Hezbollah and IDF commerce hearth and Iran accuses Israel of ‘mass homicide’

On Sep 18, 2024

Published: 12:52, 18 September 2024 | Updated: 17:32, 18 September 2024

Hezbollah has launched its first rocket attack on targets inside Israel after pager blasts left almost 3,000 wounded and 12 dead in Lebanon and Syria, with the militant group vowing retaliation.

Iran, which backs the group, has condemned Israel as being responsible for the blasts, which it labelled ‘mass murder’ and amount to the biggest security breach in Hezbollah’s history.

Israel has not commented on the explosions, but security sources and experts who have assessed the emerging information have determined that Mossad and the IDF are likely behind the surprise attack.

Overnight, as Hezbollah’s leadership began to plot its next move, Israel’s Defence Forces launched a blistering aerial assault on a number of targets across southern Lebanon.

Amid fears that the region is now teetering on the edge of all-out war, with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pondering an expansion of military activity on his country’s northern border, allies on both sides have urgently called for calm.

A street procession was held on Wednesday for the 10-year-old victim of Tuesday’s pager attack

Israel’s Defence Forces launched a blistering aerial assault on a number of targets across southern Lebanon

Iran has condemned Israel for the pager blast attack in Lebanon. File image shows Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei

Ambulances arrive to American University of Beirut Medical Centre (AUBMC) yesterday

As reports of the blasts emerged yesterday, the US insisted it had no involvement nor prior knowledge of the attacks, and warned Iran not to exploit the situation.

‘The US was not aware of this incident in advance,’ State Department Spokesman Matt Miller told reporters during a press briefing.

‘We would urge Iran not to take advantage of any incident to try to add further instability and to further increase tensions in the region,’ he added.

The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon labelled the blasts an ‘extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context.’

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert called for calm following the attacks, which resulted in the deaths of a number of civilians, including children.

She reiterated to all ‘concerned actors that civilians are not a target and must be protected at all times,’ and stressed that ‘even one civilian casualty is one too many.’

As the full extent of the repercussions of the attack remain unclear, she urged those concerned ‘to refrain from any further action, or bellicose rhetoric, which could trigger a wider conflagration that nobody can afford.’

The Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept an attack from Lebanon over the Galilee region, near Kiryat Shmona, as seen from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024

The IDF revealed this morning that it had struck a number of Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, with video showing an aerial raid on one alleged terrorist hideout

Britain has also called for de-escalation as tensions in the region threaten to erupt.

‘We continue to monitor the situation in Lebanon closely and the UK is working with diplomatic and humanitarian partners in the region,’ the foreign office said in a statement.

‘The civilian casualties following these explosions are deeply distressing. We urge calm heads and de-escalation at this critical time.’

Meanwhile Russia said it strongly condemned Tuesday’s deadly attack on ‘friendly Lebanon’ and called for ‘all parties involved to exercise restraint’.

Moscow’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared today that ‘the unprecedented attack’ on the country and its citizens ‘constitutes a flagrant violation of its sovereignty and a serious challenge to international law through the use of unconventional weapons.’

Iranian Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a statement that he ‘condemned the terrorist act of the Zionist regime’, referring to Israel.

Relatives mourn Fatima Abdallah, a 10-year-old girl among those killed in the pager explosions

CCTV showed a person paying at a grocery store as a small handheld device next to the cashier exploded

The Iranian Red Crescent said on Wednesday it had dispatched ‘rescue teams and eye surgeons’ to Lebanon to treat the wounded.

Since yesterday’s attack, the IDF revealed this morning that it had struck a number of Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon, with video showing an aerial raid on one alleged terrorist hideout.

‘Closing a circle from the air, fighter jets attacked the building where the terrorists were operating,’ the IDF said in a statement.

‘In addition, warplanes attacked the organization’s military buildings in five different areas in southern Lebanon.’

The Israeli military added in a statement this morning that it would ‘continue to operate against the threat of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in order to defend the State of Israel.’

What is Hezbollah, the Lebanese group hit by exploding pagers?

WHAT ARE HEZBOLLAH’S ORIGINS?

