Israeli and Lebanese flags are seen in this illustration
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli forces are carrying out “offensive action” across southern Lebanon, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday without specifying whether ground troops had crossed the border.

“Many forces are deployed on the border and IDF (army) forces are carrying out offensive action currently throughout southern Lebanon,” Mr. Gallant said in a statement.

He also claimed that “half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon have been eliminated” in months of violence. “The other half are in hiding and abandoning the field to IDF operations,” he added without giving a specific number.

A spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told AFP that “we didn’t detect any ground crossing today.”

The Israeli army said it had struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. “A short while ago, IDF (army) fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets” around Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry, it said.

The army said Hezbollah “has established dozens of terror means and infrastructures in the area” to attack Israel.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said Israel had carried out more than 13 strikes near Aita al-Shaab and surrounding villages. “Israeli warplanes carried out… more than 13 air strikes targeting the outskirts of the towns of Aita al-Shaab, Ramya, Jabal Balat and Khallet Warda,” it said.

The strikes came after the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said it fired a fresh barrage of rockets across the border on Wednesday following a strike that killed two civilians which the group blamed on Israel.

The group had already fired rockets at northern Israel late on Tuesday “in response” to the civilian deaths.

“The targeting of civilians… cannot happen without a concrete response,” Hezbollah member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah told Lebanon’s National News Agency during a funeral procession in southern Lebanon.

“Let us make this enemy understand that… we are ready for any scenario,” he added.

Cross-border exchanges of fire have flared between the Israeli army and Hezbollah since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in Gaza.

Hezbollah began near-daily attacks against Israel on October 8 in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.

Since October 7, at least 380 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 72 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

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

Tens of thousands have been displaced on both sides of the border.

On January 2, a strike widely blamed on Israel killed Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in southern Beirut.

Aruri is the most high-profile Hamas figure to be killed during the war.

Israel calls for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ resignation after his remarks angered Israel, accusing him of “tolerating and justifying” terrorism

October 25, 2023 06:55 am | Updated 06:55 am IST

Rapidly expanding Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip has killed more than 700 people in the past day as medical facilities across the territory were forced to close because of bombing damage and a lack of power, health officials said on Tuesday.

The soaring death toll from Israel’s escalating bombardment was unprecedented in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It could signal an even greater loss of life in Gaza once Israeli ground forces backed by tanks and artillery launch an expected offensive into the territory aimed at crushing Hamas.

On Tuesday, Israel said it had launched 400 airstrikes over the past day, killing Hamas commanders, hitting militants as they were preparing to launch rockets into Israel and striking command centres and a Hamas tunnel shaft.

While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen, who participated in a Security Council ministerial meeting on the Israel-Gaza situation in United Nations, cancelled his meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and called for his resignation after his remarks angered Israel, accusing him of “tolerating and justifying” terrorism.

ALSO READ | Israel-Hamas war, Day 18 updates

Addressing the council, Mr. Guterres said the situation in the Middle East is growing more dire by the hour and the war in Gaza is raging and risks spiralling throughout the region. The U.N. chief said it is “important to also recognise the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation”.

Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been under increasing bombardment and running out of food, water and medicine since Israel sealed off the territory following the devastating October 7 attack by Hamas militants on towns in southern Israel.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said the attacks killed at least 704 people over the past day, including 305 children and 173 women. More than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, including some 2,300 minors, the ministry said, without giving a detailed breakdown.

(With inputs from agencies)

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File image of U.S. Army soldiers used for representational purpose only.
| Photo Credit: AP

The U.S. military on Tuesday (October 17) ordered 2,000 personnel to prepare for deployment to the Middle East as a show of force as Israel’s war on Hamas intensifies.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the deployment would allow the United States “to respond more quickly” to the crisis, while the White House stressed it did not intend to put U.S. combat forces on the ground.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said preparing the troops for deployment “is really about sending a signal of deterrence.”

“We don’t want to see this conflict escalate and widen,” Mr. Kirby said on CNN. “There are no plans or intentions to put U.S. boots on the ground in combat in Israel.”

The move comes as President Joe Biden heads to Israel on Wednesday to underscore Washington’s support for its close ally.

But Mr. Biden also hopes to prevent the escalating war in Gaza from spilling over into a wider Middle East conflict.

So far, the White House has seen no signs of a deepening engagement by Iran, Mr. Kirby said.

“Outside of the rhetoric…, no we haven’t,” Mr. Kirby said.

Israel declared war on Hamas after the Islamist group’s fighters broke through the heavily fortified Gaza border on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and taking at least 199 people hostage.

Israel has responded with air strikes that have killed around 3,000 people, also mainly civilians, according to officials in Gaza.

Israel has also imposed a crippling siege on Gaza and deployed tens of thousands of troops to the border in preparation for a ground offensive.

The United States has already deployed two aircraft carriers to the region “to deter hostile actions against Israel,” Mr. Austin said last week.

U.S. media reported the troops being readied for deployment would cover support roles, such as medical assistance and handling explosives.

As Mr. Biden prepared for his trip to Israel, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he will be working to approve an aid package for Israel “hopefully within the next few weeks.” The package will include military, humanitarian, intelligence and diplomatic help, he said.

Congress’ lower chamber has been paralysed in recent weeks as Republican lawmakers have tried and so far failed to elect a speaker after the ouster of Kevin McCarthy on October 3 by the party’s hard-right faction.

“With the house in disarray, the Senate will not wait to vote on an Israeli aid package”, Mr. Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor.