[🇧🇩] Monitoring Israel and Lebanon War

[Lulldapull]

The issue here is the incessant backing of Israel by the west against Iran. Iran will not relent and fight the west for its share and take. This ain’t no religious war by any stretch of the imagination. Irani mulla are hardcore Persian nationalists.

It’s Iran vs the west for the control of the region. Plain n simple.

We need to watch out for which country next Iran will take over now. Is it Sudan? Or is it Ethiopia? Or is it Bahrain? Or is it goin be Afghanistan?

 

[Saif]

Several Bangladeshis missing, hurt in Lebanon

Several Bangladesh nationals living in Lebanon reportedly remained missing while many others became injured as Israel continued attacks on the East Asian country...

www.newagebd.net

Several Bangladeshis missing, hurt in Lebanon
Rashad Ahamad 29 September, 2024, 23:48

Several Bangladesh nationals living in Lebanon reportedly remained missing while many others became injured as Israel continued attacks on the East Asian country that killed hundreds of people and compelled millions to flee their homes amid air strikes that were intensified since September 23.

The panicked migrants who left the high-risk zones and took shelter on roads, mosques, makeshift centres, and other open spaces were passing inhuman life amid the crisis for food and drinking water.

Stranded migrants complained that they were not getting any support from the Bangladesh embassy in Beirut though the embassy, in an emergency notice, asked them to contact over the phone.

Shahriar Ashik Joy, son-in-law of a Lebanon migrant Razia Sultana, said that Razia remained missing since Friday.

He said that Razia, a resident of Hularhat in Pirojpur, migrated from Bangladesh 20 years ago and lastly lived in Dahieh.

‘On Friday morning, she talked to me but we could not reach her after that time. I heard from many that Dahieh area was demolished by airstrikes,’ he said and added that that they were not sure about what exactly happened to Razia.

He said that Delwar Hossain from Noakhali, now a hotel worker in the Navatia area in Beirut, also remained missing for the past seven days.

Emran Hossain Shovan, a Bangladeshi migrant in Lebanon, said that he had left the Dahieh area and taken shelter in a centre located five kilometres away from his place of living.

He said that his friend Shahab Uddin, who had been living near Beirut, also remained missing.

Md Firuz Dakua, another Bangladeshi migrant in Lebanon and the president of Probashi Odhikar Parishad in Lebanon, said that relatives of many migrants alleged that their relatives remained missing in Lebanon while some others sustained injuries in the strikes.

He said that at least five critically injured Bangladeshi workers were undergoing treatment at a local hospital though taking treatment in Lebanon was a challenging issue now.

Migrants said that Rehana Begum from Narsingdi and Abdul Mottalib from Feni were undergoing treatment at Hadat Central Hospital since they were injured in an attack on Friday.

Migrant workers said that there was no report of the death of Bangladeshi migrants so far.

They alleged that the embassy in Beirut remained uncaring about the humanitarian crisis of the migrants.

They, however, said that some humanitarian organisations and individuals came forward to help the affected people.

They demanded to the embassy to evaluate the situation like some other countries that had already relocated their workers to safe zones.

Neither the Bangladesh ambassador to Lebanon nor the first secretary (labour) there could be reached for comments over the telephone.

However, ambassador Javed Tanveer Khan in a video message on early Sunday asked Bangladeshi migrants to contact them over the embassy’s helpline and hotline numbers for any sort of help.

He said that the embassy informed the current situation to their Dhaka office and was trying to stand by the migrants.

He advised Bangladeshis staying there to stand by others and face the situation with courage and patience.

The south and east parts of Beirut are the most unrest areas and the authorities asked migrants to take shelter at safe zones.

The Bangladesh embassy in Beirut on Friday, in an emergency notice, advised the Bangladeshis in Lebanon to stay in safe areas.

‘In the given situation, the Bangladeshis who are still living in Dahieh or adjacent areas are advised to leave the area for northern Beirut or any other safe area,’ the notice said.

The embassy opened emergency phone numbers and asked Bangladeshi migrants to call for support. The phone numbers are 71217139 (embassy’s front desk), 70635278 (hotline), 81744207 (helpline). They were also asked to communicate through the Beirut mission’s email ‘mailto: Beirut.mission@mofa.gov.bd’.

The migrants, however, alleged that nobody in the embassy responded to their calls over the telephone.

According to the media reports, at least 700 people, including dozens of children, were killed since Israel intensified a bombing campaign in Lebanon on September 23.

It is estimated that over one lakh people now work in Lebanon, mostly in garment factories, hotels, hospitals and households.

According to Bangladesh’s Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training statistics, at least 267,364 Bangladeshis migrated to the country since 2002. Of them, 61,786 migrated since 2015.

Migrants estimated that over one lakh people were now working in the West Asian country.​

 

[Saif]

Is Hezbollah losing the war against Israel?

Dispelling speculations the Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group, Hezbollah, has admitted that their supreme leader Hassan Nasrallah has been killed in Friday evening in a massive Israeli air attack in Southern Beirut. Israeli Defence Force (IDF) also claimed that in the same airstrike it killed A

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Is Hezbollah losing the war against Israel?
SYED FATTAHUL ALIM
Published :
Sep 29, 2024 21:32
Updated :
Sep 29, 2024 21:32

Dispelling speculations the Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group, Hezbollah, has admitted that their supreme leader Hassan Nasrallah has been killed in Friday evening in a massive Israeli air attack in Southern Beirut. Israeli Defence Force (IDF) also claimed that in the same airstrike it killed Ali Karki, commander of Hezbollah's southern front as well as other Hezbollah commanders. Meanwhile, other senior Hezbollah leaders have been killed in Israeli attacks. With the death of Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah as a political party, virtually the group's top leadership has been decimated. Definitely it's a huge blow to Hezbollah as it is now facing a leadership vacuum and the remaining leadership is perhaps in disarray. With Hezbollah thus put on the back foot, it's definitely a turning point for Israel, which saw no significant success in its war against Palestinian resistance led by the Hamas militants in Gaza. For Hezbollah it is obviously an hour of reckoning when Israel is mercilessly continuing its bombing campaign against it in Lebanon.

The Iran-backed anti-Israel resistant group, a formidable military force of the region, has suffered a series of reversals over a fortnight. September 17's explosions of pagers and other radio devices had already hit Hezbollah hard, a fact Hassan Nasrallah himself acknowledged in his speech after the incident as saying that it dealt a severe blow to the organisation. The pager attacks obviously disrupted the internal communication network of the militant group. Though the present leadership of the organisation has expressed its defiance and determination to continue the fight against Israel to support its comrades, the Hamas fighters in Gaza, question remains about the morale, quality of leadership and level of coordination within the organisation. The pager attacks followed by serial assassination of other senior Hezbollah leaders are a clear indication of the fact that Israel knows too much about Hezbollah so much so that the movement and its leadership are constantly under Israel's scanner. No doubt the militant organisation's security system has been severely compromised.

So, what is going to happen next? Will Israel take full advantage of this security flaw of Hezbollah to launch a full-scale ground offensive in Lebanon as it did it in Gaza about a year ago? Well, mobilisation of Israeli forces on Lebanon's southern border may be indicative of an imminent offensive. There is no doubt that Netanyahu, who successfully took out Hassan Nasrallah and his close comrades one by one, spruced up his image significantly, following a year-long Gaza debacle. The Israeli public is now expecting that Netanyahu could finally give them a victory that evaded them so far in Gaza. However, if Israel remembers the history of its past ground invasions in Lebanon, it will have to think twice. Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, for instance, was initially a big success. Israel's army swept through Beirut, killed tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians and drove out the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from Lebanon. There was no Hezbollah then. But Israeli occupation of Lebanon created the Hezbollah, from Shi'ite Amal movement. After splitting from Amal, Hassan Nasrallah and his associates first formed Islamic Amal, and in 1985 established Hezbollah with its stated objective of destroying Israel. He became the top leader of this organisation in 1992 at the age of 32 after the assassination of its top leader Abbas al-Musawiin in an Israeli helicopter strike.

Born in 1960 as the eldest of the nine children to Abdul Karim, who owned a small green grocery shop in Beirut's eastern Bourj Hammoud neigbourhood, Hassan Nasrallah was naturally drawn towards radical movements as Lebanon descended into a civil war in 1975.

After assuming Abbas al-Musawi's mantle as Hezbollah's top leader, he has been running the resistance group for 32 years. And the resistance war he started against the Israeli occupation forces in Lebanon actually forced Israel to withdraw its troops in 2000 from Southern Lebanon.

