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Tag: airstrikes
Israel accused of killing dozens of Syria troops and Hezbollah fighters with major airstrikes near Aleppo
Beirut — The Syrian army said Friday that Israeli airstrikes near the northern city of Aleppo had killed or wounded “a number of” people and caused damage. A war monitoring group said the strikes killed 44 people, most of them Syrian troops.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor group, said Israeli strikes hit missile depots belonging to Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near the Aleppo International Airport, and the nearby town of Safira, home to a sprawling military facility.
The observatory said 36 Syrian troops, seven Hezbollah fighters and a Syrian member of an Iran-backed group died and dozens of people were wounded, calling it the deadliest such attack in years.
There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials on the strikes specifically, but Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was quoted by the Times of Israel’s defense correspondent as saying hours after that the military would be expanding its ongoing campaign against the powerful Iran-allied group, and that Israel was “turning from defending to pursuing Hezbollah.”
“We will reach wherever the organization operates, in Beirut, Damascus and in more distant places,” Gallant said, according to Times reporter Emanuel Fabian.
Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in its northern neighbor, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.
On Thursday, Syrian state media reported airstrikes near the capital, Damascus, saying they wounded two civilians.
Hezbollah has had an armed presence in Syria since it joined the country’s civil conflict more than a decade ago, fighting alongside government forces.
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and once its commercial center, has come under such attacks in the past that led to the closure of its international airport. Friday’s strike did not affect the airport.
The strikes have escalated over the past five months against the backdrop of the war in Gaza and ongoing clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border.
Hezbollah is an ally of Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who sparked the current war with their bloody Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Both groups are considered part of the network of armed proxy forces backed by Iran across the Middle East.
In neighboring Lebanon, an Israeli drone strike hit a car near the southern port city of Tyre and killed a Hezbollah member, Lebanese state media reported. Israel’s military said the targeted man was Ali Naim, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile program. The group confirmed he was killed, without stating what his job was within the organization.
The drone strike that killed Naim came a day after Hezbollah fired rockets with heavy warheads at towns in northern Israel, saying it used the weapons against civilian targets for the first time in retaliation for Israeli airstrikes the night before that killed nine people, including what the group said were several paramedics.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, concerns have grown that near-daily clashes along the border between Israel and Lebanon could escalate into a full-scale war, which could draw in other countries including Iran.
Syria reports Israeli airstrikes near Aleppo, world court orders action on Gaza famine
The Syrian army says Israeli airstrikes early Friday near the northern city of Aleppo killed or wounded “a number of” people and caused damage. An opposition war monitor said the strikes killed 42, most of them Syrian troops.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said Israeli strikes hit missile depots for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group in Aleppo’s southern suburb of Jibreen, near the Aleppo International Airport, and the nearby town of Safira, home to a sprawling military facility.
The Observatory said 36 Syrian troops and six Hezbollah fighters died, and dozens of people were wounded, calling it the deadliest such attack in years.
There was no immediate statement from Israeli officials on the strikes.
Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment in its northern neighbor, has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges them.
The strikes came less than 24 hours after judges at the International Court of Justice unanimously ordered Israel to take all the necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies arrive without delay to the Palestinian population in Gaza.
The ICJ said the Palestinians in Gaza face worsening conditions of life, and famine and starvation are spreading.
“The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (…) but that famine is setting in,” the judges said in their order.
The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its ongoing case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza.
In January the ICJ, also known as the World Court, ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza.
In Thursday’s order the court reaffirmed the January measures but added Israel must take action to ensure unhindered provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance including food, water and electricity as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza.
The judges added that this could be done “by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary”. The court ordered Israel to submit a report in a month after the order to detail how it had given effect to the ruling.
Russian airstrikes hit Ukraine, sparking fires and power outages
A large-scale Russian airstrike in the early hours of Sunday has once again caused fires and power outages in Ukraine, according to officials.
The military governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, said falling debris damaged heating and power grids in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih in the south. Consequently, six hospitals, more than 150 schools and 3,000 homes with 76,000 residents are temporarily without heating, he said.
According to the authorities, an unspecified critical infrastructure facility was also hit in the western Ukrainian region of Lviv. “A fire broke out there. Firefighters are on duty,” wrote regional governor Maksym Kosyzkyi on Telegram.
A few hours later, during a new nationwide air alert, two Russian hypersonic Kinschal missiles hit the same spot, Kosyzkyi said. The firefighters had been warned in good time and fled to safety, he said.
