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Herzog: Terrorists Slain in Beirut Were Plotting Oct. 7-Style Attack

Israeli President Isaac Herzog looks on during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, not pictured, in Washington, DC, on Oct. 25, 2022. Stefani Reynolds/Pool via REUTERS

JNS.orgHezbollah leaders killed in an airstrike on Friday were planning the same type of invasion Hamas carried out on Oct. 7 farther south, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in an interview with Britain’s Sky News on Sunday.

“We do not want to get into a war with Lebanon, but Lebanon has been hijacked by a terror organization which is also a political party in Lebanon called Hezbollah,” the president told senior news presenter Sir Trevor Phillips via satellite feed from Jerusalem.

“It’s been armed to its teeth by the Iranian empire of evil, and all of these leaders who were eradicated on Friday by the Israeli attack, all of these leaders were meeting together in order to launch the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on October 7 by Hamas, by burning Israelis, butchering them, raping their women, abducting and taking hostage old people and young, and little babies,” Herzog continued.

“So this is exactly the same plan that they’ve been planning for years under the empire of evil of Iran. So we are fighting, actually the war for the entire free world,” the president said.

On Friday, Israel bombed a building in Beirut, killing more than a dozen Hezbollah officers including Ibrahim Aqil, 61, who was the second top commander of Hezbollah killed since Oct. 7. This was preceded earlier in the week by a series of communication device explosions that killed dozens and wounded thousands of Hezbollah terrorists across Lebanon.

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a video statement on Friday that Aqil and the Radwan Force commanders at the meeting were discussing plans to carry out an Oct. 7-style invasion of Israel, which they called “Conquer the Galilee.”

“These terrorists planned to do in northern Israel what Hamas did in southern Israel on Oct. 7,” Hagari said.

A source close to Hezbollah confirmed to AlMonitor that the meeting in the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut was convened to study “plans for a ground operation in the heart of the occupied territories [i.e., Israel]” in response to the communication device attacks.

During the Sky News interview, Herzog stressed that “we are working to change this equation, meaning we have to bring our hostages back from Gaza, and we have to make sure that this attack does not recur from Gaza, and we have to make sure that this attack does not recur again from Lebanon. That’s all there is. It’s very simple, and life can go on in a peaceful manner on an internationally recognized boundary between Israel and Lebanon.”

Herzog also had choice words from the government in London, which hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with Jerusalem during the campaign against Hamas and other Iranian-supported terrorist groups.

“I believe our friends should understand that we are fighting their war too. In the long term, you have to understand that there is an empire of evil which really thinks and believes as part of an ideology in the jihadist ideology, in conquering the Middle East and moving on into Europe and the rest of the world,” he said.

“They call you Satans. They want to plant bombs in your cities all over the world. Hezbollah has terror cells situated in countries all over the world so and you ask yourself, why? How come Iran armed a tribe in Yemen called the Houthis on the shore of the Red Sea, and they’re affecting the cost of living of each and every British family or European family or American family [by attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea]?

“This cannot go on. We expect that all our allies will be side-by-side with us in combating this terrible situation and fighting like we are to bring back our hostages home. There are 101 Israeli hostages, already 352 days they are in the dungeons of Gaza,” Herzog said.

The post Herzog: Terrorists Slain in Beirut Were Plotting Oct. 7-Style Attack first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Moves Patriot Missile Batteries from South Korea to Middle East

A Patriot missile battery. Photo: IDF.

i24 NewsAmerican Patriot missile defense batteries will be moved from South Korea to the Middle East, according to reports in Asian media on Friday, amid speculation over a potential military action against Iran’s nuclear program and escalating bombardments of Iran-backed jihadists in Yemen.

US President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program, and the United States has moved additional warplanes into the region.

Washington and Seoul have reportedly recently agreed on the “monthslong” partial deployment of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, in what is understood to be the first known case involving the relocation of United States Forces Korea (USFK) assets to the Middle East.

Iran in recent years has largely dropped the pretense of enriching uranium for a civilian atomic energy program, as it’s reportedly teetering on the nuclear precipice. Israel believes that a nuclear Iran represents a grave existential threat, consistent with the exterminationist antisemitism of the Islamic Republic’s anti-Israel rhetoric.

After the election of Trump, a known Iran hawk, the likelihood of an U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has increased precipitously.

The post US Moves Patriot Missile Batteries from South Korea to Middle East first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Iranian Plot to Assassinate Azerbaijani Rabbi Foiled

The Azerbaijani capital of Baku. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

i24 NewsIran enlisted the services of a Georgian drug trafficker to carry out an assassination of a prominent Azerbaijani rabbi, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing security officials.

The plot to murder Rabbi Shneor Segal, foiled by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan in early January, also involved a plan to attack a Jewish education center, the officials said.

The plot was set in motion by an officer with Iran’s Quds Force, who met with Georgian criminal Agil Aslanov, handing him a photo of Segal and detailed instructions on how to murder him, the officials cited by WaPo said. Aslanov’s fee for the foiled hit was $200,000.

The State Security Service said the two men “worked to collect information about a member of a religious community, and sent the location of his residence and workplace to a representative of a foreign special service agency via the appropriate mobile phone application.”

Iran is known to be behind multiple plots against Israeli and Jewish targets, many of which have been foiled by Israeli and foreign security services.

However a recent plot saw three citizens of Uzbekistan murder an Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates on Iranian orders. The three were sentenced to death earlier this week for the murder of Zvi Kogan in November.

The post Report: Iranian Plot to Assassinate Azerbaijani Rabbi Foiled first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Netanyahu to Depart for Washington on Sunday Directly from Hungary to Meet with Trump

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Feb. 16, 2025. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 NewsIsrael’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will depart to Washington DC on Sunday directly from Hungary—where he is presently on an official visit—to meet with US President Donald Trump, i24NEWS learned on Saturday from an Israeli source.

The visit comes following a phone conversation between the leaders on Friday, and a call with State Secretary Marco Rubio a short while ago.

As a result, the planned visit to Washington of Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz will be postponed once again.

Topics of discussion between the two leaders are expected to include the possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Gaza war and the future of the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave, the US bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi jihadists in Yemen, and the recent imposition of tariffs on Israeli products.

The post Netanyahu to Depart for Washington on Sunday Directly from Hungary to Meet with Trump first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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