U.S. President Donald Trump
| Photo Credit: AP

New Delhi:

The American Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system was used to intercept a ballistic missile launched at Israel from Yemen yesterday. The missile was reportedly fired by the Houthi rebels, a group backed by Iran.

The THAAD system, deployed in Israel by the United States in October, was activated to intercept the missile for the first time, the Times of Israel reported. Footage circulated on social media showing the system launching an interceptor, accompanied by the voice of an American soldier exclaiming, “Eighteen years I’ve been waiting for this.” 

While the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the missile’s interception, they did not specify whether the system used was Israeli or American. However, security sources told the Walla news site that THAAD had successfully engaged the missile, the report said. 

The deployment of THAAD in Israel followed an October 1 ballistic missile attack by Iran. The advanced system is capable of intercepting missiles both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

מערכת ה- THAAD האמריקנית לקחה חלק ביירוט הטיל הבליסטי ששוגר אמש מתימן. אפשר לשמוע את אחד החיילים האמריקניים מתרגש “18 שנים חיכיתי לזה” pic.twitter.com/s4VoMfMhaF

— איתי בלומנטל Itay Blumental (@ItayBlumental) December 27, 2024

The THAAD system, developed by the United States, is designed to intercept short-, medium-, and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during their terminal phase. Unlike conventional systems, THAAD relies on kinetic energy to neutralise threats, destroying incoming missiles through impact rather than an explosive warhead.

A standard THAAD battery includes six truck-mounted launchers, each capable of holding up to eight interceptors, along with a radar and a fire control system. The system’s radar can detect threats from a range of 870 to 3,000 kilometres.

The Houthi missile launch marked the fifth such attack on Israel in just eight days. The Iran-backed group claimed to have targeted Ben Gurion Airport. In response, Israeli warplanes launched strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, including the Hezyaz power plant and infrastructure at Sanaa International Airport.

The Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel over the past year, according to the IDF, however, the majority of these threats were intercepted or fell short of their targets. The group has also disrupted commercial shipping in the Red Sea, targeting over 100 merchant vessels and forcing carriers to reroute.

The Houthis have explicitly linked their actions to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which erupted on October 7, 2023, following Palestinian group Hamas’ attack on Israel. 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres looks on during a joint statement with Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, in Sao Bento Palace, Lisbon, Portugal, on November 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon that took effect earlier on Wednesday (November 27, 2024) was “the first ray of hope” in the regional conflict after months of escalation.

“It is essential that those who signed the ceasefire commitment respect it in full,” he said in a short televised statement during a visit to his native Lisbon, adding that the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon was ready to monitor the ceasefire.

He also reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“I received an auspicious sign yesterday, the first ray of hope for peace amid the darkness of the past months,” he said, referring to the agreement.

“It is a moment of great importance, especially for civilians who were paying an enormous price of this spreading conflict.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli leaders sent mixed signals on the possibility of a ceasefire with Lebanon on Monday (November 11, 2024), with Defence Minister Israel Katz seeming to contradict comments by Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

Mr. Saar, who replaced Mr. Katz at the foreign ministry this week, told journalists there had been progress towards a ceasefire in Lebanon, where war has raged for more than six weeks as Israel targets Hezbollah.

“There is certain progress,” Mr. Saar said after being asked about a possible ceasefire. “We are working with the Americans on the issue.”

But Mr. Katz, who became defence minister this week, told a forum of top military generals that “there will be no ceasefire, and there will be no break in the strikes against Hezbollah”.

However, he did add that “if the possibility arises and a good proposal is put forward that would allow us to claim victory… we will certainly consider it very seriously”.

Israel escalated air strikes in late September targeting Hezbollah strongholds across Lebanon and sent in ground troops a week later, on September 30.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the operation’s aim is to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River, which flows across southern Lebanon.

Another goal is to stop any attempt by Hezbollah to rearm. The Shiite group is armed and financed by Iran.

Mr. Saar on Monday reiterated Israel’s objectives.

He said Israel would “be ready” for a ceasefire if Hezbollah does not have a presence on the border and is unable to rearm with weapons systems arriving “from Syria, from the sea, from the airport”.

He added: “The main challenge, eventually, will be to enforce what will be agreed.”

“We want to get our citizens back home safely, and if we will meet the right conditions, we will be there. In the meantime, the operation of the IDF (Israel Defence Forces) near our border continues,” Mr. Saar said.

Tens of thousands of Israelis were displaced when Hezbollah began cross-border fire more than a year ago in what it described as support for Palestinian militants Hamas, who attacked Israel on October 7 last year, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

Beirut:

Lebanon’s health ministry said Saturday seven people including two children were killed in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Tyre a day earlier, with rescuers still searching for missing people under the rubble.

“Israeli enemy strikes on the city of Tyre killed seven people including two girls, and injured 46 others,” the ministry said, adding that body parts had been found and will be “identified with DNA testing”.

It added that rubble was being cleared following the strikes as part of ongoing efforts to locate missing persons.

The ministry had on Friday reported a toll of three killed and 30 injured in the strikes.

AFP photos showed rescuers carrying bodies on stretchers amid the wreckage, as rubble and twisted metal were strewn across the street.

Earlier on Saturday, Lebanon’s official National News Agency had said the deadly strikes targeted three buildings in the coastal city, causing “massive damage to dozens of homes”.

The NNA also said “enemy fighter jets” destroyed two heritage houses in the southern city of Nabatiyeh.

Hezbollah said on Saturday it targeted Israeli troops, locations and military sites including a base and an area north of Haifa, in addition to downing an Israeli Hermes 450 drone over a south Lebanon village.

Israel intensified its air campaign on Lebanon in September and later sent in ground troops after a year of cross-border clashes.

The escalation came after nearly a year of low-intensity, cross-border attacks by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

More than 3,110 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border exchanges began, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

On top of the grievous toll in human life and misery, Israel’s war against the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups has been expensive, and the painfully high financial costs are raising concerns about the long-term effect of the fighting on the country’s economy.

Military spending has ballooned, and growth has stalled, especially in dangerous border areas that were evacuated. Economists say the country could face declining investment and higher taxes as the war strains government budgets and forces tough choices between social programs and the military.

Here is a look at the monetary costs Israel faces as a result of the conflict:

The Israeli Government is spending much more per month on the military, from $1.8 billion before Hamas started the fighting by attacking Israel on October 7, 2023, to around $4.7 billion by the end of last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The Government spent $27.5 billion on the military last year, according to the institute, ranking 15th globally behind Poland but ahead of Canada and Spain, all of which have larger populations. Military spending as a percentage of annual economic output was 5.3%, compared with 3.4% for the United States and 1.5% for Germany. That pales in comparison to Ukraine, which spent 37% of its GDP and more than half its entire government budget on fighting off Russia’s invasion.

In the three months after Hamas attacked, Israel’s economic output shrank 5.6%, the worst performance of any of the 38 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of mostly rich nations.

The economy partly rebounded with growth of 4% in the first part of this year but grew only 0.2% in the second quarter.

The war has inflicted an even heavier toll on Gaza’s already broken economy, where 90% of the population has been displaced and the vast majority of the workforce is unemployed. The West Bank economy has also been hit hard, where tens of thousands of Palestinian labourers lost their jobs in Israel after October 7 and Israeli military raids and checkpoints have hindered movement. The World Bank says the West Bank economy contracted by 25% in the first quarter.

In Israel, the war has imposed many economic burdens. Call-ups and extensions of military service threaten to crimp the labour supply. Security worries deter investment in new business, and disruptions in flights have kept many visitors away, cutting into the tourism industry.

Meanwhile, the government is paying for housing for thousands of people who had to leave their homes in the south near the border with Gaza and in the north where they were exposed to fire from Hezbollah.

One of the biggest concerns is the open-ended nature of the fighting, which has lasted more than a year. Israel’s economy rebounded quickly from a 2006 war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. But that conflict lasted only 34 days.

Moody’s Ratings cited that idea on September 27, when it lowered the Israeli Government’s credit rating, two notches. The Baa1 rating is still considered investment grade, albeit with moderate risk, according to Moody’s.

Israel’s economy is hardly collapsing. The country has a diversified, highly developed economy with a strong information-technology sector, which supports tax revenues and defence spending. Unemployment is low, and the TA-35 stock index is up 10.5% on the year.

Even amid the fighting, tech companies raised some $2.5 billion in capital during the third quarter, according to Zvi Eckstein, head of the Aaron Institute for Economic Policy at Reichman University.

“Israel started the war “in the best economic condition” regarding government debt, which stood at a relatively modest 60% of GDP,” Mr. Eckstein said. “We financed the war mainly with debt,” which has now risen to 62% but is still contained compared with France at 111% and in line with Germany at 63.5%.

