BEIRUT: The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah this week struck a military post in northern Israel using a drone that fired two missiles. The attack wounded three soldiers, one of them seriously, according to the Israeli military.
Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months, but the one on Thursday appears to have been the first successful missile airstrike it has launched from within Israeli airspace.
The group has stepped up its attacks on Israel in recent weeks, particularly since the Israeli incursion into the southern city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip. It has struck deeper inside Israel and introduced new and more advanced weaponry.
“This is a method of sending messages on the ground to the Israeli enemy, meaning that this is part of what we have, and if needed we can strike more,” said Lebanese political analyst Faisal Abdul-Sater who closely follows Hezbollah.
While the cross-border exchanges of fire have been ongoing since early October, “complex attacks” by Hezbollah began a few days after Iran’s unprecedented drone and missile barrage attack on Israel in mid-April.
In the past two weeks, Hezbollah has escalated further in response to the Israeli incursion into the city of southern Rafah in the Gaza Strip, a Lebanese official familiar with the group’s operations said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to detail military information to the media.
The Thursday afternoon attack by a drone carrying missiles came just days after Hezbollah launched three anti-tank guided missiles at an Israeli military post that controlled a surveillance balloon flying over the border. They released camera footage afterward to show they had hit their mark. Hours later, the Israeli military confirmed that the spy balloon had been shot down over Lebanon.
The night before, Hezbollah had carried out its deepest attack in Israel to date using explosive drones to strike at a base in Ilaniya near the city of Tiberias about 35 kilometers from the Lebanon border. The Israeli military said the attack did not hurt anyone.
Abdul-Sater, the analyst, said the Iran-led coalition known as the axis of resistance, which includes the Palestinian militant group Hamas, has warned that if Israeli troops launch a full-scale invasion of Rafah in an attempt to go after Hamas, other fronts will also escalate.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed Wednesday that they attacked a US destroyer while Iran-backed militants in Iraq have said they fired a series of drones toward Israel in recent weeks after having gone relatively quiet since February.
Hezbollah’s use of more advanced weaponry, including drones capable of firing missiles, explosive drones and the small type of guided missile known as Almas, or Diamond, that was used to attack the base controlling the balloon has raised alarms within the Israeli military.
“Hezbollah has been escalating the situation in the north,” said military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani. “They’ve been firing more and more.”
In adapting its attacks, Hezbollah has also managed to reduce the numbers of fighters lost compared with the early weeks of the conflict.
The group has lost more than 250 fighters so far, compared with 15 Israeli troops since fighting broke out along the Lebanon-Israel border a day after the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7.
According to a count by The Associated Press, Hezbollah lost 47 fighters in October and 35 in November, compared with 20 in April and 12 so far this month.
The official familiar with the group’s operations said Hezbollah had reduced the numbers of fighters along the border areas to bring down the numbers of casualties. While Hezbollah continues to fire Russian-made anti-tank Kornet missiles from areas close to the border, it has also shifted to firing drones and other types of rockets with heavy war heads — including Almas as well as Falaq and Burkan rockets — from areas several kilometers (miles) from the border.
Over the weekend, Hezbollah said it had launched a new rocket with a heavy warhead named Jihad Mughniyeh after a senior operative who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on southern Syria in 2015.
Eva J. Koulouriotis, a political analyst specialized in the Middle East and jihadi groups wrote on the social media platform X that Hezbollah’s recent escalation likely has several goals, including raising the ceiling of the group’s demands in any future negotiations for a border deal, as well as raising military pressure on Israel’s military in light of the preparations for the battle in Rafah.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed in a speech last week that “we will stand, we will achieve our goals, we will hit Hamas, we will destroy Hezbollah, and we will bring security.”
On Monday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reiterated in a speech that there will be no end to the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border until Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip come to an end.
“The main goal of Lebanon’s front is to contribute to the pressure on the enemy to end the war on Gaza,” Nasrallah said.
His comments were a blow to attempts by foreign dignitaries, including US and French officials, who have visited Beirut t o try to put an end to the violence that has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
A day after Nasrallah spoke, Canada’s Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly visited Beirut and told Lebanon’s private LBC TV station that she was pushing for a ceasefire.
“We need the people living in the south of Lebanon to be able to go back to their homes,” she said. “We need to make sure that the Israelis living in the northern part of Israel are able to get back to their homes also.”
Hezbollah’s deputy leader Naim Kassim warned Israel in a speech over the weekend against opening an all-out war.
“You have tried in the past and you were defeated and if you try again you will be defeated,” said Kassim, referring to the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah 34-day war that ended in a draw.
Hezbollah introduces new weapons and tactics against Israel as war in Gaza drags on
https://arab.news/m637v
Hezbollah introduces new weapons and tactics against Israel as war in Gaza drags on

