could not independently verify, but it has said it does not place military infrastructure near civilians.

The strikes have redoubled the pressure on the group, which last week suffered heavy losses when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members exploded.

The operation was widely blamed on Israel, which has not confirmed nor denied responsibility.

In New York, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel wanted to drag the Middle East into a full-blown war by provoking Iran to join the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

"It is Israel that seeks to create this all-out conflict," he told journalists after his arrival in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly, saying the consequences of such instability would be irreversible.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Gents, Gaza is gone and now Israel is being demolished by Iran. If the US don't pull Iran onto its side by shoving trillions down their throat, Israel's history!

Barely 7 million Israeli's pitted against 200 million Shia's. US has no leadership nor diplomacy to try to resolve this situation.

You all know the outcome here. Iran's already told all the 200k Persian Jews in Israel to come back home ASAP.

What to do now?

@Vsdoc

 

[Vsdoc]

Gents, Gaza is gone and now Israel is being demolished by Iran. If the US don't pull Iran onto its side by shoving trillions down their throat, Israel's history!

Barely 7 million Israeli's pitted against 200 million Shia's. US has no leadership nor diplomacy to try to resolve this situation.

You all know the outcome here. Iran's already told all the 200k Persian Jews in Israel to come back home ASAP.

What to do now?

@Vsdoc

I think my reply on the other thread fits this one as well.

Issue is 200 million Shia still are outnumbered heavily by Sunni military powers in the ME itself. And I am not counting Pakistan here.

The Iranians know that the war against the Jews is just the precursor of the real war to come.

Payback for Al Qadisiya. Its hardwired into our DNA.

 

[Lulldapull]

I think my reply on the other thread fits this one as well.

Issue is 200 million Shia still are outnumbered heavily by Sunni military powers in the ME itself. And I am not counting Pakistan here.

The Iranians know that the war against the Jews is just the precursor of the real war to come.

Payback for Al Qadisiya. Its hardwired into our DNA.

What Qadisiya doc? The poor sunni are already decimated. They can’t breathe in da Sy-Raaq nor Lebanon nor Yemen. Sawdi Judea or the GCC can’t hold a candle to the power of Iran. Now these cunning irani’s have absolutely fukked Israel up big time just by moving their puppets.

This is becoming a joke. Pakistan bichara ghareeb is isolated. Turkey is bankrupt.

There ain’t nothing nor anybody left in front of Iran to control them.

US don’t wanna do jack shiit either and I totally understand their position. No American wanna die for jhoottay Semitic causes.

I hope Iran moderates itself and does not dismantle any more countries vurna bohot bura ho ga.

Millions of ghareeb will die for nothing. 90% irani’s are totally secular and they should moderate Irans imperialism ASAP.

That guy Immortal is in Tehran right now and he said it that nobody wearing hijab in Tehran or Isfahan or Shiraz or Tabriz…..morality police totally disbanded by this Pezeshkian implant.

Irani’s not religious at all bhai. These guys are all extreme Persian nationalists.

Chuunu munnu Israel they’re messing up just outta one upmanship/ arrogance.

The US has no leadership left to be able to pull Iran aside and award them the title of king of Middle East, annd put Israel under their protection, otherwise it’s pretty much already official.

 

[Saif]

Refrain from full-scale war

World leaders lined up at the United Nations on Tuesday to call on Israel to refrain from a full-scale war in Lebanon, with the organization’s chief warning the situation was on the “brink.”

www.thedailystar.net

Refrain from full-scale war
World leaders call on Israel at UN General Assembly

World leaders lined up at the United Nations on Tuesday to call on Israel to refrain from a full-scale war in Lebanon, with the organization's chief warning the situation was on the "brink."

The UN General Assembly, the high point of the international diplomatic calendar, comes after Lebanese authorities said Israeli strikes had killed 558 people -- 50 of them children.

"Full-scale war is not in anyone's interest. Even though the situation has escalated, a diplomatic solution is still possible," US President Joe Biden said in his farewell address to the global body.

Biden's remarks drew disappointment from Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdullah Bou Habib who said they were "not promising" and "would not solve the Lebanese problem," as he estimated that the number of people displaced by Israel's strikes has likely soared to reach half a million.

"We should all be alarmed by the escalation. Lebanon is at the brink," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said when he opened the gathering.

Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said his country was "not eager" for a ground invasion of Lebanon. "We don't want to send our boys to fight in a foreign country," he said.

It is unclear what progress can be made to defuse the situation in Lebanon, with efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza -- which Israel has relentlessly pounded since October 2023 -- coming to nothing.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of dragging the entire region "into war."

"Not only children but also the UN system is dying in Gaza," Erdogan said in a scathing speech.

