Sort By Latest Oldest 28 min ago
Israel’s Netanyahu sees aim of Lebanon operation to cut “Hezbollah from the war with Hamas,” source says
From Dana Karni and Irene Nasser
Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem on September 2. Ohad Zwigenberg/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the security cabinet on Monday that the country’s aim in its military operations in Lebanon is to cut “Hezbollah from the war with Hamas,” an Israeli official told CNN.
The same official said the cabinet has agreed to continue to raise the level of military operations every day. Israel is aware of the risks, the source said, and is ready to stop at any moment. “It is up to Hezbollah,” the source said.
Herzi Halevi, Israel’s Chief of Staff, indicated on Monday that the military was “preparing for the next phases.” Halevi said he would elaborate on those next steps soon.
Israel strikes “dozens” of targets in Lebanon in latest cross-border attacks
From CNN’s Irene Nasser and Lucas Liliehom
Israel’s military said it struck “dozens” of targets in Lebanon after Hezbollah launched multiple barrages on Tuesday, marking the latest cross-border attacks in their most intense confrontation in nearly two decades.
The Israeli military said about 30 rockets had been launched by Hezbollah toward Israel since midnight, and that it responded to the strikes with air and artillery attacks. The rockets were launched over four barrages, it said.
The Israeli Air Force struck “dozens of Hezbollah targets in numerous areas in southern Lebanon,” including strikes on the militants and rocket launchers that were used to target HaAmakim, an area near the northern Israeli city of Haifa, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.
The IDF also said artillery and tanks had struck targets in the areas of the towns Ayta ash Shab and Ramyeh in southern Lebanon.
In the early hours of Tuesday, Hezbollah said it had fired multiple rocket barrages into northern Israel targeting the Ramat David airbase, Meggido airfield, and the Amos base, all located in the vicinity of the town of Afula in northern Israel.
The history of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel
From CNN staff
Hezbollah supporters follow the coffins at the funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, the Hezbollah Radwan Forces commander, and Mahmoud Hamad, another Hezbollah commander, both killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residential building in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh in Beirut, Lebanon on September 22. Middle East Images/AFP via Getty
Hezbollah’s main base is on the Israel-Lebanon border, where the militant group and Israel have seen near-daily clashes since the war in Gaza began.
Here’s what to know about their decades-long conflict
Israeli invasion: Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanon’s territory when it invaded in 1982. This included Beirut, where Israeli forces, along with right-wing Israel-allied Christian Lebanese militias, laid siege to the western part of the capital to drive out Palestinian militants.
Israel’s operation led to the deaths of over 17,000 people, according to reports and an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at a Beirut refugee camp. The investigation held Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre that was carried out by the Christian Lebanese fighters.
The rise of Hezbollah: As droves of Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, a band of Shia Islamist fighters trained by Iran burst onto the scene. In 1983, two suicide bombers linked to the faction attacked a US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing almost 300 US and French personnel and civilians.
A year later, Iran-linked fighters bombed the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, those militants coalesced around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.
Support for Gaza: Hezbollah is part of a larger Iran-led alliance of militant groups spanning Yemen, Syria, Gaza, and Iraq that has increasingly clashed with Israel and its allies since the war with Hamas started — and has vowed to continue until the war ends.
Killing of key leader: Tensions escalated when Israel said it killed Hezbollah’s most senior military commander, Fu’ad Shukr, with a strike on Beirut in July. In retaliation, Hezbollah launched hundreds of drones and missiles into Israel.
Displaced residents: The increase in cross-border fighting has forced people from their homes in both Israel and Lebanon. On Tuesday, Israel made it a new war objective to return tens of thousands of Israel’s northern residents to their homes near the border. More than 100,000 people have been displaced from southern Lebanon.
Lebanon must not become “another Gaza at the hands of Israel,” Iranian president tells CNN
From CNN’s Tom Goldstone and Kathleen Magramo
CNN
Israel’s extensive strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon are “a human and humanitarian crisis” that risks tipping the region into wider conflict, Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an exclusive interview.
“The danger does exist that the fire of events that are taking place (in Lebanon) will expand to the entire region,” Pezeshkian said.
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the Middle East’s most powerful paramilitary forces. The US believes, however, that Israel has significantly weakened the group in strikes over the last week.
