Israel’s offensive in Gaza follows the Houthi-inspired attack on the Ben Gurion airport and the health ministry of the city of Hodeida
Netanyahu was arriving at the Ben Gurion airport when the missile attack was launched by the Houthis. The offices of the Iranian-backed rebels said the Israeli strikes hit two power plants in the city of Hodeida. The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the strikes killed four people and wounded 40 others.
The Israeli military is fighting on multiple fronts. Israel’s operation in Gaza continues with deadly strikes. On Sunday, Israel’s military said it sent dozens of fighter jets more than 1,000 miles away to Yemen, where it said it bombed power plants and a seaport used by the Houthis to import oil for military purposes. At least four people were killed and dozens were wounded when the Israeli strikes were unleashed, according to the Houthis.
An Israeli security official tells NPR that Israeli troops entered Lebanon to attack Hezbollah military compounds. The military is focused on villages by the border, according to an official. Some homes are 100 meters from the border, some dozens of meters from the border, and some hundreds of meters from the border.” The official said that a ground incursion into Beirut is “not on the table.”
The Hezbollah Manifestation on the Middle East: Joe Biden, the Israeli Prime Minister, and the Israeli-Benjamin Netanyahu
The debris from Friday’s strike was still smoldering. As people swarmed to the site, smoke rose over it, some checking out what had left of their homes or simply looking at the destruction.
President Joe Biden is going to talk with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to avoid a conflict in the Middle East. “It has to be,” Biden told reporters at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as he boarded Air Force One for Washington.
In a video of a strike in Sidon, verified by the AP, a building swayed before collapsing as neighbors filmed. One TV station called on viewers to pray for a family caught under the rubble, posting their pictures, as rescuers failed to reach them. The Health Ministry of Lebanon reported 14 medics were killed in two days in the south.
The Health Ministry said that 105 people were killed in the strikes. The ministry said at least 31 people died in two strikes near the city of Sidon. Separately, Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and wounded at least 47.
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.
The area around three Israeli towns are closed off by the Israeli military. About 63,000 Israelis were displaced due to Hezbollah rocket fire, and about one million people were displaced from their homes during the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon.
Kaouk was a veteran member of Hezbollah going back to the 1980s and served as Hezbollah’s military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel. The US imposed sanctions against him in 2020.
Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party backed by Iran, Israel’s chief regional rival, rose to regional prominence after fighting a devastating monthlong war with Israel in 2006 that ended in a draw.
Two Palestinians Die in Airstrikes and the Defense of the Al-Buss Refugee Camps: Israel, Hezbollah, and Hamas
A lot of people have been driven out of their homes. Around 250,000 are in shelters, and three to four times the number staying with friends or relatives, according to the government.
Kirby sidestepped the question if the Biden administration agrees with the way the Israelis are targeting Hezbollah leaders. The U.S., France, and other countries have been pushing for a 21-day cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah since last week.
Kirby said that he thinks people are safer without Nasrallah in the picture. “But they will try to recover. We’re watching to see what they do to try to fill this leadership vacuum. It is going to be difficult. … Much of their command structure has now been wiped out.”
He warned that Hezbollah will work quickly to rebuild its command structure after the White House said that Israel had wiped out the group’s command structure.
There was a strike early Monday that killed a Hamas commander in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps. Hamas said that the leader of the Al- Buss refugee camp was killed in the airstrike with his family.
A Palestinian leftist faction in Lebanon said three of its members were killed in the airstrike. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a statement early Monday that its military and security commanders in Lebanon, and a third member, were killed in the attack.
The airstrike hit a multistory residential building, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene. A busy street with shops and ambulances near a building in a mainly Sunni district was shown in videos.
The U.S. Defense Secretary David Hayman: “Measures are on the table for a ground invasion” Israeli Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
An official in the Middle East told NPR that Israel was preparing for a ground assault on southern Lebanon and was conducting intelligence-gathering raids there this week.
“Everything is on the table,” the official in the region said about 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.
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.
On Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israel’s defense minister about the “serious consequences for Iran” if it launched a strike against Israel. The U.S. is concerned about Iran-backed groups threatening U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria as the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed groups intensifies. Defense secretary Austin said the U.S. supports Israel dismantling Hezbollah infrastructure along the Lebanon Israel border so Hezbollah cannot threaten Israeli border towns. He called on Israel to engage in diplomacy.
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.
The air raid sirens wailed when Netanyahu landed in Israel. The Israeli military claimed to have shot down the missile.
Security analysts in Israel think Israel’s bombing campaign in Yemen was a message to Iran and that it was within Israel’s reach.
The Lebanese army had moved back from some checkpoints at the southern border with Israel amid intense artillery shelling by Israeli forces. An army official who asked not to be identified told NPR that it was a move to protect against an Israeli incursion.
On Monday, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Kassem, said that the resistance is prepared for a ground engagement. That was despite a series of devastating Israeli attacks on Hezbollah leaders and members in recent weeks.
We keep saying violence can’t stop violence. We need diplomatic efforts to stop the violence,” Saliba said. We do not want Lebanon to become another Gaza.
A member of parliament from Lebanon said that the invasion was not an incursion. “We’ve been invaded by another country and we have to call on the international community to call it as such.”
The conflict entered a new phase after the killing of Hezbollah leader, as well as several other top officials.
Israeli troops stop crossing into Lebanese territory in the presence of an outpost of Hezbollah: Prime Minister Riza urged the international community to act urgently
Riza said they called on the global community to support and ensure protection of civilians. “Without sufficient resources, humanitarians risk leaving the population of an entire country without the support they urgently require.”
Lebanon is facing one of the most dangerous parts of its history, and needs emergency funding from the United Nations for civilians affected by the conflict, according to the prime minister.
Lebanese politicians urgently called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop its advance into Lebanese territory on Tuesday, as Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon in an operation targeting Hezbollah outposts.