European Council President Charles Michel said that Israel had the right to exist and defend itself but without inflicting "collective punishment" on civilians living in areas targeted by its military.

President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran -- which backs Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza -- condemned "senseless and incomprehensible" inaction by the UN against Israel.

British Foreign Minister David Lammy also sounded the alarm over the escalating violence in Lebanon.

"I am very worried about the risk of escalation, and this breaking into a wider regional conflict," he told AFP as Britain announced it was deploying military units to Cyprus to assist with any evacuation of its citizens from Lebanon.

Responding to criticism of Israel, Danon called the General Assembly debate an "annual charade of hypocrisy."

Since last year's annual gathering, when Sudan's civil war and Russia's Ukraine invasion dominated, the world has faced an explosion of crises.

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas took his seat alongside the Palestinian delegation, placed in alphabetical order in the General Assembly for the first time on Tuesday after the delegation received upgraded privileges in May.

At the rostrum, Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday ruled out the forced displacement by Israel of Palestinians to his country, which he said would be a "war crime."​

 

[Saif]

Israeli warplanes hit Lebanon again as Hezbollah takes aim at Tel Aviv

Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday and shot down a missile that the armed group Hezbollah said it had fired at the Mossad spy agency near Tel Aviv, ratcheting up the conflict between the two arch-foes. The Iran-backed Hezbollah claimed to have targeted the Mossad headqua

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israeli warplanes hit Lebanon again as Hezbollah takes aim at Tel Aviv
REUTERS
Published :
Sep 25, 2024 22:02
Updated :
Sep 25, 2024 22:02

Firefighter plane dropping fire retardant on burning trees as it flies through smoke, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in northern Israel, on Wednesday -Reuters photo

Israel widened its airstrikes in Lebanon on Wednesday and shot down a missile that the armed group Hezbollah said it had fired at the Mossad spy agency near Tel Aviv, ratcheting up the conflict between the two arch-foes.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah claimed to have targeted the Mossad headquarters with what it described as a ballistic missile - the first time in nearly a year of warfare that Tel Aviv, in central Israel, has been so threatened.

World leaders meanwhile expressed concern that the conflict - running in parallel to Israel's war in Gaza against Hamas - was rapidly intensifying as the death toll in Lebanon rose and thousands of people fled their homes.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington and its allies were working tirelessly to avoid a full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah.

"Risk of escalation in the region is acute..The best answer is diplomacy, and our coordinated efforts are vital to preventing further escalation," Blinken said at a meeting with Gulf Arab state officials and ministers in New York.

Israeli airstrikes this week have targeted Hezbollah leaders and hit hundreds of sites deep inside Lebanon while the group has fired barrages of rockets into Israel.

Wednesday morning's Hezbollah strike was the first time since the war broke out last October that one of its missiles had been sighted above Tel Aviv - Israel's commercial hub and seen as a target with the potential to trigger an escalation in Israeli action.

The head of Israel's northern command, Major General Ori Gordin, had told troops on Tuesday their country had entered a new phase of its campaign and must be prepared for action, though it was not clear if his remarks were a reference to a possible ground incursion into southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military said on Wednesday it was calling up two additional reserve brigades to the northern border to carry out operational activities.

"This will enable the continuation of combat against the Hezbollah terrorist organization, the defence of the State of Israel, and create the conditions to enable the residents of northern Israel to return to their homes," it said in a statement.

DEADLIEST DAY

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have fled their homes and hospitals have filled with the wounded since an intensification of bombing on Monday, when more than 550 people were killed in Lebanon's deadliest day since the end of a 1975-1990 civil war.

There was no let up on Wednesday. Israel said its warplanes were carrying out extensive strikes in south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold further north.

Hezbollah said in a statement it had fired a ballistic missile targeting Mossad headquarters "in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip...and in defence of Lebanon and its people".

Reuters could not independently confirm the type of rocket fired.

Israeli spokesman Nadav Shoshani said he could not confirm what Hezbollah's target was when it fired the missile from a village in Lebanon.

"The result was a heavy missile, going towards Tel Aviv, towards civilian areas in Tel Aviv. The Mossad headquarters is not in that area," he said.

Israeli officials said the missile fired at Tel Aviv was shot down with a David's Sling missile, a surface-to-air missile designed to destroy tactical ballistic missiles at low altitude.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the United States was deeply concerned by the reports of a rocket attack aimed at Mossad, but it still believed a diplomatic solution could be found to ease the violence.

Hezbollah blamed Mossad for assassinations of its leaders.

It has also accused the spy agency of carrying out an operation last week in which booby-trapped pagers and radios of Hezbollah members exploded, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 3,000. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

At least 51 people were killed and at least 223 wounded in Israeli strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday at five different locations, the Lebanese health minister said.

