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.
What to know about the growing conflict between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah
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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
UAE to lift travel ban on Lebanon for its citizens on May 7
DUBAI: The UAE Foreign Ministry announced Sunday that it will lift its travel ban on Lebanon as of May 7 following a visit by the Lebanese head of state last week, according to WAM News Agency.
The decision comes after a joint statement issued on Thursday, stating that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed agreed to implement measures to facilitate travel and improve movement between the two countries.
The UAE ban its citizens from traveling to Lebanon in 2021. Lebanese citizens were not banned from traveling to the UAE.
Paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: army
- The paramilitaries have expanded the scope and frequency of their drone attacks on army-held areas since losing control of areas including most of the capital Khartoum in March
- UN agencies have also moved their offices and staff to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war.
PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the army-aligned government in the country’s two-year war.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023, have increased their use of drones since losing territory including much of the capital Khartoum in March.
Army spokesman Nabil Abdullah said in a statement that the RSF “targeted Osman Digna Air Base, a goods warehouse and some civilian facilities in the city of Port Sudan with suicide drones.”
He reported no casualties but “limited damage” in the city, on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.
AFP images showed smoke billowing from the area of the airport in Port Sudan, about 650 kilometers (400 miles) from the nearest known RSF positions on the outskirts of Khartoum.
In the eastern border town of Kassala, some 500 kilometers south of Port Sudan, near Eritrea, witnesses said three drones struck the airport on Sunday for the second day in a row.
An AFP correspondent in Port Sudan said his home, about 20 kilometers from the airport, was shaking as explosions were heard early Sunday.
A passenger told AFP from the airport that “we were on the way to the plane when we were quickly evacuated and taken out of the terminal.”
On social media, users shared videos which AFP was not able to immediately verify showing a large explosion followed by a cloud of smoke rising from the blast site.
Flights to and from Port Sudan, the country’s main port of entry since the start of the war, were suspended until further notice, a government source told AFP.
The rare attacks on the airports in Port Sudan and Kassala, both far from areas that have seen much of the fighting since April 2023, come as the RSF has expanded the scope and frequency of its drone attacks.
The paramilitaries led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo have been battling the regular army, headed by Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, in a devastating war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.
In the early days of the war, the government relocated from Khartoum to Port Sudan, which until Sunday’s attack had been spared the violence.
UN agencies have also moved their offices and staff to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war.
The conflict has left Sudan, Africa’s third largest country, effectively divided.
The army controls the center, east and north, while the RSF has conquered nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur and parts of the south.
Lacking the army’s fighter jets, the RSF has relied on drones, including makeshift ones, for air power.
Missile launched from Yemen lands near Israel’s main airport
- Yemen's Houthis claim missile attack on Israel's main airport
- Sirens were activated in Tel Aviv and other areas in the country
TEL AVIV: A missile landed inside the perimeter of Israel’s main airport on Sunday, wounding six people, halting flights and gouging a wide crater, in an attack claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants.
The Israeli military said “several attempts were made to intercept” the missile that was launched from Yemen, a rare Houthi attack that penetrated Israel’s air defenses.
A video issued by Israel’s police force showed officers standing on the edge of a deep crater with the control tower visible in the distance behind them. No damage was reported to airport buildings or runways.
The police reported a “missile impact” at Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s main international gateway.
An AFP photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport’s largest, with the crater less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) away from the closest tarmac.
“You can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen meters (yards) wide and several dozen meters deep,” central Israel’s police chief, Yair Hezroni, said in the video shared by the force.
It was not immediately clear whether the impact was caused by the Yemeni missile or by an interceptor.
The attack was claimed by Yemen’s Houthis, who say they act in support for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza.
“The missile force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion airport” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile,” the Houthis said in a statement, referring to their own forces.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated at least six people with light to moderate injuries.
An AFP journalist inside the airport at the time of the attack said he heard a “loud bang” at around 9:35 am (0635 GMT), adding the “reverberation was very strong.”
“Security staff immediately asked hundreds of passengers to take shelter, some in bunkers,” the AFP journalist said.
“Many passengers are now waiting for their flights to take off, and others are trying to find alternative flights.”
An incoming Air India flight was diverted to Abu Dhabi, an airport official told AFP.
A passenger said the attack, which came shortly after air raid sirens sounded across parts of the country, caused panic.
“It is crazy to say but since October 7 we are used to this,” said the passenger, who did not want to be named, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
“A missile might come at any time and life stops for some time. Today at the airport there was panic and even I was scared, because the blast was big.”
Israel’s airport authority said that “departures and arrivals have resumed” at Ben Gurion, a short while after they had been interrupted due to the missile fire.
The airport “is open and operational,” the aviation authority said in a statement.
Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened a forceful response, saying: “Anyone who hits us, we will hit them seven times stronger.”
The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas praised the missile attack on Israel's airport that was claimed by the Houthis.
“Yemen... escalates its attacks on the heart of the illegitimate Zionist entity, surpassing the most advanced defense systems in the world and striking its targets with precision,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.
