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‘It’s Us or Them’: Prospect of Israel-Hezbollah War Rises as Iran-Backed Terrorists Ramp Up Drone Strikes

Flames seen at the side of a road, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, close to the Israel border with Lebanon, in northern Israel, June 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ayal Margolin

An explosives-laden drone launched by Hezbollah from Lebanon injured 11 people in a northern Israeli town on Wednesday, further raising the specter of a new front opening amid rapidly escalating tensions between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group.

Hezbollah, which wields significant political and military influence across Lebanon, took responsibility for launching “several projectiles” at Israel, it said, including two that hit a soccer field in the Druze town of Hurfeish, where sirens were not activated. At least one person was critically wounded and a further 10 evacuated to a hospital. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was investigating why the incoming projectile alert sirens did not sound.

Early reports from military sources indicate the drone attacks occurred in quick succession, with the second appearing to intentionally target emergency responders rushing to aid victims of the initial blast, a tactic repeatedly used by Hezbollah terrorists during the current conflict.

The attack came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel was prepared with an “intensely powerful” response to Hezbollah.

“Whoever thinks that he will attack us and that we will stand idly by is gravely mistaken,” Netanyahu said. He made his remarks during a tour of Israel’s charred north 48 hours after projectiles from Hezbollah had sparked several massive fires in the area, burning entire villages. More than 4,500 missiles and drones have been fired from Lebanon since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war to the Jewish state’s south in Gaza.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog offered prayers for the full recovery of the victims of the Hurfeish attack.

“The world needs to wake up and understand that Israel has no alternative but to safeguard its citizens, and should not be shocked when Israel responds aggressively,” Herzog said.

Israel has stepped up its own attacks against Hezbollah, targeting “significant assets” as well as senior commanders of the group, the IDF said.

According to diplomatic sources, the US and France have been engaging in shuttle diplomacy between Israel and Lebanon for several months now, in an effort to develop a potential negotiated resolution to the conflict.

The key goal is to facilitate the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s presence to over 6 miles north of the Israeli border, beyond the Litani River, and to allow either the Lebanese military or an international peacekeeping force to move into the vacated area along the border. As part of the proposed framework, Israel and Lebanon would also work to resolve longstanding border demarcation disputes between the two nations, The Wall Street Journal reported.

But 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 — told The Algemeiner that anything short of destroying Hezbollah would result in a “massacre” of a scale larger than Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

“Everyone understands the cost of war here, but at the same time everybody understands that if it will end up with a ceasefire that would take us back to Oct. 6, this will mean another massacre of Israelis by Hezbollah since Hamas actually replicated the Hezbollah plan to occupy the Galilee,” Zehavi said.

The overwhelming sentiment, she said, is that authorities are failing to take adequate measures, both offensively and defensively.

Zehavi pointed to the lack of bomb shelters in the area and the threat of anti-tank missiles that has become a daily reality over the past eight months, with Hezbollah launching strikes that cannot be intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system and that often arrive without rocket siren warnings.

Compounding concerns, she said, is an alarming surge in attack drone activity from Hezbollah, especially over the last two months, with numbers sharply increasing month-over-month.

“Hezbollah is deliberately escalating the situation to try to drag Israel into war,” Zehavi told The Algemeiner. “I believe this was Hezbollah’s aim from the beginning. It’s not deterred; it’s not interested in a ceasefire. If there will be a ceasefire in Gaza, Hezbollah will follow, but only in order to recover and to execute a massacre at its most convenient timing.”

More than 80,000 Israelis evacuated Israel’s north in October and have since been unable to return to their homes. The majority of those spent the past eight months residing in hotels in safer areas of the country.

One of them, Avi Vanunu, said that unless Israel embarked on a full-scale invasion of Lebanon soon, returning home to his border town of Kiryat Shmona wouldn’t be possible “even in ten years’ time.”

“I don’t even know if my house is still standing or if it was hit by a rocket,” he told The Algemeiner. “Tonight’s attack [on Hurfeish] just proves: It’s us or them.”

The only comfort he took, Vanunu said, was in the fact that Hurfeish was a Druze village, with many residents who had served as Border Police officers and in the IDF in senior positions.

