What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah

What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah
Smoke billows over southern Lebanon, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, September 26, 2024. (REUTERS)
Short Url
Updated 26 September 2024
Follow

What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah

What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah
  • The United States, France and other allies jointly called for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire in the conflict to “provide space for diplomacy”
  • Israeli officials say they haven’t yet made an official decision to expand military operations against Hezbollah

CAIRO: Since mid-September, there has been a dizzying escalation in the nearly yearlong conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
First came two days of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah — attacks pinned on Israel that killed at least 39 people and maimed thousands more.
Hezbollah’s leader vowed to retaliate, and on Sept. 20 the militant group launched a wave of rockets into northern Israel. Since then, both sides have fired dozens of rockets on a daily basis, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis in the north to huddle in air raid shelters, and prompting tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in parts of southern Lebanon where Hezbollah has a strong presence.
The United Nations said more than 90,000 Lebanese people have been displaced in recent days.
Lebanon said Israeli strikes Monday killed more than 560 Lebanese and injured almost 2,000 in the deadliest attack since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Several Hezbollah leaders have been targeted in the attacks, including the commander of its most elite unit who was killed in a strike in Beirut.
The United States, France and other allies jointly called for an “immediate” 21-day ceasefire in the conflict to “provide space for diplomacy” as fears grow that the violence could become an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, which would further destabilize a region already shaken by the war in Gaza. Both sides have said they don’t want that to happen, even as they have defiantly warned of heavier attacks.
Israel and Hezbollah have launched repeated strikes against each other since the Israel-Hamas war began, but both sides have pulled back when the spiral of reprisals appeared on the verge of getting out of control, under heavy pressure from the US and its allies. In recent weeks, however, Israeli leaders have warned of a possible bigger military operation to stop attacks from Lebanon to allow hundreds of thousands of Israelis displaced by the fighting to return to homes near the border.
Here are some things to know about the situation:
What were the latest strikes?
Israel said it intercepted a surface-to-surface missile that targeted Tel Aviv. Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon has reached central Israel, although Hezbollah claims it also targeted an intelligence base near Tel Aviv in August. This has not been confirmed.
Israel said its air force hit some 280 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon on Wednesday. Lebanon’s health minister said the latest Israeli strikes killed more than 70 people and injured hundreds more. This count brings the death toll to more than 630 Lebanese people in three days.
Two Israelis were wounded by shrapnel after dozens of Hezbollah rockets were fired into northern Israel, the military said.
What is the situation on the border?
The Israel-Lebanon border has seen almost daily exchanges since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, killing more than 630 people in Lebanon, and about 50 soldiers and civilians in Israel. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the border.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised to retaliate for the electronic device bombings. But Hezbollah also has proved wary of further stoking the crisis. The group faces a difficult balance of stretching the rules of engagement by hitting deeper into Israel in response to its brazen attacks, while at the same time trying to avoid the kind of large-scale attacks on civilian areas that can trigger a full-scale war that it could be blamed for.
Hezbollah says its attacks against Israel are in support of its ally Hamas. Nasrallah said the barrages will continue — and Israelis won’t be able to return to homes in the north — until Israel’s campaign in Gaza ends.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told NBC News on Wednesday that the US is working on a diplomatic agreement to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
What is Israel planning?
Israeli officials say they haven’t yet made an official decision to expand military operations against Hezbollah — and haven’t said publicly what those operations might be.
The head of Israel’s Northern Command has been quoted in local media advocating for a ground invasion of Lebanon, and the Israeli army chief, LT. Gen. Herzi Halevi, told troops stationed on the northern border Wednesday that ongoing air strikes were “to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”
Halevi continued: “Later today, they will receive a very strong response. Prepare yourselves.”
Meanwhile, as fighting in Gaza slowed, Israel increased its forces along the Lebanese border, including the arrival of a powerful army division believed to include thousands of troops. And on Wednesday, Israel announced it will further deploy two reserve brigades for missions in the north.
What would be the impact of a full-blown war?
A new war could be even worse than the one in 2006, which was traumatic enough to serve as a deterrent for both sides ever since. That fighting killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and an estimated 1,100 Lebanese civilians, and left large swaths of the south and parts of Beirut in ruins. More than 120 Israeli soldiers were killed and hundreds wounded. Hezbollah missile fire on Israeli cities killed dozens of civilians.
Israel estimates that Hezbollah possesses about 150,000 rockets and missiles, some of which are precision-guided, putting the entire country within range. Israel has beefed up its air defenses, but it’s unclear whether it can defend against the intense barrages of a new war.
Israel says it could turn southern Lebanon into a battle zone, saying Hezbollah has embedded rockets, weapons and forces along the border. And in the heightened rhetoric of the past months, Israeli politicians have spoken of inflicting the same damage in Lebanon that the military has wreaked in Gaza.


