Arab states strongly condemned Israel for the escalating hostilities with Hezbollah, which have intensified to levels unseen in nearly a year.

The war erupted after Hamas and other Palestinian militants launched the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, drawing in Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups.

Israel said it killed a “large number” of Hezbollah militants when it hit about 1,600 sites in southern and eastern Lebanon, including a “targeted strike” in Beirut in what the Israeli military called “Operation Northern Arrows.”

Hezbollah said Ali Karake, its third-in-command, was alive and had moved to safety after a source said the strike on the capital targeted him.

The group said early Tuesday it had launched “volleys” of missiles at Israeli military sites, after state media reported new raids in eastern Lebanon.

People in Israel’s coastal city of Haifa were seen running for cover on Monday when air raid sirens sounded.

Lebanon’s health ministry said the strikes killed 492 people, including 35 children and 58 women, and wounded 1,645 others. Health Minister Firass Abiad said “thousands of families” had been displaced.

Explosions near the ancient city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon sent smoke billowing into the sky.

“We sleep and wake up to bombardment… that’s what our life has become,” said Wafaa Ismail, 60, a housewife from the southern village of Zawtar.

‘Most Difficult Week for Hezbollah’

Global powers urged Israel and Hezbollah to step back from the brink of all-out war, as the violence shifted from Israel’s southern border with Gaza to its northern frontier with Lebanon.

France and Egypt called on the United Nations Security Council to intervene, while Iraq requested an urgent meeting of Arab states on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said the strikes hit combat infrastructure Hezbollah had been building for two decades.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called Monday “a significant peak” in the operation.

“This is the most difficult week for Hezbollah since its establishment – the results speak for themselves,” he said.

“Entire units were taken out of battle as a result of the activities conducted at the beginning of the week in which numerous terrorists were injured.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was acting to change the “security balance” in the north.

Hezbollah Wave of Rockets

Hezbollah, which has been trading near-daily fire with Israel in support of Hamas, said it was in a “new phase” of confrontation.

The group said it launched rockets at Israeli military sites near Haifa and two bases in retaliation for Israeli strikes on the south and the Bekaa.

The attack came after an Israeli strike on southern Beirut on Friday killed its elite Radwan Force commander, Ibrahim Aqil, and coordinated communications device blasts that Hezbollah blamed on Israel killed 39 people and wounded almost 3,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Since the cross-border exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah began in October, tens of thousands of people on both sides have fled their homes.

An Israeli military official, who cannot be further identified under military rules, said the operation seeks to “degrade threats” from Hezbollah, push them back from the border, and then to destroy infrastructure.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the United Nations and world powers to deter what he called Israel’s “plan that aims to destroy Lebanese villages and towns.”

‘Full-Fledged War’ Nearing

US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally and weapons supplier, said Washington was “working to de-escalate in a way that allows people to return home safely.”

The Pentagon said it was sending a small number of additional US military personnel to the Middle East after thousands were deployed earlier alongside warships, fighter jets, and air defense systems.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity at the UN General Assembly, said that Washington opposed an Israeli ground invasion targeting Hezbollah and had “concrete ideas” on how to de-escalate the crisis.

G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement that “no country stands to gain” from escalating conflict, warning of “unimaginable consequences” if a regional war broke out.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell warned that Israel and Hezbollah were “almost in full-fledged war,” ahead of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

UN chief Antonio Guterres was “gravely alarmed” by civilian casualties in Lebanon, his spokesman said.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in south Lebanon warned “any further escalation of this dangerous situation could have far-reaching and devastating consequences.”

Qatar, a mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks, said Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon “puts the region on the brink of the abyss,” while Turkey said the strikes threatened “chaos” and Jordan urged an immediate end to the escalation “before it is too late.”

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the strikes and ordered Palestinian medical staff in Lebanon to provide support for the wounded.

Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, accused Israel of seeking “to create this wider conflict.”

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages also seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,455 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

The post Nearly 500 Dead in Israeli Strikes on Hezbollah Strongholds in Lebanon appeared first on The Defense Post.

The military said that “approximately 20 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon” shortly before 5:00 am (0200 GMT), followed by a barrage of “approximately 85 projectiles” launched from Lebanon after 6:00 am (0300 GMT).

“Hundreds of thousands of people had to take refuge in bomb shelters at that time across northern Israel,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told AFP.

The military in an earlier statement said the rocket fire sparked fires, while Israel’s medical emergency service said at least four people suffered “shrapnel injuries,” three of whom in the area of the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Israel’s civil defense agency has ordered all schools in the country’s north closed following the rocket fire, the latest escalation in nearly a year of cross-border exchanges throughout the Gaza war.

