Browsing: Region
A displaced girl from Tyre prays in front of a grave at a cemetery in Sidon, Lebanon, on the day of Eid al-Fitr, following an escalation…
This file picture shows cargo ships in the Gulf, near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from northern Ras al-Khaimah, near the border with Oman’s Musandam…
The Israeli army continued its attacks on southern Lebanon, targeting a number of towns and areas. The National News Agency reported that the outskirts of the towns of Al Ghandourieh and Borj Qalaouiyeh, as well as the town of Naqoura, were subjected to hostile artillery shelling, while Israeli aircraft carried out an airstrike on the city of Bint Jbeil. The Israeli army also conducted two airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, targeting Ghobeiry and Borj El Barajneh.It is worth noting that one person was killed and five others were injured in two raids carried out by Israeli warplanes at dawn today on southern Lebanon. ( Source link
The UAE State Security Apparatus announced the dismantling of a “terrorist network” funded and managed by Hezbollah and Iran. It confirmed the arrest of its members, who were operating within the country under fraudulent commercial cover to infiltrate the national economy and execute external agendas threatening the nation’s financial stability.In a statement issued today, the apparatus explained that the network operated according to a pre-planned strategic scheme coordinated with external parties linked to Hezbollah and Iran. Their activities involved violating economic and legal regulations, including money laundering and terrorism financing, to undermine national security. It emphasized that any attempt to exploit the national economy or civil institutions for terrorist or conspiratorial purposes would be met with firmness and force. It further asserted that no external interference threatening the state’s security or stability would be tolerated, regardless of its source or pretext. Source link
Two people were killed and another injured in an Israeli airstrike on southern Lebanon on Friday. The Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli warplanes targeted a house in the town of Bafliyeh, in the Tyre district, killing two people and injuring another. The agency also reported that Israeli aircraft struck the city of Bint Jbeil and the town of Taybeh, and renewed their attacks on the town of Kfar Tebnit for the second time in less than half an hour. Source link
Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike Friday on a Syrian army site in Daraa province, southern Syria.Local sources reported that an office belonging to the 40th Division of the Ministry of Defense in the Izraa area of ​​northern Daraa countryside was targeted by an Israeli airstrike. Initial reports indicate that the attack resulted in no casualties, and damage was limited to material losses at the targeted site. Israeli warplanes routinely attack targets inside Syrian territory and violate its sovereignty with ground incursions, in clear violation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Source link
Israel has more than doubled the number of troops along its border with Lebanon since March 1 and they are searching homes in southern Lebanese villages that the military has ordered evacuated, a senior Israeli commander said Wednesday.As Israeli warplanes pound Beirut in operations against Hezbollah that have become the deadliest spillover of the US-Israeli war on Iran, heavy smoke could be seen rising from villages in southern Lebanon as troops fired artillery across the border.Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have fled southern Lebanon since Israel ordered people to clear the area south of the Litani River, viewed by Israel as a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah. The group has been firing rockets toward Israel since joining the war in support of Iran on March 2.’DEFENSIVE POSITIONS’ INSIDE LEBANON”The plan is to make sure that Hezbollah does not have military infrastructure,” said the commander, whose name was withheld by the Israeli military on security grounds.Speaking to Reuters in Eilon, an Israeli town four kilometres from the border, the commander, who is responsible for infantry warfare in Lebanon, declined to say how many troops Israel had now deployed in the area.Describing the military’s fortifications inside Lebanon as “defensive positions”, he said troops were searching “the villages to see if Hezbollah hid weapons or communications centres”.Asked if that included searching houses that residents had fled following Israeli orders, the commander said: “In some of the cases they hid their weapons in houses. We have no choice but to make sure that house is not a military installation.”Hezbollah has publicly denied using civilian infrastructure to store weapons. It accuses Israel of destroying homes to prevent Lebanese from returning, something Israel denies. Many villages in southern Lebanon have been completely destroyed.Two Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of operations in southern Lebanon, the Israeli military says.At least 968 people in Lebanon have been killed since the start of Israel’s attacks, Lebanese authorities say.Hezbollah has not provided regular updates on deaths among its fighters. On Monday, a Hezbollah official told Reuters that at least 46 had been killed so far.LEBANESE VILLAGE OF KHIYAM AN INITIAL