An airstrike hits a residential building in Lebanon
The Killing of Nasrallah in the Night of September 26: Israel-Lebanon Warfare and a Demonstration
Biden said that Nasrallah made a decision the next day to open a northern front against Israel.
Biden noted that the operation to take out Nasrlan was within the broader context of that day. Hamas attacks against Israel.
Biden said that the death of Nasrallah was a way of justice for the victims of his terror.
September 26: Amidst the backdrop of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the U.S. and France, backed by other members of the G-7, propose a 21-day cease-fire plan between Israel and Lebanon. Israeli officials are quick to reject it.
The killing of Nasrallah by Israel is a dramatic new development in the conflict that has raged throughout the Middle East since last October.
The first time Hezbollah has launched a missile of this type was in the morning of September 25th when it flew into Tel Aviv airspace before being shot down by Israeli forces. At least 72 people were killed and 400 others were injured in Israel’s air strikes across southern Lebanon, according to health officials. The Israeli military also announces it is calling up two additional brigades of reserves for the north, saying that it must “prepare very strongly” for a ground invasion into southern Lebanon.
The IDF also said it had shot down eight projectiles that were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Sunday.
Hezbollah fires dozens of rockets towards northern Israel, most of which were halted, but Israel claims it carried out more than 200 airstrikes in Lebanon, killing at least 92 people and wounding 150 others. This brings the total number of people killed in Lebanon by Israeli airstrikes during the week to more than 700. Tens of thousands of Lebanese are displaced while fleeing Israel’s constant bombardment. According to the officials in Lebanon, it is the largest displacement in decades.
In a statement on the messaging app Telegram, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its air forces targeted “buildings where weapons and military structures of the organization were stored.”
Netanyahu returned to Israel early after his visit to the United Nations, as was reported that Israel was ready to launch a military assault on southern Lebanon.
An official in the Middle East toldNPR that Israel was preparing for a limited ground operation in southern Lebanon, and had already conducted intelligence-gathering raids inside.
Israel, Syria, and the Middle East: Israel’s Role in the Six-Day War of the Arab-Israeli Revolution (after the U.N. General Assembly, September 27)
On Saturday, the U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy reiterated calls for a ceasefire, saying in a post on X that he had spoken with the Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
Sept. 17: Thousands of pagers — many belonging to Hezbollah members — simultaneously explode across Lebanon and Syria, killing at least 13 people, including some children, and injuring around 4,000, hundreds of them critically. Israel is not publicly taking credit for the attack, but is believed to be behind it. Earlier in the day, Israel had announced a new goal in the war: to return tens of thousands of displaced Israelis who had been driven from their homes near the border with Lebanon by almost a year of Hezbollah rocket fire, signaling it might take further military action against Hezbollah.
Sirens sound in the northern Israeli city of Haifa and nearby towns. Haifa was the first target since the war began, according to Israel.
Sept. 27: In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is winning and would attack Iran if given the chance. Many of the delegates in the U.N. hall leave in a public snub at the start of his address — in which he calls the U.N. a “swamp of antisemitic bile.”
According to the health officials in Lebanon, a wave of explosions of communications devices, including walkie-talkies, struck the country on Sept. 18th, killing 14 and wounding 450. 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.
The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack toward Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday when Netanyahu was arriving. The Houthi media office said the Israeli strikes hit the Hodeida and Rass Issa ports, along with two power plants in Hodeida city, a stronghold for the Iranian-backed rebels. The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the strikes killed four people and wounded 40 others.
The main military group in Yemen, the Houthis, launched a missile at central Israel on Saturday, saying it was targeting the plane of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
An air strike hits residential buildings as Israel expands attacks in Lebanon: President Joe Biden tells Air Force One of the War in the Middle East
The damage from Friday’s strike was still smoldering. Smoke rose as people hurried to the site to pay respects, pray or just to see what had been left of their homes.
President Joe Biden said Sunday that he would speak soon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and believes that an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided. “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 urged viewers to pray for a family that was trapped under the rubble while rescuers failed to reach them. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported at least 14 medics were killed over two days in the south.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 105 people were killed around the country in airstrikes Sunday. Two strikes near the southern city of Sidon, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of Beirut, killed at least 32 people, the ministry said. Israeli strikes in the north of the country killed 21 people and wounded at least 47.
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 has said it will only halt its rocket fire if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, which has proven elusive despite months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.
Kaouk served as the military leader in south Lebanon for Hezbollah during the 2006 war with Israel, after serving as a veteran member of Hezbollah. The United States imposed sanctions on 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.
Hundreds of people have been driven from their homes by Israeli airstrikes and the occupation of the Middle East, as revealed by CNN’s State of the Union
Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. The government believes up to 300,000 are in shelters, with many of them staying with friends or relatives.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kirby sidestepped questions about whether the Biden administration agrees with how the Israelis are targeting Hezbollah leaders. The US and France urged Israel and Hezbollah to agree on a cease-fire during the UN General Assembly last week.
“I think people are safer without him walking around,” Kirby said of Nasrallah. “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.”
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.
Also early Monday, another strike killed a commander with the militant group Hamas, which has a presence in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps. The group said that the leader of Al-Buss refugee camp, and his family, were killed in an airstrike.
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. The videos showed a crowd near the building in a Sunni district with a busy thoroughfare lined with shops.
Israel is ready for a possible ground invasion inside the Middle East, according to Tamir Hayman in an Israeli intelligence report on Oct. 7
An official said that everything is on the table for a possible ground incursion. The official from the United States and the one in the Middle East were not allowed to speak to the media.
U.S. officials have estimated that Israel is not prepared for a major ground offensive inside Lebanon because its troops are stretched thin following a year of ground operations inside Gaza after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.
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 wants Israel to decide soon if it wants to conduct a ground invasion, or if it should stay temporarily to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure, or if it should create a permanent security buffer zone.
Iran and Iranian-supported militias are threatening to retaliate against Israel in the region. Such a retaliation could threaten U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
Netanyahu arrived in Israel shortly before air raid sirens wailed across central Israel. The Israeli military said it intercepted the missile midair.
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.
