Hezbollah drone attack injures 18 Israeli soldiers

No Atallah Reports:

Eighteen Israeli soldiers were injured in a Hezbollah drone attack on the northern Golan Heights on Sunday, the Israeli military said.

Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it fired on an Israeli military base in response to an attack earlier that day.

One soldier was seriously injured.

The United Nations Refugee Agency for Palestine, citing UN Women, says 557,000 women in the Gaza Strip are suffering from severe food shortages.

“Palestinian mothers face constant threat of famine and struggle to feed their children and themselves,” UNRWA said.

“The difficulties they face on a daily basis are immense and increasing,” it said.

The agency, which has been providing assistance to thousands of Palestinians, called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured by Israeli fire in Gaza city early Monday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Medical sources reported that several people were injured when an Israeli drone exploded near the Islamic Complex Mosque in the Sabra neighborhood, Wafa reported. In addition, Shujayea, east of Gaza, continued to be shelled.

The Israeli military blew up a building in Al Shakoush, northwest of the southern city of Rafah.

The US Central Command said that US forces destroyed three Houthi drone boats in the Red Sea on Sunday.

The drones “posed an immediate threat to U.S. and coalition forces as well as commercial vessels in the region,” Centcom said.

“These measures have been taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer,” it said.

Tim Lenderking, US envoy to Yemen, has arrived in the Gulf for meetings with senior officials.

Israeli military bulldozers tore up roads in an attack in the occupied West Bank, the Wafa news agency reported on Monday.

When the army besieged the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, snipers were stationed on the roofs.

Israeli airline El Al said on Sunday that its flight from Warsaw to Tel Aviv was not allowed to refuel at Antalya airport after an emergency landing to evacuate a passenger for medical reasons.

Turkish workers at Antalya airport refused to refuel flight LY5102 before departure to Israel, El Al said in a statement.

“The workers on site refused to refuel the company’s aircraft even though it was a medical case,” it said.

The plane flew to Rhodes, Greece, where it will “refuel before taking off for Israel,” the airline said.

A war with Israel would likely mean “Lebanon disappearing,” said former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Although Israel has the power to face such a challenge, it will “suffer great pain, greater than we have ever suffered in the history of our confrontations with other countries,” he told CNN on Sunday.

“Neither Israel nor Hezbollah have an interest in waging a full-scale war.”

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no intention of ending the war in Gaza.

“We all believe that the real interest of the State of Israel is to end the war, withdraw from Gaza, release all Israeli hostages and be ready to start a peace process with the Palestinians. Netanyahu is not inclined to do any of this,” he said.

Mr Olmert also referred to an article in The New York Times by a group of prominent Israelis who called on Washington to cancel an invitation for Mr Netanyahu to speak to the US Congress next month.

He said her words should be taken “very seriously.”

“I think they did the right thing. The only possible outcome of a speech by Netanyahu in the joint session of Congress will be a strengthening of his political status in the State of Israel.”

Tim Lenderking, the US special envoy for Yemen, is traveling to Saudi Arabia and Oman this week to “continue discussions with partners” about the Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the State Department said.

The recent detentions of UN staff, diplomats and NGO workers by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels are also discussed.

“The Houthi arrests and attacks threaten progress toward a lasting solution to the conflict in Yemen and hamper the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Yemenis and people in need throughout the region,” the State Department said.

Mr Lenderking is expected to meet with regional leaders to discuss steps to de-escalate the situation in the Red Sea and ways to support the Yemeni people.

One Palestinian was killed and four injured in an Israeli bomb attack on a house in the Nour Shams camp in the city of Tulkarm in the north of the occupied West Bank, Palestinian media reported.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said that two people had died in the bombing of the house and that its staff had not been able to enter the house because of the fire caused by the bombing.

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that the four injured, including two in serious condition, arrived at Tulkarm State Hospital.

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Ismaeel Naar reports:

Bahrain has condemned Israel for its decision to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The Foreign Ministry expressed that the Kingdom of Bahrain strongly condemns and denounces the decision of the Israeli Security Cabinet to expand settlements in the occupied West Bank and to legalize five settlement outposts. This represents a blatant violation of the principles of international law and resolutions of international legitimacy and is a serious threat to international efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the region through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the ministry said.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, said on Thursday that the government would promote settlements in the West Bank and punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority in response to moves against Israel on the international stage.

Nada Maucourant Atallah reports:

Hezbollah said two of its fighters were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Houla, southern Lebanon, on Sunday.

The Israeli army said it had attacked “terrorist cells” in an attack on “a Hezbollah military building.”

Also on Sunday, Israel said its fighter jets broke the sound barrier overnight in several areas of Lebanon, including Beirut, in a show of force with sonic booms that sounded like explosions.

Fears of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah have grown in recent weeks as violence between the two sides has escalated. The two sides have been exchanging daily fire since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said the Israeli military had killed at least 43 people and injured 111 in the 24 hours up to Sunday, who had been taken to hospitals.

The number of war deaths since October 7 rose to 37,877 dead and 86,969 injured.

Two men have been taken into custody after a Serbian police officer killed a man who shot at him with a crossbow in a “targeted act of terror” outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, a minister said on Sunday.

The attacker, whom police identified as a convert to Islam, shot the officer on Saturday while he was on duty outside the embassy.

The police officer fired back in self-defense and the attacker later died.

The attacker, from Mladenovac near Belgrade, lived in Novi Pazar, a historical and political center of Serbia’s Bosniak Muslim minority, police said.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz thanked the Serbian authorities on Saturday for their “strong support and cooperation following the attempted terrorist attack on the Israeli embassy in Belgrade today.”

On Sunday, Israeli forces entered the Shujaiya neighborhood in northern Gaza and pushed deeper into western and central Rafah in the south, killing at least six Palestinians and destroying several homes, residents said.

Israeli tanks that returned to Shujaiya four days ago shelled houses and trapped residents inside, residents said.

Hamas’ armed wing and its allied Islamic Jihad reported heavy fighting in Shujaiya and Rafah and said their fighters fired anti-tank missiles and mortar shells at Israelis operating there.

In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli tanks advanced deeper into several districts in the east, west and center of the city.

Medics said six people were killed in an Israeli attack on a house in Shaboura, in the heart of the city.

The bodies of six members of the Zourob family were taken to Al Nasser Hospital in the nearby town of Khan Younis. Relatives paid their last respects before the bodies were carried in shrouds for burial.

Local residents said the Israeli army set fire to the Al-Awda Mosque in central Rafah.