EXPANDED TARGETS

Israel has expanded the zones it has been striking since Tuesday night, with attacks for the first time on the beach resort town of Jiyyeh just south of Beirut and Maaysrah.

The strikes also took place in Bint Jbeil, Tebnin and Ain Qana in the south, the village of Joun in the Chouf district near the southern city of Sidon, and Maaysrah in northern Keserwan district.

As many as half a million people may have been displaced in Lebanon, its foreign minister said. In Beirut, thousands of displaced people who fled from southern Lebanon were sheltering in schools and other buildings.

More than 60 people were evacuated by the Lebanese Army early on Wednesday from the Christian town of Alma Chaab, along the border with Israel, following strikes overnight.

"At least two houses were completely destroyed but thankfully they were empty and we had no deaths," said Milad Eid, a resident.

Israeli authorities said the Galilee region of northern Israel was hit by heavy Hezbollah barrages on Wednesday morning.

In the Israeli town of Safed, an assisted living facility was hit but no injuries were reported, the authorities said.

SOLIDARITY WITH HAMAS

Near-daily exchanges of fire in the Israel-Lebanon border area started after war broke out last October between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Israel's southern border, with Hezbollah saying it was acting in solidarity with its ally Hamas.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from their homes near the border, and the government has made their safe return an aim of the war, setting the stage for a long conflict. Hezbollah has said it will not back down until the Gaza war ends.​

 

[Saif]

Israel rejects truce proposal from US

Israel yesterday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, defying its biggest ally the US and pressing ahead with strikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of an all-out regional war.

www.thedailystar.net

Israel rejects truce proposal from US
Vows to keep fighting Hezbollah ‘until victory’; 28 more killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon

Smoke billows over southern Lebanon following an Israeli strike amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Tyre, Lebanon yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Israel yesterday rejected global calls for a ceasefire with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, defying its biggest ally the US and pressing ahead with strikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of an all-out regional war.

An Israeli warplane struck the edges of the capital Beirut, killing two people and wounding 15, including a woman in critical condition, Lebanon's health ministry said. That took deaths from hits overnight and during yesterday to 28.

The strike killed the head of one of Hezbollah's air force units, Mohammad Surur, two security sources said.

Smoke was seen rising after the hit near an area where several Hezbollah facilities are located and many civilians also live and work. Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV broadcast images of a damaged upper floor of a building.

On the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, the army staged an exercise simulating a ground invasion - a potential next stage after relentless airstrikes and explosions of communications devices.

Israel has vowed to secure its north and return thousands of citizens to communities there who have evacuated since Hezbollah launched a campaign of cross-border strikes last year in solidarity with Palestinian groups fighting in Gaza.

"There will be no ceasefire in the north," Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X. "We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents."

Those comments dashed hopes for a swift settlement after Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose government includes Hezbollah elements, had expressed hope for a ceasefire.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, heading to New York to address the United Nations, said he had not yet given his response to the truce proposal but had instructed the army to fight on. Hardliners in his government said Israel should reject any truce and keep hitting Hezbollah.

Israeli airstrikes overnight hit around 75 Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon, including weapons storage facilities and ready-to-fire launchers.

The Israeli military said dozens of Hezbollah targets were attacked, including terrorists, military buildings and weapons depots, in several areas yesterday morning.

Around 45 projectiles were fired from Lebanon towards the western Galilee area, some of which were intercepted with the rest falling on open ground, said the Israeli military.

The relentless fighting has led some neighbouring countries to worry about the safety of their citizens living in Lebanon. Turkey is making preparations for the possible evacuation of its citizens and foreign nationals from Lebanon, a Turkish defence ministry source said yesterday.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Iran can keep up the pressure on Israel till the cows come home. The issue now is that since Irans brought the war inside Israel, sitting comfortably 1200 kms away, the west will try to bribe Iran by shoving money down their gob!

This is inevitable as a ruse to try to convince Iran to drop the hatchet.

All other Muslim countries just watching the show and commenting like strangers to the situation.

Most of these guys are bewildered and disturbed by the events as evident from the comments of our migrants on the other forum.

Pakistani bicharon ko to kuchh ne samajh aa ra on what to even say….

I bet money most of the Muslim countries are worried about their own futures now on what might happen to all the toady put into power by the west and totally dependent on western life support.

Irans a serious threat to the global order. Small time puppu China is observing and learning.

To me and my observation there’s not one weapon in the Chinese arsenal that will work against the western juggernaut. Not one! And worse yet Russian military industrial complex has been humiliated big time in Ukraine. Russians have used and spent everything they had on Ukraine and barely have the edge. Russian arsenals are empty. Putin has used everything he had, except his worthless nukes.

