At least nine people have been killed and some 500 wounded in Lebanon in explosions targeting walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, deemed a terrorist organization by Israel, Israeli and Lebanese sources said Wednesday.
Amid increasingly high tensions between Israel and the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, the Israeli military has announced it moved the 98th Paratroopers Division, an elite fighting battalion, from the Southern Command operating against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to the Northern Command along Israel’s border with Lebanon to face Hezbollah.
At least nine people were killed and about 2,750 wounded by exploding handheld pagers across Lebanon and Syria the Lebanese health minister has said.
At least hundreds of members of Hezbollah have been injured in southern Lebanon and the Lebanese capital, Beirut, after the handheld pagers they used to communicate exploded, Israeli and Arab sources say.
While still fighting Hamas in Gaza, Israel has told the United States that, contrary to what the Biden administration believes, an all-out war against Hezbollah in Lebanon may be necessary to ensure tens of thousands of Israelis evacuated from northern Israel can return to their homes, the Jerusalem Post reports.
The Arab world was anticipating a broader regional conflict Monday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the Iran-aligned Houthis who control northern Yemen after they reached central Israel with a missile on Sunday for the first time.
While Israel now controversially asserts it must occupy the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons through it from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Egypt is reportedly in favor of deploying international Arab peacekeeping troops along this narrow stretch of land that runs alongside its border with Palestinian enclave, i24News reports.
The U.N. secretary-general has condemned Israel for attacking a school in central Gaza that killed “at least 18 people,” including staff of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Reports are emerging of an apparent Israeli Special Forces operation targeting an Iranian missile production facility in Syria that was involved in manufacturing weapons for Hezbollah according to various media sources.
Israel is understood to have been behind Sunday night’s air strikes on a target in Syria which experts believe is used to develop unconventional weapons and missiles, the New York Times reports. At least 18 people were killed and dozens injured according to Syria’s state media.
Israel’s military has released video footage of a Gaza tunnel where it says six hostages were recently killed by the Islamic Palestinian group Hamas.
While still bombarding Gaza and fighting Hamas on the ground following that Islamic terror group’s October 7 massacre against Israel, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is now “very focused” on combatting the Hezbollah Islamic terror group in Lebanon, Algemeiner reports.
Israeli negotiators believe there is now “close to zero” chance of agreeing a phased hostage-ceasefire agreement with Hamas that would see the return of 101 captives who were kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas during the October 7 attack on Israel, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports. Similarly, having worked to secure a new hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the US Biden administration is understood to be “sad, upset and frustrated” at the stalling of talks.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday that Hamas no longer exists as a military formation, shortly after Hamas-linked authorities said a massive Israeli strike killed dozens in southern Gaza.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Gen. Michael Kurilla met with Israeli Defense leaders to discuss “threats from Lebanon and Iran”, the Israeli military says.
Syrian media reported that at least 16 people were killed overnight between Sunday and Monday in what is described as the “most extensive” attack since the Gaza war began last year. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, six sites across four provinces—Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Tartus—were targeted.
At the MEAD Conference in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, former War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz stated that Israel should consider launching an offensive against Hezbollah within “days or a few weeks” if negotiations for a hostage deal with Hamas fail.
An estimated half a million people took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Israel on Saturday night, demanding that the Israeli government agree to a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would ensure the return of 101 hostages taken to Gaza during the October 7, 2023 attack, MediaLine reports.
The Palestinian Authority, which has limited government over parts of the Judea and Samaria also known as the West Bank, has submitted a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly requesting that Israel be forced to comply with recent International Court of Justice decisions by withdrawing some 500,000 Jewish Israeli citizens from settlements built on West Bank land that the PA wants for a Palestinian state, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports. The draft resolution is expected to be voted at the annual UN General Assembly which opens in New York on September 10.
In rapidly escalating tensions, a gunman crossing from Jordan killed three Israeli civilians at the Allenby Bridge border in the Israel-controlled West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria, before security forces shot him dead on Sunday, Israeli authorities said.