The Israeli military carried out an airstrike on a building in southern Lebanon’s Ayta ash-Shab, where the IDF says Hezbollah operatives were gathered.
According to the IDF, the Hezbollah members were spotted by surveillance soldiers of the 869th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit, who then called in the strike.
Hezbollah targeted Friday a group of soldiers near the al-Raheb post in northern Israel, while Israeli warplanes raided the southern border town of Aita al-Shaab.
Hezbollah on Thursday carried out 11 attacks on northern Israel and the occupied Shebaa Farms and Kfarshouba hills, as cross-border strikes intensified between Israel and Hezbollah.
Fears increased of a regional escalation Friday after Iranian media reported explosions heard near the city of Isfahan and U.S. media quoted officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.
Tensions on the Lebanese border also spiked following an attack by the Iran-backed group that wounded 14 Israeli soldiers.
Hezbollah's attacks in recent days included an increased use of explosive drones while Israel has been increasingly striking deeper into Lebanon and targeting the group's commanders.
The violence has killed at least 370 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/304687-israel-hezbollah-border-clashes-latest-developments
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday escalated his rhetoric regarding Lebanon’s Syrian refugee crisis, in the wake of the recent murder of LF official Pascal Sleiman at the hands of a Syrian gang.
“This land is our land and if the European Union considers the Syrian refugee file to be a humanitarian issue, then let it distribute them accordingly on all European countries,” Geagea said at a press conference in Maarab.
“What are the measures that the Free Patriotic Movement has taken since 2011 regarding the Syrian refugees issue? What did the president do as of 2016 with a ministerial and parliamentary majority? Deception is the nature of the FPM and before it accuses us of anything, let it tell us what it has done in this file,” Geagea added.
“Some are voicing the excuse that the number of municipal policemen is not enough to address the Syrian refugee problem, but we are ready to offer volunteers to work on this file in all regions, and from now on we won’t remain silent over any shortcomings or negligence,” the LF leader went on to say.
14 IDF soldiers were wounded on Wednesday by two Hezbollah drones and two anti-tank missiles fired at and around a community center in Arab al-Aramshe, a Bedouin village in the northern Galilee.
The village is less than three kilometers from the Lebanese village from which the anti-tank missiles and drones were launched, likely part of why most of the attacks got past Israel’s warning systems as well as its air defense systems, though the IDF was still probing the issue.
Also, the IDF is probing why the building materials for the structures which were hit did not sufficiently protect those inside.
Of the 14 soldiers, six are seriously wounded, two moderately wounded, and six more lightly wounded.
Israeli warplanes on Thursday targeted a house in the southern border town of Blida, the National News Agency said.
“Ambulance crews are heading to the location,” NNA added.
An Israeli drone had earlier bombed a home on the eastern outskirts of Markaba.
Hezbollah meanwhile announced fresh attacks on Israeli posts and troops, saying it attacked the Malkia, al-Marj and Hanita positions.
It also announced an overnight attack on an Israeli force that was trying to remove a targeted military vehicle from the Metula post. The new attack caused “certain casualties,” Hezbollah added.
It had announced the death of two of its fighters overnight in the town of Kfarkela.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging near-daily cross-border fire since Israel started its war on Gaza.
The violence has killed at least 368 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
BEIT MERI, Lebanon (AP) — Lebanon’s interior minister alleged Wednesday that the mysterious abduction and killing of a Hezbollah-linked Lebanese currency exchanger in a villa on the edge of a quiet mountain resort town earlier this month was likely the work of Israeli intelligence operatives.
The killing of Mohammad Srour, 57, who was sanctioned by the U.S., was like something out of an international spy thriller. Pistols equipped with silencers and gloves were found in a bucket of water at the scene, along with chemicals apparently intended to remove fingerprints and other evidence, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said in an interview with The Associated Press. Thousand of dollars in cash were left scattered around Srour’s body, as if to dispel any speculation that robbery was the motive.
“Lebanese security agencies have suspicion or accusations that Mossad was behind this operation,” Mawlawi said, referring to the Israeli spy agency. “The way the crime was carried out led to this suspicion.”
