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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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Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The Israeli army said on Saturday that a missile fired from Yemen towards Israeli territory had been “most likely successfully intercepted,” while Yemen’s Houthi forces claimed responsibility for the launch.
Israel has threatened Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement – which has been attacking Israel in what it says is solidarity with Gaza – with a naval and air blockade if its attacks on Israel persist.
The Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group was responsible for Saturday’s attack, adding that it fired a missile towards the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.
Since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones they have launched have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
The post Israel Says Missile Launched by Yemen’s Houthis ‘Most Likely’ Intercepted first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel

People attend the funeral procession of Iranian military commanders, nuclear scientists and others killed in Israeli strikes, in Tehran, Iran, June 28, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Large crowds of mourners dressed in black lined streets in Iran’s capital Tehran as the country held a funeral on Saturday for top military commanders, nuclear scientists and some of the civilians killed during this month’s aerial war with Israel.
At least 16 scientists and 10 senior commanders were among those mourned at the funeral, according to state media, including armed forces chief Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Revolutionary Guards commander General Hossein Salami, and Guards Aerospace Force chief General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.
Their coffins were driven into Tehran’s Azadi Square adorned with their photos and national flags, as crowds waved flags and some reached out to touch the caskets and throw rose petals onto them. State-run Press TV showed an image of ballistic missiles on display.
Mass prayers were later held in the square.
State TV said the funeral, dubbed the “procession of the Martyrs of Power,” was held for a total of 60 people killed in the war, including four women and four children.
In attendance were President Masoud Pezeshkian and other senior figures including Ali Shamkhani, who was seriously wounded during the conflict and is an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as Khamenei’s son Mojtaba.
“Today, Iranians, through heroic resistance against two regimes armed with nuclear weapons, protected their honor and dignity, and look to the future prouder, more dignified, and more resolute than ever,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, who also attended the funeral, said in a Telegram post.
There was no immediate statement from Khamenei, who has not appeared publicly since the conflict began. In past funerals, he led prayers over the coffins of senior commanders ahead of public ceremonies broadcast on state television.
Israel launched the air war on June 13, attacking Iranian nuclear facilities and killing top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
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Israel, the only Middle Eastern country widely believed to have nuclear weapons, said it aimed to prevent Tehran from developing its own nuclear weapons.
Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has said it has “no credible indication” of an active, coordinated weapons program in Iran.
Bagheri, Salami and Hajizadeh were killed on June 13, the first day of the war. Bagheri was being buried at the Behesht Zahra cemetery outside Tehran mid-afternoon on Saturday. Salami and Hajizadeh were due to be buried on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would consider bombing Iran again, while Khamenei, who has appeared in two pre-recorded video messages since the start of the war, has said Iran would respond to any future US attack by striking US military bases in the Middle East.
A senior Israeli military official said on Friday that Israel had delivered a “major blow” to Iran’s nuclear project. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Israel and the US “failed to achieve their stated objectives” in the war.
According to Iranian health ministry figures, 610 people were killed on the Iranian side in the war before a ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday. More than 4,700 were injured.
Activist news agency HRANA put the number of killed at 974, including 387 civilians.
Israel’s health ministry said 28 were killed in Israel and 3,238 injured.
The post Iran Holds Funeral for Commanders and Scientists Killed in War with Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival

Revellers dance as Avril Lavigne performs on the Other Stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
i24 News – Chants of “death to the IDF” were heard during the English Glastonbury music festival on Saturday ahead of the appearance of the pro-Palestinian Irish rappers Kneecap.
One half of punk duo based Bob Vylan (who both use aliases to protect their privacy) shouted out during a section of their show “Death to the IDF” – the Israeli military. Videos posted on X (formerly Twitter) show the crowd responding to and repeating the cheer.
This comes after officials had petitioned the music festival to drop the band. The rap duo also expressed support for the following act, Kneecap, who the BCC refused to show live after one of its members, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – better known by stage name Mo Chara – was charged with a terror offense.
The post Pro-Palestinian Rapper Leads ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at English Music festival first appeared on Algemeiner.com.