Israel Strikes Lebanon- Nasrallah killed? Israel says yes, Hezbollah says Nasrallah safe.

Israel is obviously going to say they killed Nasrallah. Hezbollah is obviously going to claim otherwise. I’m waiting for more information still.

Aljazeera

Israel targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut in a series of attacks on Friday in the heaviest bombardment since it escalated its offensive against Lebanon earlier this month.

BBC report via Youtube

More than a dozen explosions were reported in the neighbourhood of Dahiyeh, which had already been targeted by air raids in recent days. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said the attacks destroyed at least seven buildings in the Haret Hreik suburb of the neighbourhood, turning them into a pile of rubble. The station said more than 15 missiles struck the area. Civil defence teams are working on putting out multiple fires in the area and asked people to donate blood due to the likelihood of a high number of casualties.

Why did Israel attack there?

Israeli military officials said they had targeted the “central headquarters of Hezbollah” built under “residential buildings” in what they called a “precise strike.” They warned that they still had “more work to do” and suggested more attacks were coming.

Israeli media reported that Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was at the headquarters that was attacked and that Israel used “bunker-busting” bombs. Sources close to Hezbollah denied the report and said Nasrallah was “in a safe place”.

What about the people in the buildings?

Dahiyeh is a densely populated area, home to more than half a million civilians, many of whom had been scrambling to evacuate to safety as Israel started attacking the area last week. Dozens of people had already been killed in air raids targeting the neighbourhood before Friday.

Was there any warning?

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said in a news briefing that Israel did not inform the United States in advance about the attack, but that the Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant spoke by phone with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin when the attack was already in progress.

I doubt the claims the US was not informed prior to the attack- There were reports of US AWACS flying with transponders off and on, before and after the strikes

The attacks came as reports had emerged in recent days that negotiations for a ceasefire may be under way. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged Israel will continue its attacks.

Speaking at the United Nations in New York City on Friday, just hours before the attacks, he said, “As long as Hezbollah chooses the path of war, Israel has no choice, and Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their homes safely.”

Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who is also in New York at the UN General Assembly, said in a statement that “the new aggression proves that the Israeli enemy does not care about all international efforts and calls for a ceasefire.”

Speculation over Hezbollah leader Nasrallah’s fate after Israel bombs Beirut

Israel conducted a wave of air strikes on the south of Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Friday, levelling several buildings in a densely populated neighbourhood.

The Israeli army said it had targeted Hezbollah’s headquarters, sending huge clouds of smoke soaring above the area.

The strikes were heard across the Mediterranean city, and sparked panic in the residential area.

Bowen: Huge Beirut strike leaves West powerless as Israel chases victory

It is time to stop talking about the Middle East being on the brink of a much more serious war. After the devastating Israeli attack on what it said was the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut it feels as if they’re tumbling over it.

But in the course of the last year Netanyahu has made a habit of defying President Joe Biden’s wishes about the way Israel is fighting. Despite providing Israel with the aircraft and bombs used in the raid on Beirut, President Biden and team were spectators.

https://nonzero.substack.com/p/biden-and-blinken-israels-lawyers

This week President Biden, during his final address to the United Nations General Assembly, said the following about how the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began: “Hezbollah, unprovoked, joined the October 7th attack, launching rockets into Israel.”

This is only slightly misleading, but it’s misleading in an illuminating way—a way that helps explain Biden’s failure to end the carnage in the Middle East over the past year and also helps explain America’s failure to bring stability to the Middle East over the past few decades.

This basic pattern has persisted for decades. The US gives Israel weapons, and it kills whoever it wants wherever it wants, regardless of the consequences for regional stability and regardless of any international or national laws violated in the process. And the US, like a good lawyer, describes the context for the attacks in ways that seem to justify them. Today’s Israeli strike targeting Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which brings the Middle East appreciably closer to full-scale regional war, is in part the product of many years of this kind of positive reinforcement.

Speaking of national laws that get sacrificed in the name of Israel: This week ProPublica reported that, back in April, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ignored two Biden administration reports finding that Israel was blocking US aid from getting into Gaza—findings that, according to US law, should have led Washington to end weapons exports to Israel. The reports came from USAID and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the government’s leading authorities on humanitarian aid. Though Blinken was aware of both reports, he chose to certify Israel’s compliance with the law, telling Congress in May that “we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance.”

This limited hangout report can’t even whitewash Israel’s many abuses

Washington delays report on Israel war crimes in last minute move

Share some thoughts.