Israel says ‘senior Hezbollah operative’ seized in commando raid

Lebanese intelligence officers leave a building in Batroun, northern Lebanon, where Imad Amhaz was taken by Israeli special forces on Friday. (AP)
Lebanese intelligence officers leave a building in Batroun, northern Lebanon, where Imad Amhaz was taken by Israeli special forces on Friday. (AP)
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Updated 03 November 2024
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Israel says ‘senior Hezbollah operative’ seized in commando raid

Lebanese intelligence officers leave a building in Batroun, northern Lebanon, where Imad Amhaz was taken by Israeli forces.
  • Lebanon condemns ‘blatant violation,’ launches urgent inquiry
  • Strikes on Baalbek, southern regions, while Hezbollah targets 10 settlements

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces on Sunday took statements from eyewitnesses after Israeli commandos abducted a man said to be a senior Hezbollah naval operative.

In one of the most dramatic raids of the current conflict, Imad Amhaz was taken from a chalet he rented with his family in the coastal town of Batroun, northern Lebanon, by Israeli special forces who escaped by speedboat in the early hours of Friday.

Amhaz’s wife and a neighbor were among those interviewed by Lebanese security forces.

The abduction was kept secret in Lebanon until leaked footage of the operation appeared showing about 20 Israeli soldiers, fully equipped, leading Amhaz away.

Israel said that the raid, which took place about 40 km north of Beirut, lasted only a few minutes.

However, Lebanon denies Amhaz has links with Hezbollah, and has said it will file an urgent complaint with the UN Security Council.

Ali Hamieh, caretaker minister of public works and transport, on Sunday described the Batroun raid as “a blatant violation of Lebanese sovereignty.”

He said the government is still waiting on a detailed report into the incident, and added that caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati is “making contacts to neutralize the land and sea crossings from Israeli attacks.”

In a social media post and interviews with local television, Amhaz’s father, Fadel, called on the Lebanese government, navy, and UNIFIL forces to pursue his son’s case and work to have him released.

He said that his son is a civilian boat captain and had been studying in Batroun at the Marsati Institute for Marine Sciences, where he had undertaken courses since 2013.

“Imad usually works on civilian ships that transport either livestock or cars. He spends most of his time at sea. He has no connection to parties and does not interfere in politics,” his father said.

He called on the International Red Cross and UNIFIL forces to “communicate with the kidnappers to return my son to his family safely.”

Israeli Army Radio on Sunday said the naval commando operation in Batroun resulted in “the arrest of a Hezbollah leader.”

According to the military outlet, the operation had been planned for a long time, with Israeli intelligence services “waiting for an opportunity that would allow a high degree of certainty for its success.”

The radio reported that “the investigators, who speak Arabic, conducted a preliminary interrogation of the Hezbollah member who was arrested to confirm that he was the person targeted, he is a key member of Hezbollah and a figure fully involved in the party’s activities, and not an innocent Lebanese citizen as some parties in Lebanon tried to portray him.”

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes continued on Sunday in southern Lebanon and the Baalbek region.

A raid on a house in the town of Joya killed two people and injured several others. Raids also targeted towns in the Tyre, Nabatieh, Iqlim Al-Tuffah, Zahrani, and Sidon districts.

Three people were killed and nine injured in a raid on the town of Harat Saida, according to the Ministry of Health.

The Israeli army evacuated areas near the border town of Khiyam, according to Hezbollah, but retreated “after receiving severe blows from the party’s fighters.”

The Israeli army said that it had killed Farouk Amin Al-Asi, a Hezbollah company commander in Khiyam, while Youssef Ahmed Noun, a platoon commander in the Radwan Force in the Khiyam area, was also targeted.

A UNIFIL force and paramedics on Saturday reached Wata Al-Khiam, where dozens of civilians were believed to be sheltering in a house following clashes more than a week ago.

However, it turned out that the house had been leveled. Some bodies were recovered, while others remain beneath the rubble.

Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed in a post that “the Israeli army found on Sunday inside a children’s room in a house in the heart of a village in the south, which he did not name, rockets and combat equipment and destroyed them.”

Adraee said: “The forces of the 91st Division continued their specific ground activities in the south to thwart and destroy the infrastructure and eliminate Hezbollah elements.”

Israeli troops warned residents of Baalbek and the surrounding areas on Sunday to leave their homes.

The warning gave a four-hour deadline, but Israeli attacks began before the deadline expired with raids on the city of Baalbek and Douris, one of which struck the government hospital in Baalbek. 


Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 6, including 2 children

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 6, including 2 children
Updated 4 sec ago
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Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 6, including 2 children

Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 6, including 2 children
  • The strike in the Muwasi area is a sprawling tent camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people
  • Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 44,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children
DEIR AL-BALAH: Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least six people overnight, including two young children who died in the tent where their family was sheltering, medical officials said Sunday.
The strike in the Muwasi area, a sprawling tent camp housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people, also wounded the children’s mother and their sibling, according to the nearby Nasser Hospital. An Associated Press reporter at the hospital saw the bodies.
A separate strike in the southern city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, killed four men, according to hospital records.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its daily strikes across Gaza often kill women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around people 250 hostage. Some 100 captives are still being held inside Gaza, around two-thirds of whom are believed to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 44,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of the coastal enclave and displaced 90 percent of the population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands have crammed into squalid tent camps, where conditions have worsened as the cold, wet winter sets in.
Israel reached a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants last week that has largely held, but that agreement, brokered by the United States and France, did not address the ongoing war in Gaza.
The United States, Qatar and Egypt have spent much of the past year trying to broker a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages, but those efforts stalled as Israel rejected Hamas’ demand for a complete withdrawal from the territory. The Biden administration has said it will make another push for a deal in its final weeks in office.
US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to end the wars in the Middle East, without saying how. He was a staunch defender of Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians during his previous term.

Syrian militants expand offensive after taking Aleppo

Syrian militants expand offensive after taking Aleppo
Updated 30 min 14 sec ago
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Syrian militants expand offensive after taking Aleppo

Syrian militants expand offensive after taking Aleppo
  • Thousands of fighters move to nearby province, facing almost no defense from government forces
  • Syria’s President Bashar Assad says will defeat militants no matter how much their attacks intensify

BEIRUT: Thousands of Syrian militants took over most of Aleppo on Saturday, establishing positions in the country’s largest city and controlling its airport before expanding their shock offensive to a nearby province. They faced little to no resistance from government troops, according to fighters and activists.

A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the insurgents led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham seized control of Aleppo International airport, the first international airport to be controlled by insurgents. The fighters claimed they seized the airport and posted pictures from there.

Thousands of fighters also moved on, facing almost no opposition from government forces, to seize towns and villages in northern Hama, a province where they had a presence before being expelled by government troops in 2016. They claimed Saturday evening to have entered the city of Hama.

A huge embarrassment for Assad

The swift and surprise offensive is a huge embarrassment for Syria’s President Bashar Assad and raises questions about his armed forces’ preparedness. The insurgent offensive launched from their stronghold in the country’s northwest appeared to have been planned for years. It also comes at a time when Assad’s allies were preoccupied with their own conflicts.

In his first public comments since the start of the offensive, released by the state news agency Saturday evening, Assad said Syria will continue to “defend its stability and territorial integrity against terrorists and their supporters.” He added that Syria is able to defeat them no matter how much their attacks intensify.

Turkiye, a main backer of Syrian opposition groups, said its diplomatic efforts had failed to stop government attacks on opposition-held areas in recent weeks, which were in violation of a de-escalation agreement sponsored by Russia, Iran and Ankara. Turkish security officials said a limited offensive by the militants was planned to stop government attacks and allow civilians to return, but the offensive expanded as Syrian government forces began to retreat from their positions.

The insurgents, led by the Salafi militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and including Turkiye-backed fighters, launched their shock offensive on Wednesday. They first staged a two-pronged attack in Aleppo and the Idlib countryside, entering Aleppo two days later and securing a strategic town that lies on the highway that links Syria’s largest city to the capital and the coast.

By Saturday evening, they seized at least four towns in the central Hama province and claimed to have entered the provincial capital. The insurgents staged an attempt to reclaim areas they controlled in Hama in 2017 but failed.

Preparing a counterattack

Syria’s armed forces said in a statement Saturday that to absorb the large attack on Aleppo and save lives, it redeployed troops and equipment and was preparing a counterattack. The statement acknowledged that insurgents entered large parts of the city but said they have not established bases or checkpoints. Later on Saturday, the armed forces sought to dispel what it said were lies in reference to reports about its forces retreating or defecting, saying the general command was carrying out its duties in “combatting terrorist organizations.”

The return of the insurgents to Aleppo was their first since 2016, following a grueling military campaign in which Assad’s forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.

The 2016 battle for Aleppo was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and militant fighters after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war. After appearing to be losing control of the country to the militants, the Aleppo battle secured Assad’s hold on strategic areas of Syria, with opposition factions and their foreign backers controlling areas on the periphery.

The lightning offensive threatened to reignite the country’s civil war, which had been largely in a stalemate for years.

Late on Friday, witnesses said two airstrikes hit the edge of Aleppo city, targeting insurgent reinforcements and falling near residential areas. The Observatory said 20 fighters were killed.

Insurgents were filmed outside police headquarters, in the city center, and outside the Aleppo citadel, the medieval palace in the old city center, and one of the largest in the world. They tore down posters of Assad, stepping on some and burning others.

The push into Aleppo followed weeks of simmering low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas.

The offensive came as Iran-linked groups, primarily Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has backed Syrian government forces since 2015, have been preoccupied with their own battles at home. A ceasefire in Hezbollah’s two-month war with Israel took effect Wednesday, the same day that Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive. Israel has also escalated its attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria during the last 70 days.

Insurgents raise flags over the Aleppo citadel

Speaking from the heart of the city in Saadallah Aljabri square, opposition fighter Mohammad Al-Abdo said it was his first time back in Aleppo in 13 years, when his older brother was killed at the start of the war.

“God willing, the rest of Aleppo province will be liberated” from government forces, he said.

