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Hezbollah Claims ‘Complete’ Responsibility for Attack on Netanyahu’s Home, Rejects Ceasefire Talks With Israel
Smoke billows over southern Lebanon, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, Sept. 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
Hezbollah on Tuesday claimed sole responsibility for a drone attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s holiday home, warning another strike against the premier was coming, and said there would be no negotiations for a ceasefire while fighting continued with Israel.
The Iran-backed terrorist organization in Lebanon took “full, complete, and exclusive responsibility” for targeting Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea on Saturday, Hezbollah media chief Mohammed Afif told a press conference in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
“If we did not reach you this time, then we will reach you the next time. Between us lie the days, nights, and the battlefield,” the Hezbollah spokesman added.
Israel said a drone was launched at Netanyahu’s holiday home on Saturday. According to reports, the attempted assassination included three drones, one of which directly hit the residence. Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, were not there at the time. However, the Israeli premier blamed Iran, the chief backer of Hezbollah, for the attack.
“The attempt by Iran’s proxy Hezbollah to assassinate me and my wife today was a grave mistake,” Netanyahu said in a statement on Saturday. “This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing our just war against our enemies in order to secure our future.”
The Israeli leader also warned, “I say to Iran and its proxies in its axis of evil: Anyone who tries to harm Israel’s citizens will pay a heavy price.”
A senior Israeli government official similarly told the publication Ynet: “Iran tried to eliminate the prime minister of Israel — it will not escape responsibility.”
Security measures for Israelis ministers and other officials have reportedly been reinforced following the attempted assassination.
Hezbollah’s comments on Tuesday appeared to be an effort to deflect blame away from Iran and place responsibility solely with its chief proxy.
Afif also said during his press conference that there would be no negotiations over a potential ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon as long as fighting continued.
From southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has been pummeling northern Israel with rockets, missiles, and drones almost daily since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza launched its war with the Jewish state last October. About 70,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate their homes in the north and flee to other parts of the country amid the unrelenting attacks from Hezbollah.
Israel has vowed to ensure all its citizens can safely return to their homes and, in recent weeks, has intensified military operations against Hezbollah, seeking to push back the terrorist army from the Israel-Lebanon border.
The military campaign has been devastating for Hezbollah. The Israeli military said on Monday that the Iran-backed group retains less than 30 percent of its firepower, and since the beginning of the Israeli ground operation in southern Lebanon about three weeks ago, some 1,200 terrorist operatives have been killed.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah for the first time acknowledged that Israel had captured some of its fighters in recent weeks. The terrorist group said it had not captured any Israeli soldiers but had come close.
“It won’t take long before we have captives from the enemy [Israel],” Afif said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Israel Agrees to Talks on Lebanon Border, to Free Five Lebanese, PM Office Says
An Israeli flag flies in Lebanon, near the Israel-Lebanon border, following the ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, as seen from Metula, northern Israel, Dec. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
Israel said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold talks to demarcate its border with Lebanon, adding it would release five Lebanese detainees held by the Israeli military in what it called a “gesture to the Lebanese president.”
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Israel had agreed with Lebanon, the US, and France to establish working groups to discuss the demarcation line between the two countries.
Though Israel has largely withdrawn from southern Lebanon under a ceasefire deal agreed in November, its troops continue to hold five hilltop positions in the area with airstrikes in southern Lebanon citing what it described as Hezbollah activity.
The ceasefire deal ended more than a year of conflict between Israel‘s military and the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah that was playing out in parallel with the Gaza war.
The fighting peaked in a major Israeli air and ground campaign in southern Lebanon that left Hezbollah badly weakened, with most of its military command killed in Israeli strikes.
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UN Security Council to Meet Over Iran’s Growing Stockpile of Near-Bomb-Grade Uranium
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The United Nations Security Council will meet behind closed doors on Wednesday over Iran’s expansion of its stock of uranium close to weapons grade, diplomats said on Monday.
The meeting was requested by six of the council’s 15 members – France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain, and the US.
They also want the council to discuss Iran’s obligation to provide the UN nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – with “the information necessary to clarify outstanding issues related to undeclared nuclear material detected at multiple locations in Iran,” diplomats said.
Iran’s mission to the UN in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the planned meeting.
Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.
Western states say there is no need to enrich uranium to such a high level under any civilian program and that no other country has done so without producing nuclear bombs. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.
Iran reached a deal in 2015 with Britain, Germany, France, the US, Russia, and China – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – that lifted sanctions on Tehran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
Washington quit the agreement in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term as US president, and Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments.
Britain, France, and Germany have told the UN Security Council that they are ready – if needed – to trigger a so-called snap back of all international sanctions on Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
They will lose the ability to take such action on Oct. 18 this year when the 2015 UN resolution on the deal expires. US President Donald Trump has directed his UN envoy to work with allies to snap back international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.
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Entire Families Killed in Syria’s Military Crackdown, UN Says
A man inspects a damaged car in Latakia, after hundreds were reportedly killed in some of the deadliest violence in 13 years of civil war, pitting loyalists of deposed President Bashar al-Assad against the country’s new Islamist rulers, Syria, March 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Haidar Mustafa
Entire families including women and children were killed in Syria’s coastal region as part of a series of sectarian killings by the army against an insurgency by Bashar al-Assad loyalists, the UN human rights office said on Tuesday.
Pressure has been growing on Syria’s Islamist-led government to investigate after reports by a war monitor of the killing of hundreds of civilians in villages where the majority of the population were members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect.
“In a number of extremely disturbing instances, entire families – including women, children, and individuals hors de combat – were killed, with predominantly Alawite cities and villages targeted in particular,” UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said, using a French term for those incapable of fighting.
So far, the UN human rights office has documented the killing of 111 civilians and expects the real toll to be significantly higher, Al-Kheetan told a Geneva press briefing. Of those, 90 were men; 18 were women; and three were children, he added.
“Many of the cases documented were of summary executions. They appear to have been carried out on a sectarian basis,” Al-Kheetan told reporters. In some cases, men were shot dead in front of their families, he said, citing testimonies from survivors.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk welcomed an announcement by Syria’s Islamist-led government to create an accountability committee and called for those investigations to be prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial, the spokesperson added.
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