Lebanon is bracing for more attacks after a week of them
NPR’s New Year’s Resolution: The War Between Israel and Lebanon During the Cold War — A Report by M. A. Rash
ARAF: Yeah, we have to remember that Lebanon has been undergoing economic and other crisises (ph) for years, even before this. The minister ordered the security services to crack down on foreigners, particularly those who are not native to Lebanon, to uncover the spy network that Israel used to carry out these attacks. The people in the southern suburbs are mourning the dead, and others are setting off fireworks over the harbor.
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Hezbollah, the next generation of fighters and the U.S. support for Israel: The past 24 hours of an Israeli attack on southern militants
ARAF: Qassem said the people were in shock after the pager attacks. Thousands of pagers exploded at the same time. The next day, walkie-talkies blew up, killing 42 fighters and civilians, and injuring 3,500. But he said Hezbollah quickly rebounded and that the attacks failed to turn people against the group. Hezbollah was planning a lot of revenge, but today’s attacks were just part of it. And he said those Israeli attacks were creating the next generation of fighters.
Israel has accused Hezbollah of transforming entire communities in the south into militant bases, with hidden rocket launchers and other infrastructure. Even without ground forces moving in, it could wage an especially heavy bombing campaign.
The man is through an interpreter. This is a country that will not be defeated. But the United States and America are not doing well. It is swamped from its head to toe in the aggression and the genocide with Israel.
ARAF: It’s been quite a few days here. In the southern suburbs, where an Israeli strike demolished a building on Friday, there have been two days of funerals.
ARAF: The latest just a few hours ago, the burial of the senior Hezbollah commander whom Israel says was the target of its Beirut airstrike. Akil was praised by Hezbollah’s undersecretary general, Naim Qassem, for founding the group’s special operations unit. Qassem addressed the U.S. and its support for Israel in his address which was broadcasted live on Iranian state TV. This is what he says through an interpreter.
The Israeli military said it had hit over 400 militant targets in southern Lebanon over the past 24 hours.
The rockets streaked over a wider and deeper area of northern Israel than previous volleys and set off air raid sirens across the region. The Israeli military said that rockets had been fired toward civilian areas and pointed to a possible increase in hostilities.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it treated four people for shrapnel wounds, including a 76-year-old man who was moderately wounded near Haifa, where buildings were damaged and cars set on fire. It was not clear if the damage was caused by a rocket or an Israeli missile.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah intensified after the outbreak of the war in Gaza last year, when Hezbollah began to fire rockets at Israel. The low-level fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the frontier.
Hundreds of people have been dead in Lebanon, dozens have been killed in Israel, and tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the border. It has also sparked brush fires that have destroyed agriculture and scarred the landscape.
Hezbollah said it had launched dozens of Fadi 1 and Fadi 2 missiles — a new type of weapon the group had not used before — at the Ramat David airbase, southeast of Haifa, “in response to the repeated Israeli attacks that targeted various Lebanese regions and led to the fall of many civilian martyrs.”
Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, told reporters Saturday that at least seven women and three children were killed in Friday’s airstrike on the building. He said there were more than sixty six injured, 15 of which were hospitalized.
The casualty count could grow, with 23 people still missing, due to the deadliest strike on the city since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the attack broke up the group’s chain of command while taking out Akil, who he said was responsible for Israeli deaths. He had been on the FBI’s most wanted list for over a decade for his alleged role in the 1983 bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the taking of American and German hostages in Lebanon.
A top Hezbollah military commander and a number of his fighters were killed in an Israeli air strike on a suburb of Lebanon’s capital.
The military said it had hit more than 100 militant sites. Large amounts of smoke are visible in the photos Residents of different villages posted on social media. The state-run National News Agency also reported airstrikes on different areas.
It was unclear how many people would be affected by the Israeli orders. The communities on both sides of the border have emptied as a result of the intense exchange of fire.
Israeli Military Strikes on Hezbollah in Byblos, Lebanon: An Israeli Embassy in the Cross-Section of Israel
Makary urged people not to give the matter more attention than it deserves, and said that it came in the framework of the psychological war implemented by the enemy.
The Information Minister of Lebanon said in a statement that he had received a message telling people to leave the building.
The residents of Lebanon received text messages telling them to leave any building where Hezbollah stores arms.
An Israeli military official said that there are no immediate plans for a ground operation. The official said that the strikes were to stop Hezbollah from launching more strikes into Israel.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the strikes hit a forested area in the central province of Byblos, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) north of the Israeli-Lebanese border, for the first time since the exchanges began in October. There were no injuries reported there. A shepherd was killed and a couple of family members were wounded in the northeastern parts of the country. It said a total of 17 people were wounded in the strikes.
Israel’s military called for residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes and buildings because it said it was carrying out extensive strikes against Hezbollah.