He provided no specific evidence for his allegations. Mawlawi said the investigation is still ongoing and once it’s over, the results will be made public and referred to judicial authorities.
Hezbollah targeted Wednesday three command centers in northern Israel, a day after Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed two local Hezbollah commanders and another operative.
Hezbollah said it targeted overnight a military vehicle in the Metula post and attacked later in the morning in the Beranit barracks a group of soldiers and a command center with a Burkan missile.
The group also targeted Israel's Meron air control base, another command center in Arab al-Aramshe and other Israeli posts including a group of soldiers in the Ramia post.
Hezbollah said the "combined attack with guided missiles and explosive drones on a military reconnaissance command center" in the northern Israeli village of Arab al-Aramshe was "in response to the enemy assassinating a number of resistance fighters in Ain Baal and Shehabiya".
The Israeli military said 14 soldiers were wounded in the Arab al-Aramshe strike, including six seriously.
On Tuesday, Israeli strikes in Ain Baal and Shehabiya killed two local Hezbollah commanders, Ismail Youssef Baz and Mohammed Shehoury, another Hezbollah fighter, and Amal member Hussein Krasht.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said that municipal elections will not happen without including the south where Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging daily cross-border fire.
"Geagea has to understand that I will not separate the south from Lebanon," Berri said in response to Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea who called Tuesday for timely municipal elections, despite the daily clashes in south Lebanon.
Geagea said that the south can be excluded, accusing Hezbollah and its allies of obstructing the municipal elections.
Berri warned against "federalism" in Geagea's statement and said "the municipal vote will not be held without the south."
In April last year, Lebanese MPs voted to extend the terms of municipal councils and other local officials for a year.
"Anyone who contributes to a third extension of the terms of municipalities would be committing an additional crime against Lebanon and the Lebanese people", Geagea said.
Israel's Air Force said on Wednesday its fighter jets struck Hezbollah infrastructure north of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon amid concerns that increased exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah could fuel further escalation.
Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Jebran Bassil has sent a letter to the ambassadors of the U.N. Security Council member states, the UNIFIL countries, the members of the five-nation group for Lebanon, the Vatican, the EU ambassador, the U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker PM Najib Mikati and caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib.
“We again call for the instant implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 with all its terms and for acting at all international forums to condemn Israel’s continued violations,” Bassil said in his letter.
“It’s about time Israel was held accountable for its hostile assault on Lebanon before the situation spirals out of control and descends into a criminal war in the vein of that which is being waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip,” he added.
Reiterating his call for dissociating the situation in south Lebanon from the ongoing war in Gaza, Bassil said the international community can deter Israel’s “plots” by issuing “a new U.N. Security Council resolution based on the principles included in Resolution 1701.”
The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon announced on Monday that it ambushed a force from the elite Israeli Golani Brigade that crossed into Lebanese territory from northern occupied Palestine.
In a statement, Hezbollah confirmed the ambush resulted in the killing and wounding of troops from the trespassing unit.
"After closely monitoring and anticipating the movements of enemy forces, fighters from the Islamic Resistance planted a number of explosive devices in the area of Tal Ismail," detonating the IEDs after a unit from the Golani Brigade crossed the border and reached the location of the ambush.
Israeli media described the operation as "exceptional," confirming that the Golani soldiers were targeted with explosives "on the border with Lebanon" early Monday, adding that the incident is being investigated.
EIRUT — A ministerial "consultative meeting" is currently ongoing at the Grand Serail to discuss the current developments on the regional and domestic levels after the Iranian strikes on Israel, according to state-run National News Agency (NNA). The issue of Syrian migrants is also expected to be discussed during the meeting.
The meeting was first supposed to be a cabinet meeting but caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati decided to call for a consultative meeting instead to ensure the presence of as many ministers as possible, as ministers close to Gebran Bassil's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) continue to boycott cabinet meetings in the absence of a president.
According to NNA, some FPM ministers attended the consultative meeting on Monday, including Justice Minister Henri Khoury, Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar and Tourism Minister Walid Nassar. These three ministers usually boycott the cabinet meetings.
Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in daily skirmishes at the Lebanese-Israeli border since Oct. 8, the day after the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war.