There was light traffic in the city center on Saturday. Opposition fighters fired in the air in celebration but there was no sign of clashes or government troops present.

Journalists in the city filmed soldiers captured by the insurgents and the bodies of others killed in battle.

Abdulkafi Alhamdo, a teacher who fled Aleppo in 2016 and returned Friday night after hearing the insurgents were inside, described “mixed feelings of pain, sadness and old memories.”

“As I entered Aleppo, I kept telling myself this is impossible. How did this happen?”

Alhamdo said he strolled through the city at night visiting the Aleppo citadel, where the insurgents raised their flags, a major square and the university of Aleppo, as well as the last spot he was in before he was forced to leave for the countryside.

“I walked in (the empty) streets of Aleppo, shouting, ‘People, people of Aleppo. We are your sons,’” he told The Associated Press in a series of messages.

City’s hospitals are full

Aleppo residents reported hearing clashes and gunfire but most stayed indoors. Some fled the fighting.

Schools and government offices were closed Saturday as most people stayed indoors, according to Sham FM radio, a pro-government station. Bakeries were open. Witnesses said the insurgents deployed security forces around the city to prevent any acts of violence or looting.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday Aleppo’s two key public hospitals were reportedly full of patients while many private facilities closed.

In social media posts, the insurgents were pictured outside of the citadel, the medieval palace in the old city center, and one of the largest in the world. In cellphone videos, they recorded themselves having conversations with residents they visited at home, seeking to reassure them they will cause no harm.

The Syrian Kurdish-led administration in the country’s east said nearly 3,000 people, most of them students, had arrived in their region after fleeing the fighting in Aleppo, which has a sizeable Kurdish population.

State media reported that a number of “terrorists,” including sleeper cells, infiltrated parts of the city. Government troops chased them and arrested a number who posed for pictures near city landmarks, they said.

On a state TV morning show Saturday, commentators said army reinforcements and Russia’s assistance would repel the “terrorist groups,” blaming Turkiye for supporting the insurgents’ push into Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, a Russian Defense Ministry official coordinating in Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who had launched the offensive in the northwest on Friday. It provided no further details.


Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire

Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire
Updated 01 December 2024
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Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire

Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire
  • Days-old ceasefire halted months of fighting between both sides but has seen sporadic fire
  • Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations

TEL AVIV: Israeli aircraft struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites along Syria’s border with Lebanon, the Israeli military said Saturday, testing a fragile, days-old ceasefire that halted months of fighting between the sides but has seen continued sporadic fire.
The military said it struck sites that had been used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military said was a violation of its terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah also did not immediately comment.
The Israeli strike, the latest of several since the ceasefire began on Wednesday, came as unrest spread to other areas of the Middle East, with Syrian insurgents breaching the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added fresh uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars.
The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, brokered by the United States and France, calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants are to withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border.
The repeated bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold. While Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire, Lebanon has also accused Israel of the same in the days since it took effect.
Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced in the conflict, were streaming south to their homes, despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone attacked a car in the southern village of Majdal Zoun. The agency said there had been casualties but gave no further details. Majdal Zoun, near the Mediterranean Sea, is close to where Israeli troops still have a presence.
The military said earlier Saturday that its forces, who remain in southern Lebanon until they withdraw gradually over the 60-day period, had been operating to distance “suspects” in the region, without elaborating, and said troops had located and seized weapons found hidden in a mosque.
Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations. Israel has made returning the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis home the goal of the war with Hezbollah but Israelis, concerned Hezbollah was not deterred and could still attack northern communities, have been apprehensive about returning home.
Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and its assault on southern Israel the day before. Israel and Hezbollah kept up a low-level conflict of cross-border fire for nearly a year, until Israel escalated its fight with a sophisticated attack that detonated hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah fighters. It followed that up with an intense aerial bombardment campaign against Hezbollah assets, killing many of its top leaders including longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, and it launched a ground invasion in early October.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.


Israeli military says projectile launched from Yemen intercepted

Israeli military says projectile launched from Yemen intercepted
Updated 01 December 2024
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Israeli military says projectile launched from Yemen intercepted

Israeli military says projectile launched from Yemen intercepted

The Israeli military said on Sunday that a projectile launched from Yemen was intercepted before it crossed into Israeli territory.
The military earlier said sirens had sounded in a number of areas in central Israel following a launch from Yemen.
The Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Israel repeatedly in what they say is solidarity with the Palestinians, since the Gaza war began in 2023.


Iraq PM says Syria security key to Middle East stability

Iraq PM says Syria security key to Middle East stability
Updated 01 December 2024
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Iraq PM says Syria security key to Middle East stability

Iraq PM says Syria security key to Middle East stability
  • “Sudani emphasized that Syria’s security and stability are closely linked to Iraq’s national security and play a crucial role in regional security

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani told Syrian President Bashar Assad on Saturday that his country’s security was key to the stability of the whole region.
“Sudani emphasized that Syria’s security and stability are closely linked to Iraq’s national security and play a crucial role in regional security and efforts to establish stability in the Middle East,” his office said.