Qatar rejects Netanyahu’s ‘inflammatory’ Gaza comments: foreign ministry
- Netanyahu's office earlier urged Qatar to stop its "double game" and "decide if it’s on the side of civilization or if it’s on the side of Hamas”
- Qatar ministry spokesman said the statement "fall far short of the most basic standards of political and moral responsibility”
DOHA: Gaza mediator Qatar on Sunday rejected comments from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it needed to “stop playing both sides” in truce negotiations.
A statement released by Netanyahu's office on Saturday said Qatar needs to “decide if it’s on the side of civilization or if it’s on the side of Hamas.”
Qatar “firmly rejects the inflammatory statements... which fall far short of the most basic standards of political and moral responsibility,” foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari responded in a post on X.
Despite efforts by Egyptian and Qatari mediators to restore a ceasefire, neither Israel nor Hamas has shown willingness to back down on core demands, with each side blaming the other for the failure to reach a deal.
Israel, which wants the return of 59 hostages still held in Gaza, has insisted Hamas must disarm and be excluded from any role in the future governance of the enclave, a condition that Hamas rejects.
It has insisted on agreeing a lasting end to the fighting and withdrawal of Israeli forces as a condition for a deal that would see a release of the hostages.
Al-Ansari criticized the portrayal of the Gaza conflict as a defense of civilization, likening it to historical regimes that used “false narratives to justify crimes against civilians.”
In his post, Al-Ansari questioned whether the release of 138 hostages was achieved through military operations or mediation efforts, which he said are being unjustly criticized and undermined.
He also cited the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza represented by what he called a suffocating blockade, systematic starvation, denial of medicine and shelter, and the use of humanitarian aid as a tool of political coercion. On Friday, Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for an expanded operation in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported on Friday, adding to signs that attempts to stop the fighting and return hostages held by Hamas have made no progress.
Israel’s campaign was triggered by the devastating Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw 251 taken hostage. It has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and devastated Gaza where aid groups have warned the Israeli blockade risks a humanitarian disaster.
Israel calls up tens of thousands of reservists for Gaza offensive
- Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over how to proceed with a 2-month ceasefire
- Security cabinet scheduled to meet on Sunday to approve the expansion of the military offensive, says public broadcaster
JERUSALEM: Israel was issuing orders to call up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of an expanded offensive in Gaza, Israeli media reported Saturday.
Several news outlets reported the military had begun sending the orders for reservists to replace conscripts and active-duty soldiers in Israel and the occupied West Bank so they can be redeployed to Gaza.
A military spokesperson neither confirmed nor denied the reports, but relatives of AFP journalists were among those who received mobilization orders.
According to Israel’s public broadcaster, the security cabinet is scheduled to meet on Sunday to approve the expansion of the military offensive in Gaza.
Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid deadlock over how to proceed with a two-month ceasefire that had largely halted the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack.
The Israeli prime minister, under pressure from his far-right supporters, without whom he would lose his governing coalition, has been increasingly vocal in his calls to continue the war since the restart of the Gaza offensive.
“Israel will win this just war with just means,” he added.
Israel has also blocked all aid deliveries to Gaza since March 2, prompting warnings from UN agencies of impending humanitarian disaster.
Hamas on Saturday released footage of an apparently wounded Israeli-Russian hostage held in Gaza as 11 Palestinians, including three infants, were killed in a strike on the territory, its civil defense agency said.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 2,396 people had been killed since Israel resumed its campaign in Gaza, bringing the overall death toll from the war to 52,495.
Gaza militants still hold 58 hostages, 34 of whom the army says are dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.
The militant group’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, released a video on Saturday showing a hostage AFP and Israeli media identified as Russian-Israeli Maxim Herkin.
In the undated four-minute video, Herkin, who turns 37 this month, was shown wearing bandages on his head and left arm.
Speaking in Hebrew in the video, which his family urged media to disseminate, he implied he had been wounded in a recent Israeli bombardment.
AFP was unable to determine the health of Herkin, who gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by Hamas, urging pressure on the Israeli government to free the remaining captives.
Several thousand Israelis demonstrated outside the defense ministry in Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding action from the government to secure the hostages’ release.
“We’re here because we want the hostages home. We’re here because we don’t believe that the war in Gaza today, currently, is justified at all,” Arona Maskil, a 64-year-old demonstrator, told AFP.
The government says its renewed offensive is aimed at forcing Hamas to free its remaining captives, although critics charge that it puts them in mortal danger.
A statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum argued that “any escalation in the fighting will put the hostages... in immediate danger.”
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said on Saturday that an overnight Israeli strike on the Khan Yunis refugee camp killed at least 11 people, including three infants.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal say they were killed in the “bombardment of the Al-Bayram family home in Khan Yunis camp” at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT).
Bassal told AFP that eight of the dead had been identified and were all from the same extended family, including a boy and girl, both one, and a month-old baby.
An Israeli military spokesperson confirmed the strike, saying it targeted a “Hamas member.”
Rescue workers and residents combed the rubble for survivors with their bare hands, under the light of hand-held torches, an AFP journalist reported.
Neighbour Fayka Abu Hatab said she “saw a bright light, then there was an explosion, and dust covered the entire area.”
“We couldn’t see anything, it all went dark,” she said.
