Middle East Latest: Netanyahu Says Israel Has Killed the Successor to the Head of Hezbollah

AP

11:15 JST, October 9, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel has killed the successor to the head of Hezbollah while the militant group’s acting leader promised more fighting in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah’s overall leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders were killed in recent weeks after heavy Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon. Netanyahu did not name the successor who was killed Tuesday.

Sheikh Naim Kassem, the acting leader of Hezbollah, said in a defiant televised statement that his group’s military capabilities are still intact and that Hezbollah has replaced all of its senior commanders.

Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Monday, the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, underscoring their resilience in the face of a devastating Israeli offensive in Gaza that has killed about 42,000 people, according to local medical officials.

A year ago, Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.

Israel is now at war with Hamas in Gaza and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, which began firing rockets at Israel on Oct. 8, 2023.

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Here is the latest:

Israeli military besieges a Gaza hospital, health ministry says

CAIRO — The Israeli military has besieged a hospital in the town of Beit Lahiya on the border with Israel, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said Tuesday.

The ministry said in a statement that Israeli forces have opened fire on Kamal Adwan Hospital’s management office and detained a medic transporting a patient to another hospital despite coordination with the military.

The ministry said the military also called for three hospitals in northern Gaza — Kamal Adwan, Awda and the Indonesian — to evacuate patients and medical staff.

“The military contacted me directly and said in a threatening way, tomorrow all the patients and staff in Kamal Adwan must be removed or they will be exposed to danger. Clearly, it’s a clear threat,” said Hossam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital.

He said the evacuation order is part of “a new plan to drive out the people of northern Gaza by removing the medical system with all its specialties.”

Heavy clashes have been underway this week in northern Gaza as the Israeli military launched another ground operation in the area a year into the war with Hamas. The military has reportedly ordered hundreds of thousands of Palestinian in northern Gaza to leave the area and head southward.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Meeting between US and Israeli defense chiefs postponed, Pentagon says

WASHINGTON — Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a briefing Tuesday that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s expected meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in the Pentagon on Wednesday has been postponed. Asked the reason for the delay, she referred reporters to Israeli officials.

Singh said Austin and Gallant had not spoken by phone Tuesday and she was not aware of any planned call. She added that while in-person visits are beneficial, there is nothing they can’t discuss by phone.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had no immediate comment.

Israeli strike hits building in Damascus, Syrian media reports

BEIRUT — An Israeli strike hit a residential building in Damascus on Tuesday evening and killed seven, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported.

The strike obliterated the first three floors of a building in the Mezzeh neighborhood, east of Damascus, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene. The debris covered the surrounding area, crushing several cars. Ambulances and excavators arrived at the scene to rescue survivors and clear the wreckage.

The UK-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the strike killed four people and wounded at least 10 others. The group said that the targeted building is “frequented by Revolutionary Guard leaders and Hezbollah” and that Syrian air defenses had attempted to intercept the attack.

Citing a military source, SANA said three rockets were launched from the direction of the Golan Heights.

There was no immediate comment from Israel on Tuesday’s strike and it was not immediately clear what the intended target was.

On Oct. 1, Israeli strikes on Damascus killed three people and wounded nine others.

Netanyahu says Israel has killed successor to head of Hezbollah

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel has killed the successor of Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — but he does not name the successor.

In an address to the people of Lebanon, Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel has “degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities.”

“We took out thousands of terrorists, including Nasrallah himself, and Nasrallah’s replacement, and the replacement of his replacement,” Netanyahu said. He did not name either of the two replacements. Nasrallah was killed last month in a bunker in Beirut by an Israeli airstrike.

The militant group’s acting head, Sheikh Naim Kassem, said in a video address issued earlier Tuesday that Hezbollah’s top leadership was directing the war and that the commanders killed by Israel have been replaced. “We have no vacant posts,” he said. He said Hezbollah will name a new leader to succeed Nasrallah “but the circumstances are difficult because of the war.”

Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah’s who oversees the group’s political affairs — not Kassem — was generally regarded as the leader’s heir apparent. But no announcement on a successor has been made, and Safieddine has not appeared publicly or made any public statements since Nasrallah’s death.