A source within the Hezbollah party reported that an Israeli airstrike targeted a party site in eastern Lebanon near the Syrian border on Sunday, amid escalating tensions following a direct Iranian attack on Israel.
An Israeli airstrike destroyed a building in the Baalbek district town of al-Nabi Sheet on Sunday morning, following violent Israel airstrikes at dawn on the Jabal Safi area in Iqlim al-Tuffah, deep in south Lebanon.
A source within Hezbollah said Israel struck one of its buildings in Lebanon's east, close to the Syrian border, as tensions soared after Iran directly attacked Israel.
"The Israeli strike targeted an area... near Baalbek and targeted a two-story building belonging to Hezbollah," a source within the group told AFP, adding there were no casualties.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency also reported that "an enemy air strike targeted a building" in the village of al-Nabi Sheet and "destroyed it."
Earlier Sunday, Hezbollah said it had twice launched barrages of rockets towards the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, after it apparently joined in the major Iranian drone and missile attack against Israel. Hezbollah however said its attacks were in retaliation to Israeli strikes on Lebanese villages that killed and wounded civilians.
The Iranian attack was in response to an April 1 air strike widely blamed on Israel that destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, killing seven Revolutionary Guards, including two generals.
Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7 triggering the war in the Gaza Strip.
The violence has so far killed at least 363 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
In Israel, the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.
Tens of thousands of civilians have fled their homes on both sides of the border
The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah conducted a series of top-tier operations using a flurry of attack drones, artillery weapons, and guided missiles to hit Israeli targets across the border with occupied Palestine on Saturday.
The Resistance hit Israeli sites, soldiers, and air defense capabilities on a tense Saturday marked by the possibility of an Iranian response to the malicious Israeli attack on the country's embassy to Syria.
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Saturday that "most of the Syrians in Lebanon" will be "deported … when the international community recognizes" the existence of safe zones in Syria. Mikati's remarks were made during a meeting with the Maronite patriarch, Bechara al-Rai, at Bkirki. The comments come against a backdrop of heightened tensions and xenophobic acts against the Syrian community in Lebanon, following what the Lebanese Army has reported as the murder last Sunday of a Lebanese Forces (LF) official by a Syrian gang.
"We are in the process of putting in place a solution through our contacts," Mikati assured the Maronite patriarch, while calling for "a distinction to be made between Syrians who work in Lebanon and those who arrive in Lebanon as refugees to take advantage [of this status]."
"The solution begins by considering most of the regions in Syria to be secure so that Syrians who have come to Lebanon as refugees can be deported there …. Once there are secure regions in Syria and the international community recognizes this, most of the Syrians who are in Lebanon without a job or legal pretext will be deported. We will respect the rights of those who have residence and work permits just as we respect any Arab citizen," the caretaker head of government continued. "Nothing unites the Lebanese today more than the issue of displaced Syrians," he added.
The murder last Sunday of LF executive Pascal Sleiman has raised tensions in Lebanon, with an upsurge in verbal and physical violence against Syrian nationals and their representatives. Since Monday, videos showing individuals assaulting Syrians and vandalizing their cars have been circulating on social networks. On Wednesday, unknown assailants ransacked an office of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSBP) in Jdita, a town in the central Bekaa region. The assailants smashed the office windows, poured petrol on the premises and tried to set fire to it before fleeing, leaving a Lebanese Forces flag behind them.
Mikati, whose visit to Bkirki coincides with the 49th anniversary of the start of the Lebanese Civil War on April 13, 1975, also called for "lessons to be learned" from the past in a context in which the Pascal Sleiman killing has resurrected the specter of war and raised fears of security abuses. "Today we commemorate April 13, the date on which the painful Civil War (1975-90) began. I call on the generations that did not experience the war to learn from it," Mikati said. "We will lose out if we start fighting each other … Everyone must return to the fold of the state," he added.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday vowed that “the confrontation will continue,” in the wake of the murder of LF official Pascal Sleiman in the Jbeil district.
“The confrontation will continue until we reach a real, true, firm and final shore of safety,” Geagea told mourners via video link during Sleiman’s funeral in Jbeil.