@Vsdoc

 

[Saif]

Israel vows to keep fighting Hezbollah ‘until victory’

Israel flatly rejected on Thursday a push led by key backer the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, as it vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants ‘until victory’.

www.newagebd.net

Israel vows to keep fighting Hezbollah ‘until victory’
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 27 September, 2024, 01:05

People check the destruction in an area targeted overnight by Israeli airstrikes in el-Karak in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, on Thursday. | AFP photo

Israel flatly rejected on Thursday a push led by key backer the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, as it vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants ‘until victory’.

Israeli aerial bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed hundreds of people this week, while the militant group has hit back with barrages of rockets.

‘There will be no ceasefire in the north. We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,’ Katz said in a post on social media platform X.

Moments earlier, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying he had ‘not even responded’ to the truce proposal, and that he had ordered the military ‘to continue the fighting with full force’.

The United States, France and other allies issued a joint statement calling for a 21-day halt in the fighting, with president Joe Biden, his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and other allies meeting on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The situation in Lebanon has become ‘intolerable’ and ‘is in nobody’s interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon,’ the statement said.

On the ground, there was no let-up in the violence.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had struck ‘approximately 75 terror targets’ in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and the south, both Hezbollah bastions that have seen a huge exodus people fleeing their homes in recent days.

One strike near the ancient city of Baalbek killed at least nine people, Lebanon’s health ministry said, as the official National News Agency described the overnight bombing of the area as ‘the most violent’ of recent days.

‘It was indescribable, it was one of the worst nights we’ve lived through. You think there’s just a second between life and death,’ said Fadia Rafic Yaghi, 70, who owns a shop in Baalbek.

The Israeli military also said around 45 rockets had been fired from Lebanon, adding that some had been intercepted while others had landed in unpopulated areas.

Hezbollah said that it had targeted defence industry complexes near the city of Haifa in northern Israel, saying it was ‘defending Lebanon and its people’, after rocketing the same complex previously this week.

Israel earlier this month said it was shifting its focus from Gaza, where it has been fighting a war with Hamas since the October 7 attack, to securing its border with Lebanon.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has been fighting Israeli troops across the Lebanon border since October, forcing tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.

Netanyahu announced earlier this month that ensuring the safe return of Israelis to their homes in the north was a priority.

He delayed his departure for New York until Thursday, where he is due to address the General Assembly.

On Wednesday, Israel’s army chief told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive against Hezbollah, as two reserve brigades were called up ‘for operational missions in the northern arena’.

‘We are attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah,’ Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said.

For many on both sides of the border, the violence has sparked bitter memories of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

According to the UN, Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has forced 90,000 people to flee their homes in traditional Hezbollah strongholds to safer areas elsewhere in the tiny Mediterranean country.

Hezbollah had on Wednesday said it targeted Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters on Tel Aviv’s outskirts — the first time it has claimed a ballistic missile firing in almost a year of cross-border clashes sparked by the Gaza war.

Tel Aviv resident Hedva Fadlon, 61, said: ‘The situation is difficult. We feel the pressure and the tension. I don’t think anyone in the world would like to live like this.’

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said the Middle East was facing a ‘full-scale catastrophe’ and warned Tehran would back Lebanon by ‘all means’ if Israel escalated its offensive.

The Israeli military said Wednesday it had hit more than 2,000 Hezbollah targets over the previous three days, including 60 Hezbollah intelligence sites.

Israeli strikes killed at least 558 people on Monday — by far the deadliest day of violence in Lebanon not just in the latest escalation, but since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Israel’s bombardment on Wednesday killed another 72 people and wounded 400 more, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Prior to the current escalation, diplomats had said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to calming regional tensions, including in Lebanon.

But Qatar, a key broker in the stalled talks to end the Gaza war, said it was unaware of a ‘direct link’ between the two.

‘I’m not aware of a direct link, but obviously both mediations are hugely overlapping when you are talking about the same parties, for the most part, that are taking part,’ foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.​

 

[Lulldapull]

Look at this pathetic display of Indian sucking up. This has sweet fukk all to do with religion or indoctrination nor rhetoric. Hard to believe how brainwashed Indian intellectuals are? If anybody here observes this Indian fella's toady behavior, it gives us all an insight on how Indians just accept the status quo and refuse to stand up for themselves no? is this colonial legacy? It also tells us that India is not a nation. It's a colonized continent with a million different nationalities living over there with no coherence other than capitalism. 0.0000001% multi billionaires running the narrative and their economy. Pakistani elite also same same:

 

[PakistanProud]

 

[PakistanProud]

 

[Lulldapull]

RAW operative?