Hezbollah is part of a Tehran-led alliance spanning Yemen, Syria, Gaza, and Iraq that has attacked Israel and its allies since the war with Hamas began.
When asked whether Iran will counsel Hezbollah to restrain itself in its response to Israeli strikes, Pezeshkian said Hezbollah is facing a country “armed to the teeth and has access to weapons systems that are far superior to anything else.”
“We must not allow for Lebanon to become another Gaza at the hands of Israel,” he warned.
“Hezbollah cannot do that alone. Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by Western countries, European countries, and the United States of America.”
Pezeshkian spoke with CNN as world leaders gather for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday, in which hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon are expected to dominate the discussion agenda.
Pezeshkian warned that events could spiral into a regional conflict, which “can be dangerous for the future of the world and planet Earth itself, so we must prevent the ongoing criminal acts being committed by Israel.”
Jordan’s king warns of “Israeli escalation” that may lead to regional war
From CNN’s Irene Nasser
Jordan’s King Abdullah II has affirmed his country’s “absolute support for Lebanon, its security, sovereignty, and the safety of its citizens in the face of Israel’s war on it,” Jordan’s state news agency, Petra, reported.
Abdullah II was speaking to Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday as the country was reeling from Israeli strikes that killed almost 500 people.
The king “warned of the danger of Israeli escalation, stressing the need for international efforts” to prevent a regional war, Petra reported, adding that it all starts with “an immediate end to the war on Gaza.”
Abdullah II, the agency reported, called on the international community to stand with Lebanon and “protect innocent civilians,” and take immediate and serious measures to “end all forms of escalation in the region.”
US officials work feverishly to stop Israel-Hezbollah confrontation “spiraling to a regional war”
From CNN’s Natasha Bertrand, Oren Liebermann and Jennifer Hansler
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept rockets that were launched from Lebanon, as seen from Haifa, northern Israel on September 23. Baz Ratner/AP
The US believes Israel has significantly weakened Hezbollah over the last week but is still working feverishly behind the scenes to convince the country not to escalate further and launch a ground incursion into Lebanon, officials told CNN.
“We are the closest we’ve been to spiraling to a regional war” since Hamas’ October 7 attack, one of the officials said.
Hezbollah began launching drone and rocket attacks against Israel a day later, sparking months of hostilities across what had been Israel’s quietest border for years. The conflict escalated last week when Israel carried out attacks that detonated Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies.
Israel then launched strikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, killing hundreds of civilians and Hezbollah leaders. The group has responded with rocket attacks targeting Israeli sites.
The US assesses that neither Israel nor Hezbollah are interested in a full-scale war, officials said. But a senior State Department official has expressed skepticism about Israel’s strategy.
“I can’t recall, at least in recent memory, a period in which an escalation or intensification led to a fundamental de-escalation and led to profound stabilization of the situation,” the State Department said Monday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The biggest concern right now is that Iran, which is a key backer of Hezbollah, will get involved, the first official said. Tehran has not intervened yet, but they will if they believe they are about to lose their most powerful proxy force, Hezbollah, the official added.
It’s morning in the Middle East. Here’s what you need to know
From CNN staff
Smoke billows from a site targeted by Israeli shelling in the southern Lebanese village of Zaita on September 23. Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images
Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah has fired a fresh barrage of strikes into northern Israel, a day after Israeli airstrikes targeting the militant group in Lebanon killed nearly 500 people and wounded 1,600 others — the country’s deadliest day in nearly two decades.
Israel and Hezbollah have been stuck in tit-for-tat escalation since the war in Gaza began. But over the past week, Israel’s escalated attacks on the group have again heightened fears of a wider regional war.
Here’s what to know:
- Panic in Lebanon: People across the country are fleeing their homes after receiving automated calls, text messages and broadcasts urging them to evacuate. Lebanon has suspended classes in universities and schools, with many campuses to be used as shelters for those seeking refuge. The healthcare system is under strain as it continues to treat injuries from last week’s pager and walkie-talkie explosions. Some carriers have cut flights to Lebanon.
- Hezbollah strikes military targets: Hezbollah said Tuesday that it fired multiple rocket barrages into northern Israel overnight into Tuesday, saying it struck the Ramat David airbase, Meggido airfield, and the Amos base, all located in the vicinity of the town of Afula in northern Israel.