“Our confrontation is not for exacting vengeance and is not a reaction. It is not a sectarian, regional or ethnic confrontation, but rather for transiting from the bitter, painful, criminal and failed situation that we have been living in for years to a new and aspired situation, like all the societies of the civilized world, where one lives in safety, stability, freedom and dignity,” the LF leader added.
“The confrontation will continue because without it things will not be resolved, although it might be long, because drastic, actual and serious solutions require time, effort, exhaustion and perseverance,” Geagea went on to say.
He added: “Let no one bet on our despair, because we shall not despair. Let no one bet on our tiredness, because we will not get tired. Let no one bet on our retreat, because we will not surrender.”
Sleiman was killed during an attempt to steal his car Sunday in the Jbeil district, the Lebanese Army announced on Monday, after the man’s reported abduction raised tensions in the country and prompted protesters to block the vital Jbeil highway.
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Friday presided over the funeral service of slain Lebanese Forces official Pascal Sleiman in Jbeil.
“We are the sons of no-fear, that’s why we do not fear and we shall not be scared,” al-Rahi said in his sermon.
“There has been a lot of evil on Lebanon’s soil and what’s important is to unveil the objectives behind the crime of the assassination of Pascal Sleiman and those behind it, seeing as the truth will certainly appear,” the patriarch added.
Hailing the “courage” of Sleiman’s widow, al-Rahi said that she has urged against “the approach of vengeance and incitement” and called for “pacifying the atmosphere and confidence in military and security agencies, especially in the army, which has managed to unveil the perpetrators.”
“The displaced Syrians have become a threat to the Lebanese in the heart of their homeland and it has become urgent to find a final solution for controlling their presence, with the international and local sides, away from clashes and attacks that would have dire consequences,” the patriarch added.
“There is no president and there is chaos in state institutions, ministries and public administrations, amid the proliferation of arms in the hands of citizens and foreigners on Lebanon’s soil. Who benefits from chaos and from the presence of the war and peace decision outside the state?” al-Rahi asked.
Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has vowed to get tough on Syrians after several were arrested on suspicion of involvement in Sleiman’s killing, in a case that has triggered an uproar in the country and caused political tensions.
The Israeli army said early Wednesday it had carried out bombardments on positions of Lebanon's Hezbollah in Syria in a bid to thwart its "entrenchment" in the country.
While fighting Hamas militants in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly said it was also ready to confront Hezbollah and has stepped up strikes, including in Syria, in recent weeks.
An Israeli army statement said the army had "struck military infrastructure that based on precise intelligence was used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization on the Syrian front."
The military released a video of a strike against a building.
Israel has been waging one major campaign against Hamas in Gaza since the October 7 attacks by the group last year and international concern has been expressed about the possible spread of the conflict.
The Israeli army said it "holds the Syrian regime accountable for all activities which take place within its territory and will not allow for any attempted actions which could lead to the entrenchment of Hezbollah on the Syrian front."
"In parallel, in the past hours, the IDF (Israeli army) struck a number of Hezbollah observation posts and terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon," the statement added.
"Throughout the day, IDF artillery struck to remove threats in the areas of Dhayra and Tayr Harfa in southern Lebanon," the statement said.
On Tuesday, Israel said its warplanes had hit a Syrian military position in response to rocket fire from southern Syria on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, said Israeli jets staged raids in Syria on Tuesday and late Monday.
The Lebanese man, Mohammad Srour, was severely tortured by Israeli Mossad agents before he was executed in the Lebanese town of Beit Meri, Lebanese security sources informed on the matter told Al Mayadeen.
The killers transferred martyr Srour to an apartment rented for one month located in the town of Beit Meri, north of Beirut, to interrogate him using extreme violence, sources told Al Mayadeen.
Lebanese security circles confirm that Srour was subjected to severe torture before he was killed, and it is strongly believed that the Israeli Mossad was behind the operation. Moreover, Srour was subjected to interrogation while he was handcuffed, and the killers were in direct contact with "Tel Aviv" during the violent interrogation, according to our sources.
Srour was shot multiple times across his body as a form of torture, receiving more than 10 bullets.