Other than carrying out blitzkriegs to win quick victory, Israel's capacity for sustaining long resistance of a hostile population is very limited as it has already been proved in Gaza. Killing civilians by air strikes is one thing, maintaining control over an occupied territory is quite another matter. Moreover, in consequence of the Gaza war and Hezbollah's year-long war of attrition against Israel, the economy of this Zionist state is already in a shambles. It is only through constant replenishment of depleted military arsenal of the Zionist state mainly by the US and its European allies that Israel can still continue the war against the Hamas and Hezbollah. From that point of view, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Hamas of Gaza are not just fighting Israel. In truth, they are fighting the collective West under the leadership of the USA where Israel is a client state. The question is how long can the West continue this support for Israel, which has already lost its acceptability globally, especially for committing genocide in Gaza? Along with Israel, the collective West, too, has lost its moral high ground as the champion of human rights, democracy and other great values they claim they stand for. Not only morally, the US and its Western allies are on the wane also economically. In that case, Israel's continued existence as an apartheid, settler-colonial power backed by the decaying, decadent West is not sustainable in the long run. So, the successful assassinations of the top Hezbollah leadership by Israeli airstrikes do not mean the end of Hezbollah; nor do those signify the turn of the tide for Israel.

Israel might have won a battle against Hezbollah, but it is essentially fighting a losing war.​

 

[Saif]

Justice or assassination: How world leaders react to killing of Nasrallah

World leaders warned of potential repercussions on Saturday after Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on a suburb of Beirut.

en.prothomalo.com

Justice or assassination: How world leaders react to killing of Nasrallah
Published: 29 Sep 2024, 08: 31

Hezbollah chief Nasrallah File photo

World leaders warned of potential repercussions on Saturday after Lebanese militant group Hezbollah announced its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli air strike on a suburb of Beirut.

The killing of the Iran-backed group's chief has intensified fears of all-out war in the Middle East.

US President Joe Biden welcomed "a measure of justice".

Iran

First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref warned Israel that Nasrallah's death would "bring about their destruction", Iran's ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.

The foreign ministry of Iran, which finances and arms Hezbollah, said Nasrallah's work will continue after his death. "His sacred goal will be realised in the liberation of Quds (Jerusalem), God willing," spokesman Nasser Kanani posted on X.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced five days of public mourning.

United States

Biden said Nasrallah's death was "a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis and Lebanese civilians".

Washington supports Israel's right to defend itself against "Iranian-supported terrorist groups" and the "defence posture" of US forces in the region would be "further enhanced", Biden added in a statement.

Vice President Kamala Harris said Nasrallah was "a terrorist with American blood on his hands" and said she would "always support Israel's right to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis."

Leading Republicans in the House of Representatives also welcomed the end of a "reign of bloodshed, oppression, and terror" by "one of the most brutal terrorists on the planet".

Russia

Russia's foreign ministry said "we decisively condemn the latest political murder carried out by Israel" and urged it to "immediately cease military action" in Lebanon.

Israel would "bear full responsibility" for the "tragic" consequences the killing could bring to the region, the ministry added in a statement.

Germany

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told ARD television that the killing "threatens destabilisation for the whole of Lebanon", which "is in no way in Israel's security interest".

Canada

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described Nasrallah as "the leader of a terrorist organization that attacked and killed innocent civilians, causing immense suffering across the region".

But he called for more to be done to protect civilians in the conflict, adding: "We urge calm and restraint during this critical time."

Britain

Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a post on X that he had spoken with the Lebanese premier.

"We agreed on the need for an immediate ceasefire to bring an end to the bloodshed. A diplomatic solution is the only way to restore security and stability for the Lebanese and Israeli people," he said.

France

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot demanded Israel "immediately stop its strikes in Lebanon" and said it was opposed to any ground operation in the country.

France also "calls on other actors, notably Hezbollah and Iran, to abstain from any action that could lead to additional destabilisation and regional conflagration", the foreign ministry said in a statement.

United Nations

UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was "gravely concerned by the dramatic escalation of events in Beirut in the last 24 hours".

Hamas

Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel sparked the devastating war in Gaza that drew in fellow Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah, called Nasrallah's killing "a cowardly terrorist act".

"We condemn in the strongest terms this barbaric Zionist aggression and targeting of residential buildings," Hamas said in a statement.

Palestinian Authority

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas offered his "deep condolences" to Lebanon for the deaths of Nasrallah and civilians, who "fell as a result of the brutal Israeli aggression", according to a statement from his office.

Huthis

The Iran-backed Yemeni rebels, who have been firing on ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas, said in a statement that Nasrallah's killing "will increase the flame of sacrifice, the heat of enthusiasm, the strength of resolve" against Israel, with their leader vowing Nasrallah's death "will not be in vain".

Turkey

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country maintains diplomatic relations with Israel but who has been a sharp critic of its offensive in Gaza, said on X that Lebanon was being subjected to a "genocide", without referring directly to Nasrallah.

Cuba

In a post on X, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called the killing a "cowardly targeted assassination" that "seriously threatens regional and global peace and security, for which Israel bears full responsibility with the complicity of the United States."

Argentina

Argentine President Javier Milei reposted on X a message from a member of his council of economic advisers, David Epstein, who hailed the killing.

"Israel eliminated one of the greatest contemporary murderers. Responsible, among others, for the cowardly attacks in #ARG," it said. "Today the world is a little freer".

Saudi Arabia

Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told the UN that "this escalation will have... negative repercussions for the entire region".

"We call upon all parties to show wisdom and to show restraint in order to avoid a true war from breaking out in the region."

Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro expressed solidarity with Nasrallah and Lebanon.

"They want to justify it, but to assassinate him, they attacked buildings, housing estates and killed hundreds of people. There's a word for this: crime."​

 

[Lulldapull]

Hezb is intact. Just assassination of some leaders. Iran just has to reevaluate the situation going forward. This is not a show stopper. Iran won’t back down unless the country gets invaded by the west, like all the other Muslim countries are who can’t even mumble anything publicly.

 

[Vsdoc]

The issue here is the incessant backing of Israel by the west against Iran. Iran will not relent and fight the west for its share and take. This ain’t no religious war by any stretch of the imagination. Irani mulla are hardcore Persian nationalists.

It’s Iran vs the west for the control of the region. Plain n simple.

We need to watch out for which country next Iran will take over now. Is it Sudan? Or is it Ethiopia? Or is it Bahrain? Or is it goin be Afghanistan?

Persian nationalism or Pan Persian Nationalism as its commonly called in the west, is greatly misunderstood. By Iranians as well as non Iranians, including you apparently.

How can the Mullas be Persian nationalists when many of them are not ... Persian.

Velayat e Faqih is not a Persian nationalism paradigm. Its an IR one.

This is a highly nuanced topic, dunno if it fits here on a Bangladeshi sub forum. Or what its even doing here in the first place.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Lulldapull]

Persian nationalism or Pan Persian Nationalism as its commonly called in the west, is greatly misunderstood. By Iranians as well as non Iranians, including you apparently.

How can the Mullas be Persian nationalists when many of them are not ... Persian.

Velayat e Faqih is not a Persian nationalism paradigm. Its an IR one.

This is a highly nuanced topic, dunno if it fits here on a Bangladeshi sub forum. Or what its even doing here in the first place.

Cheers, Doc

Doc I always wanted to ask you that when the shah was there for 40 odd years and they made him Arya Mehr and the most powerful man in the entire Middle East and the US favored him even more than Israel back then.

He had whatever he wanted, anything he wished for……

Even then the Iranians threw him out!

This is the real dichotomy of reason.

Iran was the most powerful and most influential back then, and lo n behold it still is the most powerful and far more influential today.

This makes no sense!

I’ve told you before…….irani pagal hain. Ain’t nothing good enough bhai…..aap kuch bhee kar lo.

Iran is a fatalist culture, just like the hillbilly.

Incidentally one hillbilly friend of mine quipped recently that Pezeshkian looks like us. How could he be Muslim?…..

 

[Vsdoc]

Doc I always wanted to ask you that when the shah was there for 40 odd years and they made him Arya Mehr and the most powerful man in the entire Middle East and the US favored him even more than Israel back then.

He had whatever he wanted, anything he wished for……

Even then the Iranians threw him out!

This is the real dichotomy of reason.

Iran was the most powerful and most influential back then, and lo n behold it still is the most powerful and far more influential today.

This makes no sense!

I’ve told you before…….irani pagal hain. Ain’t nothing good enough bhai…..aap kuch bhee kar lo.

Iran is a fatalist culture, just like the hillbilly.

Incidentally one hillbilly friend of mine quipped recently that Pezeshkian looks like us. How could he be Muslim?…..

The Shah or any other personality is not going to change Iran. The Persian people have a genetic God switch. Its happened once. It will happen again.

Iran has a history of monarchy and centralized power. Iran does empires. It does not do kingdoms, like India for example.

When Iran switches, its empire switches. Including all its satrapies. For 500 years Zoroastrianism was the state religion of Rome.

I hate to say this, because 1) I know you are Muslim, and 2) I know it will mean a great bloodletting of my own bloodlines, but I cannot shake this feeling of foreboding that is hanging over me like a dark cloud, over the last decade and a half, that a massive avenging fire, a hungry fire, is headed towards engulfing the middle east. Specifically Iran.

It will be a cataclysmic epochal event not different to Al Qadissiya.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Lulldapull]

The Shah or any other personality is not going to change Iran. The Persian people have a genetic God switch. Its happened once. It will happen again.

