Important Takeaways:
- The White House on Tuesday said the US believes Iran is preparing an imminent ballistic missile attack against Israel.
- “The United States has indications that Iran is preparing to imminently launch a ballistic missile attack against Israel. We are actively supporting defensive preparations to defend Israel against this attack. A direct military attack from Iran against Israel will carry severe consequences for Iran,” a senior White House official said in a statement.
- “As of this moment, Israel does not perceive imminent threat from Iran,” Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
- During a short video message, Hagari said Israeli military planes are currently “scanning the sky” for any imminent threat from Iran.
- “We are on peak alert both on the offensive and the defensive,” Hagari added, warning Iran that any attack on Israel would “have consequences.” Tensions between Israel and Iran have ratcheted up significantly in recent weeks as Israel has stepped up its efforts against Hezbollah in Lebanon, an Iran-backed militant group.
- Israel on Monday launched a ground operation in southern Lebanon targeting Hezbollah.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Islamic Republic will collapse sooner than people think, and the Iranian people will be free, paving the way for relations between these two ancient cultures, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
- “When Iran is finally free and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think – everything will be different,” he said.
- “When that day comes, the terror network that the regime built in five continents will be bankrupt, dismantled,” Netanyahu explained, adding that Iran will thrive as never before.”
- “There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Netanyahu said on Monday. “There is nowhere we will not go to protect our people and protect our country.”
- On Monday he released a statement in English aimed at the Iranian people, explaining that “at this pivotal moment, I want to address you – the people of Iran. I want to do so directly, without filters, without middlemen.
- “Every day, you see a regime that subjugates you, make fiery speeches about defending Lebanon, defending Gaza.
- “Yet every day, that regime plunges our region deeper into darkness and deeper into war,” he said.
- “With every passing moment, the regime is bringing you — the noble Persian people — closer to the abyss,” he stated.
- “The vast majority of Iranians know their regime doesn’t care a whit about them,” Netanyahu said.
- “There are tens of millions of good and decent people with thousands of years of history behind them and a bright future ahead of them,” he said.
- When that day comes, he said, “Our two ancient peoples, the Jewish people and the Persian people, will finally be at peace.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah’s deputy chief has pledged that the Lebanese armed group is ready to meet an Israeli ground offensive, despite the killing of its leader and many senior commanders.
- Israel has not hit Hezbollah’s military capabilities, said Sheikh Naim Qassem on Monday as he delivered a message of defiance in a public address.
- Despite the setbacks suffered during the bombardment of Lebanon in recent days, he insisted that the Iran-linked armed group will continue to fight.
- Hezbollah’s operations have continued at the same pace and more since the killing of leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday, Qassem asserted
- For the first time since stepping up its attacks on Lebanon, Israel on Monday struck a central area of the capital Beirut, signaling further potential escalation towards an all-out war.
- Hezbollah’s insistence that it can defend Lebanon was supported by backer Iran, which appears wary of the risk of a wider regional war that any direct confrontation with Israel would carry.
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Important Takeaways:
- “There will be no ceasefire in the north,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X. “We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents.”
- An Israeli warplane struck the edges of the capital Beirut, killing two people and wounding 15, including a woman in critical condition, Lebanon’s health ministry said.
- The strike killed the head of one of Hezbollah’s air force units, Mohammad Surur, two security sources said, the latest senior Hezbollah commander to be targeted in days of assassinations hitting the group’s top ranks.
- Israel has vowed to secure its north and return thousands of citizens to communities there who have evacuated since Hezbollah launched a campaign of cross-border strikes last year in solidarity with Palestinian militants fighting in Gaza.
- Israel’s airstrikes have sharply intensified since Monday, when more than 550 people were killed in Lebanon’s deadliest day since the end of a 1975-1990 civil war.
- The bombing follows attacks last week when pagers and walkie talkies exploded across Lebanon, killing scores of people and wounding thousands including Hezbollah members.
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Important Takeaways:
- A senior Israeli Air Force officer says the airstrikes carried out over the past day against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon are the most extensive the IAF has carried out in its history.
- More than 1,600 Hezbollah sites, mostly homes where weapons were stored, were struck in southern Lebanon and the Beqaa Valley within a day, according to the IDF.
- The senior IAF officer says the widespread airstrikes are “changing the operational situation in the north, changing the reality.”
- He says Hezbollah had two main capabilities that it built up over decades: the elite Radwan Force and its arsenal of rockets, missiles, and drones.
- The top leadership of the Radwan Force, tasked with invading Israel, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.
- Hezbollah’s rocket and drone capabilities have been targeted across Lebanon in the past day.