The institute foresees debt reaching 80% of GDP, assuming the fighting does not markedly intensify and some sort of cease-fire or conclusion can be reached by the end of next year. Even then, higher defence spending is likely, especially if Israel maintains a military presence in Gaza after the war.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s budget for 2025 foresees a deficit of below 4%, saying that will ensure that Israel’s debt burden remains stable. Mr. Smotrich said the country has a stable shekel currency, rising share prices, a tight jobs market, strong tax revenues and access to credit, and a rebounding tech sector.

Moody’s questioned the deficit figures, forecasting a 6% deficit for next year.

“The credit downgrade will lead to higher borrowing costs, meaning Israelis are likely to see cuts to public services and higher taxes,” said Karnit Flug, a former head of Israel’s central bank and now vice president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute.

Before the war, American military aid to Israel amounted to around $3.8 billion per year under a deal signed during President Barack Obama’s administration. That comes to roughly 14% of Israel’s prewar military spending, much of which goes to U.S. defence companies.

Since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict across the Middle East, the United States has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel, according to a report for Brown University’s Costs of War project that was released on the anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Beyond strictly military aid, the U.S. has offered critical financial support for Israel during times of trouble. Congress in 2003 approved $9 billion in credit guarantees that let Israel borrow at affordable rates after the economy suffered during the so-called second intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

Some of those guarantees remain unused and could in theory be tapped to stabilise government finances if Israel faces unaffordable borrowing costs.

The government has convened a commission under former acting national security adviser Jacob Nagel, who negotiated Israel’s most recent U.S. aid package, to offer recommendations on the size of the future defence budget and to assess how increased defence spending could affect the economy.

Economist Eckstein said a budget that includes some tax increases and cuts in social spending would be needed to support a postwar rebound and pay for likely higher ongoing defence costs.

Beirut:

UN peacekeepers in Lebanon warned Saturday against a “catastrophic” regional conflict as Israeli forces battled Hezbollah and Hamas militants on two fronts, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Israel has faced a fierce diplomatic backlash over incidents in south Lebanon that saw five Blue Helmets wounded.

On Saturday, the Lebanese health ministry said Israeli air strikes on two villages located near the capital Beirut killed nine people.

Israel had earlier told residents of south Lebanon not to return home, as its troops fought Hezbollah militants in a war that has killed more than 1,200 people since September 23, and forced more than a million others to flee their homes.

“For your own protection, do not return to your homes until further notice… Do not go south; anyone who goes south may put his life at risk,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee posted on X.

Hezbollah said Saturday it launched missiles across the border into northern Israel, where air raid sirens sounded and the military said it had intercepted a projectile.

In an interview with AFP, UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti told AFP he feared an Israeli escalation against Hezbollah in south Lebanon could soon spiral out of control “into a regional conflict with catastrophic impact for everyone”.

The UN force said five peacekeepers have been wounded by fighting in south Lebanon in just two days, and Tenenti said “a lot of damage” had been caused to its posts there.

Around Israel, markets were closed and public transport halted as observant Jews fasted and prayed on Yom Kippur.

After the holiday, attention is likely to turn again to Israel’s expected retaliation against Iran, which launched around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1.

Israel began pounding Gaza shortly after suffering its worst ever attacks from Iran-backed Hamas militants on October 7 last year, and it launched a ground offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon on September 30.

‘Deliberately targeted’

On Friday, Israel faced criticism from the UN, its Western allies and others over what it said was a “hit” on a UN peacekeeping position in Lebanon.

Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were hurt in the second such incident in two days, UNIFIL said Friday.

Israel’s military said soldiers had responded to “an immediate threat” around 50 metres (yards) from the UNIFIL base in Naqura, and has pledged to carry out a “thorough review”.

The Irish military’s chief of staff, Sean Clancy, said it was “not an accidental act”, and French President Emmanuel Macron said he believed the peacekeepers had been “deliberately targeted”.

Both countries are major contributors to UNIFIL whose peacekeepers are on the front line of the Israel-Hezbollah war.

Efforts to negotiate an end to the fighting have so far failed, but Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his government would ask the UN Security Council to issue a new resolution calling for a “full and immediate ceasefire”.

Lebanon’s military said Friday an Israeli strike on one of its positions in south Lebanon killed two soldiers.

In a show of support for Iran’s ally Hezbollah, the speaker of the Iranian parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf visited the site Saturday of a deadly Israeli strike earlier this week.

A source close to Hezbollah said the strike had targeted Hezbollah’s security chief Wafiq Safa, but neither Hezbollah nor Israel has confirmed he was the target.

