Smoke rises above Lebanon, following an Israeli strike, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Israel’s border with Lebanon in northern Israel on May 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Official media in Lebanon said an Israeli strike on May 5 on a southern village killed four family members, with Hezbollah announcing retaliatory attacks, in the latest cross-border violence since the Gaza war erupted.

Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group have exchanged regular cross-border fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel sparked war in the Gaza Strip.

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with Hamas ally Hezbollah stepping up its attacks on northern Israel, and the Israeli military striking deeper into Lebanese territory.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Sunday’s strike in Mais al-Jabal killed “four people from a single family”, reporting that the raid was carried out by Israeli aircraft.

It identified the dead as a man, a woman and their children aged 12 and 21, and said two other people were wounded.

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the strike killed “four civilians”.

Mais al-Jabal municipality chief Abdelmoneim Shukair had earlier told AFP that three people were killed, saying they were a couple and their son.

The Israeli military said in a statement later Sunday that “this morning… fighter jets struck a military site in the area of Mais al-Jabal”, without providing further details.

More retaliatory fire

Hezbollah in a statement said it fired “dozens of Katyusha and Falaq rockets” at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel “in response to the horrific crime that the Israeli enemy committed in Mais al-Jabal”.

It later said it fired dozens more Katyusha rockets across the border “as part of the response” to the Mais al-Jabal strike, and claimed a string of other attacks on northern Israel, some in stated retaliation to the raid.

The Israeli army said in the statement that “approximately 40 launches were identified crossing from Lebanon… a number of which were intercepted.”

“No injuries were reported,” it said, adding the army “struck the sources of the fire”.

It also said “fighter jets struck Hezbollah military structures and terrorist infrastructure” in several areas of southern Lebanon.

Lebanon’s NNA reported Israeli strikes on various locations in the country’s south.

Hezbollah has repeatedly declared that only a ceasefire in Gaza will end its attacks on Israel, which it says are in support of Gazans and Hamas.

Both the United States and France have made diplomatic efforts to calm tensions on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

In Lebanon, at least 390 people have been killed in nearly seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also more than 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

Israel says 11 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal.
| Photo Credit: MEA Briefing

India is concerned by the Israeli attack on the Iranian diplomatic premises in Syria on April 1, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on April 4. “Distressed at the escalating tensions in West Asia and their potential to fuel further violence and instability”, New Delhi has urged all parties to avoid actions that go against “commonly accepted principles and norms of International Law”, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in his weekly media briefing.

Israel strikes Iranian embassy, Iran vows retaliation

Israeli air strikes destroyed the Iranian embassy’s consular annex in Syria on April 1, killing and wounding everyone inside, Damascus said as Iranian state TV reported a Revolutionary Guards commander among the dead.

Britain-based war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said eight people, including several Guards members, were killed when “Israeli missiles… destroyed the building of an annex to the Iranian embassy”.

Iranian state TV said among those killed was a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

Also read: A new low: On Israel’s Gaza war and the U.S. response

Iran and one of its key proxies on April 2 vowed to respond to the Israeli attack. Israel has repeatedly targeted military officials from Iran, which supports militant groups fighting Israel in Gaza, and along its border with Lebanon. Monday’s strike in Damascus signaled an escalation because it struck an Iranian diplomatic mission.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA said Tuesday that Iran relayed an important message to the United States late Monday and that it called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council. The message to Washington was delivered through a Swiss envoy in Tehran; Switzerland looks after U.S. interests in Iran.

(with inputs from agencies)

Suspected North Korean-made F-7 rocket-propelled grenades, many with a distinctive red stripe on their warhead, are seen at an Israeli military base in southern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. Hamas fighters likely used North Korean-manufactured rocket-propelled grenades during their unprecedented assault on Israel that killed over 1,400 people and saw scores taken hostage, despite Pyongyang denying its weapons arm the militant group.
| Photo Credit: AP

Hamas fighters likely fired North Korean weapons during their October 7 assault on Israel, a militant video and weapons seized by Israel show, despite Pyongyang’s denials that it arms the militant group.

South Korean officials, two experts on North Korean arms and an Associated Press analysis of weapons captured on the battlefield by Israel point toward Hamas using Pyongyang’s F-7 rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-fired weapon that fighters typically use against armoured vehicles.

The evidence shines a light on the murky world of the illicit arms shipments that sanction-battered North Korea uses as a way to fund its own conventional and nuclear weapons programs.

Israel-Hamas war October 19 LIVE updates

Rocket-propelled grenade launchers fire a single warhead and can be quickly reloaded, making them valuable weapons for guerrilla forces in running skirmishes with heavy vehicles.

The F-7 has been documented in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, said N R Jenzen-Jones, a weapons expert who works as the director of the consultancy Armament Research Services.

