BEIRUT: Israeli fire wounded three members of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement on Wednesday near the border with Israel, a security source in southern Lebanon said.
The incident comes amid tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border area, a stronghold of the Shiite movement and the site of sporadic skirmishes.
“Three Hezbollah members were wounded by Israeli fire near the border,” the source told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Three other sources with knowledge of the incident also said Hezbollah members had been wounded. One said a sound grenade was fired and that three members were “lightly” hurt.
The Israeli army said in a statement that “a number of suspects approached the northern security fence with Lebanon and attempted to sabotage the security fence in the area.”
“Soldiers immediately spotted the suspects and used means to distance them,” the army said, adding that “the identity of the suspects is unknown.”
An AFP correspondent said the incident took place near the village of Al-Bustan, where Lebanese army and peacekeepers were deployed.
The Israeli military released footage it said was of the incident showing several people approaching the fence before an apparent blast caused them to run away.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which acts as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel, said it was “aware of disturbing reports about an incident along the Blue Line.”
“The situation is extremely sensitive. We urge everyone to cease any action that may lead to escalation of any kind,” it said in a statement.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a devastating war in 2006 after the group captured two Israeli soldiers.
The conflict killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech to mark the anniversary of the 2006 war that Wednesday’s incident was “under investigation.”
UNIFIL was set up in 1978 to monitor the withdrawal of Israeli forces after they invaded Lebanon in reprisal for a Palestinian attack. The UN mission was beefed up in response to the 2006 conflict, and operates in the south near the border.
Lebanon and Israel are technically at war.
Wednesday’s incident comes less than a week after the Israeli army struck southern Lebanon following an anti-tank missile launch from its northern neighbor. The missile exploded in the border area between the two foes.
That same day, Hezbollah had denounced Israel for building a concrete wall around the town of GHajjar.
The Blue Line cuts through GHajjar, formally placing its northern part in Lebanon and its southern part in the Israeli-occupied and annexed Golan Heights.
“This land will not be left to Israelis,” Nasrallah said Wednesday.
“Through cooperation” between Hezbollah, the state and the Lebanese people, “we can get back our occupied land in GHajjar,” he added.
The foreign ministry on Tuesday said Lebanon would file a complaint with the United Nations Security Council over Israel’s “annexation” of the north of GHajjar.
Considered a “terrorist” organization by many Western governments, Hezbollah is the only side not to have disarmed following Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, and it is also a powerful player in Lebanese politics.
Nasrallah also said Hezbollah had set up two tents recently in the Shebaa Farms — one erected in a disputed area — but that the Israelis had “not dared to take any steps on the ground” in response.
In June, Hezbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone that had flown into Lebanon’s southern airspace.
In April, Israel’s military said soldiers had shot down a drone that entered its airspace from Lebanon, a day after a barrage of rockets was fired into Israel.
Israeli fire wounds Hezbollah members near Lebanon-Israel border
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Israeli fire wounds Hezbollah members near Lebanon-Israel border
UN blasts new US-backed aid distribution system in Gaza
- The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid a hunger crisis in the territory
- Intense criticism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in Gaza
The issue of aid has come sharply into focus amid a hunger crisis coupled with intense criticism of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a shadowy group that has bypassed the longstanding UN-led system in the territory.
According to the UN, 47 people were injured in the mayhem that erupted on Tuesday when thousands of Palestinians desperate for food rushed into a GHF aid distribution site, while a Palestinian medical source said at least one had died.
Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territories, said most of the wounded had been hurt by gunfire, and based on the information he had, “it was shooting from the IDF” — the Israeli military.
The Israeli military rejected the accusation, with Col. Olivier Rafowicz telling AFP that Israeli soldiers “fired warning shots into the air, in the area outside” the center managed by the GHF, and “in no case toward the people.”
With the war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel entering its 600th day on Wednesday, Palestinians in Gaza felt there was no reason to hope for a better future.
In Israel, the relatives of people held hostage in Gaza since the October 7 attack longed for the return of their loved ones, with hundreds gathering in their name in Tel Aviv.
“Six hundred days have passed and nothing has changed. Death continues, and Israeli bombing does not stop,” said Bassam Daloul, 40, adding that “even hoping for a ceasefire feels like a dream and a nightmare.”
The UN has repeatedly hit out against the GHF, which faces accusations of failing to fulfil the principles of humanitarian work, and Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, on Wednesday reiterated the criticism.
“I believe it is a waste of resources and a distraction from atrocities. We already have an aid distribution system that is fit for purpose,” he said during a visit in Japan.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said Israeli air strikes killed 16 people since dawn Wednesday.
Heba Jabr, 29, who sleeps in a tent in southern Gaza with her husband and their two children, was struggling to find food.
“Dying by bombing is much better than dying from the humiliation of hunger and being unable to provide bread and water for your children,” she said.
Israel imposed a full blockade on Gaza for over two months, before allowing supplies in at a trickle last week.
A medical source in southern Gaza said that after Tuesday’s stampede at the GHF site “more than 40 injured people arrived at Nasser Hospital, the majority of them wounded by Israeli gunfire,” adding that at least one had died since.