Iran has a history of monarchy and centralized power. Iran does empires. It does not do kingdoms, like India for example.

When Iran switches, its empire switches. Including all its satrapies. For 500 years Zoroastrianism was the state religion of Rome.

I hate to say this, because 1) I know you are Muslim, and 2) I know it will mean a great bloodletting of my own bloodlines, but I cannot shake this feeling of foreboding that is hanging over me like a dark cloud, over the last decade and a half, that a massive avenging fire, a hungry fire, is headed towards engulfing the middle east. Specifically Iran.

It will be a cataclysmic epochal event not different to Al Qadissiya.

Cheers, Doc

One thing is for sure doc…..Semitic religion is a done deal bhai.

Sub khatam!

We need to be very careful about this unfolding drama in our country or we’re going to Balkanize in short order.

Without Islam we’re not going to survive and you know it.

Our establishment is still secular and they promote this culture of religion because the alternative is Balkanization bhai.

It’s the same in most other Muslim countries and I’m telling you if it’s not promoted then theys goin be gone within a few weeks or months.

I wonder if the US is talking to Iran behind the scenes on the situ.

Iran hasn’t lost anything yet…..the war is on like donkey Kong…..no problem there, but I know that I’ve yet to meet a religious Irani person.

At their core, they’re still Zartosht…I see it. I know lots of em…..totally secular bhai, but they can’t drop the act, or the millions of proxies will all get disillusioned.

Good luck finding millions willing to give their lives for you then.

You need to understand the situation Irans always in.

If you pledge allegiance…..they’ll back you. Don’t matter your religion. It’s just been like this for almost 3 millennia.

Iran chhorray ga nahi Israel ko ab, cuz now it’s a matter of honor.

 

[TheNewb77]

 

[Vsdoc]

One thing is for sure doc…..Semitic religion is a done deal bhai.

Sub khatam!

We need to be very careful about this unfolding drama in our country or we’re going to Balkanize in short order.

Without Islam we’re not going to survive and you know it.

Our establishment is still secular and they promote this culture of religion because the alternative is Balkanization bhai.

It’s the same in most other Muslim countries and I’m telling you if it’s not promoted then theys goin be gone within a few weeks or months.

I wonder if the US is talking to Iran behind the scenes on the situ.

Iran hasn’t lost anything yet…..the war is on like donkey Kong…..no problem there, but I know that I’ve yet to meet a religious Irani person.

At their core, they’re still Zartosht…I see it. I know lots of em…..totally secular bhai, but they can’t drop the act, or the millions of proxies will all get disillusioned.

Good luck finding millions willing to give their lives for you then.

You need to understand the situation Irans always in.

If you pledge allegiance…..they’ll back you. Don’t matter your religion. It’s just been like this for almost 3 millennia.

Iran chhorray ga nahi Israel ko ab, cuz now it’s a matter of honor.

Very good points bhai.

 

[Saif]

Lebanon urges DNA tests to identify missing in Israel strikes

Lebanese authorities on Monday urged the families of people who went missing in Israeli strikes to conduct DNA tests at specialised centres to identify the remains of loved ones

www.thedailystar.net

Lebanon urges DNA tests to identify missing in Israel strikes

Photo: AFP

Lebanese authorities on Monday urged the families of people who went missing in Israeli strikes to conduct DNA tests at specialised centres to identify the remains of loved ones.

"To help families of those who went missing following the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and to make the process of identifying victims and their remains smoother," families should head to centres affiliated with the Judicial Police "to conduct DNA tests", the police said in a statement.

For the past week, Israel has heavily bombed the country's east, south and southern Beirut suburbs, killing hundreds of people and displacing up to one million.

The escalation comes on the heels of nearly one year of cross-border fire with Israel that Hezbollah says is in support of ally Hamas, whose October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

On Friday, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburbs -- a strike Lebanon said killed six people, without identifying them.

On Saturday, Health Minister Firas Abiad said bodies and body parts were still under the rubble.

Social media users have called for help finding missing relatives, while an AFP correspondent in southern Lebanon reported hospital morgues were filled with unidentified remains.

Since mid-September, Israeli strikes on across Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people, authorities said.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah vows to keep fighting Israel after Nasrallah killing

Hezbollah vowed on Monday to keep fighting Israel and said it was ready to face any ground operation into Lebanon, after its leader was killed in an air strike that dealt the group a seismic blow...

www.newagebd.net

Hezbollah vows to keep fighting Israel after Nasrallah killing
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 30 September, 2024, 23:37

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Khiam on Monday. | AFP photo

Hezbollah vowed on Monday to keep fighting Israel and said it was ready to face any ground operation into Lebanon, after its leader was killed in an air strike that dealt the group a seismic blow.

Meanwhile, Hamas says the leader of its Lebanese group has been killed by Israeli air strikes in southern Lebanon, reports BBConline.

In a televised address, the Iran-backed group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said a new leader to replace Hassan Nasrallah, who enjoyed cult status among his supporters, would be selected ‘at the earliest opportunity’.

He also said the group was ready for any Israeli ground offensive, even though Israel’s bombardment of its strongholds has in the past week killed a large number of its top commanders and officials.

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

Israel said earlier this month that it was shifting its focus from Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon, in order to allow Israelis displaced since October to return to their homes.

It has also not ruled out a ground offensive in order to achieve its goals.

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon have killed hundreds and forced hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes, and left people across the region fearful of more violence to come.

Qassem said Hezbollah would continue ‘confronting the Israeli enemy in support of Gaza and Palestine, in defence of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the assassinations and the killing of civilians’.

Warning that any battle with Israel would be long, he said: ‘We will face any scenario and we are ready if Israel decides to enter by land, the resistance forces are ready for any ground confrontation.’

On the other side of the border, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant told troops: ‘The elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the final one.’

‘In order to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities, we will employ all of our capabilities, and this includes you,’ he said.

Most of Israel’s strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds in eastern and southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, the group’s main bastion.

On Monday, a drone strike hit a building in the Cola district in central Beirut, with an armed Palestinian group saying it had killed three of its members.

The strike, the first in the centre of the city in years, sparked panic, with 41-year-old resident Mohammed al-Hoss saying ‘the kids were in shock’ after his house was damaged.

‘We are with Gaza and support the Palestinian cause, but our country cannot cope with us going to war,’ he said.

‘Our country is in a wretched state. They (Israel) finished with Gaza and they have come to Lebanon.’

Lebanon’s health ministry also reported the strike, saying it had killed four people and wounded four others. Israel has yet to comment.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas later announced that its leader in Lebanon, Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, had been killed along with his wife and two children in another strike on Al-Bass refugee camp in south Lebanon.

The Israeli military confirmed it had ‘eliminated’ Sharif in a strike.

Lebanon’s health ministry said six rescuers affiliated with Hezbollah were killed in an Israeli strike Monday.

Around Lebanon, Israeli strikes killed more than 100 people on Sunday, including 45 near the southern city of Sidon, according to the ministry.

Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad said Saturday that 1,030 people including 87 children had been killed since September 16.

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said ‘well over 2,00,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon’, while more than 1,00,000 have fled to neighbouring Syria.

Prime minister Najib Mikati said up to one million people may have been uprooted, in potentially the ‘largest displacement movement’ in Lebanon’s history.

The violence in Lebanon has raised fears of a much wider conflagration in the region.

On Monday, the Israeli army said it ‘successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory’.

Israel said it also carried out strikes on Sunday targeting Iran-backed Huthis in Yemen that the rebels said killed four people and wounded 33.

The raids in Yemen came a day after the Huthis said they launched a missile at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, trying to hit it as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was returning from New York.

Iran has said Nasrallah’s killing would bring about Israel’s ‘destruction’, though the foreign ministry said Monday it would not deploy any fighters to confront Israel.

Lebanon began a three-day national mourning period for Nasrallah on Monday, with flags flying at half-mast.

In Israel, some had mixed feelings about the Hezbollah chief’s killing.

‘Nasrallah was responsible for the deaths of many Israelis, so it is good news,’ said Matan Sofer, 24, in the northern town of Rosh Pina.

‘But do we risk it getting worse, who knows?’

World leaders have called for a de-escalation.

French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot met with the Lebanese premier in Beirut Monday, and said his government sought ‘an immediate halt’ in the strikes.

He is the first high-level foreign diplomat to visit since the Israeli strikes intensified.

US president Joe Biden, whose government is Israel’s top arms supplier, said Sunday a wider war ‘really has to be avoided’.

In Gaza, AFP journalists said the number of air strikes across the territory has dropped significantly in recent days.

Hamas’s unprecedented 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.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,615 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]

Hezbollah says it is ready for any Israeli land invasion in Lebanon

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, in his first public address since Israel assassinated the group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah last week, said the movement is ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon. Israel will not achieve its goals, he said. “We will face any

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Hezbollah says it is ready for any Israeli land invasion in Lebanon
REUTERS
Published :
Sep 30, 2024 17:09
Updated :
Sep 30, 2024 17:10

People inspect the damage at the site of Sunday's Israeli attack on the city of Ain Deleb, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in southern Lebanon September 30, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Aziz Taher

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, in his first public address since Israel assassinated the group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah last week, said the movement is ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.