When you see sirens sounding alerts, picture this.

This is the result of one of Hezbollah’s indiscriminate missile and rocket launches at Israel. This time, they hit a children’s playground. pic.twitter.com/DJJwAhnORA

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 20, 2024

Educational activities would not be permitted across northern Israel until at least Monday at 6:00 pm (1500 GMT), the military’s Home Front Command said, affecting “hundreds of thousands of children” according to Shoshani.

“In Haifa, a lot of school are closed… and offices are empty,” said resident Patrice Wolff, who works in the medical industry.

He told AFP there was “more and more pressure” coming from Hezbollah as well as from Israeli forces on the Lebanese group.

The military said it launched strikes on Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon in response to the rocket fire.

Shoshani said the military had hit a range of targets over the past day, mostly “rockets launchers and rocket launcher barrels.”

The Israeli strikes were meant “to prevent a larger-scale attack,” the military spokesman told an online press briefing.

A steady escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah has stoked fears of all-out war.

Israeli officials this week have signaled their intention to turn the focus of military operations from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

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In a report at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, he said most of the targeted sites were civilian infrastructure, while only 5,676 belonged to the military.

He also specified that a total of 9,590 missiles and 13,997 drones were used to attack Ukraine, of which 2,429 missiles (25 percent) and 5,972 drones (43 percent) were successfully intercepted.

Notably, 111 of these attacks involved Moscow’s Kinzhal hypersonic missile, and Kyiv’s air defenses were able to shoot down 25 percent of them.

Efficiency Rates

Among the weapons used by Moscow, the Ukrainian military registered relatively high efficiency rates in taking down cruise missiles and drones.

Syrskyi said 67 percent of Kalibr, Kh-555/101, and R-500 air-launched cruise missiles failed to reach their targets due to Ukraine’s countermeasures.

Nearly 9,000 of 13,315 Iranian Shahed-136 drones launched by the Russian military were also neutralized for an efficiency rate of 63 percent.

But if Kyiv was successful in taking down some Russian weapon systems, it appeared to be having a hard time intercepting anti-aircraft, ballistic, and air-to-surface missiles.

So far, its efficiency rate in shooting down Kh-59s, Kh-35s, Kh-31s, and similar air-to-surface missiles is only 22 percent.

Moreover, it also only neutralized 4.5 percent of the 1,388 Iskander, Tochka-U, and KN-23 ballistic missiles fired by the invading forces.

Meanwhile, S-300 and S-400 air defense missiles appeared to be most effective for Russia as only 0.63 percent of them were destroyed out of the 3,008 times they were launched.

The post Ukraine Says Nearly 12,000 Facilities Hit by Russian Strikes Since 2022 appeared first on The Defense Post.

Senior Israeli military officials “held a joint situational assessment in the Northern Command. As part of the situational assessment, operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon were approved and validated,” the military said in a statement.

“Decisions were taken on the continuation of increasing the readiness of troops in the field.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, and Israel have been trading near-daily fire since the Gaza war was trigged by the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.

The sign-off came as Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz earlier warned Hezbollah that it would be destroyed in the event of a “total war” between the two.

“We are very close to the moment when we will decide to change the rules of the game against Hezbollah and Lebanon. In a total war, Hezbollah will be destroyed and Lebanon will be hit hard,” Katz said, according to a statement from his office.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this month that the military was ready for an intense operation in Lebanon if necessary, pledging to restore security to the country’s northern border.

US special envoy Amos Hochstein was in Lebanon on Tuesday a day after meeting Israeli leaders, seeking “urgent” de-escalation on the Israel-Lebanon border.

The post Israel Army Says Operational Plans for Lebanon Offensive ‘Approved’ appeared first on The Defense Post.

Hezbollah generally targets Israeli positions close to the border, and says it is doing so in support of Hamas militants who have been at war with Israel in the Gaza Strip since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

Israel has increasingly carried out deeper strikes into Lebanese territory and has also targeted commanders from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.

It has also stepped up strikes against Hezbollah and other Iran-linked targets in Syria, including an air strike on April 1 against Iran’s embassy consular section in Damascus, in what analysts fear could spiral into all-out war.

On Sunday, the Israeli army said “another phase of the Northern Command’s readiness for war” on the Lebanon front has been completed.

In a statement on its website, the military said commanders “are prepared to summon and equip all the required soldiers in just a few hours… to the frontline for defensive and offensive missions.”

The statement came after the military said its fighter jets struck a compound of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Forces “in the area of Khiam,” several kilometers north of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, as well as a command center near Toura, northeast of the coastal city of Tyre.

