Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday (October 5, 2024) slammed French President Emmanuel Macron for calling for a halt to arms supplies to Israel, which is fighting wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

“As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilised countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side. Yet, President Macron and other Western leaders are now calling for arms embargoes against Israel. Shame on them,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office. 

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel was fighting a war on several fronts against groups backed by arch-foe Iran. 

“Is Iran imposing an arms embargo on Hezbollah, on the Huthis, on Hamas and on its other proxies? Of course not,” he said. All three groups are backed by Tehran and form part of its “axis of resistance” against Israel. 

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Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Beirut, seen from Baabda on Friday (September 27, 2024).
| Photo Credit: AP

The Israeli military said on Friday (September 27, 2024) it carried out a “precise strike” on the central headquarters of Hezbollah in Beirut.

The Israeli army’s spokesman, Daniel Hagari, made the announcement in a televised address after the explosion in Beirut sent massive clouds of orange and black smoke billowing in the skies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the U.N. earlier in the day.

A series of intense Israeli airstrikes hit one of Beirut’s heavily populated southern suburbs on Friday (September 27, 2024) as blasts were heard throughout the Lebanese capital.

The massive explosion was so powerful it rattled windows and shook houses some 30 kilometers north of Beirut. Ambulances were seen headed to the scene of the explosions, sirens wailing.

The strike came an hour after thousands of people attended the funeral of a top Hezbollah commander who was killed the day before.

“Earlier in the day, an Israeli airstrike killed a family of nine in a Lebanese border village,” authorities said, as Lebanon struggled to deal with a rising death toll, a wave of tens of thousands fleeing their homes, and the possibility of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.

As the two sides continued to trade fire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed world leaders at the U.N., vowing to “continue degrading Hezbollah” until Israel achieves its goals along the Lebanon border, further dimming hopes for an internationally backed cease-fire.

Israel dramatically intensified its airstrikes in Lebanon this week, saying it is determined to put an end to more than 11 months of Hezbollah fire into its territory. The scope of Israel’s operation remains unclear, but officials have said a ground invasion to push the militant group away from the border is a possibility. Israel has moved thousands of troops toward the border in preparation.

That has Lebanese fearing a repeat of the last Israel-Hezbollah war, in 2006, which lasted a month and wreaked heavy destruction over parts of their country. Or worse, they fear, Lebanon could suffer devastation on the scale wreaked in Gaza by Israel’s nearly year-long campaign against Hamas.

At least 25 people were killed in Israeli strikes early Friday (September 27, 2024), Health Minister Firass Abiad said, “bringing the death toll in Lebanon this week to more than 720.” He said the dead included dozens of women and children.

The Israeli military said it carried out dozens of strikes over the course of two hours around the south on Friday (September 27, 2024), including in the cities of Sidon and Nabatiyeh. It said it was targeting Hezbollah rocket launchers and infrastructure. It said Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets toward the northern Israeli city of Tiberias.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, on September 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran on Friday (September 27, 2024) that Israel will strike if it is hit first and warned that his country can reach any part of the cleric-run state as he vowed to fight on in Gaza.

“I have a message for the tyrants of Tehran. If you strike us, we will strike you,” Mr. Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly.

“There is no place in Iran that the long arm of Israel cannot reach, and that’s true of the entire Middle East.”

Delegates, including from Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, exited the room as Mr. Netanyahu took the rostrum for his address amid a mix of cheers and angry yells.

“After I heard the lies and slanders leveled at my country by many of the speakers at this podium, I decided to come here and set the record straight,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of his speech.

Ahead of his speech, protesters gathered outside Netanyahu’s hotel in New York to demand an end to the violence in Gaza and Lebanon.

‘Deadliest period’

On Wednesday (September 25, 2024), the United States, France and other allies unveiled a 21-day truce proposal, after President Joe Biden and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The White House has said that the call for a ceasefire had been “coordinated” with Israel, but Netanyahu’s office on Thursday (September 26, 2024) said that the Prime Minister has not responded to the proposal.

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“It is an American-French proposal, which the prime minister has not even responded to,” said a statement from Netanyahu’s office, adding that he had ordered the army “to continue the fighting with full force.”

