Lebanese soldier killed near border by Israeli missile, Hezbollah says it’s prepared to clash with Israel on the ground

A soldier in the Lebanese Armed Forces was killed on Monday by Israeli military fire that targeted a military site in Wazzani, a village in the Nabatieh governorate that lies near Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, according to two Lebanese military sources who spoke separately to Mada Masr.

The Lebanese National News Agency reported that the Israeli military had launched missiles from drones in several areas near the border, including a military site in Wazzani, where it said a Lebanese soldier was wounded; a site in Khiam, where it killed two Syrian nationals; and a third site in Sarda, where it injured another Syrian national.

Israel has amassed troops and military vehicles at the border with Lebanon over recent days with Israeli military and political officials saying an invasion of Lebanon could be imminent if an agreement is not reached.

Hezbollah deputy Secretary General Naeem Qassem said on Monday that the group’s fighters are prepared to clash with Israeli forces attempting an incursion into Lebanese territory.

Shortly afterward Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, emerging from meetings with Amal Movement head and speaker of the House of Representatives Nabih Berri, the French foreign minister and the head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, told the press that Lebanon is willing to implement Security Council Resolution 1701 and deploy the Lebanese military in the area south of the Litani River.

The 2006 resolution provides for the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the area stipulated and for only the Lebanese Armed Forces and the United Nations Interim forces in Lebanon to be stationed in the area adjacent to the Israeli border.

Berri echoed Mikati’s position in comments to journalists, adding that communication with Hezbollah is ongoing, and that the party “is not far from this trend.”

Israeli media reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz conveyed the message to western capitals that Israel will not accept a ceasefire that does not provide both for Hezbollah’s withdrawal to north of the Litani and its subsequent disarmament.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to intensify its aggression on Lebanon. The military launched an airstrike on the heart of the capital for the first time in this war in the early hours of Monday morning, hitting the Cola neighborhood of Beirut and killing several members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

The strike on Cola was the first to penetrate outside the southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, which was subject to intensive raids for over 48 consecutive hours over the weekend.

Airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the south of Lebanon, Beqaa and Baalbek also targeted and assassinated the leader of Hamas in Lebanon overnight, as well as inflicted a high civilian fatality toll in raids that bombarded crowded residential areas as well as civil structures in villages and towns.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said on Sunday night that 105 people were killed and 359 injured in the 24 hours prior.

Hezbollah announced on Monday that it unleashed rocket salvos against an Israeli military base in Naoura and another in Safd.

Amid fears that the intensifying battle between Hezbollah and Israeli forces will escalate into a wider regional war, Israel bombed the Yemeni port of Hodeidah and power plants in the country’s west on Sunday night, claiming the sites were infrastructure used by the Houthis. The Yemeni Health Ministry said in a statement that four people were killed in the airstrikes.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of groups falling broadly within the Iran-backed axis of resistance including the Hezbollah Brigades, also released a statement on Sunday night saying that they had launched two attacks against “occupied land,” without providing further details.

Targeted assassinations of Lebanese, Palestinian resistance groups

The missile that targeted Cola — a crowded area that acts as a transport hub and thoroughfare for people traveling throughout the Lebanese capital — struck a flat in a residential building around 1 am on Monday morning. Damage could be seen to one of the lower floors of the tower block and to cars beneath the building, where rubble was strewn across the highway.

Ambulances rushed to the scene, according to the Lebanese National News Agency, which confirmed that several people were killed in the strike, including a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s political bureau, Mohamed Abdel Aal, who was responsible for military and security affairs. Emad Odeh, who the PFLP said was the head of the group’s military affairs in Lebanon, and Abdel Rahman Abdel Aal were also assassinated in the airstrike, according to a statement released by the organization.

In a separate raid on the Bas Camp in south Lebanon in the early hours of Monday morning, Israel also assassinated Hamas leader in Lebanon Fateh Sharif Abu al-Amin, as well as his wife, son and daughter.

Speaking in the first public address from Hezbollah’s leadership since Israel’s assassination of Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in a massive raid in southern Beirut on Friday, Qassem mourned the passing of the organization’s leader of 30 years in the raid that wiped out residential buildings on three streets and struck an underground bunker in the neighborhood, leaving a deep crater in the ground.

Qassem mentioned the commander of Hezbollah in the south, Ali Karaki, who he said was killed alongside Nasrallah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards General Abbas Nilforushan, as well as three other people who were in Nasrallah’s company at the time, including the head of the secretary general’s guard.

Qassem denied claims made by the Israeli military that Nasrallah was in the company of more than 20 members of the group when the site was bombed.

He also mourned Nabil Qaouk, who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday.

The deputy secretary general affirmed that the group would soon select its new leader. Until then, the group continues to pursue Nasrallah’s strategy, he said, pointing to its ongoing airstrikes against positions in Israel over recent days and voicing its intention to continue airstrikes against Israel to defend Lebanon and in support of the Palestinian people — the latter being the reason that Hezbollah first announced it would launch strikes over Lebanon’s southern border on October 8 last year.

Mass-fatality airstrikes in crowded civilian areas in the south, Beqaa, Baalbek

Israeli raids on the western Bekaa killed six paramedics from the Islamic Health Authority, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Another four people were injured in the same strike.

The ministry also announced the increase of the death toll from Israel’s attack on Ain al-Delb in Saida in the South Governorate to 45 people killed and 70 injured on Monday. Mada Masr’s correspondent says a large number of displaced people were sheltering in the building that was toppled by an Israeli strike on Sunday afternoon.