BEIRUT: Israeli strikes on Saturday killed two people and sparked wildfires in southern Lebanon, state media said, with Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah announcing the death of one fighter.
Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in the eight months since the Gaza war began, triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack.
The deadly clashes have intensified in recent weeks, causing multiple brush fires on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) said on Saturday that “an Israeli drone carried out an air attack with two guided missiles, targeting a cafe in Aitarun and killing the cafe’s owner, Ali Khalil Hamad, 37, and a young man named Mustafa A. Issa.”
The agency also reported a “violent airstrike” on the border village of Khiam.
Shortly after, Hezbollah said it launched Katyusha rockets on a town across the border “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks against southern villages and safe houses, and the targeting of civilians, notably in Aitarun where two people were killed.”
The Shiite Muslim movement later announced that one of its fighters was killed by Israeli fire. It identified him as Radwan A. Issa, without providing further details.
The Israeli army said in a statement that “one of its planes struck a Hezbollah terrorist in the Aitarun region,” adding that they also struck targets in the area of Khiam.
More than eight months of border violence, which began on October 8, has killed 458 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but including about 90 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
On the Israeli side of the border, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to the army.
“Israeli artillery bombarded today the outskirts of the town of Alma Al-Shaab with incendiary phosphorus shells, causing fires in the forests that spread to the vicinity of some homes,” NNA reported earlier on Saturday.
It added that the fire had reached “large areas of olive trees.”
Lebanese authorities and several international rights groups have accused Israel of using white phosphorus rounds in its strikes on its northern neighbor.
White phosphorus, a substance that ignites on contact with oxygen, can be used as an incendiary weapon.
Its use as a chemical weapon is prohibited under international law, but it is allowed for illuminating battlefields and can be used as a smokescreen.
Rescuer Ali Abbas of the Risala Scout association, affiliated with Hezbollah ally the Amal movement, told AFP that “Israel deliberately bombs forested areas with phosphorus with the aim of starting fires.”
According to him, rescuers on the grounds have been struggling to extinguish the flames, while the Lebanese military avoids sending helicopters to assist for fear of more Israeli attacks.
Further east, the NNA reported that “a large fire broke out at positions belonging to the Lebanese army and UNIFIL,” the UN peacekeeping mission, in the area of the border village of Mais Al-Jabal.
It is located near the UN-demarcated Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel.
A security source told AFP on condition of anonymity that fires broke out near military positions but have not reached them or caused any casualties.
The UN peacekeepers in a statement reported a “bushfire near one of their positions in Hula,” which was put out with help from Lebanese troops and civil defense forces.
“The fire didn’t cause any damage to UNIFIL assets or personnel,” it said.
The NNA said “several land mines exploded, and firefighting operations are still continuing” in the area.
Two dead, fires in south Lebanon after Israeli strikes
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Two dead, fires in south Lebanon after Israeli strikes
- Hezbollah, Hamas ally, has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in eight months since Gaza war began
Israeli defense minister: Troops will remain in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria indefinitely
“Unlike in the past, the (Israeli military) is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized,” Israel Katz said in a statement. The military “will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and (Israeli) communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza — as in Lebanon and Syria.”
Israeli forces have taken over large areas of Gaza in recent weeks in a renewed campaign to pressure Hamas to release hostages after Israel ended their ceasefire last month. Israel has also refused to withdraw from some areas in Lebanon following a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group last year, and it seized a buffer zone in southern Syria after the overthrow of President Bashar Assad.
Israel says it must maintain control of such territories to prevent a repeat of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack, in which thousands of militants stormed into southern Israel from Gaza.
Gaza hospital chief held in ‘inhumane’ conditions by Israel: lawyer
- Abu Safiya was subjected to interrogations involving beatings, mistreatment and torture.
- In January, rights group Amnesty International demanded Abu Safiya’s release, citing witness testimonies describing “the horrifying reality” in Israeli prisons.
NAZARETH: The director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan hospital who was detained by Israeli forces in December is being held in “inhumane” conditions by Israel and subjected to “physical and psychological intimidation,” his lawyer told AFP.
Hussam Abu Safiya, a 52-year-old paediatrician, rose to prominence last year by posting about the dire conditions in his besieged hospital in Beit Lahia during a major Israeli offensive.
On December 27, Israeli forces began an assault on the facility which they labelled a Hamas “terrorist center,” and arrested dozens of medical staff including Abu Safiya.
The military accused him of being a “Hamas operative.”
