Hezbollah’s acting leader yesterday vowed to keep battling Israel and said the Lebanese militant group was prepared for a long fight even after much of its top command was wiped out, including its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
Israeli strikes have killed Nasrallah and six of his top commanders and officials in the past 10 days, and have hit what the military says are thousands of militant targets across large parts of Lebanon. More than 1,000 people have been killed in the country in the past two weeks, nearly a quarter of them women and children, the Lebanese Ministry of Health said.
Early yesterday, an airstrike hit a residential building in central Beirut, wiping out one apartment, damaging others, and killing three Palestinian militants, as Israel appeared to send a clear message that no part of Lebanon is out of bounds.
Photo: AP
Despite the heavy blow Hezbollah has suffered in recent weeks, acting leader Naim Kassem said in a televised statement that if Israel decides to launch a ground offensive, the group’s fighters are ready.
He said the commanders killed have already been replaced.
“Israel was not able to affect our [military] capabilities,” Kassem said in a televised statement, the first time any senior Hezbollah figure has been seen since Nasrallah was killed. “There are deputy commanders and there are replacements in case a commander is wounded in any post.”
He added that Hezbollah, which fought Israel to a stalemate in their monthlong war in 2006, anticipated “the battle could be long.”
A founding member of the militant group who had been Nasrallah’s longtime deputy, Kassem is to remain in his acting position until the group’s leadership elects a replacement. The man widely expected to take over the top post is Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah who oversees Hezbollah’s political affairs.
Hezbollah’s capabilities are unclear after a series of major blows.
Hezbollah has significantly increased its rocket attacks in the past week to several hundred daily, but most have been intercepted or fallen in open areas. Several people have been wounded in Israel. There have been no fatalities since two soldiers were killed near the border on Sept. 19.
Also yesterday, Hamas announced that its top commander in Lebanon, Fatah Sharif, was killed with his family in an airstrike on the al-Buss refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre. The Israeli military confirmed that it had targeted him.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Sharif was an employee, and was put on administrative leave without pay in March, as it investigated allegations about his political activities. Israel has accused the agency, known as UNRWA, of links to Palestinian militant groups, while the agency says it is committed to neutrality and works to prevent any such infiltration.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS