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Israeli Military Strikes Hezbollah Targets in Lebanon After Terror Group Attacks Northern Israel
Smoke rises from the southern Lebanese town of Khiam, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, Sept. 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Dahe
The Israeli military said it was striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon on Thursday, shortly before the Iran-backed terrorist organization’s leader was due to give a speech.
It also said the military chief of staff had approved plans for Israel’s north, which borders Lebanon.
The military said Hezbollah had turned southern Lebanon into a combat zone.
“For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them, and used civilians as human shields,” it said.
“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is operating to bring security to northern Israel in order to enable the return of residents to their homes, as well as to achieve all of the war goals,” it said.
A separate military statement said that the Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, had recently completed approval of plans for the northern arena.
Hezbollah has fired barrages of rockets, missiles, and drones at northern Israel almost daily following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists on the Jewish state’s southern region. Since then, both sides have been exchanging fire constantly while avoiding a major escalation as war rages in Gaza to the south.
About 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate their homes in northern Israel and flee to other parts of the country amid the unrelenting attacks from Hezbollah.
Israeli leaders have said they seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict with Hezbollah along the border with Lebanon but are prepared to use large-scale military force if needed to ensure all citizens can safely return to their homes.
On Monday night, Israel’s security cabinet expanded its war goals to include returning the displaced Israelis from the north.
The latest Israeli military statements were released on Thursday a few minutes before Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was due to deliver a speech for the first time since thousands of explosions in booby-trapped radios and pagers hit the Iran-backed Lebanese group.
The attacks on Hezbollah‘s communications equipment killed 37 people and wounded around 3,000, raising fears that a full-blown war was imminent.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied being behind the attacks but multiple security sources have said they were carried out by its spy agency Mossad.
Still, Nasrallah said the explosions “crossed all red lines” and vowed revenge.
“There is no doubt that we have been subjected to a major security and military blow that is unprecedented in the history of the resistance and unprecedented in the history of Lebanon,” Nasrallah said in his TV address, filmed at an undisclosed location. “This type of killing, targeting and crime may be unprecedented in the world.”
“The enemy went beyond all controls, laws and morals,” he continued, adding the attacks “could be considered war crimes or a declaration or war, they could be called anything and they deserve to be called anything. Of course that was the intention of the enemy.”
Earlier on Thursday, 10 people were wounded in northern Israel in two separate attacks by Hezbollah, according to Hebrew media reports.
In the morning, eight people were wounded when two anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon struck in Israel’s Upper Galilee. Then in the afternoon, two people were wounded by a drone strike near the town of Ya’ara in the Western Galilee.
“An explosive UAV was identified falling adjacent to the community of Ya’ara,” the IDF said. “No fragments were identified falling in the area of the community.”
The military also said that on Thursday afternoon a drone was detected crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for launching the drones, saying they were fired at artillery positions in revenge for IDF strikes in southern Lebanon.
The post Israeli Military Strikes Hezbollah Targets in Lebanon After Terror Group Attacks Northern Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.