Israel, Hezbollah trade fire across Lebanon border amid alarm over Gaza war spillover
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT/ISTANBUL, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday it had fired rockets at Israel, and its arch-foe said it had struck a "terrorist cell" in retaliation, as top U.S. and EU diplomats visited the region to seek ways to halt spillover from the war.
Fighting also raged on inside Gaza, especially in and near the southern city of Khan Younis, where the Israeli military said it had killed three members of the militant Palestinian Hamas group that rules the densely populated coastal strip.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, were on separate trips to the region to try to quell spillover from the three-month-old Gaza war into Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Red Sea shipping lanes.
Israel and Hezbollah often trade fire across the Lebanese border, the West Bank is seething with anger and the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen seem determined to continue attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes until Israel stops bombarding Gaza.
Air raid sirens sounded across northern Israel early on Saturday when the Israeli military said it had identified some 40 "launches" from Lebanon toward the area of Meron.
There were no reports of casualties or damage.
Hezbollah said it had hit a key Israeli observation post with 62 rockets as a "preliminary response" to the killing of Hamas' deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday.
Arouri was killed by a drone in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of Hamas' Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
Lebanese Islamist militant group Jama'a Islamiya said it had fired two volleys of rockets at Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel, the third operation it has claimed since the Israel-Hamas war erupted on Oct. 7.
Israel's military said it had responded to the rocket attacks with a drone strike on "the terrorist cell responsible for the launches".
It said it had also struck Hezbollah targets in the areas of Ayta ash Shab, Yaroun, and Ramyeh in southern Lebanon, hitting a launch post, military sites, and "terrorist infrastructure".
Lebanese security sources and residents said Israel had also bombarded an area known as Kawthariyet el-Siyyed.
Hezbollah said five of its fighters had been killed in Israeli strikes.
Israel's onslaught began after Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel on Oct. 7, with 1,200 people killed and 240 taken hostage, according to Israeli officials.
[1/11]U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a book, on the day of a meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (not pictured), at Vahdettin, a private residence of the Presidency, in Istanbul, Turkey, January 6, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/Pool
- In Istanbul, Blinken held talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and then with President Tayyip Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
- Turkey, which unlike most of its NATO allies does not class Hamas as a terrorist organization and hosts some of its members, has offered to mediate in the Gaza conflict.
- Blinken also stressed the need to work toward broader, lasting regional peace that ensures Israel's security and advances the establishment of a Palestinian state, he said.
- Borrell, the EU's senior diplomat, expressed alarm in Beirut about exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah and the risk that Lebanon could be dragged into the Gaza conflict.
HEAVY SHELLING
- The official Palestinian WAFA news agency reported that 18 Palestinians had been killed by an Israeli attack on a house east of Khan Younis.
- The Palestinian Red Crescent reported heavy shelling inside Khan Younis near the Al-Amal Hospital. Shrapnel flew into the medical facility amid the sound of heavy gunfire from drones, it said in a post on social media platform X.
- The Israeli military said its commandos had killed three fighters and found "many weapons, grenades, magazines and vests that were used by Hamas" in a civilian home.
"We were in al-Shati refugee camp and they dropped fliers saying that Gaza is a battlefield, so we fled to Khan Younis because it was a safe place, and they still bombed us," he said.
- Israel denies targeting civilians but says Hamas militants deliberately embed themselves and their infrastructure among civilian populations.
- Hamas, which is backed by Iran and is sworn to Israel's destruction, denies the accusation.
Additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Tuvan Gumrukcu in Istanbul; Arafat Barbakh in Gaza, Nidal al-Mughrabi, Muhammad Al Gebaly and Adam Makary in Cairo Writing by Michael Georgy, Gareth Jones and Kevin Liffey Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Frances Kerry
Hezbollah, Israel trade heavy cross-border fire as Blinken seeks to prevent regional escalation
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that if his group didn't strike back for the killing Tuesday of Saleh Arouri, Hamas' deputy political leader, all of Lebanon would be vulnerable to Israeli attacks.
With the risk of regional escalation, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken kicked off an urgent Middle East diplomatic tour, his fourth since the Israel-Hamas war erupted three months ago.
- “It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in Beirut during his own Middle East tour.
Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon hit the outskirts of Kouthariyeh al-Siyad, a village about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said, adding that there were casualties. Such strikes deeper inside Lebanon have been rare since the border fighting started nearly three months ago. NNA also said Israeli forces shelled border areas including the town of Khiam. Israel’s army had no immediate comment.
Separately, the armed wing of the Islamic Group in Lebanon, the country's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a close ally of Hamas, said it fired two volleys of rockets toward the Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona on Friday night. Two of the group's members were killed in the strike that killed Arouri.
- The war in Gaza was triggered by a deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages.
- In recent weeks, Israel has been scaling back its military assault in northern Gaza and pressing its offensive in the territory's south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are being squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while being pounded by Israeli airstrikes.
- On Saturday, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said 122 Palestinians had been killed over the past 24 hours, bringing the total since the start of the war to 22,722.
- The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
- The ministry has said two-thirds of those killed have been women or children.
- The overall wounded rose to 58,166, the ministry said.
The latest Israeli-dropped leaflets urged Palestinians in some areas near the hospital to evacuate, citing “dangerous fighting.”
In the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the focus of Israel's ground offensive, the European Hospital received the bodies of 18 people killed in an overnight airstrike on a house, said Saleh al-Hamms, head of the hospital's nursing department. Citing witnesses, he said more than three dozen people had been sheltering in the house, including some who had been displaced.
Israel has held Hamas responsible for civilian casualties, saying the group embeds itself within Gaza's civilian infrastructure. Still, international criticism of Israel's conduct has grown because of the rising civilian death toll. The United States has urged Israel to do more to prevent harm to civilians, even as it sends weapons and munitions while shielding its close ally against international censure.
Blinken began his latest Mideast trip in Turkey, which the Biden administration believes can exert influence, particularly on Iran and its proxies, to tamp down fears of a regional conflagration.
Those fears have spiked in recent days with incidents in the Red Sea, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran. On Saturday, a drone launched from an area of Yemen controlled by the Houthi militant group was shot down by the U.S. destroyer Laboon near multiple commercial vessels in the Red Sea, the U.S. Central Command said in a statement, adding there were no casualties or damage reported.
In talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Blinken sought support for nascent plans for post-war Gaza that could include monetary or in-kind contributions to reconstruction efforts and some form of participation in a proposed multinational force that could operate in or adjacent to the territory.
Blinken then traveled to Turkish rival and fellow NATO ally Greece to meet Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has been supportive of U.S. efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.
Other stops include Jordan, followed by Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Sunday and Monday. Blinken will visit Israel and the West Bank next week before wrapping up the trip in Egypt.
The EU's foreign policy chief also will visit Saudi Arabia on Sunday. He said he aims to jump-start a European-Arab initiative to revive a peace process that would result in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Jobain reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Istanbul, Julia Frankel in Jerusalem, Abby Sewell in Beirut and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
___ Find more of AP’s coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
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