- Hezbollah has regularly fired missiles across the border with Israel over the past seven months
- Hezbollah said it had launched a new rocket with a heavy warhead named Jihad Mughniyeh
Starvation among kids in Gaza reaches record levels, humanitarian chiefs tell UN Security Council

- More than 5,800 children diagnosed with acute malnutrition last month, triple the number compared with February
- UNICEF chief Catherine Russell says children are being killed and maimed as they queue for food and medicine
NEW YORK: Children in Gaza are suffering from the worst starvation rates since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October 2023, aid officials told the UN Security Council on Wednesday, in a devastating assessment of the conditions young Palestinians in the territory face as they try to survive.
“Starvation rates among children hit their highest levels in June, with over 5,800 girls and boys diagnosed as acutely malnourished,” said the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher.
Israel imposed an 11-week blockade on humanitarian aid earlier this year, and has only allowed a trickle of relief supplies to enter the territory since the end of May. The effects on the health of children have been catastrophic, according to the details presented to members of the Security Council. Levels of acute malnutrition have nearly tripled since February, just before the total blockade on aid was imposed.
“Children in Gaza are enduring catastrophic living conditions, including severe food insecurity and malnutrition,” UNICEF’s executive director, Catherine Russell, told the council.
“These severely malnourished children need consistent, supervised treatment, along with safe water and medical care, to survive.”
Yet youngsters in the territory are being killed and maimed as they queue for lifesaving food and medicine, she added. Last week, nine children were among 15 Palestinians killed by an Israeli strike in Deir Al-Balah while they waited in line for nutritional supplies from UNICEF.
“Among the survivors was Donia, a mother seeking a lifeline for her family after months of desperation and hunger,” Russell said.
“Donia’s 1-year-old son, Mohammed, was killed in the attack after speaking his first words just hours earlier. When we spoke with Donia, she was lying critically injured in a hospital bed, clutching Mohammed’s tiny shoe.”
Russell painted a bleak picture of desperation for the 1 million Palestinian children in the territory, where more than 58,000 people have been killed during the 21 months of war.
Among the dead are 17,000 children — an average of 28 each day, the equivalent of “a whole classroom of children killed every day for nearly two years,” Russell said.
Youngsters also struggle to find clean water supplies, she added, and are therefore forced to drink contaminated water, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks; waterborne diseases now represent 44 per cent of all healthcare consultations.
“Thousands of children urgently need emergency medical support,” Russell said, and many of those suffering from traumatic injuries or severe preexisting medical conditions are at risk of death because medical care is unavailable.
She repeated calls from other UN officials for Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza “at sufficient speed and scale to meet the urgent needs of children and families.”
A new aid-distribution system, introduced and run by Israel and the US, has sidelined traditional UN delivery mechanisms and restricted the flow of humanitarian supplies to a fraction of what was previously available.
Since the new system, run by the newly formed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating, hundreds of people, including children, have been shot dead as they gathered to collect aid.
Russell urged the Security Council to push for a return to UN aid-delivery systems so that essentials such as medicine, vaccines, water, food, and nutrition for babies can reach those in need.
Fletcher, the humanitarian chief, told the council that the shattered healthcare system in Gaza meant that in some hospitals, five babies share a single incubator and pregnant women give birth without any medical care.