"It seems that martyr Srour did not confess to the Mossad members what they sought, so they executed him and left," sources told Al Mayadeen.
The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah confirmed Wednesday that its fighters carried out two operations against Israeli occupation troops and military sites along the border with occupied Palestine.
In a statement, Hezbollah announced that its Resistance fighters attacked the Israeli al-Samaqa site in the occupied Lebanese Kfar Chouba Hills with artillery shells, achieving a direct hit.
Later, the Resistance mentioned that its fighters attacked the Zibdine barracks in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms with rocket artillery, achieving a direct hit.
Hezbollah reiterated that its operations come in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, and in support of their brave and honorable Resistance.
BEIRUT — Unknown people damaged on Wednesday the office of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) in Jdita, in central Bekaa, according to L'Orient Today's correspondent in the Bekaa.The attackers broke the windows of the office, poured gasoline and tried to set the office on fire before fleeing and leaving behind a flag of the Lebanese Forces.
Lebanese security forces have arrested seven Syrians on suspicion of involvement in the abduction and murder of Lebanese Forces politician Pascal Sleiman opposed to the Syrian government, a judicial official said Tuesday.
Sleiman was the coordinator in the Byblos (Jbeil) area, north of Beirut, for the Lebanese Forces which opposes Damascus and its ally Hezbollah.
The Lebanese Forces said it would consider Sleiman's murder a "political assassination until proven otherwise", although the army said the politician had been killed for his car.
Social media users pointed the finger at Hezbollah, drawing a denial from its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
"The number of people arrested for kidnapping and killing... Sleiman, rose to seven, all of them Syrian," a judicial official told AFP.
"The kidnappers admitted that their goal was stealing the victim's car," the official added.
The official said the suspects told investigators they hit Sleiman with pistol butts on the head and face until he stopped resisting. They then threw him in the boot of his own car and drove him to Syria. He died on the way there.
A military official told AFP that Damascus had handed over three of the suspects.
He said Sleiman's body had been found in an area of Syria near the Lebanese border which is infamous for lawlessness.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a body corresponding to the description of the victim had been dumped in an area near the border where Hezbollah holds sway.
"The body was wrapped in a blanket and had been hit on the head and chest with a hard object," the Britain-based war monitor said.
On Monday, hundreds of residents blocked roads in Byblos, with footage circulating on social media of violence against Syrians -- many of them refugees from their country's more than decade-old civil war.
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned the killing and called for "everyone to exercise self-control".
According to Al-Ahed News, media outlets of the Israeli regime published figures concerning the ongoing war between the regime forces and Hezbollah fighters, who inflicted heavy blows on all economic, social and tourism aspects of the lives settlers in northern occupied territories, in particular agriculture.
The two settlements of Shlomi and Kiryat Shemona in the Isba al-Jalil region in northern occupied Palestine suffered the most damage, standing at half a million shekel losses (each Israeli shekel equals $0.27).
The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that the financial damage from the war in Gaza on the regime’s trade and financial projects is estimated at $6 billion.
David Azoulay, the head of the Metula settlement council, acknowledged that around 100,000 settlers are living outside their settlements following the attacks by Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Israeli regime’s media outlets assessed the damage to agriculture at $131 million, noting that food prices increased 30 percent. The tourism sector’s income has also decreased by nearly 73 percent.
https://en.irna.ir/news/85438732/Hezbollah-turns-Israeli-settlements-into-ghost-towns
Hezbollah and the Amal Movement are “dealing positively and flexibly with U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein in his endeavor to provide the appropriate political atmosphere for the implementation of Resolution 1701,” a source close to the two parties said.
Speaker Nabih Berri is in charge of “negotiating with him,” the source told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, noting that the U.S. envoy has accepted several reservations voiced by Berri regarding the recent paper that he had submitted for the demarcation of the land border between Lebanon and Israel.
“Speaker Berri enjoys unconditional support from his ally Hezbollah in his negotiations with the U.S. mediator,” the source added, noting that caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati is also backing the negotiations.
“Hochstein is calling for a gradual solution for the implementation of Resolution 1701, but he has linked his return (to Lebanon) to Israel’s acceptance of the proposed mechanism, something that has not happened until the moment,” the source said.
