Israel strikes Syria, US pounds Houthis in Yemen
DAMASCUS
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese viallge of Kfar Tibnit on Oct. 17, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Israel bombed a target in a Syrian coastal city on Thursday, and the United States conducted strikes in Yemen nearly a month into Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza all belong to the so-called axis of resistance led by Iran, which on Oct. 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel.
Israel has vowed to retaliate for Iran’s strike, sparking concern around the world that what is already a war on multiple fronts could morph into an all-out regional conflict.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief on Thursday warned Tehran would hit Israel “painfully” if it attacks Iranian targets.
“If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in Iran, we will strike you again painfully,” Hossein Salami said in a speech.
Salami was speaking at the funeral of a Guards general who was killed in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month that also killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
According to Syrian state media, an Israeli strike on the city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, wounded two civilians.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the Israeli raid targeted a “weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah.”
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.
Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria in recent years, including multiple attacks recently along the Lebanese border that seek to cut off Hezbollah’s main weapons and equipment supply route from Iran to Lebanon.
In Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Israel’s main ally, the United States conducted multiple B-2 bomber strikes on weapon storage facilities, according to the U.S. military and defense department.
“U.S. forces targeted several of the Houthis’ underground facilities housing various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The B-2 is a stealth aircraft capable of flying non-stop from the United States, with a payload of 40,000 pounds of bombs, the U.S. Air Force says on its website. That is a far heavier weapons load than on most other modern warplanes.
The Iran link
Hamas sparked the Gaza war with Israel with its attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to official Israeli figures.
In support of its ally Hamas, Hezbollah opened up a front against Israel by launching cross-border attacks from Lebanon last year.
The ensuing exchanges of fire forced tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee their homes.
With Hamas weakened but not crushed, Israel widened the focus of its operations to Lebanon, launching massive strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around the country and on Sept. 30 sending ground troops across the border.
On Wednesday, Israel’s bombardment of Hezbollah targets toppled buildings and killed a city mayor in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said 16 people were killed and 52 wounded in strikes on two municipal buildings in the southern city of Nabatiyeh, where Hezbollah and its ally Amal hold sway.
On Thursday, Israel issued an evacuation warning for civilians in part of the eastern Lebanese Bekaa valley, a traditional stronghold of Hezbollah.
'Total destruction'
On Lebanon’s border with Israel, Hezbollah said Thursday it destroyed another Israeli tank, after close combat with soldiers staging incursions in the area.
Rescue workers affiliated with Amal in the southern city of Qana were digging through the rubble of several buildings destroyed in a bombing this week.
“More than 15 buildings have been completely destroyed, total destruction in a neighborhood in Qana,” said Mohammed Nasrallah Ibrahim, one of the rescuers.
The war in Lebanon has left at least 1,373 people dead, according to Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
Israel’s government has come under criticism over its strikes in Lebanon, including from its ally the United States.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Washington had told Israel its operations should “not threaten the lives of civilians,” U.N. peacekeepers deployed in the country or the Lebanese military.
Sixteen European Union defense ministers called “for maximum political and diplomatic pressure on Israel” to prevent further incidents against peacekeepers.
Following a string of incidents last week, the UNIFIL peacekeeping mission on Wednesday accused Israeli forces of “firing at their watchtower” in a “direct and apparently deliberate” manner.