While the Gaza war continues, the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is also simmering. Can another war be prevented? The overview:
After Israeli air strikes on targets in northeast Lebanon, there was heavy shelling from the neighboring country this morning. Hezbollah in Lebanon said it had fired “more than 100” rockets at Israel. The militia said Air and Missile Defense Command bases and a missile base in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights were attacked.
Israeli media had previously reported, citing the military, that around 100 projectiles had been fired in the direction of the Golan Heights. There were initially no reports of injuries or damage. Many projectiles were intercepted or landed in open areas. When asked, the army said it was checking the reports.
The Israeli military said it had attacked three rocket launchers in Lebanon. These were used to fire rockets towards the Golan Heights on Tuesday morning.
Israel attacks Hezbollah deep in Lebanon
Israel’s army said it attacked two Hezbollah positions in the Bekaa Valley on Monday evening. It was only the second attack by Israel’s military on the area, located about 100 kilometers north of the country’s border, since the beginning of the Gaza war, the Israeli news site “Ynet” reported.
Lebanese security circles said at least one civilian was killed. Six other people were injured. Israel’s military said the attacks on locations of the “Hezbollah Air Force” – probably referring to Hezbollah fighters who launch drones – in northeast Lebanon were in retaliation for air strikes by the militia.
Since the beginning of the Gaza war after the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7th, mutual attacks have occurred almost daily between the Hamas-allied Hezbollah and Israel, concentrated in the border region. Israel wants to ensure that Hezbollah retreats behind the Litani River, 30 kilometers from the border – as stipulated in a UN resolution from 2006.
Israel: Third-highest Hamas leader tracked down
Meanwhile, Israel’s army in the Gaza Strip says it has tracked down Marwan Issa – the third highest-ranking Hamas official in the sealed-off coastal area. He may have been killed, said army spokesman Daniel Hagari. The air force bombed underground facilities in the Nuseirat refugee camp on Sunday night. Issa used the tunnel, Hagari said. They are still checking whether Hamas’ number three was actually among the victims of the air strike.
Israel describes the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Jihia al-Sinwar, and the head of the Islamists’ Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif, as numbers one and two. “They are all dead men, we will get them all,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reaffirming his intention to lead his country to “absolute victory.”
Report: Complete destruction of Hamas difficult
However, according to US intelligence estimates, it will be difficult for Israel to achieve its goal of completely eliminating Hamas, as the US newspaper “Wall Street Journal” reported. She quoted from the US intelligence community’s latest report entitled “Annual Threat Assessment”. It says Israel will likely face Hamas’s armed resistance for years to come. Israel’s military will have difficulty destroying Hamas’ underground infrastructure, which allows the insurgents to hide, gather new forces and surprise Israeli forces.
Israel’s foreign minister calls for pressure from the UN Security Council
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has meanwhile called on the UN Security Council to put maximum pressure on Hamas to enable the release of hostages. “I call on the United Nations Security Council to put as much pressure as possible on the Hamas organization,” Katz said at a meeting of the most powerful UN body in New York. The UN Security Council met to discuss a report presented a week ago in which the UN found Israeli allegations of sexual violence during the October 7 massacre in Israel by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups to be credible.
Federal Minister for Women Lisa Paus welcomed the meeting of the UN Security Council. But “more information is needed so that these heinous crimes and the terror of Hamas come to justice,” Paus told the German Press Agency in New York.
The UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict rejected an accusation by Israel that the United Nations wanted to suppress the report on sexual violence by Hamas terrorists. “The Secretary-General made no attempt to suppress my report or its findings,” said Pramila Patten. She was responding to Israel’s Foreign Minister Katz’s accusation that the UN wanted to “sweep Hamas’ crimes “under the carpet.”
Netanyahu’s wife intervenes in fight over hostage deal
With an unusual initiative, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s wife is now trying to get the hostages released. Sara Netanyahu wrote a letter to the mother of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Mosa Nasser Al Missned. “I urge you, in the spirit of Ramadan, to use your great influence to push for the release of the Israeli hostages,” Sara Netanyahu wrote in the letter, which was posted on her husband’s account on the X (formerly Twitter) platform became.
Qatar, together with Egypt and the USA, have been mediating between Hamas and Israel for weeks. The mediators had hoped in vain to reach an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of hostages by Ramadan. The Israeli government assumes that the Palestinian extremists currently still have around 100 living hostages in their control in the Gaza Strip.