Israel will not achieve its goals, he said.

“We will face any possibility and we are ready if the Israelis decide to enter by land and the resistance forces are ready for a ground engagement,” he said.

Israeli forces have dealt multiple blows to Hezbollah in a two-week wave of attacks on targets in Lebanon that has eliminated several commanders. The possibility that Israel’s next move might be to send ground troops and tanks over the border is on many minds.

In other developments, the Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon in the city of Tyre on Monday, and another Palestinian organisation said three of its leaders died in a strike in central Beirut - the first such hit inside the capital’s limits.

The killings were the latest in a wave of intensified Israeli attacks on militant targets in Lebanon, part of a conflict also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, and within Israel itself.

Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed along with his wife, son and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a refugee camp in the southern city of Tyre in the early hours of Monday.

Another group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said three of its leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut’s Kola district.

This was the first time Israel had struck Beirut beyond its southern suburbs in a campaign which culminated in the assassination of Hezbollah’s veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah last week in a succession of heavy air strikes.

The strike against the PFLP hit the upper floor of an apartment building, Reuters witnesses said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The latest attacks indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive on multiple fronts even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran’s most powerful ally in its “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and U.S. influence in the region.

Israel’s intensified attacks against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthi forces in Yemen have prompted fears that Middle East fighting could spin out of control and draw in Iran and the United States, Israel’s main ally.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Tehran would not leave any of Israel’s “criminal acts” go unanswered. He was referring to the killing of Nasrallah and an Iranian Guard deputy commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who died in the same strikes on Friday.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry says more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without specifying how many were civilians. One million people - a fifth of the population - have fled their homes, the government says.

The escalation has put Beirut on edge, with Lebanese fearful that Israel will expand its military campaign.

“There is nothing else to say or add, except God save Lebanon,” Beirut resident Nawel said. “What will happen to me is the same as what can happen to anyone.”​

 

[Saif]

UN chief calls for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed on Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country to be respected, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said

www.thedailystar.net

UN chief calls for immediate ceasefire in Lebanon

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed on Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country to be respected, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

"An all-out war must be avoided in Lebanon at all costs," Dujarric said in a statement, adding that Guterres spoke with Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati earlier on Tuesday, telling him the UN was ready to help those in need.

"The Secretary-General will continue his contacts, and his representatives on the ground will also continue their efforts to de-escalate the situation," Dujarric said.

He later told reporters at a briefing that UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, had seen sporadic incursions by the Israeli military.

"The information they have and they've received ... is that they've seen sporadic incursions by the IDF," Dujarric said. "They have not witnessed a full-scale invasion."​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah vows to keep fighting Israel after Nasrallah killing

In a televised address, the Iran-backed group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said a new leader to replace Hassan Nasrallah, who enjoyed cult status among his supporters, would be selected “at the earliest opportunity”

en.prothomalo.com

Hezbollah vows to keep fighting Israel after Nasrallah killing
AFP
Beirut, Lebanon
Published: 30 Sep 2024, 20: 44

Mourners attend the funeral of slain Hezbollah Commander Ali Karaki, who was killed days earlier with other top commanders in an Israeli air strike, in Beirut’s southern suburbs on 30 September 2024 AFP

Hezbollah vowed on Monday to keep fighting Israel and said it was ready to face any ground operation into Lebanon, after its leader was killed in an air strike that dealt the group a seismic blow.

In a televised address, the Iran-backed group’s deputy chief Naim Qassem said a new leader to replace Hassan Nasrallah, who enjoyed cult status among his supporters, would be selected “at the earliest opportunity”.

He also said the group was ready for any Israeli ground offensive, even though Israel’s bombardment of its strongholds has in the past week killed a large number of its top commanders and officials.

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

Israel said earlier this month that it was shifting its focus from Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon, in order to allow Israelis displaced since October to return to their homes.

It has also not ruled out a ground offensive in order to achieve its goals.

Israel’s strikes on Lebanon have killed hundreds and forced hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes, and left people across the region fearful of more violence to come.

Qassem said Hezbollah would continue “confronting the Israeli enemy in support of Gaza and Palestine, in defence of Lebanon and its people, and in response to the assassinations and the killing of civilians”.

Warning that any battle with Israel would be long, he said: “We will face any scenario and we are ready if Israel decides to enter by land, the resistance forces are ready for any ground confrontation.”

On the other side of the border, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops: “The elimination of Nasrallah is an important step, but it is not the final one.”

“In order to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities, we will employ all of our capabilities, and this includes you,” he said.

Beirut strike

Most of Israel’s strikes have targeted Hezbollah strongholds in eastern and southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, the group’s main bastion.

On Monday, a drone strike hit a building in the Cola district in central Beirut, with an armed Palestinian group saying it had killed three of its members.

The strike, the first in the centre of the city in years, sparked panic, with 41-year-old resident Mohammed al-Hoss saying “the kids were in shock” after his house was damaged.

“We are with Gaza and support the Palestinian cause, but our country cannot cope with us going to war,” he said.

“Our country is in a wretched state. They (Israel) finished with Gaza and they have come to Lebanon.”

Lebanon’s health ministry also reported the strike, saying it had killed four people and wounded four others. Israel has yet to comment.

Palestinian Islamist group Hamas later announced that its leader in Lebanon, Fatah Sharif Abu al-Amine, had been killed along with his wife and two children in another strike on Al-Bass refugee camp in south Lebanon.

The Israeli military confirmed it had “eliminated” Sharif in a strike.

Lebanon’s health ministry said six rescuers affiliated with Hezbollah were killed in an Israeli strike Monday.

Around Lebanon, Israeli strikes killed more than 100 people on Sunday, including 45 near the southern city of Sidon, according to the ministry.

Lebanon’s Health Minister Firass Abiad said Saturday that 1,030 people including 87 children had been killed since 16 September.

UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi said “well over 200,000 people are displaced inside Lebanon”, while more than 100,000 have fled to neighbouring Syria.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati said up to one million people may have been uprooted, in potentially the “largest displacement movement” in Lebanon’s history.

Yemen strikes

The violence in Lebanon has raised fears of a much wider conflagration in the region.

On Monday, the Israeli army said it “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory”.

Israel said it also carried out strikes on Sunday targeting Iran-backed Huthis in Yemen that the rebels said killed four people and wounded 33.

The raids in Yemen came a day after the Huthis said they launched a missile at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, trying to hit it as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was returning from New York.

Iran has said Nasrallah’s killing would bring about Israel’s “destruction”, though the foreign ministry said Monday it would not deploy any fighters to confront Israel.

Lebanon began a three-day national mourning period for Nasrallah on Monday, with flags flying at half-mast.

In Israel, some had mixed feelings about the Hezbollah chief’s killing.

“Nasrallah was responsible for the deaths of many Israelis, so it is good news,” said Matan Sofer, 24, in the northern town of Rosh Pina.

“But do we risk it getting worse, who knows?”

Calls for halt

World leaders have called for a de-escalation.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot met with the Lebanese premier in Beirut Monday, and said his government sought “an immediate halt” in the strikes.

He is the first high-level foreign diplomat to visit since the Israeli strikes intensified.

US President Joe Biden, whose government is Israel’s top arms supplier, said Sunday a wider war “really has to be avoided”.

In Gaza, AFP journalists said the number of air strikes across the territory has dropped significantly in recent days.

Hamas’s unprecedented 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.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,615 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]

Fierce clashes rage inside Lebanon

Hezbollah’s media chief Mohammad Afif said those battles were only “the first round” and that the group had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push back Israel.

www.thedailystar.net

Fierce clashes rage inside Lebanon
Israeli infantry, armoured units join ground ops; Hezbollah vows to push back invading forces

People walk on the rubble at the site of the Israeli airstrike that killed Lebanon's Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, September 29, 2024. Photo: Reuters/Ali Alloush

Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon yesterday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israel began pushing into its northern neighbour in a campaign to hammer the Iran-backed armed group.

The Israeli military said regular infantry and armoured units were joining its ground operations in Lebanon, a day after Israel was attacked by Iran in a strike that raised fears the oil-producing Middle East could be engulfed in a wider conflict. Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in the combat, the Israeli military said.

Iran said yesterday its missile attack - its biggest assault on Israel - was over barring further provocation, but Israel and the United States promised to hit back hard.

Hezbollah fighters clashed with Israeli troops in the border town of Maroun el-Ras and pushed back forces near other border towns. The Iran-backed group said it has destroyed three Merkava tanks with guided rockets. The group also fired rockets at military posts inside Israel.

Hezbollah's media chief Mohammad Afif said those battles were only "the first round" and that the group had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push back Israel.

