[🇱🇧] Monitoring Israel and Lebanon War

[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.

V @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?

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Hopefully the Arab countries will be united against Israel because of Israhell's transgressions.

Saudi and UAE's relations are flourishing with Israel. Which other countries will ally against Israel which can make impact. After assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Iran is also gone on Back foot. No Islamic country has guts to mess with Israel.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

RAW operative?

R&AW is not that capable. Nobody should give credit to R & AW which it do not deserve.

 

[Saif]

Israel strikes Hezbollah bastion in Beirut

Israel conducted a wave of air strikes on the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Friday that it said targeted Hezbollah's headquarters, warning of more to come as it told civilians to leave the densely populated neighbourhood.

www.newagebd.net

Israel strikes Hezbollah bastion in Beirut
Agence France-Presse. Beirut, Lebanon 28 September, 2024, 04:50

Rescuers stand on the rubble of a builiding destroyed in an Israeli air strike in the Haret Hreik neighbourhood of Beirut's southern suburbs on September 27, 2024. | AFP Photo

Israel conducted a wave of air strikes on the south of Lebanon's capital Beirut on Friday that it said targeted Hezbollah's headquarters, warning of more to come as it told civilians to leave the densely populated neighbourhood.

Friday's strikes sent huge clouds of smoke soaring above the area and were heard across the Mediterranean city, sparking panic in the residential area that has been the Iran-backed movement's main bastion for decades.

They were by far the fiercest strikes to hit Beirut since Israel shifted its focus from the war in Gaza to Lebanon this week, pounding Hezbollah strongholds around the country and killing hundreds of people.

Hezbollah started fighting Israeli troops along the Lebanon border a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed in an address to world leaders on Friday that there would be no-let up in the battle against Hezbollah until Israel's northern border was secured.

‘Oh my God, what strikes. I felt like the building was going to collapse on top of me,’ said Abir Hammoud, a teacher in her 40s who lives in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Ahmad Ahmad, in his 60s, said he fled his house in the southern suburbs after the strikes, which he said felt ‘like an earthquake’.

Nasrallah 'fine'

A source close to Hezbollah said the strikes levelled six buildings, and according to a preliminary toll, six people were killed and 91 wounded.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the strike targeted ‘the central headquarters’ of Hezbollah in the southern suburbs of the city.

Israeli television networks reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike, though the source close to Hezbollah said he was ‘fine’.

Nasrallah enjoys cult status among his Shiite Muslim supporters, is equipped with a formidable arsenal far bigger and more modern than the national army's, and holds sway over Lebanon's institutions.

He has rarely been seen in public since his movement fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel, living in hiding to avoid assassination.

After the Beirut strikes, Hezbollah said it had fired more rockets into Israel ‘in defence of Lebanon and its people’.

The Israeli military said a Hezbollah rocket had hit a house and a car in the northern city of Safed but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Rear Admiral Hagari warned Israel would not allow Hezbollah backer Iran to use Beirut airport to transfer weapons to its ally.

He also said the military would attack ‘in a short while’ three buildings Hezbollah was using to store weapons, calling on residents to evacuate them.

‘The force of the explosions as a result of the missiles which are under the buildings may cause damage to the buildings and even their collapse,’ Hagari said.

Deadliest in a generation

The UN has repeatedly condemned the sharp escalation of violence in Lebanon.

‘We are witnessing the deadliest period in Lebanon in a generation, and many express their fear that this is just the beginning,’ the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, Imran Riza, said.

In Israel, too, many were weary of the violence.

‘It is incredibly exhausting to be in this situation. We don't really know what's going to happen, there’s talk of a ground offensive or a major operation,’ said Lital Shmuelovich, a physiotherapy student.

In New York, Netanyahu also addressed the war in Gaza, saying that Israel's military would continue to fight Hamas until it achieved ‘total victory’.

Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink of all-out war.

But despite months of mediation efforts, a Gaza ceasefire remains elusive.

Hamas's October 7 attack 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.

Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,534 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.

Change the rules

The Lebanon violence has raised fears of wider turmoil in the Middle East, with Iran-backed militants across the region vowing to keep up their fight with Israel.

Netanyahu took aim at Iran in his UN General Assembly address, saying: ‘I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you.’

He added: ‘There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that's true of the entire Middle East.’

Analysts have said Iran would try to resist being dragged into the conflict.

But following the Beirut strikes, Iran's embassy in Lebanon said: ‘This reprehensible crime... represents a dangerous escalation that changes the rules of the game.’

Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, later condemned the strikes, branding them a ‘flagrant war crime’.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes kill 92 in Lebanon in past 24 hours: ministry

Israeli strikes have killed 92 people in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said late Thursday. Overall it said 153 people were injured.

en.prothomalo.com

Israeli strikes kill 92 in Lebanon in past 24 hours: ministry
AFP
Published: 27 Sep 2024, 12: 39

This picture shows the destruction in a area targeted overnight by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon's town of Saksakiyeh, on 26 September, 2024. AFP

Israeli strikes have killed 92 people in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said late Thursday.

The ministry said in a series of statements that Israeli raids killed 40 people in towns and villages in the south, 48 in two eastern regions and four in the east of central Mount Lebanon Governorate.

