Hezbollah launched a series of drone strikes into northern Israel on Tuesday as it warned more was to come in its much-anticipated retaliation for the killing of a top commander last week.
The Lebanese militant group claimed “explosive-laden drones” targeted a barracks near the city of Nahariya, while Israel reported several civilians were injured, one in serious condition, when a drone exploded on a road.
The aerial attacks came after an earlier Israeli strike is said to have killed five Hezbollah fighters and destroyed a military structure near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatiyeh.
Hezbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israel in support of its ally Hamas since Oct 7, but Jerusalem is bracing itself for greater escalation from both Hezbollah and Iran after the killings of senior militant leaders.
As countries urge their citizens to get out of Lebanon, its government said on Tuesday is trying to prevent a Hezbollah response against Israel that could start a wider war.
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Israeli warplanes flew low over the Lebanese capital Beirut on Tuesday, with witnesses saying they could see the planes with the naked eye and creating one of the largest sonic booms heard by residents in years.
The flyovers and sonic booms took place minutes before Hezbollah head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was to begin an address to mark a week since military commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Footage has captured a projectile hitting a highway near the city of Nahariya in northern Israel on Tuesday morning.
It was initially believed to be an explosive drone launched by Hezbollah, however Israel’s military have said it was caused by a Iron Dome interceptor missile missing its target and hitting the ground.
Israel’s military has said the impact on a highway in northern Israel, believed to have been caused by a Hezbollah drone, was actually an Iron Dome interceptor missile that malfunctioned. “According to an initial investigation, it emerged that it was an interceptor that missed the target and impacted the ground,” the Israel Defence Force (IDF) said in a statement. The missile impact wounded at least one person critically. Several Hezbollah drones did also impact the same area close to the city of Nahariya, medics said. Several hundreds of metres away, a woman was wounded by shrapnel, while another five people were lightly hurt by a blast in a separate location.
Iran’s anticipated revenge attack on Israel could come in two waves, US president Joe Biden has been warned by his security chiefs. The first is likely to come from Lebanon’s Hezbollah and then a second from Iran and its regional proxies, US officials briefed on the matter told Axios. Mr Biden was also told on Monday that it was still unclear when Iran and Hezbollah might launch their expected assaults and what they might entail. Tehran has said it has a “legal right” to “punish” Israel in the wake of back-to-back assassinations last week of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief in Tehran, and a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut. Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said an attack would be imminent on Sunday night, but Israel is still bracing for Iran’s retaliation which risks dragging the Middle East into a broader war.
Japan’s foreign ministry urged its citizens not to visit Israel in a new travel alert on Tuesday, citing rising tensions in the Middle East. On Monday, the ministry urged Japanese nationals in Lebanon to leave.
The Government is “ready and prepared” should tensions further escalate in the Middle East, David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, told Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. A Cabinet readout said: “Turning to the Middle East, the Foreign Secretary updated on the rising tensions across the region and said that the Government’s focus was around encouraging de-escalation. “He made clear that the Government stood ready and prepared should the situation deteriorate.”
Israel has conducted a systematic policy of prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the Gaza war, subjecting Palestinian detainees to acts ranging from arbitrary violence to sexual abuse, according to a new report. It research by Israeli rights group B’Tselem, was based on interviews with 55 Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel detained in Israeli prisons since Hamas’s Oct 7 attack, most of them without being tried. “The testimonies clearly indicate a systematic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel,” the report said. The Israeli military, which runs some detention facilities where Palestinian prisoners have been held, said that it operated according to the rule of law and any specific claims of abuse were investigated.
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Iraq’s military has condemned the “reckless” actions against military bases on its soil, a day after at least five US personnel were wounded in an attack amid an escalation of Middle East conflict. “We reject all reckless actions and practices targeting Iraqi bases, diplomatic missions, and the whereabouts of the international coalition’s advisers, and everything that would raise tension in the region,” the Iraqi military statement said on Tuesday. It added that they had captured a truck with a rocket launcher, likely to be the weapon used against the US’ Ain al Asad airbase in western Iraq. Ain al Asad Air Base in western Iraq, which houses US troops, was attacked late Monday, injuring at least five Americans
It is “appalling” that nine members of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) may have been involved in the Oct 7 attacks, a UK Foreign Office spokesperson told The Telegraph. Their statement follows a finding by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services that – out of 19 staff allegedly involved in the attacks – there was sufficient evidence to suggest nine may have been involved. The spokesperson said on Tuesday: “It’s appalling that nine members of UNRWA may have been involved in the October 7th atrocities. We welcome UNRWA’s decisive action and support their decision to terminate the contracts of these individuals. “Anyone who participated in the horrific October 7 attacks should face the full force of the law.”
Benjamin Netanyahu is said to be sharply at odds with his security chiefs over a potential agreement to end the fighting in Gaza. The Israeli prime minister has been hardening his position in recent weeks during the ongoing talks with Hamas brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar, which is putting at risk a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal. “There are differences of opinion” between Mr Netanyahu and his top security chiefs over the positives aspects of the deal, one person familiar with Israeli deliberations told the Financial Times. “At the moment all the security officials think that there is no impediment [for Israel] to achieve a deal, but Netanyahu has to agree,” the source added.
Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah said it launched a swarm of attack drones against military targets in northern Israel on Tuesday. Israeli media reported four civilians have been injured, one critically. Footage has shown a drone making impact on a road in the town of Mazra’a in Western Galilee. A source within Hezbollah said the drone strike was not in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut last week.
