6/19/2024–|Last updated: 6/19/202410:51 PM (Mecca time)
Today, Wednesday, Hezbollah announced that it launched several operations against Israeli positions off the border, while Israeli fighters and drones launched raids on towns in southern Lebanon.
This comes at a time when the Lebanese party announced that 4 of its members were killed in confrontations with the Israeli army, bringing the death toll since last October 8 to 346 members.
These developments on the ground coincide with the announcement by the American envoy to Lebanon, Amos Hockstein, of the failure of attempts to reach a settlement between Hezbollah and Israel, according to what Israeli Channel 13 reported.
Israeli threats
The tone of Israeli officials escalated regarding the escalation on the northern front, as the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted a senior official as saying, “If Hezbollah continues to attack us, southern Lebanon will look like Gaza and there will be no immunity for Beirut.”
Israeli Channel 12 also quoted Defense Minister Yoav Galant as saying, “Hezbollah started the war and our duty is to change the situation.”
The Axios news website reported on American officials saying that the new dispute between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the administration of President Joe Biden is hampering efforts to calm the situation on the Lebanese border.
The website had quoted an Israeli official as saying that the White House had informed Netanyahu’s government that Biden’s senior advisors had decided to cancel the strategic dialogue between Tel Aviv and Washington regarding Iran “due to organizational problems.”
Hezbollah operations
Hezbollah announced that its fighters today attacked 3 Israeli targets off the southern border, noting that it bombed the Eastern Brigade headquarters in the Kiryat Shmona barracks with dozens of Katyusha rockets and artillery shells.
He also announced attacking Israeli soldiers with marches and bombing spy equipment in the Metulla settlement and the Jal al-Alam site with artillery shells.
He added that he also targeted a position of Israeli soldiers inside the Al-Baghdadi site with a assault march, achieving a direct hit, in addition to targeting other soldiers at the Al-Rahib border site.
Raids and bombing
On the other hand, the Israeli army said that it monitored the launching of about 15 rocket shells from Lebanon towards Kiryat Shmona, and responded with artillery shelling at the sources of the fire.
Israeli fighters and drones also launched raids on the towns of Barghaliya, Khiam, Al-Wazzani, and Yaroun, while Israeli artillery bombed the vicinity of the border towns of Shebaa, Kafar Shuba, Kafr Hamam, Rashaya Al-Fakhar, Al-Taybeh, and Houla.
The Israeli army spokesman said that its planes also targeted a Hezbollah military building in the Tire area, in addition to the party’s sites in the Khiam area in southern Lebanon.
The Lebanese News Agency said that Israel bombed the town of Kafr Kila and the outskirts of the town of Al-Adisa with internationally banned phosphorus, which led to a number of casualties.
Daily bombing
It should be noted that Palestinian and Lebanese factions in Lebanon, most notably Hezbollah, have been exchanging daily bombings with the Israeli army on the border since last October, resulting in hundreds of casualties, including dead and wounded, most of them on the Lebanese side.
The factions confirm that their operations fall within the framework of solidarity with the Gaza Strip, which has been exposed since October 7, 2023 to a devastating Israeli war that left nearly 123,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing amid famine and massive destruction of housing and infrastructure. .
