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Israel Says It Bombed Hezbollah Arms Depots in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley
People and Lebanese army members stand near a burnt car after an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon, according to two Palestinian sources, in Lebanon, Aug. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hassan Hankir
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it bombed Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley overnight, its latest strike on arms depots in a major stronghold of the powerful Iranian-backed terrorist organization.
The air attack came hours after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “attacking munitions warehouses in Lebanon is preparation for anything that might happen.”
Hezbollah said it had retaliated for the strike on the Bekaa region by firing Katyusha rockets at an Israeli military logistics site in the Golan Heights.
Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been locked in hostilities for the last 10 months in parallel with the Gaza war between Israel and Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which has spread to several other fronts and prompted fears of an all-out Middle East conflict.
Hezbollah has pummeled northern Israeli communities almost daily with barrages of drones, rockets, and missiles since the start of the Gaza war in October.
About 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate Israel’s north during that time due to the unrelenting attacks. Most of them have spent the past 10 months living in hotels in other areas of Israel.
While most of the exchanges of fire have played out along Lebanon’s volatile southern border with Israel, some Israeli strikes have occurred deeper into Lebanon, including the Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria.
There was no immediate confirmation from security sources in Lebanon that weapons depots were targeted on Tuesday. The sources said the strike was in a residential area near the eastern city of Baalbek in the Bekaa, an area populated mainly by Shi’ite Muslims from whom Hezbollah draws its support.
The airstrikes left at least two people dead and 19 injured, according to the security sources, but it was not immediately clear if those killed were civilians or fighters.
Another Israeli airstrike on Wednesday hit a car on the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon, killing a member of the armed wing of the Palestinian faction Fatah, two Palestinian sources told Reuters.
Israel has regularly bombed Hezbollah fighters and rocket launch sites in south Lebanon. More than 600 people in Lebanon have been killed since the start of the clashes last October, including more than 400 Hezbollah combatants and 132 civilians, according to a Reuters toll.
Targeting arms depots has picked up more recently.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted a weapons depot used by Hezbollah terrorists in an airstrike. Lebanon’s state news agency said at least 10 Syrian nationals, including two children, were killed in this incident.
Another airstrike late on Monday hit a Hezbollah weapons depot in the Bekaa region.
In July, Israel bombed another depot storing ammunition belonging to Hezbollah in the town of Adloun in south Lebanon, three security sources told Reuters.
The post Israel Says It Bombed Hezbollah Arms Depots in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Top US General Makes Unannounced Middle East Trip as Iran Threat Looms
US Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaks at a conference of African chiefs of defense in Gaborone, Botswana on June 25, 2024, the first time a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top U.S. military officer, has visited sub-Saharan Africa in 30 years, according to the Pentagon. Photo: REUTERS/Phil Stewart/File Photo
The top US general began an unannounced visit to the Middle East on Saturday to discuss ways to avoid any new escalation in tensions that could spiral into a broader conflict, as the region braces for a threatened Iranian attack against Israel.
Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, began his trip in Jordan and said he will also travel to Egypt and Israel in the coming days to hear the perspectives of military leaders.
His visit comes as the United States is trying to clinch an elusive Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which Brown said would “help bring down the temperature,” if achieved.
“At the same time, as I talk to my counterparts, what are the things we can do to deter any type of broader escalation and ensure we’re taking all the appropriate steps to (avoid) … a broader conflict,” Brown told Reuters before landing in Jordan.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, now in its 11th month. The conflict has leveled huge swathes of Gaza, triggered border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement and sparked attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on Red Sea shipping.
Meanwhile, US troops have been attacked by Iran-aligned militia in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. In recent weeks, the U.S. military has been bolstering its forces in the Middle East to guard against major new attacks by Iran or its allies, sending the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group into the region to replace the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group.
The United States has also sent an Air Force F-22 Raptor squadron into the region and deployed a cruise missile submarine.
“We brought in additional capability to send a strong message to deter a broader conflict … but also to protect our forces should they be attacked,” Brown said, saying safeguarding American forces was “paramount.”
IRANIAN RESPONSE
Iran has vowed a severe response to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which took place as he visited Tehran late last month and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.
Hezbollah has also threatened a response after Israel killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut last month.
Iran has not publicly indicated what would be the target of an eventual response to the Haniyeh assassination but U.S. officials say they are closely monitoring for any signs that Iran will make good on its threats.