Ship fire in Red Sea not linked to Houthi attacks, maritime center says

Ship fire in Red Sea not linked to Houthi attacks, maritime center says
Updated 6 sec ago
Follow

Ship fire in Red Sea not linked to Houthi attacks, maritime center says

Ship fire in Red Sea not linked to Houthi attacks, maritime center says
  • Since the Houthi attacks began, most vessels have diverted to the longer east-west route via the southern tip of Africa

CAIRO: A fire aboard the Hong Kong-flagged ASL Bauhinia on Tuesday was not linked to Houthi attacks, the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Joint Maritime Information Center said on Wednesday.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, JMIC said.
A maritime security source told Reuters that the fire resulted from hazardous cargo on board.
There has been a spate of fires on board container ships in recent years due to flammable cargoes.
The crew of the container ship abandoned it in the Red Sea on Tuesday, according to two maritime sources.
Houthis have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this month, the Houthis said the group would limit its attacks on commercial vessels sailing through the Red Sea to Israel-linked ships, provided the Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented.
Since the Houthi attacks began, most vessels have diverted to the longer east-west route via the southern tip of Africa.


Who are the Israelis released by Hamas as part of the ceasefire in Gaza?

Who are the Israelis released by Hamas as part of the ceasefire in Gaza?
Updated 5 min 3 sec ago
Follow

Who are the Israelis released by Hamas as part of the ceasefire in Gaza?

Who are the Israelis released by Hamas as part of the ceasefire in Gaza?
  • The truce and release of hostages has sparked both hope and fear among Israelis

JERUSALEM: Hamas released four young female Israeli soldiers on Saturday after more than 15 months in captivity. The release of the four comes days into a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and is part of a long and uncertain process aimed at eventually ending the war.
Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy, and Liri Albag were captured when Hamas-led militants overran the Nahal Oz military base during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that ignited the war, killing over 60 soldiers there.
A fifth female soldier in their unit, Agam Berger, 20, was abducted with them but not included in the release. Video of the abduction of the five female soldiers, who had worked as spotters monitoring threats along the border, was widely circulated.
Israel and Hamas have agreed in the ceasefire’s first phase to a gradual release of 33 hostages in Gaza, in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Three hostages were released previously during this truce in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
The truce and release of hostages has sparked both hope and fear among Israelis. Many worry that the ceasefire could collapse before all the hostages return, or that those released will arrive in poor health. Others worry that the number of captives who have died is higher than expected.
Some 250 people were kidnapped during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered 15 months of war. More than 90 hostages remain in Gaza, although at least a third are believed to be dead. The others were released, rescued, or their bodies were recovered.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but says more than half were women or children.
Here’s a look at the hostages released so far:
Four hostages, all female soldiers were released on Saturday.
Liri Albag, 19
Liri Albag was featured in a video Hamas released in early January, filmed under duress. Her family said the video was “difficult to watch” because of Albag’s clear emotional distress. They were particularly active in the protest movement pushing for a deal with Hamas to bring the hostages home.
“Liri, if you’re hearing us, tell the others that all the families are moving heaven and earth and want their children home, and we will fight until all hostages are returned,” her father said in a statement after the video was released.
Karina Ariev, 20
Just before Karina Ariev was kidnapped, she she sent a message to her family, saying: “If I don’t live, take care of mom and dad all their lives. Don’t give up, live,” according to Israeli media. Her family said she loves to cook, sing, dance and write poetry.
In January 2024, she was featured in a video along with Gilboa and Doron Steinbrecher, who was released last weekend.
Daniella Gilboa, 20
After the kidnapping, her parents changed her name from Danielle to Daniella, a Jewish tradition that is believed to bring God’s protection.
In video of the kidnapping, Gilboa seems to have a foot injury as she is forced into the jeep that took her to Gaza.
Gilboa, from Petah Tikva, a suburb of Tel Aviv, played piano and studied music in high school. She dreams of being a singer, according to Israeli media.
Naama Levy, 20
The footage from Levy’s kidnapping, in which she is wearing gray sweatpants covered in blood, was shown around the world.
Levy is a triathlete. When she was younger, she participated in the “Hands of Peace” delegation, which brings together Americans, Israelis and Palestinians to work on coexistence.
From footage of the kidnappings, it seems that Levy was taken separately from the other lookout soldiers, leading her family to worry she was in captivity alone for much of the time.
The following three hostages were released on Jan. 19, the first day of the ceasefire:
Romi Gonen, 24
Romi Gonen was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. That morning, Gonen’s mother, Merav, and her eldest daughter spent nearly five hours speaking to Gonen as militants marauded through the festival grounds. Gonen told her family that roads clogged with abandoned cars made escape impossible and that she would seek shelter in some bushes.
Over the past 15 months, Merav Gonen has been one of the most outspoken voices advocating for the return of the hostages, appearing nearly daily on Israeli news programs and traveling abroad on missions.
Emily Damari, 28
Emily Damari is a British-Israeli citizen kidnapped from her apartment on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a communal farming village hit hard by Hamas’ assault. She lived in a small apartment in a neighborhood for young adults, the closest part of the kibbutz to Gaza. Militants broke through the border fence of the kibbutz and ransacked the neighborhood.
Damari’s mother, Mandy, said she loves music, traveling, soccer, good food, karaoke and hats. Kibbutz Kfar Aza said that Damari was often the “glue that held her close-knit friend group together” and she was always organizing gatherings of friends around the best barbecue corner in the entire kibbutz.
Doron Steinbrecher, 31
Doron Steinbrecher is a veterinary nurse who loves animals, and a neighbor to Damari in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Steinbrecher holds both Israeli and Romanian citizenship.
Steinbrecher was featured in a video released by Hamas on Jan. 26, 2024, along with two female Israeli soldiers. Her brother said the video gave them hope that she was alive but sparked concern because she looked tired, weak and gaunt.


