Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant has said Israel is stepping up its attacks on Hizbullah, following air strikes deep into Syrian and Lebanese territory on Friday.
Mr Gallant said Israel was “becoming offensive rather than defensive, and we will get to any place where Hizbullah is. Beirut, Baalbek, Tyre, Sidon and the border’s whole length – and places even further, like Damascus”.
His comments came after Israel struck a Hizbullah weapons depot and a Syrian army security compound close to the airport in the northern Syrian city of Allepo, killing at least 44 people, including 36 Syrian soldiers and seven Hizbullah militants, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian opposition monitoring group.
In a separate incident, a Syrian army colonel who had close ties to Hizbullah was killed on Friday morning by a car bomb in the suburbs of Damascus.
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Russia condemned the Israeli strikes on Syria as a flagrant violation of that country’s sovereignty and said they were “fraught with extremely dangerous consequences”.
Israel has increased air strikes in Syria against both the Lebanese Hizbullah militia and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps since the Iranian-backed Palestinian faction Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7th. Tehran and its proxies have entrenched themselves across Syria, including around Aleppo and the capital Damascus.
Israel and Hizbullah have also been trading fire across Lebanon’s southern border, as Hizbollah has tried to show its support for Hamas with volleys of rockets into Israel. More than 60,000 residents on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon have fled their homes, and have called for decisive action from the government to push Hizbullah from the border. The increase in cross-border attacks has raised the possibility that the Gaza war will plunge the entire region into a dangerous conflagration.
On Friday, the deputy commander of the Hizbullah rocket and missile unit was killed by an Israeli drone attack on a vehicle close to Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre.
Clashes have continued in and around the main al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city where Israel claims hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters relocated following the withdrawal of Israeli troops over the last few months. Similar close-combat fighting has continued in Khan Younis, the main city in southern Gaza.
[ Top UN court orders Israel to ensure more aid reaches GazaOpens in new window ]
According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, more than 32,300 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 253 hostages seized in the surprise Hamas attack on October 7th. Some 134 hostages remain in Hamas captivity. It is not known how many hostages have died.
Despite the deadlock in efforts for a new ceasefire and a hostage-release deal, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has given permission for Israeli negotiators to attend truce talks in Cairo and Doha.
Mr Netanyahu told relatives of soldiers who have been taken hostage that the only way to free them is through “the continuation of the powerful military pressure”.
According to a senior US state department official, famine is both a risk and “quite possibly” present in at least some areas in northern Gaza. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the scarcity of lorries was a key obstacle for more humanitarian aid.
[ Israel bombs Rafah homes as fears grow of further ground assault on southern GazaOpens in new window ]
Israel has called allegations it is blocking aid to Gaza “wholly unfounded”. Responding to Thursday’s demand by the International Court of Justice to enable more aid in order to avert a famine, a foreign ministry spokesperson said: “Israel is continuing to promote new initiatives, and to expand existing ones to allow a continuous flow of aid into Gaza by land, air and sea.”
Israel has taken the first steps to prepare for a military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than one million refugees fled to seek shelter from the conflict. The Israeli army has begun to isolate the city and is purchasing 40,000 tents from China to be used if civilians are ordered out of Rafah ahead of a military attack. Israel says there are four Hamas battalions in the area.
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