Category Archives: Hezbollah

Al-Qaida and IS call on followers to strike Israeli, US and Jewish targets

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Israeli military offensive in Gaza offers opportunity to extremist groups in west and Middle East, experts say

Al-Qaida and Islamic State (IS) have called on their followers to strike Israeli, US and Jewish targets, raising the prospect of new terrorist violence in the Middle East or the west.

In a series of statements over the past two weeks, affiliates of al-Qaida congratulated Hamas on its “invasion of Israel”, a reference to the terrorist attacks that killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, on 7 October.

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Israeli military discussing alternatives to full Gaza invasion with US, says Biden

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US officials warn that a ground assault could bring conflict with Hezbollah and risk a two-front war

Joe Biden has said that the US and Israeli militaries are discussing alternatives to the full invasion of Gaza widely expected since the Hamas attack on 7 October.

On the flight back to Washington after a day of talks in Israel, Biden was asked about the prospect of a large-scale ground assault by the 300,000-strong Israeli force arrayed along the border.

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Shelling on south Lebanon border kills one journalist and injures six

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Shell, reportedly Israeli, struck group of international journalists covering clashes at border

A group of international journalists covering clashes on the border in south Lebanon have been hit by shelling, with one killed and six injured. The Associated Press and Al Jazeera said the weapon was an Israeli shell.

Reuters said: “We are deeply saddened to learn that our videographer Issam Abdallah has been killed. Issam was part of a Reuters crew in southern Lebanon who was providing a live signal. Our thoughts are with their families at this terrible time.”

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‘Emphasis is on damage, not accuracy’: ground offensive into Gaza seems imminent

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Surrounded by evidence of heavy fighting and with air raid sirens still sounding, Road 232 is the new frontline between Israel and the enclave

Road 232, an Israeli highway, runs parallel to the blockaded Gaza Strip. It is surrounded by flat agricultural land in every direction, and from it the higher floors of the overcrowded enclave’s high rise buildings are clearly visible, about 3 miles (5km) away.

Now, the route appears to have become the new de facto boundary between territory controlled by Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement that launched a devastating surprise sea, land and air offensive on 20 neighbouring kibbutzim and Israeli towns last weekend. They slaughtered more than 1,000 people, and abducted dozens more to be used as bargaining chips. More than 830 people in Gaza have been killed in retaliatory Israeli airstrikes.

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Tensions escalate between Israel and Hezbollah in border region

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Lebanese militant group appears to be trying new tactics to test Israel’s resolve

Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are at their highest level in years after a series of inflammatory incidents on the UN-controlled boundary between the two countries.

Seventeen years after the Iran-backed movement’s last devastating war with Israel, Hezbollah appears to be trying new tactics in the volatile border region to test Israel’s resolve. Such brinkmanship is not unknown, but the increasing frequency of the border skirmishes is raising the likelihood of miscalculation – and escalation.

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Six dead as fighting breaks out at Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon

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At least seven injured after violence between Fatah and Islamists in Ain al-Hilweh camp

At least six people have been killed after fighting broke out in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon, Palestinian officials said on Sunday.

UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, put the death toll at six, and Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two children were among seven people wounded at the Ain al-Hilweh camp.

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‘We’re angry’: Israel tensions mount as army reservists threaten to refuse duty

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Conflict over Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul judiciary is leading to new levels of civil disobedience – and potential security risks

Over his many years of service, Zur Allon, 46, a reservist lieutenant colonel in Israel’s artillery special forces, never imagined a day when he would refuse to report for duty.

“Half of my company was blown up in Lebanon. I have given many years of my life defending this country,” said Allon, one of the leaders of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a pressure group of more than 60,000 Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reservists established earlier this year in protest against the government’s proposed overhaul of the judiciary.

