Al Jazeera broadcasts footage of Israeli military entering and closing down Ramallah office
From CNN’s Irene Nasser
This screengrab from an Al Jazeera video shows IDF soldiers entering their office in Ramallah, West Bank on September 22. Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera has broadcast live footage of Israeli soldiers entering its offices in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, and ordering its closure for 45 days.
The footage showed the network’s bureau chief Walid Omary and staff members live on air as Israeli soldiers entered.
Video broadcast by Al Jazeera showed one soldier informing Omary of a military order to close Al Jazeera’s office for 45 days. The soldier then told Omary that staff members need to leave the office immediately.
Reading the military order given to him on air, Omary said staff members need to take their personal belongings and cameras and leave.
Al Jazeera’s office in Ramallah has been operational for decades. It became even more essential for the network after Israel shut down its Jerusalem office and seized some of its communication equipment in May, prompting condemnation from the United Nations and rights groups over what they said were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s moves to restrict press freedoms.
After Al Jazeera staff had left the Ramallah office, live footage showed Omary and others in the street outside, as the journalist said soldiers had taken over the office and were confiscating materials.
Shortly after, as Israeli soldiers approached Omary, the live video feed was cut, and Omary was heard saying that soldiers had taken the camera and broadcast equipment the team were using.
CNN has contacted Al Jazeera and Israel’s military for comment.
About 10 projectiles launched from Lebanon into northern Israel: IDF
From CNN’s Lauren Izso and Dana Karni
The Israeli military says about 10 projectiles were launched from Lebanon into northern Israel overnight.
All but one were intercepted, the Israel Defense Forces said.
A man was “very lightly scratched” by shrapnel from an interception near a village in the Lower Galilee, according to a spokesperson for Israel’s national emergency service MDA.
“MDA medics and paramedics are providing treatment at the scene for a 60-year-old man in a very mild condition,” the spokesperson said.
Israeli police said falling debris from projectiles fired from Lebanon had caused a fire and damaged property in Israel’s Northern District.
Firefighting units are working to contain the flames, while police bomb disposal experts are searching the area, authorities said.
The history of conflict between Hezbollah and Israel
From CNN staff
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. The group’s main base is on the Israel-Lebanon border, where the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war has been palpable — Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in skirmishes since the war began, putting the entire region on a knife’s edge with fears it could spark a wider regional conflict.
This is the latest in a decades-long conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. Here’s what to know:
Israeli invasion: Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanon’s territory when it invaded Lebanon 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 resulted in more than 17,000 deaths, according to contemporary reportsand an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at the Beirut refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila. It’s one of the bloodiest events in the region’s recent history. The investigation, known as the Kahan Commission of Inquiry, held Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre that was carried out by the right-wing Christian Lebanese fighters. Estimates for the number of deaths at Sabra and Shatila vary between 700 and 3,000.
The rise of Hezbollah: As droves of Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, a band of Shia Islamist fighters trained by the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran burst onto Lebanon’s fractious political landscape. The ragtag group had an outsized and violent impact. In 1983, two suicide bombers linked to the faction attacked a US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing almost 300 US and French personnel, plus some civilians.
A year later, Iran-linked fighters bombed the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, those militants coalesced more formally around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.
A “supportive front” for Gaza in 2023: Hezbollah is part of a larger Iran-led alliance of militant groups spanning Yemen, Syria, Gaza, and Iraq that has engaged in increased clashes with Israel and its allies since the war with Hamas started on October 7, 2023. The alliance said it will continue striking Israeli targets as long as the war in Gaza goes on, rebranding itself as a “supportive front” for Palestinians in the strip, as described by a senior Hezbollah leader.
Killing of key leader: After months of tit-for-tat exchanges, 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 at targets in Israel in August. Israel denied any important targets were struck, and no evidence has been made public to contradict that denial.
Displaced residents: The increase in cross-border fighting has forced people from their homes in both northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Israel has made it a new war objective to return tens of thousands of Israel’s northern residents to their homes near the border. Officials and residents from the northern region have placed increasing pressure on the Israeli government about the need to return. More than 100,000 people have been displaced from southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Latest attack: Hezbollah confirmed that senior commander Ibrahim Aqil was killed. Israel said Aqil was among senior Hezbollah figures who were killed in an airstrike on a residential building in Beirut. Lebanon was already reeling after thousands of small blasts hit Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies during the week, killing dozens and wounding thousands.