Israeli army dismantles Hezbollah tunnel from Lebanon

NEW YORK — The Israeli army says it has dismantled a Hezbollah tunnel crossing from Lebanon a few meters (yards) into Israel.

The army released footage of the tunnel, which is says tunnel was detected a few months ago but destroyed during the ground operation launched last week. It also claimed soldiers found weapons, bombs and anti-tank missiles.

UN secretary-general calls the Middle East ‘a powderkeg’

UNITED NATIONS – The head of the United Nations is warning that “the Middle East is a powder keg with many parties holding the match.”

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters Tuesday that Lebanon is on the verge of “an all-out war” and Gaza is “in a death spiral.”

He said the death toll in Lebanon has already surpassed the number of people killed in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

The conflict in the Middle East “is getting worse by the hour,” Guterres said, and every airstrike, missile launch and rocket fired “pushes peace further out of reach and makes the suffering even worse for the millions of civilians caught in the middle.”

But the secretary-general said there is still time to stop the spreading violence.

He again called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, the release of all hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the multitudes in desperate need.

Guterres also said he has written to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express “profound concern” about draft legislation that he said could prevent the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from continuing its work in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

UNRWA provides food, health care, education and other services to Palestinians and is more and more “indispensable” and “irreplaceable,” he said.

Approval of the Israeli legislation “would be a catastrophe in what is already an unmitigated disaster,” Guterres said.

36 people killed and 150 wounded in Lebanon in the past 24 hours, officials say

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s crisis response unit announced Tuesday that 36 people were killed and 150 wounded in the past 24 hours, raising the total toll over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah to 2,119 killed and 10,019 wounded, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

The report also recorded 137 airstrikes and incidents of shelling in the past day, mostly concentrated in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Some 990 centers — including educational complexes, vocational institutes, universities and other institutions — are sheltering 181,700 people people who have been displaced by the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, the report said. Of those shelters, 781 have reached full capacity.

Schools near Haifa suspended after rocket fire from Lebanon

JERUSALEM — Israel’s military suspended schools near the northern city of Haifa Tuesday following several rocket barrages that targeted the area over the last week.

Hezbollah has upped its rocket attacks on the city and other areas since the Israeli army launched its ground incursion into southern Lebanon. The military said 170 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Tuesday.

German air force organizes a fourth evacuation flight from Lebanon

BERLIN – A German air force plane is flying another 89 German citizens out of Lebanon, the fourth such flight in the past 10 days.

The Foreign Ministry wrote on X that the military Airbus A321 flew 2 tons of medical aid for Lebanese civilians to Beirut.

Germany already organized three military flights out of Beirut last week, which took a total of 460 of the country’s nationals out of Lebanon.

Italian TV crew attacked by a man while filming in southern Lebanon

MILAN — A man attacked and followed the crew of Italy’s Tg3 public broadcaster as they filmed in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, trying to break the video camera. The crew’s driver died of a heart attack suffered during the confrontation.

Lucia Goracci, an international correspondent for the state broadcaster RAI’s third channel, said the crew was filming in a village north of the coastal city of Sidon that had been bombed two days ago, having signaled their presence to the local Hezbollah authority, when a man tried to grab the camera.

“We were filming without problems. People were speaking with us,” Goracci said on a midday broadcast. When the man lunged for the camera, they quickly returned to the car. “Others arrived and starting pushing the car. The first man tried to throw a huge stone at us,” she said.

They drove away quickly, apparently unaware the man was still following them. When they stopped at a gas station, he grabbed at the car keys and tried to break the video camera through the open windows. “No one came to help us,” Goracci said.

The driver collapsed as he pled with the attacker to leave them alone, Goracci said. He was taken to a hospital, where he died.

Norway’s security service raises terror threat level in the country

HELSINKI — Norway’s domestic security service said Tuesday that threats against Jewish and Israeli targets in the Scandinavian country have increased due to the escalation of the conflict.

That has prompted the Norwegian agency, known by its acronym PST, to raise its estimate of terror threat in Norway from moderate to high — standing now at level 4 on a scale from 1 to 5.

“There are several negative conditions that have increased the terrorist threat that are linked, among other things, to the ongoing escalation of the conflict in the Middle East,” PST spokesman Eirik Veum told the Norwegian news agency NTB.