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UK imposes sanctions on art collector accused of financing Hezbollah

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Nazem Ahmad, who has owned works by Picasso and Warhol, suspected of laundering money for militant group

A high-profile art collector has been put on a Treasury sanctions list and charged in the US over claims that he uses his collection, which has included masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Antony Gormley and Andy Warhol, to launder money for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Nazem Ahmad, a diamond and art dealer who once posed in his Beirut penthouse for a glossy magazine and featured in a piece about the “world’s most beautiful homes and the fascinating people who live in them”, has been targeted in the UK under new counter-terrorism powers.

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Tensions run high across Israel after car ramming attack leaves tourist dead

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Further violence feared after Arab-Israeli man drives his vehicle into busy city promenade following a West Bank shooting

On 8 April 2022, a Palestinian gunman entered a crowded bar in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial capital, and opened fire, killing three people and wounding 10. This weekend, on the anniversary of that attack, an Arab-Israeli man rammed his car into pedestrians on the city’s seaside promenade, killing an Italian tourist and injuring seven more people.

That attack followed a shooting earlier in the day in the north of the occupied West Bank that killed two British-Israeli sisters, aged 15 and 20, and left their 48-year-old mother in critical condition after their car veered off the road.

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Hezbollah and Israel pull back from the brink – but spectre of conflict looms

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The rocket attack that followed air strikes and mosque raids failed to provoke all-out war, but it must surely be inevitable

The groves of southern Lebanon had been quiet for nearly 17 years. But as farmers tended to orange trees and banana crops on Thursday, rocket men lurked among them, readying the biggest barrage fired into Israel since the war of 2006 and taking a startled region to the precipice of another conflict that leaders on both sides of the border fear will be worse than all before them.

Familiar sights of streaks through a clear blue sky, sirens and billowing smoke from impact sites were soon replaced by fear and trepidation. In Beirut and Tel Aviv, an escalation seemed imminent. But as a troubling afternoon wore on, the apocalyptic showdown between Hezbollah and Israel that had been widely predicted started to fizzle. Rhetoric was of measured responses. Israel was content to blame Palestinian groups and put a distance between them and Hezbollah. War could wait, for now.

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Beirut explosion inquiry in chaos as judges row and suspects released

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Sudden restart of investigation sets off developments leaving doubts justice for victims will be delivered

More than two years since the huge explosion that levelled Beirut’s port and horrified the world, a blazing row has broken out that has involved Lebanon’s leading judges filing charges against each other and all suspects in the stalled investigation being released.

The surprise moves come after Tarek Bitar, the judge tasked with investigating the blast, suddenly resumed his work. The inquiry had been stalled for more than a year, opposed by the country’s political factions, which have shown no interest in delivering justice for the 202 people killed and the hundreds more injured.

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Israel risks crossing Hezbollah ‘red line’ as it prepares to connect to disputed gas field

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The Karish maritime reservoir, part of which is claimed by Lebanon, is estimated to hold 2-3tn cubic feet of natural gas

Israel is preparing to connect a disputed Mediterranean gas field to its national gas network, a development helping the country cement its new role as a supplier to Europe at the risk of inflaming tensions with Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The Israeli energy ministry said last week that it would conduct tests on the rig and natural transmission system in the Karish maritime reservoir, part of which is claimed by neighbouring Lebanon. The work is expected to begin on Tuesday, and London-listed company Energean, which has licensed the field, has said that it is “on track to deliver [the] first gas from the Karish development project within weeks.”

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Fraught calm follows Beirut’s worst day of sectarian violence in decade

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World leaders appeal for peace in Lebanese capital as militia groups prepare to bury dead

A day after the worst sectarian violence in Beirut in more than a decade, a fraught calm hung over the city on Friday with streets largely empty and government offices closed as militia groups started to bury their dead.

Gunfire briefly resounded through areas that on Thursday were the scenes of intense fighting, but armed men were shooting into the air – a defiant precursor to funerals that were due to start.

