Israel airstrikes hit southern Beirut cutting off key crossing into Syria – National

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******* airstrikes hit southern Beirut cutting off key crossing into Syria – National

******* carried out another series of punishing airstrikes Friday, hitting suburban Beirut and cutting off the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria for tens of thousands of people fleeing the ******** bombardment of the Hezbollah militant group.

The overnight blasts in Beirut’s southern suburbs sent huge plumes of smoke and flames into the night sky and shook buildings kilometers (miles) away in the Lebanese capital. Additional strikes sent people running for cover in streets littered with rubble in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, where at least one building was leveled and cars were burned out.

The ******** military said it targeted Hezbollah’s central intelligence headquarters around midnight. It did not say who it was aiming for or if any militants were ******* in that strike, but it claimed to have ******* 100 Hezbollah fighters in the last 24 hours.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported more than 10 consecutive airstrikes in the area. Some 1,400 Lebanese, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been ******* and some 1.2 million driven from their homes since ******* escalated its strikes in late September aiming to cripple Hezbollah and push it away from the countries’ shared border.

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Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched about 100 rockets into ******* on Friday, the ******* military said.

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******** airstrike on central Beirut ****** 7 Hezbollah-affiliated first responders

The ******** military also said that a strike in Beirut the day before ******* Mohammed Rashid Skafi, the head of Hezbollah’s communications division. The military said in a statement that Skafi was “a senior Hezbollah ********** who was responsible for the communications unit since 2000” and was “closely affiliated” with high-up Hezbollah officials.

Thursday’s strike along the Lebanon-Syria border, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of Beirut, led to the closure of the road near the busy Masnaa Border Crossing — the first time it has been cut off since Hezbollah and ******* began trading ***** almost a year ago.

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******* said it targeted the crossing because it was being used by Hezbollah to transport military equipment across the border. It said fighter jets had struck a tunnel used to smuggle weapons from Iran and other proxies into Lebanon.

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Hezbollah is believed to have received much of its weaponry through Syria from Iran, its main backer.

Associated Press video footage showed two huge craters on each side of the road. People got out of cars, unable to pass, carrying bags of their possessions as they crossed on foot. More than 250,000 Syrians and 82,000 Lebanese have fled across the border into Syria during the escalation of the past two weeks. There are a half-dozen crossings between the two countries, and most remain open.

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******* launched its ground escalation in Lebanon on Tuesday, and its forces have been clashing with Hezbollah militants in a narrow strip along the border. ******* has vowed to put an end to Hezbollah ***** into northern *******, after nearly a year of exchanges between the two sides that drove tens of thousands of people from their homes on both sides of the border. ******** strikes over the past two weeks ******* some of Hezbollah’s key members, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.

On Thursday, ******* warned people to evacuate communities in southern Lebanon, including areas beyond the buffer zone declared by the ******* Nations after ******* and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006.

******** Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told reporters Friday that the ground operations were limited, aimed at rooting out Hezbollah militants and making the border safe for northern residents of ******* to return to their homes,

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“First of all, our mission is to make sure they’re (Hezbollah) not there,” Shoshani said. “Afterwards we will talk about how we make sure they don’t come back.”

Nine ******** troops have been ******* in close fighting in the area, which is saturated with arms and explosives, the military said.

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Two more soldiers were ******* and two were severely wounded by a drone ******* in northern *******, military officials said.

An umbrella group of Iranian-backed militias in Iraq calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq said it carried out three drone strikes Friday in northern *******. In recent months, the group has regularly claimed drone strikes launched at *******, but the strikes have rarely landed.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who was in Beirut on Friday to meet Lebanese officials, warned that if ******* carries out an ******* on Iran, Tehran would retaliate more powerfully than it did this week when it launched at least 180 missiles into ******* in retaliation for ******** strikes on Hezbollah.

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The missile barrage amid a series of rapidly escalating attacks has threatened to push the Middle East closer to a regionwide war.

“If the ******** entity takes any step or measure against us, our retaliation will be stronger than the previous one,” Araghchi said after meeting Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri.

In the Iranian capital, Tehran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led Friday prayers and delivered a speech in which he praised the country’s missile strikes on ******* and said Iran was prepared to conduct more strikes if needed.

He spoke to thousands of people at Tehran’s main prayer site, the Mosalla mosque, which was decorated with a huge ************ flag.

Hezbollah began ******* into ******* the day after ******’ ******* on southern ******* on Oct. 7, 2023, in which the militants ******* 1,200 people and took 250 others ********. Since then, *******’s campaign in Gaza in retaliation has ******* more than 41,000 Palestinians, just over half them women and children, according to local health officials.

Meanwhile, ******* carried out its deadliest strike in the occupied West Bank since the Gaza war began, hitting a cafe in the Tulkarem ******** camp. At least 18 Palestinians were *******, the ************ Health Ministry said. Relatives said a family of four, including two children, were among the *****. The ******** military said several ****** militants were *******, including the group’s leader in the camp.

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The ******** military said Friday that militants in Gaza fired two rockets into ******** territory, the first time ******* has seen rocket ***** from the territory in a month.

The military said one of the rockets was intercepted by *******’s Iron Dome missile-defense system and the other fell in an open area near a kibbutz across the border from Gaza.

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