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Hezbollah Using Lebanese People as ‘Human Shields,’ Placing Munitions ‘In Heart of’ Civilian Areas, Israel Says
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
Israeli jets struck a weapons depot belonging to the Hezbollah terror group “in the heart of a civilian area” of Lebanon, the army said on Wednesday, alongside a video of the strike.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the aerial bombing targeted the Iran-backed group’s arms production infrastructure in a village in the Baalbek region in south Lebanon. Footage showed large explosions that Israeli officials described as proof that Hezbollah was storing munitions in residential areas.
“Hezbollah places its production infrastructure in the heart of civilian populations in southern Lebanon, in the Beqaa Valley and in Beirut, and uses the Lebanese people as human shields,” the IDF said in a statement. “The large and lengthy secondary explosions seen in the video are further proof of Hezbollah’s modus operandi, in which it stores explosives and dangerous chemical substances in civilian villages.”
The strike comes amid escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. The IDF said last week that it had targeted more than 4,500 Hezbollah targets since the outbreak of the war against Hamas in Gaza on Oct. 7, including weapons shipments and production facilities used to manufacture rockets and other munitions. Hezbollah has identified more than 240 of its members killed by Israel since Oct. 8, but the IDF puts that number at over 300, including senior operatives. Israeli strikes have also targeted Hezbollah operatives in Syria as well as members of other terror groups, including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Sarit Zehavi — a resident of northern Israel and the founder and director of Alma, a research center that focuses on security challenges relating to Israel’s northern border — said that the strikes are part of a broader plan to cement a significant military victory in Lebanon that would destroy the terror group’s capabilities but at the same time avoid an all-out war. The “third path” policy, which would include a diplomatic element, Zehavi noted, was not reflective of the Israeli public’s view. A poll released earlier this week found that 60 percent of Israelis supported a war against Hezbollah, but Zehavi cautioned against not putting the numbers in their context.
“Israelis are not interested in war; war is not our priority. You see this number because people don’t believe that you can bring back the 60,000 people who were evacuated from their homes safely without war. What we saw happening on Oct. 7 in the south was supposed to happen in the north. Hezbollah had the same plan exactly,” Zehavi told The Algemeiner.
“Israelis today are no longer willing to sleep next to the monster that is Hezbollah that is willing to execute people and take hostages as human shields.”
More than 60,000 Israelis from Israel’s northern region near the Lebanon border have been evacuated from their homes amid daily anti-tank, missile, and mortar fire and are living in hotels and other forms of temporary housing. A further 70,000 are still evacuated from Israel’s southern region near the Gaza border, where Hamas carried out its massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7.
According to Zehavi, “three clocks are ticking” in parallel regarding a timeline for returning the displaced people to their homes. The first is the Israeli government, which is feeling the strain of rehousing tens of thousands of people and is also keen to return people to their homes before the start of the school year in September. The second is the Biden administration’s opposition to another war ahead of November’s elections in the United States. The third is Iran, which is hoping to gain the upper hand over Israel.
But Zehavi said that the lack of deadline coupled with an unclear notion of how a diplomatic agreement would be implemented — including which entity would enforce it — made the prospect of returning home fraught. “The diplomatic agreement being discussed is not enough to make us feel secure … it’s clear that Hezbollah would not fulfill an agreement, as it didn’t the last time, in 2006.”
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006 during the Second Lebanon War, called for the disarmament of Hezbollah and the deployment of Lebanese and UN peacekeeping forces, UNIFIL, in southern Lebanon. Currently, however, Hezbollah wields significant political and military clout in Lebanon, with according to some estimates about 150,000 rockets pointed at Israel.
“[Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah is not interested in a ceasefire as long as Israel is at war with Gaza. He has said that very clearly again and again. Which means that we continue to live under threat here and we cannot bring people back home,” Zehavi said.
On Tuesday, two IDF soldiers were wounded when a rocket fired by Hezbollah hit an army post near the Menara kibbutz close to the northern border. More than 90 percent of the homes in Menara have been damaged by Hezbollah fire.
The news of the strike came after the IDF announced the formation of the new “Mountains” brigade on the border with Syria and Lebanon that it said would “specialize in combat in challenging terrain and warfare in mountainous areas.”
Zehavi also addressed news that a Lebanese man, Basel Bassel Ebbadi, had been arrested by US Border Patrol while attempting to illegally cross into Texas. Ebbadi confessed to being a member of the Hezbollah terror group with the plan of “making a bomb.”
“It’s not surprising. I believe there are more like him,” she said. “There will be more attempts on American soil.”
The post Hezbollah Using Lebanese People as ‘Human Shields,’ Placing Munitions ‘In Heart of’ Civilian Areas, Israel Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
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Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.