Israel's addition of infantry and armoured troops from the 36th Division, including the Golani Brigade, the 188th Armoured Brigade and 6th Infantry Brigade suggests that the operation may move beyond limited commando raids.

Israel also renewed its bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of the Iran-backed group, with more than a dozen airstrikes against what it said were targets belonging to Hezbollah.

The aerial strikes killed 55 people and wounded 156 in 24 hours, the Lebanese health ministry said. In retaliation, Hezbollah targeted areas north of Israel's city of Haifa with a large missile salvo early yesterday.

More than 1,000 people in Lebanon have died since last week when Israel started attacking targets inside Lebanon.

Ibrahim Jafari, an advisor to the General Commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said a cyber operation was launched along with the missile strikes which reached their targets. Yemen's Houthis also targeted military posts deep in Israel with three winged 'Quds 5' rockets.

Meanwhile, Israel's foreign minister said yesterday that he was barring UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from entering the country because he had not "unequivocally" condemned Iran's missile attack on Israel.

World leaders yesterday called on Iran and Israel to step back from the brink.

"The Chinese side calls on the international community, especially major influential powers, to truly play a constructive role and prevent the situation from further deteriorating," said a foreign ministry spokesman in a statement published online.

"This situation is developing by the most worrying scenario," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on Iran and Hezbollah to immediately end their attacks on Israel and warned that Iran risks inflaming the entire region. Japan said it is deeply concerned by the situation.

Meanwhile, police in Denmark and Sweden yesterday said they were probing explosions and gunfire around Israeli embassies in their capitals which took place amid spiralling Middle East tensions.

In Denmark, police said three Swedish nationals had been arrested after two blasts, likely from hand grenades, in the "immediate proximity" of the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen early Wednesday.

Swedish police said the Israeli embassy in Stockholm had been targeted in a shooting on Tuesday just before 6:00 pm (1600 GMT).

No injuries were reported from the incidents.​

 

[Saif]

Israel, Hezbollah in deadly fighting on Lebanon border

Israeli forces battled Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Wednesday, with Israel announcing the first death of a soldier since it launched cross-border raids...

www.newagebd.net

Israel, Hezbollah in deadly fighting on Lebanon border
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 03 October, 2024, 00:17

Demonstrators wave Palestinian, Iranian and Hezbollah flags during a rally in Tehran on Wednesday, a day after Iran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel. | AFP photo

Israeli forces battled Hezbollah militants in Lebanon on Wednesday, with Israel announcing the first death of a soldier since it launched cross-border raids.

Confirmation of the fighting in two border areas came hours after Iran launched its second-ever direct attack on Israel, prompting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn the Islamic republic would pay for its ‘big mistake’.

Hezbollah backer Iran in turn said it would launch an even bigger attack if Israel makes good on its pledge to hit back, defying calls to de-escalate in a war that has already cost more than 1,000 lives in Lebanon since last week.

Israel shifted its focus last month from the war in Gaza, which was sparked by the October 7 attacks by Iran-backed Hamas, to securing its northern border with Lebanon, where it is fighting Hezbollah.

A day after the Israeli military said its troops had started ‘targeted ground raids’ in southern Lebanon, it announced the first death of a soldier in combat across the border since the Israel-Hezbollah war erupted.

Israel kept up its bombardment of Hezbollah’s main bastion in south Beirut, where it dealt the militant group a seismic blow last week by killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah in a massive strike.

Hezbollah said it forced Israeli soldiers to withdraw after they attempted to enter a border village, and that its fighters were clashing with troops in another area. It said it also targeted an Israeli unit with an explosive device.

The Lebanese army said Israeli troops had staged two brief incursions before withdrawing, adding one of its soldiers had been wounded in an Israeli drone strike.

The Israeli military told residents to evacuate more than 20 areas in south Lebanon, a day after issuing a similar call.

It also said it was bombarding Hezbollah targets in Beirut, with a Lebanese security source saying Israel had hit the city’s southern suburbs repeatedly overnight.

AFP correspondents heard about 20 explosions coming from southern Beirut, and smoke billowed over the area.

Hours after Israel announced the start of ground operations in Lebanon, Iran fired what it said were 200 missiles including hypersonic weapons, sending frightened Israeli civilians into shelters.

Israel, which put the number of missiles at 180, intercepted most of them, while Israeli medics reported two people injured by shrapnel.

One of the missiles damaged a school building.

On Wednesday the Israeli military said several Iranian missiles fell inside air force bases without causing any damage.

In the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian was killed in the city of Jericho ‘when pieces of a rocket fell from the sky and hit him’, the city’s governor Hussein Hamayel said.

‘Iran made a big mistake tonight and will pay for it,’ Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

‘Whoever attacks us, we attack them.’

Defence minister Yoav Gallant, who was at the command and control centre monitoring the interception of Iranian missiles, also vowed vengeance.

‘Iran has not learned a simple lesson — those who attack the state of Israel, pay a heavy price,’ he said in a statement.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the missiles were fired in response to Israel’s killing of Nasrallah, as well as the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran bombing in July.

The attack also sought to avenge Israel’s killing of leading Iranian commander Abbas Nilforoushan of the Quds Force, the Guards’ foreign operations arm.

Lebanon’s disaster management agency said 1,873 people have been killed since Israel and Hezbollah began trading cross-border fire after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.

The spike in violence has forced hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes.

President Joe Biden said the United States was ‘fully supportive’ of Israel after the missile attack.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin slammed an ‘outrageous act of aggression’ by Iran, while Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters there would be ‘severe consequences’.

Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, threatened to fire ‘with bigger intensity’ if Israel makes good on its pledge to retaliate.

The conflict is now expected to escalate, with analyst Jordan Barkin saying: ‘This will not end well.’

‘Netanyahu has a long history of fighting back strongly and quickly when provoked. Restraint is not Mr. Netanyahu’s strong suit,’ he said.

James Demmin-De Lise, an analyst who writes for The Times of Israel newspaper, agreed.

‘I think we’ll see Israel launch decisive attacks against Iran. Likely with the hope of toppling the Islamic regime,’ he said.

But some Israelis expressed fatigue with the war, with Tel Aviv resident Liron Yori, 22, saying: ‘I feel very, very disappointed. I see where the war’s going and I don’t I don’t feel comfortable with it.’

In central Beirut, people were weary and afraid, though some Hezbollah supporters were defiant.

Youssef Amir, displaced from southern Lebanon, said: ‘I have lost my home and relatives in this war, but all of that is a sacrifice for Lebanon, for Hezbollah’.

The Iran strikes prompted widespread condemnation as well as renewed calls for the escalation in violence to stop.

UN chief Antonio Guterres slammed the ‘broadening conflict in the Middle East’ and renewed his calls for a ceasefire, but stopped short of explicitly condemning Iran.

That prompted Israel to declare Guterres ‘persona non grata’, with foreign minister Israel Katz saying he did not ‘deserve to step foot on Israeli soil’.

Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israeli troops a day after Hamas staged its October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,689 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

In Gaza, the civil defence agency said Israeli bombings killed 19 people on Tuesday.​

 

[Saif]

Israel says eight of its soldiers killed in clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon

Israel said on Wednesday eight of its soldiers were killed in combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour in a campaign against the Hezbollah armed group. The losses were the deadliest suffered by the Israeli military on the Lebanon front in the past year of border-are

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Israel says eight of its soldiers killed in clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon
REUTERS
Published :
Oct 02, 2024 22:35
Updated :
Oct 02, 2024 22:35

Israel said on Wednesday eight of its soldiers were killed in combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour in a campaign against the Hezbollah armed group.

The losses were the deadliest suffered by the Israeli military on the Lebanon front in the past year of border-area clashes between Israel and its Iranian-backed Lebanese foe.

Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israeli forces pushed over the border. Hezbollah said it had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with rockets near the border town of Maroun El Ras.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a condolence video, said: "We are at the height of a difficult war against Iran's Axis of Evil, which wants to destroy us.

"This will not happen because we will stand together and with God's help, we will win together," he said.

The Israeli military said regular infantry and armoured units were joining its ground operations in Lebanon, a day after Iran fired more than 180 missiles into Israel, a barrage which raised concerns that the oil-producing Middle East could be caught up in a wider conflict.

Iran said on Wednesday its missile volley - its biggest ever assault on Israel - was over barring further provocation, but Israel and the United States promised to hit back hard.

A 38-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, the only known fatality in Iran's attack on Israel, was buried on Wednesday.

Sameh Khadr Hassan Al-Asali had been staying in a Palestinian security forces compound in the West Bank when he was killed by falling missile debris during Tuesday's attack, which Israel said was largely foiled by its air defence systems.

Hezbollah said it had repelled Israeli forces near several border towns and also fired rockets at military posts inside Israel.

The paramilitary group's media chief Mohammad Afif said those battles were only "the first round" and that Hezbollah had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push back Israel.

Israel's addition of infantry and armoured troops from the 36th Division, including the Golani Brigade, the 188th Armoured Brigade and 6th Infantry Brigade, suggested that the operation might expand beyond limited commando raids.