תיעוד נוסף מהפגיעה בכביש בצפון. צילום: לפי סעיף 27א' pic.twitter.com/Ij87eH7CUC — החדשות - N12 (@N12News) August 6, 2024
Russia is delivering advanced air defence systems and radar equipment to Iran in preparation for a major escalation with Israel. The move came after Tehran requested more arms from its ally, Iranian officials told The New York Times, following a visit from a senior ally of Vladimir Putin on Monday. Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s security council, met with Iran’s president and top security officials as the Islamic Republic weighs its response to the killing of a Hamas leader. “We are ready to cooperate fully with Iran in various areas,” Mr Shoigu said. Moscow has grown closer to Tehran since the war in Ukraine. Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, thanked Moscow for standing by Tehran in “difficult times” and said he was determined to expand relations with his “strategic partner”.
The US said it was working “around the clock” to avert an all-out war in the Middle East, as Israel remained on high alert Tuesday for potential Iranian retaliation for two high-profile killings. Joe Biden, whose country has sent extra warships and fighter jets to the region in support of Israel, held crisis talks on Monday with his national security team. Mr Biden’s top diplomat Antony Blinken said Washington was “engaged in intense diplomacy, pretty much around the clock” to help calm tensions.
Lebanon’s government is trying to prevent a Hezbollah response against Israel that could start a wider war, Lebanon’s foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib said on Tuesday during a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart.
An Israeli strike on a home in the southern Lebanese town of Mayfadoun on Tuesday killed four people, medical and security sources said. A Lebanese security source said “they were all Hezbollah fighters.” Although most of the exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been limited to the border area, Mayfadoun lies nearly 19 miles north of Lebanon’s border with Israel.
🔴 عاجل | وزارة الصحة اللبنانية: استشهاد ٤ أشخاص في غارة "إسرائيلية" على بلدة مفيدون جنوبي لبنان pic.twitter.com/oP1VCtYeLE — قناة المنار (@TVManar1) August 6, 2024
Palestinian officials said Israeli forces killed eight people in two separate raids in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, as the erupting violence in the occupied territory showed no sign of abating. Four people were killed in the Jenin area and four in Tubas district when Israeli forces carried out early morning raids, the Palestinian Red Crescent and the health ministry in Ramallah said. The Israeli army reported its aircraft struck “armed terrorist cells” in the Jenin area, but did not give details on casualties.
South Korea joined a host of other countries as it “strongly advised” its nationals in Lebanon and Israel to leave as soon as possible because of escalating tensions in the Middle East. “South Korea’s government. hopes that diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions such as negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release will not stop,” Lee Jae-woong, a ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The US has been urging other countries through diplomatic channels to tell Iran that escalation in the Middle East is not in their interest, a State Department spokesperson said late on Monday. The comments come after Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, called it “critical moment” for the region. “All parties must refrain from escalation,” Mr Blinken said. “Escalation is not in anyone’s interests. It will only lead to more conflict, more violence, more insecurity.”
Israel’s military said it has killed dozens of Hamas militants over the past day, including the officer in charges of smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip in an airstrike last night. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Muhammad Mahasna mainly coordinated maritime smuggling, but also dealt with getting arms through cross-border tunnels and land crossings.
כלי טיס של חיל האוויר תקף וחיסל אמש בהכוונה של אגף המודיעין, את המחבל מחמד מחאסנה אשר שימש כקצין מבצעים בתחום ההברחות בארגון הטרור חמאס>> pic.twitter.com/VoQatFSZBa — צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 6, 2024
China’s embassy in Beirut urged citizens to “travel with caution” should they visit Lebanon, warning they face “higher security risks” as fears of a regional conflict soar. In a statement issued on Monday evening, the embassy warned citizens the situation in the country was “grave and complex”. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese Embassy in Lebanon remind Chinese citizens to closely monitor the evolution of the local situation and to travel with caution in Lebanon in the near future,” it warned.
The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was intended to prolong the Gaza conflict, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president told Russia’s state news agency. RIA, citing a diplomatic source, said that Mr Abbas will come on the long-expected visit to Moscow on Aug 12-14 for talks with Vladimir Putin. Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran last week, in an attack that drew threats of revenge on Israel and fuelled concern that the conflict in Gaza was turning into a wider Middle East war. Mr Abbas branded Haniyeh’s assassination “a cowardly act and a dangerous development in Israeli politics”. “There is no doubt that the purpose of Mr. Haniyeh’s assassination is to prolong the war and expand its scope,” he added.
At least five American personnel were injured in an attack against a military base in Iraq on Monday. Two Katyusha rockets were fired at Ain al Asad airbase in western Iraq, two Iraqi security sources said. One Iraqi security source said the rockets fell inside the base. It is still unclear whether the attack was linked to threats by Iran to retaliate over the killing of the Hamas leader as the Middle East teeters on the edge of a wider war. US officials said one of the wounded Americans was seriously injured. The casualty count was based on initial reports which could still change, they said. “Base personnel are conducting a post-attack damage assessment,” one official added. Read more on the attack here.
An Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank killed four Palestinians, including three teenagers, and wounded another seven, local officials said. The raid was carried out overnight in the village of Aqaaba in the northern West Bank. Those killed included two 19-year-olds and a 14-year-old, the Palestinian health ministry said on Tuesday. Separately, the Islamic Jihad militant group reported heavy fighting with the army in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, a frequent flashpoint. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has carried out near-daily military raids across the West Bank since Hamas’s Oct 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the ongoing war there. Palestinians from the West Bank have also carried out a number of attacks on Israelis.
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