Israel Strike Kills Hezbollah Commander in Lebanon

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

******* Strike ****** Hezbollah Commander in Lebanon

******** forces ******* a senior Hezbollah commander on Wednesday in a drone strike in southern Lebanon, prompting the Lebanese militia to retaliate with a heavy rocket barrage across the border.

The flare-up came as Western diplomats worked to avoid a full-scale war between ******* and Hezbollah, a danger that appears to have grown in recent weeks. Cross-border exchanges of ***** have intensified, and ******** officials have publicly spoken of shifting their military focus from ****** in the Gaza Strip to Hezbollah, a far more advanced and potent threat.

Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser who has become the de facto U.S. envoy in tamping down the *******-Hezbollah conflict, conferred on Wednesday with French officials in Paris to discuss how to defuse the rising tensions. Jean-Yves Le Drian, President Emmanuel Macron’s special envoy to Lebanon, was among the people with whom he met, according to a person close to the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy.

The ******** military said its drone strike had ******* Mohammad Naameh Nasser, also known as Abu Naameh, who was among the highest-ranking Hezbollah fighters to **** in nearly nine months of conflict, according to a senior Lebanese intelligence official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue. He said Mr. Nasser had led Hezbollah’s Aziz unit, one of the group’s main fighting forces along the Lebanese border.

Hezbollah confirmed his ******, and though it did not explicitly say how he had *****, the group said it had fired 100 rockets at military targets over the border as part of an “initial response,” setting off sirens in communities across northern *******. The ******** military said that most of that barrage had fallen in open areas, but Hezbollah continued to claim retaliatory attacks into the evening.

A photograph released by Hezbollah media of Mohammad Naameh Nasser.Credit…Hezbollah Media Relations Office, via Associated Press

In solidarity with ******, Hezbollah, which is closely tied to Iran, has greatly increased the pace of its periodic attacks on northern ******* since the war in Gaza began in October. ******* has retaliated with strikes in Lebanon.

The ******** of Mr. Naameh in a drone strike in the Tyre area on the western coast was the latest in a string of ******** assassinations of Hezbollah commanders in Lebanon. One last month led to an escalation in the fighting that the Biden administration has since struggled to contain. With tensions already high, analysts and Western diplomats have warned that the ****-for-tat strikes could lead to further escalation.

Amal Saad, a lecturer at Cardiff University who researches Hezbollah, said that the powerful militia would not allow itself to be dragged into an all-out war over the ********, but that recent threats by ******** officials would not deter Hezbollah from responding with strength.

“I don’t think Hezbollah will downplay this,” Ms. Saad said, adding that the rocket barrage was only “a small teaser of what is to come.”

The conflict between ******* and Hezbollah has so far remained fairly contained, but the fighting has already displaced more than 150,000 people on both sides of the border. If a full-scale war were to break out, analysts said, it would very likely prove catastrophic, leaving swaths of Lebanon in ruins, prompting Hezbollah to unleash its arsenal of precision-guided missiles on cities across *******, and potentially setting off a wider regional war involving Iran. *******’s military leadership is seeking a cease-***** with ****** in case a larger war breaks out in Lebanon, according to ******** security officials.

U.S. officials have worked for months to prevent a war between ******* and Hezbollah. On Monday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that ******* “has effectively lost sovereignty” near the border with Lebanon because Hezbollah attacks launched from across the border had driven much of the population from their homes. Some 60,000 Israelis have fled the area, many of whom have been living in Tel Aviv hotels for the past nine months.

In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Blinken noted that Hezbollah had said that if a cease-***** were reached in Gaza, it would stop ******* into *******. That “underscores why a cease-***** in Gaza is so critical,” he said.

The cease-***** talks have been deadlocked since June, but officials said Wednesday that mediators were working to revive them, focusing on terms based on a proposal backed by the ******* Nations and the ******* States.

For months, ******* and ******, which do not talk directly with each other, have negotiated through mediators, including Qatar and Egypt, over a potential deal for a three-stage truce in Gaza and the release of the remaining 120 living and ***** hostages held there. However, wide gaps remained on key issues.

Last Tuesday, Qatar sent ****** new potential amendments to the proposed deal in an effort to win over its support, according to two senior officials from different countries involved in the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

The main stumbling blocks remain: ******, which controlled Gaza before the conflict, wants an end to the war and a full withdrawal of ******** forces, while ******* has vowed to keep fighting until ****** is destroyed and seeks control over postwar security in Gaza.

Current and former security officials in ******* say the country’s top generals want to start a cease-***** in Gaza even if it keeps ****** in power for the time being. *******’s generals see their forces being stretched thin, in both soldiers and munitions, as the war drags on. They believe the military needs time to recuperate in case a ground war with Hezbollah breaks out, the officials said.

*******’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said on Wednesday that ******** forces were prepared to take any action necessary against Hezbollah, but that they preferred a diplomatic settlement.

“We are striking Hezbollah very hard every day and we will also reach a state of full readiness to take any action required in Lebanon, or to reach an arrangement from a position of strength,” said Mr. Gallant, according to a statement from his office.

“We prefer an arrangement, but if reality forces us we will know how to ******,” he added.

Michael Crowley, Ronen Bergman, Aaron Boxerman, Patrick Kingsley and Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#******* #Strike #****** #Hezbollah #Commander #Lebanon

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/