There are serious clashes on the border between Israel and Lebanon. There are already victims to mourn on both sides. Concerns about an expansion of the conflict are growing.
Growing tensions between Israel and the Shiite militia Hezbollah in Lebanon are increasing concerns about further escalation in the Middle East. According to media reports, three people were killed in an Israeli attack on a Lebanese border town on Wednesday night. Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran, claimed responsibility for new rocket attacks on Israel. Meanwhile, the death toll in the Gaza Strip continued to rise. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the Gaza war as a “war of extermination” and made serious accusations against the USA.
The Lebanese border town of Bint Jubail, which was reportedly attacked by Israeli warplanes, is considered a Hezbollah stronghold. According to Hezbollah, one of its fighters was among the dead. The Israeli military said it was checking the information.
According to the militia, the rockets fired by Hezbollah at Israel were also aimed at a naval target. According to the Israeli army, there was an air alert in the border town of Rosh Hanikra on the Mediterranean coast. The Times of Israel reported that at least 18 rockets were fired on Rosh Hanikra. The missile defense intercepted about a third of them.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war after the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7th, there have been repeated confrontations between Israel’s army and Hezbollah in the border region. There were deaths and injuries on both sides. The latest clashes are considered the most serious since the second Lebanon war in 2006. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah is considered to be far more powerful and better armed than the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas authority: Death toll in Gaza rises to 21,100
According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, 21,110 people have been killed in the coastal strip since the Gaza war began. More than 55,200 Palestinians were injured. A spokesman said on Wednesday that 195 people were killed in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip within 24 hours alone. The numbers cannot be independently verified. The Gaza war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, which terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other groups carried out in Israel on October 7th.
A suspected Israeli attack on a building near a hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip was reported to have left many dead on Wednesday. A spokesman for the Hamas-controlled health authority spoke of 20 dead and dozens injured. The Palestinian emergency service Red Crescent also wrote on Platform X that an attack on a residential building near Al-Amal Hospital left dozens dead and injured. This information could not initially be independently verified. Israel’s military checked the information.
Fighting in the Middle East
In ruins: This is what the north of the Gaza Strip looks like after seven weeks of war
Abbas: War in Gaza is “more than a war of extermination”
According to Palestinian President Abbas, the Gaza war is “more than a war of annihilation.” In an interview with Egyptian TV channel ON on Tuesday evening, he said: “Our people have never experienced such a war, not even the Nakba disaster of 1948.” The term Nakba (catastrophe) refers to the flight and expulsion of Palestinians in the first Middle East war in 1948. At the same time, Abbas blamed the USA for the continuation of the war: “Whenever the world, the (UN) Security Council and the General Assembly… “If we want to stop the war, the United States vetoes it and refuses to end the war.” If the US wanted, it could persuade Israel to end the war. Everything that is currently happening is happening with the support of the USA.
Abbas continued to warn against an expansion of the war to the West Bank. “The Israeli army and settlers are attacking West Bank cities and Jerusalem every day. The situation in the West Bank can explode at any time,” he said. In his opinion, Israel’s goal is to eventually expel all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.
Iran’s defense minister threatens Israel after killing general
Iran’s defense minister threatened retaliation after the killing of a high-ranking general in Syria. “At the right time and in the right place, we will give a powerful answer to the weak Zionist enemy (Israel),” Mohammed-Reza Ashtiani said on Wednesday, according to the Iranian news agency Tasnim.
On Monday, Iranian General Sejed-Rasi Mousavi, a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), was killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike in a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
