Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel on Saturday, warning that the attack was an early response to the targeted killing, possibly by Israel, of a top leader of the Hamas-allied group in the Lebanese capital earlier this week.
The rocket attack came a day after Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that his group must avenge the killing of Saleh Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold.
Nasrallah said that if Hezbollah does not strike back, the whole of Lebanon will be vulnerable to an Israeli attack.
He appears to be making his case for feedback to the Lebanese public, even at the risk of escalating the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel as the war between Israel and Hamas continues.
Hezbollah said on Saturday that it fired 62 rockets at Israel’s air surveillance base on Mount Meron and that it carried out a direct attack.
Top Hamas commander Saleh Arouri was killed in an Israeli air strike on AP’s Beirut apartment
The Israeli military said about 40 rockets were fired at Meron and a base was targeted, but did not say the base was hit. It said it attacked Hezbollah cells that launched rockets.
The cross-border escalation comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken embarks on an urgent diplomatic trip to the Middle East, his fourth to the region since the Israel-Hamas war broke out three months ago.
The war was sparked by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
The coffin of Hamas deputy leader Arouri was carried as supporters of the Hamas movement and other Palestinian and Lebanese political factions gathered in the Tarik al-Jadide area during his funeral on January 4, in Beirut, Lebanon. Getty Images
Israeli retaliation by air, land and sea has killed more than 22,600 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza.
In recent weeks, Israel has scaled back its military offensive in the north of the region and scaled back its heavy offensive in the south, vowing to crush Hamas.
In the south, most of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster, while still being battered by Israeli airstrikes.
Smoke billows over the southern Lebanese border village of Khiam following Israeli bombing on January 6, 2024. AFP via Getty Images
On Saturday morning, the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis received the bodies of 18 people killed in an overnight airstrike on a house in the city’s Maan neighborhood, said Saleh al-Hamms, head of the hospital’s nursing department.
Citing witnesses, he said more than three dozen people were sheltering in the house, including those who were homeless, when it was hit.
Israel has held Hamas responsible for the civilian casualties, saying the group is embedded in Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, at Vahdettin, the private residence of the Presidency, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 6, 2024. REUTERS
However, international criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war has continued due to the increasing number of civilian deaths in Gaza.
The United States has urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it continues to send weapons and ammunition while shielding its close allies from international condemnation.
Blinken began his latest Middle East trip in Turkey on Saturday. The Biden administration believes that Turkey and others can exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to ease concerns about regional conflagration.
Those concerns have been heightened in recent times by incidents in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.
In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken will also seek Turkey’s support for a fledgling plan for Gaza after the war that could include financial or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in the proposed proposals. multinational powers that may operate within or adjacent to that territory.
From Turkey, Blinken will travel to Turkey’s rival and NATO ally Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at his residence on the Mediterranean island of Crete.
Mitsotakis and his government have supported US efforts to prevent the Israeli-Hamas war from escalating and have signaled their willingness to help if the situation deteriorates.
Other stops on the trip include Jordan, followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday. Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank next week before ending the trip in Egypt.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