“North Korea has long supported Palestinian militant groups, and North Korean arms have previously been documented amongst interdicted supplies,” Jenzen-Jones told the AP.

Hamas has published images of their fighters with a launcher with a rocket-propelled grenade with a distinctive red stripe across its warhead, and other design elements matching the F-7, said Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher with Small Arms Survey who wrote a guide to Pyongyang’s light weapons.

“It is not a surprise to see North Korean weapons with Hamas,” Mr. Schroeder said.

The North Korean F-7 resembles the more widely distributed Soviet-era RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade, with a few noticeable differences.

Also Read | Hamas attack on Israel prompts South Korea to consider pausing military agreement with North

Jenzen-Jones described the F-7 rocket-propelled grenade as “intended to offer a lethal effect against personnel” given its shape and payload, rather than armoured vehicles.

Weapons seized by the Israeli military and shown to journalists also included that red stripe and other design elements matching the F-7.

In a background briefing with journalists on Tuesday, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff specifically identified the F-7 as one of the North Korean weapons it believed Hamas used in the attack.

The Israeli military declined to answer questions from the AP about the origin and the manufacturer of those rocket-propelled grenades, saying the ongoing war with Hamas prevented it from responding.

North Korea’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment from the AP.

However, Pyongyang last week through its state-run KCNA news agency dismissed claims that Hamas used its weapons as “a groundless and false rumour” orchestrated by the United States.

Hamas propaganda videos and photos previously have shown its fighters with North Korea’s Bulsae-guided anti-tank missile.

Jenzen-Jones said he believed, based on imagery of the weapons wielded by Hamas fighters in the October 7 attack, they also used North Korea’s Type 58 self-loading rifle, a variant of the Kalashnikov assault rifle.

“Many North Korean weapons have been provided by Iran to militant groups, and this is believed to be the primary way by which Palestinian militants have come to possess North Korean weapons,” Jenzen-Jones said.

Iran also has modelled some of its ballistic missiles after North Korean variants.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment. Officials in Iran long have supported Hamas and have praised their assault on Israel.

In December 2009, Thai authorities grounded a North Korean cargo plane reportedly carrying 35 tons of conventional arms, including rockets and rocket-propelled grenades, as it made a refueling stop at a Bangkok airport.

Thai officials then said the weapons were headed to Iran. The United States later said in 2012 the shipments interdicted by the Thais had been bound for Hamas.

North Korea also faces Western suspicions that it supplies ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia to support of its war on Ukraine.

The White House said last week that North Korea recently delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

New Delhi:

As gun battles raged between Israeli security forces and hundreds of Hamas group fighters in at least 22 locations, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant today issued a threat to “change the face of reality” in Gaza. 

Over 200 Israelis and 232 Palestinians were killed on Saturday in the deadliest escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in decades, after the Hamas group launched a massive rocket barrage and ground, air, and sea offensive, prompting Israel to respond with intense airstrikes.

“Today, we have seen the face of evil. Hamas launched a criminal attack, without distinguishing between women, children and the elderly. It will realise very quickly that it made a grave mistake. We will change the face of reality in the Gaza Strip,” Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said in a video statement.

היום, ראינו את פני הרוע.

החמאס פתח בהתקפה נפשעת, ללא הבחנה בין נשים, ילדים וקשישים. הוא יבין מהר מאוד שעשה טעות חמורה.

אנחנו נשנה את פני המציאות ברצועת עזה עשרות שנים קדימה.

אזרחי ישראל, במיוחד בשעות קשות אלו, התאזרו בסבלנות וגבו את כוחות הביטחון. pic.twitter.com/psu4BOJg3w

— יואב גלנט – Yoav Gallant (@yoavgallant) October 7, 2023

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to demolish Hamas strongholds in Gaza, reducing them to rubble, as the conflict continued to escalate.

READ |Explained: Israel-Palestine And A History Of Conflict

Rockets pounded Israel from Gaza from 6:30 am on Saturday, following months of growing violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the highest death count in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, in years.

“Israel is now at war,” Prime Minister Netanyahu declared to the shocked nation Saturday morning, in what was the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

“I’m telling the people of Gaza: get out of there now, because we’re about to act everywhere with all our force,” he added. “We’ll strike them to the bitter end and avenge with force this black day they brought on Israel and its people.”

US President Joe Biden reaffirmed his “unwavering” support for the US ally, Israel, as the UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Sunday. He also warned against any adversaries of Israel exploiting the situation.

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Sderot, Israel:

Hamas terrorists — travelling in vehicles, boats and motorised paragliders — breached Gaza’s security barrier and attacked nearby Israeli towns and military posts, opening fire on residents and passersby.

