Important Takeaways:
- As tensions escalate between Israel and Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon issued a video Monday urging Americans to leave the country before a crisis begins.
- “We recommend U.S. citizens develop a crisis plan of action and leave before a crisis begins,” Rena Bitter, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the bureau of consular affairs, said in a video posted on social media. “Should commercial air not be available, individuals already in Lebanon should be prepared to shelter in place for long periods of time.”
- Bitter said anyone planning to visit Lebanon should reconsider given the “difficulties that would hinder departure should conflict increase in the region.”
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Monday, emphasizing the “importance of preventing escalation” and discussing efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to months of conflict.
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Important Takeaways:
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a harsh response to the Hezbollah strike that killed 12 children amid calls by the international community for Israeli restrain.
- “Our response will come, and it will be hard,” Netanyahu said during a visit Monday to the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights that came under attack on Saturday.
- The state of Israel, he said, cannot and will not normalize this,” he stated.
- Late Sunday the security cabinet spent over three hours debating a response to the Hezbollah attack, authorizing Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to take action.
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Important Takeaways:
- Senior Hezbollah Radwan force commander Ali Jaafar Maatuk was killed in a strike in southern Lebanon on Thursday, the military said.
- During the attack, other Radwan forces commanders were also killed who were responsible for launching attacks into Israel.
- The Radwan forces have been active during the exchanges of fire in the north between Israel and Hezbollah.
- Several high-ranking Radwan commanders have been targeted during the war, with the mastermind of the March 2023 Megiddo bombing being killed in February, he was also responsible for coordinating Hezbollah’s attacks in the immediate aftermath of October 7.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hezbollah has warned it will find new targets for its rocket attacks should Israeli attacks continue to “target” civilians in Lebanon.
- Noting that eight non-combatants were killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon in recent days, Nasrallah said that more civilian bloodshed would see Hezbollah fire at new Israeli towns.
- “Continuing to target civilians will push the Resistance to launch missiles at settlements that were not previously targeted,” he said in an address to mark the largely Shia holy day Ashura.
- Israel has said it is striking Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure in Lebanon and does not target civilians.
- As the temperature rises between Israel and Hezbollah, fears are growing of an all-out war that could spark regional turmoil.
- Nasrallah on Wednesday reiterated a vow that Hezbollah would keep up the fight, insisting that Israel is on its heels after 10 months of grinding war in Gaza.
- “If your tanks come to Lebanon … you will have no tanks left,” Nasrallah said.
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel is “prepared for a very intense operation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on a visit to the Lebanese border last month
- In Lebanon, Israel would face a larger, better-armed and more-professional foe, experts warn, and the threat of an even deeper military quagmire.
- Hezbollah insists it will not lay down its arms, or consider retreating from the Israeli border, until a cease-fire is in place in the Strip.
- Israeli military leaders have been drawing up plans for a Lebanon offensive for months
- Since the start of the operation in Gaza, 326 Israeli soldiers have been killed, more than four times the toll from the 2014 war against Hamas.
- To avert a Lebanon war, Israeli officials are demanding — through U.S. and European diplomats — that Hezbollah retreat about 10 miles north of the border, past the Litani River, a military demarcation agreed upon at the end of the 2006 war.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Lebanese Hezbollah group said it launched over 200 rockets on Thursday at several military bases in Israel in retaliation for a strike that killed one of its senior commanders.
- The attack by the Iran-backed militant group was one of the largest in the months long conflict along the Lebanon-Israel border, with tensions escalating in recent weeks.
- Israel on Wednesday acknowledged that it had killed Mohammad Naameh Nasser, who headed one of Hezbollah’s three regional divisions in southern Lebanon, a day earlier.
- The Israeli military said “numerous projectiles and suspicious aerial targets” had entered its territory from Lebanon, many of which it said were intercepted. It confirmed the death of one soldier in the barrage.
- After Hezbollah’s attack, Israel struck various towns in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said it hit Hezbollah’s “military structures” in the southern border towns of Ramyeh and Houla.
- Israeli jets also broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and other areas in the country.
