Israel-Hamas war latest: Israel launches more strikes on Lebanon, state media and witnesses say
After a short-lived calm following a heavy exchange of strikes between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, fighting resumed Monday.
State media and witnesses reported that Israeli strikes targeted the Lebanese border village of Tair Harfa and in the area of the coastal city of Sidon on Monday afternoon. A car was hit in the latter strike. It was not immediately clear whether there were casualties.
On Sunday, Israel launched dozens of strikes on southern Lebanon that it described as a preemptive operation, saying it had averted a major attack planned by Hezbollah in retaliation for the killing of one of its top commanders, Fouad Shukur, in an Israeli strike in Beirut last month.
Shortly afterward, Hezbollah launched a barrage of hundreds of drones and rockets, which it said was in retaliation for the killing of Shukur. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed drones had hit an Israeli military intelligence site near Tel Aviv. Israel said no military target was hit. Neither offered evidence.
Hezbollah declared its retaliatory operation was over and neither side launched strikes overnight.
___
Here’s the latest:
Iran’s foreign minister vows ‘definitive’ retaliation against Israel
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s foreign minister again has referenced his country’s planned retaliation over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Abbas Araghchi said late Sunday he made the remark in a conversation with Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, by telephone.
“Iran reaction to Israeli terrorist attack in Tehran is definitive, and will be measured & well calculated,” Araghchi wrote on the social platform X. “We do not fear escalation, yet do not seek it—unlike Israel.”
From Tajani’s side, he said he “called for restraint and to pursue a constructive approach, in order to stop the cycle of military actions in the region, which only risks bringing more suffering.”
“It is important that Iran exercises moderation towards Hezbollah in order to avert an escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli border, where Italian soldiers of the UNIFIL contingent are operating, and towards the Houthis in order to avoid an increase in tensions in the Red Sea area, where Italy plays a leading role in the (European Union’s) Aspides mission,” he said in a statement.
Their call came after Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, long backed by Iran, traded heavy fire early Sunday but backed off from sparking a widely feared all-out war.
Israel says more polio vaccines are delivered to Gaza
Polio vaccines for more than 1 million people have been delivered to Gaza, Israel’s military said Sunday, after the first confirmed case of the disease in the territory in a quarter-century.
It was not immediately clear how, or how quickly, the more than 25,000 vials of vaccine would be distributed in Gaza, where ongoing fighting and unrest have challenged humanitarian efforts during more than 10 months of war.
Other polio cases are suspected across the largely devastated territory after the virus was detected in wastewater in six different locations in July.
Aid groups plan to vaccinate more than 600,000 children under age 10 and have called for an urgent pause in the war to increase vaccinations. The World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency have said that, at a minimum, a seven-day pause is needed.
The U.N. has aimed to bring 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine into Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage and garbage. Families sometimes use wastewater to drink or clean dishes.