Despite devastating blows, Hezbollah says it’s ready for war with Israel

[Pelican Press 0]

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Despite devastating blows, Hezbollah says it’s ready for war with *******

Beirut, Lebanon — ******* expanded its airstrikes on

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in Lebanon and beyond over the weekend, launching raids thousands of miles away on

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. The ********

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in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida came after months of U.S. and British strikes against the group – a ****** response to the rebels’ regular

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on international military and commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

The ******** strikes also came, however, amid growing concern that

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with the Houthi’s ideological allies ****** in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon could spiral into a broad regional conflict, drawing in Iran and even the U.S. to back their respective allies.

******* hit the Houthis just a couple days after it assassinated Hezbollah’s longtime leader

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with a massive airstrike on Friday.

After that strike, ******** forces continued pounding purported Hezbollah and ****** targets across Lebanon’s south and east all weekend, but the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah stronghold where Nasrallah was ******* along with another senior commander and two other high-ranking members of the group, has borne the brunt.

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A man mourns people ******* in an ******** strike in the village of Ain Deleb, near the southern Lebanon city of Sidon, Sept. 30, 2024. / Credit: Aziz Taher/REUTERS

The well-armed group’s surviving deputy leader Naim Qassem vowed Monday that Hezbollah would carry on – despite

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, and before that exploding pagers and walkie talkies – “facing the ******** ****** to support Gaza and Palestine.”

He accused the U.S. of offering ******* “limitless support” for ******* to carry out “massacres” in Lebanon and Gaza, and then claimed Hezbollah had fired even more weapons at *******, and deep into the country, since Nasrallah was *******.

But Hezbollah’s incessant drone and rocket ***** is virtually wiped out by *******’s advanced air defenses before it reaches any targets. There have been civilians injured over the last couple weeks, but in Lebanon’s capital, entire residential buildings have been flattened.

CBS News went to see the aftermath of one ******** strike Sunday on the edge of Dahiyeh. A five-storey-building was reduced to rubble. It was still smoldering as another massive ***** reverberated in the distance, underscoring the unpredictable security situation for Lebanese civilians as ******* carries on, determined, it says, to push Hezbollah many miles away from its border to stop the cross-border attacks.

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/ Credit: Getty/iStockphoto

******* has assassinated at least five Hezbollah commanders over the past week alone, and 19 in just a few months — dealing a major ***** to the U.S.-designated ********** group. Hezbollah ramped up its attacks on ******* a day after ******** forces launched their first airstrikes on its ****** allies, in immediate response to ******’ Oct. 7 massacre.

Hezbollah has acknowledged losing more than 30 operatives in recent weeks, including many of its senior leaders, but the ferocity and pace of the ******** strikes in Lebanon has also taken a massive toll on Lebanese civilians. At least 1,000 people have been ******* in just two weeks — 105 on Sunday alone.

According to Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the strikes have displaced almost 1 million people from their homes, most of them fleeing southern Lebanon for Beirut of other locations further north.

Some of those displaced families — including many with young children — have come to Beirut’s iconic Blue Mosque, desperate to find safety. The place of worship has become a refuge for people who told CBS News they’d rather sleep in the courtyard’s surrounding the building, out in the open, than go back to their neighborhoods amid *******’s bombardment.

Samar al-Attrash is among those who have found sanctuary outside the mosque. She fled her home in Dahiyeh with her husband and their three children, and little more than the clothes on their backs.

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CBS News correspondent Imtiaz Tyab (right) speaks with Samar al-Attrash as she sits with her husband and their three young children on the steps of Beirut’s Blue Mosque, to which they fled seeking shelter amid ******** ******** near their home in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh, Sept, 28, 2024. / Credit: CBS News

“We have nowhere to go to but here,” the mother told us. “We are very scared and we can’t go back to Dahiyeh at all until the situation gets better.”

“I told my kids it’s scary and that we can’t go home,” she said. “I’m only telling [them] a little at a time so I don’t traumatize them.”

President Biden reiterated his warning on Sunday that an all-out regional war must be avoided, but as he spoke, CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay and his team reported that tanks and armored vehicles were massing on the ******** side of the country’s northern border with Lebanon.

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A photo provided by the ******* Defense Forces shows Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in ******, meeting ******** forces near the country’s northern border with Lebanon, Sept. 30, 2024. / Credit: IDF handout

On Monday, ******** Defense Minister Yoav Gallant paid another visit to ******** troops waiting for orders near the border, telling them ******** Nasrallah was, “an important step, but it is not the final one.”

“We will employ all of our capabilities,” Gallant told the ******** troops, “and this includes you.”

It was the latest clear signal that ******* is preparing for some kind of ground operation in Lebanon — a move that has the potential to spark fighting even deadlier than anything seen since Oct. 7.

Despite the body blows dealt by *******, Hezbollah’s deputy leader claimed Monday that the group’s “military capabilities are solid,” that it “will continue along the same path” it has been on for months – and that it is ready for a war with *******.

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#devastating #blows #Hezbollah #ready #war #*******

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