Abu Safiya’s lawyer, Gheed Qassem, was able to visit the doctor on March 19 in Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank.
“He is suffering greatly, he is exhausted from the torture, the pressure and the humiliation he has endured to force him to confess to acts he did not commit,” said Qassem who met an AFP correspondent in Nazareth.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment from AFP about the conditions in which Abu Safiya is being held.
After initially spending two weeks in the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel’s Negev desert, Abu Safiya was transferred to Ofer, where Israel keeps hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
In Sde Teiman, Abu Safiya was subjected to interrogations “involving beatings, mistreatment and torture,” Qassem said, before he was transferred to a cramped cell in Ofer for 25 days, where he was also subjected to questioning.
The Israeli authorities have designated the medic an “illegal combatant” for an “unlimited period of time,” Qassem said, and his case has been designated confidential by the military, meaning Abu Safiya’s defense cannot access the files.
She denounced what she said were restrictions imposed on legal visits, which have prevented lawyers from informing detainees about “the war, the date, the time or their geographic location.”
Her meeting with Abu Safiya, which took place under tight surveillance, lasted for only 17 minutes, she said.
Adopted in 2002, Israel’s law concerning “illegal combatants” permits the detention of suspected members of “hostile forces” outside of normal legal frameworks.
In January, rights group Amnesty International demanded Abu Safiya’s release, citing witness testimonies describing “the horrifying reality” in Israeli prisons, where Palestinian detainees are subjected to “systematic acts of torture and other mistreatment.”
A social media campaign using the hashtag #FreeDrHussamAbuSafiya has brought together health care organizations, celebrities and UN leaders.
That includes the director of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who demanded Abu Safiya’s release in a post on X.
Qassem warned that her client’s health was “very worrying.”
“He is suffering from arterial tension, cardiac arrhythmia and vision problems,” she said, adding “he has lost 20 kilos in two months and fractured four ribs during interrogations, without receiving proper medical care.”
The doctor remains calm, she said, but “wonders what crime he has committed” to be subjected to “such inhumane conditions.”
According to the lawyer, Abu Safiya’s jailers are demanding that he confess to having operated on members of Hamas or Israeli hostages held in Gaza, but he has refused to do so and denies the accusations.
The doctor insists that he is just a paediatrician, “and everything he did was out of a moral, professional and human duty toward the patients and the wounded,” Qassem said.
Since October 7, 2023, around 5,000 Gazans have been arrested by Israel, and some were subsequently released in exchange for hostages held in Gaza.
In general, they are accused of “belonging to a terrorist organization” or of posing “a threat to Israel’s security,” the lawyer said.
Qassem said that a number of detainees are being held without charge or trial and that their lawyers often did not know where their clients were during the first months of the war.
Istanbul's Hagia Sophia prepares for next big quake
- Hagia Sophia a World Heritage Site and Turkiye’s most visited landmark
Istanbul: The Hagia Sophia of Istanbul is no stranger to change — through the centuries the city’s architectural jewel has gone from church to mosque to museum, back to mosque again.
But the latest renovation aims not only to restore the wonders of the 1,488-year gem, but to ensure it survives the next earthquake to hit the ancient city.
From afar, its dome, shimmering rock and delicate minarets appear to watch over Istanbul, as they have for centuries.
As visitors get closer however, they see scaffolding covering its eastern facade and one of the minarets.
While “the renovation of course breaks a little bit the atmosphere of the appearance from the outside” and the “scaffolding takes away the aesthetic of the monument... renovation is a must,” said Abdullah Yilmaz, a guide.
Hagia Sophia, a World Heritage Site and Turkiye’s most visited landmark, “constantly has problems,” Hasan Firat Diker, an architecture professor working on the restoration, told AFP.
That is why it has undergone numerous piecemeal reconstructions over the centuries, he added.
'Global’ makeover'
The current makeover is the first time the site will undergo a “global restoration,” including the dome, walls and minarets, he said.
When it was first completed in AD 537, on the same spot where previous churches had stood, the Hagia Sophia became known as a shining example of the architecture of the Byzantine Empire, which ruled the city known as Constantinople at the time.
It served as a church until the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453, when it became a mosque.
In 1935, Mustafa Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye who forcibly remade the country into a secular one, turned the building into a museum.
It remained as such until 2020, when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a practicing Muslim who came to power at the head of an Islamist-rooted party, turned it back into a mosque.
Next big quake
Like the residents of this historic city, the Hagia Sophia has not only had to contend with the whims of its rulers — it faces the constant danger from earthquakes that have regularly struck the metropolis, the last major one in 1999.
