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      Israel Likely to Have Enough Weapons for Multiple Conflicts

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      Over the last week alone, Israel launched more than 2,000 airstrikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and continued its near-daily bombings against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Its air defenses also fended off attacks, in one instance intercepting a ballistic missile headed for Tel Aviv.And there are no signs of the onslaught slowing. “We’re not stopping, while simultaneously preparing plans for the next phases,” the Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said on Wednesday.But how long can Israel keep it up?Military and weapons experts say that is not clear. Israel, like many countries, is highly secretive about the weapons in its stockpile, and government spokespeople who vigorously safeguard that information did not respond to requests for comment.Yet there are several reasons why experts believe Israel could outlast its adversaries in its two-front offensive, even while defending itself from approaching strikes. Israel’s defense industry churned out so many weapons last year that it was able to export some, even despite the war in Gaza beginning in October. The United States has sent Israel at least tens of thousands of missiles, bombs and artillery rounds in recent years.And given the threats it has faced, Israel has almost certainly built up its stockpiles to sustain multiple conflicts at once — especially if Iran rallies its allied groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen to strike at the same time.“It will not run out, because in the Middle East, you cannot run out of weapons,” said Yehoshua Kalisky, a military technology expert at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “The leaders know how to calculate the amount of weapons that are needed, and what they would have to have in the stockpile, because in this jungle you have to be strong.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Who Was Ahmed Wahbi, One of the Hezbollah Commanders Killed by an Israeli Airstrike?

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      Hezbollah said Saturday that Ahmed Wahbi, a Hezbollah commander it described as a leader and trainer in the group’s elite Radwan force, had been killed in an airstrike along with the force’s founding commander, Ibrahim Aqeel, and other Hezbollah members.As is common for Hezbollah military operatives, Mr. Wahbi had little public profile while he was alive, but an obituary distributed by Hezbollah-linked media said he played a leading role in Hezbollah’s support for Hamas after the latter’s assault on Israel on Oct. 7. Hezbollah has launched attacks on northern Israel through the war in Gaza to support Hamas.Both are backed by Iran and are members of a regional militia network known as the “axis of resistance,” which also includes the Houthis of Yemen, the government of Syria and other fighting groups there and in Iraq.Mr. Wahbi, 59, was a longtime member of Hezbollah, joining at its inception, during Lebanon’s civil war in the 1980s to fight the Israeli occupation of the country’s south. The origins and makeup of the Radwan unit are murky, but its fighters have played key roles in operations like the abduction of Israeli soldiers in 2006, which led to a destructive monthlong war with Israel in 2006. The unit also fought against the jihadists of the Islamic State in Syria.As a young fighter, Mr. Wahbi participated in Hezbollah’s early operations against Israel, Hezbollah said. He was captured by the Israeli army in 1984, though the group did not say why or how long he was held.In 1997, he was a leader of a Hezbollah ambush targeting Israeli naval commandos near the town of Ansariya, in southern Lebanon, according to Hezbollah’s obituary. Hezbollah fighters killed about a dozen Israeli officers in that operation.He was a longtime leader and trainer with the Radwan force, in what Hezbollah called “developing human capabilities.” He also trained other formations within the group.He headed the Radwan force until the beginning of this year, then returned to training, Hezbollah said.The Israeli military said in a statement that it had struck “the masterminds” of a plan to attack northern Israel as Hamas attacked near Gaza on Oct. 7. The military did not mention Mr. Wahbi specifically, and did not respond to a request for comment. More

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      Senior Hezbollah Leader Is Killed in Beirut in Israeli Airstrike