Overall it said 153 people were injured.​

 

[Saif]

Israel kills Hezbollah chief in Beirut

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, the Lebanese movement said Saturday, dealing a seismic blow to the Iran-backed group that has been engaged in a year of...

www.newagebd.net

Israel kills Hezbollah chief in Beirut
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 28 September, 2024, 15:51

Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah addresses a ceremony on the eve of the tenth day of the mourning period of Muharram, which marks the day of Ashura, in a southern suburb of the capital Beirut on October 11, 2016. | AFP file photo.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, the Lebanese movement said Saturday, dealing a seismic blow to the Iran-backed group that has been engaged in a year of cross-border hostilities with Israel.

Hezbollah’s statement came after Israel’s military said it had killed Nasrallah in an air strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, in a move that could destabilise Lebanon as a whole.

Iran, which arms and finances Hezbollah, said a senior member of its Revolutionary Guard Corps was killed in the same strike.

‘Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, has joined his great, immortal martyr comrades whom he led for about 30 years,’ Hezbollah said in a statement.

It said he was killed with other group members ‘following the treacherous Zionist strike on the southern suburbs’ of Beirut.

AFP journalists heard a passer-by scream ‘Oh my God!’, and women weeping in the streets after Hezbollah announced the news.

Rarely seen in public, Nasrallah had enjoyed cult status among his Shiite Muslim supporters, and was the only man in Lebanon with the power to wage war or make peace.

‘Hassan Nasrallah is dead,’ Israeli Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani announced earlier on X.

Military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, in a televised briefing, called Nasrallah ‘one of the greatest enemies of the State of Israel of all time’ and added: ‘His elimination makes the world a safer place.’

In Tehran, posters of Nasrallah were erected bearing the slogan ‘Hezbollah is alive’.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani posted on X that Nasrallah’s ‘sacred goal will be realised in the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem), God willing’.

Earlier, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei condemned what he called Israel’s ‘short-sighted and stupid policy’, without referring to Nasrallah’s fate.

Hezbollah in Lebanon began low-intensity cross-border attacks a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas on Saturday condemned Nasrallah’s killing as a ‘cowardly terrorist act’.

Israel has shifted the focus of its operation from Gaza to Lebanon, where heavy bombing has killed more than 700 people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry, as cross-border exchanges escalated over the past week.

Most of those Lebanese deaths came on Monday, the deadliest day of violence since Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

The United Nations said around 118,000 people have been displaced.

Israel’s military said ‘most of the senior leaders of Hezbollah have been eliminated’, and added that it had hit more than 140 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since Friday night.

The military continued to pound Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold into Saturday, sending panicked families fleeing.

An AFP photographer said dozens of buildings have been destroyed.

The blasts that rocked southern Beirut late Friday were the fiercest there since Israel and Hezbollah last went to war in 2006.

In the Haret Hreik neighbourhood, an AFP photographer saw craters up to five metres (16 feet) wide.

Middle East expert James Dorsey described Friday’s attack as ‘very sophisticated’, adding it ‘demonstrates not only significant technological capacity but just how deeply Israel has penetrated Hezbollah’.

Shoshani said Saturday there was ‘still a way to go’ in Israel’s fight against Hezbollah, adding that it was believed to have ‘tens of thousands of rockets’.

Some Israelis hailed the reports of Nasrallah’s death.

‘Absolutely fantastic news, it should have been done a long time ago,’ said David Shalev in Israel’s commercial hub Tel Aviv.

He said it sent a clear message to Israel’s foes: ‘Don’t screw with us.’

After Friday’s heavy strikes, Israel issued fresh warnings for people to leave part of the densely populated southern Dahiyeh suburbs before dawn.

Hundreds of families spent the night outside, in central Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square or along the seaside boardwalk.

‘I didn’t even pack any clothes, I never thought we would leave like this and suddenly find ourselves on the streets,’ south Beirut resident Rihab Naseef, 56, told AFP.

Israel’s military also announced strikes Saturday on the Bekaa area in eastern Lebanon and on the south.

It said a surface-to-surface missile from Lebanon fell in an open area in central Israel and another was intercepted in the north.

Hezbollah claimed a rocket attack on Kabri in northern Israel, and later said it launched ‘a salvo of Fadi-3 rockets’ towards the Ramat David airbase in northern Israel, which it has targeted before.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah until the northern border with Lebanon is secured.

‘Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safe,’ he said.

Israel has raised the prospect of a ground operation against Hezbollah, prompting widespread international concern.

‘We must avoid a regional war at all costs,’ UN chief Antonio Guterres told world leaders, again appealing for a ceasefire.

Diplomats have said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to halting the fighting in Lebanon and bringing the region back from the brink.

The Lebanon violence has raised fears of a wider spillover, with Iran-backed militants across the Middle East vowing to keep fighting Israel.

Netanyahu addressed Iran in his UN General Assembly speech, saying: ‘If you strike us, we will strike you.’

He added: ‘There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach.’

Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported General Abbas Nilforoushan, deputy commander of the Guards’ operations, died in the strike that killed Nasrallah.​