Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has postponed by a day his trip to New York next week, where he is due take part in the annual session of the UN General Assembly, reported DPA, quoted by BTA.
He plans to speak at the General Debate within the 79th session, the agency said, noting that the postponement comes amid heightened tensions between Israel and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group.
The culmination of this tension was yesterday's murder of the top military commander of "Hezbollah". Ibrahim Akil during an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, DPA notes. It was preceded by one of Israel's most massive airstrikes since the start of the exchange of strikes between the Israeli army and "Hezbollah" across the border with Lebanon, the agency explains.
According to the changed schedule, Netanyahu should land in the US on Wednesday.
The Israeli army announced last night that it had killed the top commander in the Lebanese Shiite group "Hezbollah" Ibrahim Akil and other heads of the special forces of the movement – "Ar Radwan", in an attack in the southern part of the capital of Lebanon, Beirut, reported Reuters, quoted by BTA. In the early hours today, the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement confirmed the same, the agency reported.
The elite division "Ar Radwan" was under the direct leadership of Akil, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. The Lebanese Ministry of Health announced that the total number of dead in the Israeli strike in question was at least fourteen people. The number of victims may rise, given that search operations among the ruins continue, Reuters specifies.
Yesterday's events lead to a sharp escalation of the nearly year-long conflict between Israel and the Israeli-backed Lebanese movement, the agency said.
The killing of Aqeel and the other chiefs in "Ar Radwan” is a new blow to "Hezbollah”, immediately after the two waves of pager explosions used by members of the group, noted Reuters, specifying that the victims of the explosions were at least 37, and the wounded – thousands.
It is believed that Israel is behind the explosions, which has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement, the agency points out. On the occasion of the liquidation of Akil, the Israeli army said it carried out a “targeted strike” in Beirut, without giving further details.
The radical Palestinian group "Hamas" honored Akil's memory by declaring the Israeli strike a "crime" and "madness", the price of which Israel will pay, Reuters also reported.
This is the second time in less than two months that Israel has targeted a senior Hezbollah military commander. In an Israeli airstrike in July, the military leader of the group, Fuad Shukr, was killed, Reuters recalls.
Aqeel was the second person after Shukr in the hierarchy of the military command of "Hezbollah”. The United States had announced a $7 million reward for the capture of Ibrahim Akil, also known as Tahsin, for his role in the April 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy in Beirut that killed 63 people and a U.S. Marine barracks. in October 1983, causing the death of 241 servicemen.
The Israeli military also said air raid sirens were activated in northern Israel shortly after the attack in Beirut. The northern part of the country was subjected to a powerful rocket attack, local media reported, quoted by Reuters.
"The Israel Defense Forces launched a targeted strike in Beirut. At this stage, there is no change in the defense orders of the Home Front Command”, the Israeli army announced.
Images from Beirut after the Israeli strike show a destroyed building and a street strewn with rubble and burned cars, Reuters reports, adding that last night Israel carried out its most massive airstrikes on southern Lebanon since the mutual shelling began in the border in the autumn of last year.
"Hezbollah” began attacking Israel in solidarity with Hamas, whose fighters invaded southern Israel on October 7 last year, killing nearly 1,200 Israelis and taking about 250 hostages. In Israel's retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian casualties have so far been over 41,000, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
Defense Minister Lloyd Austin expressed concern last night about the escalation of the conflict between Israel and "Hezbollah". This he did in his sixth telephone conversation in less than a week with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Galant.
Meanwhile, a senior White House adviser said that a war between Israel and "Hezbollah" "is not inevitable“.
The US government has said that a war between Israel and "Hezbollah" can be avoided. despite recent mutual attacks, DPA reported, citing a statement last night by US National Security Council Communications Director John Kirby.
"We still believe there is a time and place for a diplomatic solution. We think that's the best way forward for us,” Kirby said.
He added that a war on the border between Israel and Lebanon "is not inevitable”. “We will continue to do everything in our power to prevent it,”, the National Security Adviser of the White House also stated, quoted by DPA.
He did not give details about the latest Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital Beirut, noting that such a comment is the responsibility of the Israeli army.
Kirby added that he was not aware that the US government had been informed in advance of this attack.
Despite calls for restraint from the international community, the exchange of blows between Israel and "Hezbollah” raises fears of an expansion of the conflict in the Middle East region, Reuters points out.
As for the war between Israel and the radical Palestinian group "Hamas” in the Gaza Strip, Kirby said Washington had not given up hope for a ceasefire agreement and the release of Israeli hostages held in the enclave.
"Nobody has stopped hoping. "No one will stop working on this issue," the White House adviser said.
US President Joe Biden said in turn at the White House last night that reaching a ceasefire in Gaza is still a real possibility, Reuters reported.
"We have to hold on to this”, the American head of state told media representatives.
Asked about the impact on developments in Gaza from fighting elsewhere in the region, Biden said: "We need to ensure that people in both northern Israel and southern Lebanon will be able to return to their homes , and without danger to their lives“.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said it had launched an investigation after videos circulating on social media showed Israeli soldiers throwing the bodies of slain men from the roof of a building in the occupied West Bank after a clash with Palestinian militants. Reuters, quoted by BTA.
The clips, which began circulating yesterday, show three soldiers on the roof of a building in the city of Kabatiah. The videos show them being pulled, pushed, thrown and in one case – kicked, the bodies of dead men from the edge of the roof.
Zakaria Zakarneh – uncle of one of the men, said he watched what was happening. Israeli soldiers climbed onto the roof after the Palestinians had already been killed, he told Reuters.
„They tried to remove the bodies with a bulldozer, but they didn't succeed, so they threw them from the second floor to the ground,”, the man said. “I was in pain, I was very sad and angry, I couldn't do anything,“ added Zakarneh.
Reuters said it was able to confirm the location of the clip in the city of Qabatiya and confirmed the date of the events from eyewitness accounts and video footage captured by Palestinian news organizations showing the same scene.
In a statement, the Israeli army said the incident was serious and against its values. In another statement, the military added that on Thursday its soldiers killed seven militants after a firefight in the town of Kabatiah.
A spokesman for the White House, for its part, described the footage as “deeply disturbing”. "If the footage is authentic, this is abhorrent behavior and gross misconduct by professional military personnel,” said John Kirby, director of communications for the US National Security Council.
Violence in the occupied West Bank has increased since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago, according to Reuters. Almost daily, the Israeli army carries out actions there that include arrests and regular firefights between Israeli security forces and Palestinian fighters, as well as attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian communities.