- The official says the IAF is working to strike “all of their rocket capabilities, all of them” and that it is “very determined” to do so.
- Hezbollah still has rocket capabilities, but they have been harmed significantly in the recent strikes, the official says.
- The official says Hezbollah has endangered Lebanese civilians twofold: first by placing the weapons in their homes, and second by telling civilians to ignore the IDF’s evacuation calls, he says.
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Important Takeaways:
- The U.S. is sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East in response to a sharp spike in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said Monday.
- Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, would not say how many more forces would be deployed or what they would be tasked to do. The U.S. now has about 40,000 troops in the region.
- “In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional U.S. military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region,” Ryder said. “But for operational security reasons, I’m not going to comment on or provide specifics.”
- The State Department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.
- Ryder would not say if the additional forces might support the evacuation of American citizens if needed.
- “Given the tensions, given the escalation, as I highlighted, there is the potential for a wider regional conflict. I don’t think we’re there yet, but it’s a dangerous situation,” Ryder said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel and Hezbollah trade intensified fire across Lebanon-Israel border as fears grow of a full-blown war.
- The Israeli military said it has carried out a “targeted strike” in the Lebanese capital, claiming to have hit near key Hezbollah facilities in Dahiyeh.
- “The [Israeli military] conducted a targeted strike in Beirut. At this moment, there are no changes in the Home Front Command defensive guidelines,” it said, providing no further details.
- Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said Dahiyeh is considered a Hezbollah stronghold.
- “This is a major escalation. We are getting reports this could be a targeted assassination,” she said.
- Earlier on Friday, Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets, a day after the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah promised to retaliate against Israel for a mass bombing attack, the Israeli military and the Iran-backed group said.
- Israel’s military said the rockets came in three waves on Friday afternoon, targeting sites along the ravaged border with Lebanon.
- Khan described the overnight attacks by Israel in Lebanon as the “largest” since hostilities began in October, following the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel that triggered its war on the Gaza Strip.
- “We’re not in a tit-for-tat, we’re in an open war.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah’s operations commander, Ibrahim Aqil, was the subject of a $7 million State Department reward for information leading to his arrest.
- The Israeli military said it had killed Aqil and as many as 10 other senior commanders of the movement’s Radwan special forces unit.
- “This elimination is intended to protect the citizens of Israel,” an Israeli military spokesman said in a brief statement.
- The State Department has identified Aqil, also known as Tahsin, as a member of Hezbollah’s “highest military body,” the Jihad Council.
- In the 1980s, as different factions vied for control of Lebanon and a U.S. Marine detachment was deployed as a would-be peacekeeping force, Aqil was a top figure in Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization. The organization took credit for the April 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, and the Marine Corps barracks in October of that year, which killed 241 Americans.
- Aqil also oversaw the abductions of American and German hostages in Lebanon, the State Department said last year. The department named Aqil a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” in 2019.
- Israel’s Defense Forces said they struck more than 100 Hezbollah missile launchers as well as a munitions depot Thursday and Friday as well as targets in Beirut.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Israeli strikes targeted infrastructure sites in southern Lebanon, including the areas of Chihine, Tayibe, Blida, Meiss El Jabal, Aitaroun and Kfarkela, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday. Israel also struck a Hezbollah weapons storage facility in Khiam.
- “The IDF will continue to operate against the threat of the Hezbollah terrorist organization in order to defend the State of Israel,” the IDF said in a statement.
- “Yes, we were subjected to a huge and severe blow,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said. “The enemy crossed all boundaries and red lines. The enemy will face a severe and fair punishment from where they expect and don’t expect.”
- “The Hezbollah terrorist organization has turned southern Lebanon into a combat zone. For decades, Hezbollah has weaponized civilian homes, dug tunnels beneath them, and used civilians as human shields,” Israel’s military said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israeli police said Thursday that agents thwarted a recent Iranian assassination attempt, arresting an individual suspected of receiving money from Iran to coordinate an attack on top officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- The citizen had met with Iranian officials over the spring in Iran and was asked to take photographs of sensitive locations and to transfer money and guns into Israel, according to Israeli police.
- The person was asked in another visit in August to promote an assassination of Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the head of Shin Bet, Ronan Bar.
- Iranian officials also asked the person to look into a potential assassination attempt on former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, officials said.
- Israeli police said the foiled Iranian plot was in response to the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, which Iran has blamed on Israel.
- The citizen requested $1 million to carry out the plots but was refused, police said. He was given more than $5,000 for his work.
- Hezbollah blamed Israel for a deadly wave of explosions in Lebanon this week in which pager messaging devices and handheld radios detonated, killing more than two dozen people and wounding thousands.
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