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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |
| IDF announces launch of limited ground raids of Hezbollah sites across Lebanon border | |
| 2024-10-01 | |
| [IsraelTimes] Incursion aimed at removing terror group’s infrastructure along Blue Line; US official tells ToI: We understand desire for limited op, but are concerned about mission creep The military launched limited raids into southern Lebanon late on Monday night against Hezbollah forces and infrastructure positioned along Israel’s northern border, hours after the security cabinet was said to have approved plans for the newest phase of the war against the Lebanese terror group, in a move that the US appeared to express its support for. In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the IDF said that a “targeted and limited” incursion had begun several hours earlier, and was focused on Hezbollah targets and infrastructure in a number of Lebanese villages along the border that posed an immediate threat to Israeli towns on the other side of the Blue Line. Ground troops operating inside southern Lebanon were being assisted by air and artillery forces, the military said, adding that the operation was based on plans drawn up by the IDF’s General Staff and Northern Command. Confirmation that Israeli troops were operating on the Lebanese side of the border came several hours after various conflicting reports emerged on social media and in some Arabic media outlets as to whether some troops had already crossed the border. Lebanese troops had further added to speculation when they pulled back about five kilometers (three miles) from positions along the border late on Monday, apparently opting to stay on the sidelines, as it has historically done in major conflicts with Israel. Ahead of the IDF’s announcement, an Israeli official told the Times of Israel that their US counterparts had been informed that the goal of the limited operation was to remove Hezbollah positions along Israel’s northern border, thus creating the conditions for a diplomatic agreement under which the terror group’s forces would be pushed back beyond the Litani River, in line with UN Security Council resolution. In an apparent attempt to waylay US concerns about the incursion, two Israeli officials told the Axios news site that the operation would be limited in both time and scope and was not intended to occupy southern Lebanon. While the US had voiced concern earlier on Monday that even a limited incursion could spread further and turn into something else once it was already underway, the Biden administration appeared to express its support for the raids by way of a call between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. “We agreed on the necessity of dismantling attack infrastructure along the border to ensure that Lebanese Hezbollah cannot conduct October 7-style attacks on Israel’s northern communities,” Austin said in the Pentagon’s readout of the call. During the call, the pair discussed Israel’s latest military operations, and Austin “made it clear that the United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself.” While he seemed to voice support for the IDF operation, Austin nevertheless stressed that the incursion was not an end in of itself. “I reaffirmed that a diplomatic resolution is required to ensure that civilians can return safely to their homes on both sides of the border,” he said in the readout. The US defense official also “made clear that the United States is well-postured to defend US personnel, partners, and allies in the face of threats from Iran and Iran-backed terrorist organizations and determined to prevent any actor from exploiting tensions or expanding the conflict,” the readout continued. It added that Austin “reiterated the serious consequences for Iran in the event Iran chooses to launch a direct military attack against Israel.” Echoing this line of thinking, another US official pointed to how Israel framed its 1982 invasion into Lebanon as a “limited” incursion, and how it had turned into an 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon. The start of the IDF’s ground offensive came some two weeks into intensified fighting with Hezbollah, and after Operation Northern Arrows was launched earlier in September to meet the recently declared war goal of bringing residents of Israel’s north back to their homes following their evacuation last October under heavy rocket fire from the Lebanese terror group. Earlier in September, thousands of Hezbollah’s communication devices exploded, reportedly taking some 1,500 fighters out of action, in an attack widely blamed on Israel. Israel then engaged in days of targeted attacks, wiping out most of Hezbollah’s leadership in repeated strikes, culminating in the IDF killing longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, when fighter jets dropped massive bunker-buster bombs on the group’s underground headquarters, located beneath residential buildings in a suburb of Beirut. In its statement on Tuesday morning, the military stressed that it was “continuing to operate to achieve the goals of the war and is doing everything necessary to defend the citizens of Israel and return the citizens of northern Israel to their homes.” Throughout the period of intensified fighting, the IDF had warned that it could conduct a limited ground offensive into Lebanon, leading the country’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to make an apparent last-ditch effort on Monday to stave off the possibility by declaring that the Lebanese government was ready to fully implement a 2006 UN Security Council resolution that had aimed to end Hezbollah’s armed presence south of the Litani River. He did not, however, say that he had reached an agreement with Hezbollah on the matter, and it was not clear how he proposed to implement UN Resolution 1701 — which declares that Hezbollah is barred from maintaining a military presence south of the Litani — without use of force against the terror group that effectively controls southern Lebanon. In the hours leading up to the limited raids, several European countries began pulling their diplomats and citizens out of Lebanon. Germany sent a military plane to evacuate diplomats’ relatives and others, while Bulgaria sent a government jet to get the first group of its citizens out. The UK said that it had chartered a commercial flight for its nationals who wished to evacuate Lebanon, expected to depart from Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport on Wednesday, with further flights dependant on demand. Canada said that it had reserved 800 seats on commercial flights for citizens who wished to evacuate. About 45,000 Canadians are currently in Lebanon, and the next flight was scheduled to depart on Tuesday. At the same time as the IDF announced it had begun operating inside Lebanon, Syrian state media reported that the country’s air defenses had intercepted “hostile targets” over the vicinity of Damascus, following an explosion that was heard in the capital. The state television channel later said that one of its anchors had been killed in what it said was three rounds of allegedly Israeli strikes in the area of the capital. Identifying the anchor as Sadaa Ahmad, the channel said he was “martyred in the Israeli aggression on the capital Damascus.” Citing a military source, the state media outlet said two others had also been killed, and nine people were wounded. There was no immediate comment from the IDF, which rarely comments on reports of airstrikes inside Syria. Sirens warning of incoming Hezbollah rocket fire continued to blare periodically across northern Israel on Monday night and into the early hours of Tuesday, as did reports of Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon and in Beirut. Three rockets were launched from Lebanon toward the Israeli town of Shtula shortly before midnight, setting off sirens in the border community. The rockets all landed in open areas, and the attack was claimed by Hezbollah. Sirens were also triggered in the Upper Galilee town of Misgav Am and the surrounding area shortly after, although there were again no reports of damage or injuries. The IDF later said that ten rockets had been fired from Lebanon, some of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system while others had landed in open areas. The Israeli Air Force, meanwhile, intercepted an unmanned aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, dozens of kilometers west of Israel’s central coast. Shortly before midnight, the IDF warned civilians to flee three sites in Beirut’s southern suburb, a Hezbollah stronghold known as Dahiyeh, before it commenced strikes in the area, and Lebanese media outlets reported that large explosions could be heard across Beirut. Speaking to AFP on the condition of anonymity, a Lebanese security official said that Israel had conducted at least “six or seven strikes” in the southern Beirut suburbs. It was not immediately clear what the targets were, or what damage had been caused.
