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 an area of the coastal city of Sidon on Monday afternoon. A car was hit in the latter strike.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that a man “from one of the Palestinian organizations” had survived the strike on the car. In addition to targeting Hezbollah members, Israel has occasionally targeted members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon. There were no immediate reports of other casualties.
Later Monday afternoon, Hezbollah announced that it had targeted military surveillance equipment in northern Israel with an exploding drone.
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, at least for the time being, and neither side launched strikes overnight.
Here’s the latest:
US helped Israel track Hezbollah strikes, Pentagon says
WASHINGTON — The U.S. provided intelligence and surveillance support for the Israelis to help them track and take out incoming Hezbollah strikes, but the U.S. military did not take part at all in the operation or in Israel’s pre-emptive attack, said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman.
Ryder said the U.S. has forces ready to respond if needed, but Israel did not request any help.
Ryder said the U.S. has been closely monitoring the situation in Lebanon and noted there was a threat emanating from the region. He would not go into any details, but said the U.S. “continues to assess there is a threat of attack.”
Israel extends housing subsidies for hostages’ families and evacuees
JERUSALEM — Israel’s government has extended housing grants for Israeli evacuees and families of hostages by one month until the end of September, as the war drags on with no immediate end in sight.
Thousands of Israelis are still living in temporary housing as the war nears its 11th month. They have been displaced in the south by ongoing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and in the north from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.
The government said Monday that it was allocating nearly $900 million to those displaced from northern and southern border communities, as well as families of the hostages. It said the subsidies will include grants for displaced people who are unemployed and grants to “encourage employment.” It said it would set aside additional funds to pay for housing until the end of the year, if necessary.
Israel’s economy is struggling as the war stretches on, and the government is coming under increased pressure to cut spending.
Intensifying conflict hampers Gaza food aid deliveries, UN agencies say
JERUSALEM — U.N. agencies say they have only been able to deliver about half the food required in Gaza over the last two months because of Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and heavily damaged roads.
The leading international authority on hunger crises, known as the IPC, said in June that Gaza was at “high risk” of famine, with nearly the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians experiencing varying degrees of hunger.
The World Food Program said in a statement Monday that in July and August it was only able to deliver around half of the 24,000 metric tons of food aid for operations serving 1.1 million people.
It said its operations were “severely hampered by intensifying conflict, the limited number of border crossings and damaged roads.”
It warned that roads littered with shell craters and debris are already difficult to navigate and will be unusable in a few months when the winter rains set in.
Israel’s ongoing offensive against Hamas, as well as sweeping Israeli evacuation orders that the U.N. says now cover around 84% of Gaza’s territory, have forced hundreds of thousands of people into squalid tent camps along the coast.
Israel has controlled all of Gaza’s border crossings since May, when it captured the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Egypt has refused to open its side until the Gaza side is returned to Palestinian control.
Israel, which has come under intense international pressure to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Gaza, says it allows unlimited amounts of aid to enter and accuses U.N. agencies of failing to deliver it.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, the main provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza, also warned about the hunger crisis.
It said that due to repeated evacuation orders, the breakdown of law and order and damaged roads, more than 1 million people would likely not receive food rations for August.
It also estimates that people in Gaza are only getting 1-3 liters (quarts) of drinking water per day. The WHO says people require 15 liters of water per day to meet basic needs.
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.