Israeli strikes targeted eastern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a strong presence, at dawn on Sunday, a source close to the Iran-backed group said, but no casualties were reported.
"Israeli strikes targeted two areas in the Bekaa Valley, Janta and Sifri," the source told AFP in the Baalbek region in Lebanon's east, AFP reported.
Janta is an arid, mountainous region close to the border with Syria, while Sifri is in the centre of the Bekaa Valley.
A source in Lebanon's Civil Defense Department said there were no casualties from the strikes.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since the Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah targets Israeli positions close to the border, while Israel retaliates with raids that go deeper and deeper into Lebanese territory and carries out strikes against the Shiite Islamist group's officials.
The latest strikes in eastern Lebanon came after Hezbollah announced on Saturday evening it had shot down an Israeli Hermes 450 drone over Lebanese territory.
The Israeli military confirmed that "a drone operating in Lebanese airspace was shot down" by what it said was a surface-to-air missile and had fallen in Lebanese territory.
Israel launched similar strikes against Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in February after the group said it had shot down a similar type of Israeli drone.
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.
The cross-border hostilities have killed at least 349 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 68 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.
https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/4953216-israeli-strikes-target-eastern-lebanon
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that it carried out airstrikes against sites belonging to Hezbollah’s air defense unit in northeastern Lebanon’s Baalbek overnight, after the terror group shot down a military drone.
The targets included a compound and three additional infrastructures relating to Hezbollah’s air defenses in the Baalbek District, the IDF said.
A source close to the terror group told AFP that the strikes hit two areas in the region: Janta an arid, a mountainous region close to the border with Syria, and Sifri, which is in the center of the Bekaa Valley.
A source in Lebanon’s Civil Defense Department said there were no casualties from the strikes.
Baalbek, an area identified in the past as a Hezbollah stronghold, is nearly 100 kilometers from the Israeli border. The overnight strike marked the fifth time amid the war in the Gaza Strip that Israel struck Hezbollah positions in the Baalbek area.
Israeli warplanes carried out on Sunday a series of air strikes targeting the central Bekaa and Baalbek region in eastern Lebanon.
“Israeli warplanes carried out several raids on the Shaara area in the eastern Lebanon mountain range near the town of Janta in the central Bekaa region,” a security source told Anadolu.
The source, who preferred to remain anonymous, pointed out that other raids targeted an empty warehouse in the town of Al-Safari in Baalbek, resulting in no casualties.
Tension has flared along the border between Lebanon and Israel amid intermittent exchanges of weapons fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, in the deadliest clashes since the two sides fought a full-scale war in 2006.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240407-israeli-army-strikes-bekaa-baalbek-in-eastern-lebanon/
Beirut, SANA- The Israeli enemy renewed on Sunday its attacks on a number of villages and towns in southern Lebanon.
“Israeli warplanes targeted on Sunday at dawn the town of al-Safari in Baalbek district and the heights of the East Lebanon mountain range in the outskirts of the town of Jinta in al- Shaara district in eastern Lebanon,” according to Lebanese National News Agency.
Last night, Israeli enemy aircraft launched two air attacks, the first targeted the town of al-Taybeh on Deir Siryan road, and the second the town of al- Odaisseh in the south, while the outskirts of the town of Zebqin were subjected to Israeli artillery shelling.
During the night, the Israeli enemy forces also fired flares in the airspace of the heights of the town of Shebaa and above the villages of the western and central sectors, reaching the outskirts of the towns of al-Mansouri, Majdal Zun and al-Shaitiya.
An Israeli strike on the southern border town of Aita al-Shaab killed two people and injured one Friday, the National News Agency said, while another strike on Kfarkela injured one person.
One Israeli soldier and three Lebanese civilians were earlier wounded in overnight cross-border fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.
The three Lebanese civilians were injured in an overnight strike on the southern border town of Kfarhamam in the Arqoob region while the Israeli army said Friday that one soldier was wounded in a Hezbollah overnight attack on Metula.
Hezbollah said it attacked soldiers and military vehicles in the Malkia post and another military vehicle in Metula.
