Israeli attack in Lebanon adds to Mideast tensions
BEIRUT — An Israeli drone struck a car near Lebanon’s southern port city of Sidon on Saturday, killing at least two people and wounding two others, security officials said.
The strike came as tensions across the Middle East grow with the IsraelHamas war, a drone attack last month that killed three U.S. troops in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border, and attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on vessels passing through the Red Sea.
The drone strike near the coastal town of Jadra took place 37 miles from the Israeli border, making it one of the farthest inside Lebanon since violence erupted along the Lebanon-Israel border on Oct. 8, a day after
Hamas’ attack in southern Israel.
An Israeli security official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the target of the strike in Sidon was Hamas official Basel Saleh, who was “injured to an unknown extent.”
The official said Saleh was responsible for enlistment of new Hamas recruits in Gaza and the West Bank.
Two Lebanese security officials said the strike damaged a car and killed two people, including one on a motorcycle. They spoke on condition of anonymity.
Lebanese troops cordoned off the area.
Drone strikes in Lebanon blamed on Israel have so far killed several officials from Hezbollah as well as the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The previous farthest strike was the Jan. 2 attack that killed top Hamas official
Saleh Arouri in Beirut.
On Saturday night, Israeli forces shelled the southern Lebanese border village of Houla, killing one person and wounding nine as they left a mosque after prayers, state-run National News Agency reported. The agency said that in addition to the artillery shelling, a drone fired a missile toward the mosque. Children were among the wounded, the agency said.
The attacks in Lebanon came as Iran Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian met in Beirut with Lebanese leaders, including the country’s caretaker prime minister, parliament speaker and the head of the militant Hezbollah group.
Amirabdollahian said that if the United States wants to bring stability to the region again, it should work on forcing Israel to end its military operations in the Gaza Strip.
He told reporters after meeting his counterpart Abdallah Bouhabib that after four months of war, Israel and its backers had not achieved “anything tangible.”
In an apparent reference to attacks by Iran-backed fighters in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, Amirabdollahian said that “if American wants calm to prevail in the region, then the mechanism and the solution is to stop the genocide, crimes and the war against Gaza and the West Bank.”
He blasted Washington, saying the U.S. is working on two tracks, one of which is sending weapons to Israel “and participating in the genocide in Gaza” and at the same time speaking about reaching a political solution to the war.
The U.S. Central Command announced Saturday that the U.S. military conducted self-defense strikes against two mobile unmanned surface vessels, four anti-ship cruise missiles, and one mobile land attack cruise missile that were prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea from Yemen.
The military said the missiles and an unmanned vessel in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region.
Since November, the rebels have repeatedly targeted ships in the Red Sea over Israel’s offensive in Gaza, imperiling a key route for trade between Asia, the Mideast and Europe. However, many of the vessels attacked have tenuous or no clear links to Israel.
The Houthis’ media office said the U.S.-led coalition launched three airstrikes on Salif district in the Red Sea province of
Hodeida on Saturday.
In response, the U.S. and Britain launched several airstrikes on Houthi-held areas across Yemen, including the rebel-held capital of Sanaa.
The Houthis on Saturday held a mass funeral in Sanaa for 17 of their fighters who they said were killed in strikes by the U.S.led coalition, according to the Houthi-run SABA news agency.
In Syria, Israeli airstrikes hit several sites on the outskirts of the capital, Damascus, the Syrian military said Saturday. The strikes came from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Syrian state news agency SANA reported
Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday’s assault was the 10th apparent Israeli strike on Syrian territory this year.