- Israel escalates its attacks in Lebanon: Israel says it struck 1,600 Hezbollah assets across Lebanon on Monday. The Israeli military said it is preparing for its “next phases” following the strikes and did not rule out the possibility of a ground invasion.
- What Israel says: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the people of Lebanon to leave the areas where Israel is targeting Hezbollah, and that his country is not at war with them, but with the Iran-backed group.
- Hamas commander killed: Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said one of its field commanders, Hussein Mahmoud Al-Nader, also known as Abu Saleh, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.
- US troops mobilized: The US military is sending “a small number of US military personnel forward” to the Middle East. The US already has thousands of troops in the region and has positioned assets in the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea.
- What next? Hezbollah has said “a battle without limits” was underway. Iran, too, has warned Israel of “dangerous consequences” following Israel’s strikes.
- Calls for “immediate cessation”: UN Secretary-General António Guterres has urged Israel and Hezbollah to stop fighting immediately as world leaders prepare to meet Tuesday for the UN General Assembly. Qatar and Egypt have also condemned the wave of Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon. Jordan expressed solidarity with Lebanon and called for the UN to take action. France has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to address the strikes.
- How we got here: Hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah ramped up significantly last week after twin device attacks targeted the Iran-backed group’s communications network, ushering in what Israel’s defense minister called a “new era” of war.
https://ix.cnn.io/dailygraphics/graphics/20240919-pager-explainer/index.html?initialWidth=698&childId=graphic-20240919-pager-explainer&parentTitle=Live%20updates%3A%20Israel-Hezbollah%20attacks%2C%20deadliest%20day%20in%20Lebanon%20since%202006%2C%20war%20in%20Gaza%20%7C%20CNN&parentUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fedition.cnn.com%2Fworld%2Flive-news%2Fisrael-lebanon-hezbollah-09-24-24-intl-hnk%2Findex.html
Hezbollah fires multiple rocket barrages into northern Israel
From CNN’s Irene Nasser and Lucas Lilieholm
Hezbollah fired multiple rocket barrages into northern Israel overnight, a day after the Israeli military escalated its attacks on the Iran-backed group and launched airstrikes in Lebanon.
Hezbollah said it had targeted the Ramat David airbase, Meggido airfield, and the Amos base, all located in the vicinity of the town of Afula in northern Israel.
About 20 “projectiles” were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli airspace between 2:39 a.m. and 3:11 a.m. local time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Tuesday.
Some of the projectiles had been intercepted while others had fallen in open areas, the IDF said, without specifying where they had fallen.
The Israeli Air Force responded by striking the sources of the rocket fire.
It came after warning sirens blared in the HaAmakim area, southeast of the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
Israel’s emergency response service, Magen David Adom (MDA), said it dispatched teams to search areas in the Lower Galilee, where reports of rocket fire were received.
“At this stage, no injuries have been reported,” MDA spokesperson Zaki Heller said.
MDA said the windows of one of its ambulances in the Jezreel Valley were damaged from a blast wave.
Some background: The Amos base, inaugurated in 2021, serves as a transport and logistics hub for the Israeli military’s Northern Command. It also is “the central axis” for the IDF’s Technological and Logistics Directorate, which is responsible for multi-agency logistics and emergency preparedness in the northern front, according to the IDF.
Analysis: Lebanon’s people are reeling from the deadliest day in a generation
From CNN’s Ivan Watson
A damaged car sits on the rubble of a building at the site of Friday’s Israeli strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, on September 21. Bilal Hussein/AP
Lebanon may be no stranger to conflict. But Monday was the deadliest day the country has seen in a generation.
Israel’s aerial bombardment killed nearly 500 people, including at least 35 children and 58 women, according to Lebanese authorities.
That’s nearly half the number killed throughout the entire 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
That conflict was savage. I still remember the stench of victims decomposing in refrigerator trucks because it was too dangerous to transport bodies out while Israeli attack drones and fighter jets patrolled overhead.
When the fighting finally stopped, around 1,100 Lebanese people had been killed. On the Israeli side, 21 Israeli soldiers and 43 civilians were killed.