Foreigners and hotel activities in Lebanon to be closely monitored, says interior minister
From CNN’s Eyad Kourdi
Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi said Saturday that the recent attacks in the country have compelled the government to closely monitor the movement of foreigners and hotel activities.
The government will “intensify our efforts, especially intelligence and security efforts on the ground,” Mawlawi said.
“In recent days, weeks, and months, a large number of martyrs and innocent Lebanese civilians, including children and women, have fallen due to security operations and targeted attacks by the Israeli enemy,” the minister told reporters.
“We will closely monitor the movement of foreigners, hotel activities, and closely monitor Syrian and Palestinian camps. We will also pay greater attention to anything that might lead to internal security instability,” he added.
Hezbollah is a powerful Iran-backed group on Israel’s border. Here’s what you should know
From CNN staff
Hezbollah members take part in a military exercise during a media tour in Aaramta, Lebanon on May 21, 2023. Aziz Taher/Reuters/File
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. The group’s main base is on the Israel-Lebanon border, where the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war has been palpable — Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in skirmishes since the war began, putting the entire region on a knife’s edge with fears it could spark a wider regional conflict.
Here’s what to know about Hezbollah
Origins: The group emerged from the rubble of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanon’s territory. 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 resulted in more than 17,000 deaths, according to contemporary reports, and an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at the Beirut refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila. It’s one of the bloodiest events in the region’s recent history. The investigation, known as the Kahan Commission of Inquiry, held Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre that was carried out by the right-wing Christian Lebanese fighters. Estimates for the number of deaths at Sabra and Shatila vary between 700 and 3,000.
As droves of Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, a band of Shia Islamist fighters trained by the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran burst onto Lebanon’s fractious political landscape. The ragtag group had an outsized and violent impact. In 1983, two suicide bombers linked to the faction attacked a US marine barracks in Beirut, killing almost 300 US and French personnel, plus some civilians.
A year later, Iran-linked fighters bombed the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, those militants coalesced more formally around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.
Support from Iran: The group made no secret about its ideological allegiance to Tehran and received a steady flow of funds from the Islamic Republic. This helped propel Hezbollah to prominence. It became a participant in Lebanon’s civil war, which ended in 1990, and led a fight against Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon, ultimately driving them out in 2000.
A terror designation: In Lebanon, Hezbollah is officially considered a “resistance” group tasked with confronting Israel, which Beirut classifies as an enemy state. Yet much of the Western world has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization, largely since Argentina blamed the group for the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center, killing 85, also in the capital. Both Iran and Hezbollah denied responsibility for those attacks.
Read more about Hezbollah here.
There is a real “risk of escalation” between Israel and Hezbollah, US national security adviser says
From CNN’s Samantha Waldenberg
The “risk of escalation is real” between Israel and Hezbollah, amid a moment where the threat is “more acute,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Saturday.
“It stands to reason that Lebanese Hezbollah’s capabilities have taken a hit. How significant a hit, and how that translates to their ability to represent a threat to Israel, I think we still need some more time assessment to reach more engagements on,” Sullivan said ahead of Saturday’s Quad summit in Wilmington, Delaware. “The risk of escalation is real. It has been since October 7. There are moments where it is more acute than others. I think we are in one of those moments where it is more acute.”
Asked if the Israeli strike in southern Beirut that killed at least 37 people, including high-level commanders of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, was an escalation in his view, Sullivan pushed back, saying that “the United States is not going to score keep like that.”
“When I talk about escalation, I mean where, where does this take us? From the point of view of, are we going to end up in a wider war? We’re not there yet. I hope we do not get there,” Sullivan said.
He continued, “There’s a number of different ways to look at this strike. The chief way I personally look at it goes back to the discussion we were having before, which is, it was a strike against a senior terrorist who has both Israeli and American blood on his hands.”
Remember: The strike in southern Beirut killed high-level figures of Hezbollah, including Ibrahim Aqil, the leader of an elite unit who had a $7 million bounty on his head from the United States for his suspected involvement in the 1983 strike on the US Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, as well as the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks, which killed 241 US personnel later that year.
