The New Israeli-Israel Interaction After Nasrallah’s Oct. 7, 2023 Attack: Security and Security in the Middle East, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Biden said that the next day, Nasrallah decided to join hands with Hamas and open a northern front against Israel.
In a separate statement, Biden noted the operation to take out Nasrallah happened within the wider context of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks against Israel.
Asked about Nasrallah’s killing, however, Biden said the longtime Hezbollah leader’s death was “a measure of justice” for victims of his four-decade “reign of terror.”
Sept. 26: At the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the United States and France are pushing for a 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon. Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are quick to reject it.
Israel’s killing of Nasrallah, in particular, represents another dramatic new development for a conflict that has metastasized across the Middle East region since last October.
Hezbollah and Israel exchange heavy fire into the early morning hours. In southern Lebanon, residents described huge explosions that lit up the night sky. Some of the Hezbollah rockets have hit deeper into Israel than in the past, according to the Israeli military.
Meanwhile, the IDF also said it had intercepted eight projectiles launched from Lebanon into Israel on Sunday, hitting open areas near Tiberias in Israel’s north.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies that consider themselves part of an Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” against Israel.
The Israel Defense Force said in a statement that its air force targets buildings where weapons and military structures of the organization are stored.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to Israel earlier than expected from his trip to the United Nations as Israel was said to be preparing for an invasion into southern Lebanon after reservists were called up to Israel’s north.
Israel had already been conducting brief intelligence-gathering raids inside southern Lebanon this week, as it was preparing for a limited ground offensive, an official in the Middle East told NPR.
Lammy said they agreed on the need for a ceasefire to end the bloodshed. “A diplomatic solution is the only way to restore security and stability for the Lebanese and Israeli people.”
JERUSALEM — The first apparent Israeli airstrike on central Beirut in nearly a year of conflict leveled an apartment building early Monday. Hezbollah suffered heavy blows to their command structure as a result of Israel’s hit on its targets across Lebanon and the killing of its leader, Nasrallah.
In the north of Israel, there are sirens in Haifa and nearby towns. Israel said Haifa was targeted for the first time since the war began nearly a year ago.
Sept. 27: In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Netanyahu says Israel is “winning” on multiple fronts and would attack Iran and its proxies anywhere in the Middle East. Many delegates in the U.N. hall left in a public snub at the start of his address, in which he called the UN a “swamp of antisemitic bile.”
Fourteen people are dead and 450 are wounded from an explosion of communications devices in Lebanon on Sept. 18. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant speaks about “excellent achievements” by Israel’s military and intelligence branches leading to “impressive results,” but does not mention the device attacks of the previous two days.
Netanyahu was arriving at the Ben Gurion airport when a missile attack was launched from Yemen. The Israeli strikes hit the ports and the power plants in the city of Hodeida, a stronghold of the Iranian-backed rebels, according to the Houthi media office. The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the strikes killed four people and wounded 40 others.
Also on Sunday, the Israeli military said dozens of its aircraft struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to a recent attack. The military said it targeted power plants and sea port facilities in the city of Hodeida.
Israel Expands Attacks in Lebanon: President Joe Biden speaks with the Prime Minister after the July 14 Air-Strike-Demolished Site in Dover Air Force Base
Meanwhile, wreckage from Friday’s strike that killed Nasrallah was still smoldering. People came to see what was left of their homes or pray at the site as smoke rose over the rubble.
President Joe Biden believes that a war in the Middle East must be avoided and will speak with the Israeli Prime Minister soon. “It has to be,” Biden told reporters at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as he boarded Air Force One for Washington.
A video of a strike in Sidon was verified by the AP, and it shows a building swaying before collapsing as neighbors filmed. As rescuers failed to reach a family caught under the rubble, a TV station urged viewers to pray for them. The Health Ministry in Lebanon reported that at least 14 medics were killed during a two day period.
There were at least 105 deaths reported by the Health Ministry. The ministry said there were two strikes near the southern city of Sidon that killed at least 32 people. At least 21 people have been killed and 47 wounded in Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel.
Israel says it is determined to return some 60,000 of its citizens to communities in the north that were evacuated nearly a year ago. Hezbollah said it would stop its rocket fire only if there was a cease- fire in the Gaza area, which has been elusive despite months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
The 7th Hezbollah leader killed in a UN airstrike: Israel’s destruction of the Central Council, Hamas’s al-Buss commander and the headquarters of the Sunni group
Hezbollah confirmed that the deputy head of its Central Council was killed Saturday in an Israeli strike, making him the 7th Hezbollah leader killed in less than a week. They include the group’s founding members, who had avoided death or imprisonment for decades.
The Hezbollah militant group, backed by Iran, rose to regional prominence after it fought a war with Israel in 2006 which ended in a draw.
Many people have left their homes. Around 25% of the population are in shelters, with a three to four times increase in staying with friends or relatives.
Kirby sidestepped a question on whether the Biden administration agreed with the way the Israelis targeted Hezbollah leaders. The White House wants a 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah because they did not agree during the UN General Assembly last week.
Kirby said that he thinks people are safer with Nasrallah not walking around. They will try to recover. We are interested to see what they do to fill the leadership vacuum. It’s going to be tough. The command structure has been wiped out.
Meanwhile, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon had “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure, but he warned the group will work quickly to rebuild it.
A Hamas commander was killed early Monday in a strike in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps. Hamas said Fatah Sharif and his family were killed in an airstrike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre.
An official with Lebanon’s Civil Defense had earlier said that a member of the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya was killed in the strike and that 16 other people were wounded, but the Sunni militant group, which fights alongside Hezbollah, has not confirmed the death of any of its members.
An Associated Press journalist said that the airstrike hit a multistory residential building. The videos showed ambulances and a crowd near the building in the district, with a busy thoroughfare lined with shops.
A U.S. official in the Middle East: Is Israel prepared for a ground invasion inside Lebanon? Israeli Defense Secretary Tamir Hayman said on Monday
An official in the region said there was a possibility of a ground incursion. The U.S. official and the official in the Middle East spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.
The US officials said that Israel isn’t prepared for a big ground assault inside Lebanon because its troops are stretched thin following the Hamas-led attack on Gaza a year ago.
Tamir Hayman, who served as the head of Israel’s military intelligence directorate until 2021, said in an interview on Israeli Army Radio on Monday that Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon had successfully knocked Hezbollah off balance.
He said that Israel should decide soon whether to mount a ground invasion or to only destroy Hezbollah infrastructure for a long time, with a lot of international opposition.
The U.S. is concerned about retaliation to Israel’s moves by Iran and Iranian-supported militias in the region. Such a retaliation could threaten U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
Netanyahu landed in Israel shortly before air raid sirens wailed at the airport and throughout central Israel. The missile was shot down by the Israeli military.
Israeli security analysts said Israel’s bombing campaign in Yemen was a message to Iran, showing Israel’s long-range flight capability as a tacit warning to Iran that it, too, was within Israel’s reach.