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      The attack, which Lebanese officials said killed at least 14 and injured more than 60, stoked fears Israel is driving toward a full-blown war on its northern border, even as the fight in Gaza goes on.Israeli fighter jets bombed an apartment building in Beirut’s densely populated southern suburbs on Friday in what the military called an attack on Hezbollah militants, including a senior commander who was wanted in the deadly 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.The Israeli military’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said the senior commander, Ibrahim Aqeel, had been killed, along with “around” 10 others from Hezbollah’s elite Radwan unit, who were meeting underneath the residential building.In a statement, Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia backed by Iran, confirmed that Mr. Aqeel had been killed. The strike marked an escalation in Israel’s bloody conflict with the militia and fueled fears among Lebanese, Israelis and diplomats that Israel is driving closer to a full-blown war with Hezbollah, even as it continues to fight Hamas in Gaza.The strike on Friday came as Lebanon was still reeling from the attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday — widely attributed to Israel — that blew up communication devices belonging to Hezbollah members, killing at least 37 people and injuring thousands, Lebanese health officials said. Hezbollah’s leader vowed on Thursday to retaliate against Israel for those blasts, but did not describe how or when.As with Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, the one on Friday in Lebanon led to destruction and death in a heavily residential area. Lebanese officials said that two apartment buildings had collapsed, killing at least 14 people and injuring more than 60 others, including children. Residents described ambulances racing through the streets, a column of smoke rising above the skyline and rescuers frantically digging through rubble.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Civil rights groups condemn senator’s questioning of Arab American witness

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      A congressional hearing on hate crimes drew charges of the bigotry it was meant to address after a Republican senator told the female Muslim head of a thinktank to “hide your head in a bag” and accused her of supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.John Kennedy, the GOP senator for Louisiana, drew condemnation from Democrats as well as Muslim, Jewish and civil liberties groups for the remark, aimed at Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, at a hearing staged by the Senate judiciary committee.The proceedings witnessed further disruption when Ted Cruz, the Republican senator for Texas, was interrupted by a spectator protesting the number of Palestinians killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza. “You talk about the fucking Jews and the Israelis. Talk about the 40,000. Talk about all these people. Why is it about antisemitism?” the protester shouted, before being ejected from the chamber.Cruz responded: “We now have a demonstration of antisemitism. We have a demonstration of the hate.”Republicans criticised the theme of Tuesday’s hearing – set by the committee’s Democratic chair, Dick Durbin – for conflating antisemitism with bigotry against Muslims, Arabs and other groups.“The goal was to have a hearing about why it’s so hard to go to school if you’re Jewish,” said Lindsey Graham, the Republican ranking member of the committee and the senator for South Carolina. “If you’re Jewish, you’re being knocked down. You’re being spat on. It is just completely out of control. This is not the hearing we’re getting, so we’ll work with what we’ve got.”A Republican-led subcommittee in the House of Representatives has already staged a series of highly charged hearings focused on the rise of antisemitism on university campuses following Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel last October, which saw around 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage, and which triggered a devastating ongoing Israeli military retaliation.The House hearings prompted the resignations of two university heads after they gave responses to questions about their institutions’ policies on calls for genocide against Jews that were deemed insufficiently condemnatory.Graham tried to enter similar territory when he asked Berry whether she believed that it was goal of Hamas, the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah or Iran to destroy the only Jewish state. Berry answered that “these are complicated questions”.That eventually led to Berry’s hostile exchange with Kennedy, who asked her: “You support Hamas, do you not?”“Hamas is a foreign terrorist organization that I do not support,” Berry replied. “But you asking the executive director of the Arab American Institute that question very much puts the focus on the issue of hate in our country.”When Kennedy followed up by asking whether she supported Hezbollah or Iran, Berry answered: “Again, I find this line of questioning extraordinarily disappointing.”Finishing his interrogation by expressing “disappointment” at Berry’s unwillingness to declare outright opposition to the three named entities, Kennedy declared: “You should hide your head in a bag.”Invited by Durbin to respond to the outburst, Berry said: “It’s regrettable that I, as I sit here, have experienced the very issue that we’re attempting to deal with today. This has been, regrettably, a real disappointment, but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we’re in now. And I deeply regret that.”The judiciary committee – with Durbin’s approval – later endorsed Berry’s response by posting it on X, with accompanying commentary reading: “A Senate Republican told an Arab American civil rights leader that ‘you should hide your head in a bag.’ We will not amplify that horrible clip. But we WILL amplify the witness’s powerful response calling it out.”The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) accused Kennedy and other Republicans of treating Berry with hostility.“Maya Berry went before the committee to discuss hate crimes. Both Ms. Berry and the topic should have been treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve,” said Robert McCaw, Cair’s government affairs director. “Instead, Sen Kennedy and others chose to be an example of the bigotry Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims have faced in recent months and years.”Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, condemned what he called a “discriminatory and vitriolic attack” on Kennedy.“To use a hearing about the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and antisemitic hate crimes to launch personal and discriminatory attacks on an expert witness they’ve invited to testify is both outrageous and inappropriate,” he said.Sheila Katz, chief executive officer of the National Council of Jewish Women, called Berry’s treatment “heartbreaking”.“[T]he only Muslim witness faced biased questions about supporting Hamas & Hezbollah despite her clear condemnations,” she wrote on X. “This hearing should combat hate, not perpetuate it. The Senate must do better.” More