The source added that “a number of other civilians also arrived at the hospital with various bruises.”
On Tuesday, the GHF said around “8,000 food boxes have been distributed so far... totaling 462,000 meals.”
UN agencies and aid groups have argued that the GHF’s designation of so-called secure distribution sites contravenes the principle of humanity because it would force already displaced people to move again in order to stay alive.
Israel stepped up its military offensive in Gaza earlier this month, while mediators push for a ceasefire that remains elusive.
In Israel, hundreds of people gathered to call for a ceasefire that would allow for the release of hostages held by militants in Gaza since their 2023 attack.
Protesters gathered along the country’s roads and on the main highway running through the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv at 6:29 am, the exact time the unprecedented October 7 attack began.
Most Israeli media headlines read “600 days,” and focused on the hostage families’ struggle to get their relatives home.
Other events were planned across Israel to make the 600th day of captivity for the 57 remaining hostages still in Gaza.
Some 1,218 people were killed in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Wednesday that at least 3,924 people had been killed in the territory since Israel ended a ceasefire on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,084, mostly civilians.
Pope Leo appeals for Gaza ceasefire, laments deaths of children
- ‘The intense cries are reaching Heaven more and more from mothers and fathers,’ he said
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo appealed on Wednesday for a ceasefire in Gaza, and called on Israel and Hamas militants to “completely respect” international humanitarian law.
“In the Gaza Strip, the intense cries are reaching Heaven more and more from mothers and fathers who hold tightly to the bodies of their dead children,” the pontiff said during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
“To those responsible, I renew my appeal: stop the fighting,” said the pope. “Liberate all the hostages. Completely respect humanitarian law.”
Leo, elected on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, also appealed for an end to the war in Ukraine.
Italy demands Israel stops strikes, blasts expulsions of Gazans
- Antonion Tajani: ‘The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored’
ROME: Italy’s foreign minister on Wednesday again urged Israel to stop its strikes on Gaza, while warning that expelling Palestinians from the territory “is not and never will be an acceptable option.”
“The legitimate reaction of the Israeli government to a terrible and senseless terrorist act has unfortunately taken on absolutely tragic and unacceptable forms, that we ask Israel to stop immediately,” Antonion Tajani told parliament, referring also to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
“The bombings must stop, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored,” he said.
“Hamas must immediately free all the hostages which are still today in its in hands, and who have the right to return to their homes.”
Tajani also condemned US President Donald Trump’s plan for US control of Gaza and the forced displacement of the Palestinians living there.
“I want to reiterate today in this chamber with the utmost clarity – the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza is not and will never be an acceptable option,” Tajani said.
“This is why we wholeheartedly support the Arab plan led by Egypt for the recovery and reconstruction of the (Gaza) Strip, which is incompatible with any hypothesis of forced displacement.”
Israel hits Houthi targets including last plane at Sanaa airport
- The strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport
- Three other Yemenia Airways planes were destroyed in an attack earlier this month
JERUSALEM/ADEN: Israel said it had struck Houthi targets including the last remaining plane used by the group at Sanaa international airport, after the Yemeni militants launched missiles toward Israel a day earlier.
The General Director of Sanaa International Airport, Khaled Al-Shaief, said in a post on his X account that the strike had completely destroyed the last of the civilian planes that Yemenia Airways was operating from the airport.
The airport is the largest in Yemen and came back into service last week after temporary repairs and runway restoration following previous Israeli strikes.
It was mainly being used by UN aircraft and the plane destroyed in the latest Israeli strikes. Three other Yemenia Airways planes were destroyed in an attack earlier this month.
“This is a clear message and a direct continuation of the policy we have established: whoever fires at the State of Israel will pay a heavy price,” Israel’s defense ministry said in a statement.
The Houthis did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” a regional alliance that includes Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis control territory where about 60 percent of Yemen’s population resides.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the group has fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea in what it says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired toward Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
The US also launched intensified strikes against the Houthis this year, before halting the campaign after the Houthis agreed to stop attacks on US ships.
In a statement on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any harm directed at Israel will be met with greater force.
“But, as I have said more than once, the Houthis are only the symptom. The main driving force behind them is Iran, which is responsible for the aggression emanating from Yemen,” Netanyahu said.
At least 47 wounded, mostly by gunfire, as Palestinians crowd aid hub in Gaza
- The UN and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people
GENEVA: A UN official says 47 Palestinians were wounded, mostly by gunfire, when crowd overran Gaza aid hub.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva that it appeared Israeli army fire had caused most of the injuries.
On Tuesday, crowds of Palestinians overwhelmed a new aid distribution hub set up by an Israeli and US-backed foundation. The crowd broke through fences and an Associated Press journalist heard Israeli tank and gun fire, and saw a military helicopter firing flares.
The distribution hub outside Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah was opened the day before by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been slated by Israel to take over aid operations.
The UN and other humanitarian organizations have rejected the new system, saying it won’t be able to meet the needs of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and allows Israel to use food as a weapon to control the population. They have also warned of the risk of friction between Israeli troops and people seeking supplies.
Palestinians have become desperate for food after nearly three months of Israeli blockade pushed Gaza to the brink of famine.