Later on Friday, Israeli warplanes raided Kfarkela, Tayr Harfa, Aita al-Shaab, the outskirts of Shebaa and houses in Zalloutieh and Yarin, while Hezbollah targeted the Hadb Yaroun post, a group of soldiers in Manara, and surveillance equipment in the Zar'it barracks.
An Israeli tank also shelled Kfarkela and al-Khiam.
On Thursday Hezbollah carried out five attacks on posts in northern Israel and the occupied Kfarshouba Hills and Shebaa Farms near Kfarhamam.
Israel's military said Sunday its warplanes had struck Hezbollah sites in eastern Lebanon, where the Iran-backed group has a strong presence, in retaliation for one of its drones being downed.
A source close to Hezbollah told an AFP correspondent in eastern Lebanon's Baalbek region that the strikes targeted Janta and Sifri in the Bekaa Valley.
The Israeli military said on Telegram that "fighter jets struck a military complex and three other terrorist infrastructure sites belonging to Hezbollah's air defense network" in the region.
It said the strikes were "in retaliation for the attack" in which an Israeli army "drone was shot down" by a surface-to-air missile on Saturday.
Sifri is in the Bekaa Valley plain, while nearby Janta is an arid mountainous region closer to the border with Syria.
A source from Lebanon's civil defense said there were no casualties.
Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.
Hamas ally Hezbollah generally targets Israeli positions close to the border, while Israel has carried out deeper raids into Lebanese territory, also targeting commanders from Hezbollah.
Hezbollah announced it had shot down an Israeli Hermes 900 drone over Lebanese territory on Saturday evening, after initially identifying it as a Hermes 450.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency (NNA) said the target of the Israeli strikes in Sifri was a "hangar."
Israel launched similar strikes against Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in February after the group said it had shot down another Israeli drone.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech on Friday that his group had not yet used its "main" weapons, and reiterated that Hezbollah would cease its attacks only when the war in Gaza ends.
The cross-border hostilities have killed at least 359 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the Israeli military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.
On Saturday the Risala Scout association, which is affiliated with the Hezbollah-allied Amal movement and operates emergency teams in south Lebanon, said a rescuer had died.
An official from the group told AFP he had been wounded days earlier in south Lebanon.
Separately, the NNA reported that a woman wounded previously in an Israeli drone strike in the border village of Yarin had also died of her wounds.
The hostilities have raised fears of all-out conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which last went to war in 2006.
YDH- İslami Grup'un hem Sünni hem de Şii direnişini benimsemeye karar vermesinden rahatsızlık duyan Arap ve Batılı ülkeler dayanışmayı baltalamayı amaçlarken bu gelişme, bölünme ve mezhepçilik geçmişine sahip Lübnan'da olumlu kabul ediliyor. Bilal Nur ed-Din'in The Cradle'da ''Brothers in arms: the renewal of Shia-Sunni resistance against Israel'' başlığıyla yayınlanan yazısını Keda Bakış YDH için çevirdi.
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Müslüman Kardeşler ile bağlantılı bir Lübnan partisi olan Cemaat-i İslamiyye (JI veya 'İslami Grup') hem siyasi hem de askeri alanda önemli bir canlanma yaşadı. Bu canlanma, 1982 yılında kurulan silahlı grubu Fecr Güçleri'nin Lübnan'ın İsrail ile olan güney sınırı yakınlarındaki son çatışmalara katılmasıyla vurgulandı. Bu çatışmalar, 10 Mart'ta Lübnan'ın güneyindeki el-Habariye köyünde İsrail güçleri tarafından öldürülen 3 grup üyesinin ölümüyle sonuçlandı.
Lübnan'da 1964 yılında kurulan Cemaat-i İslami, Lübnanlı Sünni nüfus arasında önemli bir güce sahiptir. Beyrut, Bekaa, Sayda, Trablus ve el-Arkub gibi çeşitli bölgelerde geniş kapsamlı bir destek tabanına sahip. el-Cezire Araştırmalar Merkezi'nden Şefik Şukayr'a göre grup, Lübnan'da önemli bir nüfuza sahip ve Saad Hariri'nin Gelecek Hareketi'nden sonra en etkili ikinci grup olarak görülüyor. Buna rağmen parlamentoda yeterli temsile sahip değil; mevcut yasama organında sadece bir üyesi (İmad el-Hut) var.