Western Ukraine appeared to be the focus of the attack. However, Russian missiles were also intercepted over the capital Kiev. Only one building façade was reported to have been damaged.
According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia’s overnight attacks were launched from 14 strategic bombers over the Volga region.
In addition, 28 combat drones were launched from the annexed Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian army intercepted 18 of the cruise missiles and 25 drones. The air defence was deployed in all parts of the country, the air force said.
After relative calm since the beginning of the year, this was the third heavy Russian airstrike within a few days.
Ukraine has been fending off an all-out Russian invasion for more than two years. It is being supported by many Western countries with arms supplies.
Ukraine says woman held in plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as airstrikes kill 3
Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the Secret Service of Ukraine (SSU), said Monday that it had arrested a woman in connection with an alleged assassination plot against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The woman in question “was preparing a Russian airstrike in the Mykolaiv region during the visit of the President of Ukraine,” the SSU said.
“Primarily, the woman tried to establish time and list of locations of the Head of State’s tentative itinerary in the region,” a statement from the SSU said, referring to a planned visit by the president to the southern region.
The report from Kyiv’s intelligence community came as Russian forces struck the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in the south, and border areas in the northeast Kharkiv region, with at least three people killed in the attacks, according to Ukrainian officials.
Reuters/OLEKSANDR PROKUDIN/TELEGRAM
“A difficult night for Kherson… The Russian army continued to set fire to the homes of Kherson residents in the central part of the city,” Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on social media. One woman was killed in the attacks, Prokudin said.
Separately, Andriy Yermak, President Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said Moscow had shelled the village of Kucherivka, close to Ukraine’s border with Russia in the Kharkiv region. That strike left two people dead, Yermak said.
The strikes were just the latest examples of Russia’s daily aerial bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities. Both countries have ramped up attacks on each other’s troops, infrastructure and military hardware in recent weeks as the deadliest war in Europe since World War II nears the 18-month mark.
On Sunday, the Reuters news agency, citing officials in both Kyiv and Moscow, reported that Ukraine had struck two bridges linking Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula — a large region that has been occupied by Russia since 2014 — to the Ukrainian mainland.
Over the weekend, Russia unleashed a missile and drone barrage across Ukraine, including an assault on a blood transfusion center that Zelenskyy called “a war crime.” The strikes were seen as likely retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on a major Russian port in the Black Sea, which was struck by Ukrainian sea drones Friday, causing significant damage to a Russian warship.
Attacks on key strategic ports in the Black Sea have increased following Russia’s withdrawal in July from an internationally brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export grain to the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, senior officials from some 40 countries including Ukraine, the U.S and China, but notably not Russia, gathered in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for peace talks, with no concrete steps emerging from the summit.
The Ukrainian delegation described the talks as an attempt to secure broad international support for Kyiv’s terms and conditions for peace, including the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory to its control.
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry said in a written statement to Reuters that the talks in Jeddah had helped “to consolidate international consensus.”
Last week, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy expressed hope that a Ukraine “peace summit” would be held later this year, and he said the talks in Saudi Arabia were a step toward that objective.
Ramy Inocencio
Three dead in overnight airstrikes and shelling across Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Three people have died during a night of air strikes and intense shelling across Ukraine, officials said Sunday, as Kyiv’s military exchanged fire with Russian occupation forces.
Two people were killed and four more were injured following a Russian air strike in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, said the head of the local regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a guided bomb had hit a blood transfusion center in the area’s Kupyan district late on August 5.
“This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “Defeating terrorists is a matter of honor for everyone who values life.”
A woman in her eighties was also killed by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-held Donetsk, the city’s Moscow-appointed mayor Alexei Kulemzin said Sunday.
The attack also set alight the main building of the M. Tugan-Baranovsky University of Economics and Trade, said the Moscow-installed head of the illegally annexed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin.
Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said that the blaze caused the building’s roof to collapse, but that there were no casualties.
Alongside shelling in the country’s east, the Ukrainian air force reported Sunday that Russian forces had launched 70 attack drones and air and sea missiles overnight.
The bombardment reportedly included cruise missiles launched from aircraft over the Caspian Sea and Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 strike UAVs.
Serhiy Tyurin, deputy head of Ukraine’s Khmelnytsky region military administration, said Sunday that Russian missiles had damaged several buildings in the area, injuring one and sparking a fire in a warehouse.