Israel’s response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7: Firefight against the Hezbollah armed forces in the southern suburbs
Israel’s air forces followed with a new set of strikes early Saturday, also in the southern suburbs, shortly after warning residents of three buildings to evacuate. They were being used by Hezbollah to hide their weapons.
The Hezbollah group did not issue a statement after the strike. It launched a series of rockets at the city of Safed, which it said was in response to Israeli violations of cities, villages and civilians.
At the U.N., Netanyahu vowed to “continue degrading Hezbollah” until Israel achieves its goals, further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire.
Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, saying it was a show of support for the Palestinians. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes on both sides of the border due to the daily firefight between it and the Israeli military.
In the early hours of Friday, at least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes, and the death toll this week in Lebanon has risen to more than 700. He said the dead included women and children.
Netanyahu meets Netanyahu at the Security Council: Israel Netanyahu defies calls for a cease-fire at the U.N., as Israel strikes Lebanon
The Israeli premier met with his Dutch counterpart during one of several meetings in New York this week, and raised the proceedings currently underway at the court. According to Netanyahu’s office, he insisted during the bilateral conversation that the prosecutor’s actions constituted “a political proceeding based on false libels that endanger every democracy defending itself against terrorism.”
Netanyahu, who is accused by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor of committing crimes against humanity, remains at the center of the uproar over the demand for an arrest warrant against him as the Israel military calls up more reserves close to the northern border.
The government is trying to get certain terms in any deal, according to Israel’s UN ambassador. “If we can achieve the goals of the war through diplomacy, we prefer that,” he said outside the U.N. Security Council on Friday. More than 70 thousand refugees in Israel are being allowed to move back to their homes. To push Hezbollah out of the southern Lebanon area.
But nearly a year into Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli leader’s behavior during many months of on-again-off-again cease-fire negotiations has not only infuriated his political opponents and a sizable chunk of his own citizens, but has confounded many world leaders too.
Critics have often in recent months said that Netanyahu — whose political savvy has helped him survive repeatedly to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister in history — will agree to show negotiating flexibility during private meetings, before issuing public statements that block progress during peace talks.
He told the audience that he would come and set the record straight after his arrival in New York because he had been planning his trip well in advance.
Israeli actions against Hezbollah: the Gaza Strip attack on the U.N. says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not deserve to be a spy country
Abbas told delegates that Israel did not deserve its U.N. membership, given that its government has, in his words, “exploited” the Oct. 7 The international community has recognized war crimes that were committed during the attack in Israel on the Gaza Strip. Israel has denied committing genocide or other war crimes, arguing that it is fighting to defeat militant groups and defend itself from further attacks.
For days, Arab leaders including Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had been assailing the behavior of the Israeli military in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.
There were many delegates in the UN that walked out after he called it a’swamp’ of antisemitic bile.
In a fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country is “winning” on multiple fronts and would attack Iran and its proxies anywhere in the Middle East, even as Israeli air force jets were preparing to pound a complex of buildings in central Beirut that Israel says serve as a headquarters for the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
The scope of Israels operation is unclear, but officials said that a ground invasion might be necessary to remove the militant group from the border. Israeli troops were prepared to move toward the border.
The United Nations said the fighting has displaced 211,000 people, including 85,000 now staying in public schools and other shelters. Air strikes have forced the shuttering of 20 primary health care centers and disrupted access to clean water for hundreds of thousands of people.
Israeli army spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the strikes targeted the main Hezbollah headquarters, saying it was located underground beneath residential buildings.
Israel provided no immediate comment about the type of bomb or how many it used, but the resulting explosion levelled an area greater than a city block. The Israeli army has two kinds of guided bombs: one that is American-made and another that is designed to hit subterranean targets.
Footage showed rescue workers clambering over large slabs of concrete, surrounded by high piles of twisted metal and wreckage. Several craters were visible, one with a car toppled into it. A stream of people carrying their things fled along the road in the district.
According to the national news agency, the Haret Hreik district of the Dahiyeh suburbs was reduced to rubble by a series of blasts at around nightfall. A wall of black and orange smoke that rose into the sky as windows were rattled and houses shook some 30 kilometers to the north of Beirut.
The news of the blasts came as Netanyahu was giving a press conference. Netanyahu stopped the briefing when a military aide whispered into his ear.
The Hezbollah Campaign in Lebanon: A Threat from Israel and a Threat from the Middle East, a Comment from the General Staff
The death toll is likely to rise significantly as teams comb through the rubble of six buildings. The strikes were launched on other areas of the southern suburbs.
The health ministry in Lebanon said at least six people were killed and many more were wounded. It was the biggest blast to hit the Lebanese capital in the past year and appeared likely to push the escalating conflict closer to full-fledged war.
The security official said he thought the Hezbollah campaign wouldn’t last long because of the military’s goals.
People in the giant crowd waved their fists in the air and chanted, “We will never accept humiliation,” as they marched marched behind the three coffins, wrapped in the group’s yellow flag.
Hezbollah officials and their supporters don’t give up. The funeral of three Hezbollah members who died in earlier strikes took place in a part of the city where there were many people.
Civil defense workers pulled the bodies of Sabah Olyan and Hiba Ataya from the rubble of a collapsed building in the southern Lebanon city of Tyre.
A military official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to military guidelines said the goal in Lebanon was to push Hezbollah away from the border, not a high bar like Gaza.
In a post on the social media platform X, the Israeli military wrote that Nasrallah would “no longer be able to terrorize the world,” prompting loud music to ring out across Tel Aviv in celebration of his death.
During his 32-year tenure atop the group that many nations, including the United States, have labeled as a terrorist organization, Nasrallah only rarely made public appearances.
The announcement Saturday of Hezbollah’s leader added that the group’s senior military commander for the region close to Lebanon’s border with Israel was also killed. This would effectively mean much of Hezbollah’s command structure had been taken out by Israeli attacks in the past two months, as tit-for-tat rocket, artillery, tank and aircraft missiles continued across the border.
Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the Chief of the General Staff, made a video statement on Saturday, saying that Friday’s strikes against Hezbollah were not the end of Israel’s toolbox.