He said the International Court of Justice has demanded that Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance,” and added: “Intentionally using the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare would, of course, be a war crime.”
During the meeting, Israel faced strong criticism from permanent Security Council members France and the UK.
The British ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, described the shooting of Palestinians as they attempted to reach food-distribution sites as “abhorrent.”
She called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and said the UK “strongly opposes” the expansion of Israeli military operations.
French envoy Jerome Bonnafont said Israel must end its blockade of humanitarian aid, and denounced the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation system as “unacceptable and incompatible” with the requirements of international law.
He said an international conference due to take place on July 28 and 29 at the UN headquarters in New York, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, would offer a “pathway toward the future” and identify tangible ways in which a two-state solution might be reached to end the wider conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Dorothy Shea, the ambassador to the UN from Israel’s main international ally, the US, said the blame for the situation in Gaza lay with Hamas, which continues to hold hostages taken during the attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the conflict in Gaza.
Unrecognized Bedouin villages in Israel build own bomb shelters

- Amid threat of Iranian missiles, Bedouin families resorted to building shelters out of available material
- The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves
BEERSHEBA, Israel: When the sirens wail in the southern Israeli desert to herald an incoming missile, Ahmad Abu Ganima’s family scrambles outside. Down some dirt-hewn steps, one by one, they squeeze through the window of a minibus buried under 10 feet of dirt.
Abu Ganima, a mechanic, got the cast-off bus from his employer after it was stripped for parts. He buried it in his yard to create an ad-hoc bomb shelter for his family. Abu Ganima is part of Israel’s 300,000-strong Bedouin community, a previously nomadic tribe that lives scattered across the arid Negev Desert.
More than two thirds of the Bedouin have no access to shelters, says Huda Abu Obaid, executive director of Negev Coexistence Forum, which lobbies for Bedouin issues in southern Israel. As the threat of missiles became more dire during the 12-day war with Iran last month, many Bedouin families resorted to building DIY shelters out of available material: buried steel containers, buried trucks, repurposed construction debris.
“When there’s a missile, you can see it coming from Gaza, Iran or Yemen,” says Amira Abu Queider, 55, a lawyer for the Shariah, or Islamic court system, pointing to the wide-open sky over Al-Zarnug, a village of squat, haphazardly built cement structures. “We’re not guilty, but we’re the ones getting hurt.”
Al-Zarnug is not recognized by the Israeli government and does not receive services such as trash collection, electricity or water. Nearly all power comes from solar panels on rooftops, and the community cannot receive construction permits. Residents receive frequent demolition orders.
Around 90,000 Bedouins live in 35 unrecognized villages in southern Israel. Even those Bedouin who live in areas “recognized” by Israel have scant access to shelter. Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in southern Israel, has eight public shelters for 79,000 residents, while nearby Ofakim, a Jewish town, has 150 public shelters for 41,000 residents, Abu Obaid says.
Sometimes, more than 50 people try to squeeze into the 3 square meters of a mobile bomb shelter or buried truck. Others crowded into cement culverts beneath train tracks, meant to channel storm runoff, hanging sheets to try to provide privacy. Shelters are so far away that sometimes families were forced to leave behind the elderly and people with mobility issues, residents say.
Engineering standards for bomb shelters and protected rooms are exhaustive and specific, laying out thickness of walls and types of shockwave-proof windows that must be used. The Bedouins making their own shelters know that they don’t offer much or any protection from a direct hit, but many people say it makes them feel good to go somewhere. Inside the minibus, Abu Ganeima says, the sound of the sirens are deadened, which is comforting to his children.
“Our bomb shelters are not safe,” says Najah Abo Smhan, a medical translator and single mother from Al-Zarnug. Her 9-year-old daughter, terrified, insisted they run to a neighbor’s, where they had repurposed a massive, cast-off truck scale as the roof of a dug-out underground shelter, even though they knew it wouldn’t be enough to protect them from a direct hit. “We’re just doing a lot of praying.”
When sirens blared to warn of incoming missiles, “scene filled with fear and panic” unfolded, says Miada Abukweder, 36, a leader from the village of Al-Zarnug, which is not recognized by Israel. “Children screamed, and mothers feared more for their children than for themselves. They were thinking about their children while they were screaming, feeling stomach pain, scared, and crying out, ‘We are going to die, where will we go?’” says Abukweder, part of a large clan of families in the area.
The feeling of not having anywhere to go or hide, many say, is almost as terrifying as the missiles themselves.
Immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli security services placed around 300 mobile bomb shelters in Bedouin areas, Abu Obaid says. Civil service organizations also donated a handful of mobile shelters. But these mobile bomb shelters are not built to withstand Iran’s ballistic missiles, and are grossly inadequate to meet widespread need. Abu Obaid estimates thousands of mobile shelters are needed across the far-flung Bedouin communities
UN expert on Palestinians says US sanctions are a ‘violation’ of immunity

