Lebanese militia Hezbollah will step up attacks on bordering Israeli areas and US military sites in the Middle East up to a “complete confrontation” if Israel continues its offensive in the Gaza Strip, Naim Qassem, the group’s deputy secretary general, said in an interview with NBC News.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Wednesday killing a “senior Hamas weapons developer” in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip.
“IDF troops are continuing to operate inside the Gaza Strip to kill terrorists and direct aircraft to strike terror infrastructure. Based on Israeli Security Agency (ISA) and IDF intelligence, an IDF fighter jet killed Mohsen Abu Zina, Hamas’ Head of Weapons and Industries in its manufacturing department,” the IDF said in a statement.
Israeli ground forces were battling Hamas fighters deep inside Gaza’s largest city, Israel said Tuesday. The push signals a major new stage in the month-old conflict, and its leaders foresee controlling the enclave’s security after the war.
On November 6, 2023, the online Rai Al-Youm daily reported that the Hamas military wing ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) military wing Saraya Al-Quds had both asked Hizbullah to give them greater freedom and independence in their operations against Israel from South Lebanon. This could indicate a possible escalation in attacks on Israel from Lebanese soil.
Hamas launched an unprecedented sneak attack on Israel over the weekend that completely caught the self-professed Jewish State by surprise after all its security systems unexpectedly failed at the same time. The border wall was breached, some military bases were captured, and dozens of hostages were taken back to Gaza. Israel responded by launching airstrikes inside the strip and preparing a ground operation. Here are the top ten takeaways from everything that’s happened thus far in the latest Israeli-Hamas war:
———-
Some observers have been surprised by the self-restraint exercised by the Israeli-US duopoly and the Resistance Axis, which has averted an all-out regional war at least for now and thus contradicted their expectations of the other’s approach to this conflict. Neither side has proven themselves to be the “rabid psychotic warmongers” that their opponents’ public took for granted that they were, and this should prompt a rethinking from both about the true state of military-strategic affairs between them.
As war rages in Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to escalate, causing grievous harm to civilians and threatening stability across the Middle East. Crisis Group experts offer a 360-degree view of how various capitals in the region view this crisis and their own interests therein.
In an October 20, 2023 article in the Qatari daily Al-Arab, journalist Mansour Al-Mutlaq wrote that “what is happening in Palestine” (i.e., Hamas’ October 7, 2023 large-scale terrorist attack on Israel and the war that broke out in its wake) is the fulfillment of Allah’s words in Surah 17 of the Quran. Some Muslims interpret certain verses in this surah as conveying a divine promise regarding Palestine: the Jews will come from all over the world to settle in Palestine, and will sow corruption there and gain power, but will ultimately be defeated by the servants of Allah who will humiliate them and recapture the Al-Aqsa mosque. Based on this interpretation, Hamas officials have envisioned a war against Israel called “the Promise of the Hereafter,” involving the Palestinians and other Arab countries and organizations, who will together eliminate Israel. [1] Al-Mutlaq expresses hope that Allah’s promise for the defeat of the Jews in Palestine will come to pass in the near future.
At least 45 Americans claim to have been injured in recent attacks in Iraq and Syria, more than twice as many as the Pentagon previously disclosed, according to a new report.
The Pentagon initially claimed that 21 service members suffered traumatic brain injuries as a result of two drone attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia, but an additional 24 troops have since reported such injuries, NBC reported Monday, bringing the total number of injured troops to 45. That number may rise as more troops come forward.
With Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza underway and Houthi rebels in Yemen firing missiles toward Israel, the risk of regional escalation by Iran’s various proxies has reached dangerous new heights.
A day before today’s planned speech by Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, the group claimed to have simultaneously attacked nineteen positions in Israel, representing the largest escalation of fighting along the Israeli-Lebanese border yet.