Hezbollah ‘plotting a repeat of Oct 7 massacre in northern Israel’
The Hezbollah commanders killed in a strike in Beirut were meeting to plan an attack on Israel similar to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, the country’s president and military claim.
The Hezbollah commanders killed in an Israeli strike on their stronghold in Beirut were meeting to plan an attack on Israel similar to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, the country’s president and the Israeli Defence Forces have claimed.
Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollah’s military operations, was killed after Israeli fighter jets unleashed a furious and targeted attack on Beirut on Friday, killing him and 10 operatives just days after a series of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies were detonated, killing more than 30 and injuring almost 3000 on September 17. Aqil, who was wanted by the United States for involvement in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, headed the Iran-backed militant group’s elite Radwan Force.
Israel President Isaac Herzog told Sky News UK the group were planning “the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on October 7 by Hamas,” in an assault that had been plotted for years.
“All of these leaders were meeting to launch the same horrific, horrendous attack that we had on October 7 by Hamas, by burning Israelis, butchering them, raping their women, taking hostages, old people, and little babies,” Mr Herzog said, adding that the attack was organised under “the empire of evil of Iran,”.
"At the time of the strike, Aqil and the commanders of the Radwan Forces, were gathered underground under a residential building in the heart of the Dahiyah neighborhood, hiding among Lebanese civilians, using them as human shields."
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 20, 2024
Listen to a statement by IDF Spokesperson,… pic.twitter.com/G3ZmLzxTPW
Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said over the weekend the commanders had met “to coordinate terror activities against Israeli civilians” with an “attack into the northern territory of the State of Israel — what they called ‘The plan to conquer the Galilee.’”
He added that the plan was to “murder and kidnap Israeli citizens — similar to what Hamas did on October 7.”
The US-baed website Al Monitor made the same claim, citing a Hezbollah source.
The Radwan Force was studying “plans for a ground invasion at the heart of the occupied territories,” the source told Al-Monitor.
It came as Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told his MPs only half of the 97 surviving hostages held in Gaza are still thought to be alive.
At a closed-door session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, the Israeli Prime Minister also said he was considering military plans to lay siege to the north of Gaza, the Times of Israel reports.
A member of the committee told the newspaper Mr Netanyahu said: “According to the information we have, half of the hostages in Gaza are alive.”
If correct, it would mean up to 50 captives could now be dead. The Israeli Defence Forces has
confirmed the deaths of 33 of those still in Gaza.
Mr Netanyahu said the plan for a siege – which would include not allowing any supplies into northern Gaza – would be presented to cabinet for discussion this week.
It came as armed and masked Israeli forces raided the office of global news channel Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and issued a 45-day closure order.
It was the latest salvo in a long-running feud between the Arab broadcaster and Mr Netanyahu’s government which has worsened during the war in Gaza.
Since the war began on October 7 when Hamas Palestinian militants attacked Israel, Al Jazeera has aired continuous on-the-ground reporting on the effects of Israel’s military campaign.
Israel’s military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatar-based network of links to Hamas or its ally Islamic Jihad.
Al Jazeera has fiercely denied these accusations and said Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.
Four Al Jazeera journalists have been killed since the war in Gaza began, and the network’s office in the territory has been bombed.
Israel’s military said on Sunday the Ramallah office was closed because it was “used to incite terror” and “support terrorist activities”, and because Al Jazeera’s broadcasts endangered Israel’s security.
“The channel’s offices have been sealed and its equipment has been confiscated,” a military statement said.
Al Jazeera called the Israeli raid “a criminal act” and an attack on press freedom.
In a conversation during the raid broadcast live on the network, an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief Walid al-Omari there was a court ruling to close down the office for 45 days.
“I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier is seen as saying in the footage.
“Targeting journalists this way always aims to erase the truth and prevent people from hearing the truth,” Mr Omari said.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the Israeli operation as “a flagrant violation” of press freedom.
Shuttering the Al Jazeera office “confirms the (Israeli) occupation’s efforts to disrupt the work of the media in conveying the occupation’s violations against the Palestinian people,” said Mohammed Abu al-Rub, director of the government media office for the Palestinian Authority which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.
The Foreign Press Association in Israel and the Palestinian Territories said it was “deeply troubled by this escalation” and called on Israel to “reconsider” the move.
“Restricting foreign reporters and closing news channels signals a shift away from democratic values,” the association’s board said in a statement.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Israeli authorities to “stop harassing” Al Jazeera.
“Israel’s efforts to censor Al Jazeera severely undermine the public’s right to information on a war that has up-ended so many lives in the region,” CPJ’s program director, Carlos Martinez de la Serna, said in a statement.
“Al Jazeera’s journalists must be allowed to report at this critical time, and always.” In April, the Israeli parliament passed a law allowing the banning of foreign media broadcasts deemed harmful to state security.
Based on this law, Israel’s government on May 5 approved the decision to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from Israel and close its offices for an initial 45-day period, which was extended for a fourth time by a Tel Aviv court last week.
With AFP
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