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      Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

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      Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.British sources indicated that concerns were aired about Iran’s trade for nuclear technology, part of a deepening alliance between Tehran and Moscow.On Tuesday last week, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, made a similar warning on a visit to London for a summit with his British counterpart, David Lammy, though it received little attention, as the focus then was the US announcement of Iran’s missile supply to Moscow.“For its part, Russia is sharing technology that Iran seeks – this is a two-way street – including on nuclear issues as well as some space information,” Blinken said, accusing the two countries of engaging in destabilising activities that sow “even greater insecurity” around the world.Britain, France and Germany jointly warned last week that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium had “continued to grow significantly, without any credible civilian justification” and that it had accumulated four “significant quantities” that each could be used to make a nuclear bomb.But it is not clear how much technical knowhow Tehran has to build a nuclear weapon at this stage, or how quickly it could do so. Working with experienced Russian specialists or using Russian knowledge would help speed up the manufacturing process, however – though Iran denies that it is trying to make a nuclear bomb.Iran had struck a deal in 2015 to halt making nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief with the US and other western nations – only for the agreement to be abandoned in 2018 by then US president and current Republican nominee Donald Trump.Iran responded by breaching agreed limits on the quantity of enriched uranium it could hold.Western concern that Iran is close to being able to make a nuclear weapon has been circulating for months, contributing to tensions in the Middle East, already at a high pitch because of Israel’s continuing assault on Hamas and Gaza.Iran and its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, are supporters of Hamas – and Tehran’s nuclear development is therefore viewed as a direct threat by Jerusalem.Soon after Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Iran began supplying Shahed delta winged drones to Moscow and helped Russia build a factory to make more to bomb targets across Ukraine. In April this year, Iran launched a Russian-style missile and drone attack aimed at Israel, though it was essentially prevented and stopped with the help of the US and UK.Russia and Iran, though not historically allies, have become increasingly united in their opposition to the west, part of a wider “axis of upheaval” that also includes to varying degrees China and North Korea, reflecting a return to an era of state competition reminiscent of the cold war.Last week in London, Blinken said that US intelligence had concluded that the first batch of high-speed Iranian Fath-360 ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 75 miles (120km), had been delivered to Russia.Able to strike already bombarded frontline Ukrainian cities, the missiles prompted a dramatic reassessment in western thinking as well as fresh economic sanctions.Starmer flew to Washington late on Thursday to hold a special foreign policy summit with Biden at the White House on Friday, beginning with a short one on one in the outgoing president’s Oval Office followed by a 70-minute-long meeting with both sides’ top foreign policy teams in the residence’s Blue Room.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThe leaders and their aides discussed the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, Iran and the emerging competition with China.Starmer brought along with him Lammy, Downing Street’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, and the UK’s national security adviser, Tim Barrow, , while Biden was accompanied by Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, among others.Prior to the meeting, UK sources indicated that the two countries had agreed in principle to allow Ukraine to fire long-range Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time. But Biden appeared to suggest the topic was one of the reasons for the face-to-face, saying to reporters: “We’re going to discuss that now,” as the meeting began.There was no update after the meeting, partly to keep the Kremlin guessing. Any use of the missiles is expected to be part of a wider war plan on the part of Ukraine aimed at using them to target airbases, missile launch sites and other locations used by Russia to bomb Ukraine.Britain needs the White House’s permission to allow Ukraine to use the missiles in Russia because they use components manufactured in the US.Protocol dictated that Biden and Starmer – the only two present without printed-out name cards – did most of the talking, while the other politicians and officials present only spoke when introduced by the president or the prime minister.Lammy was asked by Starmer to update those present on his and Blinken’s trip to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Shortly after the meeting, Starmer said the two sides had had “a wide ranging discussion about strategy”. More