“We stay postured, watching the (intelligence) and force movements,” Brown said. On Friday, Iran’s new Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told his French and British counterparts in telephone conversations that it was his country’s right to retaliate, according to the official IRNA news agency.
On April 13, two weeks after two Iranian generals were killed in a strike on Tehran’s embassy in Syria, Iran unleashed a barrage of hundreds of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles towards Israel, damaging two air bases. Israel, the United States and other allies managed to destroy almost all of the weapons before they reached their targets.
Brown did not speculate about what Iran and its allies might do but said he hoped to discuss different scenarios with his Israeli counterpart.
“Particularly, as I engage with my Israeli counterpart, how they might respond, depending on the response that comes from Hezbollah or from Iran,” Brown said.
The current war in the Gaza Strip began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists stormed into Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
The post Top US General Makes Unannounced Middle East Trip as Iran Threat Looms first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza Talks Resume in Cairo
Illustrative. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian meets with Qatari Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Tehran, Iran July 6, 2022. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS.
Gaza ceasefire and hostage negotiators discussed new compromise proposals in Cairo on Saturday, seeking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas as the UN reported worsening humanitarian conditions, with malnutrition soaring and polio discovered in the Palestinian enclave.
A Hamas delegation arrived on Saturday to be nearer at hand to review any proposals that emerge in the main talks between Israel and the mediating countries Egypt, Qatar and the United States, two Egyptian security sources said.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani was expected to attend.
A US official said negotiators from the United States met with Egypt then bilaterally with Egypt and Qatar on Saturday, and believed that representatives from Egypt and Qatar were meeting with Hamas.
Months of on-off talks have failed to produce a breakthrough to end Israel’s military campaign in Gaza or free the remaining hostages seized by Hamas in the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war.
The Egyptian sources said the new proposals include compromises on outstanding points such as how to secure key areas and the return of people to north Gaza.
However there was no sign of any breakthrough on key sticking points, including Israel’s insistence that it must retain control of the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, on the border between Gaza and Egypt.
Hamas has accused Israel of going back on things it had previously agreed to in the talks, which Israel denies. The group says the United States is not mediating in good faith.
In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has locked horns with Israeli ceasefire negotiators over whether Israeli troops must remain all along the border between Gaza and Egypt, a person with knowledge of the talks said.
A Palestinian official familiar with mediation efforts said it was too soon to predict the outcome of talks.
“Hamas is there to discuss the outcome of the mediators’ talks with the Israeli officials and whether there is enough to suggest a change in the Netanyahu stance about reaching a deal,” the official said.
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Soldier Killed in Central Gaza, Bringing IDF Death Toll to 696
Sgt. First Class (res.) Evyatar Atuar was killed in action in Gaza City, Aug. 23, 2024. Photo: IDF.
JNS.org – An Israel Defense Forces soldier was killed and several others were wounded on Friday morning when Hamas terrorists detonated an explosive device in Gaza City.
The slain soldier was named as Sgt. First Class (res.) Evyatar Atuar, 24, of the 16th “Jerusalem” Infantry Brigade’s 6310th Battalion, from Rosh Haayin.
The brigade, part of the 252nd “Sinai” Division, was involved in expanding the IDF’s Netzarim Corridor, which separates Gaza’s north and south.
According to an initial probe, terrorists remote-detonated a bomb planted on a building’s outer wall after soldiers had entered to search it in the Zeitoun neighborhood.
At least four soldiers outside the structure were seriously wounded and three others were moderately hurt, the IDF said.
On Thursday, Sgt. Ori Ashkenazi Nechemya, 19, a member of the 401st Armored Brigade’s 46th Battalion, was killed battling Hamas terrorists in the southern Gaza Strip.
A preliminary probe found that he was killed by anti-tank missile fire in Rafah.
Earlier this week, Lt. Shahar Ben Nun, 21, from the Paratrooper Brigade’s Reconnaissance Battalion, was killed by an IAF missile that malfunctioned during a strike in southern Gaza.
The death toll among Israeli troops since the start of the Gaza ground incursion on Oct. 27 now stands at 333, and at 696 on all fronts since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre, according to official military data.
Additionally, Ch. Insp. Arnon Zamora, a member of the Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit, was fatally wounded during a hostage-rescue mission in Gaza in June, and civilian defense contractor Liron Yitzhak was mortally wounded in May.
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