Fighting in the shadows: On the battlefield, Hezbollah’s fighters must be an infuriating enemy. They fought an Israeli ground incursion to a standstill in 2006. But throughout the war, I didn’t see a single armed Hezbollah fighter, such is their ability to blend in.
The Iran-backed group operates as a “state within a state” in a bitterly divided country with a borderline bankrupt government that has no president, where neighborhoods still bear the scars of a 15-year civil war.
Lebanese civilians know all too well how frightening the Israeli military’s attempts to target Hezbollah can be.
On Friday, Israeli jets carried out an airstrike in Beirut’s southern suburbs, in which they killed several senior Hezbollah commanders. But the missiles also destroyed a nine-story building in a densely populated neighborhood, killing 45 people, including women and children.
The Israeli military accuses Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields.
Families flee: But that is little consolation to Lebanese citizens like my mother-in-law, who was a block and a half away from the building the Israeli jets destroyed. For several hours, my family struggled to evacuate my wife’s grandmother — a stroke victim who could not walk out of her apartment.
Like the exodus of panicked civilians who fled the Israeli bombardment of southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday, my in-laws have taken shelter in another neighborhood.
Four generations are now gathered in a single apartment, including a week-old newborn, aunts and uncles who work as teachers and building contractors. They have no connection whatsoever with Hezbollah.
We hope and pray that their neighborhood will not be bombed.
France requests emergency UN Security Council meeting to address strikes in Lebanon
From CNN’s Mitchell McCluskey
Jean-Noel Barrot speaks at the United Nations General Assembly, on Monday. Richard Drew/AP
France has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to address the strikes in Lebanon, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told the UN General Assembly on Monday.
Barrot called for de-escalation and a halt to strikes being carried out across the region.
“France, once again, calls upon the parties and those that support them to de-escalate and avoid a regional conflagration that would be devastating for everyone, first and foremost, the civilian population,” Barrot said.
“For that reason, I have asked for an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Lebanon this week. In Lebanon as elsewhere, France will remain fully mobilized to resolve major crisis that are disrupting the international agenda,” Barrot said.
“We have nowhere to go”: Displaced people in Lebanon say as they flee Israeli strikes
From CNN’s Hira Humayun
Cars sit in traffic as they flee in Sidon, Lebanon, on September 23. Mohammed Zaatari/AP
Panic and fear have gripped Lebanon as displaced people flee their homes, taking along with them frightened children to shelter at schools, according to videos of the destruction caused by the deadliest day of Israeli strikes in the country since 2006
Fatma Ibrahim Shehab was among several people who had taken shelter at a school in the coastal city of Sidon after being evacuated from southern Lebanon following consecutive days of Israeli strikes.
She told the AFP news agency she had to leave after an Israeli strike next to her home left her building shaking.
“We got very stressed, this is why we had to leave and we came here. We were told it’s safe here. The situation is very tragic, the strikes were right next to us,” she said.
Mohamed Hamayda, a Syrian man displaced from Deir al-Zahrani, told the news agency he had no choice but to take his mother and the rest of his family on public transport to the Kuwaiti school in Sidon after being told it had opened as a shelter.
“We have nowhere to go, we have nothing,” he said.
And Hassan Banjak said he had reluctantly fled the village of Chaaitiyeh.
“Since the war and bombings with the Israeli enemy began, we hadn’t left. But after the strikes intensified and got closer, the children got scared, so we decided to leave. If it wasn’t for the children I would have never left,” he said.
Scale of destruction: Their accounts came as Reuters video footage from the southern suburbs of Beirut showed debris from damaged buildings and shards of glass littering the ground after Israel’s deadly wave of strikes on Monday.
One video showed a car with rubble on its windshield, in front of a building with shattered windows. Another video, from Zahle, which is east of Beirut in the Bekaa governorate, showed plumes of smoke rising in the distance.
An eyewitness video verified by CNN, which appears to have been taken from a balcony in the Bekaa governorate, shows smoke rising in what appears to be a multi-story residential compound.
The person filming can be heard saying, “This is right outside our house. This is right outside our house.”
UN Secretary-General calls for immediate cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah
From CNN’s Alex Stambaugh
António Guterres speaks to the United Nations General Assembly during the Summit for the Future on September 22, at U.N. headquarters. Frank Franklin II/AP
UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged Monday for the immediate cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, his spokesperson said, as world leaders prepare to meet Tuesday for the UN General Assembly.