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      West Bank residents tell of teargas then shots before US woman’s death

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      US officials have insisted that a ceasefire in Gaza is close even as fighting rages unabated in the blockaded Palestinian territory and violence spirals in the occupied West Bank, where witnesses told the Observer an American-Turkish dual national was killed by Israeli forces on Friday.William Burns, who is also the US’s chief negotiator in the indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, echoed secretary of state Antony Blinken during a speech in London on Saturday in which he said that “90% of the text had been agreed but the last 10% is always the hardest”.But pressure from the US, Israel’s most important ally, and the two mediators speaking to Hamas, Qatar and Egypt, has done little to assuage the fighting in Gaza or rising tensions in the West Bank.The US has also said it is urgently seeking more information about the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who witnesses said was shot in the head by Israel Defence Forces (IDF) troops during an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank on Friday. Several of Israel’s western allies, including the US, have recently imposed sanctions on individuals and organisations associated with Israel’s settler movement, despite blowback from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ­government, which includes far-right supporters of Israeli extremism in the West Bank.Eygi’s family have called for an independent investigation into her killing, adding to the pressure on the Biden administration to end what critics say is US complicity in the Israeli occupation.On Saturday, IDF troops, some of whom appeared to be forensic investigators, visited the town of Beita, near Nablus, to examine the scene where Eygi was killed. For the residents, it was yet another case of the IDF investigating itself: about 1% of army inquiries result in prosecutions, according to rights groups.All of the Beita residents the Observer spoke to gave very similar accounts of the shooting. A group of demonstrators had gathered on the hillside, as they have every Friday for midday prayers in recent years, to protest against Eyvatar, an Israeli settlement on the next hill built on land belonging to Palestinian farmers.On this occasion, there were some 20 Palestinians from Beita, 10 foreign volunteers from the anti-occupation International Solidarity Movement, including Eygi, and about a dozen children from the district.“The kids were throwing stones here at the junction, and the soldiers fired tear gas at them,” Mahmud Abdullah, a 43-year-old resident said. “Everyone scattered and ran into the olive grove and then there were two shots.” One of the bullets hit something along the way and a fragment hit a protester in the stomach, wounding him slightly, the witnesses said. The other bullet hit Eygi in the head, passing through her skull. Neighbours pointed out both the spot where Eygi was shot and where the bullet came from: a house on a ridge.The owner, Ali Mohali, said a group of soldiers, perhaps half a dozen, had gone on to his roof, 200m from where Eygi was shot. He said he heard one shot, but was not sure if there had been a second from that position.The IDF statement on the incident said it was looking into the report that troops had killed a foreign national while firing at an “instigator of violent activity who hurled rocks at the forces and posed a threat to them”.View image in fullscreenMoneer Khdeir, Mohali’s 65-year-old neighbour, was derisive of the IDF account. “They said that the stones posed a threat to the soldiers. They were stones thrown by kids from all the way down there, yet they talk about it like it was a Yassin [rocket propelled grenade],” Khdeir scoffed.Across the West Bank, army units on the ground are increasingly seen by Palestinians as a protective military wing of the settlers, taking their cues from the far right elements of Netanyahu’s government. Palestinian officials and rights groups have long accused the IDF of standing by during or even joining in settler attacks.Hisham Dweikat, 57, a science professor from Beita, said Eygi was the 15th person to be killed protesting against Eyvatar over the three years since the settlement was reoccupied, but hers was the first killing the IDF has investigated. He did not put much faith in the result. “It is clear that the army is with the settlers,” he said.Fifteen kilometres south of Beita in the village of Qaryut, Amjad Bakr and his family buried his 12 year-old daughter Bana on Saturday afternoon. She was shot dead while opening the window in her bedroom at about the same time on Friday that Eygi was killed in Beita.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“As usual on Friday, settlers came to raid the town and the people of the town went to defend themselves. There was a confrontation and the army came,” said Bakr, 47.“We went back home, because we thought that if the army was here, maybe they could stop the settlers. But unfortunately the army did not stop the settlers. They stand with the settlers,” he said.“The bullet that hit my daughter came through the window and hit her in the heart,” he said. “She was innocent, and shy, and clever. She had memorised three sections of the Holy Quran.”As to what Bana had planned to do with her life, Bakr shrugged: “An Israeli bullet doesn’t care about the future of any Palestinian.”In a statement, the IDF said that soldiers were dispatched to disperse violent confrontation between dozens of Palestinians and Israelis, and had fired shots in the air. “A report was received regarding a Palestinian girl who was killed by shots in the area. The incident is under review,” it said.Since Hamas’s 7 October assault that triggered the war in Gaza, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 662 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry, which does not differentiate between militant and civilian deaths. The toll is almost five times higher than the 146 killed in 2022, which was already an almost 20-year record high.At least 23 Israelis, including security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period, according to Israeli officials. Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, another 61 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes across the territory in the past 48 hours, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, putting the death toll at 40,939 people. Around 1,200 Israelis and other nationals were killed in Hamas’s 7 October assault that triggered the war, according to Israeli tallies.The latest round of ceasefire talks have stalled over Netanyahu’s insistence that Israeli troops will not withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border – a dealbreaker for Hamas – despite agreeing to the measure in talks held in July.Tensions between Israel and its regional foes – Iran and the powerful Lebanese militia Hezbollah – have brought the Middle East to the brink of regional war on several occasions in the past 11 months. More