‘No food, nothing’: Famine grips Sudan

‘No food, nothing’: Famine grips Sudan
Updated 34 min 36 sec ago
Follow

‘No food, nothing’: Famine grips Sudan

‘No food, nothing’: Famine grips Sudan
  • Country’s economy bludgeoned by war and mismanagement

CAIRO: Mona Ibrahim has already buried two of her children.

In the span of just two months, the Sudanese mother watched helplessly as severe malnutrition killed her 10-year-old daughter, Rania, and her eight-month-old son, Montasir, in the famine-stricken Zamzam displacement camp.

“I could only hold them as they faded away,” Ibrahim, 40, said via video call, sitting outside her straw-and-plastic shelter near North Darfur state’s besieged capital El-Fasher.

Rania was the first to succumb. In El-Fasher’s only functioning hospital, understaffed and unequipped, she died in November just three days after being admitted with acute diarrhea.

Her baby boy Montasir followed weeks later, his tiny body bloated from severe malnutrition.

El-Fasher, under paramilitary siege since May, is only one grim battlefield in the 21-month war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces.

In July, a UN-backed review declared famine in Zamzam, a decades-old displacement camp home to between 500,000 and a million people.

By December, it had spread to two more camps in the area, Abu Shouk and Al-Salam, as well as parts of the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification determined.

Now, Ibrahim fears for her four-year-old daughter, Rashida, who battles severe anemia with no access to medical care.

“I am terrified I will lose her too,” she said. “We’re abandoned. There is no food, no medicine, nothing.”

At Salam 56, one of Zamzam’s 48 overcrowded shelters, exhaustion was etched onto mothers’ faces as they cradled their children, too weak to stand.

Multiple families gathered around bowls with a few scraps of peanut residue traditionally used as animal feed. “It’s all we have,” said Rawiya Ali, a 35-year-old mother of five.

Contaminated water collects in a shallow reservoir during the rainy season, which the women trudge 3 km to fetch.

“Animals drink from it and so do we,” Ali said.

Salam 56 is home to over 700 families, according to its coordinator Adam Mahmoud Abdullah.

Since war began in April 2023, it has received only four food aid deliveries, the most recent in September, a mere 10 tonnes of flour, he said. “Since then, nothing has come,” Abdullah said.

The desolation in Zamzam lays bare the true cost of the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, uprooted over 12 million others, and created the “biggest humanitarian crisis ever recorded,” according to the International Rescue Committee. About 700 km southeast of Zamzam, the situation was just as dire.

Outside one of the last functioning community kitchens in the town of Dilling in South Kordofan state, queues stretched endlessly, according to Nazik Kabalo, who leads a Sudanese women’s rights group overseeing the kitchen.

Photos show men, women and children standing hollow-eyed and frail — their bellies swollen and skin pulled taut over fragile bones. 

After days without a single morsel, “some collapse where they stand,” Kabalo said. “For others, even when they get food ... they vomit it back up,” she said.

In South Kordofan state, where agriculture once thrived, farmers are eating seeds meant for planting, while others boil tree leaves in water to stave off hunger.

“We are seeing hunger in areas that have never seen famine in Sudan’s history,” Kabalo said.