The military has said its incursion is largely aimed at destroying tunnels and other infrastructure on the border and there were no plans for a wider operation targeting the Lebanese capital Beirut to the north or major cities in the south.

Nevertheless, it issued new evacuation orders for around two dozen towns along the southern border, instructing inhabitants to head north of the Awali River, which flows east to west some 60 km (37 miles) north of the Israeli frontier.

BORDER CLASHES

Israel renewed its bombardment early on Wednesday of Beirut's southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has its headquarters, with more than a dozen airstrikes against what it said were targets belonging to Hezbollah.

Israel also carried out an airstrike on a residential building in the Mezzah suburb in the west of Syria's capital Damascus, killing three civilians and injuring three, Syrian state media reported on Wednesday. Israel has been carrying out strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria for years.

More than 1,900 people have been killed and over 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese government statistics.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that about 1.2 million Lebanese had been displaced by Israeli attacks.

Malika Joumaa, from Sudan, was forced to take shelter in Saint Joseph's church in Beirut after being forced from her house near Sidon in coastal south Lebanon with her husband and two children.

"It's good that the church offered its help. We were going to stay in the streets; where would we have gone? We were (sheltering) under the bridge, it is not safe. If we go back home, it is not safe, they are striking everywhere."

Iran described Tuesday's missile assault as a response to Israeli killings of militant leaders, including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, attacks in Lebanon against the group and Israel's war against Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.

The general staff of Iran's armed forces said any Israeli response would be met with "vast destruction".

US news website Axios on Wednesday cited Israeli officials as saying Israel will launch a "significant retaliation" for Iran's attack within days that could strike oil production facilities inside Iran and other strategic sites.

On social media, Iranians were apprehensive about Israeli reprisals and said past wars, such as the eight-year conflict with Iraq in the 1980s that killed about one million people, would only bring more suffering.

FEARS OF FURTHER VIOLENCE

"The destruction of generations, young people being cannon fodder, the enrichment of generals and elites, and the empowerment of extremists? Leaders will not pay for dragging Iran into war," said Nima Mokhtarian, who works at an NGO.

Some Iranians believe their government had no choice but to send scores of missiles to Israel, but fear what will come next as Israel's military, the most powerful and advanced in the region, prepares to hit back.

"If there is a war, I'm just worried for my children," said an Iranian mother walking to work past a towering billboard in Tehran's Valiasr Square featuring a portrait of Nasrallah, who was Iran's strongest regional proxy.

Iran's missile strikes and Israeli operations in Lebanon have caused alarm around the world as Tehran's Middle East proxies - Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and armed groups in Iraq -- have shown no let-up in attacks in support of Hamas.​

 

[Saif]

Iran’s Khamenei warned Nasrallah of Israeli plot to kill him, sources say

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said. In the immediate a

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Iran’s Khamenei warned Nasrallah of Israeli plot to kill him, sources say
REUTERS
Published :
Oct 02, 2024 21:32
Updated :
Oct 02, 2024 21:32

Students hold posters of Hassan Nasrallah, the assassinated chief of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, during a rally in Sanaa, Yemen October 2, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Hezbollah’s booby-trapped pagers on Sept 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.

The messenger, the official said, was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.

Khamenei, who has remained in a secure location inside Iran since Saturday, personally ordered a barrage of around 200 missiles to be fired at Israel on Tuesday, a senior Iranian official said. The attack was retaliation for the deaths of Nasrallah and Nilforoushan, the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.

The statement also cited the July killing of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.

Israel on Tuesday began what it labelled as a “limited” ground incursion against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Iran’s foreign ministry and the office of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which oversees the country’s foreign intelligence agency Mossad, did not reply to requests for comment.

Nasrallah’s assassination followed two weeks of precise Israeli strikes that have destroyed weapons sites, eliminated half of Hezbollah’s leadership council and decimated its top military command.

Iran’s fears for the safety of Khamenei and the loss of trust, within both Hezbollah and Iran’s establishment and between them, emerged in the conversations with 10 sources for this story, who described a situation that could complicate the effective functioning of Iran’s Axis of Resistance alliance of anti-Israel irregular armed groups.

Founded with Iran’s backing the 1980s, Hezbollah has long been the most formidable member of the alliance.

The disarray is also making it hard for Hezbollah to choose a new leader, fearing the ongoing infiltration will put the successor at risk, four Lebanese sources said.

“Basically, Iran lost the biggest investment it had for the past decades,” said Magnus Ranstorp, a Hezbollah expert at the Swedish Defense University, of the deep damage caused to Hezbollah that he said diminished Iran’s capacity to strike at Israel’s borders.

“It shook Iran to the core. It shows how Iran is deeply infiltrated also: they not only killed Nasrallah, they killed Nilforoushan,” he said, who was a trusted military adviser to Khamenei.

Hezbollah’s lost military capacity and leadership cadre might push Iran towards the type of attacks against Israeli embassies and personnel abroad that it engaged in more frequently before the rise of its proxy forces, Ranstorp said.

IRAN MAKES ARRESTS

Nasrallah’s death has prompted Iranian authorities to thoroughly investigate possible infiltrations within Iran’s own ranks, from the powerful Revolutionary Guards to senior security officials, a second senior Iranian official said. They are especially focused on those who travel abroad or have relatives living outside Iran, the first official said.

Tehran grew suspicious of certain members of the Guards who had been traveling to Lebanon, he said. Concerns were raised when one of these individuals began asking about Nasrallah’s whereabouts, particularly inquiring about how long he would remain in specific locations, the official added.

The individual has been arrested along with several others, the first official said, after alarm was raised in Iran’s intelligence circles. The suspect’s family had relocated outside Iran, the official said, without identifying the suspect or his relatives.

The second official said the assassination has spread mistrust between Tehran and Hezbollah, and within Hezbollah.

“The trust that held everything together has disappeared,” the official said.

The Supreme Leader “no longer trusts anyone,” said a third source who is close to Iran’s establishment.

Alarm bells had already rung within Tehran and Hezbollah about possible Mossad infiltrations after the killing in July of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli airstrike on a secretive Beirut location while meeting an IRGC commander, two Hezbollah sources and a Lebanese security official told Reuters at the time. That killing was followed a few hours later by the assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran.

Unlike Haniyeh’s death, Israel publicly claimed responsibility for the killing of Shukr, a low-profile figure who Nasrallah nonetheless described, at his funeral, as a central figure in Hezbollah’s history who had built its most important capabilities.

Shukr was key to the development of Hezbollah’s most advanced weaponary, including precision-guided missiles, and was in charge of the Shi’ite groups operations against Israel over the past year, Israel’s military has said.

Iranian fears about Israeli penetration of its upper ranks stretches back years. In 2021, former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the head of an Iranian intelligence unit that was supposed to target agents of Mossad had himself been an agent for the Israeli spy agency, telling CNN Turk that Israel obtained sensitive documents on Iran’s nuclear programme, a reference to a 2018 raid in which Israel obtained a huge trove of top secret documents about the programme.

Also in 2021, Israel’s outgoing spy chief Yossi Cohen gave details about the raid, telling the BBC that 20 non-Israeli Mossad agents were involved in stealing the archive from a warehouse.

PAGER WARNING

Khamenei’s invitation to Nasrallah to relocate to Iran came after thousands of pagers and walkie talkies used by Hezbollah blew up in deadly attacks on Sept 17 and 18, the first official said. The attacks have been widely attributed to Israel, although it has not officially claimed responsibility.

Nasrallah, however, was confident in his security and trusted his inner circle completely, the official said, despite Tehran’s serious concerns about potential infiltrators within Hezbollah’s ranks.

Khamenei tried a second time, relaying another message through Nilforoushan to Nasrallah last week, imploring him to leave Lebanon and relocate to Iran as a safer location. But Nasrallah insisted on staying in Lebanon, the official said.

Several high-level meetings were held in Tehran following the pager blasts to discuss Hezbollah and Nasrallah’s safety, the official said, but declined to say who attended those meetings.

Simultaneously, in Lebanon, Hezbollah began conducting a major investigation to purge Israeli spies among them, questioning hundreds of members after the pager detonations, three sources in Lebanon told Reuters.

Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, a senior Hezbollah official, was leading the investigation, a Hezbollah source said. The probe was progressing rapidly, the source said, before an Israeli raid killed him a day after Nasrallah’s assassination. Another raid earlier last week had targeted other senior Hezbollah commanders, some of who were involved in the inquiry.

Kaouk had summoned for questioning Hezbollah officials involved in logistics and others “who participated, mediated and received offers on pagers and walkie-talkies,” the source said.

A “deeper and comprehensive inquiry” and purge were now needed after the killing of Nasrallah and other commanders, the source said.

Ali al-Amin, the editor-in-chief for Janoubia, a news site based that focuses on the Shi’ite community and Hezbollah said reports indicated that Hezbollah detained hundreds of people for questioning after the pagers saga.

Hezbollah is reeling from Nasrallah’s killing in his deep bunker in a command HQ, shocked at how successfully Israel penetrated the group, seven sources said.

Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy research director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut with a focus on Iran and Hezbollah, described the offensive as “the biggest intelligence infiltration by Israel” since Hezbollah was founded with Iran’s backing in the 1980s.

The current Israeli escalation follows almost a year of cross-border fighting after Hezbollah began rocket attacks in support of its ally Hamas. The Palestinian group killed 1,200 people and seized 250 hostages in an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli tallies.

In Gaza, Israel’s retaliation has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

LOSS OF TRUST

The Israeli offensive and fear of more attacks on Hezbollah have also prevented the Iranian-backed group from organizing a nationwide funeral on a scale reflecting Nasrallah’s religious and leadership status, according to four sources familiar with the debate within Hezbollah.

“No one can authorize a funeral in these circumstances,” one Hezbollah source said, lamenting the situation in which officials and religious leaders could not come forward to properly honor the late leader.

Several commanders killed last week were buried discreetly on Monday, with plans for a proper religious ceremony when the conflict ends.

Hezbollah is mulling the option of securing a religious decree to bury Nasrallah temporarily and hold an official funeral when the situation permits, the four Lebanese sources said.

Hezbollah has refrained from officially appointing a successor to Nasrallah, possibly to avoid making his replacement a target for an Israeli assassination, they said.

“Appointing a new Secretary General could be dangerous if Israel assassinates him right after,” said Amin. “The group can’t risk more chaos by appointing someone only to see them killed.”​

 

[Saif]

Nasrallah killing sets a dangerous precedent

The killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, along with many of his close associates, in an Israeli raid in Lebanon certainly does not end the crisis in the Middle East. Much as Benjamin Netanyahu would like the world to know, the activities of the Israeli military in this past year hav

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

Nasrallah killing sets a dangerous precedent
Syed Badrul Ahsan
Published :
Oct 02, 2024 21:35
Updated :
Oct 02, 2024 21:35

The killing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, along with many of his close associates, in an Israeli raid in Lebanon certainly does not end the crisis in the Middle East. Much as Benjamin Netanyahu would like the world to know, the activities of the Israeli military in this past year have only exacerbated conditions in the region. And now, with Nasrallah's death, a greater danger is what the wider world confronts.

There are the reasons why the world should be concerned about what has been going wrong in the Middle East. Israel's pounding of Gaza and the West Bank in the past twelve months, the consequence being the death of nearly 42,000 Palestinians and survivors forced into internal exile of the worst sort, has gone on unchecked. The international community has been unable to either restrain Netanyahu or to censure him, that last bit owing to the strong levels of support he yet enjoys in such capitals as Washington.

The consequences of inaction against Netanyahu and his extremist government are now out there for all to see. Israeli intelligence has tracked senior military commanders of Hamas and Hezbollah --- and add to that number the high-level Iranians who have been victims of targeted killings --- and put an end to their lives. But such action has only emboldened Israel's enemies into deepening their operations against Tel Aviv. Netanyahu's consistent claim that he would destroy Hamas has been followed by renewed assaults, through missile attacks on Israeli towns, by Hamas.

Israel has clearly been unable to subdue Hamas. It should have been for Israel's embattled leadership to opt for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. A refusal to take that path has only widened the theatre of conflict, with the Israelis now embroiled in fresh crises in southern Lebanon and Yemen. Israel's bizarre ability to create new enemies has now made it hard for it to set a course toward a rolling back of the situation. It was a blunder taking out Nasrallah and his team in Beirut. It does not help that Joe Biden, rather than taking Netanyahu to task over the action, chose to describe the killing operation in Beirut as a measure of justice for the Hezbollah leader.

All of this has pushed geopolitics into a condition where niceties and respect for territorial integrity have been pushed to an extreme by Israel's leaders. With Israel freely and without any demonstration of respect for international law having its air force rain down missiles on Beirut in search of Hezbollah, worries assume a horrendous dimension. And that is largely the creation of a precedent that in future will allow states to send in their forces into countries they might feel will be necessary to bomb, kill or flush out their enemies. Lebanon is no stranger to such external violence. In the 1980s, Israeli troops and Palestinian guerrillas fought it out in the country, ruining the very fabric of Lebanon's political system. Now the assault on Beirut and on southern Lebanon throws up the very real possibility of the Middle East crisis not only broadening out but also of states not involved in the crisis bearing the brunt of external assault.

Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Iran's leadership that Israel has the ability to reach deep into Iran, a statement grounded on the understanding that the Hezbollah has long enjoyed Tehran's support in its operations against Tel Aviv. Now 200 Iranian missiles hitting Tel Aviv have given Netanyahu a taste of his own medicine. Netanyahu's bellicosity should raise alarm bells around the world, for it is patently dismissive of international law. A rules-based world is clearly under threat, for other nations might now begin to feel the need to assert their authority over nations they consider enemies by simply bombing them into submission or having their soldiers march into them as a way of achieving their questionable purposes. It is a precedent which someday might have Pakistani soldiers go into Afghanistan to subdue the Taliban forces responsible for trouble at the frontier between the two countries.

Israel's violation of Lebanese sovereignty, together with its refusal to draw an end to the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, is stark warning for the world of the terror that might threaten the future of nations. Iran will, in light of Netanyahu's bombast, be under threat of an Israeli assault. And one can be sure that no leaders in the West will condemn such a move if it comes to pass. The irony is that while large sections of the western leadership were quick to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine, one does not seriously expect them to do a similar act if Iran falls under Israeli aggression. They will be happy to see regime change in Tehran through Israeli military action. And out of that situation will emerge a new crisis, with Turkey's Recep Tayyep Erdogan not willing to remain quiet when his own borders come under threat as a result of Israeli action against Iran.

Nations around the globe have a right to be concerned about the impunity with which Israel's leadership has been vitiating the scene over the past year. Its bombing of Beirut has pushed Lebanon to a fresh spate of instability, given that it already suffers from issues of governance. If Israel's leadership remain unleashed in their violence, other leaders around the world, their own motives at work, might be inspired into taking a leaf out of the Israeli playbook. Rwanda could decide to march into Congo in force to subdue elements it considers a threat to its security. With the Chinese laying claims to chunks of Indian territory, the leadership in Delhi will be properly and justifiably worried about the threat. The 1962 border clashes have not been forgotten by Indians. A new Trump administration could be tempted to send American troops into Mexico to force an end to the influx of refugees into the United States. With belligerence permeating policy-making in the new Nato member states along its border, a resurgent Russia might someday decide to teach them a lesson by direct military means. Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia 1968 remain unforgotten.

The danger is therefore hard to ignore. The state of Israel is a threat to global stability in these times. More pertinently, Netanyahu symbolises this danger. As long as he clings to power, people around the world will not sleep well at night. War criminals on the loose are a risk to lives everywhere.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah loses contact with top leaders after air strikes

Hashem Safieddine, with whom contact has been lost after Israeli air strikes, according to a senior Hezbollah source, is the man widely considered the potential successor to the group’s...

www.newagebd.net

Hezbollah loses contact with top leaders after air strikes
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 06 October, 2024, 00:21

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs on Saturday. | AFP photo

Hashem Safieddine, with whom contact has been lost after Israeli air strikes, according to a senior Hezbollah source, is the man widely considered the potential successor to the group’s assassinated leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Another source close to Hezbollah previously told AFP that the deeply religious cleric Safieddine, who has family ties to Nasrallah and good relations with its backer Iran, was the ‘most likely’ candidate for the party’s top job.

Grey-bearded and bespectacled, Safieddine bears a striking resemblance to his distant cousin Nasrallah, but is several years his junior, aged in his late 50s or early 60s.

A week after massive Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs killed longtime leader Nasrallah, heavy bombardment early Friday again targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs.

‘Contact with Sayyed Safieddine has been lost since the violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs’ Friday, the source told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

‘We don’t know if he was at the targeted site, or who may have been there with him.’

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Qassem, who took over the leadership by default after Nasrallah’s death, said Monday the group would name a new chief ‘at the earliest opportunity’.

The powerful decision-making Shura Council must meet to elect a new secretary-general.

Safieddine, a member of the council, has strong ties to the Islamic republic after undergoing religious studies in Iran’s holy city of Qom.

His son is married to the daughter of General Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards foreign operations arm who was killed in a 2020 US strike in Iraq.

Safieddine bears the title of Sayyed, his black turban marking him—like Nasrallah—as considered to be a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed.

The United States and Saudi Arabia put him on their respective lists of designated ‘terrorists’ in 2017.

Unlike Nasrallah, who lived in hiding for years, Safieddine has appeared openly at recent political and religious events.

Foregoing his usual calm demeanour, he has broken into fiery rhetoric at the funerals of Hezbollah fighters killed in nearly a year of cross-border clashes with Israel.

Amal Saad, a Lebanese researcher on Hezbollah based at Cardiff University, said that for years people have been saying that Safieddine was ‘the most likely successor’ to Nasrallah.

