Foreign
Israel Launches Extensive Strikes In Lebanon In Retaliation Of Israeli Soldier Killed
At least four people were reportedly killed in Israeli extensive air strikes in Lebanon after Hezbollah rocket fire killed a soldier in Israel.
A woman and two children were killed in the southern Lebanese town of Souaneh, state media and security sources said.
A man who Hezbollah identified as one of its fighters was killed in Aadchit.
Israel’s military said it hit Hezbollah infrastructure in response to a deadly rocket attack on its base in the northern Israeli town of Safed.
The Israeli Defence Force confirmed the attacks on their official X.com platform monitored by SOJ WORLDWIDE, it claimed,
“In response to ongoing rocket fire toward northern Israel, IDF fighter jets struck a series of Hezbollah terrorist targets.
The targets included military compounds, operational control rooms, and terrorist infrastructure. Several targets belonged to Hezbollah’s elite by Radwan Forces.” – IDF said.
Hezbollah fighters have exchanged fire with Israeli forces almost every day along the border since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October.
The clashes have raised fears of a wider regional conflict.
On Wednesday morning, sirens sounded across Northern Israel as barrages of rockets were fired towards the border communities of Netua and Manara, and the town of Safed, which is 14 km (9 miles) south of the frontier.
One Israeli soldier was killed and seven others were wounded after their base in Safed was hit by rockets, Israeli media and emergency services said. The soldier who died was later identified as Staff-Sergeant Omer Sarah Benjo.
A video showed that another rocket landed near the gate of Safed’s hospital.
Hezbollah later claimed it had attacked an “enemy position” in Safed “in support of the people and resistance of Gaza which is being subjected to brutal Zionist aggression with a US green light”.
In the afternoon, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that fighter jets had “struck a series of Hezbollah terror targets” in Souaneh, Aadchit, Jabal al-Braij, Kfar Houneh and Kfar Dunin in response to the rocket fire.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said it would only cease fire “when the aggression stops and there is a ceasefire in Gaza”
“Among the targets struck were military compounds, operational control rooms, and terror infrastructure,” it said, adding that several targets belonged to Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, whose well-trained members are considered the group’s special forces.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said a strike on a home in Souaneh killed a Syrian woman, Rawaa al-Mohammed, and her two sons, Hassan Mohsen, 13, and Amir Mohsen, two.
Video from the town showed residents inspecting the rubble of at least one destroyed building and the burned-out wreckage of a car.
NNA also reported that one man was killed and 10 other people were injured in Aadchit. It named the dead man as Hassan Ali Najm, a Hezbollah fighter whose death the group confirmed in a statement on Telegram.
“As we have made clear time and time again, Israel is not interested in a war on two fronts. But if provoked, we will respond forcefully,” Israeli government spokesperson Ilana Stein told Reuters news agency.
“The current reality, where tens of thousands of Israelis are displaced [in the north] and cannot return to their homes, is unbearable. They must be able to return home and live in peace and security.”
The IDF’s chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, meanwhile told the heads of northern municipalities: “There are great achievements striking Hezbollah in Lebanon, but we continue to operate – this is not the time to stop.
“We are intensifying the strikes all the time, and Hezbollah are paying an increasingly heavy price.”
On Tuesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israeli leaders in a speech that launching a war against the group would result in a “million evacuees” from northern Israel.
“To those who threaten us with a widening of the war: if you widen, we will too,” he said, adding that “those who think the resistance might be afraid are very mistaken”.
He also vowed that Hezbollah would only cease fire “when the aggression stops and there is a ceasefire in Gaza”.
Fresh Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 25 Palestinians, according to medics.
The casualties on Friday included at least eight people in an apartment in the Nuseirat refugee camp and 10 others in the town of Jabalia, among them seven children.
Efforts to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas have yet to succeed.
Sources involved in the negotiations told Reuters on Thursday that Qatar and Egypt had resolved some points of contention but key issues remain unresolved.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza following Hamas-led attacks on Israeli communities on October 7, 2023.
The attacks resulted in the deaths of 1200 people and the abduction of over 250 hostages, according to Israeli reports.
Israel states that approximately 100 hostages are still being held, though it is unclear how many remain alive.
Gaza authorities report that Israel’s ongoing campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians and displaced the majority of the 2.3 million residents.
Much of the territory has reportedly been devastated by the conflict.
President Biden signed the stopgap funding bill that will keep the government open until March, punting the thornier issues surrounding the nation’s finances to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
A bloated 1,500-page funding measure was exploded by Trump and his top ally Elon Musk earlier this week as they demanded a pared-down version.
The parties were able to cobble a stopgap bill together Friday evening, which passed the Senate early Saturday morning.
The package funds the government at current levels until March 14, 2025, and includes $100 billion in hurricane relief funds and $10 billion in aid to farmers.
With the stopgap funding only running until March, an almost certain clash is looming between Trump and GOP spending hardliners when Congress reconvenes in January.
“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open and delivers the urgently needed disaster relief that I requested for recovering communities as well as the funds needed to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” Biden said in a statement after inking the deal.
The post Biden signs bipartisan funding bill to keep government open appeared first on New York Post.
A military court in Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don on Friday sentenced an unnamed resident of eastern Ukraine’s Lugansk region to 16 years in prison for “high treason,” according to Russia’s FSB security service.
Moscow regularly imposes heavy sentences on individuals it accuses of spying for Ukraine and has consistently imprisoned Ukrainians both in Russia and in occupied territories.
The sentencing coincided with President Vladimir Putin’s call for security services to adopt “tough” anti-terror measures, with a particular focus on military counter-intelligence, as the Kremlin’s offensive in Ukraine nears its third year.
Putin urged the special services to “identify spies and traitors” and “disrupt the work of foreign security services.”
Prosecutors claimed the accused had passed information about the Russian armed forces to Kyiv’s security services.
The FSB, as reported by Russian news agencies, stated that the man was found guilty of state treason, aiding terrorist activities, and the illegal handling and transport of explosives.
The court ordered him to serve his sentence in a high-security penal colony.
The TASS news agency released a video of the man’s arrest, showing FSB officers stopping a car, dragging a man out, throwing him to the ground, and handcuffing him before taking him to the local FSB headquarters.
The video, filmed by the FSB, featured the man—his face blurred — stating that he had been recruited by Ukraine’s SBU security service in 2016.
Russia frequently publishes confession videos filmed by the FSB after arrests.
Meanwhile, independent Russian media reported that an activist had died by suicide on Thursday in a Rostov detention centre, shortly after being sentenced to 16 years in prison, also in the Rostov region.
The Mediazona website confirmed with prison officials that Roman Shved, a 39-year-old anarchist sentenced for an arson attack on a government building following the Kremlin’s 2022 military mobilisation, had died in the detention centre.
Several social media channels reported that Shved had taken his life just hours after being sentenced.
Russia has prosecuted thousands of its citizens for opposing the Ukraine conflict.
AFP
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