Israel had earlier said it hit targets in Kawkaba, near Khiam, and Meiss El Jabal in southern Lebanon in response to rockets fired towards the Golan Heights.

Emmanuel Navon, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University, told AFP it is “unlikely a war in the north can be avoided.”

But Israeli security expert Omer Dostri said a land war would not likely happen until the fighting on the ground in Gaza is over.

Hezbollah and Israel last went to war in 2006.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Friday that his movement had not yet used its “main” weapons, and reiterated that Hezbollah would cease its attacks only when the war in Gaza ends.

Also on Sunday, a source close to Hezbollah told an AFP correspondent in eastern Lebanon’s Baalbek region that other strikes targeted Janta and Sifri in the Bekaa Valley, around 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the closest Israeli frontier.

The Israeli military said on Telegram that fighter jets struck “a military complex” and three other infrastructure sites “belonging to Hezbollah’s air defense network” in the region, after an army drone was shot down.

Iranian leaders have vowed retaliation for the embassy strike which killed seven of its Revolutionary Guards.

On Sunday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the army had “finished all its preparations to react to any scenario that could arise regarding Iran.”

The post Israel Says Readiness Advances for ‘War’ on Lebanon Border appeared first on The Defense Post.

Three violent explosions shook the center of Banias, on the Mediterranean, during the strike at dawn on the villa that sheltered “a group affiliated with Iran,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The building was destroyed, killing the Iranian military adviser and two other non-Syrians who were with him, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

On Thursday, Israel killed a Hezbollah fighter in a strike on Syria, close to the Lebanese border, the Observatory said, hours after similar attacks.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on targets in Syria since civil war broke out in 2011. The strikes have mainly targeted Iran-backed forces, including militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement as well as Syrian army positions.

Iran-backed paramilitaries have bolstered the fighting force of the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the 2011 war.

Tehran says it has deployed forces in Syria at the invitation of Damascus, but only as advisers.

The strikes have increased since Israel’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas began on October 7.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria. Iran backs Assad’s government and Hezbollah, which supports Hamas.

Syria’s war has claimed the lives of more than half a million people and displaced millions since it broke out in March 2011 with Damascus’ brutal repression of anti-government protests.

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On February 17, Moscow announced that it had taken full control of the city after months of heavy fighting with massive combat losses.

The capture has allowed the invading forces to take control of a coke plant situated north of the city, according to the report.

The UK MoD noted that while Russia was able to make some major gains in Ukraine, it will need a few weeks of rest and refit to fully exploit the capture of Adviivka.

Once its combat capability is restored, Moscow is expected to seek to gradually extend its territorial control beyond the captured Ukrainian territory.

No More Cities in 2024

Following Russia’s success in capturing Avdiivka, its military will reportedly push forward to conquer two more eastern Ukrainian cities: Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts.

However, Ukraine military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told Wall Street Journal that he believes Moscow does not have the strength to capture the two cities this year.

He claimed that the Russian Armed Forces also face mobilization problems because many of its soldiers and assets were neutralized in previous advances.

In October 2023, Forbes reported that Moscow had lost 34 tanks within 24 hours as it attempted to capture Avdiivka. These tanks included T-62s, T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s.

Budanov also said the Russian defense industry is unable to produce as many shells as the military is using every day.

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Smotrich said during a Monday meeting of his Religious Zionism party that “the Egyptians bear considerable responsibility for October 7,” according to Israeli public broadcaster Kan.

The attack by Palestinian militants on that day resulted in the deaths of more that 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, and triggered war which has raged for more than four months.

Israel’s relentless military offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has killed at least 28,340 people, most of them women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.

Smotrich claimed that “much of Hamas’s armaments pass through Egypt,” which shares a border with Gaza and has been a key mediator in efforts to end the fighting.

In a statement, Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said it was “unfortunate and disgraceful” for the Israeli minister to “continue releasing irresponsible and inflammatory statements.”

“Egypt fully controls its territory, and does not allow any party to involve Egypt’s name in failed attempts to justify its own shortcomings,” he said.

Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel and has long served as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Along with Qatar, it helped broker a week-long truce in November that saw the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, and more aid deliveries into Gaza.

Israel’s offensive has pushed more than half of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people into vast tent cities in the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border.

Israel has begun to focus on Rafah as its most recent target, with worries of a looming Israeli ground incursion.

Israeli strikes pounded the city overnight, killing around 100 people, the health ministry said Monday, coinciding with an Israeli operation that freed two hostages.

Egypt’s Al-Qahera News network, which is linked to state intelligence, said Cairo is “closely following the situation” in Rafah, and “is ready to deal with every scenario.”