BOGOTA: The UN’s unflinching expert on Palestinian affairs Francesca Albanese said Tuesday that Washington’s sanctions following her criticism of the White House’s stance on Gaza are a “violation” of her immunity.
The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories made the comments while visiting Bogota, nearly a week after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, calling her work “biased and malicious.”
“It’s a very serious measure. It’s unprecedented. And I take it very seriously,” Albanese told an audience in the Colombian capital.
Albanese was in Bogota to attend an international summit initiated by leftist President Gustavo Petro to find solutions to the Gaza conflict.
The Italian legal scholar and human rights expert has faced harsh criticism for her long-standing accusations that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“It’s clear violation of the UN Convention on Privileges and Immunities that protect UN officials, including independent experts, from words and actions taken in the exercise of their functions,” Albanese said.
Rubio on July 9 announced that Washington was sanctioning Albanese “for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (ICC) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.”
The sanctions are “a warning to anyone who dares to defend international law and human rights, justice and freedom,” Albanese said.
On Thursday, the UN urged the US to reverse the sanctions against Albanese, along with sanctions against judges of the International Criminal Court, with UN chief Antonio Guterres’s spokesman calling the move “a dangerous precedent.”
On Friday, the European Union also spoke out against the sanctions facing Albanese, adding that it “strongly supports the United Nations human rights system.”
Albanese, who assumed her mandate in 2022, released a damning report this month denouncing companies — many of them American — that she said “profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide” in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The report provoked a furious Israeli response, while some of the companies also raised objections.
Washington last month slapped sanctions on four ICC judges, in part over the court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, barring them from the United States.
UN special rapporteurs like Albanese are independent experts who are appointed by the UN human rights council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
Presidents of UAE and Turkiye witness signing of agreements to strengthen ties

- They cover key areas including protection of classified information; founding of a joint consular committee; and investments in food, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, tourism and hospitality
- Ministers sign the documents during ceremony at Presidential Palace in Ankara, during state visit by Emirati leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan
LONDON: The president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, witnessed on Wednesday the signing of several agreements and memorandums of understanding between their countries.
The aim of the deals, finalized during Sheikh Mohammed’s state visit to Turkiye, is to expand cooperation, and they reflect the shared commitment of both nations to the advancement of ties across various sectors, officials said.
The agreements covered a number of key areas, including: mutual protection of classified information; the establishment of a joint consular committee; investments in food and agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, and tourism and hospitality; and cooperation in the industrial sector and polar research.
They were signed during a formal ceremony at the Presidential Palace in Ankara by Emirati and Turkish ministers responsible for the industrial, trade, investment and technology sectors.
US hopeful of quick ‘deescalation’ after Syria ‘misunderstanding’

- Rubio blamed “historic longtime rivalries” for the clashes in the majority-Druze city of Sweida
- State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that the US was asking Syrian government forces to pull out of the flashpoint area
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Washington hoped within hours to ease tensions in Syria, as he voiced concern over violence that has included Israeli strikes on its war-torn neighbor.
“In the next few hours, we hope to see some real progress to end what you’ve been seeing over the last couple of hours,” Rubio told reporters in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump nodded.
Rubio blamed “historic longtime rivalries” for the clashes in the majority-Druze city of Sweida, which Israel has cited for its latest military intervention.
“It led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side,” Rubio said of the situation which has included Israel bombing the Syrian army’s headquarters in Damascus.
“We’ve been engaged with them all morning long and all night long — with both sides — and we think we’re on our way toward a real deescalation and then hopefully get back on track and helping Syria build the country and arriving at a situation in the Middle East that is far more stable,” said Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said that the United States was asking Syrian government forces to pull out of the flashpoint area.
“We are calling on the Syrian government to, in fact, withdraw their military in order to enable all sides to de-escalate and find a path forward,” she told reporters, without specifying the exact area.
She declined comment on whether the United States wanted Israel to stop its strikes.
Rubio, asked by a reporter earlier in the day at the State Department what he thought of Israel’s bombing, said, “We’re very concerned about it. We want it to stop.”
“We are very worried about the violence in southern Syria. It is a direct threat to efforts to help build a peaceful and stable Syria,” Rubio said in a statement.
“We have been and remain in repeated and constant talks with the governments of Syria and Israel on this matter.”
Trump has been prioritizing diplomacy with Syria’s new leadership.