Hezbollah and Israel have been locked in a deadly exchange of cross-border fire since the Iran-backed group’s Palestinian ally, Hamas, attacked Israel on October 7.

Mr. Netanyahu vowed Friday that “Hamas has got to go” and would have no role in the reconstruction of Gaza as he vowed to fight until “total victory.”

Since Monday, Israel has shifted its focus from Gaza to its northern front with Lebanon where heavy bombing has killed 700 people and sparked an exodus of around 118,000 people.

Mr. Netanyahu said Israel would continue Lebanon strikes “until we meet our objectives.”

The U.N. said Friday (September 27, 2024) that a “catastrophic” intensification of Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah militants had left Lebanon facing its “deadliest period… in a generation.”

The Israeli strikes have brought the overall death toll in Lebanon to more than 1,500 people killed in nearly a year of clashes, according to Lebanese authorities.

That toll surpasses the 1,200 mostly civilians killed during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which also killed around 160 people in Israel, most of them soldiers.

Israel flatly rejected on Thursday (September 26, 2024) a push led by key backer the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, as it vowed to keep fighting Hezbollah militants “until victory”.

Israeli aerial bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon has killed hundreds of people this week, while the militant group has hit back with barrages of rockets.

“There will be no ceasefire in the north. We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organisation with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes,” Katz said in a post on social media platform X.

Moments earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying he had “not even responded” to the truce proposal, and that he had ordered the military “to continue the fighting with full force”.

The United States, France and other allies issued a joint statement calling for a 21-day halt in the fighting, with President Joe Biden, his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, and other allies meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The situation in Lebanon has become “intolerable” and “is in nobody’s interest, neither of the people of Israel nor of the people of Lebanon,” the statement said.

On the ground, there was no let-up in the violence.

On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had struck “approximately 75 terror targets” in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and the south, both Hezbollah bastions that have seen a huge exodus people fleeing their homes in recent days.

One strike near the ancient city of Baalbek killed at least nine people, Lebanon’s health ministry said, as the official National News Agency described the overnight bombing of the area as “the most violent” of recent days.

“It was indescribable, it was one of the worst nights we’ve lived through. You think there’s just a second between life and death,” said Fadia Rafic Yaghi, 70, who owns a shop in Baalbek.

The Israeli military also said around 45 rockets had been fired from Lebanon, adding that some had been intercepted while others had landed in unpopulated areas.

Hezbollah said that it had targeted defence industry complexes near the city of Haifa in northern Israel, saying it was “defending Lebanon and its people”, after rocketing the same complex previously this week.

Possible ground offensive

Israel earlier this month said it was shifting its focus from Gaza, where it has been fighting a war with Hamas since the October 7 attack, to securing its border with Lebanon.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has been fighting Israeli troops across the Lebanon border since October, forcing tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.

Netanyahu announced earlier this month that ensuring the safe return of Israelis to their homes in the north was a priority.

He delayed his departure for New York until Thursday, where he is due to address the General Assembly.

On Wednesday, Israel’s army chief told soldiers to prepare for a possible ground offensive against Hezbollah, as two reserve brigades were called up “for operational missions in the northern arena”.

“We are attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said.

Exodus

For many on both sides of the border, the violence has sparked bitter memories of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

According to the UN, Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon has forced 90,000 people to flee their homes in traditional Hezbollah strongholds to safer areas elsewhere in the tiny Mediterranean country.

Hezbollah had on Wednesday said it targeted Israel’s Mossad spy agency headquarters on Tel Aviv’s outskirts — the first time it has claimed a ballistic missile firing in almost a year of cross-border clashes sparked by the Gaza war.

Tel Aviv resident Hedva Fadlon, 61, told AFP: “The situation is difficult. We feel the pressure and the tension… I don’t think anyone in the world would like to live like this.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the Middle East was facing a “full-scale catastrophe” and warned Tehran would back Lebanon by “all means” if Israel escalated its offensive.

Editorial | ​Rogue state: On Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah 

The Israeli military said Wednesday it had hit more than 2,000 Hezbollah targets over the previous three days, including 60 Hezbollah intelligence sites.