In a more general update, the Lebanese health ministry said that over the past 24 hours, at least 95 people had been killed and 172 wounded in Israeli strikes on the country’s southern regions, the eastern Bekaa Valley and Beirut. In southern Lebanon, Lebanese media and a Palestinian source said that Israel had launched a strike on a building in the Ain El-Hilweh Palestinian camp near Sidon. It marked the first strike on the overcrowded camp, the largest of Lebanon’s several Palestinian camps since cross-border hostilities broke out nearly a year ago. The strike had targeted Mounir Maqdah, commander of the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian Fatah movement’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, according to two Palestinian security officials. Maqdah’s fate was not immediately clear.
IDF says chief of Hezbollah’s medium-range rocket unit killed in Saturday strike [IsraelTimes] The commander of Hezbollah’s medium-range rockets unit was killed in an airstrike on Saturday in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, the military announces. Eid Hassan Nashar was a “veteran commander” in Hezbollah and was a “central source of knowledge in the field of rockets,” the IDF says. He previously served as the head of the surface-to-surface missile unit, and the deputy of the Badr regional unit, according to the military. Most of Hezbollah’s leadership, including the commander of its rocket and missile division, Ibrahim Qubaisi, have been killed by Israel in recent weeks. Other top commanders in the division have also been killed. The IDF says it also struck caches of medium-range rockets, which can reach up to 200 kilometers, in recent airstrikes in Lebanon. Report: IDF special forces entered Hezbollah tunnels during Lebanon cross-border operations [IsraelTimes] The small raids made by Israeli special forces into Lebanon in recent months have included sending troops into Hezbollah tunnels along the border, the Wall Street Journal reports. Hezbollah’s tunnel network is cumulatively several hundred kilometers long, Tal Beeri, an expert on underground warfare, told The Times of Israel in January. Hezbollah has also tunneled directly into Israel, but those tactical tunnels were exposed and destroyed by the IDF in the January 2019 Operation Northern Shield, according to Beeri. Israeli strike near Syria-Lebanon border injures seven pro-Iran militants: Monitor [Rudaw] At least seven pro-Iran militants were injured in an Israeli strike in the countryside of Damascus, near the Syria-Lebanon border, a war monitor reported on Monday, amid soaring regional tensions against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war. “Seven elements, most of them non-Syrians, were injured in an Israeli airstrike on a border crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border in Rif Dimashq from the Syrian side,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor. The strike targeted a border crossing that is experiencing heavy traffic, with tens of thousands of Lebanese citizens making their way to Syria to flee simmering tensions between Israel and Lebanon. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #4 Some videos What should I conclude from that, 3dc? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2024-10-01 18:29 |
| #3 Some video |
| Posted by: 3dc 2024-10-01 16:35 |
| #2 Diplomacy works when: 1) Both sides agree to the same thing. 2) Both sides KEEP the agreement. When either of those fails, the "agreement" is just a bunch of words without meaning, and diplomacy itself is meaningless. When that happens, the only recourse is sufficient might for one side or the other to enforce the "agreement". With Lebanon, what Israel should do is conquer southern Lebanon, open it ONLY to Christian Lebanese, kick the UN out of the way, and stomp Arab Lebanon every time they rise up to do any damage to either southern Lebanon or Israel. No member of the United Nations (which have only monetary interest in anything in the Middle East) should be allowed into Israel, Gaza, or Lebanon without being in risk of his/her life. It won't bring peace, but it WILL cut down the number of murders. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2024-10-01 11:50 |
| #1 Why Saudi Arabia remains quiet: 2016-09-28 VOx, Syria-Lebanon-Iran "The head of Hezbollah has found someone he hates even more than Israelis. If there were any doubt as to just how toxic sectarian politics has become in the Middle East, the latest statement from the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia holy warrior group Hezbollah should clear things right up. Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of a group that has been fighting Israel for decades, declared on Tuesday that "Wahhabism is more evil than Israel," Leb’s Al Akhbar newspaper reported. |
| Posted by: S MAI 2024-10-01 11:41 |