Cemaat-i İslami'nin direniş faaliyetlerinin yeniden canlanması, Lübnan Sünni toplumunun pek çok üyesinde, özellikle de ABD'nin müttefiki olan Arap devletleriyle aynı safta yer alan ve Müslüman Kardeşler'e şüpheyle yaklaşanlarda endişe yarattı.
Bu tedirginlik Sünni toplum içindeki seküler kesimler tarafından da paylaşılmaktadır. Bu nedenle Cemaat-i İslami Genel Sekreteri Şeyh Muhammed Takkuş'un güney sınırı boyunca İsrail'e karşı Hizbullah ile askeri işbirliğinin önemini vurgulaması Sünni Lübnan'ın dikkatini çekti.
Gruplarının askeri operasyonlarıyla ilgili olarak "Cemaat-i İslami'nin İsrail güçlerine yönelik saldırılarının bir kısmı Hizbullah'la koordinasyon halinde olan Hamas'la koordinasyon halindeydi" diyen Takkuş, Cemaat-i İslami'nin Hizbullah'la doğrudan işbirliğinin "artmakta olduğunu ve bunun sahaya yansıdığını" da sözlerine ekledi.
Hizbullah, çok sayıda Fars Körfezi Arap ülkesi tarafından ''terörist örgüt'' olarak etiketlendi. Bu devletler tarihsel olarak Lübnan'a, özellikle de Sünni siyasi partilere mali destek sağlamada önemli bir rol oynamıştır.
Şubat 2024'te Müstakbel Hareketi lideri Saad Hariri, Lübnan'ın Sünni nüfusu arasında aşırıcılığın arttığını algılaması halinde müdahale etmeye hazır olduğunu ifade etti. Bu açıklama yaygın olarak Fars Körfezi ülkelerinin Hariri'nin Lübnan siyasetine olası dönüşünü desteklediklerini gösteren bir sinyal olarak yorumlandı.
2022'de siyaset sahnesinden çekilen Hariri'nin yeniden ortaya çıkması, Cemaat-i İslami gibi diğer Sünni hareketlerin Lübnan'daki Sünni halk arasında artan etkisine bağlı olacaktır.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday warned that Israel “will regret it if it launches any war on Lebanon,” stressing that Hezbollah is “fully prepared for any war.”
“If they want war, they are welcome, and the Israelis know what war with Lebanon means,” Nasrallah said in an annual speech marking Quds Day.
“We have not used the main weapons nor the main forces and we have not called in the reserves,” Nasrallah noted, pointing out that Hezbollah “does not fear a war … but has so far managed its battle according to a vision and a strategy.”
“Our stance regarding the Lebanese front has not changed: when the war stops in Gaza it will stop here,” Nasrallah said.
“Lebanon's front will remain active and this is settled, seeing as it is linked to the Gaza front,” he stated.
Adding that “the axis of resistance is heading to a historic and major victory,” Nasrallah said Iran’s response to the deadly strike on its consulate in Damascus will “inevitably” come.
“Everyone must prepare themselves, arrange their matters and be careful when the Iranian side responds to the targeting of the Iranian consulate and to the Zionist enemy's possible response to the Iranian response,” Nasrallah said.
He also described the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus as “a pivotal incident that will have consequences.”
“The martyr Mohammad Reza Zahedi lived with us for long years and made huge services to the resistance in Lebanon,” Nasrallah said, referring to the top Iranian Revolutionary Guard general who was killed in the Israeli strike.
“The martyr Mohammad Reza Zahedi played a historic role in our path,” Nasrallah said.
Monday's strike in the Syrian capital leveled the five-story consular annex of the Iranian embassy and killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Israel "will be punished" for the consulate strike.
Israel has not commented on the strike, but analysts saw it as an escalation of its campaign against Iran and its regional proxies that runs the risk of triggering a wider war beyond the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Israel said Thursday it was strengthening its defenses and pausing leave for combat units following Iran's threats to retaliate.