With vast oil and gold reserves and fertile agricultural land, Sudan has had its economy bludgeoned by war and decades of mismanagement, and now, hunger is everywhere.


Jordan hospital offers injured Gazans hope for recovery

Jordan hospital offers injured Gazans hope for recovery
Updated 29 January 2025
Follow

Jordan hospital offers injured Gazans hope for recovery

Jordan hospital offers injured Gazans hope for recovery
  • Israel’s 15-month offensive in Gaza left the coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble that will take years to rebuild

AMMAN: Karam Nawjaa, 17, was so badly injured when an Israeli strike hit his home in Gaza nearly a year ago that his own cousin, pulling him from the rubble, did not recognize him.

After rushing Karam to hospital he returned to continue searching for his cousin all night in the rubble.

In that strike on Feb. 14, 2024, Karam lost his mother, a sister and two brothers. As well as receiving serious burns to his face and body, he lost the ability to use his arms and hands.

Now, the burns are largely healed and he is slowly regaining the use of his limbs after months of treatment at a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in the Jordanian capital Amman which operates a program of reconstructive surgery.

“I only remember that on that day, Feb. 14, there was a knock on our door ... I opened it, my brother came in, and after that ... (I remember) nothing,” he said.

“Before the war I was studying, and thank God, I was an outstanding student,” Karam said, adding that his dream had been to become a dentist. Now he does not think about the future.

“What happened, happened ... you feel that all your ambitions have been shattered, that what happened to you has destroyed you.”

Karam is one of many patients from Gaza being treated at Amman’s Specialized Hospital for Reconstructive Surgery, Al-Mowasah Hospital. He shares a room there with his younger sister and their father.

“All these patients are war victims ... with complex injuries, complex burns ... They need very long rehabilitation services, both surgical but also physical and mental,” said Moeen Mahmood Shaief, head of the MSF mission in Jordan.

“The stories around those patients are heartbreaking, a lot of them have lost their families” and require huge support to be reintegrated into normal life, he added.

Israel’s 15-month offensive in Gaza left the coastal enclave a wasteland of rubble that will take years to rebuild. 

Displaced Palestinians have been returning to their mostly destroyed homes after a ceasefire came into effect on Jan. 19.


Leader of rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad is named country’s interim president

Leader of rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad is named country’s interim president
Updated 56 min 41 sec ago
Follow

Leader of rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad is named country’s interim president

Leader of rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad is named country’s interim president
  • Al-Sharaa would be authorized to form a temporary legislative Council until a new constitution is drafted
  • Abdul Ghani announced the dissolution of the armed factions in the country

DAMASCUS: The leader of the former rebel group that toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad last month was named on Wednesday the country’s interim president, following a meeting of the former insurgent factions.
The appointment of Ahmad Al-Sharaa, a rebel once aligned with Al-Qaeda, as the country’s president “in the transitional phase,” was expected. The announcement was made by the spokesperson for Syria’s new, de facto government’s military operations sector, Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani, the state-run SANA news agency said.
Abdul Ghani also announced the cancelation of the country’s constitution passed in 2012 under Assad’s rule and said Al-Sharaa would be authorized to form a temporary legislative Council until a new constitution is drafted.
He also announced the dissolution of the armed factions in the country, which he said would be absorbed into state institutions.
Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, is the leader of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, an Islamist former insurgent group that led the lightning offensive that toppled Assad last month. The group was once affiliated with Al-Qaeda but has since denounced its former ties, and in recent years Al-Sharaa has sought to cast himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance.
The United States had previously placed a $10 million bounty on Al-Sharaa but canceled it last month after a US delegation visited Damascus and met with him.
Since Assad’s fall, HTS has become the de facto ruling party and has set up an interim government largely composed of officials from the local government it previously ran in rebel-held Idlib province.
As the former Syrian army collapsed with Assad’s downfall, Al-Sharaa has called for creation of a new unified national army and security forces, but questions have loomed over how the interim administration can bring together a patchwork of former rebel groups, each with their own leaders and ideology.
Even knottier is the question of the US-backed Kurdish groups that have carved out an autonomous enclave early in Syria’s civil war, never fully siding with the Assad government or the rebels seeking to topple him. Since Assad’s fall, there has been an escalation in clashes between the Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed armed groups allied with HTS in northern Syria.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were not present at Wednesday’s meeting of the country’s armed factions Wednesday and there was no immediate comment from the group.
Al-Sharaa had been expected to appear in a televised speech following the meeting, but it remained unclear if he would. The exact mechanism under which the factions selected him as interim president was also not clear.