Ghalibaf’s Lebanon visit, a signal of Tehran’s defiance, comes after Israel vowed to respond to Iran’s second-ever direct attack.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has vowed that the response will be “deadly, precise and surprising”.

The United States is pushing for a “proportionate” response that would not tip the region into a wider war, with President Joe Biden urging Israel to avoid striking Iranian nuclear facilities or energy infrastructure.

Gaza deaths

Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing on Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures, which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has wrought devastation and, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, killed 42,175 people, a majority civilians.

Israeli operations in Gaza continue, with the army laying siege to an area around Jabalia in the north, causing more suffering for hundreds of thousands of people trapped there, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Adraee, the Israeli military spokesman, posted another evacuation warning Saturday for an area near Jabalia.

“The specified area, including the shelters within it, is considered a dangerous combat zone,” Adraee said on X, ordering residents to move to the humanitarian zone in southern Gaza.

Some residents said they were not prepared to do so.

“They tell us to go south, but we won’t go because of the dangers and the army is shooting at people there,” 27-year-old Sami Asliya told AFP.

“There is no safe place, neither in the south nor in the north — everyone is at risk of death,” he said.

On Friday, Gaza’s civil defence agency reported 30 people killed in Israeli strikes in the area, including on schools being used as shelter by displaced people.

An AFP journalist in Gaza reported heavy shelling, explosions and gunfire Saturday further south in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinians inspect the destruction following overnight Israeli strikes on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 6, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
| Photo Credit: AFP

As well as killing more than 34,000 people and causing catastrophic levels of hunger and injury, the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas has also caused massive material destruction in Gaza.

“The rate of damage being registered is unlike anything we have studied before. It is much faster and more extensive than anything we have mapped,” said Corey Scher, a Ph.D. candidate at the City University of New York, who has been researching satellite imagery of Gaza.

As Israel launches an offensive on Rafah, the last population centre in Gaza yet to be entered by its ground troops, AFP looks at the territory’s shattered landscape seven months into the war sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack.

Three-quarters of Gaza City destroyed

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, where before the war 2.3 million people had been living on a 365-square-kilometre (140-square-mile) strip of land.

According to satellite analyses by Mr. Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek, an associate professor of geography at Oregon State University, 56.9 % of Gaza buildings were damaged or destroyed as of April 21, making a total of 160,000.

“The fastest rates of destruction were in the first two to three months of the bombardment”, Mr. Scher told AFP.

In Gaza City, home to some 6,00,000 people before the war, the situation is dire: almost three-quarters (74.3%) of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. 

Five hospitals now rubble

During the war, Gaza’s hospitals have been repeatedly attacked by Israel, which accuses Hamas of using them for military purposes, a charge the militant group denies.

In the first six weeks of the war sparked by the Hamas attack, which killed more than 1,170 people according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures, “60% of healthcare facilities… were indicated as damaged or destroyed”, Mr. Scher said.

The territory’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City, was targeted in two offensives by the Israeli army, the first in November, the second in March.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the second operation reduced the hospital to an “empty shell” strewn with human remains. 

Five hospitals have been completely destroyed, according to figures compiled by AFP from the OpenStreetMap project, the Hamas health ministry and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT). Fewer than one in three hospitals — 28% — are partially functioning, according to the UN.

Over 70% of schools damaged

The territory’s largely U.N.-run schools, where many civilians have sought refuge from the fighting, have also paid a heavy price.

As of April 25, UNICEF counted 408 schools damaged, representing at least 72.5% of its count of 563 facilities.

Of those, 53 school buildings have been completely destroyed and 274 others have been damaged by direct fire.

The U.N. estimates that two-thirds of the schools will need total or major reconstruction to be functional again.

Regarding places of worship, combined data from UNOSAT and OpenStreetMap show 61.5% of mosques have been damaged or destroyed. 

More bombed-out than Dresden

The level of destruction in northern Gaza has surpassed that of the German city of Dresden, which was firebombed by Allied forces in 1945 in one of the most controversial Allied acts of World War II.

According to a U.S. military study from 1954, quoted by the Financial Times, the bombing campaign at the end of World War II damaged 59% of Dresden’s buildings.

In late April, the head of the U.N. mine clearance programme in the Palestinian territories, Mungo Birch, said there was more rubble to clear in Gaza than in Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia more than two years ago. 

The U.N. estimated that as of the start of May, the post-war reconstruction of Gaza would cost between 30 billion and 40 billion dollars.