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Important Takeaways:
- Fires rage in Galilee, Golan Heights after massive Hezbollah rocket and drone attack
- Fires are raging across numerous locations in the north after the massive Hezbollah rocket and drone attack.
- According to the Ynet news site, firefighters are tackling large blazes in at least 10 locations in the Galilee and Golan Heights after this morning’s assault by the Lebanon-based terror group.
- The news outlet says that at least one highway in the Golan Heights is blocked as a result of fires.
- Hezbollah launched some 200 rockets and 20 drones from Lebanon at northern Israel in the terror group’s major attack. It came a day after the IDF killed a senior Hezbollah commander.
- It says that some of the rockets and drones were shot down by air defense and fighter jets.
- In response, fighter jets struck several Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon’s Ramyeh and Houla, it adds.
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Important Takeaways:
- Iran vows to back Hezbollah in fight with Israel as IRGC general renews threat of imminent missile strike
- Iran vowed on Tuesday to back the terrorist organization Hezbollah “by all means” against Israel if Jerusalem launches an offensive in neighboring Lebanon
- “All Lebanese people, Arab countries and members of the Axis of Resistance will support Lebanon against Israel,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “There would be a chance of expansion of the war to the whole region, in which all countries including Iran would become engaged.”
- “In that situation, we would have no choice, but to support Hezbollah by all means,” he added.
- Kharrazi noted that “the expansion of war is not in the interest of anyone – not Iran or the U.S.,” but his comments came just one day after a top Iranian commander said he was itching for the opportunity to levy more strikes against Israel
- Speaking to the families of Palestinians killed during the fight in the Gaza Strip on Monday, Brigadier General of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force Amir Ali Hajizadeh said he is “hopeful” another strike will be carried out against Jerusalem following the first attack in April.
- “We are hopeful of the arrival of the opportunity for [conducting] Operation True Promise 2,” Hajizadeh said, according to Iranian-owned media outlet Mehr News Agency.
- The comments were in reference to the more than 300 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles Tehran reportedly fired at Israel on April 14, the majority of which were stopped by Israeli and U.S. forces.
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Important Takeaways:
- ‘When America’s weak, the axis strengthens’: Fmr. Mossad official says Hezbollah fears war
- Oded Ilam, a former senior Mossad official, spoke recently with Arel Segal on his show on 103FM radio to discuss the implications of Biden’s failure in the recent presidential debate against Donald Trump and the possible escalation in the North.
- Ilam began by saying, “The Americans, although I don’t think they are anti-Israeli, continue to misunderstand the situation we are in. Biden and his administration have their hearts in the right place. The famous ‘warning’ that Biden gave to the Iranians didn’t move them at all. They attacked Israel anyway, and the American response was that the administration issued condolences for Raisi’s death. The American administration repeatedly shows weakness, which is also reflected in the ongoing negotiations.”
- “Every time Hamas does not accept a deal with Israel, we are forced to step back two more steps. It is hard for me to see a situation where Hamas allows us to write up another agreement that doesn’t include withdrawing from the Philadelphi Corridor,” Ilam noted. “I can assume that when America is weak, the axis strengthens. This confrontation is very significant. I saw Biden’s performance in Atlanta, where he was different than at the recent debate. He was excellent. The same team that advised him to go to the debate is exactly the same team that shapes America’s policy.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Israel’s military leadership wants to see a ceasefire in Gaza, even if it leaves the Hamas terror group ruling the Strip, The New York Times reported on Monday, citing six current and former security officials.
- “I don’t know who those unnamed parties are, but I’m here to make it unequivocally clear: it won’t happen,” said Netanyahu
- “We will end the war only after we have achieved all of its goals, including the elimination of Hamas and the release of all our hostages.”
- The Israel Defense Force also responded to the report, saying it was “determined to keep fighting until it achieves the goals of the war, the destruction of Hamas’s military and governance capabilities, bringing back our hostages, and safely returning residents in the north and south to their homes.
- An end to the fighting in the south would open the door for Hezbollah to hold its fire. The Iran-backed Shiite group has pledged to keep striking Israel as long as the war against Hamas in Gaza continues.
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