“In Norway, it is primarily the threat to Jewish and Israeli targets that has further intensified,” he said.

He said the agency had no information about any concrete plans for attacks.

Brazil’s second repatriation flights lands in Sao Paulo

RIO DE JANEIRO — The second repatriation flight from Lebanon organized by the Brazilian government landed in Sao Paulo with 227 people, including 49 children, the Brazilian air force said.

On its journey to Lebanon, the plane chartered by the Brazilian air force took medical and hospital supplies donated by Brazil, the Foreign Ministry said, adding that more flights will follow.

About 21,000 Brazilians live in Lebanon, which is home to the largest community of Brazilians in the Middle East. Two Brazilian adolescents have been killed by Israeli bombardments in Lebanon.

Turkish ministers brief lawmakers over Erdogan’s claim of Israeli threats

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s foreign and defense ministers are briefing lawmakers in parliament about a claim made by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Israel would target Turkey after Gaza and Lebanon.

The country’s main opposition party has labeled the claim as implausible but nonetheless called for the meeting, which is being held behind closed doors. These discussions are classified as state secrets and will remain confidential for 10 years.

Last week, Erdogan asserted in a speech that “the place that Israel — which is acting with the delirium of the promised lands — will set its sights on after Palestine and Lebanon will be our homeland.”

Critics say it was an attempt by Erdogan to divert attention from the country’s cost of living crisis and to consolidate nationalist and Islamist votes following a significant setback in local elections earlier this year.

China evacuates over 200 citizens from Lebanon

BEIJING — China has evacuated more than 200 citizens from Lebanon by ship and chartered flight, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

A total of 211 residents of mainland China, three Hong Kong residents and a Taiwan resident have been evacuated, according to ministry spokesperson Mao Ning.

At the request of the Lebanese government, Beijing has agreed to provide Lebanon with emergency humanitarian medical supplies, Mao added.

Fighting rages in northern Gaza after Israel’s evacuation order

CAIRO — Palestinians say heavy fighting is underway in northern Gaza, where Israel has ordered another wholesale evacuation and launched a ground operation a year into the war with Hamas.

At least 15 people, including two women and four children, were killed Tuesday in the fighting in Jabaliya, the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital said.

The Israeli military said it killed around 20 militants in airstrikes and ground fighting in Jabaliya. It said troops located a large quantity of weapons, including grenades and rifles.

The north, including Gaza City, was the first target of Israel’s ground offensive. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble and the region has been largely isolated by Israeli troops since last October, when Israel ordered everyone to leave.

Hundreds of thousands of people have remained there despite the harsh conditions, leading Israel to order another mass evacuation in recent days. Israel has prevented residents who left the north during the war from returning.

Israeli forces are battling Hamas militants in Jabaliya, home to a densely populated urban refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Palestinian residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery were pounding Jabaliya as well as Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, towns near the border.

“The situation is extremely difficult. The bombing and explosions haven’t stopped,” said Mahmoud Abu Shehatah, a Jabaliya resident. “It’s like the first days of the war.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged “total victory” over Hamas, even as the war has expanded to include Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups across the region. Months of diplomatic efforts aimed at reaching a cease-fire in Gaza appear to have fizzled out, with each side accusing the other of making unacceptable demands.

85 rockets launched from Lebanon into northern Israel, military says

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said 85 projectiles were launched Tuesday from Lebanon toward northern Israel in a significant burst of fire.

The military said most of the projectiles were intercepted. Hezbollah confirmed it fired the salvo Tuesday.

Israel’s rescue service Magen David Adom said a 70-year-old woman was moderately wounded by shrapnel. Israeli media aired footage of what appeared to be minor damage to buildings near the coastal city of Haifa.

The military also said that it struck Hezbollah targets in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, where the militant group has a strong presence.

Hezbollah leader says more Israelis will be displaced as it extends its rocket fire

BEIRUT — Hezbollah’s acting leader said Tuesday that even more Israelis will be displaced as the militant group extends its rocket fire deeper into Israel, in a defiant televised statement marking the anniversary of fighting that escalated into war last month.

Sheikh Naim Kassem said Hezbollah’s military capabilities are still intact and that it has replaced all of its senior commanders after weeks of heavy Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon, including targeted strikes that killed much of its top command in a matter of days.

