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.

Border settlements in both Russia and Ukraine have been subjected to near-daily shelling and drone attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale military offensive in February 2022.

“The village came under shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces. Two adults and a teenager were killed by the enemy strike,” Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a post on Telegram.

He said two more people, including one child, were also wounded in the attack on the village of Arkhangelskoe, around five kilometers (three miles) from the border with Ukraine.

The area sits just across from Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, where Moscow launched a major new offensive in May in a bid to create a “buffer zone” to protect its own border villages from shelling.

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The military responded by scrambling fighter jets and issuing radio and flare warnings, Minoru Kihara told reporters.

“We confirmed today that a Russian Il-38 patrol aircraft has violated our airspace over our territorial waters north of Rebun Island, Hokkaido, on three occasions,” he said.

“The airspace violation is extremely regrettable and today we lodged a very serious protest with the Russian government via diplomatic channels and strongly urged them to prevent a recurrence.”

Top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi also said on Monday that “we will refrain from giving any definitive information on the intent and purpose of this action, but the Russian military has been active in the vicinity of our country since the invasion of Ukraine.”

Japan has supported the Western position on Ukraine, providing Kyiv with financial and material support and sanctioning Russian individuals and organizations after Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.

Kihara said the new incident was “the first publicly announced airspace incursion by a Russian aircraft since June 2019,” when a Tu-95 bomber entered Japanese airspace in southern Okinawa and around the Izu Islands south of Tokyo.

In 2023, an aircraft believed but not confirmed to be Russian entered Japanese airspace, according to the defense ministry.

The Japanese foreign ministry meanwhile said that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York, where both leaders are visiting for the UN General Assembly.

Zelensky thanked Kishida for his support since Russia’s invasion, especially as G7 chair last year, and conferred upon him a top Ukrainian order of merit, a readout said.

Earlier this month, Japan had to scramble fighter jets when Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time since 2019.

The Tu-142 planes did not enter Japanese airspace but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, Tokyo said.

Russian and Chinese warships recently held joint drills in the Sea of Japan, part of a major naval exercise that Russian President Vladimir Putin said was the largest of its kind for three decades.

Japan scrambled fighter jets in August after the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace, with Tokyo calling it a “serious violation” of its sovereignty.

Then last week, a Chinese aircraft carrier sailed between two Japanese islands near Taiwan for the first time. Japan called that incident “totally unacceptable from the perspective of the security environment of Japan and the region.”

China said the passage complied with international law.

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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.

The post US Sending More Troops to Middle East as Tensions Grow 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.

The post Israel Army Says Hundreds of Thousands Take Cover After New Hezbollah Barrage appeared first on The Defense Post.

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.

The post Iran Warns Israel of ‘Crushing Response’ to Lebanon Device Blasts appeared first on The Defense Post.

Since invading in February 2022, Moscow has carried out near daily drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, including targeting areas close to Ukraine’s western borders with EU and NATO members.

Romania and Latvia said earlier this month that Russian drones and missiles flew through their airspace during an overnight attack on Ukraine.

Ministers from nine countries on NATO’s eastern flank expressed their “profound concern over the repeated incursions” into allied airspace by “Russian drones and missiles”, and urged “a collective answer within NATO.”

They also called on the alliance to help “boost our capabilities of detecting, identifying and, if necessary, engaging low and slow flying objects.”

“A robust and coordinated response on an allied level is needed, as well as the swift implementation of NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defence rotational model,” Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tilvar told reporters after a meeting of the defence ministers in Bucharest.

The group — the so-called “Bucharest Nine” — consists of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga earlier on Wednesday asked Kyiv’s neighbors to explore the possibility of shooting down Russian missiles and drones.

Kicking off a regional tour in Romania, he described Russia’s aerial attacks as a “global threat.”

Romania scrambled two F-16 fighter jets to monitor a Russian drone that flew across its airspace towards Ukraine earlier this month, an incident that has reignited a discussion over whether the country should intercept stray Russian drones.

The current legal framework prevents such engagements during peacetime. Though officials have stressed any drones that intentionally target Romanian territory will be shot down.

Several drone fragments have also been found in Romania throughout the war.

