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      in US Politics

      Israel has ‘legitimate problem’ with Hezbollah on border, says Blinken

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      Israel has a legitimate interest in seeking to remove Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, from the borders of northern Israel, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said as he rebuffed calls to take a tougher line over the Israeli bombardment.Speaking before an emergency meeting of the security council in New York, Blinken emphasised that he would prefer a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but his tone is unlikely to be seen as a warning to Israel to stop, or to reconsider its plan for a ground offensive.“Israel’s got a legitimate problem here. Starting on 8 October, Hezbollah in the north, from southern Lebanon, started lobbing rockets and missiles into Israel,” he said. “People living in northern Israel had to flee their homes – about 70,000 – and Israel understandably, legitimately, wants a secure environment so people can return home.”He added: “The best way to get that is through diplomacy, an agreement to pull back forces, allow people to return home in northern Israel – also many Lebanese in southern Lebanon forced from their homes. We want to get people back home. The best way to do that is not war; it’s diplomacy.”Blinken also reverted to his claim that it was Hamas, and not Israel, that was holding up a ceasefire agreement in Gaza – the precondition set by Hezbollah to stop the fighting with Israel.Insisting 15 of the 18 paragraphs in the ceasefire agreement had been signed off, he said: “The problem we have right now is that Hamas hasn’t been engaging on it for the last couple of weeks, and its leader has been talking about an endless war of attrition. Now, if he really cares about the Palestinian people, he’d bring this agreement over the finish line.”Blinken added: “Hard decisions remain to be made by Israel. But the problem right now in terms of bringing this across the finish line is Hamas, its refusal to engage in a meaningful way.”The Lebanese foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, has described the US approach as “not promising”, adding: “It will not solve the Lebanese problem. The US is the only country that can really make a difference in the Middle East with regard to Lebanon.”View image in fullscreenThe Israeli ambassador to the UN, Daniel Meron, said: “We have been restrained now for 12 months, but … life in the north of Israel has to go back to what it was.”He reiterated Israel’s claim that it was “doing everything it can” to avoid hitting civilian targets, saying: “Hezbollah is using civilians in Lebanon as human shields.”“They would like us to shoot back and hit civilians so that we can be blamed for killing civilians,” he said.The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, meanwhile, said in a joint statement that “Israel is pushing the region towards total war”, condemning what it called Israeli aggression against Lebanon. Qatar said at a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council that the crisis was becoming more and more worrying.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIran so far shows no signs of sending direct help to Hezbollah, which it supports, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, admitted that the group his country had helped to create had suffered damage. But he added: “Until today, the victory has been on the side of the Palestinian resistance and Hezbollah. The final victory in this battle will belong to the resistance front and Hezbollah.”A White House official said that the US would come to Israel’s aid if Iran came to the aid of Hezbollah.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, met the Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in New York urging him to use his influence to persuade Hezbollah to accept a ceasefire. Pezeshkian is under conflicting pressures: unwilling to abandon the group his country helped create, or the Palestinian cause, but reluctant to go into a direct war with Israel that will undermine his goal of improving relations with the west.In his speech to the UN, in the face of criticism at home, he declared: “I intend to establish solid foundations for my country to enter the new era and play a constructive and effective role. To establish a foundation in the emerging global system, to remove the obstacles and challenges and to organise the relations of my country based on the requirements and realities of today’s world.”In Iran, Hassan Khomenei, one of the grandsons of the leader of the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomenei, sent a letter to the Hezbollah leadership offering to volunteer in support of the resistance. More