Like many buildings in the city of 16 million, which lies just kilometers from an active seismic fault line, Hagia Sophia does not meet building earthquake standards.
Its dome collapsed in an earthquake in 558 and the building has been damaged in other quakes that have hit the city since.
So the main goal of the restoration under way is to “reinforce the building against the next big earthquake” so that the ancient structure “survives the event with the least damage possible,” said Ahmet Gulec, a member of the scientific committee supervising the works.
For the moment specialists are studying the dome to determine how best to both reinforce and restore it, Diker said.
The interior is for now free of any scaffolding. But eventually four huge pillars will be erected inside to support a platform from where specialists will restore the dome’s paintings and mosaics.
“Once you’re inside... it’s perfect,” marvelled Ana Delgado, a 49-year-old tourist from Mexico as the hum of laughter, conversation and movement filled the building following afternoon prayers.
“It’s magic,” chimed in her friend, Elias Erduran, from the Dominican Republic.
Millions of visitors
Hagia Sophia saw 7.7 million visitors stream through its spacious interior last year.
Around 2.1 million of them are foreign tourists, many of whom pay 25 euros for an entry ticket, generating millions of euros annually.
Officials hope the inside pillars will not deter visitors from coming during the works, which are expected to last for several years. Officials have not said how much the renovation is expected to cost.
“The objective is that the visits and prayers continue” during the works, Gulec said.
And even if some visitors are disappointed not to have witnessed the building in all its glory, the important thing “is that one day my children will also be able to admire Saint Sophia,” said Yana Galitskaya, a 35-year-old visitor from Russia.
Second US carrier arrives off coast of Yemen
- Video footage shows fighter jets taking off to launch attacks against Houthi militia
DUBAI: A second US aircraft carrier has arrived off the coast of Yemen as Washington ramps up its attacks on Houthi militia targets, according to new satellite images.
The USS Carl Vinson is operating in key shipping routes northeast of Socotra island in the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden.
The carrier is accompanied by the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton and two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the USS Sterett and the USS William P. Lawrence.
The US sent the Vinson to back up the carrier USS Harry S. Truman, which has been launching airstrikes against the Houthis since March 15.
Video footage released by the US Navy showed the Vinson preparing ordinance and launching F-35 and F/A-18 fighter jets off its deck. US Central Command also posted videos saying there had been “24/7 strikes” on the Houthis by the two carriers.
Lebanon assures Jordan of solidarity after foiled threats to national security
- After arrest of 16 suspects ‘planning acts of chaos and sabotage,’ Beirut is ‘fully prepared’ to cooperate by sharing info about 2 who reportedly trained in Lebanon, says PM Nawaf Salam
- Palestinian Authority condemns the ‘terrorist plots’ and says ‘attempts to target and weaken Jordan are targeting and weakening Palestine’
LONDON: Lebanon’s prime minister expressed solidarity with Jordan following the arrest on Tuesday of several suspects accused of involvement in plots to compromise Jordanian national security.
During a telephone conversation with his counterpart, Jafar Hassan, Nawaf Salam pledged Lebanon's full cooperation in efforts to tackle threats to Jordan’s security and stability.
Earlier, the Jordanian General Intelligence Department arrested 16 people suspected of “planning acts of chaos and sabotage,” the Jordan News Agency reported. Two of the suspects, Abdullah Hisham and Muath Al-Ghanem, were believed to have visited Lebanon to coordinate with a senior leader in the Muslim Brotherhood and receive training, the agency added.
Salam said Lebanese authorities were “fully prepared” to cooperate with their Jordanian counterparts by providing information about individuals suspected of involvement in the plots who received training in Lebanon, the country’s National News Agency reported.
“Lebanon refuses to be a base or a launching pad for any action that would threaten the security of any brotherly or friendly country,” the prime minister added.
In a message posted on social media platform X, Lebanese MP Fouad Makhzoum said the case affects Lebanon’s relations with Arab and other foreign countries, and urged the government to clarify the circumstances surrounding the suspects’ training.
“All solidarity with Jordan in the face of malicious attempts to undermine its stability,” he added.
During a telephone call with Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, Lebanon’s former prime minister, Najib Mikati, similarly expressed his solidarity with Amman.
The Palestinian Authority condemned the “terrorist plots” and said they represented an attempt to undermine national security. The president’s office said “attempts to target and weaken Jordan are targeting and weakening Palestine,” the Palestinian News Agency reported.