Israeli strikes killed at least 558 people on Monday — by far the deadliest day of violence in Lebanon not just in the latest escalation, but since the 1975-1990 civil war.

Israel’s bombardment on Wednesday killed another 72 people and wounded 400 more, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Gaza link?

Prior to the current escalation, diplomats had said efforts to end the war in Gaza were key to calming regional tensions, including in Lebanon.

But Qatar, a key broker in the stalled talks to end the Gaza war, said it was unaware of a “direct link” between the two.

“I’m not aware of a direct link, but obviously both mediations are hugely overlapping when you are talking about the same parties, for the most part, that are taking part,” foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari said.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,495 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

A strike on Hezbollah’s stronghold in Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Friday (September 20, 2024) killed eight people and wounded dozens of others, with a source close to the movement saying a top military leader was dead.

The Israeli military said it had conducted a “targeted strike”, while the Lebanese health ministry said the attack had killed eight people and wounded 59 more.

Requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, the source close to Hezbollah said the strike on the militant group’s stronghold in south Beirut had killed the head of its elite Radwan unit, Ibrahim Aqil.

The air strike is the third to hit the southern suburbs of Beirut since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, with the focus of the violence shifting dramatically this week from Gaza to Lebanon.

Earlier this year, strikes blamed on Israel killed a top commander of Hezbollah, Fuad Shukr, and a leader of its allied Palestinian militant group Hamas, Saleh al-Aruri.

“The Israeli air strike killed Radwan Force commander Ibrahim Aqil, its armed force’s second-in-command after Fuad Shukr,” the source close to Hezbollah said.

Hezbollah has not officially confirmed his death, but it said after the strike that it had hit an Israeli intelligence base it claimed was responsible for unspecified “assassinations”.

The United States had offered a $7 million reward for information on Aqil, describing him as a “principal member” of the organisation that claimed the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 that killed 63 people.

Footage posted on social media and verified by AFP showed smoke rising over southern Beirut on Friday.

Communication device explosions

Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters have battled each other along the Israel-Lebanon border since Hamas sparked the war in Gaza with its October 7 attack.

The focus of Israel’s firepower for nearly a year has been on Gaza, but with Hamas much weakened, the focus of the war has shifted dramatically to Israel’s northern border.

Months of near-daily border clashes have killed hundreds in Lebanon, most of them fighters, and dozens in Israel, and forced thousands on both sides to flee their homes.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Hezbollah was hit by an unprecedented attack that it has blamed on Israel, though Israel has yet to comment.

The attack saw thousands of Hezbollah operatives’ communication devices explode across two days, killing 37 people and wounding thousands more.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Thursday that Israel would face retribution for the blasts.

Earlier Friday, Israel said Hezbollah had fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon following air strikes which destroyed dozens of the militant group’s launchers.

Israel announced this week it was shifting its war objectives to its northern border with Lebanon.

Speaking to troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Hezbollah will pay an increasing price” as Israel tries to “ensure the safe return” of its citizens to border areas.

“We are at the start of a new phase in the war,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile delayed his scheduled departure to the United States, where he is due to address the UN General Assembly, by a day, with an official citing the situation on the northern front.

Earlier Friday, Hezbollah said it targeted at least six Israeli military bases with salvos of rockets after overnight bombardment that people in south Lebanon described as among the fiercest so far.

‘Fear of wider war’

Residents of Marjayoun, a Lebanese town close to the border, said the overnight bombardment was among the heaviest since the border clashes began last October.

“We were very scared, especially for my grandchildren,” said Nuha Abdo, 62. “We were moving them from one room to another.”

Clothing store owner Elie Rmeih, 45, counted more than 50 strikes.

“It was a terrifying scene and unlike anything we have experienced since the escalation began.

“We live in fear of a wider war, you don’t know where to go.”

Calls for restraint

International mediators have been scrambling to stop the Gaza war from turning into an all-out regional conflict.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has been scrambling to salvage efforts for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, called for restraint on all sides.

“We don’t want to see any escalatory actions by any party” that would endanger the goal of a Gaza ceasefire, he said.

Hamas’s October 7 attacks that sparked the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

Out of 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures as reliable.