By The Independent (World News) | Created at 2024-09-23 04:05:20 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:32:58
1 week ago
At least 39 people were killed and thousands injured after Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies exploded last week
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Israel has denied having any involvement with an exploding pager attack which killed dozens and injured thousands of people across Lebanon and Syria.
Israeli president Isaac Herzog said he “rejects out of hand any connection” to the audacious operation carried out against Hezbollah last week.
At least 39 people were injured and 3,000 were wounded after the Shi’ite militia’s pagers and walkie-talkies simultaneously detonated across the Middle East on Tuesday and Thursday.
On Sunday, Israel said it struck around 290 targets inside Lebanon after Hezbollah launched just over 100 rockets at northern Israel in the most intense skirmish since the war in Gaza began almost a year ago.
Israel closed schools and in many northern areas of the country and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights early on Sunday, with reports of rockets hitting Haifa, a port city around 17 miles from the Lebanon border.
The exchange comes after Israel killed more than a dozen senior Hezbollah commanders in an air strike on the group’s stronghold of southern Beirut on Friday.
Top commander Ibrahim Aqil was slain alongside 15 other operatives after multiple missiles tore into the side of the apartment block he was in.
Israel denies involvement with pager attack
Israel has denied having any involvement with a deadly exploding pager attack which injured thousands of people across Lebanon and Syria.
Israeli president Isaac Herzog said he “rejects out of hand any connection” to the audacious operation carried out against Hezbollah on Tuesday.
At least 39 people were injured and 3,000 were wounded after the Shi’ite militia’s pagers and walkie-talkies simultaneously detonated across the Middle East.
Alexander Butler23 September 2024 05:00
Hezbollah says it's using new weapons
Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles — a new weapon the group hadn’t used before — at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, “in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs”.
In July, the group released what it said was video it had taken of the base with surveillance drones.
Hezbollah also said it had targeted facilities of the Rafael defence firm, headquartered in Haifa, calling it retaliation for the wireless devices attack. It didn’t provide evidence, and the Israeli military declined to comment.
Hezbollah vowed to retaliate for a wave of explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing at least 37 people — including two children — and wounding about 3,000. The attacks were widely blamed on Israel, which hasn’t confirmed or denied responsibility.
An Israeli airstrike on Friday took down an eight-story building in a densely populated Beirut suburb as Hezbollah members met in the basement, according to Israel. Among those killed was Ibrahim Akil, who commanded the group’s special forces unit.
Namita Singh23 September 2024 04:45
UN envoy says the region is on the brink of catastrophe
The Middle East is on the edge of disaster, warns Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the UN envoy for Lebanon. The region has seen a significant escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, with the conflict in Gaza nearing its one-year mark.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire since Hamas initiated the conflict with a 7 October attack on Israel last year, resulting in approximately 1,200 deaths and 250 hostages taken. Over 41,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with women and children accounting for more than half of the casualties, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer.
Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert
Families of Israeli hostages and residents of Gaza expressed fears the fighting in Lebanon will divert international attention from their own plights.
“I’m incredibly concerned with the increased tensions with Hezbollah because, my biggest concern is that, all the public’s attention and the world’s attention” would be distracted, said Udi Goren, a relative of Tal Haimi, an Israeli who was killed 7 October and whose body was taken into Gaza.
Enas Kollab, a Palestinian displaced from Gaza, voiced similar fears. “We are afraid that the situation in Lebanon will affect us - that all attention will turn to Lebanon and we will become forgotten,” she said.
Namita Singh23 September 2024 04:31
Hezbollah responds to unprecedented blows
The rocket attacks followed an Israeli airstrike Friday in Beirut that killed at least 45 people, including Ibrahim Akil, one of Hezbollah’s top leaders, several other fighters, and women and children.
Hezbollah was already reeling from a sophisticated attack that caused thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies to explode just days earlier. But it faces a difficult balance of stretching the rules of engagement by hitting deeper into Israel, while at the same time trying to avoid large-scale attacks on civilian areas and infrastructure that could trigger a full-scale war that it would rather not start and take the blame for.
Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Kassem said Sunday’s rocket attack was just the beginning of what’s now an “open-ended battle” with Israel.
“We admit that we are pained. We are humans. But as we are pained — you will also be pained,” Kassem said at Akil’s funeral.
He vowed Hezbollah will continue military operations against Israel in support of Gaza but also warned of unexpected attacks “from outside the box,” pointing to rockets fired deeper into Israel.
Namita Singh23 September 2024 04:07
Hezbollah hits back with rockets as it declares an 'open-ended battle' with Israel
Hezbollah fired over 100 rockets early on Sunday across northern Israel, with some landing near the city of Haifa, as Israel launched hundreds of strikes on Lebanon.
A Hezbollah leader declared an “open-ended battle” was underway as both sides appeared to be spiraling closer toward all-out war.
The overnight rocket barrage was in response to Israeli attacks in Lebanon that have killed dozens, including a veteran Hezbollah commander, and an unprecedented attack targeting the group’s communications devices. Air raid sirens across northern Israel sent hundreds of thousands of people scrambling into shelters.
One struck near a residential building in Kiryat Bialik, a city near Haifa, wounding at least three people and setting buildings and cars ablaze. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said four people were wounded.
Avi Vazana raced to a shelter with his wife and nine-month-old baby before he heard the rocket hitting. Then he went back outside to see if anyone was hurt.
“I ran without shoes, without a shirt, only with pants. I ran to this house when everything was still on fire to try to find if there are other people,” he said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said three people were killed and four wounded in Israeli strikes near the border, without saying whether they were civilians or combatants.
Namita Singh23 September 2024 04:00
In focus: How the plot to explode Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies unfolded
Alexander Butler23 September 2024 04:00
Comment: The Hezbollah pager attacks prove that Israel has no strategy for peace
Alexander Butler23 September 2024 03:00
What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah
Alexander Butler23 September 2024 02:00
Israel will do 'everything necessary' to return evacuated residents to their homes
Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant has said that strikes on Lebanon will continue until it is safe for evacuated people in the north of Israel to return to their homes.
“Hezbollah has begun to feel some of the capabilities of the Israel Defence Forces, and there is already a very strong feeling of being persecuted, and we are seeing the results,” he said during a tour of Israeli Air Force facilities.
“These moves will continue until we reach a situation where we safely return the residents of the north to their homes - this is the goal, this is the mission, and we will do everything necessary to meet it,” he added.
Alexander Butler23 September 2024 01:00
Lammy ‘deeply concerned’ by violence in West Bank
David Lammy has said he was “deeply, deeply concerned” by events in the West Bank and left the door open for possible sanctions for those engaging in “escalatory behaviour”.
“I’m not announcing further sanctions today but that is kept under close review,” the UK foreign secretary told a Labour Party conference fringe event hosted by Labour Together.
“As you would expect, I’m deeply, deeply concerned by what I’ve seen at this point in time.” Asked whether he was referring to events in the West Bank, he said: “Yes.”
The Foreign Secretary was asked by an audience member at a fringe event at Labour conference when the Government would take the step of introducing a full arms embargo.
“We have suspended those licences that could be used to breach international humanitarian law in Gaza,” he said.
“I don’t think it would be quite right to suspend licences, for example, that the Israelis could use in relation to the Houthis, that Israel may need to use in relation to the challenges it has with other proxies in the area. I think that would be a mistake.
“It would lead to a wider war and an escalation that we here in the UK are committed to stopping, so I’m afraid I disagree with that position.”
Alexander Butler22 September 2024 23:00
