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.

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The announcement comes as fears of a broader regional war grow, with Israel striking hundreds of targets in Lebanon in what is by far the deadliest cross-border escalation in nearly a year of violence between Israel and Hezbollah.

“In light of increased tension in the Middle East, and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Ryder told journalists, declining to provide further information for security reasons.

The United States has thousands of troops in the Middle East region, as well as warships, fighter jets, and air defense systems deployed to protect both its forces and Israel.

Ryder warned of the potential for the Israel-Hezbollah violence to escalate, calling for a diplomatic solution.

“Clearly there is the potential for these tit-for-tat operations between Israel and (Hezbollah) to escalate and to potentially spiral out of control into a wider regional war, which is why it’s so important that we resolve… the situation through diplomacy,” Ryder said.

World powers have implored Israel and Hezbollah to pull back from the brink of all-out war, with the focus of violence shifting sharply in recent days from Israel’s southern front with Gaza to its northern border with Lebanon.

Hezbollah, a powerful political and military force in Lebanon, has exchanged near-daily fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas.

The Palestinian militant group carried out the worst-ever attack on Israel on October 7, sparking a conflict that has drawn Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups around the region into the violence.

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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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Israel has not commented on the attacks that killed 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 over two days but has said it will widen the scope of its war in Gaza to include the Lebanon front.

“Such terrorist acts, that are undoubtedly due to the desperation and successive failures of the Zionist regime, will soon be met with a crushing response from the resistance front,” Guards commander General Hossein Salami said in a message to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, quoted by state media.

The resistance front led by Iran includes Tehran-backed groups across the Middle East, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and Shiite armed groups in Iraq as well as Palestinian militant group Hamas.

In April, Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, after it bombed an annex of the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Most were intercepted by allied air forces or Israel’s own air defenses.

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The Iran-backed group blamed Israel for the first wave of blasts on Tuesday, vowing revenge and stoking fears of all-out war in the region.

“The new wave of walkie-talkie explosions… killed nine people and wounded more than 300,” the health ministry said in a statement.

A source close to the Iran-backed group said walkie-talkies used by its members exploded in its Beirut stronghold during the funerals of Hezbollah members killed in Tuesday’s blasts.

“A number of walkie-talkies exploded in Beirut’s southern suburbs,” the source said, with Hezbollah-affiliated rescuers confirming devices had exploded inside two cars in the area.

The explosions caused panic, according to an AFP photographer covering the funerals.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported “pagers” and “devices” had also exploded in Hezbollah strongholds in the east and south, with AFP correspondents hearing explosions in those regions.

A hospital source in the eastern city of Baalbek told AFP 25 people had been wounded after walkie-talkies exploded.

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The son of Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar was among the dead, a source close to the group told AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The source had earlier said the son of another Hezbollah lawmaker, Hassan Fadlallah, was also killed, but later confirmed that the son was alive but injured.

The blasts “killed nine people, including a girl,” minister Firass Abiad said in a casualty update.

“About 2,800 people were injured, about 200 of them critically” with injuries mostly reported to the face, hands, and stomach, he added.

The 10-year-old daughter of a Hezbollah member was killed in east Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley when his pager exploded, her family and a source close to the group said.

Iran’s ambassador to Beirut was also wounded in a pager explosion but his injuries were not serious, state media reported.

In neighboring Syria, 14 people were wounded “after pagers used by Hezbollah exploded,” Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Israeli military said it had “no comment,” when contacted by AFP about the pager blasts.

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A multi-caliber weapon, the ARAD-7 can engage targets effectively at distances from 300 to 1,000 meters (984 to 3,280 feet).

It reportedly adheres to rigorous NATO standards, ensuring high interoperability and reliability across diverse combat environments.

The rifle also features a telescopic folding stock that offers exceptional ergonomics and adjustability to meet the needs of operators.

A delegation from the Argentine Ministry of Defense has been sent to Jerusalem to discuss the potential acquisition and explore local production options in Buenos Aires.

According to reports, Israel’s decision whether to allow domestic production of the ARAD-7 in Argentina will largely depend on the volume of the potential order.

Replacing Belgian Rifles

If the procurement goes through, the ARAD-7 will replace the aging FAL (Fusil Automatique Léger) rifles in the Argentine Army.

Manufactured by FN Herstal in Belgium, the FAL uses the NATO 7.62x51mm cartridge.

It has been combat-proven since its introduction in the 1950s, demonstrating effectiveness in various conflicts.

Despite its historical effectiveness, the FAL is now viewed as an outdated weapon for modern warfare, with its aging design and heavy weight negatively affecting soldiers’ agility and mobility on the battlefield.

Adopting a modern, more versatile assault rifle like the ARAD-7 will allow the Argentine Army to execute missions more effectively.

Another Rifle Under Consideration

In addition to the ARAD-7, Buenos Aires is also considering the ARAD-5, which is capable of firing 5.56x45mm or .300 Blackout rounds.

The weapon is based on the AR-15 platform and only weighs 2.85 kilograms (6.3 pounds) without a magazine.

It can also achieve a maximum rate of fire of 1,100 rounds per minute.

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All of the export permits had been approved prior to a January ban on new sales of weapons that could be used in Gaza, as the besieged Palestinian territory faced a mounting humanitarian crisis.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said she had ordered a review of all Canadian weapons suppliers’ contracts with Israel and other countries.

“Following that, I suspended this summer around 30 existing permits of Canadian companies,” she said.

