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Israel launched its biggest wave of airstrikes on Lebanon since agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah last week, killing at least 11 people on Monday after a Lebanese militant group fired a salvo in warning of Israeli ceasefire violations.
The projectiles were apparently the first time Hezbollah had targeted Israeli forces since a 60-day ceasefire took effect last Wednesday. The increasingly fragile ceasefire was aimed at ending more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel, part of a wider regional conflict sparked by the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
In a possible sign of the truce’s fragility — and a stark warning of the consequences for Lebanon if it collapses — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz was quoted by the country’s army radio network as warning on Tuesday that if the truce “collapses, we will act firmly. and stop the separation of Hezbollah from the Lebanese state.”
Airstrikes, missile launches test shaky Israeli-Hezbollah truce
The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that an Israeli airstrike in the southern village of Haris, five people were killed and two wounded, while another airstrike killed four and wounded two in the village of Tallus.
The Israeli military carried out a series of airstrikes against Hezbollah fighter jets, infrastructure and rocket launchers across Lebanon on Monday night. The strikes were in response to Hezbollah firing two shells at Mount Dowa, the disputed Israeli-controlled area known as Shebaa Farms in Lebanon, where the Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli borders meet. Israel said the shells landed in open areas and no injuries were reported.
Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired on an Israeli military position in the area as a “defensive and warning response” after it called “repeated violations” of the ceasefire. Israel deal. It said complaints to mediators tasked with monitoring the ceasefire “were futile to stop these abuses”.
Thaier Al-Sudani/REUTERS
Before the Hezbollah shells, Israel carried out at least four airstrikes and an artillery barrage in southern Lebanon, including a drone strike that killed a man on a motorcycle, Lebanese state media reported. Another strike killed a Lebanese security services corporal.
Israel has said its strikes are in response to unspecified violations by Hezbollah and that it reserves the right to retaliate under the ceasefire agreement.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri accused Israel of violating the ceasefire more than 50 times in recent days, carrying out airstrikes, demolishing homes along the border and violating Lebanese airspace.
U.S. officials, who along with France helped broker the truce and headed a commission designed to monitor compliance with the agreement, downplayed the Israeli strikes. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said: “For the most part, the ceasefire is in place.”
“We’ve gone from dozens of strikes to one a day, maybe two a day,” Kirby told reporters, referring to the Israeli strikes. “We’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero.”
Under the deal, Iran-backed Hezbollah has 60 days to withdraw its fighters and infrastructure from southern Lebanon. During this time, Israeli troops must withdraw from their side of the border as well.
A ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel has done nothing to stem the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive against another Iran-backed group, Hamas, has killed more than 44,000 people, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave. for almost 20 years.
Trump warns that “hell will pay” if Israeli hostages in Gaza are not released
President-elect Donald Trump on Monday demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza, saying on social media there would be “HELL to pay” if they are not released before he takes office in January.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump threatened to directly involve the US military in Israel’s war in Gaza. The US has provided significant military and diplomatic support to Israel during the nearly 15-month conflict.
In a post on your Truth Social siteTrump called on Palestinian militants to release all of the roughly 100 Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, about two-thirds of whom are believed to be alive.
If not, Trump said, “Those responsible will be hit harder than anyone in the long and varied history of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”
Hours earlier, the Israeli government confirmed the death of Omer NeutraA dual US-Israeli citizen whose body is believed to be still being held by Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli government says.
Trump issued the warning days after Hamas released the propaganda video of American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexanderacting under duress, urging the president-elect to negotiate for the release of the hostages.
The Biden administration is making a last-ditch effort to try to restart talks between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Trump’s post, although President Isaac Herzog praised it.
Netanyahu has faced regular protests against his government’s handling of the hostage crisis, including many who believe he has deliberately prolonged the war in Gaza to avoid dealing with his own people. looming corruption trial.
“We’re all slaves to his private interests,” protester Tammy Barkan claimed at the weekend’s celebratory silent demonstration.
“I think the Israeli government doesn’t want to … make this deal,” agreed her fellow protester Meitala Grimland.
Netanyahu and his government have vowed to continue the military assault on Gaza until Hamas is completely eliminated and all hostages, dead and alive, are returned home.
Famine warnings in Gaza as aid supplies dwindle
Meanwhile, alarm is growing in Gaza about a growing famine. The amount of food allowed into Israel has fallen over the past two months, exacerbated by the UN’s decision on Sunday to suspend aid deliveries from the main border crossing into the territory due to the threat of armed gangs hijacking the convoys.
Desperation and hunger have claimed more lives, with medical officials saying Friday that two girls, ages 13 and 17, and a 50-year-old woman crushed to death as a crowd jostled for bread at a bakery in the central Gaza Strip.
Experts have already warned of famine in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October, saying they are fighting regrouped Hamas militants there.
In the streets of Gaza City, displaced families have set up tents surrounded by piles of rubbish. Bilal Maruf, 55, said he and 11 family members fled the Israeli offensive “barefoot and naked”.
“We had nothing. Hunger and thirst were killing us, and we had not one shekel, no clothes, no mattress, no blanket,” he said, speaking outside his tent.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza, triggered by a terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, in which militants killed an estimated 1,200 people across southern Israel and took another 250 hostage, has driven almost all of the territory’s residents from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians now live in squalid tent camps, relying on international aid.
The Israeli army said it had allowed 40 trucks carrying 600 tons of flour for the World Food Program to enter the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night, along with 16 other food trucks.
Israel has said it is working to increase aid flows. According to Israel’s official figures, the average number of humanitarian aid trucks it allowed into Gaza rose to 77 each day in November from 57 the previous month. But the level remains near the lowest in the entire 15-month war. And the UN says less than half of it actually reaches the Palestinians, as Israeli military restrictions, fighting and looting make aid delivery too dangerous.
BASHAR TALEB/AFP/Getty
The World Food Program was only able to deliver aid to about 300,000 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in November due to ongoing Israeli military offensives and convoy looting, WFP Deputy Executive Director Karl Skau said on Monday.
In the tent city of Deir al-Bal in central Gaza, Palestinians lined up at makeshift mud ovens trying to buy a few loaves of flatbread for their families.
As the price of flour rose because of the shortage, bakers — women displaced from further north — said they could bake less bread and families could afford much less.
“They distribute them to their children, one loaf every day,” said Wafaa al-Attar, a female baker.