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards founded Hezbollah in 1982 during Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war, part of Tehran’s effort to export its 1979 Islamic Revolution and fight Israeli forces that had invaded Lebanon in 1982. The group has risen from a shadowy faction to a heavily armed force with big sway in Lebanon and the region. Western governments including the United States designate it a terrorist group. So do Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia.

Hezbollah is a Shi’ite Islamist group and shares the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

HOW DID HEZBOLLAH GET INVOLVED IN THE GAZA WAR?

Hezbollah is a powerful part of the ‘Axis of Resistance’, an alliance of Iran-backed groups across the Middle East that also includes the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which ignited the Gaza war by attacking Israel on Oct. 7. Declaring solidarity with the Palestinians, Hezbollah began firing on Israeli positions in the frontier region on Oct. 8. The sides have been trading fire on a near daily basis since then, with Hezbollah launching rockets and drones and Israel mounting air and artillery strikes. The attacks have mostly struck near or at the frontier, but both sides have also widened their attacks.

Tens of thousands have been uprooted in Lebanon and Israel.

HOW POWERFUL IS HEZBOLLAH’S MILITARY?

While other groups disarmed after Lebanon’s civil war, Hezbollah kept its weapons to fight Israeli forces that were occupying the predominantly Shi’ite Muslim south of the country. Years of guerrilla warfare led Israel to withdraw in 2000, but Hezbollah retained its arsenal.

Hezbollah demonstrated military advances in 2006 during a five-week war with Israel, which erupted after it crossed into Israel, kidnapping two soldiers and killing others.

Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel during the conflict, in which 1,200 people were killed in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 158 Israelis were killed, most of them soldiers.

Hezbollah’s military power grew after 2006. The group says its rockets can strike all parts of Israel and its arsenal includes precision missiles. During the Gaza war, Hezbollah has announced attacks using surface-to-air missiles – a weapon it was long believed to have in its arsenal but had never before confirmed possessing. It has also launched explosive drones at Israel.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said the group has 100,000 fighters. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook says Hezbollah was estimated in 2022 to have 45,000 fighters, split between roughly 20,000 full-time and 25,000 reservists.

WHAT REGIONAL SWAY DOES HEZBOLLAH HAVE?

Hezbollah has inspired and supported other Iranian-backed groups across the region, including Iraqi Shi’ite militias. It played a big part in helping its ally President Bashar al-Assad fight the war in Syria, where it still has fighters. Saudi Arabia says Hezbollah has also fought in support of the Iran-allied Houthis in Yemen. Hezbollah denies this.

WHAT IS HEZBOLLAH’S ROLE IN LEBANON?

Hezbollah’s influence is underpinned by both its weaponry and the support of many Lebanese Shi’ites who say the group defends Lebanon from Israel. It has ministers in government and lawmakers in parliament.

Lebanese parties opposed to Hezbollah say the group has undermined the state and unilaterally dragged Lebanon into wars.

It entered Lebanese politics in 1992, contesting elections, and began taking a more prominent role in state affairs in 2005 after Syria withdrew forces from Lebanon following the killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, a Sunni politician who symbolised Saudi influence in Beirut.

A U.N.-backed court convicted three Hezbollah members in absentia over the assassination. Hezbollah denies any role, describing the court as a tool of its enemies.

In 2008, a power struggle between Hezbollah and its Lebanese political foes led to armed conflict, after the government vowed to take action against the group’s military communications network. Hezbollah fighters took over parts of Beirut.

In 2018 Hezbollah and allies who support its possession of arms won a parliamentary majority. This was lost in 2022, but the group still has major political sway.

ACCUSED OF ATTACKS ON WESTERN INTERESTS

Lebanese officials and Western intelligence have said groups linked to Hezbollah carried out suicide attacks on Western embassies and targets, and kidnapped Westerners in the 1980s.

The United States holds Hezbollah responsible for suicide bombings in 1983 that destroyed the U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 servicemen, and a French barracks, killing 58 French paratroopers. It also says Hezbollah was behind a suicide attack on the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983.

Referring to those attacks and hostage-taking, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a 2022 interview that they were carried out by small groups not linked to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has also been accused of militant attacks elsewhere. Argentina blames it and Iran for the deadly bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people died in 1994 and for an attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 that killed 29 people.

Source: Reuters