‘The next leader has to be on the Shura Council, which has a handful of members, and he has to be a religious figure,’ she said.

Safieddine has ‘a lot of authority’, she added, describing him as ‘the strongest contender’ for the group’s leadership.

Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based Hezbollah expert and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, also said Safieddine has ‘been touted as a potential successor to Nasrallah for years’.

He has ‘the right credentials’, Blanford said—he is a religious figure, from Lebanon’s south, from where ‘most of Hezbollah’s leadership tends to come’, and also heads Hezbollah’s powerful executive council.

Hezbollah was created at the initiative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and gained its moniker as ‘the Resistance’ by fighting Israeli troops who occupied southern Lebanon until 2000.

The movement was founded during the Lebanese civil war after Israel besieged the capital Beirut in 1982.

In July in a speech in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Safieddine alluded to how Hezbollah views its leadership succession.

‘In our resistance... when any leader is martyred, another takes up the flag and goes on with new, certain, strong determination,’ he said.​

 

[Saif]

Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary

A fireball lit up the sky and smoke billowed over Beirut on Sunday as Israel unleashed intense strikes targeting Hezbollah, almost a year since the Hamas attack that sparked war in Gaza.

www.newagebd.net

Israel pounds Lebanon ahead of Hamas attack anniversary
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 06 October, 2024, 23:52

Residents walk amid the destruction in the aftermath of an Israeli strike that targeted the Sfeir neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday. | AFP photo

A fireball lit up the sky and smoke billowed over Beirut on Sunday as Israel unleashed intense strikes targeting Hezbollah, almost a year since the Hamas attack that sparked war in Gaza.

In Gaza, Israel’s military said it had encircled the northern area of Jabaliya after indications Hamas was rebuilding despite nearly a year of devastating air strikes and fighting.

As another strike hit Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati appealed to the international community to put pressure on Israel for a ceasefire.

Israel is on high alert ahead of the anniversary on Monday of Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack which triggered the war in Gaza.

Israel has now turned its focus northwards to Hezbollah, Hamas’s Iran-backed ally in Lebanon, and has vowed to avenge an Iranian missile attack.

Iran on Sunday said it had prepared a plan to hit back against any possible Israeli attack, before Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant warned Iran it could end up looking like Gaza or Beirut.

Lebanon’s official National News Agency said Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold was hit by more than 30 strikes, with a petrol station and a medical supplies warehouse also hit.

‘The strikes were like an earthquake,’ said shopkeeper Mehdi Zeiter, 60.

Israel’s military said it struck weapons storage facilities and infrastructure while taking measures ‘to mitigate the risk of harming civilians’.

AFPTV footage showed a massive fireball over a residential area, followed by a loud bang and secondary explosions. Smoke was still billowing from the site after dawn.

Later, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a visit to troops along the northern border, his office said, nearly a week after the army launched a ground operation inside Lebanon.

Ahead of Monday’s grim anniversary, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a televised briefing: ‘We are prepared with increased forces in anticipation for this day’, when there might be ‘attacks on the home front’.

Last year’s October 7 attack on Israel by Palestinian militants 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.

One year on, Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas continues despite its focus shifting to Lebanon and Hezbollah.

On Sunday the military said it had encircled the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza after intelligence detected ‘efforts by Hamas to rebuild its operational capabilities’.

The army said it had killed about 440 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon ‘from the ground and from the air’ since Monday, when troops began what it called targeted ground operations.

Israel says it aims to allow tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by almost a year of Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel to return home.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog called Iran an ‘on-going threat’ after Tehran, which backs armed groups across the Middle East, launched around 200 missiles at Israel on Tuesday in revenge for Israeli killings of militant leaders including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.

Iran’s attack killed a Palestinian in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and damaged an Israeli air base, according to satellite images.

It came the same day Israeli ground forces began raids into Lebanon after days of intense strikes on Hezbollah strongholds.

One Israeli military official said the army ‘is preparing a response’ to Iran’s attack.

Netanyahu noted Iran had twice launched ‘hundreds of missiles’ at Israel since April.

‘Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and to respond to these attacks and that is what we will do,’ he said in a statement.

Netanyahu’s critics accuse him of obstructing efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire and a deal to free hostages still held by Hamas.

Iran has prepared a plan to respond to a possible Israeli attack, Tasnim news agency reported, citing an informed source.

The Islamic republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Friday warned that ‘the resistance in the region will not back down’.

A senior Hezbollah source said Saturday the group had lost contact with Hashem Safieddine, widely tipped as its next leader, after air strikes in Beirut.

The movement has yet to name a new chief after Israel assassinated Nasrallah late last month in a massive strike in Lebanon’s capital.

Across Lebanon, strikes against Hezbollah have killed more than 1,110 people since September 23, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

UN’s refugee agency head Filippo Grandi said Lebanon ‘faces a terrible crisis’ and warned ‘hundreds of thousands of people are left destitute or displaced by Israeli air strikes’.

Israeli bombardment has put at least four hospitals in Lebanon out of service, the facilities said.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon said it rejected a request by Israel’s military to ‘relocate some of our positions’ in south Lebanon.

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, in Damascus Saturday after visiting Beirut, renewed his call for ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon and threatened Israel with an ‘even stronger’ reaction to any attack on Iran.

US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators tried unsuccessfully for months to reach a Gaza truce and secure the release of 97 hostages still held there.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Sunday an Israeli strike on a mosque-turned-shelter in central Deir al-Balah killed 26 people. Israel said it had targeted Hamas militants.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,870 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry and described as reliable by the UN.

Ahead of the October 7 anniversary, thousands joined pro-Palestinian rallies in London, Paris, Cape Town and other cities.

Israel’s president Herzog said his country’s October 7 ‘wounds still cannot fully heal’.​

 

[Saif]

Hezbollah says targets Israel army base near Haifa

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group said early Monday it had targeted an Israeli military base near the northern city of Haifa, the third attack on a military position in the area in one day.

en.prothomalo.com

Hezbollah says targets Israel army base near Haifa
Published: 07 Oct 2024, 09: 57

Damaged cars in Hezbollah's rocket attack in Israel's Haifa on 22 September AFP file photo

Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group said early Monday it had targeted an Israeli military base near the northern city of Haifa, the third attack on a military position in the area in one day.

Hezbollah fighters launched "a salvo of Fadi 1 rockets at the Carmel base south of Haifa," late Sunday the group said in a statement, having earlier reported two attacks on another base also south of Haifa. The group dedicated the attack to its leader Hassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut's southern suburbs last month.​

 

[Saif]

Israeli strikes endanger civilians on Lebanon-Syria border

Human Rights Watch on Monday said Israeli strikes near the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing were putting civilians at ‘grave risk’ as they prevented them from fleeing and...

www.newagebd.net

Israeli strikes endanger civilians on Lebanon-Syria border
Agence France-Presse . Beirut 07 October, 2024, 21:56

Children play around an emergency services tent set up at the Jdeidat Yabus border crossing in southwestern Syria as displaced people arrive from Lebanon on Monday. | AFP photo

Human Rights Watch on Monday said Israeli strikes near the main Lebanon-Syria border crossing were putting civilians at ‘grave risk’ as they prevented them from fleeing and hampered humanitarian operations.

The Israeli military said Friday its fighter jets struck Hezbollah positions near the Masnaa border crossing in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley.

Syrian transport ministry official Sleiman Khalil said on Monday that the road was still ‘completely cut off to vehicle traffic’, but people could still cross on foot.

Human Rights Watch said the strikes were ‘impeding civilians trying to flee and disrupting humanitarian operations’, adding ‘the situation places civilians at grave risk.’

‘An Israeli attack on a legitimate military target may still be unlawful if it can be expected to cause immediate civilian harm disproportionate to the anticipated military gain,’ it said in a statement.

If Hezbollah used the crossing to transfer weapons, the Iran-backed group too ‘may be failing to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control’, HRW added.

The Israeli military said it ‘struck an underground tunnel’ crossing the border that ‘enables the transfer and storage of large quantities of weapons underground’.

‘The tunnel’s operations were led by the 4400 Unit, the unit responsible for the transportation of weapons from Iran and its proxies to Hezbollah in Lebanon,’ the military added.

On Friday, an AFP photographer saw people carrying bags and children as they walked around a crater where a strike had hit.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency Filippo Grandi warned Sunday that the bombing of the road ‘has de facto blocked many people from seeking safety in Syria’.

Lebanese authorities said Friday that more than 3,70,000 people had crossed from Lebanon into Syria since September 23, most of them Syrian nationals.

More than 7,74,000 Syrian refugees were registered with the UN in Lebanon before the latest escalation, though the tiny country said that it hosted some two million of them — the world’s highest ratio of refugees per capita.

HRW’s Lama Fakih said that ‘by making a border crossing inaccessible at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing fighting and many others are in need of aid, the Israeli military threatens considerable civilian harm.’

Even if the crossing were used for military purposes, ‘Israel would need to take into account the expected civilian harm compared to the anticipated military gain’, she added in the statement.​