“This won’t pass easily,” he said. “Just look at how they reacted after that Druze boy was kidnapped.”

Vanunu was referring to a Nov. 2022 incident in which the body of a Druze Israeli teen was stolen by terrorists from a hospital in the Palestinian city of Jenin, prompting widespread anger and several revenge attacks from members of the Druze community, including kidnapping Palestinian laborers in Israel and throwing explosive devices in West Bank towns.

Maj. Shadi Khalloul (res), an expert on Hezbollah and Lebanon, called the efforts to push Hezbollah away to past the Litani River “a joke.”

“It’s deceiving Israeli citizens again. It’s dangerous. We should fully destroy [Hezbollah],” Khalloul, who also serves as the president of the Aramaic Christian Galilee Center, told The Algemeiner, warning that if Israel failed to do so, the terror group would be prepared to “destroy Israel together with a nuclear Iran.”

The post ‘It’s Us or Them’: Prospect of Israel-Hezbollah War Rises as Iran-Backed Terrorists Ramp Up Drone Strikes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Putin Speaks to Trump, Condemns Israel’s Strikes on Iran, Kremlin Says

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian meet in Moscow, Russia, Jan. 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to US President Donald Trump for 50 minutes on Saturday, condemning the Israeli military operation against Iran and expressing concern about the risks of escalation, the Kremlin said.

“Vladimir Putin condemned Israel’s military operation against Iran and expressed serious concern about a possible escalation of the conflict, which would have unpredictable consequences for the entire situation in the Middle East,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.

Trump, for his part, described events in the Middle East as “very alarming,” according to Ushakov. But the two leaders said they do not rule out a return to the negotiating track on Iran’s nuclear program, Ushakov said.

On Ukraine, Putin told the US leader that Russia was ready to continue negotiations with the Ukrainians after June 22, according to state news agency RIA.

Trump reiterated his interest in a speedy resolution to the conflict, the Kremlin aide said.

Putin also congratulated Trump on his 79th birthday.

The post Putin Speaks to Trump, Condemns Israel’s Strikes on Iran, Kremlin Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Sunday’s US-Iran Nuclear Talks Cancelled, Oman Says

FILE PHOTO: Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Albusaidi attends a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia July 11, 2023. Photo: Natalia Kolesnikova/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

The latest round of US-Iran nuclear talks scheduled for Sunday in Muscat will not take place, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said on X on Saturday. Oman has been mediating the talks.

Albusaidi’s statement came a day after Israel launched a sweeping air offensive against Iran, killing commanders and scientists and bombing nuclear sites in a stated bid to stop it building an atomic weapon.

A senior official of US President Donald Trump’s administration, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Sunday’s talks had been cancelled.

Washington, however, remained committed to the negotiations and hoped “the Iranians will come to the table soon,” the official said.

The post Sunday’s US-Iran Nuclear Talks Cancelled, Oman Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iran Says Talks with US ‘Meaningless’ After Israel Attack, But Yet to Decide on Attending

USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, Sept. 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Iran said the dialogue with the US over Tehran’s nuclear program is “meaningless” after Israel’s biggest-ever military strike against its longstanding enemy, but said it is yet to decide on whether to attend planned talks on Sunday.

“The other side (the US) acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless. You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime (Israel) to target Iran’s territory,” state media on Saturday quoted foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.

“It is still unclear what decision we will make on Sunday in this regard,” Baghaei was quoted as saying.

He said Israel “succeeded in influencing” the diplomatic process and the Israeli attack would not have happened without Washington’s permission, accusing Washington of supporting the attack.

Iran earlier accused the US of being complicit in Israel’s attacks, but Washington denied the allegation and told Tehran at the United Nations Security Council that it would be “wise” to negotiate over its nuclear program.

The sixth round of US-Iran nuclear talks was set to be held on Sunday in Muscat, but it was unclear whether it would go ahead after the Israeli strikes.

Iran denies that its uranium enrichment program is for anything other than civilian purposes, rejecting Israeli allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

US President Donald Trump told Reuters that he and his team had known the Israeli attacks were coming but they still saw room for an accord.

The post Iran Says Talks with US ‘Meaningless’ After Israel Attack, But Yet to Decide on Attending first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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