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      Man Plotted to Kill Jews in New York on Oct. 7 Anniversary, U.S. Says

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      A 20-year-old Pakistani citizen was arrested in Canada after plotting to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish center in New York, according to the Justice Department.A Pakistani citizen was arrested in Quebec this week and accused of plotting to kill “as many Jewish civilians as possible” in New York City on or near the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israelis, according to a Justice Department complaint unsealed Friday.Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, who lived in Canada, tried to cross the border with the intention of traveling to New York, where he planned to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn, in support of the Islamic State, prosecutors said.“New york is perfect to target jews,” he wrote to an associate, according to the filing, adding, “We could rack up easily a lot of jews.”He also boasted that his plan would be “the largest Attack on US soil since 9/11,” the filing said.Mr. Khan was taken into custody by Canadian authorities on Wednesday after trying to enter the United States from Ormstown about 12 miles north of the New York State border. He changed vehicles three times en route to the border, perhaps to evade detection, prosecutors said.The complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, also mentions an unnamed associate, but it was unclear whether that person was in custody, at large or an informant.Mr. Khan is charged with one count of attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, ISIS, and faces up to 20 years in prison.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Netanyahu Stands Firm on Cease-Fire Terms Amid Growing Outrage in Israel

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      In his first news conference since the bodies of six killed hostages were recovered, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to budge on his conditions for any truce in Gaza.Brushing aside pleas from allies and the demands of Israeli protesters for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the release of hostages, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday vowed to maintain Israeli control along the border between Egypt and Gaza, a contentious plan that appeared to dim, if not dash, prospects for a truce.In his first news conference since the bodies of six slain hostages were recovered over the weekend, Mr. Netanyahu told reporters on Monday night that, to ensure its security, Israel needed to assert control over the Gazan side of the border with Egypt, known as the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it the lifeline of Hamas.Hamas has said Israeli control of the corridor is a nonstarter in negotiations for a truce, demanding instead a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.“If we leave, there will be enormous diplomatic pressure upon us from the whole world not to return,” Mr. Netanyahu said of the corridor, as a large crowd protested near his private residence in Jerusalem on Monday night.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters on Monday that to ensure its security, Israel needed to assert control over the Philadelphi Corridor, calling it the lifeline of Hamas. Ohad Zwigenberg/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Netanyahu made the comments a day after the Israeli military announced that the six hostages had been found dead in a tunnel underneath the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The discovery devastated Israelis and spurred both the mass protests on Sunday and a widespread work stoppage by the country’s largest labor union.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More