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      in Elections

      Fear Spreads in Beirut as Israel Steps Up Strikes

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      Parents raced to pick up their children from school in Beirut on Monday, as fear spread in the Lebanese capital that Israel might soon strike the city.Amid warnings from Israel that it was intensifying strikes against the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and calls for residents to evacuate, Lebanon’s Education Ministry ordered the closing of some public and private schools, citing “security and military situations” that could endanger students.The street outside one school in east Beirut on Monday morning was clogged with traffic. Dozens of secondary school students in light-blue polo shirts stood waiting to be picked up, while other students rushed out of the building, gripping their parents’ hands.Joaelle Naser, 44, had come to pick up her three daughters, aged 6, 8 and 16. “I am scared, I’m scared,” Ms. Naser said alongside her two youngest, their neat ponytails held in place with fuzzy rainbow-colored scrunchies. “I’m not prepared for if something happens.”Maria Karen, 15, was in math class when she noticed parents walking through the halls with their children. When class ended, she said, the teacher told her and her classmates to pack their things, take their phones and go home.“I’m a little nervous, a lot of my friends are scared,” Maria said as she waited for her parents to come get her at the entrance to the school.One of her close friends lives near Dahiya, a Hezbollah-dominated neighborhood that was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Friday. Lebanese officials have said that at least 45 people were killed in the strike. Maria said that her friend, like many, feared that Dahiya might soon be hit again.The honking horns and bustle around the school stood in stark contrast to the scenes at cafes and shops in the neighborhood.At one large coffee shop, a handful of employees sat idly under the shade of a large awning, surrounded by mostly empty chairs. The cafe would typically be packed around this time but “people are scared,” said one employee, Aya Alemel, 32.Daher Amdi, 34, sitting across from her, agreed.“Nobody will come to the cafes now,” he said, taking a drag from his cigarette. “It’s a war.” More

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      in Elections

      Israel-Hezbollah Tensions Spiral in Week of Attacks: What to Know

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      The past week has seen a significant rise in tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia supported by Iran. Back-and-forth attacks have brought the two sides to the brink of their first full-scale war since 2006, when they fought a 34-day conflict that involved an Israeli ground invasion and killed over 1,000 Lebanese and 150 Israelis.Hezbollah and Israel have been trading cross-border missile and drone attacks since last October, forcing the evacuations of tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the frontier. Hezbollah says it is fighting in support of Hamas in Gaza, while Israel says it is acting to secure its northern border.Here is a look at the events of the past week:Tuesday, Sept. 17Hundreds of pagers suddenly and simultaneously blew up across Lebanon in an apparently coordinated attack that targeted members of Hezbollah. At least 12 people were killed and more than 2,000 others injured, according to Lebanese health authorities. Many of those killed and wounded were Hezbollah members, but the stunning blasts also killed two children and wounded Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon. Hezbollah and Lebanese officials blamed Israel, an assessment confirmed by U.S. and other officials. Israel did not explicitly claim responsibility.WednesdayThe next day, walkie-talkies owned by Hezbollah members exploded, killing at least 20 people and wounding hundreds of others. Israel did not claim this attack, either, but experts said both operations required extensive planning and sophistication. Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said that the “center of gravity” of Israel’s military effort, which had focused on defeating Hamas in Gaza, was “moving north.”ThursdayHassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, gave a speech from an undisclosed location in which he acknowledged that his group had “endured a severe and cruel blow” but promised to retaliate against Israel. As his speech was broadcast, sonic booms from Israeli fighter jets flying over Beirut frightened residents. Hours later, Israel carried out dozens of airstrikes targeting what it said were Hezbollah rocket launchers, in what Lebanese officials described as one of the heaviest bombardments of southern Lebanon in months.FridayAn Israeli airstrike flattened at least one residential high-rise in the heart of the Dahiya, crowded neighborhoods south of Beirut where Hezbollah holds sway. A top Hezbollah commander, Ibrahim Aqeel, was killed in the strike. The Israeli military also said that “around 10” senior commanders in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force had been killed.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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      in Elections