He also said Israeli forces have not been able to advance after launching a ground incursion into Lebanon last week. The Israeli military said a fourth division is now taking part in the incursion, which has expanded to the west, but operations still appear to be confined to a narrow strip along the border.

Israeli reserve division begins ‘limited operations’ in southwest Lebanon

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military said a reserve division has begun limited operations against Hezbollah in southwestern Lebanon, in an apparent widening of its ground incursion.

The military said Tuesday that the 146th Division is the first reserve division to enter Lebanon since it launched ground operations just inside the border last week.

The announcement came a day after the Israeli military warned residents to evacuate from over a dozen towns and villages in southwestern Lebanon, including the coastal town of Naqoura, where U.N. peacekeepers are headquartered.

Israel has called on people to evacuate several dozen communities across southern Lebanon, many of them north of a U.N.-declared buffer zone established after the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.

Israel says its operations are aimed at halting a year of Hezbollah rocket attacks so that tens of thousands of its citizens can return to their homes in the north. Hezbollah has vowed to keep up the attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza.

The fighting, which escalated in mid-September, has displaced over 1 million Lebanese.

UN officials in Lebanon call for talks on anniversary of Israel-Hezbollah fighting

BEIRUT — The U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon and the head of the peacekeeping force deployed along the border with Israel said that a negotiated solution is the only way to restore stability and the time to act is now.

The statement by Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and Lt. Gen. Aroldo Lázaro of the U.N. peacekeeping force known as UNIFIL came on the first anniversary of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group starting attacks on Israeli military posts along the border in support of its Hamas allies in the Gaza Strip.

Over the past weeks, the exchanges along the border have expanded into Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah missile attacks that are hitting deeper inside both countries. In Lebanon, more than 1 million people have been displaced and over 1,300 killed since mid-September.

Plasschaert and Lázaro said Hezbollah’s attacks starting on Oct. 8, 2023 were in violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution that ended the 34-day Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.

“Too many lives have been lost, uprooted, and devastated, while civilians on both sides of the Blue Line are left wanting for security and stability,” the statement said referring to the border line along the Lebanon-Israel border.

“Today, one year later, the near-daily exchanges of fire have escalated into a relentless military campaign whose humanitarian impact is nothing short of catastrophic,” the statement said.

It warned that further that further violence and destruction will neither solve the underlying issues nor make anyone safer in the long run.

“A negotiated solution is the only pathway to restore the security and stability that civilians on both sides so desperately want and deserve,” the statement said. “The time to act accordingly is now.”

Turkey sends navy to evacuate citizens from Lebanon

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey is deploying two navy ships to evacuate its citizens from Lebanon amid the rising tensions in the region.

According to a statement from the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the ships, which together can accommodate up to 2,000 passengers, will depart for Lebanon on Tuesday. The evacuations are scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

The ministry said additional evacuations would be organized if necessary.

Besides evacuating citizens, the ships will be carrying humanitarian aid for Lebanon, the ministry said.

Death toll from Israeli strikes on Gaza rises to 30

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — At least 30 people, including six children and two women, were killed in Israeli strikes in central Gaza late Monday.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken, provided an updated toll Tuesday as more bodies were recovered from the rubble.

The strikes took place on the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel that triggered the war.

Two strikes hit houses in the built-up Bureij refugee camp, which dates back to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. An Associated Press journalist counted 21 bodies on Monday, along with about a dozen wounded, including several children.

The Palestinian death toll in the war in Gaza is nearing 42,000, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and militants.

Israeli military says it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut strike

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in a strike on Beirut.

The military said Tuesday that it killed Suhail Husseini, who it said was responsible for overseeing logistics, budget and management of the militant group.

There was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

The military said Husseini was involved in the transfer of advanced weapons from Iran and their distribution to different Hezbollah units, and that he was a member of the group’s military council.

Israeli strikes have killed Hezbollah’s overall leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders in recent weeks. Last week, Israel launched what it says is a limited ground incursion into southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah says it has already replaced its slain commanders. It has vowed to keep firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel until there is a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, where its ally Hamas has been at war with Israel for a year.