Israel fights Hezbollah on the ground, pounds Lebanon from the air
By Aya Iskandarani with Jay Deshmukh in Jerusalem
Beirut, Lebanon (AFP) Oct 13, 2024
Israel battled Hezbollah in south Lebanon on Sunday as the air force expanded its bombardment of the country, with the Iran-backed group reporting “point-blank” fighting and Israel announcing the capture of a fighter.
It came amid sharpening accusations from UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon, who said Israeli troops “forcibly” entered a position with two tanks, after the Israeli premier called on the force to withdraw from the area.
Israel’s military said a tank backed into the UN post while under fire.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed that Hezbollah fighters would not be allowed to return to border areas, even after Israeli troops pull out.
“Even once IDF (military) troops withdraw, we will not allow Hezbollah terrorists to return to these areas,” said Gallant.
Israel’s recent strikes have increasingly focused on areas beyond Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds in the south and east, with the Lebanese health ministry reporting deadly strikes on a Shiite Muslim village in a mostly Christian mountain area and another in the north.
The Israeli military said its air force hit “Hezbollah launchers, anti-tank missile posts, weapons storage facilities,” among other militant targets, and on the ground soldiers “eliminated dozens” of fighters.
According to Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA), Israeli forces have “escalated their attacks” on southern Lebanon, with “successive air strikes from midnight until morning” pounding several border villages.
Hezbollah said it clashed several times with Israeli troops who tried to “infiltrate” border villages.
It later said it shelled Israeli soldiers gathered in the village of Maroun al-Ras, and that in Blida village, its forces engaged Israeli soldiers “with machine guns at point-blank range”.
It also said it launched a salvo of rockets at a “base in southern Haifa”, a major Israeli city.
The group later aired an audio recording of its slain leader Hassan Nasrallah, in which he called on fighters to “defend this holy and blessed land and this honourable people”.
An Israeli air strike killed Nasralla in Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold on September 27, but many other senior commanders of the movement have also been killed.
The Israeli military said about 115 projectiles fired by Hezbollah had crossed into Israeli territory by Sunday afternoon.
A Hezbollah fighter was captured emerging from a tunnel in south Lebanon on Sunday, Israel’s military said, the first such announcement since the start of the ground offensive.
– ‘Shocking violations’ –
United Nations peacekeepers on Sunday accused Israeli troops of breaking through a gate and entering one of their positions in south Lebanon.
It is the latest of several incidents the UNIFIL mission has reported since Thursday, leaving five Blue Helmets previously injured.
“At around 4:30 am, while peacekeepers were in shelters, two IDF (Israeli military) Merkava tanks destroyed the position’s main gate and forcibly entered the position” in the Ramia area, before leaving 45 minutes later, said the peacekeeping force (UNIFIL).
On Saturday, several kilometres (miles) to the northeast, Israeli “soldiers stopped a critical UNIFIL logistical movement near Mais al-Jabal, denying it passage”, it added.
“We have requested an explanation from the IDF for these shocking violations,” UNIFIL said.
The Israeli military later said a tank “backed several meters into a UNIFIL post” while “under fire” and attempting to evacuate injured soldiers.
Netanyahu had earlier on Sunday called on the UN chief to remove peacekeepers in southern Lebanon out of harm’s way, after the mission rejected requests to abandon their positions.
He said that the peacekeepers’ presence had “the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields”.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned Netanyahu’s call, saying it “represents a new chapter in the enemy’s approach of not complying with international” norms.
UNIFIL, with about 9,500 troops, is in southern Lebanon under the longstanding UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday called it “absolutely unacceptable” that UN troops are “deliberately targeted by the Israeli armed forces”.
– Lebanon calls for ceasefire –
Earlier Sunday Israeli warplanes also hit a 100-year-old mosque in the village of Kfar Tibnit near the border, NNA said.
“It was a significant place because families used to gather in the square right next to it (the mosque) on special occasions,” Mayor Fuad Yassin told AFP.
Hamas sparked the ongoing war in Gaza with the deadliest-ever attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 42,227 people, the majority civilians, have been killed since Israel’s military campaign began there. The UN acknowledges these figures to be reliable.
In support of Hamas, Hezbollah started firing into northern Israel in October last year, triggering a near-daily exchange of fire until the war escalated in late September.
Netanyahu vowed to fight Hezbollah until Israelis displaced by the violence could return to their homes.
Since then, more than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and a million others have been displaced, according to Lebanese officials.
Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire”.
In a visit to Baghdad ahead of Israel’s expected retaliation for Iran’s October 1 missile attack on Israel, Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi on Sunday said Tehran was “fully prepared for a war situation”.
He added: “We do not want war.”
The Pentagon later said it would deploy a high-altitude anti-missile system and its US military crew to Israel to help the ally protect itself from potential Iranian attack.
In north Gaza, Israeli forces have for days essentially besieged an around Jabalia, with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, saying the fighting was causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there.
“For over a week there has been no hope, no water and no means of life,” said local resident Muhammad Abu Halima, 40.
Israel warns south Lebanon residents to ‘not return’
Jerusalem (AFP) Oct 12, 2024 -
Israel warned residents of south Lebanon “not to return” to their homes on Saturday as Hezbollah said it launched missiles across the border on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
In cities around Israel, markets were closed and public transport halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed.
But with the country at war, troops remained engaged in combat in Hamas-run Gaza and in southern Lebanon, a traditional Hezbollah stronghold, amid a firestorm of criticism over the wounding of four UN peacekeepers.
In a message addressed to south Lebanese, Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X: “For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice… Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk.”
The war between Israel and Hezbollah has since September 23 killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, and forced more than a million to flee their homes.
On Saturday, Hezbollah said it had launched missiles at an Israeli army base near the northern city of Haifa.
In a statement the group said its fighters were “targeting the explosives factory there with a salvo of… missiles”.
Air raid sirens sounded in northern Israel, with the Israeli military saying it had intercepted a projectile launched from Lebanon.
Israel began pounding Gaza shortly after suffering its worst ever attacks from Iran-backed Hamas militants on October 7 last year, and it launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 30.
After the Yom Kippur holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel’s expected retaliation against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.
– ‘Deliberately targeted’ –
on Friday, Israel faced severe diplomatic backlash over what it said was a “hit” on a United Nations peacekeeping position in Lebanon.
Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were hurt in the second such incident in two days, the UNIFIL mission said Friday.
The Israeli military said its soldiers had responded with fire to “an immediate threat” around 50 metres (yards) from the UNIFIL base in Naqura.
But the Irish military’s chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was “not an accidental act” while French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the UN peacekeepers had been “deliberately targeted”.
Both Ireland and France are major contributors to UNIFIL.
As Israel faced a chorus of condemnation by UN chief Antonio Guterres, Western allies and others, its military pledged to carry out a “thorough review”.
UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon are on the frontline of the Israel-Hezbollah war, which has killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon since September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures.
Four peacekeepers have been injured including two Indonesians who were hurt on Thursday when a tank shot at their watchtower, according to UNIFIL.
Diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire”.
Lebanon’s military said on Friday that an Israeli strike on one of its positions in south Lebanon killed two soldiers.
In a show of support for Iran’s ally Hezbollah, the speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited on Saturday the site of a deadly Israeli strike earlier this week that, according to a source close to Hezbollah, targeted Hezbollah’s security chief Wafiq Safa.
Neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed whether Safa was indeed the target of the strike, but according to the Lebanese health ministry, the raid killed 22 people.
The visit to Lebanon, a signal of defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s second-ever direct attack.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant vowed this week that his country’s response would be “deadly, precise and surprising”.
The United States is pushing for a “proportionate” response that would not tip the region into a wider war, with President Jore Biden urging Israel to avoid striking Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.
– Gaza deaths –
Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has wrought devastation and, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, killed 42,175 people, a majority civilians.
Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army laying siege to an area around Jabalia in the north, causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“The bombardment has not stopped. Every minute there are shells, rockets and fire on the buildings and everything that moves”, Areej Nasr, 35, told AFP after fleeing from Jabalia to Gaza City Thursday.
On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in the area, including on schools being used as shelter by displaced people.
An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy artillery shelling, explosions and gunfire Saturday further south in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman, on Saturday posted another evacuation warning for an area near Jabalia.
“The specified area, including the shelters within it, is considered a dangerous combat zone,” Adraee said on X, ordering residents to move to the humanitarian zone in the southern part of the strip.