The foreign ministry spokesman said Smotrich’s remarks reflect “a ravenous hunger for killing and destruction, and sabotage of any attempt to contain the crisis in the Gaza Strip.”

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American and British forces carried out a first wave of strikes against the rebel group earlier this month, and the US launched further air raids against missiles that Washington said posed imminent threats to both civilian and military vessels.

But the Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks — just one part of a growing crisis in the Middle East linked to the Israel-Hamas war, which has raised tensions across the region as well as fears of a broader war directly involving Iran.

The latest US-UK strikes were against “eight Houthi targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ continued attacks against international and commercial shipping as well as naval vessels transiting the Red Sea,” Washington and London said in a joint statement with other countries that supported the military action.

“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent mariners,” the statement said.

The US Central Command said in a separate statement that the targets of the strikes “included missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, radars, and deeply buried weapons storage facilities.”

U.S. Forces, Allies Conduct Joint Strikes in Yemen

As part of ongoing international efforts to respond to increased Houthi destabilizing and illegal activities in the region, on Jan. 22 at approximately 11:59 p.m. (Sanaa / Yemen time), U.S. Central Command forces alongside UK… pic.twitter.com/BQwEKZqMAo

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 22, 2024

‘Deliberate’ Targeting

A senior US military official said the strikes were carried out using a combination of precision-guided munitions from American and British aircraft, and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

There were no concerns about civilian casualties at the sites that were hit, while Houthi losses are unknown at this time, the official told journalists.

“The targeting was very specific and … very deliberate to go after the capability that they are using to attack maritime vessels in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab and Gulf of Aden. They were they were not intentionally selected for casualties — they were going after weapons systems,” the official added.

Yemen’s official Saba news agency said strikes hit the capital Sanaa and several other parts of the country, while Houthi TV outlet Al-Masirah said four strikes targeted the Al-Dailami military base north of the capital, which is under rebel control.

Earlier on Monday, Houthis claimed they fired on a US military cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, with their spokesman Yahya Saree saying they “led a military operation targeting the American military cargo ship Ocean Jazz in the Gulf of Aden,” near the Red Sea, with missiles.

Two Months of Attacks

Asked about the claim, a US defense official told AFP: “We’re not seeing that at all on our end and believe that statement to be untrue.”

The Yemeni rebels began striking Red Sea shipping in November, saying they were hitting Israeli-linked vessels in support of Palestinians in Gaza, which has been ravaged by the Hamas-Israel war.

The Houthis have since declared American and British interests to be legitimate targets as well.

In addition to military action, Washington is seeking to put diplomatic and financial pressure on the Houthis, re-designating them as a “terrorist” entity last week after dropping that label soon after President Joe Biden took office.

The rebels reiterated on Monday that they will “respond to any attack” on Yemen and continue to “prevent Israeli ships” from crossing the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden until the end of the war in Gaza.

The latest round of the Israel-Hamas conflict began after an unprecedented October attack by the Palestinian militant group that resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel responded with relentless bombardment and a ground offensive that has killed at least 25,295 people, around 70 percent of them women, children, and adolescents, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Those deaths have sparked widespread anger across the region and stoked violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

The post US, Britain Launch New Joint Strikes on Yemen’s Houthis appeared first on The Defense Post.

“Two men were also killed in the missile attack this morning in one of the border villages of Saravan, bringing the death toll to nine,” the official IRNA news agency said, quoting Alireza Marhamati, deputy provincial governor of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province.

Marhamati had earlier said that three women and four children were killed in the strikes.

Pakistan said it had on Thursday launched “a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts” in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province.

Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said all the dead “were foreign nationals,” in a televised interview.

Iran’s Fars news agency said, without citing any sources, that those killed were “believed to be Pakistani nationals.”

Neither the minister nor Fars explained their presence there at the time.

Sistan-Baluchistan province is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.

It has seen persistent unrest involving cross-border drug-smuggling gangs and rebels from the Baluchi ethnic minority as well as jihadists.

Iran condemned the strikes and summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaire “to protest and request an explanation from the Pakistani government,” according to a statement by foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani.

The attack took place two days after Iran carried out strikes against “terrorist” targets in Pakistan which left at least two children dead.

On Wednesday Pakistan had denounced the strikes near the countries’ shared border, recalled its ambassador from Iran, and blocked Tehran’s envoy from returning to Islamabad.

On January 10, the Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) jihadist group claimed an attack on a police station in the southeastern city of Rask which killed one officer. The group had carried out a similar attack in December, killing 11 police officers.

Formed in 2012, Jaish al-Adl is blacklisted by Iran as a terrorist group and has carried out several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.

The group said on Wednesday it had killed a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Sistan-Baluchistan, IRNA news agency reported.

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