NATO has said it had no indication any of the incidents were an “intentional attack” by Russia against alliance states.

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“This is the first time that an aircraft carrier belonging to the Chinese Navy has been confirmed to have sailed through the waters between Yonaguni and Iriomote,” the defense ministry’s joint staff said in a statement.

The Liaoning carrier and “two Luyang III-class missile destroyers” were seen sailing southwards between the islands in southern Okinawa region from Tuesday to Wednesday, it said.

Public broadcaster NHK and other media, citing unnamed defense sources, reported that it was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered Japan’s contiguous waters.

Contiguous waters are a 12-nautical-mile band that extends beyond territorial waters. The ministry was unable to immediately confirm these news reports.

Taipei’s government also said a Chinese naval formation led by the Liaoning sailed through waters northeast of self-ruled Taiwan on Wednesday and continued towards Japan’s Yonaguni Island.

China’s growing economic and military clout in the Asia-Pacific region and its assertiveness in territorial disputes — most recently with the Philippines — has rattled the United States and its allies.

Tense incidents have involved Japanese and Chinese vessels in disputed areas, in particular the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, known by Beijing as the Diaoyus.

Tokyo has reported the presence of Chinese coastguard vessels, a naval ship and a nuclear-powered submarine around the remote chain of islets.

Japan this month voiced “strong concern and protest” when a Chinese naval ship entered its territorial waters.

In August, the Japanese government slammed the first confirmed incursion by a Chinese military aircraft into its airspace as a “serious violation” of its sovereignty.

Japan is ramping up its defense spending with US encouragement, moving to acquire counter-strike capabilities and easing rules on arms exports.

Tokyo is also providing funding and equipment such as patrol vessels to other countries in the region.

In July, Japan agreed on a deal with the Philippines allowing troop deployments on each other’s soil.

The post Chinese Navy Sailed Between Japanese Islands Near Taiwan: Tokyo appeared first on The Defense Post.

In the first attack, in western Tillaberi region on Sunday, “a horde of criminals who arrived in their hundreds” killed five soldiers and wounded 25 more, according to the army.

The ground and air response killed “more than 100 terrorists,” the army said, without giving further details on the attackers.

On Monday, in the restive southwest Diffa region where there are frequent attacks by Boko Haram and the West African branch of the Islamic State group, five patrolling soldiers were killed by an improvised explosive device.

A “surgical strike” in retaliation “killed several terrorists” responsible, the army said.

In the latest attack, militants from a new resistance group called the Patriotic Movement for Freedom and Justice (MPLJ) claimed an operation against a military outpost in the Agadez region in the north.

The army said two soldiers were killed and six wounded in Tuesday’s attack.

“A pursuit operation was immediately launched to track down the fleeing assailants who were heading for the Libyan border,” the army added.

The MPLJ claims to have killed 14 soldiers and two gendarmes in the attack, and to have lost two of its own fighters.

Created in August, the MPLJ is an offshoot of the Patriotic Liberation Front (FPL) armed group, which is fighting the junta for the release of ousted president Mohamed Bazoum.

Democratically elected Bazoum was overthrown in a coup in July 2023 and has since then been held at the presidential palace.

While the military justified its power grab by citing the deteriorating security situation, violence persists.

According to the independent Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, around 1,500 civilians and soldiers in Niger have been killed in jihadist attacks over the past year, compared with 650 between July 2022 and 2023 when Bazoum was in charge.

The post At Least 12 Soldiers Killed in Niger Attacks: Army appeared first on The Defense Post.

The longtime Russian leader on Monday signed a decree boosting the number of active troops by 180,000 soldiers — making the Russian army the second largest in the world by active troop size.

Russia has become increasingly militarized during the Kremlin’s Ukraine offensive and it is the third time Putin has ordered a troop boost since launching the conflict in February 2022.

“In close cooperation between federal and regional authorities, it is necessary to solve the key task of ensuring that the armed forces are manned with prepared, trained people, prepared by personnel,” Putin said during a meeting with defence officials.

“I am referring in particular to the units and compounds of permanent combat readiness of the new military districts,” Putin added.

Russia restructured its military districts earlier this year — forming the Moscow and Leningrad military districts — in response to tensions with the West.

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