A key ally of the United States, which provides Israel with billions of dollars a year in military aid, Canada drew the ire of Israeli leaders when it initially announced it would halt new arms shipments to Israel as of January 8.

Pro-Palestinian protests across Canada – at universities, political events and even the Toronto International Film Festival last week – have continued to put pressure on the government to go further.

“Our policy is clear: We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza. Period,” Joly said.

“How they’re being sent and where they’re being sent is irrelevant,” she continued, alluding to ammunition that was meant to have been produced by a Canadian division of US defense contractor General Dynamics for the Israeli Defense Forces.

Joly added that the government is in contact about this issue with General Dynamics.

The topic of arms deliveries to Israel has triggered legal proceedings in several countries around the world.

Israel has historically been a top receiver of Canadian arms exports, with 21 million Canadian dollars ($15.4 million) worth of military material exported to Israel in 2022, according to government data, following 26 million Canadian dollars ($19.1 million) in shipments in 2021.

That placed Israel among the top 10 recipients of Canadian arms exports.

Britain last week also said it would suspend some arms exports to Israel, citing a “clear risk” that they could be used in a serious breach of international humanitarian law.

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The strike hit Al-Mawasi — in Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis — which was designated a safe zone by the Israeli military early in the war, with tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians seeking refuge there.

However, Israel’s military has occasionally carried out operations in and around the area, including a strike in July that it said killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, and which Gaza health authorities said killed more than 90 people.

Gaza civil defense official Mohammed Al-Mughair told AFP early Tuesday that “40 martyrs and 60 injured were recovered and transferred” to nearby hospitals following the overnight strike.

“Our crews are still working to recover 15 missing people as a result of targeting the tents of the displaced in Mawasi, Khan Yunis,” Mughair added.

In a separate statement, civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said that people sheltering in the camp had not been warned of the strike, adding a shortage of tools and equipment was hindering rescue operations.

“More than 20 to 40 tents were completely damaged,” he said, adding the strike left behind “three deep craters.”

“There are entire families who disappeared under the sand in the Mawasi Khan Yunis massacre.”

The Israeli military said in a statement early Tuesday that its aircraft had “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center embedded inside the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis.”

“The terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated Humanitarian Area, to carry out terrorist activity against the State of Israel and IDF troops,” it added.

Hamas said in a statement on Tuesday that claims its fighters were present at the scene of the strike were “a blatant lie.”

Over the course of the war, Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields, an accusation the group denies.

Shrinking Safe Zone

Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, including some hostages killed in captivity, official Israeli figures show.

Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has so far killed at least 40,988 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The UN human rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

The vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during nearly a year of war, according to the United Nations.

From 1,200 inhabitants per square kilometer before the war, the Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone now houses “between 30,000 and 34,000 people per square kilometer,” and its protected area shrank from 50 square kilometers to 41, the UN has calculated.

The United States, Qatar, and Egypt have been mediating in efforts to forge a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, but talks remain stalled.

Hamas is demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal, but Israel insists troops must remain along the Gaza-Egypt border.

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The Israeli military, which has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria since its civil war started in 2011, declined to comment on the latest reported attack.

Syrian official news agency SANA, citing a medical source, said the number of dead “in the Israeli aggression on a number of sites on the outskirts of Masyaf” was “16 martyrs and 36 wounded, including six critically,” updating an earlier toll of 14.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported “intense Israeli strikes” overnight, providing an updated of toll of 25 dead including “five civilians, four soldiers and intelligence personnel and 13 Syrians working with pro-Iran groups.”

Three more bodies were unidentified, the Observatory added.

Israeli strikes on Syria since 2011 have mainly targeted army positions and Iran-backed fighters including from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.

Israeli authorities rarely comment on individual strikes in Syria but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in the country.

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria, had earlier said the strikes targeted sites “where pro-Iran groups and weapons development experts are stationed.”

The Observatory said “Israeli strikes… targeted the scientific research area in Masyaf” in Hama province and other sites, destroying “buildings and military centres.”

Syria’s SANA news agency, citing a military source, reported that at “around 11:20 pm (2020 GMT) on Sunday, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack” from the direction of northwest Lebanon “targeting a number of military sites in the central region.”

Air defenses “shot down some” of the missiles, SANA reported.

Missiles and Drones

It was “one of the most violent Israeli attacks” in Syria in years, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

He said Iranian experts “developing arms including precision missiles and drones” worked in the scientific research center that was hit.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told a media briefing: “We strongly condemn this criminal attack by the Zionist regime on Syrian soil.”

Syria’s foreign ministry condemned the raids, accusing Israel of trying to “provoke a further escalation in the region.”

Israeli raids on Syria surged after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel sparked war in Gaza, then eased somewhat after an April 1 strike blamed on Israel hit the Iranian consular building in Damascus.

Syria has sought to stay out of the Israel-Hamas conflict, which has raised fears of a broader regional war.

In late August, several pro-Iranian fighters were killed in Syria’s central Homs region in strikes attributed to Israel, the Observatory had said.

Days later, the Israeli military said it killed an unspecified number of fighters belonging to Hamas ally Islamic Jihad in a strike in Syria near the Lebanese border.

The Syrian government’s brutal suppression of a 2011 uprising triggered the conflict that has killed more than half a million people and drawn in foreign armies and jihadists.

Iran-backed groups including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement have bolstered President Bashar al-Assad‘s forces during Syria’s civil war.

Israeli raids on Syria have also sought to cut off Hezbollah supply routes to Lebanon.

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