TARGETThe Israeli military is advancing slowly through southern Lebanon, aiming to completely clear the town of Khiyam as a first step before advancing toward the Litani River, according to a Lebanese security source and a foreign official tracking developments on the ground.In response to a question on whether Israel intended to establish positions up to the Litani, the commander said it was not his decision. If troops receive orders, he added, they are “prepared to do all kind of operations”.The Israeli military did not immediately comment on its operations in Khiyam, five kilometres inside the Lebanese border from the Israeli town of Metula.Along the border near Metula, Reuters saw several Israeli military fortifications dug into hillsides, filled with rows of tanks, armed personnel carriers, and bulldozers.Smoke rose from Khiyam throughout the day Wednesday, and many of the buildings on the southern side of the town had been reduced to rubble. A neighbouring town remains in ruins from Israel’s attacks in 2024.Israel’s northern border area with Lebanon is known as the Upper Galilee, its rolling hills offering vantages into southern Lebanese villages now occupied and bombarded by Israeli troops.Near Metula, Israeli Apache helicopters and jets were making near-constant sorties on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the sounds of rocket fire from Lebanon interspersed with the booms of Israeli artillery fire.For residents of Israel’s far north, the current war with Hezbollah has seen less rocket fire than during a year of fighting that ended in 2024.Hezbollah’s ability to launch missiles has largely been degraded, but it still retains capacity to strike areas deep inside Israel, Israeli officials say. Related Story Source link
Iran’s huge Pars gas field was hit Wednesday, a major escalation in the US-Israeli war, prompting Tehran to announce it would respond with attacks on oil and gas targets throughout the Gulf.Oil prices shot up after the attack in a conflict that has already halted shipping from the world’s most important energy-producing region and could now bring lasting damage to its infrastructure. Benchmark Brent crude prices rose around 5% to above $108. Stock markets veered lower.Pars is the Iranian sector of the world’s largest natural gas deposit. Iran’s Fars news agency reported that gas tanks and parts of a refinery had been hit, workers had been evacuated to a safe location and emergency crews were trying to put out a fire. State media later said the fire was under control.The attack was widely reported in Israeli media to have been carried out by Israel with US consent, though neither country acknowledged immediate responsibility. The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment.The UAE has denounced the attack.Iran listed an array of prominent regional oil and gas targets belonging to Saudi Arabia, the UAE and another Gulf state, which it said were now “direct and legitimate targets” and should be evacuated at once before it struck them in the coming hours.Previously during nearly three weeks of war, the US and Israel had held back from targeting Iran’s energy production facilities in the Gulf, averting Iranian retaliation against the oil and gas industries of its neighbours.Iran has already shut the Strait of Hormuz, which handles 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply, but consuming nations are hoping the disruption will prove short-lived as long as production infrastructure is spared.Iran’s warning was directed at Saudi Arabia’s Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex, the UAE’s Al Hosn Gas Field, and another Gulf state.’The Israeli military also hit central Beirut, destroying apartment buildings in some of the most intense airstrikes on the Lebanese capital for decades, on Israel’s other front in the war it launched with the US against Iran.Israel killed Iran’s intelligence minister Esmail Khatib Wednesday, a day after killing powerful security chief Ali Larijani.”No one in Iran has immunity and everyone is in the crosshairs,” said Defence Minister Israel Katz. He and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had authorised the Israeli military “to target any senior Iranian official for whom an intelligence and operational opportunity arises, without the need for additional approval”, Katz said.It appeared to be the first time Israel has publicly stated that it would let the military target enemy officials without seeking special permission from political leaders.In Tehran, thousands of people appeared in the streets for a funeral for Larijani and other slain figures. The crowd waved Iranian flags and carried portraits of the dead as a eulogist sang: “Martyrs are leading the way, they’ve become more alive, burning with love.”Iran retaliated for the killing of Larijani by firing missiles at Israel, which Israeli authorities said killed two people near Tel Aviv. Tehran said it fired overnight on Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba in Israel, and at US bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new supreme leader, said those responsible for Larijani’s death would pay for his blood.Several loud bangs were heard in the Saudi capital Riyadh Wednesday and some of its residents received phone alerts for the first time warning them of a hostile aerial threat, a Reuters witness in the city said.State TV said Saudi air defences had dealt with a “ballistic threat”.The attack on Iran’s gas field threatens to worsen an unprecedented disruption to global energy supplies that has raised the political stakes for US President Donald Trump. Diesel prices in the US have already risen above $5 a gallon for the first time since the 2022 inflation surge that eroded support for his predecessor Joe Biden.Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration would announce a “couple of things” in the next 24 to 48 hours to tackle rising gas prices.US-based Iran human rights group HRANA said on Monday that an estimated 3,000-plus people had been killed in Iran since the US-Israeli attacks began on February 28. Authorities in Lebanon say 900 people have been killed there and 800,000 forced to flee their homes.Iranian attacks have killed people in Iraq and across the Gulf states. Fourteen have been killed in Israel. Related Story Source link
A Palestinian policeman manages traffic and monitors the streets in Gaza City, March 16, 2026. REUTERS Israel has killed nearly a dozen Gaza police officers this week as it steps up attacks on a Hamas-run force that the fighters have used to re-establish governance in areas under their control, Gaza authorities say.Hamas’ nearly 10,000 police officers have emerged as a sticking point in talks to advance US President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. Hamas wants them included in a new police force envisioned under the plan. Israel rejects involvement of any officers with Hamas affiliations.Trump’s plan calls for the fighter group to lay down its weapons and hand over governance to a committee of Palestinian technocrats who would manage Gaza’s police as Israeli troops withdraw. Talks on disarming Hamas have been delayed by the US-Israeli war with Iran, Reuters has reported.On the ground in Gaza, mostly unarmed officers dressed in navy police uniforms patrol the streets in the seafront sliver of Gaza where Hamas retained control under an October ceasefire following two years of war.Officers could be seen directing traffic and patrolling markets and tent encampments in Gaza City on Monday.Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, said Israel had killed more than 2,800 Gaza police officers since October 2023, when Hamas-led fighters stormed southern Israel.Dozens of officers have been killed since the ceasefire, including at least 10 since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Thawabta said.To try to avoid more losses, he said, “operational orders and precautionary measures” had been issued “to reduce risks to police personnel, including reorganizing movements and deployments.” He gave no further details.Israel says its attacks in Gaza that have struck and killed police officers have been aimed at eliminating threats to its troops from Hamas. Israeli troops remain deployed in the roughly 53% of Gaza under Israel’s control.In Israel’s most recent attack, nine police officers were killed in an airstrike on a car in Zawayda in central Gaza on Sunday, Gaza medics said. The bombed-out remnants of the car, stained with blood, were left on the street, surrounded by destroyed buildings.The Israeli military said it had struck an armed Hamas cell that it said was planning to carry out an attack on Israeli troops, and that six people were killed. Neither Hamas nor the military responded immediately to a request for comment on the discrepancy in the death figures.Hamas accuses Israel of targeting police officers who it says are trying to maintain public security and stability in Gaza following the two-year war. Israel rejects this.Palestinian political analyst Reham Owda said Israel’s attacks on Gaza police highlighted Israeli concerns about Hamas tightening its grip on Gaza in areas under its control.”These strikes aim to disrupt Hamas’ security efforts in the territory and convey a clear message that Israel will not accept any expanded security role for Hamas within Gaza,” Owda told Reuters.Gaza’s health ministry says at least 670 people have been killed by Israeli fire since the October ceasefire. Israel says four soldiers have been killed by fighters in Gaza over the same period.Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike killed a local armed Hamas commander, Mohammad Abu Shahla, in Khan Younis in the south, Hamas and medics said, and overnight two men on a motorbike shot and wounded a senior Hamas police officer in Gaza City. Hamas blamed the attack on “Israeli collaborators.”Israel did not immediately comment on the incidents.Abdallah Al-Araisha, a Palestinian living in a tent encampment in Gaza City, said the police had been helping to fight crime and protect people across Gaza, where most of the population of over 2mn is internally displaced.”Without the police, we would be ruined,” Araisha said. Related Story Source link
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) announced Thursday that one of the operational units at Mina Al Ahmadi Refinery, was targeted this morning by drone.The company said in a statement that the attack led to a limited fire within the unit but caused no injuries. It added that emergency and rapid response teams were immediately deployed to the site, where the fire was contained in accordance with the highest approved safety standards.The company said that the relevant authorities were closely monitoring the situation and that any updates would be communicated through official channels. Source link