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‘Trump is crazy’: Hezbollah sees threat in US president’s final days

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Leaders fear Donald Trump and Israel will act against Iran and Hezbollah before Joe Biden’s arrival

For the past four years, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has fought a war in Syria, supported Iraqi forces and stage-managed the politics of its homeland, all the while trying to avoid facing off with Israel. Yet its exhausted leaders fear the last gasps of Donald Trump’s presidency could deliver threats that eclipse everything else.

In the organisation’s heartland, Hezbollah members are watching the clock – and the skies. Israeli jets have been streaking overhead for more than a month, and over the past few weeks the frequency of flights has sharply increased, as has security in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the nerve centre of the region’s most powerful militant group.

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Iranian scientist’s death only the latest in long line of attacks blamed on Israel

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The Middle East is on edge as the Trump administration enters its final weeks

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may be the most senior Iranian nuclear scientist to have been assassinated but he is certainly not the first, joining at least four others during the past decade.

In killings Iran said were aimed at sabotaging its nuclear energy ambitions – it does not acknowledge using the technology for weapons – the country has consistently pointed the finger at Israel, its regional arch-foe.

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US imposes sanctions on Lebanon’s former foreign minister

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Trump administration moves against Gibran Bassil for alleged corruption

The Trump administration has imposed Treasury sanctions on one of Lebanon’s most influential politicians as it intensifies attempts to defang the militia and political powerhouse Hezbollah.

The move against Gibran Bassil for alleged corruption was announced on Friday as Trump’s chances of re-election continued to dip, and marks a sharp escalation of efforts to limit Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanese affairs. Crucially, it is a direct challenge to the country’s president and Bassil’s father in law, Michel Aoun, who Washington has considered an ally.

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Iraqi PM rallies allies to stop US closing embassy after Pompeo threats

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US warned Mustafa al-Kadhimi it will withdraw diplomats if Baghdad fails to prevent rocket attacks

Iraq’s prime minister has rallied allies to help stop the US from closing its embassy in the country after the Trump administration threatened to withdraw its diplomats if Baghdad fails to stop persistent rocket attacks.

The ultimatum was delivered over the weekend by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to Mustafa al-Kadhimi, and was followed by a small-scale evacuation from the fortified mission in what officials saw as a statement of intent.

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Lebanon’s leader Mustapha Adib steps down as hopes for reform collapse

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The acting prime minister failed to form a government from among the feuding political blocs that have led the country to ruin

Lebanon’s prime minister designate, Mustapha Adib, has stood down after failing to form a government in a month of negotiations, in a further blow to a country reeling under the weight of multiple crises.

The talks were brought down by the issue of who would nominate key cabinet ministers, particularly the finance minister. The government is made up of feuding political blocs, and the powerful Shia groups Hezbollah and Amal insisted on controlling the finance ministry, despite demands for a technocratic government that could

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US accuses Hezbollah of stockpiling weapons and ammonium nitrate across Europe

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State department’s Nathan Sales says group ‘represents clear and present danger to the US’ and urges Europe to take tougher line

The US has accused Hezbollah of storing caches of weapons and ammonium nitrate for use in explosives across Europe in recent years, with the alleged aim of preparing for future attacks ordered by Iran.

The allegation was made by the state department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Nathan Sales, who called on European countries to take a tougher line on the Tehran-backed Lebanese Shia political movement and militia.

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Beirut’s devastating blast has not shaken the ruling class’s grip on Lebanon | Gilbert Achcar

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Many Lebanese people had hoped for a silver lining to this tragedy of an independent government and new elections

The tremendous blast that shook Lebanon on 4 August will be recorded as a major turning point in the country’s history, no less so than the much less powerful explosion that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri on 14 February 2005. Judging from the 15 years it took before a UN-appointed tribunal basically admitted its impotence on the latter event, there won’t be any official certainty about the circumstances of the terrible explosion at Beirut’s port in the foreseeable future. A few conclusions can, however. be drawn about this highly traumatic tragedy.

Related: 'Our stitches ran out': Beirut's struggle to deal with injuries from port blast

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