Rocket fire kills two in Israel, fighting in southern Lebanon

(Jerusalem) Two people were killed Wednesday in northern Israel by rocket fire from neighboring Lebanon, before an expected telephone conversation between the American president and the Israeli prime minister to discuss in particular the war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah .

During this first interview in two months, Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu, whose relations are very tense, must also discuss Israel’s plan to strike Iran in response to an Iranian missile attack launched on 1^is October against its territory, according to the American site Axios.

According to Iran, enemy of Israel and the United States, the attack was a response to the assassination of two of its allies: Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, killed in Lebanon by Israel, and the leader of Hamas , Ismaïl Haniyeh, killed in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel.

According to Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, a man and a woman aged around 40 were killed by rocket fire in Kiryat Shmona, an Israeli town located two kilometers from the border with Lebanon.

” We [les] We found them unconscious and injured by shrapnel. We carried out medical examinations, but their injuries were serious and we had to declare their death on the spot,” said the same source.

These are the first people killed in Israel by rockets from Lebanon since the intensification of the Israeli military offensive against Hezbollah in mid-September.

“Around 20 projectiles” were fired early in the afternoon at Kiryat Shmona, according to the army.

After weakening Hamas during a large-scale military campaign in retaliation for the unprecedented attack carried out on October 7, 2023 by the Palestinian Islamist movement, Israel moved the bulk of its operations against Hezbollah to mid-September. .

Objective: to distance the Lebanese Islamist movement from the border areas of southern Lebanon, its stronghold, and to stop its rocket fire to allow the return, to northern Israel, of some 60,000 displaced inhabitants.

“Destruction, suffering”

The pro-Iranian Hezbollah reported fighting on Wednesday against Israeli troops engaged since September 30 in a ground offensive in southern Lebanon. He assured that he had twice repelled Israeli incursions at dawn.

The army said its troops had destroyed “100 Hezbollah terrorist targets” in the past 24 hours.

“It is clear that there is an invasion by a third country of a sovereign state like Lebanon and, therefore, the international community cannot remain indifferent,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

In central Israel, in Hadera, six people were injured by an assailant who stabbed passers-by before being “neutralized”, police said, suggesting that the attack was linked to the Israeli conflict. decades-old Palestinian.

On Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu called on the Lebanese to “save” their country by liberating it “from Hezbollah”, otherwise threatening Lebanon with the same “destruction and suffering” as in Gaza.

“Liberate your country from Hezbollah so that this war can end,” he said in reference to the Shiite movement whose leader, Hassan Nasrallah, killed on September 27 in an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, was considered as the most powerful man in Lebanon.

If Hezbollah, the only formation not to have laid down its arms after the civil war (1975-1990), enjoys immense support within its Shiite community and significant influence in Lebanon, part of the class Lebanese politicians accuse him of having dragged the country into a war with Israel.

“We eliminated Nasrallah, and Nasrallah’s replacement and his replacement’s replacement,” Mr. Netanyahu said again without giving names.

Last Saturday, a Hezbollah official said that contact had been lost with Hachem Safieddine, tipped to succeed Nasrallah, since Israeli raids the day before near Beirut. The Israeli army claimed to have targeted him, but did not confirm his death.

Intense bombings in Gaza

The ongoing air and ground offensive in Gaza has reduced entire sectors of the small, besieged Palestinian territory to rubble, displaced the vast majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants, caused a humanitarian disaster and left tens of thousands dead.

On October 8, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel in support of Hamas. The spiral of cross-border violence for a year turned into open war on September 23, with the start of violent shelling by Israel of Hezbollah strongholds.

Since October 2023, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including nearly 1,200 since September 23, according to an AFP count based on official figures. More than a million people have been displaced.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army surrounded the area of ​​Jabalia (north) and issued new calls to evacuate the area, saying that Hamas was seeking to rebuild its capabilities there. Intense bombardments targeted Jabalia and nearby towns, according to local Civil Defense.

In Cairo, a meeting takes place between Hamas and Fatah, rival Palestinian groups, to discuss the war in Gaza and efforts for national unity.