New weapons bolster Hezbollah attacks against Israel

Hezbollah’s chief says the group was using new weapons in attacks against Israel, as exchanges of fire on Lebanon’s southern border intensify.

A screen in Beirut with Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah delivering a televised address. Picture: AFP

Hezbollah’s chief says the group was using new weapons in attacks against Israel, as exchanges of fire on Lebanon’s southern border intensify while Israel battles Hamas militants in Gaza.

Over the past week, the Iran-backed group has “bolstered” its action “on the Lebanese front in terms of the number of operations, targets and the type of weapons”, Hassan Nasrallah said in his second televised address since the Hamas-Israel war began last month.

The radical Shi’ite Muslim movement has used “Burkan missiles”, for the first time, he said, adding that they could carry “a payload of 300-500kg”.

The terrorist group has been using attack drones “for the first time in the history of the resistance” in Lebanon, he said, and has been flying “reconnaissance drones” deep into Israel daily, “some reaching Haifa, Acre and Safed” in the country’s north.

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon’s southern border has seen intensifying tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between Israel and Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian group, stoking fears of a broader conflagration.

Israeli fire has killed at least 68 Hezbollah fighters since last month, according to an Agence France-Presse tally, as well as at least 11 civilians in Lebanon and 12 other combatants.

The mothers of killed Hezbollah fighters and other supporters of the terrorist group, watch the televised address of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Picture: AFP

Six soldiers and two civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

Hezbollah fighters “are putting themselves on the frontline to launch rockets” at Israeli targets, Nasrallah said, adding that Israeli drones were constantly flying over southern Lebanon.

Noting attacks on Israel and on US troops in the Middle East by other Iran-backed groups including from Iraq and Yemen, Nasrallah told Washington: “If you Americans want to stop these operations … you must stop the war on Gaza.”

He said “several” Hezbollah members were killed in Syria on Friday, where the group has long been deployed on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in his country’s civil war.

Hezbollah said on Friday that Israeli fire had killed seven of its fighters, without specifying where or when they died.

Israel’s military said it struck an organisation in Syria that was behind a drone crash into a school in southern Israel a day earlier.

A meeting of Arab and Muslim leaders on Saturday highlighted regional divisions over how to respond to the war even as fears mount that it could draw in other countries.

A joint summit of the Arab League and the Organisation of ­Islamic Co-operation in the Saudi capital of Riyadh condemned Israeli forces’ “barbaric” actions in Gaza but declined to approve punitive economic and political steps against the country.

The final declaration rejected Israeli claims that it is acting in “self-defence” and demanded that the UN Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression”.

It also called for an end to weapons sales to Israel and dismissed any future political resolution to the conflict that would keep Gaza separate from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who before the war was considering establishing formal diplomatic ties with Israel, told the summit he “holds the occupation (Israeli) authorities responsible for the crimes committed against the Palestinian people”.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, on his first trip to Saudi ­Arabia since the two countries mended ties in March, said Islamic nations should designate the Israeli army a “terrorist organisation” for its conduct in Gaza.

The Arab League and the OIC, a 57-member bloc that includes Iran, were originally meant to meet separately. Arab diplomats said the decision to merge the meetings came after Arab League delegations failed to reach an agreement on a final statement.

Some countries, including ­Algeria and Lebanon, proposed responding to the devastation in Gaza by threatening to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies as well as severing the economic and diplomatic ties that some Arab League nations have with Israel, the diplomats said. However, at least three countries – including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020 – rejected the proposal.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “it is a shame that Western countries, which always talk about human rights and freedoms, remain silent in the face of the ongoing massacres in Palestine”.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan similarly decried “double standards” in the world’s response to the war, saying Israel was getting a pass on violations of international law.

AFP