Gun battles raged into the night as at least 70 people were reported killed in Israel, while Gaza authorities released a death count of 232 in the conflict’s bloodiest escalation in years which also left many hundreds wounded on both sides.

The army said in the evening its forces were still engaged in live gun battles in 22 locations, in an ongoing operation labelled “Swords of Iron”, as reservists were being called up.

“There are still 22 locations where we are engaging with terrorists that came into Israel, from the sea, from the land and from the air,” said army spokesman Richard Hecht, adding that the Hamas attack included a “robust ground invasion”.

Hamas earlier released images of several Israelis taken captive, and another Israeli army spokesman, Daniel Hagari, confirmed that “there are kidnapped soldiers and civilians.

“I can’t give figures about them at the moment. It’s a war crime committed by Hamas and they will pay the price.”

“We are at war,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the stunned nation as the airforce pounded targets in the blockaded coastal enclave, including several residential tower blocks that were completely destroyed.

“The enemy will pay an unprecedented price,” the veteran premier vowed after Hamas had launched its first such combined ground, air and sea offensive, half a century after the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

The Islamist group started the multi-pronged attack around 6:30 am (0330 GMT) with thousands of rockets aimed as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, some bypassing the Iron Dome defence system and hitting buildings.

“Send help, please!” one Israeli woman sheltering with her two-year-old child pleaded as terrorists outside opened fire and tried to break into their safe room, Israeli media reported.

Bodies were seen lying on the streets of Sderot near Gaza and inside cars, their windscreens shattered by bullets.

“I saw many bodies, of terrorists and civilians,” one man who gave his name as Shlomi told AFP, standing beside covered corpses on a road near Gevim Kibbutz in southern Israel.

“So many bodies, so many bodies.”

‘Gates of hell’

Israeli army Major General Ghasan Alyan warned that Hamas had “opened the gates of hell”.

An AFP journalist in Gaza saw smoke billowing from the remains of a residential tower which Gaza’s interior ministry said contained 100 apartments and was completely destroyed.

Israel’s military said it had warned residents to evacuate before targeting the multi-storey buildings used by Hamas.

The aid group Doctors without Borders said one strike had hit the enclave’s Indonesian hospital and an ambulance outside Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, causing multiple deaths.

As night fell, Israel’s state-run electricity company cut the power supply to Gaza.

The escalation follows months of rising violence, mostly in the occupied West Bank, and tensions around Gaza’s border and at contested holy sites in Jerusalem.

Hamas labelled its attack “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” and called on “resistance fighters in the West Bank” as well as in “Arab and Islamic nations” to join the battle.

“We decided to put an end to all the crimes of the occupation (Israel),” said its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, claiming to have fired more than 5,000 rockets.

Hecht said Israel had counted more than 3,000 incoming rockets though the day.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh claimed the group was on the “verge of a great victory and a clear conquest on the Gaza front”.

“Enough is enough,” he said in a televised address. “The cycle of intifadas (uprisings) and revolutions in the battle to liberate our land and our prisoners languishing in occupation prisons must be completed.”

‘Dangerous precipice’

Air raid sirens wailed across southern and central Israel, as well as in Jerusalem, where multiple incoming rockets were intercepted by air defence systems.

In Tel Aviv, a gaping hole was ripped into a building, with residents boarding a bus to seek safety in a hotel.

Rocket impacts left cars burning beneath residential buildings in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, north of Gaza.

Among the dead was the president of a regional council for Israeli communities northeast of Gaza, who was killed in a gun battle.

Schools will remain closed on Sunday, the start of the week in Israel.

The conflict sparked major disruption at Tel Aviv airport, with American Airlines, Emirates and Ryanair among carriers with cancelled flights.

Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, leading to Israel’s crippling blockade of the impoverished enclave of 2.3 million people.

Israel and Hamas have since fought several wars. The last major military exchange, in May, killed 34 Palestinians and one Israeli.

In northern Gaza on Saturday, hundreds of people fled their homes, carrying food and blankets, an AFP correspondent said.

Across the West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, three Palestinians were killed and around 80 wounded in clashes with Israeli forces and settlers, the Palestinian health ministry and Red Crescent Society said.

In Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, some Palestinian residents cheered and blew their car horns as sirens blared.

Western capitals condemned the attacks by Hamas, which the United States, European Union and Israel consider a terrorist group.

But Hamas drew support from other foes of Israel, with Iran’s supreme leader declaring he was “proud” and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah praising the “heroic operation”.

The United States condemned the attacks by “Hamas terrorists” and vowed to ensure the key US ally has the means to defend itself.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the attack “terrorism in its most despicable form”.

UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland warned of “a dangerous precipice” and called on all sides to “pull back from the brink”.

Before Saturday’s violence, at least 247 Palestinians, 32 Israelis and two foreigners had been killed this year, including combatants and civilians, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.