“There is no military solution that will make either side safer,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a briefing.
He said Guterres was alarmed by the escalating situation and the “large number of civilian casualties” being reported by Lebanese authorities, and expressed the urgent need for de-escalation and for all efforts to be devoted to a diplomatic solution.
“With the wellbeing of civilians on both sides of the Blue Line and the stability of the region at stake, space must be given for diplomatic efforts to succeed,” Dujarric said, referring to the buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon.
In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria aired Sunday, the UN Secretary-General warned that Lebanon could transform into “another Gaza.”
“There is a potential for a much stronger escalation. And that is what concerns me – the possibility of transforming Lebanon in[to] another Gaza, which I think would be a devastating tragedy for the world,” Guterres told CNN.
More context: World leaders are gathering in New York for the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday after Lebanon saw the deadliest day of strikes from Israel in the country since the 2006 war. It came after a weekend of bombings between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, contributing to the most intense exchanges of fire between the two sides since October 7.
Analysis: Israel has a new strategy for Hezbollah, but it’s a high-risk game
From CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh
Wars of peace are rarely successful. They are normally of choice: pre-emptively attacking to neutralize a perceived threat. Israel and Hezbollah have been stuck in the tit-for-tat horror of escalation chicken for nearly a year.
But over the past week Israel has clearly decided to massively amplify its attacks on the Iran-backed militant group, claiming, according to some reports, they seek to “escalate to deescalate” – to cow their adversary into a diplomatic solution.
It is a highly risky and likely flawed mantra, perhaps designed to dupe their frustrated ally, the United States, into believing that the diplomatic solution, which Washington has now sunk an almost embarrassing amount of energy into, is still also Israel’s goal.
But the greater the harm inflicted on Hezbollah recently, the more likely a shorter-term Israeli success has seemed.
A full-scale ground war between a tired, divided Israeli military and an experienced, angry Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon would likely be disastrous for Israel. It is exactly what the militant group is good at and waiting for. Yet it is also something Israel does not for now need to get into.
“We’re clearly walking into a much wider war,” former US Defense Secretary and ex-CIA chief tells CNN
From CNN staff
Smoke rises in Tyre, Lebanon, on Monday. Aziz Taher/Reuters
Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon killed nearly 500 people and wounded 1,600 others on Monday — the deadliest day in the country since the Hezbollah-Israel war in 2006 — but neither side is calling the current escalation a war.
Former US Defense Secretary and ex-CIA chief Leon Panetta told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the situation has “crossed a threshold.”
“We’re clearly walking into a much wider war. And that makes it much more difficult for any of the parties to agree to any kind of solution.”
Panetta said there’s no doubt world leaders gathering in New York for the UN General Assembly this week will be “talking an awful lot about the war that’s taking place now between Israel and Hezbollah and the fact that it’s become a wider war.”
He added the US must make clear there cannot be “an all-out war in the Middle East.”
“Obviously, the United States is going to continue to provide those supplies as we have because of our bond with Israel, but at the same time that it’s important to make clear that we cannot have an all-out war in the Middle East. Right now, this is the wrong time or the wrong place and frankly, everybody is going to pay a price that I think will be devastating in terms of the future.”
Analysis: The rapidly escalating conflict in Lebanon could endanger Biden’s efforts to stop a wider war
From CNN’s Kevin Liptak
The rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is further threatening President Joe Biden’s efforts to reduce tension in the Middle East, leaving the president with ever-diminishing options to secure a ceasefire-and-hostage deal that has become his top priority in the final months of his presidency.
As he prepares for his final high-profile speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, the crisis is overshadowing any attempt at burnishing his foreign policy legacy. Without any near-term hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza, Biden is facing new questions about his approach to the nearly year-long conflict.
White House officials watched with concern over the weekend as Israeli warplanes struck targets in Lebanon while Hezbollah fired rockets and drones into northern Israel. As Biden was meeting Asia-Pacific leaders in Delaware, the crisis was unfolding in a different part of the world. The president and his aides were closely monitoring the situation from Wilmington.
Biden’s aides currently view the risk of escalation as serious and real, and have been communicating daily with officials in Israel, officials said Monday.