      Israel and Hezbollah Threaten to Hit Harder, Raising Fears of All-Out War

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      A leader of the Iranian-backed militia said its latest barrage was “just the beginning,” and an Israeli military official said, “Our strikes will intensify.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and a top Hezbollah leader vowed on Sunday to increase the intensity of their cross-border attacks, raising fears that the renewed conflict could escalate into all-out war.The Hezbollah official, the deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem, said the Lebanese militia had entered “a new stage” of open warfare against Israel, while Mr. Netanyahu said his nation would take “whatever action is necessary” to diminish the threat posed by its adversary.The statements came after a tumultuous week of hostilities.Early on Sunday, Hezbollah launched about 150 rockets, cruise missiles and drones, according to the Israeli military, targeting what appeared to be the deepest areas it has hit in Israel since the group began firing on it in October, a day after Hamas-led forces attacked southern Israel. Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have been engaging in tit-for-tat attacks. Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets, drones and missiles into Israeli territory on Sunday morning. The attack came in response to strikes on militia members in Lebanon last week.Shir Torem/ReutersIsrael’s military said that its air defenses had intercepted most of the projectiles fired from Lebanon. One hit Kiryat Bialik, a town of 45,000 just north of Haifa. At least four people were wounded by shrapnel in northern Israel on Sunday, according to Magen David Adom, an Israeli emergency rescue service.Referring to the strikes, Mr. Qassem said that “what happened last night is just the beginning.”“We will kill them and fight them from where they expect and from where they do not expect,” the militant leader told thousands of people gathered in Dahiya, the Hezbollah-dominated neighborhood in southern Beirut, for the funeral of two Hezbollah commanders killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.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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      in Elections

      Israeli Attacks in Lebanon Mark a Sharp Strategic Shift

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      The events of this week seem to indicate that Israel’s leaders have decided they can no longer live with the threat of Hezbollah on their northern border, analysts say.The death toll from a devastating Israeli airstrike on central Beirut rose to at least 37 on Saturday, with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah confirming that two of its senior commanders were among those killed. Dozens more were wounded in the strikes, which leveled two apartment buildings and plunged Lebanon into further chaos days after pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah members exploded en masse.The attacks have left Hezbollah, Lebanon’s most sophisticated political and military force, in deep disarray and appeared to hail a stark shift in the calculations that had long governed the decades-old conflict between Israel and the militant group.After a hugely destructive war in 2006, Hezbollah’s leaders spent years building military capacity they thought could counter and perhaps deter Israeli attacks. And until last week, Israel had refrained from launching the kind of attacks that its leaders had previously feared could provoke retaliatory strikes on critical infrastructure or incursions by Hezbollah commandos. However, events of the past few days have suggested that Hezbollah grossly underestimated its adversary, as Israel dashed across what had been unofficially considered red lines.The region was on edge Saturday in anticipation of a Hezbollah counterattack, with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, telling reporters that the fighting posed an “acute” risk of escalation. Hezbollah issued calls for vengeance on Saturday and fired rocket salvos into northern Israel, but those reactions are routine. Meanwhile, Israeli fighter jets continued to pummel Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, including, its military said, hundreds of Hezbollah rocket launchers.“Eighteen years of mutual deterrence has now given way to a new phase of one-sided superiority on the part of Israel,” said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based research organization. “The facade that Hezbollah had been presenting to the world of it being an impenetrable organization is shattered, and Israel has displayed with flair how much of an upper hand it has in this equation vis-à-vis Hezbollah.”People in Beirut mourning Hezbollah fighters on Thursday.Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York TimesWe 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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      in Elections

      A Week of Chaos Pushes Lebanon’s Doctors to the Limit

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      Dr. Dania El-Hallak was already exhausted. After wireless devices exploded across Lebanon, there had been little time to process what she had seen — the hundreds of wounded, many of their faces disfigured beyond recognition.“I am hoping that it was all just a bad dream,” Dr. El-Hallak said, still struggling to take stock of the carnage on Friday.Then, without warning, Israeli fighter jets ripped through the skies above Lebanon’s capital.“There are strikes in Dahiya?” she said in disbelief, using the Arabic name for Beirut’s southern suburbs.Her nightmare had only just begun.The attacks on Hezbollah’s communication devices this week — widely attributed to Israel — wounded thousands of people, leaving many of them permanently disabled and in need of long-term rehabilitative care. The Israeli airstrike just miles from downtown Beirut on Friday, which killed at least 37 people and injured dozens more, has only added to the toll. Others are still presumed trapped in the debris.Lebanon’s ailing health system — already embattled by a crippling economic collapse — has been sent into overdrive.Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta at his home in London in December. He volunteered last year at a burn unit in Gaza and now believes war will come to Lebanon. Mary Turner for The New York TimesWe 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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      in Elections

      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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      in Elections

      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